drills Archives - The Automatic Earth

Obama was a one-man Trojan Horse for radical Islam. He flooded America with Muslims by the millions in the dark of night and funded Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons. Let’s face the fact that every conspiracy theory about this traitor was true. https://t.co/3UeHPe0K6k
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) May 21, 2026

Are they imitating themselves, or Trump?

• Iranian President: Won’t Back Down (ZH)

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has stated, “We will not bow our heads, our ministers and experts are working day and night, without a single day off.” He added, per state sources: “We are willing to sacrifice as much as possible for the honor and pride of Iran, and we are not afraid of martyrdom.” And just like that… Markets reversed earlier gains as Iran’s President said on state TV that they won’t back down in talks. The momentum then picked up when a “high-level source” told Al-Arabiya that the Pakistani Army Chief will not head to Tehran tonight.

The Pakistani were supposed to head to Iran only when the reach of an agreement was in sight, so this kind of denies the earlier reports of a US and Iran draft agreement. US stock indices erased more than half of earlier gains. We’ve seen the same reaction in oil, FX and bond markets but now they are consolidating. Still, Al Jazeera is reporting that “negotiators are very close to reaching a deal, and are currently working on a draft text. At the same time, another source told Al Jazeera that it is too early to judge whether a serious, final agreement is within reach.”
IRNA has cited a Pakistani official who says the talks are “moving in the right direct” – though it’s anyone’s guess at this point. The prior reported draft did not take up the nuclear issue. Trump continues to press the nuclear issue. US President Donald Trump has again pledged to seize Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium as part of any agreement over Tehran’s nuclear program.
“Look, we’re going to make sure they don’t have a nuclear weapon or we’re going to have to do something very drastic. I believe when it’s put to the people of our country, they will all agree we cannot let Iran get a nuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters at the White House. Asked whether Iran could retain its enriched uranium, Trump replied: “No, we will get it. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, we’ll probably destroy it after we get it. But we’re not going to let them have it.”

Russia’s the best we can do for him. If Trump agrees.

• Ayatollah Orders Highly-Enriched Uranium To Remain In Iran (ZH)

,The illusion of a grand diplomatic breakthrough in the Middle East is once again colliding with reality. The White House has been busy trying to paint a picture of a total capitulation by Tehran, which hasn’t been demonstrated given its consistent position defying Washington’s demands on the nuclear issue. According to two senior Iranian officials speaking to Reuters, Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has drawn a hard line in the sand, ordering that Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% remain strictly inside Iranian territory.

Reuters underscores that “Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei’s order could further frustrate U.S. President Donald Trump and complicate talks on ending the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.” “Israeli officials have told Reuters that Trump has assured Israel that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, needed to make an atomic weapon, will be sent out of Iran and that any peace deal must include a clause on this,” the report continues.The officials noted that within Tehran, there is deep suspicion that the ceasefire is in fact “a tactical deception by the US,” designed to lull Iran into a “false sense of security… before the fighting resumes.”
The fresh directive from from the supreme leader flies directly in the face of the narrative being spun by Washington and Tel Aviv, given Israeli officials maintain that President Trump explicitly promised Israel that Iran’s highly enriched stockpile would be completely removed from the country as part of any negotiated settlement. Trump has also recently proclaimed this publicly, for example in a phone interview with CBS News last month, wherein he confidently proclaimed that Iran “agreed to everything” and would cooperate fully to ship its enriched uranium out of the country.
Extraction of nuclear material would of course rely heavily on the assumption of total Iranian compliance, given Trump has also lately appeared to rule out out a hostile invasion force, stating, “No. No troops.” There seems to be widespread agreement among national security officials at this point that some kind of special forces op to covertly go in and take it would be tantamount to a ‘suicide mission’. According to more of what Trump (prematurely) proclaimed in the prior CBS interview: “Our people, together with the Iranians, are going to work together to go get it. And then we’ll take it to the United States.” The reality is all along the two sides’ positions have been very far apart, and largely unbending:
And on a potential deal: “We’ll be getting it together because by that time, we’ll have an agreement and there’s no need for fighting when there’s an agreement. Nice right? That’s better. We would have done it the other way if we had to” – he sought to explain. At the moment, Iranian officials are reportedly reviewing the latest updated US proposals for peace, having reportedly asked Pakistan for time to assess and study the American points for negotiations.”

I don’t quite get it. The date on that is May 1. What gives?

• Trump Posts Article Laying Out How To Crush Tehran In Three Moves (ZH)

President Trump on Thursday posted to Truth Social a New York Post article which was first published over two weeks ago, on May 1st, with the headline “Here’s how to crush Tehran in three moves.” Trump’s new social media post, issued without additional comment, comes just after news of Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei having drawn a hard line in the sand, ordering that Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% remain strictly inside Iranian territory. So now the world awaits what’s next at a moment the White House has renewed threats of massive military strikes if Iran doesn’t quickly come to the table and conform.

The NY Post article had straight-faced and without a hint of intended irony proclaimed: “President Trump has the upper hand.” That statement was issued on day 63 of Trump’s Iran war. Today is day 83. What did the interim look like as the world’s most powerful military force has been unable to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, amid constant threats to take new, bigger military action – but which never actually materializes (at least not yet) no matter how many times the Iranians reject Washington’s terms?
The below timeline and outline, stretching from last week into this one, basically illustrates the weekly Trump pattern that’s been on display going back many weeks at this point:
Wed: Iran wants a deal. They called us
Thu: We are looking at proposals
Fri: We might be close. Very close
Sat: Iran knows what to do
Sun: OBLITERATION. TOTAL. COMPLETE. They have 24 hrs.
Mon: The storm is coming
Tue: I’m giving it more time
This is what ‘winning’ looks like according to the NY Post, apparently. The publication also feels itself in a position to give ‘advice’ and guidance to the White House on executing a war. “His best path forward is to pursue three lines of effort in parallel,” author Richard Goldberg (of Foundation for Defense of Democracies) wrote. It must be remembered that very recently a former senior official from FDD Action, the think tank’s lobbying arm, joined Trump’s Iran negotiating team – his name is Nick Stewart.
Here are the three:
• Sustain the blockade and accompanying economic warfare to destabilize the regime’s hold on the state;
• Remake the world in America’s energy dominance image to mitigate long-term price impacts while undermining China’s global ambition to defeat the United States;
• Order the US military to forge a path through the Strait of Hormuz to restore freedom of navigation on our terms not Tehran’s.
…if only simply ordering a military “path through” was that easy!
“You might call the latter Operation Epic Passage — a combined naval and air mission of self-defense that offers escort to tankers and restores freedom of navigation, all while making clear to Tehran the devastating consequences of breaking cease-fire,” Goldberg, who openly boasts of his close ties to the Israeli government, also wrote. He further offered the mission name of “Blockade Plus”. After the opening days and weeks of Operation Epic Fury, when it became clear that the large-scale US and Israeli bombardment would not produced regime change in Iran, pundits widely questioned whether the Trump White House actually had a plan, or long-term strategic vision for the military mission.
And now, after more than 80 days in, the public gets Trump posting a NY Post article by a hawkish FDD writer, which seems more focused merely on ways to mitigate the blowback and ‘make the best’ of a failed regime change operation, in the wake of the administration’s constantly evolving stated goals.

“..more than one billion Class B shares when and if the company establishes “a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants,”

How long do you think it will take to get one million people living on Mars? Will Musk live to see it?

• Elon Musk Wants a Trillion-Dollar Payday, but There’s One Little Catch (Green)

The world finally got a peek at SpaceX’s closely held financials, after Elon Musk’s closely held space launch company filed for its initial public offering on Wednesday — and the details made a bigger splash than one of the company’s Starships making an uncontrolled water landing. The first shocker is that Musk’s salary last year was just $54,000. That’s about the same as a new human resources assistant or an apprentice electrician. That’s the only small figure you’ll see in the rest of this column because after this, the zeros get added on in a hurry. You know what? Forget the tease, and let’s go straight to the biggest figure.

In SpaceX’s nearly 400-page S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company projects a Total Addressable Market (TAM) of $28.5 trillion. That’s a two and an eight and a five followed by 11 zeros. TAM is business jargon for “What’s the size of our market if everybody who needed our product or service actually bought our product or service?” SpaceX’s TAM includes launch customers, Starlink users, and xAI (that’s the company’s AI division) compute services. It’s the company’s compute ambitions that account for the lion’s share of the TAM.
Of the $28.5 trillion, “only about $2 trillion is directly related to space or the company’s Starlink network,” Ars Technica reported. “The remaining $26.5 trillion is believed to come from AI, largely from enterprise applications.” I had no idea how big xAI had already gotten until the Wall Street Journal revealed Wednesday night that “SpaceX is renting out compute capacity across its two large data centers to Anthropic, for some $1.25 billion a month.” And Anthropic is a rival. It’s no small feat when your competitor pays you nine figures, 12 times a year, for the privilege of using the same data centers you use for your LLM to run theirs. Nice work if you can get it, right?
“We believe we have identified the largest TAM in human history,” the company boasted in its S-1 report. “We believe our next trillion-dollar market is AI compute, which we contemplate will leverage our rockets and satellites for massive orbital deployment.” Putting computer centers in orbit solves the power problem with unlimited solar, and also clears a lot of regulatory hurdles. By hundreds of miles. The problem, of course, is getting all those birds flying. In January, SpaceX applied to the FAA for permission to launch one million satellites into Earth’s orbit to power xAI. One million satellites might be nothing more than a dream, but Starship — aka The Most Powerful Rocket in the World and Getting More Powerful All the Time — is key to realizing just a fraction of it.
The launch window for Starship Flight Test 12 opens at 6:30 p.m. Eastern today. So what’s this about Musk’s trillion-dollar payday? Musk’s salary might not be any bigger than a typical base-level IT support specialist’s, but he also has two yuge equity packages based on stellar performance. In March, SpaceX awarded Musk more than 300 million shares. But those shares only vest when and if the company completes construction of its “non-Earth-based data centers,” including 12 market cap goals that add $6.6 trillion in shareholder value. That’s more than triple the best current estimate of SpaceX’s worth. That’s not the big payout, however.
Musk will also earn more than one billion Class B shares when and if the company establishes “a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants,” and another series of market cap goals that increase the company’s worth by $7.5 trillion. With this IPO, Musk will almost certainly become the world’s first trillionaire. If he completes just one of the company’s two (admittedly ambitious) payouts, he’ll instantly become the first multitrillionaire.But let’s bring all this back down to Earth for a moment. Asa Fitch noted for the WSJ that “SpaceX made $18.7 billion of revenue last year. Getting to trillions will take quite a while, if it happens at all.”
That is an awfully big if. But if investors had to bet on anybody being able to do it — and they’ll finally get their chance with this IPO — it has to be the company’s $54,000 man.

