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Debt Rattle June 13 2026

Jun 132026
 
 June 13, 2026  Posted by at 10:16 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  7 Responses »


David Hockney Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) 1972
Hockney died yesterday. RIP


• Trump Officials; Iran Deal Delivers Peace, Inspections & Hormuz Reopening (ZH)
• Iranian Minister Framed Diplomacy As Mere Tactic to Defeat America (Salgado)
• Trump Says Iranians Aren’t Dealing ‘in Good Faith’ (Salgado)
• SpaceX Blasts Past $2T, Musk’s Wealth Tops Trillion (ZH)
• SpaceX Just Made Cafeteria Workers Millionaires (David Manney)
• Globe And Mail: “How To Properly Hate” Elon Musk Ahead Of SpaceX IPO (ZH)
• Feds Identify 15,500 Sponsors of Multiple Unaccompanied Kids (Salgado)
• McConnell and Murkowski Remind Trump What He’s Up Against (David Manney)
• The Mullahs and the Lefty-Left (James Howard Kunstler)
• Ukraine Conflict Is ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of Russian Speakers – Candace Owens (RT)
• DNI Tulsi Gabbard Releases New Info on 120 US Govt Funded Biolabs (CTH)
• US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra Deserves a Combat Medal (CTH)
• England Is a B**ch (Robert Spencer)
• Starmer Heads to NATO Weaker Than Ever (David Manney)

 


 

 


 


The war can restart any minute.

• Trump Officials; Iran Deal Delivers Peace, Inspections & Hormuz Reopening (ZH)

Bloomberg is out with some specifics, via an unnamed Trump admin official, providing some further texture to what seems the most ‘hopeful’ (emphasis on the tick marks) development concerning a finalized Memorandum of Understanding to end the war and hash out a final deal… It remains that there are a healthy dose of ifs in here… BBG: US Senior admin officials says Iran deal accomplishes core US objectives and deal reopens Strait of Hormuz [Iran has a very different interpretation of this point]; Iran deal guarantees long-term peace in region and includes inspection regime.
  • If Iran complies, will be rewarded economically.
  • Benefits for Iran accrue if they actually deliver.
  • US expects to sign agreement overt next few days.
  • US to get enriched material under Iran deal.
  • Draft agreement also lifts US blockade and leads to dismantlement of Iran nuclear programme.
  • Iranians don’t get anything upon signing agreement.
  • Not quite at finish line yet, but very close.
  • 80-85% confident a deal gets signed.
  • Iran deal is specific about opening Strait and lifting of blockade and moving of enriched material.
  • Will be significant sanctions relief based on how Iran performs.
  • US seen substantial progress in text of agreement.
  • Regional peace agreement is broad.
  • Agreement on specificity over destruction and removal of enriched material.
  • Confident Israelis will get on board.
  • Some Iranians don’t love this deal, but think dissent is quite minimal.
  • Vice President JD Vance has sought to clarify the US position:

Iran is “not receiving any cash” just for signing a deal, Vice President JD Vance said Friday. Vance said in a post on X that he was “seeing a lot of fake information about a potential deal.” “The Iranians are not receiving any cash, and no funds are being released for simply signing a deal or attending a meeting,” he said, adding that the agreement on the table had been structured, “to ensure that the U.S. and its allies’ concerns are prioritized.”

Only if Iran “meets its obligations, then economic benefits will flow to them and to the entire region.” “This deal has the potential to remake the region and lead to lasting peace,” he said. “The president is going to get us a good outcome, one way or the other.” As a reminder, here are the 14-points issued by the Iranian side on Friday:

  1. An immediate and permanent ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon.
  2. A commitment by Washington not to interfere in Iran’s internal affairs and to respect its sovereignty.
  3. A complete lifting of the maritime blockade within 30 days.
  4. A commitment by the United States to withdraw its forces from the vicinity of Iran.
  5. The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days, according to Iranian arrangements.
  6. The suspension of sanctions imposed on the sale of oil, petrochemical products, and their derivatives, while enabling Iran full access to the financial resources generated from them.
  7. The necessity of presenting reconstruction plans for Iran valued at no less than $300 billion by the United States and its allies.
  8. Conducting negotiations within a 60-day period to reach a final agreement that includes nuclear issues, the full lifting of primary and secondary U.S. sanctions, as well as the cancellation of resolutions by the UN Security Council and the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
  9. Iran reaffirms its commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) not to produce nuclear weapons.
  10. A U.S. commitment, during the negotiation period, not to increase its forces in the region and not to impose new sanctions on Iran.
  11. The release of $24 billion in frozen Iranian funds within 60 days, with half of this amount made available to Iran before the start of negotiations and after signing the memorandum of understanding.
  12. The establishment of a monitoring mechanism to implement the agreement.
  13. The approval of the final agreement through a resolution issued by the UN Security Council.
  14. Final negotiations will not begin before the release of half of the frozen Iranian funds, the suspension of oil sanctions on Iran, and the lifting of the maritime blockade.

The final agreement shall be limited to the fate of enriched materials, uranium enrichment activities, the lifting of sanctions, and the reconstruction program of the Iranian economy, while excluding any discussion of Iran’s missile program and support for resistance movements from the agenda entirely. There’s clearly still some seriously daylight between the warring sides, however, so by close of the weekend – or possibly just within the next hours – the reality of the situation is likely to be made known. Via newswires:

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Says Iran’s decision-making bodies are meeting about the memorandum – State TV.
IRAN CIVILIAN NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS ACCEPTABLE: US OFFICIAL

Pakistan PM: Final MoU Text Has Been Reached Pakistan Chimes In with PM Sharif declaring that “we can confirm that a final, agreed upon text of the peace deal has been reached and Pakistan is now working closely with both sides to finalize the next steps.” Oil drops lower.

