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Debt Rattle April 4 2026

Apr 042026
 
 April 4, 2026  Posted by at 9:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  32 Responses »


Paul Gauguin Apatarao 1893


• Strait of Hormuz Won’t Return to Pre-War Status Quo – Iranian Official (RT)
• EU To Be Hostile Alliance For Russia, Worse Than NATO – Medvedev (TASS)
• Western Leaders Demand More Sacrifices From Their People (RT)
• Germany’s Economy Minister Urges Nuclear Rethink As Energy Prices Surge (ZH)
• Bondi’s Replacement is Important, But Not as Important as Perceived (CTH)
• Is This the REAL Reason Trump Fired Pam Bondi? (Matt Margolis)
• Why States Are Right to Reject AI Legal Personhood (ET)
• Trump Offers Cabinet Position With Perks, Power, and Zero Job Security (Turley)
• The Red Line (James Howard Kunstler)
• Most Powerful Energy Crisis In Human History Is Looming – Putin Envoy (RT)
• Primary Fundraising Mechanism of Democrats Accepted Foreign Donations (CTH)
• HUGE March Jobs Report Leaves Democrats Speechless (Margolis)
• Chicago Bulls Release Forward After He Speaks Out Against Pride Month (Turley)

 


 

 


 

 


 


“The key waterway is closed for the US and its allies, but ships from other countries are able to use it, the official told RT..” A French ship crossed through the Strait of Hormuz yesterday. Is there hope from that angle?

• Strait of Hormuz Won’t Return to Pre-War Status Quo – Iranian Official (RT)

The Strait of Hormuz will not return to the status quo enjoyed before the US-Israeli war against Iran, a security official has told RT. The waterway, through which around 20% of seaborne crude oil trade passes, remains effectively closed due to the fighting during the past month. The deadlock has caused economic strains for many countries – including the US, where gas prices surpassed $4 per gallon earlier this week. The Iranian official said in an interview with RT on Thursday that the “conditions in the Strait of Hormuz will not return to the pre-war status quo.”


At the moment, transit through the waterway “remains operational,” but ships “are subject to the approval of the Iranian side and require the flag state of the vessel to establish contact with Tehran,” he said, adding: “To date, no vessel belonging to the enemy or its partners has been granted permission to pass,” referring to the US, Israel, and their allies. The Iranian authorities have established a “secure route” through the strait, the official said. “Given the insecurity caused by American aggression across various parts of the Persian Gulf, this corridor remains the only viable path for the transport of goods and products.”

He also urged the international media “to ignore the disinformation campaigns by the US-Israeli side and [US President Donald] Trump personally.”“Iranian regulation and control over the Strait continues and will persist,” he told RT. In an address to the nation on Thursday, Trump suggested that countries that depend on oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz should “build up some delayed courage… and just take it.” He added that the waterway could “open up naturally” after the war ends, without providing details.

Earlier this week, the Iranian parliament approved a “new regime,” according to which Tehran will collect payment from ships going through the strait. Lloyd’s List magazine said earlier that one vessel has already paid $2 million for transit. Tasnim news agency estimated that Tehran could make around $100 billion annually under the scheme once traffic in the strait is fully restored.

Read more …

“European political freaks, especially in Brussels, are seriously thinking about creating a full-fledged military component within the EU..”

• EU To Be Hostile Alliance For Russia, Worse Than NATO – Medvedev (TASS)

The European Union could turn into an extremely hostile military alliance toward Russia, “worse than NATO,” Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Head of the Russian Security Council, said on Max. “It is obvious that there are powerful contradictions within the alliance, which have been exacerbated by the Iranian campaign. And European political freaks, especially in Brussels, are seriously thinking about creating a full-fledged military component within the EU. But this is altering the picture of the world,” Medvedev warned. He said until now the Russian rhetoric about EU membership has been restrained and calm in relation to all neighbors, even to Ukraine: join it, if you want.


“But now everything has to change – now the EU is no longer an economic union. It can quickly turn into a full-fledged and extremely hostile military alliance against Russia, in some ways worse than NATO,” the politician said. “It will be a disgusting rabble of rabid European parasites and their task will be to earn political capital and, of course, dough by inflating Russophobic hysteria. It’s time to abandon the tolerant attitude towards joining the military-economic European Union of our neighbors.” Medvedev said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had already done this neatly when he told Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan that Moscow was calm about the development of Yerevan’s relations with the EU, but Armenia would not be able to be in two customs unions at once – the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union.

Read more …

Until the people say no more.

• Western Leaders Demand More Sacrifices From Their People (RT)

The leaders of the UK and Australia have told their citizens to cut fuel consumption and prepare for months of hardship as a result of the US-Israeli war with Iran. But Keir Starmer and Anthony Albanese couldn’t bring themselves to name who’s responsible. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Australian counterpart, Anthony Albanese, delivered a pair of seemingly coordinated addresses to their nations on Wednesday. “The economic shocks caused by [the Iran war] will be with us for months,” Albanese said, telling Australians to switch to public transport if possible, and promising to cut fuel taxes and prepare for the possibility that “the global situation gets worse and our fuel supplies are seriously disrupted.”