Impressive wherever you look.

• SpaceX Files For Nasdaq IPO Under Symbol SPCX (ZH)

As expected, SpaceX filed its S1. The stock is expected to list on Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas under the ticker “SPCX.” No specific share count, price range, or total offering size is finalized yet (placeholders are used). But, with expectations of a $1.5 trillion market cap, that means SPCX will trade at a 77x LTM Revenue multiple!

Mission and Overview SpaceX’s mission is to make life multiplanetary, advance scientific understanding of the universe, and extend consciousness to the stars. It positions itself as a vertically integrated builder across Space, Connectivity (Starlink), and AI (via xAI acquisition). The company has revolutionized space access with reusable rockets (Falcon family, Starship development), built the world’s largest LEO satellite constellation for broadband, and is scaling AI compute and frontier models (Grok) with real-time data from X.
Key Corporate Details
Dual-class structure: Class A (1 vote/share) and Class B (10 votes/share). Elon Musk (founder, CEO, CTO, Chairman) will retain dominant voting control post-IPO (majority of the board via Class B and overall voting power), making SpaceX a “controlled company” under Nasdaq rules. Basis of presentation: Financials include retrospective recasts for the xAI acquisition (Feb 2026) and X Holdings (via xAI, 2025), plus a 5-for-1 stock split (May 2026). Underwriters: Led by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, and others.
Consolidated Financial Highlights (preliminary/selected):
Q1 2026: Revenue $4.69B, operating loss $1.94B, Adjusted EBITDA $1.13B. FY 2025: Revenue $18.67B, operating loss $2.59B, Adjusted EBITDA $6.58B. Heavy capex (especially AI) and Starship R&D; Starlink (Connectivity) is the current profit engine.
Business Segments (as of/through Q1 2026 and FY 2025)
Space (launches, Dragon, Starship development): Dominant global launch provider (>80% of mass-to-orbit in recent years, >99% Falcon success rate). Key vehicles: Falcon 9 (reusable, ~23t to LEO), Falcon Heavy (~64t), Dragon (cargo/crew to ISS), Starship (in testing, targeting full reusability and massive scale).Revenue: $619M (Q1 2026), $4.1B (2025). Still investing heavily in R&D/Starship.
Connectivity (Starlink):
~9,600 broadband/mobile satellites in LEO (~10.3M subscribers across 164 countries/territories as of Mar 31, 2026). High-speed, low-latency broadband (median ~225 Mbps peak for residential); expanding enterprise, government, maritime/aviation, and satellite-to-mobile (direct-to-phone, ~650 dedicated satellites, ~7.4M devices in ~30 countries). Strong growth: Revenue $3.26B (Q1 2026), $11.4B (2025, +~50% YoY); highly profitable at segment level.
AI (xAI/Grok/X integration):
Gigawatt-scale terrestrial AI training clusters (e.g., COLOSSUS); plans for orbital AI compute satellites (using solar power, starting ~2028).
Grok frontier models (truth-seeking, strong scientific reasoning benchmarks); integrated with X (~1.3B supported accounts, 550M MAUs, hundreds of millions of daily posts).
Revenue $818M (Q1 2026), $3.2B (2025), but heavy losses due to compute/infrastructure investments.
Here’s the financials visualized (xAI is represented by the green slabs)…

Free cash flow struggling under the weight of that giant green slabs…

So, xAI is the giant money suck while Starlink keeps the engine running (but despite breaking out in 2025, Starlink user growth seems to be slowing a little):

Finally, one thing that stood out was that Anthropic is paying xAI $1.25BN per month (through May 2029) to utilize ‘Colossus’ for AI compute.

Musk took to X to explain further his vision for this segment:
“As the recently expanded partnership with Anthropic demonstrates, SpaceX is offering AI compute as a service at significant scale.
We are in discussions with other companies to do the same.
Over time, especially with orbital data centers, we expect to serve AI at extremely high scale.

If you build it (in space), they will come?

As a Democrat, perhaps, yes.

• Is This the Beginning of the End for John Fetterman? (Matt Margolis)

John Fetterman’s chief of staff, Cabelle St. John, resigned on Wednesday, according to a source who spoke to Axios. She had been with the Pennsylvania Democrat since he first arrived in Washington roughly three-and-a-half years ago and was elevated to chief of staff in 2025. Her official last day is still weeks away, but the writing was on the wall long before this week. This isn’t a one-off. Fetterman experienced a staff exodus in 2025, and the pattern of turnover is a sign that his rare independent streak is just too much for his party to tolerate. Former aides have cited frustration with his unwavering support for Israel, his noticeably warmer relationship with President Donald Trump, and what they describe as a difficult working environment on a personal level.

“This is a guy who came in talking about being a champion for labor and he’s gone pretty quiet on it,” the former aide said last year. “This is a guy who, since Trump won, is, for lack of a better word, basically a useful idiot for Republicans. He’s supporting stuff, and it gives them cover to say, ‘Look it’s bipartisan, we got Fetterman.'” None of this seems to bother Fetterman. After Axios published the story, he fired off a text to the outlet dismissing the whole thing. “So much for the turnover issue. Clicks!” he wrote, attaching an image claiming other Senate offices have higher turnover rates.It sounds like he’s not exactly losing sleep over it.
In a recent appearance on Jesse Watters’ show, Fetterman cut to the heart of what separates him from the rest of his party. “Why can’t we just, you know, root for our military?” he said. “Why can’t we just say I don’t have to agree with everything the president has done or the kind of things that he says. But, you know, we should be on the side of America, and we should be on the side of civilization and the free world. And I’m on that side. And I don’t know why I’m the only Democrat that says those kinds of things at this point.”
And that’s the whole problem for his party, anyway. He’s asking a question that should have an obvious answer, and it doesn’t, because the modern Democratic Party instinctively opposes Trump on everything, including things that are just plain old stupid to oppose. They’re even whining about repairing the reflecting pool, for crying out loud.
The message from the left to Fetterman is: You’re not staying in your lane, and you have to be punished. Support the war in Iran? Support strong borders? Support Israel? Well, sorry, you’re way out of touch with the Democratic Party today. This isn’t a good sign for him. Sure, congressional staff experience turnover all the time, but how many Democratic staffers are going to want to join his staff to replace those who left? Working for Fetterman is likely to become a career-ender for those who want to work in Washington, and I can totally see Democrats using this as a means to pressure Fetterman into compliance.
The resignation of Fetterman’s chief of staff may be just the latest domino to fall, but the real question looming over Fetterman’s political future is whether this staff exodus marks the beginning of the end for a senator who refuses to play by his party’s rules. Democrats demand ideological conformity, and Fetterman’s rare independent streak will become a liability, making his office radioactive to potential staffers — staffers he needs to function.

We’ll see more about this. Funny it’s just a report, but everyone seems to call it an autopsy.

• The DNC 2024 Autopsy Is Here, and It’s a Disaster (Amy Curtis)

The DNC 2024 Autopsy Is Here, and It’s a Disaster. Last week, Kamala Harris was telling donors she wanted the DNC’s 2024 election report, probably better referred to as an autopsy, released. Now the report is coming out, and it’s bound to be a doozy. DNC Chair Ken Martin released a statement on the report, admitting it’s not up to his standards. And you’ll soon see why.

Read more about what I have to say here: https://t.co/9wochQttN5 pic.twitter.com/2REle6FPY3
— Ken Martin (@kenmartin73) May 21, 2026

Here’s what the statement says: “When I was elected DNC chair, I commissioned an after-action review of the 2024 election that I wanted to be honest and transparent, and with actionable and specific takeaways for the future of the Democratic Party. When I received the report late last year, it wasn’t ready for primetime — not even close — and because no source material was provided, it would have meant starting over. I could not in good faith put the DNC’s stamp of approval on the report that was produced.
After last November’s massive Democratic wins, I didn’t want to create a distraction, but by not putting the report out, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction. For that, I sincerely apologize. For full transparency, I am releasing the report as we received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged. It does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards, but I am doing this because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word.
There’s a lot to parse in this statement. The first takeaway is that the DNC is such a mess that they looked at this report and had no way of actually fixing it. This tells us their party is just as big a disaster as this report. Second, the ‘massive Democratic wins’ Martin touts have largely been a disaster. Spanberger got smacked down by both the Virginia state Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, Democrats are losing House seats across the country, and approval of Congressional Democrats is at a new all-time low.

Hey Democrats, put down the champagne. Here are your numbers: 70% of voters DISAPPROVE of the way Democrats are handling their job. Only 21% approve. Only 41% of Democrats approve. PITIFUL. All-time LOW.
— Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) June 11, 2025

Ouch.
Parts of the report are being summarized and shared online. The biggest takeaways are not surprises to those who paid attention. It turns out President Trump’s ‘they/them’ messaging was highly effective, Democrats neglected rural voters and local parties, and the Democrats failed to define themselves but relied on ‘not Trump’ messaging instead. We’re all aware that there was significant tension and backroom fighting between Kamala Harris’ campaign staff and the Biden administration. The autopsy shows the Biden team was criticized for not adequately preparing Kamala Harris.

DNC Chair Ken Martin released an incomplete 2024 election autopsy:

• Trump’s “they/them” attacks on Harris were seen as highly effective
• Biden team criticized for failing to prepare Harris
• Democrats accused of neglecting rural voters and local parties
• Report says party… pic.twitter.com/MXkcPA28ao
— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) May 21, 2026

There are also no mentions of Israel, Gaza, or Palestine.

