Latin America Archives - The Automatic Earth

Elon Musk: "Our next product is Blindsight, which will enable those who have total loss of vision, including if they've lost their eyes or the optic nerve, or maybe have never seen even blind from birth, to be able to see again." pic.twitter.com/nZpWcFUgXB
— Joe Rogan Podcast News (@joeroganhq) June 29, 2026

https://twitter.com/JesseBWatters/status/2071753263259496912?s=20

Highest death count of any philosophy https://t.co/mdlVktiU73
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 29, 2026

https://twitter.com/GenFlynn/status/2071712711738609807?s=20

The COVID Coverup was VAST and DEEP, meant to stay under wraps forever.

Not on my watch. I am fighting every. single. day. to reveal more truth. pic.twitter.com/IfF380mYti
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) June 28, 2026

Birthright Citizenship belogs in the 19th century. A time before airplanes.

• Supreme Court Rules on Landmark Birthright Citizenship Case (Athena Thorne)

The U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision on the historic birthright citizenship case, Trump v. Barbara, on Tuesday morning. In a 6-3 decision, the court struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order, which had ordered that U.S. citizenship not automatically be conferred upon children born on U.S. soil whose parents are illegally present in the United States, or whose mother is visiting here legally but temporarily and whose father is not a citizen or lawful permanent resident. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson join the Roberts opinion in the full decision. Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissented.

“Roberts concludes that children born to parents who are in the United States unlawfully or temporarily are ‘born in the United States’ and ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ ‘Under the Constitution, they are citizens at birth,'” wrote Supreme Court expert Amy Howe at SCOTUSblog’s live coverage of the announcement. In practice, the ruling means nothing changes, and the nation will continue as it has been doing. Namely, every baby born on U.S. soil is automatically a U.S. citizen, regardless of the status of the parents. Apparently, it’s too much to ask that parents have at least the most basic allegiance to or standing in our country before we bestow its greatest gift — citizenship — on their offspring.
Howe added, “As others have noted, Kavanaugh writes that Trump’s EO conflicts with the federal law ‘[u]nless and until Congress enacts new legislation,” potentially leaving the door open for Congress to tighten up citizenship rules. The ACLU originally filed the suit as a class-action lawsuit (Barbara v. Trump) on behalf of affected families. The lead plaintiff, “Barbara,” is a pregnant “asylum seeker” from Honduras, though the suit also represents other families of various residency statuses. Lower courts ruled for the plaintiffs, sending the case up the chain to the Supremes.
The court heard arguments in the case on April 1, 2026, notes a Congressional Research Service (CRS) legal sidebar: The question before the Court was whether Executive Order 14160 (E.O. 14160, or the E.O.), “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” is constitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and authorized by 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a), a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that codifies the Citizenship Clause. The EO stated that: “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
Beyond the 14th Amendment, the case further examined the meaning of the phrase “domiciled residents” from the 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. In that case, Wong Kim Ark’s parents had maintained a legal, permanent domicile in the U.S. for over 20 years. Though not citizens (people born in China were prohibited from naturalizing at that time), the parents were legally present and conducting business here, and not serving in diplomatic roles. The Trump administration argued that this situation contrasts with that of foreign nationals who are illegally present in the country. Trump’s signed E.O. 14160 on Inauguration Day 2025. The CRS sidebar explained the intent of the original order: The E.O. seeks to interpret “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the Citizenship Clause to limit who may be considered a U.S. citizen from birth. […]
The E.O. outlines two categories of persons that, in the view of the executive branch, are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore are excluded from the Fourteenth Amendment’s grant of birthright citizenship: (1) a child whose mother was not lawfully present in the United States, and whose father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, at the moment the child was born; and (2) a child whose mother was lawfully but temporarily in the United States, and whose father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, at the moment the child was born. The E.O. asserts that children born in the United States to parents in either of these categories are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

“In response to the ruling, President Trump wrote that it was “too bad for our Country,” but that Republicans can “easily make up for it in Congress through Legislation…”

• Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Executive Order (ZH)

The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order curbing birthright citizenship. President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 2025. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)In a massive 194-page, 5-4 ruling, the Court affirmed a District Court ruling, holding that Executive Order 14160 – Trump’s attempt to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the U.S. to parents who are undocumented or only temporarily present – violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson.

Justice Kavanaugh provided the sixth vote against the order while explicitly rejecting the majority’s constitutional theory, arguing the EO fails only because it conflicts with a 1940s immigration statute – leaving the door open for Congress, not the Constitution, to revisit the question.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court has ruled that the children of illegal aliens and foreign nationals born in the U.S. count as American citizens.

Roberts and Barrett joined all the liberals.

Disgusting. pic.twitter.com/FStIm0J3R3
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 30, 2026

Polymarket had it right on SCOTUS Birthright decision (it wasn't even close) pic.twitter.com/aIXK1g9kcz
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 30, 2026

In response to the ruling, President Trump wrote that it was “too bad for our Country,” but that Republicans can “easily make up for it in Congress through Legislation…”

Background
Birthright citizenship – the principle that nearly everyone born on U.S. soil automatically becomes a U.S. citizen – has stood as a foundational element of American law and identity for more than 150 years. Its modern constitutional anchor is the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War: “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.”
The clause was enacted primarily to overturn the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision (which denied citizenship to black people) and to guarantee citizenship to formerly enslaved people and their descendants. It established a clear rule of jus soli (citizenship by birth on the soil) with narrow historical exceptions, such as children of foreign diplomats or members of invading armies.

Original intent. Four Justices just threw it out. pic.twitter.com/OtGZOqCoY4
— NoNonsense2 (@NoMoNonsense2) June 30, 2026

The Supreme Court’s landmark 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark cemented this broad understanding. Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco to Chinese parents who were legal residents but ineligible for naturalization under then-existing exclusionary laws, was ruled a U.S. citizen. Justice Horace Gray’s majority opinion affirmed that the 14th Amendment codifies “the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country,” applying to children of resident aliens without regard to race or the precise immigration status of the parents (beyond the traditional exceptions).
For well over a century, this interpretation has governed practice: federal agencies, courts, and both political parties treated birth on U.S. soil as conferring citizenship almost universally, regardless of whether a parent was undocumented, a temporary visa holder, or a lawful permanent resident.

“.. the senator who authored the relevant language in the 19th century made it clear that it was never intended to cover foreign nationals or the families of foreign diplomats.”

• Here’s How Devastating the Birthright Citizenship Ruling Is (Margolis)

The Supreme Court handed down some good rulings on Tuesday, but one of them, Trump v. Barbara, was truly stinking hot garbage, to put it as nicely as possible. It was one of the most consequential rulings in a generation, and if you’re not furious about it, you haven’t been paying attention. As my PJ Media colleague Athena Thorne put it, the Supreme Court ruled that “any basic skank who can sneak onto American terra firma and give birth is automatically the parent of a U.S. citizen, with all the rights and benefits that implies.” On The Five on Tuesday, Jesse Watters didn’t hold back in his reaction to the ruling.

“I’m angry,” he said. “Are you?” And that set the tone for everything that followed. He focused on Justice Samuel Alito’s dissent, which Watters described as a genuine alarm bell. Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, he noted, saw this for what it was — a case with enormous implications that the court essentially fumbled. “He said in his dissent, this was one of the most important cases the court’s ever seen, and we blew it,” Watters said. “He and Thomas were basically like, ‘Yeah, this devalues and degrades U.S. citizenship because it opens it up for anchor babies and for birth tourists.’” The example Watters used was, honestly, terrifying.
Under birthright citizenship as it currently stands, a Chinese Communist Party official could bring his pregnant wife to Guam, deliver the baby on American soil, then fly that infant back to Beijing, complete with a U.S. passport in hand. That child could grow up in China, get funneled through whatever the CCP wants him for, and then, at 18, have access to American welfare programs. He could vote. And theoretically, at 35, he could become eligible to run for president. It’s a scary thought, because yes, that’s what the decision would enable. “That’s the stupidest thing anyone ever thought of,” Watters said. “Literally.”
The historical context makes the ruling even harder to swallow. Watters noted that the senator who authored the relevant language in the 19th century made it clear that it was never intended to cover foreign nationals or the families of foreign diplomats. The amendment’s architect agreed. So did the president at the time, Ulysses S. Grant. “The guy that sponsored it, the guy that initiated, the architect of, this 14th amendment, the AG, the president at the time, Grant, all said, yeah, no foreigners, no visitors,” Watters said.
Of course, none of those men could have imagined international air travel. They couldn’t picture an enemy nation strategically flying pregnant women to American territory as a coordinated demographic tactic. The 14th Amendment was written in a world where the idea of a hostile foreign government exploiting birthright citizenship for generational gain was simply inconceivable. We don’t live in that world anymore.
“This was also before airplanes,” Watters pointed out, “so no one could imagine enemies of the United States flying here to have babies that 18 years later they could use against us to sway elections, soak up welfare, and then steal our defense technology. Because that’s what they do, they steal it.” And the Democrat Party? They’re not innocent bystanders in any of this. “The Democrats are in cahoots with this,” Watters said. “They like it cuz they like it for money and power.” Watters didn’t pretend there are easy outs. Congress won’t act. The court didn’t protect the country. So what’s left? “I think the DOJ has to ramp up prosecutions of birth tourism fraud,” he said. “And Trump’s gotta deport even more because this is demographic destruction.”

" This was one of the most important cases the court has ever seen AND WE BLEW IT"@JesseBWatters destroys the Democrats and the Supreme Court for upholding birthright citizenship. pic.twitter.com/CUCaE3L4Wj
— The Five (@TheFive) June 30, 2026

As bad as this decision was, there are ways to fix this. Let’s hope Trump gets it done.

Don’t let pregnant women into the country.

