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Debt Rattle March 19 2026

Mar 192026
 
 March 19, 2026  Posted by at 10:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  76 Responses »


William Adolphe Bouguereau Girl with a pomegranate 1875


• Unidentified Drones Fly Over Army Base Where Rubio and Hegseth Live (Anderson)
• Israel Is Now the Regional Hegemon Iran Wanted to Be (Stephen Green)
• Trump Wonders If Crushing Iran Would Wake Up US ‘Allies’ (Catherine Salgado)
• Japan Signs Major $56 Billion Energy Deal with US (CTH)
• Appeals Court Refuses Trump’s Request To Reconsider CNN Defamation Suit (ZH)
• ‘Europeans Committing Demographic Suicide’ (ZH)
• Restore Britain Vows To EXECUTE Pedophiles, DEPORT Millions of Migrants (MN)
• Berlin Accused Of Prioritizing Migrants Over Merit (Brooke)
• Our New Ungracious Immigrants (Victor Davis Hanson)
• 200,000 Immigrant Truck Drivers Begin Losing Licenses (ZH)
• Migrant-Linked Violence Spirals in Rome’s San Lorenzo (Brooke)
• Greg Gutfeld Shreds Jessica Tarlov’s On-Air Meltdown Over SAVE Act (Margolis)
• Musk’s xAI Turns To Wall Street Bankers To Improve Grok’s Financials (ZH)
• The Inevitability of Self-Driving Cars (QTR)

 


 

 


 

The Western world in general, and certainly Europe, is under threat because the people there fail to acknowledge that islam wants to conquer the world. And once you get to the second generation, when the kids are born on your territory, you’rte already too late. But the people who belong to the Christian part of civilization forget they are part of Christianity, often because they are not practicing Christians. Well, you can either wake up now, or you will be woken later in a muslim world. We need 85-year old John Cleese of all people, to teach us this in a whole series of tweets. He does understand.

 


 

https://twitter.com/Shibumi93730007/status/2033775337629487223?s=20 https://twitter.com/_Patriot1776Q_/status/2033773278465298951?s=20 https://twitter.com/Sassafrass_84/status/2034359917801329050?s=20

 


 

 


 


Odd.

• Unidentified Drones Fly Over Army Base Where Rubio and Hegseth Live (Anderson)

On Wednesday night, the Washington Post reported that “U.S. officials detected unidentified drones above the Washington Army base where Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth live” and that those officials have not yet determined where they came from. WaPo cites three “sources familiar with the situation,” so keep that in mind.


One of the sources, who the newspaper says is a “senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity” said that the military is currently monitoring threats more closely due to the “heightened alert level as the United States and Israel strike Iran.” In this case, “multiple drones were spotted over Fort Lesley J. McNair on a single night in the last 10 days.” This led to increased security and a White House meeting to determine how to respond.

Here’s more: The drone sightings in Washington come as the U.S. issued a global security alert for overseas diplomatic posts and locked down several domestic bases because of threats. This week, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey and MacDill Air Force Base in Florida raised their force protection level to Charlie — a designation that means the commander has intelligence indicating an attack or danger is possible. The only higher alert level, Delta, is for when an attack has occurred or is anticipated.

Officials are now debating whether to relocate Secretaries Hegseth and Rubio, who are still living at Fort McNair. Back in the fall, several news outlet reported that both men had moved to military bases, along with Donald Trump’s Homeland Security advisor, Stephen Miller. Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also had to move to a military base. According to the Atlantic, other members of the administrative have as well. This is a developing story. I’m writing just after midnight (EDT) on Wednesday night, so hopefully, we’ll know more on Thursday.

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TEXT

• Israel Is Now the Regional Hegemon Iran Wanted to Be (Stephen Green)

It began, as so many unpredictable events did, on Oct 7, 2023, with the terror invasion of southern Israel. An army regiment’s worth of Hamas swept through Israel’s largely unmanned Gaza defenses, on foot, in trucks, and even paragliders. They murdered in kibbutzes, at a music festival, and in the streets. The mass murder was as well organized as anything the Nazis achieved before establishing death camps at places like Auschwitz.


Hamas prepared for months, relying on in-person meetings between trusted members to evade Israeli electronic and human intelligence. It achieved complete surprise. Before IDF troops could mobilize and force Hezbollah back into the Gaza Strip — where the real fighting would soon begin — something like 1,200 Israelis were dead, mostly civilians. The dead included babies, children, and women sexually assaulted to death. Another 250 or so taken hostage, the remains of the last of them not returned until early 2026.

There was chatter in the early hours of that desperate Saturday morning of Hamas continuing the rampage northward to the West Bank, where they would join forces with the P.A., effectively cutting Israel in half. Hamas forces in Lebanon would sweep down from the north under an unending rocket barrage. Had Hamas and Hezbollah gotten their way, the Oct. 7 invasion still couldn’t have fulfilled the long-held dream of ending Israel and claiming “Palestine” from “the river to the sea.” But it would have exposed Israel as weak and vulnerable, inviting further attack, weakening her will, and driving her people to emigrate back out of the Middle East.

Behind it all, providing the money, the weapons, and the vision: the Islamic Republic’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Middle East’s new hegemon. And, with a near-witless Barack Obama crony ensconced in the White House, soon in possession of a formidable array of ballistic missiles tipped with nuclear warheads. Or at least that was the plan. And Another Thing: What the Gulf oil states might have done in that scenario is a matter of speculation outside the scope of today’s column. But they’d certainly have had zero reason for continued peacemaking efforts with a weakened Israel.

Before the invasion, Israel wasn’t just seen as boxed in; she was boxed in. Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s every decision is tempered by the threat of Hezbollah and Hamas missiles to his north and south. And perhaps even increased terror activity from the West Bank — a dagger aimed at Israel’s heart. Today, Ali Khamenei is dead. His dynastic replacement, Gayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, is dead or might as well be. So many other Iranian political leaders, military commanders, intelligence figures — I could go on — are dead that it’s almost impossible to keep track even with a scorecard.

