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Debt Rattle July 7 2026

Jul 072026
 
 July 7, 2026  Posted by at 9:33 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  3 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Dance hall in Arles 1888


• Vance: AOC Will Be Leading Democratic Candidate For President In 2028 (JTN)
• Shapiro Could’ve Been A Contender, But He Caved To The Loons (Turley)
• ‘Restraining Order Needed’: Trump Again Taunts Italy’s Meloni (ZH0
• Former Sen. Warren Staffer Attends Ayatollah’s Funeral (ZH)
• How Canadian Govt Controls Canadian Media (CTH)
• Werewolves of London (James Howard Kunstler)
• Trump Keeps Building What His Critics Will Later Take for Granted (Manney)
• Cuba’s Power Grid Collapses As Castro’s Grandson Seeks Talks With Trump (ZH)
• Biden Illegal Immigrant Wave Caused 30% of Home Price Increases (JTN)
• Mamdani Fancies Himself A Financial Whiz (NYPost)
• EU Shifts From Trade To War – Ex-Austrian Foreign Minister (RT)
• Zelenskyy Demands Western Support After Russian Strikes Kill 11 In Kyiv (Pol.eu)
• The EU Spins A $2.2 Trillion Wealth Transfer Machine (Thomas Kolbe)
• Royal Navy In Worst State In Centuries – Retired Admiral (RT)
• ‘Crimes Against Humanity’: The CIA’s Sickest Secret May Finally Be Exposed (RT)

 


 

https://twitter.com/XFreeze/status/2073846691183333652?s=20

 


 


FWIW.

• Vance: AOC Will Be Leading Democratic Candidate For President In 2028 (JTN)

Vice president JD Vance said that he believes Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., will lead the field of Democratic presidential candidates in 2028. “I think it’s got to be AOC. I know that’s probably conventional wisdom,” Vance said in a wide-ranging interview on the “The Michael Knowles Show” released on Tuesday. Knowles countered that the conventional wisdom is that California Gov. Gavin Newsom would be the leading Democrat, but Vance said he doesn’t “buy that.”


“I think he hurt himself with his comment to an audience full of black Americans that I’m low IQ, just like you,” Vance said. Vance was referring to comments Newsom made at an event in Atlanta in February in an attempt to say he related to the audience. “I’m just trying to impress upon you: I’m like you. I’m no better than you. You know, I’m a 960 SAT guy,” Newsom said. Initial reports claimed Newsom was speaking to a predominantly Black crowd, but subsequent photos and videos from the event revealed a diverse crowd with many whites in the audience.

Read more …

“Yesterday’s armchair revolutionaries like Shapiro will soon be treated as today’s reactionaries by the very mob that they are trying to enlist.”

• Shapiro Could’ve Been A Contender, But He Caved To The Loons (Turley)

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has finally reached his Terry Malloy moment. In the classic movie “On the Waterfront,” the character tells his brother of losing it all; his shot to be a champion and a person of respect: “You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it.”


Shapiro decided to deliver his defining moment on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” when he abandoned all principle and decided to join other Democratic establishment leaders in offering up the Supreme Court to the radical left. Shapiro used the common coded reference to court packing, calling for “radical reform of the court.” The only “radical” reform being seriously discussed is packing the institution with an immediate liberal majority to reverse a series of recent decisions and to greenlight an equally radical agenda for changes to our political system.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro greets the crowd at a presidential campaign rally for Vice President Kamala Harris, on Aug. 6, 2024, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)What is so disappointing is that Shapiro truly could have been a contender, an alternative to the cringing, accommodating politicians who are yielding to the demands of the mob. Figures from Kamala Harris to Pete Buttigieg have recently embraced the scheme to show their bona fides to a rising socialist and radical movement in the Democratic Party.

Shapiro could have been different. He could have offered the country moderation and pushed back on the radical elements of his party. Shapiro was reportedly rejected as a vice presidential candidate due to being Jewish and is a member of a party that is careening toward open antisemitism. He could have been that mature voice within his party cautioning restraint before destroying one of our core institutions.Instead, he chose to just be another bum in American politics. “I think we need radical reform that’s actually going to ensure that the voices of the people are heard from, that the voices of the people are represented in the three branches of government,” Shapiro told MS NOW. “We don’t have that right now.”

The comment echoes the remarks of other court-packers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who insisted the court was illegitimate for rendering decisions against “widely held public opinion.” The Supreme Court was never designed to be the “voice of the people.” On the contrary, it was meant to be a counter-majoritarian check on the people’s impulse. It is that body that is designed to stand against the majority to protect minority interests and to maintain a constitutional system meant to blunt popular impulse.

In my book, “Rage and the Republic,” I discuss how the Framers sought to avoid a direct democratic system, which had failed repeatedly in history. These systems (based on channeling public demands) became what Benjamin Rush called a “mobocracy.” The Supreme Court is a vital part of preventing our Republic from destroying itself. For years, professors and pundits have quietly urged a hostile takeover of the court to remove the barrier to fundamentally changing our system. Now, on the 250th anniversary of our Republic, they are close to getting their way.