“Australia is not an active participant in this war,” he claimed, despite his government being the first in the world to back the US and Israel’s opening strikes on Iran on February 28. Starmer struck a similar tone, declaring that “this is not our war,” but warning that “the impact of this war will affect the future of our country.” The British PM promised that “no matter how fierce this storm is, we are well placed to weather it,” and vowed to help “reopen” the Strait of Hormuz.

How bad is the energy crisis?
The US-Israeli war with Iran has triggered the most severe energy crisis since the 1970s, if not in history. Around 40% of the world’s oil comes from the Middle East. Nearly a third of the world’s seaborne crude oil transits the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway less than 40 km wide at its narrowest point, which through a combination of Iranian attacks on tankers and hesitance by Western insurers, is de facto closed to maritime traffic. Additionally, Iran’s retaliatory attacks on Gulf states hosting American troops have taken refineries and export terminals out of action. Qatar, which supplies 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas (LNG), completely halted production almost a month ago.

As a result, Brent oil prices – which serve as a barometer for 80% of the world’s crude oil – have sat above $100 per barrel for three weeks, while gas prices have surged 60% in the EU and more than 100% in the UK. While the crisis is global, its effects are particularly acute in the EU, UK, and Australia, all of which have sanctioned Russian oil and gas, shutting themselves off from a potential lifeline amid the crisis. The EU once relied on Russia for 45% of its gas imports, before switching to more expensive American and Qatari supplies after 2022. With no date in sight for the resumption of Qatari imports, and with inflation spiking across Europe, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde warned last week that “we are facing a real shock…probably beyond what we can imagine at the moment.”

The Strait of Hormuz was open to maritime traffic until the US and Israel launched an unprovoked attack on Iran in the middle of nuclear talks. However, neither Starmer nor Albanese mentioned the US or Israel in their speeches. Instead, both the UK and Australia issued a joint statement – along with 32 other US allies in Europe and the Gulf – blaming the closure of the strait squarely on “Iran’s actions.” “We call on Iran to cease immediately its threats, laying of mines, drone and missile attacks and other attempts to block the Strait to commercial shipping,” the statement reads, accusing Tehran of posing “a threat to international peace and security.

Read more …

You can’t just have a “Nuclear Rethink”. It’ll take a decade at the very minimum.

• Germany’s Economy Minister Urges Nuclear Rethink As Energy Prices Surge (ZH)

Germany’s Economy Minister Katherina Reiche has openly called for a fundamental reassessment of the country’s long-standing rejection of nuclear power, warning that heavy dependence on gas has left Europe’s largest economy dangerously exposed to repeated energy shocks. Speaking at the launch of a new international investor conference aimed at drawing foreign capital into Germany, Reiche told the Financial Times that the decision by previous governments to phase out nuclear generation has eliminated any realistic alternative for reliable baseload electricity. “We need gas to secure our supply – that is the only baseload supply I have left,” she said. “Politically speaking, I have no alternative.”


Reiche, a senior figure in Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union, made the remarks as fresh data highlighted the mounting costs of the nuclear exit, originally decided under Angela Merkel in 2011 and completed under Olaf Scholz. While the policy was accompanied by a massive push for renewables, it has left Germany more reliant on gas-fired power stations to keep the lights on when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. European gas prices have risen more than 60 per cent since the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East, delivering the continent’s second major energy price crisis in under five years. Futures contracts for German electricity in May are trading at four times the level seen in France, Europe’s biggest nuclear producer, according to the energy exchange EEX.

Reiche urged Germany to stop sitting on the sidelines of Europe’s nuclear revival. France, Sweden and Poland are all either building new reactors or extending the life of existing ones, attracted by the technology’s ability to deliver large volumes of low-carbon, dispatchable power. “We can decide that we are not interested. Then we stick to gas and become more dependent on one energy source,” she said. “Or we can say that we are interested in technology again.” With Germany’s renowned engineering expertise, Reiche argued the country should at minimum engage constructively in European nuclear projects and international forums. “Anyone standing on the sidelines simply commenting loses influence. You must be on the pitch if you want to play.”

The vulnerability of Germany’s gas strategy was brutally exposed after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine cut off pipeline supplies. Berlin was forced to pivot rapidly to liquefied natural gas, much of it from the United States, which now accounts for around 10 per cent of the country’s gas supply. Energy costs have remained stubbornly high ever since. In the second half of 2025, gas prices for private households were 79 per cent above 2021 levels, while electricity prices rose 23 per cent, official statistics show. The latest price spike is already hammering industry and derailing growth forecasts. A consortium of leading German economic institutes warned on Wednesday that the energy shock would erase more than half the GDP growth previously expected for 2026.

