Hormuz Archives - Page 3 of 3 - The Automatic Earth

"I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large, there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad."

— Alexis de Tocqueville pic.twitter.com/5kEDStXKHJ
— Humble Flow (@HumbleFlow) March 21, 2026

Christopher Hitchens: ”In 1786, when the United States was barely a country, it was having its sailors taken as slaves by the Barbary states, the states of the Ottoman Empire and North Africa. Tripoli, shores of Tripoli. Ships stopped, its crews carried off into slavery. We… pic.twitter.com/hbRRR4mCYP
— Taya (@travelingflying) March 21, 2026

https://twitter.com/Thevictoria76/status/2035326809483706368?s=20 https://twitter.com/Neccccy/status/2035362915256016913?s=20 https://twitter.com/ivan_8848/status/2035321243969241307?s=20

Splitting up the Arab world.

• Saudi Arabia & UAE Inch Closer To Joining US-Israeli War (MEE)

Earlier this month, Elbridge Colby, a senior official in the US Department of War, held a call with Saudi Arabian Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman, who is also the brother and top adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Iran’s attacks on US bases in the Gulf were heating up, and the US needed expanded access and overflight permissions. Saudi Arabia agreed to open King Fahd Air Base in Taif, in Western Saudi Arabia, to the Americans, multiple US and western officials familiar with the matter told Middle East Eye.

The base is important because it is farther from Iranian Shahed drones than Prince Sultan Air Base, which has come under repeated Iranian attacks. Taif is also close to Jeddah, the Red Sea port that has become a critical logistics hub since Iran effectively took control of the Strait of Hormuz. Current and former US officials tell MEE that if the Trump administration is preparing for a longer war on Iran, Jeddah may be critical for sustaining US armed forces. Thousands of US ground troops are en route to the region from East Asia.
Saudi Arabia’s decision to expand base access, current and former officials say, underscores a shift in how the kingdom and some other Gulf states are responding to the US-Israeli war on Iran. “The attitude in Riyadh has shifted towards supporting the US war as a way to punish Iran for strikes,” a western official in the Gulf told MEE. Trump and the Saudi crown prince have been holding regular phone calls for the last three weeks, the US and western officials told MEE. The UAE has also told the US that it is geared up for a long war, putting no pressure on Washington to wrap up the conflict soon. In a phone call earlier this month, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed told his counterpart, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, that the UAE is prepared for the war to last up to nine months, the US official told MEE.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar lobbied US President Donald Trump against attacking Iran. While they host US military bases, the states insisted that they not be used as launchpads when the US joined Israel on 28 February to attack Iran. Despite this, the Gulf states have paid the heaviest price for the US’s decision to go to war. The UAE alone has intercepted 338 ballistic missiles and 1,740 drones since the start of the war. Qatar suffered the worst attack of any Gulf state despite being a critical mediator that has consistently focused on de-escalation. Iran responded to an Israeli attack on its South Pars gas field this week by launching missiles at Qatar’s Ras Laffan refinery. The damage will take three to five years to repair and affects 17 percent of Qatar’s gas production, according to Qatari energy minister Saad al-Kaabi.
Some states, like Oman, have said that Israel hoodwinked the US into launching an unlawful attack on Iran. There is also anger at the US over its value as a security guarantor. The US has been unable to replenish the Gulf states’ Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defence interceptors. The US bases in the Gulf, meant to protect the Arab monarchies, have been targeted. Meanwhile, oil and gas exports have ground to a halt. Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi wrote in The Economist this week that this is “not America’s war” and that Washington’s allies needed to make clear to the US that it was dragged into a conflict with little to gain.
Busaidi’s remarks contrasted with those of Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan. After Riyadh and the port of Yanbu were attacked by Iran, he delivered a blistering message to the Islamic Republic. One former US intelligence official described it as “fighting words”. Farhan said Iran had committed “heinous attacks” which “are an extension of [Iran’s] behavior that is based on extortion and sponsoring militias, threatening the security and stability of neighbouring countries”. “Saudi Arabia has repeatedly tried to extend its hand to the Iranian brothers…but the Iranians did not reciprocate,” he said, adding that the kingdom reserved the right to take “military action”.
While no one in the Gulf wanted a war with Iran, the Gulf states are approaching the conflict from varied, evolving perspectives as it drags into its fourth week, experts say. Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the region, and like the UAE, it has ambitions to project hard power abroad. In fact, Saudi Arabia attacked the UAE’s allies in Yemen just before the war on Iran erupted. Oman has carved out a niche for itself as a mediator. As one of the countries least hit by Iran in the region, the relative security of its capital, Muscat, is also being noticed by expatriates leaving Dubai. “There is a divide emerging in the Gulf,” Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University, who speaks with the Saudi Arabian crown prince, told MEE.
“Saudi Arabia and the UAE were neutral before this war. But as they have been attacked, they have come to the realization that they cannot live with this hardline Iranian regime next door, which can, at a moment’s notice, extort the region by closing the Strait of Hormuz,” he added. The Saudi capital, Riyadh, and the kingdom’s energy infrastructure have been targeted by Iran. But the conflict is widely seen in the region, and increasingly inside the US, as an Israeli power grab. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said that Israel is guilty of committing genocide in Gaza. The Israeli war on the enclave has killed over 72,000 Palestinians since it started in October 2023.

“The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not!”

• Trump Gives Iran 48-Hour Ultimatum on Strait of Hormuz (Catherine Salgado)

President Donald Trump has delivered a specific deadline to the terror-sponsoring Iranian regime to stop terrorizing a strategic waterway or face devastating consequences. On the afternoon of Saturday, March 21, Trump posted on Truth Social, “If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

The Trump administration has been trying to pressure other nations into helping patrol the Strait of Hormuz, which is actually much more necessary for their economies than for ours, but most of the governments have been reluctant to commit any resources. Great Britain, Japan, France, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands finally issued a joint statement expressing a willingness to help protect the strait, but it is not clear if they have actually provided the means to do so as of yet.
Besides Israel, which has been America’s partner in the joint Iran operation, none of our allies seemed eager to step up to the plate, and many of them actively complained about the operation. The Republic of Somaliland has offered a long-term military and economic partnership with the United States in exchange for recognition, but the Trump administration has not yet accepted the offer. Besides our allies’ whining and moaning, one of Trump‘s pet peeves throughout this Iran operation has been Western mainstream media claiming the operation has been a disaster for America. He addressed another such claim on Truth Social just before delivering his ultimatum to the Iranian regime.
“The United States has blown Iran off of the map, and yet their lightweight analyst, David Sanger, says that I haven’t met my own goals,” the president posted. “Yes I have, and weeks ahead of schedule! Their leadership is gone, their navy and air force are dead, they have absolutely no defense, and they want to make a deal. I don’t! We are weeks ahead of schedule. Just like their incompetent Election coverage of me, The Failing New York Times always gets it wrong!”Trump also hinted that the Iran operation is going so successfully that it might be coming to a close soon. In a Friday post, he declared:
We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the Terrorist Regime of Iran: (1) Completely degrading Iranian Missile Capability, Launchers, and everything else pertaining to them. (2) Destroying Iran’s Defense Industrial Base. (3) Eliminating their Navy and Air Force, including Anti Aircraft Weaponry. (4) Never allowing Iran to get even close to Nuclear Capability, and always being in a position where the U.S.A. can quickly and powerfully react to such a situation, should it take place. (5) Protecting, at the highest level, our Middle Eastern Allies, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and others.”
As noted above, the strait remains a key area of concern for him as foreign hysteria about it impacts international energy prices. “The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not!” Trump wrote bluntly. “If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated. Importantly, it will be an easy Military Operation for them. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”Israel and America are doing the whole world a favor by taking down the worst terror-sponsoring regime on the planet.

First ever AI leader.

• Iran’s New Supreme Leader Has Never Been Seen Since Taking Office (ZH)

Amid widespread reporting that Iran had long ago moved into a emergency wartime decentralized command among autonomously-acting units, serious questions persist as to the role of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who replaced his slain father, longtime leader Ali Khamenei. What’s clear is that the new, younger Khamenei – who may have been wounded in the early days of US-Israeli strikes, hasn’t been seen in any public way, not even on TV, throughout the war. There have not so much as been official recent images of him circulated. This has raised obvious questions on the degree to which the Ayatollah is actually running the country and the wartime response, also after national security official Ali Larijani was killed. Larijani had clearly been the interim public face of the Islamic Republic, before his death less than a mere week ago (reportedly on March 17).

In the meantime The Wall Street Journal on Saturday writes that Iran is filling the gap of the Ayatollah’s public absence with AI and voice-overs: In his first, fiery address to the Iranian nation on March 12, new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei vowed to “avenge the blood of our martyrs” and to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed. That message of defiance wasn’t delivered by Khamenei himself: It was read out on state television by a female news anchor. Since then, the mystery surrounding Khamenei’s whereabouts and well-being has only deepened. Khanenei hasn’t appeared in public, nor has the Iranian government issued new images of him or even recordings of his voice.
His 86-year old father did not appear to have been in hiding at all when he was slain by airstrike on the very first day of Operation Epic Fury. It could be that the younger Khamenei is directing the war from a much more secure and hidden setting, for example a deep underground bunker – or in a remote part of the country. Axios newly reports:The CIA, Mossad and other intelligence agencies around the world were watching during Nowruz on Friday to see whether Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei would follow his father’s tradition and give a new year’s address.The intrigue: When the holiday passed with only a written statement from Mojtaba, the mystery around his physical condition, whereabouts and role in Iran’s war effort deepened.
As for who is really at the helm of the Iranian state, there’s little doubt that the elite IRGC is now largely driving the response. To some degree, amid ongoing reports of assassinations by aerial bombing of a slew of top military leaders, it doesn’t ultimately matter who precisely is in charge. Iranian institutions have deep benches, in the sense that especially high military officials are replaceable.
https://twitter.com/MirzaMahan/status/2035371388861571168
At the same time, Tehran has signaled it is ready for a ‘long war’ – and will keep fighting while imposing a high cost on its attackers. This means it doesn’t have to ‘win’ in a conventional sense, but just has to survive and exact pain. The WSJ writes, “Three weeks into the war, the Iranian regime is signaling that it believes it is winning and has the power to impose a settlement on Washington that entrenches Tehran’s dominance of Middle East energy resources for decades to come.”

And Bibi’s the friend?!

• Netanyahu: 48 Hours Proved Iran Is the ‘Enemy of Civilization’ (Salgado)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu impressed upon foreign nations griping about the joint U.S.-Israel Iran operation that the Islamic regime of Iran is an enemy to civilization — and even to human life itself.It is rare to find a conflict in history where one side is thoroughly evil and even demonic, while the other side is fighting for truly noble goals. But the fight between America and Israel (and the Persian people) on oneside and the terrorist Iran regime on the other is just such a conflict. The Iranian regime is literally illustrating that more every single day.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today, at the site of the missile hit in Dimona:

“If anyone needed an explanation of why Iran is the enemy of civilization, and the enemy and the danger to the entire world. You got it in the last 48 hours. https://t.co/IZoJ1snuSw pic.twitter.com/dziq31IGBH
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) March 22, 2026

Just after an Iranian strike caused a mass casualty event in Arad, at least 25 people including a 10-year-old boy also suffered injuries from Iranian missile fire striking the city of Dimona, Israel. From the scene of the strike, Netanyahu said, “If anyone needed explanation of why Iran is the enemy of civilization, and the enemy and the danger to the entire world you got it in the last 48 hours.”
He explained further, “In the last 48 hours, they fired … on civilians, on children. There’s a children’s nursery here. There’s an old …person’s home here. Civilians, families, they fire terror weapons on civilians. And often they use cluster bombs, which are forbidden by international law.” Besides that, Netanyahu emphasized, “The second thing that [Iran’s regime] did is that they fired on Jerusalem right next to the holy places. They sent ballistic missiles that could have destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Al Aqsa Mosque, and the Western Wall, the three holiest sites to the three monotheistic religions, they don’t care. They fired at everyone.” https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/2035025896440996079
Thirdly, Netanyahu stated, Iran’s regime “fired an intercontinental ballistic missile 4,000 kilometers right into Diego Garcia, the American British base. They can reach down with these ballistic missiles everywhere in Europe, almost everywhere in Europe. I’ve been warning that for years.” This is why NATO needs to quit whining about Donald Trump and realize this is their war too. Speaking of which, Netanyahu’s fourth point was Iran’s regime having “shut down the important maritime Strait of Hormuz trying to blackmail the world with oil — terror blackmail. Four things that they’re doing in 48 hours.”

EU countries are doing that. Ever since it was founded.

80 years later, Trump is the first one to say something.

• America’s War With Iran Could Destroy NATO From Within (Sadygzade)

The widening confrontation driven by the military actions of the US and Israel against Iran is exposing something far larger than a regional crisis. It is revealing the accelerated decomposition of Western unity at the very moment when the old architecture of unchallenged American hegemony is visibly fading. In that sense, the strikes on Iran are not simply an act of escalation in one theater. They are a historical stress test for NATO itself, for the credibility of Washington’s leadership, and for the entire Western claim to strategic coherence in an age of global turbulence.

For decades, the Atlantic alliance rested on a simple assumption. The US would lead, Europe would follow, and even when there were frictions, the structure would hold because all parties believed that the preservation of American primacy was identical with the preservation of their own security. That formula is breaking down in real time. The war around Iran has made this impossible to ignore. Western European leaders are no longer merely expressing discreet discomfort or ritual concern. They are publicly and demonstratively refusing to be drawn into an American military adventure whose goals they do not understand, whose consequences they do not control, and whose costs they know they will be forced to absorb. Germany, France, the UK, and Spain have all rejected direct involvement in the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran, while leading European officials have stated in essence that this is not their war, that Europe had not been properly consulted, and that Washington had not offered any convincing plan for success.
That matters because the dispute is not about tactics alone. It goes to the heart of alliance politics. If Washington can ignite a conflict with enormous global implications and then demand support from its allies after the fact, while offering neither consultation nor a credible endgame, then NATO ceases to function as an alliance of coordinated strategy and begins to resemble a system of imperial requisition. The Europeans understand this. Their refusal is a message, that the US increasingly treats its allies not as sovereign partners but as instruments to be mobilized after decisions have already been made in Washington and West Jerusalem. It says that when the strategic center becomes erratic, unilateral, and ready to externalize risk, the periphery begins to detach.
Donald Trump’s own rhetoric has thrown this reality into even sharper relief. When NATO members refused to support the American effort around Iran and to commit naval forces to the Strait of Hormuz, Trump did not respond as the steward of an alliance. He responded as a resentful patron whose clients had failed to obey. Media reports quoted him calling NATO’s refusal a very foolish mistake and making it clear that the US would remember that everyone agreed in words but did not want to help in deeds. In the same political atmosphere, he also signaled that because of American military power, the US no longer needed or desired NATO assistance and, in essence, never truly had. Washington is increasingly willing to threaten, humiliate, or discard its own allies whenever they cease to be tactically useful.
This is why the current split is so serious. It is not only Europe resisting a war. It is Europe being forced to confront the possibility that the US would rather risk the cohesion of NATO than restrain its own escalation. In other words, Washington appears increasingly ready to sacrifice not only the comfort and stability of its allies, but potentially the political substance of the alliance itself, if preserving American freedom of action requires it. That is what imperial decline often looks like. A hegemon in ascent builds institutions because institutions extend its reach. A hegemon in decay empties those same institutions of meaning because they begin to constrain its impulses.

The EU is the odd one out.

• The Middle East Crisis Is Rewriting Energy Security Doctrine (Vaid)

Missile and drone attacks on energy hubs across the Gulf have drawn the wider US-Israeli war with Iran directly into the core of global energy routes. Within three weeks, the region has shifted from a zone of latent risk to the epicenter of heightened security concerns around energy infrastructure and commercial shipping. The Strait of Hormuz, which carries about 21% of global petroleum liquids, has transformed from background anxiety to an overt risk corridor. As insurers reassess exposure and tanker activity slows, the chokepoint itself has become the flashpoint for geopolitical contagion into energy markets.

A week into the conflict, the United States pledged naval escorts and broader supply side measures, however it failed to secure backing from European allies to get involved militarily. On March 19 a host of European countries, as well as Japan and Canada, had expressed their readiness to contribute to efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait. However, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters on the same day in Brussels that Berlin would only involve itself in the region after military action comes to a halt, stating, We can and will only be able to get involved once the guns fall silent.
While various data and media report suggest that some tankers are effectively able to traverse the Straight, for which some countries, including Pakistan, China, Iraq, and Malaysia are having talks with Iran, safe navigation has still not been fully restored, and markets remain unconvinced that diplomatic signaling alone can quickly normalize flows.
Oil markets reacted swiftly, as Brent rose above $119 per barrel on March 19 before easing to about $109.85 on March 20, still leaving it nearly 7% higher for the week. More strikingly, the benchmark Middle East Dubai crude hit a record of around $166.80 per barrel, underlining how physical market tightness is now outpacing headline futures benchmarks. Analysts continue to warn that any sustained Hormuz disruption could push crude far higher. Even absent a full blockade, costlier freight, insurance, and rerouting are embedding a durable war premium, redefining OPEC+ s role, and especially the Saudi Russia axis, as guardians not just of oil prices but of the credibility of Gulf sea lane security itself.

“Once again, US service members are thrown into an unjust war for a foreign power ..”

• Join The US Military – Kill And Die For Israel (McGlinchey)

President Trump’s decision to join Israel in launching a regime-change war on Iran has so far cost the lives of at least 13 American service members. More than 200 have been wounded, dozens seriously enough to require evacuations to military hospitals in Europe and the United States. Among them are individuals who’ve suffered traumatic brain injuries, burns and shrapnel wounds. One was facing potential amputation of an arm or leg. As much as these service members and their families are victims of Iran’s justified retaliation for a surprise attack perpetrated amid ongoing negotiations, they’re victims of a betrayal perpetrated by their president and the joint chiefs of staff, who cast them into an unconstitutional war of aggression, packaged in lies and initiated to advance the agenda of a foreign government, while undermining the security of their own country.

Of course, US casualties comprise a small subset of the total bloodshed. In executing this unjust war, Americans have collectively inflicted far more death and dismemberment than they’ve endured, teaming up with their Israeli counterparts to kill more than 3,000 Iranians, including some 150 schoolgirls — mostly between age 7 and 12 — whose school was destroyed by Tomahawk cruise missiles at the war’s very start.
Though it should have already been apparent, Operation Epic Fury should make clear that — service members’ good intentions aside — combat waged under the US flag rarely has anything to do with American security. Moreover — and I say this as former Army Reserve enlistee and Regular Army officer — anyone thinking of starting or extending a military career should understand that their government may send them to be killed, maimed or psychologically damaged, and to slaughter foreign innocents, so long as it helps those in power remain in the good graces of the extremists who rule Israel, and their powerful collaborators inside the United States.
A New Regime-Change War Built On False Premises
Under international law, a war of aggression is considered a supreme war crime unto itself, and Operation Epic Fury is precisely that. Like so many of America’s wars before it, this one was launched on false premises. Contrary to the US-Israeli narrative… Iran was not developing a nuclear weapon. In 2007, the US intelligence community assessed that Iran halted any effort to develop a nuclear weapon in 2003. Since then, the intelligence community has periodically re-validated that conclusion, most recently in March 2025. Belying Trump’s claim that the United States had only two weeks in which to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard this week testified that Iran had made “no efforts” to rebuild its enrichment capacity after it was devastated by last summer’s US bombing.
Note that, in 2005, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa — a formal interpretation of Islamic law — asserting that “the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons.” In the opening act of their latest warfare on Iran, the United States and Israel collaborated to kill him.
Iran did not stray from the 2015 nuclear deal until Trump did. When Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran was in full compliance. Among other things, the JCPOA required Iran to eliminate its medium-enriched uranium, slash its cache of low-enriched uranium by 98%, limit future enrichment to 3.67%, agree to even more external monitoring than it was already submitting to, and render its heavy-water reactor worthless by filling it with concrete. After Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA in 2018 and reinstated sanctions, Iran waited a year, but then began straying from its own commitments, using elevated enrichment as a lever to push for a new agreement and relief from suffocating sanctions. Iran says the JCPOA permitted it to suspend its commitments after Trump’s withdrawal, citing language governing “material breaches” and “significant non-performance.”

How far can you go? What if you make your opponent say terribly racist things in AI?

• Artificial Intelligence Is Taking Over Political Campaigns (George Caldwell)

Artificial intelligence is dominating the 2026 midterms—and not just as a political issue. Major congressional campaigns are increasingly using “deepfake” AI technology in videos that slam their opponents and amplify endorsements from allies. Incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is seeking to fend off a primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and is employing some unusual strategies. The Cornyn campaign released an AI-generated music video with a parody of the B-52s’ 1989 hit “Love Shack” as the soundtrack. It depicts an animated likeness of Paxton engaged in corruption and marital infidelity.

The B-52s told TMZ in a statement upon the ad’s release, “Today we learned that our song ‘Love Shack’ is being used without our approval for a political attack between two politicians in the beautiful state of Texas. We do not endorse either candidate. We have already formally demanded the song immediately cease to be used in this tasteless and illegal way.” The Cornyn campaign declined to comment on the ad’s use of AI and whether it had responded to the band’s request. Paxton’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) recently employed deepfake technology to go after Texas Democrat Senate nominee James Talarico for past social media posts.
The state representative is attempting to win in a state that has not elected a Democrat U.S. senator since 1988. “Radicalized white men are the greatest domestic terrorist threat in our country,” a realistic likeness of Talarico says, quoting an actual 2021 social media post from the candidate. The NRSC ad includes a small watermark in the corner stating that the content is “AI generated.”

James Talarico, in his own words: pic.twitter.com/lDlUoqBbP7
— Senate Republicans (@NRSC) March 11, 2026

“In my faith, God is non-binary,” Talarico’s likeness says later, quoting another 2021 post. Talarico’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the video’s representation of him. Jesse Jackson Jr., who lost in the Democrat primary for Illinois’ 2nd Congressional District on Tuesday, used AI to amplify an endorsement from former Rep. Bobby Rush, who represented the state’s 1st Congressional District for three decades. Rush’s voice has been weakened due to throat cancer. At the beginning of the advertisement, he speaks with his natural voice before his digitally altered voice kicks in.
“Cancer damaged my vocal cords, but it didn’t take away my voice,” Rush says. “I’ve asked the producers to use AI, artificial intelligence, to help me.” He says in his altered voice, “Like me, Jesse is a lifelong social justice warrior and passionate advocate for the marginalized.” Jackson, the son of the late Rev. Jessie Jackson, served in Congress from 1995 to 2012 alongside Rush, but left amid a fraud investigation, for which he later spent time in prison. He lost his primary on Tuesday.

AI.

• Report: Pentagon to Adopt Palantir as Core U.S. Military System (CTH)

Recently when the Anthropic software and ideology conflict with the Pentagon surfaced as a result of limits placed by the provider, alternative provider Palantir’s CEO remarked that any AI developer who challenges the U.S. military application of the product was foolish because the U.S. government could just take control of the company under the claim of national security.In essence, Palantir CEO Alex Karp was saying AI developers who contract with the govt ultimately become bound to the limits or lack thereof as determined by the govt. If software developers want to contract with the military, then fight the Pentagon over use of those software applications, they will lose.

In response to the Anthropic issue, the Pentagon withdrew from their purchase arrangements and blacklisted them from further federal contracts. Now a report is highlighting that Palantir will take the lead position in providing the software, the Maven Smart System, for the core U.S. military functions.As described, “Maven is a software platform that uploads information from drones, satellites, sensors, radar, and other battlefield intelligence sources. The system then analyzes battlefield data in real time, identifying and prioritizing potential targets — including buildings, enemy vehicles, and weapons and ammunition stockpiles — for intelligence analysts to review and act on.”
NEW YORK, March 20 (Reuters) – Palantir’s Maven artificial intelligence system will become an official program of record, Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg said in a letter to Pentagon leaders, a move that locks in long-term use of Palantir’s weapons-targeting technology across the U.S. military. In the March 9 letter to senior Pentagon leaders and U.S. military commanders, Feinberg said embedding Palantir’s Maven Smart System would provide warfighters “with the latest tools necessary to detect, deter, and dominate our adversaries in all domains”.
The decision is expected to go into effect by the close of the current fiscal year, which ends in September, according to the letter, which was reviewed by Reuters and has not been previously reported.Maven is a command-and-control software platform that analyzes battlefield data and identifies targets. It is already the primary AI operating system for the U.S. military, which has carried out thousands of targeted strikes against Iran over the last three weeks.

Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX) and Alex Karp (Palantir)

“.. Trump and the American people are fed up with the nonsense, all inflicted on behalf of illegal alien criminals.”

• Trump Says ICE Will Run Airport Security If Dems Don’t Fund TSA (Salgado)

President Donald Trump just made a major power move in the ongoing fight with Democrats over funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as he threatened to put immigration officers in charge of airport security if funding is not immediately forthcoming. Chaos continues to reign at many American airports as the partial Democrat shutdown lengthens and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees increasingly don’t show up for work, leading to extremely long lines and travel delays. The Democrat congressmen who don’t have to deal with ordinary TSA lines don’t care, but Trump and the American people are fed up with the nonsense, all inflicted on behalf of illegal alien criminals.

Trump warned on Truth Social Saturday, “If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country.” With tens of millions of illegal aliens in our country, the likelihood is that a fair number of them are using air travel. Wouldn’t it be interesting to know just how many? And to top it off, Trump promised Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers would have a “heavy emphasis on those from Somalia, who have totally destroyed, with the approval of a corrupt Governor, Attorney General, and Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, the once Great State of Minnesota. I look forward to seeing ICE in action at our Airports. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Honestly, it would be pretty amazing to see this threat put into action, partly out of curiosity to see just how many illegal aliens and criminals ICE would find flying, and partly because Democrats’ heads would literally explode. The DHS funding showdown affects millions of people. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on X in frustration, “Hardworking TSA agents are sleeping in their CARS to save money on gas because Democrats won’t end the SCHUMER SHUTDOWN and fund DHS! What happened to the Democrats who claimed to be the party of the WORKING CLASS?!” The party of slavery has always lied about its dedication to the American working class, but its false pretense is particularly obvious right now.
This is exactly the way that Republicans should be dealing with Democrats, not granting them concessions, but putting the pressure on them to do the right thing. We cannot trust anything Democrats say, and multiple Republican presidents have found out to their cost after they made unwise concessions that they were the only ones who intended to uphold the bargain. Our national security and immigration enforcement are much too important to gamble away bit by bit on trying to please Democrats who will never be happy with any amount of compromise. So instead, Republicans should be threatening consequences that will panic Democrats, like replacing TSA with ICE.

They want someone who refuses all talk.

• Senate Democrats Are Quietly Plotting To Oust Chuck Schumer (ZH)

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has had a fractured relationship with the Democratic Party base ever since he voted to fund the government last March. Unfortunately for him, time hasn’t healed that wound, and there’s a growing resistance to Schumer that hopes to oust him from his leadership position after the midterms. The Wall Street Journal, drawing on more than four dozen interviews with Democratic senators, candidates, current and former congressional aides, activists, and advisers, found widespread unease about the New York senator’s grip on the party’s direction. The report makes it clear that Schumer’s own colleagues increasingly see him as an anchor, slowing their response to President Trump, steering primaries toward centrists they don’t want, and draining the fundraising pipeline that Democrats desperately need heading into the midterm elections.