Incredible. The DNC autopsy of 2024 is 192 pages.
*Zero* mentions of the words "Israel," "Palestine," or "Gaza."

(DNC Chair Ken Martin concedes the autopsy does not meet his standards, nor would it meet yours). https://t.co/t1202zQlCs pic.twitter.com/sNjgotf0lm
— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) May 21, 2026

This is sure to tick off both sides of the aisle. The Left’s anti-Israel, antisemitic base will say the Democrats’ position on Gaza was problematic, while other voters will see their increasingly antisemitic candidates and office holders as alarming.

What's going on here? In February, Axios reported that top party officials who worked on the autopsy of 2024 concluded that Kamala Harris lost significant support because of the Biden admin's approach to Gaza.

But the newly-released autopsy…doesn't even mention Gaza or Israel? https://t.co/mj0A5Zz237
— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) May 21, 2026

Law-bending.

• What Really Happened in Virginia’s Redistricting Case (Von Spakovsky)

“Shocking.” “Deflating.” “Sickening.” “It’s not good news.”

If someone heard the reactions of House Democratic lawmakers to the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision on the Commonwealth’s recent partisan gerrymandering scheme, they might be forgiven for assuming the ruling posed some kind of existential threat to the rule of law in the Commonwealth. In a letter to his party, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries referred to the decision as “egregious” and “dripping with far-right partisanship,” the result of “MAGA extremists desperate to rig the midterm elections.”
Chalk these wildly hyperbolic statements up as yet another reason to disbelieve left-wing partisan hype. In fact, Jeffries must have been looking in the mirror when he made those claims, since it was Virginia Democrats’ “egregious” misbehavior “dripping with far-left partisanship” that was the culmination of “Democratic extremists trying to rig the midterm elections” in the state.The Virginia Supreme Court’s decision in Scott v. McDougle was, in fact, a full-throated defense of the state’s constitution, the rule of law, and the people of Virginia’s right to make informed decisions on possible alterations to the Commonwealth’s constitution.
What was lost in the frenzied hysteria of Democrats and their allies in the media in the immediate aftermath of the decision was that the majority opinion, written by Justice D. Arthur Kelsey, simply upheld the process outlined in the Constitution that was required to adopt the proposed redistricting amendment. The Democrats’ hasty process violated Article XII, Section 1 of the Virginia Constitution. There was no partisanship in the opinion at all, with the exception perhaps of the dissent by three justices who refused to enforce the constitutional requirements.
Article XII requires the General Assembly to vote on any proposed amendment to the Constitution twice, with a general election of members to the House of Delegates occurring between the two votes. The court’s ruling centers on that (supposedly) intervening House election, held in 2025, not the recent vote on the amendment itself. The Virginia Supreme Court found that the 2025 House election did not actually occur after the first time and before the second time the General Assembly voted on the amendment.
Early voting (Virginia law allows voting to start 45 days before Election Day) for the House of Delegates elections began on September 19, but the General Assembly didn’t vote on the proposed amendment until October 31 in a “special” session that was itself open to challenge. Accordingly, 1.3 million votes, 40% of the election total, had already been cast when the legislature approved the referendum. That was 1.3 million people who had already voted who had no way of knowing their future representative’s position on an amendment to their Constitution.
The violation of Article XII, Section 1 here is obvious—to everyone but the Virginia government, now entirely controlled by Democrats, which argued that when the state constitution said the Assembly’s vote needed to occur before the election, it meant Election Day. Justice Kelsey’s opinion masterfully dissects this argument as lacking any meaningful support from law or history.

“So we believe in making America great again. You can’t do that unless you protect your borders. I’d encourage our friends in the UK to follow the same path.”

• Vance Urges UK Patriots To Defend Their Culture Against Starmer (MN)

US Vice President JD Vance has sent a direct message of support to Britons standing up for their culture, telling attendees of the Unite the Kingdom rally to push forward despite Keir Starmer’s attempts to silence opposition to mass migration. The rally, held this past weekend in London and organised by Tommy Robinson, saw thousands of patriots turn out waving British flags. Starmer’s government had tried to sabotage the event by blocking visas for 11 foreign speakers it labelled “far-right agitators.”

The Prime Minister openly boasted about the bans on X, writing “I’ll always champion peaceful protest. But the Unite the Kingdom march organisers are peddling hatred and division. We’ve already blocked visas for far-right agitators who want to come here to spew their extremist views. They don’t speak for the decent, fair, respectful Britain I know.” He followed up: “Today the voices of division will be loud. They don’t speak for the country I know, one that belongs to all of us.” A video from the event captured a striking contrast, showing a left-wing woman in tears hugging her masked companion in fright at the sight of the national flag.
https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/2056257812469018990?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2056257812469018990%7Ctwgr%5E5764f5a7abbc04d69e0037cffdd0fe954dcbc4e6%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmodernity.news%2F2026%2F05%2F20%2Fwatch-vance-urges-uk-patriots-to-defend-their-culture-against-starmer-mass-migration-betrayal%2F
Vance rejected the establishment narrative that wanting secure borders equals extremism. “To everybody in the UK who rejects 3rd world migration, I’d encourage them to just KEEP ON GOING! It’s OK to want to defend your culture!” Vance stated. He added, “All over the West is this idea that the way to generate prosperity is to bring in MILLIONS and millions of unvetted people and DROP them into your neighborhoods — and we simply reject that idea!” “It’s OK to want to live in a safe neighborhood. It’s okay to want your job to go to yourself and your neighbors and not to a stranger who you don’t even know. It is reasonable for the people in Western societies to want to control who comes into their country and who doesn’t,” Vance stressed.
He added: “A lot of people, frankly, a lot of people in the media have tried to persuade all of those people that it’s somehow racist to want to protect your borders… even though very often the very people who are most affected by low wage immigration are lower income black and Hispanic Americans right here in the United States of America, and I guarantee that’s true in the UK.” Vance concluded by drawing a direct link to America First: “So we believe in making America great again. You can’t do that unless you protect your borders. I’d encourage our friends in the UK to follow the same path.”
This latest intervention builds on Vance’s repeated clashes with Starmer and European leaders. He previously called out the British Prime Minister to his face over the UK’s free speech crackdown. The US later vowed to use its “full arsenal of tools” against Starmer’s policies. Vance has also long warned about the dangers of Europe’s migration experiment, describing it as “civilisational suicide” He has cautioned that Islamist extremists could seize control of European nukes within 15 years. Vance has also triggered globalist outrage with his blunt speeches on replacement-level migration.
While Starmer brands patriotic pushback as “hatred and division,” ordinary Britons at the rally made clear they simply want what Vance described as basic common sense: safe streets, jobs for locals, and control over their borders. Vance’s words arrive as frustration with open borders boils over across the West. Working-class communities on both sides of the Atlantic are paying the price through suppressed wages, overburdened services, and rising insecurity — effects the political class routinely dismisses. By standing with those who reject cultural erasure, Vance is highlighting a fundamental truth: people of free nations have the sovereign right to preserve their identity and security.

“..If this modality in the behavior of Europeans changes in favor of dialogue, we will only welcome it..”

• ‘Russians Ready For Conversation’ With Europe — Kremlin (TASS)

Russia is hearing statements from European capitals that they will have to talk to Moscow, and it confirms its readiness for such a conversation, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked by TASS about Europe’s discussions of candidates for the role of negotiator with Russia. “Indeed, in the last 3-4 weeks we have heard statements from Mr. [Finnish President Alexander] Stubb, and we have also heard statements from Berlin that sooner or later it will be necessary to talk to the Russians directly,” he said.
“Russians are ready to engage,” Peskov noted. “We believe that talking is always better than leading to complete confrontation, which is exactly what the Europeans are doing now. If this modality in the behavior of Europeans changes in favor of dialogue, we will only welcome it,” he said. The very fact that expert discussions are underway in the EU around this topic is a good thing, Peskov said, adding that “just a few months ago, even such discussions weren’t taking place in Europe.”

According to Russian Foreign Ministry’s Ambassador-at-Large for the crimes of the Kiev regime Rodion Miroshnik, the European Union’s actions show a complete lack of willingness to follow a peaceful path

• Europe Seeks To Block Any Talks On Ukraine Settlement — Russian Diplomat (TASS)

European countries seek to sabotage any negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, Rodion Miroshnik, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Ambassador-at-Large for the crimes of the Kiev regime, told TASS in an interview during a working visit to Bangkok.

“Judging by official statements from EU leaders and the so-called E3 group (the United Kingdom, Germany, and France – TASS), one can see an irreconcilable desire to derail any form of negotiations and reject a political and diplomatic path to resolving the conflict. They declare that they want talks, but at the same time they decide to issue yet another package of sanctions, allocate multi-billion-euro loans to Ukraine, and launch new programs to train Ukrainian troops and supply weapons. There is an old rule: look at what politicians do, not what they say. The European Union’s actions show a complete lack of willingness to follow a peaceful path,” he said.
“I believe it is not enough to simply say it would be good to talk to Russia, this must be backed by actions that would prove that the EU is ready to stop financing the bloodshed in Ukraine. It is no secret that if Western funding stops, the war will end. This is acknowledged both in the West and by all external observers. But for now, Western countries continue to supply weapons and finance Ukraine,” Miroshnik added.
Foreign ministers of EU countries are set to discuss candidates for a possible mediator role in talks with Russia, the Financial Times newspaper previously reported. According to sources cited by the paper, the issue will be raised at an informal meeting on May 27-28 in Cyprus. Potential candidates reportedly include former Italian and German prime ministers Mario Draghi and Angela Merkel, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and his predecessor Sauli Niinisto.
On May 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin, answering journalists’ questions, said that former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is the preferred candidate for possible negotiations between the EU and Russia. Moscow has never been closed to negotiations, he added.

“Drills Are Intended To Send A Signal”:

• Russia Holds Massive Nuclear Drills On Land, Sea And Air (ZH)

Trucks carrying intercontinental ballistic missiles rumbled over forest roads, atomic-powered submarines set sail from Arctic and Pacific ports, and crews scrambled into warplanes as Russia and neighboring Belarus held the final stage of their joint nuclear drills Thursday. Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the maneuvers in a video call with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko. “The use of nuclear weapons is an extreme, exceptional measure for ensuring the national security of our states,” Putin said, according to AP. Lukashenko earlier inspected Russian short-range nuclear-capable Iskander ballistic missiles at a military unit involved in the drills and declared: “I dreamed about this machine a long time ago.”