The new projection is just 0.6 per cent, down from 1.3 per cent in September, with 2027 growth seen at 0.9 per cent. Reiche acknowledged the strain on energy-intensive sectors but insisted Germany faced no immediate supply shortages. She noted that Chancellor Merz, who heads a year-old coalition between the CDU and Social Democrats, has long described the nuclear phase-out as a “huge mistake.” While the government has ruled out restarting closed conventional reactors, it is now supporting research into small modular reactors and nuclear fusion. Merz has also pledged to end Germany’s previous opposition to nuclear power at EU level.

The renewed energy debate comes as Berlin battles to revive an economy weighed down by high costs, Chinese competition and structural weaknesses. Despite a €1 trillion decade-long infrastructure and defence spending package – the largest since reunification – growth remains elusive. To counter the gloom, the government is hosting the first “Invest in Germany” summit in Berlin on 19-20 October. Reiche hopes the event, modelled on France’s “Choose France” initiative, will secure concrete investment pledges and reposition Germany as a stable, diversified alternative for global capital. “I don’t see a flight from the dollar … but we see a lot of inquiries from America,” she said.

Investors she speaks to recognise the country’s underlying strengths, she added: a powerful industrial base, well-capitalised small and medium-sized companies (Mittelstand) and strategic importance. “Germany is currently in a weak phase,” they tell her, “but … you are of great strategic interest to us.” Whether a more pragmatic stance on nuclear power can help restore that interest – and ease the pressure on German households and factories – will be one of the defining tests for Merz’s government in the months ahead.

Read more …

The intelligence community controls the DOJ. That is significant.

• Bondi’s Replacement is Important, But Not as Important as Perceived (CTH)

In a two-week period right after the 2024 election, the most energy expended by the transition team putting a cabinet together was toward Main Justice or the Dept of Justice. As a consequence, those around Lutnick and Wiles spent an incredible amount of time thinking about the Attorney General pick. Following an insider discussion, I spoke with several people about positions and appointments, focused on pointing out that the transition’s priorities were misplaced. The AG needed to be someone with exceptional moral character, capable of gathering information and presenting it for public consumption, with the option of supporting criminal referrals if necessary.


The Attorney General wasn’t going to be the tip of the spear in any operation to confront the Deep State, because if Main Justice wanted to confront Lawfare they needed to confront the Intelligence Community first. The IC controls all of the activity within the Dept of Justice. Read that again for emphasis. For the issues of greatest importance, the Intelligence Community controls all of the activity within Main Justice. The IC is in control of the source material. The IC is above the DOJ. If you don’t strategize a confrontation with the IC first, it doesn’t matter what you do with the Dept of Justice.

The best example I could reference at the time was the Mar-a-Lago documents case and Judge Aileen Cannon. In that example the Executive branch was targeting Trump through the DOJ/FBI, and representing the Judicial branch Judge Cannon was the firewall ensuring the appropriate administration of justice. Trump’s defense, through Cannon, pushed back against the DOJ (Jack Smith) while Smith leveraged all his Lawfare tools back against Cannon. You might remember the “classified document” issue went to the 11th CCA.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the government position that any documents defined as “classified” by the executive branch that claimed, “national security,” should not be disclosed to the defendant, Trump. The 11th CCA said when it comes to matters of national security, the judicial branch must defer to the determinations of the executive. Basically, if the intelligence community decides certain information is tied to national security and labels it as classified for the DOJ, that decision can’t be challenged. The U.S. Supreme Court has backed this view. As a result, when it comes to national security issues, the judicial branch has to defer to the executive, giving the IC significant control over the DOJ.

If you drag former CIA Director John Brennan into court and Brennan’s lawyers argue ‘national security’ as a defense against indictment, inquiry or questioning, it’s not the DOJ (Attorney General) who matters – it’s the ‘national security’ determination of the Intelligence Community (Tulsi Gabbard) who controls the outcome. Over and over, I kept emphasizing this point. If you want to hold the Spygate/Russiagate folks accountable, it’s not going to be the DOJ who matter; not directly. It is the Intelligence Community that matters.

If you seek accountability, and if you want to stop Lawfare from exploiting the silo defenses, it’s the IC that matters; not the Dept of Justice. The transition team was putting emphasis on the wrong syllable. Remember, my emphasis was on the need for institutional accountability on Spygate and Russiagate, and the DOJ is a tool toward the goal but not the ultimate weapon.

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I doubt it. She just never arrested anyone.

• Is This the REAL Reason Trump Fired Pam Bondi? (Matt Margolis)

On Thursday, we learned that President Donald Trump fired Pam Bondi as attorney general, making her the second Cabinet member he’s axed in less than a month. Trump’s official send-off was gracious, but the question remains: Why did he fire her? Bondi has come under fire for her handling of the Epstein files. Her muddled public statements about the existence of a so-called “client list” turned a political liability into a full-blown firestorm, drawing bipartisan condemnation and fueling accusations of a transparency cover-up. But there may be another nugget to the story.