According to the report, last month, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut met with progressive activists at a French restaurant in Georgetown. The conversation turned to what to do about Schumer. According to people familiar with the dinner, Murphy disclosed that some lawmakers had already been running informal vote counts to see whether enough support existed to remove Schumer from his leadership post. Murphy added that Schumer had enough backing to survive. But the fact that anyone was counting at all said something. Murphy has since walked it back, carefully. “Could someone infer from that that someone was keeping a count? Maybe, but that’s not what I meant,” he told reporters. “I meant that he has the support of the caucus.”
But Murphy’s backpedaling doesn’t change the reality. Murphy is reportedly part of a group of senators who have been actively canvassing colleagues about their frustrations with Schumer. This group, nicknamed “Fight Club,” (hey…) is a Signal chat group where progressives coordinate strategy around opposing Schumer’s preferred candidates in key 2026 races. The Fight Club’s grievance, at its core, is that Schumer is tilting the playing field toward centrists while an insurgent energy on the left goes untapped. The group includes Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), and it appears that Warren has been initiating those conversations directly. Smith’s advisers have gone further, holding discussions with other Senate staff about concrete scenarios to challenge Schumer’s leadership.
The concern isn’t purely ideological. It’s financial, and that’s where things get uncomfortable. Schumer’s aligned super PAC, Senate Majority PAC, got outpaced by its Republican counterpart last year. Entering 2026, the Democratic super PAC had $36 million in cash on hand and $12.4 million in debt. The GOP’s equivalent had $100 million on hand and zero debt. In the money primary – the one that quietly decides Senate races before a single vote is cast – Schumer’s side is getting lapped Making matters worse for Schumer, meetings among Democratic Senate chiefs of staff, which should be routine operational sessions, have reportedly become forums for airing discontent with Schumer’s stewardship. The pressure building in those rooms is aimed at a specific outcome: Schumer commits to retiring from the Senate when his seat is up for re-election in 2028, clearing a path for whoever comes next.
That next person may already have a name attached. Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii has been identified as Schumer’s own preferred successor. Apparently, Schumer has thought this through enough to have a pick. But Schatz isn’t moving until Schumer moves first. His posture, per senators and aides familiar with the discussions, is to wait it out. Schumer may have the votes to survive a mutiny for now. But his colleagues are doing the math, his fundraising is underperforming, his preferred candidates are generating internal blowback, and the party seems anxious to see him go. The caucus isn’t in open revolt yet, but it’s not looking good for Chuck Schumer.

It’s global. Armstrong can’t explain it either.

• Russia to Refer Childless Women for Psychiatric Evaluations (Martin Armstrong)

Russia is now advising psychological counseling for women who do not intend to have children, which is precisely the type of response governments default to when they refuse to confront economic reality. They search for cultural or emotional explanations when the issue is economical. Russia’s fertility rate has fallen to roughly 1.4 children per woman, well below the 2.1 replacement level, and total births have declined to near post-Soviet lows at just over 1.2 million annually. This decline has been persistent, not cyclical, and the population is aging rapidly as deaths continue to exceed births. At the same time, the war has removed a significant portion of young men from the population.

The same pattern is unfolding across all developed economies. Europe’s fertility rate is now near 1.3. Spain and Italy are closer to 1.1. Germany is around 1.4. France, once the exception, has fallen sharply and recently recorded more deaths than births for the first time in decades. Japan has been below replacement for years and continues to contract. Even countries that implemented aggressive family subsidies, such as Norway and Hungary, have failed to reverse the trend.
Globally, fertility has collapsed from more than 5 children per woman in the 1960s to just above two today, and the developed world is already well below replacement. The common explanation offered by governments is psychological or social. They speak of changing values, delayed adulthood, or lifestyle preferences. That explanation collapses under scrutiny because it ignores the economic structure that determines behavior.
People do not make long-term commitments, such as having children, without confidence in their financial future. Children represent the largest long-term investment a household can make. When confidence declines, that investment is postponed or abandoned. At the same time, dual-income households became the norm not by choice but by necessity. A single income no longer supports a family in most developed economies. This fundamentally changes having children because both parents must remain in the workforce to maintain financial stability. Long ago, children helped to secure a family’s financial future, but the opposite rings true today.
Russia’s situation simply reflects these dynamics in a more concentrated form. Economic uncertainty, war, sanctions, and structural inefficiencies amplify the same forces present elsewhere. When surveys show that a large percentage of women do not plan to have children in the near term, that is not a psychological condition. It is a rational response to economic instability amid war. Women in Russia must now face the harsh reality that their husbands will face a compulsory draft, and they will be left raising children alone.
Historically, birth rates rise during periods of expansion and confidence. The post-World War II baby boom occurred because housing was affordable, employment was stable, and future prospects were positive. The economic structure supported family formation. Today, the structure works in the opposite direction. Housing costs, taxation, childcare expenses, and job insecurity create an environment in which the cost of raising children exceeds the perceived benefits. Governments attempt to offset this with subsidies, but those programs do not address the core issue, whixh is the declining return on productive activity relative to cost.
This is why policies focused on incentives have failed. Hungary introduced substantial financial benefits for families. Norway expanded welfare support. France has long provided family subsidies. None of these measures reversed the long-term decline because they do not change the underlying economic equation. The demographic consequences are significant. A declining birthrate leads to a shrinking workforce, increasing dependency ratios, and pressure on pension systems. Governments respond by raising taxes or increasing borrowing, which further reduces the net income available to working households. This creates a feedback loop that reinforces the decline.
When confidence in the future declines, long-term investments decline. Children are the most fundamental long-term investment in any society. The decline in birth rates is therefore not a social anomaly but a direct reflection of economic confidence. Russia proposing psychological counseling illustrates how far removed policy responses have become from reality. This is not a question of convincing people to want children. It is a question of creating an economic environment where having children is viable.

Got to try.

• Rhinos back in African Park For First Time After 40 Years (RT)

Uganda has begun reintroducing rhinos to its Kidepo Valley National Park, marking the species’ return to the area 43 years after it was wiped out by poaching, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) has reported. The first two southern white rhinos were transported from Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary to Kidepo on Tuesday, part of a phased plan to relocate a total of eight animals, according to UWA. The effort is aimed at restoring a population that disappeared from the park in the early 1980s.

The move follows years of preparation, including the construction of a fenced sanctuary, ranger outposts, and monitoring systems to ensure the animals’ protection and adaptation to the new environment. The park, one of Uganda’s most intact savannah ecosystems, was identified as suitable after feasibility studies assessed habitat conditions and security. “This moment marks the beginning of a new rhino story for Kidepo Valley National Park,” UWA Executive Director James Musinguzi said, adding that the translocation was the first step toward re-establishing a population.
Officials said the animals will initially be kept under close observation inside a secure sanctuary before being gradually integrated into the wider park ecosystem.Rhinos once roamed widely across Kidepo Valley, but heavy poaching led to their local extinction, with the last recorded animal killed in 1983. Conservation efforts accelerated in 2005 with the launch of a breeding program at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary, helping rebuild Uganda’s rhino population to more than 60. Authorities say the return of rhinos is expected to boost biodiversity and tourism while supporting efforts to restore endangered wildlife species in one of Africa’s most isolated national parks.

In January, UWA relocated four southern white rhinos from Ziwa sanctuary to Ajai Wildlife Reserve in northwestern Uganda and aims to move up to 20 rhinos to the reserve. Uganda’s move comes amid wider efforts across Africa to protect rhino populations. Separately, Kenya in December opened what it says is the world’s largest rhino sanctuary in Tsavo West National Park, bringing together around 200 black rhinos in a protected area of more than 3,200 square kilometers.

https://twitter.com/HungaryBased/status/2035408598038405213?s=20

I wonder what changed pic.twitter.com/1Yogzaqtis
— Declaration of Memes (@LibertyCappy) March 22, 2026

SpaceXAI + Tesla TERAFAB Project

Goal is a trillion watts of compute/year

Most must necessarily go to space, as US electricity is only 0.5TW https://t.co/hMtg9vNLcw
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 22, 2026

It’s actually insane what SpaceX is doing to the space industry right now

In 1981, it cost ~$65,000 to put 1 kg into orbit
For 50 years, the industry accepted this as the standard. Reusable rockets were "impossible"

Then one company – led by a man obsessed with getting humanity… pic.twitter.com/lOJblaXMnG
— X Freeze (@XFreeze) March 21, 2026

https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/2035350715695276059?s=20

Aspirin prevents the deadly spread of cancer (metastasis) – concluded from recent review.

This spread is responsible for ~90% of cancer deaths.

Clinical trials have shown reductions in circulating tumor cells, a key measure of cancer spread.

Aspirin prevents it by:

❖… https://t.co/1kBJifUeI8 pic.twitter.com/oXHC22ScJg
— Dalton (Analyze & Optimize) (@Outdoctrination) March 21, 2026

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Debt Rattle March 22 2026

Mar 222026

March 22, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:26 am Finance Tagged with: Elon Musk, EU, Hormuz, Hungary, Letitia James, LNG.Qatar, SAVE, Schumer, South Pars, TSA, Viktor Orban 72 Responses »

Edward Hopper Hotel window 1955

• Trump: US “Close to Meeting Objectives” and “Considering Winding Down.” (CTH)

• US “Degrades” Threats To Hormuz Traffic As Iran Missile Strike Fails (ZH)

• World’s Largest Gas Field Hit: How Close Is A Global Energy Crisis? (RT)

• The Shadow War Against President Trump (Josh Hammer)

• Robert Mueller Dies. Trump’s Reaction Was VERY Trump. (Matt Margolis)

• Letitia James and Transgenderism Wreck America This Badly (O’Brien)

• Report Reveals That Democrats Are Plotting Against Chuck Schumer (Matt Margolis)

• BOMBSHELL Bill Clinton/Epstein Info Drops (MN)

• Chicago Ramps Up Taxes and Debt in Familiar Death Spiral (Turley)

• Elon Musk Offers Lifeline To TSA Agents As Dems Hold Paychecks Hostage (ZH)

• The Democrats’ Strategy on the SAVE Act Is Imploding (Matt Margolis)

• What Is It With The Fickle Europeans? (Victor Davis Hanson)

• Battle for Hungary: How the EU Plans to Defeat Viktor Orban (RT)

https://twitter.com/PeriklesGREAT/status/2035037879546659070?s=20

Christopher Hitchens on Islam many years ago:

“They really mean to abolish everything you care about, and they want to take away everything you love and destroy everything you have, replacing it with a Stone Age ideology.” pic.twitter.com/xaDGh2aUVd
— Taya (@travelingflying) March 20, 2026

Colonel Kemp predicts religious war in Britain. I believe this is unavoidable. There is no negotiation with Islam. You either resist or submit. There is no third option and never has been over 1,400 years of violent Islamic imperialism.pic.twitter.com/GUvdXoMJRA
— Paul Weston (@PWestoff) March 21, 2026

https://twitter.com/Sassafrass_84/status/2035058582173990988?s=20 https://twitter.com/VictoriaSask/status/2035154376172478740?s=20

A sitting head of government just said publicly what most Western leaders are too compromised or too cowardly to admit.

Viktor Orban is not speaking from a pulpit. He is speaking from a position of political authority, looking at the state of an entire continent, and delivering… pic.twitter.com/EGnm5Y2xFm
— Imtiaz Mahmood (@ImtiazMadmood) March 20, 2026

No animal deserves to face its final moments fully conscious, in a state of terror and pain. In a landmark ruling in 2023, a Greek court drew a firm line by declaring that slaughter without prior stunning is not legally permitted — a quiet but deeply significant victory for… pic.twitter.com/u7oXhsVbIT
— Imtiaz Mahmood (@ImtiazMadmood) March 20, 2026

Contradictory messages?!

• Trump: US “Close to Meeting Objectives” and “Considering Winding Down.” (CTH)

President Trump released the following message via Truth Social:
“We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the Terrorist Regime of Iran: (1) Completely degrading Iranian Missile Capability, Launchers, and everything else pertaining to them. (2) Destroying Iran’s Defense Industrial Base. (3) Eliminating their Navy and Air Force, including Anti Aircraft Weaponry. (4) Never allowing Iran to get even close to Nuclear Capability, and always being in a position where the U.S.A. can quickly and powerfully react to such a situation, should it take place. (5) Protecting, at the highest level, our Middle Eastern Allies, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and others. The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it — The United States does not! If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn’t be necessary once Iran’s threat is eradicated. Importantly, it will be an easy Military Operation for them. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
~President DONALD J. TRUMP

“Vastly Expands Threat Radius”

• US “Degrades” Threats To Hormuz Traffic As Iran Missile Strike Fails (ZH)

President Trump’s late in the day Friday comments proclaiming “I think we’ve won” suggested he might be readying the announcement of an offramp or at least de-escalation, but that speculation has proven premature as things definitely escalated overnight. For apparently the second time of Operation Epic Fury, Iran’s flagship enrichment site at Natanz nuclear facility has come under attack. Iran’s nuclear agency confirmed the strike but is keeping details deliberately vague, saying nothing about how it was carried out or what weapons were used. What it did emphasize, however, is that “no nuclear radiation” was released.

Natanz – alongside the Isfahan nuclear facilities – sits at the core of Tehran’s nuclear program, long viewed as a prime target in the US-Israel campaign to cripple Iran’s ability to produce an atomic bomb – though it remains that even Iran’s current wartime leadership is saying it has no intent to produce a nuclear weapon. The AP says Natanz was earlier struck at least once at the opening of the conflict, writing: “The facility, Iran’s main uranium enrichment site, was hit in the first week of the war and several buildings appeared damaged, according to satellite images.” All of this, along with steady the overnight and early morning heavy bombing of Tehran marks a definite escalation despite Trump having floated the idea of “winding down” operations in the late Friday comments.
Iran Vastly Expands Threat Radius: Diego Garcia
Another huge escalation and development: British officials are staying tight-lipped after an attempted Iranian strike on the key Indian Ocean air base on Friday reportedly failed, offering no details on what exactly happened. But this risks pulling in the UK, which has appeared reluctant to directly participate in Trump’s operation. Britain has generally condemned “Iran’s reckless attacks.” Just hours after Iran targeted the Diego Garcia base, Britain confirmed US bombers can continue using UK facilities – including the same base – for operations aimed at stopping Iranian attacks on shipping in Hormuz.
“Iran fired two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia, a joint U.S.-U.K. military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean, according to multiple U.S. officials,” The Wall Street Journal details. “Neither of the missiles hit the base, but the move marked Iran’s first operational use of IRBMs and a significant attempt to reach far beyond the Middle East and threaten US-UK interests.”

“Rising LNG prices would be particularly bad news for Europe, which has become heavily reliant on LNG in light of its rejection of Russian pipeline gas. [..] The US, as a LNG exporter, would benefit from rising prices.

• World’s Largest Gas Field Hit: How Close Is A Global Energy Crisis? (RT)

Although the natural gas reservoir housing South Pars is the world’s largest, Iran’s ability to export gas is limited by sanctions. Therefore, damage to the field or related facilities is mainly a domestic issue. The majority of the gas extracted from South Pars goes to the domestic market, although some is exported to Iraq and Turkiye. Israel struck the South Pars field and the infrastructure that services it at the nearby Asaluyeh processing hub on March 18. Iran retaliated with strikes on Saudi Arabia, the UAE and, most critically, Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, the world’s largest LNG export hub.

More concerning globally is not the South Pars strike but the retaliatory attack against the LNG hub at Ras Laffan. This is where the gas from the North Field, which is the Qatari side of the same reservoir that South Pars taps, is processed. The North Field – also called the North Dome – is responsible for about 20% of global LNG supply, practically all of which is processed at Ras Laffan. Qatar has admitted that the attacks caused “significant damage.”
While the complex had already been largely shut since early March due to the war, analysts at Wood Mackenzie now warn that damage to the hub could delay any restart and “fundamentally reshape the global LNG outlook. Rising LNG prices would be particularly bad news for Europe, which has become heavily reliant on LNG in light of its rejection of Russian pipeline gas. Other major consumers of LNG include Japan, Turkiye, and India. The US, as a LNG exporter, would benefit from rising prices.
The damage could be long term
Importantly, unlike many other leading gas fields, the geologically unified reservoir feeding South Pars and the North Field is only at 10% depletion, meaning 90% of the gas is still there. The significance of this cannot be overstated. The gas from the world’s largest reservoir – and one expected to play a critical role in meeting future global demand – may not be extractable if the infrastructure on both sides is destroyed. This becomes an issue not just of near-term prices but the state of structural physical supply. Any sustained disruption to Qatari production would reverberate across the global gas market. Losing even part of Qatari output for an extended period would tighten supply, drive prices higher, and leave import dependent economies scrambling for alternatives.
Unfortunately, alternatives may be scarce. The LNG market was tight even before the war. US LNG export capacity was already near its limits, meaning the country s ability to offset lost Persian Gulf supply is constrained. Meanwhile, repairing damaged LNG facilities is a highly complex and costly undertaking that could take years. Projects implemented in the Ras Laffan Industrial City cost $70 billion to build, according to Qatar News Agency. So even if a ceasefire is reached today, the damage already sustained could reverberate for years.

“Kent resigned this week in flamboyant fashion, rationalizing his stunt with hyper-conspiratorial, antisemitic rhetoric better suited for a Code Pink rally than government letterhead.”

• The Shadow War Against President Trump (Josh Hammer)

The joint American-Israeli military operation against the Iranian regime is now three weeks old, but there is another war — a more silent one — raging here on the home front. President Donald Trump’s second administration is facing a highly coordinated shadow war — one waged both by some influential outside voices on the right and, more dangerously, by their subversive allies within Trump’s very own government.

If this campaign is not confronted and decisively defeated, the result will be calamitous: a second Trump term that drifts into lame-duck status not due to a voter backlash but because of an insurrection from within. What this column has previously referred to as “Operation Divide MAGA” has reached fever pitch. And Trump, to his great credit, has begun to settle all the MAGA family business. But an even more concerted effort is needed to clean out the Augean Stables once and for all.
First, let’s take a step back.
In any healthy political coalition or movement, debate is inevitable and often desirable. But what we have seen from certain high-profile podcasters, such as Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, is nothing less than a full-scale assault on Trump and his agenda. These provocateurs first outed themselves last summer, when they all but accused Trump of covering up a global (Mossad-tied?) pedophile ring over his Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files. But above all, the podcasters’ subversion has focused on foreign policy — most recently, on Iran and Operation Epic Fury.
Trump is a conservative nationalist. His foreign policy is rooted in confidence and “peace through strength”-style deterrence. Yet Carlson, Kelly and their fellow travelers have blasted the Iran conflict as everything from “evil” (Carlson) to “clearly Israel’s war” (Kelly). The not-so-dynamic duo is thus accusing the man they quite literally campaigned for in 2024 of engaging in heinous acts and of being the unwitting dupe of a foreign government.
True, Carlson and Kelly do not actually speak for the MAGA base: A brand-new poll from J.L. Partners shows that 83% of Republican voters support Epic Fury. Moreover, Republicans agree with Trump over Carlson and Kelly on foreign policy by a whopping 84%-6% margin. But still: Their platforms are enormous. When Carlson, Kelly and their allies consistently excoriate the leading priorities of the administration they purport to support, the effect is Republican voter confusion, resentment and depression as we head toward November in a midterm election year.
Even worse, the shadow war subversives are not merely shouting into their microphones from the rafters. They have allies inside the administration, with whom they are all but assuredly coordinating, engaging in outright sabotage against the one man — the president of the United States — who was actually elected to wield the “executive Power” of the federal government and serve as commander in chief. The most alarming developments are emerging from within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. A former Democratic congresswoman with a pro-Moscow slant once seen as a heterodox ally, Gabbard now oversees an environment that increasingly bears the markings of an anti-MAGA coup.
Take Gabbard’s recent rehiring of Dan Caldwell. Dismissed last year by his (former longtime friend) Secretary of War Pete Hegseth amid allegations of leaking, Caldwell is now back in a highly sensitive role. Leaks of this nature are not bureaucratic slip-ups; they are direct assaults on national security and the integrity of the constitutional chain of command. It is difficult to interpret the isolationist-leaning Gabbard’s move as anything other than a direct shot across the bow at Hegseth — and, by extension, the boss Hegseth has so passionately defended since Epic Fury began, Trump.
Consider also Joe Kent, who until recently served under Gabbard as director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Kent resigned this week in flamboyant fashion, rationalizing his stunt with hyper-conspiratorial, antisemitic rhetoric better suited for a Code Pink rally than government letterhead. Within hours after tendering his resignation, Kent announced he would be joining — who else? — Carlson to tell his story. An alleged serial leaker, Kent is now under FBI investigation for spilling national security secrets. Unsurprisingly, Iranian regime propaganda television gobbled up the interview and regurgitated it for an impressionable English-speaking audience.
That Kent came to Carlson’s platform to try to get ahead of the FBI investigation revelation is not coincidence. It is all orchestrated. After being fired by Hegseth last year, Caldwell similarly ran to Carlson to tell his side of the story. Moreover, one of Caldwell’s higher-ranking colleagues at ODNI, Will Ruger, shares Caldwell’s professional background in the isolationist Koch network. Surprise! The White House Presidential Personnel Office, formerly directed by ex-Rand Paul staffer Sergio Gor (since shipped halfway around the world to India), has allowed in individuals across the defense, intelligence and national security spaces that are functionally anti-MAGA. Perhaps this was done for self-serving reasons. Perhaps Gor and PPO were under the understanding that MAGA is something other than what the boss says it is.
Frankly, it does not really matter. Because the boss has now spoken. He’s cast Carlson and Kelly out of MAGA in emphatic fashion. And after Kent’s obnoxious resignation stunt, Trump said of those (like Kent) who do not believe Iran is a threat to the United States: “We don’t want those people.” Translation: Get out. The message could not possibly be clearer.
But is Trump’s PPO listening? Is Gabbard’s ODNI fully in line? Gabbard, in Senate testimony this week, couldn’t bring herself to agree with her boss’s assessment that Iran posed an “imminent threat” prior to the launch of Epic Fury. It’s time for the president to team up with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and other arch-loyalists, such as Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and clean house. The internal anti-MAGA sabotage must be ended, and the external anti-MAGA sabotage must be combated. The success of the remainder of Trump’s second term hangs in the balance.

Mueller is defined by his stuttering performance in the hearing afterwards. Hard to believe that actually happened.

• Robert Mueller Dies. Trump’s Reaction Was VERY Trump. (Matt Margolis)

Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who spent nearly two years investigating the Russian collusion hoax in the 2016 presidential election, died Friday night at the age of 81. His family confirmed the news Saturday in a brief statement asking for privacy. “With deep sadness, we are sharing the news that Bob passed away,” his family said in a statement Saturday. “His family asks that their privacy be respected.” Mueller’s death was not unexpected. In August 2025, his family disclosed that he had been battling Parkinson’s disease since 2021. He served as FBI director from 2001 to 2013, making him the second-longest-serving director in the bureau’s history after J. Edgar Hoover.

The New York Times has more: “A button-down, lockjawed rock-ribbed exemplar of a vanishing caste, the liberal Republican, Mr. Mueller became the F.B.I. director just a week before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He went on to impose the most significant structural and cultural changes in the history of the F.B.I., seeking to transform the bureau into a 21st-century intelligence service that could protect both national security and civil liberties. And his counterterrorism agents were the first to blow the whistle on abuses at the secret prisons that the C.I.A. had established after 9/11 to detain, interrogate and, in some cases, torture terrorism suspects.
But he may be best remembered for what he did after he left the F.B.I., when he was summoned to investigate a sitting president. The Justice Department named Mr. Mueller special counsel on May 17, 2017, eight days after Mr. Trump dismissed the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, who was investigating the interactions between the Trump campaign and a Russian covert operation to help him win the White House. The president’s reason for dismissing Mr. Comey was no secret. The next day, in the Oval Office, he told the Russia foreign minister and the Russian ambassador: “I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy.” Mr. Trump continued: “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
It gets worse from there, so I’ll move on. Trump wasted no time responding to the news. Within hours of the news breaking, he posted on Truth Social: “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!”Mueller’s investigation was a constant sore spot for Trump, who was ultimately vindicated when Mueller failed to find the evidence of collusion that Democrats were counting on. Trump called the final Mueller report a “complete and total exoneration” after it was released.
Despite the Mueller report’s findings, Hillary Clinton has long claimed that the 2016 election was stolen from her. “You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you,” Clinton said back in 2019. Democrats and the mainstream media have all incorrectly implied or claimed that the Mueller report confirmed that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election.

“James wants to bully doctors to keep providing ‘gender care’ treatments ..”

• Letitia James and Transgenderism Wreck America This Badly (O’Brien)

If you need a reminder of just how much Joe Biden wrecked the country while he was in the White House, here is yet another example. A Biden judicial appointee in Oregon ruled against Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on issues tied to controversial transgender medical treatments, and that’s just the start. While this would not come as a surprise to any thinking person, the more you peel the layers back on this story, the more it affirms just how bad Biden was for America. Judge Mustafa Kasubhai decided that in December, when the HHS issued a declaration that dubbed certain gender procedures and treatments unsafe and ineffective for minors, the federal agency went too far. These treatments included puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and sex-change bottom and top surgeries.

Kasubhai said that Kennedy did not follow the appropriate administrative processes when HHS made the declaration. HHS reportedly informed doctors and health providers that if they provide these treatments to minors, the administration might exclude them from such federal health programs as Medicare and Medicaid. What this latest ruling does is give certain relief to doctors and providers who want to continue to making bank by destroying the lives of children through such life-altering treatments. Here is where it gets worse. Celebrating the judge’s decision was a familiar name and face.
“Today’s win breaks through the noise and gives some needed clarity to patients, families, and providers,” said New York’s attorney general Letitia James, who served as lead counsel on the lawsuit. “Health care services for transgender young people remain legal, and the federal government cannot intimidate or punish the providers who offer them.” Not coincidentally, in another case we’ll get to in a bit, she is the one who is trying to intimidate a hospital that wants to shut its ‘gender care’ operation down, and she is trying to bully the hospital into keeping it going.
In this case, Judge Kasubhai said with regard to Robert Kennedy’s declaration, “The notion that ‘I will go forward and issue a declaration and see if we can get away with it’ is not a principle of governance that adheres to the overarching commitment to a democratic republic that requires the rule of law to be regarded and respected and honored as a sacred.” In this case, 21 states and the District of Columbia filed suit against HHS, Kennedy, and HHS’s inspector general over the declaration. The plaintiffs claimed that Kennedy’s declaration sought to coerce doctors to stop providing those controversial treatments for minors, while doing an end-around on certain legal requirements for when an administration seeks to institute a policy change.
One thing the suit contended that the Trump administration did not do and should have done was to give the public notice and a chance to comment before material changes were made to federal health policy. What HHS actually did was make its declaration after consideration of a peer-reviewed report and its conclusions. The report recommended that behavioral therapy be the first option provided to gender-confused minors. HHS called for doctors to give this option the best possible chance and more time to work, rather than choosing the chemical and surgical route right from the start. Separately, in February, I reported on the fallout from a $2 million award to a victim of “gender affirming care” treatments in yet another case.
Right after that judgment, the American Medical Association (AMA) renounced gender surgeries on children, and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) did the same. While the Trump administration and the real world have clarity on the risks to children of gender mutilation and treatments, the Democrats are dead set against fixing some massive problems they created on gender issues. As with anything where the left is involved, it only gets even more complicated at this point.
James wants to bully doctors to keep providing ‘gender care’ treatments
In yet another case, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has had to step in and warn James that it might be compelled to defend New York hospital NYU Langone Health if she decides to push the healthcare provider to reverse its decision to stop providing certain “gender care procedures” for minors. That’s right. A hospital wants to stop messing with kids’ lives through “gender care,” and James wants to prevent that. This has led to a showdown between the federal government and James. The DOJ sent a letter to James on March 18, telling her that she cannot use her state’s anti-discrimination law to force NYU Langone to provide what Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche described as “sex-rejecting procedures” for minors.

During Kasubhai’s confirmation hearings in 2023, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and John Kennedy (R-La.) shredded the leftist judge with his own words. Cruz described the judge’s record as “so far out of the mainstream” that all of the Judiciary Committee’s questions were directed toward him. The Republicans then focused on a ruling Kasubhai handed down that invalidated Eugene, Ore.’s citywide curfew during the 2020 riots over George Floyd’s death.
Kennedy zeroed in on Kasubhai’s own courtroom rules, which instructed attorneys and others in his courtroom to provide their “pronouns and honorifics,” and to use them when referring to others in the courtroom. As Rush Limbaugh would say, “for those of you in Rio Linda,” honorifics are the titles we use as a preface to our names – things like Mr., Ms., etc. During Kasubhai’s confirmation hearing, all the red flags were there. Marxism, wokism, racism, “equity,” the whole bit. Even his rather bizarre poetry and writings. After watching this video from the confirmation hearings, it’s no wonder Kasubhai is doing his level best to carry out the Biden manifesto, which, though unsaid, amounts to one simple objective – destroy America as we know it.

“.. a batch of senators dubbed “Fight Club” who are particularly incensed by Schumer’s approach to the midterms.”

• Report Reveals That Democrats Are Plotting Against Chuck Schumer (Matt Margolis)

Based on the polls, Republicans may be sweating the midterms right about now, but Democrats are dealing with something uglier — a full-blown leadership crisis hiding in plain sight on Capitol Hill. The Wall Street Journal dropped a bombshell on Friday: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is facing a level of internal revolt that has some members of his own caucus quietly counting heads to see if they can push him out. Schumer’s political future has been less than certain ever since he voted to keep the government open a year ago. His poll numbers tanked, and rumors flew of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) challenging him when he’s up for reelection in 2028. There have also been reports that Democrats were looking to oust Schumer from leadership, and it looks like that hasn’t died down.