Iran is boxed in by Israeli/CENTCOM air and naval forces, and a surprisingly resilient (albeit not very helpful) coalition of Arab Gulf states.If the Middle East has a regional hegemon — aside from the out-of-region global hegemon, that is — it’s the Jewish State. Israeli warplanes fly where they will. Israeli intelligence officers go where they will and turn whom they will. The Gulf states largely acquiesce, Hamas and Hezbollah are largely spent forces, and their sponsor state is on the ropes. All because one man — now dead — thought he could change the Middle East on Oct. 7, 2023.

Well, I guess he did.

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“WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!”

• Trump Wonders If Crushing Iran Would Wake Up US ‘Allies’ (Catherine Salgado)

President Donald Trump speculated on Wednesday morning whether completely destroying the Islamic regime of Iran would finally inspire our weak and feckless “allies” to protect the waters that are so vital for their own economies.Trump was asking other countries to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open, including multiple European countries and Communist China (which is 100% on Iran’s side and therefore happy to disappoint us). Even our supposed allies are largely digging in their heels and refusing to help, though. Therefore, Trump challenged on March 18, “I wonder what would happen if we ‘finished off’ what’s left of the Iranian Terror State, and let the Countries that use it, we don’t, be responsible for the so called ‘Strait?’ That would get some of our non-responsive ‘Allies’ in gear, and fast!!!”


Regime change in Iran is necessary to keep the fanatical Muslim jihadis who currently run it from rebuilding and continuing to attack Americans in the future. But instead of assessing the merits of the case, including the great benefit to themselves if the Iranian regime were to fall, multiple European nations are instead whining about “war” as if they hadn’t aggressively supported war in Ukraine for years.

Trump is also understandably tired of hearing complaints about his taking out a regime that has spread global death, chaos, and destruction for half a century now. “Remember, for all of those absolute ‘fools’ out there, Iran is considered, by everyone, to be the NUMBER ONE STATE SPONSOR OF TERROR. We are rapidly putting them out of business!” Trump posted on Truth Social at around the same time as his message about the Strait of Hormuz. Oddly enough, the strait is actually more important for European energy than American energy.

Trump also expressed his frustration on March 17 with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which is always demanding American money while bashing America. “The United States has been informed by most of our NATO ‘Allies’ that they don’t want to get involved with our Military Operation against the Terrorist Regime of Iran, in the Middle East, this, despite the fact that almost every Country strongly agreed with what we are doing, and that Iran cannot, in any way, shape, or form, be allowed to have a Nuclear Weapon,” Trump wrote. He added:

“I am not surprised by their action, however, because I always considered NATO, where we spend Hundreds of Billions of Dollars per year protecting these same Countries, to be a one way street — We will protect them, but they will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need. Fortunately, we have decimated Iran’s Military — Their Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, their Anti-Aircraft and Radar is gone and perhaps, most importantly, their Leaders, at virtually every level, are gone, never to threaten us, our Middle Eastern Allies, or the World, again! Because of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer “need,” or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance — WE NEVER DID! Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea. In fact, speaking as President of the United States of America, by far the Most Powerful Country Anywhere in the World, WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!”

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Token. Allegiance.

• Japan Signs Major $56 Billion Energy Deal with US (CTH)

CTH has said to watch the U.S.-Japan trade relationship closely because the outlines of multiple geopolitical shifts can be referenced from a new strategic relationship surrounding multiple sectors, including energy.The U.S, relationship with Japan is both leverage and a hedge against old alliances that may seek to disrupt the global reset currently underway through President Trump policy. The issues with the European Union, U.K, USMCA and other tenuous allies, look entirely different when President Trump has alternative partnerships for massive energy exports.


ENERGY NEWS – In a major move to secure stable energy supplies amid escalating geopolitical tensions, Japan has inked deals worth up to $56 billion with the United States for oil, natural gas, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) purchases and investments. This agreement, finalized at the Asia-Pacific Energy Security Forum in Tokyo on March 14, 2026, underscores Japan’s push to diversify its energy imports and deepen economic ties with the US under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration.mThe deals come as part of a broader framework stemming from the 2025 US-Japan trade agreement, where Japan pledged $550 billion in US investments over several years, with energy as a key pillar. ]

The $56 billion package represents a significant escalation in Japan’s commitment to American energy, building on an initial $36 billion tranche announced earlier in 2026.nThis latest round emphasizes immediate purchases and long-term infrastructure projects, responding to global market volatility driven by conflicts in the Middle East and disruptions in key shipping routes like the Strait of Hormuz. […] The agreements encompass a mix of direct energy purchases, joint ventures, and infrastructure investments. As a nation that needs energy partnerships, Japan seeks stability and predictability. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has gone all-in on a strategic energy partnership with the United States.

As the tectonic plates are shaken:
• If Canada wants to try and leverage the energy trade infrastructure against a USMCA reset, President Trump has Venezuela production as an offset. Japanese automakers have already told Canadian trade ministers that if Canada loses the USMCA, there s no value in maintaining auto manufacturing north of the border because the target customers are all in the USA. Japan would move all production out of Canada. I doubt China could replace at scale.

• If Europe, who is now dependent on LNG from Norway and the USA, wants to create geopolitical friction, President Trump now has Japan as a replacement customer. More behavioral leverage. U.S. firms are making a lot of money selling LNG to Europe, but Trump has just created a customer base that is more reliable and politically consistent.