Trump, for what it’s worth, praised her in a post on Truth Social, calling her “a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year,” crediting her with doing “a tremendous job” overseeing a crackdown on crime that drove murder rates to their lowest point since 1900. “We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future.” That’s a warm sendoff, atypical for Trump, who often kicks people out the door and trashes them immediately after. It’s a welcome change, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve never been a fan of his constantly trashing and making enemies out of people he had served in his administration.

According to a report from the Daily Mail, the reason Trump gave Bondi the axe is that he believes Bondi tipped off Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) about the FBI’s plans to release documents tied to his decade-old relationship with a suspected Chinese spy. “She’s intervening in those matters,” a source close to the situation told the paper. “The White House wasn’t pleased she was intervening due to her personal friendship with Swalwell.” Trump had also grown privately furious that Bondi wasn’t prosecuting the political enemies who spent years targeting him. He made it known — publicly — posting last September that the delays in those cases were “harming our reputation and credibility.”

According to a senior administration source, Trump informed Bondi of her dismissal on Wednesday night, just before he delivered his Iran speech. And she didn’t take it well. Bondi reportedly pleaded for more time, and the confrontation at the White House grew tense. “She was unhappy and tried to change his mind,” the source said. Bondi stayed at the White House throughout the Iran speech, then quietly flew home to Florida. The Swalwell angle is an interesting one. But still bizarre. “It is unclear why Bondi would have intervened, but it is believed that Bondi and Swalwell have a friendly relationship,” explains the Daily Mail. “Swalwell, a fellow lawyer, has openly criticized her since she took the AG position after failing to prosecute multiple death threats against him and his family.”

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney, is now serving as acting Attorney General until a permanent nominee is identified. Some are speculating that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is a possible candidate.

Read more …

An AI system can easily be smarter than a human. But it’s not accountable?

“..a clear chain of human accountability from every AI action to every AI consequence. When an AI system causes harm, there must always be a human who answers for it.”

Can a human “answer” for a system that is much smarter than him/her?

How would an AI system answer that?

• Why States Are Right to Reject AI Legal Personhood (ET)

A quiet but consequential legal movement is gathering momentum. Idaho and Utah have enacted statutes declaring that artificial intelligence systems are not legal persons. Ohio’s House Bill 469 proposes to declare that AI systems are “nonsentient entities” and bars them from acquiring any form of legal personhood. Similar bills are advancing in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Missouri, South Carolina, and Washington. The legislatures driving this movement are not technophobes. They are drawing a necessary line that philosophy, law, and common sense all demand.


The pressure in the opposite direction is real. In January, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, historian Yuval Noah Harari described AI as “mastering language.” Since language is the medium through which law, religion, finance, and culture are constituted, AI may soon be capable of acting within every institution humans have built. Harari asked whether countries would recognize AI as legal persons—whether AI could open bank accounts, file lawsuits, and own property without human supervision. The prospect is not science fiction. It is a policy choice, and the wrong choice would be deeply consequential.

Phantasms versus Nous
Aristotle argued in De Anima that all sentient creatures share a basic cognitive capacity to perceive the world, retain impressions of it, and recombine impressions into new configurations—what he called phantasia, imagination. A dog, a crow, and a chess grand master possess this competency.

Aristotle distinguished human beings as categorically different: possessing nous, the capacity to grasp universal, abstract concepts—ideas like justice, causation, and the good—that cannot be derived from any sensory experience alone. A dog can recognize its owner, but it cannot grasp the concept of ownership. A parrot can reproduce a sentence about fairness, but it has no understanding of fairness.

vWhat is the distinction? Can’t we simply feed an AI system Webster’s definition of “fairness” and let it work from there? No—feeding a machine the dictionary definition only gives it more words to pattern-match against—the concept is not in the words. Any child who grasps fairness can apply it correctly to a situation no definition anticipates. AI can only produce text that statistically resembles how humans talked about fairness before.

This is not a gap that more computing power or better training data will close. Computer scientist Judea Pearl demonstrated mathematically that no amount of pattern recognition over observational data can substitute for genuine causal inference. The appearance of understanding is not understanding itself. And it is precisely the capacity for genuine understanding—for deliberating about what is good and right—that grounds moral responsibility, which is the only coherent basis for legal personhood.

The Problem With the Corporate Analogy
Proponents of AI personhood often invoke corporate personhood as precedent. Corporations are not natural persons, yet the law treats them as legal persons capable of owning property, entering contracts, and being sued. Why not extend this pragmatic fiction to AI? The analogy breaks down at accountability.

Corporate personhood is a legal convenience built on human moral agency. Behind every corporation is a structured network of natural persons—board members, executives, shareholders—who bear fiduciary duties, can be deposed and held liable under piercing-the-veil doctrine, and face reputational and criminal consequences for their decisions. The corporation is a vehicle for organizing human action, not a substitute.

Ohio’s HB 469 captures this logic by denying AI legal personhood, prohibiting AI systems from serving as corporate officers or directors, and assigning all liability for AI-caused harm to identifiable human owners, developers, and deployers.

