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Debt Rattle November 2 2026

Nov 022026
 
 November 2, 2026  Posted by at 10:24 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  17 Responses »


Edward Hopper Hotel lobby 1943


• Qatar Signals Talks ‘Breakthrough’ As Khamenei Warns (ZH)
• Iran’s Araghchi Hopes For ‘Rationality’ From US (ZH)
• Polish PM Tusk Says He Won’t Back Down (ZH)
• Finland’s President Defends Calling Putin (RT)
• Macron’s Riot Problem Isn’t the Mystery He Says It Is (Eric Florack)
• Ukraine’s Public Debt Has Surged 130-Fold Since 2006 (RT)
• Millions Embezzled In Fraud Scheme At Ukrainian Defense Firm – Probe (RT)
• European Commission Begins Reevaluating Emissions Trading System (CTH)
• The Ilhan Omar Immigration Fraud Case Is Bigger Than We Thought (Margolis)
• Ilhan Omar’s Marriage Application To ‘Brother’ Surfaces With Bizarre Errors (ZH)
• Alina Habba Says Grenell Blocked $5.6M Of Billionaire Husband’s Donation (ZH)
• “The Pope Doesn’t Take Sides” (Turley)

 

 

 

 


Iran is still threatening the US:

“..Iran’s Retaliation Will Have ‘No Geographical Limits’ If Attacked..”

Tomorrow’s the US midterms. After that Trump is free to attack Iran. He doesn’t appear to have much choice.

The Iranians attempt to drag him along, as they can do like no other.

Iran puts itself on equal footing withe the US. Trump does not, and never will.

Trump wants to make sure they have no nukes, and no control over Hormuz.

They know this, but still haven’t given in on either point.

The IRGC has murdered at last 40,000 of its own people in the recent past.

They don’t care about thesee lives, onl;y about their own.

Bibi threatened to nuke Iran, and Trump said no, we will take care of this.

And now he has to. He didn’t want them to have nukes, anyway.

• Qatar Signals Talks ‘Breakthrough’ As Khamenei Warns (ZH)

Could this be the actual breakthrough coming after many months of prior claimed negotiation ‘breakthroughs’ and false starts? Just when the prospect of even getting back to the negotiating table seemed as remote as ever, Qatari newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed is reporting that planned direct talks are back on.


Regional sources are indeed calling this a “breakthrough” in hitherto indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran, with an American delegation soon expected to join Iranian officials for direct talks in Doha.The midterm election in the US is just a handful of days away, and President Trump has strongly signaled he might renew a major bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic.

Picking up on the Saturday Qatari report, Times of Israel writes, “Citing sources close to mediation efforts led by Qatar and Pakistan, the report says the sides have agreed on preliminary measures concerning Iran’s nuclear program, navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and financial incentives for Tehran, with China and Russia set to serve as guarantors of an agreement.”


“The reported progress follows what Axios describes as more than 12 hours of talks between Qatari mediators and Iranian officials in Tehran yesterday, aimed at averting renewed US strikes on Iran after the November 3 midterm elections,” it adds.

Al Arabiya English says it has obtained key points from the preliminary draft framework for restarting US-Iran negotiations and has published the following list:
• Iran could transfer its highly enriched uranium stockpile to an agreed third country or reduce its enrichment level
• The Strait of Hormuz could reopen to international maritime traffic within seven days of an initial understanding
• China could potentially serve as a guarantor of the implementation and sustainability of any agreement
• Direct US-Iran negotiations could be held in Doha instead of Istanbul
• Iranian measures on the nuclear file and maritime security would be matched by clearly defined US measures to ease sanctions, blockades and economic restrictions
• An independent verification mechanism would assess compliance before each subsequent phase of implementation
• Neither side would be required to make substantial concessions without receiving corresponding, independently verifiable commitments
• A dispute-resolution mechanism involving mediators and guarantor parties would address delays or violations to help prevent renewed military escalation

But none of this means that Iranian leadership is going to sit idly by and let the Trump administration dictate the terms, as it continues sticking by its seven conditions for ending the war. By now it should be clear that Tehran does not trust Trump or Netanyahu when it comes to efforts to achieve peace.


Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has on Saturday put his military on heightened alert, ordering military commanders to ensure an immediate and desvastating response to any threat, and notably without geographical limitation. “Any level or type of threat must be met with an immediate, impactful, and geographically unrestricted response,” the Ayatollah – who has not been seen in public since the war began – has stated.

This was reportedly the result of a meeting with senior military commanders – itself a very rare thing if indeed happened, again given that he’s not so much as been seen in public since the assassination of his father. Al Jazeera describes the significance further, writing that “Iranians have been emphasising that if a new wave of war comes, Iran is going to go beyond the locations that it has hit in the previous rounds.”


“Khamenei is also saying that if the war restarts, then it’s going to be up to Iran to determine when it’s going to end and on what terms,” the regional commentary adds. “This is quite a huge thing because it’s saying that the terms of diplomacy will be up to Iran now.” So these planned next Qatari talks could be the last big diplomatic effort at restarting a peace and dialogue track, or else it could be bombs away and runaway escalation.

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He’ll get his rationality.

• Iran’s Araghchi Hopes For ‘Rationality’ From US (ZH)

On Sunday Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi weighed in on current peace discussions which are being mediated via Qatar. He expressed that Tehran is ready to egage in serious diplomacy but hopes to see ‘rationality’ from the US side. We previously featured details of a draft framework being offered and examined.


“We are making our efforts in this direction and hope that there is rationality on the other side to prefer diplomacy to other paths,” Araghchi said. The statement comes amid widespread reports that the Trump White House could order a new major bombing campaign soon after Tuesday’s midterm elections.But he also alluded to the fresh orders that Iran’s supreme commander-in-chief, which is the Ayatollah, conveyed to senior military officials.

“Our armed forces also have a very clear mission and, drawing on the experiences of the past t

wo wars, are much stronger than before,” the FM stated. Iran says Hormuz could be reopened within two days if conditions met… Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei had on Saturday put his military on heightened alert, ordering military commanders to ensure an immediate and desvastating response to any threat, and notably without geographical limitation.

“Any level or type of threat must be met with an immediate, impactful, and geographically unrestricted response,” the Ayatollah – who has not been seen in public since the war began – stated.


This was reportedly the result of a meeting with senior military commanders – itself a very rare thing, given that he’s not so much as been seen in public since the assassination of his father. Al Jazeera described the significance further, writing that “Iranians have been emphasising that if a new wave of war comes, Iran is going to go beyond the locations that it has hit in the previous rounds.” Meanwhile some alarming videos have surfaced over the weekend showing results of some of the latest Iranian attacks on tankers.

https://twitter.com/ATLAS_PULSEe/status/2116886463736651975?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2116886463736651975%7Ctwgr%5E9bcfb66ca012febfb97a1a9002a8db943d049390%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Firans-araghchi-hopes-rationality-us-amid-signs-renewed-war-could-erupt


As for the status of indirect negotiations between Tehran and Washington, Araghchi also said, “Consultations are ongoing but we have not yet reached a definitive conclusion because this conclusion depends on the answers the other side gives to our questions. There was no plan to negotiate with the American side during this trip.” So the talks are still not yet ‘direct’ and it’s unclear on if there are plans to engage in such.

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Coup.

What I did notice is the people protesting in the street all seem to be pro-President.

• Polish PM Tusk Says He Won’t Back Down (ZH)

Pro-EU Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk defended his decision to suspend top court judges and accused the opposition of resorting to violence in an attempt to destroy the rule-of-law. As Bloomberg reports, Tusk said in a TV address on Saturday that the Constitutional Tribunal in its current form isn’t independent and his government’s attempts to fix it have been sabotaged by the Law & Justice party and President Karol Nawrocki.


“We have waited too long to be intimidated and to back down now,” Tusk said. “I’m confident that the Constitutional Tribunal will begin to function as it ought to – independently, autonomously, and in accordance with the Constitution.” Tusk went on to accuse conservative nationalist opposition leaders of wanting to “destroy democracy and rule of law” in a speech addressing the ongoing constitutional crisis.

