Democratic Socialism Archives - The Automatic Earth

President Trump took to Truth Social on Thursday to rage against US media coverage of the Iran war (not for the first time), following Treasury Scott Bessent giving similar scathing remarks earlier this week. Trump particularly singled out recent and ongoing reports of US missile and interceptor shortages, which he has slammed as false. He called out the “treasonous SCUM” in the media for issuing supposedly inaccurate reports on “our Military Operation in Iran” – claiming that the US has “virtually unlimited amounts of Mid to High Grade Ammunition”.

But also notably, and in a seeming implicit contradiction, he said the USA is not at the moment “selling them to others” but is producing and stockpiling at “levels never seen before.” This is amid an ongoing scramble for Europe to find an avenue to transfer more Patriots to Ukraine, as Zelensky is essentially betting for more missiles.

Trump once again further blamed the prior Biden administration for handing “hundreds of Billions of Dollars” to Ukraine and NATO “free of charge” in connection with the war with Russia. From think tanks to NY Times to Wall Street Journal to independent media, pundits, journalists and officials have been raising the alarm on the issue. This also comes after Trump told journalists in the Oval Office on Monday that the “older stuff” can always be used, when he was pressed over whether the United States is running out of standoff munitions:
Q: Several military leaders have reportedly told Hegseth that a prolonged, large-scale operation in Iran weakens our ability to confront threats elsewhere, including the homeland. Have you heard that?
TRUMP: We’re very respected. Nobody else would be crazy enough to do it… We have unlimited amounts of… older stuff.
And then on Wednesday in formal remarks Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent blasted the media for its recent coverage. He went so far as to scold the media for being the best allies that the Iranians have. Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has over the past months made similar remarks, invoking themes of ‘treason’. “One of the best allies that the Iranians have on this is the media because the media immediately publishes all the lies that they say,” Bessent had proclaimed at the G20 meeting in Asheville. “Everyone in this audience and every news outlet should be ashamed for publishing that, taking a lying regime at face value,” Bessent added.

Bessent on Iran:

One of the best allies Iran has is the media.

The media immediately publishes all the lies that Iran says.

There are no mines in the strait. Two ships did not hit mines. pic.twitter.com/SdhyOOye1B
— Clash Report (@clashreport) September 1, 2026

Bessent has given other statements this week advancing Bush-style “you are either with us or against us” talking points related to the Iran war. The Iran war this week reached the six-month mark, after White House officials initially repeatedly sought to ‘assure’ Americans it would be a four to six week operation.
All the way back in May, Trump rebuked a well-known NY Times reporter for a line of questioning that the president framed as “treasonous” coverage of the “victory” accomplished by the United States. “I had a total military victory. But the fake news, guys like you, write incorrectly. You’re a fake guy. We had a total military victory. I actually think it’s sort of treasonous what you write. You should be ashamed of yourself. I actually think it’s treason,” Trump had told David Sanger at the time aboard Air Force One.

“Never before has there been a case of the head of one state threatening civilian aircraft in the skies of another.”

• Russian Experts Respond To Zelensky’s Threats To Attack Civil Aviation (RT)

On the first day of September, Vladimir Zelensky declared that Russian civil aviation is under threat because of Ukrainian drone attacks.

Russian authorities and diplomats saw clear signs of terrorism in this barely concealed threat and stressed that this is not the first time Ukraine has demonstrated its commitment to the cruelest and most inhumane methods of warfare. Former president and current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev called for retribution and even hinted at strikes against the sponsors of this terrorism – the leaders of Western countries.
This article presents comments by leading Russian military and aviation experts, analysts, and publicists reacting to this latest escalation by Kiev.
Roman Gusarov, aviation expert, Editor-in-Chief of aviaru.net
Any sane person can interpret this only as a direct threat to civil aviation, to aircraft in the sky, and to ground infrastructure. This is simply beyond the pale. Never before has there been a case of the head of one state threatening civilian aircraft in the skies of another.
And here, unfortunately, what depresses me even more is the silence of Western public organizations and human rights groups. I am not even talking about aviation organizations like the International Civil Aviation Organization. Zelensky’s threat is a violation of all international conventions. There should have been an immediate reaction. These are threats to the safety of civilian flights. What more is needed? Yet there is no reaction at all. And in essence, this is silent consent. Or perhaps even approval. It is simply very sad.
The world has been turned upside down. Until recently, we could not even imagine that something like this could be said – and then met with silence. Still, behind such a statement I see not so much a real threat as a certain act of desperation. I believe that after a week of massive strikes on Ukraine’s infrastructure – its ports, energy facilities, storage depots, warehouses, and everything else – Zelensky is looking for at least some way to stop all of this, but can find no other means than to resort to direct threats and intimidation.
The purpose of this statement is not so much actual strikes and the possibility of carrying them out, as intimidation in the hope that foreign jurisdictions and airlines will be frightened and stop flying to Russia. In other words, the main target was not really Russia, but our partners, in order to provoke fear and a reaction from them.
Because if we look at the practical possibility of carrying out these plans, I do not see it. We have had massive raids, for example against the Moscow region, with more than a thousand drones in a single day. And here it does not matter whether they are flying to strike a particular airport or simply in the direction of Moscow. Our air defense system and our security system work preemptively, cleanly, and in coordination.
As soon as it becomes clear that drones are moving toward a given region – that is, once there is information from air defense systems – the airspace is immediately closed, all aircraft leave that air zone for alternate airfields. Aircraft do not take off, do not climb, airports are shut down. And during all the years of the Special Military Operation, thankfully, there has not been a single dangerous encounter between a civilian aircraft and a drone. Precisely because this system works. And it will continue to work in exactly the same way. Therefore, I do not see any particular danger here for aircraft in the air.
I do not rule out the possibility of deliberately damaging ground infrastructure, specifically strikes on airports. Theoretically, such a thing may be possible to carry out somehow. But hardly in the Moscow area, because it is completely secured – and that accounts for 80% of flights in the country, the lion’s share. Somewhere in the regions they may try to do something like that. But given that foreign airlines mostly fly to Moscow, I also do not see any reason for them to panic and cancel flights or stop operations.
Viktor Litovkin, retired colonel and military commentator
This can only be viewed as an act of state terrorism. When the towers in New York were struck in 2001, only afterward did we learn who had claimed responsibility. But this underdeveloped clown is announcing in advance that he and his clique will carry out terrorist acts against aviation flying over Russia and around the world. This is a serious statement that should, of course, attract the attention of the international community. I think Western countries will simply turn a deaf ear to all this, because they believe Zelensky and his accomplices are unlikely to dare carry out some strike that would harm Western companies.
But for Russian aircraft and other aircraft over Russia, this threat exists, and it can be countered in only one way – by destroying the criminal terrorist regime that exists in Kiev. There is no other way, because with terrorists the conversation is short: they must be exterminated like cockroaches, there can be no other outcome.
Western authorities aren’t interested in international law in this case – anything that is done against Russia, they will support all of it. They should remember that Russia is a nuclear power. This bear is very patient, very calm for the time being, and then suddenly it swings a paw – and half your head is gone. That is how a bear behaves when it is provoked. So if they continue – they may only have themselves to blame later.
Dmitry Kornev, military expert, founder of the Military Russia project
First of all: Zelensky says that the number of Ukrainian drones striking targets deep inside Russian territory will be so great that civilian air traffic will become impossible. That is, he is not speaking of striking civilian airfields, he is not speaking of striking civilian aircraft; he is speaking of such a high intensity of Ukrainian drone raids that, during such raids, civilian airports would cease operations and civilian air service across the entire European part of the Russian Federation would be shut down.
Question number one: where will Ukraine get so many drones to organize such a large-scale attack? It may well be that they have built up certain reserves. In the coming weeks we will see, we will find out whether that is the case or not. God willing, I may be wrong. The second point is that they may deliberately send drones specifically toward civilian airports so that the mere appearance of a drone would halt airport operations. In that case, for dozens of civilian airports in the European part of the country, Kiev could probably find dozens of drones. Unfortunately, this is possible.
Where do these drones even come from, given the systematic strikes by the Russian Aerospace Forces and missile troops against facilities on Ukrainian territory, including those linked to drone production? This can be explained in only one way: they have succeeded in creating such a distributed drone production system that knocking out individual or even dozens of facilities does not lead to the cessation of output. Theoretically this is possible – if they have learned to scale production across hundreds of production sites, then yes, it is expensive, yes, it entails additional costs, but it ensures the uninterrupted assembly of drones even if some links in that production chain are taken out.
It is quite likely that, if over several years we have not been able to destroy and stop drone production in Ukraine, then even massive strikes over several days or even weeks will not produce such a result. And one must understand that Kiev has been preparing for this; Kiev has been preparing for distributed production capable of withstanding prolonged Russian missile raids. Whether it works or not, we will find out in the coming weeks.

“The Russian Foreign Ministry emphasized that the quality of relations is already at an all-time low due to London’s conduct..”

• Moscow Has Stopped Calling Britain ‘Great.’ Here’s why (Alexander Bobrov)

Recently, Russian officials and state media have been deliberately using the toponym ‘Britain’ instead of ‘Great Britain’ and ‘United Kingdom’ to refer to the nation that, just a few decades ago, was known as ‘the empire on which the sun never sets’. Speaking at a press conference dedicated to reviewing the results of Russian diplomacy in 2025, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov commented on this rhetorical innovation. “No offense meant, but I think that this is what it should be called, because Great Britain is the only example when a country calls itself great. Another example was the Great Libyan Jamahiriya, but that country is no more,” Lavrov said.