According to this latest report, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) sat down to dinner with progressive activists at a French restaurant in Georgetown last month, during which Murphy told the group that some lawmakers had already done informal vote counts to gauge whether enough support existed to remove Schumer from leadership. Murphy added that Schumer had the votes to survive — for now. Murphy is among a group of senators and top advisers who have grown increasingly dissatisfied with Schumer’s leadership, according to people familiar with the conversations. That group includes Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who has been initiating conversations with other senators to gauge frustrations with Schumer, some of the people said.
Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota has also been active in discussions about her frustrations with Schumer, and her advisers have spoken with other Senate staff about different scenarios to challenge Schumer’s leadership, other people said. In an interview, Murphy said he is frequently asked about Senate leadership, but he doesn’t have a count of who would vote to remove Schumer and doesn’t recall mentioning one. “Could someone infer from that that someone was keeping a count? Maybe, but that’s not what I meant,” Murphy said. “I meant that he has the support of the caucus.” He said he still supports Schumer.
Despite Murphy’s attempts to downplay the situation, more than four dozen interviews with Democratic senators, candidates, current and former aides, activists, and advisers point to the same conclusion: concern about Schumer’s leadership is widespread and growing. Apparently, routine meetings between Democratic chiefs of staff on Senate business that keep veering off script into conversations about Schumer and what can be done to pressure him to step aside after November’s elections.
Murphy, Warren and Smith are part of a batch of senators dubbed “Fight Club” who are particularly incensed by Schumer’s approach to the midterms. This group of progressives believes that Schumer favors centrist candidates in some key races and is disregarding the enthusiasm a new crop of outsiders is stoking. The senators maintain a Fight Club chat on Signal where they have discussed how to counter Schumer’s preferred candidates, according to people familiar with the conversations. The existence of the group was reported earlier by the New York Times. And there’s a money angle, too.
Donor frustration with Schumer has already been hurting a super PAC aligned with the Democratic leader, donors and consultants said. Senate Majority PAC was outraised by the Republican leadership-aligned super PAC last year; the Democratic super PAC started 2026 with $36 million in the bank and $12.4 million in debt, while its GOP counterpart had $100 million and no debt, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Schumer, for his part, remains defiant, but the report suggests that internal pressure is still building. The activist wing of the party is still sour over the government funding fights and apparently doesn’t think that he’s standing up to the Trump administration adequately. The GOP certainly has its midterm headaches. But division among the Senate Democrats is something that it could exploit.

Not sure I understand this or what would make it relevant. What did the alter ego do that the ego did not?

• BOMBSHELL Bill Clinton/Epstein Info Drops (MN)

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna appeared on Bill Maher’s show and confirmed what the Epstein document dumps have long hinted at: the former president wasn’t just flying on the Lolita Express — he was operating under an entirely different identity in the files. This revelation lands as the House Oversight Committee presses forward with its investigation, following the Justice Department’s release of millions of pages under the Epstein Files Transparency Act signed by President Trump. Lawmakers and victims are still pushing for the remaining 2.5 million documents that remain hidden or heavily redacted, according to recent reporting.
https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/2035218752015397090?s=20

Bill Clinton’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein runs deep and documented. The former president flew on Epstein’s private jet multiple times in the early 2000s, often for Clinton Foundation-related trips, and maintained social ties with both Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell long after red flags emerged. He has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes or visits to the island. Luna laid it out plainly during the interview. When Maher questioned bringing Hillary in, asking, “You have Hillary Clinton come in? This is like three gazillion pages of men behaving badly. And the witness you want is a woman?” Luna shot back: “She was issued a bipartisan subpoena, meaning the Democrats wanted her in, too. Cause Bill Clinton was all over those logs.”
She continued: “We can get at the whole Jeffrey Epstein ties because I actually talked to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton specifically about that, presenting them with the actual document that showed that he had a COMPLETE OTHER ALIAS.” Maher responded: “You get a lot of information that we don’t all have.” Luna replied: “I’m happy to come back.” Maher closed: “We want you. I appreciate it.” What was Bill Clinton doing with another alias? The question hangs heavy. In the files of a convicted child sex trafficker, a second identity isn’t a coincidence — it’s a red flag screaming for answers.This isn’t the first time the Clintons have scrambled to contain the Epstein fallout. Bill Clinton’s chief of staff raged after half-naked photos of the former president surfaced in the latest Epstein drop.
Back in 2024, reports also revealed Clinton allegedly threatened Vanity Fair to kill articles about his “good friend” Jeffrey Epstein. The pattern is clear: suppression, denial, and now — an alias. While the Clintons sat for depositions earlier this year, insisting they saw nothing wrong, Luna’s committee work keeps peeling back layers the deep state hoped would stay buried. The American people are watching. The files don’t lie, and neither do the subpoenas. Every new detail like this alias proves why the fight for real accountability matters — because when the powerful hide behind fake names in pedophile networks, it’s not just scandal. It’s a warning that the old guard still thinks the rules don’t apply.

I smell a bailout.

• Chicago Ramps Up Taxes and Debt in Familiar Death Spiral (Turley)

As a Chicago native, I have watched my home city unravel under the policies of Mayor Brandon Johnson and the ultra-left city council. Controlled by groups like the teachers’ union, the city has continued to spend lavishly on progressive causes and bloated pension funds while destroying its own economy. The city has a more than $1 billion budget gap, with a roughly $150 million deficit. Roughly, two-fifths of the budget is now going toward debt service and pension costs. The city council is following a familiar death spiral. It is turning to higher taxes against the very industries that it needs to drive the economy. That now includes a roughly 20 percent tourist tax on hotels. These politicians are doing what the Chicago fire failed to achieve: kill a major city.

Johnson has been pushing for irresponsible measures to grab cash now and pay later schemes. Johnson and the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) lost a fight to secure a $200 million loan to avoid having to reduce the budget or staff. Johnson and the union pushed for a corporate “head tax.” Barely able to convince many companies to stay in the state, Chicago would actually make it more costly to hire Chicagoans with an additional $ 21-per-employee tax. The city council just approved an $830 million borrowing plan to finance infrastructure projects by selling bonds. Notably, the council had to bar Johnson from giving the money to the teachers’ union, given his history of dependency on the union. However, the bond will now make the debt crisis even more acute. The bond agreement allows someone else to pay the massive accrued debt after 20 years.
Chicago now spends 40% of its money on debt servicing. At the same time, Johnson has pushed for city-run grocery stores, and his government has stopped buying treasury bonds for political reasons. Now, pursuant to Ordinance 2026-0022544, the city will raise the tax on hotel rooms within that district to 19% from 17.5%, which includes a combined city, county, and state tax, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The increase will apply to any hotels with more than 100 rooms. Hotel costs are already prohibitively high, and the added tax hits the convention tourism side of the economy. The editorial board of the Washington Post took note of Chicago’s worsening situation and wrote “it takes a long time to kill a city, and the bigger the city, the longer it takes.”
The city is following the same pattern of blue states driving businesses and high earners away. After taking control with Abigail Spanberger’s election, Virginia Democrats immediately pushed for a slew of new taxes and spending plans. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul, who during her campaign told wealthy New Yorkers to “just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong, OK?” She added, “Get out of town. Because you do not represent our values. You are not New Yorkers.”
They took her advice in droves. Now she is bewailing that her tax base is collapsing. This week, she asked “high-net-worth” people to support the “generous social programs we want to have in our state” and go to Florida to “see who you can bring back home, because our tax has been eroded.” The point is to preserve the “generous social programs” by asking people to come back who fled due to the high taxes needed to support such programs. New York City, which is pushing for higher taxes, currently has a $115.9 billion budget for 8.48 million people. That is almost as much as the $117.4 billion budget for the entire state of Florida with 23.3 million people.
This week, a study showed that New York is now spending $81,000 per homeless person in a town where the average take-home pay is $40,600. It is projected to increase to nearly $97,000 in the coming year. From Chicago to New York City, Democratic leaders continue to spend wildly as top earners and employers flee. They are quickly learning that, as Margaret Thatcher noted, it works until you run out of other people’s money.In Chicago, the city council is now drifting toward bankruptcy like a ship of fools. For those of us who love our home city, it is a painful thing to watch. Despite a history of corruption under the Daley machine, the city was always a pro-growth town that attracted industries. It is now following Detroit’s path toward insolvency as politicians kick the debt can down the road for someone else to pay.

“Remember, these illegals are the future voting bloc of the Democratic Party, meant to seize political control by disenfranchising citizens ..”

• Elon Musk Offers Lifeline To TSA Agents As Dems Hold Paychecks Hostage (ZH)

The Department of Homeland Security shutdown entered its 36th day on Saturday after Senate Democrats blocked yet another funding bill for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Transportation Security Administration, and other federal agencies, triggering weeks of chaos at airports nationwide, including long TSA checkpoint lines during the peak of the spring break travel season.Early Saturday morning, Elon Musk, closely tracking the DHS funding lapse, wrote on X that he would personally pay the salaries of TSA agents to get them back to airports and help avert further chaos.

I would like to offer to pay the salaries of TSA personnel during this funding impasse that is negatively affecting the lives of so many Americans at airports throughout the country
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 21, 2026

On Friday, a motion to advance a funding bill failed 47-37, falling short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster. John Fetterman (Pa.) was the only Democrat to vote “yes” on the DHS funding bill. Sixteen senators from both parties were absent for the vote. This marks the fifth time Democrats have blocked the Homeland Security Appropriations bill since DHS funding ended in mid-February. Democrats have been absolutely furious over any funding bill for ICE and Cust oms and Border Protection (CBP) that does not include reforms to immigration enforcement operations. That is mostly because they are watching President Trump erode their political power by deporting the very illegal aliens their party allowed to invade the nation under the Biden-Harris regime.
Remember, these illegals are the future voting bloc of the Democratic Party, meant to seize political control by disenfranchising citizens. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) is planning to force a vote sometime today on a proposal to fund the TSA. “The chaos at TSA is reaching a boiling point. We need to reopen it as quickly as possible. That is what Senate Democrats are intent on doing,” Schumer said. By the end of the week, 10% of all TSA workers did not show up for work – just below the record 10.22% absentee rate set at the start of the week. Nearly 400 agents have quit so far in the months-long shutdown, according to DHS.
These workers have been without pay since mid-last month, when the Democratic Party began using these agents as political pawns. The severity of the government shutdown this time has not yet reached the crisis level of travel disruption seen during the 43-day shutdown late last year, when air traffic controllers were used as leverage in political disputes, disrupting air travel nationwide. To prevent such issues in the future, perhaps privatization talks for these agencies should begin. Is it possible that an unhinged, eft-wing judge might try to block Musk from offering to pay TSA agents’ salaries during the funding lapse?

“65% of Democrats, 95% of Republicans, 79% of independents, 80% of white voters, 80% of black voters, and 77% of Hispanic voters.”

• The Democrats’ Strategy on the SAVE Act Is Imploding (Matt Margolis)

Chuck Schumer stepped onto the Senate floor Thursday and lied about the popularity of the SAVE America Act. “But what have MAGA Republicans chosen to focus on this week?” Schumer asked. “Voter suppression. That is what the Republican Senate is wasting our time on, pushing a voter suppression bill that most Americans do not support — a bill that appeals to only the most fringe element of the MAGA base.”

We’ve tracked the numbers on this bill closely, and the polls are about as one-sided as it gets in American politics. A recent Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll found that 71% of Americans support the SAVE America Act, including 69% of independents and even half of Democrats. A whopping 81% support Voter ID, with 79% of independents and 70% of Democrats on board. Requiring proof of citizenship to vote get 75% support. Removing non-citizens from voter rolls pulls 80%. Even sharing unredacted voting rolls with the Department of Homeland Security — arguably the bill’s most contentious provision — gets 61% backing.
Oh, that’s just one poll, right? Wrong. Pew Research puts support for voter ID at 83%, with wide majorities across racial and partisan lines. Gallup found 84% favor voter ID, including 67% of Democrats. And Rasmussen puts support at 75%, with support trending upward over the past decade. Poll after poll, the same story keeps emerging. But wait, it’s been a few months now, and Democrats have been blasting the SAVE America Act the entire time. Surely, the numbers have changed, right? Wrong. We have a brand-new CBS News survey on the subject, conducted this week. It found that 80% of Americans support requiring a photo ID to vote, including 65% of Democrats, 95% of Republicans, 79% of independents, 80% of white voters, 80% of black voters, and 77% of Hispanic voters.
Proof of citizenship to register draws 66% overall, with 93% of Republicans, 61% of independents, 60% of black voters, and 63% of Hispanic voters in favor. The only cohort that didn’t support the citizenship requirement was Democrats, with only 43% supporting.
https://twitter.com/IAPolls2022/status/2034767257226629317
Democrats have spent weeks hammering the SAVE America Act with “voter suppression” messaging, hoping repetition turns fiction into fact. It hasn’t worked. The polling has held steady. Support hasn’t budged. If anything, this CBS poll just confirmed that the public isn’t buying the narrative they’re selling. Trust me, Chuck Schumer knows how to read a poll, and you can bet Democrats are tracking public opinion on the issue, looking for any nugget in the crosstabs that gives them a glimmer of hope. But there isn’t any. Americans have spoken on this issue.
Schumer has been in Washington long enough to know exactly what the data says. This means his floor speech wasn’t about ignorance; it was a calculated decision to stand on the Senate floor and call the most broadly popular election integrity bill in recent memory “unpopular” and a “fringe” priority. That tells you everything about how seriously Democrats take the voters they claim to represent.

What, Vic?

“You know, this is the third time Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.”

• What Is It With The Fickle Europeans? (Victor Davis Hanson)

What is it with the fickle Europeans? I know that they have different interests than ours, but we’re both Western entities. You’d think that we’d be more collaborative on the effort to disarm and denuclearize Iran. But a lot of strange things are happening. The traditional use of the Diego Garcia critical airbase in the Indian Ocean, run by the British, but often leased to us and allowed us to have a very valuable base for our long-range bombers. The British initially refused to allow us to use it. And then, only under conditions that it would be used for defensive purposes. I don’t know what that means. But I think they forgot the 1982 Falklands War. They were in big trouble going all the way across the world to attack a country in the Western Hemisphere.

We were trying to be on friendly relationships so that [Argentina] wouldn’t join the other communist nations. And of course, we offered them 2 million gallons of gasoline. We offered them the use of a carrier if they needed it. We gave them sophisticated intelligence. Without the United States’ help, they would’ve had a very hard time retaking it. So, what’s happened?And then Spain has said that we can’t use at all the NATO base there in Spain. [President Emmanuel] Macron in France and [Chancellor Friedrich] Merz in Germany have also said they’ve expressed reservations.
President Donald Trump is now trying to say, you know, we’re using all of our assets to disarm this common threat to the West. Could you just send a few ships to help us, you know, patrol the Strait of Hormuz? And they’re reluctant. This gets back to the United States, who pays an inordinate amount of the NATO budget. And it keeps having to, you know, to harangue and hammer. “Please, please defend yourself. We are here to help you, but we’re across the ocean, 3,000 miles away. And this is in your interest. You know, this is the third time Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.”
So, don’t they have a fear of Iran? I mean, there was a joint missile defense project. Obama canceled it, in that infamous quid pro quo hot mic conversation where he made a deal with the Russians to give him space so he could get reelected. He would dismantle the Czech and Polish project to have missile defense. That was primarily for the protection of Europe. The United States was going to pay a great deal of it. Protection from Iran.= So, what’s going on? What explains this European schizophrenia? That they want to be an ally, but they don’t want to be an ally. They’re scared to death of a nuclear Iran, but they don’t want to do anything about it. They want the United States to handle it, but they want the United States to handle it and keep them out of it.
But most of their oil comes from the Middle East or North Africa. So, they are adamant that they want the supplies, reliable. They want the Strait of Hormuz open. They want the United States to ensure that. They want the United States to clear the Red Sea of Houthi attacks. We know all that, but they’re not there when we need them at all. And a very, you know, a very reasonable request. And so why is this? Well, I think there’s a lot of reasons. I think they’ve made some disastrous, internal and external choices in their policies. First of all, Germany has 16 percent of its population are immigrants that weren’t born in Germany. The vast majority of them are unassimilated, unacculturated, unintegrated Muslims.
Many of them, or most, under Angela Merkel policy. She was the German version of Alejandro Mayorkas, who opened the border and pretty much enacted this destructive policy. In other countries at 6 percent to 10 percent to 12 percent. But the key is there’s a force multiplier of these open-border illegal immigration policies. And that is the Muslim communities that immigrate are more radical often than the countries they left that were radical enough. They don’t want to be part of the West. They feel that their birth rate and their increased immigration will soon swamp these European governments. And the European governments are terrified of them.

Not so fickle when it comes to power.

• Battle for Hungary: How the EU Plans to Defeat Viktor Orban (RT)

Three weeks out from the most consequential European election of the year, the EU has aimed every weapon in its arsenal at Hungary, as Brussels prepares for its best shot yet at taking out Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Orban’s animosity toward the EU establishment runs deep. For more than a decade, the Hungarian prime minister has often been the bloc’s sole dissident: railing against its open-door migration policies, embrace of LGBT ideology, and “suicidal” plan to welcome Ukraine into the union. Orban has secured carve-outs from the EU’s anti-Russian sanctions that enabled Hungary to continue purchasing Russian oil, and is currently vetoing a €90 billion loan package for Kiev.

The EU has responded by withholding funds equal to 3.5% of Hungary’s GDP over his banning of LGBT propaganda and refusal to accept non-European migrants. With the future of its Ukraine project now on the line, Brussels has pinned its hopes on Peter Magyar and his Tisza party, which promises to overturn Orban’s domestic reforms and Budapest’s opposition to the EU’s designs in Ukraine and beyond. After the European Council failed to find a workaround to Orban’s veto at a March 19 meeting, the EU’s chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas, hinted that work was underway on a “Plan B.” Based on the strategy playing out in Budapest, ‘Plan B’ clearly involves a full-scale campaign of censorship and subversion to influence Hungary’s upcoming elections.
On March 16, European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier quietly announced that the EU had activated its Rapid Response System (RRS) to “combat potential Russian online disinformation campaigns” in the runup to the Hungarian election. The mechanism will be active until one week after the vote, Regnier said. While most Europeans have never heard of this system, the RRS has been a key tool in the commission’s censorship arsenal for years. It empowers EU-approved “fact-checkers” to flag online content as “disinformation” and request its removal from platforms – Regnier cited TikTok and Meta as two examples.
Theoretically, platforms such as Meta and TikTok participate in the system voluntarily. All major social media companies have to sign up to the EU’s ‘Code of Practice on Disinformation’. However, a trove of documents published by the House Judiciary Committee in Washington this year revealed that these companies were threatened – often explicitly – with punishment under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) if they refused to tow the EU line.

The premise resembles a Mafia-style protection racket, with the deputy chief of the commission’s communications directorate telling platforms in 2024 that refusal to sign the codes of conduct “could be taken into account… when determining whether the provider is complying with the obligations laid down by the DSA.” The DSA is now in force, giving Brussels’ fact-checkers the final say over what constitutes “disinformation” ahead of the election.

The argument that these fact-checkers favor Magyar is well founded. Over four European elections in which the Rapid Response System was activated, the Judiciary Committee found that fact-checkers “almost exclusively targeted” right-wing and populist candidates and organizations. “Moreover, the requirement that these fact-checkers be approved by the European Commission creates a clear structural incentive for the participants to censor Euroskeptic opinion and content,” the committee noted.
Hungarian MEP Dora David, a former Meta employee and member of Magyar’s Tisza party, boasted last year that “we’ve seen companies change their behavior” based on the threat of DSA enforcement, citing Meta’s removal of pro-Orban content as an example.
The fact-checkers can count on sympathetic staff within the social media companies. After several members of Orban’s Fidesz party claimed that Meta has already started restricting the reach of their Facebook posts, commentators Joey Mannarino and Philip Pilkington identified Oskar Braszczynski as the employee likely responsible. Braszczynski, who works as Meta’s ‘Government and Social Impact Partner for Central and Eastern Europe’, has shared pro-Ukraine, anti-Orban, and pro-LGBT content on his personal social media accounts.

Brian Cox's favorite fact about the universe! pic.twitter.com/A4DI0O5fBF
— Quantum Tech ⚛ (@QuantumTech_X) March 21, 2026

In the 1990s, a Japanese diver saved an injured fish 56 feet underwater, and ever since, the fish has swum to meet him on every single dive for over 25 years.

pic.twitter.com/5LDkkOkbUD
— Science girl (@sciencegirl) March 20, 2026

Bro just met women for the first time pic.twitter.com/1qorFzs62f
— Ace (@HixAce) March 21, 2026

https://twitter.com/birdscolour56/status/2035131647243559005?s=20

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Debt Rattle March 20 2026

Mar 202026

March 20, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:27 am Finance Tagged with: Dimitriev, Hormuz, Iran, Israel, Joe Kent, LNG, Lukashenkp, MAGA, Qatar, Tucker Carlson 62 Responses »

Jean-Michel Basquiat In this case 1983

• Netanyahu Declares Iran’s Nuclear Program & Missile Production “Destroyed” (ZH)

• Iran’s Attack On Qatar’s LNG Sends Shockwaves Across Global Energy Markets (ZH)

• US Naval Escort Won’t “100% Guarantee” Tanker Safety In Hormuz (ZH)

• Iran Is Losing. Why Pretend Otherwise? (Ben Shapiro)

• Either Iran or Israel Has to Go (Paul Craig Roberts)

• Where Will The War Take Us? (Paul Craig Roberts)

• Dmitriev Calls Strike on Iran’s South Pars Gas Field Tipping Point (TASS)

• The Coroner is Guilty (John Helmer)

• DNI Tulsi Gabbard Releases 2026 Unclassified National Threat Assessment (CTH)

• Belarus Remains Trump’s Ally Despite US Mistakes — Lukashenko (TASS)

• Murphy’s Law (Jonathan Turley)

• Trump Continues to Expel MAGA’s Best Members (Paul Craig Roberts)

• Kent Tells Tucker: ‘Imminent Threat’ Was From Israel, Not Iran (ZH)

• NASA May Shrink Boeing’s Moon-Mission Role, Push SpaceX (ZH)

• When ‘I Don’t Recall’ Meets a DOJ Subpoena (David Manney)

I think it's some of the stuff about beheading people they disagree with that puts impartial observers off https://t.co/Z4HfPrkUOb
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) March 17, 2026

pic.twitter.com/5mPBstlond
— Liza Rosen (@LizaRosen0000) March 18, 2026

https://twitter.com/Skint_Eastwood1/status/2034238638259904836?s=20

Oh yes. I remember. https://t.co/2CcIwSoqo5
— Gad Saad (@GadSaad) March 18, 2026

Surely someone in charge at the BBC must realise that something is seriously wrong there https://t.co/52QXCiRLWv
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) March 18, 2026

Muslim migrants in Germany: "When we become the majority, we will take over Germany by force. German laws will be replaced by Sharia law.

If anyone stands against us, we will attack them. Christians and Jews will have to convert or leave.”

They mean every word they say! pic.twitter.com/1biMR73zPe
— Dr. Maalouf ‏ (@realMaalouf) March 18, 2026

What we witnessed in London at the historic Trafalgar Square, in a country built on Judeo-Christian values, was a group of people attempting dominance over our capital city and our culture.

We are not going to surrender everything that was built over centuries and defended at… pic.twitter.com/LcHx0ut1xo
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) March 19, 2026

If you're wondering why Trump attacked Iran and why he won't stop until he controls the Strait of Hormuz, here's your answerpic.twitter.com/AeFBc8rGO2 https://t.co/pA4NQ3OLBg
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) March 18, 2026

Just when the protests get too loud, the mission is completed.

• Netanyahu Declares Iran’s Nuclear Program & Missile Production “Destroyed” (ZH)

In a rare wartime press conference, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu opened with a jab at rumors about his condition: First of all& I m alive.” He went on to claim that Israel and the US are “protecting the entire Middle East& the entire world” – and after 20 days, he asserted: “we are winning, and Iran is being decimated.” Netanyahu further claimed that Iran’s missile and drone stockpiles are being “massively degraded” and “will be destroyed,” framing the campaign as an all-out dismantling of Tehran s capabilities. Bust most importantly he said production capability has been ended.

He further addressed claims Israel dragged the US into war, calling it “fake news” and adding: “Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Donald Trump what to do? Come on.” He praised tight US-Israel coordination: “We are achieving goals in lightning speed” – and said he and Trump “see eye to eye,” adding the world “owes a debt& to President Trump for leading this effort.” He also stated that Israel acted against Pars alone, but that he will hold off on ordering future such attacks without US consent. Netanyahu also said the war will end “much sooner than people think”. And another key aspect to his remarks:
• Iran No Longer Able to Enrich Uranium
ª Iran Lost Ability to Manufacture Missiles US
ª Israel Destroyed Iran s Fleet in Caspian Sea

“What we’re destroying now are the factories that produce the components to make these missiles and ` to make the nuclear weapons that they’re trying to produce,” Netanyahu said, however without providing evidence of the claim. Just before he spoke, Israel’s military said it anticipates the anti-Iran campaign is only half complete.

NOW – Netanyahu: "I want to close these opening remarks with one other fake news, and that is that Israel somehow dragged the U.S. into a conflict with Iran. Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do? Come on!" pic.twitter.com/eYXzvqReJp
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) March 19, 2026

Iran through its Foreign Minister has made clear on Thursday it will show “zero restraint” if energy infrastructure is targeted again. President Trump on the same day responded to reports the US has sent more troops to the region.

“Worse Than Nord Stream”.

• Iran’s Attack On Qatar’s LNG Sends Shockwaves Across Global Energy Markets (ZH)

Brent crude futures surged toward $120/bbl, while WTI remained muted around $96/bbl, as Wednesday marked a major escalation in the US-Iran conflict. Israeli fighter jets struck Iran’s giant South Pars gas field with air-delivered munitions, triggering a retaliatory chain reaction in which IRGC forces targeted critical energy infrastructure across the Gulf. Iranian drone and missile strikes caused heavy damage to Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG hub, while gas plants in Abu Dhabi shut down, Kuwaiti refineries were hit by drones, and Saudi refining assets were targeted. Unlike temporary shipping disruptions in the Gulf waters or the Strait of Hormuz, damage to upstream energy assets, such as production and LNG facilities, is far more serious and could take months or even years to repair, raising the risk of prolonged tight global supply.

Some 20% of global LNG exports originate from Gulf countries, and the latest round of Israeli and IRGC attacks on upstream energy assets shows how the conflict has entered an entirely new phase where energy infrastructure is being directly targeted. Disruptions at Qatar’s LNG facilities threaten to tighten the global gas market, with ripple effects quickly spreading worldwide – across Asia, Europe, and even U.S. gas prices. European natural gas benchmark futures jumped as much as 35% today, pushing prices to more than double their pre-war levels, as traders brace for what only appears to be a prolonged period of disruption from critical LNG hubs that account for a fifth of the world’s total supply.
QatarEnergy warned earlier that LNG facilities inside its Ras Laffan Industrial City were attacked by missiles, “causing sizable fires and extensive further damage.” “This could be a game changer for the LNG industry, akin to the attack on Nord Stream or possibly even worse,” Susan Sakmar, visiting assistant professor at the University of Houston Law Center, said, quoted by Bloomberg. “This is a sudden disruption, with no indication that Qatar could restart anytime soon.” Global Risk Management analyst Arne Lohmann Rasmussen warned, “LNG from Qatar could in principle be offline for months and, in the worst case, for years. For the gas market, the crisis does not end simply because the war ends and the Strait of Hormuz reopens.”

“We are collateral damage in a conflict when the root causes have nothing to do with shipping..”

• US Naval Escort Won’t “100% Guarantee” Tanker Safety In Hormuz (ZH)

The paralyzed Hormuz chokepoint is becoming the worst disruption to global energy flows ever, as actual barrels quickly disappear from oil markets, driving prices sharply higher in Asia toward $150 per barrel and potentially setting the stage for demand destruction in the weeks ahead.

The oil market has fragmented: Oil is now trading for $150/bbl in Asia (except the occasional sanctioned Iranian tanker) where demand destruction has started. China and India most pressured.