Years ago, Harvard professor Michael Klarman laid out a radical agenda to change the system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.” However, he warned that “the Supreme Court could strike down everything I just described.” Therefore, the court must be packed in advance to allow these changes to occur. Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder has put packing the Supreme Court front and center, explaining, “[We’re] talking about the acquisition and the use of power if there is a Democratic trifecta in 2028.”

James Carville declared, “If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. F— it. Eat our dust. Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.” Now Shapiro has joined these ignoble ranks. Shapiro and others are demanding the radical reforms despite the current court repeatedly ruling against the Trump administration, including most recently on birthright citizenship. Without acknowledging that the decision again showed the court’s independence, Shapiro griped, “this case should have taken a nanosecond to decide and it should have been 9-0.”

What does that mean? Should the courts not have heard arguments, or should the Supreme Court have issued an immediate ruling from the bench during oral arguments? Nevertheless, that is enough for Shapiro to toss the court to the mob. It is transparent and frankly pathetic. Shapiro added that too much power was being given to the executive branch. This is a court that just ruled against the president on issues from citizenship to tariffs. It has drawn sharp rebukes from President Donald Trump for curtailing his powers.

Now Shapiro appears ready to repeat his controversial move against his neighbor and exercise a type of adverse possession against the court. However, he lacks the courage (as do figures like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.) to come out and call it court packing. They simply refer to “radical” changes. It is part of conditioning voters to the type of structural changes contemplated by the Left to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election.” Most voters still oppose court packing. You have to wait until voters are angry enough to take a hammer to a system that remains the oldest, most stable democracy in history.

Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder has put packing the Supreme Court front and center. The court could well fall in the coming years to this mad frenzy, but it will be preceded by the fall of figures like Shapiro. He and his establishment colleagues are deluding themselves into believing that they will be spared in this mobocracy that they are making. Refusing to have his state participate in the 250th celebration on the Mall and offering up the Supreme Court will not appease an increasingly violent and antisemitic far-left movement.

Despite his own pandering to the mob, the socialists recently chanted “you’re next” when they saw Jeffries’ image on a screen at a New York victory party. Yesterday’s armchair revolutionaries like Shapiro will soon be treated as today’s reactionaries by the very mob that they are trying to enlist. What will be left is a lament of what Shapiro could have been at this moment in our history. As Terry Malloy said, he “coulda had class. [He] coulda been a contender. [He] could’ve been somebody.”

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“Ahead Of NATO Summit ..”

She used to be Elon’s girl…

• ‘Restraining Order Needed’: Trump Again Taunts Italy’s Meloni (ZH0

There’s no time like the eve of the major annual NATO summit for Trump to reignite his longstanding feud with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, apparently. The American President blasted out the below Truth Social just before heading to Ankara, Turkey for the gathering of NATO heads…


The doctored image featuring the caption “Restraining order needed” marks but the latest escalation between to the two leaders. Meloni has not responded or commented directly regarding the Truth Social Post, and is unlikely to given that Italy likely wants to avoid escalation. “People come and go but relations must endure,” Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto remarked on the prime minister still being in Trump’s crosshairs to news channel Sky TG24. And Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani tried to brush it off while presenting an optimistic picture of future relations, saying he was “sure that transatlantic relations go well beyond individual comments.”

This new post follows on another Truth Social post from June, in which Trump accused the Italian PM of asking for a picture with him “over and over” at the G7 Summit in France. At heart of the feud is Italy’s breaking with Trump over his Iran operation. This has included denying shared base usage for American military flights connected with Operation Epic Fury. Trump had claimed earlier in the summer of Meloni, “She is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity, possibly because she turned down the United States of America, a Country that truly loves and protects Italy, when it came to denying Iran from obtaining or developing a Nuclear Weapon.”

He then suggested that Meloni wanted to be “friends again” to get her “numbers up” – but has appeared to stipulate that she must fully open up Italian bases for US aircraft usage once again. Meloni in response to the prior June post slammed the US president for his “senseless” and “constant, unprovoked attacks”. “As for my popularity, being your friend has certainly not helped it, nor does it depend on my relationship with you,” she shot back. “My popularity is none of your concern. I suggest you focus on yours.”All of this could serve to make any close-quarter contact at the NATO summit in Ankara very awkward – also as the two will certainly be in the same general vicinity for events like the group photo.

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Curious.

Walsh shared a message similar to that of the Democratic Socialists: “Death to America”

• Former Sen. Warren Staffer Attends Ayatollah’s Funeral (ZH)

A former Democratic Party operative who worked on campaigns linked to prominent unhinged left-wing politicians such as Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, and others has become a case study in how far-left radicalization can influence those on the left, spiraling dangerously and leading to the open championing of leaders of foreign adversaries. Calla Walsh began organizing for Democratic Senator Ed Markey while she was still a teenager. She had the perfect profile: earnest, idealistic, and a model Gen Z Democrat.


But, like many of her peers on the left, that idealism mutated into something darker – something Democrats are now concerned about as socialists and Islamists gain power in their party. The latest Walsh episode shows the Gen Z Democrat on Iranian TV from Tehran during funeral ceremonies for slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, praising the late Iranian cleric as the “greatest anti-imperialist leader” of her lifetime. “Ayatollah Khamenei was the greatest anti-imperialist leader to have lived during my lifetime,” Walsh said.