SHARIF: FINAL, AGREED UPON TEXT OF PEACE DEAL HAS BEEN REACHED
PRESIDENT TRUMP TOLD ME IN A SHORT CALL THAT HE CONSIDERED IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ARAGHCHI’S POST “VERY POSITIVE” – AXIOS REPORTER

Read more …

Any means to fight the infidel…

• Iranian Minister Framed Diplomacy As Mere Tactic to Defeat America (Salgado)

Two days ago, the foreign minister of Iran once again issued a series of threats against the United States, framing diplomacy as merely a tool for forcing the United States out of the area and proudly declaring that America would not be safe so long as its troops were within reach of the Iranian regime.


Below is one of Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi’s posts from June 9. The language of victory is important not because the Iranian regime hasn’t been using it throughout this operation (it has) but because Araghchi clearly has absolutely no sense of humility or chastened suit for peace. He is not talking like someone who believes he has to beg for peace on the victor’s terms. He is talking like someone guaranteed “peace” on his own terms.

The language is incredibly ironic when you reflect that Araghchi’s regime came to power by overthrowing the ancient Persian monarchy, massacred 40,000+ of its own Persian people in January, and still has tens of thousands of Persian dissidents in jail. The terrorist Islamic regime is Muslim first, not Persian first. But since we all know that, I will move on to Araghchi’s other threats. Here, Araghchi is lying about the status of the Strait of Hormuz, but the important point is how he frames diplomacy simply as another tool for forcing the U.S. out of the strait and the waters and airspace around Iran. For him, diplomacy is the flip side of terrorism; he will use first one, then the other, always for the same goal.

Araghchi also expressed solidarity again with “Lebanon,” which actually means with Iran’s terror proxy Hezbollah, which continues to fire on Israeli civilians every day. The Iranian foreign minister recently demanded that Israel stop defending itself from despicable Hezbollah terrorism if there were to be any deal. His fellow Iranian leaders have all had similar comments.

It is a major concern that any deal to which Iranian leaders agree will backstab Israel, just as the Gaza deal did — after all, Hamas-sponsoring Qatar and Iran would never agree to a deal if it didn’t put Israel (and America) at a disadvantage. Then again, the Iranian regime has also violated every single deal it ever made with America or international entities, so perhaps they’re just planning to sign something to buy time while they prepare for their next global jihad push.

Araghchi, like all the regime leaders, believes Allah has commanded unending jihad on non-Muslims. That will never change so long as they are in power, and America will still be fighting Iranian terrorists 50 years from now if we don’t obliterate the regime now.

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They’re not.

• Trump Says Iranians Aren’t Dealing ‘in Good Faith’ (Salgado)

No one is surprised to find out that the Iranian regime is dishonest, manipulative, and underhanded. Well, President Donald Trump is frustrated that the Iranian regime still is not ready for peace, but of course, he isn’t part of a religion that teaches Jihad is the noblest calling and a shortcut to Paradise, as the ayatollahs are.


As usual, just after Trump announced the final phases of a peace deal, the terrorist Iranian regime leaked fake terms to explode the process and force a redo. Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday, “The terms that Iran leaked out to the Fake News have NOTHING to do with the terms that were agreed to, in writing. What they said, including their weak and pathetic statement on having a deal, bears no relation to the truth. Very dishonorable people to deal with. With them, there is no such thing as dealing in good faith. AMAZING! Also, their totally rebuffed Drone attack last night against Indian Ships leaving the Hormuz Strait is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE. They better get their act together, and FAST!”

The entire ideology of the terrorist Islamic regime of Iran is built around destroying every non-Muslim country, but especially America and Israel. We cannot reasonably expect them to change their entire reason for existence because we eliminated a few of their leaders, whom they believe went straight to eternal reward in paradise. Of course Trump wants peace. So do we all. So have we for 47 years. But peace only happens when both sides want it.

As I reported yesterday, one of the supposed peace negotiators, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi just issued another series of threats this week in which he framed diplomacy as a tool to alternate with terrorism for victory, and wherein he arrogantly challenged Americans to withdraw altogether if they wanted peace. A subsequent report was that Araghchi and Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohamed “Death to America” Ghalibaf approved this deal without consulting Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who rejected it. That would explain the change from yesterday to today.

Trump even excluded our best and only true Middle Eastern ally, Israel, from the deal to entice Tehran, even though this operation against Iran was always a joint one between Israel and the United States. How can there be a deal ending it without Israel? And why would we include countries that never fired on our behalf, like Hamas-sponsoring Qatar and Israel-hating Jordan, or even sharia-devoted Saudi Arabia and Egypt? True, there is no doubt that Iranian leaders would never sign a deal with Israel, but isn’t that part of the whole reason we attacked the regime to begin with — its virulent religious hatred and terrorism? Trump had at one point said that every country signing onto a deal to end the conflict ought to agree to the Abraham Accords with Israel, and it was an excellent idea. Because countries that will not make peace with Israel ultimately will not live up to peace with America.

Americans and Western Europeans learned before World War II that dictatorial governments do not live up to their agreements. And deals made with the fundamentalist Muslim world have never lasted. If Mojtaba and company want to fight to the last leader and die committing terrorism, I say we gratify their wish and protect our interests at the same time by bombing them straight to Hell. Otherwise, the murderous mullahs will be killing Americans for another generation or more.

Read more …

I didn’t see any greatly written articles on the IPO.

• SpaceX Blasts Past $2T, Musk’s Wealth Tops Trillion (ZH)

Late in the cash session, hours after SpaceX shares began trading around $150, the stock surged to $176.52, up 31% from the $135 IPO price.