• Trump Could End Most Birthright Citizenship With 1 Simple Trick (Thorne)

That was some disappointing poo from the Supreme Court on Tuesday about birthright citizenship, non? The court ruled that any basic skank who can sneak onto American terra firma and give birth is automatically the parent of a U.S. citizen, with all the rights and benefits that implies. It seems like a dark day for the republic, to be sure. But pause and catch your breath: If the outcome had been different, would the Democrats take “no” for an answer? Of course not! Democrats never take “no” for an answer. They keep pushing and cheating and indoctrinating and menacing and jiggling the handle every which way until they pass whatever disagreeable turd they’re trying to cram through.

We, too, can play that game. There is more than one way to skin a cat, after all. The justices say that babies born in our country to illegal aliens and birth tourists are U.S. citizens? Fine.What if these grasping, scofflaw women weren’t allowed into the country in the first place? Under the U.S. Code, the president has broad authority over who may enter our country. Specifically, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f) (INA Section 212(f)) says: Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.
My AI research assistant tells me that “This gives the President wide latitude to define a ‘class’ of aliens and suspend or restrict their entry if he determines it serves U.S. interests (e.g., public health, welfare, preventing ‘birth tourism,’ or resource strain).” Why, yes, I’d say birth tourism and resource strain are substantial concerns of the U.S. in this instance. Trump would absolutely be within his rights to pen-and-phone an end to the pregnant invasion — perhaps even the child-bearing-age invasion. Will leftists stamp their feet and sue to stop it? Of course they will. But Trump has issued other travel bans in the past — and won in court.
During Trump’s first term, through EO 13780 and Proclamation 9645, he took action to ban entry from terrorist-sponsoring nations, including Iran, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and Venezuela. Leftists whined and sued, labeling the actions as Trump’s “Muslim Ban” in their petty way. But in Trump v. Hawaii (2018), the Supreme Court affirmed the president’s right to control harmful foreign travel into the U.S. And in 2020, Trump’s administration created rules that consular officers must deny B-1/B-2 tourist visas to pregnant applicants if they believed the woman’s primary purpose in traveling to the U.S is to birth an American baby.
“A broader executive order could expand this by declaring pregnant non-citizens (or those reasonably believed to be pregnant) as a class whose entry is detrimental, potentially covering visa issuance, admission at ports of entry, and exceptions (e.g., for diplomats, certain humanitarian cases, or lawful permanent residents),” notes my AI research assistant. Seriously, the president could do this as fast as White House counsel can write it up.
And frankly, I’m optimistic that this obnoxious and unfair Supreme Court ruling will light a fire under Republican voters’ butts the same way the Dobbs decision that overruled Roe v. Wade did for the Democrats, turning our much-anticipated 2022 midterms red wave into a barely discernible pink trickle. Barbara v. Trump will have the twin effects of demotivating blue voters while firing up red ones. (My colleague Scott Pinsker has a more in-depth analysis of the positive political fallout from this decision here.)

It was close.

• Cheer Up! The Birthright Citizenship Case Moves Us Toward Inevitable Victory (TH)

Calm down about today’s birthright citizenship case, Trump v. Barbara. We were always going to lose. That was expected by anyone who understands how the courts work; what wasn’t expected is that this ruling was such a huge step toward eventual victory. You don’t have to be happy, but you don’t have to freak out. We’re winning.

Here’s the deal. Let me give it to you from the perspective of a politically informed lawyer, because I understand a little about how courts think, having been raised in a house with a mother who was a judge and appearing in courts all the way up to the Ninth Circuit for 30 years. It’s important you understand all the context to see where we are really at. It’s also important that you keep your feelings in check and not freak out like an emotionally incontinent teenage girl who catches her mom reading her diary.
Let’s talk about the 14th Amendment, which establishes birthright citizenship in the view of the very narrow majority. That “very narrow” part is key. For about 150 years, the common legal understanding of the 14th Amendment has been that it provides that, with narrow exceptions (such as the children of ambassadors), anyone born in the United States is an American citizen. And the text of the amendment can be read to support that. Now, you don’t have to like that, and you don’t have to agree with that reading—like most of you, I think the stronger argument is the one against birthright citizenship for children of transients and illegal aliens—but whether you agree or disagree, it’s not so legally ridiculous as to be disconnected from reality. And it was the reality until new scholarship, developed over the last couple of decades, began to seriously challenge it.
Let’s understand how the courts work. They don’t like changing things. They revere precedent. It takes a lot to get a new understanding of the Constitution to become the mainstream interpretation. Look at the Second Amendment. For a century, it was understood to allow pretty much any regulation of guns, as long as the regulation was “reasonable,” which it always ended up being in the eyes of the courts. The Heller decision completely changed that, and that decision was based on new scholarship. That’s the same process as we’re going through with birthright citizenship. We’re challenging something that’s been established, and you need to understand that our constitutional system is designed to make that hard.
Yeah, we lost today—barely. And that “barely” part is the good news. This was a 5–4 decision on the constitutional issue. Obviously, the three liberals voted against it because they will always vote the way that they perceive helps leftism. If illegal alien kids were believed to be aspiring Republicans, they would’ve been on the other side. None of these legal arguments that I’m talking about apply to them; they are hacks, and they don’t vote on principle. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett do vote on principle; their vote was entirely predictable to anyone familiar with how the courts work.
It’s just that their principle is wrong, reflecting the old and established view of the 14th Amendment that we are currently challenging with new scholarship. Lots of people are wrong, and it doesn’t make them the antichrist. Yes, I know all the arguments in favor of changing the understanding of birthright citizenship, and we don’t need to relitigate them here. Just understand that in any case, both sides believe in their arguments. What we need to do is make an effort to get folks nominated to SCOTUS who are more open to new challenges to old thinking because we are making a lot of new challenges to old thinking.
Frankly, I expected SCOTUS to punt completely and rule only on the executive order that President Donald Trump issued. There’s a principle in law that you try to resolve things without reaching constitutional issues if you can, and Trump challenged birthright citizenship with an executive order. Did he have the power to issue such an executive order? I expected the Court to rule that he did not and to avoid the constitutional issue entirely. If the Court decided to confront the constitutional issue, I expected a 7–2 ruling with Justice Alito and Justice Thomas in dissent. What we got was Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Gorsuch both stepping in and accepting, at least to some extent, the new thinking on the 14th Amendment citizenship clause.
This is huge, people. It’s enormous, and the dramatic implications in favor of reforming the old idea of birthright citizenship are being swamped by people freaking out over what was an entirely predictable response to anyone who’s vaguely familiar with how courts work. .

“That does not mean that Cook cannot be replaced, but it requires due process, not a “thank you for your attention.”

• A New Deal for Presidents? (Turley)

On Monday, Donald Trump sealed one of the most lasting parts of his legacy. In Trump v. Slaughter, the Court reaffirmed and reinforced the authority of presidents to determine who will carry out the functions of the Executive Branch. In so doing, the Court overruled one of the long-standing limits of presidential power in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. Humphrey’s Executor is hardly a household name. Yet the demise of the 1935 case represents a seismic shift in the balance of power within our constitutional system. In this case, the court decided that President Trump had the right to fire Rebecca Slaughter, a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission.

For decades, scholars and jurists have questioned where the Court found the authority for Congress to create a hybrid creature like the FTC — part legislative and part executive, with officials protected from removal by a president. Various presidents have chafed at this limiting doctrine. But Trump pushed aggressively against the precedent and appointed three justices who would prove critical in ending Humphrey’s Executor after more than 90 years. In a separate case, Trump v. Cook, the Court ruled that the president could not fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.
Both the win and the loss were vintage Trump. The win because he was unrelenting in his assertion of inherent powers. The loss in part because he is equally unrelenting in his use of social media to carry out policy. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that more than a tweet and conclusory letter is demanded in such a removal from the Federal Reserve, which has always held a unique position in the government and prior cases. Roberts wrote, “would in effect transform the Federal Reserve’s for-cause protection into at-will employment — an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our Nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference.”
That does not mean that Cook cannot be replaced, but it requires due process, not a “thank you for your attention.” It is hard to overstate the transformation of the new executive branch during the Trump terms. The Slaughter case follows the Loper Bright decision, which ended the huge deference given to government agencies “interpreting” law to their own ends. Past Republican presidents have criticized the ““administrative state” that was iron-plated under the prior Chevron doctrine.
The result is that our government will remain markedly different from that of many of our allies, particularly the United Kingdom. In the UK, ministries operate with a considerable degree of independence and insularity. It is difficult for a prime minister to force through major changes when opposed by ministry civil servants.

From Monday.

• Trump Gives Remarks and Opinion on Three Supreme Court Decisions

During an oval office event to highlight President Trump signing three executive orders informing all agencies of government that federal officials will not be enforcing any rule that blocks citizens from repairing or modifying their own vehicles, President Trump took questions from the media on today’s Supreme Court rulings.

Divided.

• Blue States Refuse to Join 250th Anniversary Celebration on the Mall (Turley)

This morning, I discussed the upcoming Supreme Court decisions from the temporary Fox studio on the Mall, surrounded by the state pavilions. I was buoyed by the enthusiasm of the young National Guard members from Puerto Rico and Alaska. They are thrilled to be part of our 250th celebration. The only disappointment was the decision of 10 states—Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Pennsylvania—to decline to participate. Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro, refused, but the state’s two senators stepped in to ensure their representation. It is an utter disgrace for these states and another manifestation of our age of rage.