“Let’s call things by their name,” he said. “For years in Poland there exist organisations and politicians who wish to destroy democracy and rule of law.” As a reminder, the pro-European government said the suspension is necessary to restore judicial independence, while critics from the opposition have likened it to a “coup d’etat.”

~~~~~

It is approaching 24 hours since Poland was dramatically plunged into a Constitutional crisis. Starting Friday night, Prime Minister Donald Tusk staged a forced takeover of one of the country’s top courts, prompting Polish President Karol Nawrocki to abrubtly turn back his plane which was en route to Africa for a scheduled state visit.

“At a moment like this, the President must be in Poland. I am cutting short my flight to Senegal. I am returning,” he wrote on X. The globe’s attention then turned to Warsaw and site of the Constitutional Tribunal, where police had surrounded it, and prevented the independent body’s leaders from entering its grounds.

Protesters also soon descended, after it was revealed that the court’s longest-serving judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska had suspended Bogdan Swieczkowski, the tribunal’s president. The country’s main anti-Tusk opposition decried the blatant judicial power-grab. President Nawrocki, an ally of the previous nationalist and Right-wing government is now in a desperate battle against Tusk’s pro-EU government for ultimate control of the judiciary.

Tusk’s ruling coalition has been trying for weeks to remove judges appointed under the previous PiS government, and now the trigger has been pulled in the most obvious of ways – with the clash literally spilling into the streets amid a stand off with police. After disembarking his plane upon his abrupt return to Warsaw Friday night, President Nawrocki physically attempted to gain entry amid unpredented displays of scuffles breaking out at the top court:


Outside the court the Associated Press observed clashes with police as the crowds grew and security blocked all entrances, even to top court officials:

“Hundreds of anti-government protesters rallied overnight around a top court in Poland to denounce the suspension of the tribunal’s president, for which they blame the country’s pro-European government. Police said they detained three protesters after some threw objects at the officers and tried to break through the security fence around the court.”

The primary responsibility of the tribunal is conducting judicial review to verify that Polish statutes adhere to constitutional standards. The Friday night chaos started when it was the Polish official agency PAP which was the first to report that court chief Bogdan Sierczkowski and his number two, Bartlomiej Sochanski, were suspended for a month by order of Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska.

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Putin is Satan. No talking to him.

“Alexander Stubb has said it was important for him and Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Store to hear the Russian leader’s stance on Ukraine firsthand..”

• Finland’s President Defends Calling Putin (RT)


Finnish President Alexander Stubb.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb has defended the phone conversation he and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store had with Russian leader Vladimir Putin earlier this week following criticism from some Moscow hawks in Europe.


The two Nordic leaders made the rare phone call on Tuesday, with discussions focusing mainly on the Ukraine conflict, as well as security in Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea. The conversation followed US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg last week and subsequent consultations in Oslo involving Stubb, Store, and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky.

Both Moscow and Kiev have since agreed to take part in a fourth round of US-mediated trilateral talks that is expected to take place in Abu Dhabi in November, with European countries excluded from the peace process, according to the Kremlin.

Appearing on Yle’s Ykkosaamu (Morning One) program on Saturday, Stubb noted that Tuesday’s call was the first time since becoming Finland’s president that he had spoken with Putin. Stubb emphasized the importance of hearing firsthand the Russian leader’s view of the root causes of the Ukraine conflict, describing the direct exchange of opinions as a “turning point.”

Stubb said he and Store reopened the “channel of communication” with Moscow at Kiev’s request and relayed Zelensky’s messages to Putin after consultations with US and Ukrainian representatives. He emphasized, however, that Helsinki was “not acting as any kind of peace mediator here.” Both Nordic leaders earlier specifically pointed out that they were not speaking on behalf of Europe.

The Finnish president clarified that aside from the Ukraine conflict, he and Store brought up the security of their respective countries, which both share an extensive border with Russia.Among other things, the two Nordic leaders used the opportunity to “clear up some misunderstandings” regarding the Baltic Sea, reaffirming their adherence to international maritime law and the principle of freedom of navigation.

Stubb defended what he described as the “first confidence-building measure” by noting that “Russia is our neighbor now and will remain our neighbor in the future,” with bilateral relations liable to resume at one point. In the wake of their call with Putin, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen accused the two Nordic leaders of breaking European ranks, claiming the conversation had “not been coordinated with the rest of us” – an objection echoed by Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

Responding to these criticisms, Stubb stressed that he and Store extensively briefed Zelensky and multiple EU leaders afterward. Most Western European leaders shunned direct contact with Moscow after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 in an attempt to diplomatically isolate Russia. However, in recent weeks they have mounted an effort to secure a seat at the negotiation table as Moscow and Washington ramp up diplomatic work aimed at resolving the conflict.

Commenting on his phone conversation with the two Nordic leaders, Putin stated on Thursday that Russia supported “any steps aimed at restoring full-fledged and comprehensive relations” with European countries.“After all, there are people in Europe who, unlike some others, do not want to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia but instead want to establish some kind of constructive dialogue,” the Russian president explained.

He also reiterated that Moscow is not seeking a broader conflict with the EU or NATO.

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How Macron can say with a straight face that there are no invaders.

• Macron’s Riot Problem Isn’t the Mystery He Says It Is (Eric Florack)

The French republican tradition insists on one national identity, so the government largely refuses to sort its citizens by ethnicity, and INSEE, the French statistical agency, operates under real legal restrictions on the subject. A French citizen is French. No hyphens, no ethnic boxes. No worries about who you import and no worries, either, about those who decide they don’t want to be French at all, but foreign invaders.


As ideals go, it’s worthwhile, if you ignore reality. Declaring everyone part of the same national community doesn’t make them participate in it. You can decree national unity. You can’t manufacture social cohesion by pretending the question doesn’t exist. And refusing to count makes the hard questions harder, not easier.

The truly maddening part is that Macron knows this. In the very same speech, he blamed the violence on “far-left groups” that, along with plenty of ordinary criminals, unleashed violence without restraint. So he identified the arsonists by name and then pretended to be baffled about who lit the match. That isn’t leadership. That’s a man reading two different speeches at once.

And if you want to know what those groups stand for, look at what they set on fire tonight: American and Israeli flags. Not even French flags. Ask yourself what American and Israeli flags have to do with French school budgets, or the price of a liter of diesel. Not a blessed thing, of course. But it has everything to do with the worldview of the people throwing the Molotov cocktails. In their eyes, the Judeo-Christian West is the villain. America and Israel are the West at its most confident, so those flags burn first, and the cost-of-living grievances are just the costume.

There are real complaints underneath all this. No question of that. Energy prices in France were 21.3% higher in September than a year earlier, pushing overall inflation to 3.1%. A government that can’t keep schools staffed has earned some anger. But Macron’s answer has been a speech, a “crisis unit,” and a promise that lessons will be learned. He also had to answer for being spotted with his wife at a Céline Dion concert the night the riots broke out. Meanwhile, about 70,000 police and gendarmes had to be deployed nationwide to keep the lid on.

The French voters see it. Far-right presidential hopeful Jordan Bardella called Macron’s speech “lamentable” and “cowardly,” and said the government can no longer even protect its own people. Over on the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon says the government alone is responsible for the destruction. When the far right and the far left agree you’ve failed, you’ve probably failed. France picks Macron’s successor in May, and from where I sit, the job is going to someone who isn’t confused about who is burning the place down. Assuming France exists as such by that point.

They’re not alone, though. Many countries have succumbed to the demands of Brussels on the matter of citizenship, with Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Belgium, among them. And in every single case, officials in those countries blame living costs, unemployment, extremists, or “inequality.” Immigration never makes the list. Nor does a lack of cultural assimilation. But there again, why would they admit that their own hands were a part of that mess?

Now, before anyone on this side of the Atlantic gets too comfortable sneering at the French, remember that we have our own versions of these people, and some of them are on the ballot Tuesday. (I’m looking at YOU, Michigan).

In last week’s column, I talked about the DSA’s slate of candidates and how far into the Democrat Party they’ve gotten. The ideology that burns American and Israeli flags in Paris is the same one that considers ICE a “rogue” agency and sees our own police as the enemy. The only difference is how far along each country is.

We still have time to do better. That starts Tuesday.

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“The IMF has warned that Kiev’s finances are unsustainable without restructuring and continued foreign assistance..”

Kiev is beyond broke, but Euope wants to fight Putin.

Kiev’s debt is Europe’s debt.

• Ukraine’s Public Debt Has Surged 130-Fold Since 2006 (RT)

Ukraine’s state and state-guaranteed debt has surged roughly 130-fold in national currency terms over the past two decades, according to figures from the country’s Finance Ministry. In recent months, Kiev has been struggling to plug multi-billion-dollar holes in its budget while pleading with its reluctant backers in the EU for more assistance.


The ministry released the updated figure on Tuesday, putting debt at 9.54 trillion hryvnias ($212.61 billion) as of late September, compared with 73.29 billion hryvnias ($14.51 billion) in September 2006.

The staggering increase is partly explained by the hryvnia’s depreciation, with the currency losing nearly 90% of its value against the US dollar over the same period. However, the increase remains substantial even in dollar terms, with the debt expanding 14.6-fold. It has also more than doubled from $97.95 billion at the end of 2021, just before the escalation of Kiev’s conflict with Russia in February 2022.

Foreign governments and international institutions now account for 66.4% of Ukraine’s debt portfolio, much of it on preferential terms, which helps to alleviate the financial burden. Kiev has a debt repayment schedule extending through 2061 and is obliged to pay almost $33 billion to global financial institutions in interest and servicing costs alone, on top of the principal of almost $107 billion. For comparison’s sake, Ukraine’s 2021 GDP was around $200 billion.

Ukraine’s dire financial strain did not escape the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which warned in July that Kiev’s debt “remains unsustainable” without restructuring and further preferential foreign assistance.

Kiev’s financial burden came into the spotlight in late summer when Vladimir Zelensky disclosed an unexpected $27 billion defense funding gap – which emerged after his 40-day PR ‘pressure campaign’ on Russia – and urged Brussels to frontload part of its €90 billion loan earmarked for 2027.

The EU, however, refused to validate the figure and approve further assistance, urging Ukraine to make progress on stalled governance and anti-corruption reforms to unlock funding that was already available. In early October, Kiev managed to plug the gap with austerity measures and by convincing the EU to defer some payments for weapons until the next year.

Still, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas acknowledged on Thursday that European leaders were finding it increasingly difficult to justify continued assistance to Kiev because “everyone is tired of this war,” while urging Western governments to continue supporting Ukraine.

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100 schemes just like it. Corruption like maybe some African nations have seen.

• Millions Embezzled In Fraud Scheme At Ukrainian Defense Firm – Probe (RT)

A former head of a state-owned Ukrainian defense company is suspected of embezzling millions of dollars through fake mediation deals, the country’s anti-corruption bodies have said. Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) announced in a statement on Friday that the scheme had cost the government 1.1 billion hryvnia (around $43 million).


The Western-backed agencies, which frequently target Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s inner-circle, didn’t name the suspect, only saying that he used to lead a subsidiary of Ukrspecexport, a state-run company with exclusive rights to export and import military hardware. According to the investigators, the former head of the state-run firm signed a deal with a foreign company in 2015 for it to provide mediation during the sales of Ukrainian military products abroad.

However, it had been established that the Ukrainian firm had conducted all of the negotiations with a customer from a Middle Eastern country on its own, and the foreign company wasn’t involved, they said. Despite this fact, the official signed falsified documents about mediation services being provided by the foreign company and transferred millions to it as payment, the statement read. The actions of the suspect are being qualified as large-scale embezzlement and forgery of government papers, it added.

Ukrainskaya Pravda reported later in the day that, according to its sources, the official in question is Taras Shiyko, who now holds the positions of the deputy director of Ukroboronprom, a state-run conglomerate comprised of Ukraine’s arms makers. The fraud scheme relates to his time as the head of Progress, a state-run export and import company. Shiyko became part of an anti-corruption case earlier this year, involving the suspected embezzlement of 32 million hryvnia (around $700,000).

Zelensky’s government has been rocked by a series of corruption scandals involving people close to him since November 2025, when NABU and SAPO accused Timur Mindich, a longtime associate of the Ukrainian leader, of masterminding a $100 million kickback scheme involving state contracts in the energy sector. Other investigations have implicated former Ukrainian ministers, diplomats, and senior officials.

NABU’s latest high-profile case targeted an alleged protection racket involving scam call centers and officials from the Prosecutor General’s Office. Although he was not personally named as a suspect, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko left Ukraine before being dismissed by parliament last month, according to Ukrainian media.

Critics accuse Zelensky of leading a sprawling corruption network which permeates his government, allegedly helping him maintain power and enriching those involved. A poll issued by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) last month suggested that the Ukrainians consider corruption to be a bigger problem for the country than the conflict with Russia.

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“.,.to Restore EU Oil Refining Capacity

They never replaced what they took away. They ignored they use energy at all.

• European Commission Begins Reevaluating Emissions Trading System (CTH)

,This is an interesting potential shift in energy position for the European Union. There has been zero investment by the EU nations in oil refining capacity. Simultaneously, Europe is now realizing they need diesel and jet fuel. Under the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), refineries have an ever-diminishing cap on carbon emissions, and they receive fewer ‘free’ pollution allowances over time.


This means oil refining costs go up steadily, increasing the cost of operating the dirty carbon facilities, while these same refineries must adhere to stricter environmental rules and pollution limits under the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED). The entire regulatory system was created to eliminate gasoline, diesel and eventually jet fuel.

As the EU is now discovering, their climate change policies have been executed but the global and EU drop in demand has not occurred at the same pace. The EU is now in a position where the percentage of their own oil refining production is lower than their needs. More energy dependency has been created.

With the EU energy analysts now saying they don’t have the fuel capacity to support the political demands for a war with Russia, in combination with President Trump continually affirming the U.S. will not get involved in any expanded conflict, the European Union is now reevaluating how to increase domestic fuel production.

EUROPE – Over the past couple of decades, Europe has pursued some of the world’s most ambitious clean energy policies, aiming to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. Hardly surprisingly, Europe is now further along the clean energy transition compared to its western peers, with renewables accounting for roughly half of the continent’s power mix compared to about 26% by the U.S. However, Europe is now being forced to reckon with its decision to ditch some of its fossil fuel assets as yet another global energy crisis unfolds just years after the 2022 energy crisis.

[…] the continent has been forced to rely more heavily on imported refined products, exposing it to geopolitical risks. The Iran and Ukraine wars have led to a spike in oil and gas prices, with EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen terming geopolitical instability and the prolonged diesel squeeze a “wake-up call” for the bloc.

[…] Central European nations like Poland, Czechia, and Slovakia have been pressuring the European Commission to establish a long-term protective strategy for Europe’s oil refineries. They have called for refineries to be protected from carbon leakage and given access to EU funds to upgrade.

[…] now, Brussels is looking to rethink its long-standing approach to the domestic oil-refining industry. On Wednesday, the European Commission launched the first High-Level Dialogue with the European oil refining sector. Co-chaired by Dan Jørgensen (Commissioner for Energy and Housing) and Andrius Kubilius (Commissioner for Defence and Space), the forum discussed Europe’s energy security, industrial competitiveness and defense readiness amid recurring geopolitical disruptions.

Participants mapped out short-term responses to supply disruptions stemming from ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, noting that EU refineries currently supply approximately 70% of jet fuel and 85% of diesel consumed across Europe. (read more)

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I keep asking myself: How did she become worth $25 million?

Did she bring that from Somalia?

• The Ilhan Omar Immigration Fraud Case Is Bigger Than We Thought (Margolis)

When DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin sat down with Fox News on Friday, he delivered some delicious news about the federal investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).


“This isn’t just a case that’s targeting one individual,” Mullin explained. “This is a large case that we have presented to the DOJ, and the DOJ is leading the investigations.” Mullin credited the Homeland Security Investigations agents who searched Omar’s Washington, D.C., home on October 12 and hauled out boxes of material. Those agents “did a lot of investigation to be able to present the case to them,” he said.

The probe dates back to 2009, when Somalia-born Omar married Ahmed Elmi. Investigators want to know whether that marriage was part of an immigration fraud conspiracy, and whether Omar lied on government paperwork to become a citizen. Elmi is a British citizen who, we recently learned, describes himself as gay, and the evidence points to him being her brother, with the marriage allowing him to remain in the country legally.

Investigators are also scrutinizing her House financial disclosures, which may have padded her net worth by tens of millions of dollars. The New York Post reported Friday that on Omar’s certified 2009 marriage license from Hennepin County, Minn., her surname was crossed out, swapped for “Elmi,” and then switched back to “Omar.” The rest of Omar’s personal history only adds to the mess. She reportedly had her staff change her birth year from 1981 to 1982 so she could appear to have obtained naturalization as a minor through her father in 2000.

The FBI and DHS examined the brother-marriage allegations back in 2016, while Omar was running for the Minnesota legislature. Now that the case is alive again, the usual suspects are crying foul. Former President Barack Obama publicly criticized the probe, apparently forgetting that the investigation first got rolling while he was still in the White House. “I’ve made this very, very, very, very clear: we’re enforcing our nation’s laws across the board equally, and we’re going to continue to do that,” Mullin said in response to Obama.

He added that political standing buys no one a pass. “I don’t care where you’re seated, and I don’t care how you’re registered to vote, I don’t care what your job title is,” he continued. “We use it equally.” Mullin also turned the weaponization charge back on the people making it, arguing that Democrats “came after their political enemies like President Trump, and they know they weaponized our DOJ and FBI.”

Earlier in the interview, he made the same point about the Omar probe specifically. “We’re enforcing our nation’s laws, and we’re going to do that. We’re not weaponizing. We’re not using political theater on this,” Mullin said. “We’re going to let the facts play out, we’re not playing politics with this — I said this from day one, we’re not playing politics with anybody’s lives.”

This is going to be fun.

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“If we’ve had a foreign nationalist occupying a seat in Congress, that’s a problem,” she said, adding that Congress would be “failing to do their job.”

• Ilhan Omar’s Marriage Application To ‘Brother’ Surfaces With Bizarre Errors (ZH)

Rep. Ilhan Omar’s 2009 Minnesota marriage license application to Ahmed Elmi, the man accused of being her brother, shows her surname written as Omar, crossed out and changed to Elmi, then changed back to Omar, according to a certified copy from Hennepin County obtained by the New York Post.


The name changes could matter because the Justice Department is investigating whether the Somalia-born Minnesota Democrat fraudulently obtained U.S. citizenship in 2000 by failing to use her true legal name and birthdate. That case grew out of an earlier probe into whether Omar committed immigration fraud by marrying Elmi, a British citizen.

The document arrives weeks into an escalating federal effort. Homeland Security Investigations agents raided Omar’s Washington, D.C., home on Oct. 12 as part of the immigration fraud probe. In a court filing last week, the Justice Department referred to her as “Congresswoman Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar.” A source familiar with the investigation told the Post that Omar is not her real name and that her birth surname is Elmi, the same as the man she married.

The application is dated Feb. 12, 2009. One question asks whether the bride and groom are related by blood or adoption, and the couple checked “no.” The first revision on the form reads “Ilhan Omar Elmi,” a version that differs from the name the Justice Department now uses in court. The document does not identify who filled it out, though all the entries appear to share one person’s handwriting.

An image of the application has circulated online for years. Alpha News, a Minnesota outlet, appears to have first published it in August 2016. Major news outlets gave it little attention until this month. Scott W. Johnson, a retired Minneapolis attorney and former Alpha News board member, has spent ten years investigating Omar’s alleged immigration fraud. “Questions should be asked. She’s never answered them,” Johnson said. “The whole thing was a joke. The marriage was a fraudulent marriage, brazenly fraudulent… It was entered into for a fraudulent purpose.”

A Christian minister married Omar and Elmi on Feb. 12, 2009, the same date the application bears. By then, Omar already had two children with Ahmed Hirsi, whom she had married in a 2002 Islamic ceremony that never became a legal marriage. In May 2009, Hirsi listed the address on the Omar-Elmi marriage license as his own home. Omar had a third child with Hirsi in June 2012 and finalized her divorce from Elmi in 2017. She legally married Hirsi in 2018, filed for divorce a year later, and married her current husband, Tim Mynett, in 2020.

The Justice Department first opened an investigation into Omar in 2016, under President Barack Obama, into whether Omar married her brother so he could get a green card. The Biden administration closed that probe in 2021 for two reasons. The five-year statute of limitations had run out, meaning prosecutors would have had to file charges by 2014, and the FBI could not interview Elmi, who had returned to the U.K.

Legal experts told the Post that federal investigators now appear focused on a possible conspiracy involving ongoing acts, such as misstating a birthdate, which the earlier statute of limitations may not bar. Civil denaturalization carries no statute of limitations and could lead to Omar’s deportation.

In an academic paper published in August, Elmi, a doctoral researcher at the University of Bristol, identified himself as a “gay man of the East African diaspora.” Omar has broadly dismissed the allegations as a racist conspiracy theory and a politically motivated smear. Last week, MS NOW anchor Chris Hayes asked her directly whether she married her brother. “Not to my knowledge,” Omar said.


AJ Kern, a former Minnesota congressional candidate who has examined Omar’s immigration records and birthdate discrepancies, told the Post she sees the record as clear. “I think it’s pretty clear she married her brother and committed immigration fraud,” Kern said. Kern said the larger issue is the possibility of a non-citizen holding federal office.

“If we’ve had a foreign nationalist occupying a seat in Congress, that’s a problem,” she said, adding that Congress would be “failing to do their job.”

Read more …

If I got this right,Trump’s personal lawyer Alina Habba is married to a 25-year-old Turkish billionnaire with business interests in Venezuela and Congo?! Do I believe that?

• Alina Habba Says Grenell Blocked $5.6M Of Billionaire Husband’s Donation (ZH)

Alina Habba told President Trump in the Oval Office that Richard Grenell, the Trump ally who ran the Kennedy Center, never delivered roughly $5.6 million of a $17.6 million payment her husband wired at his direction, and White House counsel Will Scharf has been told to look into it. Grenell denies it all. The dispute has since turned toward Habba’s husband, Turkish businessman Turhan Mildon, his Venezuelan and Congolese business ties, and whose money the wire really was.


Richard Grenell and Alina Habba Mildon had once been close friends.


According to the NY Times, Habba brought the accusation to the Oval Office on Oct. 9, after the Times sent Mildon questions about his Venezuela business. She said Mildon made the payment in May 2025 at Grenell’s direction, believing about $5.6 million would be set aside for the Kennedy Center, and that the money never reached it. The wire itself went to TX-AT, a Texas security and defense equipment company, not to the Kennedy Center. Trump called in Scharf to hear her out.

Her account has moved. People familiar with the discussion told the Times she described the sum first as a donation of about $17 million, then as roughly $6 million, and eventually said most of the payment was a business transaction whose details remain unclear, with the remainder meant for the Kennedy Center. The Times said it had not verified her accusations.

The Times then reported on Oct. 17 that the $17.6 million came from a bank account linked to the Congolese government, not from Mildon himself. AllAfrica’s account of that report says the commercial arrangement behind the payment “remains unclear,” and that TX-AT and Congolese officials did not respond to the Times. The first documents sent to the White House on the couple’s behalf blacked out the sender’s name, Rio Times reported.


Turhan Mildon at the iKinshasa Financial Center, December 2023


Mildon, through a spokesman, has acknowledged advising Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and holding a Congolese diplomatic passport. His company, Milvest, built the Kinshasa Financial Center. None of that establishes that Congolese state money paid for anything in the dispute, and nothing published shows Tshisekedi or his aides knew of the wire. The Justice Department’s foreign-agent registry lists no registration for Mildon, Milvest, TX-AT, Grenell or Habba, according to the Rio Times.

Grenell has told the Times and Axios that he never received any payment from Mildon. “I’ve never asked for one cent to be sent somewhere else pretending it was for the Kennedy Center, and I’ve never received any payment from him at all,” he told Axios. He called the allegations “absurd” and told the Daily Beast, “Make him give proof to what he is saying.” He acknowledged consulting for TX-AT in 2024 but said he had no connection to the company when the wire was sent, and denied soliciting payments for it.


The Kennedy Center’s own records are thin. Mildon pledged $270,000 after a gala concert and paid it only the week the Times asked why he had not. The center says it is examining the relevant pledges and funds and will report to its board. Mildon’s lawyers also gave Scharf a text that allegedly shows Grenell offering to make Mildon the “American face down in V,” a reference to Venezuela. Grenell told the Times he never sent that message or anything like it.

That Venezuela thread is where the scrutiny now falls on Mildon. He has extensive business interests there, and U.S. officials and intelligence officers have examined his relationship with Alex Saab, the Maduro confidant who awarded him a cement contract. Mildon says he is 29, but U.S. documents and British corporate records list him as 25; he declined to explain the difference to the Times. Grenell was at the time Trump’s special envoy for Venezuela.

Scharf is still gathering evidence, Axios reported, and has been slow to receive records from Habba and Mildon’s attorneys. A Trump insider told Axios it is the “ultimate MAGA blood feud.” What would settle it is the wire’s true sender, what the $17.6 million was for, and what Grenell actually said to Mildon. None of those questions has an answer on the public record.

Read more …

“Should a Foreign Head of State Be Able to Vote in United States Elections?”

• “The Pope Doesn’t Take Sides” (Turley)

“So, the Pope doesn’t take sides. Prevost has another opinion, but we won’t do that now.” That funny quip from Pope Leo XIV (born Robert Prevost) referred to the historic game in Rome when the Villanova and Notre Dame basketball teams play each other.


However, a story this week raised a different question of when the Pope, as opposed to Prevost, can “take sides.” This month, American-born Pope Leo XIV became the first pope ever to vote in a U.S. election.

A longtime Chicago native, the Pope mailed an absentee ballot to Will County, and the clerk’s office confirmed to Fox News Digital that “Robert Prevost is on the list of individuals who requested a Vote by Mail ballot.” There is no question that the Pope can vote in the Holy See. Indeed, he is the ultimate and final vote in the Vatican, but can he actually vote in Illinois races (including the governor’s race involving incumbent Democrat J.B. Pritzker)? The answer appears to be yes, but it raises some novel questions.

Now, as a threshold matter, I want to shed some bias. I was raised Catholic in Chicago. No, that is not the bias. There is that lingering conflict with the Pope coming out as a White Sox fan. Many of us on the North Side hoped for a conversion to restore our faith in papal infallibility. However, he has remained entrenched in his South Side allegiance.

This column rises above that historic rivalry and does not suggest that White Sox fans can be challenged at the polls. (Besides, I previously explained that the Pope is a Cubs fan without knowing it.) Rather, what surprised me was that the head of a foreign state could vote in U.S. elections. The Vatican is a distinct nation with a diplomatic corps, a court system, a local government, and even a military in the form of the legendary Swiss Guards.

The Holy See Press Office declared, “Pope Leo XIV has exercised his right to vote as a United States citizen whenever he was eligible to do so. The Holy See Press Office confirms that, in keeping with this long-standing practice of civic participation, he has submitted his mail-in ballot in Chicago.”

The Holy See maintains that Pope Leo retains his status as a U.S. citizen while serving as the head of a foreign nation. There is support for this position. The State Department has maintained that dual citizens do not have to choose between their countries, though it does not expect them to serve as the head of another country.

“U.S. dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country (or countries, if they are nationals of more than one). They are required to obey the laws of both countries, and either country has the right to enforce its laws. Claims of other countries upon U.S. dual-nationals may result in conflicting obligations under the laws of each country. U.S. dual nationals may also face restrictions in the U.S. consular protections available to U.S. nationals abroad, particularly in the country of their other nationality.”

Notably, the State Department requires dual citizens to use a U.S. passport to enter the country. Does that mean that, when traveling as head of state, Pope Leo has to use a U.S. passport? Unlikely, but intriguing. It strikes me as odd that a person can lead another country and still vote in U.S. elections. With all of those worried about Russian interference in elections, imagine if Putin could actually vote in U.S. elections. Obviously, Pope Leo is greatly loved and represents someone whose values are aligned with this country. Yet, he is also the head of state of a foreign nation.

Under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), military personnel and citizens abroad are allowed to vote in U.S. elections. It is no longer considered an absentee vote requiring an excuse but simply a mail-in ballot. The question is whether this right should be suspended when you assume a position in a foreign nation, let alone the head of such a nation.

Dual citizenship has long been debated over the difficult questions raised by nations with opposing values and interests. However, being the head of a foreign government with potentially opposing interests and actions to the United States creates a curious status. It turns out that when Gov. Pritzker met with the Pope last year, he was actually meeting with a constituent and voter.

I am most surprised that the Vatican does not have a policy against such voting, though this is admittedly unprecedented. I would think that the head of the Catholic faith and the head of a foreign government would have a single national citizenship running to the Holy See. All popes are selected from the global faithful by the College of Cardinals and thus have national citizenship with other countries.

In assuming their positions, the cardinals “pledge and swear, as individuals and as a group, to observe faithfully and scrupulously the prescriptions contained in the Apostolic Constitution.” They also reaffirm that they are not subject to countervailing allegiances or pressures from outside of the College: “And never to lend support or favour to any interference, opposition or any other form of intervention, whereby secular authorities of whatever order and degree or any group of people or individuals might wish to intervene in the election of the Roman Pontiff.”

However, it is fascinating that, once elected, Popes do not shed that status upon assuming the head of the Holy See.

It is an uncomfortable question since it also raises whether the head of a foreign government should have dual citizenship. Most people were legitimately thrilled (including myself) by the first American Pope and can view this as an unlikely “one-off.” However, it could just as easily happen with another nation and a dual citizen.

At the risk of my own excommunication, it seems a worthy question for discussion, even though I doubt any politicians would relish such a debate. For his part, Pope Leo stated before the Villanova-Notre Dame game that the Pope will not take sides in the U.S. elections, but Robert Prevost will.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle October 4 2026

Oct 042026
 
 October 4, 2026  Posted by at 8:56 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  22 Responses »


Hieronymus Bosch Adoration of the Magi c1472


• ‘God Made Trump’ Ad and At Least 12 Others (CNN)
• Toward A Better America (David Prentice)
• Iranian Top Dog Gives Trump the Best Review He Could Wish For (Spencer)
• All Hands on Deck for the Midterms (J.B. Shurk)
• Putin Outlines Context of Russian Position Toward Ukraine (CTH)
• Carney’s “Buy Canadian” LNG Expansion Will Be Built with Chinese Steel (CTH)
• Europe’s Diesel Problem (Toth Istvan)
• Justice Alito to Retire Next Year? (Matt Margolis)
• ‘Murderers’ Rutte and Merz Booed at Peace Prize Ceremony (RT)
• Zelensky Lashes Out At Ukraine’s Western Backers (RT)
• Dear DSA: How to Destroy the 5 Democrats Who Want to Be President (Pinsker)

 

 

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2106395044613595302?s=20

 

 


“‘God made Trump’ ad and at least 12 others are part of controversial taxpayer-funded ad campaign”..

Here’s wondering why CNN runs this article. It doesn’t come out nearly as anti-Trump as they seem to think.

• ‘God Made Trump’ Ad and At Least 12 Others (CNN)

The Trump administration has created at least 13 campaign-style ads as part of its controversial taxpayer-funded, multi-million-dollar effort to promote President Donald Trump and his policies.


Yet-to-be-aired spots include a trio of ads highlighting the US military and operations in Iran and Venezuela, one called “God Made Trump” and another recapping the UFC fight he hosted at the White House. Republicans and Democrats alike have questioned the wisdom of spending so much taxpayer money on the ads, which the White House has defended as public service announcements.

CNN has obtained clips of 12 ads, which range from 15 seconds to three minutes long, including two that have already aired. They appear in a Dropbox account — which was shared with CNN — run by LMD, the agency that has been given the government contract for the ad buys. Each ends with “Paid for by the U.S. Government” at the bottom of the screen. Another ad that is not in the Dropbox account, “Final Battle,” has also aired in recent weeks.

The three ads that have already aired have appeared on TV networks including CBS, CNN, MS NOW, Fox News and Fox. It’s not clear if all of the ads will air on television or digital platforms. Asked for comment, the White House on Friday afternoon pointed to a just-posted video compilation of the president criticizing CNN.

While each of the ads has a different theme, many of them include imagery of the president and audio with positive reviews from news reports, which is likely to intensify criticism that the campaign is using taxpayer dollars to help Trump personally. They also include patriotic images — including the cap toss at a military graduation, fireworks over Mount Rushmore and military flyovers.

First lady Melania Trump, who has been a rare presence at the White House during the president’s second term, is featured in many of the ads. There are also images from Trump’s reciprocal tariff announcement, the border wall, his escalator presidential-campaign announcement and the tongue-in-cheek framed photograph of an auto pen signifying former President Joe Biden on Trump’s “Presidential Walk of Fame.”


Trump’s White House created a spot titled “UFC” that showcases the June match held at the White House.


CNN previously reported that Trump has personally driven the video ads, including helping select the imagery and videos used, according to a source familiar with the matter. Two Trump advisers familiar with the ads said that they were being created in-house by the White House video team — which is part of the communications team, responsible for the administration’s public messaging — though at least one of them was produced by a pro-Trump meme group.

The ads that have aired so far have spurred widespread condemnation, even as the White House indicates it plans to ramp up its efforts. Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a post on X that the ads “may be felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes.” If Democrats win control of the House next year, he’ll gain congressional subpoena power.

Even some Republicans have criticized the ad campaign. “Look, if you want to spend money out of your super PAC or other campaign account to communicate that message, that’s fine. It’s not an appropriate PSA. It’s just not, you know, it’s not how we should be spending taxpayer dollars,” said Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas has said “no” the ads are not an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars. “It’s not even a close question.”


A spot titled “Resilience” that shows Trump’s progression from a younger man in the New York real estate market to the US president.


The “UFC 250” ad heavily promotes the company and the June fight that Trump hosted at the White House, prominently featuring UFC CEO Dana White as well as the fighters, the lit-up “claw” over the Octagon and the championship belt. The “Maduro” spot intersperses a speech by Nicolas Maduro with appearances by Trump and his team at Mar-a-Lago following the Venezuelan dictator’s capture.

And “Military Hype” shows images of fighter jets and unclassified video of what appears to be missile launches. It also includes Trump’s February speech announcing the war with Iran, a conflict which remains deeply unpopular with the American people. “This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States Armed Forces,” Trump says in the ad, now seven months into the war.

Some of the ads are starkly political: The two-minute “King of the Jungle” video features images of Trump’s perceived political enemies — former Presidents Barack Obama and Biden, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, all Democrats. There’s video of lions hunting in the wild and a bald eagle sweeping down on the water. A cover of “In the Air Tonight” by In This Moment plays. And Christopher Walken’s lion speech from the 2002 film, “Poolhall Junkies,” is interspersed.


Trump’s White House created a spot titled “King of the Jungle” that intersperses images of Trump, campaign rallies, lions and eagles.


One of the spots, a three-minute-long ad titled “God Made Trump,” was broadcast during Republicans’ midterm convention in Dallas. In it, Trump is presented as a messianic figure with a riff on Paul Harvey’s “God Made a Farmer.” It was created by Dilley Meme Team, according to NPR, and began going viral earlier this year. “I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle the deep state, and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to ruffle the feathers,” the voiceover says, “So God made Trump.”


Trump’s White House created a spot titled “God Made Trump,” which portrays him as a messianic figure.


The ad “Resilience” shows Trump at multiple points in his life, including early in his New York real estate career, an appearance he made on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” his descent down the Trump Tower escalator as he announced his candidacy in 2015 and then his time at the White House. In the audio, a reporter refers to him as “the bodyguard of Western Civilization.” His 2023 mugshot from a Fulton County, Georgia, sheriff’s office features prominently, along with video of an assassination attempt on him in Butler, Pennsylvania.

At least an estimated $5.6 million in taxpayer dollars have already been spent on the ads, according to a leading political ad-tracking firm, AdImpact. The actual cost of the taxpayer-funded ad campaign is even higher, but can’t be fully ascertained because public service announcements are subject to different public disclosure rules than campaign ads. A total of $20 million has been allocated for the effort. The money for these ads is coming from Customs and Border Protection, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Watchdog groups have said the ads mark a clear violation of appropriations law restricting the use of federal funding for propaganda or partisan communications, but it’s not clear if outside groups have standing to file a lawsuit. Though the ads have received bipartisan criticism, Congress — which groups said had the clearest lane to provide some accountability — has not acted to block the ads.

Read more …

“Until the midterms, we will be watching a massively coordinated attack denigrating all the good that has happened since Trump won in 2024..”

• Toward A Better America (David Prentice)

Until the midterms, we will be watching a massively coordinated attack denigrating all the good that has happened since Trump won in 2024. A combination of the leftist media and apostate “right-leaning” influencers will try to sell us just how awful Trump has been, so the wonderful communists, er, Democrats can ruin us once again. It will be hard to stomach.


As conservatives, we have had two magnificent years of change for the better. Only the Reagan years were this good. Reagan changed the world by defeating Soviet communism. He simultaneously reset our free-market economy. He reshaped the world while helping people in the U.S. live prosperous and meaningful lives. We live during a similar time. Trump has done the same magic trick of reshaping the world plus bettering personal lives.

But half the country does not know it. The leftist media neither had the will nor the capacity to make all the excellence of the Reagan years disappear back then. The leftist blob has honed its skills since. Its bravado and its capacity to propagandize is better than any of us thought possible. Helping the communists, er, Democrats to ruin our country once again. We must defeat them.

Success has been this administration’s MO. Yet we face a ginned-up and phony set of flaming darts volleyed at us daily. Instead of seeing achievements, we are hustled by lies of failure. The positives that have been accomplished in less than two years are remarkable, and they are legion. So much good has been done in the world, and truly for the average citizen, it’s hard to believe.

The leftist media has hidden these:
• A secure border
• Criminals being deported
• A massive drop in violent crime
• Severe fraud being exposed/stopped
• DEI halted
• University bias uncovered
• Deep-state government corruption halted
• Vote fraud revealed and curtailed (not enough John Thune)
• Real wages up
• Permanent tax cuts
• Stock market up
• An economy prepped for growth
• IRA valuations up
• IRAs for children established
• Government jobs down, private sector jobs up
• Manufacturing rebounding
• Huge investments in American business
• The U.S. energy sector unleashed
• Leftist-leaning NGO funding destroyed
• Lawfare beat-down
• Leftist communism exposed and fought
• Leftist/Jihadism connection exposed
• NATO increasing defense spending
• The Greenland deal
• The Venezuela liberation
• Panama Canal reset
• Iran neutered
• Cuba teetering
• China backpedaling/faltering
• Peace through strength, ending eight wars
• Beginning the Golden Dome defense
• The world order totally reshaped
• MAHA helping restore food safety
• MAHA bringing sanity to the pharmaceutical lobby
• Prescription drug prices down.
• Entrepreneurs encouraged
• Massive deregulation
• Anti-Christian bias targeted
• Men out of women’s sports and locker rooms.
• Preventing sex trafficking, saving trafficked children
• Dealing with the cartels, drug lords and pushers

And much more. 99% totally positive. A staggering list in two years. One that should be celebrated, lauded, applauded, and supported. Splashed across every media outlet.

We’ve never seen anything like this. We’ve never had it this good. We elected an administration that has performed a regenerative miracle for our country and its citizens. George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln were great Presidents with great achievements. We are seeing that kind of greatness today. A country turning around. It’s possible to live life proudly as an American again. We’ve been lifted from the Hell that globalists and corrupt politicians from within and without wanted for us. And we’re just getting started. Because the best is yet to come. If we let it.

I loved Reagan. His eight years were inspiring and filled with achievement. Yet in the last two years we have witnessed more transformation to the good than in the Gipper’s eight years. And trust me, the enemies within were not nearly as prevalent as they are now. The entrenched leftist beehive of propaganda media was not so evil, all-encompassing, nor as effective. Reagan didn’t face the rancor and horror of actual communists within. Thankfully Trump, unlike milquetoasts in the past, knows how to fight and win.

Yet here so many are complaining about small change, clucking about affordability, whining about the Iran war, nitpicking that both sides are the same. Blah, blah, blah. If you have small issues you don’t care for, I do too, but please look at the list of accomplishments above. Please compare. Whatever your complaints, remember all the good that has been done. Because the diabolical left will undo it as much as possible if they win these midterms. Small issues don’t count when genuinely great things are happening in droves.

Affordability? Yes, we have had inflation due to the spike in diesel and gas prices. It’s real. But so is the fact that Iran is now neutered. They cannot nuke anyone. They cannot replace their missiles, drones, and the capacity to wreak havoc on us with their terror networks. They are relegated to the dustbin of history. Dan Bongino said he saw the intelligence concerning Iran. His comment: It was genuine. Had we not done what we did, we would have nuclear havoc, and permanent gas prices of eight to ten dollars a gallon. if we had not acted, a crazed nation would have held the world hostage. That would have caused worldwide depression, not simply a temporary spike in oil and inflation.

And it is temporary. Within six months, gas will likely be back below three dollars. Prices will go down. Inflation will be tamed again. Trump will have traded the havoc of a crazed Iranian regime for a nine-month upswing in gas and inflation. Art of the deal in spades.

And if you think the Democrats care about affordability, think again. It was Obama and Biden who purposefully caused gas to be high with their policies. They said they wanted it to happen. Their policies made it happen. Gas and high prices under Democrats are normative. The Democrats don’t give a fig about affordability. They have no right to claim the mantle of caring about affordability. They don’t want to, nor know how to bring affordability. They just know how to demagogue the issue so they can retake power. That is all they want.

What they are best at is using the beehive of their media friends to convince you that things are terrible. That Trump is a warmonger. That the economy is and will be terrible. That everything Trump touches is horrible. That they can fix everything to be better. That they’re really not radical leftists who hate America.

That’s the picture they will paint. It’s what they want us to believe. And they have the cultural power to sway too many of us. What we need to do is simple: Stand and fight the onslaught of their propaganda. Do not let them demoralize you or anyone else. Remember, there is a country to save from these leftist radicals. And it’s you who has the power to defeat them. Get up, engage, donate, support candidates without a (D) behind their name. Vote and get voters to the polls whom you know will help. Persuade those on the fence if you can. Democrats must lose.

If you are conservative, right-of-center, independent, or moderate, please consider: You do not want the newly constituted radical left in charge. Of anything. Period.

Pray for and work towards victory. You won’t regret it. But you will regret doing less than you could to support this administration.

Read more …

“After one failure after another,” Rezaei fumed, “the worst president in American history just keeps talking — and talking — and now his words have even outrun his own fantasies. “

• Iranian Top Dog Gives Trump the Best Review He Could Wish For (Spencer)

The Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, apparently styles himself something of a historian of American history, or is angling for a plum job as a professor in an Ivy League university, or both. On Friday, Rezaei warmed the hearts of leftist historians all over the U.S. when he proclaimed that President Donald Trump is the “worst” president in U.S. history. Numerous socialist internationalist academics would agree.


“After one failure after another,” Rezaei fumed, “the worst president in American history just keeps talking — and talking — and now his words have even outrun his own fantasies. You can win every day in your own imagination.” Well, yeah, Mohsen, but that can cut both ways, now, can’t it? In concluding, Rezaei claimed that “reality is shaped by Iran — by its people, its soldiers, and its missiles.”

Later that day, however, Trump painted a vastly different picture of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s achievements and current capabilities: “They lost one set of leaders. Then they lost another set of leaders. Then they lost half of a third set, and they had a little runoff for who wants to be president and there were no participants. Everyone said, ‘I don’t, I don’t want to be.'”

Trump was being satirical; Masoud Pezeshkian has been president of Iran since July 28, 2024. Pezeshkian, however, is not the head of state; the supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, holds that position, and has not been seen in public even once since he attained the top job. The word is that he was disfigured in the February strike that killed his father and predecessor; others contend that he is actually dead, but Iranian leaders pretend he is alive to give their tottering regime some legitimacy.

In fact, it’s not at all clear who is running things in Tehran, and Trump pointed out that this made trying to achieve a negotiated settlement difficult in the extreme: “And it’s part of our problem,” he said. “I don’t know who the hell to deal with. There’s nobody to deal with. Nobody wants to be president, I’d say ‘Who do I speak to in Iran?’ They’re not nobody around. Knock, knock. Nobody home. But that war is going to be over soon. One way or the other, one way or the other. It’s going to end very soon and probably right after the midterms.”

All right. In the meantime, going into those midterms, Rezaei has given the president the best possible endorsement. Who wouldn’t want a top leader of a bloodthirsty, repressive regime whom the overwhelming majority of its own people hate calling him the “worst” ever to hold his job?This is because Rezaei is, of course, looking at Trump through the prism of what is good for his embattled but ruthless regime. He never would have dreamed of calling Barack Hussein Obama or Old Joe Biden the worst president in American history when they were showering billions upon the Islamic regime in Tehran. He never bestowed that title upon any of the presidents who kicked the can down the road on Iran, either.

The fact that Rezaei has now given Trump this title is the clearest indication we have had in quite awhile that Trump’s stance toward the Islamic Republic is making it feel the pain. Rezaei, of course, likely has never heard the names of Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, or Andrew Johnson. He would be unlikely, given the international left’s high regard for the Islamic Republic, to give low marks to the likes of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, as does the book Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Rezaei is simply venting his frustration at the man who has given the Islamic Republic such a hard time.

Trump promises that this hard time is going to continue. The Iranian people, and the free world, can only hope that the pressure on the Islamic Republic will finally cause it to fall, and to be replaced by a saner and more humane regime. Then Mohsen Rezaei can get a job as a professor of American history at Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, or some other America-hating university.

Read more …

“We need another victory.”

• All Hands on Deck for the Midterms (J.B. Shurk)

The midterm elections are a month away, and I would like to ask a favor: Please make sure that you vote. Please encourage your friends and family to vote. We need all the help that we can get.


Perhaps you feel that voting is a useless exercise that exists to legitimize bad outcomes — a way of forcing citizens to accept responsibility for things they did not do. “You get the government you vote for,” we often hear, but that’s not exactly true. Unelected bureaucrats and judges from unaccountable agencies and Constitution-subverting courts give us a lot of government that none of us want! “If voting made a difference, it would be illegal,” the old saw goes. There’s probably a layer of truth in that hunk of ore.

But voting can make a difference! We’ve seen what a difference it can make over the last ten years! There’s no way in Hades that the powers that be wanted President Donald J. Trump in office. Bill Kristol and all of the “conservative thought leaders” in his orbit worked to elect Hillary Clinton back in 2016. Duplicitous Mitt Romney delivered one of the most hateful anti-Trump screeds on national television that year. Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan advised fellow lawmakers not to say anything positive about Trump heading into the general election.

Economists predicted that a Trump victory would send the country into a depression. Retired generals predicted that Trump would lead the country into WWIII. Political marketing firms and campaign consultants essentially blacklisted anybody who considered working for the Republican nominee. The only places you could find anything positive about his candidacy were rebellious publications such as this one!

Boy, oh boy, when Trump won, you could almost see the Deep State Establishment melting in real time. Do you remember how all the networks waited hours to call the election because none of them could stomach admitting the truth? Hillary Clinton was too busy drinking, crying, screaming, throwing things — whatever — to concede publicly until ten hours after Trump had become president-elect. Trump strolled out to celebrate victory in the early morning hours, and, with a coy little smile on his face, repeated several times, “Elections are a complicated business, folks.” For the next ten weeks, it seemed as if “The World Turned Upside Down” were playing on repeat across cable news.

The day after Trump won, Speaker Ryan was so flabbergasted by the result that he sounded like a talking squirrel hopped up on cocaine and amphetamines during every television interview: Wow! What a victory! I’m totally behind Trump! Republicans in Congress are totally behind Trump! One hundred percent! Anybody have peanuts? I need some extra protein after my P90X workout! (Spoiler alert: Ryan and his congressional RINOs were “behind Trump” only because they intended to repeatedly stab him in the back.)

Hollywood actors — including most of the cast from The West Wing — produced videos encouraging members of the Electoral College to disregard the voters’ will and install Hillary in the White House. Extremely embarrassed lame duck Barack Obama — who had organized a lavish send-off for himself amid the ancient ruins of Athens a fortnight later — blamed Trump’s election on “fake news.” (That’s right! Obama used that term before Trump repurposed it for his own trademark advantage.)

In the background, of course, we were beginning to see the emergence of the Obama-Clinton-Brennan-Comey-Clapper-Rice Russia Collusion Hoax in which Democrats used the CIA and FBI to frame Trump as a Russian spy in an effort to prompt his impeachment and removal from office (or what honest people call an attempted coup d’état) — an egregious crime against the American people for which none of the conspirators has been brought to justice.

Trump won in 2016 because Republican voters showed up! He won despite the fact that Hillary outspent him four-to-one. He won despite the fact that news coverage of his campaign was 100% negative, while Hillary’s coverage was nearly 100% positive. He won despite the fact that every prominent “elite” on both sides of the Atlantic openly laughed at him and spoke of Hillary’s presidency as if it were foreordained. President Trump won in 2016 for one reason: His voters went to the polls in droves.

Fast-forward to 2020, and we all know what happened. The Deep State Establishment stole the election. The election was so obviously stolen that Big Tech social media platforms censored everyone who pointed out all of the unbelievable election irregularities. President Trump won nearly every traditional bellwether county across the country by double-digits and increased his total number of votes by over eleven million. Nobody has ever done that and lost an election, but the corporate news media pushed the Establishment propaganda that perennially unpopular Joe Biden had somehow won more votes than any candidate in American history — including fifteen million more than Obama won in 2012 and four million more than Trump won in 2024!

While Dementia Joe hid in his basement during that campaign, state officials used COVID as a pretext to violate election laws and permit the dumping of mail-in-ballots lacking valid authentication into unsupervised drop boxes in battleground states. Mark Zuckerberg and other tech titans transferred hundreds of millions of dollars into the bank accounts of Democrat political operatives. There were allegations of electoral fraud across the country. Witnesses attested that unlawful ballots — including those lacking dates and signatures — were counted. Nevertheless, state and federal courts conspired with the political and media Establishments to cover up what was almost certainly the biggest electoral theft in American history.

A few months later, Time published a story admitting that “a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information” rigged the 2020 election. Of course, the writer of that public confession, Molly Ball, claimed that the conspirators “were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.”

The plan was to convince Americans that Trump was unpopular, even though he won eleven million more votes in 2020 than when he clobbered Hillary. Using lawfare and information warfare against the American people, the Establishment attempted to destroy Trump and his MAGA supporters by preposterously accusing election integrity protesters of being “insurrectionists” who were somehow trying to overthrow the government without any weapons on January 6, 2021. Fraudulently-installed pretend-President Biden oversaw an FBI and DOJ that worked to imprison MAGA voters for years and Trump for life. Paul Ryan, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Mitch McConnell, and other RINOs (including most Republicans in the Senate) tried desperately to convince voters that Trump should be condemned and forgotten. Their efforts failed.

Trump voters came out in force in 2024 and made sure that the election was too big to rig. Even though Ryan and other RINOs told us that Trump appealed only to angry white males, the president did better than any Republican since Eisenhower with almost every minority voting bloc. Trump has expanded the Republican Party more than anyone alive today.

I want President Trump to be in a position to use every hour he has left in office to advance the MAGA agenda. He is destroying globalism. He is bringing industry and manufacturing back home. He has secured the borders and dramatically reduced violent crime. He is putting America on a path to lead the world for centuries. Help him continue on his journey. Remember why we’ve been fighting for more than a decade. Surprise the Establishment — once again! — by coming out in huge numbers to support Trump for the midterms.

The Establishment has one job: to discourage you. I want you to remember how much we’ve already accomplished! We’re so close to saving this country. We need another victory. All hands on deck!

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A neverending speech by Putin. Every year at the Valdai Discussion Club.

• Putin Outlines Context of Russian Position Toward Ukraine (CTH)

Once again, you may have seen a lot of banter, interpretation and discussion in western media about Russia speaking of defending Kaliningrad with nuclear weapons if needed. To gain a full understanding of the context, I strongly suggest reading the transcript below. Vladimir Putin addressed the plenary session of the 23rd annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club. It is a very lengthy discussion. I am pulling out the key segment and suggest everyone take some quiet time to read.


President Vladimir Putin – […] Let me digress from the main topic for a while. There are people here in this room who hold a very diverse mix of opinions regarding an extremely acute present-day conflict – the Ukraine conflict, and what caused it. I would like to say a few words on this matter. It is a fact that many hundreds or even thousands of experts, your colleagues who will study the materials from this Valdai Club meeting, they have their own opinions on this matter. I am, of course aware that some within the expert community might ask why Russia started the war while talking about peace. I have commented this many times already, but let me say this once again in front of this audience.

Where is the truth? The truth is that we did not want and were not the ones who started to fight. In fact, they started to fight against us. They should have refrained from encouraging aggressive nationalism and Russophobia in Ukraine so as to turn it into a tool for fighting Russia. NATO should not have embarked on an effort to make our historical territories part of its military space in its own interests and should not have planned setting up its bases there.

Radicals in Kiev should not have been pushed to a government coup while the de facto illegal regime should not have been pumped full of all kinds of offensive weapons after that. Plans for setting up concentration camps for the people from Donbass and Crimea should not have been drafted. Unarmed people should not have been rolled over by tanks, shelled with missiles and bombed from the air and burnt alive just for being Russian, in terms of both their ethnic background and their spirit.

The list of these do-nots goes on, but let me stop at that. I am convinced that this was an intentional effort to place Russia in a situation when it was simply forced to defend itself with arms in hand to respond to this obvious act of aggression. They pushed us to this brink knowingly and intentionally. Overall, Russophobia, oppressing and killing Russian people and destroying Russia should not be turned into state ideology while striving to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. This was the way it was all articulated, right? No one forgot this. At least, we did not forget this.

If we want to live – and who does not? – as I have already said during one of my public appearances, let us live in friendship and work together for finding ways to accomplish this aim. Of course, confidence building is a painstaking and fragile process. Placing it on the right track is very hard, while it can be derailed very easily. The interests never fully coincide even when it comes to the closest partners, let alone countries which are rivals and are locked in an all-out competition or even confrontation against one another.