• Then, as the short-term lifting of LNG and oil sanctions on Russia is proving (petrodollars used), think about the potential for India and Southeast Asia to be supported by Russian exports. Who holds that distribution key, again Trump.] It is not accidental that India is sending support vessels to the Strait of Hormuz as requested by President Trump. Here s the kicker& With oil and gas from Russia, India doesn t need the Iranian oil and gas; yet, they are sending support. Why? Because Prime Minister Modi wants Trump to keep their Russian purchase exemptions in place.

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It’s Trump. The judge says you can say about him what you want. Been going on for 15 years+.

• Appeals Court Refuses Trump’s Request To Reconsider CNN Defamation Suit (ZH)

President Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against CNN appears to be dead for the time being, as an appeals court denied his motion to rehear the case. A three-judge panel had held in November that Trump hadn’t done enough to show that CNN compared him to Adolph Hitler when it described his claims about the 2020 election as “the Big Lie.” In a brief unsigned order on March 17, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit said that none of its judges asked for a vote to reconsider the case. Trump told the circuit that the three-judge panel erred. He wanted the full panel to consider whether his case should be decided by a jury instead of the court, and to reconsider whether the statements made by the network’s journalists allowed him to sue.


The order also ruled out the possibility of a rehearing by the original three-judge panel. As Stacy Robinson reports for The Epoch Times, Trump sued CNN in 2022 after the network’s journalists repeatedly referred to his disputation of the 2020 election results as a “Big Lie. That terminology has historically been used in reference to Hitler’s Nazi regime, his propagandist Joseph Goebbels, and the push for a genocide of the Jewish people. “CNN has acknowledged that the term the ‘Big Lie’ is a direct reference to Adolf Hitler and Nazism and uses the term in relation to the Plaintiff to create a false and incendiary association between the Plaintiff and Hitler,” Trump’s complaint alleged.

A district court found that CNN’s language was just “hyperbole,” and not meant literally. They dismissed the case. In a unanimous decision, the 11th Circuit affirmed that dismissal. “To be clear, CNN has never explicitly claimed that Trump’s ‘actions and statements were designed to be, and actually were, variations of those [that] Hitler used to suppress and destroy populations,’” its decision read. Trump wanted the full panel to determine if his case warranted a jury trial, and reconsider whether the CNN journalists’ language allowed him to sue CNN asked the court to toss out the case, saying the term “Big Lie” is “rhetorical hyperbole and does not refer to Hitler or Nazism.” Trump could not prove the network acted with “actual malice,” by publishing statements it knew were false, CNN argued.

“Actual malice is an extremely high evidentiary burden for any plaintiff to meet, much less the former President of the United States of America, and he has utterly failed to meet that burden here,” CNN’s response brief reads. In July 2023, Florida District Judge Raag Singhal dismissed Trump’s suit with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought again. He ruled that there was “no question” that such statements met the standard for defamation under the law. But, he said, they were statements of opinion, and not fact—even though he found them to be “odious and repugnant.”

“CNN’s use of the phrase ’the Big Lie’ in connection with Trump’s election challenges does not give rise to a plausible inference that Trump advocates the persecution and genocide of Jews or any other group of people,” Singhal wrote. “No reasonable viewer could (or should) plausibly make that reference.” Trump appealed that ruling, arguing the judge had failed “to consider the totality and context of the defamatory statements,” by “finding that CNN’s statements were pure opinion or rhetorical hyperbole.”

The CNN case is one of several defamation suits Trump has brought against news outlets. Last year, the president sued the Wall Street Journal for publishing a birthday card he allegedly sent to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. That case is ongoing. In 2024, Trump obtained a $15 million settlement against ABC and its anchor George Stephanopoulos, who claimed on air that Trump was “found liable for rape.”

Last September, a judge threw out a $15 billion suit against the New York Times and some of its reporters on the grounds that Trump’s legal brief broke court rules: It was unnecessarily lengthy and contained improper language, the judge ruled. Trump refiled that suit in October. The president has also teed up a suit against the BBC, after reports it had altered a video of him speaking to supporters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to make it appear as if he was promoting violence. The BBC on March 16 asked the court to dismiss the suit.

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In one generation.

• ‘Europeans Committing Demographic Suicide’ (ZH)

Europeans are committing demographic suicide and the tools used to managed migration are failing at every level, said Rodrigo Ballester, the head of the Center for European Studies at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium. He made his remark at a recent Ordo Iuris Institute event in Warsaw, Poland, which saw European politicians, policymakers, and other important players gather to discuss a groundbreaking paper: “Taking Back Control from Brussels. The Renationalization of the EU Migration and Asylum Policies.”n“As Europeans, we are committing demographic suicide. We are a continent of old rich people, facing a continent of young, hungry, and determined people — ambitious people.


We’re still trying to manage migration with hopelessly outdated tools, using conventions from a century ago. They have completely lost their meaning today. In practice, I’m talking about the Geneva Convention. This is the ‘sacred cow’ we should get rid of,” Ballester emphasized. The “Taking Back Control” paper, which was recently covered by Remix News, outlines 18 ways Europe can regain control of immigration policy. Ballester emphasized that these policies need to be implemented and quickly. Many of the speakers discussed various aspects of Europe’s ongoing immigration crisis, including the sharply differing trajectories of pro-immigration countries such as Poland versus Germany.

Polish Prof. Zdzisslaw Krasnodebski, a former MEP, spoke to the large audience who had gathered, where he compared the impact of immigration on the Polish city of Warsaw to the German city of Bremen where he lived and worked for a long time. “How did it happen that such a process, which is suicidal, was supported by societies for years? I can tell you that I know two such cities well. One was poor and large, and people were moving away from it. It was Warsaw. Warsaw was also White, if I may use that term. The other city (Bremen) was well-off, middle-class, also White. In 2025, one is almost a ruin. It used to be a prosperous, medium-sized town. Meanwhile, this big, great city we’re in right now has become one of the wealthiest cities in Europe,” he pointed out.