The three-day drills that began Tuesday come amid a surge in Ukrainian drone strikes. including on Moscow’s suburbs that killed three people and damaged several buildings and industrial facilities. The strikes made it harder for officials in the Kremlin to cast the conflict in Ukraine — now in its fifth year — as something so distant that it doesn’t affect the daily routines of Russian civilians.
Drills involve wide array of nuclear weapons
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the exercise involved 64,000 troops, over 200 missile launchers, more than 140 aircraft, 73 surface warships and 13 submarines, including eight armed with nuclear-tipped ICBMs. The drills focused on the “preparation and use of nuclear forces under the threat of aggression,” it said. The maneuvers also practice cooperation with Belarus, an ally that hosts Russian nuclear weapons. Russian arsenals in Belarus include its latest intermediate range nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile system.
Along with nuclear-tipped ground- and submarine-launched ICBMs, the maneuvers featured a broad assortment of short- and medium-range weapons. Unlike the intercontinental missiles that can destroy entire cities, tactical nuclear weapons intended for use against troops on the battlefield are less powerful. They include aerial bombs and warheads for short- and medium-range missiles and artillery munitions. The Defense Ministry said the Russian armed forces test-fired Yars and Sineva ICBMs, as well as medium-range sea-launched Zircon and air-launched Kinzhal missiles, noting that all missiles hit their designated practice targets. Belarusian troops test-fired a short-range Iskander ballistic missile inside Russia.
Putin has repeatedly reminded the world about Moscow’s nuclear arsenals since the war in Ukraine started in February 2022 to deter the West from ramping up support for Kyiv. In 2024, the Kremlin adopted a revised nuclear doctrine, noting that any nation’s conventional attack on Russia that is supported by a nuclear power will be considered a joint attack on his country. That threat was clearly aimed at discouraging the West from allowing Ukraine to strike Russia with longer-range weapons and appears to significantly lower the threshold for the possible use of Moscow’s nuclear arsenal.
The revised doctrine also placed Belarus under the Russian nuclear umbrella. Putin has said that Moscow will retain control of its nuclear weapons deployed in Belarus, which borders Ukraine and NATO members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, but would allow its ally to select the targets in case of conflict. The maneuvers are held amid an increase in drone activity in the Baltic nations. On Tuesday, a NATO jet shot down a Ukrainian drone over southern Estonia. Ukraine apologized for that “unintended incident,” without specifying what had happened.
On Wednesday, an emergency announcement about a drone flying over Belarus prompted residents of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, including top officials and lawmakers, to take shelter and led to a brief closure of its airport. Ukrainian drones targeting Russia’s Baltic ports and energy facilities have recently crossed or come down in NATO territory on several occasions. Amusingly, instead of blaming the source, Ukraine, Western officials blamed Russian electronic jamming of the drones.
Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service said Tuesday that Ukraine is preparing drone attacks against Russia from the territory of the Baltic countries and warned of retaliation It alleged Ukrainian military personnel had been deployed to Latvia and warned that the country’s membership in NATO wouldn’t protect it from “just retribution.” Latvian authorities said the allegation was not true. Last month, the Russian Defense Ministry published a list of factories in Europe that it said were involved in producing drones and their components for Ukraine. It warned that attacks on Russia involving drones manufactured in Europe are fraught with “unpredictable consequences.”
Some commentators interpreted the bellicose statements from Moscow and this week’s exercise featuring short- and medium-range nuclear weapons capable of reaching targets in Europe as part of Kremlin efforts to discourage Western allies from bolstering support for Ukraine. Asked what message the nuclear exercise was intended to send, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded that “any drills are intended to send a signal,” but wouldn’t elaborate.

“Europe is the ‘jungle’ now. No garden left to speak of.”

• Irrelevant Europe (J.B. Shurk)

Josep Borrell is a Spanish socialist who held several high-ranking positions in the European Union. Until 2024, he was a vice-president of the European Commission and the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy. In that capacity, he ran Europe’s External Action Service, which is the diplomatic body that executes Europe’s foreign policy decisions around the world. He remains a man with a great deal of influence over European perspectives.

In 2022, Borrell created a bit of an international incident when he described Europe as a “garden” and the rest of the world as a “jungle.” “We have built a garden,” he told aspiring European diplomats in Bruges, Belgium. “Most of the rest of the world is a jungle. The jungle could invade the garden. The gardeners should take care of it.” As the head of the European Defense Agency, Borrell’s comments made strategic sense. As he said in that same speech, “The jungle has a strong growth capacity…Walls will never be high enough to protect the garden. The gardeners have to go to the jungle, Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us, by different ways and means.”
Borrell’s speech came seven years after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to open her country’s borders to millions of Islamic immigrants. Originally touted as a humanitarian policy designed to temporarily shelter refugees from war-torn Syria, Germany’s generous welfare programs quickly became a magnet for young men across the Middle East and North Africa. When Merkel declared on August 31, 2015, “We can do this,” she initiated an all-of-society “welcome culture” that quickly produced a full-blown migrant crisis for the whole continent. Over ten years later, the influx of millions of Muslims into Europe has transformed school demographics and local politics, unleashed an explosion in sex crimes and anti-European violence, strained Europe’s hospital services and social safety nets, and exacerbated government debt.
Speaking after the “jungle” had already successfully invaded Europe’s “garden,” Borrell knew there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle. Merkel’s fateful decision to “welcome” Middle Easterners to Europe transformed cities and towns across Europe into the Middle East. Borrell also knew that the European Union’s patchwork defense agency did not have the requisite military and espionage assets to effectively protect the continent. So he tried to fashion his corps of young diplomats into a network of information and persuasion agents who could do Europe’s bidding around the world.
Borrell’s message got lost in the ensuing international kerfuffle over his “garden” / “jungle” division of the world. From Russia to Canada, Africa to Southeast Asia, every self-described “foreign policy expert” took umbrage at Borrell’s bluntness. Perpetually offended virtue-signalers hadn’t gotten so worked-up since President Trump had called Haiti a “shithole country” four years earlier. Just as Conan O’Brien felt compelled to white-knight for Haiti’s dystopian, cannibal gangland by visiting a heavily guarded resort in the Caribbean country and recklessly encouraging vacationers to join him, legions of politically correct snobs from around the planet recorded social media videos from their country estates in which they turned tsk-tsk-ing into a veritable lingua franca for the vicariously aggrieved.
All the “very best people” denounced Borrell for promoting a scarcely disguised restoration of European imperialism, colonialism, fascism, and genocide. Young international students enjoying university scholarships and living in Europe for free made sure to remind Borrell that “diversity is our strength.” Borrell’s socialist comrades beat him over the head with Europe’s prime directive: multiculturalism über alles. Mohammadbagher Forough, a random research fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies, publicly reprimanded Europe’s foreign minister thusly: “This kind of comment puts a serious dent in the enterprise of European strategic autonomy. It upsets, at the most profound level, countries in the rest of the world, because of the history of colonialism.”
In other words, Europe’s “ruling class” and auxiliary straphangers condemned Borrell for daring to defend the beneficiaries of Western civilization. He was encouraged by threat of high-culture social banishment to follow Chancellor Merkel’s example in supplicating before the migrant hordes. The message was clear: Europe’s minister of defense cannot properly “defend” Europe unless he allows non-Europeans to take over the continent. It was further proof that Europe is irreparably lost.
Since his departure from the European Union’s foreign policy perch at the end of 2024, Borrell has spent most of his time in public lambasting President Trump’s global leadership. A staunch supporter of Ukraine who once threatened to “annihilate” the Russian army, Borrell has frequently defended the honor of Volodymyr Zelenskyy by claiming that Ukraine’s holdover president is leading “the resistance” and “deserves respect.” After President Trump described Zelenskyy as a “dictator without elections,” Borrell called the “accusation” the “height of dishonesty.” When President Trump and Vice President Vance took offense to Zelenskyy’s sense of entitlement and disregard for American taxpayers who have paid the salaries and pensions of Ukraine’s government workforce, Borrell screamed on X, “Trump and Vance have put on a disgraceful show. I am ashamed of that behavior.”
In response to Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference last year during which the vice president excoriated Europe’s crackdown on free speech and political dissent, Borrell lectured his erstwhile colleagues: “This is a declaration of political war against the European Union.” Going further, Europe’s former defense minister declared, “Europe must stop pretending that Trump is not an adversary and assert its technological, security, and political sovereignty with clarity and strength.”

The hydraulic pin holding the tower arm in place did not retract.

If that can be fixed tonight, there will be another launch attempt tomorrow at 5:30 CT. https://t.co/DJAdvDYQpH
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 21, 2026

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/2057261488256303134?s=20 https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2057605618085548082?s=20

We once considered a Cholesterol Level of 350 perfectly normal & healthy.

Then it was lowered to 300.
Then to 240.
Then to 190.

Now doctors want your levels as low as statins can force them — no matter what.

Every single time the “safe” number drops, millions more… pic.twitter.com/eqMDLuWKaB
— Valerie Anne Smith (@ValerieAnne1970) May 21, 2026

https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/2057327151964131432?s=20

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Debt Rattle April 24 2024

Apr 242024

April 24, 2024 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:50 am Finance Tagged with: Biden White House, conspiracy, DOJ, draft, drills, government spies, Iran, NARA, Trump 59 Responses »

René Magritte La trahison des images 1929

• Unsealed Court Filings Show Emails Between NARA, DOJ, Biden White House (ET)

• Biden’s America: 40% Of Renters Think They’ll Never Own A Home (ZH)

• Biden Terrifyingly Grows Ranks Of Government Spies (Gosztola)

• The Real Debt Problem (Paul Craig Roberts)

• Ukraine Has Lost Almost a Half Million Soldiers – Shoigu (Sp.)