Meanwhile it is still $100 in the US https://t.co/QweAyzEN0a pic.twitter.com/YyvgAMdMwl
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 17, 2026

President Trump has been attempting to fast-track the reopening of Hormuz by providing naval escorts for tankers and other commercial vessels. However, there are a few problems. First, Western US partners have rejected Trump’s request to send warships to help reopen the strategic waterway, which is plagued by IRGC mines and kamikaze drones. Second, Arsenio Dominguez, secretary-general of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), told the Financial Times in an interview on Tuesday that even if naval escorts materialize in the narrow waterway, they will not provide a “100% guarantee” of tanker safety. “It reduces the risk, but the risk is still there. The merchant ships and seafarers can be affected,” Dominguez said.
The head of the IMO, which sets rules for international shipping, continued: “We are collateral damage in a conflict when the root causes have nothing to do with shipping,” adding that his organization has major concerns about commercial vessels stuck in the Gulf running out of food and supplies for crews. Sending US and allied warships into the narrow waterway, just off the Iranian coast and facing threats from drones, naval mines, and shore-to-ship ballistic missiles, seems like a suicidal mission. “The challenge is going to be dealing with the proximity of the drone launchers and the missile launchers that are going to be along the Iranian coast,” Bryan Clark, an expert in naval operations with the Hudson Institute, told The Hill.
Clark said, “The issue is that you only have a couple of minutes once the launcher comes out before the missiles are going to get on top of you, because you’re only talking about 3 or 4 miles from the shoreline to the transit lane.”mA number of top US partners, including Germany, Spain, and Italy, have no immediate plans to send warships into the waterway. This has only infuriated President Trump, as his administration has voiced frustration with some longstanding allies over their unwillingness to help reopen the strait.
The race to reopen the strait comes as Kpler oil analyst Muyu Xu warned, “The blockade is now the worst disruption to oil flows ever. Actual barrels are now disappearing from global oil markets, which could lead to demand destruction in the weeks to come.”= Three weeks into the US-Iran conflict, tanker activity on the waterway has slowed to a crawl, just about 400,000 barrels per day, compared with the pre-Hormuz-closure average of 14 million barrels per day.

Views differ.

• Iran Is Losing. Why Pretend Otherwise? (Ben Shapiro)

Don’t fall for the propaganda. Iran is not holding its own in this conflict. It is being systematically dismantled. One by one, the senior figures of the Islamic Republic have been eliminated: generals, security chiefs and regime power brokers. The country’s leadership has been decapitated at the highest levels, leaving behind a hollowed-out command structure struggling to function.mEven the regime’s attempts at continuity appear shaky. A successor was hastily elevated, but reports suggest instability, absence and internal disarray at the very top. Whatever facade of order Tehran hoped to project has given way to uncertainty and silence.

Meanwhile, the military picture is equally stark. Iran’s command-and-control systems have been fractured. Its missile and drone capabilities — once touted as pillars of deterrence — have been severely degraded. What remains is not a coordinated campaign but sporadic, diminished retaliation.The numbers tell the story. Early volleys of hundreds of missiles have dwindled to scattered launches. Drone deployments have followed the same trajectory. Factories, infrastructure and key facilities tied to these capabilities have been destroyed or heavily damaged. What the regime is able to deploy now appears to be the remnants of what once was.
This is not simply a Western narrative. Even regional observers — some hardly aligned with U.S. interests — have acknowledged the effectiveness of the campaign. Analyses describe a deliberate, phased strategy: first neutralizing air defenses and leadership networks, then targeting the industrial backbone that sustains Iran’s military capabilities. The objective is not just to weaken but to prevent reconstruction.mAnd yet, despite this evidence, a counternarrative persists in parts of the West: that Iran is resilient, that it is outlasting its adversaries, that the outcome remains uncertain. That claim is increasingly difficult to square with reality.
Recent developments underscore the point. Senior Iranian officials once positioned as potential successors have been killed. Key internal security figures — those responsible for maintaining order and suppressing dissent — have also been eliminated. Even localized enforcement mechanisms are now under pressure. What remains of the regime’s response resembles less a strategy and more a reaction — disjointed, limited and increasingly ineffective.So the real question is not whether Iran is losing. The evidence suggests it is.The real question is why so many observers continue to insist otherwise.
Part of the answer may lie in broader geopolitical anxieties: fears of escalation, concerns over regional stability, or skepticism shaped by past conflicts. But those concerns, while understandable, do not change the facts on the ground. There are also looming questions about what comes next. Much attention has been paid to strategic chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz, though any prolonged disruption there would invite overwhelming international response. More significant, perhaps, is the internal dynamic within Iran itself.
The regime has long relied on force to suppress dissent, as seen in past protests met with lethal crackdowns. But the current moment may be different. With leadership weakened and security structures under strain, the balance between state control and public resistance could begin to shift. If that happens, the future of Iran will not be decided solely by external pressure but by the Iranian people themselves. They have risen before, at great personal risk. The difference now is that the regime they would confront appears more vulnerable than it has in decades. What happens next is uncertain. But one thing is increasingly clear: The narrative of Iranian strength no longer matches the reality.

I llike PCR. And he has much more experience than me, and I was never in the White House. BUT: the US is not in the Middle East because of Israel, it’s -historically- there to control the price of oil.

• Either Iran or Israel Has to Go (Paul Craig Roberts)

The Iranians have demonstrated that Trump badly misjudged their capability. Trump is now calling on other countries, with little success, to send their warships to help keep open the Strait of Hormuz as the task is too big for the US Navy, and he is cutting deals, or trying to, with Putin and Modi to remove sanctions on Russian oil in exchange for the de-sanctioned oil to be sent to Europe and not to Asia. Trump, or his advisors, have come up with a scheme to invade Kharg Island, which seems more like a suicide mission.

The Iranians are holding firm on one level but without realizing it might be cracking on another. I am not convinced that the Iranians fully understand the situation. For example, Mohsen Rezaee, retired commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, now a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, said that the “presence of the US in the Persian Gulf has been the main cause of insecurity over the past 50 years.” The end of the war, he said, requires “US withdrawal from the Persian Gulf.”
It seems to me that General Rezaee misunderstands the situation. It is not the American presence per se that is the cause of insecurity. The cause is that the American bases are there to serve Israel. Moreover, the real cause of insecurity for all of the Muslim states is Israel’s Zionist agenda of Greater Israel. Once defined as “from the Nile to the Euphrates,” Israel has recently redefined Greater Israel to be from the “Nile to Pakistan.” The general does not seem to understand that removing the US from the Persian Gulf does not remove the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel. What Iran should be demanding is the disavowal of the Zionist agenda.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, hasn’t a clue either. He says the “Only way to end this war” is to recognize Iran’s legitimate rights, payment of reparations (to Iran) and firm guarantees against future aggression.” He is badly wrong. The war might again be put on pause by Iranian officials who fail to comprehend the situation, but the only way war will end is by Israel renouncing the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel. And that Israel will not do. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has rejected the talk of peace negotiations. Trump, he says has already twice deceived and sneak-attacked Iran while engaged in negotiations, and Iran will not make the same mistake again.
In actual fact, Iran is making a much worse mistake. The Zionist agenda of Greater Israel is not consistent with the Existence of Muslim Iran (or Turkey and Saudi Arabia). Unless the Zionist agenda is renounced, Iran has no choice but to fight to its own death or to Israel’s death. The fact that Iran has never seized the initiative, has never used its strategic advantage, but has sat on its butt waiting, indeed inviting, an attack, suggests that Iran does not comprehend the Zionist Agenda. Neither do the Americans, the Europeans, or the media. The real cause of the war is simply not mentioned. If Iran doesn’t wise up, Iran risks being lured into another meaningless agreement.

“Netanyahu does know what to do–nuke Iran, in order to save Israel.”

No, nuking Iran would be the end of Israel.

• Where Will The War Take Us? (Paul Craig Roberts)

I am disappointed that Trump destroyed the MAGA movement by turning it into the MIGA movement and taking America to another war in the Middle East in behalf of the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel. Using the disguise of a “war on terror,” the United States has spent the first quarter of the 21st Century using American blood and American money to destroy countries that were barriers to Greater Israel, a territory that encompasses the Muslim Middle East from the Nile to Pakistan. Iraq, Libya and Syria are no longer functioning Arab states.

Trump and Netanyahu believed that Iran would fall as easily as the others, but that has proved not to be the case. Indeed, it appears that Iran is winning. Iran is winning because Iran was better prepared. Expecting a quick and easy victory, Trump and Netanyahu went to war without sufficient missiles to continue in the combat. One consequence is the destruction of American radar and military bases in the Persian Gulf. Another is the inability of Israel to intercept incoming Iranian missiles, an inability that will intensify as Iran works its way through its older stock of missiles and begins using it’s modern hypersonic ballistic missiles. It is possible that Israel could end up looking like Gaza.
According to news reports one of the Persian Gulf oil city-states that hosts US military bases has requested that the United States depart as US presence no longer provides protection. Possibly the other hosts of American bases will make the same request, in which case the result of Trump’s war for Israel will be the removal of Washington’s presence in the Middle East and a defeat of Washington’s long-term agenda of controlling oil flows from the Persian Gulf.
Trump and Netanyahu seem to have put themselves into a difficult situation. Both face elections this year, elections unlikely to go well if Trump and Netanyahu are losing their war. The US Navy has had to move out of range of Iranian ship-sinking missiles, and Trump has had to call on other countries–China, Japan, South Korea, France, UK–to send warships to aid the US in taking control from Iran of the Strait of Hormuz. This request is a clear statement by the President of the United States of limited American military capability. Trump has had no takers. Trump’s advisors are talking about landing troops on Kharg Island, surely a suicide mission.
In other words, Trump doesn’t know what to do. Netanyahu does know what to do–nuke Iran, in order to save Israel. Aware of this possibility Iran might hold back from victory and go for a settlement in which Washington and Israel agree to normalize relations with the Iranian nation. Such a settlement would not last, because it is incompatible with the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel. Therefore, during the time for which such a settlement might last, Iran would have to develop and deploy nuclear weapons, knowing that otherwise Iran will be struck by Israeli nukes.
So, the outcome of Trump and Israel’s war could easily be nuclear proliferation and a reduction of Israeli and American power in the Middle East. This could be a good thing as both Israelis and Americans would understand that the agenda of Greater Israel has consequences too severe to justify the agenda.m If the Iranian government holds firm and learns from the experience, there could be a silver lining in Trump and Israel’s war. The Zionist agenda would be exposed as too costly and would have to be abandoned both by Israel and Washington.
The weak-willed governments in Moscow and Beijing would see that it is possible, after all, to stand up to Israeli-dominated Washington, and possibly might start standing up to Washington themselves instead of selling out their allies. If so, this would produce the multi-polar world that Russian President Putin talks so much about but negates the possibly of with his craven behavior. Perhaps XI would understand that it is better to have a determined military, such as the one he just purged, than a moderate one that encourages, as Putin does, ever more serious provocations by refusing to acknowledge them as acts of war.
The future of the world depends on whether leaders can reenter the world of reality or stay lost in a more comforting unreality in which they presently operate.

“Trump stated that Israel would no longer strike facilities of Iran’s South Pars gas field.”

• Dmitriev Calls Strike on Iran’s South Pars Gas Field Tipping Point (TASS)

Special Representative of Russian President for investment and economic cooperation with foreign countries, Chief Executive Officer of Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev called the strike on facilities of the Iranian South Pars gas field, which caused a fire, a “tipping point” in a post on X. This is how he reacted to a White House publication citing statements by US President Donald Trump regarding the situation around the gas field. US President Donald Trump stated that Israel would no longer strike facilities of Iran’s South Pars gas field.

The United States knew nothing about the attack, and Qatar was not involved in it in any way or had any idea it was coming, he wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. The American leader believes the Jewish state carried out the strike out of outrage at what was happening in the Middle East. According to Trump, only a small portion of the field’s facilities were damaged. H e emphasized that Israel would no longer strike the extremely important and valuable South Pars gas field unless Iran made an unwise decision to attack a completely innocent party, Qatar in this case.
On Wednesday, the head of the Assaluyeh District administration in Iran’s Bushehr Province reported that a fire had broken out following an attack by Israel and the United States at several facilities in the South Pars gas field. In this regard, Iran’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said it would attack oil and gas sites in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar.

New book.

• The Coroner is Guilty (John Helmer)

This is the first book to expose abuse of power by Australian coroners investigating the cause of death when there is suspicion of medical negligence in the combination of popular prescription drugs – widely used benzodiazepines with treatments for non-life threatening conditions such as vertigo, vestibular migraine, and epilepsy. The book records the evidence of the sudden death of Tatiana Vasilievna Turitsyna, my wife, and of the two years which have followed of forensic investigations to uncover the cause, the role of the treating doctor, then the delay, obstruction, and cover-up by the Coroners Court of Victoria.

Throughout the world this court is the only one of its kind to have been investigated and then prosecuted by the state for abuses of power by the coroners in charge – this is corruption in the law. In 2023 the court was found guilty, sentenced, and fined almost $400,000, but no individual was held culpable. That was the outcome of a plea bargain — a cover-up to keep the evidence secret, the individual coroners blameless, and the penalty paid out of public money from the court budget.
In a presentation that is unprecedented in the practice of Anglo-American law, in Australia and Canada, this book has become the jury book or brief of the case of suspicious, sudden drug death. It is now a model for the international public debate on corruption by the pharmaceutical companies in cahoots with government regulators, the medical profession, judges, and lawyers. This is your summons to serve on the jury.
You, the reader, are called to judge the evidence and the legal argument; and then cast your verdict, not only for the doctor and coroner but also the Supreme Court judge who conducted a trial of his own, dismissing every count of the author’s case, and endorsing the coroner’s decisions without qualification. This is also a textbook on subversion in our lives and deaths. This is how the victims of lethal combinations of drugs are blamed for dying of heart attacks that are judged to be “natural causes” when the evidence that they are nothing of the kind is buried according to the “rules-based international order”. If you are a survivor of a crime of “natural causes”, here’s how to fight for your right, and the right of the dead, to natural justice.

The Unclassified part is not the most exciting.

• DNI Tulsi Gabbard Releases 2026 Unclassified National Threat Assessment (CTH)

In fulfilling her legislatively mandated annual report called the “National Threat Assessment,” Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, releases the combined intelligence assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community. Additionally, here is the transcript of DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s statement to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

[TRANSCRIPT] – “I am here today to present the 2026 Annual Threat Assessment, joined by the Directors of the CIA, DIA, FBI and NSA. This briefing is being provided in accordance with ODNI’s statutory responsibility and represents the Intelligence Community’s assessment of the threats facing U.S. citizens, our Homeland, and our interests. nAs President Trump’s National Security Strategy highlights, America is blessed with an enviable geostrategic position, unparalleled assets, resources and a military second to none. Intelligence remains among our sharpest tools in protecting our interests and informing our policymakers and decisionmakers on key national security concerns. In this assessment, we are following the structure of priorities laid out in the National Security Strategy, starting with threats to our Homeland, then shifting to global risks.
The defense of our Homeland is of utmost importance to the American people. Putting America first means committing to an unrelenting vigilance in service of our own citizens, borders, and communities. Recent efforts to bolster Homeland defense have yielded significantly positive results, but challenges persist. For example, President Trump’s strict enforcement of U.S. policies at the U.S. Mexico border and regionally has served as a deterrent and drastically reduced illegal immigration. Based on Customs and Border Patrol data, January 2026’s monthly encounters are down 83.8% compared to January 2025. Encounters declined 79% compared to 2024.
The drivers of migration are likely to continue. Potential worsening instability in countries like Cuba and Haiti risk triggering migration surges. Smugglers who often operate as transnational criminal organizations view chaos as an opportunity for profit and will look to continue to profit from illegal immigration flows. Transnational criminal organizations continue to pose a daily and direct threat to the health and safety of millions of U.S. citizens primarily by producing and trafficking in illegal drugs. Under President Trump’s leadership, fentanyl overdose deaths have seen a 30 percent decrease from September 2024 to September 2025.
Fentanyl potency has also decreased, likely due to disruptions to the production supply chain. U.S. efforts to work with China and India to halt the flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals to North America are demonstrating improvement, but there is more work to be done as there are still tens of thousands of fentanyl-related deaths in America every year.] President Trump’s aggressive efforts to more directly and actively target TCOs and reduce the inflow of fentanyl precursors has already had a significant impact which is likely to continue. (continue reading – pdf) The opening statement is 8-pages in full and can be found by following the ‘continue reading’ link above.
Tulsi Gabbard is doing a solid job as DNI, against formidable opposition from all directions.]“It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.”
-Machiavelli, The Prince

I thought he was Putin’s close(st) ally.

• Belarus Remains Trump’s Ally Despite US Mistakes — Lukashenko (TASS)

Belarus remains an ally of US President Donald Trump despite some mistakes made by the US administration, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday. “I would strongly urge you that we discuss regional problems. Not only the issues surrounding Ukraine, but also global ones. And not only the war in the Middle East,” Lukashenko was quoted by BelTA news agency during a meeting with a US delegation led by Special Envoy for Belarus John Coale at the Palace of Independence.

“I believe my perspective on global issues, especially on the situation in the Middle East, will be important for you, given that you are fighting against our friends. And I am ready to speak frankly on this topic,” the Belarusian president continued. “I would very much like you to convey my perspective to Donald Trump. Although I believe the United States has made certain mistakes, I remain a supporter of your president,” Lukashenko added. Last September, the United States lifted sanctions on the airline Belavia. The US Department of the Treasury issued a general license for financial transactions with Belavia and its subsidiaries.

Judges doing politics. Under the guise of law.

• Murphy’s Law (Jonathan Turley)

“Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” That adage, called Murphy’s Law, came to mind this week with the latest injunction issued by U.S. District Court Judge Brian Murphy in Boston. Murphy previously drew national criticism for his efforts to enjoin Trump’s immigration policies, resulting in not one but two rebukes from the Supreme Court. He is now back with an order preventing changes to vaccination policies ordered by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

As with his earlier immigration order, the court seems to take the view that anything that can go wrong for the Trump Administration will go wrong for the Administration. At virtually every critical point, the court seems to adopt the harshest possible interpretation against the Administration. Murphy effectively halted, for now, the meeting of Kennedy’s new Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. Kennedy had replaced many members of the ACIP, including some accused of conflicts of interest. However, Murphy found that Kennedy had made arbitrary and capricious decisions in changing vaccine policies and changing the committee membership.
The Trump Administration has been aggressively fighting for executive authority over agencies, boards, and committees. This case could become one of the most significant of these appeals.Judge Murphy basically lambasts Kennedy for attacking good science and scientific methods. His criticism is laden with assumptions about the “correct” answers to questions governing vaccines. There are good-faith objections to Kennedy’s policy changes. However, the question is who is constitutionally vested with the right to make such decisions. That question is particularly prominent in the Murphy opinion. For example, the court rejects the new board members as unqualified in comparison to the prior members.
The court’s rejection of the new board members is largely conclusory. The court offers little indication of who Kennedy might appoint to meet his standards … other than the prior board members placed on the committee during the prior administration. In determining whether Kennedy had a right to reconstitute the committee, the opinion states that “[t]he Court acknowledges that many of the ACIP members have extensive expertise in their chosen fields.” However, it then questions whether they have truly “relevant” experience. The court insists that only six have relevant experience with vaccines.
The rejection of individual advisers shows how the court dismisses countervailing credentials or belittles advisers selected by the Secretary. Take Dr. Raymond Pollak who “is a surgeon, transplant immunobiologist, and transplant specialist who has published more than 120 peer-reviewed works and served as principal investigator on NIH transplant biology grants and numerous drug trials.” That would seem to be someone who could offer unique insights into vaccines and their approval. Yet, while acknowledging some experience, Murphy dismisses him as lacking sufficient experience.
Then there is Dr. Retsef Levi, Professor of Operations Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, as “a leading expert in healthcare analytics, supply chain and manufacturing analytics, risk management, and biologics and vaccine safety” and note that he has “collaborated with industry stakeholders and public health agencies to develop decision-support models to evaluate biologics and vaccine safety” and co-authored studies examining the association between mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and risks of cardiovascular disease, mortality, and adverse pregnancy outcomes.” He has also published two papers on vaccines. However, Judge Murphy brushes aside that stellar academic record and notes that “both of those [vaccine papers] were published mere months before his appointment.”

I personally give Trump much more credit than PCR does.

• Trump Continues to Expel MAGA’s Best Members (Paul Craig Roberts)

Trump, again doing the political assassination for the Israel Lobby, is trying to drive American hero US Rep. Thomas Massie out of Congress Three new York Jewish billionaires–Henry Paulson, Miriam Adelson, and Paul Singer–have contributed an enormous war chest for unseating Massie. Trump is contributing his demonization rhetoric: “We got to get rid of this loser. This guy is bad,” Trump said at a rally in Hebron, Kentucky. “He’s disloyal to the Republican Party. He’s disloyal to the people of Kentucky, and most importantly, he is disloyal to the United States of America. And he’s got to be voted out of office as soon as possible.” https://www.unz.com/article/thomas-massie-live-by-the-sword-die-by-the-dagger/

What Trump means is that Massie is disloyal to the Israel Lobby. On Tucker Carlson’s show Massie revealed that every member of Congress has an AIPAC babysitter or handler to make certain the member votes in Israel’s interest. To please Israel, Trump turns on his strongest supporters, such as Massie, Marjorie Taylor Green, and Joe Kent. As Trump does not tolerate dissent, none of his advisers dare to tell him anything. Trump’s schooling as a Jewish-financed New York real estate developer is not leading to anything good. We have an impetuous and unpredictable president with his finger on the button who listens to no one but Zionist Israel.

“Kent elaborated that Israel was preparing to strike, which would trigger retaliation endangering U.S. personnel – creating the cited “imminent” risk.. “

• Kent Tells Tucker: ‘Imminent Threat’ Was From Israel, Not Iran (ZH)

Joe Kent, former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center who was President Trump’s principal counterterrorism advisor, appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show to explain his side of the story after stepping down from the administration. Kent announced his resignation Tuesday, citing his opposition to the ongoing U.S. war with Iran, and his belief that Iran posed “no imminent threat” to America – while asserting in his resignation letter that his wife died in “a war manufactured by Israel” in a 2019 suicide bombing in Manjbi, Syria.

In this first public interview since resigning, Kent elaborated on his reasons amid reports emerging Wednesday that the FBI is investigating him for allegedly leaking or improperly sharing classified information (a probe that sources say predates his resignation and is being handled by the FBI’s Criminal Division, per several outlets). Early on in the interview, Carlson referenced Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s justification for the strikes – that Iran posed an imminent threat because Israel was preparing to attack Iranian targets, likely prompting Iranian retaliation against U.S. forces. Carlson reframed it bluntly:
Carlson: “So, the imminent threat that the secretary of state is describing is not from Iran. It’s from Israel.” Kent: “Exactly. And I think this speaks to the broader issue: who is in charge of our policy in the Middle East?” Kent elaborated that Israel was preparing to strike, which would trigger retaliation endangering U.S. personnel – creating the cited “imminent” risk. He stated: Kent: “The Israelis drove the decision to take this action, which we knew would set off a series of events because the Iranians would retaliate.”
Kent insisted there was zero U.S. intelligence of Iran planning a direct attack, nearing a nuclear weapon, or posing an immediate homeland threat. He cited Iran’s religious fatwa against nuclear weapons (since 2004) and said the assassinated Supreme Leader Khamenei had moderated the program: Kent: “There was no intelligence that said, hey… the Iranians are going to launch this big sneak attack… There was none of that intelligence.” On nukes: “No, they weren’t [on the verge of a bomb]. They weren’t in June either. The Iranians have had a fatwa – a religious ruling – against the development of a nuclear weapon since 2004… We had no intelligence that it was being disobeyed.”
https://twitter.com/remarks/status/2034418878143484285?s=20

Kent described how dissenting views were sidelined in the lead-up to strikes. Key officials, including himself, were reportedly barred from direct briefings with Trump. He said he spoke personally with the president before resigning – a conversation he described as “very respectful” – but felt staying would mean silencing his warnings. “A good deal of key decision-makers were not allowed to come and express their opinion to the president,” Kent said, adding “There wasn’t a robust debate.”

Joe Kent says Operation Midnight Hammer allowed Key-decision makers to have robust debate about the mission, but when it came to this new war, no debate was allowed, and President Trump was basically kept in an Information Silo with Israeli-fed Intelligence

He reiterates what… https://t.co/FegSMJGajB pic.twitter.com/6udeyrh1WH
— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) March 19, 2026

In an emotionally charged segment, Kent discussed the September 2025 assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, whom he knew personally. Kent recounted Kirk’s last words to him in the West Wing in June: Kent (recalling Kirk): “Joe, stop us from getting into a war with Iran.” Kent said Kirk had opposed escalation and faced pressure from pro-Israel donors. He revealed the NCTC had leads on potential foreign involvement but was ordered to halt: Kent: “The investigation that the National Counterterrorism Center was a part of, we were stopped from continuing to investigate… There was still a lot for us to look into… there were still linkages for us to investigate that we needed to run down.”= The official narrative focused on lone gunman Ryan Robinson, but Kent insisted unresolved questions remained.

We should know what happened when Boeing went from an engineers- to an accountants firm. Probe it. McDonnell Douglas.

• NASA May Shrink Boeing’s Moon-Mission Role, Push SpaceX (ZH)

President Donald Trump’s NASA chief could soon announce Boeing’s diminishing role in returning astronauts to the Moon, while leaning heavily on Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket company to do the heavy lifting. Boeing’s Space Launch System (SLS), originally the rocket backbone of the Artemis mission, would no longer carry the Lockheed Martin-built Orion crew capsule to the Moon. Under the new plan, SpaceX’s Starship would take the lead.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman plans to meet with the companies working on the Artemis program next Tuesday, including Boeing, SpaceX, and Blue Origin, to discuss progress and current paths forward. Sources close to the program said any significant changes could face immediate Congressional scrutiny.”NASA is committed to using the SLS architecture through at least Artemis V, which is necessary to support both human landing system providers, and their associated acceleration plans to return American astronauts to the Moon,” Isaacman said in a statement. “We’re incredibly supportive of both our HLS providers and their plans to accelerate America’s path forward to the moon,” Isaacman added.

SpaceX will ultimately deliver millions of tons to the Moon to build a self-growing city there and same for Mars
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 19, 2026

If Isaacman does boot SLS from the core rocket during the launch of the Orion crew capsule to the moon, it would be a massive blow to Boeing, which has been mired in setbacks ranging from Starliner capsule issues to SLS launch delays. Notably, Starship still lacks a fully successful orbital flight. The effort to swap SLS for Starship shows Isaacman’s urgent push to accelerate Artemis timelines (target: 2028 landing) after years of delays and cost overruns, with SLS missions costing over $4 billion each.Isaacman has also been weighing alternatives for the HLS on the Moon from both SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin – both of which hold multibillion-dollar contracts to develop Moon landers for Artemis.

Everyone behind the Steele dossier is walking free.

• When ‘I Don’t Recall’ Meets a DOJ Subpoena (David Manney)

James Comey is back in the spotlight with a familiar flavor. The Department of Justice has issued a subpoena tied to his role in the 2017 intelligence assessment on Russia and the 2016 election. Years passed, but the questions never went away. Now, however, they’ve returned with legal force behind them. The subpoena marks a new escalation after Fox News Digital previously reported that Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan were under criminal investigation related to the probe.Sources at the time said the investigations were examining potential wrongdoing tied to the creation of the 2017 assessment and possible false statements to Congress. Comey, as PJ Media readers know, served as FBI director at the time and played a central role in one of the most consequential investigations in recent political history.