Musk earlier…

Valor Equity Partners founder Antonio Gracias spoke to CNBC about SpaceX: “And what we’re building is the entire stack from, energy to compute, to launch to orbital compute.”

The key threshold was $140; above that level, Musk became the world’s first trillionaire on paper. This caused a meltdown among Democrats and their left-wing comrades…

Meanwhile, China-linked Neville Roy Singham’s NGO network appears to be firing up its anti-capitalist propaganda machine, and the timing is no accident. These leftists view Musk as a major threat because he just gained a whole lot of political firepower, with fresh capital that can be deployed into pro-America candidates, causes, and institutions that directly challenge the left’s progressive empire.

Latest from Bloomberg:
• The record-setting IPO attracted more than $350 billion in demand from institutions and retail investors after its debut on Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas under the symbol SPCX
• Everyday investors jumped on the stock, but those using Robinhood Markets Inc. encountered glitches in the first minutes of trading that appeared to recede by about 12:30 p.m. in New York
• Shares climbed as much as 31% in their debut, propelling Musk’s wealth even further
• Options contracts on SpaceX will start trading on Tuesday. Demand is expected to be high for the derivatives, which allow investors to bet on future stock moves or insure against a drop

[..] Elon Musk has been minted, well, on paper, the world’s first trillionaire.

Read more …

Feel good.

• SpaceX Just Made Cafeteria Workers Millionaires (David Manney)

A cafeteria worker at SpaceX may soon have a brokerage account worth more than most politicians who do not have a (D) after their names will earn in a lifetime. Think about that. A company built to reach orbit just pulled thousands of ordinary workers into wealth, not by passing a bill or making a promise, but by building something people wanted to own. SpaceX’s public debut turned into the largest IPO in history. Shares opened at $150 after pricing at $135 and then closed at $160.95. The offering raised $75 billion, pushed the company’s value above $2 trillion, and turned founder and CEO Elon Musk into the world’s first trillionaire. From Breitbart:


Real estate professionals are already experiencing increased interest from SpaceX employees seeking high-end properties. Gerard Bisignano, a partner at Vista Sotheby s, reports receiving recent inquiries from several longtime SpaceX employees, primarily in their mid-30s to early 40s, searching for homes in California s South Bay area. The region includes affluent coastal communities such as Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Palos Verdes Estates, all within close proximity to SpaceX s California headquarters. They seem to be in a state of disbelief themselves that they re suddenly going to be able to, in some examples, buy a home for their parents. They re going to have all this discretionary income that they can really do what they want, Bisignano said.

Bisignano anticipates a buying surge similar to the one that followed Facebook s 2012 initial public offering, when home values in neighborhoods near the company s headquarters increased by 21 percent. He also expects strong interest in second homes in desirable California locations, including Mammoth Lakes, Palm Springs, and Tahoe. It’s incredible what a trillion dollars can do when it comes from invention instead of redistribution. Cue Bernie, AOC, and Fauxcahontas waxing on about Musk’s trillion, but totally ignoring the windfall by so many people. From Reuters:

“For many investors, SpaceX is the closest thing to investing in the railroads during the Industrial Revolution and they are willing to pay the Elon Musk ` premium for that opportunity,” said Seth Hickle, chief investment officer at Mindset Wealth Management in Indianapolis. Analysts and portfolio managers said investors should brace for volatility, particularly early in SpaceX’s life as a public company, due to its small relative float and high valuation. SpaceX’s $18.7 billion in revenue gives the company a price-to-revenue ratio of roughly 112, far above other megacap stocks.

“The question remains is, what happens in a couple of weeks from now. Right now, people want to bid the stock higher because it’s a winner at this point. Whether it stays that way, that remains to be seen,” said Todd Schoenberger, chief investment officer at Crosscheck Management in Washington, D.C. Retail investors received about 20% of the allocation, far more than the typical IPO, with some even celebrating an allocation of one share. SpaceX executives, including President Gwynne Shotwell and Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen, celebrated at the Nasdaq market site in New York’s Times Square after ringing the opening bell on Friday. Musk held a separate event for employees in Texas.

The richer story isn’t Musk, though he’ll always draw the cameras. The better story is the people our little commies will ignore: the worker who served lunch, the welder who joined before the applause, the engineer who missed birthdays, and the technicians who trusted stock options when cash might have felt safer. Over 4,000 current and former SpaceX employees are expected to become millionaires. The company’s stock-option culture reached beyond executives and engineers to skilled tradesmen and cafeteria workers. Elon Musk’s executive team built the structure, but the wealth didn’t stop in the boardroom; SpaceX gave employees a stake in the climb, and when the market finally rang the bell, many of them were standing on the pad, too.

America hears many lectures about fairness from people who have never launched anything larger than a press release. SpaceX offered a cleaner lesson: ownership changes lives; equity turns workers into partners. Risk, patience, and competence can still beat the tired politics of resentment. A cafeteria worker with shares is a better answer to class warfare than another committee hearing. SpaceX isn’t a perfect company, and the IPO isn’t a bedtime story. The company posted $18.67 billion in 2025 sales, with Starlink making around 60% of revenue, but it also recorded a $4.94 billion net loss after absorbing heavy AI costs. Investors are paying a steep price for future growth, reusable rockets, satellite internet, Starship, and Musk’s larger bet on space-based AI.

Still, risk is the price of motion. SpaceX has changed the launch business with reusable Falcon 9 rockets, built the world’s largest satellite internet network, and kept pushing toward Starship while older institutions moved at the speed of paperwork. The company now launches more than twice a week and serves NASA, the Pentagon, businesses, and homes around the world. The first lesson of the IPO isn’t that every company should be valued like SpaceX. Most shouldn’t, but the lesson is that wealth creation still works when vision meets discipline and workers get a seat at the table.