• No Hiding From Draft Abroad – Kiev (RT)

• West Is Doing To Ukrainians What It Did To Indigenous Americans – Zakharova (RT)

• Germany Holds Massive Military Drills Near Russian Border (RT)

• A Nasty Little Book About The Allied Invasion Of Russia In 1918 (Helmer)

• Gaza Settlement Crucial For Islamic World – Erdogan (TASS)

• Iran Threatens To Wipe Out Israel (RT)

• Western Regime-Change Operations Enable Criminal Activities (SCF)

• US Would Beat China In A War – Intel Official (RT)

• Britain To Put Industry On ‘War Footing’ – PM (RT)

• German Leader Tells Putin He Can’t Quote Philosopher Kant (RT)

25 bullseyes
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782233148668985826

Watters Kise

Trump attorney, Chris Kise, on the unredacted evidence in the Trump document case: The Special Counsel wants to keep everything secret and President Trump wants Americans to know everything pic.twitter.com/KnUqbK86BN

— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) April 23, 2024

Tucker Yon

America is being invaded and destroyed with the help of our leaders. Michael Yon has spent his life covering wars, so he recognized right away what was happening. pic.twitter.com/8EohJ8MYTc

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 23, 2024

Ron Paul
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782792998016761927

if we had never named covid 19 and swerved around it like it was a dinosaur in the road instead of a squirrel, we’d probably have barely noticed it. “huh, baddish flu this year” would have been about the end it of. no lockdown. no mask up. no EUA jab. just life.

Conspiracy, no theory. And scary. How do you get rid of something like this? It’s a huge cancer growth.

• Unsealed Court Filings Show Emails Between NARA, DOJ, Biden White House (ET)

Court filings newly unsealed on Monday in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case include emails between National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) officials, the Biden White House, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding former President Donald Trump’s presidential records. The trove of unsealed filings also revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) code name for its investigation into President Trump’s presidential records was “[Redacted] Plasmic Echo.” A key exhibit included with a motion to compel filed in January was an FBI case file labeled “[Redacted] PLASMIC ECHO; Mishandling of Classified or National Defense Information.” This file, now made public, summarizes an initial review of documents forwarded by NARA to the FBI on Feb. 24, 2022. The review uncovered 106 classified documents across 12 out of 15 boxes, totaling 767 pages.

Last year, President Trump pleaded not guilty to 40 counts related to allegedly mishandling classified documents. In January, the defense filed a motion to compel discovery along with several exhibits under seal, which included emails containing names and identifying information about government officials. The defense has argued that the emails unsealed on Monday indicate communication between NARA officials, the Biden administration, and the DOJ regarding President Trump’s records, alleging coordination in targeting the former president since 2021. One email from NARA’s general counsel to the national archivist discussed drafting a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland concerning “missing Trump records.” Subsequent emails revealed coordination between NARA and the Biden White House counsel’s office regarding the handling of these records.

The Sept. 1, 2021, email revealed that NARA’s general counsel, Gary Stern, had been in touch with both the DOJ and the Biden White House “about this issue.” A subsequent email on Sept. 30, 2021, reveals that the White House counsel’s office “is now ready to set up a call to discuss the Trump boxes.” This email came after Mr. Stern emailed Deputy White House Counsel Jonathan Su two days earlier to “check back in to see when and how you want to proceed re [sic] meeting with [redacted], [redacted], [redacted], and NARA to discuss the Trump boxes?” Furthermore, the defense highlighted instances where NARA officials didn’t disclose certain actions to Trump representatives, suggesting bias in the investigation process. The defense alleged that Mr. Su didn’t disclose to a Trump representative that NARA had already drafted a DOJ referral letter when contacting them to discuss access to notes “from the Trump administration relating to records handling.”

The unsealed emails show that NARA took into consideration the Democrat-led January 6 Committee’s investigation when considering the timing of reporting to Congress on their issues of getting access to President Trump’s posts on Twitter (now X). On Oct. 5, 2023, Mr. Stern wrote in an internal NARA email that the release of a letter to Congress “can be timed with our public release of the Trump social media records … as well as our release to the 1/6 Committee of responsive tweets on the day of January 6.” Mr. Stern noted that NARA had “issues” getting President Trump’s “social media records” because the Trump White House didn’t “capture them through the use of third-party archiving tools.” “I do not think that these problems are something that the AG/DOJ can deal with, but it could be appropriate to report them to Congress, especially since the January 6 Committee has specifically requested Trump’s Tweets from the day of January 6,” Mr. Stern wrote in the email.

Mr. Stern adds that the Biden White House counsel “is now also aware of this issue, and has asked that I keep them in the loop to the extent that we make any reference to the White House Office of Records Management.” Another email shows Mr. Ferriero saying that he had run “out of patience” amid back-and-forth communications with Trump representatives regarding “missing boxes” that, according to a draft email to the attorney general, were reported as having been “possibly destroyed.” The defense, along with a coalition of news media, asked the court to unseal these exhibits, arguing that the court filings are “matters of public record.” The defense has accused the prosecution of withholding potentially exculpatory evidence and alleged bias in the investigation. The filings made public on Monday revealed previously sealed information while limiting the redactions to keeping secret the names of government witnesses.

They were included as exhibits in a motion to compel the prosecution to produce discovery material. In the Jan. 16 motion, they argued that the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith has engaged in discovery violations and has disregarded fundamental fairness in its pursuit of prosecuting President Trump. The disclosures come amid a protracted battle over court documents, with Judge Aileen Cannon having reminded both parties in various court filings of the “strong presumption of public access” in the criminal proceedings, showing a preference for making public as much as possible. In January, she ordered that no unclassified material be sealed unless there were clear risks to personal safety or national security. The back-and-forth over documents has extended the pre-trial motions stage and delayed the original May 20 trial date.

Rising
https://twitter.com/i/status/1781030864681374166

Watters CIA

Obama's CIA is accused of targeting Trump and starting the entire Russia hoax.

The top-secret binder detailing how — is still missing after Trump ordered it to be declassified.

Something definitely isn't right. pic.twitter.com/ywxqUTWauo

— TaraBull (@TaraBull808) April 24, 2024

Mollie

Why would Trump prosecutor Matthew Colangelo leave the #3 spot in Biden’s DOJ for a lower-level job in DA Bragg’s office?

This is a coordinated Biden Trial to take down his top political opponent.
pic.twitter.com/AYuzqQOpJC

— Marsha Blackburn (@VoteMarsha) April 22, 2024

“Gen Z renters are by far the most likely to believe they will become homeowners (maybe it’s because they are also the dumbest)..”

• Biden’s America: 40% Of Renters Think They’ll Never Own A Home (ZH)

Bidenomics 101: the American dream of owning a home has become the American nightmare for almost half the US population. As housing specialist Redfin reports, rising home prices and mortgage rates “are making it harder to believe in the American dream of homeownership. Lack of affordability is the most commonly cited reason renters don’t believe they’ll ever own a home.” The details are dire: Nearly two in five (38%) U.S. renters don’t believe they’ll ever own a home, up from roughly one-quarter (27%) less than a year ago. This is according to a Redfin-commissioned survey of roughly 3,000 U.S. residents conducted by Qualtrics in February 2024. This report focuses on the 1,000 respondents who indicated they are renters. The relevant questions were: “Do you believe that you will ever own your own home in the future?” and “Which of the following are reasons you aren’t likely to purchase a home in the near future?” The 27% comparison is from a Redfin survey conducted in May and June 2023.

Lack of affordability is the prevailing reason renters believe they’re unlikely to become homeowners. Nearly half (44%) of renters who don’t believe they’ll buy a home in the near future said it’s because available homes are too expensive. The next most common obstacles: Ability to save for a down payment (35%), ability to afford mortgage payments (33%) and high mortgage rates (32%). Roughly one in eight (14%) simply aren’t interested in owning a home. Buying a home has become increasingly out of reach for many Americans due to the one-two punch of high home prices and high mortgage rates. First-time homebuyers must earn roughly $76,000 to afford the typical U.S. starter home, up 8% from a year ago and up nearly 100% from before the pandemic, according to a recent Redfin analysis. Home prices have skyrocketed more than 40% since 2019, due to the pandemic homebuying frenzy and a shortage of homes for sale. And the current average 30-year fixed mortgage rate is 6.82%. While that’s below the 23-year-high of nearly 8% hit in October, it’s still more than double the record low rates dropped to in 2020.

Home prices have risen 7% in the last year alone, and monthly mortgage payments have risen more than 10%, which helps explain why renters today are more likely than they were last year to say they don’t see themselves owning a home anytime soon. Many renters can’t fathom homeownership because they’re already struggling to afford their monthly housing costs. Nearly one-quarter (24%) of renters say they regularly struggle to afford their housing payments, and an additional 45% say they sometimes struggle to do so. Rents have soared over the last few years because so many people moved during the pandemic, upping demand for rentals. The median U.S. asking rent is roughly $2,000, near the record high hit in 2022–but the good news for renters is that prices aren’t growing nearly as fast as they were during the pandemic, partly because an influx of apartment supply is taking some of the heat off prices.

“Housing costs are high across the board, but renting is a more affordable and realistic option for many Americans right now–especially those who have never owned a home and aren’t able to tap into equity from a previous sale,” said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. “While owning a home is usually a sound longterm investment, the barriers to entry and upfront costs of buying are higher than renting. Buying typically requires a sizable down payment and approval for a mortgage–things that are difficult for many people today, when the typical down payment is near $60,000 and mortgage payments are sky-high. The sheer expense of purchasing a home is causing the American Dream of homeownership to lose some of its shine.” Broken down by generation, Gen Z renters are by far the most likely to believe they will become homeowners (maybe it’s because they are also the dumbest). Just 8% of Gen Z renters believe they’ll never own a home, compared to 22% of millennials, 40% of Gen Xers and 81% of baby boomers.

“Section 702 may be used to force business landlords, cleaning contractors, delivery personnel, utility providers, etc, to help U.S. security agencies spy without probable cause..”

