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Debt Rattle April 20 2026

Apr 202026
 
 April 20, 2026  Posted by at 9:18 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  42 Responses »


Edgar Degas Les repasseuses (women ironing) 1884


• Trump’s Cryptic ‘The End Is Near’ Post Sends Internet Into A Frenzy (MN)
• Trump Warns Iran: ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’ (Margolis)
• Turkey Could Be ‘Next Iran’ For Israel: US Envoy Scrambles To Calm Tensions (MEE)
• Netanyahu Left ‘Personally Stunned’ By Trump Rhetoric On Lebanon Strikes (ZH)
• Will This Atlantic Hit Piece Be the Final Straw? (Margolis)
• The Enigma of JD Vance (Alan Joseph Bauer)
• Will Spain’s Supreme Court Block Mass Legalization Of Migrants? (RMX)
• Will Ukraine Forcibly Conscript Women To Fight On The Frontline? (RMX)
• Chief Justice Roberts Faces Two Strikes After New Leak Rocks the Court (Turley)
• West Still Wants To Seize Ukrainian Black Soil, Russian Oil – Zakharova (TASS)
• Circling the Drain Phase of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens Gimmick (Pinsker)
• Marjorie Taylor Greene Amplifies Viral Doubts About Butler (ZH)

 


 

https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2045684789802336442?s=20 https://twitter.com/JudyMaxB/status/2045542891616194898?s=20 https://twitter.com/WallStreetApes/status/2045628818602459221?s=20 https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/2045552110100758533?s=20

 


 

 


 


Trump plays the West like a fiddle.

But Iran is going for what they know best: the long game. That’s not Trump.

• Trump’s Cryptic ‘The End Is Near’ Post Sends Internet Into A Frenzy (MN)

In a development that quickly fueled online speculation, President Trump posted a video of Frank Sinatra performing his signature hit “My Way” on social media with no accompanying text or explanation. The move came just hours after he convened a high-level meeting in the White House Situation Room to discuss the ongoing standoff with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz. The post featured the classic track whose lyrics speak of independence and resolve. While Trump has long used the song at rallies, inaugurals, and even as Air Force One departed at the end of his first term, its sudden appearance amid rising tensions drew immediate attention.

This latest social media activity follows fresh statements from Trump on Truth Social addressing direct accusations of Iranian ceasefire violations. In the post, shared widely on X by accounts including RedWave Press, Trump laid out his position clearly:

“Iran decided to fire bullets yesterday in the Strait of Hormuz — A Total Violation of our Ceasefire Agreement! Many of them were aimed at a French Ship, and a Freighter from the United Kingdom. That wasn’t nice, was it? My Representatives are going to Islamabad, Pakistan — They will be there tomorrow evening, for Negotiations. Iran recently announced that they were closing the Strait, which is strange, because our BLOCKADE has already closed it. They’re helping us without knowing, and they are the ones that lose with the closed passage, $500 Million Dollars a day! The United States loses nothing.”

He added, “In fact, many Ships are headed, right now, to the U.S., Texas, Louisiana, and Alaska, to load up, compliments of the IRGC, always wanting to be ‘the tough guy!’ We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY! They’ll come down fast, they’ll come down easy and, if they don’t take the DEAL, it will be my Honor to do what has to be done, which should have been done to Iran, by other Presidents, for the last 47 years. IT’S TIME FOR THE IRAN KILLING MACHINE TO END!”

After a U.S.-brokered 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon took effect, Iran initially announced the Strait of Hormuz was open to commercial vessels for the truce period. Oil prices dropped on the news. But the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) quickly reversed course, citing the continued U.S. blockade of Iranian ports and ships. Iranian officials, including Parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, warned that without concessions the strait would remain closed.

Trump has maintained that the American blockade will stay in place until Tehran reaches a broader agreement that includes commitments on its nuclear program. He has described conversations with Iranian counterparts as productive but stressed that the U.S. position will not shift without concrete steps from the other side. No new direct talks are currently scheduled.

Saturday’s Situation Room session included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. According to Axios reporting, the focus was on assessing ceasefire compliance and preparing for possible next steps in negotiations. No immediate policy changes were announced afterward.

This episode echoes dynamics we previously covered, when major outlets claimed Trump was preparing to “nuke” Iran ahead of a deadline tied to the same Strait of Hormuz standoff. The White House pushed back firmly at the time, clarifying that any potential action would be conventional strikes on infrastructure rather than nuclear weapons. Media speculation ran hot then, much as it has with today’s cryptic post.

As of this writing, U.S. representatives are set to arrive in Islamabad, Pakistan, tomorrow evening for indirect negotiations. Iran has not publicly responded to the latest Trump statement, and shipping interests continue to watch developments closely given the strait’s critical role in global energy flows. The situation remains fluid, with both sides signaling openness to a deal while holding firm on core demands. Whether the current pressure and diplomatic track yield results or further escalation will depend on the coming days of talks.

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Did they think he was a nice guy?

• Trump Warns Iran: ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’ (Margolis)

President Donald Trump is done playing nice with Iran — and he wants Tehran to know exactly what that means. After Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps fired on multiple ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, Trump took to social media with a message that left zero room for ambiguity. Trump said Iran violated a ceasefire agreement by opening fire in the Strait of Hormuz, describing the incident as a serious escalation. He claimed that multiple vessels were targeted, including a French ship and a British freighter. “Iran decided to fire bullets yesterday in the Strait of Hormuz — A Total Violation of our Ceasefire Agreement!” Trump said. “Many of them were aimed at a French Ship, and a Freighter from the United Kingdom. That wasn’t nice, was it?”


Trump added that U.S. representatives are headed to Pakistan for negotiations, signaling that diplomatic efforts are still underway. “My Representatives are going to Islamabad, Pakistan — They will be there tomorrow evening, for Negotiations,” he said. At the same time, Trump suggested that Iran’s own actions have effectively reinforced a U.S. blockade in the region. “Iran recently announced that they were closing the Strait, which is strange, because our BLOCKADE has already closed it,” he said. “They’re helping us without knowing, and they are the ones that lose with the closed passage, $500 Million Dollars a day!”

According to Trump, the United States stands to benefit from shifting shipping patterns, particularly in domestic energy markets. “The United States loses nothing. In fact, many Ships are headed, right now, to the U.S., Texas, Louisiana, and Alaska, to load up, compliments of the IRGC, always wanting to be ‘the tough guy!’” He emphasized that the administration has put forward what he described as a fair deal, while warning of severe consequences if Iran refuses. “We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran,” Trump said. “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”

Trump closed with a stark warning, framing potential military action as long overdue. “They’ll come down fast, they’ll come down easy and, if they don’t take the DEAL, it will be my Honor to do what has to be done, which should have been done to Iran, by other Presidents, for the last 47 years,” he said. “IT’S TIME FOR THE IRAN KILLING MACHINE TO END!” Speaking with Fox News’ Trey Yingst Sunday morning, Trump took it further, warning that if no deal is reached, “the whole country is getting blown up.” That’s language strikingly similar to what he deployed just before a previous ceasefire was announced, which suggests this may be Trump’s version of deadline diplomacy. Push hard enough, make the consequences concrete enough, and watch the other side blink.

He also made clear that the military option is fully loaded. “We’re preparing to hit them harder than any country has ever been hit before because you cannot let them have a nuclear weapon,” Trump told Yingst, adding that the U.S. has “massive amounts” of ammunition ready to go. Trump’s frustration is obvious, and clearly, he’s done playing games. The fact is that Iran has spent decades testing the limits of American patience and walking away with sanctions relief, pallets of cash, and enough breathing room to keep spinning centrifuges. The mullahs have learned, quite effectively, that the cost of bad behavior rarely exceeds what they can absorb.

Trump argues that the price just changed. Whether this is carefully calibrated pressure designed to bring Iran to the table on American terms, or a genuine ultimatum with a Tuesday deadline, one thing is clear: the administration believes the only language Tehran understands is overwhelming force, and Trump is speaking it fluently. “It’s time for the Iran killing machine to end,” he said. And when Trump says it, you know he means it.

Read more …

“Everything comes from Turkey. It’s fiber optics. We’re talking about Azerbaijan and Armenia, which is flowing oil, gas, information, data and materials. Where does it go? How does it go?”

• Turkey Could Be ‘Next Iran’ For Israel: US Envoy Scrambles To Calm Tensions (MEE)

US Envoy Tom Barrack has downplayed escalating tensions between Turkey and Israel as just “rhetoric” and pushed for regional cooperation between the two countries in security and energy projects. Speaking during a panel at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, Barrack pushed back against comments from some officials in both countries that suggested they could come into conflict in the near future. “I think Turkey is just not a country to be messed with,” Barrack said. Barrack said that both countries were seeing a distorted image of each other as a result of sensationalized media coverage that painted both as expansionist.


“So if you wake up in Tel Aviv, you read the newspaper, what do you see? You see the diagram on the paper of The Ottoman Empire 2.0, which is Vienna to the Maldives, right,” he said. “You wake up in Istanbul and read the paper and it’s Greater Israel.” Turkey was the first Muslim-majority country to recognize the state of Israel in 1949, and has enjoyed largely cordial security and trade ties throughout most of their modern history. However, since the 2010 attack on the Mavi Marmara flotilla, when Israeli forces raided a Turkish ship delivering aid to Gaza and killed 10 of those on board, tensions have been strained and the government has increasingly hit out at Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

The ‘next Iran’?
The most recent attempt to restore relations in September 2023 – which saw Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting and shaking hands for the first time in New York – collapsed the next month after the 7 October Hamas-led attacks on Israel and the subsequent genocide in Gaza. Since then, the rhetoric has escalated from politicians in both countries, with former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett describing Turkey as potentially the “next Iran” in March. The US government has staunchly backed Israel’s military actions across the region, including joining its war on Iran.

However, Turkey’s status as a Nato member and US President Donald Trump’s stated admiration for Erdogan has led American officials to seek to restore relations between the two countries. Barrack told the forum in Antalya that the energy price shocks from the Iran war had proven the importance of regional cooperation to maintain energy security. “Everything comes from Turkey. It’s fiber optics. We’re talking about Azerbaijan and Armenia, which is flowing oil, gas, information, data and materials. Where does it go? How does it go?” he said. “So Israel aligned with Turkey, like Israel aligned with Abu Dhabi. Saudi Arabia could be aligned with Israel and, for the prosperity of the Israeli people, to me that’s the answer.”

Some recent rhetoric out of Israeli media:

Barrack added that Israel should go further, and try to engage Turkey as part of the International Stabilisation Force established for Gaza as part of the ceasefire deal signed in September. “The smartest thing that Israel could do is to entice and embrace Turkey to enter that force,” he said. Barrack said that Erdogan’s interactions with the Palestinian group Hamas was instrumental for reaching a deal to release Israeli hostages, and that it happened because Ankara didn’t designate the group. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan also met with Barrack on Monday for what they said was a “productive” meeting.

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“On Friday, Trump declared the US had “prohibited” further Israeli strikes..”

• Netanyahu Left ‘Personally Stunned’ By Trump Rhetoric On Lebanon Strikes (ZH)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his inner circle were reportedly blindsided – left “stunned” – after President Trump dropped a surprise line effectively clipping Israel’s wings in Lebanon, according to Axios, citing sources familiar with the exchange. On Friday, Trump declared the US had “prohibited” further Israeli strikes just as the administration-brokered 10-day ceasefire with Lebanon kicked in. The US President was unusually harsh in rhetoric with America’s longtime #1 Mideast ally, writing on Truth Social that “enough is enough”.


The words were clearly not directed at Lebanon, or Hezbollah, but squarely at Israel and its deadly air campaign which had included intense bombing of Beirut at the South for the last week-and-a-half.The statement set off alarms in Jerusalem, with Israeli officials scrambling for clarity from Washington. Almost everything out of the Trump administration has up to now been generally glowing and positive when it comes to Israel and Netanyahu. However, Axios captures the reaction in Tel Aviv, in a Saturday report saying “Netanyahu was personally stunned and alarmed when he learned of the post, the sources said.”

Israel is set to pause offensive ops, but still says it reserves the right to “take all necessary measures in self-defense at any time against planned, imminent, or ongoing attacks.” The NY Times has highlighted that all of this has put Netanyahu in a tough spot: “Now, the prime minister’s critics, and even some of his allies on the right, have seized on what appears plain as day: his inability to resist Mr. Trump’s pressure, not just in pushing to bring the long-distance war with Iran to a close but even in demanding a truce with an enemy directly across Israel’s northern border.

“A cease-fire must come from a position of strength and be an Israeli decision, reflecting leverage that serves negotiations,” said Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief of staff whose new centrist opposition party, Yashar, is gaining in the polls. “A pattern is emerging in which cease-fires are being imposed on us — in Gaza, in Iran and now in Lebanon.” Again, this actually constitutes some of the toughest talk and restrictions ever imposed on Israel from this administration. This suggests the White House is indeed serious about cobbling together a final offramp.

Still, Netanyahu has declared that the fight with Hezbollah is not over, while at the same time confirming Israel’s agreement with the 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon.”One hand holds a weapon; the other is extended for peace,” Netanyahu said in a fresh speech. “I will say honestly, we have not yet finished the job,” he continued. “There are things we plan to do regarding the remaining rocket threat and the drone threat, which I will not detail.” Israel seeks to “dismantle” Hezbollah, Netanyahu continued, “but this will not be achieved tomorrow. It requires sustained effort, patience, and careful navigation in the diplomatic arena.”

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“.. categorically false and defamatory” As an MO.

• Will This Atlantic Hit Piece Be the Final Straw? (Margolis)

The Atlantic has a well-documented history of publishing fake hit pieces about President Donald Trump and his administration, and one wonders how many more hoaxes they can run before they get in real trouble.Its latest ef fort targeting FBI Director Kash Patel may be its most reckless yet — and this time, the bureau is fighting back with lawyers. The piece, written by reporters Sarah Fitzpatrick and Jonathan Lemire, claims that on Friday, April 10, Patel struggled to log into an internal FBI computer system while wrapping up his workday.


He quickly became convinced that he had been locked out, and he panicked, frantically calling aides and allies to announce that he had been fired by the White House, according to nine people familiar with his outreach. Two of these people described his behavior as a “freak-out.” Patel oversees an agency that employs roughly 38,000 people, including many who are trained to investigate and verify information that can be presented under oath in a court of law. News of his emotional outburst ricocheted through the bureau, prompting chatter among officials and, in some corners of the building, expressions of relief. The White House fielded calls from the bureau and from members of Congress asking who was now in charge of the FBI.

It turned out that the answer was still Patel. He had not been fired. The access problem, two people familiar with the matter said, appears to have been a technical error, and it was quickly resolved.The piece didn’t stop there. It also alleged Patel has been plagued by “bouts of excessive drinking,” claiming members of his security detail had trouble waking him on multiple occasions because he was seemingly intoxicated. It further alleged that breaching equipment — the kind used by SWAT and hostage-rescue teams — was requested last year because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors. The FBI denied every word of it before the article ever went live. Attorney Jesse Binnall sent a formal letter to The Atlantic and Fitzpatrick ahead of publication, putting them on notice that the claims were “categorically false and defamatory.”

The bureau’s response was even more direct: “Print it, all false, I’ll see you in court — bring your checkbook.” They printed it anyway. Late Friday night, Patel fired back on X.

It’s worth noting that The Atlantic was apparently the only outlet willing to run this story. Other D.C. reporters chased the same tips and couldn’t verify them. They passed. The Atlantic published it. And now they’re going to be sued. This is what The Atlantic does. They publish outlandish and bogus stories that no other outlet will touch, which accomplishes the goal of giving Democrats and their supporters reason to insist the stories are true.

The outlet’s hoax piece alleging Trump didn’t want to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018 because the troops there who died in battle were “losers” and “suckers” was disputed by over a dozen witnesses. Yet, the left still insists it happened—even after Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, admitted it could have been wrong. Sarah Fitzpatrick herself has a history of publishing bogus hit pieces lacking sources and corroboration.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche both publicly defended Patel. Blanche praised Patel, noting he “has accomplished more in 14 months than the previous administration did in four years.” FBI spokesperson Erica Knight added that since being sworn in, Patel has taken just 17 days off — roughly half the time taken by former directors James Comey and Christopher Wray over comparable stretches.

Read more …

Try again in 2028.

• The Enigma of JD Vance (Alan Joseph Bauer)

The sitting vice president is hard to figure out.


Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said the other day that nearly 80 million people specifically voted for Donald Trump, and thus it was incumbent on Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act and other legislation that the president supports. Tuberville was right about Trump: many, if not most, of those who voted in 2024 for Donald Trump did so because of the man. Whereas some people vote based on party, independent of the candidate, Donald Trump is the main draw for many voters. Whether it be his colorful ways, supportive family, fighting style, blunt presentation, reliability with friends and allies, little dance, or other features, there is simply nobody like Donald Trump. The stock market is reaching highs, the Iranians are assessing massive damage, tariff revenue is enormous, the armed services reached their recruiting goals five months early, etc. The U.S. and the world are different and, for many, better due to the actions of Donald Trump.

So what happens after Trump? The basic thinking is that JD Vance is the heir apparent of MAGA and the obvious choice to run in 2028. Some people whisper that Vance will take the family over country route and not actually run. There are other Republicans who might have an eye on the prize, though Marco Rubio has consistently said that he will not run if Vance chooses to do so. So what about JD Vance? Nobody can be a Trump II. Fine. But is JD Vance a good fit for the tens of millions who supported Donald Trump, the man and his policies?

Before the vice president left for Pakistan recently in order to talk to the Iranians, he gave a quick interview on the tarmac in Hungary. There had been an open point on Lebanon and the ceasefire. Iran claimed that the two were intertwined as the Iranians are desperate to save their decades-long, hundreds of billions of dollars investment in the Shiite terror group, Hezbollah. The U.S. said that Israel stopping its military campaign in southern Lebanon was never included in the 15-point ceasefire document. What struck me was a comment that Vance made on the subject. In the interview, he said that the issue of a Lebanese ceasefire was one of misunderstanding, but he went on to say that the negotiations should not fall over Lebanon, “which has nothing to do with them [the Iranians].”

My “uh-oh” sensor went off. Now I appreciate that it is hard to give a cogent interview while halfway on one’s way home, but the question is whether JD Vance really meant what he said. Lebanon is everything to Iran. I recently saw an interview with Ayatollah Khomeini on an Air France flight back to Iran. He was asked what he felt returning to his homeland. His answer: “Nothing.” His only goal was to spread Shia Islamic teachings and terror, and if Tehran was a good place to set up his office, so be it. Lebanon has been the graveyard of dozens of IRGC generals and officials. Not surprisingly, when the beepers exploded, the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon was seriously injured. Why would he have a beeper meant for Hezbollah operatives?

More recently, at a TPUSA event last week, JD Vance spoke. Ben Shapiro noted that his response to the young audience was troubling. Essentially, he stated that okay, you may not like our being friends with Israel, but there are so many other things that you do like, such as beating up Iran, raising wages, etc., that you should judge us on the whole and join us going forward. I have seen at other TPUSA events with Vance and other Republican stars where they skirt the Groyper arguments against Israel (“attacking Christianity!” “making a genocide!” “the USS Liberty!”) and say, yeah, let’s talk about other stuff that you like. All of the calumnies thrown at Israel by the Groyper-Tucker Carlson wing of the party are lies. There have been no Israeli attacks on Christian sites, with the Christian population of Israel the only one growing in the Middle East. There was no genocide in Gaza, with the population growing and over 80 percent of those killed identified by Hamas as their operatives. The Liberty attack was a mistake; Israel apologized and paid reparations. Hey, did we hear anything from these clowns about the Muslim Kuwaiti pilot who whacked three American F-15Es at the start of the current war?

Do you know how not anti-Christian Israel is? After the Kotel or Western Wall was closed to prayers for the duration of the shooting war, it finally opened after the ceasefire took hold. Several family members went to the Old City to pray at “the Wall.” They were not allowed to enter the Old City. Why? Because it was the Saturday on which local Christians have their Fire Ceremony, so access to the Old City was denied to non-Christians. My wife tried to get in at several points, but the walled city was blocked off to all but Christians and residents of the Old City. Now, does that sound like anti-Christian bigotry?

I remember similar events from the past and being rerouted due to a Christian march in the Armenian Quarter. What I just wrote, Vance should have cited. He should have fought back against the strong Groyper, Jew-hating movement infesting TPUSA and younger Republicans. But he chose to punt: Okay, you may not like our Middle East policies, but how ‘bout them tax cuts? The GOP has a Jew-hating problem imported from the Left/Muslim nexus. It’s no coincidence that Tucker Carlson has high praise for Qatar, Islam, and Muslim cities being superior to Western cities. Vance said that Theo Von was the go-to podcaster. A doorknob is more knowledgeable than Von. Von asked Joe Rogan how much longer Israel will “let us stay alive.” And this is Vance’s guy?

So is JD Vance the real deal? Nobody is going to be Donald Trump, and there is no point trying to compare any potential 2028 candidate with a model that they made one copy of and then destroyed the mold. We should be grateful for Donald Trump’s forceful leadership in an age of wet noodles, but we must realize that just as George H. W. Bush was no Ronald Reagan, the next president will not tell a rally that he is going to bomb the s**t out of America’s enemies. Vance may not run, or he may be bested by someone else in the party. But if Vance is the nominee and he can’t get his head around Israel as a good country and not a genocider or starver of the millions, then he will lose some of the MAGA base. The U.S.-Israel relationship is based on respect, and I have heard only praise from Pete Hegseth and Adm. Brad Cooper regarding Israel’s full participation in the war against Iran. While the Gulf states do little, Israel dropped 18,000 munitions prior to the ceasefire. Where is the praise of a true ally while the Europeans hide in the sand? Where is the counter to Groyper anti-Israel lies? Silence here is not golden.

One can’t expect a guy who grew up in the Rust Belt to have the knowledge and experience with Jews that a New York real estate developer has. Donald Trump grew up among Jews, and he learned respect from his father, who did not take rent from Holocaust survivors who could not afford it. I don’t believe for a minute that JD Vance is an antisemite, and even if he won’t divorce himself from Tucker Carlson’s hatred, I know that he is a friend of Israel and the Jewish people. I don’t think he fully understands the region, and I hope that he is a quick learner.

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Spain doesn’t let them enter Spain, it lets them enter Europe. No borders.

“As tens of thousands of migrants rush embassies across Spain to begin the regularization process, for the Spanish right, the clock is now ticking to save the country”

• Will Spain’s Supreme Court Block Mass Legalization Of Migrants? (RMX)

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his far-left government are not over the finish line yet when it comes to their plan to legalize hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants. Now, the Spanish legal group Hazte Oír have made the first successful step in challenging the far-left government’s “Royal Decree,” which was used to pass the legislation without a vote from parliament. After Hazte Oír’s application was accepted for processing by the Spanish Supreme Court, the government now has a non-extendable 20-day deadline to hand over the complete administrative file regarding mass legalization.


While it does not guarantee a reversal, it places the decree in a state of significant legal uncertainty. By admitting the case, Spain’s top court has found sufficient legal grounds to examine the merits of the lawsuit rather than dismissing it outright. The Supreme Court will verify whether the government followed correct legal procedures and whether it possessed the constitutional authority to use a Royal Decree for a mass regularization, according to La Razon.

The legal risk for the government currently remains high. The plaintiffs argue that such a measure requires a formal law passed by Parliament rather than a simple cabinet decree. Crucially, Hazte Oír has requested a precautionary suspension of the law. If the Supreme Court grants this, the legalization process would be frozen immediately while the judges deliberate on a final ruling. Hazte Oír argues that if the decree is allowed to proceed, it will create “irreparable damage” by granting legal status to hundreds of thousands of people — a situation that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reverse even if the decree is later found to be illegal.

Already, scenes showcasing thousands of migrants across the country lining up at different embassies to receive the proper paperwork to apply for legalization have spread across social media. The law, which went into effect on April 15, has proven controversial and been fiercely opposed by conservative and right-wing parties. “These are the lines to manage mass regularization in each municipality of Spain. Tomorrow this chaos will move to the health centers, to the social services, to the real estate agencies… It’s called thirdworldization. It’s already happening. Our priority is to reverse it, radically,” wrote Vox party leader Santiago Abascal.

In contrast, Sánchez has been active promoting his Royal Decree, writing: “Thanks to civil society, institutions, the Church, social agents, and the Plataforma Regularización Ya for making it possible. Regularizing is not just necessary: it is just. It is recognizing a reality that already exists. It is guaranteeing rights and obligations, dignity and social cohesion.” The law is expected to have not only a dramatic effect on Spain, including its public services, but all of Europe, as these legalized migrants will have the right to travel freely across borders within the EU.

The lawyer of Hazte Oír is pointing out the irreversible nature of the decree to argue that it is most certainly a law that should have been passed by parliament. The appellant association, Javier María Pérez-Roldán, refers specifically to the transformative aspect of the law on the Spanish system, noting “the granting of residence and work authorizations; registration with Social Security; access to benefits; and the suspension of final expulsion orders.”

Hazte Oír indicates that the Royal Decree “structurally alters the State’s immigration policy, with direct and lasting effects” on the labor market, the public benefits system, the municipal registry, “and, in the medium term, the electoral roll.” As many critics of the law have also pointed out, the mass amnesty will have profound effects on public services, which are already buckling under the pressure of mass immigration. “Massive regularization without planning directly impacts the saturation of essential public services (educational and social), affecting the collective interests that this association defends,” said Pérez-Roldán.

While the Supreme Court did not grant an immediate suspension, that suspension could still arrive once the court reviews the documentation justifying the law. In such a case, the process of legalization could be frozen, creating a legal limbo for all migrant applicants. Royal Decrees are also legally reserved for situations of “extraordinary and urgent need.” Hazte Oír argues there is no “sudden emergency” that justifies bypassing the normal legislative process. They argue the government is using a “shortcut” to avoid political friction in Congress.

In contrast, the government argues the situation is urgent because of labor shortages in key sectors like agriculture and hospitality, and the humanitarian need to bring “invisible” people into the social security system to fund future pensions. It is unclear if the Supreme Court will buy this argument from the government. While the Royal Decree was used to bypass parliament, which allowed the government to fast-track the process of legalization, it may also still prove the decree’s downfall.

Read more …

Will Zelensky’s wife volunteer? Or will she be decorating their mansion?

• Will Ukraine Forcibly Conscript Women To Fight On The Frontline? (RMX)

Since Ukraine’s population has shrunk dramatically, the army’s number one problem is no longer the lack of weapons, such as ballistic missiles and air defense systems, but the lack of soldiers to operate them, writes Világgazdaság. The competent authorities in Kyiv, however, must bring the army size required by Commander-in-Chief Zelensky (800,000 active soldiers), and since the number of men eligible for military service (between the ages of 18 and 60) is slowly running out, the Ukrainian leadership is now trying to fill the gaps by conscripting women.


As of early 2024, approximately 5 million men are considered to be of conscription age in Ukraine, reduced from about 8.7 million before the February 2022 invasion due to death and emigration. And yet, many of these 5 million are exempt, unfit for service, or already serving. Ukraine has long been shown to use forced conscription methods, with increasing violence, leading men to attempt to leave the country, often at the risk of their lives. Last year, Hungarian channel M1-Hirado recently ran a special compiling some of the latest footage of Ukrainians being beaten and shoved into vans in forced mobilization operations.

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“The most immediate concern for Roberts should be that this is strike two: another leak from within the Court.. ”

• Chief Justice Roberts Faces Two Strikes After New Leak Rocks the Court (Turley)

The legendary baseball player and manager Ted Williams once wrote a letter to the Angels outfielder Jay Johnstone on improving his hitting. Among his pieces of advice was that “with two strikes, you simply have to protect the plate.” Williams’s advice on not striking out came to mind this week when another leak of confidential information rocked the Supreme Court. (The prior leak of the Dobbs decision went unsolved). For Chief Justice John Roberts, the message is clear: it is a time like this that you have to protect the plate.


Roberts, of course, is famous for his own baseball analogies. In his confirmation, he declared that “judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules. They apply them…Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire.” Yet, justices do make rules not only in new precedent, but in the operation of the court system. Those rules are being broken. In the same week as the new leak, Justice Sonia Sotomayor attacked her colleague Brett Kavanaugh as essentially an out-of-touch prig who had never even met an hourly wage worker. It was an unfair insult and a departure from the Court’s long-standing rules of civility. (Sotomayor later apologized).

Additionally, a forthcoming book by Mollie Hemingway on Justice Samuel Alito contains an embarrassing account of how Justice Elena Kagan allegedly screamed at Justice Stephen Breyer so loudly before the Dobbs opinion that the “wall was shaking.” (The book suggests that Kagan was upset with Breyer agreeing to spur along the dissents to get out the final opinions in light of rising threats against conservative colleagues after the leak). For an institution that prides itself on its confidentiality and insularity, the Court is looking increasingly porous and partisan in these leaks. Worse yet, people are indeed coming to the Court “to see the umpires.”

The most recent leak was published by the New York Times, which was given internal memos from various Supreme Court justices on the use of what is known as the “shadow docket” to issue rulings without oral arguments. Notably, the leaks occurred after a controversial speech by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson at Yale Law School in which she denounced the use of the shadow docket by her conservative colleagues to release decisions that were sometimes “utterly irrational.”

The memos reveal the concern of the justices that the Environmental Protection Agency was effectively gaming the system, imposing unlawful regulatory burdens on electric utilities despite a countervailing earlier ruling in Michigan v. EPA. Chief Justice Roberts noted that the EPA was using the ongoing litigation to force utilities to spend billions of dollars to comply with the new regulations: “In other words the absence of stay allowed the agency to effectively implement an important program we held to be contrary to law.”

The controversy over the use of the shadow docket is immaterial to this story. The most immediate concern for Roberts should be that this is strike two: another leak from within the Court that was clearly designed to wound some of its members. Unlike the Dobbs leak (which appeared to be an effort to influence the final opinion), this is a leak about a decade-old case. It had a purely malicious purpose to embarrass or disrupt the Court.

The question, again, is the identity of the culprit. There is no reason to assume that the same person was involved in both leaks. Rather, the leaks appear to reflect a deteriorating culture at the Court. After the Dobbs leak, Chief Justice Roberts launched a fruitless investigation through the federal marshals to find the responsible person. The use of the marshals as the lead investigators (rather than the FBI) was criticized at the time. Roberts may have been sensitive to an executive-branch agency rooting around in the highest court of a sister branch.The result was the worst possible outcome. The culprit succeeded in both leaking the opinion and evading any accountability.

The fact is that the Court’s culture and institutional identity have always been its greatest protection of confidentiality. In a city that floats on a rolling sea of leaks, the Court was an island of integrity and civility. The “umpires” could call balls and strikes without playing the leak game. That culture is fast becoming nothing but a relic in the wake of yet another major leak. For the future of the Court and the faith of the public, Roberts has to set his reservations aside and bring in the FBI to find the culprit. Most importantly, he has to guarantee total transparency in allowing the public to see the results wherever they may lead. In other words, with two strikes, Roberts needs to protect the plate.

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“This refers to revanchism, “which assumes that they now want to carry out that very revenge that will allow them to still win in this very division of the world, the redrawing of the world’s resources for themselves,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman added..”

• West Still Wants To Seize Ukrainian Black Soil, Russian Oil – Zakharova (TASS)

Western countries have not abandoned their plans to seize Ukrainian black soil and Russian oil, as well as divide the world to suit their own interests, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in an interview with TASS for the Day of remembrance of the victims of the genocide of the Soviet people, which will be held for the first time on April 19.m”No, they do not want to give up the idea of taking over the Ukrainian black soil, Russian oil and gas, at least managing them, and extending their influence to the resources of Central Asia, South Caucasus, and so on,” she said. This refers to revanchism, “which assumes that they now want to carry out that very revenge that will allow them to still win in this very division of the world, the redrawing of the world’s resources for themselves,” Zakharova added.
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“.. they embraced the business model of Howard Stern and Jerry Springer: saying and doing increasingly outrageous things.”

• Circling the Drain Phase of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens Gimmick (Pinsker)

First, the good news: We’ve juuuust about reached the point where we won’t have to talk about Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens anymore. They’ve unmasked themselves as lying, bigoted click-whores. Carlson’s career was longer; Owens’ was shorter. But for a brief, flickering moment in the 2010s, both were considered credible, trustworthy journalists and/or mainstream conservative “influencers.” Turning Pont USA and The Daily Wire boosted Owens; Carlson was the beneficiary of the (exceptionally) well-oiled NewsCorp PR machine. And then… they weren’t.


Conservative audiences are a fiercely loyal breed. We instinctively protect our favorites from the liberal mob — because history has taught us that they’re constantly under attack. That’s our muscle-memory: They smeared Rush Limbaugh. They smeared every other big-name Republican. They attack, demean, defame, and deplatform — and the only way to stop them is by fighting back. Rush Limbaugh still reigns supreme in conservative hearts. No man in the history of political media was slandered more viciously than El Rushbo. Not because he deserved it — but because liberals feared him.

That’s the tragedy of Carlson and Owens’ dark turn: Limbaugh dedicated his professional career to building goodwill between himself and conservative audiences. Time and again, that “harmless, lovable fuzzball” proved himself worthy of our love and respect. No matter how often the mainstream media called him a racist, a sexist, a Nazi, and a homophobe, we knew it wasn’t true. This became our template. It’s how we understood the host-audience relationship. So great was Limbaugh’s legacy that we assumed future hosts would be just as worthy — which meant, as long as we continued to have their back, conservatism, truth, and decency would prevail. It’s a symbiotic relationship: If we do our part, the host will surely do his.

Turns out the paradigm was wrong: Carlson and Owens were unworthy successors — and Rush Limbaugh’s genius was even rarer than we thought. Carlson and Owens traveled the road that Limbaugh paved. They benefited from all the trust and goodwill that he spent his entire career building. And then they destroyed the road.

Because, despite how easy Limbaugh made it look, talking about conservatism 24/7 for years at a time is VERY hard work. Even in the talk-radio medium, there’s absolutely no one else like Limbaugh — someone capable of carrying a three-hour show completely on his own, without guests, co-hosts, a “morning zoo,” or a whack-pack. (Heck, Rush barely even took phone calls!) Yet Limbaugh had the #1 show for decades… and it mostly consisted of him speaking extemporaneously about life, politics, news, and culture.

Of course, Rush had real, actual talent (“on loan from God!”). Lesser hosts must take shortcuts to retain an audience. Like, for instance, Sean Hannity: The veteran conservative still has a highly entertaining program when he’s interviewing someone interesting and compelling. And when he doesn’t, it’s not. There’s no shame in that. Limbaugh-level talents are extraordinarily rare; there almost certainly won’t be another one in our lifetime. (Or, probably, in our kid’s lifetime.) If anything, Hannity deserves credit for staying true to his values. Despite the pressures of fame and fortune, Hannity continues to provide conservative programming for conservative audiences — because conservatism is his north star.

Not so with Carlson and Owens. They abandoned conservatism when they became independent journalists. When they worked for conservative media outlets, they delivered a (mostly) conservative message. Then, when they lost their jobs and had to get clicks to make money, their content changed in a hurry. Instead of being like Limbaugh or Hannity, they embraced the business model of Howard Stern and Jerry Springer: saying and doing increasingly outrageous things. Such as global Jewish conspiracies. Or Mrs. Macron’s innie being an outie. Or Erika Kirk murdering her husband. Or Donald Trump being the Antichrist. Or Muslim extremists being peaceful friends of Christians.

Initially, it was important for conservative media to call out the bait-and-switch, because Limbaugh’s legacy loomed so large, we instinctively gave Owens and Carlson the benefit of the doubt — over and over (and over) again. In fact, the more they were attacked, the more we yearned to protect them! After all, Rush Limbaugh never broke our hearts — so why would his successors? It was a dangerous time for the conservative movement, because Carlson and Owens were mainstreaming antisemitism, crazy conspiracy theories, and historical inaccuracies. Tainting MAGA with their nonsense would’ve been electoral poison. We still considered Owens and Carlson conservatives first — and influencers second. (Just like you-know-who.)

Alas, the trouble with the shock-jock strategy is that it depends on escalation: What shocked us yesterday is old news today. Once you begin circling the drain, you’ve got to circle faster and faster — or the novelty wears off. And eventually, you still go down the drain.

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Didn’t she retire?

• Marjorie Taylor Greene Amplifies Viral Doubts About Butler (ZH)

Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has drawn attention to a detailed personal account from a longtime Trump supporter who now questions key elements of the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt on then-candidate Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. In an April 12 post on X, Trisha Hope, a self-described J6 activist and 2024 Republican National Convention delegate from Texas, details how she shifted from staunch MAGA supporter to skeptic – writing “I learned of the attempt on Trump’s life at the Butler rally. I was in the middle of having dinner at a restaurant in Little Rock, AR.”


Then, at the convention, she thought it was strange that Trump opened his speech by saying he would recount the incident “exactly” once because “it’s actually too painful to tell,” which she found out of character for someone who makes everything about himself. Hope also thought that the ‘ICONIC’ photograph of Trump rising with fist raised, shouting “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT” was weird and “perfectly timed” with a flag lowering and Secret Service agents positioned as if for a staged shot.

“Following the inauguration, I found it odd that Trump wasn’t going aggressively after those who allowed this to happen. He seemed to behave like it was no big deal,” she writes, adding that Trump later promoted Sean Curran – the agent visible in the white shirt in that photo – to head of the Secret Service on January 22, 2025, rather than dismissing anyone for security failures. She also questions Trump’s limited subsequent references to the event, except to say he “took a bullet for us,” and argues that Corey Comperatore’s death was necessary to make the incident believable, while his widow has been denied ongoing answers. Hope concludes by urging readers to apply “critical thinking skills” and have “at least some questions.”

“Instead of his SS detail being terminated as they should have been, Trump made the gentleman in the white shirt the HEAD of the Secret Service on January 22, 2025. Instead of losing his job Sean Curran was given a massive promotion,” she said.

Greene – a former MAGA loyalist whose split with the party over the Epstein files, airstrikes on Iran, Trump’s continued support for Israel and the Gaza conflict, and US involvement in Ukraine – led to her November 2025 resignation from Congress, amplified the post six days later. “Extremely important post worth the read and consideration. Corey Comperatore’s family deserves to know the truth about Matthew Crooks and what happened in Butler on July 13, 2024,” Greene wrote. “President Trump, of all people, should be leading the charge. Why isn’t he? That’s the question.” https://twitter.com/mtgreenee/status/2045528340602269713

The Official Story
According to the FBI, congressional investigations, and law enforcement accounts, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, acted alone when he fired eight rounds from an AR-15-style rifle from the roof of a building near the Butler Farm Show grounds. The shots grazed Trump’s right ear, killed 50-year-old volunteer firefighter and former fire chief Corey Comperatore (who was shielding his family), and critically injured two other attendees, David Dutch and James Copenhaver. A Butler County Emergency Services Unit officer and a Secret Service counter-sniper returned fire; Crooks was killed on the roof. The FBI has stated after extensive interviews and analysis that Crooks acted alone, though questions about his motive have persisted. Security lapses were acknowledged, including how Crooks was able to access the rooftop despite local police spotting him earlier, but the incident was classified as a genuine assassination attempt.

The Official Doubt
A growing number of voices – particularly from within former Trump-supporting circles – aren’t buying it – arguing that the iconic photograph appeared too perfectly composed to be spontaneous, with the flag lowering in sync, agents seemingly posing, and Trump allowed to stand exposed on stage for the image. Some note Trump’s RNC remarks as unusually curt, suggesting an intent to shut down further discussion rather than capitalize on the drama. Critics highlight the promotion of a Secret Service agent involved in the detail instead of widespread firings or accountability, and Trump’s relative silence on the matter afterward beyond occasional references to “taking a bullet.”

Skeptics also note several early security lapses and immediate post-incident actions as further reason to question the official timeline. Video and photographs show FBI investigators hosing down the rooftop where Crooks was killed the day after the shooting, arguing the scene was cleaned too quickly and that biological evidence was potentially lost.

Then there’s police radio chatter that captured officers spotting Crooks, losing sight of him, and struggling to clearly relay the escalating threat between local law enforcement and the Secret Service – communications that were later explained as coordination failures but struck many as highly unusual. Multiple confirmed reports show Crooks was identified as suspicious, photographed with a rangefinder roughly 90 minutes before the shooting, and was spotted on the roof by Secret Service snipers about 20 minutes before he fired – details critics say should have prompted immediate action to remove Trump from the stage or secure the building.

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https://twitter.com/AlexAndBooks_/status/2045497400416969022?s=20 https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/2045676255077433779?s=20 https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/2045735203260207306?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle April 11 2026

Apr 112026
 
 April 11, 2026  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  42 Responses »


Caspar David Friedrich Woman before the Rising Sun 1818


• Trump’s Gambit: Civilizational Expansion or Nihilistic Western Decline (CTH)
• President Trump Blasts the Grifters, Blackpillers and Anti-MAGA Podcasters (CTH)
• Games Nations Play (James Howard Kunstler)
• It’s ‘Death To Everyone’ When Fertilizer Supply Shock Hits (ZH)
• Comrade Mamdani Is Getting Smacked Around by Reality (Kruiser)
• DOJ Opens Criminal Investigation Into J6 Witness Cassidy Hutchinson (Margolis)
• Scott Jennings Torches CNN’s Fake News About MAGA on Air (Margolis)
• It’s a MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ World and We’re Just Living In It (Moran)
• UK Government’s TWISTED Priorities Exposed…(MN)
• Justice Sotomayor Suggests Justice Kavanaugh is an Uninformed Elitist (Turley)
• Facebook interfering in Hungarian election – Budapest (RT)
• Melania Calls for Public Congressional Testimony from Epstein Victims (CTH)

 


 

https://twitter.com/draloneboy/status/2042571648923242718?s=20 https://twitter.com/_Postive_Vibes/status/2042302009823674439?s=20 https://twitter.com/HungaryBased/status/2042293966893432909?s=20 https://twitter.com/za_usrt/status/2042608644618101161?s=20

 


 


Trump is settling accounts. Like he’s preparing for something.

• Trump’s Gambit: Civilizational Expansion or Nihilistic Western Decline (CTH)

Susan Kokinda from Promethean Action gives her perspective on the negotiated ceasefire with Iran. Kokinda notes the key players were Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey (she missed China). In a lesser reported part of the background, Chairman Xi Jinping summoned the Pakistani negotiators to Beijing prior to the terms of agreement with Trump. The summoning happened right after Trump said he was going to target the full force of the U.S. military against Iranian infrastructure.


Why does that matter to China? Belt and Road. Beijing has built a railway from China into Iran for the transport of goods and raw materials (including energy products) out of Iran (sanctions avoidance) in exchange for shipments of weapons. If President Trump targeted the railway infrastructure, in combination with the oil shipments being hampered, πChina would be in a very bad place. Hence the summoning to get a ceasefire.

Focusing too narrowly on the British Empire as the source of all problems and you miss things. Mrs Kokinda missed this:

China in a bad place due to the middle east in crisis, means China becomes more dependent on Russia for oil, gas and ultimately fuel. Internally, Russia isn t a big fan of their Chinese dependencies. If FUBAR in Iran remained the statis, the two countries not in any crisis would be the USA and Russia, both with oil/gas and extra refining capacity. The countries/regions in biggest crisis would be China, Europe and Southeast Asia. The U.S. and Russia less affected. China and the EU more affected. A significant geopolitical paradigm shift, all things considered& . and it appears that Beijing saw it coming.