Although the prefix ‘great’ was not originally intended as a symbol of significance, but was adopted for geographical reasons – to distinguish the nation of Britain from the French region of Brittany – it is clear that the choice of wording is not simply a diplomatic ploy reflecting the subjective opinion of the Russian Foreign Ministry, but a paradigmatic shift in Russia’s perception of the country.
Taking into account the completion of the diplomatic mission of Russian Ambassador to the UK Andrei Kelin and the lack of an immediate successor, the Times has spread rumors about a possible downgrade in diplomatic relations between Moscow and London. The Russian Foreign Ministry emphasized that the quality of relations is already at an all-time low due to London’s conduct, and British Ambassador to Russia Nigel Casey expressed hope for the current status quo to be maintained; however, it is absolutely clear that the dialogue between the two nuclear powers is on the brink of collapse.
A possible downgrade in diplomatic relations doesn’t simply mean recalling the ambassador and entrusting the mission to a lower-ranking diplomat known as ‘chargé d’affaires’; it is a calculated political signal of dissatisfaction with the foreign policy of the other side that reduces relations to a bare minimum. Worse still, this could be followed by a complete rupture of diplomatic relations, which typically occurs at the start of a direct military confrontation.
Therefore, to understand whether a further deterioration of the situation, fraught with the most serious consequences for global politics, should be expected, it seems logical to ask two classic questions found in both British and Russian literature: “Who is to blame?” and “What is to be done?”
“Who is to blame?” Back in the mid-19th century, British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston, attempting to convey the idea that the country’s foreign policy should be based not on personal sympathies but on the cynical defense of its own national interests, formulated London’s subsequent foreign policy doctrine, “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” This formula most accurately captures the essence of British policy in regard to Russia.
Despite ad hoc agreements between the two countries in the 16th century (e.g., Richard Chancellor’s expedition in 1553) and a military alliance during the First and Second World Wars (the Northern Convoys are usually considered the apogee of this military brotherhood), relations between the two countries were never truly allied, as the British monarchy viewed Russia (regardless of its political system) as a geopolitical adversary. This sentiment was reflected in the popular Russian saying, “The Englishwoman is up to no good!”
At the time of the Russian Empire, Great Britain was the leading world power, and was responsible for assembling a hostile anti-Russia coalition during the Crimean War (1853-1855) and systematically pursuing a policy of weakening Russian influence in Central Asia (which birthed the geopolitical term ‘The Great Game’). In the period between the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, London did everything in its power to deepen the political crisis in Russia.
First, King George V refused to fulfill the request of his relative, Nicholas II, for political asylum, which resulted in the execution of the Russian royal family; and then he took a direct part in the military intervention during the Russian Civil War. As a result, British forces were present in various corners of Russia: in the north (Murmansk and Arkhangelsk), in the Black Sea region (Odessa, Crimea, and Novorossiysk), in the Caucasus (from Batumi to Baku), and even in Central Asia (in Turkmenistan and along the Central Asian Railway).
Finally, during the Soviet era, then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered his famous Fulton Speech, marking the beginning of the Cold War following his government’s failure to implement Operation Unthinkable, which envisioned a massive attack on the Soviet armed forces.
It’s hardly surprising that today, London plays a key role in supporting Ukraine in its quest to inflict a so-called ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia. Having signed a critical minerals agreement with Ukraine and acting as the informal leader of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, the British authorities are doing everything they can to prevent reconciliation between Kiev and Moscow. They have the simple goal of ensuring that Ukraine continues to serve as a springboard for attacks on Russia, enabling the UK to rapidly militarize its own economy and rearm in preparation for a future military conflict.
It would suffice to recall how in April 2022, then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called on Russia to withdraw its troops from Kiev, giving Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky the opportunity to both preserve his shaky power and regroup forces with the goal of transforming the Special Military Operation into a protracted military conflict. Current British Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues his predecessor’s work.
Despite initially promising to focus on resolving the country’s many domestic problems, he is spending his time and money lobbying for more military aid for Kiev and coordinating the illegal detention of the vessels of the so-called ‘shadow fleet’ in international waters.

Trump likes the British Royals.

• President Trump Was Just Asked About Harry and Meghan (Victoria Taft)

President Donald Trump says that he, for one, is “happy” that the boorish Prince Harry and Meghan self-deported from the United States, at least temporarily. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex fled California to put their children in proper British schools where children learn things about Western Civilization — and how to count.

The two, who quit the royal family, were loaned a Cotswold manse by a British billionaire hedge fund manager who’s been a friend of both Prince William and Harry for years. Ian Wace’s financial help is why Harry and Meghan didn’t have to give up their Montecito manse or their Portugal vacation home when they wanted a house to live in while they came back to Britain.
Of course, Harry and Meghan were gifted a royal house, Frogmore Cottage, by the Queen when they were first married, but they gave it up when they quit working for the royal family. Had they stayed in The Firm, as the royals call the family business, they would have had a house and free schooling, and would have been earning money from a titled property by now, but oh, well.
During an Oval Office gaggle, the president, who might have Iran, the bond market, and more important things on his mind, was asked by a British reporter about the Sussexes leaving the States. Without hesitation, President Trump blurted out, “I’m happy about it! I was NOT a fan.”

President Trump said Wednesday he is "not a fan" of Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and that he's "happy" the pair left the United States to return to the U.K.

"I thought they treated the royal family with great disrespect," Trump said. "I didn't like it.… pic.twitter.com/2dy7q2mYx4
— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 2, 2026

Trump and Harry and Meghan have traded barbs before. In fact, the Sussexes indicated that Trump was one of the reasons they were leaving the U.S., but nobody actually believes that after they chose to jump back into public life in Britain, which they previously found too daunting.
But even people with titles must bow to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. A girl’s gotta eat, you know. The president said of the two royal ingrates that “They treated the royal family with great disrespect. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the way she acted.” He wasn’t done yet, however, because he’s Donald Trump and can’t stop himself. “I have a very good relationship with the Queen. Really good,” he said.
“I have a really good relationship with King Charles — when he was Prince Charles and King Charles,” he continued. “I’ve known him for a very long time. Great guy.” Only Donald Trump can characterize a monarch by talking about what a “great guy” he is. But here was the kill shot, as only Trump could deliver it. “I thought she was terribly disrespectful to the Queen, to King Charles. I don’t know. Maybe I’m different. I wouldn’t have taken them back,” he said.
It’s unclear and probably unlikely that the royal family has “taken them back.” The royals have as little to do with the messy Sussexes as possible. Harry and Meghan have spilled tea about the family — some of it may actually be true — and burned bridges via their Oprah interview and Harry’s memoir. They’ve proven to be untrustworthy and grifting. They’ve been cut off.
In July, however, Harry and Meghan visited King Charles at Highgrove, which is in the Cotswolds, when they were in the neighborhood, staying at their billionaire buddy’s house. It could be their final family trip with the royals. Charles has an unknown form of cancer, and he’s getting his affairs in order. And the guy who will succeed to the throne is completely disgusted by his brother’s antics. I predict the Sussexes will sell their Montecito house in the next year or so, and Meghan will have begun doing her lifestyle brand videos and TV shows from her Cotswolds estate.

No more US-Canada?

• USMCA Termination Announcement Looming? (CTH)

For those waiting patiently for the USMCA termination announcement, this is a potential indication and/or signal of pendency. When President Trump and USTR Jamieson Greer send the official notification, a six-month countdown clock begins running. As of right now there are no official statements that indicate the likely triggering, it’s a guess. However, there are datapoints aligning in that direction.

No one outside our assembly has contemplated the termination of the USMCA (CUSMA) or what would occur in the aftermath; however, the Bank of Canada has gamed out the financial consequences, briefly in their forward guidance. The ramifications are significant, perhaps more significant than any other global trade announcement. […] “it more likely that a new shock or a combination of shocks could cause several vulnerabilities to crystalize at once. If this were to happen, these vulnerabilities could interact and reinforce each other.
A cascading series of events could cause a sharp loss of investor confidence and lead to a spike in demand for liquidity or rapid asset sales. Funding markets could come under pressure, and stress could spread more broadly.” I suggest we keep a close eye on all U.S-Mexico discussions, as well as geopolitical leverage points that might surface in the U.S-Mexico relationship. My best guess is that once the U.S. and Mexico come to renewed terms on the ‘USMCA’ as a potential bilateral free trade agreement, that will be the moment when the planets are aligned for the termination notification.
The financial markets in Canada are tied directly to the independent strength of the Canadian economy. Which is to say, the financial system in Canada is dependent on historic ties to the United States. Pull out all of the dependencies within the economy, a result of a fracturing of the “geopolitical relationship,” and suddenly the Bank of Canada faces a “cascading series of events” they have not previously had to entertain.
A significant number of multinational corporations within Canada are geographically centered due to American proximity and the dependency that has historically been considered a partnership. That relationship has now changed, and despite Mark Carney saying that Canada can be stronger standing alone, there is no economic model for Canada to retain its wealth position without the inherent subsidy that proximity to America provides.
There is no ‘partnership’ with Europe and/or China, or a combination of partnerships, that can replace the one-way nature of the subsidies from the U.S. economy that Canada enjoys. If the Canadian people, workers and companies therein, have to rely on their own domestic economic activity to fund their GDP, their lifestyle will have to modify in very significant ways. Now, I want you to think about the Bank of Canada’s previous statement against the backdrop of this announcement yesterday:
The Dutch central bank (DNB) has transferred approximately 86 metric tons of gold out of the U.S. and Canada to the U.K., seeking to shore up its contingency planning in view of “increasing geopolitical unrest.”Just over one-quarter of the central bank’s gold reserves held in New York and Ottawa had been shifted to London between March and August, DNB said Wednesday.
Prepare your affairs accordingly.

Paul Craig Roberts

• Multiculturalism, Diversity and the Destruction of Western Civilization (PCR)

Multiculturalism’s advocates present their agenda in terms of enhancing diversity. By diversity they mean more variety, not what the DEI advocates mean by the word–replacement of merit by some definition of privilege, such as race, gender, sexual preference.

The goal of multiculturalism is miscegenation. The result is the disappearance of diversity into a mixture born naked of a history, mores, a language, and a religion. The abstract universalism of multiculturalism is at odds with the multifaceted reality of different cultures. A people are rooted in an original genus. There is a common soul that endures, and whatever the adaption through time, there is continuity. A common history, beliefs, language unites them. Many peoples means much diversity. Miscegenation destroys diversity. In its place are new people without a history.
The agenda of miscegenation has been institutionalized in corporate advertising, in entertainment, and in literature. White women are shown with black men. White men are shown with Asian and Hispanic women. What are the children?
Continuity, a sense of connectedness, is essential to society and to human happiness. Americans have expressed unease, sadness, and a sense of violation when returning to hometowns to find them occupied territories, inhabited by people of whom they know nothing. The same sense of loss is felt when returning to grandparents’ farm where one spent summers playing in creeks and picking blackberries, scuppernongs and muscadines and finding in its place a subdivision.
The same kinds of sadness and sense of loss has been brought to us by the white liberals’ social engineering schemes. Congressional authority has been eroded by being turned over to regulatory agencies who in turn are in the hands of the corporate interests they are supposed to regulate. Constitutional protections have been lost in pursuit of liberal “good intentioned” agendas and “national security.” American sovereignty has been compromised by international agreements serving utopian or misguided agendas or simply serving monied interests.
Moral character has been lowered by the acceptance of pornography, sexual perversion, coarse language replete with the F-word even among young girls. Older women report that one consequence of feminism is that today dating and marriage is not what it used to be, but about finding a sexual partner who delivers orgasms. People no longer have any pride in their appearance and appear in public dressed in ways that would have embarrassed their forebears. Over my life I have seen America’s goodness shrivel. What is claimed as progress is often at the expense of the Constitution. Child Protective Services, which did not exist during my earlier decades, has substituted itself for parental authority. Twelve-year old American girls are on contraceptive pills.
We can say that technology has brought degeneracy, which would be an admission that technology is the enemy of moral conscience, which in some ways it is. Today’s AI technology is eliminating human interaction. Imagine the sense of loss of connectivity and alienation that comes from having to converse with robotic voices with whom no empathy and no understanding can be established.
As a longtime friend of libertarianism because of its defense of liberty, and a longtime defender of capitalism because of its former efficiency in allocating resources, I acknowledge that the pursuit of profit has produced an anti-human technology that will aid and abet Multicultural severance of peoples from their roots and leave a rootless undefined mass in place of human societies. The AI technology is alien to human society. It is being imposed on us by fools who believe that their profits will rise by eliminating human labor. The fools need to ask themselves who among the unemployed whose labor is not needed is going to buy the products of their machines?
This question is not being asked, just as the question where are the better jobs that allegedly took the place of US manufacturing jobs. Academic economists are too occupied debating the properties of abstract models to even notice. The important question is: Who is looking at the cost of an anti-human technology, of the cost of humans living in a world in which they have no purpose? Another question: How did short-term greed–the next quarter’s profits–take over the economic organization of the American economy? What an enormous failure this indicates of our leaders’ inability to think beyond the next quarter’s profits.
The same failure permeates our political theorists, sociologists, philosophers. Why is American society content to be dominated by an anti-human technology such as AI? Anyone inclined to investigate such a question would not be able to get funding. Just as the US government is unable to extricate itself from its illegal, immoral assistance to Israel’s war against Iran and the Muslim Middle East, it is unable to contain an anti-human technology that is substituting robotic for human contact. Several years ago we already had Japanese men marrying their robotic sex dolls.
Today history is taught as white ethnicities oppressing peoples of color. It was once taught as the formation of a people, their development, the evolution of their language and beliefs that made them a people, their successes and failures, their rise and fall, their contributions to the continuing rise of humanity out of barbarism. Today the Western world descends into a barbarism ever more honored by Trump, the NY Times, CNN, NPR, and morally corrupt political parties throughout the once civilized Western world. Formerly “civilized” had a large meaning. Today it means nothing but a high technology society, regardless of whether it is civilized.
As I watch the totality of Western Civilization’s collapse, I am thankful that at my age I will not have to experience the final collapse as did, in The Camp of the Saints, the elderly French professor Calgues, as he watched the arrival of one million Indians in decrepit ships approach the undefended Mediterranean coast of France. Collapse can come from within as well as from outside. Western civilization is undergoing both kinds of collapse. To discuss it is considered racist.