Krasnodebski underlined the trajectory of Warsaw, which is economically booming while still maintaining a strong White majority and rejecting the diversity seen in many other Western cities. Meanwhile, Bremen has been labeled the “most dangerous city in Germany,” where an incredible 73 percent of crime suspects are non-German. The situation has deteriorated so greatly in Bremen that even left-wing politicians in the city have admitted that “massive immigration” has sparked a housing and crime crisis. However, other speakers warned that not all is well in Poland, either.

Jacek Saryusz-Wolski—a former Polish Minister for European Affairs and Member of the European Parliament, currently President Nawrocki’s main advisor for European affairs — took the floor. “Looking at the statistics, you can see that in most of Western Europe, immigrant communities make up a percentage in the teens, or even over 20 percent, of the population. It’s not like that here (in Poland) yet, but we too face the risk of an open-borders policy starting here. We will then, after a certain delay, share the same fate,” noted Saryusz-Wolski.] Saryusz-Wolski further warned that the EU is taking more and more power away from nation-states in order to dictate an open borders policy.

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The potential to get out of hand. But not their fault.

• Restore Britain Vows To EXECUTE Pedophiles, DEPORT Millions of Migrants (MN)

A new force in British politics is making waves with an uncompromising vision for national restoration. Just weeks after its launch as a full political party in February, Restore Britain has already overtaken the Conservative Party in membership numbers, reaching over 114,000 supporters and becoming the fourth largest party in the country. The growth has been entirely organic through social media and grassroots efforts, with almost no mainstream coverage. Campaigns director and spokesman Charlie Downes laid out the bold agenda clearly: “We will not lie to the British people. Restoring Britain will require decisions that are controversial and unpleasant.”


He continued: “We are going to strip millions of healthy Brits who refuse to work of benefits. If that causes outrage from those who think the taxpayer owes them a living, so be it.” “We are going to deport all illegal and burdensome migrants. If that means millions go, so be it,” Downes added. He further urged, “We are going to outlaw incompatible cultural and religious practices. If that means those who refuse to integrate no longer feel welcome, so be it.” “We are going to execute pedophiles, rapists, and murderers if that is what the British people want,” Downes stressed, adding that “If that means we are condemned by subversive ‘human rights’ groups, so be it.”

He concluded by noting “We take no pleasure in these measures. It is a damning indictment of our political class that they are necessary in the first place. But necessary they are.” In a video clip from the party’s launch event, Downes made the philosophy explicit: “We do not believe in conserving the system. We do not believe in reforming the system. We believe in revolution.” This stance marks a clear break from the traditional parties that have presided over mass immigration, welfare dependency and soft approaches to serious crime.It has also immediately become popular with British voters who have become frustrated with Nigel Farage’s Reform Party, over a perceived lack of transparency when it comes to their commitment to mass deportation, in addition to the questionable raft of defections of politicians from the traditional parties, the very people who oversaw the implementation of mass migration into Britain, to Reform.

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Forget about Germany. Stick a fork in it and turn it over.

• Berlin Accused Of Prioritizing Migrants Over Merit (Brooke)

A diversity hiring policy affecting the recruitment of judges and public prosecutors in Berlin has come under renewed scrutiny after the city’s justice senator warned that the system may conflict with Germany’s constitutional requirement that public offices be filled strictly on merit. The policy, introduced in 2021 under then justice senator Dirk Behrendt of the Green Party, stems from amendments to the Law to Promote Participation in a Migration Society, known as the PartMigG. The legislation was adopted by Berlin’s House of Representatives with support from the then-governing coalition of the Social Democrats, Greens, and the Left.


Under the law, recruitment procedures must ensure that applicants with a migration background are invited to interviews in numbers reflecting their share of the population. In Berlin, around 40 percent of residents fall into that category, defined by the Federal Statistical Office as individuals who themselves, or at least one parent, were not born with German citizenship. In practice, the rule means that some interviewees experience positive discrimination and their migration background is a criterion for their selection, regardless of whether other applicants may have stronger academic credentials.

According to Bild, the system has been implemented in recent years by Berlin’s chief public prosecutor, Margarete Koppers, also associated with the Greens. The newspaper noted that internal warnings were first raised when the measure was initially drafted. Officials cautioned that introducing a quota linked to migration background during the selection process could violate Article 33(2) of Germany’s Basic Law, which states that access to public office must be determined by “suitability, competence, and performance.”

Berlin’s current justice senator, Felor Badenberg of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has now drawn attention to the issue and questioned whether the rule is compatible with constitutional principles. Badenberg said she supports efforts to improve integration and participation in public institutions, noting that she herself has a migration background, with parents who came from Iran. However, she emphasized that the constitution must remain the guiding standard.

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Immigrants used to be more grateful?!

• Our New Ungracious Immigrants (Victor Davis Hanson)

The contrast between the grateful immigrants who once embraced America and the resentful newcomers who scorn it reveals how radically—and dangerously—the nation’s immigration ethos has changed. Silicon Valley was energized by legal immigrants from all over the world who founded eBay, Google, Nvidia, SpaceX, Stripe, Sun Microsystems, Tesla, Yahoo, and a host of others. The Greek American Elia Kazan’s 1963 film America, America is a fictional account based on the Herculean struggle of the director’s uncle to immigrate to the United States from an impoverished and hostile Turkish Anatolia.The film summed up Americans’ traditional view of immigrants: They had risked everything for the chance to reach America, and once there, became hyperpatriotic in their gratitude for the magnanimity of their new hosts.


An excellent example is the recently released memoir from Encounter Books, American Trojan, by former University of Southern California president and Cypriot immigrant Dr. Max Nikias. It resonates with thankfulness to America for offering him opportunities undreamed of elsewhere.He and his wife arrived in the U.S. from war-torn Cyprus nearly penniless but determined to work hard, master English, and enrich the country that welcomed them with their talents and education. What followed was an amazing American trajectory that saw Nikias become president of the University of Southern California—arguably the most successful one in recent memory.