• Biden Terrifyingly Grows Ranks Of Government Spies (Gosztola)

On April 20, Edward Snowden declared, “America lost something important today, and hardly anyone heard. The headlines of state-aligned media screech and crow about the nefarious designs of your fellow citizens and the necessity of foreign wars without end, but find few words for a crime against the Constitution.” The NSA whistleblower was referring to the United States Senate reauthorizing and expanding surveillance under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. President Joe Biden circulated a memo that cast the Fourth Amendment right to privacy as a “threat to national security.” Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Attorney General Merrick Garland called members of Congress to ensure that they voted to give spy agencies renewed power. Specifically, “Patriot Act 2.0,” as Representative Zoe Lofgren called it, broadened the definition of service providers and exponentially increased the power that the government has to force numerous business and industries to aid warrantless surveillance.

Senator Ron Wyden strongly opposed the legislation and even introduced an amendment that would have prevented this assault on civil liberties. But the Senate rejected his effort to protect privacy. “The Senate waited until the 11th hour to ram through renewal of warrantless surveillance in the dead of night,” Wyden stated. He also added, “It is clear from the votes on very popular amendments that senators were unwilling to send this bill back to the House, no matter how common-sense the amendment before them.” Although the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) renewed Section 702 until April 2025, allowing lawmakers plenty of time to appropriately draft and amend legislation, panic was stirred by Biden and the national security state.

Wyden, who has a track record of challenging surveillance, did not mince words. He described the provision that he fought, which was dubbed the “Make Everyone A Spy” provision, as “one of the most dramatic and terrifying expansions of government surveillance authority in history.” “It allows the government to force any American who installs, maintains, or repairs anything that transmits or stores communications to spy on the government’s behalf. That means anyone with access to a server, a wire, a cable box, a wifi router, or a phone. It would be secret: the Americans receiving the government directives would be bound to silence, and there would be no court oversight.”

The Biden administration applauded the passage of legislation that expanded warrantless surveillance. “The President will swiftly sign the bill into law, ensuring that our security professionals can continue to rely on Section 702 to detect grave national security threats and use that understanding to protect the United States,” Sullivan stated. Section 702 used to primarily apply to telecommunications or technology companies. Now, as detailed by Demand Progress, Section 702 may be used to force business landlords, cleaning contractors, delivery personnel, utility providers, etc, to help U.S. security agencies spy without probable cause. Entities and individuals required to help with surveillance cannot speak about it. Their First Amendment speech rights are curtailed as they violate their customers’ Fourth Amendment privacy rights.

“The minute the dollar goes, American power goes with it. Most of the world can hardly wait for it to happen.“

• The Real Debt Problem (Paul Craig Roberts)

The US dollar is in trouble, but it is trouble of Washington’s making. Republicans and the financial press, to the extent that one still exists, blame the dollar’s trouble on rising public and private debt. The US runs massive trade and budget deficits. These deficits for decades have been alleged to mean the death of the dollar. The narrative was that the dollar would be weakened by having to finance rising trade and domestic debt. When I was in the Congressional staff and later as Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy, I had to deal with this ignorance, and it was frustrating. No one in Congress, on Wall Street, in the banks, or in the economics departments of universities understood the meaning of the US dollar as reserve currency.

When a country’s currency is the reserve currency, a role the US seized from Great Britain as its World War II victory prize, it means that there is unlimited demand for your debt. The reason is that your debt is the reserves of the world’s central banks. An increase in US debt is an increase in the reserves of the world banking system. As central banks desire more reserves, there was always a demand for US Treasury debt. There was zero financing problem. All of the nonsense we heard for decades about the impossibility of paying off the US debt was unbridled ignorance. The debt did not need to be payed off. If it had been, the reserves of the world banking system would have collapsed, and the Great Depression that the Americans experienced in the 1930s, due entirely to the Fed’s failure to expand bank reserves, would be worldwide.

Being the world currency, a role Roosevelt stole from England, means the US can pay its international bills by printing money or issuing debt. What has put this American privilege in danger is Washington’s stupid, indeed mindless, imposition of economic sanctions that then are evaded by ceasing to use the US dollar as world money. When countries cease settling their international balance of payments accounts in dollars, as Russia, China, Iran and other countries are doing, demand for Treasury debt drops. This means as the sanctioned central banks move to gold and non-Western currencies as reserves, that the demand for US Treasury debt drops, and for the first time in recent history, financing America’s tremendous public debt becomes a problem.

To be completely clear, the ONLY reason the US dollar is in danger of a large reduction in its value, is that Biden’s sanctions are driving countries away from the dollar. US debt can become a problem only from the abandonment of the dollar as world money. As US debt is denominated in US dollars, the Federal Reserve can always pay off the US debt no matter how large it is by printing money and buying the bonds. The problem is not that the debt can’t be paid. The problem is whereas the Fed can print dollars to meet any debt payments, it cannot print foreign currencies with which to buy dollars in foreign exchange markets. When US Treasury debt is redeemed, the debt holders (largely foreign central banks) receive dollars. If they have lost confidence in the dollar, they sell the dollars in the currency markets, and the enormous supply of dollars drive down its value.

When the dollar’s value is driven down, the offshored production of American firms, who produce in Asia and Mexico the products they sell to Americans and which comes in as imports, rise in price, thus causing domestic inflation, reducing the dollar’s purchasing power and causing more exit from the dollar. In other words, it is a death scenario–one produced by the Federal Reserve, the incompetent or bought-and-paid-for American economists, a mindless American government, and the mindless financial press. The minute the dollar goes, American power goes with it. Most of the world can hardly wait for it to happen.

JFK

On June 4, 1963, President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order No. 11110, directing the Treasury to produce $4 billion worth of $2 and $5 bills.

The bills, supported by silver reserves stored in the Treasury's vaults, were issued without debt or interest. The seigniorage, or… pic.twitter.com/cG6NbgJuXN

— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) April 23, 2024

To achieve what?

• Ukraine Has Lost Almost a Half Million Soldiers – Shoigu (Sp.)

The Russian armed forces have the initiative along the entire contact line and are pushing the enemy away from the occupied borders, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a meeting of the Defense Ministry’s board. Ukraine has lost almost half a million soldiers since the beginning of the special military operation in 2022, Russian Defense Ministry Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday. “In total, the losses of the Ukrainian armed forces amounted to almost half a million military personnel since the beginning of the special military operation,” Shoigu told a Defense Ministry meeting. According to him, the Kiev regime failed to achieve its goals in the counteroffensive prepared by NATO instructors. “Our servicemen have dispelled the myth about the superiority of Western weapons,” the minister noted. The Russian military will more intensively target Ukrainian logistic centers and storage facilities storing Western weapons, the minister said.

“We will increase the intensity of strikes against logistics centers and storage bases for Western weapons,” Shoigu said. Most of the $61 billion assistance package that the United States allocated to Ukraine will finance the US military industry, Sergei Shoigu said. “Washington intends to allocate almost $61 billion to the Kiev regime to prevent the collapse of the Ukrainian armed forces. Most of the allocations will finance the military industry of the United States. The US authorities cynically declare that Ukrainians will die for their interests in the fight against Russia,” Shoigu said. The Russian military industry will continue to increase the production of weapons and military equipment in proportion to the threats posed by the United States and its allies, the minister added. The Russian Army will receive the first units of new-generation anti-aircraft systems, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said. “This year the troops will receive: the first units of the new-generation S-500 anti-aircraft missile system in two modifications – long-range anti-aircraft missile systems and missile defense systems; S-400, S-300V4, Buk-M3, Tor-M2U anti-aircraft missile systems; and new-generation radar stations,” Shoigu said.

NATO has deployed up to 33,000 servicepeople, about 300 tanks and more than 800 other types of armored vehicles near borders of Russia, the Russian defense minister said. “Today, the grouping of NATO reinforcement troops near our borders numbers up to 33,000 people, about 300 tanks and more than 800 other armored combat vehicles,” Shoigu said. Shoigu also said that NATO drills involving up to 90,000 servicepeople are taking place right now, and the exercises are mimicking supposed impending Russian aggression. The Russian minister also said that the alliance is trying to strengthen its activity in the Arctic, while Sweden’s accession to NATO has increased tensions. “Sweden’s entry into the North Atlantic Alliance in early March has increased military and political tensions in the Western and Northwestern strategic directions,” Shoigu said.

“According to EU officials, an estimated 650,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age are living in the bloc..”

• No Hiding From Draft Abroad – Kiev (RT)

Ukrainian consular offices will not serve fighting-age men living abroad who are unwilling to risk their lives for their country’s survival, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said on Tuesday. Kiev’s diplomatic missions in several Western nations stopped processing such service requests on Tuesday, according to multiple Ukrainian media reports. Documents that have been finalized for fighting-age Ukrainian men are being withheld, reports claim. Kuleba confirmed in a social media post on Tuesday that he had ordered the policy change and that it is meant to encourage men to come back to Ukraine for possible call up for military service. ”How it looks like now: a man of conscription age went abroad, showed his state that he does not care about its survival, and then comes and wants to receive services from this state. It does not work this way. Our country is at war,” he wrote.

The order to deny consular services to all men aged 18 to 60 was first revealed by Ukrainian media on Monday. Kuleba has since described his decision as “fair” and in line with the controversial military mobilization reforms, which President Vladimir Zelensky signed into law this month. The changes include various punishments for avoiding the draft. According to EU officials, an estimated 650,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age are living in the bloc. Kiev has identified that pool as a significant untapped source of manpower for the armed forces. When they come into force next month Zelensky’s reforms will lower the draft age from 27 to 25, tighten exemptions and oblige potential conscripts to update their personal data with the Defense Ministry.

All men aged 18 to 60, regardless of eligibility, will be required to carry papers confirming their registration with a conscription office. Asked in early April how many troops Kiev intended to mobilize, Zelensky dodged the question and claimed that Moscow had plans to enroll 300,000 additional servicemen. Russian officials denied his claim, pointing out that its military attracts enough volunteers to meet personnel goals.

“They bought Manhattan Island for beads, and Ukrainians don’t even get those, only an American noose around the neck,..