It was an investigation that influenced public opinion, policy debates, and years of political conflict that followed. That assessment referenced the Steele dossier, which a CIA “Tradecraft Review” completed in June under CIA Director John Ratcliffe said “ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment,” according to Axios, which cited the review.Ratcliffe has since referred Comey and Brennan for possible prosecution, Axios reported. Senior officials from multiple agencies contributed to the document, including John Brennan and James Clapper. The document’s conclusion shaped the early narrative around the election and set the tone for investigations that stretched across years.
The current inquiry focuses on process and accountability. Lawmakers and investigators want clarity on how evidence was gathered, how conclusions were reached, and whether political pressure played any role. Those questions may sound procedural, but they carry serious weight; decisions made during that period affected the credibility of major institutions and the direction of national policy. Comey’s past testimony offers a preview of what may come next. During earlier hearings, he often leaned on phrases that signaled caution or distance. “I don’t recall” appeared many times, and the Fifth Amendment remains a legal option available to any witness under oath. A subpoena raises the stakes because it requires answers, even if those answers arrive carefully measured.
President Donald Trump has long argued that the original investigation carried political bias, a view that continues to shape how supporters interpret the renewed scrutiny. Meanwhile, those on the left maintain that the original findings reflected legitimate concerns about foreign interference. There’s enough daylight between those competing views to power a solar panel for minutes.The legal process will move forward step by step. Testimony, documents, and sworn statements will form the backbone of whatever comes next. Investigators will press for clarity, witnesses will weigh their words carefully, and the outcome will depend less on headlines and more on what can be established under oath.
For Comey, the moment carries both legal and personal weight. His time as FBI director placed him in the center of events that reshaped American politics. The subpoena pulls him back into that same arena, where every answer matters and every pause gets noticed. The country has seen versions of this scene before: a high-profile witness, a charged political backdrop, and a series of questions that reach back years.What happens next depends on how much clarity emerges and how much remains unreachable. In other words, wash, rinse, repeat. If we decide on a drinking game, basing a shot of Buffalo Trace on each time we hear “I don’t recall,” we’ll remember the first 15 minutes of his testimony. Regardless, second verse, same as the first verse.

Quantum entanglement: It’s already there

What if your prayer doesn't have to "travel" at all?

1997 Geneva experiment (Nicolas Gisin): Split one photon into entangled twins, sent them ~7 miles apart via fiber optics. Measure one → the other reacts instantly — zero time delay. Science nugget: Quantum entanglement means… pic.twitter.com/fGijOl1JXN
— Camus (@newstart_2024) March 19, 2026

Joe Kent on why we actually went to war with Iran. pic.twitter.com/ghoSEW6fLy
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 19, 2026

There will never again be a free and fair election in Europe so long as the EU can pick every country’s winners and losers by using its Digital Censorship Act to rig every election in favor of the candidate race it wants to win. https://t.co/6VMy0gODCG
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) March 19, 2026

https://twitter.com/IslanderWORLD/status/2034396591088627889 A car in less than 5 seconds

Elon Musk: “Cybercab is not just a revolutionary car design, it’s also a revolutionary manufacturing process.

We probably don’t talk about that enough, but if you’ve seen the design of the Cybercab line, it doesn’t look like a normal car line, it looks like a high-speed consumer… pic.twitter.com/H8xHwgVsZW
— Mars University (@MarsUniversityX) March 18, 2026

A cosmic ocean exists where no human has ever sailed. Astronomers have detected a water cloud 12 billion light-years away, holding an astonishing 140 trillion times the water in all of Earth’s oceans combined. It is a discovery so vast that it stretches the imagination,… pic.twitter.com/0dvvLpJ2zM
— Amazing Physics (@amazing_physics) March 18, 2026

This would be a travesty https://t.co/Y4AIPVRKIm
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 18, 2026

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

Debt Rattle March 19 2026

Mar 192026

March 19, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:45 am Finance Tagged with: CNN, Greg Gutfeld, Hormuz, immigratin, Iran, Israel, Japan, Jessica Tarlov, John Cleese, migrants, regional hegemon, Soon-Shiong 76 Responses »

William Adolphe Bouguereau Girl with a pomegranate 1875

• Unidentified Drones Fly Over Army Base Where Rubio and Hegseth Live (Anderson)

• Israel Is Now the Regional Hegemon Iran Wanted to Be (Stephen Green)

• Trump Wonders If Crushing Iran Would Wake Up US ‘Allies’ (Catherine Salgado)

• Japan Signs Major $56 Billion Energy Deal with US (CTH)

• Appeals Court Refuses Trump’s Request To Reconsider CNN Defamation Suit (ZH)

• ‘Europeans Committing Demographic Suicide’ (ZH)

• Restore Britain Vows To EXECUTE Pedophiles, DEPORT Millions of Migrants (MN)

• Berlin Accused Of Prioritizing Migrants Over Merit (Brooke)

• Our New Ungracious Immigrants (Victor Davis Hanson)

• 200,000 Immigrant Truck Drivers Begin Losing Licenses (ZH)

• Migrant-Linked Violence Spirals in Rome’s San Lorenzo (Brooke)

• Greg Gutfeld Shreds Jessica Tarlov’s On-Air Meltdown Over SAVE Act (Margolis)

• Musk’s xAI Turns To Wall Street Bankers To Improve Grok’s Financials (ZH)

• The Inevitability of Self-Driving Cars (QTR)

pic.twitter.com/6MST7Vfioz
— Science girl (@sciencegirl) March 18, 2026

The Western world in general, and certainly Europe, is under threat because the people there fail to acknowledge that islam wants to conquer the world. And once you get to the second generation, when the kids are born on your territory, you’rte already too late. But the people who belong to the Christian part of civilization forget they are part of Christianity, often because they are not practicing Christians. Well, you can either wake up now, or you will be woken later in a muslim world. We need 85-year old John Cleese of all people, to teach us this in a whole series of tweets. He does understand.

Well, I think they agree with him, don't they ?

Muslim Clerics talk about how the Koran exhorts its followers to kill infidels and to take over the planet

Sounds remarkable like a threat, doesn't it ?

Or is it all meant ironically ? https://t.co/3EXvcjcwsI
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) March 18, 2026

The UK has always been based at the deepest level on Christian values, regardless of dogma

Despite the many mistakes made by churches, for centuries British people have been influenced by Christ's teaching

If these values are replaced by Islamic ones, this will not be Britain… https://t.co/7wbwlz5lIC
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) March 16, 2026

I don't want to be conquered and have to bow down to Islam

Does that cause offence to Muslims ? https://t.co/yMPth5ppWc
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) March 18, 2026

How does this work in terms of multiculturalism ? https://t.co/RTL2gYxUQa
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) March 18, 2026

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says “Islam is the greatest evil in the world” and is the greatest threat to the United States

“That's a clear and imminent threat to the world and to the broader west, but especially to the United States — Whatever it takes for them to gain their… pic.twitter.com/h3VDOkFFWz
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) March 17, 2026

Charlie Kirk was 100% correct! pic.twitter.com/HAfTG0OVVG
— Patriot (@_Patriot1776Q_) March 17, 2026

https://twitter.com/Shibumi93730007/status/2033775337629487223?s=20 https://twitter.com/_Patriot1776Q_/status/2033773278465298951?s=20

Definitely worth a read ! https://t.co/zDMBSLw2aO
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) March 18, 2026

John Cleese and Bill Maher talk making jokes about Islam

Absolutely brilliant pic.twitter.com/8J0Ick3wK5
— Basil the Great (@BasilTheGreat) March 18, 2026

I'm not sure how this leads to Multiculturalism

More like Uniculturalism https://t.co/idGCc1UwQP
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) March 18, 2026

John Cleese is asking for your questions…..and he’ll answer them himself.

One of Britain’s sharpest minds.
No filters. No nonsense.

If you could ask him anything… what would it be? pic.twitter.com/tXdtzzqSeW
— Benonwine (@benonwine) March 18, 2026

https://twitter.com/Sassafrass_84/status/2034359917801329050?s=20

Odd.

• Unidentified Drones Fly Over Army Base Where Rubio and Hegseth Live (Anderson)

On Wednesday night, the Washington Post reported that “U.S. officials detected unidentified drones above the Washington Army base where Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth live” and that those officials have not yet determined where they came from. WaPo cites three “sources familiar with the situation,” so keep that in mind.

U.S. officials detected unidentified drones above the Washington Army base where Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth live. Unclear where it came from. — WaPo pic.twitter.com/vqr8nSzKQ6
— NewsWire (@NewsWire_US) March 19, 2026

One of the sources, who the newspaper says is a “senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity” said that the military is currently monitoring threats more closely due to the “heightened alert level as the United States and Israel strike Iran.” In this case, “multiple drones were spotted over Fort Lesley J. McNair on a single night in the last 10 days.” This led to increased security and a White House meeting to determine how to respond.
Here’s more: The drone sightings in Washington come as the U.S. issued a global security alert for overseas diplomatic posts and locked down several domestic bases because of threats. This week, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey and MacDill Air Force Base in Florida raised their force protection level to Charlie — a designation that means the commander has intelligence indicating an attack or danger is possible. The only higher alert level, Delta, is for when an attack has occurred or is anticipated.
Officials are now debating whether to relocate Secretaries Hegseth and Rubio, who are still living at Fort McNair. Back in the fall, several news outlet reported that both men had moved to military bases, along with Donald Trump’s Homeland Security advisor, Stephen Miller. Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also had to move to a military base. According to the Atlantic, other members of the administrative have as well. This is a developing story. I’m writing just after midnight (EDT) on Wednesday night, so hopefully, we’ll know more on Thursday.

TEXT

• Israel Is Now the Regional Hegemon Iran Wanted to Be (Stephen Green)

It began, as so many unpredictable events did, on Oct 7, 2023, with the terror invasion of southern Israel. An army regiment’s worth of Hamas swept through Israel’s largely unmanned Gaza defenses, on foot, in trucks, and even paragliders. They murdered in kibbutzes, at a music festival, and in the streets. The mass murder was as well organized as anything the Nazis achieved before establishing death camps at places like Auschwitz.

Hamas prepared for months, relying on in-person meetings between trusted members to evade Israeli electronic and human intelligence. It achieved complete surprise. Before IDF troops could mobilize and force Hezbollah back into the Gaza Strip — where the real fighting would soon begin — something like 1,200 Israelis were dead, mostly civilians. The dead included babies, children, and women sexually assaulted to death. Another 250 or so taken hostage, the remains of the last of them not returned until early 2026.
There was chatter in the early hours of that desperate Saturday morning of Hamas continuing the rampage northward to the West Bank, where they would join forces with the P.A., effectively cutting Israel in half. Hamas forces in Lebanon would sweep down from the north under an unending rocket barrage. Had Hamas and Hezbollah gotten their way, the Oct. 7 invasion still couldn’t have fulfilled the long-held dream of ending Israel and claiming “Palestine” from “the river to the sea.” But it would have exposed Israel as weak and vulnerable, inviting further attack, weakening her will, and driving her people to emigrate back out of the Middle East.
Behind it all, providing the money, the weapons, and the vision: the Islamic Republic’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Middle East’s new hegemon. And, with a near-witless Barack Obama crony ensconced in the White House, soon in possession of a formidable array of ballistic missiles tipped with nuclear warheads. Or at least that was the plan. And Another Thing: What the Gulf oil states might have done in that scenario is a matter of speculation outside the scope of today’s column. But they’d certainly have had zero reason for continued peacemaking efforts with a weakened Israel.
Before the invasion, Israel wasn’t just seen as boxed in; she was boxed in. Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s every decision is tempered by the threat of Hezbollah and Hamas missiles to his north and south. And perhaps even increased terror activity from the West Bank — a dagger aimed at Israel’s heart. Today, Ali Khamenei is dead. His dynastic replacement, Gayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, is dead or might as well be. So many other Iranian political leaders, military commanders, intelligence figures — I could go on — are dead that it’s almost impossible to keep track even with a scorecard.
Iran is boxed in by Israeli/CENTCOM air and naval forces, and a surprisingly resilient (albeit not very helpful) coalition of Arab Gulf states.If the Middle East has a regional hegemon — aside from the out-of-region global hegemon, that is — it’s the Jewish State. Israeli warplanes fly where they will. Israeli intelligence officers go where they will and turn whom they will. The Gulf states largely acquiesce, Hamas and Hezbollah are largely spent forces, and their sponsor state is on the ropes. All because one man — now dead — thought he could change the Middle East on Oct. 7, 2023.
Well, I guess he did.

“WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!”

• Trump Wonders If Crushing Iran Would Wake Up US ‘Allies’ (Catherine Salgado)

President Donald Trump speculated on Wednesday morning whether completely destroying the Islamic regime of Iran would finally inspire our weak and feckless “allies” to protect the waters that are so vital for their own economies.Trump was asking other countries to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open, including multiple European countries and Communist China (which is 100% on Iran’s side and therefore happy to disappoint us). Even our supposed allies are largely digging in their heels and refusing to help, though. Therefore, Trump challenged on March 18, “I wonder what would happen if we ‘finished off’ what’s left of the Iranian Terror State, and let the Countries that use it, we don’t, be responsible for the so called ‘Strait?’ That would get some of our non-responsive ‘Allies’ in gear, and fast!!!”

Regime change in Iran is necessary to keep the fanatical Muslim jihadis who currently run it from rebuilding and continuing to attack Americans in the future. But instead of assessing the merits of the case, including the great benefit to themselves if the Iranian regime were to fall, multiple European nations are instead whining about “war” as if they hadn’t aggressively supported war in Ukraine for years.
Trump is also understandably tired of hearing complaints about his taking out a regime that has spread global death, chaos, and destruction for half a century now. “Remember, for all of those absolute ‘fools’ out there, Iran is considered, by everyone, to be the NUMBER ONE STATE SPONSOR OF TERROR. We are rapidly putting them out of business!” Trump posted on Truth Social at around the same time as his message about the Strait of Hormuz. Oddly enough, the strait is actually more important for European energy than American energy.
Trump also expressed his frustration on March 17 with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which is always demanding American money while bashing America. “The United States has been informed by most of our NATO ‘Allies’ that they don’t want to get involved with our Military Operation against the Terrorist Regime of Iran, in the Middle East, this, despite the fact that almost every Country strongly agreed with what we are doing, and that Iran cannot, in any way, shape, or form, be allowed to have a Nuclear Weapon,” Trump wrote. He added:
“I am not surprised by their action, however, because I always considered NATO, where we spend Hundreds of Billions of Dollars per year protecting these same Countries, to be a one way street — We will protect them, but they will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need. Fortunately, we have decimated Iran’s Military — Their Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, their Anti-Aircraft and Radar is gone and perhaps, most importantly, their Leaders, at virtually every level, are gone, never to threaten us, our Middle Eastern Allies, or the World, again! Because of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer “need,” or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance — WE NEVER DID! Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea. In fact, speaking as President of the United States of America, by far the Most Powerful Country Anywhere in the World, WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!”

Token. Allegiance.

• Japan Signs Major $56 Billion Energy Deal with US (CTH)

CTH has said to watch the U.S.-Japan trade relationship closely because the outlines of multiple geopolitical shifts can be referenced from a new strategic relationship surrounding multiple sectors, including energy.The U.S, relationship with Japan is both leverage and a hedge against old alliances that may seek to disrupt the global reset currently underway through President Trump policy. The issues with the European Union, U.K, USMCA and other tenuous allies, look entirely different when President Trump has alternative partnerships for massive energy exports.

ENERGY NEWS – In a major move to secure stable energy supplies amid escalating geopolitical tensions, Japan has inked deals worth up to $56 billion with the United States for oil, natural gas, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) purchases and investments. This agreement, finalized at the Asia-Pacific Energy Security Forum in Tokyo on March 14, 2026, underscores Japan’s push to diversify its energy imports and deepen economic ties with the US under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration.mThe deals come as part of a broader framework stemming from the 2025 US-Japan trade agreement, where Japan pledged $550 billion in US investments over several years, with energy as a key pillar. ]
The $56 billion package represents a significant escalation in Japan’s commitment to American energy, building on an initial $36 billion tranche announced earlier in 2026.nThis latest round emphasizes immediate purchases and long-term infrastructure projects, responding to global market volatility driven by conflicts in the Middle East and disruptions in key shipping routes like the Strait of Hormuz. […] The agreements encompass a mix of direct energy purchases, joint ventures, and infrastructure investments. As a nation that needs energy partnerships, Japan seeks stability and predictability. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has gone all-in on a strategic energy partnership with the United States.
As the tectonic plates are shaken:
• If Canada wants to try and leverage the energy trade infrastructure against a USMCA reset, President Trump has Venezuela production as an offset. Japanese automakers have already told Canadian trade ministers that if Canada loses the USMCA, there s no value in maintaining auto manufacturing north of the border because the target customers are all in the USA. Japan would move all production out of Canada. I doubt China could replace at scale.
• If Europe, who is now dependent on LNG from Norway and the USA, wants to create geopolitical friction, President Trump now has Japan as a replacement customer. More behavioral leverage. U.S. firms are making a lot of money selling LNG to Europe, but Trump has just created a customer base that is more reliable and politically consistent.
• Then, as the short-term lifting of LNG and oil sanctions on Russia is proving (petrodollars used), think about the potential for India and Southeast Asia to be supported by Russian exports. Who holds that distribution key, again Trump.] It is not accidental that India is sending support vessels to the Strait of Hormuz as requested by President Trump. Here s the kicker& With oil and gas from Russia, India doesn t need the Iranian oil and gas; yet, they are sending support. Why? Because Prime Minister Modi wants Trump to keep their Russian purchase exemptions in place.

It’s Trump. The judge says you can say about him what you want. Been going on for 15 years+.

• Appeals Court Refuses Trump’s Request To Reconsider CNN Defamation Suit (ZH)

President Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against CNN appears to be dead for the time being, as an appeals court denied his motion to rehear the case. A three-judge panel had held in November that Trump hadn’t done enough to show that CNN compared him to Adolph Hitler when it described his claims about the 2020 election as “the Big Lie.” In a brief unsigned order on March 17, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit said that none of its judges asked for a vote to reconsider the case. Trump told the circuit that the three-judge panel erred. He wanted the full panel to consider whether his case should be decided by a jury instead of the court, and to reconsider whether the statements made by the network’s journalists allowed him to sue.

The order also ruled out the possibility of a rehearing by the original three-judge panel. As Stacy Robinson reports for The Epoch Times, Trump sued CNN in 2022 after the network’s journalists repeatedly referred to his disputation of the 2020 election results as a “Big Lie. That terminology has historically been used in reference to Hitler’s Nazi regime, his propagandist Joseph Goebbels, and the push for a genocide of the Jewish people. “CNN has acknowledged that the term the ‘Big Lie’ is a direct reference to Adolf Hitler and Nazism and uses the term in relation to the Plaintiff to create a false and incendiary association between the Plaintiff and Hitler,” Trump’s complaint alleged.
A district court found that CNN’s language was just “hyperbole,” and not meant literally. They dismissed the case. In a unanimous decision, the 11th Circuit affirmed that dismissal. “To be clear, CNN has never explicitly claimed that Trump’s ‘actions and statements were designed to be, and actually were, variations of those [that] Hitler used to suppress and destroy populations,’” its decision read. Trump wanted the full panel to determine if his case warranted a jury trial, and reconsider whether the CNN journalists’ language allowed him to sue CNN asked the court to toss out the case, saying the term “Big Lie” is “rhetorical hyperbole and does not refer to Hitler or Nazism.” Trump could not prove the network acted with “actual malice,” by publishing statements it knew were false, CNN argued.
“Actual malice is an extremely high evidentiary burden for any plaintiff to meet, much less the former President of the United States of America, and he has utterly failed to meet that burden here,” CNN’s response brief reads. In July 2023, Florida District Judge Raag Singhal dismissed Trump’s suit with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought again. He ruled that there was “no question” that such statements met the standard for defamation under the law. But, he said, they were statements of opinion, and not fact—even though he found them to be “odious and repugnant.”
“CNN’s use of the phrase ’the Big Lie’ in connection with Trump’s election challenges does not give rise to a plausible inference that Trump advocates the persecution and genocide of Jews or any other group of people,” Singhal wrote. “No reasonable viewer could (or should) plausibly make that reference.” Trump appealed that ruling, arguing the judge had failed “to consider the totality and context of the defamatory statements,” by “finding that CNN’s statements were pure opinion or rhetorical hyperbole.”
The CNN case is one of several defamation suits Trump has brought against news outlets. Last year, the president sued the Wall Street Journal for publishing a birthday card he allegedly sent to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. That case is ongoing. In 2024, Trump obtained a $15 million settlement against ABC and its anchor George Stephanopoulos, who claimed on air that Trump was “found liable for rape.”
Last September, a judge threw out a $15 billion suit against the New York Times and some of its reporters on the grounds that Trump’s legal brief broke court rules: It was unnecessarily lengthy and contained improper language, the judge ruled. Trump refiled that suit in October. The president has also teed up a suit against the BBC, after reports it had altered a video of him speaking to supporters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to make it appear as if he was promoting violence. The BBC on March 16 asked the court to dismiss the suit.

In one generation.

• ‘Europeans Committing Demographic Suicide’ (ZH)

Europeans are committing demographic suicide and the tools used to managed migration are failing at every level, said Rodrigo Ballester, the head of the Center for European Studies at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium. He made his remark at a recent Ordo Iuris Institute event in Warsaw, Poland, which saw European politicians, policymakers, and other important players gather to discuss a groundbreaking paper: “Taking Back Control from Brussels. The Renationalization of the EU Migration and Asylum Policies.”n“As Europeans, we are committing demographic suicide. We are a continent of old rich people, facing a continent of young, hungry, and determined people — ambitious people.

We’re still trying to manage migration with hopelessly outdated tools, using conventions from a century ago. They have completely lost their meaning today. In practice, I’m talking about the Geneva Convention. This is the ‘sacred cow’ we should get rid of,” Ballester emphasized. The “Taking Back Control” paper, which was recently covered by Remix News, outlines 18 ways Europe can regain control of immigration policy. Ballester emphasized that these policies need to be implemented and quickly. Many of the speakers discussed various aspects of Europe’s ongoing immigration crisis, including the sharply differing trajectories of pro-immigration countries such as Poland versus Germany.
Polish Prof. Zdzisslaw Krasnodebski, a former MEP, spoke to the large audience who had gathered, where he compared the impact of immigration on the Polish city of Warsaw to the German city of Bremen where he lived and worked for a long time. “How did it happen that such a process, which is suicidal, was supported by societies for years? I can tell you that I know two such cities well. One was poor and large, and people were moving away from it. It was Warsaw. Warsaw was also White, if I may use that term. The other city (Bremen) was well-off, middle-class, also White. In 2025, one is almost a ruin. It used to be a prosperous, medium-sized town. Meanwhile, this big, great city we’re in right now has become one of the wealthiest cities in Europe,” he pointed out.
Krasnodebski underlined the trajectory of Warsaw, which is economically booming while still maintaining a strong White majority and rejecting the diversity seen in many other Western cities. Meanwhile, Bremen has been labeled the “most dangerous city in Germany,” where an incredible 73 percent of crime suspects are non-German. The situation has deteriorated so greatly in Bremen that even left-wing politicians in the city have admitted that “massive immigration” has sparked a housing and crime crisis. However, other speakers warned that not all is well in Poland, either.
Jacek Saryusz-Wolski—a former Polish Minister for European Affairs and Member of the European Parliament, currently President Nawrocki’s main advisor for European affairs — took the floor. “Looking at the statistics, you can see that in most of Western Europe, immigrant communities make up a percentage in the teens, or even over 20 percent, of the population. It’s not like that here (in Poland) yet, but we too face the risk of an open-borders policy starting here. We will then, after a certain delay, share the same fate,” noted Saryusz-Wolski.] Saryusz-Wolski further warned that the EU is taking more and more power away from nation-states in order to dictate an open borders policy.

The potential to get out of hand. But not their fault.

• Restore Britain Vows To EXECUTE Pedophiles, DEPORT Millions of Migrants (MN)

A new force in British politics is making waves with an uncompromising vision for national restoration. Just weeks after its launch as a full political party in February, Restore Britain has already overtaken the Conservative Party in membership numbers, reaching over 114,000 supporters and becoming the fourth largest party in the country. The growth has been entirely organic through social media and grassroots efforts, with almost no mainstream coverage. Campaigns director and spokesman Charlie Downes laid out the bold agenda clearly: “We will not lie to the British people. Restoring Britain will require decisions that are controversial and unpleasant.”

We will not lie to the British people. Restoring Britain will require decisions that are controversial and unpleasant.

We are going to strip millions of healthy Brits who refuse to work of benefits. If that causes outrage from those who think the taxpayer owes them a living, so… pic.twitter.com/eaOvdX23w3
— Charlie Downes (@cfdownes_) March 17, 2026

He continued: “We are going to strip millions of healthy Brits who refuse to work of benefits. If that causes outrage from those who think the taxpayer owes them a living, so be it.” “We are going to deport all illegal and burdensome migrants. If that means millions go, so be it,” Downes added. He further urged, “We are going to outlaw incompatible cultural and religious practices. If that means those who refuse to integrate no longer feel welcome, so be it.” “We are going to execute pedophiles, rapists, and murderers if that is what the British people want,” Downes stressed, adding that “If that means we are condemned by subversive ‘human rights’ groups, so be it.”
He concluded by noting “We take no pleasure in these measures. It is a damning indictment of our political class that they are necessary in the first place. But necessary they are.” In a video clip from the party’s launch event, Downes made the philosophy explicit: “We do not believe in conserving the system. We do not believe in reforming the system. We believe in revolution.” This stance marks a clear break from the traditional parties that have presided over mass immigration, welfare dependency and soft approaches to serious crime.It has also immediately become popular with British voters who have become frustrated with Nigel Farage’s Reform Party, over a perceived lack of transparency when it comes to their commitment to mass deportation, in addition to the questionable raft of defections of politicians from the traditional parties, the very people who oversaw the implementation of mass migration into Britain, to Reform.

Forget about Germany. Stick a fork in it and turn it over.

• Berlin Accused Of Prioritizing Migrants Over Merit (Brooke)

A diversity hiring policy affecting the recruitment of judges and public prosecutors in Berlin has come under renewed scrutiny after the city’s justice senator warned that the system may conflict with Germany’s constitutional requirement that public offices be filled strictly on merit. The policy, introduced in 2021 under then justice senator Dirk Behrendt of the Green Party, stems from amendments to the Law to Promote Participation in a Migration Society, known as the PartMigG. The legislation was adopted by Berlin’s House of Representatives with support from the then-governing coalition of the Social Democrats, Greens, and the Left.

Under the law, recruitment procedures must ensure that applicants with a migration background are invited to interviews in numbers reflecting their share of the population. In Berlin, around 40 percent of residents fall into that category, defined by the Federal Statistical Office as individuals who themselves, or at least one parent, were not born with German citizenship. In practice, the rule means that some interviewees experience positive discrimination and their migration background is a criterion for their selection, regardless of whether other applicants may have stronger academic credentials.
According to Bild, the system has been implemented in recent years by Berlin’s chief public prosecutor, Margarete Koppers, also associated with the Greens. The newspaper noted that internal warnings were first raised when the measure was initially drafted. Officials cautioned that introducing a quota linked to migration background during the selection process could violate Article 33(2) of Germany’s Basic Law, which states that access to public office must be determined by “suitability, competence, and performance.”
Berlin’s current justice senator, Felor Badenberg of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has now drawn attention to the issue and questioned whether the rule is compatible with constitutional principles. Badenberg said she supports efforts to improve integration and participation in public institutions, noting that she herself has a migration background, with parents who came from Iran. However, she emphasized that the constitution must remain the guiding standard.

Immigrants used to be more grateful?!

• Our New Ungracious Immigrants (Victor Davis Hanson)

The contrast between the grateful immigrants who once embraced America and the resentful newcomers who scorn it reveals how radically—and dangerously—the nation’s immigration ethos has changed. Silicon Valley was energized by legal immigrants from all over the world who founded eBay, Google, Nvidia, SpaceX, Stripe, Sun Microsystems, Tesla, Yahoo, and a host of others. The Greek American Elia Kazan’s 1963 film America, America is a fictional account based on the Herculean struggle of the director’s uncle to immigrate to the United States from an impoverished and hostile Turkish Anatolia.The film summed up Americans’ traditional view of immigrants: They had risked everything for the chance to reach America, and once there, became hyperpatriotic in their gratitude for the magnanimity of their new hosts.