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Settling accounts at home too. That’s a lot of people you thought were Trump followers.

• President Trump Blasts the Grifters, Blackpillers and Anti-MAGA Podcasters (CTH)

I’m really glad to see this from President Trump, because it clears up the big question of whether he recognized what the blackpill/grifter crowd was doing to split the larger MAGA coalition. Turns out, yes—he definitely sees it. Not only does he see it, but he takes the issue head-on. Very nice to see.


[Via Truth Social] – “I know why Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years, especially by the fact that they think it is wonderful for Iran, the Number One State Sponsor of Terror, to have a Nuclear Weapon — Because they have one thing in common, Low IQs.They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too! Look at their past, look at their record. They don’t have what it takes, and they never did! They’ve all been thrown off Television, lost their Shows, and aren’t even invited on TV because nobody cares about them, they’re NUT JOBS, TROUBLEMAKERS, and will say anything necessary for some “free” and cheap publicity.

Now they think they get some “clicks” because they have Third Rate Podcasts, but nobody’s talking about them, and their views are the opposite of MAGA — Or I wouldn’t have won the Presidential Election in a LANDSLIDE. MAGA agrees with me, and just gave CNN a 100% Approval Rating of “TRUMP,” not Hand Flailing Fools like Tucker Carlson, who couldn’t even finish College, he was a broken man when he got fired from Fox, and he’s never been the same — Perhaps he should see a good psychiatrist! Or Megyn Kelly, who nastily asked me the now famous, “Only Rosie O’Donnell,” question, or “Crazy” Candace Owens, who accuses the Highly Respected First Lady of France of being a man, when she is not, and will hopefully win lots of money in the ongoing lawsuit.

Actually, to me, the First Lady of France is a far more beautiful woman than Candace, in fact, it’s not even close! Or Bankrupt Alex Jones, who says some of the dumbest things, and lost his entire fortune, as he should have, for his horrendous attack on the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims, ridiculously claiming it was a hoax.

https://twitter.com/DanScavino/status/2042076471867461661?s=20

These so-called “pundits” are LOSERS, and they always will be! Now Fake News CNN, The Failing New York Times, and all of the other Radical Left “News” Organizations, are “hailing” them, and giving them “positive” press for the first time in their lives. They’re not “MAGA,” they’re losers, just trying to latch on to MAGA. As President, I could get them on my side anytime I want to, but when they call, I don’t return their calls because I’m too busy on World and Country Affairs and, after a few times, they go “nasty,” just like Marjorie “Traitor” Brown, but I no longer care about that stuff, I only care about doing right for our Country.

MAGA is about WINNING and STRENGTH in not allowing Iran to have Nuclear Weapons. MAGA is about MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and these people have no idea how to do that, BUT I DO, because THE UNITED STATES IS NOW THE “HOTTEST” COUNTRY ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD!”

~ President DONALD J. TRUMP

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“That is the reason for this conflict, by the way. They have promised over and over again to destroy us. Why not believe them? The thousand pounds of enriched uranium is still stashed somewhere in the country ..”

“I am sick of serving in Congress with immoral freaks who abuse their office and bring dishonor to the institution.” —Rep Anna Paulina Luna

• Games Nations Play (James Howard Kunstler)

You have entered the season of chaos. Better get used to it. The center quit holding a long time ago, and now even the margins are quivering. Buckle up and batten down. It will probably get rougher and weirder. Struggle is everywhere. Will Iran reopen Hormuz or not? They really only have days to stop playing games with the rest of the world. It will soon be clear whether they can negotiate in good faith. It doesn’t look good. Their theology of jihad contains a permission structure for lying to their enemies to accomplish their aim: which is, to annihilate the hated infidels (that’s us).


That is the reason for this conflict, by the way. They have promised over and over again to destroy us. Why not believe them? The thousand pounds of enriched uranium is still stashed somewhere in the country. It has only one purpose, to be made into bombs, and they’re not allowed to keep it. The message is pretty simple, but they don’t seem to get it. There are probably big fissures between the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), the secular government of President Masoud Pezeshkian, and the regular army (the Artesh). Are they even able to communicate with each other? You and I don’t know, though Mr. Trump and his people might know.

I doubt that Mr. Trump wanted to drop the hammer on Iran last Tuesday, as he vowed to do. But it might eventually be necessary to turn the lights off there if they don’t stop screwing around. Does Iran have an inexhaustible supply of missiles and drones, as some observers seem to believe? I doubt it. We blew up their factories. We have the option and the ability to track down whatever they’ve got left in storage and destroy it. One way or another, we are going to end Iran’s ability to be a problem for the rest of the world.

The American Left (the Democratic Party) would like nothing better than for Iran to thumb its nose at the rest of the world (at us especially), because the American Left has launched its own sort of Jihad. It has been waging war on the rest of us in America for ten years, and you can be sure that, as springtime blossoms over the land, they intend to ramp up the action.

Expect Act One on May Day. That is the day that the Left customarily celebrates socialism. It started off decades ago as a holiday for industrial workers. There are few enough of those left in the USA these days that they constitute less than a critical mass of all American workers. They have been replaced by grifters, fraudsters, and other parasites looking to get money-for-nothing from the rest of us without working at all. That is the Democratic Party’s raison d’être. They are now strictly a racketeering operation.

The Left will stage widespread demonstrations around the country on May Day. The several No Kings demos in cold weather were rehearsals for the spring and summer fun. You can expect the May Day action to turn into riots. Antifa is still very much at the Party’s beck and call for sparking that sort of thing. The idea behind it is to provoke the president into reacting forcefully to the Left’s riots so they can brand him “a tyrant.” If May Day is insufficient to accomplish that, wait until the extravaganzas around the Fourth of July when the USA ostensibly gets to celebrate our 250th birthday as a republic.

Considering that the Republican majority in Congress was unwilling to pass an election reform bill, it is also a fairly sure thing that sometime between May Day and July Fourth the president will have to issue an executive order setting out requirements for a free and fair election: voter ID, citizens only, highly restricted and tightly regulated mail-in voting, no electronic ballot-counting machines, etc. That alone will inflame the Left, who cannot win elections without ballot fraud.

Of course, Norm Eisen, Marc Elias, Mary McCord, and the lawfare ninjas will file lawsuits to negate any executive order on election procedures, and their select federal judges will issue injunctions against it. Which will provoke Mr. Trump, in turn, to go full Abe Lincoln on them and declare an insurgency requiring extraordinary executive powers to overcome the Left’s ploys — just as Mr. Lincoln had to overcome the traitorous Confederates of his time. That will get Mr. Trump branded “a super-tyrant.”

From that point, we’re really in uncharted territory. But, it being the nation’s 250th birthday and all, a great majority of US citizens may be in no mood by then for any further pranking and punking by the Left. They will be more than eager for trials, perhaps by military tribunals if the corrupt federal judiciary proves intractable.

This is the kind of thing we have to look forward to as 2026 keeps rolling out. But meanwhile, events might get even hotter over in Euroland. The joint is primed to blow. They’ve had enough jihad, too, and enough of the retarded political leadership that allowed it to be inflicted on the people of Europe. It’s already started. Ireland is about to go up in flames, a case of the government’s utter betrayal of the people. After Ireland, cue the United Kingdom. They’ve had enough of hostile Islam and Prime Minister Keir Starmer. It’s going to be a long, hot summer. They don’t call this the Fourth Turning for nothing.

Read more …

Every financial shock, the issue of fertilizer pops up.

Spoiler alert: Russia wins.

Haven’t seen Dr. Doom in a while.

• It’s ‘Death To Everyone’ When Fertilizer Supply Shock Hits (ZH)

Santiago Capital’s Brent Johnson, known for his dollar milkshake theory, had an ominous warning at last evening’s ZH debate: Even if the war is settled (and there’s no guarantee of that), baked in supply shocks could be very bad for agriculture. This comes as just yesterday, Mises Institute’s Connor O’Keefe warned of “a time bomb in global food markets”. … and Brent is the dollar bull.


Johnson joined Marc “Dr. Doom” Faber and Thoughtful Money’s Adam Taggart to debate what comes after the tenuous ceasefire that Trump has brokered with Iran. Major win for the U.S. and the dollar or simply relative mitigation of a pointless blunder? Below were key points by Dr. Doom and the Milkshake man, though we highly recommend the full discussion for those with time:

Inflation for thee but not for me
Marc Faber’s argument centered on a disconnect between official inflation data and lived experience… something the war, even if concluded promptly, will only exacerbate. While the legendary “shadowstats” is no longer updated, it last had May ‘23 real inflation at 8% annually, double the government’s reported figure of 4%. Faber rejects low headline figures:“I don’t believe that anywhere in the world the rate of inflation was like around 2% (pre-war). This is complete nonsense. Open the invoices of your insurance company! Insurance premiums are going up by something like 10%… everywhere the prices are up.”

Average households cannot sustain such strain for long. In Faber’s view, a large share of the population is financially stretched: “around 70% of Americans… live paycheck to paycheck.” Income barely covers expenses, leaving little margin for shocks. “This is sort of like a modern slavery… people are… anxiously waiting for the salaries to pay their debts.” Faber’s slavery analogy extends to the K-shaped economy, where wealthy asset owners see massive booms in their on-paper wealth while Joe six-pack (with no assets) just sees his gas and groceries go up: “My outlook for the economy was already, before the war in Iran, was not favorable… the financial markets have gone into the sky and the real economy of people is flat on its back.”

Fertilizer > Oil
Brent Johnson framed the debate around power as opposed to market forces: “If the United States is going to lose dominance, somebody else has to take it.” He pointed to the U.S.-Israeli assassination of Iran’s head of state and the lack of global pushback as evidence that U.S. global influence remains intact for now. “Nobody has done anything to stop it.” He does not claim the month-long U.S. operation will be a success. “That could very well be a huge miscalculation… [but] it might work.” Outcomes are not predetermined, and states still use force to pursue objectives, “countries do use military force to get what they want… I understand why they did it… and how it could possibly work.”

Largely a dollar bull, Johnson still sees pain on the horizon for all fiat holders. ”We are going to get at least a short-term inflationary impulse… a pretty severe [one]… it may hit the United States the least… it’s going to hurt the rest of the world more.” “We’re just now going to be in the summer driving season here pretty soon and gasoline and energy prices are already up… that could dramatically negatively affect the US economy.” Beyond energy, the underappreciated yet vital product that must flow through the Strait of Hormuz: fertilizers and chemicals.

“The bigger impact that I worry about is the fact that fertilizers and chemicals also get transited through the Strait of Hormuz. And the timing of this happening is impacting the planting season for both the summer season in the Northern Hemisphere and the winter planting season in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s my expectation that even if the strait fully opens tomorrow, which it won’t… There’s going to be a four to six week period where most ships don’t arrive…”

The result: civil unrest. “That is going to have a material impact on food prices. Six to nine months down the road. Once you get food price rises and food shocks, then you get social shocks. Then you get people out in the streets chanting ‘death to everyone’ not just ‘death to America’.”

Read more …

Just wait till Trump gets around to dealing with him. The Donald loves NYC.

• Comrade Mamdani Is Getting Smacked Around by Reality (Kruiser)

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani rode into office on a socialist unicorn after promising everything but free ice cream for life to the children of every voter. There are only two blocs in any electorate who vote for the kind of socialist utopian garbage that Mamdani spouted: young people who are too dumb to know any better, and older people who know better, but are so wealthy they don’t care. The latter group is simply looking for a politician whom they might be able to control. Unfortunately, New York has a preponderance of both young, dumb voters and rich, bored voters.


As those of us who paid any attention at all to 20th-century history know, socialism is known for its struggles with promise fulfillment. Mamdani is only 34, so his radical leftist fervor is fueled by the ignorance of relative youth. He got way out over his skis when telling voters what kinds of “free” goodies he was going to give Big Apple residents if elected. Now that he’s in office, the cold water of reality keeps getting thrown in his face. This is from my friend and HotAir colleague John Sexton:

“Yesterday Mayor Mamdani admitted that another one of his campaign promises won’t be happening, at least not anytime soon. Remember his promise to make buses in NYC free? It was obvious to everyone that this was not something he could do on his own and in an interview with Politico he finally admitted as much.” That’s not the only thing that Mamdani promised that was out of his hands. Later in the post, John details how Mamdani’s promise of a rent freeze was never anything he could do unilaterally.

A lot of people think that Mamdani knew all of this when he was campaigning, but I’m not willing to give him that much credit for cleverness. I think that he’s running into a couple of things now, the first being that the wheels of governmental bureaucracy grind slowly even on their fastest days. Yes, he’s dealing with a municipal bureaucracy, but it’s the municipal bureaucracy of one of the biggest cities in the world. He’s in way over his head dealing with its complexities. The second wall that Mamdani is beating his head against is the inevitable economic barrier that socialists always hit. He’s not getting any help from the people in government who could help him deliver on his promises because what he wants is infeasible.

Not to worry, commies of New York, there are still some things that Mayor Mamdani can screw up all on his own. This is from my Townhall colleague Jeff Charles: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani publicly stated he would have the last word on all New York Police Department (NYPD) decisions — not Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

Like all leftists, Mamdani is a cop-hater, so this ought to get ugly. He prefers police who can’t do any real policing. His wish list for the department looks to weaken it wherever he can. The NYPD is still reeling from the Defund the Police attack in 2020. There might not be any cops left in New York by the time Mamdani’s one term is up. There is a possibility that the little commie might not make it through one term. It’s the beginning of the second quarter of his first year in office, and the honeymoon is most definitely over. This is from a VIP post that Matt wrote yesterday:

A new Marist College poll gives Mamdani a mere 48% approval rating after just three months in office. That might sound decent in today’s fractured political climate, but context matters. Why is this so bad? Well, at the same point in his tenure, Eric Adams sat comfortably at 61%. That’s gonna leave a mark. We know how quickly New York voters soured on Eric Adams. Mamdani could fall out of favor even more quickly once they figure out that his entire campaign was a steaming pile of horse manure. Then again, these are the same people who gave the leftist mediocrity Bill de Blasio two terms. There were still cops in the city back in those days, though.

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If Kash Patel is serious about going after those who went after Trump for political reasons, his oprions are nigh endless. Mind you, so where Pam Bondi’s.

Cassidy Hutchinson is the easiest caught fish. But you can use her to catch those who used her absurd story like it was true. If you did that, you were guilty.

Trump, aged 70 or so at the time, is supposed to have reached from the back seat to overwhelm two very fit secret agants and drive to the Capitol.

• DOJ Opens Criminal Investigation Into J6 Witness Cassidy Hutchinson (Margolis)

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has opened a criminal investigation into Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House staffer whose 2022 testimony before the January 6 Select Committee became one of the most explosive moments of that entire political spectacle, becoming the left’s favorite weapon against Donald Trump. The probe focuses on whether Hutchinson committed perjury during her televised June 2022 hearing. You may remember the hearing and the ridiculous story she told, under oath, in front of millions of viewers. She claimed that when Donald Trump’s motorcade didn’t head to the Capitol, he exploded.


In her words: “So when the president had gotten into the vehicle with [Secret Service agent] Bobby [Engel], he thought that they were going up to the Capitol. And when Bobby had relayed to him, ‘We’re not, we don’t have the assets to do it, it’s not secure, we’re going back to the West Wing,’ the president had a very strong and very angry response to that. Tony described him as being irate. The president said to him something to the effect of, ‘I’m the f*****g president, take me up to the Capitol now.’ To which Bobby responded, ‘Sir, we have to go back to the West Wing.’ He then reached up front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, he said, ‘Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing, we’re not going to the Capitol.’ Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel.”

It was quite a story, with a few problems. For one thing, it was ridiculous, but the Secret Service also denied it. None of the witnesses she spoke of corroborated her story. Heck, last year, even anti-Trump Special Counsel Jack Smith admitted he didn’t believe her, and dismissed her account as “second or even thirdhand hearsay.” The investigation into Hutchinson comes in response to a criminal referral from Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), whose House Administration Oversight Subcommittee had spent years digging into exactly what the J6 committee actually knew and when they knew it.

Loudermilk’s subcommittee released a 128-page interim report in December 2024 that was quite damning. “President Trump did not attack his Secret Service Detail at any time on January 6,” the report concluded. “President Trump did not have intelligence indicating violence on the morning of January 6.” And perhaps most striking: “Cassidy Hutchinson falsely claimed to have drafted a handwritten note for President Trump on January 6.” The report found the committee actively promoted claims it had every reason to doubt, putting its desired political narrative ahead of the truth.

Loudermilk previously referred former Rep. Liz Cheney to the DOJ on Dec. 17, 2024, for potential criminal witness tampering because Cheney communicated directly with Hutchinson in ways her own attorney didn’t know about, coaching a witness whose testimony would become the centerpiece of the committee’s case against Trump. No DOJ action against Cheney has been announced. Yet. The investigation will examine contradicting witness accounts and internal records. For a testimony that once dominated every front page in America, the reckoning may be long overdue.

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“They voted for a Commander-in-Chief who would do what the seven previous presidents would not do, and that’s deal with these people with a firm hand.”

• Scott Jennings Torches CNN’s Fake News About MAGA on Air (Margolis)

The liberal media have long tried to paint the MAGA movement as divided and fractured, but it’s pretty much always projection. They want to believe it’s true and figure that if they report it enough times, it will make it true.bThey tried it again on Wednesday, and Scott Jennings was there to call them out for it… on the air.


During a segment on The Source Tuesday night, the network ran a montage of MAGA-aligned voices — Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Joe Rogan, and yes, Alex Jones — all expressing varying degrees of outrage over Trump’s military action against Iran. The implicit message CNN was selling: the MAGA base is fracturing, and Trump is in trouble with his own people. Host John King leaned into it, asking CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings whether all those dissenting voices would hurt the president politically.

Jennings wasn’t buying it. “I mean, we’re treating Alex Jones like a credible voice here? We’re treating Tucker Carlson like a credible voice here?” he pushed back immediately. King argued that “real” Trump voters listen to these people, even if King himself doesn’t consider them credible. Jennings acknowledged the point… and then promptly dismantled it. “Okay, so let’s just say you’re right, and some people listen to them. Who do you think they’d listen to more? Those people? Or President Donald Trump?”

He went further, making clear exactly where power actually sits in the Republican coalition. “I know what the polling says, and I know what my instincts tell me, is that Donald Trump runs the party, he runs the country. Not the podcasters. They’re welcome to have opinions, and I don’t begrudge anybody having an opinion. And you could have a different opinion than Donald Trump. But I know who has more influence over the Republican Party and the conservative movement, and there’s no doubt about it, and there has never been any doubt about it, really all that much for the last ten years.”

King then cited MAGA influencer Mike Cernovich, who had tweeted that Trump voters “feel deeply betrayed.” Did you know that Cernovich is the leading source for what the MAGA coalition thinks? Me neither. But, hey, if you can’t trust a CNN pundit, who can you trust? Of course, Jennings had a simple answer to that: he hears things too — just different things.

“They voted for a Commander-in-Chief to restore American strength on the world stage. They voted for a Commander-in-Chief to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. They voted for a Commander-in-Chief who would do what the seven previous presidents would not do, and that’s deal with these people with a firm hand.” He also noted that none of this should be surprising to anyone who paid attention. “You can’t deny that Donald Trump has always been a hawk on Iran. He’s always said he would never permit them to get a nuclear weapon, and he’s taking those actions to prevent that right now.”

The conversation kept circling back to the same premise — that podcasters breaking with Trump signal some sort of meaningful rift in the party. We’ve been hearing this script for weeks now, and the polls have never shown it to be true, yet they keep trying to make it a thing. So, when King argued that those influencers helped bring Trump voters to the polls, and now their dissent couldn’t be dismissed, Jennings delivered the line that cut through all of it.

“I don’t deny the usefulness of having surrogates and allies. But I think you’re oversubscribing their importance, and undersubscribing the importance of Trump himself. And I think, frankly, the only reason we’re playing them on our air right now is because they’re useful to a narrative. We don’t consider these people to be credible — at any other time — until they are attacking Donald Trump. Otherwise, we call them crazy.” There it is. Jennings accused his own network, on his own network, of selectively elevating voices it routinely dismisses the moment those voices become convenient ammunition against Trump. It’s the same tired strategy we’ve seen so many times, and Jennings called out his own network for its deception.

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Sure.

• It’s a MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ World and We’re Just Living In It (Moran)

What is MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+? It might be a new, super-strong password. Maybe it’s a Gen-Whatever code-like thing that’s sweeping the internet, like “6-7” or something. If only it could be that mundane. In fact, MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ is an all-inclusive, all-encompassing, balls-to-the-wall, slam bang, wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am acronym for the totality of the gender bending, sexually “unique” population of Canada. For the record, as Jim Treacher helpfully points out, it stands for “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, and “additional identities (“+”).


The excitement was started by a Canadian New Democratic Party member of parliament, Leah Gazan, who complained that not enough money was being spent to “deal with the ongoing genocide of MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+.” Budgeting for each and every identity, preference, and fantasy spirit in the MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ community would blow up the Canadian budget. I fondly recall when sexual preference identities were simple: LGB and maybe T, XYZ, believe you me. It was easy. It was a simpler time then. We didn’t have to worry about offending someone by using the wrong pronoun. We didn’t have to worry about making some poor, disturbed “T” or “Q” explode in tears from being misgendered.

It would be so much easier (and we’d be less likely to offend) if the MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ “community” would just walk around with name tags identifying which gender they are, what their sexual identity is, and most importantly, what pronouns they prefer to be referred to.Yes, that’s a joke. No Nazi “Star of David” references, please. Not that I’d use them. But since misgendering is going to be an Olympic sport in 2030, it would be helpful to know who we should insult. Treacher tried and failed to keep a straight face in reporting on this phenomenon.

Okay, for real, this is a serious topic. You don’t want to see women kidnapped and murdered. Not most women, anyway. I mean, there are names that come to mind… But no. Nobody should go through that. Mostly. And of course, since that’s such a long acronym and that woman just rattled it off like it’s a normal thing to say, people are having some fun with it today. “Got my new password!” That sort of thing.There’s a British comedian named Damian Slash who has perfected a sort of straight-faced satire of… liberal excesses, let’s put it that way. Here he is explaining why MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ is no joke.

The internet being the internet, there was a slanderous fake news take on this story that claimed Canada was updating its LGBTQ+ acronym to MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+. Pink News, whose goal is to “empower generations to embrace and shape the future – making the world a gayer place,” says that simply isn’t true. “She [Gazan] used MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ as a catch-all term,” says Pink News. “Catch-all?” Really? That’s a pretty wide net to use as a “catch-all.” “Various social media sites began reporting that Canada has now officially updated the LGBTQ+ acronym to MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+, which isn’t the case,” we’re informed by Pink News. It’s impossible to parody leftists who are blissfully unaware of their own stupidity.

Okay, so why is this so annoying? Why does this bug me so much? Why is liberalism so irritating? Because that’s what’s going on here. It’s not about making fun of people who are in trouble. It’s not about making fun of these women.It’s about not just being able to say that. That these women are in trouble. They need help. Just say that they’re missing women. They’re possibly murdered. Just say that. But that’s not inclusive. Precisely. If this really were about saving lives, they wouldn’t use code that’s impossible to say with a straight face or highfalutin “all-inclusive” descriptions of what these people’s preferences are when it comes to who they love or prefer to sleep with.

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“This government stands firmly with the Jewish community ..”

In other news: “This government stands firmly with the muslim community “

even as they hate each other..

God forbid the British government stands with the British community. That would be discrimination.

• UK Government’s TWISTED Priorities Exposed…(MN)

In Two-tier Britain words trigger instant action, but violent offenders get indefinite leave to remain. UK border policy under Keir Starmer’s Labour government has never looked more lopsided. An Afghan migrant who carried out a ‘horrific’ bottle attack on a 14-year-old girl and her mother has been allowed to stay in the country despite his violent criminal record. At the same time, the Prime Minister moved swiftly to block Kanye West from headlining the Wireless festival. The contrast exposes the reality of Britain’s immigration system: tough on controversial speech, soft on actual predators who crossed the Channel or arrived via asylum claims.


Starmer stated: “Kanye West should never have been invited to headline Wireless. This government stands firmly with the Jewish community, and we will not stop in our fight to confront and defeat the poison of antisemitism. We will always take the action necessary to protect the public and uphold our values.”

This is not an isolated case. It reflects a pattern where the Home Office struggles to remove foreign offenders while celebrities face pre-emptive bans over lyrics or statements. The Afghan national in question arrived in 1999, claimed asylum, and received indefinite leave to remain by 2001. His record includes multiple violent incidents, yet tribunals have repeatedly sided with his continued presence citing treatment for mental health issues and years without reoffending. British families see the result. A mother and her teenage daughter were left traumatised after a savage attack in a shop following a dispute over religious comments.

The perpetrator struck them repeatedly with a bottle and issued threats. That level of violence earned convictions for wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and related offences. Yet the system found reasons to keep him here. Meanwhile, actual border enforcement is reserved for figures like Kanye West. The government’s message is clear: speech can be policed aggressively, but mass illegal entries and criminal migrants receive layers of legal protection, appeals, and human rights considerations.

This is the same Labour government that inherited a broken asylum system and has done nothing meaningful to fix it. Small boats keep arriving. Foreign criminals remain. And the public is told this is all compatible with “protecting the public.” Until politicians stop treating violent offenders as victims of circumstance and start treating British safety as the non-negotiable priority, stories like this will keep coming. The public has had enough of two-tier justice and open-border hypocrisy. Real protection means removing the threats, not shielding them.

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Not worthy of the highest court.

• Justice Sotomayor Suggests Justice Kavanaugh is an Uninformed Elitist (Turley)

Justice Brett Kavanaugh is accustomed to unrelenting personal attacks from the left that began with his nomination to the Court. This week, however, the ad hominem insults came not from cable programs but a colleague. Justice Sonia Sotomayor used an appearance at the University of Kansas School of Law to level a personal dig at Kavanaugh as an out-of-touch elitist. I have long criticized the growing number of public statements by justices on controversial subjects and cases, including Justice Sotomayor. However, this appearance represented a new low in lashing out at a colleague as effectively blinded by his own privilege.


In her comments, Sotomayor raised Kavanaugh’s concurrence in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo: “I had a colleague in that case who wrote, you know, these are only temporary stops. This is from a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour… Those hours that they took you away, nobody’s paying that person. And that makes a difference between a meal for him and his kids that night and maybe just cold supper…” She then referred to her own background as giving her experience and knowledge that is apparently missing in colleagues such as Kavanaugh:

“Life experiences teach you to think more broadly and to see things others may not. And when I have a moment where I can express that on behalf of people who have no other voice, then I’m being given a very rare privilege.”It was reminiscent of Sotomayor’s reference to being a “wise Latina” on the bench. While on the Second Circuit, then-judge Sotomayor explained that her life experiences offered a “difference” not shared by other colleagues. In a 2001 lecture at Berkeley law school titled “A Latina Judge’s Voice,” she heralded the difference that “our gender and national origins may and will make … in our judging.”

In her latest comments, she is suggesting that her interaction with hourly wage earners allows her to see things that Kavanaugh does not in these cases. The claim that she “sees things that others may not” suggests that the privileged, insulated existence of Kavanaugh blinds him to the true merits of cases before him. Notably, Justice Sotomayor also told the students and faculty that she has a friendship with most, but apparently not all, of her colleagues: “I dare say that with virtually all of them, I certainly have a civil relationship. And with many of them, I think I dare say that I have a friendship,” After this speech, I would not expect a social media friend invite from Kavanaugh.

It is true that Kavanaugh went to elite schools, but so did Sotomayor, who graduated from Princeton and Yale. Both of Kavanaugh’s parents were indeed lawyers, but it is odd that Sotomayor would miss the compelling story of his mother, Martha. She was a history professor who went to law school while raising a family and eventually became one of the minority of women on the state bench. That would also seem to be “gender origins” that Sotomayor previously cited as key in her view of impactful judging. However, what was most striking was Sotomayor’s backhanded suggestion that Kavanaugh “doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.” The suggestion is that he has avoided — and continues to avoid — interactions with people who get paid on an hourly basis — while she is more inclusive in her circle of friends. It is obviously false, but more importantly, petty and unfair.

The attack suggests that, while she is a “wise Latina,” Kavanaugh is a privileged prig on the Court. The fact is that many blue-collar (if not most) workers identify more with aspects of Kavanaugh’s jurisprudence. At a minimum, over half of the country is more likely to embrace his approach than that of Justice Sotomayor, who has been criticized for her comments in oral argument on issues ranging from abortion to puberty blockers to COVID restrictions. Justice Kavanaugh has distinguished himself in public service, including work with the homeless.

Justice Sotomayor has repeatedly raised eyebrows with her comments off the bench, including seemingly calling on lawyers and students to join in a political campaign to change abortion laws. In her favor, Justice Sotomayor has also defended colleagues like Justice Clarence Thomas, explained the reasonable disagreements among the justices, and opposed rationales on the left for packing the court. She is not someone who I view as gratuitously rude or cruel. I believe that she values collegiality and the Court as an institution. However, this was another injudicious moment during public events.

There is a wide chasm between the jurisprudence of these two justices. However, that difference is due to fundamental and principled differences in how courts should approach constitutional and statutory interpretation. Yet, these comments were a disturbing departure from the tradition of collegiality and civility on the court. It was unfair and unwarranted. Hopefully, Justice Sotomayor will take an upcoming occasion during her speaking tour to withdraw the comment. That would be the “wise” thing to do.

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Everyone is interfering.

If it is announced Orban lost, bring on the riots.

• Facebook interfering in Hungarian election – Budapest (RT)

The Hungarian government has accused Facebook of interfering in the upcoming parliamentary election scheduled for Sunday by restricting the reach of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s posts while boosting the visibility of his main rival, opposition leader Peter Magyar. Speaking to Politico, government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs claimed that Facebook’s algorithm is “basically working against the government parties.” He argued that Orban’s official government page is subject to stricter advertising limits and reduced organic reach, while Magyar is allowed to operate a personal ‘public figure’ profile that enjoys greater algorithmic freedom.


A report by the think tank MCC Brussels found that despite similar video views, Magyar’s posts have generated nearly three times the engagement of Orban’s. It also noted a trend of “disappearing comments” on content in support of the prime minister’s Fidesz party, while no similar behavior has been observed on opposition pages. Meta has denied the allegations. A spokesperson told Politico that “there are no restrictions on the prime minister’s accounts, nor have any posts been removed.”

A Magyar aide has attributed the success to the opposition leader’s ability to “speak the language of the algorithm” and keep up with the speed of the news cycle. Budapest’s latest allegations follow an incident in late February in which Facebook temporarily blocked three pro-government news outlets. The Hungarian National Media Association condemned the move as an attack on freedom of press, suggesting that the tech giant could be “punishing right-wing news portals.”

Last month, after several Fidesz members claimed that Meta started restricting the reach of their Facebook posts, commentators Joey Mannarino and Philip Pilkington identified Oskar Braszczynski as the employee likely responsible. Braszczynski, who works as Meta’s ‘Government and Social Impact Partner for Central and Eastern Europe’, has shared pro-Ukraine, anti-Orban, and pro-LGBT content on his personal social media accounts. Budapest has long argued that Brussels, as well as Kiev, is waging a concerted campaign to oust Orban. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has accused EU intelligence services of wiretapping his phone with the help of a Hungarian journalist aligned with the opposition Tisza party.

Orban has also accused Ukraine of cutting off oil supplies through the Druzhba pipeline for political reasons, and blocked a €90 billion EU loan for Kiev in retaliation. On Tuesday, US Vice President J.D. Vance visited Budapest in a show of support for Orban, accusing EU bureaucrats of “one of the worst examples of foreign election interference” he has ever seen. Vance claimed that Brussels has “tried to destroy the economy of Hungary” because they dislike Orban.

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“Each and every woman should have her day to tell her story in public, if she wishes, and then her testimony should be permanently entered into the Congressional Record.”

• Melania Calls for Public Congressional Testimony from Epstein Victims (CTH)

First Lady Melania Trump sets the record straight on false claims about her and her husband’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. WATCH:



[Transcript Statement] – “Good afternoon.

The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today.

The individuals lying about me are devoid of ethical standards, humility, and respect. I do not object to their ignorance, but rather, I reject their mean-spirited attempts to defame my reputation. I have never been friends with Epstein. Donald and I were invited to the same parties as Epstein from time to time, since overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach. To be clear, I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice, Maxwell. My email reply to Maxwell cannot be categorized as anything more than casual correspondence. My polite reply to her email doesn’t amount to anything more than a trivial note.

I am not Epstein’s victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump. I met my husband, by chance, at a New York City party in 1998. This initial encounter with my husband is documented in detail in my book, MELANIA. The first time I crossed paths with Epstein was in the year 2000, at an event Donald and I attended together. At the time, I had never met Epstein and had no knowledge of his criminal undertakings. Numerous fake images and statements about Epstein and me have been circulating on social media for years now. Be cautious about what you believe. These images and stories are completely false.

I am not a witness or a named witness in connection with any of Epstein’s crimes. My name has never appeared in court documents, depositions, victim statements, or FBI interviews surrounding the Epstein matter. I have never had any knowledge of Epstein’s abuse of his victims. I was never involved in any capacity—I was not a participant, was never on Epstein’s plane, and never visited his private island. I have never been legally accused or convicted of a crime in connection with Epstein’s sex trafficking, abuse of minors, and other repulsive behavior. The false smears about me from mean-spirited and politically motivated individuals and entities looking to cause damage to my good name to gain financially and climb politically must stop.

My attorneys and I have fought these unfounded and baseless lies with success and will continue to maintain my sound reputation without hesitation. To date, several individuals and companies have been legally obligated to publicly apologize and retract their lies about me, such as The Daily Beast, James Carville, and Harper Collins UK. Now is the time for Congress to act. Epstein was not alone. Several prominent male executives resigned from their powerful positions after this matter became widely politicized. Of course, this doesn’t amount to guilt, but we still must work openly and transparently to uncover the truth.

I call on Congress to provide the women who have been victimized by Epstein with a public hearing specifically centered around the survivors. Give these victims their opportunity to testify under oath in front of Congress, with the power of sworn testimony. Each and every woman should have her day to tell her story in public, if she wishes, and then her testimony should be permanently entered into the Congressional Record.

Then, and only then, will we have the truth.”

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https://twitter.com/GlobalDiss/status/2042335126349054275?s=20 They knew he was there and that made all the difference Do you have to be old to like”classical”music? I think you need to be young https://twitter.com/HiroakiGoto1/status/2042335600536162798?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle March 20 2026

Mar 202026
 
 March 20, 2026  Posted by at 10:27 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  62 Responses »


Jean-Michel Basquiat In this case 1983


• Netanyahu Declares Iran’s Nuclear Program & Missile Production “Destroyed” (ZH)
• Iran’s Attack On Qatar’s LNG Sends Shockwaves Across Global Energy Markets (ZH)
• US Naval Escort Won’t “100% Guarantee” Tanker Safety In Hormuz (ZH)
• Iran Is Losing. Why Pretend Otherwise? (Ben Shapiro)
• Either Iran or Israel Has to Go (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Where Will The War Take Us? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Dmitriev Calls Strike on Iran’s South Pars Gas Field Tipping Point (TASS)
• The Coroner is Guilty (John Helmer)
• DNI Tulsi Gabbard Releases 2026 Unclassified National Threat Assessment (CTH)
• Belarus Remains Trump’s Ally Despite US Mistakes — Lukashenko (TASS)
• Murphy’s Law (Jonathan Turley)
• Trump Continues to Expel MAGA’s Best Members (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Kent Tells Tucker: ‘Imminent Threat’ Was From Israel, Not Iran (ZH)
• NASA May Shrink Boeing’s Moon-Mission Role, Push SpaceX (ZH)
• When ‘I Don’t Recall’ Meets a DOJ Subpoena (David Manney)

 


 

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

 


 

 


 


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

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

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


He further addressed claims Israel dragged the US into war, calling it “fake news” and adding: “Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Donald Trump what to do? Come on.” He praised tight US-Israel coordination: “We are achieving goals in lightning speed” – and said he and Trump “see eye to eye,” adding the world “owes a debt& to President Trump for leading this effort.” He also stated that Israel acted against Pars alone, but that he will hold off on ordering future such attacks without US consent. Netanyahu also said the war will end “much sooner than people think”. And another key aspect to his remarks:

• Iran No Longer Able to Enrich Uranium
ª Iran Lost Ability to Manufacture Missiles US
ª Israel Destroyed Iran s Fleet in Caspian Sea

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

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

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“Worse Than Nord Stream”.

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

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


Some 20% of global LNG exports originate from Gulf countries, and the latest round of Israeli and IRGC attacks on upstream energy assets shows how the conflict has entered an entirely new phase where energy infrastructure is being directly targeted. Disruptions at Qatar’s LNG facilities threaten to tighten the global gas market, with ripple effects quickly spreading worldwide – across Asia, Europe, and even U.S. gas prices. European natural gas benchmark futures jumped as much as 35% today, pushing prices to more than double their pre-war levels, as traders brace for what only appears to be a prolonged period of disruption from critical LNG hubs that account for a fifth of the world’s total supply.

QatarEnergy warned earlier that LNG facilities inside its Ras Laffan Industrial City were attacked by missiles, “causing sizable fires and extensive further damage.” “This could be a game changer for the LNG industry, akin to the attack on Nord Stream or possibly even worse,” Susan Sakmar, visiting assistant professor at the University of Houston Law Center, said, quoted by Bloomberg. “This is a sudden disruption, with no indication that Qatar could restart anytime soon.” Global Risk Management analyst Arne Lohmann Rasmussen warned, “LNG from Qatar could in principle be offline for months and, in the worst case, for years. For the gas market, the crisis does not end simply because the war ends and the Strait of Hormuz reopens.”

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

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

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


President Trump has been attempting to fast-track the reopening of Hormuz by providing naval escorts for tankers and other commercial vessels. However, there are a few problems. First, Western US partners have rejected Trump’s request to send warships to help reopen the strategic waterway, which is plagued by IRGC mines and kamikaze drones. Second, Arsenio Dominguez, secretary-general of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), told the Financial Times in an interview on Tuesday that even if naval escorts materialize in the narrow waterway, they will not provide a “100% guarantee” of tanker safety. “It reduces the risk, but the risk is still there. The merchant ships and seafarers can be affected,” Dominguez said.

The head of the IMO, which sets rules for international shipping, continued: “We are collateral damage in a conflict when the root causes have nothing to do with shipping,” adding that his organization has major concerns about commercial vessels stuck in the Gulf running out of food and supplies for crews. Sending US and allied warships into the narrow waterway, just off the Iranian coast and facing threats from drones, naval mines, and shore-to-ship ballistic missiles, seems like a suicidal mission. “The challenge is going to be dealing with the proximity of the drone launchers and the missile launchers that are going to be along the Iranian coast,” Bryan Clark, an expert in naval operations with the Hudson Institute, told The Hill.

Clark said, “The issue is that you only have a couple of minutes once the launcher comes out before the missiles are going to get on top of you, because you’re only talking about 3 or 4 miles from the shoreline to the transit lane.”mA number of top US partners, including Germany, Spain, and Italy, have no immediate plans to send warships into the waterway. This has only infuriated President Trump, as his administration has voiced frustration with some longstanding allies over their unwillingness to help reopen the strait.

The race to reopen the strait comes as Kpler oil analyst Muyu Xu warned, “The blockade is now the worst disruption to oil flows ever. Actual barrels are now disappearing from global oil markets, which could lead to demand destruction in the weeks to come.”= Three weeks into the US-Iran conflict, tanker activity on the waterway has slowed to a crawl, just about 400,000 barrels per day, compared with the pre-Hormuz-closure average of 14 million barrels per day.

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Views differ.

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

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


Meanwhile, the military picture is equally stark. Iran’s command-and-control systems have been fractured. Its missile and drone capabilities — once touted as pillars of deterrence — have been severely degraded. What remains is not a coordinated campaign but sporadic, diminished retaliation.The numbers tell the story. Early volleys of hundreds of missiles have dwindled to scattered launches. Drone deployments have followed the same trajectory. Factories, infrastructure and key facilities tied to these capabilities have been destroyed or heavily damaged. What the regime is able to deploy now appears to be the remnants of what once was.

This is not simply a Western narrative. Even regional observers — some hardly aligned with U.S. interests — have acknowledged the effectiveness of the campaign. Analyses describe a deliberate, phased strategy: first neutralizing air defenses and leadership networks, then targeting the industrial backbone that sustains Iran’s military capabilities. The objective is not just to weaken but to prevent reconstruction.mAnd yet, despite this evidence, a counternarrative persists in parts of the West: that Iran is resilient, that it is outlasting its adversaries, that the outcome remains uncertain. That claim is increasingly difficult to square with reality.

Recent developments underscore the point. Senior Iranian officials once positioned as potential successors have been killed. Key internal security figures — those responsible for maintaining order and suppressing dissent — have also been eliminated. Even localized enforcement mechanisms are now under pressure. What remains of the regime’s response resembles less a strategy and more a reaction — disjointed, limited and increasingly ineffective.So the real question is not whether Iran is losing. The evidence suggests it is.The real question is why so many observers continue to insist otherwise.

Part of the answer may lie in broader geopolitical anxieties: fears of escalation, concerns over regional stability, or skepticism shaped by past conflicts. But those concerns, while understandable, do not change the facts on the ground. There are also looming questions about what comes next. Much attention has been paid to strategic chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz, though any prolonged disruption there would invite overwhelming international response. More significant, perhaps, is the internal dynamic within Iran itself.

The regime has long relied on force to suppress dissent, as seen in past protests met with lethal crackdowns. But the current moment may be different. With leadership weakened and security structures under strain, the balance between state control and public resistance could begin to shift. If that happens, the future of Iran will not be decided solely by external pressure but by the Iranian people themselves. They have risen before, at great personal risk. The difference now is that the regime they would confront appears more vulnerable than it has in decades. What happens next is uncertain. But one thing is increasingly clear: The narrative of Iranian strength no longer matches the reality.

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

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

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


The Iranians are holding firm on one level but without realizing it might be cracking on another. I am not convinced that the Iranians fully understand the situation. For example, Mohsen Rezaee, retired commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, now a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, said that the “presence of the US in the Persian Gulf has been the main cause of insecurity over the past 50 years.” The end of the war, he said, requires “US withdrawal from the Persian Gulf.”

It seems to me that General Rezaee misunderstands the situation. It is not the American presence per se that is the cause of insecurity. The cause is that the American bases are there to serve Israel. Moreover, the real cause of insecurity for all of the Muslim states is Israel’s Zionist agenda of Greater Israel. Once defined as “from the Nile to the Euphrates,” Israel has recently redefined Greater Israel to be from the “Nile to Pakistan.” The general does not seem to understand that removing the US from the Persian Gulf does not remove the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel. What Iran should be demanding is the disavowal of the Zionist agenda.

Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, hasn’t a clue either. He says the “Only way to end this war” is to recognize Iran’s legitimate rights, payment of reparations (to Iran) and firm guarantees against future aggression.” He is badly wrong. The war might again be put on pause by Iranian officials who fail to comprehend the situation, but the only way war will end is by Israel renouncing the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel. And that Israel will not do. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has rejected the talk of peace negotiations. Trump, he says has already twice deceived and sneak-attacked Iran while engaged in negotiations, and Iran will not make the same mistake again.