Labeling a system “aligned” or “ethically trained” does not discharge human responsibility. Granting AI legal personhood would shatter this accountability architecture. An AI “person” could own intellectual property, hold financial assets, and bring lawsuits—all without a human principal who can be held responsible. Sophisticated actors could construct chains of AI-owned shell companies that dissolve liability through layers of nominal personhood. The result would not be extending rights to a new class of beings; it would be creating accountability vacuums that benefit the powerful humans who deploy AI while insulating them from consequence.

The Moral Stakes for Real People
A deeper moral issue underlies all of this. Legal personhood is not merely an administrative category; it carries normative weight. It signals that an entity has standing to make claims, to be wronged, and to bear obligations. Extending that status to systems that cannot genuinely deliberate, cannot suffer, and cannot be held morally responsible would dilute the concept of personhood in ways that could ultimately harm the humans who most need its protections.

We have not yet secured the full benefits of legal personhood for all human beings in practice—for the displaced, stateless, and structurally invisible. Rushing to extend a contested status to machines while that work remains unfinished would be a profound misallocation of moral and legal energy.

None of this requires hostility to AI as a technology. AI systems can be powerful, useful, and—when properly governed—enormously beneficial. What AI systems cannot be is persons. The states passing anti-personhood legislation are preserving something more important than a competitive advantage—a clear chain of human accountability from every AI action to every AI consequence. When an AI system causes harm, there must always be a human who answers for it. That principle is not a constraint on technology; it is the foundation of a just society.

Aristotle taught that law is reason without passion—a framework for coordinating human beings capable of living well together. AI can help us pursue the good life, but it cannot deliberate about what that life requires. As states across the country move to codify this distinction, they are doing exactly what legislatures exist to do—drawing lines that protect persons: all of them, and only them.

Read more …

Lee Zeldin.

• Trump Offers Cabinet Position With Perks, Power, and Zero Job Security (Turley)

There is an old joke that scientists switched from lab rats to lawyers because you do not get as attached to lawyers. President Trump has shown the same tendency not to become attached to either private or public counsel. Attorney General is only the latest in a long line of lawyers let go by a president made famous with the tagline “You’re fired.” There is no evidence of bad blood between President Trump and Bondi. The Attorney General has been attacked over her loyalty to the President and has been by his side in some of the most precarious moments from his impeachment to his criminal defense. As his “apprentices” learned, this is not personal. It’s business.


Jeff Sessions. Rex Tillerson. Bill Barr. Mark Esper. Kristi Noem. Trump’s “cabinets” are known more for shelving than storage.Indeed, being a cabinet member in a Trump administration is about as secure as being a quarterback on the Cleveland Browns. Trump has always viewed terminations as a way to spur higher performance levels. There is a reason why Trump may have wanted to move now in swapping out Attorneys General. There are growing predictions that the Republicans will lose the House and could also lose the Senate. Democrats are running on pledges of unleashing a new spasm of investigations and impeachments, targeting not just President Trump but anyone who supports him.

Figures like Susan Rice, top policy adviser to both President Barack Obama and Joe Biden, have promised “revenge” against all those who pushed Democrats out of power and warned that “it’s not going to end well for them.” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) pledged that, as soon as they regain power, they will start throwing Trump people in jail when they retake Congress. Democratic strategist James Carville previously threatened that “collaborators” may be treated in the same way as they were after World War II.Trump has to decide who will be the best hand on the wheel in those coming choppy waters.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has the street cred that Trump values. An accomplished litigator and former prosecutor, Blanche is neither flashy nor gregarious. He is a lethal litigator who can gut you like a trout without breaking a sweat. He has been at the president’s side in and out of court. While he will be a lightning rod for Democrats who have attacked him for his role in the release of the Epstein files, his firmness in dealing with a hostile media likely appealed to the President.

Blanche offers a seamless transition for the Department. He literally only has to walk down the hallway to take the reins from Bondi. Another name reportedly under consideration is EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who would likely be the easiest to confirm and the most popular with members of Congress. Zeldin transformed the EPA in short order, including clearly away barriers to increasing energy production. Almost elected governor of New York, Zeldin has cross-over appeal in Washington as someone who cut his teeth in this town.

Other candidates include state attorneys general, as well as wild cards like U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, a former judge with a tough-as-nails reputation in Washington, D.C. It is a deep bench. There will be no shortage of applicants for the job. The office of the Attorney General in the Trump Administration has everything that one could want in Washington. Everything, that is, except job security.

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“The ends must justify the means — the only question is what means are necessary.” —Saul Alinsky

• The Red Line (James Howard Kunstler)

Why do the news anchor ladies of CNN, Erin Burnett, Kate Bolduon, always look so depressed on the air? They never smile. Their faces always register something between grave concern and hysteria. Is it the network’s cratered ratings? The pending hostile takeover by Paramount / Skydance (led by conservative David Ellison)? Too much botox, zombifying the small facial muscles? Or is it self-loathing from being compelled to slant everything they report on in the direction of a lie?