Washington can spend trillions and leave families poorer, angrier, and more dependent. SpaceX created a trillion-dollar event and sent thousands of workers home with life-changing stakes. A country that still rewards builders hasn’t lost its way. A company that makes cafeteria workers millionaires has done more than reach Wall Street. It has reminded America that dignity isn’t handed down by bureaucrats.= Sometimes, just sometimes, it comes in the form of a stock grant, earned one shift, one launch, and one risk at a time.

Read more …

The Globe and Mail is’t even an American paper…

• Globe And Mail: “How To Properly Hate” Elon Musk Ahead Of SpaceX IPO (ZH)

Whether it is Elizabeth Warren, left-leaning unions, or Democrat-aligned NGOs funded by dark money, the common pattern here has been an information campaign aimed at Elon Musk to derail the SpaceX IPO. Their motives are very simple: if the game is about power and money, then Musk potentially becoming the world’s first trillionaire on Friday morning represents a direct threat to the progressive empire they have built.


Just as with President Trump, the left has mounted a permanent pressure campaign of ‘useful idiots’ against Elon Musk because he has poured tens of millions of dollars into political campaigns for pro-America candidates – something Democrats, socialists, and Marxists despise. Then, Musk headed up DOGE in early 2025, which resulted in the defunding of USAID – another move by Musk that caused unhinged left-wing NGOs and Democrats to lose their minds.

The anti-Musk crowd was at it again on Thursday, one day before the SpaceX IPO was set to kick off, when a former Wall Street Journal reporter published an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail titled, “SpaceX is set to make Elon Musk the first trillionaire. Here’s how to properly hate him.” Chris Gay, who appears to have a lot of pent-up hatred for Musk, began the op-ed: “Now that the SpaceX initial public offering is making Elon Musk all but officially the world’s first trillionaire, is it okay to despise him just for being one? To broaden the question: are the billionaires associated with widening inequality a bad look for capitalism?”

The op-ed is less about wealth itself and more of a political framing exercise that uses the SpaceX IPO as the catalyst to recast Musk’s soaring fortune as a governance risk. Gay attempts to launder what appears to be hatred toward Musk, centering his argument on democracy, inequality, and political capture. In other words, the target is not simply Musk becoming the world’s first trillionaire, but the perceived threat that his capital, influence, and political alignment pose to the progressive establishment’s grip on institutional power.

Gay wrote, “By donating at least US$250-million to the Trump campaign in 2024, this private citizen positioned himself to kill a congressional budget deal more or less single-handedly, and then to create a bogus federal agency: the “Department” of Government Efficiency. He staffed it with college-age technobrats who among other things effectively dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, which millions of people depended upon for life-critical assistance.”

It’s not just Globe And Mail, the globalist Financial Times pushes the information operation to paint Musk as ‘evil’ …

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Don’t tolerate these freaks.

• Feds Identify 15,500 Sponsors of Multiple Unaccompanied Kids (Salgado)

Federal authorities have identified over 15,000 individuals who sponsored three or more unaccompanied and unrelated minors in what could be a major child trafficking exposé. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche emphasized the prevalence of child trafficking during the Biden administration. Notably, Townhall has previously exposed how federal officials and partner NGOs knowingly trafficked minors. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin added that some of the children went through unimaginably horrific abuse, sometimes enduring rape hundreds of times.


Blanche said, “Today, we are announcing the indictments of three individuals, Maritza Azucena Cahuec Coc, her brother Carlos Agustin Cahuec Coc, and Gladys Marina Caal Chen. This was out of the Northern District of Ohio. All three are illegal aliens from Guatemala, who allegedly took part in a wide-raging conspiracy to smuggle more than a dozen children into the United States by scamming the system and exploiting the loopholes created by the last administration.”

Interestingly, a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release clarified that Caal Chen once obtained fraudulent sponsorship herself as an Unaccompanied Alien Child (UAC). The DOJ also mentioned the new conviction of Guatemalan Juan Tiul Xi, who fraudulently obtained sponsorship of and sexually abused a child. Blanche went on, “This is one example, one indictment, but it is not unique. There are over 15,500 super-sponsor cases that we have identified along with DHS. And again, these super-sponsor cases are when somebody sponsors more than three children, unrelated, and they’re unaccompanied minors that come in the United States.”

Mullin also emphasized how heinous it is that the Biden administration lost track of 450,000 UACs as part of the border crisis, and that Democrats continue aggressively to try to defund the border officers who are rescuing the abused and trafficked kids. Mullin didn’t mention it, but countless Democrat politicians and activists are also actively shielding pedophiles and child abusers simply because they’re illegal aliens.

The DHS secretary said, “We found 146,000 kids so far. 146,000 kids. We still have nearly 300,000 missing. We’re investigating reports to where some of these kids claim that they were raped 6[00] to 700 times. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care if you have kids, if you don’t have kids, I don’t care if you’re a liberal, you’re independent, you’re a Democrat, you’re Republican. If you can’t stand for law enforcement to go find these kids, who are you?”

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“..the swamp doesn’t always wear a Democratic label ..”

• McConnell and Murkowski Remind Trump What He’s Up Against (David Manney)

President Donald Trump didn’t need a long speech to identify the problem. Sitting in the Oval Office, he named Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) as two Republicans who still find ways to make Democratic priorities easier and Trump’s agenda harder. For voters who watched Trump’s first term get slowed by Republicans with cold feet, the names sounded familiar. McConnell is no longer Senate Republican leader; Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) holds that job as majority leader. Yet McConnell still carries weight on defense spending as chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, and his instincts remain clear.