Walsh shared a message similar to that of the Democratic Socialists: “Death to America”…

Walsh’s message was also shared with attendees at the funeral.

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“.. it’s clear why the Canadian people will be stunned when it all collapses around them. They have no reference points.”

• How Canadian Govt Controls Canadian Media (CTH)

U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra appears for an interview on CBC News to share perspectives on U.S-Canada relations. However, what happens within the interview is a case study on how Canadian media represent an extension of the Canadian government. This example is exactly why the Canadian people have no reference point for information counter to the official propaganda policy from their government offices.


Rebecca Zandbergen, host of CBC’s Ottawa Morning represents the voice of government in combative tone, condescending attitude and refusal to accept counter arguments. The level of passive-aggressive condescension highlights why Canada has continued to lose position in a world where pretending has become devalued. However, it’s clear why the Canadian people will be stunned when it all collapses around them. They have no reference points. Ambassador Hoekstra should get hazard pay. WATCH (prompted):

I like how Hoekstra reminds Rebecca Zandbergen that the 51st state issue surfaced as an outcome of a discussion between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Trump in Mar-a-Lago that centered around NATO spending and reciprocity in trade via non-tariff barriers. The points Ambassador Hoekstra makes at the end of this interview are exactly on point, and yet Zandbergen pretends not to understand them.

The American govt is not running anti-Carney advertising in Canada. Americans are not banning Canadian products. The American Government is not telling Americans not to travel to Canada. The American govt has not banned Canadian companies from bidding on contracts. These are all actions taken by the Canadian government.

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“To use language to obscure reality is to show ‘indifference regarding the truth’— to lie to the public and cease to treat our fellow citizens as equals.” —Justice Clarence Thomas

“.. the slippery closet-Marxist Barack Obama and, behind him, the American Deep State nomenklatura desperate to stay out of prison, along with the unelected EU Commission led by the grandmotherly sadist Ursula von der Leyen ..”

• Werewolves of London (James Howard Kunstler)

Now that the grand 250th USA birthday party is over — the speeches, the shrieking warplanes, the dazzling fireworks, the speeches and strawberry shortcake — there is only one way this thing can go. What thing? The war for the soul of the nation. Some mysterious somebody is behind the surging “Democratic-Socialist” craze. Somebody is paying for it. It’s a last-ditch drive to marshal the disaffected, under-employed young voters, choking on their college loans, deranged by anomie, and get them marching in solidarity with X-million illegal aliens to act-out an election jihad so as to squeeze out House and Senate majorities and, ultimately, wreck the nation.


That mysterious background “somebody” is not so mysterious. It just doesn’t self-identify under a banner, but you can easily tell who they are: the, the slippery closet-Marxist Barack Obama and, behind him, the American Deep State nomenklatura desperate to stay out of prison, along with the unelected EU Commission led by the grandmotherly sadist Ursula von der Leyen (plus the banksters behind her). Some call them “globalists.” They are a loose coalition of convenience against the populist threat of Mr. Trump in America and similar populist movements in Europe: AfD in Germany, the two parties of Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe in the UK, and LePen’s Nationalist Rally in France.

The EU, with its front-men Macron, Merz, and whoever will replace Starmer this month, is currently preoccupied with its stupid effort to provoke Russia into a wider war, using their proxy, Ukraine. Mr. Putin, still advancing through the Donbas, refuses to get drawn-in deeper with the EU despite the drone and missile sorties lately banging-up his oil depots. Mr. Putin is actually a defender of Western Civ — yes, ironic, isn’t it, considering what his country escaped out of in 1991 — but it’s so. Russia has become our natural ally in this struggle as the EU goes all werewolf on both Russia and us. File under strange-but-true.

Contrary to Deep State propaganda, and the IRGC’s bullshit, Mr. Trump has the Iran situation in-hand. We have bigly reduced Iran’s capacity to make trouble in the world and our satellites watch everything they do now, so there will be no Iranian military re-build, no matter how the MOU talks go. They still do have the option of dropping their jihad fixation and acting like a normal nation, but we’ll just have to stand by on that.

What has to happen now in the USA is a summer of accountability. Perp walks. Indictments. Preparation for trials. Many of you are discouraged about this, I know, but please put those black pills back in the medicine chest. Accountability is coming. The mills of the law grind slowly, and its especially difficult since the Deep State has corrupted select precincts of the law, such as the US District Court for the District of Columbia, where rogue judges Boasberg, Chutkan, Sullivan, Howell, Meta, Reyes, Cooper, et al., have made an industry of paralyzing Mr. Trump’s executive branch.

Nevertheless, accountability might also be coming for Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the dodgy majority opinion on the SCOTUS’s June 30 “Birth Citizenship” decision (Trump v. Barbara), an epic fail for Justice Roberts (joined by Amy Coney Barrett and the three DEI gals). The 14th Amendment was written to mitigate the disruptions of the Civil War. Section One is clearly aimed at defining the full citizenship of former slaves, and that’s all, not the offspring of casual visitors and border-jumpers. There was considerable clarifying debate on the record about all that in June, 1866, with skeletons still being cleared off the battlefields. The 2026 decision looks like a debacle for reasons also obvious.