“Congressional Democrats blocked an effort to introduce a constitutional amendment to bar the Court’s expansion, with many members reiterating their demand to pack the Court to create an instant liberal majority.”

• Democrats Seek to Reform Institution More Popular Than They Are (Turley)

Supreme Irony: The Democrats insisted the Court is broken and no longer legitimate because of partisan rulings they want reversed by a packed Court. Ironically, the vote came with the release of the latest Harvard-Harris polling showing that Congress itself is still the least respected institution, while the Supreme Court holds higher approval than either the White House or Congress. Congress is still wallowing at 34 percent approval among the American people. Both parties are equally disliked, with 55% disapproval of the GOP and 53% disapproval of the Democratic Party.

Conversely, the Supreme Court continues to enjoy far greater approval from the public, currently at 49% at “very favorable” or “favorable.” So which institution is being targeted for elimination or radical reform? Of course, it is the more popular Supreme Court. Packing the court and other measures are unpopular with the public. Instead, Democrats hope to achieve these reforms through legislation. However, it must then pass judicial review.
Liberal professors and pundits have identified a court takeover as essential to, as one law professor put it, guaranteeing that the Democrats never lose another national election. As former Attorney General Eric Holder and Democratic strategist James Carville have made clear, it is about power and guaranteeing its retention.
There are now calls for a litmus test for Democratic candidates to pack the Court or get the sack. Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) wants to take over the Court to reverse rulings against racial gerrymandering while other Democrats have demanded packing the Court to reverse immigration rulings. They join a growing list of figures demanding the hostile takeover of the Court from Kamala Harris to Pete Buttigieg.
At its base is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Court’s role. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) not only renewed her previous call to pack the court but said the court was illegitimate for rendering decisions against “widely held public opinion.” However, the court was meant to be counter-majoritarian to protect minority groups and viewpoints from the majority will. Notably, this effort is not even popular with the majority. It is a power play to force major institutional changes through Congress, including radically changing a Court that is more popular than Congress itself.

“The democratic socialist approach relies on one central idea: tearing down all the nation’s existing institutions and replacing them with a system that eliminates inequality by redistributing wealth and status.”

• Democratic Socialism: A Limited Appeal to Voters (Karnick)

The defeat of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member Francesca Hong in Wisconsin’s Democratic primary arrives as good news for the vast majority of Americans who are not among the DSA’s 120,000 members. It was, however, a very close race. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who was endorsed by Gov. Tony Evers (a fellow Democrat), received 39.8 percent of the vote, to Hong’s 39.3 percent. Hong was a weak candidate and a poor standard-bearer for the DSA agenda, possessing none of the charisma and political talent of DSA superstar New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Hong’s charisma shortage limited her appeal to voters and led to the refusal of prominent DSA favorites Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to endorse her. The missing endorsements were probably dispositive in such a close race. I think Hong’s failure to get past the post in the Democrat primary illustrates a greater problem for the collectivist “democratic socialist” movement. The democratic socialist approach relies on one central idea: tearing down all the nation’s existing institutions and replacing them with a system that eliminates inequality by redistributing wealth and status to those who have allegedly been unfairly denied these things.
The movement necessarily relies on coercion, which it justifies through the fomenting of grievances against anyone who can be characterized as having done well for themselves under what the democratic socialists characterize as a fundamentally corrupt society built on racism, sexism, classism, imperialism, and other cruel isms that toxically masculine Euro-trash imposed on stolen land originally occupied by noble, ecologically conscious people of peace and universal benevolence who were cruelly eliminated by massacres, deliberately infected smallpox blankets, and truly awful real estate swindles.
Armed with the premise that freedom is the root cause of people’s suffering today and always, and intent on imposing universal equality (except for themselves, the pigs who are always more equal than others), the democratic socialists’ progressive predecessors (whom the media laughably call moderates) imposed collectivist remedies that inevitably backfired, making conditions steadily worse for decades.
High crime rates, mass homelessness, unaffordable housing, single-parent households, education decline, increasing economic inequality, and the like have all been caused by government policies ostensibly intended to help the needy. The proponents of these disastrous measures then use the increasingly dire resulting conditions to call for more power for themselves to solve the problems they created.
To deflect attention from their own culpability for these evils, the politicians and the media place the blame on people not on their team, such as “the wealthy.” They isolate and demonize these alleged enemies of all that is good and right, to delegitimize their unpleasant, embarrassing questions about causes and effects. That is how leftist politicians thrive even though their proposed solutions make things much worse. The greater the decline in economic and social conditions, the more blame and hatred they can heap on the out groups.
There is, however, an obvious problem with this type of scapegoating. If the out groups you are demonizing are too big, you won’t be able to gain a political majority, even with the help of a lot of cheating. Clearly, that is the real reason the DSA bigwigs refused to support Hong’s candidacy. In addition to calling for eliminating all police and prisons and claiming that “Police exist to uphold white supremacy,” Hong has a long history of Twitter/X statements targeting white people and “whiteness,” especially “old white dudes.”
Most notoriously, Hong wrote in 2019 of leaving a beloved Wisconsin fast-food restaurant because she was “on the verge of a [sic] anxiety attack” due to the presence of “to [sic] many old white people who didn’t think we spoke English.”
Four out of five people living in Wisconsin are white. The median age in the state is 40, above the national average, and 18.5 percent of Wisconsinites are 65 or older. Sixty-one percent self-identify as Christians. Donald Trump won the state’s presidential race with 49.6 percent of the vote in 2024. Just under half of Wisconsin’s population is male, of course. That is a lot of people to eliminate from your potential election coalition.
Hong’s defeat thus indicates a fundamental weakness of the DSA’s strategy and of collectivism in general. The necessary demonization of opponents eliminates ever-greater numbers of potential supporters. The party’s tent shrinks steadily as the list of scapegoated out-groups lengthens. This can work in places such as New York City and Chicago, at least for a while, as there are enough self-described victims (many of them very wealthy) to create majorities. In less-cosmopolitan locales like Wisconsin, aspiring autocrats must be much more careful about which voting groups they are willing to put publicly on the chopping block.
If DSA-affiliated candidates in those places speak too openly about their obsessions, their excessive zeal and candor could reduce the movement’s appeal significantly below its outlier status.It seems undeniable that the DSA and its political sympathizers agree with Hong on the issues. Where they evidently differ deeply is on the political viability of their agenda when its innate hostility to the great majority of Americans is honestly presented.
Clearly, leaders on the left believe concealment of the movement’s real foundations and extensive hatreds is far more important than the very small policy distance between Hong and Crowley. Similarly, suppression of the truth about democratic socialism is the obvious reason behind Ocasio-Cortez’s recent attempt to pretend she now believes “Woke One was crazy.” It’s all part of a strategy of hiding the full extent of the democratic socialists’ enemies list, not any change of policy, ideology, or the targets of their ire.

“..we are in a modern medieval world.”

• The Left Is Dragging America Back to the Dark Ages (Victor Davis Hanson)

The more you look around us today, I think a good description of 2026, culturally, economically, socially, politically, is that we are in a modern medieval world.

Maybe we’re progressive regressives, and I don’t mean that just in the sense that progressives are regressive, and they are, but that one part of our society is advancing at lightning speed to the future and progressing. But the other part is regressing, and regressing at a phenomenal pace back to what I would call the medieval period.
Remember, the medieval period was roughly that area in time after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, roughly AD 500 to around AD 1300 to 1400, the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. In medievalism, we often talk about primitivism after the destruction of the classical world during the Dark Ages, the early medieval period, and it’s characterized by epidemics, bubonic plague, typhus, typhoid, smallpox, terrible sanitation in urban centers. They had forgotten the Roman use of sewage and aqueducts.