I grew up in rural California surrounded by hard-working immigrant farm families from Armenia, India, Japan, and Mexico. Their work ethic, love of America, and productive farms were models for U.S. non-immigrants. Such immigrants explained why the San Joaquin Valley was the most productive and richest agricultural region in the nation. My own Swedish grandfather, disabled by poison gas while fighting on the Western Front in World War I, loved all things Swedish, but not nearly as much as his beloved America.Four Hansons fought on the front lines of World Wars I and II. One was disabled, and another was killed on Okinawa. And all felt blessed that their parents and grandparents had gotten to America.

But recently, something has gone terribly wrong with immigration—an open border, of course, but also a change in legal immigration as well as student visitors. During World War II, Japanese Americans fought heroically in horrific conditions in Italy in the famous 442nd Regimental Combat Team and 100th Infantry Battalion—even as their families were interned in the Western United States. Few native-born Americans were more loyal or patriotic than the Japanese Americans. And now? While America is at war with Iran and de facto with its terrorist proxies, crowds of immigrants, visitors, and foreign students in New York scream anti-American slogans as they cheer on our enemies in theocratic Iran and its terrorist proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas.

Are we surprised, then, when Islamic terrorists begin hunting down Americans on our own soil?] On campuses today, thousands of Middle Eastern international students, mostly arriving from autocratic, tribal, and failed nations, have staged often violent demonstrations in the years following the October 7, 2023, massacre. They are not shy about cheering on the Hamas slaughter of Israeli civilians. These pro-Hamas students have not just damned Israel but also often harassed Jewish Americans. They revile their host America and expect Americans to smile and shrug. It is hard to determine whether such zealots hate the U.S. more than they love living in America and preserving their student visas and work permits.

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Popular occupation.

• 200,000 Immigrant Truck Drivers Begin Losing Licenses (ZH)

About 200,000 immigrant truck drivers in the United States could lose their commercial driver’s licenses once they expire under a new rule backed by the administration of Donald Trump, according to VNY. Which leads us…and everybody else to ask: we had 200,000 immigrant truck drivers in the United States? But we digress. The policy bars asylum seekers, refugees, and participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program from obtaining commercial driver’s licenses. It is part of a wider crackdown on foreign truck drivers following several high-profile crashes last summer.


Experts warn the change could further strain the trucking industry, which already faces labor shortages while handling the majority of freight in the United States. Trucks transport more than 70% of the country’s cargo, but the sector struggles with long hours, relatively low pay, dangerous road conditions, and extended time away from home. As many American workers leave the field, immigrants have increasingly filled those roles. In recent months, enforcement actions have intensified. The United States Department of Transportation has tightened English-language proficiency rules, leading to thousands of license revocations among immigrant drivers.

VNY writes that under the rule announced on February 11, people with various temporary residency permits will no longer qualify for commercial licenses, even if they are legally authorized to work in the U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy said the change aims to prevent “dangerous foreign drivers” from exploiting the licensing system and contributing to road safety risks. Officials have also pointed to several fatal accidents involving immigrant drivers and argued that verifying their work histories can be difficult. Critics, however, say the policy unfairly targets immigrants and relies on unproven claims that foreign drivers are responsible for more accidents than American ones.

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US and EU have different approaches to immigration.

• Migrant-Linked Violence Spirals in Rome’s San Lorenzo (Brooke)

Residents in Rome’s San Lorenzo district are sounding the alarm over a surge in violence they say is increasingly driven by homeless migrants, after another brutal street attack left a man hospitalized and renewed calls for urgent security measures. The latest incident unfolded in Piazza di Porta San Lorenzo, where a 30-year-old Gambian man allegedly slashed a Moroccan man with a broken bottle in the middle of the street, striking his neck and face and leaving him collapsed on the ground.The victim was rushed to Umberto I Hospital, where he remains in serious condition, while police used footage captured at the scene to quickly identify and arrest the suspect after he fled.


For many locals, however, the attack is just the latest in a growing pattern. Residents say the area has become dominated by groups of vagrants, often intoxicated or under the influence of drugs, who regularly fight among themselves but also target passersby at random. “The problem is that they don’t just fight among themselves, they also attack us residents. Men, women, and even children,” Sofia, a waitress who lives near Piazza dei Caduti, told Il Messaggero.According to the Italian newspaper, a neighborhood assembly has now been called in response, with residents describing a situation that has become “unsustainable.”

Katia Pace, head of the local committee organizing the meeting, said violence has escalated sharply in recent weeks. “Cases have increased visibly in the last two months. Just a few days ago, two women were beaten and robbed,” she said. Despite stepped-up patrols and recent police operations that led to multiple arrests in nearby districts, residents say the response falls short of what is needed to restore order.“It’s not enough,” said Maria, another concerned resident. “We can’t live like this anymore.” Scenes of disorder that are fuelling insecurity have become commonplace, locals say. In public parks, families with young children are forced to navigate areas where men sleep on benches, drink heavily, argue, and urinate openly, heightening fears about safety and hygiene.

Concerns have also been raised over attacks involving minors. In one case, a 12-year-old girl was targeted, while a separate incident saw a Tunisian man arrested after assaulting a woman and fracturing her nose and cheekbone. The attack, captured on surveillance footage, triggered a wave of additional complaints from women reporting similar unprovoked violence.“There have been at least 15 cases,” said Pace, adding that those responsible are typically “homeless foreigners” living in the area, many of whom are said to suffer from addiction or mental health issues.Encampments have spread across multiple parts of the district, including along the Aurelian Walls and several central squares, with tents and makeshift shelters now a regular sight. “The patience of those who live here is not infinite,” another resident told Il Messaggero, warning that vigilante-style reactions could emerge if the situation continues to deteriorate.