Sooner or later, the international situation and the international system will settle into some form of stable equilibrium. This is undoubtedly a complex, multifaceted and multilayered process built on mutual compromises, willingness to meet each other halfway, and a level-headed assessment of the situation, including by the West. The former hegemon will unavoidably have to acknowledge the realities of a multipolar world – just look at the trends shaping the global economy – and learn to cooperate with the countries of the Global Majority on the basis of respect for their fundamental interests. Of course, this will take time. We are going to have to live in an extremely unstable and ever changing world. The path to a new system will be full of unexpected twists and turns; unfortunately, often unpleasant and even dangerous ones.

I would like to turn to the history of our country. Russia has travelled a thorny path of profound transformation, and this process is still underway. Thirty-five years ago, we experienced the collapse of the state system, which was a genuine tragedy for tens of millions of people who woke up one morning to find themselves beyond the borders of their own country and whose lives – and the lives of their children – were changed overnight. Both in Russia and in neighbouring countries this led to a fundamental transformation and international affairs get transformed as well.


I would also like to highlight a certain naivety, idealism, or perhaps even complacency on the part of those who stood at the helm of the state during the final years of the Soviet era. Blind trust in Western partners and confidence in “gentlemen’s agreements,” when they thought they could simply take someone at their word and come to terms also played a cruel joke on the Soviet Union.

In retrospect, it becomes clear just how destructive a role this played not only in the fate of the Soviet Union, but also in ensuring long-term global stability. The Soviet leaders wanted the West to like them, while Western leaders sought to reshape the world to suit their needs and to grab their share – preferably a large one – of the Soviet legacy. We can see the result now. T

he Soviet Union collapsed due to a mix of internal imbalances. This is the most important dimension to it. This is the truth, and this is what happened. Specifically, internal imbalances, as well as mistakes made by successive generations of the country’s leadership. Short-sightedness, narrow and unrealistic ideological dogmas instead of pragmatism, incompetence, and the practice of sweeping obvious problems under the carpet gradually exacerbated and undermined the Soviet Union’s domestic and international standing. Ultimately, these factors led to its collapse.

What is happening in the world today, the present-day conflicts and upheavals – all this largely stems from the fact that late 20th-century politicians, both in the East and the West, were unwilling, unprepared or unable to treat the era of major shifts with the required seriousness and depth. This is not a question of shifting responsibility onto the leaders of the past; this is simply how it all happened in reality.

However, even during that period, there were people, both in the East and West, there were other kinds of politicians who developed a keen understanding of these challenges and offered what I believe to be the right ways of resolving them. Today, their assessments can be viewed as visionary.

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I’ve had enough of Carney. Too much attention for the little man.

• Carney’s “Buy Canadian” LNG Expansion Will Be Built with Chinese Steel (CTH)

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has recently promoted an expansive LNG pipeline deal to center the domestic infrastructure development around the concept of “Buy Canadian.” However, when questioned about the actual construction of the proposal, Carney now admits the developers will determine what resources will be used – and it will not be Canadian product.The unfortunate reason is not complicated. Canada does not have the industrial capacity to make the heavy components for the LNG expansion pipeline because Canada does not have the ability.


CALGARY — LNG Canada is planning to use Chinese steel in major components of its $33-billion second-phase expansion despite Ottawa’s promises that nationally significant projects would help drive Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Buy Canadian policy.

The joint venture says Canada lacks the specialized fabrication facilities needed to manufacture the massive modules required for its expansion and plans to buy more components from state-owned China Offshore Oil Engineering Co. Ltd. (COOEC), which manufactured modules for the project’s first phase. (read more)

I would remind readers this inability to manufacture industrial goods is exactly what former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau outlined to President Trump in December 2025 in Mar-a-Lago, when President Trump challenged Trudeau to stop importing Chinese steel and aluminum. Canada’s clean energy policy blocks the country from creating heavy industrial components. WATCH:

All of the political talking points from Mark Carney are built upon a foundation of lies. Their national inability is inherent in the Canadian industrial economy, which is created around a climate change agenda that blocks industrial manufacturing. Eventually, this reality is going to hit the psyche of the Canadian electorate. It will not be easy for them to accept that all of their leadership has been lying to them. However, denial is a very real issue which makes conversation with any Canadian very challenging. “

For the plant construction in Kitimat, the challenge is not a preference for offshore steel, but the specialized fabrication capability required for modules of this scale and complexity,” company spokesperson Paul Hagel told CBC News in an email, adding that “there are no fabrication yards in Canada that can manufacture and deliver the additional modules required for Phase 2.”

Hagel said that only five fabrication yards worldwide have the necessary combination of space, capacity, quality systems and marine access, including COOEC’s yard in China. {source}

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The only diesel problem Europe has is that it refuses to buy the cheap and readily available Russian diesel.

• Europe’s Diesel Problem (Toth Istvan)

The Diesel Question: An unexpected global diesel crisis has emerged against the backdrop of armed conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. This crisis has predictably reached a critical juncture, with President Trump announcing that he is seriously considering banning U.S. diesel exports. Such an embargo would severely impact the economies of Great Britain and France, whose leaders spearheaded opposition to his administration and openly celebrated his temporary setbacks.


Months of Ukrainian strikes against Russian refineries and shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz have removed 1.6 million barrels of diesel per day from the global market. Replacing these losses requires additional refining capacity, but it is unclear where this capacity will come from.

In this context, the U.S. Gulf Coast has become the world’s supplier of last resort. American diesel exports reached a record 1.6 million bpd in August, up from 1 million bpd in February and representing 20 percent of the global diesel trade. However, U.S. refineries are already operating at nearly 97-98 percent capacity. Once storage facilities are full, refining will be curtailed, reducing not only diesel output but also gasoline and jet fuel output.

American Interests First
Even without regard for past grievances with Europeans, the occupant of the Oval Office has compelling domestic reasons to impose a diesel export ban. The U.S. midterm elections on November 3 are approaching quickly. The average price of diesel has hit record highs, prompting Texas to declare a diesel price emergency.

Federal authorities are under pressure to take decisive action to address the crisis. High fuel prices are an obvious vulnerability for the Republican administration, which, unlike EU governments, hasn’t forgotten that one of its primary concerns is the affordability of goods and services. A diesel export ban enjoys public support from Republicans in agricultural states and from candidates in competitive districts.

In light of this, continuing to export fuel at the expense of American citizens, farmers, and truckers — and their interests — in favor of ungrateful Europeans can only be described as shortsighted or irrational. Opponents of Trump in Europe should hardly expect to find such qualities on the list of sins they attribute to the American president.

Economic Context
The U.S. economy itself supports a ban on diesel exports. Such a ban would help lower domestic prices on the East Coast and in the Midwest. It would also allow distillate reserves to be restored by winter. Currently, these reserves are at their lowest levels in over 40 years.

It’s important to consider the reduced costs for farmers, logistics companies, and other industries. These steps will undoubtedly have a positive effect, favorably impacting food inflation and reducing overall inflationary pressure. A ban on diesel exports is the right step at the right time for a leader who cares about his nation and prioritizes its interests above all else. American fuel should primarily serve the needs of Americans. Europeans will simply have to accept that.

A Strong Signal to Europe
With significant volumes of diesel removed from the global market, the U.S. increased its share of EU imports from 17 percent in 2025 to 32 percent. Meanwhile, Indian diesel exports to Europe decreased from 163,000 to 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) over the same period. China and South Korea supply only small amounts to the European market, and Russian diesel is subject to sanctions. Europe simply has no alternative supplier capable of filling the gap left by the U.S.

The problem is further exacerbated by the fact that European reserves are at four-year lows, and seasonal demand for distillates is still rising.Therefore, a ban on American diesel exports will push European prices and the premium on crude oil to new levels. Europe will have to adapt to a new reality and compete with Latin America and West Africa for supplies.

Moreover, diesel accounts for about half of petroleum product consumption in Europe. Rising prices will inevitably accelerate inflation and drive up costs in logistics, agriculture, and construction, complicating the ECB’s policy and significantly increasing the risk of a Eurozone recession against the backdrop of high gas prices.

European economies are not resilient enough to withstand a prolonged ban. In most Western European countries, including Great Britain, reserves amount to only 20-30 days. For many of these countries, a ban on American diesel exports would be even more painful due to reduced domestic refining capacity.

No More Games — Time to Pay the Bill!
Retribution always follows betrayal. Some pay immediately for everything, while others pay in installments, like loan repayments. While the moments of reckoning may be significantly separated by time, the full price must eventually be paid.

Donald Trump has received a golden opportunity to return the favor to his European “friends” for their deliberate efforts to oust politicians aligned with Washington, their demonstrative gestures against his operations in the Strait of Hormuz, and other actions directed against him.

European leaders must now realize that their sabotage and interference with President Trump will have negative and painful consequences. High costs, austerity measures, falling production levels, and cold weather are the best teachers for those who believe they can bite the hand that feeds them.

For those who have publicly boasted about their embarrassing actions against Trump, such as former Council of Europe Deputy Secretary General Bjorn Berge of Norway, the question of imposing personal sanctions has long been overdue. The games are over. It’s time to settle accounts.

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He’ll pick his moment well.

• Justice Alito to Retire Next Year? (Matt Margolis)

In June, on the last day of opinion releases for the term, NPR published a story claiming that Justice Samuel Alito was stepping down. The report was false, and it lasted roughly ten minutes before it vanished. Then, in August, Alito put weeks of speculation to rest himself. “Obviously I’m here for another term,” he told The Wall Street Journal.Social media lit up Friday with claims that Justice Alito had announced plans to retire next year, after CBS News released excerpts of a new interview with him.


Those rumors were somewhat overblown. Alito announced nothing of the sort. He did admit that stepping down has crossed his mind. CBS News’ national and legal correspondent Jan Crawford asked him why he chose to stay on the bench this year, despite pressure from Republicans who wanted a replacement confirmed while the GOP runs the Senate.”I thought about it and I will continue,” Alito told CBS News.

Crawford followed up, asking if he had really considered it. “Well, it’s something I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term,” he said. “But I thought that I could still make a valuable contribution, which is why I became a justice and a judge in the first place. So that was basically it.”Crawford then asked whether he would revisit the decision every year. “Yeah, I think I have to,” Alito replied. That’s a long way from a retirement announcement. The full interview will air on Monday.

Speculation about Supreme Court retirements has swirled for months, and it has always centered on two men. Alito is the second-oldest justice on the Court. President George W. Bush appointed him in 2006, and he has been a reliable conservative vote ever since. Clarence Thomas, the oldest justice, joined the Court in 1991 as a George H.W. Bush appointee, and is one of the most influential conservative voices in the Court’s history. Conservatives love them both and don’t want either gone, but given their advanced ages, there was also a desire to give President Donald Trump at least one vacancy he could fill with a younger originalist while Republicans still hold the Senate.

Let’s be honest, here. Nobody on the right wants to relive the Ruth Bader Ginsburg story from the other side. Ginsburg infamously stayed on the Court through Barack Obama’s presidency, despite her age and declining health, then died a few weeks before the 2020 election. Trump quickly nominated Amy Coney Barrett, the Senate confirmed her, and the left was infuriated.

Crawford put that very scenario to Alito, asking why staying doesn’t risk undoing his work the way it did for Ginsburg. “It’s too hard to predict what the political situation will be and what any president might do with respect to a replacement,” Alito said. He’s right that nobody can predict the future, but that’s the whole problem. If the Senate flips, I’d expect Democrats to block any replacement until after the 2028 election. And nobody knows who wins the White House in 2028.

Make no mistake about it, the stakes are enormous. Alito has earned the right to make this call on his own schedule, and he says he’ll make it again every year. Ginsburg made hers, too, and it cost the left a seat for a generation.

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“The NATO secretary-general was awarded the Westphalian Peace Prize for his hostile stance toward Russia..”

• ‘Murderers’ Rutte and Merz Booed at Peace Prize Ceremony (RT)

Crowds of protesters jeered at NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, after the US-led military bloc was awarded the Westphalian Peace Prize on Thursday. The prize, awarded by the Economic Society for Westphalia and Lippe, commemorates the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War and legally enshrined the modern concept of the nation state. Rutte, known among protestors as the “Lying Dutchman,” collected the award in the German city of Munster on Thursday on behalf of the interventionist US-led military bloc.


Speaking at the ceremony, North Rhine-Westphalia Minister-President Hendrik Wust declared that “military strength can prevent war and preserve peace,” and that “NATO has demonstrated for more than 75 years that strength secures peace.” Protesters gathered outside Munster Town Hall disagreed. When the Dutchman, the German, and other dignitaries stepped onto the balcony, below which a blue-blazered band played, they were met with chants of “murderers” and “blood on your hands” from the square below (perhaps the greatest show of anger in the town since the anabaptists in 1534).

The NATO chief and the German chancellor gritted their teeth and smiled and waved through the boos and whistles. Wust’s speech did not mention NATO’s bombing campaigns against Serbia in 1995 and 1999, or its bombing and subsequent breaking up of Libya in 2011. More recently, NATO exercises on Russia’s Kaliningrad border have been interpreted as reckless provocations by the Kremlin, with the Russian Foreign Ministry reminding NATO leadership this week that Kaliningrad is integral Russian territory, which Moscow is prepared to defend with “all its arsenal, including nuclear weapons.”

Less than 24 hours earlier, Rutte declared that NATO’s European members should have attacked Iran on behalf of the US and Israel. “Europe was not able to take out the nuclear capability of Iran. We couldn’t. We didn’t have the capabilities. In ten years, we can and we should…it should be us doing this, not the Americans,” he said at a Euronews summit in Brussels. Merz took the opportunity to swipe at his political rivals too, falsely claiming the AfD – currently Germany’s most popular political party – is “Russian-backed.”

“A peace prize for a military alliance – at first glance, that seems contradictory, but in fact it is entirely logical,” he reasoned. “It protects our freedom, it protects our security, it protects our prosperity, and it serves the cause of peace in Europe.” The organizers of the Westphalian Peace Prize did not always share NATO’s confrontational stance toward Russia. Two years ago, the prize was awarded to French President Emmanuel Macron for “his diplomatic skill in maintaining dialogue with the Russian leadership despite serious upheavals.”

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It wouldn’t be about money, would it?

“The EU is not doing enough to assist Kiev in the conflict with Moscow, the Ukrainian leader has claimed ..”

• Zelensky Lashes Out At Ukraine’s Western Backers (RT)

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, who is dealing with a major hole in his country’s budget and high-profile corruption scandals in his government, has criticized Kiev’s Western backers for their reluctance to provide him with more money.


the funds originally intended to last to the end of the year and faced a shortfall of €27 billion. The announcement came after the Ukrainian leader’s 40-day PR pressure campaign on Russia, which involved long-range strikes on energy and civilian infrastructure, failed to deliver the desired results and triggered a harsh response by Moscow.

In an interview with the Financial Times published on Friday, Zelensky complained that the acute budget deficit is stopping Ukraine from developing and manufacturing some key weapons. When asked if he believed that his foreign supporters were doing all they could to assist, the Ukrainian leader replied: “Not enough, of course not enough.” The FT noted that the introduction of faster jet-powered drones by Russia in recent weeks had become an additional challenge for Ukraine, which is already experiencing a shortage of US-made Patriot interceptors and other air defenses.

Zelensky acknowledged that a lack of money to purchase engines for interceptor UAVs was one of the hurdles. “We really import a lot of engines. There are some engines of our production, but not enough,” he said. A Russian drone and missile campaign against military-related targets in Ukraine intensified this year in response to terrorist attacks by Kiev, crippling its energy infrastructure and leading to blackouts and fuel shortages. It has also destroyed most of the country’s storage spaces, affecting the supply of food and other goods.

Wheat and other exports have also been reduced significantly by attacks on the port of Odessa and Ukraine-bound vessels in the Black Sea, leaving Zelensky’s government almost entirely dependent on foreign aid. Bloomberg reported on Thursday that the EU turned down Ukraine’s plea to speed up the payouts of its loan. Officials in Brussels expressed belief that doing so would not solve the problem, but only delay it until 2027, the agency said. The bloc suggested that Kiev’s other partners, including Canada and Japan, could provide the funds to cover its pressing needs, it added.

EU bureaucrats were surprised to learn that Ukraine ran out of money so fast, according to Bloomberg. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned earlier this year that the bloc’s loan to Kiev would be swiftly plundered by Zelensky and other corrupt officials from his team. On Thursday, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) reported about a scheme involving the supply of EU-funded handguns to Ukrainian security services at prices inflated threefold. Kiev and it Western backers are “traditionally” plugging the $27-billion hole in Ukraine’s budget “using funds taken from ordinary citizens of European states,” the SVR said.

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They’re more than capable of destroying themselves. Really, they have no-one.

• Dear DSA: How to Destroy the 5 Democrats Who Want to Be President (Pinsker)

Dear DSA,


You and I — are we really so different? Why, I think not! We both live on planet earth, and… well, I’m sure we have lots of other stuff in common, too. Enough to build a friendship. So I say this with peace and love: You’ve been on an impressive winning streak — whacking around the Democratic establishment like they’re a flippin’ piñata — but thus far, all your gains have been incremental. A mayor’s seat here or a Senate nominee there. (Yawn.) Sorry, comrade. That won’t lead you to your workers’ paradise — at least, not anytime soon. You’ve got to think bigger. Way bigger.

C’mon, you guys are supposed to be revolutionaries! If you want to change the world, you need to do what the Republicans did and start at the top. The MAGA movement didn’t fiddle around with mayoral races; we had the cojones to target the top prize. So should you. The Democrats, after all, didn’t invite you into their party without fully knowing your beliefs. (You literally publish manifestos!) Yet they welcomed and accepted you anyway, because they needed your votes. And a deal’s a deal.

Because that’s the unspoken agreement: In exchange for DSA votes in the general election, DSA voters get to influence who the Democrats nominate for office. It’s how you got Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed on a major party’s ticket. Furthermore, this agreement won’t expire on Election Day 2026. In fact, the opposite is true: The midterms are the calm before the storm. Because in 2028, the DSA will be headhunting Democratic frontrunners.

You have no choice. That’s politics works: You can’t simply build your preferred candidate up; you must also tear the opposition down. Which sounds like a super-fun project! And in the name of friendship, I’d like to help. ‘Cause honestly? You’d benefit from outside assistance. We’re all prisoners of our own perspective. We know what we know — and we guess the rest. And because DSA membership mostly consists of overeducated white people, your messaging falters in Flyover Country: Outside of bright blue cities, college towns, and Muslim strongholds, your win rate nosedives.

There’s no shame in having blind spots. We all have them. It’s why an outsider’s perspective is so valuable. So, without any further ado, here’s your DSA strategy memo on how to destroy the five Democratic presidential frontrunners:

Candidate One: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Vulnerability: Being an idiot.Most of the country thinks AOC is too radical. You purists at the DSA know she’s actually not radical enough. (We’ve got no time for a corporate Zionist squish such as AOC, amiright?) But in Flyover Country, attacking AOC for being “too moderate” won’t work. That’s not her Achilles’ heel; it’s not her reputational vulnerability. Her weakness is her brain: The public suspects she’s stupid. When she’s quizzed on policy, she comes across like a doofus lightweight: That’s how to destroy her: AOC doesn’t know her ABCs. She’s a dummy — an empty vessel who cosplays as a Marxist in overpriced “Tax the Rich” evening gowns without getting the irony. She’s just not smart enough to be president. Consult the Dan Quayle playbook and attack accordingly.

Candidate Two: Jon Ossoff

Vulnerability: Nastiness, dirt, and deception. Every few months, the Democrats fall in love. (And every few months, they fall out of it.) They’re perpetually on the lookout for the next JFK. Today, it’s Jon Ossoff. According to Kalshi, he’s the new Democratic frontrunner in 2028. He’s handsome. Not even 40. He sounds like Barack Obama, and has very nice hair. (Which ain’t cheap: Ossoff spends more on hair and makeup than any other Senate candidate, male or female.) What makes him appealing is his youth and newness. Scandal does not taint him; dirt and filth do not touch him. Which is why the Democrats are swooning: He’s a fresh face and a blank slate.

Blank enough for the Democrats to project their hopes, wishes, biases, and aspirations. Ossoff will likely capitalize on this with vague, aspirational sloganeering, because the JFK card is a winner. It carried a young Obama to the finish line. Why not Ossoff? And the best way to negate it is by dirtying Ossoff up, muddying his clothes, and deep-sixing his likability. Without his youth and likability, Ossoff has no point-of-difference; there’s nothing special about him. It’s why attacking Natalie Harp was a high-risk move: Nastiness and likability are like oil and water.

They don’t mix. There are already rumblings about Ossoff being two-faced on Israel. The DSA should build on this, branding him as a nasty, dirty, unlikable liar. Turn his biggest branding asset into a negative. (But don’t play the Jew card yet. We’re saving that for later.)

Candidate Three: Kamala Harris

Vulnerability: Electability. As a minority female with ties to the Indian and black communities, Harris has a pitch-perfect resume for today’s Democratic Party. On paper, she’s everything the base is looking for. But in actuality, she’s a disaster. Nobody likes her. She’s too weird for the moderates, too moderate for the libs — and too much of a loser for the base. They still blame her for Trump’s victory. And they’re afraid she’d lose in 2028, because the American people don’t like her. They didn’t vote for her in the 2020 primaries. She was pushed on them in 2024 — and that was a catastrophe. Nobody on the left wants to watch the S.S. Kamala Harris sink for a third time.

Her only asset is her electability. She was the first female minority vice president, and because she’s been on a major ticket in back-to-back presidential elections, there’s a plausibility to her candidacy. On paper, she’s credible. But if you take that away, she’s dead in the water.

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https://twitter.com/MIPAGUY/status/2106112296997052599?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle September 24 2026

Sep 242026
 
 September 24, 2026  Posted by at 8:25 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  41 Responses »


Paul Klee Analysis of Various Perversities 1922


• Europe’s Car Makers Are In Crisis. Will The Threat of War Rescue Them? (BBC)
• You Still Don’t Have The Cards: Zelensky Bringing A Bluff To Trump? (RT)
• Something Has Changed and World War Over Ukraine Is Back On The Table (AltM)
• EU Plotting New ‘Scheme’ To Steal Moscow’s Frozen Assets – Russian Intel (RT)
• Zelensky To UN: Russia’s Deficit ‘Bigger’ – More Sanctions Needed (ZH)
• At the UN, Trump Gives Iran’s ‘Vile Regime’ a Stark Choice (Robert Spencer)
• Iran Is Projecting Weakness, Not the Strength It Wants You to See (Florack)
• Melania Trump Outlines Plans for Chairman Xi Jinping Official State Visit (CTH)
• Karoline Leavitt Outs the White House Press Corps (Matt Margolis)
• Campaign Poison Kamala Harris Hopes DSA Commies Can Make Her Popular (Kruiser)
• Good News – Diesel and Gasoline Prices Set to Collapse in Roughly 60-Days (CTH)
• Elon Musk Is Powering The American Renaissance (Victor Davis Hanson)
• Victor Davis Hanson Explains to Canadians (CTH)

 

 

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2102768917001204096?s=20 https://twitter.com/SidneyPowell1/status/2102563722644668678?s=20

 

 

 

 


They missed the entire EV move. How is that even possible?

180,000 jobs in Britain alone.

Russia doesn’t want war. Not with Ukraine and not with Europe.

• Europe’s Car Makers Are In Crisis. Will The Threat of War Rescue Them? (BBC)

It’s green, bulging and intimidating. Ford’s latest vehicle looks like a pick-up truck that has been through an Incredible Hulk transformation. Based on its popular Ranger series, this beefy number parked outside the front door of Ford’s Dagenham plant can carry a load of two tonnes, tow up to four tonnes and is also shouldering the hopes of the 2,000-strong workforce that still makes engines here. Inside the factory, the three-litre diesel engines that will power this camo-painted beast drift down a production line that has seen output cut from 90,000 engines a year to about half that over the last decade.


Ford is hoping that a pivot towards military vehicles can help fill the void created by what the company’s UK boss calls the most challenging environment since the invention of the motor car. Once mighty, the European car industry is starting to look puny and is hoping surging defence budgets as Europe re-arms can help it flex its industrial muscles once more.


Ford is part of a joint venture with defence specialists General Dynamics and Ricardo bidding for a Ministry of Defence (MoD) contract to supply 9,000 vehicles over the next five to seven years to replace the Army’s ageing Land Rover-based fleet. Lisa Brankin, chair of Ford UK, says it is a chance to showcase their abilities to respond quickly to defence needs: “As a manufacturer you look at every opportunity that comes at you and this is a great opportunity that we would love to take advantage of.”

This is not the first time Ford has busied itself with defence work. Ahead of World War Two, Ford’s factory in Dagenham, east London, was the largest car plant in Europe. When war broke out, civilian car assembly stopped completely, and the factory was converted entirely to military production. Between 1939 and 1945, the Dagenham plant built 360,000 vehicles for the Allied war effort.Ford workers in Manchester manufactured 34,000 Rolls-Royce-designed Merlin engines, which powered Spitfires and Hurricane fighter planes. Eighty years later, the UK and European car industries are hoping that the engines of war can help defend against what one supplier told the BBC was a “terminal decline”.


As Europe feels compelled to commit hundreds of billions to ramp up defence spending in the face of the menace from Russia and US reluctance to be Europe’s protector, car makers that are under commercial attack from Chinese rivals have taken notice. So can the rearmament of Europe save an auto industry and a supply chain facing crisis?

The shift to defence
Ford is far from the only car company that sees defence as a growth industry – and one that can utilise the growing overcapacity at car plants across Europe. French car maker Renault has signed a strategic agreement with defence giant Thales to produce military drones – targeting an output of up to 1,000 units per month. The French military and Directorate General for Armament want to tap into Renault’s mass-production capabilities to bypass traditional, slower defence supply chains.

Meanwhile, Volkswagen has agreed to sell an under-used factory in Osnabruck, western Germany, which will become a military manufacturing hub in a joint venture with an Israeli-based defence investor.


Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), which makes the Land Rover, is also bidding for the same contract as Ford – as the Army retires its existing Land Rover-based fleet by 2030. JLR has also established a new dedicated business unit to support its global military ambitions. It makes sense for under-utilised auto manufacturing capacity to switch to defence, says Mike Hawes of the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) trade association.

The UK car industry and its suppliers are heavily reliant on a few big manufacturers – Nissan in Sunderland, Toyota in Derbyshire, BMW in Oxfordshire and the biggest of them all by value of output, JLR at multiple sites in the Midlands and Merseyside. And Hawes says the supply chain is very vulnerable.

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“Ukraine is facing a huge budget hole and a critical missile shortage, while corruption scandals and brutal conscription are eroding Kiev’s authority.”

• You Still Don’t Have The Cards: Zelensky Bringing A Bluff To Trump? (RT)

“You don’t have the cards.”


That was the message US President Donald Trump famously delivered to Vladimir Zelensky during their fiery Oval Office showdown in February 2025. Trump accused the Ukrainian leader of “gambling with World War III” and showing ingratitude for US aid, while pointing out that Kiev’s worsening battlefield position had left Ukraine with few cards to play in peace talks with Russia.

While the clash did not sever US-Ukraine ties completely, the deck has hardly been reshuffled in Kiev’s favor since. Thus the table is set for another Trump-Zelensky game in New York this week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Even getting a seat at that table was a late deal. Just two days earlier, Zelensky was absent from Trump’s publicly announced list of UN bilaterals, and Ukrainian officials said no meeting had yet been confirmed.

Trump’s tight schedule also leaves roughly an hour for the encounter before his next engagement. The hand Zelensky holds is hardly stacked with aces. Instead, it contains an unexpected $27 billion defense shortfall, a desperate shortage of Patriot air-defense missiles, a fresh trail of corruption scandals, and mounting battlefield losses.

Opening bet: The refinery dispute
Trump has already shown his hand. Earlier this month, he blamed Zelensky for the diesel price spike gripping the US, which the president said was caused by Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries. By the eve of the UN gathering, the US national average had climbed to a record $6.5 per gallon, a topic particularly sensitive for Trump ahead of the midterms.

According to the Financial Times, Trump pressed Zelensky during a weekend phone call to stop striking Russian oil refineries, with the paper’s sources claiming he wanted to ensure Russian supplies could reach the global market.

Trump went so far as to announce that Russia and Ukraine had effectively agreed to stop attacks on energy infrastructure. Neither Kiev nor Moscow confirmed the truce, while Zelensky demanded Russia take the first step, and continued to attack Russian fuel plants.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the prospective truce a “very good idea” and said Moscow was “always on the side of peaceful solutions.” He also argued that protecting refineries alone would not solve the global fuel crunch. The bigger problem, he said, was getting Russian petroleum products onto world markets, which required safe passage for oil tankers – something he said Kiev was not willing to guarantee.

Ahead of the meeting, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also rebuked Ukraine over targeting US-linked ships in the Black Sea, adding that while it did so “probably not deliberately,” “that’s something that needs to be addressed.”

Desperate for Patriot draw
Zelensky has repeatedly sounded the alarm over deliveries of US-made Patriot interceptors, one of the few weapons in Ukraine’s arsenal capable of tackling Russian ballistic missiles. In July, he said the country’s stocks were nearly exhausted and asked Trump for an emergency “winter package” of 300 interceptors, warning that Ukraine needed them “yesterday.” Ukrainian air defenses failed to intercept even a single Russian missile during some recent barrage.

However, multiple media reports have indicated that Washington’s Patriot stocks are also low due to the Iran war, with American Patriot inventories in Europe said to have fallen “beyond critical” levels. While Trump has denied the shortfall, the Pentagon has publicly acknowledged the strain.

Earlier this month, Trump also suggested that Ukraine could receive a license to produce Patriots in a “less sophisticated version,” though no details on the prospective agreement have emerged. Multiple experts have pointed out numerous obstacles to the program, also warning that any production facilities would be prime targets for Russia.

Zelensky is almost out of chips
Late summer exposed a glaring weakness in Zelensky’s gamble: an unexpected $27 billion defense budget shortfall expected by the end of the year – a figure that ballooned almost fourfold over the past several months. Kiev subsequently asked for more money from its European backers – met with a tepid response whereby Brussels even refused to acknowledge the $27 billion figure.

The shortfall arose as a result of Zelensky’s much-heralded 40-day pressure campaign against Russia that involved the very strikes on refineries Trump reportedly asked him to stop. The escalatory attacks also triggered Russian retaliation against Ukrainian military-related logistics, including effectively closing the port of Odessa, which serves as a key hub for agricultural exports. Ukraine’s $27 billion request “surprised and unsettled” European officials, according to the New York Times, with some of Ukraine’s backers reportedly asking questions about how Kiev is spending the cash and if it actually needs as much as it says it does.

The Trump wildcard
Kiev does have one fresh trump card to hope for – except it lies largely up the US president’s sleeve. On Friday, Trump signed a new sanctions legislation first proposed by late Republican Senator and Russia hawk Lindsey Graham last year. The measure gives the US president authority to target Russian officials, banks, and the energy sector, and to impose tariffs of up to 100% on leading importers of Russian oil and gas. Zelensky specifically thanked Trump for signing it when the pair arranged their New York meeting.

However, Trump retains authority over sanctions waivers and the scope of restrictions and tariffs, while the bill does not mention China and India, the key importers of Russian energy. In addition, the Trump administration has a recent history of easing sanctions on Russian oil. During the Iran war, the administration issued temporary exemptions allowing the sale and delivery of Russian crude already at sea to alleviate pressure on energy markets.

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Nothing changed.

• Something Has Changed and World War Over Ukraine Is Back On The Table (AltM)

The eyes of the world have been fixated on the war in Iran for the past six months, meanwhile, the single-most dangerous flashpoint on the planet has gone mostly ignored. Until, that is, waves of Ukrainian drone strikes activated a run on global diesel markets. Suddenly, everyone is paying attention again…


Russia is the second largest diesel exporter in the world next to the United States, supplying around 12% of total global exports (the US supplies 22% of exports). To put this in perspective, only 10% of global diesel exports pass through the Strait of Hormuz under normal conditions – And that supply is coming from seven different oil producing nations including Iran.

After western sanctions, Russian diesel shipments have gone primarily to Turkey, Brazil, India and China. However, because Russian supplies continued to circulate on global markets, these countries did not have to draw fuel from alternative sources.

Conditions have now changed, and not for the better. Constant Ukrainianian drone strikes on Russian refineries have forced the Kremlin to stop all diesel exports and retain their existing supply for the population and the war effort.

If you want to know why diesel prices have been hit hard since July, Russian export cuts are the reason. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has steadily climbed since July according to independent satellite tracking confirmation (anyone using AIS transponder data alone will have a low and inaccurate count). It’s the Russian refinery issue that has inflated diesel prices in recent months.

With Russian sources completely cut off, multiple nations will have to draw from other producers. Meaning, the pie is shrinking, but everyone still wants the same size slice they’ve always had. If the US also stops diesel exports in response, it would be a disaster for foreign markets and result in true supply shortages (Europe would be hard hit; half of their diesel imports come from the US).

In 2024 I questioned why the Ukrainians kept going after odd targets such as nuclear early warning radar stations rather than key resources like oil refineries in order to stop Russia’s attrition strategy. Well, it looks like the Ukrainians finally figured it out.

Russia’s attrition strategy has been highly effective in grinding down Ukraine’s troop strength (to the point that they were recruiting mostly men over 40), but the key flaw of a slow moving front line and a protracted offensive is that it requires a large stockpile of resources. Ukraine’s drone attacks have a low success rate, but if they send a thousand UAVs to attack a refinery and a couple get through, then that’s still a win in the long run because it drags down Russia’s lumbering attrition-based operation.

The Trump Administration has asked Ukraine to stop hitting Russian refineries due to the instability to global markets, but Zelensky has ignored the request. It’s not surprising; they’ve finally found a tactic that works.

Of course, now the rest of the world is being affected by diesel supply shortages when this was not the case a year ago. One would think the Europeans, who have been particularly throttled by price hikes on fuel and energy, would be in a rush to end the war. And maybe they are about to intervene, but not in the way we might hope…

I think it’s fair to say that the Ukraine war would have ended a long time ago had it not been for the interference of European governments propping up Ukraine and encouraging them to NOT make a deal. Ultimately, Russia is going to keep the Donbas region whether Ukraine likes it or not. But Zelensky refuses to accept this outcome, so, the war rages on much longer than it needs to.

The situation gets much more dangerous, though,with the push by European elites to put boots on the ground. They seem to want to start a world war. Beyond the diesel resource problem which puts a timetable on the war for both sides, European governments have increased troop movements to eastern borders and it’s starting to look like they’re getting ready for something big.

Poland has been building extensive trenches and fortifications using German combat engineers on the border of Belarus. Germany has established a 5000-man armored brigade in Lithuania, the first time the Germans have stationed permanent combat troops abroad since 1945. NATO has launched a 9th multinational battle group with regular exercises in Finland near the Russian border. Multiple nations are sending rotating brigades to Latvia, Romania and Estonia. Even the Canadians are sending troops.

Recent weeks have seen repeated Polish and Baltic fighter activations due to alleged drone or aircraft activity near alliance airspace. Allies are pre-positioning equipment and planning much larger stockpiles of ammunition and resources in frontline states. NATO has also published extensive contingency planning for the eastern flank.

There has been a surge in political and civil-preparedness messaging for civilians. Polish warnings about possible disguised drone/missile incidents. French measures to protect critical infrastructure after hybrid-attack briefings. German military-hospital capacity planning. Lithuanian plans for evacuation routes. UK public preparedness bulletins including recommendations for civilians to stock up on food and supplies..

Even Switzerland has been posting security and preparedness messages for citizens, indicating a “deteriorating security situation” in relation to the military build up.

All of this could be viewed as a defensive posture and not necessarily planning for direct engagement with the Russians; but consider for a moment that Russia has not once threatened to attack European or NATO targets and has consistently said that their only interest is Ukraine. Yet, Europe has removed their “trip wire” defense strategy and replaced it with a permanent front. It sure does seem like they are getting ready for an event which might provoke the Russians to strike targets outside of Ukraine.

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“Brussels is considering moving the funds out of Belgium’s Euroclear into a new supranational structure, the SVR has said..”

• EU Plotting New ‘Scheme’ To Steal Moscow’s Frozen Assets – Russian Intel (RT)

The EU is working on a new scheme to “steal” Moscow’s frozen sovereign assets to bankroll Ukraine, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said in a press release on Tuesday. Around $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets was frozen by Kiev’s Western backers after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Roughly $240 billion is still being held at the Belgium-based clearing house Euroclear.


According to the SVR, EU leaders have “a vital interest in stealing Russian assets,” because they fear they will not be able to indefinitely finance “the thieving Kiev regime” without appropriating the funds. Eurocrats are now “in a hurry” to pull off the seizure before elections in several EU states in 2027, the agency stated, arguing that future governments in the bloc could be less willing to back further financial support for Ukraine.

The EU has already redirected profits generated by the immobilized funds to Ukraine but has been unable to seize the underlying assets due to strong political and legal resistance. According to the SVR, experts in Brussels are now discussing the creation of a new supranational structure that could take control of Russian central bank funds after they are moved outside of Belgian jurisdiction.

Belgium has repeatedly blocked proposals to seize the assets, with Prime Minister Bart De Wever warning that outright confiscation would expose his country to legal and financial retaliation. Euroclear has also said it could sue the EU if the funds are seized.

Last week, Belgium’s top administrative court also struck down a government decision not to release the assets of Russia’s BCS Bank, which were frozen alongside Moscow’s sovereign assets in 2022. The court found that Belgian authorities had mishandled the case and ruled that the bank could seek a fresh review, potentially setting a precedent for other entities whose requests were rejected under similar circumstances.

Moscow has long denounced any attempt to appropriate its sovereign assets, calling it “theft” and warning that confiscation would trigger retaliation, potentially including measures against Western assets held in Russia. The SVR has also warned that confiscating Russia’s sovereign funds would damage trust in European financial institutions among major foreign investors, including China, India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Singapore.

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He’s willing to waste a million lives. Hard to fight against.

• Zelensky To UN: Russia’s Deficit ‘Bigger’ – More Sanctions Needed (ZH)

Among the more interesting parts of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech before the UN General Assembly on Wednesday afternoon was when he lashed out at North Korea. Zelensky said while issuing leveling a litany of charges against Russia for its war that “The leader of North Korea sent his troops to Russia to support the weak points of the Russian army.” He questioned why a faraway southeast Asian country would be so willing to sacrifice its troops for a Russian endeavor.


Zelensky said: “You probably saw the broadcast from Pyongyang when they honored those who were killed. And this is madness, too. Why should Koreans give their lives in a war against Ukraine?” He further accused Kim Jong Un of using his own citizens “like currency” in return for “improved ballistic missiles and Pyongyang’s much [upgraded] drone capabilities.” Likely these barbs will only cause Kim’s regime to double down, and keep up its military support to Moscow.

By some estimates, hundreds or possibly even thousands of DPRK troops have died so far in the Ukraine conflict. Pyongyang and Moscow have increasingly openly acknowledged the deaths, with North Korea even having held patriotic state funerals for slain troops. Elsewhere in the address, Zelensky sought to portray his country as essentially ‘winning’ the war, claiming immense but unverifiable Russian losses on the battlefield, also while Ukraine’s long-range drones unleash destruction on Russian energy infrastructure.


Concerning the energy war, Zelensky went on to assert that “Oil itself is not Ukraine’s target, not our target, not gasoline or diesel, not factories or ports … Our target is Russia’s ability to finance this war, to drag it out, to make it more brutal and more destructive.” “Russia’s finances and Russia’s production are what must be stopped if Putin is to be stopped,” Zelensky added. On this front, he presented Ukraine’s risky long-range strikes as victorious. But he has also this week expressed willingness to agree to a joint energy ceasefire.

On sanctions, he pointed to Russia’s budget deficit as now being “bigger than in any other year” – claiming that “Russia planned major operations on the front this summer; all of them failed.”[..] Zelensky also used the speech to try and rally Western countries to not grow weak on punishing Russia and keeping its global isolation in place. “Something always seems to stop Putin from saying, ‘That’s it. Enough, Peace,’” Zelensky said. “Can you even imagine him without war? He is ‘Patient Zero’, the one from whom war keeps spreading further. … ‘Patient Zero’ must be stopped.”

He said Russian assets must “remain a target,” arguing that “when someone in the world weakens sanctions, weakens sanctions against Russian oligarchs, it may make life more comfortable for rich Russians, but it also gives Putin more time, to send his people into the kill zones.”

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He doesn’t want to.

• At the UN, Trump Gives Iran’s ‘Vile Regime’ a Stark Choice (Robert Spencer)

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump addressed the United Nations General Assembly with his characteristic directness and forthrightness, which had a particular impact in that hall of evasion, diversion, obfuscation and lies. He made it abundantly clear that the time for temporizing regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran is over, and he said that both he and the leaders of the Islamic Republic faced a stark choice.


Trump confronted head-on the claims that he is fighting an unnecessary war, noting the threat from the Islamic Republic has been longstanding, but that his predecessors preferred to appease the mullahs — or just ignore them altogether and hope that the “Death to America!”-chanting hordes would simply melt away.

Iran, Trump noted, posed an immense and immediate threat. “Just imagine,” Trump said, if “such a vile regime were ever empowered to carry out large-scale terror attacks from behind a nuclear shield. This was the reality we had to confront — a reality that far too many preferred to ignore. They all ignored it. Many presidents and many others just wanted to ignore it. They were unwilling to do anything about it, but they knew the problem.”

They knew it, but they did nothing, or even worse, sent billions over to Tehran, thereby financing the Islamic Republic’s jihad against Israel and the rest of the free world. Trump pointed out that he had given the Iranian leadership every chance to come to some kind of negotiated agreement: “After giving Iran every chance for a deal, I took action to ensure that neither the United States nor any nation in this hall would ever have to face such a nightmare, such a catastrophic problem.”

Although the Islamic Republic continues to insist that it has achieved a tremendous victory over the Great Satan, Trump came to the UN with the details: “As a result of Operation Epic Fury,” he said, “all 159 ships of their navy are now lying at the bottom of the sea. Likewise, their air force is gone. Their radar is gone. Their anti-aircraft equipment is gone. Their missile and drone manufacturing capacity is almost gone. Their economy is gone. The only thing that isn’t gone is inflation, which is destroying their country and is now well over 300 percent.” That inflation could be what finally does in the Islamic Republic from within.

Trump also reminded the hostile gang of alleged diplomats that he had bent over backwards to make peace with the murderous mullahs: “Yet even after we agreed to a ceasefire for nuclear discussions, Iran promptly violated it with brazen acts of terrorism against civilian ships from other countries.” He added magnanimously: “I want to thank the UN Security Council for voting overwhelmingly to pass a resolution condemning Iran’s despicable terrorist attacks on commercial shipping. Thank you very much. That resolution, I’m pleased to say, received more co-sponsors from UN member nations than any Security Council resolution in history. That’s something.” Given the UN’s resolute and persistent anti-Americanism, it is indeed striking.

“Now,” Trump continued, “we must be equally united in maintaining pressure. The United States Navy has recently escorted more than 1 billion barrels of oil out of the Strait of Hormuz, and more oil is flowing than at any point since the start of the war. We’re taking 22, 25, 30, 32, and 37 ships out, respectively, every single day, every single night. But I have a big decision to make.”

Trump then characterized that decision as one that is in the hands of the Islamic Republic’s leaders: “Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before — maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East, or even the world? Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic, and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell, with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness for generations?”

This sort of talk drives leftists crazy, and sure enough, Mediaite gave this headline to its transcript of this part of Trump’s speech: “‘Do I Annihilate the Islamic Republic?’ Trump Issues Shocking Threat to Iran in UN Speech.” Never fans of thinking clearly or making fine distinctions, leftists will no doubt fail to note that this time, Trump threatened to annihilate “the Islamic Republic,” not “Iran” itself. He was not threatening the destruction of the nation, but the removal of the regime. And indeed, until that regime is driven from power, there will be no possibility of real peace with Iran.

The leaders of the Islamic Republic have time to think over the choice Trump gave them: “But I believe we’ll make a deal right after the election,” Trump said, “because it doesn’t make sense for them not to. They’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election. What they don’t realize is that I’m not running. I did that already, and won in a landslide. We won in a giant landslide, and I’ll be here for two and a half years. The Republican Party is running, and I will be helping them, but I am not running.”

Indeed, he isn’t. And free people around the world can hope that the anti-American left doesn’t gain sufficient power in those elections to stop his efforts to bring the global problem of the Islamic Republic of Iran to an end.

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“A regime negotiating from strength doesn’t convert its leverage into a countdown clock — it converts it when the clock is running against it, not the other way around..”

• Iran Is Projecting Weakness, Not the Strength It Wants You to See (Florack)

In the cleanest tell yet that Iran is on the ropes, a senior Iranian official just put a number on the table Tehran has never put there before. That official told Reuters on Sept. 22 that Iran can reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if Washington eases military pressure and lifts the blockade on Iranian ports. Per that reporting, this marks the first time Tehran has attached a specific, dated performance window to reopening the strait rather than treating it as an open-ended bargaining chip.


That’s a meaningful shift. A regime negotiating from strength doesn’t convert its leverage into a countdown clock — it converts it when the clock is running against it, not the other way around. Reuters doesn’t name the “senior official,” but it’s a safe bet that it’s either President Masoud Pezeshkian himself or someone standing close enough to him to speak for the office. Of course, there’s always the question of whether Iran actually follows through on its promises, and the standard response should be “they won’t,” since in practice, they never have.

That suspicion only deepens once you look at what other Iranian officials said in the same news cycle. CNBC’s reporting notes that a separate senior Iranian government official told MS NOW, CNBC’s Versant Media partner, that the Reuters and Kyodo reports were “not true.” And according to yournews.com’s writeup, Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency disputed the account, too. So this isn’t a clean, confirmed data point. It’s a single-sourced Reuters/Kyodo report, attributed to one unnamed official, that Iran’s own state-adjacent media machine turned around and contradicted within the same day. CNBC itself states it “could not independently verify the reports.”

That contradiction goes directly to a point I made back in April: Iran’s civilian government under Pezeshkian and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps aren’t singing from the same hymnal, and this flip-flop looks a great deal like the result. It’s reasonable to conclude Iran is fighting something close to an internal civil war right now, waged between the IRGC and whatever still passes for a civilian government in Tehran — one arm offering concessions to end a war it can’t win, the other arm racing to deny it before Iranian state media has to explain the offer to its own people.

Let’s recall that Ali Khamenei was killed in a February 28 U.S.-Israeli strike and his son Mojtaba Khamenei was installed as his successor. Mojtaba is now reportedly walled off from his own government by an IRGC security cordon. Gee, big shock.

The walk-back on the Hormuz offer itself is the more useful data point, because it measures Iran’s shrinking ability to control its own message, let alone its own war. Even Iranian state media has lately taken on a tone bracing its audience for something difficult, a marked departure from its usual self-assured, defiant register. Pezeshkian’s own framing — “we emerged with our heads held high,” vowing to “firmly defend” Iran’s positions — is the language of a leader managing domestic face-saving, not one negotiating from a position that needs no defending.

That combination — tough public talk paired with real, dated concessions offered quietly through mediators — is the classic signature of a regime under genuine pressure, trying to manage two audiences at once: an international one it’s handing specific offers to, and a domestic one it’s still trying to sell a story of resilience. It calls to mind the rhetoric coming out of Berlin in the days after the Allied landing at Normandy — total confidence on the radio, total collapse on the map.

Interestingly, reports have surfaced, as yet unconfirmed, that Pezeshkian submitted an actual resignation letter back in May, arguing the elected government had been excluded from major decisions entirely. The regime reportedly denied this within hours, including through IRGC-affiliated media — the same pattern that just played out with the Hormuz offer this week. Clearly, the IRGC wants the illusion of a popularly elected government presented to the world. Accepting the resignation would risk triggering domestic unrest, which the IRGC can’t afford from a global PR standpoint.

Not everyone reads the power dynamic the same way. Iran analyst Ben Taleblu, quoted by Fox News, cautions against reading Pezeshkian’s sidelining as a dramatic new break — his argument is that the president never held much real power to begin with, so this is an intensification of a long-standing structure, not a sudden coup. And a GIS Reports analysis lays out a genuinely fragmented decision-making body — Pezeshkian, Araghchi, Zolghadr, Ghalibaf, and a hardline chief justice all holding formal seats at the table, with the regime needing Pezeshkian and Araghchi kept visibly in the picture specifically because their public-facing legitimacy is worth something to a regime that still needs to claim popular consent.

Clearly the IRGC holds the cards, and despite that, Pezeshkian is still pushing for a more moderate approach. He’s still alive for one reason: The IRGC needs him for the illusion of legitimacy. At this point, I wouldn’t bet on Pezeshkian surviving the eventual loss of power the IRGC appears headed toward. Someone will need to take the blame for that loss, and it won’t be the men holding the guns.

Put plainly, the messaging coming out of Tehran this week is exactly what you’d expect from a regime managing weakness rather than strength — walking back a leak that looked too accommodating the moment it hit international wires, precisely because Pezeshkian’s “heads held high” routine back home can’t coexist with what amounts, in plain terms, to a public seven-day surrender clock.

Now, before some of you get this twisted, the offer from Pezeshkian’s people came about a week before Trump’s UN speech, not because of it. What brought it to the surface was the speech itself, and the Iranian delegation’s walkout partway through Trump’s remarks on the war. The speech didn’t create the weakness. It just made it impossible for the Iranians to keep hiding it, which is perhaps even more useful.

Thought for the Day: Nixon saved his career by refusing to give back a dog nobody asked him to return — proof that sometimes the shrewdest defense is simply declining to negotiate over something that was never actually up for debate.

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Xi has landed.

• Melania Trump Outlines Plans for Chairman Xi Jinping Official State Visit (CTH)

From First Lady Melania Trump:


President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will welcome His Excellency Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China and Madame Peng Liyuan to the White House on Thursday, September 24, 2026, for an official state visit. This visit comes more than a decade since President Xi and Madame Peng’s last visit to the White House, marking a significant milestone in the relationship between the two countries.

On Wednesday, September 23, the President will greet His Excellency, Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China and Madame Peng Liyuan at Joint Base Andrews. On Thursday morning, September 24, the President and First Lady will host a State Arrival Ceremony honoring His Excellency, Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China and Madame Peng Liyuan. The ceremony, which will be held on the South Lawn, State Floor, and Rose Garden of the White House, will feature 479 military personnel, representing all branches of the United States Armed Forces.

As the arrival begins, the South Drive will be lined with the Armed Forces Full Honor Cordon leading to a national flag display of U.S. and China flags where the United States Army Herald Trumpets will present a fanfare on the South Portico as the President and First Lady welcome His Excellency Xi Jinping and Madame Peng Liyuan to the White House.

On the State Floor, “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band will play the national anthems of the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America, followed by remarks from both The President and His Excellency Xi Jinping.

The ceremony will also feature a Presidential Salute from the United States Marine Silent Drill Platoon and United States Joint Forces Command on the South Lawn. There will then be a Military Review in the Rose Garden where The United States Army Herald Trumpets will line the roof of the West and Oval Colonnades. Military demonstrations will be performed by the United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, the United States Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon, and “The Commandant’s Own” United States Marine Drum and Bugle Corps. The ceremony will conclude with a military flyover featuring a B-2 Spirit and four F-22 Raptors.

After the arrival ceremony, Mrs. Trump and Madame Peng Liyuan will visit the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art to explore works spanning centuries of artistic achievement and Sino-American cultural exchange. On Thursday evening, the President and First Lady will greet His Excellency Xi Jinping and Madame Peng Liyuan upon their arrival to the North Portico of the White House for a State Dinner in the East Room. The Office of the First Lady will share additional details on the State Dinner on Wednesday, September 23.

On Friday morning, the President and First Lady will greet His Excellency Xi Jinping and Madame Peng Liyuan upon their arrival to the South Portico of the White House for tea in the Red Room of the White House. Afterward, the couples will travel to the National Archives in Washington, DC where they will view a variety of important records and documents significant to the American and Chinese relationship throughout history. To conclude the historic State visit, the President and First Lady will bid farewell to His Excellency and Madame Peng Liyuan at the National Archives.

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“.. the Constitution says nothing about a guaranteed seat in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room or a hard pass to roam the West Wing. CNN can still cover the White House. MS NOW can still spend hours a day ranting like unhinged lunatics about Trump.”

• Karoline Leavitt Outs the White House Press Corps (Matt Margolis)

Karoline Leavitt may go down as the best White House press secretary this country has ever had. Her exit last month stung, but now that she’s no longer behind the podium, she’s dishing about what happened behind the scenes, and what she revealed on Tuesday is a doozy. Appearing on Sean Hannity’s podcast, Leavitt pulled back the curtain on the briefing room and revealed how much of what happens during White House daily press briefings is just for show.


According to Leavitt, reporters who hit her with loaded questions on camera would later come to her privately and apologize once the cameras stopped rolling. “You name people that act one way when they’re questioning you,” Hannity began. “They want their moment, right? They want their clip for the night so they get their time on the evening news.” “Exactly,” Leavitt confirmed. “And then off air they’re totally different people. Do you find that a lot?” “Yeah, that’s true.” “Would you say they’re phony?” Hannity asked.

“Yeah, there’s a performative aspect to the briefing room, in fairness, I think on both sides, right, but definitely with the press. And they have to do that because their bosses are demanding it. There’s been times reporters have even said to me, ‘I’m sorry, I had to ask that today, you know, my bosses really wanted me to ask that.’ They know it’s an unfair question, but they’re not in control of their own livelihood. They are dictated by the editors and the execs at some of these companies.”

Leavitt’s comments come amid the fight over President Donald Trump’s decision to pull White House press credentials from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico. The three outlets have sued Trump to get their passes back, and other networks have essentially boycotted pool coverage of Trump in solidarity.

Naturally, the left and its media allies are treating the credential decision as an assault on the First Amendment. That’s a cute argument, but the Constitution says nothing about a guaranteed seat in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room or a hard pass to roam the West Wing. CNN can still cover the White House. MS NOW can still spend hours a day ranting like unhinged lunatics about Trump. Politico can still publish all the anonymous-source gossip it wants. Nobody has stopped a single story from running.

In fact, our republic has survived. Leavitt also pointed to CBS News, where coverage shifted after Bari Weiss took over as editor-in-chief. “You know, we’re seeing big changes at CBS, which I think are great. I think we’ve seen a lot of improvement with them, and again, we’re not asking for, like, positive puff pieces every day. Just fairness. Truth. Accuracy,” she said. “Writing about an executive order that the president of the United States signed should not be a questionable thing… it should just be, ‘Yeah, of course I’ll write about this,'” Leavitt said.


And that’s a pretty darn low bar, and plenty of newsrooms still manage to trip over it.

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The main thing I get from her is she looks so sad.

• Campaign Poison Kamala Harris Hopes DSA Commies Can Make Her Popular (Kruiser)

There is an interesting phenomenon in politics that I have seen play out in different ways over the past 40 or so years. One might think that primary and general elections are the ultimate performances reviews for political candidates. They should be, but they’re not. Having spent my entire adult life working in both the entertainment industry and politics, I’ve seen the role that ego plays in each. Most people have heard the line about Washington, D.C. being “Hollywood for ugly people,” and it’s pretty much true. The difference is that Hollywood is merciless when letting people know that they are past their due date.