There were open borders. National states popped up that couldn’t defend themselves, so you saw castles and walls pop up all over the European countryside in a way you had not during the Roman period. In cities, they were walled, towns even, and the gates closed at dusk to prevent gratuitous crime.
But at the same time that this was happening, you had some of the greatest works of literature in the Western world. You had Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” Dante’s “Inferno,” St. Thomas Aquinas’ “Summa Theologica.” And if you look at the architectural expertise and scientific knowledge of architecture, it was progressing at a geometric rate when you look at the huge cathedrals at Seville or Cologne.
I should remind everybody that around 536, Santa Sofia was created, the Church of the Holy Wisdom in Constantinople. It would be the largest church in Christendom for a thousand years. And everything from the mass production of crossbows to eyeglasses was a product of the medieval period, even if, as I said, the daily lives of most people were wretched.
Now let’s switch to the modern period. All of us now can call anywhere in the world in seconds on our iPhones. Anything you want to know, past, present, future, you can just get on a cheap computer and ask an artificial intelligence program from the many free platforms. You can watch movies, you can watch entertainment on satellites. Anything you want is at your fingertips.
The nation itself is exploring space. We’re getting close to conquering cancer. I can attest to that. Computers allow you to write without even speaking. You can, unfortunately, compose a whole term paper or a book with AI. You can make a movie with AI.
Yet at the same time that’s happening, look at what’s going on in Berkeley here in California or Los Angeles. We’re seeing outbreaks of medieval diseases that we thought had been conquered years ago, given our sophisticated knowledge of sewage and water treatment. We had a typhus breakout in Los Angeles. We had leptospirosis, a rat disease, in Berkeley. You look at the homeless camps all over our major cities. People are just out in the open fornicating, urinating, defecating, injecting drugs. There’s tons of feces that has to be removed, and it’s so strange in this modern medievalism.
We have sophisticated researchers who go into a hospital in Chicago or go to a cancer center in San Francisco and have to check the bottoms of their shoes to make sure they don’t have feces as they go into their space-age laboratories. It’s really funny. In the medieval period, public hangings and beheadings were sort of public events that people flocked out to see. Is that any different than our glorification of murderers?
And there is a difference. Luigi Mangione, they named an opera after him in California. The killer of Charlie Kirk brought people jubilation. I won’t even get into Lindsay Clancy, who strangled her three children and became every woman to the feminist left. At least in the medieval period, they knew that the murderer had done something wrong and was being punished. In the post-medieval period, we are glorifying that murderer, and that’s really striking.
And so, what I’m getting at is we are the most regulated, the most advanced, the most modern, the most scientific society in history, even as we can’t solve problems that were solvable, and the medieval period would have died to know the solutions that we have in our hands to make sure we have clean water, to make sure there is no crime, to make sure there is no disease, to make sure that people don’t defecate on the street. But we don’t do it. We willingly don’t do it.
Now, the question to finish is why? We have an elite that has embraced a very toxic ideology throughout history, and that is mandated, government-sanctioned equality of result. And they have divided, therefore, to further that ideology, the world into victims and victimizers, an arbitrary classification, sometimes based on class, but increasingly on race.
And once they identify someone as a victim who’s not responsible for his plight, then it’s the duty of the society to allow him to express himself. If you have a lot of teenagers who want to loot a jewelry store, then you say they were hungry and they needed food. If you see homeless people living on the street, then it was because of something the majority culture did to them. And the result of that is when people engage in very dangerous antisocial behavior, an elite will tell the rest of us that they’re not subject to law enforcement or they’re not subject to the laws that apply to the rest of us. But there are two really pernicious addenda here.
No. 1, the people who do this on the left, who believe in this mandated equality and a binary of victim and victimizer, are never subject to the consequences of their own ideology. Nancy Pelosi‘s home is not surrounded by homeless people. Jane Fonda doesn’t have to trip over people injecting drugs when she walks outside her door. The Hollywood stars in Malibu who champion the homeless have very clear security. You can’t get near their homes.
In other words, we, the lab rats, are those upon whom they experiment. And there’s another reason as well. It’s not just that they experiment on us. and this ideology is not applicable to itself, but more importantly, they believe that they are morally superior because most of them are agnostics or atheists. They have lost their God, but they have found it in a post-Enlightenment caring, abstract though it may be, for victims.
And when you put this religious element to it, because it makes no sense to allow medieval diseases and medievalism to dominate your cities in crime, filth and homelessness, but they do it. They feel morally superior, and it gives them meaning in their life in a way that we, the majority, find not morally superior, but morally repugnant.

Why Cybercab is always spotless, fresh… and never smells like a typical Uber?
pic.twitter.com/LRaN2wmhfW
— X Freeze (@XFreeze) September 3, 2026

I am not exaggerating, there are Unsupervised Cybercabs without steering wheels or pedals all over Austin, TX right now at almost every corner.

It is SO BEAUTIFUL on the road. The glossy gold (first time seeing it) is stunning in the sun. I also LOVE how massive the wheels… pic.twitter.com/qlaZKT7m9M
— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) September 2, 2026

Elon Musk runs Tesla, SpaceX and xAI. He says work is becoming optional and money is becoming irrelevant, both inside twenty years.

In a clip aired on CBN, he laid out 6 predictions about what comes next:

1) Long term means 10 to 20 years https://t.co/dOhCmOoyCH pic.twitter.com/eQ88mmBId3
— Genius Thinking (@GeniusGTX) September 3, 2026

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

Debt Rattle July 23 2026

Jul 232026

July 23, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:58 am Finance Tagged with: Canada, cash cow, data center, Democratic Socialism, Hammer, IRGC, Nazis, One Big Beautiful Bill, Zelensky 37 Responses »

Kathimerini Trump and Evolution Jan 25 2017

• IRGC: Strike Iran’s Infrastructure, We’ll Shut Off The Gulf’s Power (ZH)

• Ukraine’s Army Chief Latest To Fall Victim To Zelensky’s Risky Reshuffle (ZH)

• Zelenskyy Removes and Replaces Leading Military Officials (CTH)

• Congresswoman’s Blunt Message for the MSM on Democratic Socialism (Anderson)

• It’s Hammer Time! The Violent Left’s New Weapon of Choice. (O’Brien)

• New York City Hall Has No Business Running Its Own Foreign Policy (David Manney)

• House Democrat Blows the Whistle on Socialist, Antisemitic Takeover (Margolis)

• Why Aren’t the Democrats Walking Away With the Midterms? (Rick Moran)

• American Manufacturing One Year After One Big Beautiful Bill (Chris Queen)

• Ontario Premier Doug Ford Promises “to Dismantle the U.S” Economy (CTH)

• USTR Jamieson Greer Outlines Details of Talking Points With Canada (CTH)

• The Death of the Cash Cow (Thomas Kolbe)

• Billion-Dollar Data Centers And The Growing Opposition (Janet Levy)

https://twitter.com/MonicaCrowley/status/2079763647006445676?s=20 https://twitter.com/GOP_is_Gutless/status/2079537430412038619?s=20

🚨BREAKING 🅱️: In a jaw-dropping disclosure, former U.S. President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, pocketed $10 million in Burisma bribes. Moreover, Biden has tried to bury explosive evidence that the Bidens took $5 million each to kill a Ukrainian corruption probe… pic.twitter.com/wZ8L8dAqSF
— Q The Storm Rider (@Q_TheStormRider) July 21, 2026

https://twitter.com/AdamMoczar/status/2079630710390784310?s=20

“Iran [..] has not backed down in the face of Trump’s fresh threats… “

Of course not. Threats are Iran’s language. They react to threats with threats.

They react to the reaction to threats, provided those are not more threats.

• IRGC: Strike Iran’s Infrastructure, We’ll Shut Off The Gulf’s Power (ZH)

Oil gained after Iran-backed Houthi militants said they targeted two Saudi Arabian tankers in the Red Sea, escalating the Middle East conflict and threatening deeper supply disruptions. Brent spiked above $95 in post-settlement trading. The Houthis attacked the two vessels with missiles and drones for violating a blockade imposed in the Red Sea, identifying the tankers as Encelia and Layla, the rebel group said. UK Maritime Trade Operations said a vessel was hit southwest of Saudi Arabia’s Al Shuqaiq, causing a fire on board. UKMTO didn’t identify the ship.

The first attacks on tankers in the Red Sea opens up a new front in the Middle East conflict, which has snarled traffic through the Strait of Hormuz following a flare-up in violence.
Iran Responds to Trump Ultimatum: We’ll Turn The Lights Off In Gulf
A top IRGC official has responded to Trump’s Bridge attack for each shipping attack ultimatum. Iranian IRGC Aerospace Commander Mousavi has threatened that Iran will cut off electricity to America’s Gulf Allies if Iranian bridges or power plants are attacked, Tasnim News Agency. “If the Americans target an Iranian bridge or power plant, Iran will respond by striking infrastructure and bridges across the region, including energy facilities in which the United States has interests,” the official said according semi-official news agency Tasnim.
“The Americans should by now, after these past ten days, be fully convinced that Iran strikes wherever it decides to strike. Therefore, any such gamble by Trump will once again end in his embarrassment,” the IRGC commander added. Separately, Iran’s deputy foreign minister briefed 25 European ambassadors and charges d’affaires in Tehran on the status of the conflict. “I reminded them that in the 40-day war, we imposed a severe defeat on the aggressors. In this new round of military aggression as well, we will resolutely defend our homeland and national interests,” Kazem Gharibabadi posted on X.
“These wars have created no strategic gains for America and only endanger regional and global peace and security. I also said that Europe is expected to safeguard the United Nations Charter and international law and to condemn aggression,” he added. Iran has continued to sound an “eye for an eye” theme, and has not backed down in the face of Trump’s fresh threats…
More telegraphing of intent from President Trump in the below Truth Social Post… he said the US military will “bomb and destroy” one bridge or power plant – including in Tehran – each time the Iranian military shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz. This comes a day after he unveiled the US military plans to conduct a large bombing of Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain nuclear complex, which is heavily fortified.
But the Iranians have already long demonstrated they won’t alter course in the face of such threats, especially bluster from Trump over social media, and so this unlikely to be any kind of fix for Washington, as Tehran has vowed to keep control of Hormuz at all costs. The Pentagon has argued that things like bridges are ‘dual use’ as the Iranian military uses them to get supplies from one region to another, while international monitors have highlighted the potential for war crimes. The Iranians have in turn widened attacks on Gulf states to include key civic infrastructure, like water desalination plants (in Kuwait) – each time their own infrastructure gets hit.

* * *
Amid continued fighting which has included explosions heard in Tehran overnight and in the south, Iran’s leadership has condemned the Trump administration’s “obsessive focus on Kolang Kouh where no nuclear activity is taking place is nothing more than a fabricated pretext for aggression, destruction, and sabotage,” according to Foreign Minister spokesman Esmail Baghaei in a post on X, referring to Pickaxe Mountain.
He pointed out that all of Iran’s nuclear activity has long been fully declared to the IAEA, and so the repeat threats out of Washington to mount a major attack on it is a “flagrant violation” of UN charter and international law. Trump had said the day prior that the US military will be hitting Pickaxe mountain “pretty soon very heavily and there is nothing they can do about it.”Even some supporters have quested why the US Commander-in-Chief would so casually telegraph his intentions, saying the Pentagon loses an operational edge in revealing such plans.
There’s been a lot of sudden focus on Pickaxe Mountain, though it had largely been absent from all prior media coverage of the war, due to Israeli intelligence feeding it to US mainstream press. “Israeli intelligence believes Iran moved thousands of uranium-enrichment centrifuges into tunnels deep inside a mountain last fall, Israeli and U.S. officials say, a development that would heighten concerns that Tehran could reconstitute its nuclear program,” The Wall Street Journal wrote Tuesday.
“Israel passed along the intelligence findings to the U.S., saying the centrifuges were transferred to the Pickaxe Mountain site last fall after the 12-day war in June when American and Israeli strikes pummeled Iran’s three main nuclear sites,” it added. And now, by all accounts, more aircraft, refueling planes, and heavy military hardware continue to be transferred from Europe and into the Central Command area of responsibility.

Who do you think pulls the strings here?

• Ukraine’s Army Chief Latest To Fall Victim To Zelensky’s Risky Reshuffle (ZH)

Zelensky strikes again in another major military firing, amid his promised big cabinet and military ‘reshuffle’. The Ukrainian president announced Tuesday that he was dismissing Oleksandr Syrsky, commander-in-chief of country’s army, and appointing joint forces commander Mykhailo Drapaty in his place. Syrsky was in the post for nearly two-and-a-half years, since February 2024. “I have decided that the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be Mykhailo Drapaty… I am grateful to Oleksandr Syrsky and to each of our warriors for Ukraine’s strong front-line positions,” Zelensky unveiled in a post on Telegram.