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They bent over backwards to accomodate the protests.

• Greg Gutfeld Shreds Jessica Tarlov’s On-Air Meltdown Over SAVE Act (Margolis)

The SAVE America Act cleared a big hurdle in the Senate on Tuesday, and while that doesn’t necessarily mean it will end up passing, Republicans are putting the pressure on the Democrats. And the liberals in the media may legit be panicking. Jessica Tarlov lost it on Fox News’ The Five over the SAVE America Act, as her co-hosts shredded her hysterical take. The entire display proved once again that liberals like her just can’t stand a bill that actually protects elections. Remember, all the proposed law would do is require proof of citizenship for federal voter registration and a photo ID to vote — two simple, extremely popular ideas.


Tarlov, ready with her DNC talking points, ranted that the bill disenfranchises everybody under the sun. She claimed young folks, seniors, married women, and adoptees lack the right papers. “Based on what the SAVE Act actually says and what it would require, it would disenfranchise young people, old people, married people, adopted people, which makes no sense at all,” she said. She even floated the idea of the government handing out $165 passports to everyone.

Greg Gutfeld jumped in with zero mercy. “Do you know somebody who doesn’t have an ID? Tell me about it.” She responded by saying she was talking about passports, not ID, but Gutfeld pointed out that liberals for years have been pretending minorities can’t get IDs, which obviously isn’t true, so they’re just pivoting to passports. It was brutal watching Gutfeld and even Dana Perino calling her out and mocking her, and I swear she looked near tears at one point.


https://twitter.com/KarluskaP/status/2034019654373384500?s=20


And the thing is, everything Tarlov claimed was wrong. She had the audacity to invoke what the bill “actually says,” yet clearly she’s never read it, because Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), the bill’s sponsor, has already debunked this nonsense and pointed out what is actually in the bill.

“When all else fails, if you don’t have documentation establishing the information on your birth certificate or what would be in a passport or otherwise, the bill contains a provision requiring each state to allow an alternative mechanism by which someone can, by attestation, issue a sworn statement establishing the critical facts underlying their citizenship.” No cost to voters. No legitimate voter left behind. “We took great pains to go out of our way to make sure that no American — no American — would be left in the dark. This will not cost them a dime. And no one will be excluded if they can’t find their documentation.”

Tarlov has never cracked open the bill and read it. She peddles the same tired lefty lines about Americans, particularly minorities, being helpless idiots who are too stupid to be able to get an ID.

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“Musk has acknowledged publicly that xAI still lags competitors in coding tools ..” Wait. What? The system IS the coding tool, no?

• Musk’s xAI Turns To Wall Street Bankers To Improve Grok’s Financials (ZH)

Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI is expanding efforts to make its chatbot Grok more capable in financial analysis by hiring experienced finance professionals to help train the system, according to Bloomberg. Job listings show the company is recruiting investment bankers, traders, portfolio managers, and credit analysts to join its data-training teams. These specialists would help teach Grok how to reason through complex financial work, including leveraged loan syndication, distressed investing, mortgage-backed securities, and collateralized loan obligations. The company is also seeking experts with experience in equity and cryptocurrency markets.


The move reflects a broader push by major AI developers to sell products to financial professionals. Competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic have already introduced tools designed to speed up tasks like market analysis, research, and investment memo writing. These advances have raised concerns that some traditional financial software providers could lose relevance. Compared with those rivals, xAI is generally seen as behind in attracting corporate customers. Much of its revenue so far has come from agreements with Musk-related businesses, including Tesla, Inc. and SpaceX, which merged with xAI last month.

Bloomberg writes that the company is also adjusting its strategy after a turbulent start to the year that included significant staff departures, including members of its founding team, as well as criticism over Grok generating explicit non-consensual images.Recently, Musk recruited two senior employees from Cursor, an AI coding startup currently seeking funding at a reported valuation of around $50 billion. Musk has acknowledged publicly that xAI still lags competitors in coding tools, a category that has become an important revenue driver for other AI companies.

xAI relies on workers known internally as AI tutors to train Grok by supplying data and adjusting responses. At a recent staff meeting, tutor team lead Diego Pasini said the company’s biggest constraint remains the supply of training data. Much of Grok’s dataset currently comes from X. Many of the new tutor roles are focused on credit markets, which are under increasing pressure as private credit funds face withdrawals and other industry challenges. Great timing.

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You driving is too risky. In the future, cars won’t hit anything. You will. Can’t win that one.

• The Inevitability of Self-Driving Cars (QTR)

When you think of self-driving cars, you may imagine scenes from a sci-fi movie, with sleek silver cars sliding perfectly into and out of the flow of traffic. Pedestrians simply express their desire for a car, and in moments one appears. Just as easily, you might also think of media reports you’ve seen about crashes and other malfunctions of these vehicles in the recent past. You may even think of both and think that the sci-fi depiction is far-fetched and unlikely. The reality is actually simpler: self-driving cars are inevitable.


In the US, we love our cars. Nearly 92% of households have access to a motor vehicle. We have car shows, car racing, car dealerships everywhere, and even TV shows about cars. It’s an accepted part of our society. In a geographically expansive country like ours, cars are essential for many. Along with car culture, we also have a cultural acceptance of the dangers and even fatalities that come from car accidents. The US (human) accident rate is approximately 2,000 per million miles driven. Around 40,000 people are killed each year in auto accidents. Right now, hardly anyone talks about these deaths. There are few news articles, and it is generally accepted as the price of driving.