What motivated Mr. Roberts to do such a harm? Perhaps he’s just an idiot, but there’s more lurking there. It’s widely known that the Chief Justice made at least one week-long visit to Norm Eisen, after Eisen had been appointed Ambassador to Prague (2011) by his law school classmate, President Barack Obama. In these final years of Obama-in-office, Norm Eisen was busy plotting so-called Color Revolution in Europe, which climaxed in the 2014 Maidan operation in Ukraine. The purpose was to make Ukraine as a proxy to weaken Russia, and would come to entail massive money-laundering and the setting up of bio-weapons labs there. This was also the period when then-Veep Joe Biden was given the “Urkaine Portfolio” and was busiest with his own grifting enterprise, through son Hunter.

Read more …

Granite helipad.

• Trump Keeps Building What His Critics Will Later Take for Granted (Manney)

President Donald Trump saw torn-up grass on the South Lawn and treated it like a problem worth fixing. The newer Marine One helicopters are more powerful, and their heat and exhaust have damaged the White House lawn. His answer is a granite helipad built for the aircraft that carries the president of the United States. For most people, that sounds practical. In Washington, because Trump is doing it, practical work gets treated like scandal.


The helipad is expected to cost $5 million to $6 million. Sikorsky, the Lockheed Martin subsidiary that makes the VH-92A presidential helicopters, is funding it through the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit partner of the National Park Service. Reuters reported Trump asked Sikorsky for a little extra work: The president said that after learning Sikorsky was paying, he asked for the helipad to have a carved seal of the White House. In a statement, Lockheed said it could confirm the contribution range shared by Trump. The company did not provide a specific cost.

“This specific contribution was made to the Trust for the National Mall, the National Park Service s non-profit organization,” a Lockheed Martin spokesperson said in a statement. “Our engagement with the federal government is guided by rigorous ethics and compliance standards and conducted in full accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.” In 2024, a fleet of new Marine One helicopters was completed, meant to increase performance and payload, according to the U.S. Navy. “When you land on the grass, it’s not that the grass gets discolored, it gets ripped out,” Trump said.

From US News and World Report: “Confirmation of the project came as construction crews had already begun working on the helipad on the South Lawn, where the president had UFC build a temporary arena for a cage fight celebrating his 80th birthday. He said the project would be privately funded and estimated its cost at up to $6 million. “It’s got the seal of the White House on it in granite, in carved granite,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “It’s really a beautiful thing.” The president did not offer details on how long the work would take. It is the latest major construction project he has overseen in an effort to increasingly mold the White House in his own image. The helipad can handle new choppers, Trump says..”

The pad will sit on the South Lawn, carry a carved White House seal, and give Marine One a durable landing surface instead of more scorched grass. The pattern is familiar.

If Trump adds flagpoles, critics sneer.

If he changes the Rose Garden patio, they sneer.

If he pushes a ballroom for larger state events, they sneer.

If he restores or improves landmarks around Washington, polish and permanence get framed as vanity.

The White House says the new State Ballroom will add roughly 90,000 square feet and seat 650 guests, far beyond the East Room’s 200-person limit. Construction began in September 2025 and is projected to finish before the end of Trump’s term. The same official page notes that presidents and White House staff have sought larger event space for over 150 years. Future presidents, foreign leaders, military heroes, Medal of Honor families, and ordinary Americans honored at the White House will use that space. Many people mocking it now will one day praise an event held there without mentioning who made it happen.

The same story surrounds the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. President Trump pushed to make it clearer and cleaner ahead of America’s 250th birthday. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the repair work and the use of nanobubbler technology to fight algae. Critics argued over cost, color, process, and liner damage, but the goal was simple: one of America’s most photographed places should look like America cares about it. A country tells on itself by what it maintains. Broken fountains, damaged lawns, dirty pools, and temporary fixes send one message. Clean stone, working infrastructure, restored landmarks, and spaces built for national ceremony send another.

Trump understands image because image is part of leadership. Every president leaves marks on the White House. Theodore Roosevelt built the West Wing; Franklin Roosevelt added the East Wing; Harry Truman rebuilt the interior when the building became unsafe; and Jacqueline Kennedy restored history and taste to rooms that had drifted from their purpose. Trump’s changes will likely follow the same path. The outrage will fade, while the work remains.

The South Lawn helipad isn’t a constitutional crisis; it’s a practical answer to a practical problem. The ballroom isn’t an offense against history; it’s an expansion for a house that belongs to the American people. The Reflecting Pool is a national landmark worthy of care. Trump keeps building; his critics continue sneering, and time will sort the two.

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Needs Trump to stay in power. But why would the US keep the Castro’s in power?