• West Is Doing To Ukrainians What It Did To Indigenous Americans – Zakharova (RT)

Kiev’s policies will result in the extermination of Ukrainians on behalf of its Western puppet masters, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry intends to deny all consular services abroad to male citizens aged 18 to 60, except for preparing documents to return to Ukraine, local media reported on Monday, citing the ministry’s internal correspondence. The policy is presumably meant to force men of fighting age to leave foreign nations and be conscripted into military service under a new mobilization law signed by President Vladimir Zelensky this month. The people are being “erased by Western elites and their executors in Ukraine – Zelensky and his pseudo-Ukrainian gang,” Zakharova said on Tuesday, reacting to the news.

She claimed that while Ukrainian governments that have been in power since the 2014 US-backed armed coup in Kiev posed as nationalist, their policies came “from people who historically had nothing to do with the country.” “After most of Ukraine was pillaged and looted, its history rewritten, and monuments destroyed, they moved on to the physical elimination of its indigenous population,” she said. ”Everything just like with the aboriginal population of North America, who were killed in the tens of thousands by the ‘civilized’ folk. They bought Manhattan Island for beads, and Ukrainians don’t even get those, only an American noose around the neck,” Zakharova added. Moscow perceives its conflict with Kiev as a proxy war which Washington initiated and is willing to conduct “to the last Ukrainian.”

Senior Western officials, including US Senator Lindsey Graham and former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, have praised the Ukrainians’ willingness to fight and die for Western interests. ”There could be no more effective way of investing in Western security than investing in Ukraine, because those guys without a single pair of American boots on the ground are fighting for the West,” Johnson said earlier this month, as he bragged to students at Georgetown University in the US about his record of arming Kiev.

Drills are all German troops are capable of.

• Germany Holds Massive Military Drills Near Russian Border (RT)

More than 3,000 German military personnel are taking part in the Grand Quadriga 2024 drills that kicked off in Lithuania on Tuesday. The maneuvers are part of the larger, months-long Steadfast Defender 24 series of NATO exercises that began in late January. Lithuania shares a border with Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, as well as Moscow’s closest ally, Belarus. In a separate development earlier this month, Berlin deployed an advanced military team to the Baltic country as part of plans for a full-strength armor brigade permanently stationed there. Moscow has described the plans as a threat requiring “special measures” in response. The Grand Quadriga 2024 exercise is scheduled to wrap up in late May, and will involve 200 pieces of German military hardware, including Leopard tanks as well as Puma and Boxer infantry fighting vehicles.

In a statement last Thursday, the Lithuanian military wrote that the “exercise is centered around moving two divisions from the Central European region to the Eastern.” “Lithuanian units training side by side with the German participants will plan and execute operations,” the document read. The Bundeswehr revealed that its armored division would be transported by boat, rail and road to Lithuania, where it would “practice defense and counter-offensive [exercises] on the allied territory.” Several more military drills will also be taking place in Lithuania concurrently, including Saber Strike, Brave Griffin 2024/II and Thunder Strike – all of which are part of NATO’s Steadfast Defender 24. Hailed as the largest exercises that NATO has held in decades, the maneuvers will feature some 90,000 troops from all 32 member states, according to Supreme Allied Commander for Europe Christopher Cavoli.

Some 1,100 combat vehicles, including 133 tanks and 533 infantry fighting vehicles, will be involved, as well as more than 50 naval vessels and 80 helicopters, drones and fighter jets. In January, General Cavoli said the drills would simulate an “emerging conflict scenario against a near-peer adversary,” covering thousands of kilometers all across Europe. Commenting on NATO’s war games in early March, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, said they were “undoubtedly increasing tensions and destabilizing the situation in the world.” He claimed that a “scenario of an armed confrontation with Russia is being rehearsed.”

“..the “independent charity that champions Ukrainian culture” which, the institute financial reports reveal, is paid for by George Soros.”

• A Nasty Little Book About The Allied Invasion Of Russia In 1918 (Helmer)

In the last war which the Americans, British, and French fought against the Russians, they were all defeated and forced to run away. Now it’s happening again. But if Anna Reid, author of a new history of the Allied powers’ invasion of Russia and war against the Bolsheviks, titles her book “A Nasty Little War” (lead image, left), what title does Reid give to the present war which the Doughboy alliance is losing for the second time? A Nasty Big War doesn’t quite do their plan for destroying Russia enough justice, does it? A Nasty Little Defeat followed by a Nasty Big Defeat comes closer to the truth, but Reid has written her book in the conviction that it will not and must not come to that again. One hundred and six years since the Russia Intervention of 1918-20 is long enough for Reid to conclude with one of her contemporary British officer sources: “‘Of course it could not possibly be otherwise. But it is unfortunate that events worked out as they did.’ It could have been the epitaph for the whole Intervention,” Reid adds from the British point of view, then but not now.

“So ends a not very creditable enterprise”, she quotes from a report on the desk of British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon in April 1920. Curzon then crossed out “not very” and wrote in “highly dis”. Reid is so certain this is not the lesson of today’s allied war against Russia she declares her conclusion at the very beginning of her book. “There is no simple read-across from the Intervention. Today’s war is not a civil one, and the impressive and staunchly democratic Ukrainians are not the inept, revanchist Whites. The lazy lesson from 1918-20 – that Western meddling in the region failed then, and will again now – is completely mistaken. If the Intervention does have something to teach, it is that Putin will fail for the same reason the Whites did: because he underestimates the desire for freedom of the non-Russian nations…” This declaration is at page 10. Reid’s history runs on for another 350 pages of the same.

Reid cannot bring herself to introduce or mention the Russian president by his full name. He first appears, first name-less, on page 9 “as Putin’s Russia attempts to reconquer its thirty-years independent Ukraine.” Felix Dzerzhinsky, Bolshevik head of intelligence, is more fortunate with Reid. He gets his full name, but Reid adds: “the weasel-faced psychopath in charge of the Cheka”. Dangerous adjectives, weasel-faced psychopaths in glass houses with hands full of them. Reid has similar tongue trouble with how to identify the Russians in the war by name. She repeatedly refers to them as “the enemy”, because the war diaries and operation reports of the British commanders she was reporting described them so at the time. Their soldiers called them “Bolos” or “Russkis” if they were men; if they were women, they used fonder terms. These men did not want to fight – there were mutinies by the Quebec infantry in the Canadian force, as well as in US, French, and British units. More committed to killing Russians were the Japanese and Greek forces. At every turn of events, Reid continues to wage her war against the Russian history of what happened:

“The Americans arrived [in Vladivostok] just in time for a coup. Soviet historians accused the Interventionists of waging a colonial war. This was anachronistic – the hey-day of imperialism was over and untrue insofar as the Allies had no ambition permanently to annex Russian territory.” “Vilified by Cold War-era historians on the left as absurd and hysterical, most of the material [in the British Foreign Office’s Blue Book of Bolshevik war crimes] is in fact perfectly credible”. “Foreshadowing, ironically, a late-Soviet propaganda trope, he [Winston Churchill, then British war minister] blamed what pogroms there were on Ukrainian ‘hordes’.”“There is some truth…in that the Intervention played into a long-standing Russian narrative of encirclement by hostile powers. But it is hard to see, had the Allies stood back, that relations would have been much better. A one-party state explicitly dedicated to worldwide revolution, the Soviet Union was never going to be a normal diplomatic partner”.

This is history topsy-turvied to fit a political message. “Excellent background to today’s events” – this is the endorsement of Reid’s book by Anne Applebaum, wife of the Polish foreign minister, Radoslav Sikorski, whose Siklebaum profiteering from Russia war-making can be followed here. In London, Reid shares direction of the Ukrainian Institute with Applebaum — Applebaum is a patron, Reid a trustee of the “independent charity that champions Ukrainian culture” which, the institute financial reports reveal, is paid for by George Soros.

“..The Islamic world needs to come together..”

• Gaza Settlement Crucial For Islamic World – Erdogan (TASS)

The Islamic world needs to come together and find a solution to the Gaza crisis, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his pool reporters on his return from Iraq, where he was on a visit on April 22; the Anadolu news agency quoted his remarks. “Gaza is where the Islamic world needs to focus, engage in reasoning for a solution, and formulate realistic and effective policies,” the president said. Erdogan added that Turkey will continue to discuss these issues with both representatives of the radical Palestinian Hamas movement and the leaders of countries. This is Turkey’s top priority and it will do everything it can toward this end, Erdogan went on to say.

In his opinion, it would be a mistake to view the Gaza issue solely from the perspective of October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian-Israeli conflict sharply escalated. “The massacres and Israeli mobilization for the destruction of Gaza should change the approach to the issue. Israel’s occupation of Gaza opens the door for other occupations. We will try to involve the UN secretariat and take joint action. If the Islamic world does not come to its senses from the massacres reaching genocidal proportions, it may lose its reflexes completely. Therefore, we cannot remain silent, we must mobilize,” the Turkish president stressed.

“..if it attempts to attack Iran again..”

• Iran Threatens To Wipe Out Israel (RT)

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has threatened Israel with annihilation if it attempts to attack Iran again. Raisi arrived in Pakistan on Monday for a three-day visit. He addressed the recent tensions between Tehran and West Jerusalem at an event in Punjab on Tuesday. “If the Zionist regime once again makes a mistake and attacks the sacred land of Iran, the situation will be different, and it is not clear whether anything will remain of this regime,” the state news agency IRNA quoted Raisi as saying. Israel never officially acknowledged an April 1 airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria that killed seven senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force. Tehran nevertheless retaliated on April 13, firing scores of drones and missiles at several targets in Israel.

Iran has shrugged off a series of reported explosions near the city of Isfahan last Friday, which were rumored to be a response from Israel. West Jerusalem did not acknowledge the reported attack, while criticizing a cabinet minister who spoke about it out of turn. Tehran chose to ignore it rather than deliver the promised swift and severe reprisal. The Islamic Republic has vowed on multiple occasions to wipe out, destroy or annihilate the “Zionist regime,” as it calls Israel. Speaking in Lahore on Tuesday, Raisi vowed to continue “honorably supporting the Palestinian resistance.” He also denounced the US and the collective West as “the greatest violators of human rights,” pointing to their support for the Israeli “genocide” in Gaza.