In actual fact, Iran is making a much worse mistake. The Zionist agenda of Greater Israel is not consistent with the Existence of Muslim Iran (or Turkey and Saudi Arabia). Unless the Zionist agenda is renounced, Iran has no choice but to fight to its own death or to Israel’s death. The fact that Iran has never seized the initiative, has never used its strategic advantage, but has sat on its butt waiting, indeed inviting, an attack, suggests that Iran does not comprehend the Zionist Agenda. Neither do the Americans, the Europeans, or the media. The real cause of the war is simply not mentioned. If Iran doesn’t wise up, Iran risks being lured into another meaningless agreement.

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

No, nuking Iran would be the end of Israel.

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

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


Trump and Netanyahu believed that Iran would fall as easily as the others, but that has proved not to be the case. Indeed, it appears that Iran is winning. Iran is winning because Iran was better prepared. Expecting a quick and easy victory, Trump and Netanyahu went to war without sufficient missiles to continue in the combat. One consequence is the destruction of American radar and military bases in the Persian Gulf. Another is the inability of Israel to intercept incoming Iranian missiles, an inability that will intensify as Iran works its way through its older stock of missiles and begins using it’s modern hypersonic ballistic missiles. It is possible that Israel could end up looking like Gaza.

According to news reports one of the Persian Gulf oil city-states that hosts US military bases has requested that the United States depart as US presence no longer provides protection. Possibly the other hosts of American bases will make the same request, in which case the result of Trump’s war for Israel will be the removal of Washington’s presence in the Middle East and a defeat of Washington’s long-term agenda of controlling oil flows from the Persian Gulf.

Trump and Netanyahu seem to have put themselves into a difficult situation. Both face elections this year, elections unlikely to go well if Trump and Netanyahu are losing their war. The US Navy has had to move out of range of Iranian ship-sinking missiles, and Trump has had to call on other countries–China, Japan, South Korea, France, UK–to send warships to aid the US in taking control from Iran of the Strait of Hormuz. This request is a clear statement by the President of the United States of limited American military capability. Trump has had no takers. Trump’s advisors are talking about landing troops on Kharg Island, surely a suicide mission.

In other words, Trump doesn’t know what to do. Netanyahu does know what to do–nuke Iran, in order to save Israel. Aware of this possibility Iran might hold back from victory and go for a settlement in which Washington and Israel agree to normalize relations with the Iranian nation. Such a settlement would not last, because it is incompatible with the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel. Therefore, during the time for which such a settlement might last, Iran would have to develop and deploy nuclear weapons, knowing that otherwise Iran will be struck by Israeli nukes.

So, the outcome of Trump and Israel’s war could easily be nuclear proliferation and a reduction of Israeli and American power in the Middle East. This could be a good thing as both Israelis and Americans would understand that the agenda of Greater Israel has consequences too severe to justify the agenda.m If the Iranian government holds firm and learns from the experience, there could be a silver lining in Trump and Israel’s war. The Zionist agenda would be exposed as too costly and would have to be abandoned both by Israel and Washington.

The weak-willed governments in Moscow and Beijing would see that it is possible, after all, to stand up to Israeli-dominated Washington, and possibly might start standing up to Washington themselves instead of selling out their allies. If so, this would produce the multi-polar world that Russian President Putin talks so much about but negates the possibly of with his craven behavior. Perhaps XI would understand that it is better to have a determined military, such as the one he just purged, than a moderate one that encourages, as Putin does, ever more serious provocations by refusing to acknowledge them as acts of war.

The future of the world depends on whether leaders can reenter the world of reality or stay lost in a more comforting unreality in which they presently operate.

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

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

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


The United States knew nothing about the attack, and Qatar was not involved in it in any way or had any idea it was coming, he wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. The American leader believes the Jewish state carried out the strike out of outrage at what was happening in the Middle East. According to Trump, only a small portion of the field’s facilities were damaged. H e emphasized that Israel would no longer strike the extremely important and valuable South Pars gas field unless Iran made an unwise decision to attack a completely innocent party, Qatar in this case.

On Wednesday, the head of the Assaluyeh District administration in Iran’s Bushehr Province reported that a fire had broken out following an attack by Israel and the United States at several facilities in the South Pars gas field. In this regard, Iran’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said it would attack oil and gas sites in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar.

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New book.

• The Coroner is Guilty (John Helmer)

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


Throughout the world this court is the only one of its kind to have been investigated and then prosecuted by the state for abuses of power by the coroners in charge – this is corruption in the law. In 2023 the court was found guilty, sentenced, and fined almost $400,000, but no individual was held culpable. That was the outcome of a plea bargain — a cover-up to keep the evidence secret, the individual coroners blameless, and the penalty paid out of public money from the court budget.

In a presentation that is unprecedented in the practice of Anglo-American law, in Australia and Canada, this book has become the jury book or brief of the case of suspicious, sudden drug death. It is now a model for the international public debate on corruption by the pharmaceutical companies in cahoots with government regulators, the medical profession, judges, and lawyers. This is your summons to serve on the jury.

You, the reader, are called to judge the evidence and the legal argument; and then cast your verdict, not only for the doctor and coroner but also the Supreme Court judge who conducted a trial of his own, dismissing every count of the author’s case, and endorsing the coroner’s decisions without qualification. This is also a textbook on subversion in our lives and deaths. This is how the victims of lethal combinations of drugs are blamed for dying of heart attacks that are judged to be “natural causes” when the evidence that they are nothing of the kind is buried according to the “rules-based international order”. If you are a survivor of a crime of “natural causes”, here’s how to fight for your right, and the right of the dead, to natural justice.

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The Unclassified part is not the most exciting.

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

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


[TRANSCRIPT] – “I am here today to present the 2026 Annual Threat Assessment, joined by the Directors of the CIA, DIA, FBI and NSA. This briefing is being provided in accordance with ODNI’s statutory responsibility and represents the Intelligence Community’s assessment of the threats facing U.S. citizens, our Homeland, and our interests. nAs President Trump’s National Security Strategy highlights, America is blessed with an enviable geostrategic position, unparalleled assets, resources and a military second to none. Intelligence remains among our sharpest tools in protecting our interests and informing our policymakers and decisionmakers on key national security concerns. In this assessment, we are following the structure of priorities laid out in the National Security Strategy, starting with threats to our Homeland, then shifting to global risks.

The defense of our Homeland is of utmost importance to the American people. Putting America first means committing to an unrelenting vigilance in service of our own citizens, borders, and communities. Recent efforts to bolster Homeland defense have yielded significantly positive results, but challenges persist. For example, President Trump’s strict enforcement of U.S. policies at the U.S. Mexico border and regionally has served as a deterrent and drastically reduced illegal immigration. Based on Customs and Border Patrol data, January 2026’s monthly encounters are down 83.8% compared to January 2025. Encounters declined 79% compared to 2024.

The drivers of migration are likely to continue. Potential worsening instability in countries like Cuba and Haiti risk triggering migration surges. Smugglers who often operate as transnational criminal organizations view chaos as an opportunity for profit and will look to continue to profit from illegal immigration flows. Transnational criminal organizations continue to pose a daily and direct threat to the health and safety of millions of U.S. citizens primarily by producing and trafficking in illegal drugs. Under President Trump’s leadership, fentanyl overdose deaths have seen a 30 percent decrease from September 2024 to September 2025.

Fentanyl potency has also decreased, likely due to disruptions to the production supply chain. U.S. efforts to work with China and India to halt the flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals to North America are demonstrating improvement, but there is more work to be done as there are still tens of thousands of fentanyl-related deaths in America every year.] President Trump’s aggressive efforts to more directly and actively target TCOs and reduce the inflow of fentanyl precursors has already had a significant impact which is likely to continue. (continue reading – pdf) The opening statement is 8-pages in full and can be found by following the ‘continue reading’ link above.

Tulsi Gabbard is doing a solid job as DNI, against formidable opposition from all directions.]“It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.”
-Machiavelli, The Prince

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

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

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


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

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Judges doing politics. Under the guise of law.

• Murphy’s Law (Jonathan Turley)

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


As with his earlier immigration order, the court seems to take the view that anything that can go wrong for the Trump Administration will go wrong for the Administration. At virtually every critical point, the court seems to adopt the harshest possible interpretation against the Administration. Murphy effectively halted, for now, the meeting of Kennedy’s new Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. Kennedy had replaced many members of the ACIP, including some accused of conflicts of interest. However, Murphy found that Kennedy had made arbitrary and capricious decisions in changing vaccine policies and changing the committee membership.

The Trump Administration has been aggressively fighting for executive authority over agencies, boards, and committees. This case could become one of the most significant of these appeals.Judge Murphy basically lambasts Kennedy for attacking good science and scientific methods. His criticism is laden with assumptions about the “correct” answers to questions governing vaccines. There are good-faith objections to Kennedy’s policy changes. However, the question is who is constitutionally vested with the right to make such decisions. That question is particularly prominent in the Murphy opinion. For example, the court rejects the new board members as unqualified in comparison to the prior members.

The court’s rejection of the new board members is largely conclusory. The court offers little indication of who Kennedy might appoint to meet his standards … other than the prior board members placed on the committee during the prior administration. In determining whether Kennedy had a right to reconstitute the committee, the opinion states that “[t]he Court acknowledges that many of the ACIP members have extensive expertise in their chosen fields.” However, it then questions whether they have truly “relevant” experience. The court insists that only six have relevant experience with vaccines.

The rejection of individual advisers shows how the court dismisses countervailing credentials or belittles advisers selected by the Secretary. Take Dr. Raymond Pollak who “is a surgeon, transplant immunobiologist, and transplant specialist who has published more than 120 peer-reviewed works and served as principal investigator on NIH transplant biology grants and numerous drug trials.” That would seem to be someone who could offer unique insights into vaccines and their approval. Yet, while acknowledging some experience, Murphy dismisses him as lacking sufficient experience.

Then there is Dr. Retsef Levi, Professor of Operations Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, as “a leading expert in healthcare analytics, supply chain and manufacturing analytics, risk management, and biologics and vaccine safety” and note that he has “collaborated with industry stakeholders and public health agencies to develop decision-support models to evaluate biologics and vaccine safety” and co-authored studies examining the association between mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and risks of cardiovascular disease, mortality, and adverse pregnancy outcomes.” He has also published two papers on vaccines. However, Judge Murphy brushes aside that stellar academic record and notes that “both of those [vaccine papers] were published mere months before his appointment.”

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I personally give Trump much more credit than PCR does.

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

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


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

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

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

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


In this first public interview since resigning, Kent elaborated on his reasons amid reports emerging Wednesday that the FBI is investigating him for allegedly leaking or improperly sharing classified information (a probe that sources say predates his resignation and is being handled by the FBI’s Criminal Division, per several outlets). Early on in the interview, Carlson referenced Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s justification for the strikes – that Iran posed an imminent threat because Israel was preparing to attack Iranian targets, likely prompting Iranian retaliation against U.S. forces. Carlson reframed it bluntly:

Carlson: “So, the imminent threat that the secretary of state is describing is not from Iran. It’s from Israel.” Kent: “Exactly. And I think this speaks to the broader issue: who is in charge of our policy in the Middle East?” Kent elaborated that Israel was preparing to strike, which would trigger retaliation endangering U.S. personnel – creating the cited “imminent” risk. He stated: Kent: “The Israelis drove the decision to take this action, which we knew would set off a series of events because the Iranians would retaliate.”

Kent insisted there was zero U.S. intelligence of Iran planning a direct attack, nearing a nuclear weapon, or posing an immediate homeland threat. He cited Iran’s religious fatwa against nuclear weapons (since 2004) and said the assassinated Supreme Leader Khamenei had moderated the program: Kent: “There was no intelligence that said, hey… the Iranians are going to launch this big sneak attack… There was none of that intelligence.” On nukes: “No, they weren’t [on the verge of a bomb]. They weren’t in June either. The Iranians have had a fatwa – a religious ruling – against the development of a nuclear weapon since 2004… We had no intelligence that it was being disobeyed.”

https://twitter.com/remarks/status/2034418878143484285?s=20


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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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Everyone behind the Steele dossier is walking free.

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

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


It was an investigation that influenced public opinion, policy debates, and years of political conflict that followed. That assessment referenced the Steele dossier, which a CIA “Tradecraft Review” completed in June under CIA Director John Ratcliffe said “ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment,” according to Axios, which cited the review.Ratcliffe has since referred Comey and Brennan for possible prosecution, Axios reported. Senior officials from multiple agencies contributed to the document, including John Brennan and James Clapper. The document’s conclusion shaped the early narrative around the election and set the tone for investigations that stretched across years.

The current inquiry focuses on process and accountability. Lawmakers and investigators want clarity on how evidence was gathered, how conclusions were reached, and whether political pressure played any role. Those questions may sound procedural, but they carry serious weight; decisions made during that period affected the credibility of major institutions and the direction of national policy. Comey’s past testimony offers a preview of what may come next. During earlier hearings, he often leaned on phrases that signaled caution or distance. “I don’t recall” appeared many times, and the Fifth Amendment remains a legal option available to any witness under oath. A subpoena raises the stakes because it requires answers, even if those answers arrive carefully measured.

President Donald Trump has long argued that the original investigation carried political bias, a view that continues to shape how supporters interpret the renewed scrutiny. Meanwhile, those on the left maintain that the original findings reflected legitimate concerns about foreign interference. There’s enough daylight between those competing views to power a solar panel for minutes.The legal process will move forward step by step. Testimony, documents, and sworn statements will form the backbone of whatever comes next. Investigators will press for clarity, witnesses will weigh their words carefully, and the outcome will depend less on headlines and more on what can be established under oath.

For Comey, the moment carries both legal and personal weight. His time as FBI director placed him in the center of events that reshaped American politics. The subpoena pulls him back into that same arena, where every answer matters and every pause gets noticed. The country has seen versions of this scene before: a high-profile witness, a charged political backdrop, and a series of questions that reach back years.What happens next depends on how much clarity emerges and how much remains unreachable. In other words, wash, rinse, repeat. If we decide on a drinking game, basing a shot of Buffalo Trace on each time we hear “I don’t recall,” we’ll remember the first 15 minutes of his testimony. Regardless, second verse, same as the first verse.

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Quantum entanglement: It’s already there https://twitter.com/IslanderWORLD/status/2034396591088627889 A car in less than 5 seconds

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 24 2025

Sep 242025
 
 September 24, 2025  Posted by at 10:12 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  37 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Almond blossom 1890

 

• Trump Changes Rhetoric On Ukraine Conflict (RT)
• Trump Says Ukraine Can Win Back All Territory Lost to Russia (ZH)
• NATO States Can Shoot Down Russian Planes – Trump (RT) /td>
• Hungary Pledges To Keep Buying Russian Energy (RT)
• Western Europe ‘Going To Hell’ – Trump (RT)
• Turning Point Campus Tour Continues with Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson etc (CTH)
• Who Charlie Kirk Really Was (CTH)
• Is This the Media’s Newest Spin on Charlie Kirk’s Murder? (Margolis)
• The Evolution of MAGA and The Perils Ahead (Pinsker)
• President Trump Calls Out Democrats for Threatening Shutdown (CTH)
• Secret Service Foils Massive Plot To Cripple NYC Cell Network (NYP)
• Jimmy Kimmel Set For Return To ABC (NYP)
• Bill O’Reilly Shreds Liberals’ ‘Free Speech’ Spin (ZH)
• US Officials Say Regime Change in Venezuela Is the Real Goal (Antiwar)
• Is Wired Trying to Get Elon Musk Assassinated Next? (Stephen Green)

 

 

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1970273969870905494
https://twitter.com/SaiKate108/status/1970089397199802437

 

 

 

 

It looks like a sudden 180º. But how exactly do you get from Zelensky has no cards, to now is “time for Ukraine to act?” What changed?

• Trump Changes Rhetoric On Ukraine Conflict (RT)

US President Donald Trump has claimed that Ukraine can still prevail in the conflict with Russia three years into the fighting, even as Kiev’s forces have been steadily losing ground in recent months. The statement marks a stark shift in rhetoric from the US leader. Since taking office, Trump has made repeated attempts to mediate the Ukraine conflict, initiating numerous rounds of talks with Russian officials, which culminated in a summit with Putin in Alaska in mid-August. The US president has recently expressed frustration over the lack of progress in settling the conflict but still referred to Russia as a powerful nation while arguing that Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky had no “cards.”

However, in a Truth Social post on Tuesday, following a meeting with Zelensky, Trump claimed that he believes Kiev is “in a position to fight and win all of Ukraine back,” if the EU and NATO continue to support it. He also referred to Russia as a “paper tiger,” arguing that it had failed to defeat Kiev’s forces in three and a half years. The US president also claimed that Russia is “in [a] big economic trouble” over the conflict and it was “time for Ukraine to act.” He did not announce any new financial or military aid packages for Kiev, though, stating instead that the US would continue to “supply weapons to NATO” for the bloc to use them as it sees fit.

The Russian economy has recently showed signs of slowing down compared to the growth of 4.1% in 2023 and 4.3% in 2024. It is still expected to grow 2.5% this year, despite sweeping Western sanctions. President Vladimir Putin said last week that the country “is still far from a recession,” citing the “historically low unemployment rates.” The governor of Russia’s central bank, Elvira Nabiullina, also recently dismissed the rumors about recession. “The economy is slowing, but there is no recession,” she said at the Moscow Financial Forum last week. The nation’s military have also been steadily advancing on the front lines for months. Moscow’s forces had taken control of 3,500 square kilometers and 149 settlements since March, Chief of the General Staff General Valery Gerasimov reported in late August.

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To me, it feels like he’s hallucinating. But what do I know, right?

• Trump Says Ukraine Can Win Back All Territory Lost to Russia (ZH)

In a dramatic reversal from his previous stance where he urged Zelensky to seek a ceasefire with Putin promptly as recently as a month ago following his summit with Putin in Alaska, on Tuesday afternoon President Donald Trump said that Ukraine should go on the offensive against Russia and reclaim all occupied territories. “After getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation and, after seeing the Economic trouble it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

The president said that, with backing from Europe and NATO and enough time and patience, it is “very much an option” for Ukraine to drive Russian forces out and restore its borders. “Why not? Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win,” Trump wrote. “This is not distinguishing Russia. In fact, it is very much making them look like ‘a paper tiger.’” Trump said Russia’s faltering economy, shortages at home, and growing public discontent could tip the balance further in Ukraine’s favor. He described Ukraine as having “Great Spirit” and growing stronger as the war drags on, while warning that Russian President Vladimir Putin faces “BIG Economic trouble.” “This is the time for Ukraine to act,” Trump wrote, adding that he wishes both countries well, and that the United States would continue to supply weapons to NATO “for NATO to do what they want with them.”

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Oh sure, suddenly Russia flies war planes all over Poland, Romania and Estonia.

• NATO States Can Shoot Down Russian Planes – Trump (RT)

US President Donald Trump has replied affirmatively when asked if NATO states should shoot down Russian aircraft that breach their airspace. The US president was asked the question at a joint press conference alongside Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky on Tuesday. “Yes, I do,” Trump replied. Estonia, a Baltic member of the US-led military bloc, last week claimed that three Russian MIG-31 jets breached its airspace. Moscow has denied the claims, saying that the planes did not deviate from their routine flight path, and arguing that NATO lacked evidence. Tallinn called for urgent consultations with bloc members under NATO Article 4, which allows members to seek talks if they believe their security or territorial integrity is threatened. Bloc members convened in Brussels on Tuesday.

According to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the US-led military bloc decides whether to shoot down planes that violate the bloc’s airspace on a real-time case-by-case basis depending on the threat level. In the alleged Estonian incident, “NATO forces promptly intercepted and escorted the aircraft without escalation as no immediate threat was assessed,” he claimed during a press conference following the meeting. Earlier this month, another NATO member, Poland, accused Russia of sending at least 19 drones into its airspace – a claim Moscow has dismissed as baseless. The only damage from the incident was allegedly caused by a missile fired by a Polish F-16, which struck a residential building, the news outlet Rzeczpospolita reported last week.

The incident in Poland was a fabricated provocation meant to “undermine a political settlement of the Ukraine conflict,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last week. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that the accusations were levied without a shred of evidence. The claims “have never been supported by any reliable data or convincing arguments,” he told journalists on Tuesday.

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“Brussels has reportedly included twelve Chinese and three Indian entities in its 19th sanctions package..”

• Hungary Pledges To Keep Buying Russian Energy (RT)

Hungary will continue importing Russian oil and gas, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said, rejecting pressure from Washington and Brussels for a clean break from Moscow’s energy supplies. Szijjarto made the comments in an interview with The Guardian published on Tuesday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. For landlocked Hungary, he said, the issue of energy security is a matter of physical infrastructure – pipelines, refineries and existing contracts – that limit where it can source energy. “We can’t ensure the safe supply for our country without Russian oil or gas sources,” he said. “It can be nice to dream about buying oil and gas from somewhere else … but we can only buy from where we have infrastructure.”

In recent weeks, Washington has increasingly pushed its European NATO partners to stop purchasing Russian energy – and to introduce secondary tariffs on India and China – while refusing to impose any new sanctions unilaterally. President Donald Trump mocked them in his UNGA address on Tuesday, claiming “some in NATO are funding the war against themselves.” Hungary’s state-owned MOL Group imports about five million tonnes of crude annually via the Druzhba (“Friendship”) pipeline, which also supplies Slovakia. The route has come under direct threat in recent months, with Ukrainian forces striking pumping stations and other facilities along the line, causing temporary disruptions to shipments.

The European Commission has set a goal of phasing out Russian fossil fuels by 2027. Brussels has reportedly included twelve Chinese and three Indian entities in its 19th sanctions package, which must be unanimously approved before being adopted. Brussels has also been weighing separate trade measures that could curtail oil deliveries through Druzhba, even without unanimous consent, effectively allowing other EU members to outvote Budapest and Bratislava, according to Bloomberg. When asked about mounting European pressure, Szijjarto said it was “totally impossible to carry out a fact-based, rational dialogue based on common sense” with Western officials, whom he described as “fanatics.”

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No doubt there. “..each country is unique. But to stay this way, every sovereign nation must have the right to control their own borders and to limit the sheer number of migrants entering their countries,” he said.”

• Western Europe ‘Going To Hell’ – Trump (RT)

US President Donald Trump has warned that open border policies and “suicidal energy ideas” will be “the death of Western Europe,” insisting that something must be done immediately to reverse course. “This cannot be sustained,” Trump told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, calling the crisis of uncontrolled migration “the number one political issue of our time.” Your countries are being ruined,” he said, accusing the UN of funding an “assault on Western countries and their borders,” citing the $372 million spent by the organization in 2024 on supporting an estimated 624,000 people migrating to the US.

He went on to claim that Europe is in “serious trouble” and has been “invaded” by an unprecedented “force of illegal aliens” that is “pouring” into the continent. He criticized European leaders for failing to do anything about it due to political correctness. Trump pointed to London and its “terrible mayor,” Sadiq Khan, claiming that the city has changed beyond recognition and is moving toward Sharia law. “What makes the world so beautiful is that each country is unique. But to stay this way, every sovereign nation must have the right to control their own borders and to limit the sheer number of migrants entering their countries,” he said.

He stressed that while the US remains compassionate to people who have truly struggled in their home countries, it is important to “solve problems in their countries, not create new ones in our countries” by importing people from different cultural and religious backgrounds who break the law and make false asylum claims.“You’re doing it because you want to be nice,” Trump said, addressing his European counterparts. “You want to be politically correct, and you’re destroying your heritage,” he claimed, calling for an end to “the failed experiment of open borders.”

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Looks promising. But what if it takes a unique set of talents?

• Turning Point Campus Tour Continues with Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson etc (CTH)

Turning Point USA has announced speakers to help maintain the TPUSA mission of Charlie Kirk. The schedule is being worked out, but names like Megyn Kelly, Vivek Ramaswamy, Rob Schieder, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck and Michael Knowles will assist. It is awesome to see people stepping into the breach.

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“Charlie Kirk’s Best Friend Debunks the Conspiracy Theories..”

• Who Charlie Kirk Really Was (CTH)

Andrew Kolvet, the Executive Producer of The Charlie Kirk Show was Charlie’s best friend. Following the memorial service he sat down for a lengthy podcast interview with Alex Clark. WATCH:

Reference points:
0:00 intro
1:38 Charlie’s last weeks
3:59 Charlie’s urge for International travels
4:38 His favorite form of exercise
5:50 Sharing the Gospel in Tokyo
6:55 Conservative infighting about Israel

15:22 Prepping Erika for Opportunists
18:04 Andrew’s “out-of-body” experience
20:06 How Charlie treated women
22:14 Andrew calls Charlie a “prophet”
24:05 Erika’s confidence in Charlie’s investigation
26:29 Charlie’s problems with Alex
28:17 Charlie & Erika behind the scenes
31:10 Fox vs. Charlie?
34:16 Charlie was “Mr. MAHA”
36:26 Why did TPUSA Team take down cameras?
38:40 Charlie’s true view of politics
39:22 The future for Charlie’s tours & Charlie’s show
42:34 Andrew’s remedy for healing a sick culture

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“Not political”.

• Is This the Media’s Newest Spin on Charlie Kirk’s Murder? (Margolis)

When it comes to political violence, the left far outpaces anyone else. Naturally, after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the media scrambled to obscure that reality. First, they falsely claimed that Kirk’s killer was a MAGA Republican, and that lie collapsed almost immediately. Then they trotted out bogus studies claiming that political violence is mostly a right-wing problem, only for conservative outlets to expose their deception. So what’s their next move? Now they’re trying to spin Kirk’s murder as “not political.”As PJ Media has previously reported, Tyler Robinson’s own text messages revealed that he killed Kirk because he was “tired of his hatred.” His mother told investigators that Robinson had become increasingly “pro-gay and trans-rights oriented” over the past year, and prosecutors indicate he acted because of Kirk’s stance on transgender issues.

But according to ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, Kirk’s murder “was not a political act.” “Later today, family, friends and supporters of Charlie Kirk will gather in Phoenix for his memorial service,” Karl said. “The 31-year-old activist’s murder shocked the nation and was condemned by sensible and compassionate Americans in and out of politics and across the political spectrum. It was also senselessly celebrated by some, a small minority, who didn’t like what Kirk stood for.” Karl continued: Celebrating or excusing violence is abhorrent. The murder of Charlie Kirk was not a political act. It was gruesome crime. His alleged killer now faces the death penalty. Our thoughts this morning are with the Kirk family, especially his two young children who will now grow up without their father.

Whatever you think of his political views – and there are many people deeply offended by things he said – Charlie Kirk was an unwavering advocate for free speech. On a personal note – he was always willing to engage with me and answer my questions. He welcomed debate with those he disagreed with. He didn’t try to silence his critics. He listened to them and tried to change their minds.”

Notice the sleight of hand? Karl acknowledges that some people celebrated Kirk’s murder because they “didn’t like what Kirk stood for,” then immediately claims that the murder itself wasn’t political. When someone kills you specifically because they disagree with your political views, that constitutes a political action, not a random crime of passion. This is media spin at its best. By this twisted logic, the assassination attempts against President Donald Trump weren’t political either. Perhaps Karl thinks the Capitol riot wasn’t political either. Oh, no, I’m sure that was. It’s only violence against the right that isn’t political. And when the outrage poured in, Karl’s cleanup attempt got even more ridiculous.

Of course, Karl’s claim that a small minority of people celebrated Kirk’s death is a gross attempt at gaslighting. A YouGov poll found that 24% of very liberal Americans agree it’s acceptable to be happy about the death of opposing political figures, compared to just 3% of very conservative Americans. The same poll revealed that 25% of very liberal Americans believe violence can be justified to achieve political goals, while only 3% of very conservative Americans agree.

That’s not a “small minority.” These numbers dismantle the left’s carefully constructed narrative about who really supports political violence in America. Liberal Americans consistently endorse both celebrating political opponents’ deaths and using violence for political purposes, yet the media continues pushing the fiction that conservatives are the real threat.

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“From now on, it’ll be commonplace for GOP candidates to urge supporters to attend church, surrender themselves to Christ, and emulate His example. The two are now permanently intertwined. This is the true legacy of Charlie Kirk..”

• The Evolution of MAGA and The Perils Ahead (Pinsker)

“One day spent with someone you love can change everything.” —Mitch Albom

Charlie Kirk’s memorial service — and what a beautiful, sorrowful, unforgettable service it was — signaled the closing of one chapter and the beginning of a new one. Because, for a solid decade, Charlie’s journey and the Make America Great Again movement were indistinguishable; Charlie’s mission was MAGA’s mission — his path was MAGA’s path. Then, on the fateful day of Sept. 10, Charlie earned a new path. And today, he’s walking hand-in-hand with Jesus Christ; his horrible wounds cleansed, healed, and purified. Charlie’s earthly mission is now complete; his eternal rewards await.= Yet somehow, his widow, his young children — and the MAGA movement he so dearly loved — must endure.

The Democratic Party gave a master class on what NOT to do on Oct. 29, 2002: A week before the midterm elections, Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) died in a tragic plane crash. The Democrats staged a made-for-TV “memorial service” — and I’m using quote marks because it was less a memorial than a nakedly partisan political rally where Republican guests (including Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott) and independent guests (including Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura) were booed, cursed, and heckled until they left in protest. As CNN reported: “[Gov. Jesse] Ventura, who walked out of the service, said Democrats “should hang their head in shame.” […] “I feel used. I feel violated and duped over the fact that that turned into nothing more than a political rally,” [Ventura] said.”

The damage to Democrats was immediate: Ex-V.P. Walter Mondale, the favorite son of Minnesota who was tapped to replace Wellstone, went from the sentimental choice and a slam-dunk winner — buoyed by an eight-point lead over Republican Norm Coleman with just a week left — to losing the election by 2.2%. That won’t happen to the Republican Party. Not when the service’s most viral moment was Erika Kirk declaring her forgiveness of the man who made her a widow: And instead of boos, protests, or howls of indignation, her forgiveness was met with rapturous applause. Erika Kirk’s love and faith overshadowed everything else and everyone else — including the president and vice president. In an evening of indelible images and unforgettable moments, an army of angels sang as she spoke: The earth trembled and the heavens rejoiced.

And the trumpets of troubadours toppled more than the walls of Jericho. Charlie Kirk’s dearly beloved was baptized in a flash of gunfire, transformed from wife to widow to beacon of hope. None of us will ever be the same again. That includes the MAGA movement. As of today, the MAGA movement is now a Christian movement. That doesn’t mean Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists are persona non grata in the Republican Party, but brands and movements evolve over time. Nothing stays the same. MAGA is no different. Since the end of World War II, the Republican Party has been governed by three key constituencies: The so-called Religious Right (pro-life, prayer in school, traditional values), economic conservatives (business leaders and the tax-cut crowd), and military hawks.

After the broken promises, exaggerated claims, and staggering cost of the Iraq War, the military hawks were diminished. They still haven’t recovered. A few years later, the 2008 Too Big to Fail financial crisis sullied the image of economic conservatives. From government bailouts to cries of cronyism, this gave an opening to today’s economic populists. It’s how the party of tax cuts became the party of tariffs. Unlike the other two, the Religious Right wasn’t damaged by a single watershed moment. Even after a few notable TV evangelists humiliated themselves in high-profile scandals, the Religious Right was mostly unfazed: Pat Robertson unapologetically carried their banner in the 1988 Republican primaries, finishing second in Iowa — ahead of George H. W. Bush — and first in Washington state.

In retrospect, that was the high-water mark for the Religious Right movement… until yesterday evening. When Americans yawned in indifference to the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, conservative pundits and political strategists interpreted it as a cue to relegate moral conflicts to the back burner and focus instead on pocketbook issues. This, along with other cultural trendlines — including a 12-point drop among U.S. adults who regularly attend religious services — created an impression that Americans didn’t want to hear about God anymore. That impression was further reinforced when the thrice-married Donald Trump overcame the “grab ‘em by the p***y” Access Hollywood leak, winning the presidency. The Religious Right, they assumed, was dead and buried. Not anymore: We just witnessed its miraculous resurrection.

The MAGA mission is now a faith-based mission (and maybe it always was). From now on, it’ll be commonplace for GOP candidates to urge supporters to attend church, surrender themselves to Christ, and emulate His example. The two are now permanently intertwined. This is the true legacy of Charlie Kirk. Unfortunately, with it comes a new line of attack for GOP grifters. Because, whether we like it or not, grifters are gonna grift. That’s what they do. It’s how they make money. All movements have ‘em, and MAGA, alas, is no exception. Fortunately, they’re easy to spot:

Their success depends on attention, views, and clicks. They’re suddenly obsessed with causes and issues that they’ve never shown a heightened interest in before (cough, Israel, cough). They’ve flip-flopped on key positions over the last 10 years, often trafficking in conspiracy theories. They claim to speak on behalf of Charlie Kirk, putting words in his mouth that he never said. And now that Christianity has ascended, they’ll weaponize their faith to attack “the other.” Even if “the other” is a fellow conservative! No, I’m not gonna name names — because I don’t have to: If you’ve read the list, you already know EXACTLY who they are. Consider yourself warned. Consider all of us warned.

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“..Otherwise, it will just be another long and brutal slog through their radicalized quicksand.”

“All Congressional Democrats want to do is enact Radical Left Policies that nobody voted for — High Taxes, Open Borders, No Consequences for Violent Criminals, Men in Women’s Sports, Taxpayer funded “TRANSGENDER” surgery, and much more.”

• President Trump Calls Out Democrats for Threatening Shutdown (CTH)

The Democrats are threatening to refuse to support a stopgap spending measure to extend federal spending. President Trump is calling them out and refusing to meet with them until they get serious about it. After passing a clean CR in the House, Republicans in the Senate are pushing a “clean” seven-week continuing resolution, which they say will buy time for more negotiations on full-year spending bills and possibly an extension of expiring health insurance subsidies. Democrats, meanwhile, wrote an alternative four-week punt that tacks on a laundry list of other demands, including a permanent extension of the insurance subsidies. Should the government shut down, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought will determine which elements and agencies of the government are considered essential and which will be shuttered until the budget is extended.

President Donald Trump – “After reviewing the details of the unserious and ridiculous demands being made by the Minority Radical Left Democrats in return for their Votes to keep our thriving Country open, I have decided that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive. They are threatening to shut down the Government of the United States unless they can have over $1 Trillion Dollars in new spending to continue free healthcare for Illegal Aliens (A monumental cost!), force Taxpayers to fund Transgender surgery for minors, have dead people on the Medicaid roles, allow Illegal Alien Criminals to steal Billions of Dollars in American Taxpayer Benefits, try to force our Country to again open our Borders to Criminals and to the World, allow men to play in women’s sports, and essentially create Transgender operations for everybody.”

“These Radical Left Views and Policies is what allowed me to win the Presidential Election, including all seven Swing States, and the Popular Vote, IN A HISTORIC LANDSLIDE. There are consequences to losing Elections but based on their letter to me, the Democrats haven’t figured that out yet. They are trying to eliminate the popular $50 Billion Dollar Rural and Vulnerable Hospital Fund, which was passed with only Republican Votes, and proudly signed into Law by ME. The Democrats in Congress seem to have totally lost their way. They obviously have no idea what it means to put America First or to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! All Congressional Democrats want to do is enact Radical Left Policies that nobody voted for — High Taxes, Open Borders, No Consequences for Violent Criminals, Men in Women’s Sports, Taxpayer funded “TRANSGENDER” surgery, and much more. Few people voted for what they represent, which would lead to the destruction of America.

Instead, people voted for COMMON SENSE, and that’s what the Republicans and your President, “DONALD J. TRUMP,” stand for. I look forward to meeting with them if they get serious about the future of our Nation. We must keep the Government open and legislate like true Patriots rather than hold American Citizens hostage, knowing that they want our now thriving Country closed. I’ll be happy to meet with them if they agree to the Principles in this Letter. They must do their job! Otherwise, it will just be another long and brutal slog through their radicalized quicksand. To the Leaders of the Democrat Party, the ball is in your court. I look forward to meeting with you when you become realistic about the things that our Country stands for. DO THE RIGHT THING!”

DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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This is massive big. We’ll hear more about it.

“..a wide-range of telecommunications attacks — including spamming networks with up to 30 million text messages a minute..”

• Secret Service Foils Massive Plot To Cripple NYC Cell Network (NYP)

A massive illegal electronic device network capable of crippling cell towers and jamming 911 calls across New York City was uncovered by the Secret Service — just as world leaders prepared to descend on Manhattan for the UN General Assembly, officials said Tuesday. Investigators discovered the trove of devices — including more than 300 co-located SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards – at multiple locations within 35 miles of the United Nations. “The potential for disruption to our country’s telecommunications posed by this network of devices cannot be overstated,” Secret Service Director Sean Curran said. Officials warned the devices had the capability of carrying out a wide-range of telecommunications attacks — including spamming networks with up to 30 million text messages a minute — that could have had “catastrophic” consequences for the city.

“It can take down cell towers, so then no longer can people communicate, right? …. You can’t text message, you can’t use your cell phone. And if you coupled that with some sort of other event associated with UNGA, you know, use your imagination there, it could be catastrophic to the city,” Matt McCool, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s New York field office, said. “Given the timing, location and proximity and potential for significant disruptions to the New York telecoms system, we moved quickly to disrupt this network.” It wasn’t immediately clear exactly when the cache of hidden devices was seized. The hidden network was found as part of a sweeping Secret Service probe that kicked off in the spring following telecommunications-related threats targeting senior US government officials, according to investigators.

When agents ultimately raided the locations, they uncovered rows of servers and shelves stacked with SIM cards – including more than 100,000 that had already been activated, as well as a large number still waiting to be deployed, McCool said. McCool warned of the havoc the network could have caused if it had been left intact — comparing the potential impact to cellular blackouts that followed the 9/11 terror attacks when networks crippled under the strain. Officials said they haven’t uncovered a direct plot to disrupt the UN General Assembly but noted there was no ongoing threat to the Big Apple. Investigators are still probing who is responsible but believe perps from certain countries used the system to send encrypted messages to organized crime groups, cartels and terrorist organizations.

Forensic analysis is still in its early stages, McCool said. “We need to do forensics on 100,000 cell phones, essentially all the phone calls, all the text messages, anything to do with communications, see where those numbers end up,” he said.

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More attention than Kimmel had in many years.

Now more people can voluntarily not watch. It all looks like one big PR thing.

“Where has all the leadership gone?”

• Jimmy Kimmel Set For Return To ABC (NYP)

Jimmy Kimmel will be back on ABC Tuesday, but the country’s largest owner of its local affiliate stations won’t air his show as he still refuses to apologize for his incendiary, false claim about Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer. The $15 million-per-year ABC late-night host negotiated his return to the airwaves directly with Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger and his No. 2, Disney Entertainment Co-Chair Dana Walden, sources with knowledge of the situation told The Post. Kimmel will address the controversy during his monologue on Tuesday though he will stop short of apologizing, the sources said. The episode, however, won’t be aired on dozens of local ABC stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which announced Monday night that it will instead air news programming in its place.

“Beginning Tuesday night, Sinclair will be preempting Jimmy Kimmel Live! across our ABC affiliate stations and replacing it with news programming. Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return,” the company said in a statement. In response, Turning Point USA posted on X, “Good for @WeAre-Sinclair for blocking Kimmell [sic] from its 31 ABC affiliates. Reminder, Kimmell has yet to apologize for saying the assassin was MAGA, and he was reportedly going to double down. He’s an unrepentant liar, and affiliates have every right to demand accountability.” Sinclair had previously demanded Kimmel apologize to Kirk’s family and pledge a donation to Turning Point USA, the activist group Kirk founded. Nexstar Media Group, the other largest ABC station owner, has not yet said whether it’ll air Kimmel on its stations Tuesday. The Post has sought comment from the company.

Both media conglomerates had successfully pushed ABC to yank him from the airways for the Sept. 15 comments about Kirk’s assassination. In a statement Monday, Disney said it suspended Kimmel last Wednesday “to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” calling some of his comments “ill-timed and thus insensitive.” The suspension followed a monologue in which Kimmel claimed Kirk was killed by other Trump supporters — despite authorities saying the alleged shooter had left-wing views. It remains unclear what Disney and Kimmel agreed to secure his return to air. The company has not disclosed whether the talks involved new contract terms or a donation to Kirk’s organization. Reports have suggested those points were central to discussions, but no final details have been confirmed.

Kimmel’s current contract with ABC runs through May 2026, following a three-year extension signed in 2022. He reportedly earns between $15 and $16 million per year, with total compensation potentially exceeding $20 million with bonuses. The move left Disney squeezed from both sides: conservatives enraged by Kimmel’s remarks and his apparent refusal to apologize, and liberals angered that the company appeared to bow to pressure from FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and pro-Trump voices. Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner ripped the company for pulling “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in the first place. Eisner accused Disney of capitulating to “intimidation” from Washington regulators and demanded to know, “Where has all the leadership gone?”

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“..they have BANISHED all traditional conservative thought and discourse on all of their programs.”

• Bill O’Reilly Shreds Liberals’ ‘Free Speech’ Spin (ZH)

Jimmy Kimmel will finally return to the air on Tuesday night, after his show was briefly yanked for falsely labeling Kirk’s suspected assassin as “one of them” in a distasteful dig at conservatives. Democrats rushed to defend Kimmel, calling it a “First Amendment issue.” But Bill O’Reilly says that story is, frankly, bullsh*t. The real free speech story, he argues, is what these mainstream networks have been doing for years. “Look, this [Trump v. Kimmel] story is bogus,” O’Reilly told Vittert. “The [real] story is that Disney and Kimmel, for three years, would not put on a non-liberal voice on his program.”

“You talk about no freedom of speech and expression? That story has been totally ignored,” O’Reilly lamented. “And it’s not just ABC. It was CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN. Okay? They will not put any non-liberal voice on the air.” O’Reilly recalled how, before the Trump era, he was booked regularly on mainstream networks. Now, he says he and other conservatives have been deliberately excluded from those programs — something he called “Putin stuff.”“This whole freedom of speech BS is coming from the far left to make Kimmel a victim and to make Trump a villain when, for ten years, they have BANISHED all traditional conservative thought and discourse on all of their programs.” “All of them,” O’Reilly continued. “They don’t want non-liberal voices. That is Putin stuff!”

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1970310297689678327

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Mario’s hobby.

• US Officials Say Regime Change in Venezuela Is the Real Goal (Antiwar)

US officials have told The New York Times that the real goal of the US military buildup in the Caribbean, and the bombing of boats in the region, is regime change in Venezuela. The policy is being largely driven by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has long wanted to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power. Back in 2019, when the first Trump administration attempted to back a coup against Maduro, Rubio posted a photo on Twitter of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in the moment he was being brutally murdered in an apparent threat to the Venezuelan leader. The Trump administration claims that Maduro is the leader of a drug cartel, but has not produced any evidence for the charge.

Maduro and other Venezuelan officials have forcefully rejected the accusation and have pointed to data that shows the majority of the cocaine that is produced in Colombia doesn’t go through Venezuela. President Trump has also framed the military campaign in the region as a response to overdose deaths in the US due to fentanyl, but fentanyl isn’t produced in Venezuela, and it does not go through the country on its way to the US. The Times report, which was published over the weekend, reads: “Several current and former military officials, diplomats, and intelligence officers say that while fighting drugs is the pretext for the recent US attacks, the real goal is to drive Mr. Maduro from power, one way or another.”

