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Debt Rattle May 8 2026

May 082026
 
 May 8, 2026  Posted by at 10:00 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  1 Response »


Pablo Picasso Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon 1907


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

 


 

 


 


How to keep the ceasefire intact.

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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China is not in first row.

• First Chinese Tanker Attacked Near Hormuz (ZH)

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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Africa it is then.

• Visualizing The Stunning Global Fertility Divide (ZH)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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It is scary.

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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10 years ahead of his own time.

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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