What if we could reduce the number of injuries and fatalities to 50% of what they are now? Or even further, what about 80%? Would it be worth it to switch to self-driving cars then? Interestingly enough, preliminary numbers from Waymo indicate that they already are 80% safer. The media rushes to report any accidents caused by these cars, which may give the impression that they are much more dangerous. The truth is, they actually promise a safer world for all. Imagine a world with safe, self-driving cars. Mothers would feel more comfortable about their children. Parents’ dreadful fears about having a 16-year-old out on the streets would be almost completely relieved. People wouldn’t worry about the vision and dexterity loss of the elderly when they get into a vehicle. Drunk driving would be a thing of the past. Road rage would almost be..

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https://twitter.com/robertdunlap947/status/2034235444154527962?s=20 Soon-Shiong is one of many who we met thru Covid. Thanks for that. https://twitter.com/FabulousWeird/status/2034005961971560757?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle March 13 2026

Mar 132026
 
 March 13, 2026  Posted by at 9:38 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  97 Responses »


Willem de Kooning Woman 1969


• The War on Iran Could Remake the World (Lukyanov)
• The 3 Big Lies About the Iran War (Ben Shapiro)
• Iran Confirms New Supreme Leader Injured But Recovering (RT)
• Attacking Water in Iran Can Bring Out Nukes – Martin Armstrong (USAW)
• Iran War Crack-Up (Helmer)
• Eat the Rich: Sanders and Khanna Introduce Federal Billionaires Tax (Turley)
• UK Behind Deadly Storm Shadow Missile Attack On Russian City – Kremlin (RT)
• Ukraine Attacking Russian Gas Pipeline To Stop Deliveries To Europe (RT)
• The UN Warns Trump About Migrant Rhetoric. Seriously. (Manney)
• Forget The Island: Jeffrey Epstein’s Secret War For Libya’s Billions (Fetouri)
• Epstein Guard To Testify As Oversight Committee Explores Potential MURDER (MN)
• The Politicking of Barack Obama (Victor Davis Hanson)
• The Era of Truth and Freedom is Over (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Putin Is Again on the Wrong Track (Paul Craig Roberts)
• 56% of Americans Now Suspect COVID-19 “Vaccines” Caused Mass Deaths (Hulscher)

 


 

 


 


It already does.

• The War on Iran Could Remake the World (Lukyanov)

The United States and Israel justified their military campaign against Iran by claiming it was necessary to protect themselves, and the world, from a nuclear threat. Tehran was accused of secretly accumulating enough weapons-grade uranium to build up to 11 atomic bombs. Yet after the first week of bombing, it became clear that nuclear fears were only part of the story. The war against Iran is not merely another Middle Eastern conflict. It marks the latest stage in a long process of upheaval that has been reshaping the region since the end of the Cold War. And the consequences of what is happening today will extend far beyond the Middle East.


The current war can be seen as the culmination of a transformation that began more than three decades ago. The modern Middle East emerged in the 20th century during the decline of colonial empires. But that order began to unravel in 1991, when the United States launched Operation Desert Storm to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. The timing was symbolic. The Gulf War coincided with a dramatic shift in global politics: the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, and the emergence of what was often called the “unipolar moment.” The period of unrivalled American dominance.

What followed was a chain reaction of crises and interventions. The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001 triggered the global War on Terror, leading to military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Arab Spring then destabilized regimes across the region, followed by intervention in Libya and the prolonged civil war in Syria.Each crisis pulled more actors into the vortex. Gradually, control over events slipped away from those who had initiated them. For Washington, the result was a strategic trap. The US sought to reduce its direct involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts while simultaneously maintaining its influence. These goals proved increasingly difficult to reconcile.

With hindsight, it is clear that many American decisions in the region were reactive. Each step was presented as part of a coherent geopolitical strategy, yet the long-term consequences were rarely calculated beyond the immediate horizon. Donald Trump, during both his first presidency and his return to office, repeatedly argued that the US should avoid military interventions far from its own borders. Yet Iran presented a different challenge. Iran is the most powerful state the US has confronted directly since World War II. Not necessarily in terms of military strength, but in terms of its demographic weight and regional influence. Attempting to dismantle such a pillar of the regional order inevitably carries profound consequences.

In Washington, a widely circulated interpretation suggests that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump agreed late last year to launch a decisive campaign against Iran. According to this view, the Israeli leadership played a decisive role in shaping the decision. Trump, who had previously championed a policy of restraint in the Middle East, deviated from that principle. The White House appears to have misjudged the political situation in Iran, expecting that a sharp military strike might trigger internal collapse.

There was also hope for a repeat of a familiar pattern: a rapid, surgical attack followed by a declaration of victory. But that scenario failed to materialize. Instead, the region plunged into instability. And once the war escalated, Washington found itself unable to step back without risking the perception of defeat.

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“The goal is simple: Undermine public confidence and turn what is shaping up as a strategic success into a perceived failure.”

• The 3 Big Lies About the Iran War (Ben Shapiro)

If you’ve been following coverage of the Trump administration’s military action against Iran, you’ve probably noticed something: A lot of people are determined to convince you that the United States is losing. They’re wrong. Even worse, many of them know they’re wrong. Critics across the political spectrum — from Democrats to elements of the so-called horseshoe Right — are pushing narratives that paint the conflict as a disaster in the making. The goal is simple: Undermine public confidence and turn what is shaping up as a strategic success into a perceived failure. Three particular claims are circulating widely. All three deserve to be addressed.


Lie No. 1: The war is a quagmire.
The first claim is that the United States has stumbled into another interminable Middle East war — one destined to drag on for years and possibly escalate to catastrophic levels. This is absurd. At the time of this writing, the conflict is less than two weeks old. Twelve days. That’s not 12 years, as in Vietnam, or even 12 months, as in the Spanish-American War. Wars unfold over time, and no one should pretend to know exactly how long any conflict will last. But the notion that the United States is already trapped in a generational quagmire — after less than two weeks of fighting — is less analysis than panic.