• Cuba’s Power Grid Collapses As Castro’s Grandson Seeks Talks With Trump (ZH)

Hours after USA Today published an interview between one of its journalists and Cuban President Castro’s grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the communist-run island experienced an island-wide power grid collapse. The electrical workers’ union said the entire power grid went offline and that officials were investigating the cause. Cuba’s energy ministry confirmed the blackout and said crews were working to restore service. “A total disconnection of the National Electric Power System is occurring. The causes are being investigated,” the electrical workers’ union wrote on X.


Time is ticking for the communists in Havana to make a deal with Trump or face further economic collapse, as Havana is a case study in the failure of communism and how that economic system has never succeeded. Yet the Democratic Party is trying to convince people otherwise as it embraces the far left. Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, former Cuban president Castro’s grandson and one of the more important shadow figures inside Cuba’s communist ruling circle, told USA Today in an exclusive interview that he is prepared to speak directly with President Trump, signaling publicly a potential back-channel opening as the Trump administration intensifies economic pressure on Havana.

“I’ve never been interested in politics. It’s never been a calling of mine,” Rodríguez Castro told the outlet over the course of several days in June in Havana. “But if at some point the revolution needs me to step up, I will do it.” He said that he would never abandon the principles of Cuba’s 1959 revolution or the nation’s sovereignty. Rodríguez Castro is a lesser-known figure outside Havana’s communist circles. He holds no formal government position, rarely appears on state television and has never spoken to a US news outlet before. But the Castro family name gives him unique status inside Havana’s opaque power structure and the ability to act as a back-channel liaison with access to the island’s communist elite.

Now, the younger Castro is signaling he is ready to negotiate Cuba’s future, saying he wants to deal directly with President Trump. “I can negotiate with anyone designated by the U.S.,” Rodríguez Castro said. “If given the opportunity, claro que con Trump.” Of course, with Trump. Why would Rodríguez Castro want to negotiate now and not earlier this year? Well, that’s because Trump’s gunboat diplomacy has unleashed an economic stranglehold on the communist-run island, and it continues to work, with pressure now crushing the already poorly managed economy and collapsing its tourism sector.

The island drew just 360,000 tourists in the first five months of 2026, down 58% from a year earlier, according to Cuban government data. The neighboring Dominican Republic attracted more than 10 times that number over the same period. The Trump administration says the pressure campaign is aimed at forcing the communist government to open its political system after generations of economic misery under failed communism. Havana can’t turn to help from the socialists in Venezuela because the Maduro regime was taken out by US Delta Force operators. The Chinese and Russians won’t dare send their militaries to the island en masse because of the US naval presence in the region.

For Havana, the regime’s external lifelines have been disappearing one by one over the last six months. Recall that CIA Director John Ratcliffe was recently in Havana meeting with communist officials. Now, Rodríguez Castro speaking with a US media outlet is another promising signal, suggesting that back-channel talks are likely already underway as pressure builds on the island’s ruling elite.

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“Fed Reserve working paper suggests..”

30% seems a lot.

• Biden Illegal Immigrant Wave Caused 30% of Home Price Increases (JTN)

A new Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas working paper estimates the record surge in illegal immigration during the Biden administration boosted employment while causing 30% of home price increases and 20% of rent increases. The paper combined immigration court records with government administrative data to create the first ever calculation of how a wave of 7 million illegal immigrants from 2021 through 2024 affected local labor and housing markets.


“From early 2021 to early 2024, the U.S. experienced an unprecedented boom in unauthorized immigration, followed by a rapid slowdown beginning in mid-2024. We provide the first systematic empirical assessment of the labor- and housing-market effects of this episode,” the working paper said. “The total weighted-mean increases in house prices and rents over this period were 22.4% and 22.6%, respectively. Putting these together, for the average MSA, UIWF can explain approximately 30% of the total increase in house prices and 20% of the total increase in rents,” it added.

The researchers said they found little evidence that homebuilding expanded enough to meet the added demand, essentially creating a demand shock in markets where supply was already constrained. The authors cautioned that the study is a preliminary draft circulated for professional comment and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas or the Federal Reserve System.

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“To avoid making $2 billion a year in pension contributions over his two possible terms, Mamdani is forcing his successor to absorb about $7 billion in unnecessary interest costs..”

• Mamdani Fancies Himself A Financial Whiz (NYPost)

On Tuesday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin reached a record $125.8 billion budget deal for fiscal 2027 that began the following day. The mayor boasted: “Socialists not only understand economics just as well as the capitalists who came before, but . . . we can solve their years of mismanagement through an embrace of our principles.” Spare us the propaganda, Mr. Mayor. The city budget isn’t in great shape. Lest anyone be fooled, Mamdani’s supposedly balanced budget rests on a series of one-time tricks that got him through this year — and won’t be available in the next.


Remember back in January when he claimed he’d inherited a $12 billion deficit? A prudent budgeter would have identified the lowest-value uses of money and trimmed accordingly. Not Mamdani. Despite robust tax receipts, he labeled his inability to grow government even more of a “fiscal emergency.” He started demanding higher taxes on corporations and high earners from the state — which, thanks to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s caution, he didn’t get. Now he claims he balanced the budget with the help of pension-contribution “savings,” but in truth, as Manhattan Institute’s Ken Girardin explained, he merely dodged today’s bill by dumping a bigger one on tomorrow’s taxpayers.