When Trump needs Republicans to move as one, McConnell too often sounds like a man searching for the exit ramp. Murkowski has made her brand on being the Republican who wanders off at the worst possible moment. The Senate passed a $70 billion immigration enforcement package by a 52-47 vote, funding ICE and Border Patrol through the end of Trump’s term. Murkowski was the only Republican to join Democrats against it. When the country needed border enforcement funding, she chose the same side as the people who fought Trump’s immigration agenda from the start.

The Senate’s trouble didn’t stop with Murkowski. Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) spent time during the same vote-a-rama trying to reshape or redirect a disputed $1.776 billion fund connected to claims of government targeting. From the New York Post: The Senate approved $70 billion to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of President Trump’s term early Friday, following weeks of delays amid intra-GOP sniping over a $1.776 billion settlement fund meant to help victims of government weaponization.

The 52-47 final vote approving the legislation came just before 5 a.m., after Republicans defeated more than two dozen amendments in a so-called “vote-a-rama,” including one offered by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) that would have redirected payments from the settlement to members of law enforcement who were injured in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Thune urged Republicans to keep the bill narrow so it could survive the House. Even when the bill passed, the spectacle showed how quickly a few Republicans can turn a governing moment into an intramural fight.

Cassidy has already paid a political price for crossing Trump. He lost his primary after years of anger over his 2021 vote to convict Trump during the second impeachment trial. Tillis has also become one of the names conservatives watch when the question isn’t whether Democrats will resist Trump, but which Republicans will help them do it. The memory of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) still hangs over these fights. In 2017, McCain cast the late-night thumbs-down vote that helped sink the Republican healthcare repeal effort, defeating the bill 51-49. Conservatives remember the moment not merely because one bill failed; they remember it because a Republican senator waited until the critical hour to break the promise voters had heard for years.

Trump’s second term depends on speed, discipline, and Republican votes that stay put. Democrats will, of course, oppose him, bureaucrats will stall him, and courts will test him. None of that surprises anyone. The deeper frustration comes when Republican senators campaign as conservatives and then become procedural artists when Trump’s agenda reaches the floor. McConnell and Murkowski aren’t random names in Trump’s complaint; they’re symbols of an old Washington habit: promise the voters one thing, then explain why it can’t be done once power is available. Tillis and Cassidy fit the same warning in different ways; short-termers and lame ducks can become dangerous because they stop fearing the people who sent them there.

Trump’s Oval Office criticism landed because it carried a familiar truth: the swamp doesn’t always wear a Democratic label. Every so often it wears an R, quotes procedure, talks about institutional norms, and waits for the worst possible moment to reappear. Conservatives remember the moment not merely because one bill failed; they remember it because a Republican senator waited until the critical hour to break the promise voters had heard for years. Trump’s second term depends on speed, discipline, and Republican votes that stay put. Democrats will, of course, oppose him, bureaucrats will stall him, and courts will test him. None of that surprises anyone.

The deeper frustration comes when Republican senators campaign as conservatives and then become procedural artists when Trump’s agenda reaches the floor. McConnell and Murkowski aren’t random names in Trump’s complaint; they’re symbols of an old Washington habit: promise the voters one thing, then explain why it can’t be done once power is available. Tillis and Cassidy fit the same warning in different ways; short-termers and lame ducks can become dangerous because they stop fearing the people who sent them there.

Trump’s Oval Office criticism landed because it carried a familiar truth: the swamp doesn’t always wear a Democratic label. Every so often it wears an R, quotes procedure, talks about institutional norms, and waits for the worst possible moment to reappear.

Read more …

“Until you are willing to harm the left more than they are willing to harm you, they will win. It’s really that simple.” —Aimee Terese on X

• The Mullahs and the Lefty-Left (James Howard Kunstler)

You’ll just have to stand by on whether this war with Iran is over or not, since the Shia true believers’ practice of Taqiyya is a permission structure for lying to infidels (us) when necessary — like, to advance global chaos that will bring the return of the Hidden Imam (Mahdi) to fill the world with justice, and establish Islamic rule. (Got that?) One might wonder, of course, whether the majority of Iran’s people have had enough of the true believers in charge and their true belief in apocalypse.


President Trump’s promise to bring exactly that down on them seems to have had a clarifying effect. The option remains open to “bomb the shit out of them,” as he put it, while keeping their economy in a Macumba Death grip choke-hold. In preliminary strikes Thursday, the US Military might have demonstrated an ability to go after whatever they have left of missile and drone launch sites. In any case, skeptics abound. . . but, admit it, an actual peace agreement would be quite a coup.

It would distasteful most of all to the mass formation lunatics of America’s Lefty-left “Resistance.” Anything that advances our country’s actual interests is hateful to them. In fact, when you think of it, the Lefty-left is in thrall to the same sort of world-ending chaos as the mullahs and their IRGC henchmen. The mullahs have their vision of the post-apocalyptic Islamic utopia and the Lefty-left has its dream of a post-revolutionary socialist nirvana where everyone is equal (except those who are more equal — and get to boss around the rest of us.)

Yeah, it’s an old story here in Western Civ, this recurring drive to level the existing social hierarchy so as to abolish the tendency of some people to do better in life than others. It never works out. It always leads to mass slaughter of some kind. It always ends in rueful disappointment and a return to the free-for-all that is the human project. The outstanding question might be: why do so many in the West continue to believe it?

The current uprising comes out of the strange conversion of Liberalism to Lefty-left Democratic-Socialist Progressivism. Remember, liberalism was pure live-and-let-live, with an emphasis on minimal government intrusion in our affairs, especially economic affairs. The Liberals of Boomerdom — the campus nirvanas of the 1960s — were contemptuous of government generally, but especially the FBI and the CIA. And, of course, the hippie vanguard was socially and culturally all about the freedom to do your own thing. Freedom of speech was a leading concern.