Politics is filled with wealthy hangers-on who will keep telling people that they’re pretty. Politicians who have national ambitions just need one or two serious power players in their corners to keep hanging around seemingly forever. I can think of at least one presidential candidate who had two deep runs even though he only had one wealthy backer. Democrats in California who are nationally known got that way because they met the right money people early on in their careers. A Bay Area connection is especially helpful for them. Representative Nancy Pelosi, Governor Gavin Newsom, and former Vice President Kamala Harris all started out there.

While Pelosi is finally off to hit the box wine even harder for breakfast, Newsom and the former Madame Veep still have donors whispering sweet nothings in their ears. Guess who is now looking for love in all the hammer and sickle places? The New York Times:

Kamala Harris campaigned in Detroit today alongside Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic nominee for the Senate. It was a rare stop for the former vice president, who has received a cold shoulder from many Democratic candidates wary of tying themselves to the unpopular Biden administration. The visit could boost both figures. El-Sayed — who is in a tight race in a state Trump won in 2024 — needs to shore up his support from Black voters and moderates. (It’s not clear that Tucker Carlson’s support will help.) Harris is trying to maintain her influence as she considers a presidential run.

While most establishment Democrats — which the former vice president most certainly is — are trying to figure out the exact nature of their relationships with the upstarts from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Harris is the desperate girl who texted while still in the Uber on her way home after meeting for drinks for the first time. Robert wrote a column back in early July about Harris reaching out for some love from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Queen of the DSA commies.

This could be an indication that Harris is finally coming to grips with the fact that she isn’t very well liked by mainstream money Democrats. She was the first top-tier Democrat they bailed on during the 2020 Democratic primary season, forcing her out of the race before Christmas 2019. Harris became confused when she was forced upon them in 2024 and they pretended to like her for a couple of months.

After that, she couldn’t get enough backing to make a serious run for governor of California. Somebody keeps telling her that she has a shot in 2028, though. Maybe it’s those people who are pushing her in the direction of the DSA.

Harris is driven more by a sense of entitlement than any deep political philosophy, so hitching her wagon to the DSA isn’t difficult for her. “Desperate to be liked” is her default mode and that is certainly on display right now. This could also be a sign that Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign isn’t going as well as the polling and the Dem propagandists in the mainstream media would have us believe. The notion that Harris could be the stabilizer who helps him with moderate voters is rather far-fetched.

Hey, longshots do hit every once in a while. The only certainty here is that Abdul El-Sayed and Kamala Harris are two headaches that those in charge at the Democratic National Committee would rather not have. Oh, and AOC would absolutely kneecap Harris in a primary battle.

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After the elections.

• Good News – Diesel and Gasoline Prices Set to Collapse in Roughly 60-Days (CTH)

Take heart, we only need to wait approximately 60-days until we see a major price decline in diesel and gasoline prices in the USA. Once the midterm election is over, prices will begin their retreat with the finished collapse mid-January.


The non-pretending reality exists within a generally non-western perspective that current “market prices” are not driven by oil supplies, refining capacity or the other various justifications used by the speculators, traders and various regional spot-market control systems. The prices are being controlled in order to influence political outcomes.

Once those political influence operations are concluded, the stakeholders in the market price approach will moderate their justifications accordingly, and prices will plummet. Sound nuts? Well, let me explain who agrees.

On my side of the argument is Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, who does happen to operate the world’s largest gasoline station – at least, according to the professional republicans. Others on my side include Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salmon, Qatari Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Turkish President Recep Erdogan and Venezuelan interim President Delcy Eloína Rodríguez Gómez.

Others who accept the reality of this position, albeit with various political limits to their ability to speak openly about such matters, include President Donald J Trump, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Unfortunately for this aligned group they are stuck inside the largest western political system who controls global finance and world economic outcomes.

What all of these aforementioned names understand is that “market prices” are entirely detached from the archaic terminology behind supply and demand; a quaint concept that stopped applying years ago – but pretenses must be maintained or else the masses may find their pitchforks, see: DSA pitchfork suppliers.

A second subset of allies who unintentionally support this perspective, includes those who use the terms “sold at a discount” where “sold at a discount” in reality means sold outside the western market pricing approach. How many times have you seen the term “sold at a discount” repeated when you are reading about former Venezuela oil being sold to China, or current Russian oil being sold to India?

It’s such a common term it is accepted without anyone ever asking, ‘what is this discount you speak of, and how is it applied’? No-one seems to ask that part. We accept this terminology created by “western market pricing” advocates just as we accepted the term “service driven economy” in the era before Donald Trump.

The reality is that ‘western market prices’ are not an outcome of supply, demand or even availability or production capacity. Western market prices are determined by speculators, traders and regional benchmarks created by “independent agencies.”

Remember those pesky housing loan bond rating agencies, Standard and Poor’s and/or Moody’s during the lead-in to the 2008 financial crisis. That type of rating ‘independence’ is akin to the benchmarks of these regional independent agencies within the energy markets; which is to say, they are not independent at all – they are part of the manipulated western financial system that determines ‘market pricing’.

Behind that curtain are the traders, speculators, ideological banks and financial systems who create the finance system for the energy market. Want to stop oil exploitation, change the lending requirements to favor windmills and solar panels etc. Not coincidentally changing these lending rules and regulations was Mark Carney’s former job. Does that sound like an open market approach?

Thus, when you really understand how this pricing is structured you begin to realize the price of diesel has nothing to do with the supply of it and the price is more controlled by those who wish to generate financial -or political- outcomes from it.

You don’t have to take my word for it, review the words of the world’s largest oil/gas producer about this rigged game. {SEE HERE} Wouldn’t Vladimir Putin be the subject matter expert?

“How, in fact, is the price of gas formed on the European exchanges? It is not determined by producers, but by exchange traders.” In essence, right now “the west”, specifically Americans, are paying fuel costs based on market commodity prices. The most recent examples are oil, LNG and now the headline leading, diesel fuel. However, the actual supply of diesel fuel is not driving the price. The price is being driven by speculation and trading, which is based on arbitrary price formulas created by western multinational corporations and financial markets.

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Victor Davis Hanson is being a busy man lately.

• Elon Musk Is Powering The American Renaissance (Victor Davis Hanson)

There’s a lot of controversy about Elon Musk. His reputation took a big hit, remember, right after the election, because half the country voted, roughly 48%, voted against Donald Trump. Elon Musk had flipped from a former Hillary Clinton supporter and Joe Biden supporter to a firm MAGA adherent and voted for Donald Trump in 2024.


As a result of that and his comments opposing illegal immigration, there were people who not only were demonstrating against [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], but attacking Tesla dealerships. Everybody said that Elon Musk’s brand had suffered accordingly, that Tesla was on the way down, that European and American [electric vehicle] makers, along with Chinese EV makers, would dominate the market, given the tarnishing of the Musk brand and in conjunction with the end of the federal subsidy for electric vehicles.

So, people were suggesting that the era of Elon Musk was over. He was very controversial, and he was outspoken on his own platform, X, on conservative issues such as illegal immigration, green energy, [artificial intelligence] in ways that infuriated the Left. And the Left, remember, was considered the natural consumer of electric vehicles.

So, are we watching the decline of Elon Musk? No. No, no, no. The exact opposite is happening. In the second quarter of 2026, Tesla had a rebound, and it captured 52% of all the EVs sold in the United States. It has a market capitalization of $1.2 trillion. The other “Big Three” automakers are beginning to exit the EV market.

China cannot send their EVs into the United States. Why did Tesla rebound? Was it because all of a sudden Elon Musk had a fight with Donald Trump for a while? No. Was it because he apologized to the Left? No. It’s because when you buy a Tesla and you drive it and you compare it with other brands of the Big Three in terms of distancing, acceleration, safety, appurtenances, it’s not just better, but it keeps getting better geometrically, at a geometric rate, not just an arithmetic.

It has the best program for self-driving. It’s the safest. It has the longest range. It’s the most fun to drive, and people like it regardless of their politics. If you move to SpaceX, 67% of all the satellites in low orbit around the world today are associated with Elon Musk’s SpaceX company – 67%, over 12,000 satellites.

The market capitalization of SpaceX is well over $2 trillion – $2 trillion. SpaceX, with its various rockets, has saved a morbid, calcified, ossified NASA. It alone, with its rocketry and space vehicles, has put the United States not just back into the so-called space race and return to the moon and eventually to Mars, it’s made it preeminent over the Europeans, the Japanese, and the Chinese. More importantly, it’s given the United States enormous technological advances in rocketry, ballistic missiles, which have a definite military component to them.

When Elon Musk paid an exorbitant fee for X, people felt that he had made an enormous mistake, that it was overpriced. And yet, people were saying that users would abandon him and go elsewhere. In fact, that has not happened. That has not happened. There are 560 million users of X today. BlueSky, the alternative that was supposed to break X, has 3 million users.

Three million versus 560 million users. And remember that his Starlink satellite platform has captured 97% of all satellite internet usage. There are 12 million people who have a Starlink receiver and are subscribers in 160 countries. Most of the U.S. military and our allied militaries, including the Ukrainians and the Israelis, count on Starlink to guide their missiles and their drones, to protect them from incoming attack.

Let’s just put all of this in some kind of perspective. In terms of market capitalization, Elon Musk has well over $3.5 trillion in his various companies. SpaceX is the largest and it’s the most dominant, and it will either ensure that the United States is first in space exploration and satellite launching.

And, by the way, more satellites were launched on Elon Musk rockets last year than all of the satellites launched elsewhere put together. In addition to that, he created the electric vehicle market. It did not exist. He created the idea. Everyone said it would not work, that he was going to go broke, and he was finished.

He not only created the Tesla electric vehicle, he made it preeminent and dominant today. And he did it because, for the price and a cost-benefit analysis, it was unmatched. In terms of Grok, it is about third. About 16% of all AI platforms and chatbots use Grok. So, let’s just keep that in perspective.

The United States is preeminent today in social media, in artificial intelligence, in satellite launches, in the number of rocket launches in general, in electric vehicles. And all of that put together is due to one person, Elon Musk, who has been reviled and attacked by the Left as either treasonous or insane or cruel or whatever.

One man has combined the talents of Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford all in one person, and he’s an American. In other words, much of the success of the United States’ current renaissance in digital media, in satellites, in electrical vehicles, in AI, in software is due to one person. One person can make a difference. In the case of Elon Musk, he made a big difference.

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“Carney Inc deserves it.”

• Victor Davis Hanson Explains to Canadians (CTH)

President Trump has drawn attention to this segment by Victor Davis Hanson outlining the status of the Canadian position thanks to Prime Minister Mark Carney. Why? Because VDH is the type of American that Canadians actually listen to. VDH apparently talks in the tones and constructs that appeal to Canadians, therefore his remarks on how Mark Carney is manipulating Canada hit more directly than when other pundits do it.


VDH has seen a remarkable uptick in the size of his audience ever since he started talking about Canada, because his new audience is almost exclusively Canadian. Hanson speaks about the Canadian dynamic below. It’s monotone, but the “elbows crew’ like it. WATCH (prompted):


Prime Minister Carney asks why Victor Davis Hanson is doing this to him. I’m not a big fan of Canadians switching positions and suddenly wanting to accept trade terms. CTH would prefer that we sever all ties with Canada, terminate the USMCA and watch them slowly spiral for a year or two. Carney Inc deserves it.

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https://twitter.com/LunarOptimus/status/2102390687589138513?s=20 https://twitter.com/herbertong/status/2102565863379345806?s=20

 

 

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Debt Rattle September 18 2026

Sep 182026
 
 September 18, 2026  Posted by at 8:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  29 Responses »


Thomas Cole Commencement of Empire (Savage state) 1836


• Trump Concedes He Must Soon Decide On Iran End Game: ‘Annihilate Them Or Not’ (ZH)
• Iran Is Preparing an October Surprise Before the Midterms (Victor Davis Hanson)
• How Trump’s Iran Operation Turned Into A Forever War (Harrison Berger)
• Trump Working To Spare US The Effects Of Global Oil Crunch (JTN)
• Canada and Europe are Coordinating to Manipulate the US Midterm Election (CTH)
• Von der Leyen Announces Canada as 1st Associate Member of European Union (CTH)
• Canada Welcomes EU Proposal To Become ‘Associate Member’ (BBC)
• Where Did Our Happiness Go? Into The Pockets Of Others (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Who Represents America? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Gandhi is Out, Mangione is In: Political Violence is in Vogue in America (Turley)
• Sen. Paul Introduces Birthright Citizenship Amendment (Turley)
• ICC Used As ‘Tool’ To Target Global South – Editor (RT)

 

 

https://twitter.com/newsIvankaq/status/2100620194653540784?s=20

 

 


“Trump tells Axios he’s approaching major crossroads in Iran war..”

• Trump Concedes He Must Soon Decide On Iran End Game: ‘Annihilate Them Or Not’ (ZH)

Some key lines of President Trump given to Axios on Thursday…He told the outlet he is at a “critical juncture” regarding the war in Iran, weighing whether to launch massive new attacks or pursue a different path to end the conflict. He has previously indicated his belief that war will continue through the November midterm elections. Trump has newly said: “I have a big decision coming up. Do I want to go in and annihilate them [the Iranian regime] or do I not? It’s a big decision. Anything could happen with me.”


The war is increasingly unpopular among Americans, and Trump’s rhetoric has appeared a bit more honest on this of late. What’s the end game? After six months of conflict, Epic Fury has looked like a bombing campaign in search of a strategy. According to more of Trump’s talk with Axios: Trump declined to say whether he’ll decide on the path forward before or after the midterms.

Trump and Hegseth have ordered the military to maintain its level of forces in the Middle East until the end of the year, to remain ready for a potential return to full-scale combat. The officials say Trump needs to decide soon on the way forward, partly because the US military can’t stay in its current holding pattern much longer. “At some point you have to decide what is the end game”

The situation of global energy transit has over the past week become much more complicated with the Houthis advance across Yemen’s Red Sea coastline, and drone damage to Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline. The US looks to be staying on the sidelines of Yemen fighting, for the time being. New via Al Jazeera:

A senior US official told Al Jazeera: We are focused on ensuring navigation in the Red Sea and allowing our partners to manage security challenges. And yet “partners” like the Saudis and its government in Sanaa are clearly not doing so well.

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I doubt Iran has much left to surprise us with.

• Iran Is Preparing an October Surprise Before the Midterms (Victor Davis Hanson)

We’re about 50 days out from the midterms, and everybody seems to have an October surprise. What’s the situation on the ground in Iran? One of the big surprises is we don’t know because this is the first really major engagement where there are no Western journalists allowed into Iran. There are no U.S. ground troops. There are no embedded reporters. The Mossad maybe has agents on the ground, but they’re not publicizing that fact. And Iranians who sporadically call people in the West on their cell phones are hunted down.


So, a lot of it is subjective conjecture. But I think it’s pretty clear that Iran is planning, as it is now sporadically, but planning an October surprise near the midterms. Their entire strategy has been to delay, negotiate, attack, delay, negotiate, attack. And the purpose was to, A, drive up the price of oil through that uncertainty, especially in hitting ships in the Strait of Hormuz, and B, get closer and closer and closer to the midterms.

They don’t really care about the details or statistics of American congressional operations. They don’t really understand that for the Democrats to cut off all aid to military forces that are fighting the regime, that means money that we give Israel, intelligence that we give the Gulf, but more importantly, our daily expenses from the Pentagon, they’re going to have to have a large veto-proof Congress. I don’t think they’ll get that even if they were to win the midterms. But that’s what Iran is worried about and concerned about, that they want the Democrats to win.

Why the Democrats? They remember in 2009, a million of them went out in the street to overthrow the regime. Barack Obama, newly inaugurated, didn’t do anything. He just kept mute for about 12 days. Why? Because he was going to negotiate with a theocracy about their nuclear program, and he wanted to reboot Iran as part of a rival to democratic Israel and the moderate Gulf regimes. He thought by empowering the Shia Crescent in Iran, in Syria, in Beirut, on the West Bank, and in Gaza, he could have creative tension, and he would be the adjudicator.

But the people don’t really trust the Democrats, and they know they’ve been very critical of this effort to hurt the theocracy. So, Iran and the Democrats have the same goal: create chaos. They have the same goal, and that’s to defeat Donald Trump. The Democrats want the Iranians to create chaos, drag out the war, and therefore drive down public opinion and raise the price of gas. That’s clear. They’ve all but said that. And in turn, the opposition has a what? What would we call it? An October surprise? It is gaming the midterms as well.

Now, what are they thinking? They are thinking that every time the Democrats come into power, they negotiate with this horrendous regime. They don’t trust that the Democrats want it gone. They fear, third, that the Democrats may be in power in the Congress. They fear that Donald Trump is at 40% popularity, and he might have to make concessions to them. So, in their interpretation of the calendar, the clock, the time remaining to the midterms, it might be they feel time is running out given two things.

One, they don’t have any fuel, gasoline, or diesel. We know that much. The gas lines are three to four miles long, and food is scarce, and air conditioning is probably nonexistent. Inflation is rampant, and things are deteriorating at a geometric rate in Iran. And two, they don’t think anybody will come to the rescue except Donald Trump, and Donald Trump right now has control of the Congress. So, in their way of thinking, they may think an October surprise would be to go out in the streets right before the midterms and show that they thank the United States, they support the United States.

There’s another October surprise. We haven’t heard much from the Kurds. The Turks have been very adamant that they did not want us to help the Iranian Kurds because that could spread into the Turkish Kurds, and the same thing is true of the Iraqi Kurds and the Syrian Kurds, etc.

But they have been more active than usual in the last week. If they sense the people of Iran are rising up or are about to go for broke, they may want to as well join them. So they may have an October surprise.

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It’s been 5 months. With mostly hardly any fighting. Why do you say forever war? Because others do, too? Because it takes longer than you thought/wanted?

Those “four primary objectives in the Iran War” are just your fantasy. There is one primary objective: no nukes for Iran.

The rest are secondary. At best.

• How Trump’s Iran Operation Turned Into A Forever War (Harrison Berger)

As the United States has struggled to secure its four primary objectives in the Iran War – achieving regime change, dismantling long-range ballistic missiles, eliminating nuclear enrichment, and halting Tehran’s support for regional proxies – U.S. officials have rolled out a series of tried-and-failed theories for how to achieve those goals.



In the past four weeks, Americans have watched their government attempt to inflict an economic victory against Iran through Operation Economic Outcast, tightening a sanctions regime which for decades has strangled Iran’s economy without resolving the underlying dispute. Now, as that strategy flags, we have seen the Trump administration return to its older strategy of kinetic strikes against Iran. Those strikes, too, have failed to achieve their desired objectives. Facing the prospect of a self-inflicted defeat, the U.S. has now proposed two new paths forward.

The first, reported by the Wall Street Journal last Wednesday, is an option to extend and formalize the current series of on-and-off strikes U.S. officials call this “mowing the lawn,” or a strategy of using periodic bouts of disproportionate force, as Israel did in Gaza prior to launching its full-scale, seemingly endless campaign after the Oct. 7 attacks of 2023. To support that option, the Pentagon has extended troop deployments in the Middle East through 2027.

The second option reportedly considered by the White House is for the U.S. to declare victory and walk away, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that Trump favors the idea. Among the supporters of the second option is Joe Kent, the former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who resigned in protest of the Iran War, and who has argued on X that the U.S. should “reset the terms of the deal” with Iran “by removing our troops & ships from the region.” The argument that the U.S should walk away and “declare victory” is growing increasingly popular even in establishment circles.

But given the historic limitations of sanctions to achieve political outcomes, coupled with Iran’s current demands, that strategy too appears unlikely to re-open the Strait of Hormuz and avert the economic consequences Iran’s leverage over the waterway will have on the global economy.

Political scientists have long doubted whether U.S. economic pressure and sanctions can shape political outcomes, particularly when the targeted state has little reason to believe these measures will be reversed in exchange for good behavior; researchers like David Siegel are quick to acknowledge that they “don’t work,” while U.S. officials like Janet Yellen have conceded the same point, noting that, while sanctions against Iran had caused a “real economic crisis,” they produced political outcomes “much less than we would ideally like.”

As Siegel – who most recently studied the failure of U.S. sanctions on Russia to redirect their state behavior toward U.S. and NATO interests – explains, “target states have strong incentives not to give in and sometimes even benefit from heightened levels of political support at home because they can now credibly blame their economic woes on a foreign imperial power.” Siegel argues that it’s “probably more true today than ever before due to the fact that sanctioned states can turn to China.”

The low likelihood of economic pressure opening up the Strait of Hormuz is depressed even further by the fact that one of Iran’s preconditions for opening the Strait of Hormuz is the removal of sanctions, which would require a vote from Congress, where the proposal would face an uphill battle. But perhaps the main reason walking away and declaring victory would fail to re-open the Strait and mitigate impending economic disaster is because Iran has tied freedom of navigation in the waterway to the U.S. reining in Israel, and the U.S. has long demonstrated it is unwilling to do so.

The June 17 agreement between the U.S. and Iran only required the U.S. force an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, and Washington failed to follow through. Now, subsequent provocations by the U.S. and Israel have led Iran to expand its ceasefire demands to other campaigns: in Iraq, in Yemen, and in Palestine.

Securing a deal to re-open the Strait and end the war is further complicated by the growing view around the world that the “Art of The Deal” author is simply incapable of making deals. Results of a 2025 Politico survey of diplomats from 15 countries show foreign officials describing Trump’s deal-making process as “reactive, with no clear direction,” while Trump has so far failed to resolve a proxy war in Ukraine that he promised to end “within 24 hours” of taking office. The White House has similarly failed to reach a peace deal in Gaza.

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“A soaring global energy crunch collides with mid-term election season in the U.S., as the White House looks abroad to Venezuela and pressures Ukraine to ease supply pressures.”

• Trump Working To Spare US The Effects Of Global Oil Crunch (JTN)

President Donald Trump is working furiously to spare the United States from the fuel crisis sweeping the globe, seeking out new sources in Venezuela, ensuring that the U.S. continues to pump oil, and calling for Ukraine to halt its strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure.


So far, the United States appears to be insulated from the worst of the crisis as unrest breaks out in countries that are feeling acute oil shortages stemming primarily from the Iran war. Rising prices in regions as diverse as South Asia and Europe have prompted protests. Governments have responded with price ceilings, rationing, and even scheduled power cuts in poorer countries.

This weekend, for example, in Syria, protesters blocked a highway, blocking traffic and setting fire to tires, just hours after the central government announced it would temporarily raise prices on fuel products by as much as 40%, both Al-Jazeera and The New York Times reported. Similar protests have occurred in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Guatemala, and Portugal.

A missile strike by Iran-backed militias damaged Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea oil pipeline this weekend
The White House and administration officials view high oil prices as temporary, an issue that will resolve itself when the Iran war is finished, as Trump has said. However, no end to the conflict between Washington and Tehran appears likely before the midterm elections. Instead, voters are being confronted with the prospect of rising gas prices as tit-for-tat fighting between the U.S. and Iran continues just as the election season truly kicks off.

A missile strike by Iran-backed militias that damaged Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea oil pipeline this weekend has contributed to the recent oil price uncertainty sweeping the markets. The strike temporarily knocked the East-West pipeline out of commission, preventing Saudi Arabia from using its only reliable way to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and forcing the kingdom to cut oil shipments to Europe.

The current crunch is particularly acute for diesel, which is more expensive than gasoline. The price of diesel, an oil-based fuel often used in commercial vehicles and industrial machinery, set a new record when it surpassed $6 a gallon this weekend. Because of its use in freight and delivery transportation, elevated diesel prices often translate into higher prices for goods.

The pattern prompted the president to call on Ukraine to halt its strikes against Russian oil refineries in a bid to calm global diesel prices, which he blamed on the Russia-Ukraine war, not the conflict in the Middle East.

“Mr. Zelenskyy has to do one thing. He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia,” Trump said during a visit to Ireland. “Let him go after targets, but not diesel fuel because he’s causing a shortage of diesel. This isn’t done by the Middle East; this is done by what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine.”

Recent polls show 49% of voters are most concerned by the cost of living
The pressure is on. Polling throughout the summer has shown that potential voters are primarily concerned with the cost of living and economic conditions ahead of the elections, which will take place in November. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll in June, for example, respondents said the cost of living was the most important factor in deciding whom to vote for in November – at 49%, followed by democratic norms at 22% and immigration at 13%. In that same poll, 14% of respondents overall and 20% of Republican respondents labeled gasoline prices as the issue they most want members of Congress to prioritize.

Americans are also growing weary of how the president is handling the economy. Trump’s net approval on the economy is 33 points underwater, and American approval for the Iran war has also declined to the lowest levels since the conflict began, with only 31% of Americans approving of the war.

To bolster supply, the administration has turned its focus to South America, working to ease sanctions on Caracas and facilitate higher oil exports. According to reports by The Wall Street Journal, easing restrictions on Venezuelan crude could direct hundreds of thousands of additional barrels per day to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries, helping offset supply disruptions from the Middle East.

Read more …

Globalists vs nationalists. Soros vs Trump.

• Canada and Europe are Coordinating to Manipulate the US Midterm Election (CTH)

In this outline Promethean Action’s Susan Kokinda summarizes how energy prices are being weaponized to influence the 2026 midterm election. The multinationals, Canada, Europe, NATO and those opposed to America-First sovereignty are waging an economic war against President Trump’s geopolitical and economic reset.


This midweek update argues that the midterm elections are being shaped less by campaign ads than by coordinated economic and political pressure: rising diesel prices tied to Ukrainian strikes on Russian diesel infrastructure, energy pricing set by European exchange traders in London rather than producers, and continued Iran conflict framed as being prolonged to affect the vote.

Kokinda also cites Canada’s trade war and targeted tariffs as politically timed, alongside attacks on U.S. bonds and pressure to raise interest rates, describing “full spectrum economic warfare” against Trump’s agenda. A second front is an accelerated AI panic, beginning with viral warnings from an ex-Anthropic researcher and followed by Anthropic CEO calls for regulation, which Trump and allies call a control-driven “hoax.” The script traces AI-ban lobbying to London-based Control AI, highlights foreign funding networks, and links the push to international oversight and reduced national sovereignty.

Read more …

“Mark Carney just pulled Canada out of the USMCA and there’s no one to blame but himself.”

“Together both Europe and Canada convey a mindset and worldview that organizes fabricated problems to keep control of their populations. It’s a corporatist structure of modern Fascism where instead of govt telling the corporations what to do, the World Economic Forum of multinationals tell the governments what to do.”

• Von der Leyen Announces Canada as 1st Associate Member of European Union (CTH)

Pouring effusive and slobbering praise over the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, the anointed “middle power” leader of a shrinking -and increasingly irrelevant- new world order, with grand pontifications EU Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen announced today that Canada is the first “Associate Member” of the European Union.


It’s a major award! As noted by Reuters, “There is currently no such status as associate member set out in the European Union’s treaties, though various versions of an associate-type of membership have been floated in the bloc over the years. Germany suggested Ukraine be an associate member as an interim stage to full accession, though the proposal failed to gain traction as some EU capitals pushed back.

von der Leyen gushed: “Dear Mark, I said we must urgently reimagine our partnerships. So, I would like to work with you on opening the door for Canada to be the first associate member of the EU. We share one ocean, one set of values, one way of seeing the world. And we will now build our shared future as well – thank you for being here.” Mark Carney sat with a big smile, giddy with excitement and barely able to control his visible glee.

DAILY MAIL – […] But the attempt to flatter the former Governor of the Bank of England backfired, with diplomats saying they were never briefed about the proposal and that, in effect, ‘associate membership’ doesn’t even exist. EU diplomats accused Brussels of ‘over-reach’, an accusation often levelled against Eurocrats by UK Brexiteers before Britain left the bloc. One EU diplomat told the Mail: ‘This bombastic announcement is just not right.

‘There will be a summit at the end of October, so logically they will talk about deepening the relations. ‘But no one has ever seen an associate membership and no idea what it means in practice. Canada is a valuable partner for the EU, one of the few currently in the world where we share the values, so it is nothing against Canada. ‘But first and foremost the member states should be the ones to express what kind of relationship the EU wants to have with any third country.’

Another added: ‘She kept this bit of associate membership out of the text until the last moment. She also did not mention it up front to EU member states. ‘It seems like she is a bit too far out in floating this. Everyone is positive about Canada, and wants to strengthen the relationship. ‘But there is a lot of uncertainty about what von der Leyen envisages by coining this label.’

They added that, in reality, the most that can likely be hoped for is a deeper trading relationship rather than ‘associate membership’, which implies Canada taking part in EU programmes that it would be forced to pay into, becoming more politically integrated and potentially even having a say over the bloc’s rules.

But there would be huge barriers to overcome to establish closer ties, as swathes of Canada’s regulations are at present incompatible with EU single market rules, with high taxes on the bloc’s alcohol exports another thorny issue. Under EU law, any granting of membership would have to be approved by the 27 member states, which is another reason they were wrong-footed.” (read more)

We all know what this is. This is simply a joint Canada/Europe response to the geopolitical realignment currently underway by U.S. President Donald Trump. At the core of the CA/EU association is the insufferable leftist mindset. A pontificating pretense that elites and globalists should determine the outcomes and values for the rest of the world.

Together both Europe and Canada convey a mindset and worldview that organizes fabricated problems to keep control of their populations. It’s a corporatist structure of modern Fascism where instead of govt telling the corporations what to do, the World Economic Forum of multinationals tell the governments what to do. It’s a constructed social and economic model where Western bankers are in charge of the proles beneath them.

The pontificating snobbery within the collective outlook, the pretenses and bureaucracy have nothing to do with representative government, as outlined in the unilateral approach by Ursula von der Leyen to create a status that doesn’t even exist, without any consultation with the members she is supposed to represent.

This move today is the personification of elitism and globalism in its last, desperate dying state.For the little schoolboy inside Mark Carney, this is the culmination of a lifetime goal to be important. For the Canadian people, this should be embarrassing; but it’s not. Canada is part of a British Commonwealth, and they proclaim “sovereignty” as their cause celeb against the horrible Trump, while rushing to the arms of the European Commission.

Actually, on second thought, this is perfectly Canadian. Here’s the point that will be missed by 80% of Canadians. The EU trade rules do not align with the USMCA. I don’t mean that in a vague or disingenuous manner. The specific rules, regulations and policies of the European Union are not compatible with the trilateral North American trade agreement between the U.S, Mexico and Canada. It’s not even close.

What most Canadians don’t realize amid all this gleeful back-slapping and pretentious cheer, is that Mark Carney has officially sealed the position of Canada as it relates to the USMCA/CUSMA. nCanada just did exactly what President Trump and U.S. Trade Greer had been organizing and hoping for. Mark Carney just pulled Canada out of the USMCA and there’s no one to blame but himself. We have been waiting for this for a long time. Thank you, Mark Carney.

Read more …

A coalition of the weak is still weak.

• Canada Welcomes EU Proposal To Become ‘Associate Member’ (BBC)

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has welcomed the European Union’s ambition for Canada to become its first “associate member”, calling for closer cooperation on defence, critical minerals and energy security. Carney told the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Thursday that Canada and Europe were “stronger together” in the face of “geopolitical rupture”. His comments came a day after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed “opening the door” to Canada’s associate membership, a status that does not currently exist.


US President Donald Trump earlier called the idea “laughable” and threatened “very serious tariffs” on Europe if he considered it a “hostile act”.Canada and the US are locked in an escalating trade dispute, with each side imposing tit-for-tat tariffs after bilateral talks collapsed last month. “Today our societies are being battered by new storms,” Carney said during his address, naming them as climate change, “the erosion of democratic norms” and the “weaponisation of trade”. “Economic integration is now being weaponised, tariffs being used to exert pressure,” he said.

“Financial mechanisms have been used for coercion. Supply chains constitute weak points to be exploited.” He said a Canada-EU alliance would create a “beacon for other democracies”, while stressing the two sides were not seeking to form a new power bloc. “I am not proposing a third bloc in order to become a great-power rival – only with better manners,” he told MEPs. “This is about sovereignty, our ability to live as we wish. We do not seek power to dominate others.” Asked about the proposal on Wednesday, Trump told reporters: “If I think it’s at all a hostile act, I will put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe, on many things.

“If it’s a good intention, that’s fine. If it’s a bad intention, we’ll put very heavy tariffs on Europe, which is a possibility.” Responding to Trump’s comments at a press conference following his address, Carney said: “This alliance is a positive process, that’s my response to the American president.””Canadians are united that nobody is going to tell us what language we speak, no-one is going to dictate our culture, or with whom we can strike agreements internationally,” he added.

Carney said Canada was “not in a position, nor seeking, to become a full member of the European Union”, describing the proposal as a “different framework”. Speaking at the European Parliament on Wednesday, von der Leyen said she wanted Canada to become the EU’s first associate member, with closer cooperation in areas such as manufacturing, technology, defence, energy critical minerals and economic security.

It is unclear exactly what that relationship would look like because the “associate member” status does not currently exist within the EU and could take years to implement. Any new arrangement would require the agreement of all 27 EU member states, with some governments having previously expressed reservations about creating a new form of membership. The EU and Canada already have a free-trade agreement, and cooperate in areas including trade, defence and research.

In his address, Carney said Canada and Europe could strengthen their “strategic autonomy” through “deep co-operation in the full range of strategic capabilities, including critical minerals”. He said Canada could supply liquefied natural gas and hydrogen to support European energy security, while benefiting from Europe’s expertise in clean-energy technologies. He also proposed pooling technological resources and deepening “people to people ties”, including allowing young people to “work, study and live where they want on either side of the Atlantic” through Canada joining the EU’s Erasmus+ programme.

Carney described the proposed relationship as “a unique, positive approach that we will define together”. He added that there would be a debate and a vote in the Canadian parliament on the proposals, but emphasised the two sides were still at the “start of a road”. A Canada-EU summit is due to take place in Montreal at the end of October, where Carney said they would “drill down the details”.

Read more …

House prices are used to control people.

• Where Did Our Happiness Go? Into The Pockets Of Others (Paul Craig Roberts)

Remember how happy we would be according to Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum when we owned nothing? Well, that is where we are. Are you happy? They took away memory cards and sold us cloud storage. They took CDs and DVDs and sold us streaming. They took software you once bought as yours and turned it into a monthly subscription. Corporate America figured out the real money wasn’t in selling you something. It was making sure you NEVER actually own it.


According to AI Overview, for Existing Homes, the median sales price for existing single-family homes and condos is $429,100. For New Construction, the U.S. Census Bureau reports the median sales price for new houses sold is $410,700, with the broader average around $502,700. Prices vary depending on whether you look at averages (skewed higher by multi-million dollar homes) or medians (the midpoint where half cost more and half cost less).

To comfortably afford a $400,000 house, you generally need an annual household income between $90,000 and $130,000, depending on your down payment, interest rate, and monthly debts.mIf you pay for the house with a mortgage, the cost of the house with principle, interest, insurance and real estate tax by the time the house is paid for is about triple the purchase price. You will have paid more than $1.2 million for your middle class home.

So Americans cannot afford to buy and they cannot afford to rent. Dear Americans, are you happy? Would you like a real populist government that represented you. Good luck.

Read more …

Paul Craig Roberts seems to feel it’s HIM who represents America.

• Who Represents America? (Paul Craig Roberts)

Mail-in voting, along with street corner drop boxes, has proved to be one of the most effective methods of election stealing. There are examples where at the last moment a large number of mail-in votes arrive that suffice to change the outcome.


The Covid lockdown was used to expand mail-in voting. Democrat states such as Connecticut and Delaware made special efforts t o expand mail-in voting. President Trump’s effort to limit mail-in voting to documented citizens is opposed by “voting rights groups,” which are mainly Democrats such as the League of Women Voters, by some election officials who claim mail-in voting increases election integrity, and by the US Supreme Court. The claim is made by Democrats that mail-in ballots are only sent to registered voters.

But we know that lists of registered voters are seldom brought up to date and that states and voting rights groups resist purging the rolls of dead people and people who have moved out of state. We have examples of people being voted in states that they no longer live in. James O’Keefe and others have presented evidence of vote and election fraud due to unverified mail-in ballots. It seems to be clear that whichever party that controls the elections in a state has a reserve of ballots that can be mailed in at the last minute to change the winner. There are examples where the last minute mail-ins are almost all for the Democrat candidate, although it does seem that the Zionist Republicans used this fraud against Israel critic US Rep. Thomas Massie in his recent primary.

Consider the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts’ case against Trump’s effort to ensure that the mail-in ballots actually come from US citizens residing in the states. Trump’s executive order requires the Department of Homeland Security to compile from various federal data bases, including Social Security, a list of US citizens for the US Postal Service with the requirement that the mail-in ballots can only be delivered to those on the voting list. The League of Women Voters argued that the federal data bases are out-of-date and unreliable. But so are the states lists of registered voters. The League of Women Voters does seem to be more concerned about preventing unqualified voting than with election integrity.

The League of Women Voters also argues that President Trump’s effort to restore integrity to US elections is an attempt to seize control of elections from Congress and the states. The League of Women Voters says no constitutional text allows actions by the President to protect election integrity. This is a curious way of putting it if the Constitution actually prohibits Trump from establishing election rules in the interest of election integrity. What exactly is the case that the President cannot act in the interest of election integrity, which requires that only citizens can vote?

The two justices on the Court who have the most integrity and who are the most principled, Thomas and Alito, saw the issue differently from the majority. Justice Alito pointed out that the issue on which the majority ruled against Trump’s executive order was that there was insufficient time to implement Trump’s order before the upcoming midterm federal elections and therefore the order would be disruptive of the election. In other words, the scheduling crunch was cleverly timed by those challenging Trump’s order.

Now, think about this for a moment. If Trump and the Republicans stood to gain from mail-in voting, why would they oppose it? Unless Democrats stand to gain from mail-in voting, why their enormous efforts to prevent President Trump from increasing the integrity of US elections?

Republicans claim that the Democrat political machine in Chicago elected John F. Kennedy president by stealing the election from Richard Nixon. I do not know if this is true. I do know that the Democrats stole the 2020 election from Trump with successful vote fraud in the swing states. The fraud is obvious despite its almost universal media denial. In the five swing states that flipped to Democrat, the states’ election procedures were controlled by Democrats. No Democrat state was flipped to Republican.

I do know that Republicans are more conservative and patriotic than Democrats. It is Republicans, not Democrats, who chant “USA, USA.” It is Democrats who favor voting by illegal aliens and who appoint them police officers and local government officials and act to prevent their deportation. It is obvious that Democrats favor multiculturalism over Americanism as evidenced by Minneapolis broadcasting over public loudspeakers the Muslim call to prayer six times a day. Anything a Democrat can do to stick her finger into America’s eye will be done.

Patriotic Americans, a body of people that I think excludes most Democrats, face a dilemma in the upcoming fall elections. Trump and the Republicans stand for Israel against America’s interest and at Americans’ cost. But the Democrats stand against America. The Democrats favor immigrant-invaders and have opposed all efforts to protect America’s borders and the meaning of US citizenship. The Democrats are the party of multiculturalism that is turning America into a Tower of Babel in which there is no longer a gender difference between male and female. All the weird stuff that infect our society has its home in the Democrat Party.

Read more …

Really, a murderer is your hero?

• Gandhi is Out, Mangione is In: Political Violence is in Vogue in America (Turley)

Across the country, a chilling shift is occurring. Political violence has become a twisted form of virtue signaling. Mahatma Gandhi is out and Luigi Mangione is in. For an increasing number of young people, nothing signals your values like a willingness to kill others for them. For decades, being nonviolent has been the touchstone for many on the left. Something is changing. On my campus and others around the country, students are rationalizing violence and even idolizing assassins.


A recent Emerson College poll shows that 4 out of 10 voters between the ages of 18-29 (39%) view Mangione’s role in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson as “acceptable” or “somewhat acceptable.” Other polls show a troubling number of liberal voters consider political violence justified, including polls showing 40% of young people embracing political violence in some circumstances.

For college students, the rationalization of the killing of a Charlie Kirk or a Brian Thompson is now a litmus test of your movement bona fides. I have heard exchanges where students identify with accused assassin Tyler Robinson, who wrote, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I took it.”

This week, UC Irvine instructor Matt Goldman came under fire for a posting showing the picture of conservative Nick Shirley with the menacing observation “Someone can do the funniest thing just before the Kirkiversary.” There was a time when political assassination was viewed as anathema, particularly among academics.

To put it simply, violence is in vogue. Hollywood isn’t helping our political violence problem Hollywood is commoditizing political violence. Many conservatives were critical of the movie “One Battle After Another,” with Leonardo DiCaprio, as glorifying domestic terrorism and fueling liberal paranoia.

Other actors seem eager to make their films part of a political rage fest. “Spider-Man” actor Andrew Garfield actually said that he hoped that his new movie, “The Uprising,” would make billionaires scared, declaring that “I hope that if any billionaires watch it, they’re scared s—less.” Garfield wanted to take this film as his own bona fides with the mob, demonizing the rich. He apparently forgot Spider-Man’s motto, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Others are more direct. Lexi Alexander, director of the 2008 Marvel film “Punisher: War Zone,” triggered a firestorm Sept. 1 with an X post featuring Mangione’s face superimposed on Batman’s bat signal. The posting featured a new article’s headline: “Bank of America vice president killed in Times Square stabbing.” The vice president, Erin Piacenti, 32, left a 5-month-old daughter who will now grow up without a mother.

When people noted the obvious that Alexander, who bills herself as a “Palestinian filmmaker,” was seemingly celebrating the death of bank officer Piacenti, who was just back from maternity leave, Alexander accused them of being Israeli propagandists, or “Hasbara bots.”

In a now-deleted post, Alexander dismissed criticism that she knew about the executive being a new mother and said it was enough at the time that she was an executive because “it sounded like another Luigi situation.”

Read more …

Blood or soil.

• Sen. Paul Introduces Birthright Citizenship Amendment (Turley)

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Constitution Day event at James Madison University about “Rage and the Republic.” and various constitutional issues. During the event, organized by the James Madison Center on Civic Engagement, one student asked me what I would change about the U.S. Constitution. I said that I would amend the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship, as have other nations who once followed this ill-considered practice. Well, Sen. Rand Paul (R., Kentucky) has wasted no time. He just reintroduced his bill to ban birthright citizenship.


I have previously written about the possible need for such an amendment after the decision in Trump v. Barbara. With that decision, the matter now rests not with the court but with the country. We have never truly had a national debate over the practice. The basis and future of birthright citizenship have remained matters almost exclusively for the courts. Most countries in the world reject this controversial policy. Our closest allies in Europe reject birthright citizenship and follow the common practice of “jus sanguinis,” or right of blood. We are part of a smaller number of countries following “jus soli,” or right of soil.

Various countries that once followed the practice later amended their constitutions or laws to get rid of it. That is what would need to be done with a 28th amendment. It is time that we have a civil and substantive debate over birthright citizenship in the United States. Given that the states are Democratic-controlled, it is unlikely that an amendment would pass; as noted, we have never been given this decision at the national level. Even with the 14th Amendment’s ratification in 1868, there were differing views on the meaning of the critical line:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Both sides have good-faith arguments, but the time for that debate is long overdue.

Here is the language of the amendment:

JOINT RESOLUTION
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to protect United States citizenship.

That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:

“article —
“Section 1. For purposes of the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States, a person may be considered to be ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States’ only in accordance with section 2.

“Section 2. A person born in the United States may only be considered ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States’ if the person is born in the United States of parents, one of whom is—

“(1) a citizen or national of the United States;

“(2) an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States whose residence is in the United States; or

“(3) an alien with lawful status under the immigration laws performing active service in the Armed Forces.

“Section 3. Congress shall have the power to carry out this article through appropriate legislation.”

Read more …

The ICC is a tool.

“Western countries have turned the Hague-based court against their “opponents,” Khonya Mathonsi has told RT “

• ICC Used As ‘Tool’ To Target Global South – Editor (RT)

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has served as a “tool” for Western countries to target leaders in the Global South who challenge them, political commentator and Behind the News Network editor Khonya Mathonsi has told RT.


Mathonsi was commenting on Wednesday’s ICC hearing for former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte in The Hague, the 81-year-old’s first public appearance in more than a year. Duterte faces charges of crimes against humanity over killings linked to his anti-drug campaign.

He said the court disproportionately pursued figures from Africa and Asia while largely leaving Western countries untouched. “The ICC was mostly [formed] to silence their opponents,” he said, adding that “it was used as a tool” against people viewed as anti-Western, particularly in the Global South.

Duterte was arrested at Manila airport in March 2025 and transferred to ICC custody in the Netherlands. He has defended his anti-drug campaign, saying he only ordered police to kill in self-defense. His lawyers have challenged the ICC’s jurisdiction, citing the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute. The court maintains that it can prosecute alleged crimes committed while the country was still a member.

On Wednesday, the ICC said Duterte “shall continue to be detained,” citing an increased risk that he could flee or interfere with witnesses and court proceedings. Mathonsi said Duterte had criticized the US and other Western governments and sought to run the Philippines without following their wishes. “This is his punishment,” he said, accusing the West of using financial pressure and sanctions against those who challenge it.

“The real issue here is that the West don’t see themselves standing in front of the judges,” he said, adding that there is “zero accountability” for Western countries. He said Global South countries should consider establishing an alternative body to uphold international law, suggesting that such an institution could be developed within or alongside BRICS.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/herbertong/status/2100580531520016839?s=20 https://twitter.com/DN_degen/status/2100510136234115129?s=20 https://twitter.com/LunarOptimus/status/2100260473245429918?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle September 12 2026

Sep 122026
 
 September 12, 2026  Posted by at 10:07 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  25 Responses »


Roy Lichtenstein Woman With Flowered Hat 1963


• Trump: If I Had To Do Iran Again I Would Do Exactly As I Did (ZH)
• Trump Says He Wouldn’t Have Bombed Nuke-Armed Iran (Antiwar)
• Flight 93 Hero’s Dad Warns of Threats From Within (Tim O’Brien)
• 9/11 After a Quarter of a Century (Paul Craig Roberts)
• We Are in World War Xi (AmG)
• RFK Tells the Brutal Truth About Islam on Eve of 9/11 Anniversary (Salgado)
• What the AfD Really Wants From China (Zemánek)
• EU Urges Kiev To Mobilize Women – Moscow (RT)
• Light and Dark (James Howard Kunstler)
• The Secret to “Sleeping Well” (Turley)
• To Hell with the Digital Revolution & Its Bastard Child AI (Paul Craig Roberts)
• More Than 62,000 Arrested For Speech-Related Offenses In Britain (AmG)

 


 

https://twitter.com/JesseBWatters/status/2098213789699101046?s=20 https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2098213757335789979?s=20 https://twitter.com/PutinVladimirv0/status/2098085347712246160?s=20

 


 


Very consistent. But people want it over before it began.

• Trump: If I Had To Do Iran Again I Would Do Exactly As I Did (ZH)

An interesting moment from Thursday night’s Lara Ingraham exclusive with President Trump…


Q: Any regrets about Iran?

Trump: I don’t believe in the word “regret.”


Trump even commented to Ingraham that he would make the same decisions all over again if he had a chance. The Fox show host had posed to the president, “If we hadn’t done Iran, you would be cruising to midterms victory right now” – and made reference to high gas prices. Trump replied: “supposing we were cruising, and all of a sudden Iran has a nuclear weapon. They would use it.”

Explaining that he doesn’t believe in “regrets” and that he has none especially about launching the Iran war, Trump asserted: “If I had it to do again, I would do exactly what I did.” He further argued that if Iran had a nuclear weapon, its leaders wouldn’t hesitate to “wipe out” Israel and the Middle East, and could go so far as to hit American cities. In a separate brief interview with the press this week, President Trump was asked about reports that Vice President Vance and Secretary State Marco Rubio warned him of the possibility that the Iran conflict could persist for the remainder of his term…


Trump vehemently denied that there’s so much as a chance of this, but didn’t actually explain how he intends to wind down the war in a way favorable to the US and White House policy. Or in other words, the American public still awaits words on a realistic exit strategy.On going into Iran “full” – Trump did underscore that the midterm elections makes this a bad idea. His administration has also repeatedly said there won’t be boots on the ground in Iran. Was this a quiet part out loud moment?


Among the most interesting parts of the interview came when he was asked about the young men in MAGA who are angry over the Iran war:

Q: What do you say to all the young men who supported you in 2024? Trump: They still do.

Q: Some of them are demoralized. Trump: I don’t think they’re demoralized. I think they’re very proud of the fact I’m not letting Iran have a nuclear weapon.


Trump earlier this week insisted of Iran’s position in the conflict, “I don’t know that they’re gonna be able to hold out,” Trump said. “But it’ll get settled after the elections. Or maybe sooner. But it’ll get settled right after the election.” The reference to it’ll “get settled” could have ominous meaning. It suggests Trump could ether escalate against Tehran dramatically, or else there could be the opposite: de-escalation. The world will find out within a couple months.

Read more …

“Trump Says If Iran Had a Nuclear Weapon, He Would Have Politely Called the Supreme Leader Instead of ‘Bombing the Crap Out of Him’”

Bomb bomb bomb;

bomb bomb Iran

• Trump Says He Wouldn’t Have Bombed Nuke-Armed Iran (Antiwar)

President Trump said at the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday night that if Iran had a nuclear weapon, he would have politely called up the Supreme Leader instead of “bombing the crap” out of the country.


“If they had a nuclear weapon, I’d be calling the Supreme Leader, and I’d be saying, ‘Mr. Supreme Leader, how are you, sir? Is there anything we can do for you?’ as opposed to bombing the crap out of him.” Trump said, evoking cheers from the crowd. “It’s very simple. We cannot let them have a nuclear weapon,” the president added.


While Trump has continued to frame his war with Iran as necessary to prevent the country from obtaining nuclear weapons, there was no evidence either before the June 2025 war or the current conflict that Tehran had decided to pursue a bomb, and that was the consensus of US intelligence agencies at the beginning of Trump’s second term.

“We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so,” read the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s annual threat assessment that was published in March 2025 and represented the assessment of the entire US intelligence community. Trump also spent the months following the June 2025 war, known as the 12-Day War, boasting that the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities had “obliterated” its nuclear program.

During negotiations with the US before both wars, Iran made clear it was willing to reduce uranium enrichment back down to 3.67%, the level it agreed to under the 2015 nuclear deal, far below the 90% needed for weapons-grade. But as Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center who resigned due to opposition to the Iran war, has pointed out, the administration adopted the Israeli position, conflating any nuclear enrichment for civilian energy purposes with a desire for a nuclear bomb.

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“Are you guys ready? Okay. Let’s roll.”

• Flight 93 Hero’s Dad Warns of Threats From Within (Tim O’Brien)

If you dig into the history of 9/11, inevitably one of the names that will rise to the surface pretty quickly is Todd Beamer. He was a passenger aboard ill-fated United Flight 93, which on that day crashed into an empty field in Shanksville, Pa. His story has been well-documented and told in print, on the web, in documentaries, and even in dramatic movies. He’s the one who said those famous words, “Let’s roll,” just prior to the passengers’ attempt to take back the aircraft from those radical Islamic hijackers.


To appreciate those words, it’s worth being reminded of the context. On Sept. 11, 2001, Beamer was a 32-year-old account manager who worked for the big tech company Oracle. He was also a Sunday school teacher and the father of two boys. His wife Lisa was pregnant with their third child. His United flight left late that day, departing Newark at 8:42 a.m. At about 9:28 a.m., four al-Qaeda hijackers stormed the plane’s cockpit somewhere over Ohio. They either killed or incapacitated the pilots and then took control.

They herded everyone else into the back of the plane. They lied and said they had a bomb, when all they really had were box cutters. Thanks to the plane’s late departure, the passengers had the chance to use onboard Airfones and cell phones to call loved ones and emergency dispatchers. That’s how they found out that other planes were being hijacked and that this was likely a suicide mission for the hijackers.

Beamer used an Airfone to place a call and ended up talking to GTE Airfone supervisor Lisa Jefferson. They talked for 13 minutes, while he told her in detail what was happening. He told her of the knives, the possible suicide vest on one hijacker, and that at least one passenger was already killed. He told Jefferson that he and a few other passengers had a plan to take back the plane. Those individuals were Tom Burnett, Jeremy Glick, and Mark Bingham. Beamer told Jefferson that they decided this plane would not hit its intended target.

In a very real and true moment that is now the stuff of 9/11 lore, Beamer asked Jefferson to pray with him. The two recited the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23, which starts with, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” He told Jefferson to deliver a message to his wife and family that, if he did not survive, he wanted them to know he loved them. Jefferson has said that his last words on that call were clear and unmistakable. She heard him ask the passengers around him, “Are you guys ready? Okay. Let’s roll.”

Immediately after that, the passengers reportedly rushed the hijackers and tried to take back the plane, which then nosedived into that field in Somerset County at 10:03 a.m.


If you watched that clip, I’ll give you a moment to collect yourself. Yes, the events of 9/11 happened 25 years ago, and yes, 25 years ago was just yesterday, because the realness of what these people did on that day lives with us to this very moment. If you’re paying attention, none of this has faded. Too many have forgotten because they’ve distanced themselves from the event with time, with their own hectic lives, and a lack of curiosity. But any time you’re confronted with the events of that day, large and small, it will come rushing back.

Todd Beamer was a credit to his parents and to his upbringing. Someone you may not be familiar with is Beamer’s father, David. The Beamer family seems to have tried to maintain a low profile since 9/11, not hiding from the media, but seeking privacy when possible. This makes it highly unusual on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 that we’d be hearing from that Flight 93 hero’s dad, who, for clarity, I will refer to as David. He recently participated in a rare interview with Fox News.

He’s a Michigan voter, and he has serious concerns with the state of American politics right now, specifically the Senate race in Michigan, which pits former congressman and military veteran Mike Rogers against Abdul El-Sayed, an Islamic socialist. David Beamer believes that El-Sayed and his allies pose an existential threat to America. He told Fox News that voting in November will be akin to what his own son did to defend this country. He pointed to El-Sayed’s radical beliefs, which are better reflected in his BFF Hasan Piker’s words than his own. Piker famously said, “America deserved 9/11.”