The US began bombing boats allegedly running drugs in the Caribbean on September 2. According to numbers released by President Trump, at least 17 people have been extrajudicially executed by the US military since the campaign began. US officials have said the Trump administration is considering direct strikes on Venezuelan territory, which could lead to a full-blown war with the country. One US official speaking to Axios last month suggested that the US military buildup in the region could lead to a “Noriega part 2,” referring to the 1989 US invasion of Panama that led to the ouster of Manuel Noriega. Other US officials hope that the pressure and $50 million bounty on Maduro leads to his assassination.

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“With Starship, SpaceX hopes to reduce the cost to orbit by an additional 90-99%.”

• Is Wired Trying to Get Elon Musk Assassinated Next? (Stephen Green)

You might think that the days and weeks after an assassin took the life of the guy who wanted nothing more than to engage with people would be a good time to tone down the “NAZI!” rhetoric against other public figures. Tell that to Wired’s Noah Shachtman, whose latest piece paints Elon Musk as an evil Bond villain “out to rule space” and demands to know “When the orbiting rifles are handed out, how many gun lockers will Elon have the keys to?” I’m trying hard not to sound paranoid here. But when Shachtman tells Wired readers that “you’ve watched Elon Musk stomp and smash and rage his way through politics and policy,” so they “get what’s at stake if he’s given an outsize role in the weaponization of space,” it’s easy to imagine the next Tyler Robinson carving death messages into a few shell casings.

Am I insane? Normally, this is where I’d urge you to go read the whole thing, but Shachtman’s article is behind Wired’s paywall (link here). Apple News seems to have it available to the public (link here). I’m not an Apple News subscriber, but they’re pushing one of those “Three Months Free!” offers at me since I bought a new phone. So maybe that link will work, maybe it won’t — good luck! Here’s more: Musk often lets Starlinks run under the table, sometimes as a way of pressuring governments to license the service legitimately. “But in Iran, they’re just straight-up flouting the rules,” says one knowledgeable observer, “trying to overthrow the government by giving power, giving internet access” to Tehran’s opponents. It wasn’t the first—or last—time Musk used Starlink in ways that seemed to support the Israeli government’s objectives.

Musk also likes and works with President Donald Trump, who is Literally Hitler™, except when Bibi Netanyahu is. “Musk isn’t afraid to use his technologies to advance his politics,” Shachtman warns. “We’ve seen Musk enable [Israel’s] war effort, and we’ve seen him deny that aid when it suited him to do so.” But Musk’s evil ambitions go so much further than just enabling Nazis, foreign and domestic. “This is really the elephant in the room. And Musk just points at Mars like, ‘This is my objective. Don’t look at Starlink,’” Novaspace’s Lucas Pleney told Shachtman. “This is why I’m thinking: Is he really pointing the finger toward Mars and believing in it? Or is he just trying to divert us from the big thing, which is Starlink and how much it will take over?”

Then there’s Golden Dome, which is where Shachtman’s Hitler-meets-Bond-villain theme shines through: “In an unusual twist, SpaceX has proposed setting up its role in Golden Dome as a ‘subscription service’ in which the government would pay for access to the technology rather than own the system outright.” Of course, a subscription is something that can be turned off. Musk would have the kill switch to America’s orbiting weapons system. The man behind “MechaHilter.” The guy who gave the thumbs up to using his satellites as part of a campaign to overthrow a government and appeared to do very little as hundreds of thousands starved. That dude, with an outsize role in the making and maintaining of an arsenal in space—one in which the guns are pointed down at Earth.

Somewhere, a deranged young man reads this and wonders what to carve into a 30-06 shell. While I’m a big supporter of Musk’s politics — and also a happy Starlink customer — Longtime Sharp VodkaPundit Readers™ know that what I’m really crazy about is Musk’s space ambitions. SpaceX, with its reusable Falcon 9 workhorse, has already reduced the cost of putting stuff in Low Earth Orbit by 25-40%, depending on the launch. That’s made things possible (like Starlink, our military’s growing Starshield, and much more) that simply weren’t possible before. With Starship, SpaceX hopes to reduce the cost to orbit by an additional 90-99%. At that price, Musk won’t just make a lot of money for his investors; he’ll open up the Solar System to the human race. There are riches out on the final frontier, starting with metals-rich 16 Psyche, just waiting for the nation able to reach them first.

Exploration? Pure science? Settlement? Whatever your space dream — and even if you don’t have one, because SpaceX is paying its own way to Mars — Musk could prove to be the most impactful human being since Christopher Columbus. It’s no coincidence that Lefties hate Columbus, too. I have one last question. Couldn’t we put politics aside long enough to give humanity its best shot at ending our dependence on a single, fragile planet?”Nah,” says the Left. “Let’s see if we can spur another nutcase like Tyler Robinson into action.”

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galagos

 

 

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Debt Rattle May 22 2025

May 222025
 
 May 22, 2025  Posted by at 9:41 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  43 Responses »


Salvador Dali Cadaques 1923

 

• Trump Moves Toward Moscow’s View On Ukraine Talks (Lukyanov)
• The Politics 0f The Slow Russian Army Movement Westward (Helmer)
• 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Criticizes SCOTUS Over Deportations (JTN)
• Ukraine Wants Putin-Zelensky Meeting – Foreign Minister (RT)
• Ex-Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Shot Dead In Spain (RT)
• EU Agrees €150 Billion Militarization Plan (RT)
• Trump Confronts South African Leader Over ‘White Genocide’ (RT)
• EU Hands Underfire US State Media €5.5 Million (RT)
• 500% Tariffs on Russian Trade to Cause Economic Calamity in US- Sen. Paul (Sp.)
• Israeli Troops Fire ‘Warning Shots’ At Foreign Diplomats (RT)
• Two Israeli Embassy Staff Members Shot Dead Outside Jewish Museum In DC (ZH)
• ‘Golden Dome’ – US’s Unbreakable Shield or $175B Fantasy? (Sp.)
• MAGA Think Tank Staffing Trump 2.0: America First Policy Institute (Wegmann)
• Tracking Iran’s North-South Corridor (Pepe Escobar)
• The Greedy World of James Comey (Scott Pinsker)

 

 

Yottawatts

 

 

Optimus

Armstrong
https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/1925005102596698171

Megyn

Tucker

OMG

 

 

 

 

The one practical thing to do.

• Trump Moves Toward Moscow’s View On Ukraine Talks (Lukyanov)

The recent conversation between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin has clarified the emerging diplomatic structure around Ukraine. What we are witnessing resembles the first reading of a play – the distribution of roles in what may become the next act of the conflict’s evolution. Trump is gradually aligning with Russia’s proposed framework: direct dialogue between Moscow and Kiev, with the United States serving as arbiter and guarantor – primarily to ensure Ukraine’s reliability. Western Europe is excluded from this scenario, viewed not as a neutral party but as a destructive actor in denial about its role in the conflict.

The alarmed reaction from Kiev and EU capitals is understandable. Their preferred model assumes a “collective Ukraine,” made up of Kiev, Brussels, and Washington – presenting a united front against Moscow, coordinating pressure through sanctions, and setting the conditions for talks. Trump has no interest in this script. His rejection of collective pressure appears not only consistent, but increasingly confident. At this stage, the substance of potential negotiations remains secondary. Trump’s priority is the appearance of movement. For him, optics matter more than outcomes – and Putin, understanding the rhythm of the performance, is playing along skillfully.

Excluding Western Europe from the process is not incidental. It serves Moscow’s interests directly. Even Kiev seems to be realizing that the bloc’s role has become largely obstructive – offering no leverage, only rhetorical posturing and attempts to derail any path to dialogue. The key question now is whether this role allocation will hold. If it does, a new diplomatic phase could begin – with Moscow and Washington shaping the conversation, Kiev adjusting to a diminished chorus, and Western Europe quietly relegated to the audience.

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Western press: 1) far more Russian casualties. 2) Russian economy is imploding.

• The Politics 0f The Slow Russian Army Movement Westward (Helmer)

When President Donald Trump negotiated with President Vladimir Putin on Monday, May 19, was he aiming to lower the cost of the Ukraine war to the domestic US economy, or to enrich it by transferring the war cost to the Europeans, particularly Germany, so that most of their planned €150 billion in loans and €650 billion in country budget outlays for the “ReArm Europe Plan” to fight Russia will get spent in the US? Is Trump counting on Putin to give him enough of a battlefield pause or armistice in the Ukraine so that Trump can expand US force deployments and allied military procurement further north along the front from the Baltic Sea to Finland and Greenland; south along the Iranian frontier; and east against China?

The last of these, the eastern front war against China – explained Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday – is now the strategic priority for the US. Implementing it requires sequencing Trump’s wars. “Every minute we spend,” according to Rubio, “every dollar we spend on this conflict in Europe is distracting both our focus and our resources away from a potential for a much more serious and much more cataclysmic confrontation in the Indo-Pacific…they are related but they’re related both ways — they’re related on the one hand by the precedent that it could set, but they’re also related by the fact that every minute that we spend on this conflict that cannot be won by military means, every resource that’s expended into it is money and time that’s not being spent on preventing a much more serious confrontation from a global perspective in the Indo-Pacific.” – Min 53:51.

This is bigger, “much more serious” than MAGA – Make American Great Again. It’s MEGA – Make the Empire Great Again. When Rubio went on to explain what the Putin-Trump telephone call was aimed at doing, he was confident the US is taking advantage of what he called Putin’s political weakness, the vulnerability of the Russian economy, high battlefield casualties, and the slowness of the Russian military advance. “I think [Putin] approaches it — we have to assume – from a cold, calculated cost-benefit nation-state evaluation of what’s in the best interest of his view of Russia. What I’m pretty certain of is this is not the war [Putin] thought he was getting when he first invaded Ukraine. I think he anticipated that the government would collapse and that, uh, he would be greeted as a liberator.

It has not turned out that way, and in fact Russia today controls less territory than they did after the first two months of the war so they’ve suffered significant losses — they’ve suffered the losses of at least you know by some estimates 200,000-250,000 men in uniform and the Ukrainians have suffered less but nonetheless suffered as well. It is a battlefield today in which the front lines move 10 kilometres at a time in one direction or another. Even if [the Russians] are advancing, they’re advancing at a tremendously high cost. But the challenge Russia faces now is their entire economy stirring up. In their regard we want to see the conflict end in a way that’s enduring, meaning not a peace that lasts three months and then restarts again, but something that’s enduring that both sides could live with for a long period of time without it restarting again.” Min 2:46.50.

The idea that Putin cannot and will not challenge MEGA in Europe except slowly and weakly on the Ukrainian battlefield reinforces the American conviction that if Trump gives Putin enough rope now in the Ukraine, he will hang himself later in the face of MEGA strategy on all fronts, especially on Iran and China, as Putin did in Syria. Even current critics of Trump’s negotiating tactics with the Russian president believe that Putin doesn’t want to fight MEGA, but aims to come to terms – business deals — that will undermine Russia’s alliances with Iran, North Korea, and China. Putin, as one of the critics claimed this week, “has clearly avoided winning the war because for him it can be achieved for a much greater purpose, a Great Power settlement, a new Yalta.” Min -43:41.

A NATO veteran responds: “The Chinese are in an ill humour. They will take a dim view of any Russian double-dealing, including facilitation of Trump’s sequencing which we can be sure they are aware of.” Regarding Rubio’s answers to the questions he was asked by senators this week, he adds: “I view that hearing with Rubio as nothing more than a council of war.” In the podcast later today with Nima Alkhorshid and Ray McGovern, we will be discussing the implications for grand strategy on the Russian side, as well as the impact that Putin’s strategy is having on Russian military operations along the front lines.

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“As an inferior court, we’re duty-bound to follow Supreme Court rulings – whether we agree with them or not. We don’t have to like it. But we have to do it..”

• 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Criticizes SCOTUS Over Deportations (JTN)

A 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge is criticizing the Supreme Court for blocking President Trump’s deportations of two allegedly illegal Venezuelan migrants under the Alien Enemies Act. Judge James Ho, a Trump appointee, wrote a concurring opinion Tuesday in which he argued the high court reversed the appeals court’s unanimous decision that ruled the illegal immigrants, “identified as members of Tren de Aragua, a designated foreign terrorist organization, should not be allowed to proceed in this appeal” because of the court’s lack of jurisdiction. “As an inferior court, we’re duty-bound to follow Supreme Court rulings – whether we agree with them or not. We don’t have to like it. But we have to do it,” Ho wrote.

He stated that he has “sincere concerns about how the district judge as well as the President and other officials have been treated in this case.” “I worry that the disrespect they have been shown will not inspire continued respect for the judiciary, without which we cannot long function,” Ho continued. The appeals court judge criticized former Presidents Clinton, Obama, and Biden, arguing Trump should be given the same amount of respect by the courts that they were. “I doubt that any court would deny any of those Presidents the right to express their views in any pending case to which they are a party, before issuing any ruling. Our current President deserves the same respect,” Ho wrote.

The Supreme Court on Friday afternoon blocked Trump from invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport illegal migrants in Texas, throwing a curveball into the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration. The high court sent the case back to a lower appeals court to decide underlying questions in the case, including how much notice those targeted for removal should receive, and whether the move itself was legal.

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Well, you know the conditions.

• Ukraine Wants Putin-Zelensky Meeting – Foreign Minister (RT)

Ukraine is interested in Russian President Vladimir Putin having face-to-face talks with Vladimir Zelensky, according to the country’s foreign minister, Andrey Sibiga. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov pointed out this past weekend that such a meeting is “possible,” but only after the negotiators from Moscow and Kiev reach “certain agreements” regarding the settlement of the Ukraine conflict.Sibiga was asked by Euronews on Tuesday about Kiev’s reaction to Pope Leo XIV’s offer to host the continuation of talks between Russia and Ukraine at the Vatican. The dialogue restarted after a three-year break in Istanbul, Türkiye last week. “I can confirm to you that proposals to organize possible contacts, including at the level of leaders, were made by the Vatican,” he replied.

Kiev is ready to “consider potential venues for such a meeting,” the foreign minister said, referring to the possible Putin-Zelensky talks. The Ukrainian leader would also like to get together with US President Donald Trump, Sibiga added. After Putin offered for the sides to engage in unconditional direct talks in Istanbul on May 15, Zelensky said that he would arrive in Türkiye, but insisted that he would only talk with the Russian president, who never voiced an intention to take part in the meeting personally. Zelensky eventually changed his stance on the issue and the talks taking proceeded with a one-day delay, involving a Russian delegation headed by presidential adviser Vladimir Medinsky and a Ukrainian team led by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov.

According to Medinsky, the Ukrainians have also asked for a meeting between Putin and Zelensky during the negotiations in Istanbul, with their request being “taken into account” by Moscow. Following the phone call between Putin and Trump on Monday, the US president claimed that Moscow and Kiev would immediately begin direct negotiations on introducing a ceasefire. Putin, on his part, said that Russia would work with the Ukrainian side to draft a memorandum on a potential future peace treaty that would outline a “range of provisions,” including the timeline for a potential temporary truce “should the necessary agreements be reached.”

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Azov?!

• Ex-Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Shot Dead In Spain (RT)

Former Ukrainian lawmaker and presidential adviser Andrey Portnov was fatally shot in a suburb of the Spanish capital, Madrid, on Wednesday, local media has reported. The circumstances of the murder suggest it may have been an “extrajudicial execution,” as Portnov may have had access to information that could threaten figures in Vladimir Zelensky’s administration, Rodion Miroshnik, Russia’s ambassador-at-large overseeing a special mission on alleged Ukrainian war crimes, has said. The killing occurred in Pozuelo de Alarcon, according to the newspaper El Pais. Portnov, 51, was reportedly approached by two or three assailants and shot at least five times, including three times in the head, while inspecting the trunk of his Mercedes car, near a private school attended by his children.

Spanish authorities have confirmed a homicide took place in the area but are yet to formally identify the victim.Portnov, a lawyer by training, served in the Ukrainian parliament from 2006 to 2010. He later joined President Viktor Yanukovich’s administration, overseeing judicial reform as deputy chief of staff and helping draft a new criminal code that was adopted in 2012. In 2014, Portnov fled Ukraine following the Western-backed armed coup in Kiev that ousted Yanukovich’s government. Despite going into exile, he remained active in Ukrainian political discourse, frequently appearing on national television. Portnov returned to the country in 2019 to support presidential candidate Vladimir Zelensky. After Zelensky won the election, Portnov filed several legal complaints against outgoing President Pyotr Poroshenko, alleging various offenses committed during his time in office. None of those cases resulted in convictions.

He reportedly left Ukraine again in June 2022. At the time, Ukrainian media described him as being aligned with “pro-Russian media” outlets that had been shut down by the Zelensky administration and he was accused of making disparaging remarks about the nature of the 2014 coup. Portnov has been listed since at least 2015 by Mirotvorets, a controversial semi-official public database that catalogs individuals deemed enemies of Ukraine. Several people listed by the site have been murdered over its decade of operation. Ukrainian intelligence services have previously claimed or implied involvement in a number of targeted killings of individuals labeled as enemies by Kiev. Some of those assassinations have occurred outside Ukraine, including the December 2023 shooting of former Ukrainian lawmaker Ilya Kiva near Moscow.

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“Russian officials have also warned that the EU’s military spending hikes amount to an “incitement of war on the European continent.”

• EU Agrees €150 Billion Militarization Plan (RT)

EU ambassadors have approved a €150 billion ($169 billion) debt program to provide for the bloc’s rapid militarization efforts. The passing of the so-called SAFE (Support for Ammunition, military Financing and European defense) initiative was first announced on Wednesday by the Polish presidency of the EU Council. The agreement will allow EU states to bypass standard voting procedures in the European Parliament to allow members leverage low-interest debt to spend on military equipment including drones, ammunition and air defense systems. Non-EU countries, including the UK and Ukraine will also be able to participate in the program. Some member states have also been considering using the loans to provide additional military assistance to Kiev, Euronews has reported.

At least 65% of the components for any weapon systems must be produced within the EU, Ukraine or the European Economic Area/European Free Trade Association. The other 35% can come from third countries. The new debt plan comes as a number of EU states, such as France, Germany and Belgium, have cut spending on social support programs, citing budget deficits and rising debt. Announcing the passing of SAFE, the Polish presidency account on X stated that it is “first major EU programme to increase investment in European defense capabilities,” adding that it would enter into force after being formally adopted by the EU Council on May 27.

The new debt-for-militarization scheme comes as Western European leaders push for reducing dependence on US weapons and called for increased military spending, justifying it by a supposed threat being posed by Russia. Moscow has repeatedly condemned the EU’s increasing militarization and has dismissed claims that it plans to attack the bloc as “nonsense,” accusing the West of “irresponsibly stoking fears” of a fabricated threat. Russian officials have also warned that the EU’s military spending hikes amount to an “incitement of war on the European continent.” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has also claimed that the bloc “has degraded into an openly militarized entity.”

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“Ramaphosa later described the meeting as having gone “very well..”

• Trump Confronts South African Leader Over ‘White Genocide’ (RT)

President Donald Trump confronted his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa, with a video montage alleging discrimination and violence against white farmers during a meeting at the White House on Wednesday. The meeting, initially intended to focus on trade and bilateral relations, shifted to a discussion about the treatment of the country’s white minority after a journalist asked what would convince Trump that there is “no white genocide in South Africa.” Ramaphosa interjected, emphasizing the need to listen to the voices of US “friends” to get a full perspective on the issue –prompting Trump to respond, “We have thousands of stories talking about it… I could show you a couple of things.”“Turn the lights down, and just put this on,” Trump instructed his staff before playing a five-minute-long video montage. The footage included clips of South African opposition figures making inflammatory remarks, as well as images purportedly showing the graves of white farmers.

https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1925236099317633186?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1925236099317633186%7Ctwgr%5Ebd5868bcbcbba8cb9db0e83a8041e874b6cb50cc%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fafrica%2F617983-trump-ramaphosa-white-house%2F

Trump then presented a stack of printed media articles about South Africa, flipping through the pages and commenting “death, death, death, horrible death.” He claimed the materials evidenced a targeted campaign against white farmers, alleging that people were fleeing South Africa for their own safety.

President Ramaphosa responded by emphasizing that South Africa is a multi-party democracy where individuals can express diverse views, and that the government does not endorse the statements made in the video. He noted that crime in South Africa affects all communities and is not racially targeted. Ramaphosa also clarified that the individuals featured in the video were not part of his administration. “You have hundreds of people, thousands of people trying to come into our country because they feel they’re going to be killed and their land is going to be confiscated. And you do have laws that were passed that give you the right to confiscate land,” Trump claimed.

Tensions between Washington and Pretoria have escalated since Trump returned to office in January. The US administration has accused South Africa of undermining the rights of the white Afrikaner minority through new land policies. Pretoria has defended the measures, stating they are designed to address long-standing racial inequities in land ownership. Trump has pledged to fast-track naturalization for Afrikaners, claiming they are victims of a “genocide.”Ramaphosa has repeatedly rejected those claims, saying during his latest public appearance, “There’s no genocide in South Africa. That is a fact that’s borne out of a lot of evidence.”

Relations soured further in March when Trump ordered a halt to all US federal funding to South Africa and expelled the country’s ambassador from Washington, accusing him of being “anti-American.” The move came after Pretoria filed a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Despite the tense White House exchange, Ramaphosa later described the meeting as having gone “very well,” stressing the importance of dialogue and continued cooperation between the two nations.

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Radio Free Europe.

• EU Hands Underfire US State Media €5.5 Million (RT)

The European Union has pledged €5.5 million in emergency funding to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) to prop up the Cold War-era broadcaster widely regarded as a Western propaganda outlet. Originally created in the 1950s and covertly financed by the CIA to disseminate pro-Western narratives into the Soviet bloc, RFE/RL has more recently operated under the oversight of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM). In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order eliminating most of the agency’s funding as part of a sweeping cost-cutting agenda. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas announced the bloc’s financial lifeline on Tuesday, describing it as “short-term emergency funding” to support what she called a “vital” mission.

The €5.5 million package will act as a “safety net” to help RFE/RL maintain operations in countries within Brussels’s sphere of interest, including Russia, Belarus, Iran, and several Central Asian states. “In a time of growing unfiltered content, independent journalism is more important than ever,” Kallas said following a meeting of EU foreign ministers. She acknowledged that the EU could not fully replace the lost American funding but emphasized the symbolic value of the move, urging individual member states to offer further support. Since Trump’s defunding order, RFE/RL has furloughed staff, suspended programming, and launched legal challenges. Although a Washington judge temporarily halted the administration’s decision in April, a federal appeals court later blocked the release of funds pending further litigation.

The broadcaster has warned that it faces permanent shutdown in multiple regions if its financial crisis is not resolved. The Trump administration framed the defunding as part of a broader campaign to dismantle bureaucratic institutions that no longer align with US strategic interests. RFE/RL’s leadership has disputed that rationale, with its president, Stephen Capus, calling the funding cuts a “massive gift to America’s enemies.” Administration officials and critics have argued that RFE/RL and its sister outlet, Voice of America (VOA), have lost their relevance and veered toward partisan editorializing. Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has publicly called for both outlets to be “shut down,” writing on X: “Nobody listens to them anymore.”

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US Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (recognized as a terrorist in Russia).

• 500% Tariffs on Russian Trade to Cause Economic Calamity in US- Sen. Paul (Sp.)

US Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (recognized as a terrorist in Russia) new Russia sanctions bill that seeks 500% tariffs on the country’s trade partners amounts to an embargo and could trigger an unprecedented economic crisis in the United States itself, Sen. Rand Paul warned on Wednesday. “While tariffs make wars more likely, embargoes make wars difficult to avoid. Senator Lindsey Graham’s* Sanctioning Russia Act calls for 500% tariffs on dozens of countries and essentially amounts to an embargo,” Paul said in an article for Responsible Statecraft. “If this bill were to pass, it would cause an economic calamity on a scale never before seen in our country.” Paul believes that while aimed at Russia, the bill also harms US allies and America itself, reflecting Washington’s failed attempts to impose its will on Russia.

The senator noted that the bill orders the president to impose 500% tariffs on imports from any country trading key energy resources with Russia with the rate doubling every 90 days and potentially reaching 1,000% within months.
Paul pointed out that despite 16,000 sanctions and harsh financial restrictions, the West has failed to change Moscow’s special military operation goals. “This inevitable failure was, of course, easily predictable to anyone who honestly assessed Russia’s motives for launching the war,” he said. “The Kremlin views maintaining influence over Ukraine as necessary to prevent Ukraine’s alignment with the West, particularly preventing its efforts to join NATO, as a core national security interest. Countries will go to great lengths to secure what they deem are core interests, and given the tremendous amount of blood and treasure it has expended, Russia is no different.”

Paul said that many countries, including US allies and the United States itself, still trade with Russia, noting that in 2024, the United States imported $624 million in enriched uranium and plutonium directly from Russia.
“The United States, like many other countries, has also seen Russian crude oil imported from third countries who buy Russian oil and then sell it abroad. Are the proponents of this legislation honestly seeking to require the President to enact a 500 % tariff on ourselves?” he wondered. “What other countries would this bill implicate?” Paul believed that the United States would suffer most from this legislation, both economically and strategically. He explained that the tariffs would disrupt trade, raise consumer prices, weaken the dollar, and strain key alliances amid growing geopolitical tensions.

Paul said that with $36 trillion in debt and rising challenges, Washington should be boosting alliances instead of pushing partners toward rivals like China with harmful legislation. “The bill certainly will not do anything to convince Russia to sue for peace in Ukraine,” Paul concluded. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the policy of containing and weakening Russia is a long-term strategy of the West, and sanctions have dealt a serious blow to the entire global economy. According to him, the main goal of the West is to make the lives of millions of people worse.

Read more …

Guess they’re not going back.

• Israeli Troops Fire ‘Warning Shots’ At Foreign Diplomats (RT)

Israeli soldiers fired shots near a group of foreign diplomats visiting the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, prompting representatives from over 20 countries and accompanying journalists to scramble for cover, according to videos from the scene. The tour, organized by the Palestinian Authority, included delegates from dozens of countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, China, Japan, Mexico, Egypt, and others. No injuries were reported, but video footage showed diplomats fleeing in panic as gunfire erupted around 2pm local time.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed the delegation had deviated from its pre-approved route and entered an unauthorized area, which they described as an “active combat zone.” “According to an initial inquiry, the delegation deviated from the approved route and entered an area where they were not authorized to be. IDF soldiers operating in the area fired warning shots to distance them,” the IDF said, expressing regret for the “inconvenience caused.”

The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry described the shooting as a violation of international law, asserting that the delegation was on an official mission to assess humanitarian conditions amid growing international criticism of Israel’s military operations in Gaza and the West Bank. International leaders swiftly condemned the incident. France and Italy summoned Israeli ambassadors for explanations. Ireland’s deputy prime minister called the event “completely unacceptable,” while Canada demanded a full investigation. European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas also labeled the act of firing near diplomats “unacceptable” and called for accountability.

The Egyptian foreign ministry said the incident “violates all diplomatic norms,” while Türkiye’s foreign ministry “strongly condemned” the firing of warning shots at its diplomats. The Israeli military launched a major operation in the West Bank in January, dubbed ‘Iron Wall,’ with forces taking control of Jenin and installing metal gates at the entrances to the refugee camp. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated at the time that the goal was to “eradicate terrorism” in the area, amid Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant later said that IDF troops would remain in the area indefinitely, declaring that “the Jenin refugee camp will not be what it was.”

Read more …

“US Attorney General Pam Bondi and acting US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro are currently on the scene..”

• Two Israeli Embassy Staff Members Shot Dead Outside Jewish Museum In DC (ZH

Late Wednesday evening there is currently a massive ongoing police response in northwest Washington DC outside the Capital Jewish Museum, after gunfire erupted just outside which killed two staff members of the Israeli Embassy. “Two Israeli Embassy staff were senselessly killed tonight near the Jewish Museum in Washington DC,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem confirmed in a post on X. “We are actively investigating and working to get more information to share.” The shooting occurred across the street from the FBI’s Washington Field Office, which is located very near to the museum, and Israeli embassy officials are working with local law enforcement and the FBI. It has further been confirmed that the Israeli ambassador is safe, and was not involved in the incident, and was not present at the time of the shooting.

Underscoring the seriousness of the killings, which appear to have targeted an event which took place at the Jewish Museum, US Attorney General Pam Bondi and acting US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro are currently on the scene in the aftermath. Ted Deutch, the CEO of the American Jewish Committee, has described that his organization was hosting an event at the museum and has issued an initial statement: “We are devastated that an unspeakable act of violence took place outside the venue.” “At this moment, as we await more information from the police about exactly what transpired, our attention and our hearts are solely with those who were harmed and their families.” Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, has also issued a statement calling it a “depraved act of anti-Semitic terrorism”: Reports say that a suspect may be in custody, but it is unclear as the security situation is fluid amid the ongoing emergency response.

One man and one woman were shot and killed outside of an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, law enforcement sources told ABC News. The suspect in the shooting has been identified as a 30-year-old man from Chicago, Washington, D.C. Police Chief Pam Smith said. “Two staff members of the Israeli embassy were shot this evening at close range while attending a Jewish event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC,” the spokesperson at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Tal Naim Cohen, said in a statement on Wednesday night. –ABC News. There are unconfirmed reports that a gunmen screamed “free Palestine” and opened fire.

Houman David Hemmati, who is connected to the event at the Jewish Museum, writes on X: Chaotic scene tonight inside Washington DC Capitol Jewish Museum where, just outside, 2 people (potentially Israeli diplomatic) who may have been attending an American Jewish Committee Young Diplomats event (one I organized years ago) shot & killed. Tensions have been running high following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration that a new phase of the Gaza War has begun, dubbed ‘Operation Gideon’s Chariots’ – which aims to fully eradicate Hamas and end in a full Israeli military takeover of the Gaza Strip. Is this a return to a horrific summer of love?… amid boiling geopolitical tensions which threaten to erupt in a city near you.

Read more …

“..even 40+ years after the SDI was pitched, the US lacks the technology to build such a system.”

• ‘Golden Dome’ – US’s Unbreakable Shield or $175B Fantasy? (Sp.)

Trump’s $175 billion plan to build a comprehensive ground- and space-based missile shield, while ambitious, may not yield the results the POTUS seems to be hoping for. The system’s name, ‘Golden Dome,’ was likely inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system. The problem is, the Iron Dome is only effective against lone targets or small groups of targets and cannot handle a massed attack, military expert and air defense forces’ historian Yuri Knutov told Sputnik. The Iron Dome is also meant to intercept jury-rigged rockets fired by Palestinian resistance whereas Trump’s Golden Dome is supposed to tackle intercontinental ballistic missiles, points out Igor Korotchenko, military analyst and editor in chief of “National Defense” magazine.

Technology- and composition-wise, Trump’s plan appears similar to Reagan’s failed Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) that proposed using lasers, particle beams and even space-based missiles to intercept ballistic threats. Yet even 40+ years after the SDI was pitched, the US lacks the technology to build such a system, to “reincarnate Reagan’s idea,” as Korotchenko put it. The development of the Golden Dome is further hampered by the fact that while its ground component essentially means upgrading the existing US anti-ballistic weapons such as THAAD, Aegis and Patriot, the missile shield’s space component would have to be built from scratch, Knutov points out. All in all, the Golden Dome is not going to be capable of repelling a mass ICBM launch.

Read more …

Lessons from Trump 1.0.

• MAGA Think Tank Staffing Trump 2.0: America First Policy Institute (Wegmann)

Dubbed a White House-in-waiting during his exile, the America First Policy Institute now seems nearly like another White House campus – almost half of President Trump’s Cabinet is expected to address the AFPI policy summit this week in Washington, D.C. The roster of speakers reflects not just the rising influence of the new think tank but also the stunning reversal in Republican political fortunes. AFPI was born from failure. After the 2020 election, founder and then-CEO Brooke Rollins was looking to salvage the “Trump 2.0” policy portfolio, the detailed plans for a second presidential term that never came, or rather, one that was delayed. Her motivating question at the time: “How do we continue moving forward when we are no longer in the White House?” The answer will be on full display when assorted MAGA dignitaries kick off the summit Tuesday at the Kennedy Center by toasting “the America First Moment.”

After decamping to a nearby Beltway hotel for the next two days, they will celebrate the crowning achievement of the young institute. Over 86% of the 196 federal policies that AFPI drafted and recommended in 2022, while Republicans were still in the wilderness, have been advanced or enacted during the first 100 Days of the Trump administration, RealClearPolitics is first to report. “President Trump has kept his promises. His administration’s speed and clarity in acting on these priorities is not just impressive, it’s historic,” said Greg Sindelar, who took over as interim CEO earlier this year. “The America First Agenda was always rooted in the needs of real people, not the whims of Washington. What we’re seeing now is the natural result of a movement that’s aligned with the public, led by conviction, and governed with urgency.”

Some of the policies now implemented were already standard GOP boilerplate, like border security and economic deregulation, when AFPI made their recommendations. Others directly mirror institute white papers, like the plan to reclassify the employment status of thousands of civil servants, lay off large portions of the federal workforce, and remake the bureaucracy in Trump’s own image. Known as “Schedule F,” the expansion of executive authority was an Institute brainchild. Its mastermind, a policy wonk named James Sherk, went with Trump into the White House. So did many of the AFPI staff, and while some in the beltway will quibble over who originated what policy idea, what is undeniable is that the Trump think tank maxed out the maxim that personnel is policy.

The AFPI people are everywhere in the White House and in key positions across the administration. By their count – and reported here for the first time – no less than 73 institute alumni now work for the president. The most prominent can be found seated next to Trump in the Cabinet Room. Rollins took a hiatus from the think tank to lead the Agriculture Department, while Linda McMahon, who chaired the AFPI board and later co-chaired the second Trump transition, now serves as the head of the Education Department. They are not the only former colleagues around the Cabinet table. Attorney General Pam Bondi led the think tank’s legal arm before taking over the Department of Justice. Veteran Affairs Secretary Doug Collins was previously the chair of the AFPI state chapter in Georgia. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin helmed the institute’s China initiative. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner led the Center for Education Opportunity.

Other Cabinet-level officials who are AFPI alums include CIA Director John Ratcliffe, FBI Director Kash Patel, and National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett. It is a full house. And by design. “When we roll into 2024, we will have policies and we will have the people that are set to go,” predicted Keith Kellogg before the Biden presidency had even reached the halfway point. When they were new in town, the first Trump transition team faced a personnel crisis, the retired Army lieutenant general told RCP, forcing the incoming White House to scramble to find qualified staff. But with AFPI as a talent scout, he said, Trump will not “have the JV team.”

Kellogg now serves as U.S. special envoy to Ukraine. And in this way, by identifying key personnel early and by hammering out policy ahead of time, AFPI built out-of-the-box instructions for the current president. More efficient than the original, Trump 2.0 has been defined by a flood-the-zone strategy. The speed has even awed some former Biden officials. One told Axios recently, “Gosh, I wish I could work for an administration that could move that quickly.” While the administration raided the AFPI bench for talent, the think tank continues to churn out policy from its new headquarters in the offices adjacent to the luxurious Willard Intercontinental Hotel across the street from the White House.

They have already replenished their ranks with 56 new hires this year. It is designed to be a full-stack operation. Kellyanne Conway, who served as senior counselor to the president in the first Trump White House, leads the AFPI polling operation. [ZH: hmmmm] The topline of a poll commissioned ahead of the policy summit: “America First” policies are supported by the public by a 12-point margin (47% to 35%). Those numbers are central to the current and overall argument of the institute. The populism of Trump is more durable than just the current moment, they insist. They believe that it can and ought to serve as an enduring foundation for the next several decades of the GOP. Their ambitions are grand. “The road ahead is clear,” said AFPI spokeswoman Jen Pellegrino. “Build on this foundation and lay the groundwork for an America First century.”

Read more …

Think Pepe gets paid by the people he writes about?

• Tracking Iran’s North-South Corridor (Pepe Escobar)

On the road in Iran – The International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) is one of the most crucial geoeconomic/infrastructure projects of the 21st century. It unites at its core three key BRICS nations – Russia, Iran and India – branching out to the Caucasus and Central Asia. When fully operational, the INSTC will offer a full trade/connectivity corridor sanctions-free, cheaper and faster than the Suez canal to a great deal of Eurasia. The geoeconomic consequences will be staggering. To re-visit Iran in these times of geopolitical trouble, relentless “maximum pressure”, red lines on uranium enrichment and bombing threats could not be more pressing – and enlightening. By an auspicious turn of events, the old school reportage/investigation actually became the plot line of a documentary, produced in Iran, shot by an outstanding crew, and to be broadcast in several parts of Eurasia, including Russia. Here we offer the broad strokes of our travel to the heart of the INSTC.

We started with a series of interviews in Tehran, with Central Asia analysts and most of all Mostafa Agham, the top expert of Behineh Tarabar Azhour, a transportation and logistics firm specialized in Eurasia railway corridors. These analyses offered contrasting points of view on where the INSTC should go next and what are its main challenges. Travel along Iran’s main artery, from Tehran to Bandar Abbas, was a must – as it will conform the trans-Iran north-to-south highway axis of the corridor. That doubles of course as a cultural and spiritual pilgrimage, which in our case featured plenty of auspicious overtones. We arrived at fabled Isfahan past sunset, which allowed us to visit the Masjed-e Shah – or “Royal” – mosque virtually undisturbed. The Royal mosque – one of the highlights of Islamic architecture – sits on the south side of the Naghsh-e square in Isfahan, one of the most extraordinary public squares in the history of art and architecture, rivaling, and arguably surpassing San Marco in Venice.

A visit to the Isfahan bazaar is also inevitable. I was looking for an old friend who sold nomad carpets – in the end, because of slow business, he relocated to Portugal – just to find his sort of heir, young, energetic, who apart from pointing me to a spectacular, rare tribal rug from northeast Iran close to the Afghan border, gave me a crash course on the effects of sanctions and the perpetual demonization of Iran in the West (“Turkey has 40 million tourists; we have two or three”). Isfahan’s neat and extremely organized bazaar offers quality handicrafts to rival Istanbul, but there’s essentially domestic tourism, sprinkled with a few foreigners mostly from Central and South Asia and some from China.

On the way back to Tehran we learned that, being a Tuesday, the revered Haram of Fatima Masumeh, the daughter of the 7th Imam Musa, in Qom was open all night. Nothing prepares the pilgrim for an arrival at nearly two in the morning to an apotheosis of gold and crystals in the heart of Qom, Iran’s second most sacred city after Mashhad. Only a few pilgrims paying their respects, some strolling around the shrine with their families or reading the Quran. A moment of quiet illumination. Afterwards it was time to hit the Caspian, and the port of Bandar Anzali, the proverbial “international bridge” where, in theory, cargo ships from Astrakhan in the Russian Caspian, as well as other Caspian-bordering states will start arriving ern masse via the INSTC. In Bandar Anzali, Iran essentially imports petrochemicals, construction materials, minerals, and iron products and exports grains (soybeans, corn, barley, wheat) and crude oil.

In Tehran, Mostafa Agham, the connectivity expert, had explained in detail that perhaps the multimodal drive of the INSTC across the Caspian may not be the best idea. The Russians prefer to build a railway bordering the western margins of the Caspian; and another possibility is to use a network of already functioning railways from southcentral Russia, across Kazakhstan all the way to Aktau, by the Caspian, and then connecting across Turkmenistan to Tehran. It’s only via a close up on Bandar Anzali that one understands the Russian rationale. One of our cameramen, in delightful broken English, coined an instant hit: “Port no exist”. Translation: the infrastructure has not been upgraded in decades, which brings us to the devastating effects of sanctions, visible in several nodes of Iran. China will have a lot of work to do as part of their 20-year strategic partnership, where energy-for-infrastructure is a central plank.

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“..James Comey is marketing a book. It’s called “FDR Drive,” and the plot “focuses on an extreme right-wing podcaster who spreads conspiracy theories and disinformation and incites his listeners to fatally attack people he targets in his shows.”

• The Greedy World of James Comey (Scott Pinsker)

Like all superheroes, ex-FBI Director James Comey has an origin story: [James Comey] came face-to-face with an armed burglar back when he was 16 years old, when the suspect broke into his house in Bergen County, New Jersey, and threatened Comey and his younger brother. It’s a truly scary story. I’m not making light of it: Comey told [George] Stephanopoulos that he had been upstairs when the suspect broke in and grabbed [his brother] Peter, eventually bringing him up to their parents’ bedroom, which was near his. “As I stepped in, I looked to my right, and there was a guy with a gun and wearing a wool ski hat,” he said, adding that he then momentarily lost his vision, regaining it to find his brother being pinned down. “He jumped on Peter, put his right knee in the middle of his back, and stuck the gun with his left hand into his ear and turned to me and said, ‘You move, kid, and I’ll blow his head off.’ And I didn’t move,” Comey said.

A traumatic event like that would probably scar anyone. Comey admits that it continues to haunt him: The terrifying episode left Comey so shaken that to this day, he told Stephanopoulos, he always “had some weapon at hand nearby,” and the weapon of choice for many years was a butcher’s knife. But instead of dressing like a bat and/or wearing a utility belt, Super Comey chose to fight crime a different way. He became the top dog at the FBI, where he was heralded as “the second coming of J. Edgar Hoover,” a great leader, and an American hero. And there he served… right until President Trump threw Super Comey out on his sanctimonious [cape]. Here’s where the story suddenly changes: Yes, it’s true that superheroes have origin stories. But y’know who else has ‘em? Supervillains.

Some of the wickedest supervillains have the saddest, most tragic origin stories: The evil, murderous Magneto was once a Holocaust survivor whose parents were killed for their Jewishness. Very often, these villains have legitimate grievances: The world wronged them in horrible ways. But the difference between superheroes and supervillains is that a superhero is motivated by tragedy to do good, whereas a supervillain draws a much different life-lesson: They are the only ones who can be trusted with power, and they alone should stand in judgment of others. And this brings us back to James Comey. There’s no need to recap his odd decision in 2016 to “tsk-tsk” Hillary Clinton after catching her red-handed breaking the law yet opting not to charge her.

Or his grandstanding and weaponization of the Russia Hoax against Donald Trump. (Even Democrats have condemned his reliance on obvious Russian misinformation.) No matter. James Comey clearly sees himself in grandiose terms: He’s the hero, and everyone is his way is the villain. It’s why he thought it was fine to break FBI policy and leak anti-Trump memos to the media: Comey knows best. It explains the unbelievable audacity of naming his autobiography, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership.” (Gag.) Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could’ve come up with a more pretentious title.You see it in his description of his enemies: Trump is “like a movie monster.” And whose job is it to slay the movie monster? “Have no fear! Super Comey is here!”

Of course, what ultimately unmasks supervillains — the telltale sign that they’re on the side of evil, not good — is that their childhood grievances are pretexts for greed. Sometimes they’re after power; other times, they’re after money. For Comey, it’s money. Lots of people were wondering what the heck James Comey was thinking when he posted that “86 47” seashell image. Was it a death threat against President Trump? (And which beach is Comey going to, where he keeps finding coded messages in dead mollusks?) I’ve figured out the real answer, folks. And honestly, it’s not that interesting: James Comey is marketing a book. It’s called “FDR Drive,” and the plot “focuses on an extreme right-wing podcaster who spreads conspiracy theories and disinformation and incites his listeners to fatally attack people he targets in his shows.”