An excellent example is the recently released memoir from Encounter Books, American Trojan, by former University of Southern California president and Cypriot immigrant Dr. Max Nikias. It resonates with thankfulness to America for offering him opportunities undreamed of elsewhere.He and his wife arrived in the U.S. from war-torn Cyprus nearly penniless but determined to work hard, master English, and enrich the country that welcomed them with their talents and education. What followed was an amazing American trajectory that saw Nikias become president of the University of Southern California—arguably the most successful one in recent memory.
I grew up in rural California surrounded by hard-working immigrant farm families from Armenia, India, Japan, and Mexico. Their work ethic, love of America, and productive farms were models for U.S. non-immigrants. Such immigrants explained why the San Joaquin Valley was the most productive and richest agricultural region in the nation. My own Swedish grandfather, disabled by poison gas while fighting on the Western Front in World War I, loved all things Swedish, but not nearly as much as his beloved America.Four Hansons fought on the front lines of World Wars I and II. One was disabled, and another was killed on Okinawa. And all felt blessed that their parents and grandparents had gotten to America.
But recently, something has gone terribly wrong with immigration—an open border, of course, but also a change in legal immigration as well as student visitors. During World War II, Japanese Americans fought heroically in horrific conditions in Italy in the famous 442nd Regimental Combat Team and 100th Infantry Battalion—even as their families were interned in the Western United States. Few native-born Americans were more loyal or patriotic than the Japanese Americans. And now? While America is at war with Iran and de facto with its terrorist proxies, crowds of immigrants, visitors, and foreign students in New York scream anti-American slogans as they cheer on our enemies in theocratic Iran and its terrorist proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas.
Are we surprised, then, when Islamic terrorists begin hunting down Americans on our own soil?] On campuses today, thousands of Middle Eastern international students, mostly arriving from autocratic, tribal, and failed nations, have staged often violent demonstrations in the years following the October 7, 2023, massacre. They are not shy about cheering on the Hamas slaughter of Israeli civilians. These pro-Hamas students have not just damned Israel but also often harassed Jewish Americans. They revile their host America and expect Americans to smile and shrug. It is hard to determine whether such zealots hate the U.S. more than they love living in America and preserving their student visas and work permits.

Popular occupation.

• 200,000 Immigrant Truck Drivers Begin Losing Licenses (ZH)

About 200,000 immigrant truck drivers in the United States could lose their commercial driver’s licenses once they expire under a new rule backed by the administration of Donald Trump, according to VNY. Which leads us…and everybody else to ask: we had 200,000 immigrant truck drivers in the United States? But we digress. The policy bars asylum seekers, refugees, and participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program from obtaining commercial driver’s licenses. It is part of a wider crackdown on foreign truck drivers following several high-profile crashes last summer.

We had 200K immigrant truck drivers??? https://t.co/3XOBiCqdzE pic.twitter.com/lJuKDOubZj
— Logan Hall (@loganclarkhall) March 16, 2026

Experts warn the change could further strain the trucking industry, which already faces labor shortages while handling the majority of freight in the United States. Trucks transport more than 70% of the country’s cargo, but the sector struggles with long hours, relatively low pay, dangerous road conditions, and extended time away from home. As many American workers leave the field, immigrants have increasingly filled those roles. In recent months, enforcement actions have intensified. The United States Department of Transportation has tightened English-language proficiency rules, leading to thousands of license revocations among immigrant drivers.
VNY writes that under the rule announced on February 11, people with various temporary residency permits will no longer qualify for commercial licenses, even if they are legally authorized to work in the U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said the change aims to prevent “dangerous foreign drivers” from exploiting the licensing system and contributing to road safety risks. Officials have also pointed to several fatal accidents involving immigrant drivers and argued that verifying their work histories can be difficult. Critics, however, say the policy unfairly targets immigrants and relies on unproven claims that foreign drivers are responsible for more accidents than American ones.

US and EU have different approaches to immigration.

• Migrant-Linked Violence Spirals in Rome’s San Lorenzo (Brooke)

Residents in Rome’s San Lorenzo district are sounding the alarm over a surge in violence they say is increasingly driven by homeless migrants, after another brutal street attack left a man hospitalized and renewed calls for urgent security measures. The latest incident unfolded in Piazza di Porta San Lorenzo, where a 30-year-old Gambian man allegedly slashed a Moroccan man with a broken bottle in the middle of the street, striking his neck and face and leaving him collapsed on the ground.The victim was rushed to Umberto I Hospital, where he remains in serious condition, while police used footage captured at the scene to quickly identify and arrest the suspect after he fled.

For many locals, however, the attack is just the latest in a growing pattern. Residents say the area has become dominated by groups of vagrants, often intoxicated or under the influence of drugs, who regularly fight among themselves but also target passersby at random. “The problem is that they don’t just fight among themselves, they also attack us residents. Men, women, and even children,” Sofia, a waitress who lives near Piazza dei Caduti, told Il Messaggero.According to the Italian newspaper, a neighborhood assembly has now been called in response, with residents describing a situation that has become “unsustainable.”
Katia Pace, head of the local committee organizing the meeting, said violence has escalated sharply in recent weeks. “Cases have increased visibly in the last two months. Just a few days ago, two women were beaten and robbed,” she said. Despite stepped-up patrols and recent police operations that led to multiple arrests in nearby districts, residents say the response falls short of what is needed to restore order.“It’s not enough,” said Maria, another concerned resident. “We can’t live like this anymore.” Scenes of disorder that are fuelling insecurity have become commonplace, locals say. In public parks, families with young children are forced to navigate areas where men sleep on benches, drink heavily, argue, and urinate openly, heightening fears about safety and hygiene.
Concerns have also been raised over attacks involving minors. In one case, a 12-year-old girl was targeted, while a separate incident saw a Tunisian man arrested after assaulting a woman and fracturing her nose and cheekbone. The attack, captured on surveillance footage, triggered a wave of additional complaints from women reporting similar unprovoked violence.“There have been at least 15 cases,” said Pace, adding that those responsible are typically “homeless foreigners” living in the area, many of whom are said to suffer from addiction or mental health issues.Encampments have spread across multiple parts of the district, including along the Aurelian Walls and several central squares, with tents and makeshift shelters now a regular sight. “The patience of those who live here is not infinite,” another resident told Il Messaggero, warning that vigilante-style reactions could emerge if the situation continues to deteriorate.

They bent over backwards to accomodate the protests.

• Greg Gutfeld Shreds Jessica Tarlov’s On-Air Meltdown Over SAVE Act (Margolis)

The SAVE America Act cleared a big hurdle in the Senate on Tuesday, and while that doesn’t necessarily mean it will end up passing, Republicans are putting the pressure on the Democrats. And the liberals in the media may legit be panicking. Jessica Tarlov lost it on Fox News’ The Five over the SAVE America Act, as her co-hosts shredded her hysterical take. The entire display proved once again that liberals like her just can’t stand a bill that actually protects elections. Remember, all the proposed law would do is require proof of citizenship for federal voter registration and a photo ID to vote — two simple, extremely popular ideas.

Tarlov, ready with her DNC talking points, ranted that the bill disenfranchises everybody under the sun. She claimed young folks, seniors, married women, and adoptees lack the right papers. “Based on what the SAVE Act actually says and what it would require, it would disenfranchise young people, old people, married people, adopted people, which makes no sense at all,” she said. She even floated the idea of the government handing out $165 passports to everyone.
Greg Gutfeld jumped in with zero mercy. “Do you know somebody who doesn’t have an ID? Tell me about it.” She responded by saying she was talking about passports, not ID, but Gutfeld pointed out that liberals for years have been pretending minorities can’t get IDs, which obviously isn’t true, so they’re just pivoting to passports. It was brutal watching Gutfeld and even Dana Perino calling her out and mocking her, and I swear she looked near tears at one point.

https://twitter.com/KarluskaP/status/2034019654373384500?s=20

And the thing is, everything Tarlov claimed was wrong. She had the audacity to invoke what the bill “actually says,” yet clearly she’s never read it, because Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the bill’s sponsor, has already debunked this nonsense and pointed out what is actually in the bill.
“When all else fails, if you don’t have documentation establishing the information on your birth certificate or what would be in a passport or otherwise, the bill contains a provision requiring each state to allow an alternative mechanism by which someone can, by attestation, issue a sworn statement establishing the critical facts underlying their citizenship.” No cost to voters. No legitimate voter left behind. “We took great pains to go out of our way to make sure that no American — no American — would be left in the dark. This will not cost them a dime. And no one will be excluded if they can’t find their documentation.”
Tarlov has never cracked open the bill and read it. She peddles the same tired lefty lines about Americans, particularly minorities, being helpless idiots who are too stupid to be able to get an ID.

pic.twitter.com/DAWAmKkALo
— phoenixpony (@phoenixkat009) March 18, 2026

“Musk has acknowledged publicly that xAI still lags competitors in coding tools ..” Wait. What? The system IS the coding tool, no?

• Musk’s xAI Turns To Wall Street Bankers To Improve Grok’s Financials (ZH)

Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI is expanding efforts to make its chatbot Grok more capable in financial analysis by hiring experienced finance professionals to help train the system, according to Bloomberg. Job listings show the company is recruiting investment bankers, traders, portfolio managers, and credit analysts to join its data-training teams. These specialists would help teach Grok how to reason through complex financial work, including leveraged loan syndication, distressed investing, mortgage-backed securities, and collateralized loan obligations. The company is also seeking experts with experience in equity and cryptocurrency markets.

The move reflects a broader push by major AI developers to sell products to financial professionals. Competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic have already introduced tools designed to speed up tasks like market analysis, research, and investment memo writing. These advances have raised concerns that some traditional financial software providers could lose relevance. Compared with those rivals, xAI is generally seen as behind in attracting corporate customers. Much of its revenue so far has come from agreements with Musk-related businesses, including Tesla, Inc. and SpaceX, which merged with xAI last month.
Bloomberg writes that the company is also adjusting its strategy after a turbulent start to the year that included significant staff departures, including members of its founding team, as well as criticism over Grok generating explicit non-consensual images.Recently, Musk recruited two senior employees from Cursor, an AI coding startup currently seeking funding at a reported valuation of around $50 billion. Musk has acknowledged publicly that xAI still lags competitors in coding tools, a category that has become an important revenue driver for other AI companies.
xAI relies on workers known internally as AI tutors to train Grok by supplying data and adjusting responses. At a recent staff meeting, tutor team lead Diego Pasini said the company’s biggest constraint remains the supply of training data. Much of Grok’s dataset currently comes from X. Many of the new tutor roles are focused on credit markets, which are under increasing pressure as private credit funds face withdrawals and other industry challenges. Great timing.

You driving is too risky. In the future, cars won’t hit anything. You will. Can’t win that one.

• The Inevitability of Self-Driving Cars (QTR)

When you think of self-driving cars, you may imagine scenes from a sci-fi movie, with sleek silver cars sliding perfectly into and out of the flow of traffic. Pedestrians simply express their desire for a car, and in moments one appears. Just as easily, you might also think of media reports you’ve seen about crashes and other malfunctions of these vehicles in the recent past. You may even think of both and think that the sci-fi depiction is far-fetched and unlikely. The reality is actually simpler: self-driving cars are inevitable.

In the US, we love our cars. Nearly 92% of households have access to a motor vehicle. We have car shows, car racing, car dealerships everywhere, and even TV shows about cars. It’s an accepted part of our society. In a geographically expansive country like ours, cars are essential for many. Along with car culture, we also have a cultural acceptance of the dangers and even fatalities that come from car accidents. The US (human) accident rate is approximately 2,000 per million miles driven. Around 40,000 people are killed each year in auto accidents. Right now, hardly anyone talks about these deaths. There are few news articles, and it is generally accepted as the price of driving.
What if we could reduce the number of injuries and fatalities to 50% of what they are now? Or even further, what about 80%? Would it be worth it to switch to self-driving cars then? Interestingly enough, preliminary numbers from Waymo indicate that they already are 80% safer. The media rushes to report any accidents caused by these cars, which may give the impression that they are much more dangerous. The truth is, they actually promise a safer world for all. Imagine a world with safe, self-driving cars. Mothers would feel more comfortable about their children. Parents’ dreadful fears about having a 16-year-old out on the streets would be almost completely relieved. People wouldn’t worry about the vision and dexterity loss of the elderly when they get into a vehicle. Drunk driving would be a thing of the past. Road rage would almost be..

2 heavy-class rocket flights in 10 hours https://t.co/nSMYiSqy09
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 17, 2026

https://twitter.com/robertdunlap947/status/2034235444154527962?s=20

“I will tell you one thing: Elon Musk is the greatest person on the planet right now.”
Sandy Munro
pic.twitter.com/HbsKhEOP1Y
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) March 18, 2026

Glass is a true "permanent material"—it can be recycled indefinitely (100% closed-loop) without any loss in quality, purity, or performance. Unlike most materials, its chemical structure remains unchanged through repeated melting and reforming, allowing old bottles and jars to… pic.twitter.com/vQNfs4Q1jg
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 17, 2026

Soon-Shiong is one of many who we met thru Covid. Thanks for that.

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong just showed Chris Cuomo dramatic before-and-after brain scans of late-stage tumor patients who failed chemo, radiation, and surgery — achieving complete remission with ANKTIVA.

No chemo. No radiation. Tumors shrinking dramatically in months.

He says: “We… pic.twitter.com/kPIF9g1mQx
— Camus (@newstart_2024) March 18, 2026

https://twitter.com/FabulousWeird/status/2034005961971560757?s=20

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Debt Rattle March 17 2026

Mar 172026

March 17, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:34 am Finance Tagged with: Hormuz, interceptor, Iran, Kharg.Obama, Kiriakou, nukes, SAVE, Susie Wiles, Tucker Carlson, Turkey, Zelensky 113 Responses »

Henri Matisse Flowers 1907

• Turkey Is the Next Iran (Paul Craig Roberts)

• Allies Balk As Trump Pushes Joint Military Action To Reopen Hormuz (ZH)

• The Wrath of Kharg (Ben Picton)

• Trump Pushes To Delay China Trip Amid Iran Conflict: ‘I Have To Be Here’ (JTN)

• Judge Blocks RFK Jr.’s Appointees to Vaccine Panel (ET)

• Boasberg and The Quashing of the Powell Subpoenas (Turley)

• Debunking the Left’s Favorite Lies About the SAVE Act (Matt Margolis)

• Florida Passes Voter ID Bill Modeled After SAVE Act (ET) /span>

• I’m Worried About Tucker Carlson’s Safety – John Kiriakou (RT)

• Trump Calls Zelensky The ‘Last Person We Need Help From’ (RT)

• Out Of Interceptor Missiles, Will Israel Turn To Nukes? (Paul Craig Roberts)

• What You Get Is Not Necessarily What You See (James Howard Kunstler)

• The Obama Gravy Train Just Hit a Disgusting New Low (Matt Margolis)

• Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles Has Cancer (Sarah Anderson)

Professor John Mearsheimer:

We’re not winning against Iran. We’re not winning.

We’re sending a message that we’re a bunch of fools. That we started a war we can’t win.

We didn’t have the required military forces to achieve any of the objectives that we were floating, and we… pic.twitter.com/41Aej2c5GW
— Clash Report (@clashreport) March 16, 2026

THIS IS THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

Arthur Kachikan, doctor of political science from Armenia, just delivered the clearest verdict yet on the nine-day Iran war. This is not another regional conflict. It is the final earthquake that buries the entire system humanity built… pic.twitter.com/S3K7zze9Ee
— Mark (@Mark4XX) March 16, 2026

https://twitter.com/SenseReceptor/status/2033230291075281332?s=20 https://twitter.com/kadmitriev/status/2033496662014906702?s=20 https://twitter.com/SciTechera/status/2033441976763494848?s=20

Grok https://t.co/X9t4UTEPMl
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 16, 2026

“We will soon be hearing this from the Israeli-American MIGA movement. It won’t be long before dumbshit Americans are wringing their hands over the “Turkish threat.”

• Turkey Is the Next Iran (Paul Craig Roberts)

Muslims have been disunited ever since the Sunni-Shia succession fight in the 7th century. Weakened by division, Muslims have been ruled by Turks, British, French, Washington, and now Israel. The British and French created the boundaries of the Middle East Arab countries so that the countries contained both Sunni and Shia, thereby ensuring division that made foreign rule easier.

Muslim disunity has made it easy for Washington during the first quarter of the 21st century to go to war against Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now Iran, in order to free for Greater Israel the land from the Nile to Pakistan. The governments of these Arab countries, blinded by disunity over a succession fight 14 centuries ago, were unable to unite in common defense and were destroyed one by one. If Iran falls, Turkey will be next. Indeed, Turkey set itself up by helping Israeli-America overthrow Syria.
On 17 February 2026, former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, speaking at the Conference of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations, declared: “A new Turkish threat is emerging. Turkey is the new Iran.” He launched the demonization of Turkey, warning that President Erdogan is “sophisticated, dangerous, and… seeks to encircle Israel.” We will soon be hearing this from the Israeli-American MIGA movement. It won’t be long before dumbshit Americans are wringing their hands over the “Turkish threat.”
Iran is Persian, not Arab, and shows determination like the Taliban. Just as Washington failed against the Taliban and has now sicced Pakistan on the Taliban, Washington might fail against Iran. It really depends on how strong is the Iranian national consciousness. If Iran prevails, the Israeli-Washington failure might free the United States of domination by Israel of its foreign and domestic policies. It is a strange situation. Americans, real Americans, can again become a sovereign country only if Iran prevails over the Israeli-American attack. Americans should be cheering for Iran if they wish to again be a sovereign country instead of one whose president and MIGA movement are Israeli puppets. Otherwise, how soon before Israel takes us to war with our NATO ally, Turkey? As Trump is willing to steal Greenland from Denmark, a NATO ally, he will be willing to again go to war for Israel.
Iran has been betrayed by Putin and Xi. Both value their relations with deceptive Washington more than they value their Iranian ally. The entire world sees this, and thus Moscow and Beijing have lost all prospect of world leadership. Two craven governments sit out a fight in which their own vital interests are at stake. It is difficult to imagine the stupidity of the Russian and Chinese governments, both of which have convinced Washington of their aversion to confrontation, thereby inviting provocations.
Israeli-America and its MIGA cadre are fighting a war, as they fight all wars, against the civilian population, especially women, hospitals, and girls’ schools. Trump promises to turn Iran into Gaza if Iran doesn’t accept regime change and a puppet ruler who reports to Israeli-America. It is really shameful that Americans have permitted Israel to suborn them and turn them into women and children killers. Americans have been killing women and children in the Middle East for Israel for a quarter century, and it seems the killing will continue until the Zionist goal of Greater Israel is accomplished.

NATO is strong in name only.

• Allies Balk As Trump Pushes Joint Military Action To Reopen Hormuz (ZH)

President Trump and his top officials spent the weekend on the one hand touting the Iran campaign a decisive military win and supposed success, while on the other racing to assemble a naval coalition to force open Tehran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, all the while imploring other countries for help. Europe appears deeply reluctant, with some key NATO countries already slamming the door on this prospect. “As far as I’m concerned, we have essentially defeated Iran,” President Trump said in some of latest remarks aboard Air Force One. “They want to negotiate badly, as they should, but I don’t think they’re ready to do what they have to do… We will finish the job,” he claimed.

But then on Monday Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected calls for a ceasefire, insisting Tehran intends to impose steep and bloody costs on the aggressors. “The reason we say we do not want a ceasefire is not because we are seeking war, but because this time this war must end in such a way that our enemies never again think of repeating these attacks,” Araghchi said at a press conference. “I think they have already learned a good lesson and understood what kind of nation they are dealing with.” He also dismissed reports that Iran had quietly sought negotiations: “As we have said many times and I reiterated last night in an interview with an American network, we have sent no messages and do not request a ceasefire.”
Still, Trump is pressing forward on plans for NATO to send allied ships. According to US officials cited in The Wall Street Journal, there are plans for as soon as this week to announce that multiple countries have agreed to join a coalition escorting ships through the strait. All of this, and especially a timeline, still seems up in the air. And separately per Axios, the White House is simultaneously considering the far more aggressive option of seizing Iran’s main oil export hub on Kharg Island, after much of it has been subject of heavy US bombing, which started overnight Friday, but reportedly left oil terminals and vital export infrastructure in place.
There remains widespread speculation that this is what the multi-thousand strong Marine Expeditionary Force currently en route is all about, raising the states even higher. A direct Kharg Island seizure would require American boots on the ground – already as Iran’s retaliatory blockade of the narrow strait has sent oil and gas prices climbing as a major share of global crude supply remains effectively frozen.

War in oil is expensive.

• The Wrath of Kharg (Ben Picton)

Brent crude is bid again this morning as markets digest the dump of news over the weekend relating to the Iran war. On the bullish side for crude was the US decision to bomb Iranian military assets on Kharg Island – the Persian Gulf port where up to 90% of Iranian oil exports are typically loaded onto tankers. Announcing the strikes via Truth Social, President Trump was at pains to be clear that oil infrastructure was not targeted, but the implicit threat that it could be is an unsubtle one. Trump later said that the US may conduct further strikes on the island “just for fun”.

News also emerged over the weekend that the USS Tripoli has been redeployed from the Western Pacific to the Persian Gulf. The Tripoli is a light aircraft carrier with a complement of 2,500 marines and an F35B stealth fighter air wing. Speculation is rife that the marines could be used to secure oil infrastructure on Kharg Island, or perhaps to help clear the mountains north of the Strait of Hormuz of Iranian belligerents (the latter seems less likely). Either would be a case of ‘boots on the ground’ and interpreted as a major escalation. Iranian officials have said over the weekend that they would respond in kind to any attacks on their oil infrastructure. Indeed, there were further limited attacks on oil assets of US-aligned Gulf states over the weekend, which may explain the bid tone in Brent this morning and a lift in the forward curve since this time last week.
A bizarre intervention in the war came from Hamas, who called for Iran to cease attacks on regional neighbors. Hamas is well-known as an Iranian proxy, so there is some speculation circulating that this may be an attempt from the Iranian side to begin to engineer an off-ramp. Coupled with news last week that Iran had struck agreements with India and Bangladesh to allow crude cargoes to pass, and comments from the Iranian Foreign Minister over the weekend that the Strait was not closed to anyone other than the US, Israel and their allies, there appears to be some cautious optimism in markets this morning that glimmers of hope for an end to hostilities are emerging. AUD and NZD are both trading higher, spot gold is down to almost $5,000/oz and bitcoin is catching a bid.
However, ‘glimmers’ is the operative word. While Hamas was calling for Iran to end strikes on neighboring states the Houthis (another Iranian proxy) were giving signs that they are ready to escalate against shipping being diverted into the Red Sea to load crude cargoes at the Saudi port of Yanbu. Disruptions to Red Sea shipping – which the Houthis have proven adept at over the years – would close off the release valve of the Saudi East-West pipeline that is capable of redirecting 5-7mn bbl/day to offset the ~18-20mn bbl/day supply interruption.

“…because of the war, I want to be here. I have to be here, I feel.”

• Trump Pushes To Delay China Trip Amid Iran Conflict: ‘I Have To Be Here’ (JTN)

President Donald Trump said Monday that he has asked China to delay his official trip to the country by a month amid an ongoing conflict in the Middle East that he feels requires him to stay in the United States. Israel and the United States waged a conflict against Iran last month in an effort to stop the country from developing a nuclear weapon. Approximately 200 American servicemembers have been wounded in the conflict and 13 have died. Trump reiterated during a White House event that he would “love to” go to China, “but because of the war, I want to be here. I have to be here, I feel.” “We’ve requested that we delay it a month or so,” he continued. “And I’m looking forward to being with [Chinese President Xi Jinping].” The request means that the trip would likely take place at the end of April or in early May. The push also comes as the president presses China to help the U.S. reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which would hopefully bring down oil prices. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian has confirmed China and the U.S. are “maintaining communication regarding President Trump’s visit to China,” but did not indicate whether the country agreed to push the trip, per CBS News.

Covid aftermath. They don’t want to let go of vaccine control. So much money in that.

• Judge Blocks RFK Jr.’s Appointees to Vaccine Panel (ET)

A federal judge in Massachusetts ruled on March 16 that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. illegally appointed 13 new members to an influential vaccine panel beginning last June. Biden-appointed district Judge Brian Murphy also blocked that panel’s guidance memo revising the childhood immunization schedule and declared its previous votes invalid. Murphy ruled Kennedy committed “a technical, procedural failure” by skirting around the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to change the vaccine recommendations for children. He said the government committed a similar mistake by removing the previous members of that committee, and replacing them “without undertaking any of the rigorous screening that had been the hallmark of ACIP member selection for decades.” The plaintiffs, led by the American Academy of Pediatrics, originally sued after Kennedy ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop recommending the COVID-19 vaccine for pregnant women and healthy children.The suit was later expanded to challenge the restructuring of the ACIP and its changes to childhood vaccine recommendations.

He still wants to be president.

• Boasberg and The Quashing of the Powell Subpoenas (Turley)

Last week, Chief Judge James Boasberg delivered a blow to the criminal investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell by tossing out grand jury subpoenas. Boasberg declared the investigation overtly political and coercive, without any criminal predicate. The decision is a rare rejection of a duly issued grand jury subpoena at this stage of an investigation. In my view, he was premature and could face a difficult appeal in In re Grand Jury Subpoenas, Bd. of Governors of the Federal Reserve System v. U.S.

I have previously expressed skepticism about the investigation into Powell and share concerns about the alleged use of the criminal justice system to pressure the Federal Reserve Board. However, the question is when a court can make such a judgment at this stage of the investigation. Prosecutors are generally entitled to make their case and these subpoenas sought potential evidence of waste or corruption. Boasberg has long been one of the most vocal critics of President Donald Trump on the bench, including a series of orders to stop the deportation of immigrants to El Salvador and, recently, an order for their return. He was also the subject of an ethics complaint by the Administration over statements made at a judicial conference that portrayed President Trump as a threat to the rule of law. (For the record, I opposed the effort to impeach Judge Boasberg).
In the latest controversy, Boasberg rejected the premise of the criminal investigation of Powell: “The case thus asks: Did prosecutors issue those subpoenas for a proper purpose? The Court finds that they did not. There is abundant evidence that the subpoenas’ dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair who will.” Judge Boasberg quotes Trump’s personal attacks on Powell after he continued to refuse to lower interest rates. These include signature all-caps attacks from the President:
“Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell has done it again!!! He is TOO LATE, and actually, TOO ANGRY, TOO STUPID, & TOO POLITICAL, to have the job of Fed Chair. He is costing our Country TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS …. Put another way, ‘Too Late’ is a TOTAL LOSER, and our Country is paying the price!” Boasberg noted over 100 such postings, including “‘Too Late’ Jerome Powell is costing our Country Hundreds of Billions of Dollars. He is truly one of the dumbest, and most destructive, people in Government …. TOO LATE’s an American Disgrace!” He also noted a menacing statement by the President that, if the Fed does not cut rates, “I may have to force something.”
This is not the first time that the President’s social media postings have been used as evidence against Administration policies in federal cases. Many of us have criticized the President over personal attacks on judges or other officials. However, courts generally do not impute an unlawful motive to criminal investigations or prosecutions if there is an otherwise valid purpose or allegation. Judge Boasberg dismisses any such possibility of a valid purpose, writing: “The case thus asks: Did prosecutors issue those subpoenas for a proper purpose? The Court finds that they did not. There is abundant evidence that the subpoenas’ dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair who will.
On the other side of the scale, the Government has offered no evidence whatsoever that Powell committed any crime other than displeasing the President. The Court must thus conclude that the asserted justifications for these subpoenas are mere pretexts. It will therefore grant the Board’s Motion to Quash. It will also grant the Board’s Motion to Partially Unseal the Motion to Quash, related briefing, and this Opinion….” Once again, I do not fault the court for skepticism, but I do have serious concerns over his timing and his own possible bias in issuing such a ruling.
The Administration has an active but still early criminal investigation into the massive spending on renovations to the Federal Reserve building. To that end, the Justice Department served two subpoenas on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, seeking records about the renovations of the Board’s buildings as well as Powell’s prior congressional testimony on those renovations. The Board filed a Motion to Quash, contending that the subpoenas are a raw play to force Powell to resign or to bend to the will of the President.

High time.

• Debunking the Left’s Favorite Lies About the SAVE Act (Matt Margolis)

Democrats have been running the same tired playbook on the SAVE Act. They’ve claimed it’s racist, but those attacks haven’t exactly worked because majorities of minority voters support it. So, they try to scare people with outlandish claims like it will make it impossible for married women to vote. It’s a stupid claim, but some people are willing to believe it. And there are plenty of other accusations that are just as untrue. Sen. Dick Durbin tried to push those fake claims in a recent Senate hearing, rattling off a list of grievances about the bill’s voter registration requirements.