All of these states cited transparent excuses over the cost of participating in our anniversary despite their lavish spending in other areas. Massachusetts is a particular insult. The home of John Adams and other colonial leaders elected to sit out the celebrations. Recently, we discussed how a Massachusetts church ended the long-standing celebration of the Fourth of July to focus on the “on-going process within the congregation to better understand our own whiteness.” John Adams once wrote his wife Abigail to predict that Independence Day would be:
“celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.” Rather than Adams, Massachusetts now has figures such as Gov. Maura Healey, who balked at spending $100,000 to be counted among the states in the pavilion.
Gov. Shapiro did the same. This is a man who wants to be the next president of the United States but has opted out of participating, despite his state being home to our Independence Hall. It appears that he could not acquire space by simple adverse possession. Many people in Pennsylvania and across the country will not soon forget his ignoble stance or the two Pennsylvania senators’ efforts to ensure the state’s presence despite Shapiro’s efforts. These leaders decided to spread division at the very moment when we could overcome our differences to remember what we share as fellow citizens of this country.
They may see the rallying cry of “taxation without representation” replaced by “celebration without representation” for many disappointed voters. Despite the effort of blue states to boycott the celebration, tourists and participants appear to be having a ball. It is a beautiful space and filled with wonderful people from around our country. This morning I met Al Underwood, who was playing Paul Revere. He and his wife were delighted to participate and drove in from their home outside of Charlottesville. As these leaders in blue states sit out the celebrations, many of their citizens are rallying to support our unique republic.
E pluribus unum

With USAID gone…

• Latin American Countries Moving to the Right (Anderson)

Peru officially announced that it finally has a new president on Monday: The more conservative candidate, Keiko Fujimori, won by a slim margin of 50.1% to 49.9%.
https://twitter.com/DatosAme24/status/2071701118162501956?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2071701118162501956%7Ctwgr%5Ee8498459cdd99d38217dab723019c94f940c10a7%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F29%2Fwe-need-to-talk-about-these-latin-american-countries-moving-to-the-right-n4954502

We are cautiously optimistic about this news. Normally, I’d celebrate this as another new right-leaning leader in the Western Hemisphere, but Peru is a bit of a mess. It’s had something like nine presidents over the last decade, but most of them have been impeached or have faced corruption scandals, congressional gridlock, and various other issues.
Fujimori also comes with a little baggage. Her father is a former Peruvian president, and she’s run for election something like four times. But many say she could be the game-changer and bring some stability to the nation, especially economically. She’s also likely to be a good partner to the United States. We’ll just have to see how it plays out.
The actual run-off election was held earlier this month, and it’s taken over three weeks to count the ballots. Fujimori has held the lead for much of that time, though Sanchez did for a while. That said, I couldn’t help but notice that many media outlets have been reporting her as the winner for weeks without actually waiting for the final tally. I’ve had several people ask me why I wasn’t reporting on it, and while I knew it was highly likely she’d win, it wasn’t confirmed. And that’s about the slimmest of slim margins you can have between two candidates in an already chaotic country — anything was possible.
It’s just like when I reported on the Colombian elections and how the more conservative Abelardo de la Espriella (“El Tigre”) defeated Gustavo Petro’s hand-picked commie candidate Iván Cepeda. In the days following the election, Petro did what he does and spent hours mouthing off about it on social media — blaming Israel, blaming the United States, etc. So many media outlets ran to report that the election was being contested, that El Tigre’s win would not be honored. I actually had a few of you go after me for being naive to think it would.
Well, if that’s the case, I’m still being naive. Petro has big plans for himself post-presidency, and that’s mostly what he cares about: himself. Due to sanctions Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Scott Bessent have placed on him or threatened him with, he won’t be able to do those things — I believe he’s mentioned traveling the world, giving talks on *checks notes* climate change and writing erotic poetry — and he knows all eyes are upon him. It’s why Trump endorsed El Tigre multiple times and Rubio congratulated him on his win almost instantly. A subtle reminder. Petro can talk all he wants, but he knows he needs to be on his best behavior if he wants his freedom after he leaves office in August. Even Cepeda wasn’t really playing along with his shenanigans and has officially conceded.
The current president of Colombia likes to talk. Most of the time, it should be ignored. Which leads me to something else. Some of you aren’t going to like this, but there’s another false story that’s going around about the Latin American elections that a lot of my colleagues in conservative media keep touting but that I feel like I need to correct. It goes something like this: the closing of USAID is why the region is swinging to the right.
While it would be fun if that were true, it’s not correct. I’d say the real influence was Nayib Bukele, followed by Javier Milei, and then Donald Trump. But we have to give the voters themselves a little credit because this was in the works before Trump was even re-elected in 2024. Back in February, I wrote an article called “The Real Reasons Why Latin America Is Moving to the Right.” I won’t rehash it all, but crime, economic frustration, and mass migration backlash were the top three reasons I listed.
Crime is certainly number one. People are tired of gangs and cartels taking over their communities and bringing violence with them. They saw how Bukele turned the so-called “Murder Capital of the World” into a safe, desirable place to be, and they wanted that for themselves. Nearly every single person I’ve spoken to over the past year or so who lives in or is from Latin America has hailed Bukele as a hero, claiming they want someone like him to fix this. And almost every single “right-wing” candidate who has been elected in Latin America in recent years has promised exactly that — some have even brought him on as a consultant.

“The RNC has been preparing for this ruling, and we are ready to expand the ways we directly help and provide resources to Republican candidates across the country.”

• Supreme Court Makes a Big Ruling in Favor of Free Speech (Anderson)

The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday in a 6-3 decision that federal limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with their candidates violate the First Amendment, delivering a major victory for free speech and party operations and for Republicans. It should have an impact on the 2026 midterm elections. In National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC, the justices overturned the 2001 Colorado II precedent, clearing the way for unlimited coordinated spending by parties. The ruling is expected to reshape the 2026 midterm battlefield by empowering official party committees over super PACs.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court rules that putting limits on political party campaign finance expenditures VIOLATE the First Amendment.

BIG WIN for Republicans @NRSC!

The vote is 6-3. pic.twitter.com/b1dg1PSs5A
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 30, 2026

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett. The majority found that these caps are not narrowly tailored to the government’s interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption. It effectively overruled the key aspects of the 2001 precedent FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee (Colorado II), noting that subsequent cases have applied stricter scrutiny and that other tools (earmarking rules, disclosure requirements) are sufficient to address circumvention concerns. Dissenting Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that the decision opens the floodgates to corruption and that the majority was too quick to dismiss that.
Here’s some background on the case: In 2022, two Republican party committees — the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee — along with then-Senator JD Vance and then-Representative Steve Chabot, sued the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The Republican committees asserted that the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA) unconstitutionally restricts their ability to coordinate campaign advertising with their own candidates. This coordination allows the party and its candidates to unify their political message and spend money more efficiently.
For example, in the 2021-2022 election cycle, the senatorial committee spent about $15.5 million and the congressional committee spent about $8.3 million on such coordinated expenditures, which primarily fund political advertising. The plaintiffs argue that developments since a 2001 Supreme Court decision, FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee (Colorado II), which upheld these same limits, have rendered that decision obsolete. Specifically, they point to changes in campaign finance law, the rise of “Super PACs,” and shifts in the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence as reasons the restrictions no longer pass constitutional muster.
The plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. As required by FECA for constitutional challenges, the district court certified the legal question to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit sitting en banc. The Sixth Circuit concluded that the FECA’s limits on coordinated campaign expenditures do not violate the First Amendment and denied both the facial and as-applied challenges brought by the plaintiffs.
“This is a massive victory for the First Amendment,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters. “Limiting the ability of political parties to work with and provide support directly to their candidates is not only ridiculous, it’s unconstitutional as the Supreme Court has now ruled. The RNC has been preparing for this ruling, and we are ready to expand the ways we directly help and provide resources to Republican candidates across the country.”
Ultimately, political parties can now coordinate more freely and spend without those previous dollar caps, shifting some power back to official party committees vs. independent super PACs and other outside groups.

“The majority concluded that “Title IX allows schools to provide separate women’s and men’s sports teams defined by biological sex..”

• The Supreme Court Just Settled the Trans Athletes Debate (Margolis)

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday to uphold state laws banning biological males from competing on female sports teams, delivering a tremendous victory for female athletes and the commonsense principle that biological sex matters in athletic competition. Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion in West Virginia v. B.P.J., which the court combined with Little v. Hecox. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch each wrote a concurring opinion. The 6-3 decision found West Virginia’s Save Women’s Sports Act and Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act both constitutional, rejecting claims that the bans violate Title IX or the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. A huge victory for women. Real women.

The majority concluded that “Title IX allows schools to provide separate women’s and men’s sports teams defined by biological sex, and West Virginia has permissibly maintained female sports for biological females consistent with Title IX.” The term “sex” in Title IX, the Javits Amendment, and the Title IX regulations cannot plausibly be interpreted to refer to anything other than biological sex. The ordinary meaning of the term “sex” at the time of enactment in the early 1970s was biological sex and not gender identity, particularly in the sports context.That conclusion required no legal gymnastics, just common sense. In the end, biology is biology. Title IX was supposed to bring fairness into sports, and the transgender movement has been.

That the Supreme Court had to even weigh in on this is quite sad, just as it was sad that states had even to pass laws that made it clear that girls’ sports are for girls, not boys who pretend to be girls.So, how did we get here? Well, Idaho passed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act in 2020, the first law of its kind in the country. West Virginia followed in 2021. Both laws faced immediate legal challenges from the radical left, yada, yada, yada, and it went before the Supreme Court.
Honestly, the challengers were doomed to fail. They built their case primarily on Bostock v. Clayton County, the 2020 ruling that extended Title VII’s sex discrimination protections to gay and transgender employees. Their argument was that if you can’t discriminate against a transgender person at work, you can’t exclude one from a sports team. If that explanation sounds stupid to you, you’re not alone. Biological sex is largely irrelevant to workplace performance, but it is directly relevant to athletic competition, and no amount of self-identification or plastic surgery can change your biology.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February 2025 directing the federal government to pull funding from schools that allow biological males on female sports teams, calling such policies “demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls.” His solicitor general, D. John Sauer, filed a brief calling both state laws “eminently reasonable.” Today’s ruling directly validates that position. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, which was hardly surprising at all. Jackson, for one, was unable to define what a woman is during her confirmation hearings in 2022 because, in her own words, “I’m not a biologist.” Sotomayor wrote the dissenting opinion, joined by Kagan and Jackson.
The female athletes who intervened in both cases to defend these laws spent years fighting for the right to compete on a level playing field. The far left spent those same years calling them bigots for trying. Now that the highest court in the land has ruled on this issue, women can once again enjoy the fair opportunities they deserve under Title IX and not have to worry about biological males robbing them of awards and opportunities.