The Lefty-left, as it evolved under Barack Obama and “Joe Biden,” was about rigid intolerance for opposing ideas and maximal government involvement in your life, especially economic and sexual — making a pass at a girl became subject to litigation. The FBI was loosed on dissenters from Lefty-left policies. Juridical sadism became systematized as Lawfare. The Lefty-left constructed a huge censorship apparatus; no more freedom of speech. They used law and regulation to attempt social leveling; no more discipline in school for black kids because . . . racism! Discriminate against Whitey for jobs. . . anti-racism! Election fraud = “our democracy.” You see how all that went?

Turns out, they wanted to use the government to overthrow the government! And the social order it rode in on! Hence, the ten-year-long crusade to destroy one Donald Trump, the peculiar “Gray Champion” of our Fourth Turning, who turned out to be a staunch counter-revolutionary, that is, an opponent of this new Democratic-Socialist Progressive (wannabe-communist) corps of chaos agents.

One schematic way of understanding this dynamic is Peter Turchin’s theory of Elite Overproduction. By the early 2000s, with anybody and everybody going to college, there were not enough job positions in the real productive economy for this spewage of college degree-holding entrees to the Professional / Managerial Class. By this time, coincidentally, the colleges they were graduating from were infested by three generations of Marxist professors — i.e., adults enjoying cozy institutional security, with no experience in the real world, free to indulge in Marxian revenge fantasies and make them the basis of their teaching.

It was the perfect setup for the emergence of a matrix of NGOs and political activist orgs that could employ all these college graduates which the real economy had no place for. And the new hires were pre-programmed in the ideology of grievance, tinged with racial and sexual animus in addition to economic complaint.

So, voila! — America (and Western Civ generally) became infested with these pernicious Lefty-left operations, which became symbionts of the government themselves, many of the orgs dependent on government (USAID) to fund their activities and pay the management. They got scads of additional money from wealthy freelance chaos maestros like George Soros, Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, Reid Hoffman, Neville Roy Singham and others.

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That’s exactly what it is. Carried out by nazis.

• Ukraine Conflict Is ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of Russian Speakers – Candace Owens (RT)

The Ukraine conflict appears to be an “ethnic cleansing” project aimed at removing the Russian-speaking population from the country’s eastern border regions, US conservative commentator Candace Owens has said. Owens made the remarks in an interview with Russian filmmaker and TV host Nikita Mikhalkov during a discussion about the roots of the conflict and the West’s attitude toward Russia. “I think what’s happening in Ukraine is an ethnic cleansing,” Owens said, arguing that it was “obvious” that large numbers of fighting-age men were being killed, and suggested that “the ultimate goal” of those behind the conflict was to move in “other people” to Ukraine’s border regions.


Moscow has long maintained that the conflict stems from the Western-backed 2014 coup in Kiev, which overthrew then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, and the subsequent military campaign launched by the new authorities against Donbass, where much of the population is Russian-speaking and historically close to Russia. Mikhalkov stressed that Russia was not fighting Ukrainians but “Satan,” arguing that Kiev had turned against Russia, the Orthodox faith and the shared history of the two peoples. Since 2014, Ukraine has effectively banned the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and barred the use of the Russian language in virtually all aspects of life.

Owens agreed with the broader religious framing of the conflict, suggesting that “satanic” forces have established a foothold in the West. She pointed to modern France and the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony, which included a parody of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper with drag performers and LGBT imagery, as an example of Satanism and a mockery of Christianity. She also noted that “satanic” forces in the West fear Russia because its emphasis on history gives people a different understanding of the world.

Owens linked that idea to several major revolutions, including the French Revolution of 1789 and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which she described as “satanic.” After taking power, the Bolsheviks launched a violent anti-religious campaign against the Russian Orthodox Church, seizing church property, persecuting clergy and promoting state atheism. Owens stated that the West’s continued hostility toward Russia appears to be driven by the descendants of Russian Jewish families associated with the assassination of Tsar Nicholas II and the Bolshevik Revolution.

She argued that in the early 20th century, many of these families emigrated to the West, where they gained influence and power, including in the media, and have continued to promote anti-Russian narratives. Russia has repeatedly argued that the Ukraine conflict was triggered by Kiev’s persecution of Russian speakers in Donbass and by Western efforts to turn Ukraine into an anti-Russian project. Kiev and its Western backers have rejected Moscow’s justification for the military operation, describing it as an unprovoked invasion.

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40 labs in Ukraine alone?! The mind boggles…

• DNI Tulsi Gabbard Releases New Info on 120 US Govt Funded Biolabs (CTH)

Moments ago, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released the first batch in a series of declassified documents highlighting 120 U.S. government biolabs that are operating throughout the world. Many of these biolabs are working on weaponized viruses’ and present a significant threat to public safety.


TULSI GABBARD – “Today, I’m releasing never before seen intelligence revealing new evidence of past US government funding for more than 120 biolabs in over 30 countries, including Ukraine. In support of President Trump‘s Executive Order to end federal funding of dangerous gain of function research around the world, and increase transparency and accountability, ODNI will continue working with partners across the Administration to identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain, and what “research” is being conducted.” WATCH:

DNI Press Release: WASHINGTON D.C. — After months of searching through Intelligence Community holdings and files, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard is revealing new evidence of longstanding United States government funding for more than 120 biolabs in over 30 countries. These biolabs include labs in Ukraine, which may be at risk of compromise due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. For example, the Intelligence Community previously warned that a US-funded biolab in Ukraine likely housed dangerous pathogens and remained vulnerable to longstanding threats of Russian attack, seizure, or damage.