To avoid making $2 billion a year in pension contributions over his two possible terms, Mamdani is forcing his successor to absorb about $7 billion in unnecessary interest costs between 2033 and 2037. What kind of financial whiz makes smaller credit-card payments today just to get killed on interest later? Mamdani also re-estimated expenses lower and agreed to Albany’s delaying its school class-size mandate. In the end, he and the council wound up spending 8.5% more than last year’s $116 billion budget. Just between the mayor’s proposal in May and the final deal, fiscal 2027 spending grew by $1.4 billion on various agency programs.

Some “emergency.” Meanwhile, City Comptroller Mark Levine’s latest report reveals the city’s mounting cash-flow issues. During the first nine months of fiscal 2026, average cash balances declined by over $2.4 billion from the year-ago period. Expenditure growth of 8% far outpaced receipt growth of 2.8%. By failing to address this unsustainable structural imbalance, Mamdani will be back where he started come January. By the mayor’s own estimate, he’ll face a $6.4 billion hole in the next fiscal year. Levine puts the figure at $8.8 billion.

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“Brussels’ geopolitical agenda and the creation of a defense portfolio reflect a broader policy shift, Karin Kneissl has told RT”

• EU Shifts From Trade To War – Ex-Austrian Foreign Minister (RT)

The European Union has abandoned its historic focus on trade and begun to increasingly define itself in terms of its military and geopolitical priorities, former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl told RT in an interview on Saturday.She made the remark days after Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Kiev and the “so-called European pseudo-peacekeepers” of seeking to prolong the conflict. He said their goal was “not peace, but the continuation of the war with Russia to the last Ukrainian.”


Speaking on Friday after visiting an auxiliary command post alongside top military commanders, Putin said Ukraine’s European backers were openly encouraging attacks on civilian targets, including infrastructure, transport, and student dormitories. Last week, Brussels transferred €3.9 billion ($4.44 billion) to Ukraine under a €90 billion loan package that allocates €30 billion for budget support and €60 billion for defense in 2026-2027. The latest tranche is expected to finance drone procurement, according to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Earlier this week, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated that the Baltic states have provided air corridors for Ukrainian drones that have attacked civilian infrastructure in northwestern Russia. “European integration has been moving from let’s trade with each other to let’s go to war,” the former diplomat said, stressing that the bloc had increasingly embraced a geopolitical and defense agenda instead of its usual focus on trade.

Kneissl pointed to the creation of an EU defense commissioner, whom she described as “a commissioner for war.” “Europe was always about trade,” she said, reiterating that von der Leyen had established a geopolitical commission in 2019. “We Europeans do not have the power to project force and have never really been able to define some sort of values with which some of us don’t agree,” the former diplomat continued, having expressed doubts that “this geopolitical commission will work.”

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“The United States and Europe have enough strength to stop this terror,” the Ukrainian leader wrote on X.

• Zelenskyy Demands Western Support After Russian Strikes Kill 11 In Kyiv (Pol.eu)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy renewed his calls for more Patriot missiles Monday as Russia’s latest missile attacks killed at least 11 people and injured 46 in Kyiv on Sunday night. “It is critically important that the world — first and foremost the United States and our European partners — come out of the NATO summit in Turkey with strong decisions in support of our air defense,” Zelenskyy wrote on X on Monday. Zelenskyy had warned late Sunday that intelligence suggested Russia was preparing another massive strike on Ukraine ahead of this week’s NATO summit in Ankara.


“As long as Patriot missiles remain in our allies’ stockpiles, Russia is only encouraged to keep ‘vanquishing’ residential buildings,” the Ukrainian leader said. Only Western support for Kyiv’s air defense can guarantee “the protection of ordinary people’s lives,” he added. “The United States and Europe have enough strength to stop this terror,” Zelenskyy said.Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Moscow’s overnight strikes destroyed four districts, with Podilskyi reporting the most damage as several high-rise residential buildings were struck.

Among the 46 injured were three children, Klitschko wrote on Telegram and declared Tuesday a day of mourning for the victims. The number of casualties might rise as emergency crews continued searching the rubble for survivors on Monday morning. The latest attack comes just days after another wave of Russian missile and drone strikes killed 13 people and injured more than 80 last week and two days after Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin held a call with U.S. President Donald Trump.

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More Defense Spending, More Climate Redistribution

• The EU Spins A $2.2 Trillion Wealth Transfer Machine (Thomas Kolbe)

Negotiations over the European Commission’s next seven-year budget are entering their decisive phase. Should Ursula von der Leyen and her allies succeed with their plans, Germany will once again shoulder a substantial financial burden. By now, however, Germans have become accustomed to that reality.


Across the world, public debt levels are approaching dangerous flood marks. The global economy is effectively drowning in debt, with total public liabilities now exceeding 95% of global GDP. It is therefore only a matter of time before bond markets bring the debt party to an end, pushing interest rates—and with them debt-servicing costs—to levels governments can no longer afford. Such a reckoning would merely represent the logical consequence of political irresponsibility, contempt for taxpayers, and the megalomania of a political culture that continues expanding government on an ever-growing mountain of debt.