Nope. It’s recent.

• Democrats Have Always Been Communists (Margolis)

There’s a reason the Democrat Party keeps repeating the same three words like a broken record, and it has nothing to do with strategy. On The Five Monday night, Jesse Watters pulled back the curtain on what’s really driving the chaos inside the party, and it’s not Trump derangement this time. It’s something the establishment spent decades swearing wasn’t there. So what changed? Watters laid out exactly how the Democrat Party actually operates behind closed doors, and it’s not the grassroots fantasy they sell on MS NOW or CNN.

“The Democrat party’s a machine, and the donors tell you what policy you have to do,” he said. “The superdelegates choose the nominee, and then they all get talking points.” That’s the part nobody wants to admit. The party isn’t a movement. It’s a top-down operation, where money decides the agenda and everyone else just repeats the script. “That’s why every day, you hear, ‘big tent, big tent, big tent,'” he said. “They all say the same thing.” It’s not organic enthusiasm. It’s a memo.
But the machine broke down, and Watters didn’t let the Democrats off easy for it. The country got fed up, and according to Watters, the party earned every bit of that anger through pure neglect. “They’ve screwed up, and the country’s now pissed,” he said. “The party’s pissed because what’d they do? They did nothing. They made life more expensive and just focused on Mexicans and Ukrainians, and that let the communists creep in.”
That last line is the whole story. While Democrat leadership obsessed over border policy fights and foreign aid packages, something far more radical was setting up shop inside their own coalition. Watters called out the years of denial that made this moment possible. “They have been denying they’ve been communists for decades,” he said. “No, we’re not communists. We love America. We’re for strong borders. We love the police.” Then, the second the socialist wing started winning primaries, the welcome mat came out. “All of a sudden, the communists start winning, and they’re like, ‘Big tent! Come on in!’” Watters said. “They don’t believe in anything except power.”
Remember the soul-searching after Kamala Harris lost? Watters does, and he’s not letting anyone forget how that played out. “What did we hear after Kamala lost? The Democrats need to define who they are, right?” he said. “You can’t just be anti-Trump. What do Democrats stand for?” For a year and a half, the plan was a working-class makeover. Football games. Backing off the trans agenda, funding police instead of defunding them. You know, pretend to be the party of the working class. “And now the commies start winning, and they’re like, ¡viva la revolucion!” Watters said. “That was fast.” “The Democrats have more in common with communism than the Republicans have in common with fascism,” Watters continued, “and they think they can cobble some winning coalition together.”
He added, “Kennedy is exactly right. The communists are going to steal the Democrat banner to get on the ballot,” Watters said. “They’re going to win. They’re in a caucus with them when it works.” After that comes the reckoning. “Here comes the purge,” Watters warned. “And the purge is going to be ugly, and the establishment is going to get purged.” That sets up a brutal internal war between cash and conviction, a fight Watters says the party simply cannot win. “You’re going to have money versus passion, and that’s a fight they have to have, but that’s a fight they can’t afford because they are dead broke.”

.@JesseBWatters on the Dem Socialist Surge

"All of a sudden, the Communists start winning and they say… BIG TENT! Democrats don't believe in ANYTHING, except power!” pic.twitter.com/PHFqyPI6Fe
— The Five (@TheFive) June 29, 2026

The mask is off. The only question now is how much damage the Democrat Party does to itself before voters figure out who’s really running the show. And they may find out sooner than you think.

A lawsuit to avoid the inevitable.

• Euroclear Files Lawsuit To Block $231.5 Billion Recovery (TASS)

The Euroclear depository has filed a lawsuit in Belgium against the Bank of Russia in an attempt to block the enforcement of an 18.2 trillion ruble ($231.5 billion) Moscow Arbitration Court ruling over frozen assets, the Echo newspaper reported. On May 26, the Moscow Arbitration Court granted the central bank’s motion to enforce the ruling in its lawsuit against Euroclear.

In December 2025, the Central Bank of Russia filed an 18.2 trillion ruble lawsuit against Euroclear with the Moscow Arbitration Court, amid European Union plans to use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine. This amount includes frozen funds, the value of blocked securities, and lost profits. The Bank of Russia stated that the procedure for enforcing the decision using the defendant’s assets, including those located in foreign jurisdictions (both friendly and unfriendly), would be determined after the court ruling enters into legal force.

“The bloc is integrating Kiev deeper into its structures, risking a direct conflict with Russia, Maria Zakharova has said..”

Not risking, deliberately creating.

• NATO and Ukraine Seeking Weapons To Target Russian Airfields – Moscow (RT)

NATO is openly helping Ukraine acquire weapons capable of reaching strategic targets deep inside Russia, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. The latest joint arms development tender shows that the US-led bloc is actively integrating Ukraine into its structures, moving dangerously close to an open confrontation with Moscow, she warned. Zakharova was referring to a €250,000 ($285,656) bidding contract announced in mid-June by NATO’s Allied Command Transformation (ACT) – one of the bloc’s two strategic commands – in cooperation with the NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training and Education Center (JATEC). Created in February 2025, JATEC describes itself as “the first joint NATO-Ukraine organization in the NATO Command Structure.”

Although the contract does not mention Russia directly, it contains a clear reference to enhancing Ukraine’s long-range strike capabilities with “solutions” capable of “persistent airport denial.” The project gives priority to various unmanned systems or loitering munitions capable of flying in signal-denied, electronic-warfare-contested environments and effectively striking runways, fuel reserves, and ground support facilities. The tender stipulates that any solutions must be ready for combat deployment within 12 months and should not require extensive training for operators, with submissions due by late July.
The contract shows that NATO is accelerating Ukraine’s integration into its command structures and military-industrial complex, Zakharova said on Monday. The bloc “is steadily losing what remains of its rationality and drifting into an increasingly high-risk zone” in an effort to turn Ukraine into a “testing ground” for emerging military technologies, she added. However, NATO strategists are “clearly underestimating” the risk of further escalation of the Ukraine conflict into a direct confrontation with Moscow, the spokeswoman said. “With their recklessly aggressive actions, the Ukrainian-NATO partnership is giving the Russian military additional grounds to pay heightened attention to any enterprises involved in the development and production of weapons used against our country.”
The development comes amid broader European militarization, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte consistently urging member states to adopt a “wartime mindset.” Senior UK and German defense officials recently urged citizens to accept “difficult choices” on military spending as NATO states move to hit targets of 5% of GDP. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius claimed last year that Russia could attack a NATO member “as early as 2028,” insisting on the need for a costly military buildup.
Moscow has denied that it has any intention of attacking NATO countries, dismissing the claims as “nonsense” used to whip up anti-Russian hysteria. President Vladimir Putin warned last week that the bloc is no longer hiding its preparations for war with Russia and is using false claims about the supposed ‘Russian threat’ to justify its defense buildup. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in February that Russia has no reason to attack Europe unless it is attacked first. Earlier, he warned that the EU is sliding into a “Fourth Reich.”

Corruption fits.

• Ukraine In Bed With Mexican Drug Lords (RT)

Ukraine is deepening its cooperation with Mexican drug cartels to profit from the flow of narcotics, including fentanyl, into the EU, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has said. US President Donald Trump has made combating fentanyl exports to the US one of his priorities, designating it as a ‘weapon of mass destruction’. In a statement on Monday, the SVR said the Ukrainian security agencies are deliberately showing leniency toward the growing flow of drugs from Latin America to Europe, adding that Kiev is facilitating the trade due to financial strain.

“The corruption-ridden regime of Vladimir Zelensky seeks to get additional profit, especially in the situation of the inability of Western sponsors to satisfy all of its insatiable demands,” the agency said, adding that Kiev also values cartel help in recruiting mercenaries for the military. The agency named Odessa’s ports as the main entry points for narcotics destined for the EU via Poland, Moldova, and Romania, suggesting that Ukraine’s inadequate and deeply flawed border and customs controls make it an attractive route. According to the SVR, Latin American cartels also have their eyes on Ukraine’s black market of weapons.
Ukraine has long served as a storage and transit hub for drugs destined for the EU, including heroin, which is typically transported along the Northern and Caucasus routes from Central Asia and the Caucasus, according to a 2024 analysis by the EU’s drug agency (EMCDDA) and Europol, though the conflict has since disrupted some of these routes. Fentanyl flowing from Mexico has for months been in the crosshairs of Washington. In December, Trump designated the drug – which kills tens of thousands of Americans annually – as ‘a weapon of mass destruction’. Fentanyl is considered even more dangerous than heroin and other opioid drugs, as a lethal dose can be as low as 2 milligrams – around 10 to 15 grains of table salt.
In September 2025, the Mexican newspaper Milenio reported that the Jalisco New Generation Cartel sent members to Ukraine to learn combat drone tactics. Footage reviewed by the outlet shows cartel units operating modified civilian drones with military-style discipline.

The ongoing RT ban makes videos inaccessible.

• Western Media Distorting Ukraine Battlefield Reality – Journalist (RT)

Western media and politicians are misleading the public by hyping Kiev’s attacks on Russia while ignoring the devastating losses suffered by Ukrainian forces, independent Dutch journalist Sonja van den Ende has told RT. In an interview on Sunday, van den Ende argued that while headlines are dominated by Ukrainian strikes on Russian fuel refineries, which are presented as signs of Moscow’s weakness, there is little coverage of Kiev’s military casualties.