Durbin kicked things off with the passport argument, a favorite among critics of the legislation, when it comes to registering to vote. “What is acceptable is a passport,” he said. “50% of Americans do not have a passport. Those who want to obtain it so they can vote will pay $186 and wait three or four weeks for that to happen.” He kept going with the married woman claim, arguing that anyone who changed their name after marriage would have to dig up not just a birth certificate but additional documentation to prove their eligibility. However, it’s all a lie, and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the lead sponsor of the bill, was ready for him.
Lee let Durbin finish and then, with barely concealed amusement, delivered the kind of response that makes committee hearings worth watching. “I’m happy to report to my dear friend and colleague Senator Durbin from Illinois — you’re in luck,” Lee said. “We’ve taken care of that.” He went on to point out that the SAVE Act includes an explicit accommodation for people who can’t produce traditional documentation. Lee spelled it out in plain English: “When you read the bill, what you’ll discover is that we’ve made special accommodation for those who don’t have documentation, for those who can’t find their birth certificate. Maybe their house burned down, maybe their dog ate it, or whatever it is.”
So what happens if someone genuinely has no paperwork? The bill has an answer for that, too. “When all else fails, if you don’t have documentation establishing the information on your birth certificate or what would be in a passport or otherwise, the bill contains a provision requiring each state to allow an alternative mechanism by which someone can, by attestation, issue a sworn statement establishing the critical facts underlying their citizenship,” Lee explained. The state then takes responsibility for verifying that sworn statement, using its own records and reciprocity agreements with other states.
Durbin tried to interject a few times. He didn’t get far. Lee kept going, methodically dismantling the argument piece by piece. “We took great pains to go out of our way to make sure that no American, no American would be left in the dark,” he said. “This will not cost them a dime. And no one will be excluded if they can’t find their documentation.” Well, that’s a big problem for the Democrats because this undermines the whole Democratic line of attack. The passport fees, the birth certificate hunt, the cost and inconvenience — they all collapse the moment you actually read the legislation.
The bill anticipates exactly the scenarios Democrats claim to be worried about and has a built-in workaround. With that in mind, they have no reason to oppose the legislation, that is, if those were truly sticking points for them Lee even extended an invitation at the end, suggesting Durbin would surely want to support the bill now that his concerns had been addressed. “I’m sure you’ll be elated to hear that, and we look forward to having your affirmative vote when we vote on the SAVE America Act.”

“…the measure would restrict “all kinds of IDs Florida voters can use.” By now, you can bet that’s only for good reason.

• Florida Passes Voter ID Bill Modeled After SAVE Act (ET) /span>

The Florida Legislature passed new election legislation modeled after President Donald Trump’s proposed SAVE America Act. House Bill 991, sponsored by state Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, passed along party lines by a vote of 83 to 31. “We are the Election Integrity State!” Persons-Mulicka wrote on X after the vote. Sponsors of the bill moved the effective date to appease critics who feared the new identification requirements would discourage some voters from participating in midterm elections. The new laws won’t take effect until Jan. 1, 2027.The bill requires Floridians to show proof of citizenship to register to vote, requires a valid photo ID to vote, makes paper ballots the primary method of voting, and bans student IDs as an acceptable voter ID.

Nearly all Florida driver’s licenses and ID cards are Real-ID compliant—a process that already verifies citizenship. Once in place, the new regulations will also make it a felony for political parties, committees, organizations, and candidates to accept or solicit contributions from foreign nationals for any state elections. Florida state Democrats voted against the bill, dubbing it the “Show Your Papers Act.” Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat representing Orlando, said the measure would restrict “all kinds of IDs Florida voters can use.” “Student IDs and retirement center IDs would no longer be valid; driver’s licenses, state ID cards, military ID, and licenses to carry concealed weapons would still be accepted as proof of voter identity,” Eskamani said in a Facebook post.
The ACLU’s Florida Chapter condemned the measure’s passage, calling it an anti-voter bill. “These changes are not neutral or harmless—they would fall hardest on low-income voters, students, seniors, women, and Black and brown Floridians,” said Bacardi Jackson, executive director of the ACLU Florida chapter. “This wave of anti-voter legislation is advancing amid ongoing abuses of power that pose unprecedented threats to American democracy.” A similar effort by congressional Republicans has stalled for months in the U.S. Senate.
Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd encouraged Congress to move forward with the SAVE Act after Florida’s bill passed. “Florida leads the nation in election integrity because we don’t rest on our laurels and are always looking to improve,” Byrd posted on X. “It’s now time for Congress to act on critical election integrity measures.” Republican Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has been unable to advance the SAVE Act, despite growing pressure from the public and within his party. Thune told colleagues on March 10 that he didn’t have the votes to pass the act by employing the talking filibuster. He plans to bring the bill to the Senate floor next week.

‘Hey, Tucker, I know you don’t like this to be about yourself, but we’re going to protect you,’” he said.

• I’m Worried About Tucker Carlson’s Safety – John Kiriakou (RT)

The life and freedom of US journalist Tucker Carlson might be in danger, CIA whistleblower and host of the RT program Deep State John Kiriakou has said. Carlson claimed on Saturday that the CIA is preparing a criminal referral against him to the US Justice Department. “What’s that crime? Well, talking to people in Iran before the war. They read my texts,” he said in a video published on X.The former Fox News star said that he will “apparently” be charged under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. However, he added that he does not “expect this to go anywhere” because he has “never taken money” from another country.

On a new episode of Deep State, which aired the same day and was dedicated to Carlson, Kiriakou said: “I have to tell you, I’m genuinely worried for his safety.” “Tucker is one of those rare truth tellers. He speaks whatever happens to be on his mind, but it’s always very well thought out. He’s not afraid to call important people on the carpet for things that they’ve said or done,” he said. When asked if he believed that Carlson is in danger, Kiriakou’s guest Clayton Morris – the co-host of Redacted, a program on RT – replied by saying: “I think he wouldn’t admit that. He never likes to have the focus be on him at all.” “
There are some realities here. You have these nut job MAGA influencers, these sort of pro-Israel Zionists, who are basically actively calling for him to be arrested, attacked. And they have platforms. I mean, they’re literally not thrown off of X,” he said. Morris, who used to work at Fox News together with Carlson, suggested that the journalist is “doing what he needs to do to protect himself.” “I’m sure he’s got a wife… and he’s got people around him who are saying, ‘Hey, Tucker, I know you don’t like this to be about yourself, but we’re going to protect you,’” he said.

“I’m surprised that Zelensky doesn’t want to make a deal. Tell Zelensky to make a deal because Putin’s willing to make a deal,”

• Trump Calls Zelensky The ‘Last Person We Need Help From’ (RT)

US President Donald Trump has dismissed Vladimir Zelensky’s offer to assist with countering Iranian drones in the Middle East, saying he is the “last person” Washington needs help from. Since the launch of US-Israeli strikes on Iran late last month, the Ukrainian leader has repeatedly signaled his readiness to get involved in the conflict, claiming that Washington has appealed for help defending American assets stationed in the Gulf against retaliatory attacks. On Friday, Zelensky reiterated the offer on X, arguing that without Ukrainian “expertise,” the US will not be able to “stabilize the situation.” In a telephone interview with NBC News on Saturday, the US president rejected the idea that Washington had requested or requires Ukrainian assistance.

“We don’t need help,” Trump said, adding that Zelensky is the “last person we need help from.”Trump also criticized Zelensky’s approach to negotiations with Moscow, arguing that “Zelensky is far more difficult to make a deal with” than Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I’m surprised that Zelensky doesn’t want to make a deal. Tell Zelensky to make a deal because Putin’s willing to make a deal,” he told NBC. Since returning to office last year, Trump has pushed for a negotiated settlement between Kiev and Moscow, leading to US-mediated trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi in January and follow-up negotiations in Geneva last month.
The next round of talks was expected to take place in early March. However, with the Trump administration focused on the conflict with Iran, the meeting has reportedly been postponed until next week at the earliest. Zelensky then sought to insert Ukraine into the Middle East conflict, saying he had instructed officials to “provide the necessary means and ensure the presence of Ukrainian specialists capable of guaranteeing the necessary security.” The head of the national security commission of the Iranian parliament, Ebrahim Azizi, reacted on X, saying that “by providing drone support to the Israeli regime, failed Ukraine has effectively become involved in the war,” and warning that Kiev could face retaliation, with the entire country becoming a target.

There’s a risk.

• Out Of Interceptor Missiles, Will Israel Turn To Nukes? (Paul Craig Roberts)

Do you remember Trump’s 3-day war? Do you remember his boast that US warships would guard oil shipments through the Hormuz Strait? Well, now a “team effort” is required. Last Saturday Trump called on China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK and other countries to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz. The slam-dunk 3-day war has been replaced by the necessity of an “international coalition” to prevent the shutdown of the world economy. Trump should have listened to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but, instead, the White House Fool took Netanyahu’s advice, or, more correctly, orders.

Having got us into another Middle Eastern war, Netanyahu now complains to Trump that Israel has a severe shortage of interceptor missiles. Washington, having stupidly gone to war unprepared, hasn’t any to give Israel. To save itself will Israel use its nukes? It will prove to be a strategic error that Iran did not use its missiles to wipe out Israeli nuclear weapon storage sites and launch capability. Will Russia and China rue the day they did not give Iran protection from this war? Here is an excellent 13 minute explanation of the Trap that the White House Fool has let Netanyahu put America in.

“I can tell the entire internet has doomer fatigue.” — Catturd on X

• What You Get Is Not Necessarily What You See (James Howard Kunstler)

The mysterious financial repo market — which practically no one outside of banking understands (and even some banking insiders don’t) — are going wonky again like they did in September 2019, just before You-Know-What sucker-punched the world with lockdowns, stolen elections, and fake vaccines. Half of America still hasn’t got its head straight. . . and here we go again. The private equity outfits, like giant BlackRock, are wobbling so hard that they had to “gate redemptions” — meaning, investors can’t pull their money out of funds going dark with dubious collateral. It’s exactly what sparks panics. Money can only stand so much unreality. The Rube Goldberg machine of finance — a scaffold of insane complexity designed to bamboozle the rubes — is threatening to fly apart.

The world only needs so many pre-owned yachts. Plus, there’s a war on, which has disrupted the regular flow of the world’s primary resource: oil. That’s the really-real side of the picture. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. You’ve got to wonder how much additional pounding the lunatic state of Iran can take. It’s not clear who is even in charge there. Iran’s supposed foreign minister, one Aras Araghchi, is suddenly offering to give up those 440 kilos of 60-percent enriched uranium that are at the heart of this quarrel. Sounds a little surrender-ish, though he made the offer with a certain defiant bluster. Let’s see where that goes. Maybe the war will be over sooner than you thought.

With all this in motion, things slip-sliding all over the place, the week ahead may be one in which nobody can think straight or get a straight answer. Here’s something to chew on: do you think Great Britain is our dear friend because we speak the same language? Great Britain has been allowing Iran’s ruling Revolutionary Guard to park its money in London for half a century while Lloyd’s offers jacked-up insurance rates to all those tankers faring through the Strait of Hormuz.
This dynamic has made world oil up to 15-percent more expensive since the 1970s, and Britain’s banks have been creaming off the premium all the while. Trillions. Mr. Trump is putting an end to that racket while he also terminates Iran’s ability to export Jihad thuggery throughout the Middle East. That’s the meaning behind the Abraham Accords and the new Board of Peace set up to figure out Gaza — and probably to replace the broken United Nations as a mediating force in the region’s long-running conflicts.
Mr. Trump is also sending a message to China: the US will have something to say about the flow of oil going there out of the Persian Gulf, which is to say most of China’s imported oil. (The US imports relatively little oil out of the Persian Gulf, two to three percent of total US oil consumption which is 20-million barrels a day.) This is pretty serious power politics, but notice that China has not started World War Three over it. Mr. Trump and Xi are still talking, and are scheduled to meet in Beijing in April. Meanwhile, Xi is having plenty of trouble of his own with twitchy PLA generals, a staggering deflationary export economy, and a lot of angry young people thrown out of work.
One thing our country will not get a straight answer on this week is the SAVE Act. Senate Majority Leader John Thune made noises over the weekend about staging a half-assed “debate” on the floor, a demi-filibuster. . . then holding a guaranteed-to-fail cloture vote. . . making it impossible to reach a place where the bill might be subject to a simple majority vote. The procedural bullshit at issue is surely a challenge for the general voting public to understand. The bottom line is that Majority Leader Thune is entirely in-charge of the filibuster process and could make it work to advantage the SAVE Act if he wanted to. He could call for a full, “standing” filibuster that would require the bill’s opponents to explain themselves — that is, to explain why they prefer election fraud.
So, for now, the Save Act will fail to pass. The public will register the failure, if not the twisted route that got it there, and they will be mighty pissed-off. The really interesting part is what happens after all this is acted out, especially Senator Thune’s comic attempt to explain why he did this. And especially if, in the weeks just ahead, the nation watches federal indictments rain down for election fraud in Georgia, Wisconsin, and other states where so many weird things happened right before our eyes in November, 2020, 2022, and 2024. Sometime after that, the SAVE Act will come up for a vote again, and with a vengeance!

The Democrats have lots of money, but no serious candidates.

• The Obama Gravy Train Just Hit a Disgusting New Low (Matt Margolis)

It wasn’t even a week ago when we reported that Valerie Jarrett was raking in a staggering $740,000 from the Obama Foundation. New tax filings reveal that she’s hardly alone, as other Obama insiders also pull down bloated, above market salaries, thanks in part to the fact that the foundation pays just $10 a year for 19 acres of prime Chicago parkland. As we previously reported, salaries and benefits paid by the organization have climbed from $18.5 million in 2018 to $43.7 million in 2024. “Illinois Democrats are truly living their best lives — making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to help design the ugliest building in Chicago,” Illinois GOP Chairman Kathy Salvi said.

Even though the Obama Foundation is funneling cash to his inner circle and extending his legacy of corruption thanks to a little help from subsidized public land, paying regular folk is apparently a bridge too far. The Obama Presidential Center is opening in Chicago this June — not that you care — and for its launch, the foundation behind it wants 75 to 100 unpaid “ambassadors” to greet visitors, guide tourists across the 19.3-acre Jackson Park campus, and explain exhibits in that horrifically ugly tower and other buildings.
The lack of shame is incredible. In fact, the foundation is framing the ask as something noble. “Volunteerism has been a cornerstone of President Obama’s vision for civic engagement since his early days as a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side,” the foundation said in a statement. Jarrett added that the center will serve as “a place where the world meets the best of Chicago and our ambassadors will help bring that vision to life every day.” Nice sentiment. Just don’t ask for a fair wage while you’re living the vision. According to a report from Fox News Digital, “It’s common for presidential libraries, museums and nonprofit cultural institutions to employ unpaid volunteers.”
The Obama Center’s roughly 300 full-time and part-time paid staff will do the heavy operational lifting, and the volunteers supplement that workforce. And yes, nobody is forcing anyone to sign up. But when you take everything into account, like the corrupt land deal that saves the foundation millions and the exorbitant salaries Obama insiders get working for the foundation, and the millions it brings in in donations, it’s disgusting that they aren’t paying these people. Six of the foundation’s 10 highest-paid executives previously held senior roles in the Obama administration or campaign. David Simas, Obama’s former White House political director, earned up to $626,000 annually heading the foundation from 2017 through 2020. Adewale Adeyemo, another senior Obama official who later became deputy Treasury secretary under Joe Biden, earned about $540,000 as the foundation’s first president.
Anne Filipic, a former White House public engagement official, earned roughly $400,000 annually. Christina Tchen, former chief of staff to Michelle Obama, also pulled in roughly $400,000 a year. Michael Strautmanis, another Obama campaign and White House aide, earned more than $300,000 annually. Is there really nothing to spare that they have to use volunteers? The foundation constantly promotes itself as a gift to the community, will exploit every possible tax advantage and corrupt deal to so they can pay excessive salaries to Obama cronies, and yet can’t even offer minimum wage to its army of “ambassadors?” The sad thing is, I’m sure they’ll get plenty of these volunteers, and they won’t care they’re being taken advantage of.

She’s literally the quiet in the eye of the storm..

• Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles Has Cancer (Sarah Anderson)

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has announced that she has breast cancer, but it sounds like her prognosis is good. The 68-year-old told the New York Times that it was caught in its early stages. She will begin treatment in Washington soon, and she doesn’t plan to take a leave of absence from her role in the Donald Trump administration. “Nearly one in eight women in the United States will face this diagnosis,” she told the Times. “Every day, these women continue to raise their families, go to work, and serve their communities with strength and determination. I now join their ranks.”

She added, “I am grateful to have an outstanding team of doctors who detected the cancer early and are guiding my care, and I am encouraged by a strong prognosis. I am also deeply thankful for the support and encouragement of President Trump as I undergo treatment and continue serving in my current role.” She said she told the president the news last week and said that he has “an effective team around him” that would ensure that “there were no disruptions to the West Wing during her treatment.”
[..] Many on social media have noted that Wiles wore a pink jacket on Monday as she joined the president for a press conference. The color has become a universal symbol of breast cancer awareness. https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/2033579041651908691

AfD https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/2033541628456255869?s=20 https://twitter.com/sollidnuclear/status/2033514949461279176?s=20 https://twitter.com/sciencegirl/status/2033465111411662851?s=20 https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/2033467263567769871?s=20

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Debt Rattle March 6 2026

Mar 062026

March 6, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:57 am Finance Tagged with: autopen, Delcy, free speech, hemisphere, Hormuz, Iran, Israel, Orban, Pam Bondi, Pete Buttigieg, Russian gas, Venezuela 78 Responses »

Mark Chagall I and the village 1911

• Iran Isn’t Moving Public Opinion—Trump Is (DS)

• Iran Says Strait Of Hormuz Open (ZH)

• Trump to Replace Kirsti Noem at DHS With Mullin (Matt Margolis)

• EPIC FURY: Trump’s Play to Starve the Dragon? (Stephen Green)

• Division, Derision and the Economics of the Thing (CTH)

• Churchill Saw the Cold War Coming (David Manney)

• Hemispheric Boss Level: Epic – Venezuela Edition (CTH)

• Pam Bondi Subpoenaed In Epstein Investigation By House Oversight Panel (ZH)

• German Top Court Issues Two Landmark Rulings In Favor of Free Speech (RMX)

• The Atlantic Says Pete Buttigieg Is a Real Man (Robert Spencer)

• The Biden Autopen Probe Ends The Way So Many Others Do (David Manney)

• Hungary To Block Every EU Decision On Ukraine Over Oil Blockade – Orban (RT)

• Russia Could End Gas Supplies To EU Immediately – Putin (RT)

You need to understand this new infographic. The key takeaway is that Iran's earliest strikes focused on U.S. radar installations to BLIND the U.S. military (while also destroying U.S. bases in the region).

Once that was achieved, Iran shifted to focusing on critical ENERGY… pic.twitter.com/GMWmt5RqJO
— HealthRanger (@HealthRanger) March 5, 2026

Everyone is watching the oil.

Nobody is watching the water.

The UAE operates at 1,533% water stress. Saudi Arabia at 974%. Kuwait gets 90% of its drinking water from desalination plants. Oman 86%. Saudi Arabia 70%.

There is no aquifer. There is no river. There is no rainfall… https://t.co/1nYS1MfiRQ pic.twitter.com/gcXzkVB9Pg
— Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡ (@shanaka86) March 5, 2026

https://twitter.com/PrometheanActn/status/2029278072483020940?s=20 https://twitter.com/DanielLDavis1/status/2029298437813146048?s=20

BREAKING: China just ordered Sinopec and PetroChina to stop exporting diesel and gasoline.

Not slow them down. Stop.

Beijing looked at the Strait of Hormuz, looked at its fuel stockpiles, and made a decision: nothing leaves. Every barrel refined in China stays in China until… https://t.co/5a4HM3mBJG pic.twitter.com/TRBdoqlk7n
— Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡ (@shanaka86) March 5, 2026

https://twitter.com/HungaryBased/status/2029308402157912115?s=20

Trump’s influence is outta here..

• Iran Isn’t Moving Public Opinion—Trump Is (DS)

When it comes to Iran, Americans’ opinions aren’t necessarily reflective of what’s happening on the battlefield—but rather their feelings about President Donald Trump. That’s according to veteran pollster Scott Rasmussen, founder of the Napolitan Institute. As the conflict intensifies in the Middle East, Rasmussen said his polling suggests that Americans’ views on Iran appear to be driven less by U.S. military action and more by their broader opinions of Trump. At a Wednesday briefing, Rasmussen said public reaction to the unfolding situation in Iran has remained stable since Saturday—and is similar to Trump’s overall job approval numbers.

When voters were asked whether they approve or disapprove of the way the president is handling the situation in Iran, 42% said they approve. That figure is close to Trump’s overall job approval rating of 45% in the same polling. The consistency in Rasmussen’s surveys indicates that opinions on Iran are tracking closely with existing political opinions of Trump—rather than shifting in response to news headlines. Only 32% of voters say they are following news about Iran “very closely,” underscoring another key finding: most Americans are not immersed in the details of military strategy or regional politics. As Rasmussen noted, few voters consider themselves military experts, and that reality may help explain why public opinion has shown little change since Saturday’s strikes.
Polling conducted Saturday afternoon—immediately after news broke of U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran—found that 40% of voters favored the strikes. Days later, after extensive news coverage, that number has not changed. Support remains at 40%, according to the Napolitan Institute’s latest survey.n nOpposition also moved only marginally. Initially, 46% said they opposed the attacks. That number has since moved up by just one percentage point. In other words, despite intense media focus, public sentiment has barely shifted.
One area where Rasmussen did observe some movement was on expectations of success. On Saturday, 55% of voters said they believed it was likely the mission would succeed in bringing about regime change in Iran. That number has since fallen five percentage points to 50%. Rasmussen, however, emphasized that this shift does not represent a collapse in confidence. Rather than moving from optimism to pessimism, respondents appear to have shifted into a more uncertain category—from believing success is likely to saying they are unsure what will happen next. The broader picture remains steady. Iran is not reshaping public opinion—it’s reflecting it.
Ultimately, Rasmussen argued, public opinion will hinge on outcomes. If the mission produces significant change, removes what many view as a destabilizing regime, and does so with minimal American casualties and limited cost, voters are likely to judge it positively. If not, the political consequences in the midterms could be significant.
Rasmussen noted that Trump has only a couple of weeks before he begins to lose support, with 55% of voters opposed to him sending U.S. troops to the ground. If something drastic happens, such as a rise in U.S. casualties, Trump’s support for Iran could lessen even quicker. For now, however, the numbers suggest that Americans are viewing events in Iran largely through a domestic political lens—and the perception of the president himself continues to shape reactions more than developments in the headlines.

Open for China.

• Iran Says Strait Of Hormuz Open (ZH)

“Some are criticizing us [Iran], saying that we have closed the Strait of Hormuz. We do not believe in closing the Strait of Hormuz at all,” Iranian military commander Amir Heydari told Iranian state TV on Thursday.

Iran military says it has not closed Strait of Hormuz.

"We do not believe in closing the Strait of Hormuz at all,” military commander Amir Heydari tells Iranian state TV

Let's see what the IRGC has to say about it.
— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) March 5, 2026

The first sign that the critical maritime chokepoint was partially open came late Wednesday night, when we were among the first to report that a China-linked bulk carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz without incident, a notable development given earlier reports and market chatter that Iran might allow only Chinese-linked ships to transit. Shortly after our report that the Iron Maiden vessel made it through the narrowest part of the waterway unharmed, Bloomberg also reported on the development, noting that the ship had changed its destination signal to “CHINA OWNER.” LKatest activity in the Strait.

Earlier this week, Iran’s IRGC said that any vessel sailing through the waterway “could be at risk from missiles or rogue drones,” according to the semi-official Fars News Agency. China has urged peace and called for an immediate ceasefire to the U.S.-Israeli Operation Epic Fury to “prevent further escalation of tensions and stop the conflict from spreading and engulfing the entire Middle East.” Everyone knows why China is calling for peace: the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s cheap oil flows have effectively been closed to the world’s second-largest economy, and that pressure is likely to be used as leverage by President Trump in his upcoming visit to China.
Trump has said the U.S. will offer insurance for tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz and, if necessary, provide naval escorts to help restart energy flows as the commercial shipping lane remains heavily disrupted. Beijing is likely asking this question: “Will Trump Seize Or Destroy Iran’s Oil Export Island?”
Even with ten or more tankers and other vessels reportedly hit by IRGC drones in or around the Strait, intelligence and military analysts told Reuters that the IRGC could sustain drone attacks in the waterway for months. The Strait has not been fully closed, in part because the Trump administration spent the week degrading Iran’s naval capabilities, but the disruption is still severe because major European and global insurers have abruptly pulled or canceled war-risk coverage for the region.

“..will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas..”

• Trump to Replace Kirsti Noem at DHS With Mullin (Matt Margolis)

UPDATE: President Trump has announced on Truth Social his intention to nominate Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) as the next Homeland Security Secretary. “I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected United States Senator from the Great State of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), effective March 31, 2026,” Trump wrote. “The current Secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!), will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere we are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida. I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland.’”

Original Article: President Donald Trump is allegedly preparing to fire Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. “The president has already been asking aides and congressional Republicans for names of potential replacements, the advisers said.” “The final straw for Trump was Noem’s combative hearing Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which showed bipartisan frustration with Noem’s leadership, the advisers said. Noem’s decision to allot $200 million on an ad campaign, featuring herself urging those living illegally in the U.S. to self-deport, had already rankled the president for months for its self-promotional style. At the hearing, Noem told Senators that the President had signed off on the ad campaign–an assertion that upset Trump, who told senators and advisers he had not signed off on such a campaign.
Trump does, however, frequently change his mind, especially when it comes to firing officials. He has previously told aides he doesn’t want to make personnel decisions based on Democratic messaging or media pressure.” NBC News similarly reports that Trump has been “speaking this week with Republican lawmakers about his displeasure with Noem and has made clear in those conversations that he is considering replacing her, according to two Republican lawmakers, a person familiar with White House’s thinking and three people familiar with the president’s private discussions.”White House officials have reportedly name-dropped two potential replacements: Sens. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.).
No decision has been made by the president, the sources say, but that he has told lawmakers that he is unhappy with Noem’s testimony this week before House and Senate committees.Noem has been at the forefront of Trump’s signature policy agendas: the deportation of immigrants, the restricting of immigration and the clamping down of the U.S.-Mexico border. Her ouster would mark the first time a Cabinet secretary has exited in Trump’s second term. The NBC News report cites Noem’s response to questions about her role in approving contracts, the aforementioned $200 million ad campaign in particular, as the flashpoint. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) described President Donald Trump as “pissed” over her response.
“The president of the United States called me, and I’m not going to speak for him, folks, but, I would put it this way: his recollection and her recollection are different,” Kennedy said. “I can assure you, he is not happy with her,” another lawmaker said. “She did horrible in the hearings and has made a lot of errors.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that “Time will tell” as to whether Noem will be replaced. While the White House did not comment, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told NBC News, “Secretary Noem serves at the pleasure of the President. She is honored to serve the American people and lead DHS. Under her leadership, we have the most secure border in American history, 3 million illegal aliens left the United States, and we now have the lowest murder rate in 125 years.”

“..it fulfills my desire to welcome Russia back into the West for the first time since the Bolsheviks ruined everything.”

• EPIC FURY: Trump’s Play to Starve the Dragon? (Stephen Green)

Bloomberg reported Thursday that Beijing “told the country’s top oil refiners to suspend exports of diesel and gasoline” as Operation Epic Fury continues disrupting oil shipments out of the Persian Gulf. “China’s curbs just six days into a war reflect a scramble across Asia to prioritize domestic needs as the crisis in the Middle East deepens.” China imports “about 11 million barrels of crude per day,” my Townhall colleague Walter Curt added on X this morning, “with roughly 40-45% of that flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.” And yes, while China is a net importer of oil and natural gas — and yugely so — the Communist nation exports refined products including gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and marine bunker fuel, largely to Southeast Asian, South Pacific, and African nations.