David said, “These Democratic socialists are really more closely aligned with domestic terrorists than with our way of life.” He added, “I’m [going to] vote against those that want to destroy America. I’m [going to] vote for an American, a real Michigan man. His name happens to be Mike Rogers. I want everybody across all the platforms, Democrat, independent, Republican, vote American this time. Don’t vote for those who are set about to destroy our [freedoms].”

Some on the left have criticized David for what they’re framing as a father sullying the memory of his son by getting political. These hypocrites say this as they politicize everything they touch. Then David went where any intelligent leftist feared he would go. He drew parallels between the 9/11 radical Islamic attacks and this election season. He warned that just as America was unprepared for 9/11, it may be unprepared for what a socialist takeover of our government would look like this November. He said Americans can’t afford to be caught by surprise.

David made the point that today’s threats to America don’t come from some foreign country in every case, but rather, more and more of them come from within – within our borders and within our own political system and government. “Our enemies haven’t gone away,” David told Fox News. “They identify themselves as Democratic socialists. Their platform is one that aims to destroy all the values and the foundations of this country that we’ve enjoyed for hundreds of years.”

He punctuated his comments by reminding the cable news network’s audience that he plans to vote against the Islamic socialist and his allies. And he called on everyone who cares about America, just as his son Todd did on 9/11, to get out and vote.

David is correct in that this threat to America can be pushed back in the most non-violent of ways. You have a vote, and so do all the people around you. Make sure that everyone you know and care about, and who care about the future of America as we know it, get out and vote this November.

Let’s roll.

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Got to do some 9/11.

• 9/11 After a Quarter of a Century (Paul Craig Roberts)

The shock of September 11, 2001, was so great that, despite some initial skepticism, it was four or five years afterward that professional and scientific independent investigators presented evidence that the official narrative had serious problems. Over the years as the evidential problems for the official narratives grew in number and magnitude, I reported the findings. On many anniversaries of the event, I reminded readers that there was more evidence against the official narrative than there was evidence for it. I am not going to repeat all of this information today, as it would be book length. Instead, I am going to show you a different way to think about what is in some ways a defining event.


Before we begin, keep in mind that as early as 2006–long before evidence began accumulating that the official narrative was a lie–a Zogby Poll found that 42% of Americans believed the government concealed and refused to investigate important evidence. How could they believe otherwise with New York’s Chief Fire Marshall protesting that in violation of law the forensic evidence contained in the debris of the Twin Towers and Building 7 was carried away and shipped out of the country before it could be investigated?

How could they believe otherwise when the Cheney/Bush/Zionist Neoconservative administration refused for one year to even convene, not an investigation, but a politically selected committee to ratify the official narrative, especially when afterward the co-chairman of the committee and chief legal counsel wrote books saying the committee was set up to fail, that information was withheld from the committee and that the committee had considered criminal referrals?

Of course, the whore American media reported all doubts as conspiracy theory. Any skeptic of the official narrative was a “conspiracy theorist,” as an AI check using the official narrative as the data base will tell you today. If memory serves–I am not going to go back and read my years of columns and search my archives for the documents as my memory is problem-free–the first professional assault on the official 9/11 narrative was by a professor of physics at Brigham Young University. Being a physics professor, he understood force. He knew that the Twin Towers had been built according to code to withstand airliner hits.

He knew that the effect of an airliner hitting a massive structure of steel and concrete would be the disintegration of the airliner, not the disintegration of the building, just as the airliner that allegedly hit the Pentagon, a structure not built to withstand an airliner strike, disintegrated without a trace with little damage to the building. The official narrative did not explain why the airliner that allegedly hit the Pentagon disappeared into dust, but the airliner hits on the twin towers caused the massive buildings to disintegrate into dust.

The physics professor’s name was Steven E. Jones. He obtained dust from the twin towers, which existed in abundance. Being a scientist, he knew evidence was in the dust. He examined and tested the dust and found unequivocal evidence that the dust contained both reacted and unreacted nano-thermite, the substance used in controlled demolitions. In September 2006 a federally intimidated BYU administration placed Professor Jones, a tenured professor, on paid leave to investigate his controversial public claims. Think for a moment.

When have you ever heard of a professionally qualified professor placed on leave and investigated for reporting a finding? In my opinion based on my Washington and university experience, the BYU administration was told by the George W. Bush regime to shut down Professor Jones or lose federal funding. Professor Jones, if memory serves, realized that his career was over and was paid $850,000 to resign. Jones’ removal served as an indication of what the fate would be for any physicist who took exception to the official narrative.

Ask yourselves, why would a physics professor destroy his career by concocting a false report, indeed, a report that to this day has not been shown to be incorrect. Why would a mistake, if it was, be a suspension worthy of an investigation? Clearly the corrupt George W. Bush Zionist regime intended the shutdown of a truth-teller.

In 2009 Jones together with University of Copenhagen scientist Niels Harrit and other scientists again proved the presence of nano-thermite (“Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe,” Open Chemical Physics Journal, April 2009).

American science depends heavily on federal funding, and this was too hot for dependent scientists. In my opinion no physicist anywhere in the world is stupid enough to believe the official 9/11 story. What they do know is that to challenge it is a career-ending event as it was for Professor Jones. Therefore, with mortgages, car payments, children to educate they don’t jeopardize their career and family by endorsing studies that contradict the official narrative. The despicable Wikipedia still labels all factual findings by scientists “conspiracy theory.”

In 2006 architect Richard Gage realized five years after the event that the official narrative had serious problems. He organized the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Enormous information poured out that the official 9/11 narrative was impossible. The NIST fabricated explanation for Building 7 was discredited by a high school physics professor, who showed that the building collapsed at free fall acceleration, which can only be achieved by controlled demolition. The NIST fabrication was discredited again by structural and forensic engineers at the University of Alaska, apparently the only university in America willing to risk federal funding for the truth.

Washington and its whore media labeled the facts a “conspiracy theory” but failed to discredit the independent reports. If it were a conspiracy theory, the establishment would have supported an investigation, as that would have proven that it was a conspiracy theory. Instead the regime worked to prevent and to discredit investigation. The facts were the official narrative. Anything else was a conspiracy theory. The American whore media went along with the fiction.

Structurel architects and high rise engineers face the same problem as professors of physics. If they say what they know, they loose clients. Washington and the whore media have been very successful in turning expressions of truth into anti-Americanism. If you don’t go along with official narratives you are not only a tin hat conspiracy theorist, you are also an anti-American on the side of “Muslim terrorists,” and you lose your clients.

Today anyone who believes the official story of 9/11 is brainwashed. The stupidity of a large percentage of the American population serves to suppress truth. Washington has learned that a story that implants fear in the feeble-minded American population is a success.

We can expect more such instances.

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Not really… Nukes neutralize the ideas.

“The real architect of World War III isn’t Putin. It’s Xi Jinping—and Russia’s war in Ukraine may be giving Beijing exactly what it needs.”

• We Are in World War Xi (AmG)

As the Russo-Ukrainian war continues, Americans may blame Russian leader Vladimir Putin for starting “World War III.” It is correct that World War III has started, but its cause is the People’s Republic of China (PRC), not Russia.


The war did not start with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 or with the appeasement of Russia in the years before Putin’s foolish aggression. It started with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP has been at war with the U.S. since coming to power in 1949 and has employed many fronts in this war to undermine America and the West. The CCP’s May 2019 declaration of “People’s War” against the U.S. was CCP leader Xi Jinping’s call for a maximal effort against America. Not coincidentally, the COVID-19 outbreak soon followed. The CCP lied about COVID’s origins, refused to share information with the world, and used Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), as its willing accomplice.

Another front is CCP election interference. President Trump has revealed the CCP’s interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election in an effort to secure President Joe Biden’s victory. Biden’s open borders allowed many hundreds of thousands of military-age Chinese men into the United States—prepositioning a force to strike against the American people in their homeland. The sustained chemical warfare attack that is fentanyl is another avenue of attack, destroying American lives and families. The CCP’s success at buying American and European politicians and journalists to serve as its agents of influence is yet another, as is TikTok.

Putin is not the source of World War III. Putin is, in the scheme of World War III, a secondary player. It is Xi who is driving World War III. It seems that the common denominator for every manifestation of this global crisis, whether overt or covert, foreign or domestic, is that Xi Jinping and his CCP have either inspired or enabled them—or at least, stand to be the principal beneficiaries. Consequently, while some call this World War III, one might consider a more apt name to be “World War Xi.”

It was Xi who gave the green light to Putin to invade Ukraine when they met in early February 2022. Xi and Putin have met over 11 times since then, most recently in Bishkek, and on each occasion, Xi has evinced strong, public support for Putin’s war. While the Russo-Ukrainian war is not yet resolved—it has lasted longer than World War I—it already has a clear winner: the PRC. The PRC provides great assistance to Russia—diplomatic, economic, and “dual-use” military aid—all of which is important to sustain Russia’s war. Beijing is receiving a prodigious return that is helping Xi win World War III.

First, by sustaining the war, the PRC occupies the U.S. and so diverts attention from its aggressive acts and preparations for war over Taiwan, which might include attacks against the U.S. itself. The U.S. intelligence community and military have only so much bandwidth, and the conflicts in Iran, Ukraine, and elsewhere in the Middle East are filling it. In addition, U.S. stockpiles are drained by the conflict in Iran and aid to Ukraine, including Patriot, ATACMS, and other missiles, and 155mm artillery rounds, all of which reduce the ability of the U.S. military to fight a high-intensity war with the PRC. In turn, a reduced U.S. arsenal hurts U.S. conventional deterrence in key theaters, like the western Pacific and Taiwan.

Second, the war cements Putin’s dependence on the PRC. Putin is Xi’s myrmidon, the supplicant in the relationship. Truly, Putin is Xi’s useful idiot. Xi drafted Putin to serve in his anti-Western alliance, which costs Putin his autonomy. Xi’s ultimate ambition is to overthrow U.S. power and position in the world and shackle the world to the PRC’s tyrannical ambitions. Putin’s interest would have been better served by emerging as the tertius gaudens of the conflict between the U.S. and the PRC. Now that he has tied Russia’s interests to the PRC, he will walk the path Xi requires of him.

That requires Russia to accept diminished influence when Russia’s interests conflict with the PRC, such as in Central Asia, and to serve as an instrument of distraction for the U.S. and its NATO allies while China expands its military power and strategic ambitions. Putin must fear that once he has served his usefulness, Xi may overthrow him. Third, Putin also serves as a lightning rod, attracting the world’s animus and attention for his acts while Xi’s genocide in Xinjiang remains too often unremarked and in the background. The PRC’s preparations for war against Taiwan and its increasingly coercive measures against the Philippines also do not receive the attention they deserve.

Fourth, as a result of the Ukraine war, Xi has secured his northern flank. Russian conventional and nuclear military power is now a tool to be employed in conjunction with or apart from the PRC’s military—but to serve Beijing’s interests. The U.S. has a “multiple front” war problem with which it must contend.

Moreover, Xi has secured his western flank in Central Asia. The Central Asian states perceive Russia as a threat due to the invasion of Ukraine and see Moscow as the junior partner in the Sino-Russian relationship. For Xi, this is a remarkable occurrence at the same time that China is committing genocide against Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang or East Turkistan. The PRC’s western flank is as secure as it has been in recent years. With two flanks secure and Xi’s ability to project power expanding, it is no surprise that Xi is aggressing on the PRC’s southern and eastern flanks.

The bottom line is that the Russo-Ukrainian war greatly benefits the PRC. As the PRC gains in military might, this hurts the ability of the U.S. to defend its national security interests elsewhere, including in the western Pacific. In turn, this weakens the ability of the U.S. to deter aggression against Taiwan, the Philippines, and other states, as well as the ability to fight a war with the PRC, should deterrence fail. The costs of the Russo-Ukrainian war are high in every respect. While Moscow may eke out a Pyrrhic victory, the true winner of the war is Beijing. The war continues because Xi wants it to, and his aid allows Putin to pursue his folly. =

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“He lauded Israel “as America’s most critical frontline ally in fighting the toxic ideology of Islamism..”

• RFK Tells the Brutal Truth About Islam on Eve of 9/11 Anniversary (Salgado)

Islam is in an existential war with Judeo-Christian civilization, Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warned Americans on the eve of the 9/11 terrorist attack anniversary.


America stands for liberty, equality, freedom of religion, Biblical morality, civil rights, and meritocracy. Islam stands for theocratic tyranny, religiously motivated genocide, sexual perversion, slavery, and violence. Inevitably, there is a struggle between the two ideologies for global dominance. And there are countless Muslims both in the United States and around the world who want to see a second 9/11 — Democrat campaign surrogate Hasan Piker practically said as much. Kennedy’s warning at the Republican midterm convention is particularly timely as this September 11 is the 25th anniversary of the infamous al-Qaeda attacks.

“RFK Jr. isn’t hiding behind politically correct terms and he’s calling out Islam for what it is. A radical ideology waging war on America. And Democrats no longer care. Communists are merging with Islamists. The unholy alliance is anti-American and anti-West. No more pretending.::— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) September 11, 2026

I cannot agree with Kennedy that the Democrat Party used to be honorable and patriotic, because the leadership of the party has always been anti-constitutional, racist, elitist, and pro-violence. But I do applaud Kennedy for being willing to state the truth about Islam, even if he did so in a mistaken context of attributing his own views to previous Democrat politicians.

Kennedy condemned purveyors of “human slavery and of ethnic religious genocide.” He lauded Israel “as America’s most critical frontline ally in fighting the toxic ideology of Islamism, which, by its own account, is waging an existential war against our country and against Western liberal democracy. It is an ideology that has subjugated, impoverished, and tyrannized, and tortured the people of Palestine,” apparently meaning Gaza, because “Palestine” does not exist as a nation or political jurisdiction, “and [tortured] the people of Iran.”

Furthermore, Kennedy cautioned, fundamentalist Muslims “openly promise to do the same to us.”Indeed, in the same city where the Twin Towers collapsed due to al-Qaeda hijackers on 9/11, a Muslim who prays for the death of the infidels is now the mayor. “NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Attends Friday Prayers at Al Khoei Islamic Center in Queens – Linked to Alavi Foundation Cited by the DOJ as an Iranian Front; Imam Prays for the Mahdi to Kill the Infidels by His Sword https://t.co/xrRsIpalcH”— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) February 23, 2026

It’s very important, as too many Republicans fall prey to antisemitic propaganda, to note that Kennedy praised Israel and highlighted the plight of the people of Iran, who are longing for freedom. The Persians who have fought their Islamic regime and watched their family members killed this year would fully agree with Kennedy’s assessment and his warning. The 9/11 attacks were not an anomaly; they were part of an ongoing and g lobal war.

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“The AfD is not asking Germany to choose between Washington and Beijing. It is asking Germany to choose itself..”

• What the AfD Really Wants From China (Zemánek)

For decades, German foreign policy rested on a simple assumption: Germany belonged politically to the West, and its relations with the rest of the world would be conducted largely within that framework. The AfD is challenging that assumption. ts approach to China is one of the clearest tells. Beijing is not treated as an ideological enemy, but neither is it embraced uncritically. Instead, China is seen as a sovereign great power, an indispensable economic partner, and one pole of an emerging multipolar world.


Germany, in the AfD’s view, should cooperate with Beijing where German interests demand it, defend itself where necessary, and refuse to turn China policy into an extension of either American strategy or European ideological politics. For Germany, and therefore for Europe, that could become a genuinely transformative foreign-policy doctrine.

From cautious engagement to strategic realism
The AfD’s 2021 foreign-policy program already described China’s Belt and Road Initiative as a “century project” and called for Germany to participate actively, including by developing complementary connections from West to East. The idea was that if China was building the infrastructure connecting Eurasia, Germany should take advantage of it and represent its interests, not stand on the sidelines and complain about it.

By 2023, the position had become more explicitly geopolitical. When the German government published its China Strategy, AfD senior member Petr Bystron attacked it as an attempt to import American geopolitical confrontation into German foreign policy.

Then came the AfD’s first parliamentary delegation to China. In June 2023, Alice Weidel, Peter Felser and Bystron travelled to Shanghai and Beijing. The delegation’s conclusion was unequivocal: China had become too important for Germany to keep pretending that confrontation was a viable strategy. Felser rejected the idea of both “de-risking” and decoupling, promoted by other EU officials, and argued that German trade with China was simply too important to sacrifice to geopolitical fashion.

The 2025 federal election program adopted at Riesa consolidated this direction. China is treated as a major economic partner, while Germany is urged to protect its own technological and security interests. The party continues to support exploiting opportunities associated with the Belt and Road Initiative while rejecting the idea that Germany should subsidize a country that is already a major economic power.

No more moral foreign policy
Perhaps the deepest difference between the AfD and Germany’s political establishment is not actually about China. It is about what foreign policy is for.mThe AfD’s approach is realpolitik in the German interest, rather than moralpolitik. It explicitly endorses non-interference in the internal affairs of other states and rejects what it calls presumptuous lecturing and destabilizing intervention.

The AfD rejects making human-rights criticism the organizing principle of German-China relations. This does not require pretending that every Chinese policy is admirable. It does, however, mean refusing to make Germany’s relationship with a major sovereign power conditional on Berlin’s approval of its domestic political system. The AfD has argued that Western governments should stop behaving as if they were entitled to act as the world’s political schoolmasters. For Beijing, this is obviously a more comfortable basis for relations than the moralized language of mainstream Western European China policy.

The AfD does not consider all Chinese policies beyond criticism. It has criticized Chinese economic practices, strategic dependencies, technology transfers and the potential consequences of excessive state control over digital infrastructure and society. The party’s position is not ‘China is always right.’ It is ‘China is sovereign. Germany is sovereign. Let us deal with one another as sovereign powers.’

Partnership without dependence
The party wants more economic engagement with China while simultaneously warning Germany against excessive dependence on China. Felser, now chairman of the German-Chinese Parliamentary Group in the Bundestag, has repeatedly emphasized both sides of the equation. In February 2026, he described China as “by no means our enemy” but an “important partner,” while insisting that Germany must protect its “Mittelstand” and establish fair conditions for competition.

In March, he criticized the enormous dependence on China in strategic technologies and raw materials, contrasting German weakness with China’s systematic drive toward technological self-sufficiency. And in July, Felser warned against a trade war with China. Importantly, he did not deny the existence of Chinese dumping, “overcapacity” or competitive distortions. His argument was that tariffs are not an adequate substitute for negotiation.

By September, Felser went further: strategic dependence on China should be reduced not through decoupling, but by making Germany stronger – with lower taxes, less bureaucracy, and cheaper energy. China is not the problem; German weakness is. Germany should not become dependent on China. But neither should it destroy valuable relationships merely to demonstrate would-be ideological purity or geopolitical loyalty to another power.

The Weidel factor
Perhaps no one embodies this approach more naturally than Alice Weidel. The AfD co-leader’s knowledge of China doesn’t come exclusively from briefing papers. She studied in China, speaks Mandarin and has professional experience there. Her familiarity with the Chinese economy is unusual among senior European politicians.

That background provides the AfD with a senior political figure who approaches China neither as an exotic threat nor as a distant ideological abstraction, but as a country she has actually experienced – a rare trait in modern Western European politicians.

For a future German government, that kind of familiarity could be an asset, because China is not going away, and neither is Germany’s industrial dependence on the Chinese market. Pretending otherwise will not make the problem disappear.

[..] The stakes are larger than the AfD itself. Germany is the economic center of the European Union. If Berlin changes its understanding of China, the consequences will not stop at the German border.

A Germany that pursued pragmatic relations with Beijing, Moscow and Washington simultaneously would challenge the strategic assumptions that have governed Europe for decades.

A Germany that rejected automatic economic decoupling from China could force Europe to reconsider whether confrontation is really in its economic interest.

A Germany that put national sovereignty and multipolarity at the center of its foreign policy could fundamentally alter the balance between Berlin, Brussels and Washington.

The AfD’s policy is not about choosing China over America. It is about rejecting the idea that Germany must choose at all. It’s not a timid or ambiguous stance – on the contrary, it is unapologetically national, realist and multipolar.

And if the AfD eventually governs Germany, it may prove to be one of the most consequential political changes Europe has experienced in generations. A sovereign Germany engaging China on its own terms could be the beginning of a Europe that finally understands the world as it is – not as the liberal utopians once wished it to remain.

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EU demands that.

• EU Urges Kiev To Mobilize Women – Moscow (RT)

Brussels believes the move is needed to address the Ukrainian military’s severe manpower shortage, according to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service Brussels is encouraging Kiev to start mobilizing women amid chronic manpower shortages and has demanded that Ukraine immediately make “a political decision” on the matter, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has said.


Kiev launched its mobilization campaign soon after the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022. Amid mounting frontline losses and desertions, the mobilization drive has grown increasingly violent. Recruitment officers have repeatedly been filmed chasing, beating, and forcibly detaining reluctant conscripts before bundling them into vehicles in what in Ukraine has become known as “basification.”

EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, described the idea of expanding the campaign to include women as “a step in the right direction” at a recent informal EU foreign ministers’ meeting, the SVR said on Thursday, citing information it had obtained. She allegedly warned that Kiev could soon run out of manpower due to a growing shortage of men fit for military service and said that Ukraine should use Israel as a “model to follow.”

The mobilization of women has long been a subject of debate in Ukraine. MP Mariana Bezuglaya argued as early as 2024 that it was time Kiev started targeting women to meet its conscription quota. Last year, the Ukrainian presidential administration’s deputy head, Brigadier General Pavel Palisa, also voiced support for mandatory conscription of women. According to the SVR, Brussels demanded that Kiev immediately “move from words to action” and make a formal decision to start mobilizing women. Under current Ukrainian law, men aged 25 to 60 are subject to mobilization, while those aged 23 to 60 are generally barred from leaving the country. Women can serve voluntarily.

Kiev’s brutal mobilization campaign has encountered large-scale draft-dodging and desertion. According to Euronews, around 1.15 million fighting-age Ukrainian men had ended up in the EU as of summer 2026, despite the ban on travelling abroad. According to the SVR, up to 5.6 million Ukrainians are currently residing in various European nations, with women accounting for 43.4% of them. Many men have proven ready to risk their lives to flee the country illegally through forests, rivers, and mountainous terrain.

In February, the head of the Ukrainian border agency, Andrey Demchenko, reported that over 70 apparent draft dodgers had died since 2022, most while trying to cross the Tisza River along Ukraine’s border with Hungary and Romania. Brussels has reportedly urged EU governments to devise legal mechanisms for sending back Ukrainian refugees residing in the bloc, the Russian intelligence service said, adding that the European Commission sees them as a reason behind the “rise of far-right sentiment” in countries such as Germany or Poland.

Some Western officials have also voiced support for the mobilization of Ukrainian women. Last year, former British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said that Vladimir Zelensky should have launched a truly mass mobilization and conscripted all men and women, without sparing the younger generation. “Zelensky took a view that he was going to preserve the 18 to 28-year-olds, so it’s not a mass conscription,” Wallace said at the time, adding that the Ukrainian leader should have mobilized everyone and “asked Europe to train them because that is not a hard ask.”

Ben Hodges, a former top commander of US forces in Europe, argued earlier that Kiev should consider both drafting women and lowering the mobilization age to 18. “I also think that there is enough work for women in the army,” he stated.Moscow has repeatedly slammed Ukraine’s NATO backers as pushing the nation into a war “to the last Ukrainian,” describing the conflict as a Western proxy war against Russia fought through Ukraine.

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“It’s astonishing that anything exists.” — Ludwig Wittgenstein

• Light and Dark (James Howard Kunstler)


Joe DiGenova
Is this a week to drain our souls, or what? Yesterday, the memory of Charlie Kirk, a decent young man known for acting nobly in an ignoble era, cut down (it is alleged in court) by a pathetic product of Woke cultism — the trans avenging angel, avatar of our national mental illness. And today, the memory of 9/11, for which no alt-theory or engineering lecture can obviate the lonely arc of those little bodies free-falling out of the flaming towers into nothingness.


So, we move on because there is nothing else you can do, really. . . sad, furious, or what. . . and then do what you can to fix this joint. If this was a house in a storm, you’d be hearing the joists groan and the rafters squeak as they torque out of true, like just before the whole shootin’ match goes down. Meanwhile, news is out that Joe DiGenova, the former DC federal attorney supervising the grand jury action in Florida concerning RussiaGate and associated treasons, is out. He said he “resigned.” That’s usually a cover. Somebody gave him the boot, and it was either Todd Blanche or President Trump. Cuz, why? I suppose we’ll find out.

Trollish insinuations are flying in the usual channels that he couldn’t get enough evidence to bring any proper cases, but I don’t believe that for a horse-face Hochul’s New York minute, nor that Mr. DiGenova actually said anything like that. Anyway, at least twenty million civilians ‘out there’ have been following this constitutional death dance closely for years. We know the names, the acts, the memos, the emails, the money trails, the dots and the receipts by heart. Many can even recite long legal memoranda on the likes of John Brennan, Adam Schiff, Jim Comey, Hillary, Strzok, Page, blah blah, dates, times, document numbers.

Joe DiGenova is old, others say. Not a good organizer, turns out. . . not a good team leader. . . things like that. Well, maybe his force of personality or renowned avidity to correct epic insults to the nation concealed all that. Anyway, he was brought in to replace a federal attorney name of Maria Medetis Long, and I bet none of you even know her name. She was on the case down there in Florida during Pam Bondi’s unfortunate commission, too blah even to go down in infamy. To the casual observer, the whole wicked business begins to look like a Chinese fire drill.

Or possibly a circle-jerk. And, of course, everybody is wondering: what’s the blast radius on this one? Can the DOJ’s Southern District of Florida recover some kind of equipoise and carry on and usher this pretty large troupe of scoundrels into courts of law? Or is folding like a Broadway tryout in New Haven? Does it now all get sucked into some vortex of lost causes? And wouldn’t that be demoralizing?

My guess: these acts against the country and its people are too grave, too important, to just go away, and won’t go away. What the diGenova fumble seems to point to is that persons and parties behind that treason — and you might suppose I’m thinking: the Intel (so-called) “community” and its many-footed ancillaries — are both desperate and powerful enough to try to derail the process. Just imagine how many retired Intel rogues are out there after seventy-plus years of, say, the CIA alone. Must be a lot of them, imcluding the fifty-one ex-Intel bigshots who signed the Hunter Biden laptop public letter in 2020 to queer the election.

You’ve got to wonder whether the agency that John Ratcliffe is supposedly in charge of has an equally large shadow org of these people, perhaps operating under the likes of one ex-CIA honcho John Brennan. And then you have to wonder what machinery of government they’ve still got their mitts on? Or maybe they just put the word out that pursuing any just resolution of the traitorous trips laid on America by them could be bad for anyone’s health. In any case, I don’t hesitate to point out that the legions of ex-spooks and their bag-men all have names and records and. . . well. . . apply a little Anthropic hocus-pocus. . . we’ll know where you live and what you had for breakfast before the ten a.m. break.

What I’m getting at — and I regret even having to affect coyness — is that the departure of Joe diGenova could signify some Battle of the Titans, a civil war not on the ground between plain citizens too bamboozled by sexual hysteria to put up a fight, but between the general officer ranks of two opposing elite dominions, the legitimate and the shadow, the light and the dark.

The action won’t stay backstage for long. Barbarians really are at the gate, and that gate is the midterm election. America has gone so crazy that it doesn’t seem to even recognize how crazy many of the candidates for high office are. The shadow dominion appears to be behind them, too: Telarico, el-Sayed, Peggy Flanagan, Becerra, Hochul. . . Lord have mercy! These are not just not-normal people. They are outright sickies, working hard to wreck the country.

Well, Labor Day is gone and the blandishments of summer with it. Time to stop sulking. All hands on deck. The bell has rung.

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I haven’t paid any attention to the Lindsay Clancy thing, but here it is.

• The Secret to “Sleeping Well” (Turley)

I was surprised to hear on a flight this week that Lindsay Clancy’s defense counsel, Kevin Reddington, had unleashed a torrent of criticism of my commentary on the trial. In the interview with Fox News reporter Bryan Llenas, Reddington even suggested that we meet and debate these issues. I wanted to briefly respond to Reddington’s criticisms.


I actually praised Reddington’s handling through the end of the trial, until I felt he blew the summation to the jury. I was also critical of his motions to substitute a holdout juror with an alternate as running against the overwhelming authority in the area. However, what triggered Reddington was not my commentary on his trial performance, but what he did outside of the courthouse when he attacked the holdout juror. It was a repugnant and unprofessional venting by counsel who should be reaffirming the right of every juror to stand with their convictions against not just the other jurors but the world.

Reddington responded to my characterization of his conduct in front of the courthouse as “reprehensible” by calling my criticism reprehensible and adding, “maybe Jonathan Turley should check out the record before he makes his accusations.”

The “record” supporting this criticism is, in fact, his self-aggrandizing performance outside of the courthouse when he first said that the hung jury was “no time to gloat” and then gloated about how he “crushed” the prosecution in securing an 11-1 result. Yet, my objection was not to chest-thumping. It was a tad ungracious but unfortunately not entirely uncommon. Rather, it was the targeting of the holdout that left me floored as a fellow criminal defense lawyer.

Reddington had previously lit up the courtroom (which was being aired nationally) with his attacks on the juror. Reddington only knew that the other jurors were unhappy with the juror and said that he refused to follow the law. That is a common complaint against a holdout juror. This case turned on the credibility of the defendant and almost visceral reactions to a case where three innocent children were strangled by their mother, who planned the killings by sending her husband on errands.

I was mildly critical of the courtroom attacks, but I give leeway to a defense counsel who is fighting zealously for his client in seeking an acquittal. It was taking that rage outside the courthouse that crossed the line for me. Reddington slammed into the juror who was already identified as one of just three males on the jury. He knew the juror’s name would likely be disclosed in time, given the anger over the trial’s outcome.

We clearly disagree on what lawyers are expected to do in high-profile cases. This is not what I teach my students about the professional standards that govern our conduct as officers of the court. Most of those expectations are not directly enforced by bar or court proceedings. Rather, much of what we do is the result of self-regulation; seeking to reinforce the noble ideals of our profession.

Instead of reminding people that our system is based on this core belief in the right of any citizen to stand alone against the majority, Reddington shredded the juror as presumptively anti-disability and akin to a racist on the jury. In front of the cameras, he declared, “I hope that guy can sleep well at night.”

Reddington knew that he was playing to the mob. District Attorney Tim Cruz had just been heckled on the steps by women who protested throughout the trial in favor of acquittal of Clancy, with one yelling how Cruz “only cares about the three children. What about the Mom?”

Frankly, in the aftermath of the trial, the two things that surprised me most were not the verdict, but the absence of an immediate apology from Reddington for his gratuitous attack on this juror and the failure of Judge William Sullivan to publicly rebuke him for his comments.

While our disagreement focuses on the attack on the juror, Reddington returned to his claim that what this juror did was itself unethical and contemptible. This juror was not convinced by his arguments, but Reddington suggests that no reasonable juror could have reached such a view despite many in this country who saw his client as a troubled murderer, but a murderer nonetheless.

There was a good-faith basis for taking that view even if most people would likely see Clancy as not responsible by reason of insanity. The standard is not whether Clancy was medically ill. She was clearly a deeply disturbed individual who failed to receive adequate mental health treatment. However, you can be suicidal and mentally ill and still appreciate the gravity of your actions.

The defense position was not unassailable. The long list of medications ignored the fact that only a couple of those prescriptions would likely contribute to psychosis and it was not clear how many pills Clancy actually took. She also had a fairly unusual case of postpartum psychosis in terms of the passage of time and said that she first heard a commanding male voice for the first time just before she killed her children.

Most importantly, Clancy took steps that showed planning and control of her actions, including researching how long it would take her misdirected husband to return. She spoke with him on the telephone while she was carrying out the plan and kept him in the dark about her intent to kill their children.

Would that erase reasonable doubt in the minds of most jurors? Probably not. As I stated before the trial, the chances of getting a unanimous verdict in this type of case are slim. This is a visceral case, which is why I was not surprised that the jury asked only to see a couple of pieces of evidence. The views of most people were baked into this trial before it began, and frankly, that may have been true for some of the jurors.

Reddington has every reason to exploit those feelings and play to doubts among the jurors. What he did not have license to do was target and ostracize the one holdout juror. Rather than taking the high ground, he immediately ran for the lowest common denominator among a nation of rage addicts.

Yes, that is indeed reprehensible. To paraphrase Mr. Reddington, it is the type of thing that would keep most of us up at night.

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An age thing?

• To Hell with the Digital Revolution & Its Bastard Child AI (Paul Craig Roberts)

It has been pointed out that human interaction has been replaced by an app, a code, a portal that a large percentage of the population finds frustrating and inconvenient, especially for older people who did not grow up with the isolating and often difficult to use technology. The people who crammed this technology down our throats in order that they could make more money praise the “innovation.” But in fact it is a technology that isolates people and takes control away from them.


And brings failure. Not a week passes, and sometimes not a day, that I don’t experience the time-consuming failure of the digital systems to work. Why they fail so often I don’t know. Perhaps they are poorly thought out and will improve with time. Perhaps the instability in digital systems is due to the insecurity of the Internet, which requires more and more layers of security hoops to jump through in order to make a connection. One result is security system incompatibilities that result in dysfunction. Perhaps use is rising faster than the systems can accommodate.

I think the only reason there has not been a generalized breakdown is that there are some elements left of the analogue system that, with effort, can still be contacted to bypass or correct the dysfunctioning digital system. I just had another bad experience with “smart” people-free systems. I received an email telling me to confirm and do an early checkin online for an upcoming medical telephone appointment. Now you can do an annual checkup without having to see a doctor. I began the process and immediately encountered a problem. I was asked to confirm my telephone number. It was incorrect from three years ago.

I entered the correct number, and the red box appeared: “This is not the number we have on file. Please enter a correct number.” I had entered the correct number as requested in the update, but as far as the AI system was concerned the correct number was the old number. I puzzled why an old number was in the system as I have twice been in person in the office providing all the latest information and have even had telephone calls from the medical practice on the new number that AI tells me is not on file.

So I picked up my cell phone, which sometimes works, and called. I only had to wait 3 minutes for a human instead of being subjected to a callback within 48-hours, and in 2 more minutes the human had fixed the problem. I wondered how much the medical practice had paid for a digital system that did not work and was probably causing its patients stress-induced heart attacks.

I am convinced that the digital revolution and the AI it spawned will fail, because it will be overwhelmed by complexity. Moreover, once the quantum computers are up and running there will be no such thing as security. So bright boys will have institutionalized an insecure and dysfunctional system, a system whose achievement will have been to further dehumanize an already dehumanized society and impose massive costs for resurrecting the foolishly discarded analogue system which worked and did not dehumanize us.

When the digital system fails, who will there be with the skills and intelligence to rebuild the analogue system that worked? Will there even be a workforce available? The products of AI education are not capable of operating in an analogue system that relies on human ability. AI will have raised generations of illiterates who cannot read, write, do math and who have never learned to think. In the 1950s Mad comic book parodied our present time. AI operated everything, and one day the machine broke and no one knew how to fix it. Amazing that a comic book editor three-quarters of a century ago had more sense than the multi-billionaire architects of AI today.

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Why so much worse there?

• More Than 62,000 Arrested For Speech-Related Offenses In Britain (AmG)

More than 62,000 people were arrested in Britain for communications offenses over a five-year period, according to a new civil liberties report warning that the country’s increasingly broad speech restrictions are having a chilling effect on free expression. Big Brother Watch found that 62,199 people were arrested between 2021 and 2025, amounting to roughly 34 arrests per day. At least 18,500 people were charged and 12,292 were convicted, according to the organization.


The findings were based on Freedom of Information requests to police forces across the United Kingdom. Big Brother Watch said the actual number of arrests could be higher because some forces did not provide complete data. The report examined enforcement of communications laws that can cover threatening or grossly offensive messages and other online content. Big Brother Watch argues that broadly written statutes have resulted in people being investigated or arrested over controversial social media posts, jokes and other forms of expression.

The group also found stark geographical differences in enforcement. Cumbria Constabulary recorded about 25.7 arrests per 10,000 residents over five years, compared with just 1.9 in neighboring Northumbria.Big Brother Watch described the disparity as a “postcode lottery” that raises concerns about whether speech laws are being enforced consistently. The report follows growing scrutiny of Britain’s Online Safety Act, which imposes extensive content and child-safety requirements on internet platforms. Big Brother Watch says the law has encouraged platforms to restrict lawful material and require age verification for some online content.

Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, called for an independent review of Britain’s speech laws and police practices. “Thousands of people are being arrested for controversial speech, online jokes and non-violent protest,” Carlo said. “Enough is enough.” The organization argues the figures demonstrate that Britain’s approach to policing speech needs significant reform, particularly when arrests do not ultimately result in criminal charges. Big Brother Watch is now calling on the government to conduct a national review of laws affecting freedom of expression and to reconsider police training on speech-related offenses.

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Debt Rattle September 8 2026

Sep 082026
 
 September 8, 2026  Posted by at 10:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , ,  34 Responses »


Hokusai VIews of Mount Fuji: Ejiri in Suruga Province 1831


• USS Abraham Lincoln Returning Home After Being “Sunk” Three Times By Iran (ZH)
• AfD and the Most Dangerous Man in Germany (Charlie Martin)
• AfD’s Historic Win Shocks German Political Establishment (ZH)
• Happy Labor Day (CTH)
• Ukraine Cannot Be Settled Like A Business Deal ( Lukyanov)
• British Patriots Clash with Police as NGO Boats Arrive with Migrants (CTH)
• Democrats Have A Midterm Secret They Don’t Want Voters To See (Margolis)
• Good Faith v. Bad Faith (James Howard Kunstler)
• President Trump Lengthy Interview With U.K GB News (CTH)
• Sunday Fights: Energy Secretary Chris Wright vs CBS Margaret Brennan (CTH)
• When “Twelve Angry Men” Becomes One Angry Man (Turley)

 


 

https://twitter.com/AWills1995/status/2096628133902360658?s=20 https://twitter.com/RippleXrpie/status/2096580990772687048?s=20 https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2097053220053176816?s=20

 


 


How many other stories are being presented this way?

• USS Abraham Lincoln Returning Home After Being “Sunk” Three Times By Iran (ZH)

In yet another example of Iranian social media claims not matching up with reality, the nuclear powered Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln is returning home after a 286 day deployment and 5 days of rest at port in Thailand. The ship was untouched by any signs of combat, despite the IRGC claiming on at least three separate occasions that they had sunk the mighty vessel with drones and missile strikes.


Iranian aligned accounts even spread AI videos and video game clips of a ship sinking, arguing that the clips showed the Abraham Lincoln. Left wing commentators celebrated the news, only to scrub their posts after it was revealed that the information was fake.

Despite resounding evidence to the contrary, many conspiracy advocates asserted that the Lincoln had been hit and the US government was “covering it up.” This also turned out to be nonsense after the carrier arrived at Laem Chabang Port in Thailand for rest and cleaning.

The narrative then shifted, with people claiming that the Lincoln “looked damaged” and disheveled, which proved they were right about Iran hitting the vessel. In reality, the carrier had normal rust and residue caused by months at sea.

The posts exposed an embarrassing lack of basic knowledge when it comes to natural wear from sea water on naval ships facing long deployments.

https://twitter.com/SprinterPress/status/2095241132477460759?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2095241132477460759%7Ctwgr%5Ee579b198696ecbdcef99c7c185499aa0d8bed013%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fuss-abraham-lincoln-returning-home-after-being-sunk-three-times-iran

The ship was cleaned at port with no signs of damage from attack. It has now left Thailand on a return trip to the US and the Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado (San Diego).

The carrier and all its sailors are accounted for. The return of the USS Abraham Lincoln highlights an incessant disinformation campaign by Iran and Iran supporters, flooding social media with false claims in an effort to win the war in the theater of public opinion. On the ground, the vast majority of supposed IRGC successes have proven to be fake.

The Iran War and the war in Ukraine have become case studies for a new era of digital warfare. Substantial efforts are being made to “play the algorithms” and manipulate consensus. Iran, perhaps more than any government so far, has relied heavily on digital guerrilla tactics as a way to demoralize US operations. They have, of course, received extensive help from sources in the west.

Whether or not one agrees with the reasons behind the war, it is clear that propaganda alone is not going to lead to victory. Tangible realities matter and Iran is being hit with those tangibles in the form of an inflation crisis, import/export crisis and fuel shortage crisis and foreign ships passing more freely through the Strait of Hormuz.

The lesson here is simple: Online discourse is rarely a reflection of the truth. All one has to do is wait a few months for the fog of war to clear and the majority of false claims will melt away.

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Is Merz the Most Dangerous Man?

• AfD and the Most Dangerous Man in Germany (Charlie Martin)

Ulrich Siegmund, the head of the party in Saxony-Anhalt, himself received 49% of the vote in his district. The German political press is not happy. Der Spiegel — sort of Germany’s Time — ran a cover story on August 14 calling him “the most dangerous man in Germany.”

https://twitter.com/derspiegel/status/2087860828661797235?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2087860828661797235%7Ctwgr%5E99e09b2cc5d6391fe37f6812817fe01ea51dd91c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fcharlie-martin%2F2026%2F09%2F07%2Fafd-and-the-most-dangerous-man-in-germany-n4956970


The German press reaction was just short of panic. Tagesschau, the German news program, headlined its story “AfD heads see a clear government mandate.” Die Zeit said, “AfD wins state election in Saxony-Anhalt, but failed to win an absolute majority.” Siegmund took the seat from Thomas Staudt of the CDU (Christlich Demokratische Union). The CDU is the main center-right party — where “center-right” is a little to the left of the American Democratic Party.

Siegmund was just one race, but the CDU suffered a real electoral bloodbath. The head of the state party, Sven Schulze, lost his seat to AfD’s Christian Mertens. German voters get two votes on the same ballot: one for a person in their district and one for a party. The district winner takes that local seat; the party vote decides how many seats the party gets overall, and the remaining seats are filled from a ranked party list published before the election, so Schulze will probably still have a seat from the party list.

Overall, CDU — which had control of the state — lost 41 seats. It won 0 district seats, so it fell from 40 to 15. The CDU can only retain control of the state’s legislature if it can form a coalition with every other party that won seats. That includes a new party, the BSW (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht), which split from the left over migration and NATO/Ukraine skepticism. The FDP (Freie Demokratische Partei) — a classical liberal party, not what we call “liberal” — got no seats at all. This was a major defeat, as FDP has been part of the CDU-SPD-FDP coalition that had governed until the election.

N-tv, a private news network sort of like Germany’s CNN, had this to say: When the CDU loses a state election, it always feeds back into federal politics — especially when the CDU is the party in government. What happened in Saxony-Anhalt, though, blows past anything seen before. The CDU there was cut in half; the AfD doubled. That doesn’t just raise questions. It puts federal politics itself in doubt.

Friedrich Merz, after all, is a historically unpopular chancellor. That has to do with broken campaign promises, clumsy communication, and sloppy craftsmanship. Best example: his sparse campaign appearances in Saxony-Anhalt. Party colleagues there hid him on factory visits and carefully avoided any contact with actual people. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern recently showed what happens next: whistles and boos.

The current German government and associated NGOs are trying to formally ban the AfD. This started when the Verfassungsschutz, the domestic intelligence service, tried to classify the AfD as “confirmed right-wing extremist”, although it was blocked for the moment after the AfD sued. But several state branches — including Saxony-Anhalt — are already classified as confirmed extremist. An attempt was made in the Bundestag to examine formally banning AfD, and an NGO, the GFF (Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte), published a 1,500-page legal analysis supporting the potential ban. So far, the government hasn’t attempted to actually ban the AfD.

It’s easy to understand why Germany is suspicious of “right-wing” parties, especially after the National Socialist “Nazi” party was defined as “right wing.” But the AfD is more like the MAGA movement, and the AfD is certainly courting the link — which is naturally used by the legacy press as a smear. The curse “may you live in interesting times” should probably be translated to German.

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They hope it’s only in a small state.

• AfD’s Historic Win Shocks German Political Establishment (ZH)

The pro-Germany, anti-globalist, anti-mass migration right-wing populist party known as Alternative für Deutschland delivered its strongest election result ever in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday, dealing a sharp blow to Germany’s political establishment. On Sunday, AfD secured 43.8% of the vote in Sunday’s regional election, exceeding polling estimates. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats lost about 19 percentage points, while turnout surged to 77.8% from 60.3% in 2021.


According to Marion Mühlberger, a senior economist at Deutsche Bank, AfD’s weekend win leaves the party holding 39 seats in the 83-member legislature, three short of an absolute majority. The CDU, Social Democrats, Greens and Left also have a combined 39 seats. Mühlberger said there are two possible outcomes of what comes next: an AfD minority government tolerated by BSW, or a political stalemate that leads to a snap election, which would only give AfD a new opportunity to secure outright control.

Mühlberger explained:”At the time of writing, the two most likely options are i) an AfD minority government (supported by the BSW) or ii) a stalemate resulting in snap elections, with the AfD hoping to reach an absolute majority rather than attempting a minority government. AfD leadership for now appears undecided on their preference: while national co-leader Chrupalla last night indicated a willingness to try a minority government, AfD’s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund, already suggested a snap election as his preferred option, saying that “the AfD is not prepared to make far- reaching compromise to form a coalition.”

We believe that even an AfD (minority) government supported by the BSW would have materially detrimental ramifications for the economic prospects of Saxony-Anhalt over the coming years. Direct investment in the state would likely decline amid significant policy uncertainty, and skilled worker shortages would likely become even more pronounced. However, Saxony-Anhalt contributes less than 2% of German GDP, and any structural damage done to the regional economy is unlikely to spill over to the rest of the German economy. While an AfD state government might test some of Germany’s federal institutions, it will have no leverage over national economic or fiscal policy, not even via the constitutional court.

Over the course of today, we will see leaders of the coalition parties in Berlin officially react to their parties’ weak electoral performance. Chancellor Merz is expected to give a press statement today at 13.30 CET. There will likely be considerable political noise over the couple of weeks ahead of the state elections on 20 September in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. There may be some criticism of party leadership and reform proposals. However, once these final state elections of the year are over, we believe that an AfD government in Saxony-Anhalt is likely to provide an additional impetus for the federal government coalition to double down on reforms.”

Mühlberger said the five seats held by the populist BSW will be decisive: “Thus, the populist BSW, with its 5 seats, has a key role to play in the upcoming coalition negotiations as potential kingmakers. While the AfD missed their 45+% / absolute majority election target, they missed it so narrowly that it seems difficult for them to not aim for governing Saxony-Anhalt


As no single party reached an absolute majority needed to govern alone, coalition negotiations for entering a formal coalition or receiving ad hoc support for a minority government will kick off today. The BSW has theoretically three options once the new parliament has convened and the next state premier is to be elected. First, they could elect the AfD lead candidate as state premier (without entering a formal coalition), second they could elect the CDU lead candidate or third they could abstain in the first two ballots for state premier. Judging from statements of BSW co-leaders (at the federal level) Wagenknecht and Ali yesterday night,1 we deem the first option the most likely. What comes next? There are two options:

Option 1 – BSW abstains in third round facilitating an AfD minority government This morning, BSW leader Wagenknecht called for a “political reset” in Saxony- Anhalt, especially when it comes to energy policy, sanctions against Russia (which however are set at the EU level), education, and public broadcasting. Thus, there is a certain overlap of political priorities with the AfD. However, the BSW does not want to enter a formal coalition with the AfD.

With the AfD rejecting the BSW’s proposal for an independent state premier, an AfD minority government tolerated by the BSW seems to be a possible outcome. This means that the BSW would not enter a formal coalition with the AfD, but elect the AfD lead candidate as state premier in an informal cooperation.

Option 2 – The route to snap elections The newly elected parliament must convene for the first time by 6 October at the latest. But the regional constitution does not set a deadline for electing a state premier. Until a new government is elected, Sven Schulze will remain in office leading the caretaker government. As government formation could turn out to be complex, snap elections may be a possible way out. The AfD’s lead candidate Siegmund already suggested this as a potential option, saying that the AfD is not prepared to make far-reaching compromise to form a coalition.

There are three routes to snap elections: If the newly elected parliament does not elect a state premier with an absolute majority after two ballots, it can decide with an absolute majority to dissolve itself before a third ballot. Six months after the election, the new parliament can decide with a two- thirds majority to dissolve itself. A newly elected state premier could call a vote of confidence. This could be a viable option for an AfD minority government, confident of winning an absolute majority in snap elections.

It is highly uncertain that snap elections would generate clear majorities. What could help the AfD is the narrative that the other parties want to keep them out of power, and that they now need a clear mandate. Moreover, smaller parties would again be at risk of not making the 5% hurdle, which would help the AfD. On the other hand, the strong AfD performance could again mobilise the centrist forces to avoid the AfD winning an absolute majority.

Mühlberger’s assessment was that an AfD majority in Saxony-Anhalt could weaken investment and aggravate skilled-worker shortages. She cited policy uncertainty, the party’s anti-mass migration agenda, and potential conflict with the civil service. For Merz, the most consequential challenge is containing AfD’s momentum in the upcoming elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on Sept. 20.

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Sorry, day late.

• Happy Labor Day (CTH)

Labor Day hits a little different this year, as there are elements outside our assembly seeking to fracture the coalition of pragmatic conservatives. The noise is louder, the distractions more intense and the stakes of resetting the economic balance sheet in favor of Main Street are higher. For all of those reasons and more, it seems more difficult to keep moving forward with economic nationalism as the roadmap.


However, we remind ourselves that everything of great purpose comes from within, and from a loving God. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said: “The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.”

It’s Labor Day in America. We pause and celebrate work, productivity, problem solving, and the value of our workforce. A nation built on ingenuity – so long as we tend the flickering flame of liberty. So, to all of you who do not take part in the grand lies and manipulations that surround us, THANK YOU!


No other nation on earth was conceived to allow people to manifest their own destiny while keeping government out of their lives. The vision, the premise and the purpose, was to allow you the freedom to determine your place in life; and even, at any time, change that determination and strike off in an entirely new direction. Our American labor and aspirations would not be pre-determined by caste, tier, creed or social status; but rather by our personal vision for our own future. The right of self-determination. This is a uniquely American attribute.

Labor Day is a moment when we reflect on the value of work, the great benefit of endeavors achieved, the pride in accomplishment -regardless of scale- amid this thing we call life. But ultimately, all of these considerations have absolutely nothing to do with the money we assemble in the process. We ain’t taking any of it with us folks.

When you hold open the door, you make a difference. When you choose to stand against fraud and deceit, you make a difference. When you pray with purpose you make a difference. When you hold no tolerance for chaos, you make a difference. When you show up, even when you are not sure what comes next, you make a difference. When you achieve in silence because silence is not a mistake, you make a difference.

It is who you are that makes a difference. That is the currency of our life. Regardless of your chosen occupation or effort, you do it well. You live your standard. You have paid the price for your peace. Be proud of yourself. Allow the method of your labor to express the value of who you are and celebrate the accomplishment.

You matter!

Thank you for your fellowship and for your kindness.

With warmest personal regards,

Happy Labor Day!

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“Why American peace diplomacy keeps going in circles..”

Lukyanov thinks US is not capable of understanding Russia’s ways.

• Ukraine Cannot Be Settled Like A Business Deal ( Lukyanov)

Diplomatic efforts to end an acute and bloody armed conflict should always be welcomed and the persistence of Donald Trump’s administration, which has pursued this goal for more than a year and a half, also deserves recognition, even if the results so far can hardly be called outstanding.


At the very least, the White House remains the only actor in the West both attempting to change the situation and possessing significant leverage over it. Trump and his closest associates probably do genuinely want the war to end as its continuation distracts Washington from foreign policy priorities they regard as more important. But why, then, does Trump’s diplomatic initiative keep going round in circles, with each new attempt ending in another disappointment?

Trump and his principal envoys tend to approach the conflict as an extraordinarily difficult but essentially technical problem, as a puzzle to be solved in isolation from the wider international system. This reflects the worldview of the current White House, where international affairs are a collection of practical problems to be resolved in ways that strengthen America’s position, preferably with some commercial benefit attached. Given the professional backgrounds of the president and his two principal intermediaries, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, this is hardly surprising.

Such an approach can be useful as an instrument, but it becomes less useful when it substitutes for an understanding of the processes that produced the conflict in the first place and, to use the Russian formulation, its root causes. Any durable settlement requires some understanding of what must change in relations between the major powers if similar confrontations are to be avoided.

Trump repeatedly insists that the war would never have begun had he been president in 2022 with the implication that Joe Biden and the Democrats were simply too incompetent to prevent it. Trump has occasionally acknowledged that NATO’s long expansion eastward contributed to the crisis, but he generally shows little interest in the broader military and political processes behind it.

Yet American and NATO policy towards Ukraine wasn’t created by one administration or a handful of officials in Washington and Brussels, rather it developed over decades from a particular conception of Western strategic interests. The crisis that entered its most acute phase in 2022 was, from Moscow’s perspective, the culmination of processes underway since the end of the Cold War.

This helps explain why Washington continues to underestimate how much the outcome matters to the principal participants. For both Russia and Ukraine, too much is at stake for the conflict to be settled through the kind of transaction Trump instinctively favors, given their interests are obviously opposed, but both regard the outcome as fateful. Western Europe, having invested heavily in Ukraine’s cause, also has a direct political stake in the result, so every new attempt by Washington’s two brokers therefore encounters the same obstacle in that none of the parties sees this as simply another deal.

There’s another contradiction in the American position because Washington wishes to become the principal mediator in a conflict whose continuation it has materially supported.The US position has certainly changed under Trump as Washington’s previous fixation on Ukraine has diminished considerably. Trump would prefer America to step back while retaining decisive influence over what happens next, but that is precisely where the difficulty begins.

Transferring the financial burden, political responsibility and risks to the Western Europeans while continuing to dictate the terms requires a degree of obedience from junior partners that Washington can no longer guarantee. EU governments and Kiev have also learnt how to deal with this unconventional president and when they can’t persuade him, they have become increasingly adept at circumventing his pressure.