Until now, evidence regarding the full existence and funding of these laboratories had been knowingly withheld from the American people. The information surrounding the existence, history, locations and funding of these US funded biolabs has been intentionally covered up by powerful people falsely, claiming that they do not exist and accusing anyone who says otherwise to be foreign assets and traitors to America. Many of these U.S. government-funded biolabs are currently or have previously engaged in research using hazardous and highly contagious pathogens, in some cases to include dangerous Gain-of-Function research, with very little visibility or oversight.

President Trump understands the serious threat dangerous Gain-of-Function research poses to the American people, which is why he took decisive action on May 25, 2025, signing EO 14292 to end federal funding of Gain-of-Function research around the world.

“Despite the obvious potential for catastrophic global impact research on dangerous pathogens in biolabs can have, politicians, so-called health professionals like Dr. Fauci, and entities within the Biden administration’s national security team lied to the American people about the existence of U.S.-funded and supported biolabs, and threatened those who attempted to expose the truth. ODNI will continue to work closely with partners across the government to identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain to end dangerous Gain-of-Function research that threatens the health and wellbeing of the American people and people around the world,” said DNI Gabbard.

DNI Gabbard issued new guidance to the Intelligence Community directing increased collection on these laboratories and facilities overseas. This directive is already providing new details on clinical trials that are underway at these facilities, raising significant ethical, financial, and security concerns regarding these supposed public health initiatives and U.S. national security.

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Will Canada ever be free again?

• US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra Deserves a Combat Medal (CTH)

Watching U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra discussing current U.S-Canada trade dynamics is to be witnessing one man behind enemy lines trying to explain a situation the audience cannot fathom. It really is remarkable. The longer he is assigned to this almost hopeless task, the more he develops an ‘I don’t give a damn‘ attitude, regardless of the audience size. It’s completely understandable.


The Canadian government controls the information available to the entire country. The Canadian media push that skewed information to the entire country. Then there’s Ambassador Hoekstra; the guy with completely different information, trying against all odds to present a viewpoint that is so fundamentally different the audience cannot grasp it. In this video segment all of the dynamics come into play, but that’s not the real value in this capture. WATCH:

What I would recommend to all those who have followed this genuinely bizarre disassociation topic, is to go to YouTube and read the comments underneath this CTV video. I love and respect our Canadian Treepers who are here with us in the CTH branches of discussion. I cannot fathom what it must be like to live in Canada amid this level of social, cognitive dissonance. You have my utmost respect and sympathy.

Within all of the Canadian free trade agreements (FTAs), regardless of nation, there is something called a baseline memorandum of understanding (MOU). That MOU outlines how the trade agreement for goods sold into Canada are contingent upon Canada retaining access to the U.S. market. When the USMCA is dissolved, almost every single FTA organized by the Canadian government that matters, collapses. Canadians have no concept of what is coming.

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“… there’s no mistaking it..”

• England Is a B**ch (Robert Spencer)

The news is as appalling, infuriating, sick-making, inexcusable, and earth-shaking, but one thing it isn’t is surprising. The revelation that one of the chief financiers of the principal forces arrayed against Britain, and the West in general, is the British government, is all too much in keeping with the suicidal leftism we have seen from that government (whether the Tories or Labour are in power) for years now. So of course they’re funding ISIS. What else would they do? And the rot is even deeper than that.


The Daily Mail reported Monday that the British government “gave more than £28 billion in taxpayer cash to its enemies over six years, a leaked government dossier revealed last night.” And not just any enemies, either. If the British government had really given 28 billion pounds to its enemies, it would have forked over the dough to Tommy Robinson. But instead, the learned solons in London gave the money to their friends. You know, like ISIS.

The Mail states that “terrorists such as the Islamic State in Syria group, hostile states including Russia and criminal gangs received the vast sum from foreign aid, Covid relief loans and the benefits system, which an expert said was an ‘ATM for terrorists.’” And as these things always do, it gets worse. The report “revealed that Britain helped companies linked to the Chinese military pursue their own research between 2015 and 2021.” The Islamic State, Russia, China, and criminal gangs: all on the British taxpayer dole.

How could this have happened? Pondering that question called to mind a phrase I have not heard in decades, since the days when I was a young Marxist enjoying the benefits of an expensive university education: “Inglan is a b**ch.” (“Inglan” is, of course, Jamaican patois for “England.”) This pungent phrase is actually the title of a catchy little song, the handiwork of a Jamaican “dub poet” named Linton Kwesi Johnson, who has lived in the land for which he has such contempt since 1963 (he is now 73 years old).

Linton Kwesi Johnson penned this classic tune about the miseries of living in his adopted homeland in 1980, and one of my fellow employees at Revolution Books, the Revolutionary Communist Party’s bookstore, introduced me to it not long after that. It never occurred either to her or to me that it was ironic in the extreme for Johnson to be complaining about Britain from Britain; after all, if he hated it there so much, why didn’t he just move back to Jamaica?

For whatever reason, he didn’t, and his choice to remain in the country he calls a “b**ch” has been rewarding indeed. He said in 2018 that he became a “dub poet” as a “way of expressing the anger, the passion of the youth of my generation in terms of our struggle against racial oppression. Poetry was a cultural weapon in the black liberation struggle, so that’s how it began.” He claimed in the same interview that “it was a myth that immigrants didn’t want to fit into British society. We weren’t allowed.”