There does seem to be some hidden hand in Narrative Central issuing prescribed story-lines to the networks, and that hand seems to be tinged with malice for anything and anyone seeking to rescue our country from chaos, penury, psychosis, and jihad. It looks like the hidden hand wants the country to go down in flames, and will resort to any means necessary to get it done. The template for that is so-called “color revolution,” which is a hyper-accelerated version of Antonio Gramsci’s “march through the institutions” to capture the transmitters of culture so as to produce a communist utopia.

Gramsci (1891 – 1937) founded the Italian communist party. The fascist Mussolini tossed him in jail where Gramsci scribbled out three thousand pages of his Prison Notebooks, in which he laid out his strategy for destroying civil society, later adapted by the Americans Saul Alinsky (1909-1972) in his Rules for Radicals and Gene Sharp (1928-2018), who penned several concise manuals of strategic mechanics for dismantling targeted governments.

These are the mentors of chief Lawfare ninja Norm Eisen, who has made a specialty of marching through the institution of American law in order to advance the agenda of the Democratic Party allied with cohorts of the permanent Washington bureaucracy (or Deep State) to fend off any challenge to the corruption and racketeering embedded in those two symbionts.

The challenge obviously presents in the form of Donald Trump, the once and current president battling an increasingly rabid set of opponents. Norm Eisen has been deeply involved in every attempt to undermine and disable Mr. Trump since 2016. He wrote briefs for the Mueller Special Counsel operation; he acted as prosecutor in Trump’s impeachment # 1 (prompted by CIA agent and so-called “whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella, as facilitated by then Rep. Adam Schiff); he assisted ex parte in the House Jan 6 Committee proceedings; he prepared legal arguments for the Fani Willis prosecution of Mr. Trump and 18 co-defendants; and he helped construct the legal framework for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s cases against Mr. Trump. In short, Norm Eisen spent the past decade laboring to brand Donald Trump as a criminal and shove him out of the political arena. His efforts failed.

Norm Eisen founded or is associated with several swamp NGOs active in Trump-hunting operations, including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the States United Democracy Center, the Democracy Defender’s Fund, Democracy Defenders Action — all posing as anti-autocracy operations. Eisen and his orgs have filed hundreds of lawsuits against the Trump administration to obstruct any initiative the President advances to stop Democratic Party sanctioned grift, deport illegal aliens ushered in during the “Joe Biden” years, and especially to derail investigations of election fraud. These orgs are well-funded by George Soros’s Open Society NGO and it’s spinoffs, Arabella Advisors (rebranded as Sunflower Services), the Tides Foundation, that is, the usual suspects.

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“The EU and the UK are unprepared and face deindustrialization after rejecting Russian oil and gas, Kirill Dmitriev has said..”

Repeated from a few days ago. It seems that important.

• Most Powerful Energy Crisis In Human History Is Looming – Putin Envoy (RT)

The world is heading toward the most severe energy crisis in history and Europe is unprepared, Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev has said. The warning comes as the escalating conflict in the Middle East has driven volatility in global energy markets. Speaking on Thursday, Dmitriev – who heads the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and is President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation – said he earlier predicted that oil would exceed $100 a barrel if a conflict like this broke out. “Back then, no one believed,” he said, adding that some market participants are now discussing the possibility of prices rising to $150 or even $200.


“We see that the most severe energy crisis in the history of mankind is approaching. Neither the EU nor the UK is at all prepared for it,” Dmitriev said on the sidelines of the RDIF congress. Brussels and London “shot themselves in the foot” by rejecting Russian oil and gas, and the consequences of this are only beginning to emerge, he added. Dmitriev warned that the EU faces deindustrialization, and that “big problems” await the UK, arguing that this the result of choices made by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other “Russophobic politicians.” Western governments will eventually be forced to seek renewed access to Russian energy, he said.

Oil and gas prices have spiked since the escalation of the Middle East conflict, triggered by the US-Israeli strikes on Iran and subsequent Iranian retaliatory attacks across the region, which have led to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz to Western shipping. The strait normally carries around a fifth of the world’s daily oil supply, and the IEA has warned that disruptions could last months or years. European gas prices have risen by around 70% since March 1; Brent crude has topped $110 per barrel, prompting Washington to ease the sanctions on Russian oil.

The EU was already grappling with the fallout from its decision to cut energy ties with Russia following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, as well as the costs of its green transition policies. The European Commission has said there will be no return to Russian energy, and it will continue to pursue a full phase-out of Russian fossil fuels by 2027. This week, however, it put plans for a complete ban on Russian oil on hold, due to what some officials reportedly called “current geopolitical developments.”

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ActBlue.

“.. the Eric Holder law firm Covington & Burling, the primary legal mechanism for the ActBlue/DNC machinery, lies at the heart of the matter.”

• Primary Fundraising Mechanism of Democrats Accepted Foreign Donations (CTH)

ActBlue is to the Democrat party fundraising machine as WinRed is to the Republican side of the equation.