The decision comes just days after popular 35-year old defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov was sacked, despite his reputation for orchestrating the ramped-up drone war on Russia. And the defense chief’s removal had come soon on the heels of Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko’s surprise ousting last week, upon which Zelensky in a suggested a broader government overhaul was underway. “Ukraine is changing its political strategy,” he made clear. President Zelensky’s Tuesday evening address included mention that he had offered former defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov a “decent post” to oversee the technological ‘component of the state.
The remark of taking care of Fedorov is a clear attempt to calm masses of Ukrainians who took to the streets in a rare wartime protest over his shock removal. Zelensky has said he is doing all of this as part of a new strategy to take the war to Russia and its territory. “A significant path has been walked, Ukraine’s defense continues, and every soldier deserves proper respect,” Zelensky said. “I am grateful to Oleksandr Syrsky and to every one of our soldiers for Ukraine’s strong front-line positions.”
“Tomorrow we will formalize all decisions. Ukraine must emerge from this situation stronger, and it will become harder for Russia,” he said. The past week has witnessed some high drama within the top echelons of defense ranks, as Kyiv Post explains:
Fedorov said after his dismissal that he had pushed for Syrsky’s removal, accusing the commander-in-chief of blocking military reforms, and calling for changes in the military’s top leadership while defending his own record on robotics, drones and air defense. Under Fedorov’s tenure, Ukraine deepened its reliance on unmanned systems for dangerous frontline missions. Since January, the military has carried out more than 50,000 logistics and evacuation missions using ground robotic complexes (GRCs) in order to preserve soldiers’ lives in high-risk situations.
In a rare personal column, Syrsky broke silence and apologized to ousted Fedorov, saying he had no knowledge of their conflict before it spilled into public view. “For me, it was a surprise to learn that the minister and I had a conflict. I saw our relationship as a working one, with difficult questions and different positions” Syrsky wrote. “If I offended someone with something: Mykhailo Albertovych [Fedorov], I’m sorry. I can be tough,” he continued.
When you’ve lost The Economist…

Ukraine’s government is in a crisis of its own making. Firing Mykhailo Fedorov, the reformist defence minister, has galvanised street protests. Calls to push out Oleksandr Syrsky, the commander-in-chief (pictured), who feuded with Mr Fedorov, are growing. Volodymyr Zelensky must… pic.twitter.com/Hr4SUNUlwM
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) July 20, 2026

All of this raises serious questions for Ukraine’s current narrative that it now has the momentum against Russia. If things are going so well, then why undergo risky and drastic leadership changes. It could be that things are actually not going well and the nature of Ukraine’s drone warfare is necessarily limited in scope. It might get media-capturing hits on Russian oil depots, but Russian forces by many accounts keep grinding forward slowly and methodically on the front lines in the east.

Sundance says Zelensky firing popular figures makes no sense.

But:

Zelensky has nothing to say in Kiev, he doesn’t do the firing. The nazis control the country.

Their No. 1 concern is the corruption money flow. They shsre this concern with the western donors, who take their -growing- share.

Perhaps Ukraine is not doing nearly as well as we are led to believe.

NOTE: This is not Russia vs Ukraine, but Russia against the West.

• Zelenskyy Removes and Replaces Leading Military Officials (CTH)

I have not written about the recent events in/around Ukraine because none of it makes sense and all of the information flows through the prism of ‘western’ intelligence propaganda. According to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy {SEE HERE}, he has removed and replaced the entire leadership apparatus of the Ukraine military. This follows his removal of 35-year-old Mykhailo Fedorov from the defense ministry last week {CITATION} that led to massive protests against Zelenskyy and armed forces Chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskiy, who was also eventually replaced.

As the story is told the young Defense Minister Mykailo Fedorov was very well regarded and was the person responsible for the successful technological advancements in military drone use. 35-year-old Fedorov was a close working partner with Palantir head Alex Karp who is assisting Ukraine in their drone development and deployment. If the drone development and deployment was such a massive success, as pronounced in all western and Ukraine statements, then why would Zelenskyy remove such a critical and effective Defense Minister? This makes no sense.
Additionally, if Chief General Oleksandr Syrskiy was such an effective combatant commander, and if Russia was indeed pushed back on their heels by both Syrskiy’s campaign and Fedorov’s drones, then why would Ukraine disrupt their entire military leadership apparatus while they are winning such well publicized victories. Again, none of this makes sense.bThese moves by President Zelenskyy are akin to President Trump firing Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine, while saying they were doing an exceptional job on Operation Epic Fury in Iran. See the problem?
None of these moves by Ukraine President Zelenskyy make any sense against the background story of them having incredible success against Russia. You don’t replace the entire military leadership apparatus if things are going swimmingly. However, it seems that no one in western media even fathoms the obvious conflicts in the narrative. The young defense minister Fedorov, responsible for the well-publicized and celebrated victories in the use of drone warfare does not summarily get dispatched unless there is some underlying reason. Something is not adding up.

ZELENSKYY –” Today, the decisions on the changes in the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be formalized – the relevant decrees are in preparation. Together with Mykhailo Drapatyi and Yevhenii Khmara, we determined that Major General Ihor Skybiuk will become the new Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He is a highly experienced officer who defended Ukraine shoulder to shoulder with the new Commander-in-Chief. It is important that all components of our Armed Forces continue to function in complete coordination. We also determined together how Oleksandr Syrskyi and Andrii Hnatov will continue serving in the defense of our country.”
Wall Street Journal – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky fired the country’s armed-forces chief in a major reversal after initially siding with Gen. Oleksandr Syrskiy in a row with a young defense minister closely associated with Ukraine’s growing prowess in drone warfare.
The Ukrainian leader announced his abrupt shift Tuesday evening following days of street rallies after he removed Mykhailo Fedorov from the defense ministry last week. After several meetings with senior military commanders, he replaced Syrskiy with another experienced officer, Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatiy, who previously signaled his willingness to take a more innovative approach to breaking the deadlock on the battlefield. It could prove a pivotal moment in Ukraine’s four-year-long defense since Moscow’s full-scale invasion. {MORE}
Additionally, at the exact moment when 35-year-old Mykhailo Fedorov was fired from the Defense Ministry, U.S. influencer Laura Loomer, a woman of generally unstable disposition, set off to begin a propaganda campaign in Ukraine telling her audience it was time to defeat the Russian propaganda.What followed from Loomer’s arrival in Ukraine (still unfolding) is transparently an intelligence community assist paid propaganda effort to reverse her position on Ukraine and begin supporting the Zelenskyy regime.
Less than 24 hours after Loomer arrived in Kiev to begin broadcasting her pro-Zelenskyy propaganda effort, it was announced that FBI Director Kash Patel will be traveling to Russia {Citation}. “FBI Director Kash Patel is planning to visit Russia later this year, likely in mid-October, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the situation.” … “Patel is scheduled to visit Russia on Oct. 14-15, first stopping in Moscow and then St. Petersburg.”

“We have Mayor Mamdani, who pushed and is pushing an agenda of government-run supermarkets, abolishing private property rights, and seizing the means of production,” she continued. “…And that is exactly what they did in communist Cuba.”

• Congresswoman’s Blunt Message for the MSM on Democratic Socialism (Anderson)

“This is what radical leftism is. It may wear various different slogans and ideologies across place and time. They call themselves anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist, communist, anarchist, Marxist, but the fundamental character is always the same,” Marco Rubio said last week when he hosted the leaders of over 60 different countries to a ministerial on the “resurgence of transnational far-left terrorism.” He left out “democratic socialism,” but let’s face it. It’s all the same. And Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) spoke out about that today at a House Republican leadership press conference, warning about the rise of so-called “democratic socialists” and the reality for voters and the media.

Malliotakis would know. Her mother fled Cuba in 1959 as Fidel Castro took power. The Castro regime stole her family’s home and their small business, a gas station owned by her grandfather. She says her mother never saw her grandfather again after that. I’ve heard countless stories just like that from Venezuelan friends and acquaintances. Communism ruins families. “Communism destroys. It steals from the people,” Malliotakis said. “…people end up living in squalor and lack the basic needs that human beings need, and the people that run the regime live as kings. That’s the reality. It’s about power. It’s about consolidating power for a select few.”
She pointed out that, sadly, that’s exactly what we’re starting to see here in the United States with the winners of several recent primaries and elections. “We have Mayor Mamdani, who pushed and is pushing an agenda of government-run supermarkets, abolishing private property rights, and seizing the means of production,” she continued. “…And that is exactly what they did in communist Cuba.”
The congresswoman pointed out that her Cuban mother says socialism is basically just a step toward communism. The government steals property and wealth and uses it to redistribute and create better lives for themselves, while their constituents suffer. She also pointed out that Democrats want to pack the Supreme Court, but that’s a move straight out of Hugo Chávez’s playbook. As I wrote yesterday, that’s one reason why Venezuela can’t have elections right now. The country’s Supreme Court is stacked in favor of the regime, and it will require dismantling the court, among other institutions, to get there.
Malliotakis also points out that voters are going to be in for a rude awakening if we continue to allow this type of behavior here in our country. “They can call themselves Democrat socialists, but the reality is that the Commie Caucus is coming to Congress,” she warned. But her best message, in my opinion, was for the press in attendance: “It’s going to be a rude awakening if we don’t all pay attention, and that includes the press. Think about what’s happening in those countries, where they’ve had socialism and communism. The press is the first one to go. When they finally consolidate that power, the media is the first one to go, and it [becomes] a state-run media.
The congresswoman concluded that it’s important for all of us to stand up to these radical threats, and she’s right. Our regular readers know that I spend most of my weeks knee-deep in Venezuela and Cuba, and I’ve gotten to know many people who lived in and had to leave these countries. They all tell the same tale: families destroyed, loved ones dying due to lack of food or medicine, friends arrested for daring to speak out, no jobs, poverty, malnourished infants and children, extended power outages, lack of clean drinking water, regime harassment, arbitrary detentions, and kangaroo courts, etc. Why on earth would anyone want to live like that? And don’t tell me it just wasn’t done correctly. The outcome is always the same.
Here are Malliotakis’ full remarks. They’re worth a watch. And I hope she and many other people in this country continue to speak out in the days ahead.

The Commie Caucus is coming to Congress. Here is what it means for you. pic.twitter.com/64gJcuWonm
— Rep. Nicole Malliotakis Office (@RepNicole) July 21, 2026

“In a country with some of the strictest gun laws in the world, we’ve seen a rise in leftists and radical Islamic violence in the UK using alternative means. Up until now, it’s been “knife violence,” which we all know means there is an epidemic in the UK of knives jumping out of their drawers on their own and stabbing people…”

• It’s Hammer Time! The Violent Left’s New Weapon of Choice. (O’Brien)

Ann Widdecombe was a 78-year-old former member of Parliament (MP), pro-life advocate, Reform UK spokesperson, and a conservative. Security video taken from inside her home in Haytor, Devon, which is in rural southwest England, captured her quietly sitting down by herself for lunch on July 8 around 12:30 p.m. That’s when 28-year-old UK citizen Joshua Kerry from South Yorkshire entered the picture. It seems he just walked into the home through the front door, a stranger to Widdecombe, approached her, and said, “Don’t suppose you have bank cards and ID?”