Without a trace of irony, that same interview notes that Johnson “became only the second living poet to have his work published by Penguin Modern Classics, and was the 2012 winner of the Golden PEN award for his ‘distinguished service to literature.” Another laudatory profile details some of the numerous honors Johnson has received in the UK: “LKJ was awarded the C Day Lewis Fellowship in 1977. He became the writer-in-residence for the London Borough of Lambeth for that year. He went on to work as the Library Resources and Education Officer at the Keskidee Centre, the first home of Black theatre and art. He has been made an Associate Fellow of Warwick University (1985), an Honorary Fellow of Wolverhampton Polytechnic (1987),” and on and on.

Yeah, wow, “Inglan” is really a “b**ch,” eh? Britain didn’t persecute Linton Kwesi Johnson. It didn’t consign him to menial work, or deny him work altogether. Instead, it made him a celebrity, a wealthy, cosseted giant of literature and music. What a b**ch!Laden with honors, treated with unstinting respect and deference in his dotage from the British intelligentsia, Linton Kwesi Johnson is just one of many cultural heroes in the West who hate and denigrate the very cultures that celebrate them. The UK, the U.S., Canada and continental Europe have made revered figures out of numerous people who heap contempt on the native people and their culture and civilization. The situation has advanced to the point that one can hardly expect to have a voice in the culture at all unless one despises that culture.

In light of that, is it really all that shocking that the British government would be handing over taxpayer money to ISIS? This wasn’t just appeasement on the order of “We’ll pay you not to hurt us.” It was an act of self-abnegation of an inferior toward a superior. The British government is filled top to bottom today with people who have raised on the idea that the native culture is rotten. Why shouldn’t they hand over the money British citizens have earned to people who are not tainted with Britishness? The Jamaican transplant Linton Kwesi Johnson, hater of the land that welcomed him, his head bowed down with the weight of his medals and honors, is the symbol of contemporary Britain. And it looks as if he was right all along: “Inglan,” financier of the Islamic State, really is a b**ch.

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Starmer’s roleis to waste away the last bits of respect Englan’ has.

• Starmer Heads to NATO Weaker Than Ever (David Manney)

Keir Starmer lost two defense officials in one day, and both men left over the same basic charge: Britain’s defense plans don’t match the danger in front of it. John Healey, the UK defense secretary, resigned today. Al Carns, the minister for the armed forces, followed him out the door hours later. For a prime minister already limping through 2026, the timing could hardly be worse. Healey told Starmer that the government’s financial settlement for defense fell well short of what’s required, writing that Starmer and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves had not committed enough money to keep Britain safe while threats from Russia, Iran, and other hostile powers grew sharper.


The Guardian reviews portions of Healey’s letter and applies their interpretation of the message behind the words. “You have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats.” A mere 250 words in, and we get to the crux. Starmer, Healey notes, recognised both the scale of the threat and the need for more funding, based around the defence investment plan (Dip), which had been due this week but is now delayed. Healey then spells out what many in Westminster assumed – that the delay was owing to wrangling with the Treasury, and that Rachel Reeves’s department was blocking the sorts of sums Healey wanted.

Notably more wounding is the notion that Starmer was “unable” to stop this. Healey, it should be remembered, was among four cabinet ministers who spoke to the prime minister shortly after May’s local elections, asking him to consider his future given the heavy Labour losses. Here, Healey does not sound convinced that Starmer has since got a grip on things. Fox News reports that the resignations reached a “seismic” crisis for Starmer. Healey’s departure stemmed from a dispute over the delayed Defense Investment Plan (DIP) — the government’s long-promised roadmap for military investment and readiness — and as NATO allies face renewed pressure from Trump to boost defense spending.

“John Healey’s resignation is a seismic moment for the government and the Ministry of Defense,” Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Senior Associate Fellow Ed Arnold told Fox News Digital. “For the government, it creates a sequence of political headaches in terms of a replacement, and trying to get the Defense Investment Plan published.” Carns, a decorated former Royal Marines officer who served multiple tours in Afghanistan, said he couldn’t defend the spending level in good conscience from the government’s front bench. Starmer quickly named Dan Jarvis, a former British Army officer and Labour MP, as secretary of state for defense. Jarvis brings military experience, which helps.

Still, a hurried appointment can’t erase the sight of two senior defense figures walking away at the same moment Britain needs a steady voice. Governments survive resignations, but they have a more difficult time surviving resignations that confirm what critics already suspected. Starmer won a landslide in 2024 and looked, for a brief season, like a man who had pulled Labour out of exile and into command. Two years later, the room feels colder. Labour took heavy losses in the May 2026 local elections, including defeats in areas the party once treated like family ground. Starmer accepted responsibility and vowed to keep going, but the result fed open pressure inside Labour and gave Nigel Farage’s Reform UK a national opening. From Reuters:

“The main beneficiary was the populist Reform UK party of Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, which gained more than 1,000 council seats in England, and will likely form the main opposition in Scotland and Wales to the pro-independence Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru.” Early results underscored the fracturing of Britain’s traditional two-party system, with the once-dominant Labour and Conservative parties losing votes not only to Reform, but to the left-wing Green Party at the other end of the political spectrum, and to nationalists in Scotland and Wales.

The defense resignations deepen a problem Starmer had already made for himself. Earlier this year, he restricted the United States from using British bases for offensive strikes against Iran, allowing only limited defensive missions against Iranian missile targets. President Donald Trump was dealing with a dangerous Middle East moment, and Starmer chose a narrow lane. He may have thought he was showing caution, but he also reminded Washington that Britain’s help now comes wrapped in hesitation.

Now comes NATO. The alliance meets in Ankara, Turkey, on July 7 and 8, with Secretary General Mark Rutte chairing the summit. President Trump is expected to press allies hard on defense spending, and Britain will arrive with fresh churn at the top of its defense team.

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