“About 2 million dead soldiers or dead servicemen from Ukraine. So this is not, this is not really headlines,” she stated, emphasizing that such figures are buried deep in articles if mentioned at all by Western outlets. Ukrainian regiment threatens journalists after report about training camp deathsREAD MORE: Ukrainian regiment threatens journalists after report about training camp deaths She added that coverage of strikes inside Russia serves as “a distraction” from Kiev’s problems.
Van den Ende said Kiev’s attacks, such as the drone strike on a vocational college dormitory in the town of Starobelsk in the Lugansk People’s Republic that killed 21 people, mostly teenage girls, are not being examined seriously by Western outlets. Around 50 foreign journalists from 19 countries visited the site at Moscow’s invitation, but the BBC and CNN refused to attend. The journalist also pointed to discussions in Germany and other EU states on cutting support for Ukrainian men residing there as another sign that officials privately understand the situation is worsening.
Ukraine has struggled to replenish its losses as Russian troops continue to advance steadily along the front line. The so-called “busification” campaign, in which conscription officers ambush men on the streets and outside their homes, often using violence against those who resist, has repeatedly sparked protests and outrage on social media.
The conscription crisis has prompted several of Ukraine’s European backers to review their asylum policies. Earlier this year, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed to restrict protections for Ukrainians, arguing that young men were needed in their home country. Several news outlets also reported earlier this month that the European Commission had urged EU member states to introduce restrictions on accepting Ukrainian refugees.

PCR insists Putin should have killed more Ukrainians.

• Pusillanimity Brings War, Not Peace (Paul Craig Roberts)

The naive and gullible men in the Kremlin were deceived by the Alaska agreement just as they were by the Minsk agreement. If they had read Trump’s Art of the Deal they would have learned how Trump was going to manipulate them.

It was totally clear to me in 2014 when Putin sat stupidly on his butt and permitted Washington to overthrow the Ukrainian government and install an anti-Russian Washington puppet that Russian inaction was leading to war. When Putin was forced into conflict with Ukraine by Washington and Europe eight years later, it was totally obvious that Putin’s slow-moving, restricted Special Military Operation would provide Washington and NATO ample time to get more and more involved and that the conflict that Putin thought could be limited to Donbas would widen and widen. And that is precisely what has happened.
Putin and Lavrov have said that Washington/NATO intend to turn Ukraine’s conflict with Russia into a war on Russia by the West. Despite finally acknowledging the reality that has been completely clear for 12 years, Putin still refuses to use the decisive force necessary to bring the conflict to a victorious end and stop the widening of the conflict. Putin is focused on gaining another kilometer in Donbas while Ukrainian drone attacks deep inside Russia increasingly disrupt Russian life and energy production and result in civilian casualties.
Having by his own inaction permitted the Ukraine conflict to widen out of control, Putin told military cadets in June that Russia’s nuclear forces will be strengthened and the fighting ability of the military improved in expectation of a war with Europe. This is a war that Putin’s pusillanimity has brought to Russia.
Apparently, Iran has learned nothing from Russia’s experience with Washington. Like Russia, Iran was maneuvered into peace talks that Washington had no intention of allowing to go anywhere. The function of peace talks is to trap Russia and now Iran in a process that prevents the decisive use of military force. Putin wanted negotiations more than he wanted a military victory. Iran was stopped from a decisive, conclusive victory by accepting a ceasefire.
It is inexplicable that any Iranian can possibly think there can be peace in the Middle East as long as the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel continues to be the foreign policy of Israel. It is extraordinary that during the 79 years that this agenda has been pursued no Muslim country has demanded that Israel be confronted with its aggressive agenda. Even today the Iranians have not demanded that the Greater Israel agenda be included in the peace negotiations. It seems clear that both Russia and Iran are more capable of avoiding reality than dealing with it. My conclusion is that two big wars remain on the agenda.
Among the legends that comprise World War II history is the explanation that Chamberlain’s pusillanimity at Munich caused the war. Putin has repeated what historians regard as Chamberlain’s fatal mistake. I myself do not accept the “peace in our time” explanation. World War II resulted from the British guarantee to Poland and from the British and French Declaration of War on Germany. But the Munich explanation has been the official explanation. Putin himself believes the Munich explanation of the war. Why did Putin repeat Chamberlain’s alleged mistake?

JD Vance just said the quiet part out loud at the Nixon Library: the same forces took down Nixon and Trump.@SJKokinda explains why—both men threatened Henry Kissinger's British "perpetual war" doctrine.

And Trump is now dismantling it. pic.twitter.com/djemCDU8er
— Promethean Action (@PrometheanActn) June 29, 2026

Somewhere in a database sits a paper that already describes your exact symptoms, written years before you ever got sick.

Nobody in the room ever read it to you.

Not because medicine failed. Because no human memory was built to hold a field this size.

Grok holds it. All of it.… pic.twitter.com/Ika8H2RmBh
— Dustin (@r0ck3t23) June 30, 2026

Elon Musk just posted “AOC is an actor”

He’s 100% correct, and here’s the proof. AOC was chosen to be in Congress by a Democrat casting call. She’s a political actor that was picked out of 10,000 applicants

AOC’s brother submitted her application and she was chosen by the… pic.twitter.com/BkuZlWdn4Y
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) June 30, 2026

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has officially terminated all HHS contracts with companies owned by Bill Gates, slashing hundreds of millions in federal funding. The move is part of Kennedy's broader effort to end government reliance on the Microsoft… pic.twitter.com/dGWn5c3ZcK
— MaggieWise ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@maggiewise111) June 28, 2026

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De-Ideologization Of Russia’s Relations With Latin America

Apr 042023

April 4, 2023 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:54 am Finance Tagged with: Brazil, BRICS, Caribbean, Cuba, Latin America, Lula, New Left, Russia, Venezuela 8 Responses »

Georgia O’Keeffe Red poppy No. VI 1928

Andrew Korybko:

“The Old Cold War Paradigm Is Irrelevant In The New Cold War”, which Indian Professor of International Relations Rajesh Rajagopalan just discovered, but it’s important for everyone else to be aware of this as well. Unlike during the Old Cold War where the US and USSR competed to promote their capitalist and communist worldviews correspondingly, the New Cold War is being fought over whether the global systemic transition continues evolving towards multipolarity or retains most of unipolarity’s trappings.

Multipolar conservative-sovereigntists (MCS) respect every country’s sovereign right to develop according to whichever models they’d like while unipolar liberal-globalists (ULG) want to force everyone to apply Western models. For the most part, the Sino-Russo Entente and the Global South embrace MCS while the US-led West’s Golden Billion and its vassals promote ULG. There are a few notable exceptions, but this insight represents the simplified geopolitical-ideational fault lines of the New Cold War.

Intrepid readers can learn more about the dynamics of this competition in the following analyses:

* 15 May 2022: “What’s Dishonestly Smeared As ‘Russian Propaganda’ Is Just The Multipolar Worldview”

* 5 August 2022: “The Russian Foreign Ministry Comprehensively Explained The Global Systemic Transition”

* 29 October 2022: “The Importance Of Properly Framing The New Cold War”

* 9 March 2023: “Towards Tri-Multipolarity: The Golden Billion, The Sino-Russo Entente, & The Global South”

* 21 March 2023: “China’s Global Civilization Initiative Is Its Response To The West’s Liberal-Globalism”

The abovementioned analyses add context to Russia’s new foreign policy concept that can be read here.

The present piece focuses on the 58^th paragraph and its four subclauses concerning Russia’s relations with Latin America, which are of relevance to the Western Hemispheric dimension of its grand strategy as articulated in the preceding hyperlinked document from 31 March. For everyone’s convenience, this part of that detailed policy paper will now be shared in full below prior to analyzing its importance in the larger context:

“58. Given the progressive strengthening of the sovereignty and multifaceted potential of Latin American and Caribbean states, the Russian Federation intends to develop relations with them on a pragmatic, de ideologized and mutually beneficial basis, giving priority attention to:

1) supporting interested Latin American states under pressure from the United States and its allies in securing sovereignty and independence, including through the promotion and expansion of security, military and military-technical cooperation;

2) strengthening friendship, mutual understanding and deepening multifaceted mutually beneficial partnership with the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Republic of Cuba, the Republic of Nicaragua, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, developing relations with other Latin American states, taking into account the degree of independence and constructiveness of their policy towards the Russian Federation;

3) increasing mutual trade and investment with Latin American and Caribbean States, including through cooperation with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the Common Market of the South. The Central American Integration System, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of the Americas, the Pacific Alliance, and the Caribbean Community;

4) expanding cultural, scientific, educational, sports, tourism and other humanitarian ties with the states of the region.”

Immediate attention should be drawn to the open sentence about the “pragmatic, de ideologized and mutually beneficial basis” of Russia’s envisaged relations with Latin America. This approach perfectly aligns with the precepts of MCS, particularly Moscow’s respect for its partners’ right to develop according to whichever models they’d like. In practice, this means that Russia’s comparatively more right-wing socio-cultural policies at home aren’t an impediment to expanding ties with left-wing states.

That explains why it’s extremely close with Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, all three of which have either abstained from or voted against anti-Russian Resolutions at the UNGA since the start of Moscow’s special operation. It also signals Russia’s intent to continue exploring the expansion of mutually beneficial economically driven relations with Brazil in spite of their increasingly diverging worldviews under Lula’s third term as explained in detail citing official sources in these analyses here and here.

Unlike the US’ ULG, Russia’s MCS policymakers don’t care how their country’s partners organize their economic, political, and/or socio-cultural systems, hence why they’re extending an offer of support to strengthen their sovereignty via military-technical and other means despite their different models. All that’s important for the Kremlin is that its partners remain reliable and continue respecting Russia’s legitimate interests without criticizing them or meddling in its related affairs.

Should they continue to do so and this pragmatic worldview expands further throughout the region, then the geopolitical-ideational basis will be more solidly established for comprehensively advancing Russia’s relations with those regional integration platforms mentioned in the third clause above. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) is the most promising of them all, however, and Venezuelan President Maduro’s expectations of its future global role complement Russian interests.