But not as of today. “Officials from the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic planner,” Bloomberg [paywalled link] continued, “called for a temporary suspension of refined product shipments that would begin immediately.” It isn’t just China, either, according to the same report: “With virtually no oil or fuel making its way out of the Persian Gulf since US and Israeli attacks began at the weekend, refiners from Japan to Indonesia and India have begun cutting back run rates and suspending exports.”= I had a brief item about this earlier today on Instapundit, but the news kept nagging at me because it’s worth a deeper look — and, as it turns out, the petroleum exports angle might be the least interesting part.
The first addition, as Curt noted, is that China’s “strategic petroleum reserves are estimated by analysts at around 90-100 days of total consumption,” which ought to be more than enough for a war hardly anyone expects to last that long. But Politico reported Thursday that U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) asked the Pentagon “to send more military intelligence officers to its headquarters in Tampa, Florida, to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days but likely through September.” As I wrote earlier this week, I hope for a short campaign, but maybe that isn’t in the cards. Or maybe CENTCOM’s request — leaked to Politico for worldwide dissemination — is a warning to whoever is in charge of Iran that we won’t quit before they do, so they might as well quit now.
Another possibility is that the Trump administration did indeed want to send a message, but to Beijing, not Tehran. “We’re willing to disrupt Persian Gulf oil exports until it hurts you because we have all we need for ourselves and our friends right here, thank you very much, Comrade Xi.” If that is the case — and probably nobody outside the administration has anything better than informed guesses — it certainly fits the developing broader picture we’re getting of President Donald Trump’s strategic vision. The short version is first securing the Western Hemisphere (Panama Canal, Venezuela, Cuba) from the worst of Chinese influence, then putting the squeeze on them elsewhere to re-establish American dominance. Iran is the Middle East lynchpin of Beijing’s global ambitions, so it’s my belief that Trump sees that regime as something that must be removed or co-opted.
The rest… well, this is pretty wild stuff involving Russia, courtesy of tech and finance guy G.C. Cooke: The argument is that a back-channel deal is already taking shape. Russia, increasingly squeezed and looking for off-ramps, begins redirecting energy exports toward Western markets. Out of self-interest, not friendship. In return, Moscow gets energy revenue guarantees and a pathway back to the global trading system. Canada, with its existing Arctic and energy ties, becomes the diplomatic bridge.
The result is a North American–Russian energy alignment that removes China’s last major source of leverage. You might want to click over to X to read Cooke’s entire piece because it’s fascinating stuff — but not before finishing up here, naturally. I’ll admit up front that I have a natural bias toward buying into Cooke’s theory, because it fulfills my desire to welcome Russia back into the West for the first time since the Bolsheviks ruined everything. West + Russia isn’t always a natural fit — it took a determined effort by Peter the Great to make it happen the first time, and very little effort by the got-dam Communists to blow it apart.

I do remember, but I also forgot a lot. Back in 2015, people were laughing at Trump’s chances.

• Division, Derision and the Economics of the Thing (CTH)

Do you remember this moment during the 2015 republican presidential debates when all of the candidates were on stage and leading control outlet Fox News (Bret Baier) purposefully asked the candidates: “… is there anyone on stage, unwilling tonight, to pledge your support to the eventual nominee of the republican party, and pledge to not run an independent campaign against that person. Again, we are lo oking for you to raise your hand now if you won’t make that pledge tonight.

The need for control is a reaction to fear. The question was intentionally constructed to create both an optic and a narrative Fox News, Rupert Murdoch and the republican party were purposefully shaping. Collectively the professional republicans were desperately afraid Donald Trump would run as an independent candidate.

I bring us back to that moment because it is the key to understand where we are even today. This was the core of the matter. This is the “trillions at stake” aspect. This is the economics of the thing as it first manifest. Why did Donald J Trump stand against them all?nFor many years before that moment, a small group of us had been outlining why it was urgent for MAGAnomics to take charge of the U.S. economy; because underneath both wings of the UniParty in Washington DC was a system that few understood. Prior to 2016, the United States Chamber of Commerce (U.S CoC), a private K-Street lobbying consortium, were the negotiators for every single trade deal done from the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR).

The U.S. government (USTR, POTUS and Congress) was the trade stakeholder who signed the agreements; however, the actual nuts and bolts of what the trade deal included, the terms and conditions, were negotiated by the US CoC. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce represented the corporate interests of their Wall Street clients. After all, the corporations paid the CoC and the business model of the CoC is dependent on the corporations. This is the larger background for how decades of trade agreements ended up with offshoring, the Rust Belt, diminished domestic manufacturing, and increased corporate profits.
This is the core mechanics of how a U.S. manufacturing economy was shifted to a “service driven economy.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was writing the trade deals. The CoC would then fund the politicians who would approve the trade deals. The CoC would also finance the presidential candidates. When President Trump ran for office in 2016, his trade, manufacturing and economic policies were against the interests of the entire business network that controlled trade. The U.S. CoC poured money into Hillary Clinton’s campaign and their main GOP partner in the enterprise, Mitch McConnell. When Trump won the election, he completely shut out the CoC from any involvement in U.S. trade negotiations. Trump literally put himself, Wilbur Ross, and Robert Lighthizer in control.
The CoC was apoplectic but powerless to stop this action. CoC President Tom Donohue could not even get an appointment to see President Trump in the White House. The only thing the CoC and Tom Donohue could do was to fund anyone who would assist them in removing the existential threat that Trump represented. That’s what they did. With the CoC removed from influence, President Trump, Wilbur Ross and Robert Lighthizer began the painstaking process of taking the Wall Street profit tentacles off U.S. trade policy. In essence, President Trump put the interests of the American citizens back into the top priority of the U.S. govt, as it pertained to the biggest of all big picture items, the U.S. economy. That’s why in 2018 and 2019 the U.S. economy was on fire with growth.
All of that MAGAnomic background remained in place when President Trump retook control in 2025, and now we are starting to see the positive economic effects again resurface. However, that collective UniParty opposition still remains, albeit significantly diminished by the refusal of President Trump to move away from America-first policy.
The core of the opposition to all of President Trump’s actions, remains almost exclusively an outcome of the economics of policy the DC system no longer controls. It’s about the money. It will always be about the money. The division we are encountering in the MAGA ranks, is specifically driven by those same financial interests who opposed candidate Donald Trump a decade ago. When it came to trade policy, economic policy, tariff policy and the confrontation with China, there was not one iota of difference between any of the 17 republican candidates in that 2016 election. There was not one degree of divergence from the traditional corporate economic policy of the 30 years that preceded that moment on stage. Every one of the republican candidates aligned with the CoC message.

First thought: how deep Britain has fallen since.

• Churchill Saw the Cold War Coming (David Manney)

Eighty years ago today, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stood before an audience at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo. President Harry S. Truman sat beside him on stage. Although Churchill was out of office, his words carried enormous weight in a world still recovering from World War II, but which believed that peace had arrived. Churchill believed something else entirely. His speech, titled “The Sinews of Peace,” warned that a new political and military divide had already taken shape across Europe. One phrase from that afternoon would become permanently embedded in modern history.

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an ‘iron curtain’ has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.” Churchill believed Western leaders misunderstood Soviet intentions after the victory over Nazi Germany failed to secure unity among former allies. Instead, Stalin’s government expanded influence through political pressure, intimidation, and military presence across the eastern half of Europe.
Churchill didn’t deliver the speech casually; he’d spent months studying reports on Soviet behavior in Eastern Europe. British diplomats warned that democratic governments were being pushed aside. Communist parties supported by Moscow steadily gained power. Churchill feared Western hesitation would allow Stalin’s system to harden into permanent control. The speech called for a strong alliance between the United States and Britain to defend democratic institutions, maintain military readiness, and prevent further Soviet expansion. Churchill argued that strength and cooperation offered the best path to preserving peace in the postwar world.
Churchill knew that while the world looked forward to putting the horrors of war behind, events at the beginning of 1946 portended an even darker future ahead. In the wake of the Allied victory, the Soviet Union had begun shaping Eastern Europe in its image, bringing the governments of many nations into line with Moscow. On February 9, Premier Joseph Stalin gave a speech in which he declared that war between the East and West was inevitable. On February 22, the American Ambassador to Moscow, George F. Kennan, sent the famous “Long Telegram” warning of the Soviet Union’s perpetual hostility towards the West.
Communist parties supported by Moscow steadily gained power. Churchill feared Western hesitation would allow Stalin’s system to harden into permanent control. The speech called for a strong alliance between Britain and the United States to defend democratic institutions, maintain military readiness, and prevent further expansion. Churchill argued that strength and cooperation offered the best path to preserving peace in the postwar world. The immediate reaction proved mixed. Many Americans admired Churchill’s wartime leadership, yet some political leaders believed his warning sounded too confrontational toward a former ally. President Truman never formally endorsed every line of the speech, though his decision to invite Churchill to speak in Missouri suggested sympathy with its message.
“The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the American Democracy. For with primacy in power is also joined an awe inspiring accountability to the future. If you look around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done but also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement. Opportunity is here now, clear and shining for both our countries. To reject it or ignore it or fritter it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the after-time. It is necessary that constancy of mind, persistency of purpose, and the grand simplicity of decision shall guide and rule the conduct of the English-speaking peoples in peace as they did in war. We must, and I believe we shall, prove ourselves equal to this severe requirement.”

“President Trump wants Venezuela to have stability. Venezuela needs dollars and both the coordinated sale of Venezuela oil and Venezuela gold (47 tonnes in strategic reserve) will provide those dollars to retain stability and seed economic growth projects.”

• Hemispheric Boss Level: Epic – Venezuela Edition (CTH)

Sometimes you have to sip coffee slowly, while taking in the landscape. About a month ago President Donald J Trump bombed Caracas, engaged the U.S. military with a direct firefight against Venezuela military & security forces, then snatched regime dictator Nicholas Maduro out of the country to face criminal charges in the United States. Yesterday, Maduro’s replacement, President Delcy Rodriquez, stood on the steps to the Venezuela presidential office and publicly thanked Interior Secretary Doug Bergum for the kindness and support of President Donald Trump. That reality represents a level of hemispheric ‘ultimate boss’ that boggles the mind. But wait, it gets better. There’s video (prompted):

Before going further to current events, let us remind ourselves of a few details. Sandwiched between the Venezuela Maduro operation and the recent Operation Epic Fury in Iran, approximately three weeks ago, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth convened a gathering in Washington of all the defense chiefs and senior military officials from 34 Western Hemisphere countries. As most of you will remember, securing the national security of the entire Western Hemisphere, was outlined in the national defense strategy document released by President Trump. In addition to setting the priorities for the United States focus, the report details the Trump administration perspective on the world as broken down into specific regions.
The report is a brutally honest review of the current state of geopolitical benefits, risks and threats as they pertain to vital U.S. interests. The report outlines a critically renewed focus on the Western Hemisphere. Now, back to Secretary Bergum’s visit. At the same time as Interior Secretary Bergum is meeting with key government and private sector partners to discuss strategic mineral development (ie. deconflict dependency on China via independent development), oil production for U.S. hemispheric security (Iran output offsets), Venezuela announced the transfer of 1,000 kilos (more than a ton) of gold reserves for sale on the U.S. market {SOURCE}.

Venezuela needs stability. Hemispheric Boss President Trump wants Venezuela to have stability. Venezuela needs dollars and both the coordinated sale of Venezuela oil and Venezuela gold (47 tonnes in strategic reserve) will provide those dollars to retain stability and seed economic growth projects. This coordinated approach secures the economic future of Venezuela and simultaneously secures the energy security of the Western Hemisphere while geopolitical operations continue in other regions, like the confrontation with Iran.
In essence, President Trump is isolating the Western Hemisphere from collateral economic damage that is likely to happen as the U.S. begins to take down the leading sponsors of global conflict. As things are in flux, the close and controlled partnership with Venezuela can offset/mitigate a lot of chaos. While the ongoing Iran confrontation happens in the middle east, and in combination with the priority of the National Security Strategy, President Trump then convenes a meeting of hemispheric leaders in Florida this weekend. The Latin-America meeting in Doral is being called the “Shield of the Americas Summit.” The Trump administration has made it a priority to assert dominance over the Western Hemisphere, where China previously built influence through massive loans and expansive trade.
Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced President Trump will host heads of state from “Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago, and maybe some others as well.” So, let’s put it all together. President Trump proactively secured the border, targeted narcotraffickers, confronted narcoterrorists, targeted Mexican drug cartel leadership, leveraged the DOJ to indict regional actors, pushed China out of control in the Panama Canal, took out Nicholas Maduro, took control of Venezuela oil production – both for the security of the U.S. and benefit of the Venezuelan people, removed the discounted oil benefit for China and reasserted stability in the Western hemisphere.
Then, with all that in place, he turned toward Iran…. but, proactively planned for a ‘Shield of the Americas Summit’ before the Iran operation began and scheduled it while Operation Epic Fury continues. Jumpin’ ju-ju bones. That outline and timeline is not supposition; it is what took place. And, yeah, we just watched “interim” Venezuela President Delcy Rodriquez react to what she is witnessing happening all around her. Accepting all of this, I would not be in the least surprised to see President Rodriquez in Doral this weekend. This my friends, is a level of strategic boss maneuvering beyond anything we have ever witnessed before. […

– “Interior Secretary Doug Burgum landed in Venezuela on Wednesday to begin talks about a potential rare earth minerals partnership, just weeks after the U.S. arrested former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. FOX Business exclusively joined Burgum on the trip. President Donald Trump‘s administration views Venezuela’s untapped resources as a potential alternative to relying on China for critical minerals, FOX Business has learned. While in Venezuela, Burgum will also help expand the relationship between U.S. oil companies and the Venezuelan government. The secretary will meet with the current Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez to continue the growing relationship between the two countries.Burgum is the first member of Trump’s Cabinet to leave the country since the U.S. launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran on Saturday.”

“AG Bondi claims the DOJ has released all of the Epstein files. The record is clear: they have not,” Mace wrote on X..”

• Pam Bondi Subpoenaed In Epstein Investigation By House Oversight Panel (ZH)

House investigators are hauling in Attorney General Pam Bondi to answer for what lawmakers say is a troubling disappearance of documents tied to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The House Oversight Committee voted 24-19 on Wednesday to subpoena Bondi for a deposition, escalating a fight with the Department of Justice over its handling of records from the sprawling Epstein investigation. Lawmakers say the DOJ may have pulled tens of thousands of pages from public view despite a federal law requiring the material to be released.

The move was spearheaded by Rep. Nancy Mace, who blasted the Justice Department earlier in the day and accused officials of misleading the public about what has actually been disclosed. [Though we would point out that Mace herself vowed to reveal her tits, only to redact them with grainy footage.] “AG Bondi claims the DOJ has released all of the Epstein files. The record is clear: they have not,” Mace wrote on X, calling the saga “one of the greatest cover-ups in American history.” .@RepNancyMace’s motion passed. We voted to subpoena Pam Bondi and to release the files of those who sexually harass others in Congress. This is about transparency and going after predators, not politics.

.@RepNancyMace's motion passed. We voted to subpoena Pam Bondi and to release the files of those who sexually harass others in Congress.

This is about transparency and going after predators, not politics. pic.twitter.com/kH9lghjJn2
— Rep. Ro Khanna (@RepRoKhanna) March 4, 2026

Four Republicans – Reps. Lauren Boebert, Scott Perry, Tim Burchett and Michael Cloud – joined Democrats on the panel to force the subpoena through. The dispute centers on the Epstein Transparency Act, passed almost unanimously by Congress last year. The law ordered the Justice Department to publicly release its trove of investigative material related to Epstein and his convicted accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. In January, the DOJ released more than 3 million documents tied to the case. But the department later said it would not release the remaining files, estimated to include another 2.5 million documents. Since then, watchdogs and journalists say the situation has gotten even murkier.
According to reports, thousands of records that had briefly been available online have vanished from the public database. CBS News reported Tuesday that more than 47,000 files – totaling about 65,500 pages – were taken down by late February. Some of the withheld records reportedly included internal FBI interview summaries and notes – including material tied to a woman who has accused President Donald Trump of sexual abuse when she was a minor. Trump has never been charged with wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and has said he had no knowledge of the financier’s criminal conduct.
The Justice Department has not publicly explained why the documents were removed or why millions more remain under wraps. CNBC said the DOJ did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Bondi’s forthcoming deposition could become one of the most explosive congressional confrontations yet in the long-running battle over the Epstein records – a case that has fueled years of speculation about powerful figures tied to the late sex offender.

In Europe these days, defending free speech is big news..

• German Top Court Issues Two Landmark Rulings In Favor of Free Speech (RMX)

The wave of police searches and prosecutions in Germany may be facing a new hurdle after Germany’s top court, the Constitutional Court, issued two landmark rulings strengthening freedom of expression. However, Fatina Keilani, editor in Welt’s freedom of expression department, said that these two decisions have gone largely unnoticed by the public, an oversight that she finds remarkable. Writing in Welt, Keilani reports that the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe handed down two resolutions in December that push back against what she describes as hasty convictions for insults. The rulings stem from two separate cases in which individuals used sharp, even offensive language against public officials and medical staff — and were criminally sentenced for it.

As Remix News has extensively reported, there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of such cases in recent years. Some of these cases have even attracted international attention and led to questions about freedom of speech and growing repression in Germany.Just late last month, German prosecutors launched investigations into dozens of comments under just one post criticizing Chancellor Friedrich Merz, with one user calling him “Pinocchio.” A number of constitutional lawyers were quick to slam the investigations, with one labeling it “hysterical madness.” Now, Germany’s top court is strengthening freedom of expression at a worrying time.
The first case involved a retired police officer whose son attended a high school during the Covid pandemic. Angered by the school’s testing requirements, the father sent the headmaster a series of emails accusing him of serving a “fascist system and its henchmen” and of “fascist cadre obedience.” The Göppingen District Court sentenced him to a fine of 70 daily rates of €80 each for insult. He lost every appeal before taking his case to Karlsruhe — where he finally prevailed. The Constitutional Court found that his right to freedom of expression had been violated, ruling that the lower courts had not examined the meaning of his statements carefully enough, nor struck an adequate balance between free expression and the protection of personality.
Keilani quotes the court directly: “Part of this freedom is that citizens can attack officials they consider responsible in an accusatory and personalized way for their way of exercising power, without having to fear that the personal elements of such statements are removed from this context and form the basis for drastic judicial sanctions.” The second case involved a man who had been placed in a psychiatric hospital on multiple occasions and subjected to coercive measures. In a letter to his lawyer in 2023, he described hospital staff as a “psychiatric mob.” When he applied to have the letter formally served, a senior bailiff refused on the grounds that its content was punishable. The Stuttgart Higher Regional Court upheld that refusal — but Karlsruhe disagreed.
The Constitutional Court was pointed in its criticism, noting that the Higher Regional Court’s entire reasoning had been reduced to just two sentences, and that it had made no real weighing of the fundamental right to free expression at all. The case has been sent back for reconsideration. For Keilani, both rulings carry a significance that extends beyond the individual cases. She situates them within a broader climate of concern, noting that “numerous decisions against freedom of expression have recently raised doubts in Germany about the rule of law and about the stability of the courts with regard to this crucial fundamental right.”

They make their own problems. Kamala, Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg, only their moms would vote for them….

• The Atlantic Says Pete Buttigieg Is a Real Man (Robert Spencer)

Among the kingmakers, queenmakers, and they/themmakers of the far left is a stubborn contingent that clings to the belief that the cure for what ails the nation’s self-styled “progressives” has been right there among them for several years now, and that his name is Pete Buttigieg. The failed transportation secretary has the gift of being acceptable to both the Democrat Party’s leftist establishment and power-to-the-people-right-on-let’s-burn-the-house-down wing, and while there really isn’t a dime’s worth of difference ideologically between the two factions, that’s still an unusual accomplishment.

Yet Pete is not polling all that well, coming in a weak second in a recent poll. It’s a crowded field with no clear frontrunner: Buttigieg’s 16% was better than Kamala Harris’ 13%, but Gavin Newsom led the pack with 20%. And he has a big weakness, one that Kamala Harris herself identified in September 2025, as she surveyed the smoking ruins of her 2024 presidential campaign and tried to figure out whom to blame.= One of the groups she hit upon was the same American people she had just been trying to convince to vote for her. Kamala’s post mortem of the 2024 election was that Americans were just too racist to vote for her, and too besotted with traditional morality to embrace a homosexual who was “married” to a man, such as Pete.
“As Kamala Harris rushed to pick a running mate last year,” The Atlantic reported last September, “her ‘first choice’ was her close friend Pete Buttigieg, but she decided that it would be ‘too big of a risk’ for a Black woman to run with a gay man.” In her excuse-making volume 107 Days, Harris explains that Buttigieg “would have been an ideal partner—if I were a straight white man. But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, Screw it, let’s just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk.” She adds tellingly: “And I think Pete also knew that—to our mutual sadness.”
Pete has to have noticed an Aug. 2025 poll that showed him with exactly zero support among black voters. Leftist sports analyst and possible future presidential candidate himself Stephen A. Smith told Bill Maher: “He doesn’t move us.” He said he would leave Maher and his audience to speculate as to why that was, but it was clear: Smith was suggesting that black voters didn’t want to vote for a gay man — the same reason why Harris left him off the 2024 ticket.
And so one of the left’s flagship propaganda organs, The Atlantic, has now decided to try to give Pete a little boost, and what a boost it is. From the photo that accompanies the article, it’s clear what’s going on here: Buttigieg is sitting alone at a booth in a diner, nursing, as it were, a cup of coffee. He has a mustache and a tightly trimmed beard just barely covering his chin. He’s looking off frankly and forthrightly into the distance, a man with nothing to hide and nothing to fear. The title is “Pete Buttigieg in the Wilderness,” an attempt at a double entendre encompassing both Pete’s also-ran status among the 2028 presidential hopefuls and his new attempt to project a rugged masculinity, as the subtitle makes clear: “He has a beard, a splitting maul, and a house in Michigan. Is that enough to convince America that he’s a man of the people?”
Wait a minute. He has a beard and a splitting maul? I’ve heard this tune before: long, long ago, when America was a very different place, we had a presidential candidate who had famously been a rail-splitter in his youth, and who grew a beard right around the time he became president. Is Pete Buttigieg trying to make us think he is the new Lincoln, ready to do the hard work to unify our tragically fractured nation? It won’t work. It can’t work. Abe Lincoln never posed grinning in a hospital bed with his “husband” and the two infants they had just bought, er, that is, adopted. Abe Lincoln never had to project the image of being a man; he simply was one.
The left has now become so deeply encased in its arrogance that it thinks that a couple of props and a soulful expression are enough to rescue Pete Buttigieg from the weakness and incompetence he has displayed for years, as well from the increasing unpopularity of the woke delusions he so energetically embraces. If The Atlantic’s puff piece is remembered at all by the time the 2028 campaign begins in earnest, it will be as an embarrassing attempt to make a deeply unpalatable candidate attractive. The Democrats may indeed nominate Pete in 2028, but if they do, they’ll soon find that his candidacy is still suffering from the same epic deficiencies that The Atlantic is so pathetically trying to cover for now.

Actually, Trump just threw out all of Biden’s autopen decisions. 92% in total…

• The Biden Autopen Probe Ends The Way So Many Others Do (David Manney)

Tell me if you’ve heard this before. Former President Joe Biden avoids charges after federal prosecutors closed the probe into his use of an autopen to sign pardons and other documents. Prosecutors in Washington reviewed the case, examined whether Biden authorized the signatures himself, and decided there were no crimes committed. Like March that comes in like a lion, the investigation launched with big promises but ended quietly, adding to the increasingly rotten pattern in which scandals evaporate without consequences.

Last June, President Donald Trump ordered an investigation into whether the Biden administration used an autopen to sign key presidential documents, such as pardons, months after Mr. Trump had claimed his predecessor’s pardons were illegitimate. Mr. Trump told Attorney General Pam Bondi and the White House counsel in a memo to probe what he claimed was a “conspiracy” to “abuse the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline.”
The order cited a number of executive actions by Biden, including pardons and judicial appointments, and argued: “There are serious doubts as to the decision-making process and even the degree of Biden’s awareness of these actions being taken in his name.” Despite concerns that lawmakers and conservative media had about Biden’s lack-of-mental state in his final months, suggesting staff overstepped their roles … crickets. What are we left with? Another grand declaration of justice that crumbles into nothing, leaving everyone to wonder if some secret shield protects the powerful or if the whole thing was just hot air from the beginning.
Jeanine Pirro leads as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and her office reviewed Biden’s pardons and actions. Prosectors couldn’t find any law that bans the use of an autopen if the president approves it. Without proof, the case gets dropped. How shocking to discover that the evidence falls short again, as if the system is designed to let big fish swim free while wasting everybody’s time and taxpayer money with empty threats. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) chairs the House Oversight Committee, which issued a report on Oct. 28, 2025, that blasted Biden’s final months in office. The report claims aides hid Biden’s condition and limited his involvement and accessibility. Comer referred the findings to Bondi, demanding a full probe.
Yet, here we sit, with zero charges and the same old excuses: lack of evidence or whatever mechanism kills these things before they bite. The way this bullscat so often repeats, it drains any sense that serious oversight still exists. The committee targeted Biden’s physician and senior aides with scrutiny over decisions. I hope they scrutinized them with a raised eyebrow or two. Some witnesses invoked the Fifth Amendment, refusing to speak. Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, along with his brother and a sister, right before exiting office. I’m sure all those pardons were above board, right? [..] https://twitter.com/GreereMedeea/status/2028870849718108499?s=20

“Last month, Orban placed a double veto on EU initiatives..”

• Hungary To Block Every EU Decision On Ukraine Over Oil Blockade – Orban (RT)

Ukraine has reportedly rejected a proposed EU mission to inspect the pipeline. Orban said Budapest will not give in to “Ukrainian blackmail,” vowing to “dismantle the oil blockade” and to use Hungary’s veto power in Brussels for as long as necessary. “Until the situation is resolved we will block every European Union decision that is important to Ukraine,” he said.

Last month, Orban placed a double veto on EU initiatives, blocking Brussels’ planned €90 billion ($106 billion) emergency loan for Kiev, as well as the bloc’s 2th package of sanctions on Russia. The EU has called for a total ban on Russian energy by 2027, despite some bloc members remaining heavily reliant on Russian crude. While hosting Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto at the Kremlin on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Moscow is a reliable supplier of energy. “We have always fulfilled all our obligations and, of course, we intend and are ready to do so in the future,” Putin said.

“Budapest and Bratislava have accused Kiev of “blackmail…”

• Russia Could End Gas Supplies To EU Immediately – Putin (RT)

Russia may withdraw from the European gas market and redirect its supplies elsewhere without waiting for the EU to ban its imports, President Vladimir Putin has said. The president made the remarks on Wednesday after he hosted Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto at the Kremlin. “There’s no political motive here. But if we’re going to get shut off in a month or two, we’d be better off stopping now and moving to countries that are reliable partners, and establishing ourselves there. But that’s not a decision yet, it’s just me thinking out loud, so to speak. I’ll definitely instruct the government to work on this issue with our companies,” Putin told Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin.

Moscow could redirect supplies to “emerging markets” instead, given the EU’s repeatedly stated intention to phase out Russian resources completely, Putin suggested. The energy crisis in the EU is the result of the “misguided policies” pursued by the bloc’s authorities over “many years,” he said. Russia “has always been and remains a reliable energy supplier” for all its partners, including the European nations, the president noted. Moscow is ready to continue work in such a manner with those partners “who are themselves reliable,” he added.
“For instance, with those in Eastern Europe, Slovakia, and Hungary. We supply them with our energy resources, both oil and gas, and we intend to continue to do so in the future. And the leadership of these countries will pursue the same policy as today, namely, being reliable for us,” the president explained. Following the meeting with Putin, Szijjarto revealed that Budapest has secured oil and gas supply guarantees from Moscow. Russia and Hungary have agreed to work on diversifying energy resource supply routes, he said. “We agreed that if transport routes become unavailable for various reasons, we will always seek alternative solutions. For example, if pipeline oil transportation continues to face difficulties, we will consider maritime transport options,” the diplomat said in a video address posted on Facebook.
Hungary, as well as Slovakia, has recently experienced a disruption in Russian crude supplies after Ukraine shut down the Druzhba oil pipeline in late January. Kiev has claimed the artery was damaged in Russian long-range strikes, which Moscow has denied. Budapest and Bratislava have accused Kiev of “blackmail,” alleging it deliberately halted the supplies for political reasons and threatened retaliation.Slovakia ended its emergency electricity supply scheme for Ukraine, while Hungary vetoed a proposed €90 billion ($106 billion) EU loan for Kiev as well as the latest package of anti-Russian sanctions.

https://twitter.com/ShiningScience/status/2029414985991111103?s=20

Elon Musk: Tesla Could Be First to Develop AGI in Humanoid Form

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has predicted that his company is on track to help create artificial general intelligence (AGI) – and may be the first to deliver it in a physical, humanoid “atom-shaping” form.

In a recent… pic.twitter.com/3XvYF0HSLj
— XCorp (@XCorpHub) March 4, 2026

This will be one of the most monumental moments in technology history.

The Tesla Optimus will surpass the iPhone moment when history looks back.

You will no longer want to access AI from a device, but via your humanoid robot.

Keyboards will be optional… pic.twitter.com/9AhBOiPOP1
— Brian Roemmele (@BrianRoemmele) March 4, 2026

It called Water Gong 93, also nicknamed Gongzilla.

The sound it emits is so powerful that it resonates like the vibrations of the universe and is said to rebalance the energy of the human body.pic.twitter.com/naN3ZZFLH4
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 5, 2026

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