This “fictional” right-wing podcaster and/or bad guy is named Sam Buchannan, whose name doesn’t sound anything like Steve Bannon. Anyway, you’ll never guess who the hero is. Right. And in another one of those strange coincidences that seem to follow Comey wherever he goes, the book just happens to be released one week after Comey “had no idea” his “86 47” post might attract so much gosh-darn attention. To quote our good friend Ilhan Omar, when it comes to Comey, “it’s all about the Benjamins, baby.” Super Comey is no superhero. He’s just greedy.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

WHO
https://twitter.com/JimFergusonUK/status/1925083134967873724
https://twitter.com/Lewis_Brackpool/status/1924911695450776003

Norm

Scott&Rogan 1996
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1925159279503261888

Canta
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1925090436512645201

Leopard

Elephant

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle April 29 2025

Apr 292025
 
 April 29, 2025  Posted by at 9:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  41 Responses »


Piet Mondriaan Trees by the Gein at Moonrise 1908

 

• Stop the Digital Control Grid – Catherine Austin Fitts (USAW)
• David Sacks Warns DOGE Will All Be For Nothing, Unless… (ZH)
• Russians ‘Are Not Our Enemy’ – Trump Adviser David Sacks (RT)
• Ukraine Won’t Win – J.D. Vance (RT)
• Ukraine Eyes Teens And Women As Cannon Fodder (RT)
• Forget Land – This Is Russia’s Main Demand From The West (Lukyanov)
• Putin Announces 72-hour Victory Day Ceasefire (RT)
• Ukraine Issues Ceasefire Demand To Russia (RT)
• Ukraine Shows No Sign It Is Ready To Talk – Kremlin (RT)
• Canadians Should Expect Disaster With Carney In Charge (ZH)
• Federal District Courts Piling on Injunctions to Stop Trump (Turley)
• Now You Know (James Howard Kunstler)
• America Funded China’s Rise (Morrison)
• Liberals Loathe Arrival of ‘MAGA Media’ Inside the White House (DS)
• Make America Healthy Again Movement Extends Beyond RFK Jr (ET)
• A HUGE Win for the Make America Healthy Again Movement (Margolis)
• Robots Will Outperform Human Surgeons In Five Years – Musk (RT)

 

 

 

 

Don’t miss

Homan

Bessent
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1916879751240630535

Zel

19

 

 

 

 

She lost me a few years ago when she was endlessly talking about HUD. But this is good.

Two video’s. She was on Tucker Carlson too.

“Stop with the control grid, and we can do this. . . . If we can face it, God can fix it all.”

• Stop the Digital Control Grid – Catherine Austin Fitts (USAW)

Catherine Austin Fitts (CAF), publisher of “The Solari Report,” is back to update us about the “Fast-Approaching Digital Control Grid.” (CAF) told us last time here on USAW, “There is no bigger ongoing battle for lovers of freedom than the battle taking place over the freedom killing idea of digital ID.” But it’s more that just ID, it’s an entire control grid that is being quietly built that is like a frog being put into pot and the water being brought to a boil. CAF explains, “You know our goal at Solari is each person has a free and inspired life. So, we have been working for several years to stop financial transaction control. If you get the ability to track each person and control their transactions, so if they don’t do what you say, they can turn off your money.

That is game over for the Constitution and for human liberty. If you look at how the control grid is coming together, there are many different pieces. There is digital ID, all digital currency or transaction system to a social credit system to the management to certain kinds of data and back-up energy. There are many different pieces. We look at the pieces, and we look at them as one-off things such as, oh, I don’t mind having a ‘Real ID’ because I can see why they might want a federal ID, or a passport or whatever. Each one of these things looks nonthreatening and even convenient, but when they snap together, they are in a control grid, and it’s completely something else. When Trump was elected, I was shocked to see, almost immediately, the President announce the Stargate AI initiative with the mRNA vaccines, which to me is the internet of bodies.”

CAF put together a long list of Trump Administration actions that are speeding up what looks like a control grid. It’s called “The Fast-Approaching Digital Control Grid.” It lists things such as crypto friendly currency actions, private Central Bank Digital Currency, shrinking banking sector, DOGE, undisclosed Epstein files and many more red flag items that could be used to allow crime to continue and build a digital prison for “We the People.” While the Trump Administration brings change at a record pace, not a single thing has been done to find out about the “$21 Trillion Missing Money” that has been well documented by CAF and Michigan State Professor Dr. Mark Skidmore. The money has been stolen from America, and the silence about this is deafening.

CAF says, “We know there has been tremendous fraud in the financials of the US government. We know that has happened. If you look at all the things that you or I would do to figure out what had happened, where the money went and how do we get it back, that’s not what they are doing. . . . If you look at how we would do a successful operation to reengineer government and identify the real fraud and stop it, I don’t see any indication that they are doing that. I do see some selected efforts that are probably sincere. . . . They are shutting things down lots of us would like to see shut down. . . . We know how to stop the death and disabilities that come from the Covid 19 vax injection, but you go the CDC website, and they are still recommending the Covid injections.”

The massive crime going on with government accounting makes it necessary for the control grid. CAF explains, “What happened in the last Trump Administration is they adopted FASAB 56. FASAB 56 basically said they could take the books of the US government dark. A secret group of people, by a secret process, could remove operations from the financial statement, and they don’t have to tell people what they removed. So, we have no idea what is in the financials. . . . This includes the big banks and contractors who do business with the government. So, looking at the US stock market and bond market, I have no idea what is true or not. . . . We are flying blind.”

CAF still likes gold for an investment. She is also very bullish on silver as it takes about 100 ounces of silver to buy a single ounce of gold. The gold/silver ratio is at record spreads. CAF says, “At some point, the gold/silver ratio will revert to something more sensible.” In closing, CAF says, “Everyone tell your Senator and Congressman and President Trump on X or Truth Social stop the control grid. Stop with the control grid, and we can do this. . . . If we can face it, God can fix it all.”

Tucker CAF

Read more …

Time for Congress to step up.

• David Sacks Warns DOGE Will All Be For Nothing, Unless… (ZH)

AI & Crypto Czar David Sacks warns that Elon Musk’s efforts to expose waste and abuse at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may be futile unless Congress significantly reduces federal spending. “What we really need is for Congress to now embrace all of the corruption that Elon has found and eliminate it from the budget, because at the end of the day, in order to capture the savings here, we do need those appropriations eliminated from the budget,” Sacks said on the All-In podcast. Sacks warned that the real danger isn’t Musk backing down, but Congress slipping back into its entrenched pattern of reckless spending. “These old bulls in Congress who control the appropriations process—are they going to basically backslide and just put the spending back in because it’s easier to engage in this logrolling, or do we take advantage of this?” he asked.

Sacks emphasized the immense personal cost Musk has borne to reveal systemic corruption, citing the widespread protests targeting Tesla properties. “This has cost him enormously. One of the reasons why Tesla is down is because you’ve had crazy leftists engaging in terrorism, firebombing Tesla dealerships,” the Trump official said. “We’ve basically learned that this whole NGO thing is a giant scam where the people in government give enormous amounts of money to their friends, probably with the expectation that when they leave government, they’re going to be next in line at the trough.” Since Musk took the helm at DOGE, Tesla has been under siege from a wave of protests and brazen acts of vandalism across the U.S. and beyond, with far-left activists resorting to arson, gunfire, and defacing dealerships, vehicles, and charging stations with hateful graffiti.

The so-called “Tesla Takedown” movement has orchestrated demonstrations at hundreds of Tesla locations, pushing an anti-DOGE agenda to tank Musk’s company by calling for mass sell-offs of Tesla stock and boycotts of the brand. Sacks then stressed that while Musk has laid bare the government’s dysfunction, without decisive action from Congress to slash spending, his efforts risk being squandered. “Elon’s done an enormous service exposing this. But it’s not entirely up to him. In order for us to realize the benefit, we need Congress now to act on that. I’m afraid that’s not going to happen,” he warned.

In March, President Donald Trump threw his support behind a rescission package to implement major spending cuts spearheaded by DOGE. “It would be great. I think we’re going to do that,” Trump told reporters. According to a memo from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) obtained by the New York Post, the administration is pushing two proposals to slash $9.3 billion. “The first includes a rescission of $8.3 billion in wasteful foreign aid spending (out of $22 billion) that does not expire in Fiscal Year (FY) 2025. The second is a separate rescission of all Federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) — which funds the politically biased public radio and public television system,” the Post said.

Read more …

“Russians are not our enemy. We shouldn’t be helping to kill them..”

• Russians ‘Are Not Our Enemy’ – Trump Adviser David Sacks (RT)

The White House crypto csar has rejected the notion that Ukraine is aiding the United States against its enemies by fighting Russia. Kiev has consistently asserted that it is “defending” Western nations from Russia. Vladimir Zelensky reiterated the point in a recent interview with conservative journalist Ben Shapiro, where he urged the US to act as an arms supplier rather than a diplomatic mediator and stating that Ukrainians “are fighting against your enemies, the Russians.” “Russians are not our enemy. We shouldn’t be helping to kill them,” countered David Sacks, a venture entrepreneur and White House advisor on crypto and artificial intelligence, who responded on social media on Sunday to a clip from the interview.

Sacks has long criticized US support for Kiev, characterizing it as an attempt to transform the Ukraine conflict into a “forever war.” Zelensky has argued that modern Russia shares the same agenda as the former USSR and considers the US its “main enemy.” He accused Moscow of collaborating with Tehran and Pyongyang to undermine American interests. Conversely, he stated that Kiev views the US as a “strategic partner” and “friend.” However, he cautioned that any attempts to pressure Ukrainians could “turn them around very quickly.”

US President Donald Trump has claimed that Zelensky has undermined his efforts to negotiate a peace deal between Kiev and Moscow by publicly dismissing his proposals. In their latest meeting, held on the sidelines of Pope Francis’ funeral last Saturday, the Ukrainian leader requested more weapons, the US president told the media, adding that “he has been saying that for three years.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told CBS last week that Moscow is interested in a relationship with the US which is based on “an equal, mutually respectful dialogue heading to finding a balance of interest.” With that approach, “everything is possible,” he added.

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“You could have millions of more people killed if this thing goes on for another few years, and it could risk escalating into a nuclear war. It has to stop…”

• Ukraine Won’t Win – J.D. Vance (RT)

Ukraine is not poised to win the conflict with Russia, US Vice President J.D. Vance has said. He added that it was naive to expect Russia’s collapse if the fighting continues for several more years. “If this doesn’t stop, the Ukrainians aren’t winning the war,” Vance said during an interview on conservative organizer Charlie Kirk’s podcast on Monday. “I think there’s this weird idea among the mainstream media that if this thing goes on for just another few years, the Russians will collapse, the Ukrainians will take their territory back, and everything will go back to the way that it was before the war. That is not the reality that we live in,” the vice president said.

“You could have millions of more people killed if this thing goes on for another few years, and it could risk escalating into a nuclear war. It has to stop,” Vance added. He also said that, despite the challenges of dealing with both sides, American negotiators were “making progress.” “Sometimes you’re incredibly frustrated with Ukrainians. Sometimes you’re incredibly frustrated with the Russians,” Vance said. “And sometimes you just want to throw your hands up, but that’s what President Trump doesn’t let us do.”

Vance’s remarks came as Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russian troops would observe a three-day ceasefire starting on May 8, marking the celebrations of victory in World War II. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky responded by accusing Moscow of “manipulation” and called for an immediate 30-day ceasefire. According to Russia, Ukraine violated both the 30-day ‘energy truce’ brokered by the US last month and the 30-hour Easter truce, despite having promised to respect both arrangements. Putin has argued that, for a comprehensive ceasefire to succeed, Ukraine must halt its mobilization campaign and the West must stop delivering weapons to Kiev.

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This is what it’s come to. This is what we support. Since at least 2014. Trump can say it’s Obama/Biden’s war, but he’s not exactly fully innocent. Repair it now.

• Ukraine Eyes Teens And Women As Cannon Fodder (RT)

As Ukraine’s manpower crisis deepens, Kiev is resorting to increasingly desperate measures to fill the thinning ranks of its army. With conscription drives failing and volunteer numbers dwindling, authorities are now preparing to force ever-broader sections of the population – including women and barely adult men – into the front lines. Despite brutal mobilization efforts, Ukraine’s Armed Forces (AFU) remain critically understaffed. Even aggressive recruitment campaigns and tightening draft laws have failed to produce the needed surge in enlistments. Now the government is moving toward slashing the minimum conscription age from 25 to just 18 – sending teenagers straight into a bloody and grinding conflict. At the same time, serious discussions are underway about mobilizing women en masse, a step that would mark a historic escalation in Kiev’s attempts to prolong the war.

Interest in military service is declining sharply, especially among the youth. In mid-April, Pavel Palisa, deputy head of Vladimir Zelensky’s office, revealed that fewer than 500 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 24 had enlisted – and currently, those under 25 are not subject to mandatory mobilization. Two months earlier, Ukraine had launched a new initiative offering 18 to 24-year-olds the option of contract service. Rolled out on February 11, this program offered recruits a contract bonus of one million hryvnias (around $24,000), monthly salaries up to 120,000 hryvnias, and other perks in a desperate bid to bolster AFU numbers. Since then, other military branches – including the navy, airborne forces, National Guard, and border troops – have opened their ranks to young contractors. Yet even with financial incentives on the table, recruitment remains sluggish.

Palisa admitted that the current conscription system is outdated and hinders mobilization efforts. He stressed that Ukraine has “a huge mobilization resource” but that the system in place prevents it from being effectively tapped. “In my opinion, we have more people available than we need for specific tasks at the front. The mechanism simply isn’t efficient,” he said, calling for sweeping reforms in recruitment and organization. However, as Vladimir Zharikhin, deputy director of the Institute of CIS Countries, pointed out in a conversation with RT, such optimistic estimates are little more than wishful thinking. In reality, Ukraine’s main mobilization base has long since fled the country. Official figures show over six million Ukrainian refugees registered across the European Union and more than two million in Russia. But according to Zharikhin, the true numbers are likely even higher.

“Roughly eight million have gone to Europe, about three million to Russia – that’s close to a quarter of Ukraine’s prewar population,” he explained. “In other words, Kiev isn’t drafting from the 50-plus million people who lived in Ukraine around the time of the Soviet collapse. It’s choosing from the 20-odd million who remain today. That’s why we’re seeing serious discussions about mobilizing yesterday’s schoolboys, women, and anyone else they can find.” Speaking about the dismal turnout among 18 to 25-year-olds, Palisa said that while many initially expressed interest, very few ultimately signed contracts. “People agreed in principle, but when it came to signing, they backed out,” he said. “Sometimes it was their parents’ influence; sometimes they believed peace was just around the corner. There are a lot of reasons.”

Former Ukrainian MP Vladimir Oleinik told RT that aggressive recruitment campaigns painted an overly rosy picture, falsely suggesting that enlistees would quickly become millionaires. Reality, however, tells a different story. Recruits receive 200,000 hryvnias, upfront, another 300,000 after completing training, and the remaining 500,000 only after their contracts end. “Parents would often take their sons to cemeteries, showing them the flags on soldiers’ graves,” Oleinik said. “Under these contracts, recruits must serve at least six months on the front lines – and everyone knows what the survival rate is.”

Nuland

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Military security. Leave us alone.

• Forget Land – This Is Russia’s Main Demand From The West (Lukyanov)

Everyone is expecting news on a Ukrainian settlement this week. The diplomatic activity is real and intense, and the visible signs suggest something significant is underway. There is little point in trying to guess which of the leaked plans are genuine and which are misinformation. What is clear is that Russia is being offered a choice between “a bird in the hand and two in the bush.” The trouble is, the elements necessary for any sustainable agreement are still scattered among the various birds. Currently, discussions naturally revolve around territory. This is a sensitive subject, particularly since the territories under consideration are already under Russian control. The bird’s wings are clipped, however: legal recognition of Russia’s sovereignty over these lands seems unrealistic, at least in the near term. De facto recognition, with a pledge not to attempt to return them by force, could be the achievable result. In today’s global atmosphere, it is naive to view any legal agreement as genuinely final.

Yet territory was not the true cause of this conflict. The deeper issue was decades of unresolved security contradictions. ‘Demilitarization’ – so prominently featured in Russia’s original demands – encompasses both Ukraine’s neutral status and the broader limitation of its military capabilities, whether through curtailing domestic production, cutting off external supplies, or reducing existing forces. This demand is far from cosmetic. Fulfillment would overturn the international order that has reigned since the end of the Cold War – an order based on NATO’s unchecked expansion across Europe and Eurasia, without regard for Moscow’s objections. The military campaign thus became a way of exercising a “veto” that the West had long denied Russia. True demilitarization of Ukraine would, in effect, force international recognition of that veto. But many in the West remain unwilling to accept such a precedent.

As discussions have moved toward territorial issues, the central problem of military security seems to have been relegated to the background. Perhaps US President DonaldTrump’s administration – more skeptical of NATO itself – views it as less fundamental. Or perhaps it simply finds it easier to force Ukraine to cede territory than to make Western Europe recognize Russia’s security rights. Nevertheless, for Moscow, military security remains a matter of principle. Even if Washington offers major concessions – lifting sanctions, formalizing territorial changes – Russia cannot abandon this core demand. This creates a divergence in diplomatic tempo. Washington wants a quick deal; the Kremlin believes that haste will not produce a reliable settlement. Yet Moscow also knows that the political stars – especially in Washington – have aligned in a uniquely favorable way, and it does not want to miss the moment.

The outcome will be known soon enough. However, some important lessons from history should be remembered. First, achieving political goals often takes more than one campaign. A pause in fighting is not necessarily a resolution.Second, there is no such thing as an open-ended, unchangeable agreement. If a deal does not truly satisfy all parties, it will eventually collapse. The struggle will resume – though not necessarily through military means.Third, Ukraine is only one piece of a much larger process of global transformation in which Russia intends to play a central role. These changes are already underway, and will continue to deepen. Reaching some degree of understanding with the United States is important. Interestingly, the NATO issue might resolve itself over time, not because of Russian pressure but due to the alliance’s own growing irrelevance. But for now, that remains a matter for the future. In the immediate term, Russia faces a choice between the imperfect birds on offer – and must weigh carefully which to catch and which to let fly.

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Maybe the West should recognize what Victory Day means to Russia. Instead of erasing 26 million dead from history.

• Putin Announces 72-hour Victory Day Ceasefire (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared a ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict for three days in honor of the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. The truce will last from May 8 to May 10th, the Kremlin has said. Putin is said to have announced the ceasefire based on “humanitarian considerations” and has ordered the suspension of all military action against Ukraine’s forces from midnight on May 7-8 to midnight on May 10-11. The Kremlin noted that Moscow expects the Ukrainian side to abide by the truce and warned that if Kiev’s forces violate it, the Russian military will give an “adequate and effective response.” “The Russian side once again declares its readiness for peace talks without preconditions, aimed at eliminating the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis, and for constructive interaction with international partners,” the Kremlin’s message concluded.

Putin previously declared a truce for Easter that started at 6pm on April 19 and lasted throughout April 20. The Russian Defense Ministry later said that while the Ukrainian side had violated the ceasefire several thousand times, the general level of military activity had significantly decreased across the front line. During a meeting with US special envoy Steve Witkoff last week, the Russian president also reaffirmed that Moscow is ready to hold unconditional peace talks with Kiev. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has reportedly promised not to walk away from the Ukraine peace process. He had previously warned that Washington could abandon its efforts to mediate if it did not see progress in negotiations.

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The western press claims Russia violated its own last ceasefire. The Russian press does not. “Oh, that’s just propaganda!” Really? Which one?

• Ukraine Issues Ceasefire Demand To Russia (RT)

Ukraine has criticized Russia’s announcement of a three-day ceasefire in May timed to coincide with the celebration of the 80th anniversary of victory over Nazism. Earlier on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a 72-hour ceasefire which will last from midnight on May 7-8 to midnight on May 10-11. It follows a similar unilateral pause during the Easter weekend. “If Russia truly wants peace, it must cease fire immediately,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga responded on X. He claimed that the Russian move was not “real” but rather “just for a parade.” “Ukraine is ready to support a lasting, durable, and full ceasefire. And this is what we are constantly proposing, for at least 30 days,” he added. The Russian military previously observed a 30-day moratorium on strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which US President Donald Trump had proposed to Putin. According to Moscow, Kiev did not reciprocate despite publicly claiming support for the initiative.

The Easter ceasefire announced by Moscow was only partially successful, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, which said there was a decrease in the intensity of Ukrainian attacks but not a full lull. When Putin ordered the measure, he instructed Russian forces only to engage Ukrainian troops in retaliation. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has claimed that Russia’s failure to meet his demand for an unconditional 30-day truce proves that it does not want peace. Putin has pointed out that Kiev could use such a pause for rearmament and reinforcement rather than to engage in serious negotiations. Earlier on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that direct talks between Moscow and Kiev currently remain impossible due to a legal ban on such engagements issued by Zelensky in 2022.

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By their law, Zelensky still can’t talk to Putin.

• Ukraine Shows No Sign It Is Ready To Talk – Kremlin (RT)

Ukraine is failing to take the necessary steps to initiate direct negotiations with Russia, while Moscow remains ready to engage at any time, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. Vladimir Zelensky prohibited direct bilateral talks in October 2022 for as long as Russian President Vladimir Putin remains in office, asserting that the moratorium was necessary to “stop separatism” purportedly stemming from backchannel communications with Moscow not controlled by his administration. ”At the very least, Kiev needs to act, given its judicial ban” on talks, Peskov reminded journalists during a briefing on Monday.

Putin has repeatedly stated that Russia is prepared to commence negotiations with Ukraine “without any preconditions, aiming to pave the way for peace,” the official added. Indirect contacts between Kiev and Moscow have continued on some issues, such as prisoner exchanges and the repatriation of fallen soldiers. US President Donald Trump has criticized Zelensky for undermining his mediation efforts by publicly opposing ideas, reportedly included in a Washington-proposed peace plan. The two leaders had a face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of Pope Francis’ funeral in the Vatican on Saturday.

“He told me that he needs more weapons, but he has been saying that for three years,” Trump said, recounting the engagement. “I want them to stop shooting, sit down and sign a deal.” While Moscow has questioned Zelensky’s legitimacy since the conclusion of his presidential term last year, it does not view his removal from power as a goal in the conflict. However, Russia has concerns that “if an agreement were signed with Zelensky today, people could come forward later in Ukraine and legally challenge,” Peskov told the French media last week. Zelensky claims presidential powers, citing martial law that he first imposed in 2022.

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Mere weeks ago, the liberals polled just 10-20%. Then Canadian politics and media hit on Trump. Carney is a WEF globalist., worse than Trudy.

• Canadians Should Expect Disaster With Carney In Charge (ZH)

Justin Trudeau’s far-left regime in Canada has finally come to an end as the politician exits leadership in disgrace. His legacy includes authoritarian governance during the pandemic, whereby he threw Christian church goers and pastors in prison for refusing to stop congregations. He called for mass forced vaccinations, and he locked the bank accounts of protesters speaking out against the covid mandates. His admin compared people donating to the cause to “terrorists”. His socialist economic policies helped to exacerbate Canada’s inflation crisis and his open immigration policies greatly expanded the the flood of third-world foreigners, driving up housing prices, crushing the labor market and straining social services. By most accounts, the majority of Canadians were ecstatic to see Trudeau exit the stage. But what if they still haven’t learned their lesson? How is that even possible?

According to recent polls for the 2025 election set for April 28th, it is likely that Canadians have very short memories or they’re gluttons for punishment. Why? Because Mark Carney and the Liberal Party are projected to make considerable gains. Carney has rebranded himself as a “centrist” in order to win public favor, but nothing could be further from the truth. Mark Carney is, in fact, worse than Trudeau on every level. What should Canadians expect under a Carney regime? More mass immigration, not less. Higher inflation and a suffocating housing market. Increasing political and economic tensions with the US, which Canada is dependent on for 75% of its export market (and there is no replacement). Policies pressuring Canadians into a cashless system. The detrimental institution of carbon controls and climate change rules for industry and energy. And, even less national sovereignty as Canada is made more beholden to the EU.

Lets start with immigration… While Carney claims he wants caps on immigration, his advisor choices suggest Canadians will get more of the same. The central banker has tapped Mark Wiseman, co-founder of the Century Initiative lobby group as part of his policy council. The Century Initiative under the former BlackRock executive publicly endorsed the Trudeau government’s moves to take in 500,000 new immigrants per year by 2025. It should be noted that as Canada increased immigration their economy suffered exponential decline. Between 2015 and 2024, Canada’s ranking in the Human Development Index plummeted from 9th to 18th, while the country fell behind Italy in the average growth of real GDP per capita. Canada’s housing market and social services are essentially broken. And how about individual freedom?

It’s no secret that the Liberal Party widely supported the lockdowns and mandatory vaccinations. However, where did Carney stand on the issue? Carney acted as an “informal adviser” to Trudeau throughout the covid event and supported the mandates wholeheartedly. In an opinion article for The Globe And Mail titled ‘It’s Time To End The Sedition In Ottawa By Enforcing The Law And Following The Money’, Carney wrote in reference to the Trucker Protests against the mandates: “No one should have any doubt…This is sedition. That’s a word I never thought I’d use in Canada. It means incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority.” “The constant blaring of horns at all hours, the harassment of people, the culture of fear have been making residents’ lives hell, will bankrupt our businesses and if left unchecked would help achieve the Convoy’s goal of undermining our democracy…Anyone sending money to the Convoy should be in no doubt: you are funding sedition. Foreign funders of an insurrection interfered in our domestic affairs.”

These are the words of an authoritarian, using “democracy” as a cover to institute a sweeping crackdown on public freedoms. Where does Carney stand on the economy? Mark Carney is a long time Davo elitist, and as such he is an adherent of Klaus Schwab’s “4th Industrial Revolution” theory and the concept of the “Great Reset”. Specifically, Carney is an avid champion of the WEF’s climate change agenda and their efforts to make “climate consciousness” inseparable from business culture. Meaning, Carney will undoubtedly bury Canada in climate controls and carbon taxes, snuffing out their industry and energy base just as the globalists have been doing in Europe. Furthermore, Carney is deeply involved in the push for national and global Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).

In his 2021 book ‘Values”, Carney calls for revolutionary centralization of the global monetary system and the launch of CBDCs as the new standard. He has actively campaigned against cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and any form of decentralized money, claiming instead that the future requires a global digital currency to replace the dollar system (NOTE: Carney did not come up with this idea, this has been a ongoing plan within the BIS and IMF for decades). “If properly designed, a CBDC could serve all the functions to which private cryptocurrencies and stablecoins aspire while addressing the fundamental legal and governance issues that will, in time, undermine those alternatives…” At bottom, Carney is calling for a cashless society controlled by the banking oligarchy. Without cash or an independent form of trade, all personal economic freedom dies. Carney licks his chops over this prospect when he states (in reference to the covid crisis):

“With fear on the march, people were willing to surrender to Hobbes’ ‘Leviathan’ such basic rights as the freedom to leave their homes. And so it is with money. People will support the delegation to independent central banks of the tough decisions that are necessary to maintain the value of money provided the authorities deliver monetary and financial stability…” This is not the man Canadians should be voting for if they have any interest in changing the current Orwellian path their country is on. Critics claim that it’s Donald Trump’s tariffs that are to blame for the shift in the polls in Carney’s favor. Yet, if Carney is elected he would be the most disastrous choice in negotiating a settlement with the US. The situation will only become more ugly for Canada in every way. This is not a “new boss, same as the old boss” scenario. Carney is far higher up on the totem pole of degradation than Trudeau and much more devious.

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Turley no longer states that the system is working so great.

• Federal District Courts Piling on Injunctions to Stop Trump (Turley)

“Here we are again.” Those words of Senior U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick may be the only uncontested line in his opinion this week, enjoining the Trump Administration from withholding federal funds to “sanctuary jurisdictions.” In President Trump’s first term, efforts to implement sweeping changes on immigration and other issues were met by a slew of injunctions. In 2017, one of those orders was from Judge Orrick, an Obama appointee in San Francisco. Trump has already faced a record number of national injunctions by district courts. His administration has objected to forum- and judge-shopping by political opponents by bringing the majority of such challenges in overwhelmingly Democratic states like California. Such injunctions did not exist at the founding, and only relatively recently became the rage among district court judges.

Under President George W. Bush, there were only six such injunctions, which increased to 12 under Obama. Both Democratic and Republican presidents have complained about district judges tying down presidents like so many judicial Lilliputians. However, when Trump came to office, the taste for national injunctions became a full-fledged addiction. Trump faced 64 such orders in his first term. When Biden and the Democrats returned to office, it fell back to 14. That was not due to more modest measures. Biden did precisely what Trump did in seeking to negate virtually all of his predecessors’ orders and then seek sweeping new legal reforms. He was repeatedly found to have violated the Constitution, but there was no torrent of preliminary injunctions at the start of his term. Now, however, with less than 100 days in office, Trump 2.0 has already surpassed that number for the entirety of Biden’s term.

The Supreme Court bears some of the blame for this. Although a majority of justices, including liberal Justice Elena Kagan, have complained about district courts’ issuance of national injunctions, the high court has done little to rein in district court judges. On May 15, the justices are poised to consider the issue in a case involving birthright citizenship. Many hope that the justices will bring what they have consistently failed to supply to lower courts: clarity and finality. Some judges have already seen their stays lifted by appellate courts. However, in just one day this week, three more major injunctions were issued on sanctuary cities, voter registration, and deportations. Some of these orders appear premature and overbroad. Take Judge Orrick’s order. Again, Trump is targeting cities offering sanctuary to unlawful immigrants as imposing high costs on the country, including increasing burdens for federal programs and grants to these cities.

Orrick previously stopped that effort in the first Trump term, and he was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. However, the orders are not identical, and so far no action has been taken against these cities. Under one of the orders, titled “Protecting the American People against Invasion,” Trump has ordered the attorney general and the secretary of Homeland Security to “evaluate and undertake any lawful actions to ensure that so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions, which seek to interfere with the lawful exercise of Federal law enforcement operations, do not receive access to Federal funds.” Orrick noted that the term “sanctuary jurisdiction” was not defined and dismissed the express reservation that such actions can only proceed to the extent that they are allowed under law.

The irony is that the opinion itself is overly broad and imprecise. There are indeed cases limiting the ability of the federal government to “commandeer” states and cities into carrying out federal functions. However, there are also cases upholding the right to withhold federal funds that contravene federal laws and policies. The operative language in the order is the focus on sanctuary policies that “interfere” or prevent federal enforcement. There must be some accommodation for the federal government in refusing to pay for the rope that it will hang by.

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“Being mean or telling the truth is indistinguishable to far too many people.” —Mike Thompson on X

• Now You Know (James Howard Kunstler)

Woke liberalism is exactly what Christopher Lasch predicted in The Revolt of the Elites, published in 1995 the year after his early death at 61. Lasch saw how the juvenile idealism of Boomer hippiedom would slide into the narcissistic, sado-masochistic degeneracy of open borders, drag queen story hours, Covid-19 despotism, DEI racism, showbiz Satanism, censorship, forever wars, and now, the legal insurrection of lawfare. In doing so, Lasch also predicted the “mass formation psychosis” described by Belgian psychologist Mattias Desmet, spawned by a crisis of meaning and purpose in the thinking classes of Western Civ. And now you know exactly how come a place like Boston, with its concentration of “elites” in universities, computer tech, and medical research displays a batshit-crazy dedication to ideas bent on destroying our political culture: the American republic.

The word republic derives from the Latin, res publica: the public thing, the idea of a state dedicated to the common good. By “state” you can infer both a group of people in a certain place, but also the set of conditions they dwell in. You can’t have a common good without a common culture, which means a general agreement among citizens on values in that certain place — which is our country, the USA. You can’t overstate the importance of shared ideas and values in that enterprise of being a nation, we-the-people in our particular place. The juvenile idealism of Boomer hippiedom wrecked the crucial idea of a common culture, and I will tell you exactly how that happened. Two crusades: first, the civil rights campaign, and second, stopping the War in Vietnam, defined the era.

The first of these climaxed in twin landmark legislative acts designed to abolish Jim Crow racism: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination in public places, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibited unfair obstacles to voting. The idealism in that moment of history was extreme. The dominant old-school Liberal ethos displayed a sense of triumph. Its cardinal belief in human progress was validated in the new law-of-the-land. We were supposedly entering a utopia of racial harmony. It proved to be a huge disappointment, a failure. In some fundamental ways, black and white America could not agree on certain values, especially language and behavior. These matters were so hypersensitive that discussing them became taboo, and when someone dared to — such as the rogue journalist Tom Wolfe in his book Radical Chic, which made fun of the cultural elites trying to socialize with the Black Panthers — he was buried in the most extreme censorious opprobrium by the elite good-thinkers of politics, academia, and the cultural media. They couldn’t believe old Tom dove clear through the Overton Window the way he did, head first.

In fact, a big segment of black America after 1965 became much more overtly separatist and oppositional, while white America became more frantically confounded and depressed by it. The result was the elite’s solution to that quandary: multiculturalism! Which basically meant: we don’t need a common culture in the USA. (We don’t need an agreement about values, language, and behavior.) Each group in America can have its own menu of these things. This accomplished two ends: it allowed criminal behavior to explode; and it allowed the elites to excuse themselves from any serious further attempts to manage the res publica. The people of the ghettos were free to do their thing; while the elites turned their full attention to Boomer careerism and Gordon Gecko style financial moneygrubbing.

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“..If we use the low estimate and do not adjust for inflation, the value of stolen technology would be at least $5.4 trillion.”

• America Funded China’s Rise (Morrison)

The free trade brigade obsesses over economic minutiae—they cry that tariffs will raise the cost of plastic spatulas by 50 cents! What a disaster! Who cares? The reality is that trade with China is not in America’s interests because it funds our greatest rival. Here’s how America funded China’s rise, and why tariffs will help keep America safe and free. A Dragon Fed: How America Funded China’s Rise. Economists say freer trade benefits everyone—even trade with China. America gets cheap goods and China gets money. Win-win. Even if we assume America benefits, which is a false assumption as proven in my book Reshore, China has clearly benefited more. For example, China’s economy has grown by an average of 8.12% since joining the World Trade Organization in 2001—about four times greater than America’s. China and America benefited asymmetrically from trade.

Asymmetry may not be a problem economically, but it is a problem politically. Why? Power is zero-sum. The stronger China grows, the weaker America becomes relative to China. As such, trade with China is also a political issue. The question we should be asking ourselves is whether cheap goods are worth surrendering America’s political dominance. To be clear, trade is not the only way that America has funded China’s rise. There are three primary ways that America enriches and empowers China: investment, trade, and theft. First, America invested directly in China by building factories—offshoring 60,000 factories does not come cheap. The total value of American investment in China is unknown. According to China’s Ministry of Commerce, cumulative foreign direct investment (“FDI”) totalled $2.7 trillion in 2023. Just 2.1% of this investment was categorized as American.

The reason that this amount is so low is because American investment is usually routed through intermediaries, mostly Hong Kong, Singapore, and the British Virgin Islands. This is why Hong Kong—a city smaller than Shanghai—owns 68% of FDI in China. Not coincidentally, Hong Kong is a major recipient of FDI from the U.S. and from the British Virgin Islands—a tiny banking archipelago that is itself capitalized by the U.S. and the City of London. Because of this shell game, we cannot know the actual amount American companies have invested in China, but if we assume that FDI correlates with the relative size of China’s trade surpluses, then America’s investments total $972 billion. This estimate is probably low. Why? China runs trade surpluses with countries that clearly contributed no investment, such as most countries in Africa and the Middle East. Given the level of economic integration, I would hazard an estimate that most FDI ultimately originated in America or the City of London, funneled through their banking havens.

Second, America indirectly funded China’s rise through the trade deficit, buying more Chinese goods than we sold. The cumulative trade deficit with China since 2001 is roughly $6 trillion, after accounting for inflation. Not only were the Chinese able to spend these profits, but they were also able to borrow against the revenue, greatly multiplying their access to capital. Third, China has stolen an almost unquantifiable amount of American technology. In 2017, the Office of the United States Trade Representative estimated that China steals intellectual property worth between $225 and $600 billion per year, more than the value of the annual trade deficit. If we use the low estimate and do not adjust for inflation, the value of stolen technology would be at least $5.4 trillion.

Interestingly, the above numbers actually undervalue the quantity of this theft. Why? Because most of the technological and IP outflows are not stolen in a traditional sense. For example, the main vector of technological transfer is via Chinese companies using their profits from the trade deficit to buy shares in American companies, at which point they own the technology. Currently, foreigners own 17% of American equities, and the number is growing. The other vector is through Sino-American corporate partnerships. Basically, American companies that build factories in China are forced to partner with a local Chinese company, a corporate clone. The plant is staffed by Chinese workers, who are taught America’s industrial processes and how to replicate American technology.

Providing China access to American technology is actually the price to enter China’s market—American companies cannot operate in China without giving up their technological and industrial secrets. Yet they do it anyways because the Chinese make it worth their while. In my view, the value of America’s stolen technology was priceless. Remember, mainland China’s economy was largely preindustrial—about as productive and technologically advanced as the Thirteen Colonies during the American Revolution. Now, China has reached technological parity with the U.S. Theft allowed China to skip 200 years of technological and economic development. America funded China’s rise. This has not only impoverished America, but it has also ended America’s superpower era. We now live in a multipolar world, bought and paid for by America’s corrupt politicians and Wall Street.

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“..the divide between the MAGA-friendly media and their more mainstream counterparts.” The extreme hatred of Trump is “more mainstream.”

• Liberals Loathe Arrival of ‘MAGA Media’ Inside the White House (DS)

The New York Times recently published a hissy fit about the White House allowing reporters into the Briefing Room who didn’t vote for Kamala Harris. Here was the amazing protest sentence: “Longtime White House reporters say the result has been an erosion of their independence.” The presence of a reporter who didn’t vote Democrat doesn’t “erode” the anti-Trump animus (“independence”) of liberal activist journalists. It might balance it, suggesting journalism and liberalism are not exactly the same thing. This spurred a trend. Politico’s Ian Ward profiled these invaders under the headline “Meet the 8 MAGA Outlets Disrupting the White House Briefing Room.” It carried the usual labeling about “the divide between the MAGA-friendly media and their more mainstream counterparts.” The extreme hatred of Trump is “more mainstream.”

Then came CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, who loves to wade into MAGA crowds, trying to find the dumbest-sounding Trump supporter he can find. In this case, he went looking for the dumbest-sounding White House reporter. The headline over the video was “‘Do you consider yourself a journalist?’ CNN meets MAGA media at White House.” O’Sullivan showed clips of these pro-Trump reporters admitting their bias, and he proclaimed, “These are White House correspondents like you’ve never seen before.” Really? He spotlighted Cara Castronuova of Lindell TV asking if they’ll release Trump’s fitness routine, since he “actually looks healthier than ever before.” In 2009, a Washington Post reporter touted Barack Obama’s “chiseled pectorals.” Then O’Sullivan replayed Real America’s Voice reporter Brian Glenn asking Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “Why don’t you wear a suit?” He suggested to Glenn he was “trolling,” but it’s a question lots of Americans would ask.

Natalie Winters from Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast said, “If it were up to me, I’d kick a lot of these outlets out.” In other words, she has the same opinion as CNN, only reversed. O’Sullivan asked Winters, “Do you consider yourself a journalist?” He said many say, “You don’t deserve to be here because you’re not a real journalist.” She attacked the pro-Joe Biden media: “I’m pretty sure the people in there spent four years covering for someone who was essentially dead, and that’s being charitable. … You guys failed, and that’s why we’re here.” CNN exemplified the point last year when anchor Dana Bash was deeply troubled over bumbling-Biden videos. They were “amplified on conservative media that in some cases are just not right and in other cases are highly, highly misleading of President Biden.”

O’Sullivan lectured about the “new media” people: “A lot of them are more cheerleading President Trump than challenging him.” He ended by quoting White House Correspondents’ Association leader Eugene Daniels: The public “needs news produced by experienced, professional journalists who ask tough questions and produce fair coverage.” Under Biden, Daniels wasn’t known for asking “tough questions.” At the 2024 Kamala cuddlefest before the National Association of Black Journalists, Daniels began by gently asking if the American people were better off after four years. Daniels went on shows such as “Washington Week” on PBS and denied Kamala was ever “border czar” and insisted she was a victim: “We’ve already seen a lot of racism and sexism, and that’s going to be a huge part of this campaign.”

Then there’s CNN itself. One of the most memorable tongue-bath questions came in 2009, when then-New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny asked Obama what “enchanted” him about being president. Then-CNN anchor John Roberts praised the softball and Obama’s “thoughtful” answer. Zeleny was later hired by CNN. Reporters asking softballs at the White House is nothing new. It’s OK when the “mainstream” does it for Democrats.

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It’s nice that people start growing their own food. But the real big impact is in the supermarkets. The artificial dyes are just the start.

• Make America Healthy Again Movement Extends Beyond RFK Jr (ET)

For avid supporters, the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement itself is not new. It began long before Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign and subsequent confirmation as health secretary. “The principles of the MAHA movement were once a way of life all over the country decades ago,” Samantha Rayburn, a 40-year-old mother of two teenage sons, told The Epoch Times. “It’s encouraging to see more people adopting those beliefs and understanding that God gave us what we need to feed our bodies and heal our bodies. With how sick and unhealthy we are as a society, this return to the basics is needed.” Rayburn developed an interest in foraging for herbs and plants when she was a little girl and was inspired to make her first tincture when her oldest son caught whooping cough when he was 2. She describes the MAHA movement as “a return to the basics.”

“It’s getting back to when we knew what was in our food because we grew it and got what we didn’t have from local farmers,” said Rayburn, who lives in southern Ohio. “RFK Jr. and MAHA have made what many of us believe in more mainstream. People are now contacting me and wanting to learn more about herbs. I don’t seem so crazy anymore.” She was referring to her business, Hadassah’s Herbs for Health and Healing. When Kennedy delivered a speech in August 2024 announcing that he was suspending his campaign and backing then-former President Donald Trump, he said that Trump was giving him the opportunity to help make America healthy again. What followed was a social media frenzy with “Make America Healthy Again” and “MAHA” hashtags. MAHA the acronym was born. Samantha Rayburn has treated her sons, Holden and Wyatt, with herbal remedies since they were infants and believes in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again platform.

She now heads the Victory Garden Alliance, which encourages people, communities, and organizations to grow their own food. “There is a revival in growing our own food, supporting local farms, and knowing what’s in our food. Bobby and the MAHA movement have catapulted that interest,” Capriotti told The Epoch Times. “We need this. Our kids need this. It’s important they understand how food is grown and where it comes from. That will inspire healthier new generations because they will become smarter consumers.” She calls what is happening with the MAHA movement a “health revolution.” She is working to educate elected officials and political candidates. “Many of us who worked on the presidential campaign didn’t stop our objectives when it ended. That’s an example of how MAHA is a movement not tied to one person,” Capriotti said.