The final clause regarding people-to-people ties is important for sustaining both sides’ mutually beneficial cooperation in the New Era, the present decade of which can also be described as the Age of Complexity. Ideologically driven disinformation agents are already at work trying to brainwash Latin Americans into thinking that Russia’s comparatively more right-wing socio-cultural policies at home preclude the possibility of any left-wing governments ever pragmatically cooperating with it.

According to this information warfare narrative, it would allegedly be a “betrayal” of their movements’ beliefs to work together with any country that holds polar opposite ones in some respects, the notion of which is weaponized by the US’ ruling liberal–globalists to divide-and-rule Russia and Latin America. The so-called “New Left” that’s rising in the region differs from the “Old Left” in the sense that the former are largely insincere in their working-class rhetoric and care more about fighting “culture wars”.

Their obsession with so-called “critical race theory” and aggressive propagation of non-traditional sexual relations onto all members of society (including children) take precedence over tangibly improving the living conditions of the population whose economic interests they purport to represent. These causes are the same as those that are being imposed by the US’ Democrats onto their own people and aggressively propagated across the world, hence these movements’ informal alliance with one another.

Upon falling under the influence of the US’ liberal-globalists, the Latin American “New Left” (which the Workers’ Party’s elite during Lula’s third term can also be characterized as per the prior analyses earlier shared in this piece) gradually began to align with their ally’s foreign policy. This explains why the Brazilian leader became the first BRICS one to personally condemn Russia in his joint statement with Biden from February and decided to continue Bolsonaro’s policy of voting against it at the UNGA.

At the same time, however, the “Old Left” that’s represented by Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and also Bolivia (which for whatever reason wasn’t mentioned by name in Russia’s new foreign policy concept despite being a reliable partner) continues setting a positive geopolitical-ideational example. They’re more focused on tangibly improving their people’s living conditions than on fighting “culture wars”, hence why they remain resistant to the US Democrats’ influence, unlike the Workers’ Party’s elite.

Accordingly, they haven’t voted against Russia at the UNGA either, once again unlike Lula’s Brazil. The emerging challenge across Latin America will therefore be for the “Old Left” to positively influence the “New Left” at least in the geopolitical sense of appreciating the mutually beneficial importance of pragmatically expanding ties with Russia despite pressure from their newfound US ideological ally to distance themselves from it and vote against Moscow at the UNGA.

It’s with this imperative in mind that Russia’s official de-ideologization of its relations with Latin America deserves maximum attention. Those “New Left” movements that continue falling under the US Democrats’ pernicious geopolitical influence due to their overlapping ideational interests will ultimately end up doing some of that declining unipolar hegemon’s bidding in the New Cold War. The failure to stop and reverse this Hybrid War trend could ultimately doom all of Latin America to US vassalhood.

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Debt Rattle June 11 2020

Jun 112020

June 11, 2020 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 11:08 am Finance Tagged with: Aboriginal, Amazon, apocalypse, Banksy, Columbus, coronavirus, Covid19, elevators, FBI, Latin America, Pelosi, Seattle, slavery, statues, Steele, Walmart 15 Responses »

Banksy Bataclan emergency door 2018 (was stolen in 2019, recovered yesterday)

• Pelosi Urges Confederate Statues Be Removed From Capitol (AP)

• Statues of Christopher Columbus Toppled Across The US (CNN)

• Walmart To Stop Keeping ‘Multicutural’ Beauty Products In Locked Displays (R.)

• Latin America Hits 70,000 Pandemic Deaths, Daily Record In Mexico (R.)

• BHP To Destroy At Least 40 Aboriginal Sites, Up To 15,000 Years Old (G.)

• Rio Tinto Destroys 46,000-Year-Old Aboriginal Site: ‘Misunderstanding’ (G.)

• Arrival Of Million By Sea Adds To UK Quarantine Doubts (Times)

• UK Economy Likely To Suffer Worst COVID19 Damage – OECD (G.)

• Fed Vows To Support US Economy’s ‘Long Road’ To Recovery After Dire 2020 (R.)

• US Housing ‘Apocalypse’ Coming As Coronavirus Protections Expire (CNBC)

• Amazon Bans Police Use Of Facial Recognition Tech – For A Year (BBC)

• The Elevator Arises As The Latest Logjam In Getting Back To Work (KHN)

• Lilly COVID19 Treatment Could Be Authorized For Use As Soon As September (R.)

• Germany Takes In Another 249 Refugee Children From Greece (K.)

• FBI Knew Steele Dossier Linked To Clinton, Dems From The Start (JTN)

Worldometer reports new cases for June 9 (midnight to midnight GMT+0) at + 134,705. A new record.

My count from about 6 am EDT to 6 am EDT is about + 138,341 cases.

New deaths also rose from + 5,032 to + 5,165 (my count + 5,348)

US passed 2,000,000 cases.

New cases past 24 hours in:

• US + 20,852
• Brazil + 33,100
• Russia + 8,779
• India + 12,375
• Pakistan + 5,834
• Chile + 5,737

• Cases 7,482,561 (+ 138,341 from yesterday’s 7,344,220)

• Deaths 419,488 (+ 5,348 from yesterday’s 414,140)

From Worldometer yesterday evening -before their day’s close-:

From Worldometer:

From COVID19Info.live:

Pelosi’s Box. She has no idea. She’s only focused on beating Trump.

• Pelosi Urges Confederate Statues Be Removed From Capitol (AP)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is demanding that [11] statues of Confederate figures such as Jefferson Davis be removed from the U.S. Capitol. In a letter, Pelosi told a House-Senate committee with jurisdiction over the controversial topic that Confederate statues “pay homage to hate, not heritage. They must be removed.” The California Democrat made the announcement on the very day President Donald Trump vowed on Twitter that he would not rename military bases honoring Confederate generals. Only a short time before Pelosi’s statement, NASCAR announced it would ban displays of the Confederate flag at its races. Confederate monuments have reemerged as a national flash point since the death of George Floyd [..]

Protesters decrying racism have targeted Confederate monuments in multiple cities, and some state officials are considering taking them down. Pelosi lacks the authority to order the removal of the 11 Capitol statues honoring Confederates but is urging the little-noticed Joint Committee on the Library to vote to remove them. Senate Republicans share jurisdiction. “The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation,” Pelosi wrote. “Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals.” The presence of statues of generals and other figures of the Confederacy in Capitol locations such as Statuary Hall — the original House chamber — has been offensive to African American lawmakers for many years.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1270150850380521475

Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., was known to give tours pointing out the numerous statues. But it’s up to the states to determine which of their historical figures to display. Jefferson Davis, a former U.S. senator from Mississippi who was president of the Confederate States of America, is represented by one of two statues from that state. Pelosi noted that Davis and Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, whose statue comes from Georgia, “were charged with treason against the United States.” “Several states have moved toward replacing statues and others appear headed in the same direction. This process is ongoing and encouraging,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., chairman of the Library Committee. “As Speaker Pelosi is undoubtedly aware, the law does not permit the Architect of the Capitol or the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library to remove a statue from the Capitol once it has been received.”

Well, let’s see…who’s uncomfortably like Columbus?

• Statues of Christopher Columbus Toppled Across The US (CNN)

As racial reckoning occurs across the country following the death of George Floyd, many Confederate statues — which some consider racist symbols of America’s dark legacy of slavery — have been removed. Now, statues of Christopher Columbus, another controversial figure in US history, are also being taken down. There have been three reports of Christopher Columbus statues being tampered with — one thrown into a lake, one beheaded, and another pulled to the ground. Columbus has long been a contentious figure in history for his treatment of the Indigenous communities he encountered and for his role in the violent colonization at their expense. In recent years, many cities and states have replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, in recognition of the pain and terror caused by Columbus and other European explorers.

[..] Elsewhere in the US, about 1,000 people gathered at Byrd Park in Richmond, Virginia on Tuesday, according to CNN affiliate WTVR. The Richmond Indigenous Society said in a tweet ahead of the rally that “we are gathering at Byrd Park to protest yet another racist monument. Christopher Columbus was a murderer of Indigenous people, mainstreaming the genocidal culture against Indigenous people that we still see today. Bring your sage, drum, jingle dress, and mask!”

[..] in Boston, officials removed the Columbus statue located in the city’s North End after it was beheaded Tuesday evening. The statue, which was erected in 1979, had been previously vandalized in 2015, when it was doused in red paint and the words “Black Lives Matter” were spray-painted on the back, CNN affiliate WBZ reported “This particular statue has been subject to repeated vandalism here in Boston, and given the conversations that we’re certainly having right now in our city of Boston and throughout the country, we’re also going to take time to assess the historic meaning of this action,” Mayor Marty Walsh said, according to WBZ.

Oh, the webs we weave: “Many companies have issued statements in support of the black community..”

• Walmart To Stop Keeping ‘Multicutural’ Beauty Products In Locked Displays (R.)

Walmart Inc will stop keeping personal care products designed for people of color in locked display cases, the retailer said, after the practice drew flak online with many saying it suggested customers for these products cannot be trusted. “We have made the decision to discontinue placing multicultural hair care and beauty products in locked cases,” the company said in an email statement on Wednesday. Walmart said the practice was in place in about a dozen of its 4,700 stores in the United States and the cases were in place to deter shoplifters from products such as electronics, automotive, cosmetics and other personal care products.

[..] The change in Walmart’s policy was prompted by a June 8 CBS News report cbsloc.al/37iJZxv that a Walmart customer had complained of the practice being discriminatory against people of color, while visiting a store in the city of Denver. “The multi-cultural hair care is all locked behind the glass. That’s so ridiculous,” Lauren Epps, a black woman was quoted as saying in the report. Many companies have issued statements in support of the black community, in addition to setting up funds to fight systematic racism. Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon has said the company, along with Walmart Foundation, will commit $100 million to create a new center on racial equity.