So far, more than 34,000 Palestinians in the enclave have been killed in Israeli military operations. Israel declared war on Hamas after the October 7 raids by the Gaza-based Palestinian group that claimed the lives of an estimated 1,200 Israelis. Raisi has promised to boost Iranian trade with Pakistan to $10 billion annually. Relations between the two neighbors have been rocky since January, when Iran and Pakistan traded air and drone strikes aimed at “terrorist camps” in their respective territory.

“The slave trade in Ukraine has become one of the most serious problems of our time..”

• Western Regime-Change Operations Enable Criminal Activities (SCF)

The slave trade in Ukraine has become one of the most serious problems of our time. Since the 2014 coup d’état, Kiev has been a key player in modern slavery, particularly for human trafficking and sexual exploitation networks. The political and social instability that has affected the country since the Western-led regime change operation is one of the main factors for the growth of such human rights violations. A recent investigative report published by the Foundation to Battle Injustice showed in details the seriousness of the slave trade in Ukraine. According to the organization, Kiev has become one of the main global hubs in the human trafficking market, with free exploitation and circulation of irregular workers – in addition to the well-known trafficking of women and children in the predatory sex market.

The study points out that more than 300,000 Ukrainians were victims of the slave market between 1991 and 2021. This situation, however, has deteriorated even further since Vladimir Zelensky came to power. It is estimated that since the beginning of Zelensky’s government, more than 550,000 Ukrainians have been enslaved. These numbers are alarming and place Ukraine as one of the main agents of human trafficking in the entire world. In its report, citing sources familiar with the topic and several insiders, the Foundation exposed how the slave trade in Ukraine is not limited to the exploitation of Ukrainian citizens. Since 2021, two reception centers for refugees from Africa have been operating in Ternopil. These facilities were used not only for receiving migrants but also for selling them on the European black market.

An alleged member of the Ukrainian Presidential Cabinet, on condition of anonymity, reported to investigators that the organizer of the Ukrainian human trafficking network is Ruslan Stefanchuk, current chairman of the Verkhovna Rada. It is said that Stefanchuk is the main beneficiary and coordinator of human trafficking networks in Ukraine, working both in the sale of Ukrainian citizens on the international black market and in the exploitation of foreigners who arrive through migratory flows and are handed over to criminal networks in Europe. Relatives of the Ukrainian parliamentarian also appear to be involved in such activities, as a large network of private companies is legally registered in the name of people close to him, such as his brother, Mykola Stefanchuck, and his wife, Marina Stefanchuk.

Stefanchuk and his relatives’ companies have the function of disguising the slave trade, making it appear to be a legal business. Advertisements are made to “help” people in various ways, such as offering employment or financial assistance. Thus, migrants, refugees and vulnerable Ukrainians are lured into meetings and interviews by supposedly legal and responsible companies, but soon after the meetings their documents are confiscated, and these people are captured and handed over to criminal networks. “Everything is built to look as legal as possible. Ukrainian women, children and men are invited for interviews at respectable companies in Kiev, Ternopil, Lviv or Ivano-Frankivsk. They are made tempting financial offers and paradisiacal working conditions. Then, under a plausible pretext, their identity cards are confiscated. After that, they can do absolutely anything they want with them,” source told investigators.

Oh sure. “..we’re not going to know they’re not good until they’re shooting at us, and I don’t want to be in a position where I find out, ‘Oh, they actually are that good’. That’s a problem.”

• US Would Beat China In A War – Intel Official (RT)

If a conflict between Washington and Beijing broke out today, the more experienced American force would prevail but with significant casualties, a US military intelligence official has told reporters. The unnamed official gave a background briefing on Monday about threats facing the US military. He downplayed the Chinese H-20 stealth bomber, currently in development, as “probably nowhere near as good” as the American B-2 or the upcoming B-21 – while praising the Chinese J-20 fighter as “highly capable.” “The biggest… challenge for the Chinese side is actually not so much capability of actual systems, it’s more capability of personnel to effectively employ those systems at speed and at scale,” the official was quoted as saying by Defense One and Breaking Defense.

While the US military has “a lot of experience fighting wars,” the Chinese “don’t really have anybody right now at all, in the [People’s Liberation Army] PLA, who’s actually been in a war.” This relative inexperience would translate into the US winning a hypothetical war with China – although with large-scale losses – should one break out today, said the Defense One source. The Pentagon is proceeding with plans to modernize the US military because Chinese President Xi Jinping “almost certainly” believes a war with Washington is inevitable, noted the official. “I don’t want to rely on the Chinese not being good. Because we’re not going to know they’re not good until they’re shooting at us, and I don’t want to be in a position where I find out, ‘Oh, they actually are that good’. That’s a problem.” the official concluded.

Discussions about Chinese capabilities in Washington have been taking place against the backdrop of a debate about the B-21 bomber program. In February, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall urged the government to commit to the program, arguing that for at least 20 years, China has been building a military “purpose-built to deter and defeat” the US. Earlier this month, however, Air Force chief of staff General David Allvin told the Senate that new developing technologies might complement the B-21, so the service might not end up getting 100 of the bombers as originally planned. The plane, intended to become operational by 2030, is still under development at Northrop Grumman.

“We must not overstate the danger. We’re not on the brink of war, and nor do we seek it..”

• Britain To Put Industry On ‘War Footing’ – PM (RT)

The UK is set to embark on the “biggest strengthening” of its national defense “in a generation” and plans to gradually increase defense spending to £87 billion (around $108 billion) annually by 2030, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced. Sunak made the remarks on Tuesday at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg while on a visit to Poland. Sunak pledged to gradually increase Britain’s defense spending, promising to even surpass the NATO-targeted 2% of GDP by the end of the decade. Annual spending is expected to reach the £87 billion ($108 billion) mark in 2023, he said, constituting some 2.5% of Britain’s GDP.

London is set to allocate additional long-term funding for ammunition production, Sunak stated, arguing that the Ukraine conflict has clearly shown the country needs deeper stockpiles should it find itself in a large-scale high-intensity war or even a global conflict. “We will put the UK’s own defense industry on a war footing. One of the central lessons of the war in Ukraine is that we need deeper stockpiles of munitions and for industry to be able to replenish them more quickly,” Sunak said. “Today is a turning point for European security and a landmark moment in the defense of the United Kingdom. It is a generational investment in British security and British prosperity, which makes us safer at home and stronger abroad,” he stated, hailing the spending plan as the “biggest strengthening of our national defense in a generation.”

The defense spending announcement comes as the UK, one of the top backers of Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, unveiled its biggest-ever military aid package for Kiev, valued at £500 million ($617 million). The “vital munitions” package will include more than 400 combat vehicles, 60 boats, and an undisclosed number of long-range Storm Shadow missiles. “Defending Ukraine against Russia’s brutal ambitions is vital for our security and for all of Europe,” Sunak alleged. “If [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is allowed to succeed in this war of aggression, he will not stop at the Polish border.” Speaking earlier in the day in Warsaw, however, the prime minister admitted that a large-scale conflict was not actually imminent and its danger should not be blown out of proportion. “We must not overstate the danger. We’re not on the brink of war, and nor do we seek it,” he acknowledged.

“..the philosopher’s call “to live by one’s own wits” is as relevant today as ever..”

• German Leader Tells Putin He Can’t Quote Philosopher Kant (RT)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has lashed out at Russian President Vladimir Putin for quoting iconic German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Speaking on Tuesday at an event marking the 300th anniversary of Kant’s birth, Scholz accused Putin of trying to “poach” the great thinker as well as misrepresenting his ideas. Kant was born in 1724 in Koenigsberg (present-day Kaliningrad), which belonged to the Kingdom of Prussia before later becoming part of the Russian Empire. The philosopher is famous for his work on ethics, aesthetics and philosophical ontology, and is considered one of the pillars of German classical philosophy. “Putin doesn’t have the slightest right to quote Kant, yet Putin’s regime remains committed to poaching Kant and his work at almost any cost,” Scholz said at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, as quoted by Die Zeit.

Scholz said Russia’s role in the Ukraine conflict contradicts Kant’s fundamental teachings. He referred to Kant’s words on the interference of states in the affairs of other nations, and defended Kiev’s decision not to engage in peace talks with Moscow. He said Kant believed that forced treaties were not the way to reach ‘perpetual peace’ – a reference to one of Kant’s major works. Putin has been known to praise and quote Kant, even suggesting in 2013 that the philosopher should be made an official symbol of Kaliningrad Region. During a meeting with university students in Kaliningrad in January, Putin called Kant “one of the greatest thinkers of both his time and ours,” and said the philosopher’s call “to live by one’s own wits” is as relevant today as ever.

“A country must live by its own wits… This does not mean that we do not care about the interests of others… but we will never allow Russia’s interests to be neglected. In some countries, among our neighbors, this thesis has been forgotten. Many live by someone else’s wits. This will not bring them any good,” Putin stated. The administration of Kaliningrad Region responded to Scholz’s statement on Tuesday, saying no one has done more than Russia to “perpetuate the memory of the great philosopher and his teachings.” “Immanuel Kant died as a subject of the Russian crown. It seems to me that this, more than any words of all possible German politicians, shows the position of the great philosopher regarding Russia,” the governor’s press secretary, Dmitry Lyskov, said in a statement.

Morgan Musk

"I'm a huge fan of Elon Musk. I think he's got the most incredibly forward-thinking ideas about where we can go technologically. What he's done, nobody else has ever done."
Morgan Freeman pic.twitter.com/CPuVIvdLuO

— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) April 23, 2024

Musk Oz

NEW: Australian Senator Jacqui Lambie calls for the imprisonment of Elon Musk for allowing free speech on X.

Tyrants hate when someone takes away their power to muzzle their citizens.

“Elon Musk has no social conscience or conscience whatsoever.”

“That is absolutely disgusting… pic.twitter.com/7pgxAm0jJf

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) April 23, 2024

Great white
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782690700087169273

Catnip

The unexpected response of this jaguar when exposed to catnip
pic.twitter.com/ut6UbBjfeV

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) April 23, 2024

Carrot
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782584172659519490

Battle cats
https://twitter.com/i/status/1782829098131173629

Fox cat

The excitement of this fennec fox, reunited with the cat he grew up with pic.twitter.com/b0gUSQdjmV

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) April 23, 2024

Moose