Without giving her much of a chance to respond, British prosecutors say he smashed the hammer into Widdecombe’s skull 21 times as she sat in her chair, after which he tipped her out of the chair and onto the floor of her house. Prosecutors say that Kerry spent two minutes in the house, wearing black gloves, before approaching and murdering Widdecombe in her kitchen and then taking her wallet before leaving the scene. Was this a random killing? It doesn’t seem to be.
While Kerry is alleged to have committed robbery, and so far there have not been any significant revelations of Kerry’s religious or political leanings, prosecutors say he did drive nearly 300 miles to carry out a very targeted attack. As my colleague Catherine Salgado reported previously, British law enforcement had been investigating the crime as an act of terrorism. This leaves us to conclude at the very least that Kerry had a problem with Widdecombe’s politics, making him a leftist. The Blaze is reporting that this was a targeted assassination.

According to @theblaze, British pro-life leader Ann Widdecombe was killed in what investigators are reportedly treating as an assassination.

This is a heartbreaking reminder that defending the preborn can come at a tremendous cost.

Please join me in praying for the repose of…
— Kristan Hawkins (@KristanHawkins) July 20, 2026

In a country with some of the strictest gun laws in the world, we’ve seen a rise in leftists and radical Islamic violence in the UK using alternative means. Up until now, it’s been “knife violence,” which we all know means there is an epidemic in the UK of knives jumping out of their drawers on their own and stabbing people. It’s not like people should be held to account for their own actions and motivations, right? You do remember how the innocent, young, British Henry Nowak died, don’t you?

Henry Nowak died the same way a civilization dies: abandoned, handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him, and accused of hate crimes he did not commit. His murder is as tragic as it is enraging. He should still be alive today, and he would be if the last few… https://t.co/e3HkjzWzwU
— JD Vance (@JDVance) June 5, 2026

Nowak died as he bled out in handcuffs, while British police made sure his knife-wielding killer was OK. Since guns aren’t as available to the British citizenry to defend themselves, nor as accessible to their would-be killers, the murdering class has had to innovate. While knives have been the murder weapon of choice, another throwback to more barbaric times has emerged – the hammer. That’s what Kerry allegedly used against Widdecombe, and it’s what a group called Palestine Action is promoting as a new means to employ “direct action.”

78-year-old Ann Widdecombe was bashed on the head repeatedly with a hammer until she died.

Palestine Action is advertising "direct action" training for people who want to take up militant action using hammers. pic.twitter.com/JOIQrZYiBj
— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) July 21, 2026

It’s probably no coincidence, but the hammer in the group’s graphic looks an awful lot like the hammer and sickle of the old Soviet Union, the hammer of communism, and the hammer that leftists from around the world rally around. If recent events are any indication, it seems that the hammer has transitioned from mere symbol to preferred weapon. (By the way, don’t try to log onto PalestineAction.org. My anti-virus software warned me of a potential phishing threat there. You don’t want to risk having someone invade your computer and wreak havoc.)
CNN described Palestine Action as “a UK-based organization that aims to disrupt the operations of weapons manufacturers connected to the Israeli government.” “It was founded by Huda Ammori and climate activist Richard Barnard in 2020, when the group took its first action to shut down the UK operations of Elbit Systems – Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer – and stated its commitment to ‘ending global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime,’” CNN reported.
So, while in America the left continues its ongoing and long-term campaign to disarm gun owners and kill the Second Amendment, you can see that in other countries gun confiscation hasn’t stopped the left from perpetuating the dark savagery that is in its heart. The left knows that it will never win and hold power through popularity. Instead, it will win power through deception and violence, and it will hold power through force and violence. At the moment, that force has come in the form of its favorite tool, the hammer.

Mamdani knows this. But he can score cheap points.

• New York City Hall Has No Business Running Its Own Foreign Policy (David Manney)

New York City communist Mayor Zohran Mamdani spent months promising to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His lawyers finally delivered the answer anybody familiar with American law could see coming. “We do not have the independent legal authority to enforce this warrant,” Mamdani admitted Tuesday.His administration reviewed “every avenue” for using the International Criminal Court warrant if Netanyahu visits New York for the United Nations General Assembly in September. City lawyers found no legal path, proving that Mamdani’s campaign pledge was never within the mayor’s power.

Mamdani still called Netanyahu a war criminal and demanded that the federal government join the ICC and execute the warrant, while also declaring Netanyahu unwelcome in New York. I hate to be the one to break it to the Democratic Socialist, but mayors don’t decide who enters the United States. They don’t join international courts, recognize foreign warrants, conduct diplomacy, or set federal criminal policy.All Mamdani can do is offer his opinion, but City Hall has no separate foreign policy.
Neither the United States nor Israel is a party to the Rome Statute, which created the ICC. Congress also barred state and local agencies from cooperating with ICC requests, providing support to the court, or helping surrender people to its custody.
(2) shall not prohibit—(A) any action permitted under section 7427 of this title; or (B) communication by the United States of its policy with respect to a matter. (b) Prohibition on responding to requests for cooperation
Notwithstanding section 1782 of title 28 or any other provision of law, no United States Court, and no agency or entity of any State or local government, including any court, may cooperate with the International Criminal Court in response to a request for cooperation submitted by the International Criminal Court pursuant to the Rome Statute.
(c)nProhibition on transmittal of letters rogatory from the International Criminal Court
Notwithstanding section 1781 of title 28 or any other provision of law, no agency of the United States Government may transmit for execution any letter rogatory issued, or other request for cooperation made, by the International Criminal Court to the tribunal, officer, or agency in the United States to whom it is addressed.
The ICC issued its warrant in November 2024, alleging Netanyahu committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza war. Israel rejects the court’s jurisdiction and denies the allegations. The warrant doesn’t charge Netanyahu with genocide, even though Mamdani repeatedly calls him the “architect” of one. UN week creates another legal problem. The 1947 United Nations Headquarters Agreement requires federal, state, and local authorities to avoid obstructing representatives traveling to and from UN headquarters. Reuters:
Netanyahu traditionally travels to New York every September for the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly. Israel responded to Mamdani’s comments on Sunday in an X post that called the ICC a kangaroo court and the arrest warrant against Netanyahu bogus. “Mamdani appears interested in diverting public attention from his follies and attacking the leader of the Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East,” it said.
The ICC was established in 2002 and has international jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The United States and Israel are not members of the court. Mamdani, who took office in January, said during his mayoral campaign that he would have police arrest Netanyahu if he set foot in New York City. Last November, shortly after Mamdani’s election victory, the mayor-elect and Trump held an unexpectedly friendly meeting in the White House even though they had previously traded insults. New York City can’t invite the world’s governments to Manhattan and then let its mayor select which leaders may safely attend.
President Donald Trump ended any remaining uncertainty Monday. Netanyahu “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form,” while in the United States, Trump said. Mamdani’s admission should close the matter. Instead, he used his retreat to demand federal action, preserving the political theater after conceding he couldn’t deliver his promise.New Yorkers were told their mayor would direct the NYPD to arrest a foreign prime minister. Months later, he acknowledged he lacked the authority from the beginning. Lawyers had to study a campaign pledge before Mamdani would admit that municipal power ends well before international diplomacy begins.
City Hall already has enough work. New Yorkers expect police protection, clean streets, safe subways, working schools, affordable housing, and competent public services. They didn’t elect a secretary of state. The U.S. government already has one. Mamdani can condemn Netanyahu as often as he chooses; he can support the ICC, criticize Israel, and urge Congress to change federal law. He still can’t turn personal ideology into municipal authority. His own legal review settled the issue. City Hall has no business running its own foreign policy, and Mamdani now admits he has no power to carry out the threat that helped build his political brand.

“It had become more the socialist caucus, and most of the leadership was socialist Democrats. I didn’t feel comfortable in it.”

• House Democrat Blows the Whistle on Socialist, Antisemitic Takeover (Margolis)

I’ve said before that I don’t like using the term “progressive” to describe the Democrat Party, its ideology, or its positions. Why? Because it suggests improvement or progress. At the very least, it’s a poor euphemism, but it’s more deliberately deceptive if you ask me. “By calling itself progressive,” it implies every position it takes is a positive one. Sorry, I can’t do that.

CNN’s Van Jones noted this very thing earlier this week. The commentator and former Obama administration official argued that Democratic Socialists of America-aligned candidates and their agenda are “regressive,” not “progressive.” Jones warned that the party’s drift toward socialism, hostility toward police, and open contempt for Israel is scaring off the centrist voters Democrats need to win elections. Even a guy who spent years defending this party on cable news can see the cliff it’s walking toward.
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) also figured this out last year, and he did something about it. Cohen revealed to CNN this week that he left the Congressional Progressive Caucus last year. “I just found it to be not the same caucus I joined in 2007,” Cohen said. “It had become more the socialist caucus, and most of the leadership was socialist Democrats. I didn’t feel comfortable in it.”
That’s not a stray complaint from a bitter retiree. Cohen came to Congress in 2007 and aligned himself with J Street, a left-leaning Jewish organization that supports a two-state solution and has long rivaled the traditional pro-Israel lobby. Even that didn’t keep him in step with where his caucus went. “There certainly were not people who were so anti-Israel when I started, and there are within the progressive caucus now,” he said, describing a party that traded coalition politics for ideology.
Cohen announced last year that he wouldn’t seek re-election after the new district drawn and approved by Tennessee’s Republican legislature made his chances of reelection nearly impossible, but it’s quite clear he saw a much bigger problem brewing. “I foresaw it getting really nasty and antisemitism getting into it,” he said. He’d already watched that antisemitism spread through his party’s rank and file up close, which is exactly why the socialist caucus stopped feeling like home.
Cohen was one of only 22 Democrats willing to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib after she defended the “from the river to the sea” chant in a video accusing President Joe Biden of enabling a Palestinian “genocide.” Tlaib hasn’t spoken to him since. A sitting congresswoman froze out a colleague for objecting to genocide rhetoric aimed at Israel, and her own party barely blinked.
Make no mistake about it: Cohen didn’t quit his caucus over redistricting maps. He quit because the socialists took over and brought their antisemitism with them. The Democrat Party didn’t get more “progressive.” It got more socialist, and more left-of-center people are noticing and doing something about it. Not only did Cohen leave the House Progressive Caucus, but Bill Maher says his vote is up for grabs in 2028. And if Democrats fail to win the House in November, you’ll know why.

The Dems have no face. Mamdani is New York, not America.

• Why Aren’t the Democrats Walking Away With the Midterms? (Rick Moran)

By all rights, Democrats should be blowing Republicans out of the water in these midterm elections. Donald Trump’s approval numbers are underwater, and on issues, Democrats hold an advantage on which party is better able to handle the economy. The Iran War is becoming more unpopular by the week, and inflation is beginning to tick up as a result. Republicans are trusted far more on immigration, but in a true, bitter irony, Trump has slowed the illegal wave at the border to a trickle, making it far less of an issue. So why aren’t the Democrats winning big? Ron Brownstein, a veteran political reporter, is noticing it too.