Columbus opened the doors for the conquistadores. 500+ years later, the population still lives that.

• Latin America Hits 70,000 Pandemic Deaths, Daily Record In Mexico (R.)

Latin America’s coronavirus crisis reached a grim new milestone on Wednesday with total deaths exceeding 70,000, according to a Reuters count, as Mexico hit a daily record for confirmed infections. Brazil, with the largest economy in the region, remains Latin America’s most affected country as total fatalities are just shy of 40,000, the world’s third highest death toll after the United States and Britain. In the region’s second biggest country Mexico, a new daily record of 4,883 confirmed cases was reported by the health ministry, along with 708 additional fatalities.

The daily totals bring Mexico’s overall official count to 129,184 infections and 15,357 deaths. The World Health Organization has determined that Latin America is the new hotspot for the pandemic, which began around the beginning of the year in China and quickly spread to Europe and beyond. Governments across the globe acknowledge that the real number of infected people is significantly higher than the official counts. Latin American fatalities attributed to the highly-contagious Covid-19 respiratory illness caused by the virus stand at 70,972, while total infections are at 1.45 million.

And talking about slavery and the mistreatment of indigenous people…

• BHP To Destroy At Least 40 Aboriginal Sites, Up To 15,000 Years Old (G.)

Mining giant BHP Billiton is poised to destroy at least 40 – and possibly as many as 86 – significant Aboriginal sites in the central Pilbara to expand its $4.5bn South Flank iron ore mining operation, even though its own reports show it is aware that the traditional owners are deeply opposed to the move. In documents seen by Guardian Australia, a BHP archaeological survey identified rock shelters that were occupied between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago and noted that evidence in the broader area showed “occupation of the surrounding landscape has been ongoing for approximately 40,000 years”. BHP’s report in September 2019 identified 22 sites of artefacts scatters, culturally modified trees, rock shelters with painted rock art, stone arrangements, and 40 “built structures … believed to be potential archaeological sites”.

Under section 18 of the Western Australian Aboriginal Heritage Act, the traditional owners – in this case the Banjima people – are unable to lodge objections or to prevent their sacred sites from being damaged. They are also unable to raise concerns publicly about the expansion, having signed comprehensive agreements with BHP as part of a native title settlement. BHP agreed to financial and other benefits for the Banjima people, while the Banjima made commitments to support the South Flank project. But the Banjima native title holders told the WA government in April they did not want any of the 86 archaeological sites within the project area to be damaged, saying the “impending harm” to the area “is a further significant cumulative loss to the cultural values of the Banjima people”.

“There was no slavery in Australia.” Scott Morrison, 11.06.2020.

What would you call this, then ? pic.twitter.com/gUfFnQbskj

— Mike Carlton (@MikeCarlton01) June 11, 2020

Autralia is built on its own unique legacy of destruction.

• Rio Tinto Destroys 46,000-Year-Old Aboriginal Site: ‘Misunderstanding’ (G.)

The head of Rio Tinto’s iron ore division said he has “taken accountability” for the destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal heritage site but refused to give a direct answer when asked if the company knew traditional owners did not want the rock shelter destroyed, saying: “clearly, there was a misunderstanding”. In an interview on Radio National on Friday, the chief executive of Rio Tinto iron ore, Chris Salisbury, said it it had “taken accountability” for the destruction of the site, which was one of two destroyed in a blast to expand the Brockman 4 iron ore mine last month. The two sites were located in Juukan Gorge in the Hamersley Ranges, about 300km inland from Karratha in Western Australia’s iron ore rich Pilbara region.

Traditional owners the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people only learned of the planned detonation on 15 May, nine days before it took place. They said the loss was “soul destroying”. Salisbury said the company “regrettably … thought we had a shared understanding with the PKKP about the future of the sites” and would conduct a review to learn “how did this go wrong from our point of view”. He also refused to provide a direct answer when asked if a statement released by the company last week, which suggested the PKKP had only “recently expressed concerns” about the site, was incorrect. It released another statement apologising “for the distress we caused” but not the destruction, on Sunday.

No testing, no quarantines. More people than this arrived by air. No testing. Now that they’ve all landed and had the chance to infect Britons, there’s a quarentine.

• Arrival Of Million By Sea Adds To UK Quarantine Doubts (Times)

More than 1.1 million people have arrived in the UK by sea since the start of the year without being forced to self-isolate as concerns mount over the government’s quarantine policy. Official figures show that there were 346,000 arrivals in the UK in March and April alone despite concerns over the transmission of coronavirus, casting further doubt over the government’s quarantine policy which was introduced for arrivals this week. The figures include HGV drivers, who are exempt from the quarantine measures, although it is not known how many fell into the category. Since Monday, anyone arriving in the UK by air, sea and through the Channel Tunnel rail link has been forced to spend two weeks in isolation. This includes Britons returning from abroad. The scheme does not apply to people from Ireland.

The quarantine is part of measures aimed at avoiding a second outbreak of Covid-19 but critics have questioned its value months after such curbs were introduced elsewhere. Giving evidence to MPs yesterday, Sir David Skeggs, 72, emeritus professor of epidemiology at the University of Otago in New Zealand, told the home affairs committee: “These border measures would be most effective if they were done very early.” Scientists also told MPs that summer holidays abroad risked a fresh wave of coronavirus infections across Europe. Gabriel Leung, 47, a dean of medicine at the University of Hong Kong, said it would be safest if mass-market tourism was discouraged. “I can’t imagine anybody going on holiday in any kind of destination where you go to enjoy the sun and actually doing very good hand hygiene and putting on a mask,” he said.

Forget these predictions. Nobody has a single clue.

• UK Economy Likely To Suffer Worst COVID19 Damage – OECD (G.)

Britain’s economy is likely to suffer the worst damage from the Covid-19 crisis of any country in the developed world, according to a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. A slump in the UK’s national income of 11.5% during 2020 will outstrip the falls in France, Italy, Spain, Germany and the US, the Paris-based thinktank said. Germany’s decline in GDP is forecast to be 6.6% this year while Spain’s GDP will fall by 11.1%, Italy’s by 11.3 and France’s by 11.4%. The US, the world’s largest economy, is expected to take a hit of 7.3%. Highlighting the task awaiting the UK government as it seeks to ease the lockdown, the OECD warned that countries forced to impose the most draconian restrictions faced a long haul back to previous levels of activity.

Anneliese Dodds, Labour’s shadow chancellor, blamed the “deeply worrying” OECD forecast on the government’s “failure to get on top of the health crisis, delay going into lockdown and chaotic mismanagement of the exit from lockdown”, which she argued made the economic impact of the crisis worse. Responding to the report, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said the UK was suffering “in common with many other economies around the world” and the priority was to “support people, jobs and businesses through this crisis – and this is what we’ve done”.

Britain, which is forecast to post an increase in unemployment to around 9%, could make its situation more difficult if it failed to secure a lasting agreement with the EU on trade and access to the single market, the OECD said. “The failure to conclude a trade deal with the European Union by the end of 2020 or put in place alternative arrangements would have a strongly negative effect on trade and jobs,” it said. Adding to pressure on No 10 to agree concessions with Brussels to secure a Brexit deal amid the economic damage caused by the pandemic, the credit ratings agency Moody’s warned that a no-deal Brexit would “significantly damage the UK’s potentially fragile recovery from its deepest recession in almost a century”.

OECD says the global economy will suffer the deepest peace-time slump in a century, urges governments not to shy away from debt-financed spending to support low-paid workers and investment https://t.co/V28WLFA8nu pic.twitter.com/S7wS3uwLEs

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 11, 2020

The Fed supports only banks. But Powell can still spout this insulting nonsense. No journalist ever openly disagrees.

• Fed Vows To Support US Economy’s ‘Long Road’ To Recovery After Dire 2020 (R.)

The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday signaled it plans years of extraordinary support for an economy facing a torturous slog back from the coronavirus pandemic, with policymakers projecting the economy to shrink 6.5% in 2020 and the unemployment rate to be 9.3% at year’s end. In the first economic projections of the pandemic era, U.S. central bank policymakers put into numbers what has been an emerging narrative: that the shutdowns, restrictions and other measures used to battle a health crisis will echo through the economy for years to come rather than be quickly reversed as commerce reopens.

Fed's Powell: Many differences between now and the great depression. pic.twitter.com/2gcXUNhO96

— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) June 10, 2020

Some 20 million or more people have been thrown out of work since February, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged it could take years for them to all reacquire jobs – an economic blow that is falling heaviest on minority communities at a time when mass protests over police brutality have thrown a new spotlight on racial inequality in the United States. Powell, acknowledging the nationwide demonstrations in his opening remarks at a news briefing, said it was now the Fed’s single-minded mission to bring the job market back to where it was at the end of last year, with the unemployment rate at a record low 3.5% and wage gains accumulating for some of the very same lower-paid workers in the service sector that have suffered most during the recent collapse.

[..] At the median, officials see the unemployment rate falling to 6.5% at the end of 2021 and 5.5% at the end of 2022 – still a full 2 percentage points above where it was at the end of last year, representing millions of lost years of work and wages. “The ongoing public health crisis will weigh heavily on economic activity, employment and inflation in the near term and poses considerable risks to the economic outlook over the medium term,” the Fed said in its policy statement. The response has been an unparalleled level of unanimity in the outlook for monetary policy. All 17 current Fed policymakers see the key overnight interest rate, or federal funds rate, remaining near zero through next year, and 15 of 17 see no change through 2022.

'We're not thinking about raising rates. We're not even thinking about thinking about raising rates,' Fed Chair Jerome Powell said https://t.co/PLbXkBYujf pic.twitter.com/PlWQZOQscw

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 11, 2020

2 million evictions in the pipeline even before COVID19.