As health secretary, Kennedy has a mandate to fight chronic disease, improve children’s health, and address corporate influence on government agencies. He has pledged to remove toxic chemicals from the nation’s food supply, increase transparency, improve vaccine safety, and make significant changes to the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—operating divisions within Health and Human Services. These plans, along with encouraging Americans to grow their own food and buy meat and produce from farmers who do not use pesticides and toxins, are among the initiatives of the MAHA movement.

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PepsiCo cares only about the bottom line.

• A HUGE Win for the Make America Healthy Again Movement (Margolis)

Score one for the Make America Healthy Again movement. After Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called for a crackdown on artificial ingredients, PepsiCo wasted no time getting the message. On an April 24 conference call, PepsiCo Chairman and CEO Ramon Laguarta announced that the company has already begun reducing artificial ingredients across its products. “We’ve been leading the transformation of the industry now for a long time on sodium reduction, sugar reduction, and better fats,” Laguarta said. Now, under pressure from a public fed up with chemicals in their food, PepsiCo is finally moving faster toward cleaning up its act — a clear sign that the Make America Healthy Again movement is already having a powerful impact. “Sixty percent-plus of our (portfolio) today doesn’t have any artificial colors,” Laguarta added, indicating that the company is “undergoing that transition.”

Fox News Digital has more. “Laguarta cited examples such as Lay’s and Tostitos, which “will be out of artificial colors by the end of this year.” He added, “So, we’re well underway.” RFK Jr. and Dr. Martin Makary, U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner, announced a ban on petroleum-based synthetic dyes from America’s food supply last Tuesday. As the HHS noted in its news release, among the steps to be taken are “establishing a national standard and timeline for the food industry to transition from petrochemical-based dyes to natural alternatives.” “Initiating the process to revoke authorization for two synthetic food colorings — Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B — within the coming months; and working with industry to eliminate six remaining synthetic dyes — FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red No. 40, FD&C Yellow No. 5, FD&C Yellow No. 6, FD&C Blue No. 1, and FD&C Blue No. 2 — from the food supply by the end of next year.”

Certified nutritionist and Make America Healthy Again supporter Liana Werner-Gray celebrated PepsiCo’s move as a major step forward. “This is a huge win for public health and long overdue,” she told Fox News Digital. Werner-Gray, author of “The Earth Diet,” explained her philosophy as “all about going back to nature and eating foods from nature, eating real nutrition, eating foods that God provides us with naturally.” She also shared that she has long avoided artificial dyes, saying, “I’ve personally eliminated artificial dyes like Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1 and others from my diet over 16 years ago when I started The Earth Diet, living a natural lifestyle.” She added, “Once I removed these dyes and switched to natural, whole-food-based alternatives, those symptoms [frequent major mood swings, anxiety, skin breakouts, and energy crashes] went away, too.”

Werner-Gray believes the manipulation of food has gone unchecked for far too long, and it’s finally time for a course correction. “This move by the FDA under Secretary Kennedy and Commissioner Makary’s leadership is a pivotal step toward restoring integrity in our food system,” she told Fox News Digital. “It’s time we raise the standard. Clean, natural and nourishing food should be the norm, not a luxury.” During the April 24 conference call, PepsiCo’s CEO emphasized that the company’s chips, puffs, and other snacks are still considered safe to consume and reaffirmed that PepsiCo stands by the existing science, according to reports. Still, there’s no denying the impact President Trump is already having in his second term. With leaders like RFK Jr. at the helm, the Make America Healthy Again movement isn’t just a slogan; it’s delivering real results and forcing even major corporations to change course.

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“.. in just a “few years,” robots will surpass “good human surgeons” and will beat the best doctors within about five years..”

“..the required speed and precision is “impossible for a human to achieve.”

• Robots Will Outperform Human Surgeons In Five Years – Musk (RT)

Robots will soon replace human surgeons and are already capable of carrying out operations that are considered impossible for ordinary people to perform, Elon Musk has predicted. In a post on X on Saturday, the billionaire tech entrepreneur suggested that in just a “few years,” robots will surpass “good human surgeons” and will beat the best doctors within about five years. He noted that his Neuralink biotech company has already had to rely on robot surgeons to carry out the brain-computer electrode insertion of brain chips because the required speed and precision is “impossible for a human to achieve.” Musk’s comments came in response to a post by popular X influencer Mario Nawfal, who quoted an article about the rising success of robot surgeons such as the Medtronic ‘Hugo’.

It is reported that the robot has already been tested in 137 real surgeries such as fixing prostates, kidneys, and bladders. “The results were better than doctors expected,” Nawfal said, noting that the complication rates were 3.7% for prostate surgeries, 1.9% for kidney operations, and 17.9% for bladder procedures. “The robots got a 98.5% success rate, way above the 85% goal,” the post claimed, adding that out of the 137 surgeries, only two needed to be taken back over by real doctors due to a glitch and because of a “tricky patient case.” Previously, Musk suggested that brain-computer interfaces like those being developed by Neuralink would replace technologies such as cell phones.

Neuralink has already successfully implanted its brain chip – about the size of a coin – in three patients. After the procedure, they were able to control a computer cursor and play video games like chess and Counter-Strike using only their thoughts. One of the patients, who is non-verbal, was also able to use the device to communicate through an AI-generated voice clone. Musk has since announced plans to expand Neuralink’s clinical trials with the goal of implanting the brain chip in 20 to 30 more patients in 2025.

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Dim sun
https://twitter.com/BGatesIsaPyscho/status/1916602036361056379

Baby

Eyes
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1916830062021648669
https://twitter.com/amzingnature1/status/1916669281288311066

Imagine

Gong
https://twitter.com/XPHOENIXDRAGON/status/1916504825019130021

13 years ago

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle November 19 2024

Nov 192024
 
 November 19, 2024  Posted by at 9:40 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  82 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn A woman bathing in a stream (Hendrickje) 1654

 

• Biden Wants To Take World With Him – Russian State Duma Chair (RT)
• Trump’s Security Chief Nominee Blasts Biden’s Ukraine Missile ‘Escalation’ (RT)
• Has Biden Just Destroyed the World? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Biden Walks Off Into Jungle (RT)
• ‘Freezing’ Ukraine Conflict Unacceptable – Kremlin (RT)
• The Great Trump Exhale (QTR)
• Gabbard Could Help Change US Foreign Policy (John Kiriakou)
• Ramaswamy Says Some Government Agencies Will Be ‘Deleted Outright’ (ET)
• Trump Expands Search For Treasury Secretary (ZH)
• CNN Mole People Can’t Deal With MAGA Posse At UFC (MN)
• Beyond Consequence (James Howard Kunstler)
• WSJ Issues Scathing Indictment Of How Democrats Blew It On Inflation (ZH)
• Mad at the Election? Blame Obama (AmG)
• Germany Has Become Europe’s Political Wasteland (Bordachev)
• Gardening Against Evil Days (Helmer)

 

 

 

 

Trump

Gaetz

Vivek

Tucker
https://twitter.com/i/status/1858320988867350576

Speaker

Skripal
https://twitter.com/i/status/1858271372020990012

60 min

 

 

 

 

“..it appears that the elderly Biden, nearing the end of his life, is “dreaming of eternity” and wants to “pull America under with him, and maybe the entire world as well.”

• Biden Wants To Take World With Him – Russian State Duma Chair (RT)

The outgoing President Joe Biden is taking the US and the rest of the world down with him by escalating the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, the chairman of the Russian State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, stated on Monday. Biden has reportedly removed US restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles, according to a New York Times report on Sunday, which described the move as “a significant escalation” that might “provoke a direct response from Moscow.” The White House has made no official statements on the matter. Volodin said it appears that the elderly Biden, nearing the end of his life, is “dreaming of eternity” and wants to “pull America under with him, and maybe the entire world as well.”

“If this happens, Russia will be forced to respond. The manner of the response will be up to the Ministry of Defense, but there will be one,” he said, adding that this might even include the use of “new weapons systems” that Russia has not previously deployed on Ukrainian territory. As for the Western weapons in question, they have already been used against Russia, Volodin noted. Their expanded use might cause some additional damage, but “it will not change the situation on the battlefield.” “It will only worsen the fate and future of Ukraine. And it will finally destroy Russian-American relations,” Volodin predicted. While Washington has made no official policy announcements, a number of European NATO members and public figures across the West hailed the Times report. Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky said on Monday that long-range strikes against Russia were part of his “victory plan” and that “missiles will speak” very soon.

The US and its allies have put in some restrictions on the use of the weapons they supplied to Kiev since 2022, in order to maintain plausible deniability of their involvement in the conflict with Russia. Ukraine has demanded the removal of these limitations since this spring. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in September that any use of Western weapons to strike deep inside Russia would “significantly change the nature of the conflict.” He noted that Ukraine does not have the capability to use such weapons itself, and would require foreign personnel to create targeting and firing solutions. This, Putin said, would mean that “NATO countries are directly involved in the military conflict” with Russia.

Putin

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“..It was not a matter of the US “giving permission” to Ukraine, but crossing the threshold of direct involvement, Putin told reporters in September..”

• Trump’s Security Chief Nominee Blasts Biden’s Ukraine Missile ‘Escalation’ (RT)

Allowing Kiev to use US-supplied long-range weapons against Russia will only escalate the conflict that President-elect Donald Trump is trying to end, the incoming White House national security adviser, Mike Waltz, has said. The New York Times reported on Sunday that US President Joe Biden had given Ukraine permission to use ATACMS missiles against Russian territory. Washington has neither confirmed nor denied the anonymously sourced claim. Waltz, a former Green Beret and Florida congressman tapped by Trump to serve as his top aide, told Fox News on Monday that he was not briefed on the move by the outgoing administration, as he normally would be by tradition. “It’s another step up the escalation ladder,” Waltz told Fox host Brian Kilmeade.

“And nobody knows where this is going. North Korea is unleashing ballistic missiles, artillery, now tens of thousands of soldiers. “The administration responds by lifting this restriction. North Korea sends more soldiers. South Korea is now saying it may get engaged…” Ukraine has accused the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea of sending weapons and thousands of troops to aid Russia. Washington has accepted this claim at face value. “So this is a development, but it’s a tactical one,” Waltz added. “President Trump is talking grand strategy here. How do we get both sides to the table to end this war? What’s the framework for a deal, and who’s sitting at that table?” Trump is putting together an “all-star team” that will consider the broader strategic issues and the ways to “we drive this war to an end,” Waltz said.

The Republican president-elect campaigned on ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict, saying he would try to do so even before his January 20 inauguration. Many of his prominent backers have denounced Sunday’s rumored move by the outgoing President Joe Biden as an attempt to make any peace deal more difficult. Under Biden, the US has provided over $64 billion worth of weapons, ammunition and equipment to Ukraine to support Vladimir Zelensky’s war effort against Russia. Washington placed certain restrictions on the use of such weapons, and Zelensky has spent months demanding the lifting of the limitations, as part of his “victory plan.”

Moscow has repeatedly warned the US and its allies that any such move would amount to their open involvement in the hostilities. Russian President Vladimir Putin has pointed out that Kiev lacks the capability to use long-range missiles without NATO satellites and military personnel to develop targeting and firing solutions. It was not a matter of the US “giving permission” to Ukraine, but crossing the threshold of direct involvement, Putin told reporters in September. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova acknowledged on Monday that reports of Biden’s decision were still unconfirmed, but added that if Kiev actually used US missiles in such a way, Moscow’s response would be “adequate and tangible.”

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“Trump cannot lose the war in Ukraine unless he can present peace as an accomplishment.”

• Has Biden Just Destroyed the World? (Paul Craig Roberts)

To make it impossible for Trump to enter office with good relations with Russia, in addition to “Russiagate,” as Gilbert Doctorow reminds us, the corrupt Obama regime unlawfully seized Russian consular properties in San Francisco, and I think elsewhere, in order to bring Trump into office with poisoned relations with Moscow. This time in November, 2024, the totally corrupt Biden Regime, has blocked any peaceful settlement negotiated by Trump of the Russian/Ukrainian conflict by reversing Biden’s decision and giving go ahead for the US/NATO to launch missiles from Ukrainian territory into Russia. The senile idiot, manipulated by his warmonger advisors, has possibly started WWIII. Recently in an interview with Russian television I expressed my opinion that such a trap was desired by the neoconservatives for Trump, but that I thought the Pentagon would block the approval.

There are so many reports that the Biden regime has given a green light to NATO launching missiles from Ukraine into Russia that the information must be correct. We hear it from Russian state television “news of the week.” We hear it from The Washington Post. We hear it from AP News. And so on. Here we have a classic example of how an outgoing administration can commit an incoming one and thereby forestall its electoral agenda. It is now happening before our eyes, although the whore American media will do everything possible to hide the truth. The question is: What will Putin do now if the red line that Putin says is the fatal one is actually crossed and Western missiles begin hitting targets inside Russia? Will it prove to be, like all other red lines Putin has declared, not to be real?

In light of Putin’s non-confrontational behavior, if the missile attacks begin prior to Trump’s inauguration, possibly Putin will wait and see what Trump does to reverse the decision before Putin releases death and destruction on the Western World. The crazed neoconservatives and Deep State have pressured Biden into a decision that places the entire world in a situation where destruction of all life possibly awaits. Why did a single American vote for such a cruel, inhuman, morally vacant, anti-American political Democrat party that is willing to risk life on earth for Washington’s hegemony and the profits of the military/security complex? Why did the European Union regret Trump’s election? Why does the Western media support actions that result in the end of the world? The final question and the most important one is: What can President-elect Trump do about it?

He can, prior to his inauguration, call Putin and tell him to hold off, that once inaugurated as President, he will reverse the policy and permit no missile attacks on Russia. Will Putin believe that Trump can deliver? Considering the war cabinet Trump has appointed, can Trump make a decision independently of his government? The situation is complicated by the fact that Trump’s appointees are aligned against Iran and for Israel. Neither Russia nor China can stand aside from an US/Israeli attack on Iran. Putin probably wonders if “Making America Great Again” also implies military dominance. Trump’s supporters are tired of losing wars. They want to win one. Trump cannot lose the war in Ukraine unless he can present peace as an accomplishment.

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Before okaying long range missiles in Ukraine, they sent Biden deep into the Amazon.

• Biden Walks Off Into Jungle (RT)

Outgoing US President Joe Biden appears to have once again aimlessly wandered off stage after delivering a speech on climate change in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil on Sunday. A clip of the 81-year-old’s latest gaffe has gone viral on social media. Speaking at a press conference near Manaus, the largest city in the Brazilian Amazon, Biden wore a loose-fitting button-down shirt and his trademark aviator sunglasses. Throughout the address, the president talked about the dangers of climate change, the importance of rainforest conservation as well as the investments his administration has made into clean energy.

Biden stated that he is officially the first sitting US President to personally visit the Amazon rainforest and announced that his government would be launching a special financing coalition to mobilize at least $10 billion by 2030 in order to protect 20,000 square miles of land in the Amazon. However, after finishing his speech, Biden waved to the cameras, turned away from the podium and started walking away, heading straight into what appeared to be some dense greenery. The video of the aging president’s exit has since gone viral on social media, with one clip posted by the Pop Base account gaining over 26 million views by Monday morning. In the comments, many users expressed confusion over where Biden was going, with some claiming he had “wandered off into the Amazon.”

“Bruh did he just wave bye and disappear into the jungle?” one user wrote, with another asking why the president was in the Amazon at all. “He’s really doing all the side quests now that he can retire,” one person suggested. According to Newsweek, however, a full version of the video supposedly shows that Biden was not actually lost and had walked down a path that was not clearly visible in the clip. The outlet noted that several other members of the press later also walked out along the same path. While Biden’s team has not commented on the incident yet, if the US president was indeed lost, it wouldn’t be his first public mishap. The White House, however, had previously insisted that most of the videos of the aging leader getting confused or ‘frozen’ at public events had been manipulated, with Biden’s Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissing them as “cheap fakes.”

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First: no nukes, no NATO, no nazis. Only then can we talk freeze.

• ‘Freezing’ Ukraine Conflict Unacceptable – Kremlin (RT)

Moscow vehemently rejects the possibility of freezing the Ukraine conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday. He was responding to reports that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to suggest the move during the G20 summit in Brazil. Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with Erdogan’s plans, claimed that the Turkish leader would suggest freezing the conflict “on current lines” and encourage Kiev to delay discussions about joining NATO for at least ten years as a “concession” to Moscow. He also reportedly plans to propose the creation of a demilitarized zone in Donbass, where international troops would be deployed to provide security guarantees for Ukraine. Asked to comment on the report, Peskov stated that Moscow had no information about any proposals being prepared by Erdogan. However, he said “any kind of freezing along the line of military conflict is unacceptable for the Russian side.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin previously outlined conditions for ending the hostilities, and those steps are “what needs to be done to stop the fighting,” the spokesperson added. In June, Putin set out conditions for peace negotiations with Kiev, which involved the complete removal of Ukrainian troops from all Russian territories, including the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, and Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions. They also involved Ukraine legally committing to never joining NATO or any other Western military blocs. Last week, during his first direct phone call with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in two years, Putin also reiterated that Moscow remains open to finding a political and diplomatic resolution to the Ukraine conflict, and said it was Kiev that was refusing to negotiate.

According to the Kremlin, the Russian president also emphasized that the crisis was the “direct result of NATO’s long-standing aggressive policy aimed at creating an anti-Russian bridgehead on Ukrainian territory, while ignoring our country’s interests in the field of security and trampling on the rights of Russian-speaking residents.” During the call, Putin emphasized that any potential settlement between Moscow and Kiev would inevitably have to take into account Russia’s security interests, recognize the new territorial realities, and “eliminate the root cause of the conflict.”

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“…the man that the media told us was Hitler nonstop has morphed into the people’s president.”

• The Great Trump Exhale (QTR)

I think this election cycle President Trump won so handily, not only because his competition was grossly incompetent, but because it was far less taboo this time around to be a Trump supporter. In 2016, before President Trump had a chance to establish a four-year record for himself in office, it wasn’t popular to openly support him. His “Make America Great Again” hats were ridiculed as a cheap branding trick and the mainstream media was unrelenting in its quest to crucify not only Trump, but those who supported him. Throughout the last four years of political lunacy, which included wide-open borders, rising inflation, squandering of taxpayer cash, and multiple geopolitical dust-ups, it became far less of a faux pas to support Trump publicly. This period culminated in an internal coup that subverted the primary process, further reinforcing this shift.

Today, there are still scores of Democrats who believe Trump is irredeemable and repugnant, just as there are still plenty of news organizations that spend 24 hours a day attempting to make him look bad. But this election go-round, there were just too many Americans on the center-left, center, and center-right who decided that the humiliation they would need to endure by supporting Trump publicly paled in comparison to how insulted they felt by the current administration’s assumption that they would buy an entire campaign based on flip-flopping, outright lies, race hustling, and identity politics. For every one person that still found it inconceivable to support Trump publicly, there were two more, myself included, who simply could no longer endure having their character and intelligence insulted strictly because they backed a set of political ideals that, at any other point in recent history, would’ve been considered center-left, moderate or barely right-leaning.

With that sea change among the most crucial part of the voter base, inclusive of independents and many around the center of the political aisle, Trump won this election in a landslide. And Democrats, who had been told many times over that their political strategies were wearing thin, were forced to face undeniable, quantitative proof of just how much of the American public agreed with this assessment. As such, it’s undeniable that the nation has issued a collective exhale in response to the election results. Many people who voted for Trump, and who may have still been wondering whether it’s OK to express their political beliefs publicly without being called “garbage,” now know that they can: they are in the company of more than 70 million other voters and form the majority of the country. For years, Trump campaigned on the saying that his voters were the “silent majority.” This election proved him right.

It was risky for many high-profile people to come out and publicly endorse Donald Trump prior to this election, and is a testament to just how much the left has lost its way. Had Trump not won, many of these people would have been lambasted as “far-right wingers,” “purveyors of misinformation,” and people whose moral and ethical integrity should be called into question heading into another Democratic administration. But instead, with a Trump mandate, millions of Americans can exhale publicly and, like Joe Rogan said last week, finally just admit that no matter what everybody says, they just like President Trump. Rogan said on his podcast a couple of days ago: “…you’re getting what you get. That’s who the guy is and I like him. I’ve gone I’ve grown to like him. I had a much more negative opinion of him back in the day because it was There’s only so much you can pay attention to and do deep dives on right before you lose your f*cking mind and with him I was like It’s probably not good for the country.”

And what we saw last night at the UFC fight, where Trump had a great interaction with fighter Jon Jones, who handed him his belt after winning his fight, is that whether people like it or not, the man that the media told us was Hitler nonstop has morphed into the people’s president. This will be like a snowball rolling down a hill: the more people that come out and embrace Trump publicly, the more who will follow. Put simply, Trump is just winning people over. I wrote last week about how this election doesn’t just feel like the beginning of four years of change; it feels like it could be spearheading a populist/libertarian renaissance in the country that could last multiple election cycles. You could tell from his entrance to the fights last night that the nation is starting to feel the excitement for this potential, too. Seeing Trump at the fights last night was like the flyover before an NFL game. It was one of many moments over the last year while he was campaigning that people muttered: “We’re back. America is back.”

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“Not only is she ill-prepared and unqualified, but she traffics in conspiracy theories and cozies up to dictators like Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin.”

• Gabbard Could Help Change US Foreign Policy (John Kiriakou)

President-elect Donald Trump this week stirred up the intelligence community with his picks of former Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence (DNI) and former DNI and Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe as C.I.A. director. Ratcliffe, a fierce partisan, is nonetheless the more traditional pick of the two. Gabbard spent her life as a Democrat, including eight years in the House before running for president in 2020, dropping out, changing her affiliation to “Independent,” and then changing it to Republican and endorsing Trump. She is the more controversial pick, not necessarily because of her politics, but because she is far more isolationist than most Democrats and she supports an immediate end to the war in Ukraine and engagement with North Korea, China and Syria.

Both Ratcliffe and Gabbard are likely to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, according to The Washington Post. Neither is as controversial as, say, attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz, who was investigated a year ago for sex trafficking, or defense secretary nominee Peter Hegseth, a former Army captain who is currently a Fox News host and who has literally no experience running anything larger than his own household. While Democrats will likely oppose both Ratcliffe and Gabbard, if only because the two are MAGA Republicans who want to end U.S. financial and military support for Ukraine, Republicans now control 53 Senate seats, more than enough for confirmation, with room to lose a few. Publicly, Democrats aren’t saying much about Ratcliffe. He’s mostly a known quantity in Washington, having been DNI for a few months at the end of the first Trump administration. He’s a former member of the House Armed Services Committee and was also a member of Trump’s impeachment defense team.

Ratcliffe was initially dismissed as unqualified for the DNI job in 2019. He withdrew from consideration, but Trump renamed him a year later and he was finally approved by a sharply-divided Senate. His tenure was short, and he didn’t do anything either controversial or innovative in his few months in the job. Gabbard’s nomination has drawn far more ire, especially from Democrats. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), a former C.I.A. officer, said she was “appalled” by Gabbard’s nomination and added, “Not only is she ill-prepared and unqualified, but she traffics in conspiracy theories and cozies up to dictators like Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin.” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) called Gabbard’s nomination “incredibly reckless,” and added that “Putting someone with known sympathies for foreign adversaries (in the position) is not putting America’s interests first — it’s putting our security at risk.”

And Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI) said, “Tulsi Gabbard’s deep ties to some of our nation’s most dangerous adversaries, including Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Vladimir Putin of Russia, make her an untrustworthy guardian of our nation’s most closely held secrets.” All of this is, in my own humble opinion, absurd. Democrats don’t like Gabbard because she never bought into the party’s anti-Russia hysteria, because she was never supportive of putting the U.S. and NATO on the brink of war with Russia in Ukraine, and because she doubted the Democratic Party’s assertion that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gassed his own people, an allegation refuted by United Nations whistleblowers. That’s exactly what we need in a healthy democracy — somebody in a position of authority who makes decisions based on facts, not on what happens to be politically expedient.

We need a person willing to rein in the neoconservative/neoliberal intelligence and foreign policy establishment when they urge the president to double down on military action based on phony or incomplete intelligence. Gabbard may face one substantive challenge when she finally becomes DNI. That challenge will be in dealing with Secretary of State-designate Marco Rubio, currently a Republican senator from Florida. Rubio is a longtime mainstream neoconservative hawk, especially on China, although he has kowtowed to Trump successfully over the past eight years. Rubio and Gabbard have some clashing views, but Gabbard is as much a seasoned bureaucratic fighter as Rubio is. The question, then, will be who can more successfully get Trump’s ear.

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“Most of the people making these decisions from health care to the Department of Defense are failing on effectiveness because they have no accountability..”

• Ramaswamy Says Some Government Agencies Will Be ‘Deleted Outright’ (ET)

President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to co-lead a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said on Sunday that some federal agencies will be “deleted outright” and that contractors may see “massive cuts” in what they can charge when the incoming administration takes office next year. Last week, Trump named former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Tesla CEO Elon Musk to lead the presidential advisory commission, DOGE. Their work must be completed no later than July 4, 2026, Trump said in his statement. Ramaswamy told Fox Business on Sunday that “there is massive waste, fraud, and abuse right now.” “Federal contractors are really exploiting the federal government,” he said. When Fox host Maria Bartiromo asked him whether entire government agencies will be closed, he responded in the affirmative.

“We expect mass reductions. We expect certain agencies to be deleted outright,“ Ramaswamy said. ”We expect mass reductions in force in areas of the federal government that are bloated. We expect massive cuts of all federal contractors and others who are overbilling the federal government. So, yes, we expect all of the above.” As a presidential candidate, Ramaswamy had called for totally eliminating or restructuring of several agencies, including the FBI, the Department of Education, the Internal Revenue Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Elaborating on Fox, Ramaswamy said that “failures of the executive branch need to be addressed.” “Unelected bureaucrats in the administrative state that was created through executive action” are running the government, he said, which needs to be fixed by the executive branch.

“This is about restoring self-governance and accountability in America as well. Elected leaders, if they make the wrong decisions, voters have a great choice. You can vote them out and remove them,” Ramaswamy said. “Most of the people making these decisions from health care to the Department of Defense are failing on effectiveness because they have no accountability. Historically, it’s been the view of many scholars to say that those people could not even be fired. Now, we take a different view with the environment the Supreme Court has given us in recent years, and we’re going to use that in a pretty extensive way to move quickly.” DOGE will not be an official government agency, meaning that both Ramaswamy and Musk are not considered Cabinet members in the incoming Trump administration and therefore not subject to the Senate confirmation.

Both Ramaswamy and Musk, as well as Tulsi Gabbard, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joined the president-elect at a UFC event at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Saturday night. Gabbard is Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, while Trump nominated Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

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It looked like Bessent had it, but apparently there was too much opposition to him.

• Trump Expands Search For Treasury Secretary (ZH)

The group of prospective Trump Treasury Secretary picks has expanded from two (Howard Lutnick and Scott Bessent – as we detailed here) to four (now including former Fed governor Kevin Warsh and Apollo Globla chief Marc Rowan). While we noted earlier that Elon Musk and RFK Jr. are pushing for Howard Lutnick, with Musk praising the Cantor Fitzgerald CEO as a disruptor compared to Key Square Group (and George Soros protégé) Scott Bessent – the latter of whom met with Trump on Friday, and has the backing of many including noted investor Kyle Bass; The FT reports that people close to the process said Kevin Warsh, a former Federal Reserve governor, Marc Rowan, chief executive of Apollo Global Management, and Bill Hagerty, the Tennessee senator, are also now in the running, along with Robert Lighthizer, the former US trade representative under Trump.

The FT continues to note that since Trump was elected, Bessent has been on the defensive about his commitment to enacting the president’s economic vision. In an opinion piece for Fox News last week, he described tariffs as “a means to finally stand up for Americans”. But his critics have seized on comments to the Financial Times that the president-elect’s agenda represented “maximalist” positions that were negotiating tools, as a sign he would be soft on the issue. Trump’s aides are reluctant to repeat the tensions over trade in Trump’s first administration, when Steven Mnuchin, then-Treasury secretary, frequently sought to moderate tariff plans for fear of disrupting markets. Several people familiar with the discussions inside Trump’s team said Lighthizer, who served as US trade representative in the first administration, had previously expressed interest in becoming Treasury secretary.

On Sunday the Coalition for a Prosperous America, a pro-tariff think-tank, backed Lighthizer publicly for Treasury secretary. “The next Treasury secretary must be 100 per cent aligned with President-elect Trump’s policy on tariffs,” it said in a post on X. “Former USTR Robert Lighthizer is a steadfast champion for the US economy and the best choice to carry out President Trump’s trade agenda.”

Marc Rowan
Rowan, 62, is a billionaire investor who leads Apollo Global Management, which he cofounded in the 1990s. It now has nearly $700 billion in assets under management. Apollo recently announced that it plans to double its assets under management to $1.5 trillion by 2029. The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that while the billionaire’s aides are in touch with Trump, Rowan isn’t actively trying to secure the Treasury Secretary role and hasn’t spoken to Trump personally about such a position. But the Times also wrote that Trump has been telling his staff that he’s impressed with Rowan, who Bloomberg estimates to be worth $10.9 billion. Rowan has said that US economic concerns must be fixed by what he called “wholesale change,” which he said Trump and his new administration would bring.

Kevin Warsh
Warsh, 54, is a former Morgan Stanley banker and one of the newer contenders. He was an economic advisor to President George W. Bush from 2002 to 2006 and a governor of the Federal Reserve Board from 2006 to 2011. During the latter period, Warsh was a central figure in shaping the nation’s response to the 2007-2008 financial crisis, working to rescue major ailing banks. Trump had been floating Warsh that year as a frontrunner for Fed chair. He eventually picked Jerome Powell for the role. More recently, he’s been working on Trump’s transition team, helping with economic policy and personnel, according to The Journal. Most recently, Warsh was outspoken in questioning The Fed’s independence with regard the 50bps rate-cut right before the election. “if that’s all true, maybe they’re not data-dependent.” “I do not want to be the person accusing them of politics … but when you don’t have a theory of the case and you don’t follow it, it is easy to get that accusation and it is harder … to defend them.”

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“They’re deathly afraid of ‘masculinity’ and strong personalities.”

• CNN Mole People Can’t Deal With MAGA Posse At UFC (MN)

The MAGA crew took over UFC 309 in Madison Square Garden over the weekend, triggering demon energy woke seethery into action. Behold their media leaders, the CNN mole guys. Why do they all wear those thick heavy black rimmed glasses? Anyway, these guys, it doesn’t matter what their names are, lets call them Howard and Greg, couldn’t cope with president Trump leading out his transition team to uproariously loud cheering at the event. Howard said Trump was “giving supporter based permission structure,” by bringing his crew with him, while Greg said it was like ancient Rome with Caesar bringing his gladiators into the Colosseum. “It really looks like ancient Rome here. This is the conquering Republican Caesar who’s going into the Colosseum, and everyone’s cheering, and he’s got his political gladiators with him,” Howard excitedly whined, ignoring the fact that Julius Caesar was long dead when construction on the Colosseum began.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1858161714476286345

“That appearance isn’t just about him enjoying the applause. He’s sending a message to the Senate. For sure,” Greg continued blathering. “Not only are you entertained, but these are my people, and are you willing to fight?”Because here’s who I have,” Greg clamoured. It’s hilarious watching these people having a meltdown analysing Trump’s team and the UFC crowd having fun. They were having a well deserved day off, celebrating, watching the event and dancing to YMCA by the Village people, but the mole people want you to believe it’s some kind of scary authoritarian display of power. CBS News also couldn’t cope. The article states “Trump is a longtime UFC enthusiast and frequent attendee of major fights. He made promoting hypermasculine tones a signature of his campaign — as he looked to further widen the gap among male voters between himself and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.”

“Trump and his top supporters embraced alpha-male terms and often accentuated them with vulgar and demeaning language.” It gets even more hilarious… “While campaigning, Trump appeared frequently on podcasts, gaming platforms, and with key supporters who described a vote for Trump as a way to demonstrate true manliness. While Trump taped a podcast with Rogan, who himself has spoken about hypermasculinity, Harris failed to do a similar appearance, citing scheduling conflicts.” They’re deathly afraid of ‘masculinity’ and strong personalities.

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“I don’t know why the Democrats lost. I don’t understand … Prices have come down, the economy is good. I don’t know why they voted against her, against the party.” — William Shatner (Captain Kirk)”

• Beyond Consequence (James Howard Kunstler)

If you boil down everything the woked-up, psychopathic Democratic Party did the past eight years as it drove the country into a ditch, it all amounted to a Great Pretending. Whatever the party said, they knew it was not so. Whatever they did, they pretended the other side was doing. They lied lavishly, knowingly, and incessantly and now they are pretending to soul-search in a great public display of pretend humility as they await the dreaded reckoning. Case in point: the interview on PBS between the Aspen Institute’s former chief Walter Isaacson and Harvard civics philosophy prof Michael Sandel, “to make sense of Donald Trump’s Presidency.” Listen to them prattle about “the dignity of work,” “credentialist condescension,” and “income disparities.”

You know it was way worse than that: censorship, witch hunts, the gestapo FBI, a stupid money-pit war, medical fascism, the wide-open border, race-and gender hustles, state-sponsored riots, lawfare programmatically destroying lives, careers, reputations, and misuse of the news media (including PBS) to lie about all of it. These two pusillanimous pricks, pretending to be genteel, are the poster boys for a diseased polity. And behind the scenes now, in the C-suites of the big agencies, the faculty lounges of Higher Ed, the Zoom meet-ups of so many crypto-government NGOs, and especially in the Big Media board-rooms, the cries of anxiety and desperation signal a momentous end of something: the punking of America by a gang of vicious, criminal snobs. The aggregate insult alone deserves a world-class beat-down. They know it, and they know they are going to get it, and it will be satisfying to watch them rat each other out as judgment nears.

But even as all that plays out, and justice returns to the scene, Mr. Trump and Company face the enormous task of getting our nation’s house in order. The balance sheet is a catastrophe, we are functionally bankrupt, and “Joe Biden” has been busy destroying the value of our money in the futile attempt to work around all that. All the economic statistics rolled out to benefit Ms. Harris in the election are false. Something is underway that is too big to stop and it will express itself as ruinous inflation and economic depression in some wicked combo of the two. It will surely lead to epic rearrangements in everyday life. I will suggest a few examples. The people of this land have been deprived of purpose and meaning in an economy organized among giant enterprises and vast distances from wherever you live. To call ourselves “consumers” degrades us. We are citizens who have duties, responsibilities, and obligations to each other.

We are economic actors who can make choices and take risks, not passive units to be exploited. The people need an economic role in their locality: employer of neighbors, producer of useful goods and services, all the way down to faithful servants of something and someone. Monopolies and chain stores killed American towns and all the complex relations in them that furnished purpose, meaning, and livelihoods for the people in a rich ecosystem of production and services. Now it’s the monopolies and chain store’s turn to decline and die off — and they will in the course of things, but it would be foolish to try to prop them up. Let them go and let the people rebuild their networks of making-and-doing locally. It’s already happening.

The giant shopping malls that came along in the 1970s have already died, and there was no official campaign to rescue them, nor any official funeral. It just happened quietly in the background. The malls were a pure product of the combo of Boomer household formation and Happy Motoring. That’s ending now. What replaced the malls, strangely, is the new model of Garage Sale Nation. That will continue to evolve and elaborate itself, and integrate into what happens next — which will not be the A-I robot nirvana of endless leisure, but rather an era of tribulation. You can see it coming on all around you. So many things don’t work anymore. Medicine. School. The task of reorganizing them is monumental. It will generate plenty of friction and hardship.

The people also need a social role in their community: head of household, mother, mentor, public servant, caretaker, local hero. You need a place in this world to enact those roles, a location in it, at the proper scale, and it must be a place that is worthy of your affection. Too many places in the USA do not meet these requirements. They are ugly, sprawling, chaotic, and grotesque. The suburban template for development is a long-running fiasco, the anti-community, and MAGA’s psychological investment in it is, sadly, a mistake — though it is consistent with the psychology of previous investment (sunk costs).

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“..they overcorrected, flooding an already fragile economy with cash and setting the stage for soaring inflation that has burdened millions of Americans ever since.”

• WSJ Issues Scathing Indictment Of How Democrats Blew It On Inflation (ZH)

The Wall Street Journal has issued a scathing postmortem analysis of how the Biden administration completely botched the economy and supercharged inflation. President Biden hadn’t even been inaugurated when he and his senior advisers made a monumental gamble in January 2021 that would reverberate through his presidency. Fresh on the heels of a $900 billion Covid-relief bill that Congress had approved weeks earlier, Biden proposed a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill. Biden and his team, many of whom had served in the Obama administration, claimed they were correcting their mistakes from 2009: spending too little to combat a major economic crisis. Instead, they overcorrected, flooding an already fragile economy with cash and setting the stage for soaring inflation that has burdened millions of Americans ever since.

Key among their policies was the American Rescue Plan (ARP) – a package which boosted the child tax credit, showered Americans with $1,400 per person, and directed $350 billion to state and local governments. The plan was passed against a backdrop of already unprecedented government spending. Americans were awash in federal aid from bipartisan measures under Trump, supply chains were breaking down, and businesses were struggling to rehire workers. The administration dismissed these concerns, prioritizing speed over prudence. The plan, of course, totally backfired. “If inflation had been less severe in that first year, if it had peaked at a lower level, could Vice President Harris have survived that? My intuition is yes,” said Michael Strain, head of economic-policy studies at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.

On election day, approximately 40% of voters polled said the economy was their top issue – with those voters backing Donald Trump by a 22% margin. The White House is unrepentant, of course. “Any scenario that envisions less inflation from a reduced ARP also has to wrestle with slower growth, higher unemployment and more child poverty,” said White House Council of Economic Advisors chair, Jared Bernstein. “White House and Democratic officials have argued that overall U.S. economic outcomes were better than those achieved in nearly every other advanced economy. But politically, those arguments fell flat and gave Trump his opening. “It comes off as cold comfort to say that people have it worse in Germany, the U.K., France,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle (D., Pa.). “People naturally compare their experiences today to what things were like prepandemic.” -WSJ”

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“When he failed, they decided to send their message in a language that no one could misunderstand. They sent Trump.”

• Mad at the Election? Blame Obama (AmG)

Liberals who are in the throes of capitulation and despair after Donald Trump’s crushing electoral and popular vote win can lay blame for their disastrous loss at the feet of one man: Barack Hussein Obama. Obama built the Trump wave. His failure to live up to the promises of his populist 2008 run has cursed the Democratic Party, probably for a generation. The Washington DC establishment in just two short months is going to get “scholonged” by an angry and vengeful Trump, ready to rain executive hellfire on the bureaucrats and institutions that have spent the last nine years fighting him tooth and nail. All of this could have been prevented. In 2008, Obama swept into power with a crushing electoral college and popular vote majority. He won Iowa, Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina. He even won Indiana. Democrats swept into power in Congress with a 74-seat lead in the House, nearly 59% of seats, and were gifted with a magical 60-seat filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate.

This was a generational victory, a sign that voters were fed up with politics as usual and the failures of the GOP and the Washington and Wall Street establishment as such. This victory wasn’t just about electing the first Black president, though that was important: The policies and platform at stake appealed deeply to voters. It is worth remembering what exactly those policies were. Obama promised to end the war in Iraq, end the Afghanistan war with honor, help the economy by reducing health care costs (prioritizing “Main Street” over Wall Street), and bring about a new era of racial harmony. Moreover, Obama explicitly eschewed radical leftist politics. He explicitly defended traditional marriage. In his DNC nomination speech, he condemned employers who “undercut American wages by hiring illegal workers.” Obama ran a campaign on bringing “change” to DC. He made much of his status as a newcomer who lacked the “typical pedigree” of a candidate for the nation’s highest office.

Put another way, Obama won a decisive victory in 2008 by campaigning as a Washington outsider bent on ending foreign wars, boosting the economy by helping ordinary people, and being a moderate on social issues like abortion and gay marriage. Does this message sound familiar? It should. In broad measure, it is the same formula that brought Donald Trump to power in 2016 and has given him, like Obama, unified control over the executive and legislative branches after a crushing electoral and popular vote win. Obama’s hubris is the reason the Democratic Party stands here today—powerless in the face of “Orange Hitler.” Obama did not close Guantanamo Bay, he ended the Iraq War only to get sucked back in, killed Osama Bin Laden but kept troops in Afghanistan, started wars in Libya and Syria, and, most damningly, inflamed racial tensions when he had a chance to calm them.

Far from being a moderate on social issues, Obama was the president whose picks for the Supreme Court rammed gay marriage down Americans throats after it had suffered numerous state-level electoral setbacks, including in California of all places in the very election that brought Obama to power! Obama’s pledge to reduce health care costs in 2008 did not come with an individual mandate to purchase health insurance. The final bill that snaked its way through Congress and was signed into law did contain such a penalty. Instead of lowering health care costs, Americans watched as their premiums went up.

Instead of fewer foreign wars, we got more. Instead of declaring victory after the death of the mastermind behind 9/11, we got eight more years of war. On every front, Obama didn’t just fail to follow through on his mandate, he actively worked for the opposite outcome. Obama lacked the strength of character and will to follow through on his promises and to deliver the shake-up in Washington that he promised. He was more concerned with hanging out with celebrities and being cool than facing down his own Party’s bosses to deliver on the promises he made to the American people. Nancy Pelosi, 16 years later, still remains one of the most powerful figures in the Party. Americans sent a refined, urbane, grassroots college professor to do their bidding in DC. When he failed, they decided to send their message in a language that no one could misunderstand. They sent Trump.

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“..a natural product of the loss of any possibility of determining their own destiny.”

• Germany Has Become Europe’s Political Wasteland (Bordachev)

Germany is a political void in the center of Europe, even though it contributes significantly to the global economy and is influential in trade. It’s also the Western country with which Russia has had the most historical, cultural and, until recently, economic contacts. A week ago the government in Berlin collapsed, and so far the leading German parties have agreed that early parliamentary elections will be in February 2025. It’s very likely that the next government will be led by the main opposition force, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). At the start of the election campaign, CDU leader Friedrich Merz publicly announced that – if he wins – he’ll issue an ultimatum to Moscow over Ukraine. He’s promised that if this ultimatum is not accepted within 24 hours, his government will provide the Kiev regime with cruise missiles to attack Russian territory.

The consequences of such a decision for Russian-Western relations are obvious. It is not surprising, therefore, that our main reaction was astonishment at the irresponsibility of such a high-ranking member of the German elite. There are even fears that Merz and those behind him intend to drag Germany into a destructive military conflict with Europe’s largest country. But all this German talk means nothing in practice. Without US authorisation, or direct orders from Washington, the leaders in Berlin are not only incapable of starting a major war in Europe, they are incapable even of adjusting their shoelaces. Any statements by German politicians, the fall and rise of governing coalitions there, should only be seen in the context of how the Berlin establishment is trying to find a role in the shadow of total American dominance.

It’s deeply symbolic that Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a decisive step towards the collapse of the governing coalition on 6 November, the day on which the domestic political balance of power in the United States changed radically. In the context of significant changes at the center, the peripheral political systems must react as sensitively as possible: at the level of how a branch of a large corporation reacts to a change in its general management. Berlin’s international position is defined by its crushing defeat in the Second World War, which ended any hope of determining its own future. Germany, like Japan and South Korea, is a country with a foreign occupying force on its territory, albeit under the NATO flag. The German elite, both political and economic, is, with few exceptions, even more integrated with the US than the British elite. To say nothing of those running France, Italy or other European countries.