In a rather stunning outline by the New York Times [SEE HERE] the progressive outlet is reporting of serious concerns within the leadership of ActBlue related to their willfully blind reception of foreign sources of money to fund Democrat candidates. The remarkable aspect is not just that ActBlue takes foreign funds, but rather the New York Times revealing internal legal discussions about it. According to the Times reporting, the Eric Holder law firm Covington & Burling, the primary legal mechanism for the ActBlue/DNC machinery, lies at the heart of the matter.

(NYT) […] The firm concluded that ActBlue’s chief executive had given a potentially misleading response to congressional Republican investigators in a 2023 letter explaining how the organization vetted donations to ensure that they were not illegally coming from foreign citizens. The letter from the chief executive, Regina Wallace-Jones, said ActBlue carried out “multilayered” screenings of contributions that helped “root out” those from overseas. In fact, the law firm found, some of the steps she had described were not always followed.

“This presents a substantial risk for ActBlue,” the law firm, Covington & Burling, wrote in one of two memos expressing legal concerns. One memo raised the specter of a criminal investigation if prosecutors believed that ActBlue had tried to conceal facts about its efforts to prevent foreign contributions. To really appreciate the scheme that seems to be outlined by the internal documents, it is worth remembering that James O’Keefe previously did some boots on the ground research into ActBlue and found that multiple, perhaps thousands, of “donor” names and addresses were assigned to contributions the donors said they never made.

Put the two issues together and it appears that ActBlue may have been laundering foreign money into the DNC by using donor identities to cover the funding mechanism. Foreign funds, broken up into separate, smaller components and then attributed to Smurf donor identities. As many surmised at the time, the donor IDs would be useful – only to launder the funds. That would explain why thousands of donors denied making contributions, yet FEC reports filed by ActBlue officials assign, falsely, their identity to donations. Shortly before the 2024 federal election, on October 24th, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also submitted a criminal referral to the DOJ following his own investigation of this activity.

TEXAS – “Attorney General Ken Paxton made a criminal referral to the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) detailing the results of an investigation that revealed how suspicious actors seemingly use ActBlue’s political fundraising platform to make illegal straw donations.” Put the New York Times story together with the James O’Keefe investigation, and then overlay the Texas AG investigation and criminal referral, and there’s not just smoke -or fire- there’s an inferno ablaze.

[…] ActBlue is now all but declaring war on its own past lawyers, an extraordinary turn of events at a moment when President Trump has already ordered a Justice Department investigation into the organization. Democrats are nervous that any additional upheaval at ActBlue could destabilize the party’s critical fund-raising apparatus ahead of the midterm elections. All levels of Democratic candidates, from incumbent presidents to school board aspirants, use ActBlue to raise campaign money from online donors. The platform has processed nearly $19 billion in contributions since its founding in 2004, building a donor database with millions of credit card numbers that is unmatched in American politics. Nearly 23,000 candidates and groups used the site in 2025, ActBlue has said, raising almost $1.8 billion from 52 million contributions, some of which recur every month.

[…] “It can be alleged that ActBlue accepted and/or facilitated the acceptance of foreign-national contributions into American elections,” one memo states. “In addition, because ActBlue’s staff was aware that its system was not as robust as necessary, it could be alleged that these violations were ‘knowing and willful,’ a standard that both increases the penalties the F.E.C. might seek and gives the Justice Department jurisdiction for a potential criminal investigation.” (more)

It’s called, Money Laundering.

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Strong numbers. Not much attention.

• HUGE March Jobs Report Leaves Democrats Speechless (Margolis)

The so-called experts didn’t just miss the mark on March jobs numbers; they got steamrolled by reality. Economists predicted a weak 59,000 jobs. The actual number came in at a stunning 178,000. Talk about getting it completely wrong. And it’s the latest reminder that the same crowd that spent months warning about economic doom under President Donald Trump still doesn’t understand what’s actually happening on the ground. Even CNN couldn’t deny that this was huge. CNBC couldn’t contain its excitement.


Unemployment dipped again, falling from 4.4% to 4.3%. Even more telling, the rate dropped across multiple groups, including women, black Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and veterans. That kind of broad-based improvement doesn’t happen in a weak economy. It doesn’t even happen when a Democrat is in the White House. Meanwhile, jobless claims are now hovering near a two-year low. In other words, fewer people are losing jobs, and more people are finding them. That’s the formula for sustained momentum. Manufacturing and construction both saw real growth, the kind that signals strength in the backbone of the economy. Let’s keep going, shall we?

Since Trump returned to office, the private sector has added 609,000 jobs. At the same time, federal government employment has dropped by 352,000. On top of that, native-born Americans are benefiting, too. A total of 218,000 native-born workers have gained employment, and 193,000 have entered the labor force. That’s no accident; that’s by design. Trump’s designWages are also moving in the right direction. Average hourly earnings rose 0.2% in March and sit 3.5% higher than a year ago. It gets better. Blue-collar workers, who took a beating during the Biden years, have now recovered those lost wages in just one year under Trump.