The one American instrument against which there would be little defence is a complete cessation of military support, but Trump is unlikely to take that step, even if he were personally inclined to do so because facilitating an outright Russian victory isn’t his objective. He may care less than his predecessor about the precise shape of the eventual settlement, but a complete Ukrainian defeat would be another matter. Nor would abandoning Ukraine enjoy much support across the American political establishment, where there is virtually no constituency for a fundamental rapprochement with Russia.

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Goverment treason.

• British Patriots Clash with Police as NGO Boats Arrive with Migrants (CTH)

Apparently, there was an organized boatlift of north African migrants crossing from France into the U.K earlier today. Various non-governmental organizations were in place with tents and supplies to assist the migrants upon arrival. By most accounts the influx appears to have been facilitated by NGO’s working with British authorities. However, at various ports where the migrants arrived, they were met with hundreds of young British men who attempted to blockade the activity of the police and nefarious human traffickers.


Telegraph – Hundreds of protesters have clashed with police in Portsmouth after a mega-dinghy carrying 140 migrants reached the UK from Normandy.Around 500 demonstrators are believed to have joined a protest in the area on Sunday night, with some dressed in all black – similar to those who joined an anti-illegal migrant protest which blocked the Port of Dover on Saturday.The large boat of migrants – believed to be the longest-ever Channel crossing by people-smugglers – was intercepted in the Solent between the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth earlier on Sunday.

Police used riot shields and pepper spray to force the crowds back, but the line broke through the weight of numbers. Protesters then made their way inside the marina compound. Earlier, George Madgwick, the leader of Reform UK in Hampshire, wrote in a post on X that “over 100 migrant men” had arrived on the Portsmouth shore.The French coastguard said it had detected the mega-dinghy, which was shadowed by a number of rescue boats in case it got into difficulties. Authorities estimated that up to 140 people were on board the vessel, 90 short of the record 230 who crossed on a similar boat last month.

[…] In a livestream from the scene, Daniel Thomas, known as Danny Tommo – an associate of Right-wing activist Tommy Robinson – encouraged viewers to travel to Portsmouth to join the protest.Thomas could be seen standing in the sea at the Eastney shingle beach, alongside a small group of other protesters, with police officers looking on.“Roads are all blocked, they are never going to be able to leave here,” Thomas said. He added: “It was only yesterday (at the protests in Dover) when we warned them that we will not accept this any more, and that this is no longer an option to tell us that the boat numbers are down.

“This isn’t about the numbers being down… this is about understanding that this has to come to an end now.” The mega-dinghy – launched from a beach east of Cherbourg in the Baie de la Seine – reflects a change in tactics used by people-smugglers, who have started loading more migrants on to fewer and larger vessels, partly because of the success of law enforcement in disrupting boat and equipment supply chains. (read more) https://twitter.com/TRobinsonNewEra/status/2096749963250164204?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2096749963250164204%7Ctwgr%5E14a1fdc000c3321ec76c5c1444e562133fe679bb%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheconservativetreehouse.com%2Fblog%2F2026%2F09%2F06%2Fbritish-patriots-clash-with-police-as-organized-ngo-boats-arrive-with-unwanted-migrants-on-the-coast%2F

https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2096746349907652886?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2096746349907652886%7Ctwgr%5E14a1fdc000c3321ec76c5c1444e562133fe679bb%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheconservativetreehouse.com%2Fblog%2F2026%2F09%2F06%2Fbritish-patriots-clash-with-police-as-organized-ngo-boats-arrive-with-unwanted-migrants-on-the-coast%2F
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“They don’t even put anything out because it’s so unpopular. What are they going to say? ‘We’re going to abolish ICE’? No one wants to do that, Harold.”

• Democrats Have A Midterm Secret They Don’t Want Voters To See (Margolis)

With roughly two months left before the midterm elections, Democrats still don’t have a lock on winning back the majority, despite nearly everything in the political environment supposedly being in their favor. Between history, President Donald Trump’s approval ratings, and gas prices, polls should consistently give them a huge edge. Yet the most recent Harvard-Harris poll showed the GOP ahead by two points among likely voters on the generic congressional ballot.


The reason isn’t complicated once you look at what Democrats are actually campaigning on: nothing.Think about it. Their entire pitch is about resisting Donald Trump. Ask what they would do with a majority, and you’ll get vague talking points about affordability (something they failed miserably at when they were in power) instead of an actual policy agenda. That’s deliberate, and it’s the same playbook Democrats ran in 2020: sound moderate enough to win the general election, then govern like radicals when you’re in power.

Jesse Watters spelled out exactly why during a heated back-and-forth with Harold Ford Jr. on The Five last week, and it was more revealing than anything Democrats have said about their own strategy. “Your party is nuts, all right,” Watters told Ford. “They don’t even put anything out because it’s so unpopular. What are they going to say? ‘We’re going to abolish ICE’? No one wants to do that, Harold.” Ford insisted that the DSA, not the DNC, supports abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which isn’t true. “No. The DNC voted to get rid of ICE last week. I think you were on vacation,” Watters quipped.

Watters then brought up the example Democrats should be embarrassed to have avoided: Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Contract with America, a written, public, specific policy platform that Republicans ran on and that preceded their historic victory in which they won a House majority. “Remember Newt’s Contract [with] America?” Watters asked. “Put it out. I mean, I dare you guys to put it out.” They won’t take him up on it. Why? Because if Democrats actually laid out their real agenda and demanded that voters hold them to it, they’d never win.

“You guys want to nationalize the $2 trillion health insurance industry. You can’t do it because it’s stupid, Harold. You guys want to do the Green New Deal again? It didn’t work, you can’t do it,” Watters said. Both ideas failed to pass even when Democrats held the House, the Senate, and the White House at the same time. A party doesn’t campaign on ideas this unpopular.


That leaves House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) squeezed between two factions that want opposite things. The activist wing of his caucus wants confrontation: impeachment votes, government shutdowns, investigations into anything connected to Trump. The party’s presidential hopefuls want the opposite because they know the general-election electorate has no appetite for it. Jeffries doesn’t have enough control over his own caucus to make either side back down, which is exactly why the Democrat Party’s message heading into November amounts to three words: “orange man bad.”

If their ideas were popular, they’d run on them the way Gingrich did in 1994. The fact that they won’t tell you what they’re planning is the clearest evidence yet that they already know you wouldn’t vote for it.

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“In conditions of mass democracy, the soft and the infantilising will be preferred over the hard and the necessary again and again.” —Eugyppius on X

• Good Faith v. Bad Faith (James Howard Kunstler)


Massachusetts Women Demonstrating in Favor of Triple Child Homicides

Clusterfuck Nation never sleeps, even while everybody else lays aside their labors. Later today we’ll light up the ceremonial grill, but for now it’s onto the tribulations of this dolorous moment in history.


It was just such a sparkling September morning twenty-five years ago when those hijacked airliners knifed into the World Trade Center towers (plus the Pentagon + a field outside Shanksville, PA). Despite all the forensic debate since then, I go with the original explanation that four teams of jihadi maniacs did the 9/11 deed. And also, yet, despite all the official defenses mounted since then — the Patriot Act, etc. — here we are allowing a massive Islamic infiltration and even takeover of many places in America, proving, at least, that history is trickster.

After the trauma of 9/11, you can’t deny our country went off the rails psychologically, along with the rest of Western Civ, as if its immune system broke down and the body politic admitted all kinds of malevolent parasites into itself. They have induced disease in most of society’s organs — our institutions — the main political parties, the news media, the government agencies, the foundations, the schools, the arts & letters. The West’s collective brain got badly damaged in the process.

The disease is identifiable, though some of its mechanisms remain mysterious. The disease is called bad faith: acting or speaking falsely, and knowingly so. Pretending one thing as a cover for meaning something else, such as hollering about “justice” when you really mean vengeance; “inclusion” when you mean to cancel others out of careers and livelihoods; “diversity” when you won’t tolerate disagreement; “democracy” when you just want to push everybody else around.

The forces behind all this give off an odor of the occult. You can perhaps name and locate some of the engines driving it — the “Globalists,” the Marxists, the London banks, the EU, the WEF, the São Paulo Forum, the CCP — but their motives remain obscure. Angela Merkel has stated plainly why she allowed the mass immigration of the Third World into Germany (and thereby into all Europe due to the Schengen agreement that erased the EU nations’ borders): “to counter right-wing extremism,” she said. That sounds pretty clear, but it also seems quite crazy. And why on earth does Ursula von der Leyen do everything possible to keep that going? Have the migrants not sufficiently demonstrated their antipathy to Western society? How many rapes, knifings, beheadings, café massacres, and Christmas Village drive-throughs does it take?

It’s also hard to fathom how the London bankers (whoever they are?) have any sympathy with the Marxist revolutionaries who want to end the concept of private property and the instrumentalities of money that go with it. Or how the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations became so enamored of socialism. Or why the CIA seems bent on betraying the American common good. Or how come the League of Women Voters stridently opposes common sense election reform.

The race hustle is more comprehensible. It operates within a permission-structure built on the agonizing differential between success and failure. It’s just plain extortion: our failure is your fault, so pay up. And meanwhile, thanks for no-bail-and-no-jail, and for permission to shoplift, rape, murder, loot, and riot when we feel like it. (And cry harder about it.) It’s an obvious sado-masochistic setup.

The gender game gets more complicated, but it also comes out of a permission-structure based on success / failure, aggravated by a mutual shortage of marriageable males and females forced to compensate for any combination of bad luck and bad choices that lead to failure in life. But that dynamic has been neatly hijacked by groups seeking to create as much social chaos as possible. Why else would the Democratic Party get so avid for drag queen story hours in the early school grades? Is it not obvious that this isn’t really comedy, as claimed? Rather, it’s the presentation of women as monsters. Have you ever stopped to wonder how many of the kids watching these exhibitions are actually terrified by the disturbed adult males acting-out in their faces?

And now, the gender lunacy has climaxed — in Massachusetts, arguably the craziest US state — where mobs of deranged women chant and blubber in sympathy outside the courthouse where a mother who strangled her three kids just got off the hook. The kids were unfairly cluttering up Lindsey’s life, you understand. . . .If anything is an apt tipping point for a society to go one way or another, there it is.

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FYI

• President Trump Lengthy Interview With U.K GB News (CTH)

Against the popular uprisings currently taking place in Great Britain, this interview takes on additional context. Last week, just before the civil protests broke out on the shores of the U.K, President Trump sat down for an interview with GB News about issues and current events that hit both sides of the Atlantic.


President Trump answers questions about topics that pertain to both the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as well as the interconnectivity of the relationship to the United States. The interview is pragmatic, focused and deliberate as President Trump presents his perspectives on the challenges that face both nations.

Obviously one of the key policy issues facing the U.K is the topic of migration, and President Trump puts the issue into a factual framework of government accepting the problem. These are choices being made by political leadership against the interests of their citizens. The interviewer, Bev Turner, is fraught with political correctness and somewhat stunned by President Trump’s lack of pretense. WATCH:

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“It’s the western hemisphere, Margaret”

• Sunday Fights: Energy Secretary Chris Wright vs CBS Margaret Brennan (CTH)

The Sunday pearl clutching begins with CBS’s Margaret Brennan directing her adversarial prose toward U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright.


Secretary Wright is such a pro in this interview. “It’s the western hemisphere, Margaret”

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: We begin today with the U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, who joins us from Denver. Mr. Secretary, it is Labor Day, and Secretary Bessent had predicted we’d see three-dollar gas by September 20th, depending on the Iran talks. Do you think we’re going to be back at three bucks in the next two weeks?

SECRETARY OF ENERGY CHRIS WRIGHT: Well, we’ve passed peak demand time with Labor Day tomorrow, the end of the summer driving season, and the Trump administration a couple weeks ago rolled out a change in regulations that’ll allow American refiners to produce more gasoline and diesel with their existing equipment. So, seeing demand likely go down in the next few weeks and supply going up, I think prices headed downward is- is not an unreasonable expectation.

MARGARET BRENNAN: What about the diesel fuel that trucks and trains rely so heavily on? We saw that record high price of $5.89 a gallon this week. Is for example, an export ban off the table?

SEC. WRIGHT: You want to keep as much energy flowing as possible. The diesel situation has been challenging because Russian refineries have suffered significant damage. Russia used to be a meaningful exporter of diesel. Today, today they don’t export any diesel, and in fact, they’ve become a meaningful importer of gasoline. So its global refining capacity is why gasoline and diesel prices are high, even more than oil prices. And this is- for 17 years, Democrat policies have been attack hydrocarbons, get as many refineries and coal plants closed. You could summarize their energy and climate policies in two words, expensive energy.

[..]

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Weird.

• When “Twelve Angry Men” Becomes One Angry Man (Turley)

“I hope that guy can sleep well at night.”


Those words from Kevin Reddington on the steps of the Plymouth, Massachusetts Courthouse were part of a diatribe against the “guy” who was reportedly the sole holdout in the Lindsay Clancy trial. The scene was a fitting end to a visceral trial, but it added a vindictive element that should prompt Judge William Sullivan to call out the seasoned defense attorney.

After declaring that the 11-1 mistrial was “no time to gloat,” Reddington bragged repeatedly about “crushing” District Attorney Tim Cruz, whom he also attacked. He insisted that, in the trial, no one said a single negative thing about his client as a mother — ignoring that little matter of the three young children whom she had strangled to death, one by one.

But it was his attack on the holdout juror that was a breathtaking abandonment of restraint and decency. Reddington knows it is very likely that the name of this juror (he has already been identified as one of only three males on the jury) will eventually be uncovered by Internet sleuths. He effectively put a target on the back of a juror who committed the unpardonable sin of not being convinced by his arguments.The fact that this is one of the three male jurors only ramped up the rage. This case prompted a striking gender divide between men and women, with many women expressing sympathy for Clancy and anger at the system for failing her.

For Reddington and many viewers, the hung jury was less “Twelve Angry Men” and more like “One Angry Man.” Indeed, in addition to attacking the juror, women outside of the courthouse heckled Cruz as he tried to speak to the press, shouting that he “only cares about the three children. What about the Mom?” Reddington followed up by saying that Cruz really did not care about the children (because he looked down to read their names). He also accused the holdout jurors of wasting the time of the jury, complaining “that guy stole seven weeks from those jurors.”

It was an ironic twist on the 1957 classic. In that movie, Juror number eight (Henry Fonda) was repeatedly attacked for “wasting time” and not yielding to the majority — until he ultimately convinced all of his peers.

Earlier in the day, Reddington had asked a Massachusetts Supreme Court justice for an emergency order to force Sullivan not to declare a mistrial, and instead to remove the holdout in favor of an alternate. It was an utterly meritless effort, but Reddington used the filing to further denounce the juror. He compared the juror’s refusal to vote for his client as akin to leaving a racist on a jury. In this case, he suggested that the “guy” was a virtual anti-disability version of “Bull” Connor or some deranged “ableist.”

The rising hatred toward this juror reflects how an act deemed noble in one context can be denounced as craven in another.Take the 1957 classic movie. Viewers love to watch Henry Fonda stand alone against his fellow jurors to raise reasonable doubt in favor of the young defendant. But in this version, the sole juror believed that his fellow jurors were ignoring the defendant’s culpability. Imagine the movie’s outcome if Reddington’s approach had been accepted in 1957, where Fonda could be pulled into court, questioned about his intransigence, and ultimately replaced with an alternate in order to flip the vote.

For all of the anger it has generated, the Clancy trial shows the best of our justice system. We have a system in which a single juror can stand against not only the rest of the jury, but against the world. The trial showed zealous counsel on both sides and a conscientious judge who ensured a fair trial despite the powerful emotions in society. You can disagree with this juror and the outcome but still celebrate that our legal system comes down not to judges or lawyers, but to simple citizens doing justice in thousands of cases a year. It comes down to whether every juror can vote not for a popular choice, but for a moral one.

That is why some of us were so shocked by Reddington’s public attack on this one juror. This is not who we are supposed to be as officers of the court. We stand in the path of the mob, not leading it. In another great movie, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Gregory Peck captured that role from the novel most vividly as Atticus Finch, standing before a jail to stop a lynch mob. Finch showed that the strength of any legal system is ultimately only as strong as each individual’s ability to stand alone. He tells his daughter Scout, “The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

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https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/2097078858826580400?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle September 7 2026

Sep 072026
 
 September 7, 2026  Posted by at 9:06 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  30 Responses »


Vasily Kandinsky Capricious Line 1924


• One Major Shift Can Solve the Iran Problem and So Much More (CTH)
• Wright and Bessent Explain the Squeeze on Iran (David Manney)
• View from Russia: Experts on why Kushner and Witkoff came to Moscow (RT)
• How Britain Built A War Network Around Russia (Yanovsky)
• AfD Sweeps Saxony-Anhalt Election In First “Far Right” Victory Since WW2 (ZH)
• France Can’t Finance Ukraine Forever – Le Pen Party’s Head (RT)
• Leftists Are Erasing the Truth About 9/11 From Classrooms (Matt Margolis)
• Asylum Denials Hit 94% in June (Catherine Salgado)
• The U.S. Has 13 Times the Economy — Carney Has 13 Times the Pout (Florack)
• U.S. Job Growth of 162,000 vs Canada Job Losses -42,000 (CTH)
• Operation Twist 2.0, 2032 Gold Target & 100,000 Robotic Soldiers (Armstrong)

 


 

https://twitter.com/PeterSweden7/status/2096209394350412223?s=20 https://twitter.com/Q_TheStormRider/status/2096174693157876147?s=20 https://twitter.com/RippleXrpie/status/2096187155953357192?s=20 https://twitter.com/thewriterme/status/2096314115060887761?s=20

 


 


This from Sundance is brilliant, and he thinks Trump is aware. . If Trump makes peace with Russia, their oil comes in to the market and lowers the price enough to sink the Iran regime. End the war with Iran, end the war in Ukraine. Lower the price at the pump. One fell swoop.

• One Major Shift Can Solve the Iran Problem and So Much More (CTH)

History has a tendency to rhyme. There is one move on the geopolitical chessboard that can put all of the U.S. and President Trump’s problems into an immediate checkmate. However, the forces against the alignment are significant. If President Trump can end the Ukraine-Russia conflict and end the sanctions regime against Russia, everything changes.


Bringing Russian oil, gas and natural resources back into the global economy not only removes all leverage held by Iran, but it also wipes out intransigent resistance against the geopolitical reset and upends over a hundred years of EU and Commonwealth financial manipulation.


Not only does the Iran problem immediately shift, but so too does any/all leverage carried by Canada on behalf of London and the broader commonwealth structure. With a U.S-Russia strategic economic alliance, something factually stated at the end of every message from Moscow, the dynamics of global structures is entirely different. However, all the oppositional interests are well aware of the consequence and their actions reflect it. The United States and Russia ended World War II. A U.S-Russia alliance would change everything.

Who would benefit from such a strategic partnership? The USA, Russia, India, China, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States (GCC), ASEAN countries and even Japan and the Caribbean, including Cuba.

Who would oppose such a seismic shift? The U.K, specifically the financial constructs within the City of London, Canada, the EU-NATO states, all the Commonwealth countries and the Five-Eyes group (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the U.K and the U.S. Intelligence Community).

Now we have appropriate context for the dynamic of the issue, along with context for exactly why all oppositional elements are conducting current activity. A strategic partnership between the U.S. and Russia represents an existential threat to all the old systems – everything. The first step would be solving the Ukraine-Russia conflict. So, let’s look at that problem specifically and how a transactional approach might frame the four corners of an end to it.


Russia now occupies approximately 20% of the Ukraine land mass in eastern Ukraine and they are not going to ever concede it again. For the Federation of Russia, represented by Vladimir Putin and the overwhelming majority of those within influence inside the Federation, the NATO encroachment is an existential threat long term. Russia views the objective of the legacy system powers as intent on taking Russia apart. Ukraine represents their immediate shot to stop this from happening. All prior agreements and treaties by EU and NATO agreements were violated. Russia will no longer allow the wolves to circle their camp.

Looking at the challenge through the transactional prism, a ceasefire may include Russia retaining their current land gains, while giving up the confiscated $500 billion sovereign wealth fund as the purchase price. The fund could be considered reparations by Zelenskyy and his EU-NATO handlers, it matters not. What matters more than the sovereign wealth fund in this transaction, is the elimination of western sanctions.

With sanctions removed, immediately the Russian economy surges with sales of oil, gas, minerals and raw materials back to the global market. With the Iran conflict still afoot all that oil and gas carries a higher value. That is the pricing dynamic that makes loss of the Russian sovereign wealth fund more contextualized. However, with all of those abundant natural resources now back in the global supply chain, the leverage for all other western countries that rely on their natural resources, specifically Canada, is diminished.

Russian oil and gas could flow immediately and easily back into Europe. Currently, the power structures within the EU, those more concerned about raw power and control than the financial health and livelihood of their citizens, are against a return of cheap and abundant energy. They should think about the return of lower energy costs as a value to their economies and people; however, the EU ‘leaders’ are more concerned about the geopolitical reset -ultimately their diminished power, that would lay in the background.

As a consequence, the EU doesn’t really care about how much financial benefit there would be to their economic condition. For them this is a zero-sum power issue. Just as Russia doesn’t want to be torn apart by the grand ambitions of London, so too does the EU not want to lose the power to assist in the tearing apart aspect.

The rest of the problem is one of the future. A problem of security guarantees; of agreements that are bolstered against some significant non-wavering constant that can ensure no further expansion of NATO intent and no further threat to create purposeful conflict. The United States has constant regime changes, that takes the U.S. out of the ability to be the guarantor. However, THAT level of security guarantee is possible through the one construct that has put tentacles into every geopolitical economic structure in the world, CHINA.

There is a visible deal where President Trump sets up the transactional end to the conflict, the payments and economic mechanisms that conclude the Ukraine-Russia war, while Chairman Xi sets up the security guarantee aspect by leveraging everything that Beijing has created for decades. As paradigm resetting as that sounds, it’s not impossible. In fact, I would argue that’s exactly what China is saying HERE.


The Washington Post is getting the direction correct, but they are unaware of the destination. TDS infects all media analysis. They put the review of Chairman Xi’s comments through the prism of anti-Trumpism. That’s not at all what this looks like to me. From my perspective, Trump is looking to solve problems beyond his tenure in the White House. After all, how many times has each Trump supporter said, “well yeah – great, but what happens after Trump leaves office?”

Think about it carefully, through the prism of peace and stability – while understanding that President Trump is structuring long-term U.S. economic stability and retaining the perspective that Beijing influence in U.S. economic matters must be removed. Handle the transaction. Solve the Ukraine-Russia crisis. Form a strategic partnership and build fortress north America. Leverage the systems that Beijing has already put in place, including leverage upon the EU, and make Chairman Xi the minder for everything OUTSIDE our hemisphere.

President Trump looks to have gamed this out quite well. The tool that cuts the gordian knot is in the relationship.

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Operation Economic Outcast.

• Wright and Bessent Explain the Squeeze on Iran (David Manney)

Energy Secretary Chris Wright got a blunt question Sunday morning: After seven months of fighting with Iran, are Americans looking at a new normal of tanker strikes, military escorts, and an open-ended confrontation in the Persian Gulf? Wright didn’t duck it. The United States remains open to negotiations, he said, but its immediate military mission includes stopping Iranian oil and gas exports. He plainly described the goal: “We are strangling their economy” to force a change in Tehran’s policies or leadership.


From the Conservative Daily News: “Secretary of Energy Chris Wright outlined America’s long-term goal for securing global trade passing through the Strait of Hormuz even as its conflict with Iran threatens such traffic. Wright touted the sustained traffic transiting the Strait of Hormuz before telling Dana Bash during a “State of the Union” interview Sunday that securing the passageway “shouldn’t be just the United States’s responsibility” looking forward. His appearance on the CNN show comes the day after U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces reported taking out three Iranian oil tankers.

“The president says the Strait of Hormuz is under U.S. control. Just yesterday, the U.S. struck three Iranian tankers in retaliation for Iran firing missiles at U.S. warships. Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that Iran struck at least 23 merchant ships in the Strait in the last two months,” Bash said before asking Wright, “Does that sound to you like it’s a situation completely under control?” “Our transits through the Strait are averaging over 9 million barrels a day now. And with the access pipelines that go around the Strait, we’re probably two-thirds or more of pre-conflict flows,” Wright responded. “So Iranians are still causing trouble, but the United States Navy is winning that battle.”

Bash then asked Wright if he is suggesting that the U.S. Navy is going to have to stay in the Strait “indefinitely” to maintain the current flow of oil and tankers. “Oh, I think we’ll see a change in the Iranian regime, or certainly a change in their policy if they want to become a trading nation again and engage with the world,” Wright said. “But they have not lightly given up their nuclear weapons program.”The comments came after U.S. forces struck three Iranian oil tankers Saturday. U.S. Central Command said Iranian ballistic missiles had targeted American warships.

Two tankers were disabled, while a third was destroyed. The military said the ships belonged to a shadow network helping finance Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.


Wright’s argument was straightforward. President Donald Trump still prefers a negotiated settlement, but the administration isn’t counting on one. Wright said Iran’s nuclear capabilities are being degraded militarily while its economy is being squeezed through reduced energy exports and sanctions. He also left open the possibility that a nuclear agreement might have to wait for a different Iranian government. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been delivering the economic half of the same message.

Bessent said Saturday that Trump’s blockade and Treasury sanctions amount to “one of the most powerful one-two punches” ever used for economic isolation. From Breitbart News: “During an appearance on FNC’s “My View” on Saturday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent praised the impact of U.S. policy regarding Iran. According to Bessent, the blockade paired with economic sanctions was having a crippling impact on the Iranian regime. “Just to stay with the Strait of Hormuz for a moment, you’ve also noted that you say the U.S. and China actually have more in common than we disagree on when it comes to safely navigating the Strait of Hormuz,” host Lara Trump said.

“I think the question for a lot of Americans is really how much can we trust China? They are still taking oil from Iran, so how do you navigate that situation?”Bessent replied, “Well, one of the things we’ve done, and what the president’s done, is fantastic sequencing. So we are running Operation Economic Outcast right now, and this is the greatest economic isolation operation in the history of the world. We are going to asphyxiate this regime.”

“Now we have the blockade, and because of the blockade, the oil is not getting out,” he continued. “So there’s probably only about 30 million barrels of Iranian crude oil left that China hasn’t bought. So that will run out soon, and there will be no problem with China buying because they have no product, so the blockade is — the blockade is working. It’s working like nothing we’ve ever seen, and the combination, everyone says, “Oh, sanctions don’t work. I can tell you, blockade and sanctions are one of the most powerful one-two punches in the history of economic isolation.” He argued that China’s purchases of Iranian crude will eventually become irrelevant if Iran can’t move the oil out of its ports.

The administration has given the financial campaign a name: Operation Economic Outcast. Treasury launched it Aug. 24 with the stated goal of cutting Iran off from the financial networks, banks, oil revenues, and sanctions-evasion systems keeping the regime funded. The campaign moved again Friday when Treasury sanctioned a Turkish financial institution and its subsidiaries for allegedly helping Iran’s Revolutionary Guard move money internationally.

From the Treasury Department: Announced by Secretary Bessent on August 24, 2026, dubbed Economic D-Day, Operation Economic Outcast is severing the remaining economic lifelines that sustain the Iranian regime. Treasury has mapped the networks, facilitators, and financial channels that Iran uses to smuggle oil, evade sanctions, and fund terror. Working with partners across the U.S. government, the European Union, United Kingdom, Gulf partners, and others, Treasury is targeting any source of the regime’s illicit revenue, as well as its sanctions evasion schemes to move funds.

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What/which part of the above did they discuss?

The man in the middle is Kyrill Dimitriev, Putin’s go-to guy.

• View from Russia: Experts on why Kushner and Witkoff came to Moscow (RT)

The latest visit to Moscow by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff has triggered a fresh wave of speculation in Russia about what Washington is really trying to achieve. With US President Donald Trump under pressure at home and much of his administration’s foreign-policy bandwidth consumed by Iran, the trip has been interpreted less as a breakthrough mission than as a signal – one that may be aimed as much at domestic American politics and alliance management as at Russia itself.


Russian analysts see the visit in different ways. Some believe the Americans are simply sounding out Moscow before returning to Kiev, trying to gauge whether any space remains for movement on Ukraine. Others argue the mission is part of a broader performance of diplomatic activity by the Trump White House, intended to project momentum where little real progress is possible. Still others view it as an exercise in ‘shuttle diplomacy’, useful mainly for information-gathering and atmospherics rather than for producing concrete results.

Roman Romanov, American studies specialist, lecturer at the Faculty of International Relations, Political Science, and Foreign Regional Studies at RSUH
I have two explanations regarding the visit and the format of this visit. First, the American side has already shown several times that it is interested in maintaining dialogue with both Moscow and Kiev. And this visit – or rather, this tour – is aimed at “synchronizing watches.” What does that mean? The Americans are trying to understand what conditions might be acceptable to the parties for resuming an active negotiating process. In other words, what can be offered to both sides so that they are prepared to move the dialogue in the direction of progress.

The second explanation is purely domestic-political for the United States. Against the backdrop of the failure of the Iran campaign, it is necessary to demonstrate some other kind of political activity that at least theoretically resembles progress with a concrete result. Trump has done this kind of thing more than once.

Do they have any ready-made proposals? I do not think so, because, first, at the moment a significant part of US foreign-policy resources is concentrated on Iran, and second, because despite the constructive role of both Witkoff and Kushner, they still act more as envoys of the American president on a specific issue than as direct participants formulating the American president’s position on this issue.

It is difficult to explain why they first went to Moscow and then to Kiev. One can assume they first want to hear Moscow’s stance, because it is in a more advantageous position – Russia is advancing, winning on the battlefield – so the US believes it would be more expedient first to hear out Moscow’s demands and gauge how much they’ve changed since August 2025, since the meeting in Anchorage.

At the same time, although we do not observe public participation by the EU, through closed channels the European Union surely communicates its interests. Their representatives are not there, but the position the Americans are shaping includes the EU’s position as well.

Dmitry Dtobnitsky – Russian political scientist specializing in American studies, expert in US foreign and domestic policy
These negotiations will continue – that’s the only perspective they have. What are we negotiating with the US about? About how to stop the conflict in Ukraine? Let’s be serious. First, this conflict is much broader than Russia’s military operation. It is a geopolitical conflict with very high stakes, the kind that happens with Europe once every several decades or even centuries. The Cold War period with the US was still an exception in that there were at least attempts to play at détente from time to time.

The world has entered an era of major transformation. In that sense, the narrow focus is – will they reach an agreement on Ukraine? No. Every time you think about that, you have to recall how it all started, why it is like this, how wrongly the world is structured, how important it is for Russia to insist on its interests, why the European bureaucracy itself cannot accept that, because otherwise that would mean the end of both it and the political class of many countries. Why can’t this conflict stop? Because it can’t be settled.

Someone has to win. Just as with the US and Iran (which, incidentally, is a much more local conflict) – it is impossible to agree, there can be no deal. There can only be some movement in which one of the sides explicitly or implicitly recognizes its defeat. It may not be total defeat, but at least at some stage one side wins and the other side does not recognize it. Such a process will last a long time, but in the end there will still be some de facto consolidation of the results of this conflict. Not a negotiated one, unfortunately, but a factual one. Diplomats may formalize such a conclusion, or they may not. Frankly, that is no longer important.

When we talk about Russia-US negotiations on Ukraine, there are two extremes, and both miss the essence. Yes, we are negotiating, and we constantly demonstrate that Russia and the US have nothing to fight over. We are ready to coexist with the US on the same globe. That is exactly why Putin says: “Of course, Kushner and Witkoff are welcome guests, come. What else should we show you from Moscow’s kitchen?” You see, the US cannot conduct negotiations on Ukraine because it cannot force either Kiev, London, or Brussels to accept Russia’s reasonable demands. And how are they going to pressure Russia? I think the Trump administration more or less understands that it is pointless. So what kind of negotiations on Ukraine can there be?

Some say [Russian Finance Minister] Siluanov and [US Treasury Secretary] Bessent will come to some understanding, and perhaps there will be incredible financial, economic, or investment cooperation between the US and Russia. I have said many times that there can be no serious cooperation between Russia and the US. There are neither material nor geopolitical grounds for it. Are we now supposed to throw away all the achievements of localizing our civilian aviation industry and start buying Boeing again?

Are we going to hand over half of the most convenient Arctic territory on the planet to the US? Is that it? Or are we going to sell all Russian oil through Mr. Kushner? How do you imagine that? Some say: “Investments will come here.” But that would mean that instead of creating a sovereign financial system, we would say: “No, let’s reintegrate ourselves back into the collapsing dollar system. Let’s support it with our achievements of the past five years.” It’s obvious that there can be no real cooperation.

One can have symbolic cooperation. It is a wonderful look when two great countries can do something together. The most we will get is a hockey match and an ‘Apollo-Soyuz’. It must be understood that these are purely token steps, which only demonstrate that nothing particularly substantial can happen. It does not mean it will be forbidden. It simply will never play a substantial role. Even in 2019, before Covid and the military operation, trade turnover between Russia and the US was negligibly small. And that is understandable: it is geopolitics, geoeconomics – you cannot jump over that. And now, after so much effort has been spent to become independent and to work with Eurasia on a new basis, to say, “No, now let’s start doing something again with the Americans” is just laughable. That will not happen.

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“The UK is spinning a web of influence designed to survive any Ukraine peace deal..”

While Trump is making peace?

• How Britain Built A War Network Around Russia (Yanovsky)

Last week, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced in Kiev that defense manufacturer MBDA had been authorized to disclose information concerning the British components of the SCALP missile, the French version of the long-range Storm Shadow, to Ukraine.Officially, the decision concerns documentation required to organize local assembly, but in practice, it could facilitate the transfer of blueprints, components, assembly kits or finished missiles.


Moscow regards this technology transfer as the UK crossing a red line, as London hasn’t even attempted to shift responsibility onto intermediaries and the decision was publicly authorized by the prime minister. Britain has therefore assumed direct responsibility for the resulting escalation and deepened its involvement in military operations against Russia.

SCALP was developed through a joint British-French program and its assembly requires classified information about British components and French sub-assemblies, as well as access to a secure facility. Ukraine doesn’t possess a complete production cycle, but even a partial transfer of classified data would integrate Ukrainian assembly into the British-French manufacturing chain and bind all three parties together for years.

Before this decision, Britain had been far more careful about covering its tracks. For example, the Flamingo missile, marketed as a product of the Ukrainian company Fire Point, is identical to a design unveiled in 2025 by the British-Emirati Milanion Group. That arrangement allowed London to keep its distance, with formal responsibility for the missile’s development and deployment resting with Kiev.

Britain is also attempting to free future missile projects from the American vetting process, so under Project Brakestop, the Ministry of Defense has commissioned MBDA UK, MGI Engineering and Rotron Aerospace to produce three prototypes of long-range missiles for Ukraine. The purpose is to reduce dependence on US authorization and, consequently, on the position of the administration in Washington. London wants to determine for itself when and under what conditions such weapons are transferred.

British drones are already being used by Ukraine to strike targets deep inside Russia. They include the Nyan jet-powered drone, manufactured by Callen-Lenz, a subsidiary of BAE Systems. For its developers, the battlefield offers something particularly valuable: operational data with which to refine the weapon. Russia has also repeatedly pointed to the direct involvement of British specialists in the deployment of Storm Shadow missiles.

On the same day as the SCALP announcement, London secured access to Avengers AI Labs, an extensive body of data gathered by Ukrainian frontline sensors, so now British companies will be able to use this information to train target-recognition and autonomous-control systems, greatly shortening the journey from development to battlefield deployment.Five British governments have come and gone during the active phase of the Ukraine conflict, but the country’s anti-Russian course has remained remarkably consistent.

Boris Johnson began a program to develop the Ukrainian navy, Rishi Sunak signed a ten-year security agreement, Keir Starmer followed with the Centenary Partnership Agreement and Burnham has now authorized access to classified missile technology. Each government has built upon the commitments made by its predecessor.

The same continuity is visible in Britain’s strategic doctrine, where Sunak’s Conservative government described Russia in its 2023 Integrated Review Refresh as the “most acute threat” to British security and Starmer’s Labour government retained that position. The 2025 National Security Strategy called Russia “the most obvious and pressing example” of confrontation, while the Strategic Defence Review described it as an “immediate and pressing threat.” That review established the principle of “NATO first, but not only NATO” and committed Britain to preparing for war.

These doctrines are supported by long-term financial obligations, given London has promised Ukraine £3 billion, approximately $4 billion, annually until at least the 2030-31 financial year. The century-long partnership agreement provides for joint production, technology transfers and cooperation in the Baltic, Black and Azov seas where Britain’s presence is intended to endure for decades, regardless of when the current military campaign ends.

The declaration signed by Britain, France and Ukraine on January 6, 2026, already outlines arrangements for the postwar period. These include multinational forces, military logistics hubs, secure facilities and a special legal regime for foreign personnel. In London’s calculations, a ceasefire wouldn’t end its involvement, but it would consolidate a new phase of Britain’s military and industrial presence.

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Saxony-Anhalt is small, 1.7 million voters, so it says little. But it makes me realize that this went fast! Where was AfD a year ago? Stuck in court.

Dutch news: AfD has 39 out of 83 seats. But the “populist” BSW party, which promised to support it, unexpectedly got its 5 seats, and could bring it to 44.

And the labels keep coming: far right, radical right, extreme right etc. That’s just for not wanting more immigrants?!

• AfD Sweeps Saxony-Anhalt Election In First “Far Right” Victory Since WW2 (ZH)

Update(1400ET): In a political earthquake, the AfD has taken a massive lead, per exit polls, at the Saxony-Anhalt election in what the party’s state leader hailed as sending a resounding “signal to Berlin.” This moment marks the first time what has been dubbed a German “far-right party” taking power at a state level since World War II. This is absolutely historic. “The exit polls, published by German public television stations, suggested that the party, known by its German initials AfD, would win between 39 and 41 seats in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt,” NY Times reports. “That would leave it just short of an absolute majority of 42, but far ahead of its nearest rival.”


But it remains unclear whether it will be able to form a government. Below is the latest via Deutsche Welle: Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Tino Chrupalla says his party secured a mandate to govern with its strong election result in Saxony-Anhalt. “We have halved the CDU, so from that point of view it’s a great evening,” Chrupalla told journalists in Magdeburg, referring to an earlier remark by Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader and chancellor Friedrich Merz that AfD’s result could be cut in half.

Chrupalla called the outcome “sensational.” “Ulrich Siegmund will be the new premier of Saxony-Anhalt,” he said. “From here, we will change Germany.” If the party falls short of an absolute majority, Chrupalla said it would be open to talks and even suggested an AfD minority government could be tolerated by other parties. AfD has signaled it is open to a coalition partner that would be open to changing its migration and energy policy – though this option doesn’t seem to be on the political map realistically at this early point. Youth turn to AfD in droves…

 


 

From last night:

Voters in Saxony-Anhalt head to the polls today in an election that could deliver Germany’s most massive political shock in decades, with the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland on track to beat Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats.

Final polling estimates put the AfD at 40% to 41%, nearly double the CDU’s 23%. The party’s lead candidate, 35-year-old Ulrich Siegmund, has ruled out governing in a coalition, suggesting the AfD would need an outright majority to take power of its first German state government.

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2096575571568255471?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2096575571568255471%7Ctwgr%5E855b88b12e1dd9c69d1daa6ec38f09e58692f2c5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fafd-predicted-win-saxony-anhalt-merz-panics-antifa-floods-streets

About 1.7 million people are set to vote today, with polls closing at 6 p.m. local time. AfD’s rapid ascent comes as voters are furious over Germany’s stagnant economy, deindustrialization, energy costs, and the Third World migrant invasion. The Polymarket bet on how many seats the AfD is expected to win today assigns a 74% probability to 38 to 41 seats, with 42 to 45 seats at 16%. Ahead of the historic election, thousands of far-left Antifa crazies took to the streets wearing all black and holding Antifa and LGBT flags. Others were seen carrying signs reading “FCK NZS” and “FCK AFD.”

https://twitter.com/COMPACTMagazin/status/2096309332111507721?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2096309332111507721%7Ctwgr%5E855b88b12e1dd9c69d1daa6ec38f09e58692f2c5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fafd-predicted-win-saxony-anhalt-merz-panics-antifa-floods-streets

A reported 15,000 left-wing activists joined a so-called pro-democracy festival in the state capital, Magdeburg, on Saturday, organized by the “Saxony-Anhalt Open to the World” alliance. Yet the whole globalist cult in Germany has likely run its course. It has been nothing more than what some call a nation-killing experiment, pushing uncontrolled mass migration and deindustrialization policies that have sent Europe’s largest economy into a tailspin.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Saturday threatened the AfD, saying, “We will not let these people, who trash Germany and everything we have achieved in recent years and decades,” before adding, “We will not let these people talk our country into ruin!”

https://twitter.com/MarioBojic/status/2096535311597662449?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2096535311597662449%7Ctwgr%5E855b88b12e1dd9c69d1daa6ec38f09e58692f2c5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fafd-predicted-win-saxony-anhalt-merz-panics-antifa-floods-streets

Yet what did Merz actually achieve? Destroying Germany’s economy? That is something he certainly accomplished.

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“Paris needs guarantees that Kiev will repay the money it’s been getting during its conflict with Moscow, Jordan Bardella has said”

• France Can’t Finance Ukraine Forever – Le Pen Party’s Head (RT)

France lacks money for itself and simply cannot keep funding Ukraine indefinitely, Jordan Bardella, the president of Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally (NR) party, has said. The main French opposition party faced harsh criticism from its rivals earlier this week after its vice president, Louis Aliot, said that NR “would turn off the tap” for Kiev if it comes to power after the 2027 presidential vote. Le Pen is seen as having strong chances to succeed in the election next year, no matter who her rival will be in the second round.


Bardella weighed in on the issue during his speech at the Ambrosetti Forum in Italy on Saturday, saying that Ukraine needs support from France and other Western nations during the conflict with Russia, but “our objective should not be to finance the war ad vitam æternam,” which means ‘forever’ in Latin. France has a national debt of €3.5 trillion ($4.6 billion) and cannot be “giving money that we no longer have” to Vladimir Zelensky’s government, he argued.

“The extremely serious and worrying state of French public finances means we can’t give money without any guarantees or assurances that this money will be repaid one day,” the National Rally president said. Paris has been one of the strongest backers of Kiev in the EU after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, providing it with billions in military aid and supplying various sophisticated weapons, including CAESAR self-propelled howitzers and Mirage fighter jets.

According to Bardella, the Americans were “much smarter” than the Europeans when it came to assistance for Kiev “because the money they gave to Ukraine is secured against rare earth mining.” He was referring to the deal agreed upon between Washington and Kiev last year, which grants the US preferential access to Ukrainian mineral resources. During US President Donald Trump’s second term, Washington also significantly reduced aid to Ukraine, making European NATO members pay for American-made arms supplied to the country.

Earlier this week, Trump warned that he intends to present Europe with a belated bill for billions of dollars that Washington spent arming Ukraine under his predecessor, Joe Biden. He previously estimated that Biden gave Zelensky more than $300 billion worth of weapons for “free.” Le Pen said on Thursday that the National Rally is skeptical about further assistance to Ukraine because it believes that the conflict with Russia needs a diplomatic solution.

A poll by Harris Interactive in late August suggested that Le Pen has the support of 34% of the French public, which should guarantee her a place in the second round of the presidential election, where she would likely win comfortably against either her left-wing rival Jean-Luc Mélenchon or the centrist candidate, former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe. Russian officials said repeatedly that foreign weapons being sent to Kiev will not prevent Moscow from achieving its military goals, but will merely prolong the fighting, while increasing the risk of a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.

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You mean we know that truth?!

• Leftists Are Erasing the Truth About 9/11 From Classrooms (Matt Margolis)

Friday marks 25 years since 19 terrorists hijacked four planes and murdered 2,977 people on American soil. In the wake of those attacks, this country made itself one promise: Never Forget. Twenty-five years later, it’s clear some people are working hard to make sure we do exactly that: forget.


Here’s the number that should make every American furious: only Arizona and Florida legally require public schools to teach about the September 11 attacks. Ten states have statutes that merely encourage some form of 9/11 instruction, according to an August University of Wisconsin study, and that can mean anything from a moment of silence to a full lesson. New York, where the towers actually fell, mandates only a moment of silence and a passing mention in Board of Regents standards. No statewide curriculum exists.

Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), who is pushing legislation to require 9/11 education in all 50 states, told the New York Post, “We made a promise to ‘Never Forget’, but today, only a handful of states require 9/11 to be taught in their schools.” But it gets worse. So much worse.

According to the North America Values Institute, an education watchdog group, leftist activists, some backed by George Soros, have produced 9/11 lesson plans now used in schools nationwide, including in New York City. One, “Teaching Beyond September 11th,” spends exactly one paragraph on the actual attacks and never once calls the hijackers terrorists, instead building entire units around “Right-Wing Extremism” and “Islamophobia and the Oval Office.” It describes Osama bin Laden only as a man the United States “accused” of masterminding the attacks, leaving out his own confessions and his declared jihad against a country he called the “worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind.”

The curriculum was developed by the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education beginning in 2019 and is now recommended by education departments in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Oregon. Zineb Riboua, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute, said this kind of material teaches kids “that America is responsible for the atrocities around the world to develop a moral framework that can be activated very quickly to get policies that reduce America’s power and sovereignty.” She said the tactic mirrors what the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps use to target young people. “Ayatollah Khamenei said the best audience to target is students,” she added.

It still gets worse.Adam Feinberg, a teacher at Brooklyn’s City Polytechnic High School, assigns ninth through 12th graders Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America” alongside a worksheet asking them, without a hint of irony, “Why do you think Osama bin Laden hates Jews so much?” He uploaded it to the American Federation of Teachers’ own lesson-sharing portal back in 2020. He never denied writing it.

None of these curricula bother to mention that nearly 10,000 first responders and civilians have since died from illnesses tied to Ground Zero toxins, or what any of this does to the families left behind. Gail Silke’s brother, NYPD officer Stephen Driscoll, 38, died in the South Tower. She didn’t hold back: “They’re not affected by it, they’re not in our shoes, and they don’t want to be in our shoes. Those people can kiss my a*s.” A Manhattan mother whose father-in-law died on 9/11 said, “They were disgusted with the [expletive] they were taught, it’s not fair, they lost their grandfather.”

New York state Assemblyman Matt Slater (R-N.Y.) said, “Nearly 3,000 innocent people were murdered by al Qaeda on September 11th. They were the victims. The terrorists were the perpetrators. Any curriculum that blurs that fundamental truth, or makes the victims secondary to a political narrative, isn’t teaching history, it’s rewriting it.”

When Soros-linked groups are writing lesson plans that soft-pedal the hijackers and focus on “Islamophobia” instead, we have a problem. The left is so devoted to its woke ideology that it is trying to rewrite the history of 9/11.

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Takes some getting used to. But you get to keep your country.

• Asylum Denials Hit 94% in June (Catherine Salgado)

A combination of judicial firings and federal reforms has led to the denial of most asylum claims, an area where illegal aliens are known to exploit our system egregiously. In June 2026, over nine out of 10 asylum claimants did not receive what they requested. That’s good news for America.


I have emphasized many times here at PJ Media that huge numbers of illegal alien criminals, particularly under Joe Biden’s administration, simply claimed asylum and stated they were too afraid to go back home, which in prior years was practically enough to ensure they would receive asylum in the U.S. But in most cases, these people do not actually meet the legal standards for asylum. In some cases, indeed, they are afraid to go home, but only because they are gang members or convicted criminals fleeing justice.

On August 31, TRAC Immigration reported the following: “The number of individuals Immigration Judges grant asylum to each month has been falling. In June 2026, only 771 individuals were granted asylum—less than a quarter of the number of individuals awarded asylum just three years ago. At the same time, the number of asylum decisions has grown resulting in soaring asylum denial rates. In June 2026, 94 percent of all asylum cases were denied.

It appears that President Donald Trump’s administration has replaced many immigration judges with individuals less likely to take illegal alien criminals at their word. TRAC seems extremely upset about the change, but it is great news for Americans, as we can be sure that illegal aliens will have much less of a chance of abusing this loophole in order to obtain U.S. residency.

The Center for Immigration Studies’ (CIS) Andrew R. Arthur explained that the percentage of granted asylum claims is actually even lower than TRAC indicated, because it did not take into account claims that were withdrawn, administratively closed, or not adjudicated. He elucidated in some technical detail what all of those categories meant, but essentially, not every claim ends up going all the way through the process to denial or approval for various reasons.

Of the 254,680 asylum decisions IJs issued in the first nine months of FY 2026, 7,231 (2.8 percent) were grants, 89,740 (35.2 percent) were denials, 44,062 (17.3 percent) were not adjudicated, 18,251 (7.2 percent) were withdrawn, and 3,315 (1.3 percent) were administratively closed — but 92,081 (36.2 percent), the largest single category of IJ asylum decisions, were ones in which the claim was “abandoned”.

So actually, based on these figures, fewer than 3% of asylum applicants this fiscal year received the asylum they requested. That’s how few of the applicants were able to prove in court that they truly needed asylum. Many illegal aliens also abuse the asylum process to try to obtain work authorization, after which they never show up in court again, Arthur warned.

In short, if there is a record high of asylum denials, it is because the Biden administration encouraged excessive and widespread abuses, and the Trump administration now has to restore the integrity of the asylum process.

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“Ottawa appears to have shown up to a knife fight with a strongly worded press release.”

• The U.S. Has 13 Times the Economy — Carney Has 13 Times the Pout (Florack)

At first glance, it looks almost silly. Here we have two countries sharing the world’s longest undefended border, deeply intertwined economies, decades of trade agreements, and an enormous volume of commerce crossing back and forth every single day. Surely, one might think, reasonable adults could sit down and work this out over a Tim Hortons double-double. But, see, that’s the problem with looking at this purely as a spat over tariffs. It isn’t about tariffs at all. It’s about leverage — and Ottawa appears to have shown up to a knife fight with a strongly worded press release.


Here’s the inconvenient math sitting underneath the whole argument. According to current GDP data, the U.S. economy runs about $30.8 trillion, against Canada’s roughly $2.3 trillion. That’s not a rival negotiating across the table — that’s a difference of about $28.5 trillion, which means Canada isn’t negotiating with a comparably sized economy. It’s negotiating with one more than 13 times its size, and acting surprised when the bigger guy gets to set the terms.

Then there’s energy, where the gap gets even more embarrassing for Ottawa. The United States produced a record 13.6 million barrels of crude oil per day in 2025, the most any country has ever pumped, and also hit a record 39 trillion cubic feet of natural gas — America has been the world’s largest natural gas producer since 2011 and isn’t giving that title back. Canada’s oil sands are a genuinely valuable resource. The trouble, from Ottawa’s side of the table, is that Washington already has plenty of its own.

And Canada still can’t quit the American market even if it wanted to: in 2025, the U.S. imported 3.9 million barrels a day of Canadian crude, making America overwhelmingly Canada’s dominant customer. Canadian oil matters to the United States. The United States is Canada’s oil industry, full stop. That’s not a negotiation between equals — that’s a landlord reminding a tenant who holds the lease. Carney might try to shut that oil off, but it’s a surefire way to make Alberta the 51st state, which he can ill afford.

Then there’s the part of this fight Washington has been increasingly willing to say out loud: Canada’s approach to government spending, immigration, and social policy. The Trump administration has argued that Canada’s expansive government and rapid population growth eventually become someone else’s problem — namely, the strained housing market, the overloaded infrastructure, and the public services buckling under the weight.

Before anyone waves that off as typical American bluster, it’s worth pointing out that Ottawa has been saying the same thing about itself. Canada’s own government has acknowledged the pressure population growth put on housing and social services, which is precisely why it’s now slashing its own targets — permanent residency holds flat at 380,000 a year through 2028, while temporary-resident arrivals get cut from 2025’s 673,650 down to 385,000 next year and 370,000 the two years after, with the explicit goal of getting the temporary population under 5% of the country by the end of 2027. Trump didn’t write that policy memo. Carney’s own government did.


And the numbers behind it are genuinely striking. According to Statistics Canada’s 2021 Census, 26.4% of the population was first-generation — born outside Canada — and another 17.6% was second-generation, meaning Canadian-born with at least one foreign-born parent. Add those together and you land at roughly 44% of the country having an immediate immigrant connection. That’s not a talking point. That’s the census.

None of which means immigration itself is the villain here — Canada was built by it, and immigrants contribute to the economy. The actual question is whether the rate and mix of that growth can be reconciled with housing, infrastructure, employment, and a social safety net that has to be paid for by someone. Even Ottawa seems to have concluded the honest answer, for now, is “not at the pace we were running it.” Gee, guys, welcome to reality. You might start by noticing what others have noted from afar: the huge percentage of these immigrants are dependent on large social support outlays.

Even the OECD’s own 2025 economic survey of Canada — an organization not exactly known for MAGA sympathies — flags weak business investment and a widening productivity gap between Canada’s best firms and everyone else as structural problems, not passing headwinds. And that’s where this whole trade fight starts making a lot more sense.

The United States walks in with the world’s largest economy, record domestic energy production, a massive consumer market, and an industrial base most countries would trade their currency reserves for. Canada walks in with real resources, a well-educated population, a serious industrial economy, and one very good card: energy and commodities the U.S. genuinely wants. That’s a relationship worth keeping. It just isn’t a relationship between equals, and pretending otherwise, as Carney seems bent on doing, doesn’t change the scoreboard.

Maybe that’s the part some people in Ottawa are struggling to swallow. It isn’t that Washington discovered some secret new lever to pull. It’s that Washington has always had this much leverage, simply by virtue of being what it is. When one side shows up with a $30.8 trillion economy, record energy output, and a consumer market Canadian exporters can’t afford to lose, and the other side shows up with a $2.3 trillion economy that depends heavily on access to that exact market, the interesting question isn’t why Washington thinks it can ask for concessions. It’s why anyone in Ottawa, Carney in particular, assumed it couldn’t.

Sometimes the uncomfortable part of a negotiation isn’t finding out the other guy is bluffing. It’s finding out he isn’t — and that he’s been holding the better hand the entire time. That’s the position Carney finds himself in just now. The reality is Carney doesn’t have nearly the cards he’d like Canadian voters to believe he does. I’ve already pointed out the leftist proclivities Carney harbors.

Before becoming PM, Carney sat on the board of Canada 2020, a think tank Maclean’s has called the outfit that effectively runs Liberal Party policy behind closed doors, with documented ties to Obama-world Democrats and access to Soros Open Society funding streams. More recently, Carney delivered the closing keynote at a closed-door Global Progress Action Summit in Toronto, sharing a stage with Barack Obama, Alex Soros — George’s son, now chairman of OSF — John Podesta, Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Elissa Slotkin.