Germany has no autonomy in determining its foreign policy, nor does it aspire to have any. It’s no coincidence that over the past two and a half years of the Ukraine crisis, it’s been Berlin that has provided the largest amount of military and financial aid to the Kiev regime. Almost ten times more than, say, France, whose president likes to make bellicose speeches. Naturally, the representatives of the German establishment look like pale copies of what we used to consider real politicians. And this is a natural product of the loss of any possibility of determining their own destiny. Of course, Berlin can still set the parameters of economic policy for the weak countries of the European Mediterranean. States such as Greece, Italy or Spain are given to Germany to ‘feed’ within the framework of the European Union and its single currency.

But even Poland, which has a special relationship with the US, has managed to avoid tying itself to Germany’s industrial grip. France is resisting slightly. But it is gradually sinking to the level of southern Europe. The UK has left the EU, but retains its position as the main representative of the US in Europe. It should be noted that such a state of affairs for Germany did not come about overnight. Even during the Cold War, the Federal Republic (FRG) was led by bright personalities. Under chancellors such as Willy Brandt (1969-1974), the Moscow Treaty was signed between the FRG and the USSR on the recognition of post-war borders in Europe. In the early 1970s, German politicians and business were able to persuade the US to allow Germany to establish energy cooperation with the Soviets. In our time, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (1998-2005) pushed for European energy security based on German-Russian cooperation.

But all this came to an end with the global economic crisis of 2008-2013, after which the US began to tighten the screws on its allies. In the spring of 2022, Olaf Scholz, who had previously been committed to dialogue with Russia, fully supported the military-political confrontation created by the Americans over Ukraine. Now German politicians are not free to choose their own future. For most of them, with the exception of the non-systemic opposition, this is quite obvious. Why appoint bright personalities to the highest positions if nothing depends on their decisions? Gradually, the entire political system and the mood of the electorate are adapting to these conditions. The differences in the parties’ platforms are becoming blurred. Observers are already talking about the likelihood that the government will be formed by the Social Democrats and their main opponents from the CDU. This means that disagreements on fundamental issues are a thing of the past.

Only the technical aspects of forming a government need to be agreed upon, and the main goal of all efforts is to hold on to power as such. The united and sovereign German state existed for 74 years (1871-1945). Its revival as such is not possible: even if Russia and China would look favourably on it, the Anglo-Saxon world will not allow it for several reasons at once. Firstly, both German attempts – in the First and Second World Wars – to play a leading role in the West came close to succeeding. So nobody will give them a third chance. Just to be on the safe side. It should be borne in mind that the West takes order within its own community even more seriously than it does the defence of its privileges against the rest of humanity. Second, Germany’s position at the center of Europe, its huge industrial base and its industrious population make it an ideal partner for the US and Britain, the maritime trading powers. Politically insignificant, Germany can economically control much of the rest of Europe, but cannot dictate the substance.

Third, the revival of visible German independence is in the interests of Moscow and Beijing because it would split the ranks of the consolidated West. A small front of countries like Hungary, Slovakia or even one a little larger cannot create such a split. And the unity of the West under the leadership of the US is a fundamental obstacle to the implementation of the plans for a multipolar world order promoted by Russia and China. Germany is now a political wasteland in the heart of Europe. Tiny shoots of reason are, of course, breaking through the decades-old system based on pandering to the interests of American patrons. With some very obvious exceptions, the representatives of the non-systemic German opposition are talented people. But their prospects are still very dim because of the way things are manage. In the future, we can expect to re-establish some economic ties with Germany but we must treat it as a political colony of the US, rather than thinking about try to establish full inter-state relations with Berlin.

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An unknown side of Stalin.

• Gardening Against Evil Days (Helmer)

In politics — the Kremlin is no exception — politicians don’t mean what they say. In gardening, the plants always mean what they say. Gardeners, obliged to record what that is, are more likely than politicians to tell the truth. In the records of Russian politicians since the Bolshevik Revolution, only one leading figure stands out as having the eye, ear, and nose for what plants have to tell. Not the present nor the founding one. The only gardener among them was, and remains, Joseph Stalin. Nothing has been found that he wrote himself on his gardening except perhaps for marginal comments in books he read. There is no mention of books on gardens or gardening in the classification system Stalin’s personal library adopted from 1925. He kept no garden diary. Without a diary recording the cycle of time and seasons, the planting map, colour scheme, productivity of bloom and fruit, infestation, life and death, he must have committed his observations – “he possessed unbelievably acute powers of observation” (US Ambassador George Kennan) – to memory, as peasants do.

Unlike the tsars who employed English, Scots, and French architects and plantsmen to create gardens in St. Petersburg and Moscow in the royal fashions of Europe, defying the Russian winter to display their power and affluence without shovelling for themselves, Stalin dug his gardens himself in the warm weather of his dacha at Gagra, on the Black Sea. There he was photographed with his spade tending parallel, raised beds of lemon trees. There is no sign of him wielding trowel and fork in the garden at Kuntsevo, his dacha near Moscow, where the photographs show him strolling in a semi-wild young forest or seated on a terrace in front of a hedge of viburnum. No record of Stalin digging at Kuntsevo has been found.

There is just one reminiscence of Stalin speaking to a visitor about his gardening. “Stalin is very fond of fruit trees. We came to a lemon bush. Joseph Vissarionovich carefully adjusted the bamboo stick to make it easier for the branches to hold large yellow fruits. ‘But many people thought that lemons would not grow here!’ [He said] Stalin planted the first bushes himself, took care of them himself. And now he has convinced many gardeners by his example. He talks about it in an enthusiastic voice and often makes fun of would-be gardeners. We came to a large tree. I don’t know it at all. ‘What is the name of this tree?’ I asked Stalin. ‘Oh, this is a wonderful plant! It’s called eucalyptus,’ Joseph Vissarionovich said, plucking leaves from the tree. He rubs the leaves on his hand and gives everyone a sniff. ‘Do you feel how strong the smell is? This is the smell that the malaria mosquito does not tolerate.’ Joseph Vissarionovich tells how, with the help of eucalyptus, the Americans got rid of the mosquito during the construction of the Panama Canal, how the same eucalyptus helped with the work in swampy Australia. I felt very embarrassed that I did not know this wonderful tree.”

Stalin read a great deal of philosophy, Roman and Russian history, art, and agronomy, and so he is bound to have reflected on the way in which the ideas of the classics he read took physical form in the gardens of the time. Especially so on the ancient idea of the paradise garden. It is this transference between thinking and digging, between the idea of paradise and the cultivation of it, which a new book, just published in London, explores in a radical way. Olivia Laing, author of The Garden Against Time, In Search of a Common Paradise, knows nothing whatever about Russia or its gardens or its politics – except for propaganda on the Ukraine war she has absorbed unquestioningly and briefly repeats from the London newspapers. That’s a personal fault; it’s not a dissuasion from the book of reflections she has written out from her garden diary to an end which Russians understand to aim at, not less than the English.

In this wartime it’s necessary to keep reflecting on this end, on the aesthetic and philosophical purpose of the paradise garden. Laing begins her book and her garden with John Milton’s lament for gardening in wartime – in his case, the English Civil War of 1642-46 and the counter-revolution of 1660. “More safe I Sing with mortal voice, unchang’d”, Milton observed at the beginning of Book 7 of his Paradise Lost, “to hoarce or mute, though fall’n on evil dayes/ On evil dayes though fall’n, and evil tongues;/in darkness and with dangers compast round,/And solitude.” At the same time, Laing records for herself and Stalin certainly knew, “what I loved, aside from the work of making [the paradise garden], was the self-forgetfulness of the labour, the immersion in a kind of trance of attention that was as unlike daily thinking as dream logic is to waking.”

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Grandma
https://twitter.com/i/status/1858271312025682171

 

 

Plane tech

 

 

Foal
https://twitter.com/i/status/1858438984684146947

 

 

Orangutan

 

 

Guilty

 

 

 

 

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In Defense Of JD Vance As Trump’s VP

Jul 182024
 
 July 18, 2024  Posted by at 4:55 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  4 Responses »


John French Sloan Spring rain 1912

 

It’s been a while since we saw Andrew Korybko here. But there he is.

 

 

Andrew Korybko:

 

In Defense Of JD Vance As Trump’s VP

Addressing The Top-Three Criticisms Head-On

Trump’s decision to pick freshman Ohio Senator JD Vance as his Vice President (VP) has riled some members of the Alt-Media Community (AMC), who claim that it represents a step backwards for the MAGA movement. They point to his history as a US Marine in Iraq, as a venture capitalist after that, and then finally as a former Never Trumper to claim that he’s a neocon, which his hawkish positions on China and Iran confirm in their minds.

The reality though is that Vance isn’t someone whose worldview can easily be pigeonholed. His history as a US Marine in Iraq taught him, in his own words, that “I had been lied to – that the promises of the foreign policy establishment were a complete joke.” As for his time as a venture capitalist, it led to close friendships with leading elites like Peter Thiel, who’ve been instrumental in turning some Silicon Valley power players against the Democrats. This could ultimately prove to be a game-changer in the election.

Likewise, the same can be said about him formerly being a Never Trumper, which can appeal to millions of on-the-fence voters who used to despise Trump until they were “red pilled” like he admits he was and are thus now seriously considering supporting him. He argued that “I said some bad things about Donald Trump 10 years ago. I can make a good case to the American people, people who may have been skeptical of the president back in 2016, who could be skeptical now, that we’ve seen the results.”

Vance’s hawkish positions on China and Iran are to be expected. The first is the US’ systemic rival while the second threatens its regional hegemony. Nevertheless, what he’s said about Russia and Ukraine proves that he’s not an ideologically driven warmonger, which suggests that he’ll pragmatically manage the US’ competition with them. He’s no doubt a hegemonist, but that comes with the territory, and he’ll never forget what he learned about the establishment during his time with the US Marines in Iraq.

Clarifying China & Russia’s Roles In The MAGA Worldview

His worldview is that the US should be selective with its engagements abroad, both militarily and in terms of foreign aid, and he’s a proponent of Trump’s reported plan for NATO. This would see the bloc become “dormant” as its European members are coerced to step up their involvement in containing Russia while the US “Pivots (back) to Asia” to contain China. Members of the AMC claim that this makes him a “sell-out”, but it’s unrealistic to expect a leading member of MAGA to not be hawkish on China.

After all, Trump was extremely tough on the People’s Republic, which he justified on the grounds of rebalancing their astronomical trade deficit that reached several hundred billion dollars a year before his election. His problem though was that he was too influenced by his son-in-law Jared Kushner during his first term and fell under the sway of neocons, but he’s since learned his lesson judging by how he reportedly took his son Don Jr’s, Steven Bannon’s, and Tucker Carlson’s advice to pick Vance as his VP.

Trump and Vance share the vision of redirecting the US’ containment focus away from Russia and towards China, with a view towards preventing the first’s potentially disproportionate dependence on the second that could turbocharge its superpower trajectory and thus seriously challenge the US. The resultant system of Sino-US bi-multipolarity would comparatively favor China since it would amount to them practically being equals on the world stage, hence why those two want to avoid this if possible.

The means to that end is to relieve some pressure upon Russia so that it can rely more on India and other Global South states, particularly those from its “Ummah Pivot”, as export markets for its natural resources instead of being forced by circumstances into funneling most of them towards China’s rise. From Russia’s perspective, any reduction of pressure would be welcome, especially if it results in some of its national security interests in Europe finally being respected through a compromise in Ukraine.

Russia’s Grand Strategic Interests

Preemptively averting potentially disproportionate dependence on China is also important, not for any politically Sinophobic reasons, but for simple pragmatism since no strategically autonomous country like Russia wants to be reliant on a single partner for the bulk of its foreign export earnings. This explains why it’s recently recalibrated its Asian balancing act from its hitherto Sino-centricity through Putin’s trips to North Korea and Vietnam as well as his hosting of Indian Prime Minister Modi.

The preceding five hyperlinked analyses explain this strategy in detail, the gist of which was just reflected in Valdai Club Program Director Timofei Bordachev’s article about how “Russia has redefined its Asia strategy”, which was released after those pieces and then republished by RT on their front page. This insight is relevant with regards to Trump’s decision to pick Vance as his VP since it strongly suggests that Russia would be receptive to those two’s envisaged endgame of swiftly resolving the Ukrainian Conflict.

Alt-Media’s Activist Problem

Despite recognizing how easily that proxy war could spiral out of control into World War III, and thus appreciating the need to bring about a diplomatic end to it as soon as possible exactly as Vance has promised that he’ll seek to do, some in the AMC are still displeased with him. A lot of these disgruntled folks are activists at heart, which makes them ideologues for the causes that they support, which in this case are world peace in general and less US pressure on China and Iran in particular.

They therefore can’t approve of Vance as VP because of his hawkish positions towards those two, hence why they’re now agitating against him by fearmongering that he’ll risk sparking World War III with them instead of with Russia like Biden and his team are dangerously flirting with by miscalculation. They’re entitled to their views, but observers should remember that they’re being shared by ideologues, no matter how well-intentioned they may be.

These people are purposely being hyperbolic for political reasons related to the causes that they passionately support. They’re also naïve if they truly thought that Trump wouldn’t pick someone who shares his worldview, which is pragmatic towards Russia but adversarial towards China and Iran. It’s possible to raise awareness of the risks that a theoretical Vance presidency could bring if something happens to Trump without going overboard by fearmongering about him and discrediting him.  

Exposing The Frauds

Some of these folks aren’t being sincere with their concerns, however, since they have ulterior motives. There are those who have a unique interpretation of what MAGA is, which is at variance with what it objectively is, and are thus very angry that Trump’s pick of Vance as VP shattered their expectations. The resultant cognitive dissonance explains some of their furious posts on social media after having previously supported the movement.

Then there are those who never truly supported MAGA, but sought to establish “alliances of convenience” on certain causes like those related to China and Iran, and are deliberately trying to discredit MAGA as revenge since it’s clear that Trump 2.0’s policies wouldn’t align with their views. This is especially true for hitherto seemingly MAGA-friendly foreigners who are now trying to manipulate voters’ perceptions about emotive issues like the ones that they support after Vance’s pick as VP.

These people can’t vote in US elections, yet they’re exploiting social media to have an outsized role in influencing those who can, with the common narrative being that they imply one way or another that this decision supposedly proves that Trump has betrayed MAGA. The truth though is that Trump is paving the way for a successor who’ll carry on what MAGA has always been about on the foreign policy front, and that’s being tough on the US’ top rivals in order to decelerate its declining unipolar hegemony.

MAGA’s Role In The Global Systemic Transition

To be sure, the way in which Trump and Vance envisage doing this is by first alleviating the risk of World War III with Russia, which is a net positive for peace and would bring humanity back from the brink if it’s successful. The global systemic transition to multipolarity has also unprecedentedly accelerated so much since the start of Russia’s special operation that restoring the 1990s-era unipolar system is now impossible, thus meaning that MAGA’s foreign policy is really about responsibly managing this moment.

The best that the US can now hope to achieve is to preserve its privileged position as long as possible through creative – and ideally peaceful – means. It’ll never enjoy the unparalleled dominance from the post-Old Cold War period, but it also won’t become a so-called “normal country” anytime soon either, let alone collapse in the near future like many in the AMC have predicted. A Trump-Vance presidency would be all about slowing the pace of its decline and regaining some ground wherever possible.  

The difference between them and Biden-Harris is that MAGA wants to improve socio-economic living standards at home while keeping World War III at bay abroad while the Democrats care less about Americans and more about their fellow liberal–globalist elite even at the expense of risking World War III. Few activists will ever be fully pleased with any presidential ticket, but comparatively speaking, the Trump-Vance one is much better for world peace as a whole than the Biden-Harris one.

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle October 6 2023

Oct 062023
 
 October 6, 2023  Posted by at 8:30 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  26 Responses »


Andrei Rublev Trinity 1411

 

• The Police State Targets Trump and Trump Americans (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Divine intervention and The End of The War in Ukraine (Doctorow)
• Ukraine’s Backers Blinded By Russia Hate – Jeffrey Sachs (RT)
• No ‘End of History’ in Ukraine (Scott Ritter)
• Americans Souring On Military Aid To Ukraine – Poll (RT)
• Biden Weighing Use of State Department Grants to Afford Ukraine Aid (DeMartino)
• EU Can’t Compensate Ukraine For Missing Us Aid – Borrell (RT)
• Ukraine ‘Corrupt at All Levels’, ‘Not Eligible’ to Join EU – Juncker (Sp.)
• Depleted Ukrainium (Patrick Lawrence)
• Putin’s Valdai Speech: Multipolar Future Has Arrived (Sp.)
• MAGA Power Rocks The US Establishment (Blankenship)
• Trump Slams Biden’s Border Crisis, Says ‘Our Country is Being Invaded’ (Sp.)
• The Largest Healthcare Strike in U.S. History (Pappas)
• Europe Could Become Energy Self-Sufficient In $2 Trillion Push – Study (RT)

 

 

 

 

47

 

 

RFK Housing

 

 

Matt Gaetz: “I agree with all of these reforms.”

 

 

Letitia

 

 

Orban

Orban

 

 

 

 

 

 

“This is America today as misgoverned by Democrats, hard left security agencies, and a Woke military establishment. Don’t expect them to allow themselves to be overthrown by an election.”

• The Police State Targets Trump and Trump Americans (Paul Craig Roberts)

In the Democrats ongoing efforts to interfere in the upcoming election the Criminals Have Set the FBI after Trump Supporters and the IRS on Trump Donors. The presstitute Newsweek Magazine reports that “Exclusive: Donald Trump Followers Targeted by FBI as 2024 Election Nears” Zero Hedge reports that the IRS has brought five audits against Mike Lindell’s company, MyPillow. The Newsweek story reads like one handed to presstitute William M. Arkin by the FBI itself. In Newsweek’s opening lines, Arkin sets up Trump Supporters as “domestic terrorists.” “The federal government believes that the threat of violence and major civil disturbances around the 2024 U.S. presidential election is so great that it has quietly created a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers.”

But not so quietly as to keep it from Newsweek. Arkin adds: “the vast majority of its current ‘anti-government’ investigations are of Trump supporters, according to classified data obtained by Newsweek.” If you doubt the narrative, you are anti-government. Where is the ACLU and Congress when freedom of speech is being criminalized? An anonymous FBI official cries on Arkin’s shoulder, explaining that the FBI simply has to prevent domestic terrorism and insurrections by Trump supporters, but by doing so “runs the risk of provoking the very anti-government activists that the terrorism agencies hope to counter.” In other words, the FBI is going to create the threat it warns about. According to Newsweek, Homeland Security and the FBI are discussing whether to employ against MAGA Republicans “the methods of counterterrorism developed over the past decade in response to Al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups.”

In other words, mass roundups, suspension of habeas corpus and due process, execution on suspicion alone. Bush/Cheney/Obama put these unconstitutional rules in place by presidential edicts. They built the foundation for the police state that is springing up around us. To be sure we get the message that Trump supporters are even a greater threat to Washington than Russia, China, and Iran combined, Arkin quotes the FBI: “”The threat posed by domestic violent extremists is persistent, evolving, and deadly.” Have you seen this threat? Where is it? What building has the threat blown up? What person has the threat assassinated? What city’s business center has it looted and burnt down? All the domestic violence has been committed by Black Lives Matter and Antifa and the Democrats gave them a pass. Instead of arrests, blue cities awarded the real domestic terrorists millions of dollars for being arrested for violating curfews.

According to Arkin, the FBI now officially recognizes “Trump and his army of supporters” as “a distinct category of domestic violent extremists.” This makes clear why the FBI created the January 6 “Insurrection” hoax and why the presstitutes hyped it to the hilt. Not even Gobbles could have turned a couple hundred unarmed people into an Insurrection, but the US media did. This orchestrated “Insurrection” is the basis for the demonization of Trump and half or more of US voters as “domestic extremists.” [..] This is America today as misgoverned by Democrats, hard left security agencies, and a Woke military establishment. Don’t expect them to allow themselves to be overthrown by an election.

Read more …

“..the collapse of support for Ukraine will be attributable to the true collapse of American political culture..”

• Divine intervention and The End of The War in Ukraine (Doctorow)

CNN, EuroNews, the BBC: their broadcasts this morning were all about the vote yesterday in the U.S. House of Representatives to “vacate” the position of the Speaker, meaning the removal of Kevin McCarthy. Specialists on U.S. constitutional law have been given the microphone to explain what the duties and powers of the Speaker are, to tell us how this is unprecedented, the first time in U.S. history that a Speaker has been removed from office. Political analysts have spoken on air at great length on who were the eight who precipitated the vote that brought down the Speaker. They have been described as trouble makers, rabble rousers who want only to obstruct the working of the federal government.

Some have taken this line of conduct back to the Tea Party rebels within the Republican Party, and to the later emergence of the most fervent Trump supporters who sought to overthrow the consensus of America’s ruling elites. There is a lot of truth in these characterizations, but they do not consider the positive side to the removal of the House leader and effective shutdown of the legislative branch of government. I will try to address that here. The most positive element is that it all validates the “checks and balances” notion of governance that was a guiding principle of the nation’s founders. The whole country has been run under successive Democratic administrations as if there is no alternative, as if “checks and balances” were not applicable to those who are the heralds of progressive humanity, meaning themselves.

All of those who have disagreed with the Democratic party positions on everything and anything are, in the apt words of candidate Hilary Clinton in 2016 “deplorables.” Well, yesterday the deplorables had their day in court and they won. Why am I saying all of this in a newsletter that is dedicated to foreign policy issues? Because the net result of the removal of Mr. McCarthy yesterday is to halt for an indefinite time all substantive work to restore to the federal budget the $6 billion or so of the total $24 billion for 2024 that was deleted from the compromise budget bill that passed Congress this past weekend and was signed by the President to finance the working of the federal government for the coming 45 days. I take “indefinite time” to be rather prolonged, given that the internecine war going on within the Republican party on Capitol Hill is fierce and uncompromising.

This creates the real possibility that there will be no stratagem, no dirty trick that Biden and his fellow war criminals in power can turn to continue assistance to Ukraine. Absent this oxygen, the Ukrainian war effort will shut down rather swiftly. Europe will be aghast but is unable to fill in for the missing American contribution. The irony of these developments is that the Ukrainian war may end for entirely arbitrary reasons within the U.S. power structure. All the efforts of Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer that brought to the attention of millions of youtube watchers the guilt of the West for this supposedly “unprovoked” war will have played no role in the denouement. Nor will one even be able to say that those in Congress who opposed further aid to Ukraine did so not because they are peace-niks but because they prefer to do battle with China. No, the collapse of support for Ukraine will be attributable to the true collapse of American political culture.

Read more …

“We have stoked so much provocation in this, so much anxiety, overthrowing governments, starting multiple wars, pushing NATO enlargement, abandoning nuclear agreements, and then saying, ‘Oh, he doesn’t want to negotiate..’”

• Ukraine’s Backers Blinded By Russia Hate – Jeffrey Sachs (RT)

Kiev’s globalist and neo-conservative supporters in the West are so driven by their hatred of Russia that they completely disregard the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who are dying in a futile effort to defeat Moscow’s forces, US public policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs has argued. Sachs, an award-winning economist who advised the Russian and Ukrainian governments following the breakup of the Soviet Union, made his comments in an interview posted on Thursday by US podcast host Andrew Napolitano. Asked how the US and its NATO allies can ignore the catastrophic destruction of Ukraine while prolonging the conflict and making false claims of battlefield successes, Sachs said they are “blinded” by their hatred of Russia.

“They are not counting the Ukrainian dead,” the analyst said. “They have lied to the public all along about the military situation . . . . They want so much to fight Russia and have someone else do the fighting and the dying that they want another massive recruitment of the remaining Ukrainian young men that can be grabbed off the streets and be thrown into the killing fields.” More than 83,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed during a Donbass counteroffensive that began in June, according to an estimate released by the Russian Defense Ministry last month. Despite knowing that the Ukrainians have no chance of making major gains on the battlefield amid Russia’s air superiority and artillery dominance, Kiev’s benefactors have shown a “grotesque” disregard for the heavy casualties, Sachs said.

He argued that the UK, in particular, has championed the counteroffensive because of London’s centuries-long and deeply embedded desire to crush Russia. sSachs, now a UN adviser and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, has argued that NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe helped trigger the current crisis. He said Washington and its allies missed many opportunities to avoid the current conflict, then kept it going by discouraging Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky from finalizing a peace deal with Russia in March 2022. Responding to claims by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that critics of Washington’s Ukraine policy are “siding with” Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sachs argued that he’s showing concern for the Ukrainian people.

“I don’t want Ukraine to be completely destroyed by these neocons, by their fantasy world, by their desire to throw Ukrainians by the hundreds of thousands to their deaths,” he said. He added, “This isn’t siding with Putin or siding with anybody. This is trying to protect Ukraine from American zealots.” Sachs claimed that US President Joe Biden must reach out to Putin to negotiate an end to the bloodshed, which would involve ruling out adding Ukraine to NATO, as well as addressing Russia’s legitimate security concerns. “We have stoked so much provocation in this, so much anxiety, overthrowing governments, starting multiple wars, pushing NATO enlargement, abandoning nuclear agreements, and then saying, ‘Oh, he doesn’t want to negotiate,’” the analyst said.

Read more …

“Francis Fukuyama’s triumphalist post-Cold War vision of liberal democracy — published in 1989 — had a major blindspot. It omitted history.”

• No ‘End of History’ in Ukraine (Scott Ritter)

Of the many points of conflict occurring in the world today, one stands out as a manifestation of the ongoing fascination liberal democracy adherents have with the victory over communism, which they thought was won more than three decades ago, namely, the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Political scientists in the Fukuyama “end of history” school view this conflict as being derived by the resistance of the remnants of Soviet regional hegemony (i.e., modern-day Russia, led by its president, Vladimir Putin) over the inevitability of liberal democracy taking hold. But a closer examination of the Russian-Ukraine conflict points to the present conflicts being born of not simply the incomplete divorce of Ukraine from the Soviet/Russian orbit that occurred at the end of the Cold War, but also the detritus from the collapse of previous ruling systems, especially the Tsarist Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires.

Indeed, the current conflict in Ukraine has nothing to do with any modern-day manifestation of the Cold War bipolarity, and everything to do with the resurrection of national identities which existed, however imperfectly, centuries before the Cold War even began. To understand the roots of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, one needs to study German actions after the 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the rise and fall of Symon Petliura and the Polish-Soviet War — all of which predated the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the dissection of Galicia that took place in 1939 and 1945. These actions were all triggered by the collapse of Tsarist and Austro-Hungarian power, and then united by violent efforts to allow local realities to shape the final disposition of a region frozen in place by the rise of Soviet power.

The dislocation felt by many Ukrainians today from all things Russian can be traced to the failed attempt at forming a nascent Ukrainian nation in the chaotic aftermath of the First World War and the collapse of both Tsarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire – all prior to the consolidation of both Polish and Bolshevik power. The Ukrainian People’s Republic, led by the nationalist Symon Petliura, proclaimed its independence from Russia in January 1918. It did so backed the German army, which occupied the Republic after the Central Powers, led by Germany, signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty with Ukraine in February 1918. (Russia and the Central Powers signed a separate Brest-Litovsk Treaty in March 1918). The German military occupiers then dissolved the socialist, Ukrainian People’s Republic in April 1918, replacing it with the Ukrainian State, also known as the Second Hetmanate. (The First Hetmanate was a Ukrainian Cossack State that existed in the Zaporizhian region from 1648 until 1764).

But the Ukrainian State survived only until December 1918, when forces loyal to the deposed Ukrainian People’s Republic, led by Petliura, overthrew the Second Hetmanate, and reclaimed control over Ukraine. During this time the physical dimensions of the Ukrainian People’s Republic was in constant flux. In the short first tenure of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, two territories claimed as Ukrainian — centered round Odessa and Kharkov — declared their independence from the Ukrainian People’s Republic, and instead opted to join Russia [as four regions today have similarly opted to join Russia].

Read more …

And fast.

• Americans Souring On Military Aid To Ukraine – Poll (RT)

A growing number of Americans are opposed to supplying additional military aid to Ukraine, according to a new Reuters-Ipsos survey, with Democratic support taking a nosedive since the start of Kiev’s counteroffensive in June. Published on Thursday, the poll shows just 41% of respondents agreed that the US government “should provide weapons to Ukraine,” while 35% said they disagreed and the rest stating they were “unsure.” The figures mark a sharp decline compared to a prior Reuters poll conducted in June, which showed 65% support for further arming Ukraine. While Democrats have been more vocal in backing arms shipments to Kiev, support appears to be waning within the party. A slim majority of 52% said they still supported military aid in the latest poll – a steep drop from the 81% recorded in June, around the time Ukrainian forces began a major counter-offensive.

Some 35% of Republican respondents said they backed weapons transfers in the new survey, down from 56% in June. Continued aid to Kiev has become a political flashpoint in the US Congress, as lawmakers battle over a long-term spending package to avert a government shutdown before November 17. Though a stopgap measure was originally slated to include billions in aid for Ukraine, Republicans successfully pushed to remove that funding from the legislation. Despite assurances from the Pentagon that a federal budget crisis would not impact US aid to Ukraine, senior administration officials have indicated otherwise, sounding alarms over a potential “lapse in support” in the event of a shutdown.

“As the Congress works through its various mechanisms and procedures, we cannot under any circumstances allow America’s support for Ukraine to be interrupted,” US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters on Wednesday, adding that even a brief delay could “make all the difference in the battlefield.” President Joe Biden has suggested that officials are looking for “workaround methods” to keep the aid flowing should lawmakers fail to reach a deal by their November deadline. On Wednesday, he said he would address Congress on the importance of continued support for Kiev, insisting that it is “overwhelmingly in the interests of the United States of America that Ukraine succeed.”

Washington has supplied more than $45 billion in direct military aid to Ukraine since the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022, including tanks, artillery, air defense systems, drones and munitions. Moscow has repeatedly condemned foreign arms transfers, arguing they would do little to deter its military objectives and only prolong the fighting. Commenting on the budget impasse in the US, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the dispute was merely a “temporary phenomenon,”suggesting Washington would remain deeply involved in the conflict going forward.

Read more …

Creative accounting. It won’t be nearly enough.

• Biden Weighing Use of State Department Grants to Afford Ukraine Aid (DeMartino)

A critical feature of the US government is the balance of powers. A major part of Congress, known as the legislative branch, is deciding what does, and does not, get funded. The Biden administration is considering using a State Department grant to send aid to Ukraine after the president’s funding request failed to get through Congress as part of the stopgap bill that temporarily averted a partial government shutdown. The new findings come from two anonymous US officials speaking to a US media outlet. While making remarks on student loan aid on Wednesday, Biden promised a “major speech” on funding the Kiev regime and hinted he had “another” way to get funding to Ukraine without congressional approval. “There is another means by which we may be able to find funding for that. But I’m not going to get into that now,” Biden said while promising more details during the speech.

According to one of the officials, the Biden administration is considering using a State Department program that provides financing for foreign governments buying US-made weapons known as the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. It typically provides loans or grants to foreign governments. The State Department has allocated $4.65 billion for the FMS program to support Ukraine and other countries impacted by the conflict. According to a State Department factsheet dated September 21, roughly $650 million of that allotment remains. One official added that even if the Biden administration uses this method, they will still ask Congress for additional funding. Last month, Biden requested $24 billion in additional funding for Ukraine. A smaller package was initially put into a stopgap funding bill intended to keep the government open while Congress debates a full funding bill.

But that bill was unable to pass in the House of Representatives until the Ukraine funding was stripped out of it. Rumors spread around Washington that then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) made a “secret side deal” with Democrats on Ukraine funding to get the funding bill passed, which led Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) to launch a successful motion to vacate the speakership. As such, no bills, for funding Ukraine or otherwise, will be taken up until a new speaker is selected. House Republicans are expected to meet on October 11, when they are expected to discuss potential replacements. Sometime after that, a formal vote will be held in the House.

Read more …

Borrell is stuck.

• EU Can’t Compensate Ukraine For Missing Us Aid – Borrell (RT)

The EU cannot fully replace US support for Ukraine even if it boosts its aid programs, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has said. The warning comes after the US Congress declined to include Ukraine assistance in a stopgap spending bill last week. “Ukraine needs the support of the European Union, which will certainly be increased, but also the support of the United States,” the senior official said on Thursday as he arrived at the European Political Community summit in Granada, Spain. He stressed that Europe could not fill the gap left by the US and expressed hope that Washington would reverse the situation. The flow of American funding was disrupted last week after a Republican push to reduce budgetary spending. A 45-day temporary budget, which was adopted as a compromise solution, allocated no money for Ukraine at all.

In August, the administration of US President Joe Biden asked lawmakers to provide an additional $24 billion to support Kiev. Amid the congressional deadlock, the White House sought to ensure that the flow of cash would not be interrupted. The crisis in the US was exacerbated this week when Kevin McCarthy was ousted as House speaker. Rep. Matt Gaetz introduced a motion to remove him from the position over an alleged secret deal with the Biden administration to keep Ukraine assistance flowing. Meanwhile, the EU is also struggling to maintain a consensus on sending money to its eastern neighbor. Last week, Hungary suggested splitting a proposed €50 billion ($52.4 billion) aid package in the bloc’s long-term budget into two installments, with the second half pending further evaluation, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

Budapest has been blocking €500 million in military aid for Ukraine since May. The European Commission is reportedly willing to release billions of euros in funds for Hungary in order to get the country on board. The funds were frozen last December over rule-of-law criticisms. Borrell announced that Brussels was seeking to add €5 billion in multi-year defense assistance when he met Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba on Monday. He also vowed to maintain the assistance regardless of what happens in Washington. EU leaders are meeting in Granada to discuss the bloc’s future spending and plans for future expansion. A reform supported by Germany and France would introduce a multi-tier membership system to accommodate candidates based on their merits. Ukraine, which aspires to become a member, has insisted on full-fledged participation, saying it cannot accept anything less.

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“..We have had bad experiences with some so-called new members, for example when it comes to the rule of law. “This cannot be repeated again..”

• Ukraine ‘Corrupt at All Levels’, ‘Not Eligible’ to Join EU – Juncker (Sp.)

Ukraine in its current state is corrupt to the core and absolutely ineligible to join the European Union, former European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has said. “One mustn’t make false promises to the people of Ukraine who are up to their necks in suffering. I am very angry about the presence of some voices in Europe who are telling the Ukrainians that they can become members immediately,” Juncker said in an extensive interview with German media on Thursday. “That would not be of any good for the EU nor for Ukraine. Anyone who has anything to do with Ukraine knows that this is a country that is corrupt at all levels of society. Despite its efforts to date, it is not eligible to join, and needs massive internal reforms. We have had bad experiences with some so-called new members, for example when it comes to the rule of law. “This cannot be repeated again,” the politician, who served as EC chief between 2014 and 2019, and dealt with Ukraine-related matters repeatedly over that time, added.

“The European prospects for Moldova and Ukraine, which is defending itself so virtuously and defending European values, must be maintained, but must not be linked to a hope that this can be achieved overnight at the push of a button,” Juncker said. Instead, he proposed, countries like Ukraine should be able to “take part” in projects aimed at partial integration. “We should work toward making something like partial accession possible, or an intelligent form of near-enlargement,” Juncker proposed, without elaborating. The former European Commission boss, who warned during his time in office that Ukraine would “certainly not become” an EU member over the next “20 to 25 years,” and that the country was “not European in the sense of the European Union,” repeatedly dashed the hopes of the Euromaidan coup plotters, who overthrew Ukraine’s government in 2014 and launched a civil war in the Donbass to try to set the country on a path to Europe.

The crisis escalated into a full-on NATO-sponsored proxy war on Ukrainian territory in 2022 as Moscow attempted to preempt plans by Kiev to reabsorb the Donbass by force. Juncker is the latest high-level European politician to put a damper on Ukraine’s EU prospects amid reports that bloc leaders are planning to initiate formal accession talks before the end of the year, despite the ongoing largescale conflict in the country. Late last month, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola warned that the “economic model” that the bloc has today would not survive enlargement, and proposed a number of stopgap integrative processes short of membership, such as telephone and internet roaming, the lifting of trade barriers, access to some EU funds, Ukrainian access to European universities, etc. European Council President Charles Michel also hinted this week that Ukraine could become a member of the EU no sooner than 2030, and even then only if “both sides do their homework.”

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“The first front in any war is the home front, where it is imperative the battle is won. And those running the war in Ukraine are slowly but surely losing on this side of the conflict.”

• Depleted Ukrainium (Patrick Lawrence)

In results announced in Bratislava Sunday, a leftist party whose primary platform plank is opposition to the war in Ukraine won 23 percent of the vote. On Monday the Slovakian president, Zuzana Caputova, formally asked Robert Fico, who leads the SMER party, to form a government. It looks like he will do so in a coalition with either Voice, a social-democratic party that took 15 percent of the vote, or with Progressive Slovakia, a liberal-centrist party that finished with 18 percent of the vote. Fico is an interesting figure. He has served as prime minister twice over the course of a decade, during which time he proved sufficiently European to bring Slovakia into the euro. To one or another extent, his likely coalition partners favor keeping Slovakia as a card-carrying member of the Western coalition supporting Ukraine.

But they did not win the election: Fico did. And Fico is all business in his opposition to Slovakia’s support for the U.S. proxy war tearing Ukraine and its people to pieces. SMER’s platform assigns the West and Ukraine equal responsibility for the war—a purposeful rip into the “unprovoked” charade—and promises an immediate end to all Slovakian arms shipments to the war effort. Speaking after the election results were announced, Fico pointedly pledged to press Kiev and its backers to begin peace talks with Moscow. “More killing is not going to help anyone,” he declared. There are two things to say about Robert Fico’s return to the top of Slovakian politics. One, we find once again that the U.S. is a victim of its old, Manichean habit of dividing the whole of humanity into good guys and bad guys.

The headline on CNN’s report on the elections reads, “Pro–Russian politician wins Slovakia’s parliamentary election.” The New York Times head is, “Unease in the West as Slovakia Appears Set to Join the Putin Sympathizers.” Tell me, which of these is more pathetic? “Pro–Russian?” “Putin sympathizers?” This is infantile—apart from being false, I mean. Fico simply articulates an independent, perfectly sound position on the war. CNN and The Times are infantilizing their viewers and readers as they reduce this position to the simplistic binary of a Saturday-morning cartoon. The insidious thing here, and let us be ever vigilant on this point, is that these media are inserting into our brains the thought that any deviation from the Russophobic orthodoxy amounts to support for the Kremlin’s demonized occupant.

Two, “unease” is too mild a word for the reigning sentiment among the war-mongering elites in Washington and the European capitals. An incipient panic is closer to the reality as public support for the war—and here and here official support—ever more visibly wobbles and wanes. The first front in any war is the home front, where it is imperative the battle is won. And those running the war in Ukraine are slowly but surely losing on this side of the conflict.

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“..that Americans, particularly in Washington, make these terrible mistakes is because they do not see that the world has changed around them already..”

• Putin’s Valdai Speech: Multipolar Future Has Arrived (Sp.)

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech on October 5 at the plenary session of the 20th meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi emphasizing the tectonic and irreversible shifts taking place in the global order. [..] The moment of truth has come, and US hegemony is fading in front of our eyes while a new multipolar world is emerging, per Professor Joe Siracusa, political scientist and dean of Global Futures, Curtin University. “In many, many ways, the future that Mr. Putin is talking about has already arrived,” Siracusa told Sputnik. “What he’s kind of saying between the lines is it’s already here. Now we have to see it. The world has changed. And the reason he thinks that the Americans, particularly in Washington, make these terrible mistakes is because they do not see that the world has changed around them already. The world, the future is changing in front of them and they fail to see it. He thinks that might be the cause of the conflict.

During his Valdai speech, Putin outlined six principles Russia wants to adhere to and offers other nations to join it.
• “First, we want to live in an open, interconnected world, in which no one will ever try to erect artificial barriers to people’s communication, their creative realization, and prosperity. There must be a barrier-free environment,” Putin said.
• The second principle is the diversity of the world, which should not only be preserved, but should also be the foundation of universal development.
• The third principle, according to the Russian head of state, is maximum representativeness: “No one has the right or can rule the world for others or on behalf of others. The world of the future is a world of collective decisions,” the president emphasized.
• Fourth is universal security and lasting peace that takes into account the interests of great states and small countries equally. To achieve this, it is important to free international relations from the bloc mentality and the dark legacy of the colonial era and Cold War, according to Putin.
• The fifth principle is justice for all: “The era of exploitation of anyone – I have already said this twice – is a thing of the past. Countries and peoples are clearly aware of their interests and capabilities and are ready to rely on themselves, and this multiplies their strength. Everyone must be provided with access to the benefits of modern development,” Putin emphasized.
• The sixth principle is equality: no one should be forced to obey those who are richer or more powerful at the cost of their own development and national interests, according to the Russian president.

“The ‘civilizational model’ referred to in Putin’s speech seems anchored on ‘principles’ – such as non-colonial relations; non-patronizing attitudes; respectful of diversity rooted in the diverse traditions – that will require a huge work to generate new shared international norms,” Paolo Raffone, a strategic analyst and director of the CIPI Foundation in Brussels, told Sputnik. “The Western ‘rules-based liberal international order’ is unilateral, and it could be imposed in a specific time in history leveraging on the power and prominence of a small group of colonial powers that after the liberal model crisis and civil war (1914-1945) has been inherited by a distant but super-powerful country (US). In a nutshell, I can say that the ‘civilizational model’ approach probably aims at structuring a shared world ‘software,’ while the ‘liberal rules-based order’ has been aiming at building an imposed ‘hardware’ defended by ‘rules’ serving the financial and military hegemony.”

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“Without a speaker, the impeachment process is halted. ”

“Follow your heart, but take your brain with you. The American people expect us to govern. I also advise my House colleagues to be sure and take your meds..”

• MAGA Power Rocks The US Establishment (Blankenship)

Acting Speaker Patrick McHenry adjourned the House, since pretty much the only thing he can do is form a session to specifically vote for a new speaker (this has never happened before and the rules are vague). With the House adjourned, no congressional hearings can happen, subpoenas can’t go through, and committees can’t convene. This is telling because the same Republicans who ousted McCarthy are also leading an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. Without a speaker, the impeachment process is halted. Given this, it was foolish for these lawmakers to vote out McCarthy. And that’s especially the case when it took nearly two months of negotiations to install him in the first place back in January. Now, there’s no telling where things will go or how long it will take to cut deals and find a new speaker.

If it takes even the same amount of time as before, then a government shutdown would be inevitable. That level of dysfunction from the GOP is not only poor governance but also bad politics, since it would allow Democrats to look good by contrast. “Follow your heart, but take your brain with you. The American people expect us to govern. I also advise my House colleagues to be sure and take your meds,” Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, a Republican, said to the press after McCarthy was booted. At the same time, this situation demonstrates quite clearly that the establishment – especially during a period of intense partisan divide – is not truly safe. Even powerful figures such as McCarthy can be dethroned by a small contingent of representatives. That shows that people like Jimmy Dore, a well-known YouTube personality, are unfortunately correct for once.