Trump’s job approval rating has plummeted below the level that triggered midterm wave elections vs Clinton 94, W. Bush in 2006, Obama in 2010 & Trump himself in 2018. And yet most surveys do not show Dems establishing a clear advantage in the key races that will decide control. https://t.co/MYxrsDilxy
— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) July 19, 2026

In Trump I, Ds won ~90% of voters who disapproved of him in most House/Senate races. In polls now, they usually win far fewer of them. That's the biggest yellow light for Ds in 26. But can Rs really hold so many more voters down on Trump thru Nov? My take https://t.co/9lmafPzfCc
— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) July 19, 2026

This gentleman has the answer for Brownstein and any Democrat who actually wants to win in November (LANGUAGE WARNING):

It’s because for some of us who are tired of the Trump chaos can’t vote for the dems when they are bat shit freaks. I can not ever vote for the loony dem state candidate in Texas. Waaayyy to many bad policy beliefs. Not moderate at all. So I’m voting for the alternative who has…
— Huckleberrycrew5 (@AnneDAngelo5) July 19, 2026

Voters may not love Republicans. They may not like what’s happening in the economy, in Iran, and with inflation. They may not like Trump very much. But there’s one reason that, against all odds, Republicans could very well end up holding their slim majority in the House and even increase their margin in the Senate. Voters hate Democrats more. In an election where all of the issues are breaking the Democrats’ way, Republicans have two huge issues they can throw at Democrats that may very well scare enough voters to give the GOP an advantage.
The first is a gift from the Democrats: their acquiescence in an attempted coup of their party by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Republicans will call them “communists.” The DSA doesn’t care what you call them as long as you vote for them.The Democrats are gambling, like all mainstream parties in history faced with a radical left surge, that once the kooks help the rest of them get elected, they will control them, tame them, and channel their energy into productive, constitutional avenues. Good luck with that because it worked so well in Russia and Germany in the 20th century.
Meanwhile, Republicans are going old school with a 1950s-era, genuine anti-communist “Red Scare” campaign. b“We’re fighting right now in Congress over whether we’re going to maintain our status as a constitutional republic or we’re going to trade that in, dismantle the foundations, and go down this dark road of death to communism,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a press conference at the Republican National Committee. b“These crazy little mini-Mamdanis who are popping up all around the country, they are a danger to you and your family.”
The Hill: bHouse Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) drew attention to the Democratic Party’s ideological battle in those primaries, with the insurgent left-wing candidates defeating those favored by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). He was clear that Republicans saw those leftist candidates as useful to campaign against. “In swing districts, it draws an incredibly sharp contrast between our incumbent Republicans who are working to make life more affordable for working families against these communists who want to literally defund the police,” Scalise said.
He was referencing the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) platform, which calls for “steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system which protects the rich and jails the poor” and “amnesty for all immigrants regardless of status.” bI really hope they bring back Doo-wop and Elvis (yes, he’s still alive). While they’re at it, making my crew cut popular again would be fine with me. Democrats are doing all the heavy lifting for Republicans. The GOP doesn’t have to demonize the Democrats when the donks are doing a darn fine job of it on their own.
At some point Dems are going to have to grapple with the reality that in the face of all of Trump and Republicans’ manifest horribleness and incompetence, people aren’t rushing toward the Democrats. If you think the DSA stuff is helping, you’ve never talked to a swing voter. https://t.co/9LgLHkwnYf
— Sarah Longwell (@SarahLongwell25) July 19, 2026

The trick for Republicans will be to find a way to get their supporters to the polls. Right now, the enthusiasm gap is concerning, but why isn’t it larger, asks one political science professor. “I don’t think that things are looking very good for Republicans,” said Rob Alexander, a political science professor at Bowling Green. “The enthusiasm gap that we’re seeing is unsurprising. Maybe the most surprising thing is that it’s not higher in favor of Democrats.”
The professor also noted what the GOP isn’t saying in the campaign. “It’s just all negative, negative, negative. There’s very little ‘we’re building the American dream, and things are better.’ It’s more ‘those guys are bad,’” Alexander said. “It seems to be the tactic that we’re settling into as we move on, and it’s going to be a really ugly fall throughout the country.”

“This is what America needs to be strong, successful, and resilient. “

• American Manufacturing One Year After One Big Beautiful Bill (Chris Queen)

It’s been about a year since President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill into law, and over that 12-month period, we’ve seen the positive outcomes from the act. One of those is an American manufacturing renaissance. A new report from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) demonstrates how the tax cuts from this bill have spurred growth in manufacturing: Manufacturing is the economic engine of the United States. Led by the 13 million people who make things in America, manufacturing succeeds when backed by policies that make it easier to build, hire, and expand.

H.R. 1 embodies that commitment. By signing H.R. 1 into law, President Trump gave manufacturers the foundation, competitiveness, and certainty to invest—in new facilities and equipment, jobs and wage growth, cutting-edge research, and our global competitiveness.This law is a once-in-a-generation investment in manufacturers, and it did not happen by chance. As pro-growth tax policies approached expiration, putting 6 million jobs at risk, manufacturers rallied to make our voices heard. Congress not only kept every one of the 10 major provisions for which the NAM advocated—they even added new provisions, all to strengthen manufacturing.
One year after H.R. 1 became law, manufacturers have much to celebrate. Manufacturers in all 50 states are using H.R. 1 to invest in America. By NAM’s count, the Trump tax cuts have supported 6 million American jobs, saved $540 billion in wages for hardworking Americans, and contributed $1.1 trillion in GDP. “That’s the manufacturing economy a permanent, pro-growth tax code helps sustain — and manufacturers are delivering on the promise,” NAM says. The Working Families Tax Cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill have seen concrete benefits in all 50 states. Investments in research and development, full deductions for facility expansion, and incentives to build in the U.S. have all spurred growth that’s hard to ignore or explain away.
From 11,000 jobs protected in Alaska to 708,000 jobs supported in California, every state is reaping the benefits of this unprecedented investment in the American workforce. NAM’s report gives case studies for all 50 states.The One Big Beautiful Bill’s provisions aren’t just for large corporations. Even small businesses like Winton Machine Company in Suwanee, Ga., are seeing the benefits. The 38-employee company is able to reinvest in its operations and innovate in its industry.
“As manufacturers, our ability to reinvest drives job creation, advances new technologies and supports our communities,” says CEO Lisa Winton. “I am committed to continue to help drive innovation and invest in the future manufacturing workforce here in the USA.” Louisiana’s Martin Sustainable Resources used the tax cuts, credits, and incentives to expand its facilities, upgrade its equipment, and make long-term investments. It’s planning for the future, thanks to these pro-growth policies.
“The Working Families Tax Cuts are helping to fuel modernization at our company,” says CEO E. Scott Poole. “Full expensing for facilities and equipment strengthens our ability to keep making long-term investments, and estate tax relief helps protect the continuity of a family-owned company rooted in Louisiana for generations.”“These results demonstrate the undeniable power of President Trump’s America First economic agenda,” reads the White House press release. “By putting American families and businesses first, the Working Families Tax Cuts are rebuilding American industrial strength, creating opportunity in every community, and delivering real results for real Americans.”
This is what America needs to be strong, successful, and resilient. It’s what can help sustain our economy in good and bad times. And I definitely voted for this. Trump’s tax cuts are helping American manufacturers build new facilities, upgrade equipment, create jobs, and plan for the future. That’s what an America First economy looks like, when policy moves beyond slogans and starts producing results.

“Considering the economy of the USA is ten-times larger than Canada, that’s quite a threat from Premier Doug Ford.”

• Ontario Premier Doug Ford Promises “to Dismantle the U.S” Economy (CTH)

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has a message to President Trump and to all Americans. Premier Ford promises to dismantle the U.S. economy if President Trump continues to threaten tariffs and trade sanctions.Considering the economy of the USA is ten-times larger than Canada, that’s quite a threat from Premier Doug Ford. WATCH:

Personally, I think all this back-and-forth banter is no longer worth the surface effort. It would be much easier, and now affirmed as constitutionally appropriate by the Supreme Court, if President Trump just executed a full trade embargo against all Canadian goods for a period of 60-days. Perhaps that way Canada will recognize just how vulnerable they are. Perhaps not, but it’s worth the effort. Just ban all imports and exports for 60-days and let’s see what happens.

“Donald Trump wants Canada to go and try to cut more favorable trade deals, so they will learn how good they had it.”

• USTR Jamieson Greer Outlines Details of Talking Points With Canada (CTH)

In the first half of this CNBC interview with U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer, the Ambassador walks through the reasoning, purpose and intent of the recently announced 50% tariff rate against Canadian imported goods. As noted by USTR Greer the Canadians are applying two separate metrics within their trade agreement with Europe and the USA. Toward Europe there are no limits and quotas on dairy products, toward the USA there are severe limits and quotas applied by third party brokers (co-ops owned by Canadian dairy farms) leveraged by the Canadian government. This is one example of Canadian duplicity.

Additionally, by the various provincial governments of Canada banning the import and/or sale of U.S. products, and with Canada putting caps and limits on automobiles, these USA trade actions are being confronted by the 50% countervailing duties against Canadian imports. Greer also calls ‘bulls**t’ on Carney’s double speak. WATCH:

The trade discussion with Canada returns at the 10:00 minute mark. Jamieson Greer notes we have always had trade issues with Canada for decades. There was a significant percentage of the population who are against offshoring jobs, which is what NAFTA essentially did in North America. It is also worth emphasizing that President Trump wants Canada to diversify. Both U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra and President Trump have said, repeatedly, President Trump wants Canada to go make other bilateral deals with other nations. Why? Two main reasons.
#1) If Canada has to enter a bilateral trade agreement with another country, suddenly they learn what reciprocity means. They have to give something in order to get trade benefit. This is a completely new concept for Canada who have taken advantage of the USA for a long time with ZERO reciprocity in mind. This is what former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was talking to Trump about in Mar-a-Lago (December ’24). In essence, Donald Trump wants Canada to go and try to cut more favorable trade deals, so they will learn how good they had it.
#2) If Canada cuts a trade agreement with, say, Europe, the terms of that FTA purchase in/out then become a standard in their trade allowances. This permits team USA to turn to Canada and say, “wait, we want the same terms”. We might even ask for most favored nation terms due to scale and scope. Canada is not prepared for this type of bilateral relationship at all. The CUSMA trade negotiator Dominic LeBlanc just discovered the problem following the current Canadian effort to diversify FTAs. Suddenly, LeBlanc has admitted quietly they have no response.
For around 40+ years (USTR Greer would argue 60+ years) Canada has benefitted from the U.S. economy purchasing their goods, allowing their businesses unlimited access to the U.S. market and yet simultaneously restricting the Canadian market from similar reciprocity. Those terms are no longer acceptable.

“Looking at the global automotive market, one conclusion is unavoidable: the end of the combustion engine is nowhere in sight.”