Every critter listed in that paragraph considers Trump an enemy. No serious analysis of Carney’s actions would be complete without acknowledging this. Carney has run on standing up to America and particularly standing up to President Trump. The trouble for Carney is that he simply hasn’t got the leverage to do that. It’s time for either Carney to grow up and face reality, or for Canadian voters to remove him. Preferably the latter.

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Painful.

• U.S. Job Growth of 162,000 vs Canada Job Losses -42,000 (CTH)

In this episode from Promethean Action’s Barbara Boyd she takes a look at the U.S. economy and the Main Street policies of President Trump versus the banking/Wall Street Canadian economy. In the August jobs report the U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs, while the Canadian August jobs report reflected 42,000 job losses.


Boyd – “A blockbuster U.S. jobs report showing 162,000 jobs created is contrasted with Canada’s 40,000 job loss under Mark Carney, as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tells Steve Bannon that Wall Street and major outlets like the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal stoke economic panic and spread “fake news,” citing a misframed story about Norway’s sovereign wealth fund shifting from Treasuries into higher-yield Fannie and Freddie securities.

This episode frames today’s challenge as a “Red Queen economy,” arguing America must grow productivity fast enough to outrun debt, China’s advances, and infrastructure and skills obsolescence, while blaming Biden-era inflation and spending. It spotlights Trump administration workforce initiatives, including expanded training and Pell Grant use and the new Foundry School—an advanced manufacturing program with a Stanford curriculum and international PAX Silica partners. Finally, it covers Trump executive orders aiding ranchers’ beef processing and DOJ antitrust scrutiny of major meatpackers and retailers.”

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No more people in armies, but robots.

• Operation Twist 2.0, 2032 Gold Target & 100,000 Robotic Soldiers (Armstrong)

In Part 2 of this interview, economic cycle expert Martin Armstrong breaks down the immediate impact of the Fed’s latest operations on precious metals, the underlying drivers of the market, and why he projects gold’s long-term macro peak won’t arrive until 2032. Plus, Armstrong shares insights on the shift toward autonomous warfare, including the military’s development of 100,000 robotic soldiers, and why traditional AI still falls short of human curiosity.


Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/ivan_8848/status/2096176506523304402?s=20 https://twitter.com/warDaniel47/status/2096288093531730158?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle September 3 2026

Sep 032026
 
 September 3, 2026  Posted by at 10:12 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  36 Responses »


Henri Matisse Bathers by a River 1910


• Trump: Who Says I Want a Deal With Iran? (Ed Morrissey)
• We’re Still Playing ‘Let’s Make a Deal!’ With Iran? (Stephen Green)
• Trump Proclaims War Won’t Last ‘Too Long’ (ZH)
• What Is Iran’s Boiling Point? We May Be Very Close to Finding Out (Patterson)
• The Leipzig Incident Has All The Hallmarks Of A False Flag (Andrew Korybko)
• Von der Leyen Tells EU Citizens ‘All Your Monies Are Belong to Us’ (Welborn)
• Von der Leyen Wants Your Bank Deposits: How to Keep Control of Them (Fares)
• The CIA Never Comes To Russia In Peace (Scott Ritter)
• Mike Johnson’s Got a Trick for Dems Trying to Pack the Supreme Court (Charles)
• The ‘Gaza Genocide’ Is a Hoax (David Harsanyi)
• Musk: The Future Is Power, Chips, and Data Centers (Stephen Green)

 


 

https://twitter.com/DeepLeaksHQ/status/2094778976598360189?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2094882064046735484?s=20

 


 


Throughout the year many have said Iran was winning. Are they still out there? Or can we get real now?

• Trump: Who Says I Want a Deal With Iran? (Ed Morrissey)

Er … maybe Donald Trump? Repeatedly?


Nevertheless, this Truth Social post suggests that Trump learned his lesson, and a lot faster than a couple of his predecessors. ABC News reported earlier yesterday that Trump had again sent diplomatic signals to get a negotiated end to the Hormuz crisis. The IRGC had spent most of yesterday threatening their usual mother of all responses, but those empty threats have usually accompanied their own attempts to get other Gulf states to intervene with Trump on their behalf. The time for deals has passed, Trump posted last night:

Why haven’t the Iranian people risen up yet? That question got some blowback for a couple of reasons. The Iranian people are disarmed, first off, and their oppressors control nearly all the weapons. They tried an uprising in January; the regime massacred tens of thousands of them to keep control. The US did not directly intervene until six weeks later, and the war increased the internal enforcement of regime rule.

Second and perhaps more important, the constant attempts by the US to cut a deal with the regime undercut any momentum that the Iranian opposition might generate. Not to fulfill Godwin’s Law, but the clear parallel here is 1930s Europe and the constant deals offered to Hitler by Britain and France. The German military needed Hitler to suffer one defeat to seize power, and the old Prussian clique was prepared to do it, but Hitler kept getting concessions from the Versailles powers. By the time of the Munich humiliation and the subsequent seizure of Czechoslovakia six months later, Hitler was unstoppable thanks to attempts to appease Hitler back to peace.

Why would people risk their lives at the moment the US might cut a deal with their oppressors? This has been the problem with previous administrations that tried to negotiate with the Islamist terror regime in Tehran. Barack Obama wanted his Munich moment so bad that he backed the regime during the 2009 uprising by recognizing the ridiculously corrupt election in Iran that year. He spent the next six years chasing the JCPOA that Iran entirely ignored anyway. And Joe Biden wanted desperately to get the mullahs to sign back onto that useless JCPOA in order to declare that he had achieved peace in his time, too.

In that sense, Trump has learned his lesson a lot faster than his predecessors did. If he’s serious about this, as opposed to making this into a negotiating tactic, then Iran has a very big problem. Duane will go into more detail in our next post on this point, but the siege and traded “kinetic actions” favor the US. Iran has no blue-water navy, no effective air force or air defenses, and the strategic damage done in March to its military-industrial complex will set it back decades. Its currency has collapsed, and the only asset that the IRGC still has is Iran’s oil – which they can’t trade any longer, thanks to a relatively cheap blockade that Trump can maintain for months or longer.

Actually, it sounds like Trump wants a different kind of “trade” with Iran. He’s trading tankers, and again, Trump has a lot more pieces on the board: Why it matters: This is the first time the U.S. military has struck Iranian tankers in retaliation for Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz — rather than to prevent them from violating the naval blockade. A U.S. official said the move was part of a new “tanker for tanker” policy approved by President Trump to further deter Iranian attacks on tankers that move through the strait.

Driving the news: U.S. officials said around 100 targets were attacked during Tuesday’s strikes. The Iranian government tankers were anchored off Iran’s coast north of the U.S. naval blockade line. U.S. drones launched missiles that hit their engine rooms. Among the targets were Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) air defense sites, radar systems, mine-laying capabilities, communications sites, anti-ship cruise missile launchers and attack drone launchers, U.S. officials said.

This is an even bigger loss to Iran than just the replacement costs of the tankers. Iran has been forced to store its crude oil on its tanker fleet to prevent the necessity of capping their wells, which would potentially cripple their main industry for a generation. The rest of the world has the capacity to replace these tankers; Iran cannot afford to do that now, even if the blockade ends. Every disabled tanker also delays the recovery of their income stream when the siege does end, too.

Let’s hope that Trump means what he posted last night. No one should want a deal with the radical Islamist terrorists that currently have Iran in their grip. The Iranian people will rise up when they can feel confident that the rest of the world will not come to rescue this regime from itself.

Read more …

Bessent added: “My job is to make sure that they want to have a deal, and they will want to have one.” Put this one right on top of the stack of things I don’t understand.”

• We’re Still Playing ‘Let’s Make a Deal!’ With Iran? (Stephen Green)

I have a couple of Iran items for you today that go together like Scotch and sauerkraut. The first is that following the tit-for-tat attacks across the Persian Gulf over the weekend, American forces again lit up Iran’s southern coast on Tuesday night local time. The most recent reports indicate explosions in at least half a dozen cities stretching from Chabahar in the Gulf of Oman to Bandar Abbas and Qeshm Island on the Persian Gulf side. Qeshm is home to an underground missile base.


Axios reported almost exactly 24 hours ago that President Donald Trump and his national security team were “considering waging limited strikes in the Strait of Hormuz to prevent Iran from reconstituting its radar and missile capabilities to attack ships.” And so here we are. Again. OSINTtechnical is a reliable source for further updates on today’s strikes, if you’re interested.

Oil is back up to about $90.I feel very smart right now, having filled up the tank on Saturday. And it’s still something of a miracle — or at least adaptable logistics — that after six months of on-and-off war, mining the Gulf, etc., oil is still under $100. What happened to those scare stories of $150 or even $200 oil? The second item comes courtesy of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who last week revealed his “economic D-Day” sanctions against the Islamic Republic, targeting the regime’s enablers — particularly in Communist China’s banking system.

Today, when asked about developments in Iran, Bessent said to Fox Business, “We have zero tolerance. We are going to economically asphyxiate this regime.” That’s great. I’m all for it. Strangle away. Economically, that is. But then, Bessent added: “My job is to make sure that they want to have a deal, and they will want to have one.” Put this one right on top of the stack of things I don’t understand.

Bessent has been almost frighteningly effective in fulfilling his promise to collapse Iran’s currency, the rial. As he reminded Fox Business in that clip, the rial stood at 800,000 to the dollar last spring, but as of last week was down to two million. That’s created real-world hardships for the regime and the Iranian people. “Small protests occurred outside petrochemical plant and a sugar cane factory where workers were made unemployed but received no salary for last six months,” Peter Baum reported on X today. “One person killed by IRGC outside the sugar cane factory.”

Furthermore, “Academic staff at numerous universities on strike as they too have not been paid for months.” The trick is to keep asphyxiating the regime until Tehran can’t afford to pay the thugs who keep the people in line with beatings and mass murders as required. And these are the same theocrats Bessent thinks he can make “want to have a deal?” And that after we let go of their throats, they’ll stick to it?

What I had thought back in March might be a days-long campaign to hurt the regime has gone on too long for a deal — and the stakes are too elevated. Once you grab somebody by the throat, you’ve got to keep squeezing until the job is done.

Read more …

“They like the snipers better because all they do is have a crowd of 200,000 people, and a person goes down here right between the eyes ..”

• Trump Proclaims War Won’t Last ‘Too Long’ (ZH)

Trump again reiterated in afternoon comments to reporters that the military campaign against Iran won’t last too long. Of course, we’ve heard this many times before, also amid reports that White House aides are urging ‘quiet’ related to the Iran conflict until at least after November midterm elections, after which operations could ramp up again. “We blew up much more than their radar last night, it was a very heavy attack last night. And we’re prepared to do another one any time we want,” he stated.


“We hit them last night because they took a shot at our base in Jordan,” he continued, confirming the Iranian retaliation. “We hit them hard last night. They gave a little love-tap, but we hit them hard.” He also described that “some defensive, some offensive” Iranian radars and capabilities along the Strait of Hormuz were taken out. Trump says that while the US is ready to strike Iran “at any time”, he doesn’t expect the renewed fighting to last “too long”. Another interesting moment below… these numbers keep getting inflated, despite there not being any evidence of large-scale protests and violent suppression on the ground in recent months:

And there’s this via CBS: Trump in Oval described Iranian actions against protesters. They use “machine guns and sometimes the snipers. They like the snipers better because all they do is have a crowd of 200,000 people, and a person goes down here right between the eyes, and they’ll have three snipers doing it, and it’s a horrible thing to watch.”

What’s the timeline on this? What is he talking about? Netanyahu has also joined in from Israel, on Wednesday saying that Mossad continues to be active in Iran, and that the goal is regime collapse.

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“Tehran proper is now gridlocked by gas lines ..”

“..In the cities, for now, at least, there is enough water. At least enough that it’s increasingly being used to dilute gasoline in order to make the limited rations to petrol stations last longer ..”

• What Is Iran’s Boiling Point? We May Be Very Close to Finding Out (Patterson)

I can’t say I remember all of my high school chemistry and physics education, but I do remember the concept about water boiling. Under normal atmospheric pressure, 212 degrees is the magic temperature for it to begin bubbling off into steam in earnest. But if you can pressurize the container holding the water, doubling its surroundings in atmospheric pressure, you get an additional 36 degrees of heat before boiling begins. That’s why cars and trucks for a very long time have had pressurized cooling systems for engines.


Don’t worry, I’m not going to geek out on science for the rest of this column. I bring it up in order show that cars and water have a very symbiotic relationship, provided that they’re used in the right way. And when they’re not, as is happening with increasing frequency inside Iran, we’re about to see what happens when pressure reaches its critical point. An important sequence of events took place in the Middle East in the last week, and much of it was very predictable based upon economic conditions deteriorating rapidly inside Iran that we covered last week.

Without any revenue, gasoline, grain, or weapons flowing into the Islamic Republic, and nothing to generate revenue leaving, the IRGC could not stand still and starve along with 93 million Iranians. The status quo of the blockade with the addition of further sanctions rolled out in Operation Economic Outcast was not sustainable. They had to lash out in order to change the equation. The last straw for the regime? De-mining the Strait of Hormuz.

As President Trump is fond of saying, Iran’s Navy is gone. What they had left was speedboats with machine guns tied to them. Most of those are gone now, too. But late last week, the IRGC began scrambling together a ragtag group of naval volunteers into whatever they could find that would float, and fashion a few more mines to begin the process of closing the Strait anew. There were reports that the Iranians wanted to deploy rockets with mines as payloads and drop them into the Strait, as absurd as that sounds. Of course, Centcom had a pretty good idea they would try something, and unlike Iran, our Navy and Air Force have the ability to watch them.

On Sunday, targets on Larak Island, one of the channel islands in the Strait of Hormuz, the same island the IRGC envisioned would be the proverbial toll booth collecting fees from tankers and freighters, were destroyed. And according to several open source reports in Israel and around the region, it was a direct hit. How do we know? The Iranians immediately launched nine missiles in response at…Jordan.

Eight of the nine missiles were intercepted and destroyed, and one was far enough off course it was not a threat to anything except scorpions. President Trump expected Iran to pop off, and in keeping with his motto to hit ten times as hard if Iran went kinetic, two waves of strikes hit targets up and down the southern coast of Iran. The President, in his response to Iran, said there is no more deal on the table. Howie Mandel is not in the Oval Office with a bevy of young ladies with briefcases and a mysterious banker on the phone. His banker is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and there is no more offer. There is either surrender or more pain and suffering. On social media, Trump gave this AI video as a warning to the Iranians not to escalate after this response.

He later told Fox News’ Trey Yingst that if the regime launched again after this, he would flatten them. Did Iran take their beating and stand down? Nah. They found 14 more rockets and fired…at Jordan again. Why Jordan? We have a military base there. We still do. Ten of thirteen rockets were once again intercepted and destroyed mid-air, and three were wide right of the uprights and wiped out more desert fauna. What about the 14th rocket, you ask? Well, it went up, and then came down on an Iranian house that was full of people conducting a wedding ceremony.

The regime blamed the tragedy on U.S. strikes while simultaneously admitting that a telecommunications tower was also struck. The tower and the house, by the way, were not near each other. This is what’s left of the tower.

President Trump, to pour salt in the wound, said the U.S. had been watching Iranians build this tower, which would help restore their radar system and track vessels in the Strait once again. We waited until they had basically rebuilt the thing — investing all the time, money, and energy, and then we blew it up. It’s sad bordering on the pathetic, but after everyone in the Middle East hearing about the menacing power of the vaunted Iranian Navy for decades, this literally is what constitutes the regime navy this week.

As of last night, the promised intensified third round of strikes had not begun. They certainly could be imminent, as it would be in keeping with what President Trump said multiple times in the last few days. But perhaps something else may be on the horizon. We’ll come back to that in a bit. I mentioned about cars, water, and pressure, and how Iran is about to become one giant science experiment. Let’s begin with water. As scarce as gasoline appears to be in populated areas, in the more rural regions, water is even harder to come by.

Water deliveries have all but stopped since the war began, and you have to walk miles to get it. Forget about plumbing and irrigation. Water showing up just under once a month for entire villages? How long is that supposed to be sustainable? In the cities, for now, at least, there is enough water. At least enough that it’s increasingly being used to dilute gasoline in order to make the limited rations to petrol stations last longer. Diluting gas with water was a one-off event last week, or so we were told by the regime. One station got a load of bad gasoline, and it was all just an innocent mix-up, if you’ll pardon the pun. This week, though, there are multiple reports of gasoline being more water than gas.

Water in the radiator and cooling system? You bet. Water in the windshield wiper tank? Absolutely. Water in the gas tank? Not if you want to make it home from the station. And to add insult to injury, Iranians are having to wait hours on end for a chance to play Russian Roulette at the gas pump. For some, they lie on their horns in frustration while they wait. They can’t go anywhere, They’re stuck, they’re hot, they’re angry, and so they honk. What in previous weeks were lines for gas in the outskirts of the cities, Tehran proper is now gridlocked by gas lines.

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Yes it does.

• The Leipzig Incident Has All The Hallmarks Of A False Flag (Andrew Korybko)

It was carried out to justify the German economy’s evolution to war footing, distract from the resultant problems, and legitimize a future serious escalation against Russia. Germany blamed Russia for last month’s incident in Leipzig when one explosives-laden drone was found on the tarmac in proximity to Ukrainian cargo planes, another reportedly collided with a separate cargo plane as it tried to land but failed to explode, and a third was later found close to the premises. Putin condemned their claim, shared his opinion that it was a false flag due to them planting evidence, and speculated that the motive was to distract from domestic problems by fearmongering about Russia.


While skeptics might roll their eyes, the Leipzig incident has all the hallmarks of a false flag. For starters, Germany is implying cartoonish incompetence on the part of Russia. The public is supposed to believe that the most skilled drone operators in the world, who were tasked with what would have been the most sensational Hybrid War attack on NATO ever, left a drone on the tarmac, got unlucky when another failed to explode after it hit a landing cargo plane, and left another nearby. That’s difficult to believe.

The second point to make in support of Putin’s hypothesis is that something similar happened last fall when unknown drones forced major airports in Scandinavia to temporarily ground all flights. Zelensky predictably blamed Russia and called for closing the Danish Straits to its shipping. As with the Leipzig incident, no evidence was ever shared in support of that claim, but it served as the precedent to blame Russia for mysterious drone-related incidents in Europe in order to justify more escalations against it.

And finally, while Zelensky’s proposed escalation ultimately never came to fruition (most likely to avoid a hot NATO-Russian war), an escalation of some sort might follow the Leipzig incident. It was argued here in late August that NATO would expect to gain more from a serious escalation with Russia than the inverse, which could take the form of resuming summer’s failed drone campaign against Russia at scale indefinitely in pursuit of its deindustrialization and demilitarization. That might be attempted next year.

Observers should remember that Germany, which is now Ukraine’s second-most-important military patron behind the US, reached a deal in the spring to develop Ukraine’s deep-strike capabilities. Its economy is also getting on war footing as Germany rapidly remilitarizes in furtherance of its goal to command Europe’s largest army ahead of the EU’s prediction of a possible war with Russia around 2030. This has proven unpopular with voters, however, ergo the need to justify it through the Leipzig incident.

To recap the explanation of Putin’s false flag hypothesis, last fall’s Russian drone scare in Scandinavia served as the pretext for blaming the Kremlin for future such incidents without evidence, which Germany has now done with the Leipzig one. The narrative of Russian drone operators’ incompetence is difficult to believe, however, but it’s still being pushed to justify the Germany economy’s evolution to war footing, distract from the resultant problems, and legitimize a future serious escalation against Russia.

As was written, this could take the form of resuming summer’s failed drone campaign against Russia at scale indefinitely in pursuit of its deindustrialization and demilitarization, but that risks crossing Russia’s nuclear threshold per its updated doctrine. At the very least, Putin would once again mildly “escalate to de-escalate” against Ukraine, but there’s always a chance that everything spirals out of control. It would therefore be best for Germany to eschew escalation just like the Scandinavian states ultimately did.

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If your money’s in a bank, they can probably touch it.

• Von der Leyen Tells EU Citizens ‘All Your Monies Are Belong to Us’ (Welborn)

Maybe, just schmaybe, those cod-clasping Vikings in Iceland knew what they were doing on Sunday evening, when, by the hairs on their bearded chinny chinchins, they extricated themselves for the foreseeable future from any discussions about becoming a European Union vassal state. Oh, excuse me – European Union ‘member,’ as if that implied some sort of chummy club filled with bonhomie, and all looking out for the other fellows’ best interests.


As someone said, it’s more the Hotel California. And at the rate the unelected Empress of Europe, current European Commission president, and epic Bond villainess Ursula von der Leyen is going, no one will be left standing to wonder how to check out, even if they could. The entire union charade is going to collapse in on itself with a great sucking sound, like a black hole, and simply wink out, leaving dazed survivors standing knee-deep in civilizational rubble and blinking in stunned astonishment like Rip Van Winkle waking up from his nap.

WHADDA WE DO NOW, GEORG?
The rumblings of discontent are already so loud, and the currents running beneath the surface so strong that one can tangibly detect them through the purposeful noise screen the Brussels Brahmins and their pliant government minions maintain to distract from it, and in defiance of all the legal obstacles erected in an effort to eradicate it. In five days, it very much looks as if the status quo seismic meter will suffer its first great shock, should the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party earn its way to single-party dominance in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt.

NAZI! ULTRA RIGHT WING! EXTREMIST!
All the old, tired slurs are falling by the wayside because they’ve been deployed too often and too cheaply. As retorts rather than the real answers people are seeking for the miserable state of their countries. Those same everyday people, being slurred and demonized as ‘NAZIS!’ by the purple, blue, and green-haired freaks routinely assembled for public protests against them, have had quite enough of the double standard accorded to everyone but their hardworking, tax-paying selves.

They are tired of virtue signaling progressive/socialist politicians who rail against the middle class as NAZIS! for wanting an imported-men-of-fighting-age-stabby-types-free homeland once again while being married to actual neo-NAZIS! themselves.

[..]

The heaving, outraged chest of hypocrisy is no longer working its magic on listeners in the audience. No longer do they question why they thought they had a right to ask to begin with, and no longer do they slink away in shame that they somehow found the temerity to do so.

Now they see the arrogant hypocrisy on display, as if a film had been lifted from their eyes, and they are no longer being cowed into believing their honest concerns were wrong from the start. They see the frauds they’ve allowed to hold emotional sway berating them for who they are, and can begin to hold them accountable for what they’ve done, both to the nation physically and to the national psyche.

This explains the strength of the AfD’s appeal, the surging popularity of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) in France, and the strength of populist movements across Europe. Citizens of countries whose cultural identities and work-ethic traditions have been nearly swallowed by diktats from the EU leviathan are stirring en masse to reject the politicians who have foisted this calamitous artificial construct on them. Farmers on tractors across Europe are blocking highways or spraying manure. Populist victories in elections in nearly every single country, particularly among the major players.

And the EU’s response to all of this? Ever more tone deaf tightening of the control screws, and rejection of the middle-class values that once made Europe ‘Europe.’ Ursula von der Leyen gave an astonishing speech to French business leaders five days ago that has just now broken into the news. As you will see in the video, the unelected Empress of Europe was tremendously animated for her normal appearances, but that was, perhaps, due to the subject – money.

She and her appointed satraps have run through all of it. The money sent to Brussels, the money they’ve extorted from ‘member states’ for their weapons build-ups and defense spending, all of it. And what makes her angry enough to smack the podium is the savings of hard-working Europeans, sitting fat and untouched in European banks, out of her control.

Read more …

View from a crypto site.

“Brussels wants Europe’s 10 trillion euros in deposits funding its companies. What it means for savers, and why Bitcoin savings plans matter.”

• Von der Leyen Wants Your Bank Deposits: How to Keep Control of Them (Fares)

The President of the European Commission stood in front of a room full of French business leaders last week and said the quiet part out loud. Europeans have roughly 10 trillion euros parked in bank accounts, that money is “sitting idle”, and Europe now needs to put it to work for European companies.She was not proposing to raid anyone’s account. But the language matters, because it tells you exactly how your savings are viewed from Brussels: not as your money, but as a national resource that is currently being wasted. Here is what is actually happening, and what you can do about it that does not involve waiting for a policy to be designed for you.


What Did Von der Leyen Actually Say About Europe’s Savings?
Speaking at the La REF business conference in Paris on 27 August, Ursula von der Leyen argued that Europe’s old economic model is finished. Cheap imported energy is gone, easy access to global trade is gone, and the assumption that someone else would handle Europe’s security is gone. Her answer is money. Specifically, your money. Around 10 trillion euros in household savings sit in European bank deposits, and a large share of Europe’s savings ends up invested outside the continent, mostly in the United States.

Meanwhile European companies stall out, get bought, or move abroad for funding. €10 trillion of household savings is currently sitting in bank deposits, and a significant part of European savings is invested outside our continent.Europe must now put these savings to work for its companies, and that is the goal of the Savings and Show more

The President of the European Commission stood in front of a room full of French business leaders last week and said the quiet part out loud. Europeans have roughly 10 trillion euros parked in bank accounts, that money is “sitting idle”, and Europe now needs to put it to work for European companies. She was not proposing to raid anyone’s account. But the language matters, because it tells you exactly how your savings are viewed from Brussels: not as your money, but as a national resource that is currently being wasted. Here is what is actually happening, and what you can do about it that does not involve waiting for a policy to be designed for you.

What Did Von der Leyen Actually Say About Europe’s Savings?
Speaking at the La REF business conference in Paris on 27 August, Ursula von der Leyen argued that Europe’s old economic model is finished. Cheap imported energy is gone, easy access to global trade is gone, and the assumption that someone else would handle Europe’s security is gone. Her answer is money. Specifically, your money. Around 10 trillion euros in household savings sit in European bank deposits, and a large share of Europe’s savings ends up invested outside the continent, mostly in the United States. Meanwhile European companies stall out, get bought, or move abroad for funding. The vehicle for fixing this is the Savings and Investments Union, or SIU. The Commission says the package of measures on securitisation, bank and insurance investment rules, market integration and supervision could unlock up to 470 billion euros in additional investment.

Is the EU Really Taking Money From Your Savings Account?
No, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something. There is no confiscation, no forced conversion, no deposit levy in the SIU. What the SIU does is change the plumbing. It makes it easier and cheaper for banks, insurers and asset managers to move retail money into capital markets, it pushes simplified investment products and pension wrappers, and it leans hard on financial literacy campaigns to convince you that your deposit account is underperforming.

On the last point, they are not wrong. The Commission’s own framing is that bank deposits are safe and easy to access but usually earn less than capital market investments. That is true. The awkward part is the second half of the pitch: the goal is not only better returns for you, it is cheaper capital for European companies. You are being asked to become the funding source for an industrial policy. There is also a detail that rarely gets mentioned. Your savings were never idle. Banks lend deposits out. They always have. What Brussels means by “idle” is that the money is not flowing into the specific channels the EU wants it to flow into.

Why Are Bank Deposits Losing You Money Anyway?
Forget the politics for a second. The case against leaving everything in a savings account is much older than the SIU. A euro sitting in a deposit account earns a nominal rate. Inflation eats the real value. Across most of the last decade, the combination has meant a slow, quiet loss of purchasing power for European savers, even during periods when headline rates looked respectable. You do not see it, because the number on your statement never goes down. Only what it buys does. That is the actual problem. Von der Leyen is right that 10 trillion euros of deposits is a bad outcome for savers. Where reasonable people disagree is on the solution.

What Does It Actually Mean to Control Your Own Money?
Here is the test. If someone else can change the rules, freeze the account, redirect the flow, or inflate away the value while you sleep, you do not fully control that money. You have a claim on it.That applies to a bank deposit, and it applies just as much to whichever tidy EU investment wrapper gets rolled out in 2027 with a nice acronym and a tax incentive attached.

Bitcoin is the opposite design. Fixed supply of 21 million, no issuer, no board meeting that can change the schedule, and if you hold your own keys, no intermediary that can freeze it. That is the entire point of the asset. Whether you like the volatility or not, nobody in Brussels, Frankfurt or Washington can decide that your bitcoin is sitting idle and needs to be redirected.

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CIA state within state.

• The CIA Never Comes To Russia In Peace (Scott Ritter)

CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow last week. What we know: Ratcliffe met with Sergey Naryshkin, the director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service. This has been confirmed by Naryshkin himself, who described the meeting as “routine.” We also know that the US spy chief did not meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The meeting took place, there is nothing unusual in this,” Naryshkin stated afterwards. “In the practice of special services, meetings of managers, personal meetings or online are part of our work. So, the meeting with John Ratcliffe is a working format.”


Naryshkin refused to state what issues were discussed, explaining that they were within the competence of the intelligence services. “And the competence of the intelligence services is such a rather delicate and special thing,” the Russian spy chief said. What we don’t know: literally anything else. Rumors abound about additional attendees, as well as the agenda – or lack thereof – that was pursued by Ratcliffe during a meeting which appeared to be anything but routine. But the fact is, any meeting between Ratcliffe and Naryshkin, given the nature of the times we live in, could never be described as “routine.” A quick reminder: John Ratcliffe’s CIA is currently at war with Russia. Literally.

Ratcliffe assumed his current position on January 23, 2025. Prior to this, he did a short stint as national intelligence director during the last year of Trump’s first term in office. He was a Texas congressman for a few years, as well as a small-town mayor and acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Texas.He is a politician, not a spy. But he is fully cognizant of the CIA’s secret war against Russia, having been fully briefed while serving as DNI. As a member of Congress, Ratcliffe was a leading policy maker on national security issues serving as a member of the House Intelligence and Homeland Security committees. Any effort to portray him as some sort of “innocent abroad” fails on the face of the facts.

The CIA has always been at war with Russia. During the Cold War, Moscow Station (the name of the CIA’s operation center based out of the US Embassy) was literally the front line of the spy-versus-spy antics taking place between the US and the Soviet Union. The CIA headed up Operation Cyclone, a massive paramilitary-driven effort to create a Vietnam-like quagmire for the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The goal of Operation Cyclone was to kill Russians. I worked with people who were directly or indirectly affiliated with Operation Cyclone. ‘Kill more Russians’ was literally their mantra.

There was a time when the CIA hired genuine Russia-area experts. The analysts who populated the Office of Soviet Analysis (SOVA) in the Directorate of Intelligence at the height of the Cold War were some of the best experts on the Soviet Union imaginable.I know because I worked with them. From 1988-1990, I received two classified commendations from the director of the CIA for my analytical work involving the Soviet Union. I was considered by the CIA leadership to be a top-notch Soviet analyst.

In 1992 the CIA actively recruited me for an analytical position within the predecessor to SOVA, the Slavic and Eurasian Office. I was brought in for a high-level interview, after which I was informed that the CIA would be passing on my application. When I asked why, I was told that I was too married to old school thinking about Russia – in short, I was a ‘Sovietologist’. The CIA was looking for people who could imagine Russia ‘differently’. What this meant was divorcing oneself from the mindset that Russia (i.e., the Soviet Union) was a peer-level opponent worthy of respect (my view), and instead adopting a stance that Russia was a defeated foe that needed to be kept down by any means necessary.

In the 1990s, the CIA’s task was to use Boris Yeltsin as an agent of influence to weaken Russia and facilitate foreign control over its resources. The CIA actively infiltrated every aspect of the Russian economy and used ‘soft power’ resources funded by the likes of the National Endowment for Democracy and overseen by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to hijack Russian democratic institutions and Russian social life, especially through media-related activities.

The CIA also was very active in working to break Russia up into more manageable fiefdoms, each ruled over by a CIA-controlled lackey. The Russian-Chechen conflict was a primary example of this activity. When Boris Yeltsin stepped aside in favor of Vladimir Putin as Russia’s president on New Year’s Eve 1999, the CIA immediately made it its task to undermine Putin and replace him with someone from the Yeltsin camp willing and able to do the CIA’s bidding.

Putin’s resistance and resilience as a Russian leader operating independent of CIA control helped shape a new generation of Russophobes in the United States. The first generation were the ‘new Russian’ thinkers that replaced the old school ‘Sovietologists’ at the end of the Cold War. To them, Russia was a playground for which to launch experiments on economic and political domination with absolutely zero regard to the price being paid by the people of Russia.

This generation of Russophobes simply detested Russia and the Russian people, failing to attribute any normative human value to their lives. Millions of Russians lost their lives as a result, and tens of millions of others suffered greatly.Michael McFaul, the former US ambassador to Russia, falls into this category. So, too, does Fiona Hill. And Beth Sanner. People whose educational background and Russian experience pre-dates Putin, people who know the truth about Russia but opted instead to embrace the hegemonic policies of superpower singularity and work to weaken and destroy Russia.

But Putin’s stubborn hold on power, despite concerted efforts by the CIA to oust him (think Navalny), led to the birth of a new generation of Russophobes, so-called ‘experts’ whose only claim to relevance is their undying hatred of Putin and everything Russian. It is this generation that has gravitated to the upper levels of the CIA’s analytical community, and who openly hate all things Russia. People like Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Julia Gurganus. It is this openly Russophobic CIA that John Ratcliffe oversees.

His relationship with Julia Gurganus is both instructive and illustrative of the sickness that pervades the CIA when it comes to Russia. Gurganus was the National Intelligence Officer for Russia back in 2016-17, at the height of the Obama-era Russiagate scandal that tried to make the case of collusion between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russia to steal the 2016 presidential election from Hillary Clinton. Gurganus helped manufacture the intelligence that underpinned this false allegation. She was a vociferous critic of Trump, so much so that the CIA quietly exiled her to a think tank position during Trump’s first term in office.

When Trump was reelected, Ratcliffe oversaw the whitewashing of Gurganus’ role in falsely accusing Trump of collusion, leading to the elevation of Gurganus as the senior CIA briefer onboard Air Force One as Trump flew to Alaska to meet with Putin in August 2025. That’s right – Ratcliffe purposefully cleansed Gurganus of her anti-Trump credentials so she could personally brief the president before his meeting with Putin. Tulsi Gabbard, in her role as DNI, exposed Gurganus as an anti-Trump operative and had her security clearances revoked, but not before the damage was done.

There was a time when the CIA’s Directorate of Operations Russia House was home to living legends. People like Milton Beardon, who helped run Operation Cyclone and was chief of the Soviet/East European Division at the time the Soviet Union fell. Gardner Hathaway and Berton Gerber, who ran some of the most successful CIA spying operations from Moscow Station in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

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“There’s a couple of Democrats here in the House who have suggested that they’re not on board with the Democrat Socialists of America, just a few. They’re going to get a chance to show us tomorrow. We’re going to see.”

• Mike Johnson’s Got a Trick for Dems Trying to Pack the Supreme Court (Charles)

House Republicans are set to propose a constitutional amendment that would prevent Democrats from packing the Supreme Court when they get back in power. This comes after years of Democrat politicians pushing for adding more seats to the Supreme Court to water down the influence of conservative-leaning justices.While addressing reporters at the U.S. Capitol, explained that lawmakers will be dealing with a series of legislative priorities on Wednesday.


“I’ll highlight one of those,” he said. “We are going to bring a constitutional amendment. It is a bill to amend the U.S. Constitution to ensure that the U.S. Supreme Court remains composed of only nine justices. We will keep the nine. Now, you’ve heard the Democrat Socialists of America.” Johnson continued, noting that “the communist socialists in the Democrat Party who are taking the party over, they published their platform” and that “they want to abolish the border. They want to abolish prisons, defund police. One of their objectives, among all the crazy things, is they want to pack the U.S. Supreme Court.”

We’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen. So we’re going to put that bill on the floor tomorrow on suspension because it requires a two thirds vote of both chambers of Congress to amend the Constitution. …There’s a couple of Democrats here in the House who have suggested that they’re not on board with the Democrat Socialists of America, just a few. They’re going to get a chance to show us tomorrow. We’re going to see.

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2094856135987896489?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2094856135987896489%7Ctwgr%5E4d3572432d1bb72d0eb88025d7d6cfe40c5a921a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftownhall.com%2Fnews%2Fjeff-charles%2F2026%2F09%2F02%2Fmike-johnsons-got-a-trick-for-dems-trying-to-pack-the-supreme-court-n2682293

Democrat lawmakers have increasingly advocated for packing the Supreme Court over the past decade in response to a series of rulings that didn’t go their way. They argue that the change is necessary to maintain institutional legitimacy. Congressional Democrats have introduced multiple proposals in recent months aimed at weakening the power of the Supreme Court. These include increasing the number of justices, imposing term limits, and creating ethics standards.

These efforts have not been successful due to a series of legislative obstacles. Democrat Rep. Hank Johnson (GA-4) declared, “We can either sit back as our Supreme Court continues to act without any restraint or checks and balances, or we can do nothing about it.” Similarly, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) said, “When Democrats control the Senate in the next Congress, we must abolish the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court.”

Of course, anyone with an IQ higher than my shoe size can see that this has nothing to do with restoring legitimacy or ensuring fairness. Democrats just want more power, and they can’t gain dominance over the court anytime soon without changing the rules.

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The anti-Israel voice seems to have reached a crescendo, on the waves of a pro-muslim song. We need balance

• The ‘Gaza Genocide’ Is a Hoax (David Harsanyi)

In May 2025, Tom Fletcher, the United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, went on BBC Radio and told the audience that 14,000 babies in Gaza were going to die “in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them.” According to UNICEF, there are around 20,000 babies in the entirety of Gaza. Which means 70% of all infants were in danger of dying in mere hours. An “utterly chilling” figure, Fletcher stressed.


The New York Times, along with numerous other establishment media outlets, relayed Fletcher’s allegation to its credulous audience without any skepticism. The usual experts were summoned to discuss this unfolding famine on cable news. And the antisemites across social media amplified the claim. No matter how far-fetched a story is about Israel, including preposterous evidence-free accusations that it trains dogs to rape Palestinians, papers such as The New York Times will spread it to feed the perception that the Jewish state operates as a genocidal entity. And no matter how often the claims are debunked, they keep at it.

A couple of months after Fletcher’s pronouncement, for instance, The New York Times ran a front-page story about starvation in Gaza featuring a haunting photograph of an emaciated Palestinian toddler named Mohammed Zakaria al Mutawaq. Unmentioned was that the boy suffered from cerebral palsy and other serious preexisting medical conditions, and his appearance had nothing to do with hunger. In any event, what the U.N. report actually found was that 14,000 cases of malnutrition might occur among the 1 million children of Gaza, not babies, if aid did not reach them over the next year.

Aid did reach them. Lots and lots of aid. The U.S.-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation delivered around 187 million meal equivalents, plus produce, and over 1 million packs of supplementary food for children to Palestinians before the ceasefire. And a year after U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres claimed that “famine” in Gaza was a “failure of humanity itself,” a UNICEF-led “Nutrition SMART Survey Result” found that not only was there no widespread acute malnutrition in Gaza, but at 0.5%, the strip had one of the lowest rates in the region.

By the time “clarifications” run, the stories have coagulated in the imaginations of Israel haters. No credible person argues that Palestinians in Gaza do not suffer because of Hamas’ endless nihilistic wars against Israel. But there was no genocide. Not one popularly understood. And not legally. The exculpatory evidence against genocide is overwhelming. The most significant thing to remember about the genocide charge is that international organizations had to change the way they apply the legal definition that has been in place since the 1948 Genocide Convention to smear Israel.

In the popular understanding, the term “genocide” is something akin to the mass murder of people. As a legal matter, it is defined as acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

The legal case against Israel relies on intent. If Israel harbors genocidal intentions, why would it deliver more humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip than any army has probably ever delivered to an enemy population during wartime in history? Israel, which gave Gaza autonomy in 2005, not only provided food but also clean water, electricity and medical aid for decades.

If Israel has genocidal intentions, why does it warn civilians with flyers, roof knocking, phone calls and other mitigation techniques? Israel remains the only nation in the history of Earth that is allegedly intent on genocide to put its own troops in more danger to spare civilians. Why does Israel move the populations of entire cities out of the way when trying to confront Hamas? Israel could, of course, annihilate all of Gaza within minutes if it felt like it.

If Israel has genocidal intentions, why does the Gaza war have one of the lowest combat-to-civilian death ratios in the history of modern warfare? This, despite the fact that Hamas urges its own people to become cannon fodder as a means of appealing to friendly Western journalists and intellectuals. Hamas leaders build tunnels under hospitals, schools and mosques. They fire rockets from civilian areas. They prevent their own people from evacuating combat zones.

If Israel had genocidal intentions, there would be a lot more than 70,000 total casualties during the war. That total, it needs to be stressed, includes deaths from illness, old age, executions, murders, natural causes and preexisting conditions. Most importantly, it includes Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters — though that fact is barely ever mentioned by the mass media.

Of course, Israel itself is home to over 2 million Arab citizens, a fifth of the country, with full legal and voting rights, who serve in the Knesset, practice law and medicine, and attend universities. Arab Israelis have higher living standards, longer life expectancies and greater political freedom than Arabs in most neighboring countries. If Israel’s goal was ethnic cleansing, the nation is the most spectacularly incompetent operation in human history. There is no genocide. And there was no famine. There was a war. And the bad guys lost.

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“You have to have an environment that’s relatively free of regulation, meaning that new things must be default legal as opposed to default illegal,”

“..if the UK were a state, 30 years ago it would have been the fifth-richest in the Union. Today it would be our poorest state, ranked 51st behind Mississippi.”

• Musk: The Future Is Power, Chips, and Data Centers (Stephen Green)

SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk spoke some harsh truths to EU leaders at a G20 conference in North Carolina on Tuesday — and a reminder to Americans about where the future lies. Speaking and taking questions at the G20 Innovation Ministerial in Chapel Hill, Musk said he believes “AI will probably increase the global economy by 20 to 30%” over the next few years. “That’s my rough estimate — meaning on the order of 20 to 30 trillion dollars per year.”


“Toward a 30% increase of the total global economy — this is quite a lot of prosperity we’re talking about here, just from digital AI,” he added. “But from robotics … I think we’ll see many multiples of the global economy, meaning you can increase the economy by a factor of 10 or more. These are mind-boggling numbers.”One question is what drives all that growth. The answer is three things: more chips, more data centers, and a lot more power generation.

“The consensus,” Musk noted, “is that there will be a significant power shortfall next year — not a distant future. I believe the consensus estimate among analysts that follows the AI space very closely is that there will be at least a 15 gigawatt shortfall of power in 2027 for AI chips.” SpaceX plans to skip right past power generation limits by building data centers in space, but so far, at least, they’re the only company in the world with anything close to the ability to do that.

That’s one reason Musk said the exponential demand growth “creates an opportunity” for countries to “construct a lot of power, offer that to AI companies. And in exchange, of course, these data centers would be taxed and have to pay reasonable fees and so on.” The second question is who gets the lion’s share of that incredible growth. President Donald Trump kicked off the discussion on Monday, telling opponents of AI data centers that they would end up “backwards and poor,” and that they were helping rival China.

As previously noted, the last real innovation in the consumer space to come out of Europe might have been the web browser more than 30 years ago. That’s a long time ago.Europe does have a few tech firms with high-end specialties. There’s Germany’s Black Forest Labs for FLUX-based image generation, or France’s AMI Labs, which is just a startup — and a tiny one, by American or Chinese standards — but shows some promise. Mistral AI is probably Europe’s leader in AI. The company is privately held, but with an estimated valuation of less than $15 billion, the entire thing is almost a rounding error compared to leading U.S. or Chinese firms.

When it comes to general AI, Europe really doesn’t compete at the frontier. There’s simply no will across the EU or UK to allow the innovation (or power generation, or data center construction) required. “You have to have an environment that’s relatively free of regulation, meaning that new things must be default legal as opposed to default illegal,” Musk said to audience members including ministers from EU member states France, Italy, and Germany, and even EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen. In the EU, for example, we find that the regulation level is extraordinarily high, and things are generally default illegal, and this inhibits progress with new technologies,” he added. Take that, various ministers.

Europe fell badly behind the U.S. since the internet became the big growth-driver. So much so that if the UK were a state, 30 years ago it would have been the fifth-richest in the Union. Today it would be our poorest state, ranked 51st behind Mississippi. Over the next 25 years, probably less, Europe seems destined to get lapped by China, too. Is that the future we want for our country?

Opposition to building out energy generation, chip fabrication, and, yes, even data center construction is functionally no different than choking off rail and steel production at the start of the 19th century, or oil and automobiles at the dawn of the 20th. We know how to build the future. The final question is whether we allow ourselves to do it.

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Debt Rattle September 1 2026

Sep 012026
 
 September 1, 2026  Posted by at 10:29 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  28 Responses »


Henri Matisse Le Bonheur de Vivre 1906


• Trump Says Iran’s Regime Killed 100,000 Freedom Protesters (Salgado)
• The Left Would Hate for You to Know These Things About Trump (Margolis)
• Penn Professor Demands Politicians Commit to Packing the Supreme Court (Turley)
• Oh, Canada (James Howard Kunstler)
• Is the Muslim World Rising (Paul Craig Roberts)
• The True Story of World War II (Paul Craig Roberts)
• The Long Shadow of Judge Indira Talwani (Turley)
• Clyburn Calls for Packing the Court with “Baker’s Dozen” to Flip Cases (Turley)

 


 

https://twitter.com/KirkLubimov/status/2094455512821879045?s=20 https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2094225618443682274?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2094139964439376307?s=20

 


 


Broken up work day today. Had to go to hospital for tests. The Matisse must make up for all that’s off.

• Trump Says Iran’s Regime Killed 100,000 Freedom Protesters (Salgado)

The Iranian regime’s massacre of its own people who want a freer and more democratic country has now climbed to 100,000, according to President Donald Trump. If the genocidal Iranian regime falls, which we all pray will happen in the near future, Trump seems to be contemplating Nuremberg-style trials, which is something we haven’t done for mass murderers in far too long. The president posted on TruthSocial on August 31 about the runaway inflation in Iran and how many freedom protesters have died in government crackdowns since the initial January slaughter that left 50,000 dead.


“Iran is officially a Failed Nation. IT IS DEAD!” Trump began in his usual exaggerative style. “They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, they have no currency, they are not paying their soldiers or police, Inflation is at 300%, and their leadership is in total disarray and incapable of properly representing the country. The only thing they have is FAKE NEWS from the USA, a willingness to kill their protesters (now over 100,000 people dead. They must be tried for war crimes against humanity!), and a good line of ‘BULLS**T.’ Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Over the weekend, the Trump administration ordered strikes on Larak Island, where the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had missile launchers. Unfortunately, the IRGC still seems to have enough missiles left to continue firing at American troops.

The people of Iran have shown their courage in the face of death all throughout this year in a way that history should immortalize. But tragically, until and unless the United States and Israel eliminate the rest of the top ayatollahs who indiscriminately kill Israelis, Americans, Persians, and Arabs alike, the slaughter will never end, and regime change will never happen. It is unfortunate that none of the weaponry the Biden administration abandoned to the Taliban in Afghanistan will be available for the Persians to take on their own terrorist government. I would much, much rather that the Persians who are pro-American have it and overthrow a regime that never stops screaming “death to America” than that Afghani terrorists who hate us should have and use it.

Unfortunately, for some reason, American weapons never do seem to end up in the hands of people who are willing to further our interests. Then again, perhaps there is an alternative to Americans and Israelis taking out the murderous mullahs directly.

Perhaps the U.S. government could stop sending so many weapons to Ukraine, where so many men have died in a stalemate war, and smuggle them to the Kurds or the Persians. Four more Americans died recently in Iranian strikes. It’s time to stop that Iranian terrorism once and for all. And there is a whole army of Persians and Kurds just waiting for the weapons and the opportunity to do the job for us.

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Not the Left, it’s the MSM that has made Trump a caricature.

• The Left Would Hate for You to Know These Things About Trump (Margolis)

The mainstream media have spent pretty much every moment since Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president of the United States portraying him as an evil, cruel, empathy-free tyrant who couldn’t manage a kind word for anyone outside his own family. Joe Biden practically built his entire 2020 campaign on that same premise, insisting that the election came down to character, and that Trump simply didn’t have it.


This is the same Joe Biden who spent years refusing to acknowledge his own granddaughter, Navy Roberts, the daughter Hunter Biden had with a former stripper. It’s the same Joe Biden who checked his watch through the dignified transfer ceremony for the 13 American troops killed in the terrorist bombing outside Kabul’s airport. And it’s the same Joe Biden who let the country believe he was sharp as ever while his own team quietly managed a cognitive decline he denied for years. But I digress.

Character, as it turns out, was never really the point. But two stories from a Newsmax podcast are the kind Democrats would rather nobody hear because they don’t fit the narrative they’ve been trying to sell to the public. The first comes from Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who sat down with Greta Van Susteren and described what happened after Trump invited him to Mar-a-Lago back in January 2025. “He invited me to have dinner at Mar-a-Lago back in January of 25, and I took a lot of s**t for that,” Fetterman said. “Why? I don’t understand.” But the big reveal came next.

“He also even checked in on my dad. My dad’s having a real difficult situation, health, about his heart, and he absolutely checked in on that,” Fetterman said. He added that he disagrees with the president plenty on policy, but on a personal level, “it’s been more than happy. “The private and the personal, at least in my experience, is very different,” Fetterman said. Van Susteren backed Fetterman up with a story of her own, one that goes back years before Trump ever ran for office. She recalled reporting on a struggling veteran and getting an unexpected phone call.

“Years ago, before he even ran for president, I was covering the story of this down-and-out soldier who had PTSD,” Van Susteren said. “I got a call from Trump asking me what his address was. I said, ‘I don’t know his address. Why?’ He said, ‘Because I want to help the guy.'” “I said, ‘Well, I don’t know.’ He said, ‘Tell you what, I’ll send you a check and you find him,’ so he hangs up the phone,” Van Susteren continued. “The next day I get a FedEx from Donald Trump with a personal check to the guy for $25,000.”

There’s a reason why Van Susteren considered it a big deal. “It’s not something Trump could write off on his taxes. It’s not something that was reported,” Van Susteren said. “He’s pretty gruff, often he says some pretty rough things and tweets some pretty rough things, but he’s got that side of him.” None of this fits the character that Democrats have long insisted was true.

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“Carney increasingly reminds me of Fauci. He has that exact same air of technocratic infallibility. . . .” — Hans Mahncke on X

“Mark Carney has made himself a pain-in-the-ass for President Donald Trump.”

No, Trump got rid of one Trudy. He can take out any number of them.

• Oh, Canada (James Howard Kunstler)

You go for decades without even thinking of the place. The Great White North. Very polite people, somewhat Scottish, seems like. There’s poutine! Une invention Québécoise — an indigestible mélange of French fries, gravy, and cheese curds, like something you’d cook up at 4am after a toga party in a frat house. Ice hockey (of course, but was it necessary?) Polar bears. Puffins on the Labrador cliffs. Tar Sands. Plaid upholstery . . . .


Years ago, we used to go up there from college in the farthest reaches of upstate western New York just to get a half-fake buzz of being in “a foreign country.” Niagara Falls was like Times Square without the charm. Bunch of squalid wax museums and ashtray shoppes. Toronto was Rochester on steroids, beyond forgettable.

I once took a choo-choo train from Seattle to Vancouver just to take in the scenery along the Pacific Coast. Bald eagles galore all the way up feeding on stuff out in the Pacific tidal mud-flats. Got to Vancouver. They yanked me out of the customs line and stuffed me in a back office. A female immigration officer swaggered in, said they found a nine-year-old DUI conviction for me on some computer (well. . .. okay. . . a night of fishing with rum). Said she could keep me out of the country if she was in a bad mood. I couldn’t help wising off: “Nice to know Canadian immigration policy depends on your mood.” Whoops. They detained me for an extra two hours just to make me feel the pain. But I was eventually released into that boring city. Thank God for the Chinese restaurants.

And now. . . Mark Carney! He’s a beauty. A refined ectoplasmic manifestation of all the Globalist huggermugger working tirelessly to upend Western Civ. He has a weird glow of semi-transparency — not in the sense of revealing any truths, but more like you can partly see through him . . . he’s only half there . . . a ghost in the geopolitical machine.

More to the point, Mark Carney has made himself a pain-in-the-ass for President Donald Trump. On the surface, this US / Canada rift appears to be all about trade relations. Naw. It’s about Mark Carney being a tool for merry old England attempting to capture the resource base of northern North America to collateralize what little remains of the UK’s once-sprawling, now sinking, empire. England is not so merry these days. It has somehow managed to issue a fatwa on itself and entered a gruesome process of assisted economic and cultural suicide. You can’t even raise a British flag there anymore without risking weeks in the slammer. The home folks get stabbed and beheaded. It’s all blight, rape, kebabs, and hijabs over there. Not a good look if you still want to be that country you dimly remember.

Plus, they want to kick off a big war with Russia. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Really? Lacking much of a military, Ukraine was Britain’s tool for that. Trouble was the huge expense of that project. Thought they could work-around it by turning Ukraine into a money-laundry, washing, rinsing, and disbursing US-sourced funds to Mr. Zelenskyy, with giant kickbacks to the Democratic Party’s money apparatus. Worked nicely when the phantom “Joe Biden” haunted the White House. He and his sicko son, Hunter, were already in so deep in Ukraine since JB’s felonious veepdom that Mark Carney — then chief of the Bank of England — could hang the Bidens out to dry anytime, if required.

Lo, these many years, then, Britain and NATO have sponsored all that drone-making and missile-launching action from Ukraine deep into Russia — in case you wonder how Zelenskyy carries on this stupid war, considering there are no young men left in Ukraine eligible to reinforce the battle lines in Donbas. Britain and NATO probably also furnish the satellite targeting of Russian assets. You must doubt that the USA is involved in that anymore. Luckily, Mr. Putin has the Christian patience of a true saint.

Our president is sick of Ukraine and the festering geopolitical disease it has been infected with by our increasingly-former allies in Europe. NATO’s aim with Russia is exactly the same as Britain’s push in Canada — a resource grab for the failing nations of Europe, who are getting choked to death by Ursula von der Leyen and her EU flying monkeys. Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain. . . all whirling around the drain. Our president sees all that. (You don’t need magic glasses.)

Maybe it’s time to just send the 82nd Airborne into Ottawa. Flight time: under two hours from Fort Bragg, NC. Drop them on Parliament Hill. Let them hang around a few hours. Then, declare the whole thing a gag and fly them home. It’d be worth it. Or maybe go in and snatch Mark Carney like we did Maduro. Stuff Carney in an adjoining cell at the MDC in Brooklyn. I’m sure the two could amuse each other, swap satisfying gripes and sob stories.

Really, why stop at just re-naming Lake Ontario. Take the whole darn thing like a pie that has been left on the windowsill too long. The Canadian people would get over it five minutes. Everything is easier in the USA. Running a company, especially. They could keep their poutine and their hockey, learn to have a little fun once in a while. Quebec could become a theme park (what else have they got going there?). No more tariffs to get hung about. Honk if you like the idea.

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“Such an opportunity for Muslims has not existed for centuries ..”

• Is the Muslim World Rising (Paul Craig Roberts)

Recently there have been striking new developments that imply major changes in the correlation of forces. These developments have largely gone unacknowledged and their implications unexamined. I made the effort in online interviews on Dialogue Works and On Target. I will now attempt to do so in writing.


One of the developments is Iran’s defeat of US President Trump’s attack on Iran. Trump has been desperate to find a way out of the conflict without admitting defeat. His exit strategy is to redefine the conflict from a military one to an economic one and impose new economic sanctions on Iran and those who trade with Iran, while claiming that the Strait of Hormuz is an American territory through which is moving massive amounts of oil shipments. The combination of a redefined conflict with propaganda comprises Trump’s exit strategy.