• US Housing ‘Apocalypse’ Coming As Coronavirus Protections Expire (CNBC)

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. was experiencing what housing experts and advocates deemed an eviction crisis. More than 2 million people face eviction each year, far more than the number of people who faced foreclosure at the height of the 2008 mortgage crisis. Experts expect the eviction crisis to get far worse in the coming months. The Covid-19 economic recession has hit renters especially hard. They make up a disproportionate share of service sector jobs, an industry that has been decimated as a result of the coronavirus shutdowns. In fact, between March 25 and April 10 of this year, nearly half of renters aged 18 to 64 reported that they were having trouble paying their rent or utilities, were food insecure or couldn’t afford needed medical care, according to the Urban Institute.

Thousands of tenants have been missing rent payments over the past few months. People of color have fared worse than white renters due to the disproportionate job loss in their communities, the Urban Institute reports. About 25% of black and Latino renters reported not paying or deferring rent in May, compared to 14% of white renters. To keep people in their homes, the federal government banned evictions in federally assisted properties through July 25, and some cities and states, including Massachusetts, New York and Michigan, put their own temporary eviction moratoriums in place. But many of those bans begin expiring this month depending on the state, according to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, which tracks evictions across the country.

Plus, the extra $600 per week in federal unemployment benefits is set to expire at the end of July. That extra money is “what has been allowing many people who have lost their jobs to continue paying rent,” Solomon Greene, a senior fellow in housing policy at the Urban Institute, tells CNBC Make It. Coupled with the end of eviction moratoriums, the U.S. is likely to experience an uptick in evictions nationwide in the coming weeks. Evicting people in the middle of a global health crisis puts them at greater risk of contracting and spreading Covid-19, turning “a catastrophe into an apocalypse,” Aaron Carr, founder and executive director of the Housing Rights Initiative, tells CNBC Make It. “A lot of people could be on the streets,” says Carr. “Especially in places like New York City that already have a homeless problem, it could turn into a homeless nightmare.”

For a year. That’s all you need to know. About a company that has rich contracts with US intelligence,

• Amazon Bans Police Use Of Facial Recognition Tech – For A Year (BBC)

Technology giant Amazon has banned the police from using its controversial facial recognition software for a year. It comes after civil rights advocates raised concerns about potential racial bias in surveillance technology. This week IBM also said it would stop offering its facial recognition software for “mass surveillance or racial profiling”. The decisions follow growing pressure on firms to respond to the death in police custody of George Floyd. Amazon said the suspension of law enforcement use of its Rekognition software was to give US lawmakers the opportunity to enact legislation to regulate how the technology is employed.

“We’ve advocated that governments should put in place stronger regulations to govern the ethical use of facial recognition technology, and in recent days, Congress appears ready to take on this challenge,” Amazon said in a statement. “We hope this one-year moratorium might give Congress enough time to implement appropriate rules, and we stand ready to help if requested.” However, the company said that it would still allow organisations that deal with human trafficking to use the technology. Like other facial recognition products, Amazon’s Rekognition can use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to very quickly compare a picture from, for example, an officer’s phone camera and try to match it with mugshots held on police databases that can hold hundreds of thousands of photos.

You mean, that wasn’t obvious yet? Sometimes you guys surprise me.

• The Elevator Arises As The Latest Logjam In Getting Back To Work (KHN)

When the American Medical Association moved its headquarters to a famous Chicago skyscraper in 2013, the floor-to-ceiling views from the 47th-floor conference space were a spectacular selling point. But now, those glimpses of the Chicago River at the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-designed landmark, now known as AMA Plaza, come with a trade-off: navigating the elevator in the time of COVID-19. Once the epitome of efficiency for moving masses of people quickly to where they needed to go, the elevator is the antithesis of social distancing and a risk-multiplying bottleneck. As America begins to open up, the newest conundrum for employers in cities is how to safely transport people in elevators and manage the crowd of people waiting for them.

If office tower workers want to stay safe, elevator experts think they have advice, some practical, some not: Stay in your corner, face the walls and carry toothpicks (for pushing the buttons). Not only have those experts gone back to studying mathematical models for moving people, but they are also creating technology like ultraviolet-light disinfection tools and voice-activated panels. “When there is risk of disease spreading from human to human, continuing to maintain a clean and safe vertical transportation system is critical to help people return to work and safe living,” said Jon Clarine, head of digital services at Thyssenkrupp Elevator, in an email.

After all, most elevators are inherently cramped, enclosed spaces that can barely fit two people safely spaced 6 feet apart, much less the dozen or more that elevators in commercial and residential buildings were designed to hold. They’re a minefield of buttons and surfaces tempting to touch. Air circulation is limited to what a few vents and the opening doors can manage. Plus, they’re usually mobbed during the morning, lunchtime and evening rushes.

If news agencies write this sort of thing, while there are hundreds such products being touted, how is that not stealth advertizing and promotion?

• Lilly COVID19 Treatment Could Be Authorized For Use As Soon As September (R.)

Eli Lilly and Co could have a drug specifically designed to treat COVID-19 authorized for use as early as September if all goes well with either of two antibody therapies it is testing, its chief scientist told Reuters on Wednesday. Lilly is also doing preclinical studies of a third antibody treatment for the illness caused by the new coronavirus that could enter human clinical trials in the coming weeks, Chief Scientific Officer Daniel Skovronsky said in an interview. Lilly has already launched human trials with two of the experimental therapies. The drugs belong to a class of biotech medicines called monoclonal antibodies widely used to treat cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and many other conditions. A monoclonal antibody drug developed against COVID-19 is likely to be more effective than repurposed medicines currently being tested against the virus.

Skovronsky said the therapies – which may also be used to prevent the disease – could beat a vaccine to widespread use as a COVID-19 treatment, if they prove effective. “For the treatment indication, particularly, this could go pretty fast,” he said in an interview. “If in August or September we’re seeing the people who got treated are not progressing to hospitalization, that would be powerful data and could lead to emergency use authorization.” “So that puts you in the fall time: September, October, November is not unreasonable,” he said. Coronavirus vaccines being developed and tested at unprecedented speed are not likely to be ready before the end of the year at the earliest.

Out of over 5,000, most of whom have been in Greece for much of their entire lives.

• Germany Takes In Another 249 Refugee Children From Greece (K.)

Germany has taken in an additional 249 refugee children from Greece, the country’s interior minister Horst Seehofer said Wednesday, noting that most of the minors are sick or the siblings of migrants that are already in Germany. “As the rates of coronavirus are currently at this low level, we decided as the Interior Ministry… to take in more children from Greece,” Seehofer said, noting that Germany had already received 47 refugee children in April. Seehofer said that some of his associates visited Greece last week to arrange the transfer of the children.

Six of the youngsters who were too sick to travel last week will be transferred on a subsequent trip, he said. “I always said that my migration policy includes order but also humanity,” the German minister said. Luxembourg, Switzerland, Portugal and France are among the countries that have also taken in child refugees from Greece. Many of the children being relocated belong to the ranks of unaccompanied refugee minors in Greece, who number over 5,000.

Tomorrow’s the DC Appeals Court Michael Flynn hearing. Fireworks.

• FBI Knew Steele Dossier Linked To Clinton, Dems From The Start (JTN)

Notes and emails that have been kept so far from Senate investigators show the FBI knew from its earliest interactions with Christopher Steele in July 2016 that his Russia research project on Donald Trump was connected to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. The information, so far mentioned only glancingly and in footnotes of a Justice Department report, could provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with the most powerful evidence yet to confront witnesses about why the bureau concealed the political origins of Steele’s work from the FISA court. “So far the bureau is slow-walking this stuff,” a source familiar with senators’ frustrations told Just the News. “We need to see these sort of documents before we question key witnesses.”

Chairman Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) is seeking a vote later this week to authorize subpoenas that would compel the Christopher Wray-led FBI to produce witnesses and outstanding documents for the committee’s investigation of the Russia investigators. The effort to acquire the original source materials began last December after DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz released his explosive report blaming the FBI for 17 mistakes, omissions and acts of misconduct in seeking a FISA warrant against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. While the headlines since that report have mostly focused on FISA abuses, Senate investigators have also zeroed in on a handful of little-noticed passages in Horowitz’s narrative that reference original FBI source documents showing what agents and supervisors knew about Steele, the former MI6 agent, and the firm that hired him, Fusion GPS.

It wasn’t until late October 2017 that the public and Congress first learned that the law firm Perkins Coie, on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, hired Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS research firm to have Steele delve into Trump’s Russia connections. And FBI officials have been vague in their explanations about when they knew Steele’s research was tied to Clinton and the DNC and why they did not explicitly inform the FISA court that the Steele dossier used to secure the warrant was funded by Trump’s election opponent. But one passage and two footnotes in Horowitz’s report that have largely escaped public attention suggest the FBI agent who first interviewed Steele about his anti-Trump research in London on July 5, 2016 was aware immediately of a connection to Clinton and that a separate office of the FBI passed along information from an informant by Aug. 2, 2016 that Simpson’s Fusion GPS was connected to the DNC.

[..] The FBI notes and emails from summer 2016 are consistent with recent testimony that Steele gave in a civil case in London, where he testified he told the bureau his research and the Fusion GPS project was connected to Clinton. “I presumed it was the Clinton campaign, and Glenn Simpson had indicated that. But I was not aware of the technicality of it being the DNC that was actually the client of Perkins Coie,” Steele testified in March under questioning from lawyers for Russian bankers suing over his research. Steele confirmed during that testimony that his notes of a 2016 FBI meeting showed he told agents about the Clinton connection.

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Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize then dropped more bombs than all his predecessors, and barely anyone batted an eyelash because he looked and sounded classy while doing it. https://t.co/v4jaxYMbz0

— Sarah Abdallah (@sahouraxo) June 11, 2020

Little ones relate

pic.twitter.com/q9oZqQJfOD

— James Hirsen (@thejimjams) June 10, 2020

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