• The Death of the Cash Cow (Thomas Kolbe)

Looking at the global automotive market, one conclusion is unavoidable: the end of the combustion engine is nowhere in sight. The ideological crusade against Germany’s industrial backbone has merely led to the slaughter of the country’s automotive cash cows. The reasons behind the decline of Germany’s automotive industry will remain subject to debate. But one thing is clear: an energy policy detached from economic reality, driven by climate-apocalyptic ambitions, has harmed the industry at least as much as strategic mistakes at the management level.

A lack of cost flexibility and a German labor system rooted in the moral foundations of the post-war economic boom have made the adjustments necessary in the face of fierce competition from China, the United States and increasingly India far more difficult. German corporatism has also done companies a disservice by narrowing technological choices according to a familiar ideological compass. The end of the combustion engine is a collective product. Political leaders and institutional actors share the same conviction: pave the way with subsidies and taxpayer money toward a fully electric golden age.
Meanwhile, almost quietly and somewhat embarrassingly, the industry has begun relocating production of its traditional combustion-engine models abroad. It is simply unhealthy for an economy to stand too close to the political fire. In times of crisis, companies are left exposed to the harsh winds of global competition — and so are the workers whose jobs disappear by the hundreds of thousands. The reality looks different from the political narrative. Around 95 percent of vehicles worldwide are still powered by traditional combustion engines. Among new registrations last year, fully electric vehicles accounted for roughly one quarter. Nearly two-thirds of newly registered vehicles still have a combustion engine under the hood. The remainder are hybrids.
There is no doubt that the long-term technological path is moving toward hybrid drive systems. Traditional combustion engines offer limited prospects for new investment. Nevertheless, this enormous market would have been the necessary cash cow for German automakers and their suppliers. The profits generated from combustion-engine vehicles could have provided the financial strength needed to invest in new technologies according to actual market developments.
This transformation would have taken place at the German home base if an ideological fervor among saturated urban elites had not emerged — a fervor that turned against the country’s own automotive industry and initiated a form of industrial self-destruction.The fundamental mistake lies in Germany’s corporatist model. The country rushed into an immature technology with flags flying high, encouraged by politicians who believed the future lay entirely beyond fossil fuels. The theory sounds attractive: borrow cheaply, pool government debt at Germany’s favorable financing conditions, create the necessary technological foundations and production capacities, and secure pole position in electric mobility from the beginning.
But the devil, as always, lies in the details. It would be the first time in economic history that a centrally planned strategy permanently moved ahead of market reality. The pressure on German manufacturers has grown since China succeeded not only in closing the technological gap with European producers, but in reopening it in certain areas to its own advantage. Beijing is also fighting the emerging weakness of its domestic economy with massive subsidy programs. It is therefore hardly surprising that German manufacturers have come under enormous pressure in the most important automotive market in the world.
At the same time, the consequences of Germany’s energy transition, sky-high energy costs, excessive regulation and rigid labor laws have made the domestic location increasingly unattractive for additional investment. The cash cows that policymakers had already written off are now grazing elsewhere. It is not the combustion engine that is disappearing — it is the value creation surrounding it. Volkswagen’s Passat is now produced in Slovakia rather than Emden. The new Volkswagen Transporter is built at Ford Otosan’s plant in Turkey, while Audi produces the Q3 in Hungary. Mercedes has moved a significant part of its compact-car production to Kecskemét.
Large premium SUVs from German manufacturers have for years largely rolled off production lines in the United States or Slovakia. The truth is simple: production takes place where the combustion engine generates the highest returns — and Germany is clearly no longer one of those locations. Around 130,000 jobs have been eliminated in Germany’s automotive industry in recent years. Once second-round effects are included, roughly half a million jobs may have been affected by the crisis. A lost position in core automotive production typically leads to two, if not three additional job losses along the supply chain and through declining purchasing power in the surrounding regions.Eastern Europe, economically held back by socialism until the end of the Cold War, now benefits from capital flowing out of the West.

“Across almost all 50 states, there’s a move toward moratoriums on building data centers as concerns about their potential impact grow…and they remain a political liability as the midterms approach.”

• Billion-Dollar Data Centers And The Growing Opposition (Janet Levy)

Nestled between the sere hills east of Sparks, Nevada, and a little off the U.S. Parkway (SR-439), Switch’s Citadel Campus is a Las Vegas company specializing in data centers. One building is already operational: Tahoe Reno 1, a high-security, futuristic industrial shed standing on endless rows of girders, with a roof designed to withstand 200-mile-per-hour winds.

Inside, thousands of servers process data for businesses that pay for space, bandwidth, and security. To dissipate the enormous heat from the servers and the generators powering the unit, several million gallons of water are circulated through hundreds of miles of tubing—this in the driest state in the U.S., where groundwater is declining at an alarming rate. The low-frequency hum and noise from the center can be heard nearly a mile away.
Switch describes it as “the single largest colocation data center facility on the planet.” It has a footprint of 1.3 million square feet, roughly equivalent to 23 American football fields. Its power capacity—a metric of processing ability and the equivalent backup supply and cooling required—is 130 MW. For perspective, one megawatt can power 75 racks, each holding 21–42 servers, and power 500–1,000 homes.
When the eight planned buildings are ready, the 2,000-acre Citadel Campus, bounded by concrete walls, will offer a whopping 7 million square feet of server space and 650 MW of power capacity, making it the world’s most powerful data complex. Switch plans to develop it into an exascale ecosystem—with computers capable of quintillions of calculations per second, needed for AI and high-speed work, and power capacity running into several gigawatts.
As AI, cloud computing, and digital services touch all lives and demand for processing power grows exponentially, data centers are proliferating across the U.S. Over 3,000 centers are now operational, with 1,500 slated for development. While 87% of current centers are in urban areas, 67% of the newer ones are planned in rural areas, and 39% in counties with no centers.
In Nevada and elsewhere, communities, local and city governments, and legislatures are raising concerns about the significant environmental and quality-of-life impacts of data centers. In fact, Reno has a moratorium until August 2027 on approving data centers within the city. Surveys show that most Americans oppose data centers in their neighborhoods. The biggest concerns are acreage and water use; strain on power grids; air pollution from backup generators, although many centers claim to rely on green backups; and noise pollution, with the low-frequency buzz affecting humans even when it is inaudible.
Give Us Your Acres
Data centers of the future require vast acreage, so construction is naturally shifting toward rural areas. Concerns are mounting over the rapid conversion of farmland into industrial sites because farmland loss is usually permanent and significantly affects food production. In addition, profligate water use will affect the water table, and the arrival of power grid infrastructure and industrial activity could lead to the destruction of wetlands, grasslands, and ecosystems.
Farmers are reporting—and refusing—tempting offers for their land, a generational asset to which they are deeply attached. Offers from Fortune 100 companies run into the double-digit millions. One offer for a Kentucky farm, where an undisclosed industrial development was planned, was $10 million, five times what the owner paid 30 years ago. Another farmer was told to name any price. Yet another was offered $33 million and told that details about the project would be provided if she signed a non-disclosure agreement.
The question is: How long will they be able to resist? With President Trump pushing for America to become an AI superpower, data centers are unlikely to be stalled. Staunch Trump supporters and Republicans in rural areas, already hurt by retaliatory tariffs from China and Canada, are unhappy. They are questioning and opposing this relentless encroachment. Even in cities and suburbs, data centers compete directly with residential development, driving up land prices and reducing the number of viable housing sites. In northern Virginia, data centers accounted for a disproportionate 30% of land development between 2013 and 2021. These trends, which will likely be seen in all states soon, will jeopardize the housing supply.
Give Us Your Power
Data centers are the most energy-intensive building types, consuming 10–50 times more energy per square foot than a typical commercial office. A single AI data center can use as much power as 100,000 homes, but the massive ones coming up can use up to 20 times that amount. In fact, by 2030, power demand is projected to reach 130 gigawatts—a gigawatt equals a million megawatts—about 13 times New York City’s peak summer power demand and 25-30% of the United States’s average power usage.
Data center power consumption is set to triple, from 4% of U.S. usage in 2023 to 12% in 2028. Data centers aim for a PUE of 1.4–1.5 (power usage effectiveness), which is easier to understand as 67% of total consumption going to IT equipment. This is much better than general computing centers, where PUE is 2, meaning only 50% of the power consumed powers IT equipment. But general computing uses only 10–50 kW for smaller centers, up to 2 MW for campus-level hubs, and up to 5 MW for corporate centers.
Take Pollution in Return
The thousands of server racks in data centers must be cooled to prevent overheating and failure, requiring massive cooling systems of two types: immersion and water circulation. The first immerses equipment in special dielectric fluids, which can pose health risks from exposure. Water-based systems pollute the environment because their discharge contains coolants, biocides, corrosion inhibitors, concentrated minerals, and heavy metals. Noise from data centers reaches 96 decibels (dB) inside facilities, while generator noise can reach 105 dB, comparable to a jet flying overhead.
By comparison, noise levels in quiet neighborhoods are 45–55 dB, and in mixed-use neighborhoods, 55–65 dB. Chronic exposure to noise above 65 dB can cause hypertension, headaches, nausea, insomnia, dizziness, and cardiovascular issues. Diesel-fueled backup generators at data centers emit nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide, and particulate matter (PM2.5), all linked to asthma, respiratory disease, and heart disease. Communities near these facilities experience higher air pollution levels than the rest of the country. The power supply will be slow to meet demand, so data centers may rely more on backup generators, increasing pollution. P
roliferation and Opposition
The proliferation has begun. Virginia, which has 320 data centers, the most in the U.S., expects a total of 954. Texas will eventually surpass Virginia with 962. Northern Virginia houses 50 million square feet of data center space, has earned the moniker Data Center Alley, and serves as a backbone for Big Tech and AI development. The opposition has also begun. People have protested the noise and the constant hum from data centers in northern Virginia. There is also a surge in efforts to block data center construction, especially projects planned near residential areas. In northern Virginia, Blackstone was forced to abandon its 22 million-square-foot facility at the Prince William Digital Gateway.
Time for a Rethink
A Reuters/Ipsos survey found that 57% of respondents opposed data centers, while a Gallup survey found that seven in 10 opposed them. Across almost all 50 states, there’s a move toward moratoriums on building data centers as concerns about their potential impact grow. New York, Georgia, Oklahoma, Vermont, and Virginia have introduced legislation to impose moratoriums or bans on new data centers.President Trump has strongly advocated data center development as a means to make America the AI leader. Other politicians have promoted data centers to drive economic growth. But they must reconsider, as data centers are now a political liability with voters.

https://twitter.com/DRPOOLQ17/status/2079351525286023495?s=20

For years, Anthony Fauci has dodged, deflected, and hidden behind a pardon.

On July 29th at 8:30 am, that ends. Fauci will finally testify before my committee.

Mark your calendars. pic.twitter.com/eWyumReVyf
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 21, 2026

This product that everyone thinks is never going to happen is going to be the product that bankrupts Uber pic.twitter.com/b9vzFrscje
— Teslaconomics (@Teslaconomics) July 22, 2026

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