As for inflation, it continues to cool. It now sits at 2.4%, down from 3.0% when Trump took office — and way below the 9% it reached under Biden. Core inflation has dropped to 2.5%, its lowest level in five years. That’s a major shift after the price spikes Americans endured not long ago. What does this mean for Americans? It means prices for everyday staples like bread, meat, fruit, and dairy have all come down. Egg prices, which became a symbol of runaway inflation, have plunged nearly 50% since Trump took office and 60% compared to last Easter. Housing is showing signs of relief as well. Mortgage rates have declined, and rents are down 1.7% over the past year.

Put it all together, and it’s clear that the Trump economy is working. Jobs are growing faster than expected. Wages are rising. Inflation is falling. And everyday costs are easing. The “experts” can keep predicting collapse if they want. The numbers keep telling a very different story. Trump’s golden age is coming through. Neither Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, DNC Chairman Ken Martin, nor the Democratic Party has addressed the new jobs report on X.

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”Ivey expressed his opposing religious beliefs, including criticizing the NBA’s Pride Month celebrations.”

• Chicago Bulls Release Forward After He Speaks Out Against Pride Month (Turley)

This week, the Chicago Bulls waived guard Jaden Ivey for “conduct detrimental to the team.” No, Ivey did not assault anyone or gamble on games. He did not call for violence. Ivey expressed his opposing religious beliefs, including criticizing the NBA’s Pride Month celebrations. There is no question that private companies have the right to control employees’ on-the-job speech, including barring demonstrations such as kneeling during the national anthem. However, the Ivey controversy exposes the hypocrisy of sports associations and teams in the combination of corporate virtue signaling and athlete speech limitations.


Companies in various fields have asserted the right to condition contracts on the possibility of termination due to public behavior or comments that are detrimental to the company. Notably, this was a player speaking off the basketball court who was deemed “detrimental” to the brand. The main concern is the lack of consistency. Actors such as Rachel Zegler have tanked their own movies to use their platforms to advance their own political viewpoints. Likewise, athletes have routinely espoused controversial views on racial divisions or law enforcement without losing their contracts. Recently, teams supported athletes espousing anti-ICE sentiments. In other words, it is not advocacy but the cause that these companies focus on when allowing or punishing speech.

At the same time, the NFL and NBA require players to wear and espouse views that some of them — like some in the nation — may oppose. Ivey was objecting that he does not feel that Pride Month is espousing “righteous” lifestyles. Ivey was not attacking the Bulls or the game. He was asserting that he does not support the virtues or values being endorsed by the company. Many of us were offended by social media postings by Ivey in referring to Catholicism as a “false religion.” He also drew the ire of many by telling a fan that “God does not hear your prayer if you are a sinner.”

However, it appears that it was his criticism of the LGBTQ community and Pride Month that ended the matter with the NBA. Ivey objected to the advocacy required by the NBA, objecting “they proclaim it. They show it to the world. They say, ‘Come join us for Pride Month,’ to celebrate unrighteousness.” The issue of “talent” becoming notorious has long been a focus of sports and entertainment contracts. Hateful or divisive public comments can impact a brand or corporate image. For example, a team does not have to continue an association with a racist spewing hateful remarks about fans.

The Ivey controversy should force a discussion of the countervailing responsibilities of the teams and the NBA. Some of us have previously criticized the virtue-signaling of associations like the NFL, with giant statements in the end zones and on players’ helmets. Many fans would like these teams to stop lecturing them and simply play sports. We do not need morality or civics lessons from the likes of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. However, if the NFL and NBA are going to get into the business of shaping fans’ values, they may need to accept greater leeway for athletes who hold opposing values. Instead, they are expecting athletes like Ivey to effectively endorse approved values while barring them from expressing dissenting views.

This is not the first such controversy. Years ago, former coach Tony Dungy was the subject of a cancel campaign because he expressed his faith at a pro-life rally. Former Washington Commanders defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio was punished for expressing a dissenting view of what happened on January 6th and what he viewed as the different treatment given to these cases, including excessive sentences. Likewise, recently, Chicago Cubs player Matt Shaw was the target of a campaign to trade him after he attended the funeral of Charlie Kirk.

Sports organizations, like other businesses, have every right to bar protests and political statements at games. They should, however, apply the same standard to themselves. It is time to get virtue signaling and social statements out of sports. Teams need to stop picking sides on social and political issues while blocking opposing views from their athletes. Once out of the business of shaping public values and views, these teams will be in a better position to demand that athletes avoid controversial public statements that alienate fans or harm a brand.

Otherwise, teams could simply bar such commentary during games and allow athletes the same freedom of expression outside of the game that the teams enjoy during games. None of this means that Jaden Ivey is right or admirable in his specific statements. It only means that, if teams want him to just play basketball, they should do the same.

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Half an hour of your time. You will come away a lot smarter.

 

 

 

 

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