A four-decade bull market in sovereign bonds, characterized by steadily declining yields, came to an end roughly four years ago. Since then, interest rates have been rising as investors gradually lose confidence in both the political direction of Western governments and the relentless expansion of the administrative state. A turning point is approaching. Fiscal austerity is standing at the gates of an era defined by political extravagance.

For politicians like Ursula von der Leyen, however, austerity would amount to admitting that decades of debt-financed government expansion have led into a dead end. Few things are more alien to modern political elites than acknowledging failure. This is particularly true within Brussels, where the bureaucratic establishment and the ideological foundations of the European project remain firmly convinced that they are building a supranational European state on the right side of history.

Unsurprisingly, austerity is nowhere to be found in Brussels. Instead, negotiations over the next seven-year EU budget are underway. The European Commission has floated a financial framework worth approximately €2 trillion. Funding for Ukraine-related military expenditures, broader European rearmament, and the enormous subsidy complex underpinning the Green Deal are all expected to come from higher member-state contributions and newly issued common debt. In doing so, Brussels continues to strengthen both its political authority and its influence over national governments.

Germany currently finances roughly one-quarter of the EU budget. Under the proposed framework, German taxpayers would ultimately contribute around €500 billion over the entire budget period. Last year alone Germany paid approximately €30 billion into the EU budget while receiving roughly €13 billion back, primarily in the form of agricultural subsidies and the ever-expanding subsidy machinery supporting Europe’s green industrial policies and interventionist economic model.

Yet even a €2 trillion budget – already representing a leap into fiscal fantasy given the severe economic damage inflicted by years of excessive European regulation – is apparently no longer sufficient for Brussels. Discussions are now underway to increase the budget by another €200 billion. Leading the charge, unsurprisingly, is the European Commission itself: an insatiable bureaucracy working relentlessly to establish independent sources of taxation. Customs revenues, proceeds from emissions trading, plastic taxes—the imagination of Brussels appears limitless. At the same time, direct financial demands on member states continue expanding almost automatically, with ever-higher budget contributions treated as political routine despite growing conservative resistance across Europe.

Should the von der Leyen Commission succeed in making this fiscal leap, Germany’s annual contribution to financing the European project would rise from roughly €30 billion today to approximately €78.6 billion. For taxpayers, the implications are profound. An entirely new layer of government—complete with its own bureaucracy and increasingly its own taxation powers—has gradually positioned itself above existing national institutions. Since the joint borrowing undertaken during the pandemic and the issuance of the massive NextGenerationEU bonds, Brussels has steadily transformed itself into an independent borrower on international capital markets.

Officially, the German government still opposes granting the European Commission broader taxation powers and objects to dramatically expanding the EU budget. Yet all indications suggest that Berlin will ultimately shift the fiscal burden to Brussels itself, paving the way for larger common bond issuance—or some comparable mechanism—to finance the growing central apparatus.

Beginning in 2028, repayment of the €750 billion NextGenerationEU debt will commence. Those obligations, spread over subsequent years, must eventually be repaid to investors. Since these resources simply do not exist, Europe’s capitals will almost certainly reach the same conclusion: refinance the liabilities through continuous new bond issuance, effectively burying what remains of the European Union’s original prohibition against common sovereign debt. In many respects, the transformation of Europe’s financing structure resembles a financial evolution toward a European superstate.

Ultimately, common liability for Brussels’ debts appears virtually inevitable. The political and institutional path back has largely disappeared. For German taxpayers, this strategy amounts to little more than witnessing another familiar fiscal shell game. Brussels will almost certainly continue creating new revenue streams through customs duties, emissions trading, plastic taxes, and whatever additional levies policymakers may devise. The remaining financing gap will inevitably be covered through Eurobonds issued on capital markets.

Such policies carry significant inflationary risks, as additional sovereign borrowing expands the money supply and places upward pressure on prices. At the same time, government borrowing increasingly crowds private investment out of credit markets, raising financing costs for productive businesses while strengthening the role of the public sector. The consequences are already becoming visible. Europe’s downward spiral of declining prosperity is accelerating. It is a tragic process of economic deterioration—one that is increasingly likely to culminate in a major sovereign debt crisis.

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“While Britain considers a potential confrontation with Russia, it reportedly operates the smallest fleet in its history”

• Royal Navy In Worst State In Centuries – Retired Admiral (RT)

The Royal Navy has been reduced to the worst state in British history, retired chief of the Naval Staff, Lord Alan West, has told the Sun. London now operates the smallest fleet ever, according to the outlet. A total of nine ships have been scrapped over the past two years under Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the UK is now operating a fleet that includes five operational frigates and no amphibious assault ships, the Sun reported on Friday. The government dropped plans for new Type 83 destroyers and Type 32 frigates, calling them “unaffordable,” it added.


According to West, Starmer’s naval policy has been catastrophic. “The number of ships we have is pathetic, to do the things we need to do,” the former first sea lord and Labour security minister said. “The last time the Navy took this sort of hammering was in Samuel Pepys time [in 1667] and the Dutch sailed up to Chatham, burnt the fleet and stole the flagship,” he said, referring to the Second Anglo-Dutch War in the 17th century, where the British suffered heavy losses in a raid on Medway and were forced to sign a peace treaty favorable to Amsterdam.