The so-called comedian called on progressives to refuse to vote for Nancy Pelosi as speaker when Democrats controlled the House until a vote was taken on Medicare for All. It turns out he was completely correct on that. If ‘The Squad’ (a team of relatively young Democratic lawmakers who got into the House on a super-progressive platform) had any backbone, as Gaetz and his gang of rebels have shown, they could have forced a vote on that important issue and many others. They certainly have squeezed out concessions from Pelosi and the political establishment, making her understand that her position on the pedestal is contingent on the support of progressives and not the other way around. The fact that they, who are supposed to be more savvy and calculated than the MAGA mutineers, didn’t do that indicates, at the very least, a lack of commitment to the values that got them elected.

For their part, the MAGA wing of the Republican Party is making waves: they have made Ukraine funding a hot-button issue, censured Rep. Adam Schiff (a mortal enemy of their cause), put ‘the border’ and fake allegations of election fraud front and center, shouldered out establishment Republicans such as Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, and they’re building their own media ecosystem. Even though their self-imposed speaker debacle clearly lacks any serious intent, MAGA is flexing its muscles – even if, at times, for nothing. Will those who are supposedly fighting for the working class in Congress ever exert the same pressure? Doubtful, and it’s also doubtful if these people have any serious commitment to doing that in the first place, since they have the very same tools as Gaetz and his friends yet refuse to wield them. Undoubtedly, however, the political situation in the US is getting a whole hell of a lot more interesting.

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Not long ago, the Biden admin sold $300 million worth of wall building material for $2 million. Now they have to buy more.

• Trump Slams Biden’s Border Crisis, Says ‘Our Country is Being Invaded’ (Sp.)

About 210,000 migrants were apprehended in the US in September for crossing the country’s southern border illegally, a record for 2023, according to preliminary government data, as the Biden administration continues to flounder in its attempts to handle the raging crisis. Donald Trump has pummeled the Joe Biden administration over the ongoing crisis on the US-Mexico border that the current occupant of the White House has failed to get under control. The only reason the Democratic POTUS was suddenly ready to embrace the border wall project – and idea from the Trump era – was because of the relentless surge of illegal migrants, said the former president in a US media interview. “Biden sees our country is being invaded… What is he going to do about the 15 million people from prisons, from mental institutions, insane asylums, and terrorists that have already come into our country?.. What has happened to our country?” the 45th POTUS fumed, as he called upon the Biden administration to “go back to Trump policies”.

Trump’s signature border wall construction had been brought to a screeching halt on 20 January 2021, when Joe Biden ordered a pause on all wall-related efforts at the southern US border. The commanding frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination seized upon the recent remarks by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who said that “high illegal entry” required urgently waiving dozens of federal laws to allow for the construction of a border wall in south Texas. As more than 245,000 migrant encounters have been recorded in the Rio Grande Valley Sector this year, Trump slammed his successor for having reversed many of his policies and thus caused the crisis at the southern border. “He has to reinstate Remain in Mexico and Title 42… He has to do all of the other things that we were doing,” said Donald Trump.

A Trump campaign spokesman was quick to endorse his leader: “President Trump is always right. That’s why he built close to 500 miles of a powerful new wall on the border and it would have been finished by now… Instead, crooked Joe Biden turned our country into one giant sanctuary for dangerous criminal aliens.” Earlier, Mayorkas said that he would use his authority to waive 26 federal laws, including the Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and Endangered Species Act, to allow for construction in Starr County in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) sector. An announcement about this was posted on Wednesday on the US Federal Register by the Department of Homeland Security. “There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas pursuant to sections 102(a) and 102(b) of [the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996],” Mayorkas said.

Though in the past the Biden administration worked on shuttering gaps in the wall, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced in June that there were plans to build up to 20 miles (32 kilometers) of wall in the RGV Sector in June. The construction is funded by Homeland Security’s full-year 2019 appropriations bill.

Darien gap

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“..more than 75,000 workers at Kaiser Permanente walked off the job this morning..”

• The Largest Healthcare Strike in U.S. History (Pappas)

The largest health care strike in U.S. history has begun, as more than 75,000 workers at Kaiser Permanente walked off the job this morning. The scheduled three-day labor stoppage comes after Kaiser failed to meet the demands of workers, continuing to prioritize their profits over patient care. The striking coalition includes eight unions representing health care workers from a variety of job descriptions and covers Kaiser facilities in California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Virginia, and Washington City. This represents about 40% of all Kaiser Permanente staff, according to spokeswoman Renee Saldana of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare (SEIU-UHW)—the largest union in the coalition.

The union’s contract with the company expired over the weekend, and workers are demanding a significant staffing increase, alleviation of grueling work hours, wage increases that outpace inflation, and benefits for retired staff in the industry. Additionally, they are noting that their poor working conditions lead to poor patient care. This represents a common theme for healthcare workers attempting to provide quality patient care in a capitalist healthcare system that continually puts profit over patient wellbeing. Healthcare workers are becoming increasingly fed up with the working conditions imposed by the U.S. healthcare system. They are tired of seeing the wellbeing of patients being sacrificed at the altar of profit. They are also tired of having their own well being destroyed by the continual exploitation they face under this system.

One healthcare worker preparing to picket outside a Kaiser Hospital location in North Hollywood said, “We just can’t go on with this staffing crisis.” Kaiser Permanente is the largest private hospital and healthcare management consortium in the United States, bringing together a broad spectrum of healthcare workers including nurses, X-ray technicians, pharmacists, optometrists, and other job titles. The company serves 12.7 million people in California, Washington, Oregon, Georgia, Hawaii, Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia. The private health care corporation has reported more than $3 billion in profits in the first half of 2023 and has paid at least 49 corporate executives salaries in excess of $1 million a year. Despite these profits, the company continues to impose strenuous working conditions on staff, continually under-staffing and under-paying.

While this initial strike is planned for just three days, the SEIU-UHW union said the coalition is prepared to launch a “longer and stronger” strike in November, when another contract expires in Washington State. This could extend the stoppage to even more workers. Healthcare workers at Kaiser are joining a wave of strikes sweeping the United States—hundreds of thousands of workers have walked off the job. We are seeing worker action in sectors ranging from the auto industry—with the struggle of the 146,000 members of the UAW union against Ford, GM, and Stellantis—to Hollywood screenwriters and actors, to the 53,000 hotel workers in Las Vegas who voted last week to strike.

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“..European countries are estimated to have spent additional 792 billion euros in the last year just on the status quo system to protect consumers from the effects of the energy crisis introduced by the conflict in Ukraine..”

• Europe Could Become Energy Self-Sufficient In $2 Trillion Push – Study (RT)

Europe could wean itself off fossil fuels and create a self-sustainable energy sector by spending around 2 trillion euros ($2.1 trillion) on solar, wind and other regenerative sources by 2040, according to a new study, Report informs via Reuters. The report, led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said the continent would require annual investments of 140 billion euros by 2030 and 100 billion a year in the decade thereafter to get there. While most of the sum would be needed for onshore wind expansion, solar, hydrogen and geothermal resources would be additional pillars of a strategy that would enable Europe’s electricity needs to be powered exclusively from renewables by 2030.

It would take another decade to convert the entire energy system, including things such as heating currently powered by oil or gas, to renewables, according to the study, which was shared with Reuters. The study said that these figures are considerable, but it is important to remember that the European countries are estimated to have spent additional 792 billion euros in the last year just on the status quo system to protect consumers from the effects of the energy crisis introduced by the conflict in Ukraine.

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Biden kicks dog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baby giraffe

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 30 2023

Sep 302023
 
 September 30, 2023  Posted by at 8:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  43 Responses »


Rene Magritte Memory 1948

 

• We Don’t Serve a ‘Wannabe Dictator’ Says Retiring US General Milley (Sp.)
• Biden Warns of Trump’s ‘Extremist Movement’ (ET)
• The New York Buildings That Donald Trump Could Lose (BBC)
• RFK Jr Plans To Announce Independent Run For President (PM)
• US House Republicans Plot to Oust McCarthy Amid Looming Shutdown (Sp.)
• Elon Musk Decries ‘Witch-Burning’ Of Russell Brand (RT)
• Nazi Hunter Steven Rambam: Trudeau Knew He Applauded a Monster (Sp.)
• The Striking Similarities in the Menendez and Biden Cases (Turley)
• Two-Punch (James Howard Kunstler)
• Ukraine Demands ‘Full’ EU Membership (RT)
• Germany-Ukraine Joint Arms Production Venture a Money Laundering Scheme (Sp.)
• Ukrainian Troops Reportedly Refuse Battle Orders Due to Heavy Losses (Sp.)
• Russia-China Partnership Defangs US Empire (Pepe Escobar)
• Can The US Defeat Russia In The Lithium Battery War? (Helmer)
• Biden Administration Reports Dangerous African Immigrant At Border (BBee)

 

 

“If you’re 35 or older, you’ve had LESS shots in your entire life than a 6 month old baby on today’s CDC schedule.”

 

 

Excellent Tucker Romanovs

 

 

coastguy – watch!

 

 

 

 

Zelenskler/Hitlensky
https://twitter.com/i/status/1707455933918675430

 

 

RFK
https://twitter.com/i/status/1707573905135669384

 

 

 

 

Munger

 

 

RoganBrand
https://twitter.com/i/status/1707461503865979346

 

 

 

 

He called a potential adversary behind the back of his commander-in-chief. Sure smells like treason. What if Milley’s subordinates had done the same with him?

• We Don’t Serve a ‘Wannabe Dictator’ Says Retiring US General Milley (Sp.)

“We don’t take an oath to a country. We don’t take an oath to a tribe. We don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.” Those were the defiant words of US General Mark Milley on Friday. They’ve been broadly interpreted by national media as a thinly-veiled rebuke of Donald Trump in a prolonged exchange that has seen the former president suggest the execution of the US military’s highest-ranking member. Milley delivered the remarks at a ceremony at Fort Myer, Virginia, marking his retirement from a position he first took in 2018 at the behest of Trump himself. The comments were prompted by a post Trump made on his Truth Social platform last week suggesting the general had committed a “treasonous act” amounting to a capital offense in the waning days of his administration.

Trump’s post read in part: “This guy [Milley] turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” Trump was referring to a phone call Milley reportedly made to Chinese counterparts after events at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 reportedly surprised and alarmed the world power. Milley claims he took the unprecedented action with the approval and cooperation of other military officials, but that didn’t stop Republican Senator Rand Paul from criticizing the move.

The backchannel contact was first revealed in 2021 in an excerpt from Bob Woodward and Bob Costa’s book “Peril” documenting the final days of Trump’s presidency. According to the journalists, Milley had secretly called Chinese military officials once before in 2020 after receiving intelligence that China feared Trump would attack them in an “October surprise” before the election. Reportedly concerned about the former president’s mental state after January 6, Milley additionally forbade officers at the National Military Command Center from carrying out any instructions without going through the general first. Some Republicans have claimed such actions would represent a violation of the chain of command set forth in the US Constitution.

Milley also responded to Trump this week in an interview with US television where he claimed he would take “adequate safety precautions” to protect himself and his family after the remarks. “I wish those comments had not been made, but they were,” said Milley. “We will take appropriate measures to ensure my safety and the safety of my family.” [..] “The [US military’s] Joint Force… is the most lethal and capable military in the world,” Milley said in his speech on Friday. “We are currently standing watch on freedom’s frontier with a quarter of a million troops deployed in 150 countries.”

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“I have come to honor the McCain Institute and Library because they are home to a proud Republican who put country first..”

• Biden Warns of Trump’s ‘Extremist Movement’ (ET)

President Joe Biden delivered a speech about democracy on Sept. 28 in Arizona, a key battleground state for the 2024 election. He took aim at his predecessor, President Donald Trump, and expressed concerns about a “dangerous” trend unfolding in the United States. “As I’ve always been clear, democracy is not a partisan issue. It’s an American issue,” President Biden said. “But there is something dangerous happening in America. There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy. The MAGA Movement.” According to the White House, this is the fourth speech by the president focused on democracy. President Biden began his speech by honoring the legacy of his late friend and colleague Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and announcing the creation of the McCain Library.

Mr. McCain’s family and Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, were among those in attendance during his speech in Tempe, Arizona. “I have come to honor the McCain Institute and Library because they are home to a proud Republican who put country first,” President Biden said. “Not every Republican—not even the majority of Republicans—adhere to the extremist MAGA ideology. I know because I’ve been able to work with Republicans my whole career. “But there is no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA extremists.” The president delivered his speech a day after the second Republican debate in California, during which the candidates displayed no signs of narrowing the gap with former President Trump, the Republican frontrunner for 2024.

On Sept. 28, the House Oversight Committee held the first hearing of its impeachment inquiry into President Biden. It focused on President Biden’s potential involvement in his son’s business dealings during his tenure as vice president under President Barack Obama. The challenges don’t end there for the 46th president. President Biden faces continued low approval ratings as the majority of Americans are unhappy with his handling of the economy. In a mid-September NBC News poll, independent voters gave President Biden a dismal 36 percent approval rating. More than 3 in 5 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they would prefer a nominee other than President Biden, according to a recent Washington Post–ABC News poll.

President Biden spoke out against the former president’s recent social media post in which he accused the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, of committing treason. President Trump suggested that Gen. Milley had colluded with China, a conduct he said would have once resulted in death. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been death!” President Trump wrote on Sept. 22 on his Truth Social platform. “Although I don’t believe the majority of Republicans think that, the silence is deafening,” President Biden said during his speech in Arizona. “Hardly any Republican called out such hated statements.” He later urged Democrats, Republicans, and independents to stand up for democracy. “Put our country first. We can’t take democracy for granted,” President Biden said.

Tulsi
https://twitter.com/i/status/1707695467294077436

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The prosecutors refer to “lender-ordered appraisals”. But we haven’t seen any complaints from lenders. We’re talking properties and loans worth billions of dollars, and they WOULD complain if cheated.

• The New York Buildings That Donald Trump Could Lose (BBC)

Long before Donald Trump stepped into the White House, his glitzy and glamorous real estate empire helped make him a nationally recognised star. Now, a judge’s ruling that his business committed massive fraud has thrown the fate of some of the former president’s flagship properties into doubt. On Tuesday, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered that some of Mr Trump’s companies be removed from his control. Mr Trump has denied any wrongdoing and is expected to appeal. The ruling was part of a lawsuit filed against Mr Trump and his family by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who asked the judge for a summary decision that certain facts in the case were beyond dispute in the hope of speeding up the impending trial.

It severely limits Mr Trump’s ability to do business in New York, the place where he launched the real estate empire that thrust him into the national spotlight. What the ruling means for Mr Trump’s properties, however, remains uncertain. The Trump Organization could be forced to hand over control to a court-appointed receiver, or ultimately have to sell some of its most iconic landmarks. Mr Trump’s lawyers have asked for more clarity on which properties could be affected. The judge has yet to give a definitive answer. For Mr Trump, the stakes are potentially high. Earlier this year, Forbes estimated that his New York properties alone are worth $720m (£589m), a sizable chunk of his estimated $2.5bn fortune. Let’s take a look at some of the properties that Mr Trump might lose.

Trump Tower– Located on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the 58-floor Trump Tower is among the most recognisable properties bearing Mr Trump’s name. The building is the headquarters of the embattled Trump Organization and has been home to Mr Trump and several of his family members. The building – which was developed by Mr Trump and inaugurated in 1983 – has also featured prominently in popular culture, including serving as the location for Batman’s Wayne Enterprises in Christopher Nolan’s 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises. Mr Trump’s penthouse condominium that spans the top three floors of the building is also among the properties highlighted in James’ lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that Mr Trump artificially inflated the triplex’s value, by repeatedly saying it was more than 30,000 sq ft (2,790 sq m) in size, significantly larger than the 11,000 sq ft listed in property records. The penthouse was valued at $327m in 2015, a price that the lawsuit called “absurd”. “Tripling the size of the apartment for purposes of the valuation was intentional and deliberate fraud,” the lawsuit reads. “Not an honest mistake”.

40 Wall Street – Originally completed in 1930, the 72-story neo-Gothic tower in the heart of New York’s financial district was purchased by a Trump-controlled company in 1995. The building’s website proudly boasts that the purchase was “one of the great real estate deals of all time”. Since the purchase, the building’s tenants have included global giants such as American Express, defunct investment bank Bear Stearns and Hilton Hotels & Resorts. In the New York lawsuit, prosecutors alleged that the values given by Mr Trump and the Trump Organization “far exceeded the values determined by professionals” in lender-ordered appraisals. In 2012, for example, the property was valued by the company at $572m in financial statements – more than twice the value reached by the outside appraisals. By early this year, the building had been added to a lender watchlist because of concerns over rising expenses and vacancies, according to Bloomberg.

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People disagree who he would take votes away from: Trump or Biden.

• RFK Jr Plans To Announce Independent Run For President (PM)

Robert F Kennedy Jr, who launched his campaign for the Democrat presidential nomination in April, reportedly has plans to announce a run as an independent candidate. According to Mediaite, Kennedy plans to make the announcement on October 9 in Philadelphia, with a text message viewed by the outlet stating that his campaign is planning “attack ads” against the Democrat National Committee to “pave the way” for his announcement. “Bobby feels that the DNC is changing the rules to exclude his candidacy so an independent run is the only way to go,” a Kennedy campaign insider told the outlet. On Saturday, the New York Times published a piece stating that Kennedy met with Libertarian Party chair Angela McArdle in July, at a Memphis conference.

“He emphasized that he was committed to running as a Democrat but said that he considered himself very libertarian,” McArdle said, adding that “We’re aligned on a lot of issues,” including the threat of the “deep state.” “My perspective is that we are going to stay in touch in case he does decide to run,” Ms. McArdle said. “And he can contact me at any time if that’s the case.” “It would be very bad” if Kennedy runs as a Libertarian, said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a Democrat group helping coordinate efforts to stop the No Labels group who is also trying to run a third-party ticket. “We’ve been very clear that third parties in close elections can be very dangerous and would almost certainly hurt the president. That would be true of a No Labels candidate and it would be true of RFK.” According to RealClearPolitics average of polls between September 7 and 19, Kennedy is around 50 points behind Biden, with BIden polling at 65 percent and Kennedy at 14.9.

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That could make the shutdown last much longer.

• US House Republicans Plot to Oust McCarthy Amid Looming Shutdown (Sp.)

A group of far-right members of the Republican Party in the US House of Representatives is seeking to replace House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in order to ensure more conservative legislative decisions amid the risk of a government shutdown in the United States, US news outlet reported, citing people familiar with the endeavor. It is still unknown whether the Republicans will set their plan in motion or if it is just an attempt to show McCarthy the depth of their dissatisfaction with his positions on certain legislative matters, the newspaper said, adding that despite this uncertainty, some far-right members of the Grand Old Party (GOP) believe that removing McCarthy is “inevitable” and “imminent” and that it is going to happen soon enough.

If the Republican group succeeds in ousting the House Speaker in the midst of the shutdown, a protracted battle will begin within the party to appoint someone new to the position. This struggle would block all the legislative actions of the US Congress, which would threaten to further halt the work of the country’s government, the newspaper added. Given the potential disagreements among the Republicans, should the vote happen, the fate of McCarthy as speaker would be decided by the House Democrats, since the proposal to remove the speaker must be backed by a majority of House members, the report said. Democrats have not yet decided whether to defend McCarthy or vote against him, it added, citing people familiar with the Democratic leadership’s thinking.

Far-right House Republicans believe a member of McCarthy’s leadership team, Tom Emmer, should become the new speaker, as he has a better chance of delivering more conservative decisions, the newspaper said, adding that Emmer himself is not really interested in the possibility. “I fully support Speaker McCarthy. He knows that and I know that,” Emmer told the newspaper, adding that he has “zero interest in palace intrigue.” The US Congress is attempting to coordinate the budget before the end of the month to avoid a government shutdown. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have proposed short-term measures, although there are differences between the two bills. The Senate proposal includes more than $6 billion in aid to Ukraine, which some Republican lawmakers have opposed. The House proposal includes border security measures, which the Democrat-majority Senate is unlikely to approve.

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“I think this witch-burning instinct might be deep-seated, frankly.”

• Elon Musk Decries ‘Witch-Burning’ Of Russell Brand (RT)

Efforts to condemn actor Russell Brand and silence him based on unproven rape allegations – made at a time when he’s challenging establishment orthodoxies on such issues as the Ukraine conflict and Covid-19 vaccines – mark a “witch-burning phase” in Western cancel culture, US tech billionaire Elon Musk has warned. “It can’t be guilty until proven innocent because obviously, we’re just sort of in the witch-burning phase here, where just being declared a witch is enough to make you a witch and be burnt,” Musk said on Thursday in an X Spaces interview. “I think this witch-burning instinct might be deep-seated, frankly.”

Brand has been at the center of a media firestorm since the UK’s Sunday Times newspaper and Channel 4 TV reported earlier this month that four women had accused him of sexual misconduct, including rape, between 2006 and 2013. He claimed last week that UK government officials had pressured social media companies to censor his commentaries. YouTube demonetized Brand’s videos in response to the allegations, cutting off a source of income that generated an estimated £1 million ($1.2 million) for the actor and comedian. Rumble and X (formerly known as Twitter) are among the platforms that haven’t taken action against Brand.

Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski issued an open letter criticizing a “deeply inappropriate” push by UK MP Caroline Dinenage to demonetize Brand’s videos. Musk, who bought X last October for $44 billion, called it an “odd coincidence” that the campaign to silence Brand was happening “when Russell is really gaining traction, questioning a lot of the conventional wisdom.” Brand also has been pilloried for spreading “conspiracy theories,” he said, adding, “I think we’re running out of conspiracy theories that didn’t turn out to be true.”

Brand has denied having nonconsensual sexual relations with anyone. Musk cautioned against a rush to judgment, saying, “We can’t have that, you know, because obviously, anyone could be accused at any time of false charges, and we can’t be destroying their lives on the basis of potentially false accusations.” Musk made his comments on the same day that he traveled to Eagle Pass, Texas, for a firsthand look at the US border crisis. “Why do so many American politicians from both parties care 100 times more about the Ukraine border than the USA border?” asked Musk, who posted a livestream video from the scene.

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“And they are not extradited. They are not denaturalized. They are not deported like the US does. They are not prosecuted inside Canada, which they should be.”

• Nazi Hunter Steven Rambam: Trudeau Knew He Applauded a Monster (Sp.)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has officially apologized for a “deeply embarrassing” incident in the national Parliament, where a Waffen SS veteran was warmly greeted by Canadian politicians. “This was a mistake that has deeply embarrassed Parliament and Canada. All of us who were in this House on Friday deeply regret having stood and clapped even though we did so unaware of the context,” the Canadian PM said in a brief statement to journalists. Trudeau stressed that Canada is especially sorry for “the situation that [they] put President Zelensky and the Ukrainian delegation in” given that this “egregious error” is being used by Russia’s “propaganda.” Still, Trudeau’s hypocrisy has been called out by Steven Rambam, a private investigator and Nazi hunter based in New York, publicly known for his pro bono activities, which have included the location and investigation of nearly 200 Nazi collaborators and war criminals in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia.

“This narrative that’s springing up that everyone was surprised, that it was a big shock and they can’t believe there’s such a person in Canada,” Rambam told Sputnik. “It’s ridiculous. Look, this person made no secret of who he was. He even had a website until yesterday. He posted and disseminated photos of himself in his SS uniform. He wrote about his experiences in the SS 14th Grenadiers. There’s a scholarship in his name in a university in central Canada, in Alberta. I mean this is ludicrous that people could possibly have been surprised by who he was and what he did.” During the Second World War, Hunka served in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as SS Galichina. The unit was created by Nazi Germany in 1943 and was composed of Ukrainian nationalist militants. The division was responsible for the ethnic cleansings of Jews and Poles, which was committed with exceptional brutality.

“So this is not a small criminal. He didn’t pick someone’s pocket or steal $100 from a store. This is an alleged mass murderer who killed old people, allegedly, who allegedly killed children with his comrades in the SS Galicia Division,” Rambam noted, reiterating that it’s virtually impossible that the Canadian authorities were totally unaware about who Hunka is. Poland’s Education Minister Przemyslaw Czarnek announced Tuesday that he had “taken steps” toward “the possible extradition” of Yaroslav Hunka to Poland. The unit Hunka served in was particularly responsible for burning alive up to 1,000 Polish villagers, including elderly, women and children, in Huta Pieniacka in 1944. “Does it help that they are finally threatening to bring him to justice? Yes,” said Rambam. “Is there any chance at all that this will happen? No, absolutely not.

Canada does not extradite Nazi war criminals. They have never extradited a Nazi war criminal. This is not the only Nazi war criminal who was requested from Canada. And they are not extradited. They are not denaturalized. They are not deported like the US does. They are not prosecuted inside Canada, which they should be. Nothing is done to these people. I can give you a list of many, many more people who, frankly, were as bad or worse than Hunka and who died peacefully in their beds in Canada.” In fact, it did not take a lot of skill to find former Nazis in Canada as they never hid their real names, Rambam pointed out. “They were absolutely unafraid, unashamed. No remorse, no apology, no nothing,” he said.

“To tell you what I did, we very, very easily, disturbingly easily, were able to compile a list of approximately 1,000 alleged war criminals, Nazi war criminals, members of the Ukrainian units, members of the Latvian Arajs Kommando, murderers that committed crimes in Belorussia, the police units in Lithuania, the special Einsatzkommandos of the Nazis that went all across Europe with the so-called holocaust of bullets and gas vans. All of these people had representatives in Canada. Of the thousand, because we knew that we couldn’t pursue a thousand people, it would be a project for the next 15 years of our lives, we selected the 200 worst on the list.” “I will tell you that one of them was a Ukrainian and the description of his crimes that we had from our sources, it was just one line ‘specialized in the murder of children.’ Specialized in the murder of children. So there are other Ukrainians like Mr. Hunka that came to Canada. Of these 200 people, as private persons, I mean, yes, we’re investigators, we have special skills, but we were operating not as law enforcement, but as private persons, we were able to find approximately 170 of them.”

Babi Yar

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Note the one difference.

• The Striking Similarities in the Menendez and Biden Cases (Turley)

In February 2019, Sen. Bob Menendez was having nightmares. The Democratic senator from New Jersey said he was haunted by a question that “keeps me up at night” — whether President Donald Trump was compromised by the Russian government because of past secret dealings. Menendez’s restless nights also may have had something to do with the fact that at the time, he was allegedly accepting lavish gifts from various sources in exchange for using his Senate seat to bestow favors. The indictment of Menendez and his wife last week included details ofalleged bribes that went to the senator in exchange for revealing sensitive, nonpublic information to Egyptian contacts less than a year before his sleep-deprived speech. Menendez denied the accusations on Friday. However, even if half of this indictment is true, Menendez is toast.

He was able to dodge a bullet in 2017 when a jury hung over a separate series of corruption charges involving lavish gifts. This time, the Justice Department says it has photos of thousands of dollars in cash stuffed in clothing, a luxury car, gold bars and other gifts. That would keep anyone up at night, but there may be one other insomniac this week: Hunter Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell. The Menendez indictment likely proved chilling reading for Lowell, who not only represents President Joe Biden’s son but also represented Menendez in his prior bribery trial. There are striking similarities between the Menendez and Biden cases. While Hunter Biden was allegedly selling access to and influence with his father, he also allegedly received massive payments. His associate Devon Archer told Congress that they were selling the Biden family “brand,” and that Joe Biden was “the brand.”

Like Menendez, Hunter Biden allegedly received a luxury car from his foreign clients. For the senator, the Justice Department says it was a $60,000 Mercedes-Benz. For the president’s son, investigators say it was a $142,000 Fisker sports car. Menendez allegedly received gold bars worth up to $120,000. Biden received a diamond allegedly worth $80,000. Indeed, the alleged object of these payments was influence with then-Vice President Biden, when he was the presiding officer of the Senate. Menendez was one of the nation’s most powerful senators at the time. There are also dealings that reference Hunter Biden and his associates in the Menendez matter. When the senator was trying to arrange for Joe Biden to host a foreign event, an aide to Menendez reportedly reached out to Hunter Biden’s associates.

While the president’s son is accused of peddling influence, in Menendez’s case, it is his wife who is accused of acting as a go-between with those trying to buy the senator’s attention. Nadine Menendez allegedly had lunches and countless communications with people, who, according to the indictment, sought favors from the senator. Nadine Menendez allegedly knew the co-defendants before she married the senator in 2020. The couple met at an IHOP, but he fittingly proposed to her in 2019 at the Taj Mahal on a trip to India. The setting for the proposal would foretell the lavish gifts to come. Like Hunter, Nadine started an international consulting company, Strategic International Business Consultants, after being unemployed before meeting the senator. She found ample business.

Like Hunter, she is accused of marketing her ability to deliver access to her husband. In March 2020, she allegedly texted an Egyptian official that “anytime you need anything you have my number and we will make everything happen.” There is of course a major difference between the Biden and Menendez cases: Menendez and his wife are being criminally charged for their alleged influence peddling. The Justice Department has not only let the statute of limitations run out on the most serious tax charges against Hunter Biden, but it also has not charged the president’s son under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Despite charging figures like Paul Manafort for similar accusations, prosecutors have avoided charges in the Biden case that would put Hunter at the center of a corruption prosecution. Instead, they sought an embarrassing “sweetheart deal” that collapsed in court.

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“Don’t let these white supremacist, “far-right” MAGA nut-jobs drag us out of the comfortable warm, moist darkness we thrive in — perfect conditions for continued blob growth..”

• Two-Punch (James Howard Kunstler)

So, here at week’s end we see these two rather momentous issues juxtaposed: the battle over how to finance that blob-infested monster in DC; and the battle to expose the crimes of a real-life Manchurian Candidate president. Neither battle is going all that well for the minority of citizens who want to live in a pro-reality society. If we follow the fiscal trend, all the tax revenue we can grudge up will barely cover the annual interest on our $30+trillion debt. If we can’t boot out the brain-dead cat’s paw in the White House, then say goodbye to the rule of law and liberty with it.

The people we elect to Congress don’t want to be accountable for specifically authorizing spending on the blob’s multitudinous pet projects. So, they depend on multi-thousand-page omnibus bills nobody can ever scrutinize, and continuing resolution dodges to postpone any necessarily painful action on a budget. Therefore, a dissenting coterie in the House proposes to play hard-ball over de-funding the blob, that is, a government shutdown of unknown duration, until gaslight is replaced by sunlight. The blob itself sends out a frantic S.O.S. Don’t let these white supremacist, “far-right” MAGA nut-jobs drag us out of the comfortable warm, moist darkness we thrive in — perfect conditions for continued blob growth!

After all, these Congresspersons have their lobbyist-donors to answer to, and they’d better come up with the right answer — or else their chance of eventually retiring as multi-millionaires, like Nancy Pelosi did, might slip away. Of course, the joke would be on them (and the rest of us) if it eventually costs a million dollars for a slice of pizza when they try to cash-out. Or is there some dirty secret involved here — for instance, that the blob has also taken over whatever remained of the US economy, too. So that defunding the blob also blows a hole in that putative economy? Or maybe not. Maybe the regular economy can breathe a little again with the blob’s boot off its neck. Let’s go ahead and shut off the flow for a week or two, see what happens.

[..] There’s reason to be discouraged that the people we elect can bring the two great issues of the moment — the blob’s budget and the impeachment of “Joe Biden” — to satisfactory conclusions. They are arguably pseudopods of that very blob, whose very existence is being threatened now, and they have to worry about their shots at becoming multi-millionaires, too. The weeks ahead will inform us if there’s anything that can be salvaged of our federal government or whether we must make other arrangements.

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That status would give them access to billions upon billions in give-aways and cheap loans.

• Ukraine Demands ‘Full’ EU Membership (RT)

Ukraine demands complete accession to the EU and will not accept any substitute proposed by incumbent member states who envision a tiered system of candidates, Prime Minister Denis Shmygal has told Politico. “We want to be a fully-fledged member because Ukraine today is the unique country across the world that has paid such a huge price for its will to become a European Union member,” the senior official insisted. Earlier this month, a report commissioned by France and Germany recommended breaking down the EU’s expansion process into more phases to “ensure a merit-based approach and to manage potential conflicts.” A four-tiered system ranking nations from “inner circle” down to a “European Political Community”was proposed.

Eight nations and the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo currently have active talks with the EU about possible accession. National leaders will discuss enlargement and reform plans during a summit in Granada, Spain next week. Shmygal emphasized that Ukraine is not aiming for a lower-tier status and anticipates full membership within two years. In explaining what sets Ukraine apart, he pointed to the significant and widespread public support for EU accession among its population. Previously, other senior Ukrainian officials asserted that their nation should be granted membership due to their perceived role in defending the EU from potential Russian invasion. It’s worth noting, however, that Moscow has not indicated any intention to engage in armed conflict with any EU member state.

In a recent Politico interview, Shmygal provided insights ahead of a formal assessment by Brussels regarding Ukraine’s progress in implementing the required reforms as a candidate state last year. The European Commission is anticipated to make a recommendation next month regarding the commencement of formal accession talks. The prime minister vowed that his country “would not be bringing problems” to the EU and, on the contrary, would help it tackle energy dependence, security, defense, and broader economic issues. Currently, Kiev relies on foreign aid to conduct its military campaign against Russia and pay government expenditures. Joseph Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, noted in an interview with The Guardian last week that Ukraine “would be the only country that would be a net beneficiary”should it be granted membership. He added, however, that Kiev’s inclusion in the bloc would also end a “sleeping siesta” period for enlargement.

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None of the money “invested” will ever be seen again.

• Germany-Ukraine Joint Arms Production Venture a Money Laundering Scheme (Sp.)

German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall has received the go-ahead from the country’s Federal Antimonopoly Office to set up a joint venture with the Ukrainian Defense Industry, previously known as Ukroboronprom. According to Rheinmetall, “The JV [joint venture] is to be based in Kiev and engage in service and maintenance as well as the assembly, production and development of military vehicles.” The developments come as a US newspaper reported that Kiev is due to host Western officials and international arms manufacturers for a forum on Friday, touted as an opportunity to increase weapons production inside Ukraine. The newspaper cited Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba as saying that representatives of 165 military contractors from 26 nations are expected to take part in the forum.

Alexei Leonkov told Sputnik that Kiev and Berlin are currently writing up an agreement of intent, which is presented as if the decision on the JV has already been made. Actually, however, there are several factors that make these plans by Berlin and Kiev doubtful, the Russian analyst pointed out. First and foremost, Ukraine is involved in hostilities, which means that its industrial sector is often exposed to Russian missile attacks and those conducted by Russian long-range combat drones, according to Leonkov. Secondly, cash-strapped Ukraine’s national debt will soon approach 100%, namely, it will be a bankrupt state in the near future and it remains unclear how investments into the country can be made. The analyst warned that investors’ hopes for some kind of economic effect from the possible JV may never be met because it’s not clear who will make payments.

Last but not least, Rheinmetall – a high-tech company – will most likely have to spend its own money to train Ukrainian workers so that they can be on a first-name basis with German technology, as per Leonkov. “The only thing that can be done is, on the one hand, to do some PR, and on the other – to knock out money that will never be spent on creating the JV’s workshops and production sites. One can easily point the finger at Russian missiles that allegedly destroyed JV sites,” the analyst said, calling the Kiev-Berlin project “a money laundering scheme.” He stressed that even if there was no Russian special military operation in Ukraine, creating the JV could take plenty of time. “This project is at the level of crazy people. Making plans when your ship is already sinking is tantamount to the captain of the Titanic making plans that he will sail, for example, to Beijing next time. So no serious investor will invest in the project, which is a very attractive project in terms of money laundering,” the Arsenal Otechestva editor underscored.

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Wouldn’t be surprising. Certain death appeals to few people.

• Ukrainian Troops Reportedly Refuse Battle Orders Due to Heavy Losses (Sp.)

The Russian Defense Ministry has reported that the 47th Mechanized Brigade had to be withdrawn from the Rabotino area of the Zaporozhye region by the Ukrainian command due to the soldiers’ reluctance to carry out combat missions in the face of mounting casualties. According to information shared on the Telegram channel of the Russian Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian command is currently carrying out the withdrawal of the 47th Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) from the Rabotino area of the Zaporozhye region as soldiers are reluctant to take on combat orders after the losses they suffered.

The Russian Armed Forces are heavily engaged in the defense of the Zaporozhye direction. Last week, Russian military units successfully repelled eight attacks from enemy assault groups from the 65th Mechanized and 71st Jaeger Brigades in the Verbovoye and Rabotino areas. The Ministry of Defense also announced that the UAF suffered significant losses during the fighting, including over 330 soldiers, 32 armored combat vehicles, 38 vehicles and 25 field artillery pieces. Earlier in the day, the Defense Ministry announced that Russian paratroopers using anti-tank vehicles had neutralized a Ukrainian military observation post on the right bank of the Dnepr River.

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‘..If you want to walk fast, walk alone; if you want to walk far, walk together.’

• Russia-China Partnership Defangs US Empire (Pepe Escobar)

China’s State Council has released a crucial policy paper titled ‘A Global Community of Shared Future: China’s Proposals and Actions’ that should be read as a detailed, comprehensive road map for a peaceful, multipolar future. That is if the hegemon – of course faithful to its configuration as War Inc. – does not drag the world into the abyss of a hybrid-turned-hot war with incandescent consequences. In sync with the ever-evolving Russia-China strategic partnership, the white paper notes how “President Xi Jinping first raised the vision of a global community of shared future when addressing the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 2013.”
That was ten years ago, when the New Silk Roads – or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – was launched: that became the overarching foreign policy concept of the Xi era.

The Belt and Road Forum next month in Beijing will celebrate the 10th anniversary of BRI, and relaunch a series of BRI projects. “Community of Shared Future” is a concept virtually ignored across the collective West – and in several cases lost in translation across the East. The white paper’s ambition is to introduce “the theoretical base, practice and development of a global community of shared future.” The five key points include building partnerships “in which countries treat each other as equals”; a fair and just security environment; “inclusive development”; inter-civilization exchanges; and “an ecosystem that puts Mother Nature and green development first,” as Xi detailed at the 2015 UN General Assembly. The white paper forcefully debunks the “Thucydides Trap” fallacy:

“There is no iron law that dictates that a rising power will inevitably seek hegemony. This assumption represents typical hegemonic thinking and is grounded in memories of catastrophic wars between hegemonic powers in the past.” While criticizing the “zero-sum game” to which “certain countries” still cling to, China completely aligns with the Global South/global majority, as in “the common interests of all peoples around the world. When the world thrives, China thrives, and vice versa.” Well, that’s not exactly the “rules-based international order” in play. When it comes to building a new system of international relations, China prioritizes “extensive consultation” among equals and “the principle of sovereign equality” that “runs through the UN Charter.” History and realpolitik, though, dictate that some countries are more equal than others.

This white paper comes from the political leadership of a civilization-state. Thus it naturally promotes the “increase of inter-civilization exchanges to promote harmony” while elegantly remarking how a “fine traditional culture epitomizes the essence of the Chinese civilization.” Here we see a delicate blend of Taoism and Confucianism, where harmony – praised as “the core concept of Chinese culture” – is extrapolated to the concept of “harmony within diversity”: and that is exactly the basis for embracing cultural diversity. In terms of promoting a dialogue of civilizations, these paragraphs are particularly relevant:

“The concept of a global community of shared future reflects the common interests of all civilizations – peace, development, unity, coexistence, and win-win cooperation. A Russian proverb holds, ‘Together we can weather the storm.’ “The Swiss-German writer Hermann Hesse proposed, ‘Serve not war and destruction, but peace and reconciliation.’ A German proverb reads, ‘An individual’s effort is addition; a team’s effort is multiplication.’ An African proverb states, ‘One single pillar is not sufficient to build a house.’ An Arabian proverb asserts, ‘If you want to walk fast, walk alone; if you want to walk far, walk together.’ “Mexican poet Alfonso Reyes wrote, ‘The only way to be profitably national is to be generously universal.’

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You know the answer in advance. Thing is, Russia got a deal with Bolivia. Lithium OPEC.

• Can The US Defeat Russia In The Lithium Battery War? (Helmer)

In January of this year the United States Geological Service (USGS) reported the reserves of the nine leading countries in the world which mine lithium, the new fuel to power electric batteries. Chile led, followed by Australia, Argentina, China, and the US which claims to have one million tonnes. Russia was left out of the USGS chart. Russian sources report its lithium reserves are currently between 3.5 million and 5 million tonnes; that’s at least three times more than the US. The US is also much more limited in its capacity to develop new domestic lithium mines compared to Russia. Bolivia was also omitted from the US Government chart because its reserves were called unproven resources. In fact and in the ground, Bolivia leads the lithium world with 21 million tonnes.

The difference between what USGS reports and what happens next isn’t the distinction in geologists’ terminology between reserves and resources. It’s US Government policy to stop, sabotage and destroy Russia’s ability to meet its lithium requirement from its own, domestic sources, or by importing from friendly countries like Bolivia. In response, a new plan for combining lithium mining projects in Bolivia and Russia will produce a surplus of Russia’s foreseeable requirement for lithium battery production. But not only that. Allied in technology sharing, investment, trade, and political agreement, the two countries will protect each other in the conservation of the lithium market. If everything goes according to plan, Russia, Bolivia, and the three BRICS states – Argentina, Brazil and China – will dominate the trade in global lithium.

They are already discussing the formation of a collective marketing organisation – a lithium OPEC. Unless the US can stop them. In the latest official paper issued by the State Department on July 23, “the bilateral relationship between the United States and Bolivia” is “strained. Despite these challenges, the United States maintains a strong and respectful relationship with the Bolivian people, with whom we work to advance human rights, entrepreneurship, and cultural and educational initiatives…However, the United States remains concerned by anti-democratic actions and the politicization of the legal system.” This is how the lithium war is starting.

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“He’s here to…here to…he’s got all of the…he runs the…the…the thing. Rocketship.”

• Biden Administration Reports Dangerous African Immigrant At Border (BBee)

As the migrant crisis along the southern U.S. border continued to intensify, a new threat emerged, leading the Biden administration to warn the populace of the presence of a dangerous African immigrant sighted at the border. “This is serious, folks,” President Joe Biden said in brief remarks to reporters. “We’ve received reports of a very menacing African man roaming the region. Everyone knows I’m a long-time advocate for keeping an eye on these African fellas. This one is especially dangerous. He’s here to…here to…he’s got all of the…he runs the…the…the thing. Rocketship.” Despite thousands of unvetted and undocumented foreign nationals pouring across the border every day, the federal government and the mainstream media have continued to remain largely silent on the topic.

The sudden appearance of this African man, experts say, may finally force the Biden administration to address the issue of border security. “They can’t afford to ignore it now,” said Dr. Blake Rumsey of the Foundation for Discussion. “For whatever reason, this particular African man seems to really have them spooked.” The White House was uncharacteristically quick to comment on the news from the border. “Border safety is now a priority,” said gay and black Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “This African man poses a serious threat to America’s national security and democracy itself. When he gets up from his nap, the president will take this very seriously.” At publishing time, the federal government had announced the deployment of military resources to apprehend the African man.

“Elon Musk went to the southern border to investigate illegal crossings & his interview of local sheriffs & officials now has +81 million views. CNN gets ~474,000 viewers per day”

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Rain frog

 

 

 

 

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