Another development is the announcement of a mutual security agreement between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. This development combines conventional military force with oil reserves and nuclear weapons and unifies three separate Muslim ethnicities in a strategic location with a population of 355,390,000 people. These are largely Sunni Muslims.

Another development is the announcement on Iranian news media that Iran, predominantly Shia, has been invited to join the alliance. It true, this would indicate that the schism between Sunni and Shia is breaking down. It would also mean a pact of four countries with 448,700,000 people, larger than the United States, with conventional and nuclear power, a large chunk of the world’s oil reserves, and control over the strategic oil waterways. It would be a bloc of strategic importance to Russia and China as the Muslim four country pact is located such that it protects Russian and Chinese interests. Such a pact could become a de facto alliance of 6 countries.

These developments, if real and not just words, signal the end of any pretense of American hegemony and Israel’s agenda of Greater Israel. Israel’s population of 10 million of which only 7.8 million are Jews is dwarfed by 448,700,000 Muslims. Moreover, the protection offered by the alliance would likely result in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen joining and the end of warfare stirred up by Washington among Muslims. Syria itself could be reconstituted, and Israel could be forced to give back enough of Palestine for a two-state solution to be possible.

Such an opportunity for Muslims has not existed for centuries and the possibility is so extraordinary that it seems likely to pass by due to stupidity, incompetence, and petty bickering. But if the opportunity is seized, the world has changed.

The only news I have of the Iranian response to the invitation is that Iran asked to see the details of the security agreement. Certainly Iran would want to know if the pact had any teeth or was just words, a bluff or an attempt to get attention. I know little of the content of the agreement, and I wonder at the absence of an explanation of its consequences. As it is announced, it is not secret, and you would think it would be of great interests to the world’s foreign policy analysts.

The report that Iran was invited to join came from Mehdi Rahimi, who heads Iran’s parliamentary news agency. However, I have not seen confirmations from the members of the pact or the Iranian executive branch that such an invitation has been issued. If no invitation has been issued, it raises the question whether the pact is an Israeli-American operation directed at Iran. If so, it seems that Trump would be more comfortable with the Iranian situation than he shows himself to be.

We have seen centuries of Muslim impotence due to their inability to unite. In the 21st century we have witnessed Washington destroy three Muslim countries for Israel–Iraq, Libya, and Syria–and attempt to destroy Iran, while Israel has completed its absorption of Palestine into Israel. Just the other day Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich announced that with the “Judaizing” of the remnants of the West Bank, there would now be new Jewish settlements in the Negev and in Galilee.

Possibly the Netanyahu coalition will be turned out in the upcoming election. Such a possibility could be heightened considerably should Iran receive and accept an invitation to join the Mecca pact, as it would show Israelis that the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel had no further prospect and that an accommodation must be arranged with the Muslim Middle East. If peace were to arrive in the Middle East, it could possibly arrive elsewhere.

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“..it doesn’t seem to be correct that there was an over-arching official policy from Hitler to exterminate the Jews.”

• The True Story of World War II (Paul Craig Roberts)

[..] The Nuremberg Trials were a travesty of justice. The “trials” served to put all war crimes, including the Soviet ones, on the Germans. I exposed the criminality of the Nuremberg Trials in a previous article on this website. Kristallnacht was a Brownshirts operation. David Irving reports that when Hitler heard of it he was furious. Irving provides the actual documentation. But when I ask AI, the false answer I get is that “it was explicitly orchestrated by top Nazi leadership and approved by Hitler.” I trust David Irving, not a polluted AI data base containing a vast number of lies written by court historians.


Hitler disapproved of the SA (Brownhirts) and destroyed them. As for the Holocaust, Europe has laws prohibiting any examination of the alleged Holocaust. The Zionist allegations must be accepted irrespective of any evidence. This is very curious, because if the narrative is true scholarly investigation would support the narrative. Generally speaking, matters that cannot be investigated are matters that truth does not support.

David Irving reported that after a half century of research, he had not found one word of a Holocaust in any official documents in German, Israeli, Soviet, British, American official archives or in any memoirs, diaries, letters. He even offered a monetary prize to anyone who can offer him some evidence. If memory serves, neither Churchill’s nor Eisenhower’s memoirs mention a Holocaust.

Think about this for a minute. An operation as large as the alleged Holocaust would have required an organization with its own administration, with its own stationary, headquarters, insignia and uniform, but no signs of such an organization exists. It would have required enormous budget expenditures, but no signs of such a budget entry exist. In the last days of the war it would have required special fuel permission overriding the needs of the German Army, but no such orders exist.

Evidence is conclusive that the so-called “death camps” were in fact work camps where synthetic fuel and rubber were made for the German Army. In Germany all labor was valuable, including Jews, as the German work force had been severely reduced to provide the Eastern Front with troops attempting to stop the Soviet advance on Germany. The notion that six million highly valuable workers would be deprived the hard pressed German labor force is difficult to accept.

There is no doubt that Jews in National Socialist Germany suffered discrimination and harsh treatment, both official and ad hoc. Rightly or wrongly, Jews were associated with the internal revolution and Germany’s WW I defeat. Many members of the National Socialist Party advocated and acted against them. But it doesn’t seem to be correct that there was an over-arching official policy from Hitler to exterminate the Jews. David Irving documents occasions when Hitler orders that Jews are not to be harmed, and states that “the Jewish question” will be settled after the war. Hitler’s original plan was to deport them to Madagascar.

With the initial success of Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler decided that he would send the Jews to the rump of Russia behind the Urals that he would leave for Stalin. This announcement resulted in Nazi organizations sending Jews into the occupied Russian territories in advance of the expected victory, for which the administrators of the territories had no provision. David Irving says he can document 200,000-300,000 Jews being executed despite Hitler’s orders to the contrary by administrators who had no place to put them. Irving condemns these executions.

The Waffen SS was a large military force of tank and infantry divisions fighting in German front lines. They were often used to open or close breaches in the lines of combat. They were not an organization for the extermination of Jews. As David Irving and others have reported, some 150,000 Germans of Jewish descent, some being full-blooded Jews, served in the Wehrmacht, many as officers including officers in the SS. The last commander of the Luftwaffe was Helmuth Wilberg, a German officer of Jewish descent.

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“Talwani is viewed by many as a one-stop-shop judge for forum-shopping.”

• The Long Shadow of Judge Indira Talwani (Turley)

This week, the Trump administration found itself in a familiar position: facing an injunction from Judge Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Indeed, it had just secured an order from the Supreme Court on its emergency docket lifting her earlier injunction on the U.S. Postal Service requiring voting lists to confirm U.S. citizenship.


The case against the executive order on mail-in ballots has reasonable arguments on both sides, although (as I have said previously) the challengers are likely to prevail in defeating the rule or at least delaying the policy until after the midterm elections. The Constitution gives states the primary responsibility over “the times, places, and manner of holding elections.”

However, the U.S. Postal Service is a federal agency, and the federal government does have a role in the funding and regulation of federal elections. More importantly, the Trump administration is arguing that it is not barring mail-in voting but merely imposing “modest informational requirements.” Non-citizens cannot vote in federal elections, and the new rule “does not displace a single state election law. And it need not and should not prevent a single voter from voting by mail.”

The controversy over Talwani is not necessarily the merits of her decision that the rule convenes the constitutional framework. Indeed, the Supreme Court did not rule on the merits and could well rule in favor of her interpretation. The controversy is the pattern of sweeping injunctions by Talwani and a few other judges.

Litigants have been accused of forum-shopping by going to liberal, Democratically appointed judges to prevent Trump policies from being implemented in a wide array of areas, including immigration, elections, reduction in government bureaucracies, and foreign aid.

Like her colleague in Boston, U.S. District Court Judge Brian Murphy, Talwani is viewed by many as a one-stop-shop judge for forum-shopping. Both have issued hair-trigger injunctions, and both have been repeatedly reversed.

Talwani was reversed on Aug. 24 for imposing an injunction against the mail-in balloting policy. Her injunction was taken to be premature and without a legal injury, since the administration had not issued a formal rule. The truth is, the challengers had her at hello. She did not wait for a showing of a cognizable injury before issuing another injunction, because the decision appeared made before the case hit her own docket.

Previously, Talwani showed the same inclination in other cases. For example, she issued an injunction against revoking the humanitarian parole program for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Her order was lifted on appeal. She also issued an injunction to stop the Trump Administration from defunding Planned Parenthood. That order was also set aside on appeal.

Regardless of the outcome of this latest injunction, Talwani has offered the strongest case in favor of the expanded use of the emergency docket, also known as the “shadow docket.” Liberal law professors and litigants have bewailed the expanded use of this docket at the Supreme Court to resolve cases without the need for a long briefing and oral argument. However, judges like Talwani have created legitimate concerns over the use of the appellate system to slow or freeze new policies. This is why the “shadow docket” has become more prominent.

This year, confidential memoranda were leaked from the court on the use of the emergency docket and published by the New York Times. It was only the latest such strategic leak from a court that was once the paragon of confidentiality and civility.

The internal exchanges of the justices were illuminating as to the majority’s underlying reason for allowing this fast-track review. The immediate issue was a move by the Environmental Protection Agency to impose unlawful regulatory burdens on electric utilities despite a countervailing earlier ruling in Michigan v. EPA. Chief Justice Roberts believed (as did many) that the EPA was using the ongoing litigation to force utilities to spend billions of dollars to comply with new regulations that the Supreme Court had already rejected.

“In other words,” Roberts wrote, “the absence of stay allowed the agency to effectively implement an important program we held to be contrary to law.”

As with the national injunctions that plagued the Trump administration in its first year, this tactic was all too familiar. Litigants would go to liberal judges in Washington, Boston, and other blue cities to secure injunctions that would take years to fully litigate. That approach effectively allowed individual judges to pursue their own preferred policies or to prevent a president from carrying out promises made during an election. At most, the president might have a year left after these cases slogged through the conventional appellate process. It is an administrative version of the old adage that “justice delayed is justice denied.”

What concerned the justices was that many of these injunctions directly contravened earlier precedent, exposing the cynical purpose of these orders. For a president to be able to carry out major changes, he had to run a gauntlet of hundreds of judges, any one of whom could effectively negate reforms. In response, the Supreme Court ramped up the use of the emergency docket and cracked down on national injunctions, quickly reversing the rapidly increasing number of injunctions against the Trump administration.

With the midterm elections rapidly approaching, the odds favor challengers in either running out the clock or prevailing on the merits on the mail-in ballots. But Talwani and some other judges have reinforced suspicions of the Roberts court that some courts are willing allies of partisan groups in seeking to gum up the system.

Ironically, Roberts is one of the most likely conservative justices to be concerned with the Trump administration’s effort to force election integrity reforms on the states. Either way, it is the shadow of these judges, not the docket, that is casting the most ominous concern for many of the Supreme Court justices.

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The only way they can win. Change the playing field.

• Penn Professor Demands Politicians Commit to Packing the Supreme Court (Turley)

University of Pennsylvania Professor Michael Mann is the Vice Provost for Climate Science, Policy, and Action and has pushed candidates to commit to major environmental reforms. Notably, he seemed to pivot in an interview with Peter Dominick on a podcast last week, calling for all Democratic candidates to face a litmus test on committing to pack the Supreme Court: promise to pack or get the sack. It is only the latest example of how the hostile takeover of the Court is now the priority for many Democrats in removing a barrier to a radical agenda.


Mann declared: “When it comes to Senate races, there should be a litmus test,” Mann said. “It isn’t just good enough to be a Democrat. You’ve got to be a Democrat who would be willing to expand the Supreme Court…There’s no way not to be partisan. There’s no way not to be political here. If you care about the environment, you’ve got to vote for the Democrats now.” Establishment candidates are offering the mob the Supreme Court to show their bona fides as the far left turns on “institutionists” who support our constitutional system. As I previously wrote, even law professors and deans joined this movement in calling for the rejection of our Constitution on the 250th anniversary of our Revolution.

Once packed, the Court could greenlight a variety of unconstitutional measures. Years ago, Harvard professor Michael Klarman laid out a radical agenda to change the system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.” However, he warned that “the Supreme Court could strike down everything I just described.” Therefore, the court must be packed in advance to make these changes possible. That includes an agenda for extreme measures ranging from wealth taxes to reparations to climate control regulations.

Mann raised the need to reverse doctrines limiting agency authority—a barrier to some climate control measures. In so doing, he got the underlying law fundamentally wrong: “It was in a conservative Supreme Court decision within the last few years that introduced the so-called Chevron standard. Basically, what they said was that the EPA no longer had the authority to make rules based on the science and its own determination.”

In 2024, the Supreme Court actually overturned the Chevron Doctrine in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. It also did not rule that “the EPA no longer had the authority to make rules based on the science and its own determination.” Rather, it said that courts would review such decisions without the prior presumptions in favor of agency decision-making. The restored, traditional judicial review is precisely to determine whether agency decisions are based on credible interpretations of the law and science.

Mann has had his own conflicts with the courts. He was sanctioned last year after winning a defamation case against bloggers Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn for attacking his climate control research.

At the time, some of us questioned the award, which awarded just $1 in actual damages but $1 million in punitive damages. In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a case, BMW of North America v. Gore, striking down a punitive damages award. The case involved the company’s practice of repairing and repainting cars damaged in transit without telling the customers. The jury in the original trial awarded $4,000 in compensatory damages for the car’s lost value due to the lack of a factory paint job and other damage; it then imposed $4 million in punitive damages for the company’s dishonesty.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Alfred S. Irving Jr. reduced the award against Steyn to just $5000 after finding the original award to be “grossly excessive.” The court later learned that Mann’s defense team had allegedly presented false accounts of his losses after the criticism. Mann’s legal team was accused of presenting a chart that listed a grant that Mann allegedly lost due to the defamatory remarks as $9.7 million when it was later found to be worth $112,000. Irving also found a disparity in the grant income figures given to the jury.

The court found the alleged misrepresentations to be “an affront to the Court’s authority” and sanctioned Mann and his legal team “for bad-faith trial misconduct.” After reversing the jury verdict, the court ordered Mann to pay $1.1 million of his critics’ legal expenses.Now, Mann is calling for all Democratic candidates to pledge to pack the Supreme Court as a condition for running. So any Democrat who believes in our institutions and resists this mob will be a persona non grata in the party as an “institutionalist” captured by “nostalgia.”

Mann joins a growing list of figures demanding the hostile takeover of the Court from Kamala Harris to Pete Buttigieg. The priority is telling. Much of what is planned by the far-left will be difficult to accomplish due to constitutional limits. You can remove those limits by eliminating an independent Supreme Court and turning this essential institution into a federal version of state courts packed with partisan jurists.

At its base is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Court’s role. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) not only renewed her previous call to pack the court but said the court was illegitimate for rendering decisions against “widely held public opinion.” However, the court was meant to be counter-majoritarian to protect minority groups and viewpoints from the majority will.

Mann’s advice is different from that of James Carville, who wants Democrats to hide this intended move from the public (which continues to oppose court packing). Carville told Democratic candidates: “If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. F—k it. Eat our dust. Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.”

Mann and others (including former Attorney General Eric Holder) are done with any pretense: “There’s no way not to be partisan. There’s no way not to be political here.” In other words, it is time to make the Supreme Court itself partisan and political. It will then be reduced to just another partisan institution in an age of rage.

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It’s their only way to power.

• Clyburn Calls for Packing the Court with “Baker’s Dozen” to Flip Cases (Turley)

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) added his voice to expand the Supreme Court to a “baker’s dozen,” or thirteen members to allow Democrats to add justices who agree with him and Democratic members on how the law must be interpreted. In the meantime, as discussed earlier, court pack ing is being pushed as the new litmus test for any Democratic candidates. Clyburn’s “baker’s dozen” is a telling description of an effort to bake in partisan views on a Court expanded to create an instant liberal majority. In defending this hostile takeover of the Court, Clyburn bizarrely insisted that the failure to do so might lead to a return to antebellum conditions when blacks were being given fewer rights than whites.


When asked by host Kristen Welker whether he supports the call of former Vice President Kamala Harris to pack the Court, Clyburn responded: “Yes, I do. I think that we are in a position now that calls for some significant actions taken by the Congress and we ought to expand. Thirteen is a pretty good number. A baker’s dozen would be a good number to have on the court. And I would hope we would get people on the Court who will follow the constitutional underpinnings of this great nation of ours.”

Clyburn then made the sensational claim that, without taking over the Court, blacks could be returned to virtual slave conditions. He added: “The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments have been interpreted different ways over the years. And we had in the Warren Court an interpretation of those amendments that I thought would be set for the future of the country. We have now a Supreme Court that has decided to reverse course and take this country back, I say, to those rulings of Justice Taney that said that no black man has any rights that a white man must respect.”

So, while recognizing that interpretations have evolved, Clyburn now demands a takeover of the Court because he disagrees with the current interpretations. It was fine when interpretations aligned with his views, but opposing viewpoints are intolerable and warrant packing the Court with reliable liberal votes. Other Democrats have demanded packing the Court to reverse immigration rulings.

The unhinged rhetoric reflects the importance of taking over the Court by Democrats who view the institution as a barrier to carrying out a radical agenda, including proposals that are considered unconstitutional. Liberal professors and pundits have identified a court takeover as essential to, as one law professor put it, guaranteeing that the Democrats never lose another national election. As former Eric Holder and James Carville have made clear, it is about power and guaranteeing its retention.

Of course, these figures know that it will take a great deal to get Americans to trash core institutions and values. Polls have long shown that a majority of citizens oppose efforts to pack the Court. FDR’s infamous court-packing plan in the 1930s has been widely panned in history, but is now being used as a model by many Democrats to achieve short-term political goals.

In order to overcome this fealty to our constitutional system, citizens must be very angry or very afraid. That is why the rage rhetoric is increasing as we approach the midterm elections. In the last election, the prediction was the imminent end of democracy. Now it is the return to slavery conditions in the United States.

One can disagree with the Court without suggesting that these justices are effective racists or want to return the nation to pre-Civil War slavery conditions. The suggestion that the Court would return this country to the Dred Scott period from before the Civil War is deeply offensive to the conservative justices, including Justice Clarence Thomas, who is African American. It is an absurd suggestion and shows contempt not just for the Court but for Black voters.

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https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2094437257021186067?s=20

 

 

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Debt Rattle August 25 2026

Aug 252026
 
 August 25, 2026  Posted by at 9:49 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  54 Responses »


René Magritte Invisible world 1954


• “Operation Economic Outcast” Begins (ZH)
• Treasury Sec to Unveil ‘Economic D-Day’ Against Iran (ETM)
• Iran’s Civilian Leaders Call For Peace Amid Crippling U.S. Blockade (ZH)
• Le Pen Poised To Win French Elections? New Poll Shows Commanding Lead (ZH)
• The Democrats Are in a Trap of Their Own Making (Eric Florack)
• SCOTUS Gives Trump HUGE Win on Mail-In Voting (Matt Margolis)
• West Will Never Get Its ‘Loans’ Back From Kiev – ex-Ukrainian PM (RT)
• Zelensky Says Wartime Elections Would ‘Destroy’ Ukraine (ZH)
• Canada Chooses Climate Change, Censorship, and China (J.B. Shurk)
• Loonie Limps Lower As Trump Unleashes (More) Tariffs (ZH)
• Trump Gave Mark Carney an Ultimatum, USA or China? Carney Chose China (CTH)
• Trump Confirms ICE Investigating Ilhan Omar, ‘Enforcement’ Possible (Salgado)
• “This is My Place of Business” (Turley)

 


 

https://twitter.com/BasilTheGreat/status/2091833704331010055?s=20 https://twitter.com/CaseyKrol/status/2091526969951183212?s=20

 


 


“Bessent Warns Countries Helping Iran Face Expulsion From Dollar System..”

• “Operation Economic Outcast” Begins (ZH)

• Bessent Unveils “Operation Economic Outcast” Against Iran
• Pakistan enters diplomatic push: Pakistan’s army chief reportedly traveled to Tehran after Trump urged him to help reopen Iran talks.


Summary: US Treasury Sanctions Nearly 60 Iran-Linked Entities, Individuals And Vessels Across Nuclear, Missile, Cyber And Oil Networks:
• Five sectors face potential secondary sanctions: digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping.
• Measures target brokerage networks and shadow-fleet vessels operating across the UAE, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Switzerland and Europe.
• Bessent warns that countries failing to take action “will be removed from the US dollar system.”
• Bessent launched the Trump administration’s long-awaited “Operation Economic Outcast,” unveiling sweeping sanctions designed to sever Iran from the global financial dollar system and punish any foreign government or entity that continues facilitating Tehran’s trade.

The first wave of sanctions targets nearly 60 Iran-linked entities, individuals and vessels connected to the regime’s nuclear, missile, cyber and oil networks. The measures span a global web of brokerage companies, financial intermediaries and shadow-fleet vessels operating across China, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Switzerland and Europe. “No one is above the reach of US sanctions,” Bessent warned during the press conference. Bessent made clear that Trump’s campaign extends well beyond Iran. Foreign companies dealing with Tehran now face an explicit choice: sever those ties or risk losing access to the US financial system.

Bessent stopped just short of naming countries such as China… “If others don’t act, Treasury will unilaterally act,” he said, adding that Washington “expects action” from other nations. Bessent added, “To those who enable Iran, don’t test US resolve.” The obvious pressure point here is China, which remains the largest buyer of Iranian crude. Washington has previously sanctioned independent Chinese refiners and trading companies.

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Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell

• Treasury Sec to Unveil ‘Economic D-Day’ Against Iran (ETM)

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will announce massive new sanctions against Iran on Monday, a move he likened to “economic D-Day.” In an op-ed published in the Financial Times, Bessent said he is launching the “single greatest financial offensive ever marshalled against an adversary.” He said any nation that associates with Iran will face isolation. “Iran’s enablers purchase and transport its petroleum,” Bessent wrote. “They facilitate the flow of its finances through exchange houses and free trade zones. They welcome Iran’s flights and maintain registries on its behalf. They turn a blind eye to seaborne fuel transfers and the illicit use of their banks, all while concealing the extent of their complicity.”


Those enablers should “consider the consequences” of continuing their relationships, Bessent said. “Those who sever Iran’s remaining financial and commercial connectivity will reinvigorate their own,” he wrote. “They will deepen their access to global capital, reinforce confidence in their markets and attain the standing they seek in the world economy.” But, Bessent continued, “the alternative for those who tether themselves to Tehran is the foreclosure of any path to lasting prosperity.” “To become a sanctuary for terror is to become, in the eyes of the United States, a global pariah,” he said.

Iran’s head of national security, however, said the country will “retaliate in a seismic manner” to any sanctions and will consider any country supporting sanctions to be committing an act of war. Bessent compared the sanction strategy to the 1943 Tehran Conference, where Allied leaders planned the defeat of Nazi Germany. “As Roosevelt and Churchill weighed a campaign that would culminate in the Normandy landings, they asked themselves what could be done ‘to bring the greatest pressure to bear on the enemy,’” he wrote.

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Split the country. Without killing another 40,000.

• Iran’s Civilian Leaders Call For Peace Amid Crippling U.S. Blockade (ZH)

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian speaks during a visit to the shrine of the leader of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution

Iran’s top civilian officials are publicly urging an end to the ongoing conflict with the United States, exposing a deepening internal rift as they attempt to rein in hardliners who champion continued resistance. The financial and social toll of the U.S. blockade is proving too severe to ignore – as Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian recently declared that the country cannot endure a state of perpetual limbo, though he cautioned against making concessions that would appear humiliating on the global stage.


“The war must come to an end at some point,” Pezeshkian stated in a Friday address, according to state media. “It is better that we demonstrate our strength and dignity today and tell the world that we have won and that we are ending the war.” President Donald Trump has maintained a relentless blockade on the Islamic Republic after a previous memorandum of understanding imploded – effectively severing the regime’s ability to export oil – its primary source of income. This has plunged Iran into a domestic crisis characterized by skyrocketing inflation and an increasingly desperate cost-of-living crisis.

The pressure is expected to intensify further this week, as U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent prepares to unveil what President Trump has characterized as an “economic D-Day.” While the exact nature of these punitive measures remains classified, Bessent has strongly signaled the implementation of sweeping secondary sanctions targeting any nation that continues to do business with Tehran.

A Regime Divided
The push for diplomacy from Iran’s civilian government stands in stark contrast to the shifting power dynamics among its clerics and military elite. Pezeshkian claims his diplomatic push aligns with the broader goals of the regime, referencing past speeches by Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei – who has conspicuously vanished from the public eye since the conflict escalated.”I was in the presence of the Supreme Leader, and in his speeches as well, he openly stated that we must move beyond this state of ‘neither war nor peace,'” Pezeshkian noted. “We are not going to humiliatingly back down before the enemy or bow our heads. We can sit down with strength, but also with logic, and resolve our problems.”

Prior to his public absence, Khamenei had elevated hardline factions who favor military confrontation over the moderates seeking a renewed deal with Washington. Despite this, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf echoed the President’s warnings, underscoring the severe national security risks of a collapsing economy. “No matter how much military power we have, if our people are struggling and the country lacks financial circulation and economic growth, we will not achieve progress,” Ghalibaf stated. “As someone who has experienced war, I understand the true value of peace.”

Washington’s Stance: The “Right Deal”
The Trump administration’s distrust stems from the fraught history of recent negotiations, during which U.S. officials reported receiving deeply conflicting signals from Tehran. The previous agreement shattered after Iran launched a series of strikes on maritime vessels navigating the Strait of Hormuz. For the United States, the objectives remain twofold and uncompromising: Nuclear Prevention: Ensuring Iran permanently loses the capacity to develop or acquire a nuclear weapon. Maritime Security: The full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to global trade.

Currently, the Trump administration claims it’s securing the safe passage of 8 to 9 million barrels of oil through the strait daily – a steep decline from the roughly 20 million barrels that traversed the waterway before the conflict erupted. Washington is signaling that it will dictate the terms. Addressing reporters on Friday, President Trump summarized the diplomatic standoff: “They would love to make a deal, but they’re not ready to make the right deal.”

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No Macron.

• Le Pen Poised To Win French Elections? New Poll Shows Commanding Lead (ZH)

France’s Le Pen Leads French Presidential Race Early Monday, we previewed a Nomura report that expects an 18-month election cycle across Europe, shifting the continent toward populism, with elections scheduled this year in Germany and Sweden, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Poland in 2027. Shortly after we released the note, new polling data from France showed, as The Guardian put it:


France loves a battle-scarred survivor. Charles de Gaulle, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac clawed their way back from political failure to become presidents of the republic. There is a significant chance that Marine Le Pen will be next. The latest Toluna-Harris poll shows Marine Le Pen winning every tested 2027 French presidential runoff:
• Le Pen 68%, Jean-Luc Mélenchon 32%
• Le Pen 55%, Édouard Philippe 45%
• Le Pen 57%, Gabriel Attal 43%
• Le Pen’s advantage extends beyond a matchup with the far left. She also holds double-digit leads over two leading establishment candidates, indicating that her National Rally party would enter the election as the clear favorite under these scenarios.

Polymarket odds of Le Pen winning the French presidential election currently stand at 32%. Here’s more:

https://twitter.com/Cap2027_/status/2091775772906168809?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2091775772906168809%7Ctwgr%5E4665f81154ac257c311cf658bf28696f75baed80%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fseeds-political-change-nomura-sees-europe-lurching-right-and-markets-are-fine-it

Circling back to Nomura analyst Andrzej Szczepaniak’s note, he expects that right-wing parties are positioned to make significant gains across Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK over the next 18 months. Szczepaniak noted, “Five years ago, financial markets would not have seemed so at ease with such a prospect. But then again, these populist right-wing political parties were previously not so fiscally prudent as they are perceived to be today.

He added, “Now, if anything, financial markets are much more concerned about populist left-wing parties being elected due to their desire to increase spending, often paid for through higher borrowing or higher taxes, which are likely to shut the engine off of already stuttering economies.” Europe is entering an 18-month election cycle that could accelerate the continent’s shift toward populism, with high-profile elections scheduled this year in Germany and Sweden, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Poland in 2027.

The much-needed political realignment reflects mounting public backlash against progressives in Brussels after years of uncontrolled mass migration from the Third World, deteriorating social cohesion, elevated violent crime, and nation-killing domestic policies that have accelerated deindustrialization. At the same time, European manufacturers face intensifying pressure from China (the demise of VW Group), which is exploiting its cost advantages and state-supported industrial capacity to flood the struggling continent with cheap electric vehicles.

Andrzej Szczepaniak, a senior European economist and executive director at Nomura International in London, describes this combination of pressures as “the seeds of political change,” warning that “politics in Europe is lurching towards more populism.” Szczepaniak says right-wing parties are positioned to make significant gains across Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK over the next 18 months.

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“Establishment Democrats. They’re the ones who’ve either been holding the reins or doing everything in their power to obstruct the repair process for the better part of the last six decades.”

• The Democrats Are in a Trap of Their Own Making (Eric Florack)

Tim Hains at Real Clear Politics, this morning:”Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Jake Auchincloss told “FOX News” that the Democratic Party will lose if the moderate party establishment picks a direct fight with the new Democratic Socialists. “What my faction of the party needs to do is to demonstrate to Americans what our positive, proactive agenda is to strengthen the middle class, how we are going to base that in freedom, not socialism, free enterprise, free minds, freedom from fear, and free elections,” he said. (Sound of muffled laughter. Shuffling in the seat while I smooth my professional commentator demeanor back into place.)


The comments are from an interview on Fox with Shannon Bream, which we’ll get back to in a second. Free enterprise. Free minds. Freedom from fear. Free elections. Gotta tell ya, Congressman, that’s a genuinely lovely word salad, and I mean that with the sincerest possible sarcasm — because you’re delivering it roughly 48 hours after your own party’s biggest streaming ally got caught with a framed newspaper commemorating 9/11 hanging on his studio wall like a hunting trophy. But we’ll get there.

BREAM: So, there is a video of somebody who’s been campaigning a lot with Democratic candidates or Democratic Socialist candidates who say they belong in your party, Hasan Piker, he’s not disavowed this video that’s out there circulating this weekend where he’s singing a song that appears to be mocking the death of Charlie Kirk, of people who would, you know, be worshipped as Christians, worshipping Jesus. What’s your message to those within your party who are campaigning, fundraising, and appearing with Hasan Piker?

AUCHINCLOSS: I reject Hasan Piker’s ideology, whether it was seeming to celebrate or at least excuse 9/11, whether it is seeming to excuse the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which I condemned immediately. The Democratic Party does not stand for what Hasan Piker stands for. The Democratic Party also needs to be able to reach young voters from all walks of life who are angry at a status quo in which they cannot afford to buy a home, in which they do not believe Social Security will be there for them in their retirement, and in which they see corruption run rampant in Washington, D.C. Well, it seems to me that they’ve already identified who’s responsible for the status quo. Establishment Democrats.

They’re the ones who’ve either been holding the reins or doing everything in their power to obstruct the repair process for the better part of the last six decades. Young people can’t afford a home in large part because of Democrat-controlled cities and states stacking regulations, zoning restrictions, and tax burdens on top of housing supply until the whole market seizes up like an engine that’s never seen a drop of oil. Here’s the part Auchincloss conveniently glides past, though, and it’s worth dragging back into the light: While he’s on national television lecturing about “rejecting” Piker’s ideology, plenty of his own colleagues have been busy actively embracing it.

Fox News’s own reporting from just this month confirms Piker has framed, and proudly displayed on camera behind him during livestreams, the front page of the New York Times’ Sept. 12, 2001, edition — the “U.S. Attacked” issue — describing it to his audience as “the cutie Cinderella newspaper from 9/11.” A man decorating his broadcasting studio with a memorial to the deadliest terror attack in American history, treated as a cute keepsake. And he’s told CNN there’s “0% chance” the 2028 Democrat nominee will be pro-Israel, expressing total confidence his own party is drifting exactly where he wants it.

Meanwhile, Rep. Ro Khanna has publicly refused to apologize for appearing on Piker’s show, warning that distancing from him would signal “weakness.” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar went on MS NOW’s Morning Joe and insisted, with a straight face, that “the party isn’t lurching too far left.” Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed told Meet the Press he cares about “reaching Piker’s audience,” not his actual comments — which is a genuinely remarkable sentence for a candidate to say out loud about a man who’s excused a terror attack that killed nearly 3,000 Americans.

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“..after months of Democrat officials trying to bury the policy in court, the administration finally has room to breathe.”

• SCOTUS Gives Trump HUGE Win on Mail-In Voting (Matt Margolis)

The Supreme Court just handed President Trump a massive victory in the fight to secure America’s elections. The justices cleared the way for his executive order restricting mail-in voting to move forward, and after months of Democrat officials trying to bury the policy in court, the administration finally has room to breathe. This is a big deal.


The SAVE America Act is still stalled in the Senate, blocked by Democrats who aren’t even hiding the fact they have zero interest in verifying that voters are who they say they are. Trump’s executive order just got a green light from the nation’s highest court anyway. Election integrity doesn’t have to die in the legislative graveyard to make progress.

Trump signed the executive order, called “Ensuring Citizenship Verification And Integrity In Federal Elections,” in March 2026. It directs his administration to build lists of eligible voters and orders the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to people on those lists. The Postal Service laid out its implementation plan last week, but the clock is ticking. Some states start sending mail ballots in just a few weeks, leaving the administration little time to get this right before the midterms. More court challenges remain possible.The victory is real, but it’s not the finish line.

Mail balloting has been a target of Trump’s for years, and for good reason. The Heritage Foundation has long argued that mail-in ballots are more susceptible to fraud, coercion, and chain-of-custody problems than in-person voting. Anyone who lived through the 2020 presidential election, one of the most disputed elections in history, watched that vulnerability play out in real time. In fact, a 2023 survey from Rasmussen Reports, conducted with the Heartland Institute, found that among the 30% of likely U.S. voters who cast an absentee or mail-in ballot in 2020, 19% admitted that a friend or family member filled out part or all of their ballot on their behalf. Another 17% admitted they voted in a state where they were no longer a permanent resident. Every one of those practices is illegal.

Think about that for a second: nearly a fifth of mail voters copped to letting someone else fill out their ballot. Democratic officials in 23 states and the District of Columbia sued to block the order, arguing that the Constitution gives states and Congress the power to run elections and that Trump’s changes could cause chaos and partisan abuse. Attorneys for the states wrote that “the consequences of allowing such transformative changes to take effect so close to this fall’s elections would be extreme.”

A judge in Massachusetts blocked the plan for the midterm elections in those states. An appeals court upheld her decision. She later granted a second order blocking it nationwide. The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court on procedural grounds in late July, arguing that the states sued too soon. They also pointed to another ruling out of Washington, where a judge allowed Trump’s order to proceed. An appeals court backed that decision, while still leaving room for future court action if the changes are implemented.

Federal attorneys argued that the Massachusetts order “blocks the government’s ability to finalize and implement the President’s proposed policies to promote election integrity for the upcoming federal elections in November.”A dozen Republican-leaning states supported the federal government in their own appeal before the high court, saying states would have input on the final voter lists.

Trump has been to the Supreme Court on mail ballots before this year. In June 2026, the justices ruled against a Trump-backed argument, finding that states can count ballots arriving after Election Day. That case went through full briefing rather than the emergency docket. This time, Trump came out on top. This is a huge win, but now comes the hard part: building the lists, getting our Postal Service ready, and, of course, surviving whatever legal challenges come next, all before voters start filling out ballots. Election integrity advocates should be celebrating today, but also watching the calendar.

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“Assumptions that Moscow will lose the conflict and pay reparations are “just fairy tales,” Nikolay Azarov has told RT.”

• West Will Never Get Its ‘Loans’ Back From Kiev – ex-Ukrainian PM (RT)

The EU keeps providing “loans” to Ukraine despite knowing that its government will never repay them, the country’s former prime minister, Nikolay Azarov, has said. In a post on X on Sunday, Vladimir Zelensky called funding the Ukrainian military one of the “major challenges” his government is currently facing. “A lot of money is needed,” he wrote. Making sure that the second tranche of a €90 billion ($105 billion) transfer approved by the EU earlier this year arrives in Ukraine is “an extremely difficult task,” but he is working on it with Germany and France, Zelensky stressed.


In an interview with RT on Saturday, Azarov said that “loans and Western assistance that amounts to about three-fourths of the state budget of Ukraine are covering the budget deficit, funding arms purchases and sponsoring the Nazi terrorist and corrupt regime.” When the European Commission and major EU countries, who have been the main supporters of Ukraine after US President Donald significantly reduced American aid to Kiev, “grant these loans, they know that they won’t get this money back,” he said.

“And this causes some irritation among EU bureaucrats because they understand that the money of the American and European taxpayers is being embezzled in a very outrageous manner,” the former prime minister said. Inside the Ukrainian government, there is “an organized criminal group that embezzled the funds that Ukraine received as part of these loans,” he said. According to Azarov, that is the reason why EU ambassadors held a meeting in Kiev with the investigators of the Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and “supported actions to expose corruption in the country,” particularly in Zelensky’s office.

Earlier this week, the Ukrainian leader sacked the deputy head of his office, Irina Mudraya, after her home was searched as part of a probe into efforts to raise and legalize $3.3 million in bail money for former Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko. Galushchenko is a key figure in a $100 million corruption case involving state nuclear operator Energoatom and linked to Zelensky’s longtime business associate Timur Mindich. The scandal led to the downfall of his highly influential chief of staff Andrey Yermak last November. Other recent corruption investigations have targeted former Ukrainian ministers, diplomats, and senior officials.

The claims that Kiev will reimburse the US and EU because “Russia will pay some kind of reparations someday… are just fairy tales. You have to be really short-sighted to believe these fairy tales,” Azarov stressed. “No one will give this money back to the West. There’s $275 billion of Ukrainian debt, you cannot pay it back,” he added. Azarov was the Ukrainian prime minister from 2010 to 2014, resigning during the Western-backed Euromaidan protests in Kiev and fleeing to Russia after the overthrow of democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovich in February 2014.

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“That Purported Bastion Of Democracy..”

• Zelensky Says Wartime Elections Would ‘Destroy’ Ukraine (ZH)

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 with a goal of excising the Russian-speaking Donbas region, American and Western European officials have repeatedly said they and their countries are duty-bound to support Ukraine because, as Nancy Pelosi put it, “The battle for Ukraine is a battle for democracy itself.” That notion has been growing ever more farcical over time, as President Volodymyr Zelensky refuses to hold elections that were supposed to happen back in the spring of 2024. Over the weekend, Zelensky doubled down on his preference for martial law, telling journalists it would “destroy the country.”

Zelensky’s former defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov turned up the heat on his former boss by calling for wartime elections


Zelensky is now in the eighth year of his five-year term. His new remarks defending his overstay came after former defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov recently called for elections, after his controversial firing by Zelensky in July. “Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia,” said Fedorov. “We are fighting precisely because we want to remain a free European state.” In his nine-minute speech, he also took a shot at Zelensky’s way of governing. “It is particularly dangerous when society develops the feeling that the main criterion for an appointment is not professionalism, results or the ability to transform the country, but personal loyalty to the system,” he said.

Speaking to a group of journalists over the weekend, Zelensky firmly rejected calls for elections in his supposed bastion of democracy: “I believe that if we want to destroy the country, then during such a war we can move in the selection of elections… I believe that during such a war, elections in general are big risks. Elections right now are a tsunami for the state that will split Ukraine.” Zelensky pointed to the logistical and security challenges of balloting during wartime, noting that it would require “the participation of the military, in frontline territories, abroad, where millions of our citizens have gone, fleeing the war” and the risk of “strikes and shelling.”

He argued it could only begin to be conceivable if Russia were to agree to a ceasefire, which he preemptively ruled an impossibility. In December, President Trump said he was inclined to see Ukraine hold elections soon. “It’s been a long time. Hasn’t been doing particularly well. Yeah, I think it’s an important time to hold an election. They’re using war not to hold an election, but I would think the Ukrainian people should have that choice,” he told Politico. “You know, they talk about democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.”

Skeptics of Zelensky’s reasoning might point to elections held in other war-torn countries. For example, Afghanistan held elections in 2004 and 2009, and Iraq held one in 2005. To be fair, violence affected turnout and the legitimacy of the results was questioned. Meanwhile, the UK was supposed to have an election in 1940 but put it off all the way until 1945. The Atlantic Council, which is a de facto NATO think tank, has pointed to the UK example in urging Zelensky to refuse elections during a war — a war that is happening because of NATO expansionism.

Time is marching on, however. Russia has thus far been content to pursue a slow-burn approach to the war, ever so gradually taking over more and more territory. If that pace continues and if Russia’s territorial ambitions widen — say, to include taking Odessa and creating a landlocked Ukrainian rump state — we could see Zelensky in charge for years more to come.

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Don’t miss Mr. Shurk’s brilliant analysis.

• Canada Chooses Climate Change, Censorship, and China (J.B. Shurk)

Central banker Mark Carney is doing that peculiar Canadian thing again — acting tough while exuding weakness. Just before midnight on Friday, the former governor of the Bank of England and King Charles III’s current prime minister in North America announced that trade talks with the United States had collapsed. This was expected, even though the Canadian and American trade delegations had publicly expressed optimism on Wednesday that a mutually beneficial framework for future trade relations was within reach.


The British Empire’s “climate change”-obsessed central banker announced the official start of the U.S.-Canada Trade War on his X account. That’s ironic because the Canadian government considers Elon Musk an enemy, restricts what information Canadian citizens can see on social media platforms, and seeks to tax and regulate all online communication. Because of the Canadian government’s censorship/propaganda machine, most Canadian citizens have no idea how economically vulnerable their British vassal state really is. Carney’s public memorandum makes it sound as if Canada’s economy is the envy of the world, when it is nothing more than a plaything for Chinese smugglers and European bankers who use the country as an entry point into U.S. markets. The average Canadian is about to learn how dependent Canada has always been upon the unreciprocated generosity of the United States.

Canada is a weigh station for moving products into the United States. Its value for other nations lies in its uniquely favorable trade agreements with the U.S. Canadian banks and manufacturers act as middlemen for foreign nations skirting American trade laws. For its trade- and money-laundering services, Canada receives a cut of the profits. China takes advantage of this arrangement by “snow-washing” their goods through Canadian shell corporations and hiding their commercial transactions within Canadian financial institutions. Over the decades, this “Trojan horse” operation — in which American adversaries use Canada as an economic workaround for hollowing out vital American industries — has greatly profited our neighbors up North.

In fact, the leftist-globalists running Canada have been able to generate enough revenue by stamping Chinese products, “Made in Canada,” that they have become emboldened to get on their “global warming” high horse and lecture the United States about the imaginary “climate apocalypse.” Even though the U.S. has actually reduced its so-called “climate emissions” by a larger percentage than Canada over the last twenty-five years (a feat accomplished through industrial innovation), the Canadian government pretends that the country’s poorly managed forest fires are the outcome of U.S. capitalism. (This is akin to blaming Thor for thunder.)

While sitting on some of the largest energy reserves on the entire planet, Canada has insisted upon throttling its own hydrocarbon output in the name of “fighting global warming.” By waging war against its own energy industry, Canada makes itself economically and militarily vulnerable. It cannot build things anymore. It is not self-sufficient. It depends upon kickbacks from communist China and military protection from the United States. These dual dependencies are mutually exclusive in a world in which China and the U.S. are already engaged in various forms of hybrid warfare.

Britain’s man in Canada, Mark Carney, is globalism personified. As the former governor of the Bank of England, he spoke regularly about a future in which central bankers managed the planet’s resources and economic activity. He has been a lifetime proponent of using the “global warming” bogeyman as a justification for controlling all human behavior. Carney is afflicted with the same narcissistic disease that grips all of Europe’s political and economic “elites”: He does not believe in the value of free markets, free speech, or human liberty. He is, at heart, a totalitarian committed to the proposition that a small cabal of central bank oligarchs and political aristocrats should exercise complete power over everyone else.

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“We Don’t Need Canada”.

• Loonie Limps Lower As Trump Unleashes (More) Tariffs (ZH)

“Canada has been ripping off the United States of America for years,” wrote President Trump in his latest social media outburst, laying out his tariff torrent against Canada. “Their ridiculously high tariffs on our Farmers and farm products has made life impossible for these great American Patriots, and has long created a 60 Billion Dollar Deficit between our two Countries.nNot sustainable, and NOT ANYMORE!”= The US implemented a new 50% tax on imports of hundreds of Canadian items including furniture, plastics, plywood and electrical equipment on Saturday.


It’s such a high rate that it may cut off the world’s biggest market for some Canadian enterprises. And now this morning, Trump unveiled more products will face dramatic tariff increases come the start of next year… “On January First, 2027, Tariffs on all Cars, Trucks, both large and small. Automotive Parts, and Steel, will be increased to 50%.Build in the U.S. and there are ZERO TARIFFS. Canada will be treated like a State no longer!

On Trade, and in other ways, also, they are among the worst Nations in the World to deal with. They feel entitled, and yet, WE DON’T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED US! They do 95% of their business with the U.S., with us, the exact opposite!” The Loonie was weaker ahead of Trump’s tweet…

Carney’s government has pledged financial help for businesses caught in the crossfire. That may prove more complicated than previous aid packages for industries like steel that have been facing US tariffs for more than a year. The new tariffs are “very diffuse, and they hit, in particular, small and many medium enterprises in various parts of the country and in radically different supply chains,” said Matthew Holmes, chief of public policy at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

Very difficult for the federal government especially to create a package of supports for them.” Canadians may have wanted their prime minister to stand tough and not sign a bad trade deal with the US; but the collapse of talks, and the escalation of the tariff war, will come at a price.

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So says the Council on Foreign Relations President.

• Trump Gave Mark Carney an Ultimatum, USA or China? Carney Chose China (CTH)

Council on Foreign Relations President Says Trump Gave Mark Carney an Ultimatum, USA or China? Carney Chose China


An interesting soundbin gave Canada an ultimatum within the deal proposed, us or them.

If Mike Froman is correct, Mark Carney chose China. [X LINK] Video Below:te from Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) President Mike Froman who distills down the main point of contention. Essentially, the U.S. position is to demand a common trade approach toward China and the U.S. delegationn.

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“.. the immigration fraud investigation against a Democrat representative is ongoing and could lead to an arrest.”

• Trump Confirms ICE Investigating Ilhan Omar, ‘Enforcement’ Possible (Salgado)

President Donald Trump indirectly confirmed that the immigration fraud investigation against a Democrat representative is ongoing and could lead to an arrest.


Trump did not comment in any detailed way on the investigation, but on Sunday afternoon, he shared an article from Just the News titled “ICE refuses to disclose records on Ilhan Omar fraud probe, cites ongoing ‘enforcement proceedings.’” By sharing this article on TruthSocial, the president verified its accuracy and immediately started a firestorm of speculation and controversy from other individuals and media outlets. The Trump administration had previously stated that they do have evidence that Minnesota’s Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Somalia) committed immigration fraud, but voters had begun to wonder if that would lead to any actual penalties.

Just the News is especially interested in the investigation because it filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the Omar immigration records in January, for all the details about her legally marrying her brother. ICE returned the following statement instead of the documents: “ICE has determined that the information you requested is being withheld in full pursuant to Title 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(A). Disclosure of any responsive records at this time could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.”

No court admissible proof definitively proves that Omar’s legal ex-husband Ahmed Nur Said Elmi is her brother, Just the News said, although the government of the Republic of Somaliland, among others, has confirmed it. Somaliland, which is a breakaway nation from Somalia and hates Omar for her and her family’s connection to genocide, provided paperwork, apparently showing that Omar‘s name, like other members of her family, was originally Elmi before she altered it for the fraudulent marriage that helped her brother stay here.

Receipts: Ilhan Omar’s original last name was Elmi before it was changed. nThis evidence was available, but the Obama Justice Department refused to investigate. Her brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, and their father, Nur Said Elmi (also known as Nur Omar), used multiple names… https://t.co/9sz3ZXVN3X pic.twitter.com/d16tAMCKrn — REPUBLIC OF SOMALILAND (@RepOfSomaliland) March 19, 2026

Omar has bragged about prioritizing Somalia‘s interests while serving as a congresswoman. In 2024, while furiously rejecting Somaliland’s longtime independence and maritime deals, she declared, “While I am in Congress, no one will take Somalia’s sea.” Somaliland continued to write about Omar:

Her true name? Ilhan Nur Said Elmi. Father? Nur Said Elmi (aka Nur Omar), Colonel in Siad Barre’s army. Soviet-trained. Part of the command that turned Hargeisa into rubble. Tens of thousands—up to 200,000 Isaaq civilians—bombed, executed, raped, starved in the late ’80s. We call it the Isaaq Genocide. The world still looks away.The mastermind? Major General Mohammed Said Hersi “Morgan”—”The Butcher of Hargeisa.” Barre’s son-in-law. And when Omar visited Somalia to a hero’s welcome in 2022, she attended an event where she sat only a few feet away from “the Butcher,” who has reportedly posed for photos with her relatives.

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Can we choose who we serve?

• “This is My Place of Business” (Turley)

“This is my place of business.”


Those words from Jim Sheehan, owner of the Wydaho Roasters coffee shop in Driggs, Idaho, have sparked the latest controversy over the right of businesses to refuse service on the basis of religious or political views. Sheehan has drawn national attention after throwing out a group of pro-life teenagers, calling them the equivalent of a Ku Klux Klan meeting in his shop. Sheehan clearly caters to those who want their lattes with an added shot of rage.

However, this and a number of other cases have exposed the hypocrisy of many regarding the service businesses must provide customers with opposing views. From cakes to coffee, shops remain ground zero for an age of rage. Years ago, politicians and pundits rallied around the effort to force Jack Phillips, a cakeshop owner, to create cakes celebrating same-sex marriages. Phillips objected that it violated his religious beliefs. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in what many of us hoped would be a final resolution of this conflict.

I had long criticized the framing of the case (and other similar cases) under the religious clauses rather than treating it as a simple matter of free speech. In the end, the Supreme Court punted in a frustrating 2018 decision. In 2023, however, the Supreme Court delivered a major victory for free speech in 303 Creative v. Elenis. It ruled that Lorie Smith, a Christian website designer, could refuse to provide services for a same-sex marriage. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that “the framers designed the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to protect the ‘freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think.’ … They did so because they saw the freedom of speech ‘both as an end and as a means.’”

But notably, in cases like Masterpiece Cakeshop, Phillips insisted that he would always sell cakes to any couple, including same-sex couples. He only refused to make cakes specifically celebrating same-sex marriages, due to his religious views. The case of Wydaho is different. Sheehan refused the same general accommodation offered to all customers because he opposes pro-life causes. In the confrontation, Sheehan declared that “in my world” pro-lifers are no different from the Ku Klux Klan.

“This is my place of business,” he declared. “I did a lot of work to get people on the ballot so women would have the right to choose in the state of Idaho, and this is something I do not support, nor does my wife, and it’s our business. So we have that choice.” In my view, they do have that choice. Yet it must also be acknowledged what Sheehan is doing is far more extreme than what Phillips did in Masterpiece Cakeshop. He is not being asked to create a coffee concoction opposing abortion, like a Cafe Au Life specialty drink. He acknowledges that other groups might use the shop — he just does not want these teenagers to use it to support pro-life causes.

The same controversy arose the same week across the country in Virginia. In Alexandria, Fatana Karimi, owner of the Karimi Salon, threw out a woman after she revealed that she was Israeli. Jessica Walton posted an account of the encounter, and a video was later posted on social media.In the video, the person identified as Karimi says that she declared on Instagram that she would not serve those who support Israel. (She also adds that she got Walton to sign a release for the video.)

The Virginia Human Rights Act states that businesses cannot engage in “unlawful discrimination in employment because of race, color, religion, ethnic or national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or military status.” Karimi will likely argue she refused service not due to Walton’s religion or national origin, but due to her support for Israel — a political position.

The case is reminiscent of the abusive treatment afforded to Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz at Martha’s Vineyard by a pierogi stand. He was also refused service over his political views.The line between national origin and religious discrimination versus political discrimination can be tenuous and unclear. However, in the video, the owner states that it is her national identity that is causing the action: “Get out of my shop. I can’t provide service to an Israeli. It’s against my political beliefs. You need to leave immediately.”

Back in Idaho, Sheehan’s bizarre analogy to the KKK outraged many, to the point that he later apologized for it. However, it is fascinating that liberals are now celebrating the right to exclude others for political or religious reasons, even when they are not asked to engage in any expressive act or make any creative product that contravenes their beliefs. If that is now the case, many owe individuals such as Phillips an apology for years of costly lawsuits, even after the Supreme Court gave him his first nominal victory.

Sheehan could be prosecuted if he were refusing general service or accommodations to the teenagers due to their race or religion. But he is refusing service on the basis of his own political views. Wydaho Roasters does not appear to want business from people who are pro-life, of whom there might be quite a few in Idaho. Karimi appears not to want either Israeli or possibly Jewish customers. It is a curious business plan to exclude such a large segment of the market, but some owners are sure to put their political views before their profits.

However, those on the left cannot have it both ways. They cannot reject the free speech rights of some owners to decline service while celebrating others’ refusal to do the same thing. None of this is likely to make society any more civil. No one wants a black eye to go with the red-eye espresso. Of course, recognizing the free speech rights of an unhinged coffee shop owner does not require patronizing his establishment. Sheehan clearly does not want to serve pro-life citizens, and I expect the feeling is mutual.

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