Starmer has axed four frigates, two assault ships, two tankers and a nuclear-powered submarine since taking office, the Sun estimated, adding that it was more than the seven ships lost to Argentina during the 1982 Falklands War. Last month, The Telegraph and Daily Mail also reported that the UK’s entire available fleet of nuclear-powered attack submarines is stuck in port awaiting maintenance. The report comes as London continues to raise defense spending under the slogans of “transforming” the military in a “more dangerous and volatile” word, all while citing the alleged “Russian threat.”

Moscow has consistently dismissed claims that it is preparing to attack European NATO members, calling them “nonsense.” It also accuses the West of jeopardizing global security through “reckless militarization.” Earlier this week, the British government announced an additional £15 billion ($20 billion) for the armed forces and vowed to bring total military funding to nearly £300 billion over the next four years in what Starmer himself called “record investment.”

The list of spending targets includes the Dreadnought and SSN-AUKUS submarine projects, as well as “multi-billion-pound upgrades at Faslane, Portsmouth and Devonport” naval bases but provides no timeline for the projects’ completion. The spending increase comes in the face of a growing budget deficit and higher inflation. Reuters reported in May that British government borrowing had jumped by 30% year-on-year to £23.3 billion, with debt servicing costs 54% higher than the 2025 level.

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“New MKULTRA hearings have reopened questions about victims, destroyed files, and experiments America never answered for..”

• ‘Crimes Against Humanity’: The CIA’s Sickest Secret May Finally Be Exposed (RT)

A decorated US Air Force serviceman with no history of violence suddenly abducted, raped and murdered a three-year-old girl. When a search party found Jimmy Shaver wandering near San Antonio, Texas, he appeared to be in a trance, unable to explain where he was or how he had gotten there. After his arrest, he reportedly failed to recognize his own wife when she visited him in jail. Until the moment he was executed four years later, Shaver insisted he had no memory of committing the crime for which he had been sentenced to death. More than seventy years later, some researchers believe his case may have been linked to one of the CIA’s darkest Cold War programs: MKULTRA, the covert project that sought to manipulate, erase and ultimately control the human mind through drugs, hypnosis and psychological experimentation.


That possibility returned to the spotlight on June 30, when the US Congressional Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets reopened one of the intelligence agency’s most notorious chapters. Lawmakers pledged to uncover the truth behind MKULTRA, the illegal human experimentation program through which the CIA developed and tested psychotropic drugs and interrogation techniques designed to alter behavior, memories and perception. Whether the hearing lived up to those promises is another question. But the testimony presented before Congress suggested that, more than sixty years after MKULTRA officially ended, many of the program’s darkest secrets may still remain hidden.

Congress promises – again
Task force chair Anna Paulina Luna left little doubt about the gravity of the allegations. “Administering drugs to people without their consent. Subjecting humans to psychological torture. Using prisoners and hospital patients as non-consenting research subjects. These are crimes against humanity. Some of the worst, most notorious crimes of the 20th century,” she declared in her opening remarks. “The American people deserve the complete record. The victims and their families deserve acknowledgement, accountability, and justice. No one went to prison. No one was ever compensated by the government for the harm they caused.”

The language was uncompromising. Yet it was also strikingly familiar. Nearly half a century ago, Congress opened another investigation into MKULTRA, promising victims that the full truth would finally emerge and that those responsible would be held accountable. Those commitments quietly faded away. The victims were never fully identified, compensation never came, and many of the program’s records were presumed lost forever. Tom O’Neill, author of CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, reminded lawmakers that they were retracing a path Congress had already walked once before.

“During those same hearings, committee members like yourselves promised the victims of MKULTRA would be identified, compensated and provided lifetime medical care,” he told the panel. “None of that ever happened.”According to O’Neill, lawmakers in the 1970s accepted one of the CIA’s most consequential claims with remarkably little scrutiny: that after more than two decades of secret experimentation, the agency had simply failed to master mind control. CIA officials repeatedly insisted that “their twenty-five-year effort to learn how to control the human mind had been a colossal failure.”

O’Neill believes that conclusion deserves to be revisited. For years, he has argued that the historical record tells a very different story – one that Congress never fully examined and that may have been deliberately obscured by the destruction of key evidence. To make that case, he turned not to speculation, but to documents exchanged between two of the central figures behind the CIA’s most secretive experiments. To support his argument that Congress never uncovered the full scope of MKULTRA, O’Neill pointed to a cache of correspondence that, in his view, fundamentally changes our understanding of the program.

The letters were exchanged between psychiatrist Louis Jolyon West, who “sought to control the minds of people without their knowledge, with the ultimate goal of creating programmed killers” and “Sherman Grifford” – the pseudonym used by Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA’s chief poisoner who designed and oversaw MKULTRA from its earliest days. Far from describing a failed scientific curiosity, O’Neill argued, the documents laid out an extraordinarily ambitious blueprint for manipulating the human mind.

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