Lie No. 2: Iran is somehow winning.
A second claim insists that Iran is holding strong — that the regime is weathering the assault and even gaining the upper hand. Again, reality tells a different story. Iran’s military capabilities have been battered. Its missile and drone infrastructure has been heavily targeted. Its naval assets have reportedly suffered severe losses. Leadership turmoil inside the regime only compounds the problem. Reports suggest that the death of longtime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has triggered a chaotic succession struggle. Even his presumed heir, Mojtaba Khamenei, appears to lack both political support and personal legitimacy within the system. In other words, the Iranian regime is not projecting strength. It is scrambling to maintain control.

Lie No. 3: The oil shock will break the United States.
The final warning is economic: Iran, critics say, will simply shut down the Strait of Hormuz, sending global oil prices skyrocketing and bringing the American economy to its knees.For a brief moment earlier this week, markets reacted to that fear. Oil prices jumped sharply amid speculation that the strait could be disrupted.But the panic faded almost as quickly as it began. Within days, crude prices had fallen back below $90 a barrel. Markets, unlike pundits, respond to reality. And the reality is that Iran faces enormous consequences if it attempts to choke off one of the world’s most vital shipping lanes.

President Donald Trump has made that point unmistakably clear. In a statement posted online, he warned that any Iranian attempt to block the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz would trigger an overwhelming American response.The message was aimed not only at Tehran but also at Beijing and other major energy consumers: The United States intends to keep global energy flowing — and anyone who interferes will pay a heavy price. There are legitimate questions to ask about any military action. Democracies require scrutiny, debate and skepticism. But skepticism should not be confused with hysteria.

Right now, critics are spinning worst-case scenarios while ignoring the basic facts on the ground: Iran’s military is under severe pressure, its leadership structure is unstable, and the economic fallout that many predicted has yet to materialize. None of this guarantees the conflict will end quickly or cleanly. War rarely works that way. But it does suggest that the narrative of inevitable American failure — so loudly promoted by the administration’s opponents — is far removed from the reality unfolding in the Middle East. And that reality matters far more than the talking points.

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The title of this article was originally: “Trump claims Strait of Hormuz ‘in great shape’ “.

• Iran Confirms New Supreme Leader Injured But Recovering (RT)

Iran has confirmed that newly appointed Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei was injured but is recovering. “He’s injured but fine,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told Italy’s Corriere Della Sera on Thursday. Earlier reports suggested Khamenei was wounded in the initial US-Israeli strikes that killed his father, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which may explain why he has yet to appear publicly or on video since assuming the top post. Meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has outlined three conditions to end the conflict. In a post on X, he said the war can only end through recognition of Iran’s “legitimate rights,” reparations for US-Israeli strike damage, and “firm international guarantees against future aggression.”


Elsewhere, the US-Israeli military campaign against Tehran has continued to disrupt global energy markets. In Iran, the US has bitten off more than it can chewREAD MORE: In Iran, the US has bitten off more than it can chew Despite all 34 International Energy Agency (IEA) members agreeing on Wednesday to a record 400-million-barrel release from emergency reserves, oil prices have surged roughly 9% in the past 24 hours, with international benchmark Brent crude hovering just above $100 per barrel.

Here are the latest developments as RT continues to bring you up to date:
• At least two oil tankers were hit near Iraq’s Umm Qasr port early on Thursday, while the port of Salalah in Oman continued to burn overnight. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain also reported strikes on their oil facilities. Oman evacuated vessels from Mina Al Fahal as a precaution.
• US President Donald Trump claimed Iran has been “virtually destroyed,” but said he does not plan to end the campaign early, insisting the Strait of Hormuz remains “in great shape.”
• A Pentagon probe into the strike on a primary school in Minab that killed 168 children reportedly found that outdated US targeting data on a nearby IRGC facility likely caused the attack.
• The IDF intensified strikes in Lebanon after Hezbollah coordinated attacks with Iran’s IRGC, hitting a Beirut refugee camp. The total death toll in Lebanon now exceeds 634.
• Western banks began closing Middle East branches after Iran threatened financial institutions in retaliation for the strike on Tehran’s state-owned Bank Sepah, which handles military and IRGC payrolls.

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Iran has a very serious water issue.

• Attacking Water in Iran Can Bring Out Nukes – Martin Armstrong (USAW)

Martin Armstrong warned in February, “This is where the volatility starts kicking in.” What do we have? Oil, gold and silver spiking in price, and violent exchanges between Iran, the United States and many other countries in the Middle East. Now, water assets like desalination plants in Bahrain and Iran are being blown up. Add the worst water shortage in decades in Iran as a backdrop to constant bombing, and you have a situation that could turn very ugly, very fast. The water shortage is so bad that there has been water rationing in Tehran for months. This water rationing was part of the reason there were huge protests in Iran a few months ago.


Armstrong explains, “Part of the protests (in Iran) were about water rationing. The Islamic Republic Guard were called the ‘water mafia.’ They control the water. It’s kind of like North Korea. If you want to be fed, you join the army. All food goes to the army first, and water will also go to the military first.” Remember, they are water rationing in Iran now, and they don’t have a lot left. So, what happens if the US, Israel and other Persian Gulf nations knock out what’s left of Iran’s water? What happens if Iran is completely out of water? Armstrong says, “Personally, I would ask Pakistan for a nuke. Look, you are talking about the death of a country. When you get to that point, if you’ve got a nuke, you are going to use it.”

So, what happens if the dams and reservoirs are bombed and Iran is completely cut off from water? Armstrong says, “If you do that, is that a war crime because you are wiping out the average population and civilians? Would you do that? This is a mess. It’s a complete mess.” On the other side, what happens if Iran knocks out all the Persian Gulf oil refineries? Armstrong says, “If I were Iran, I would attack all the oil refineries of the neighboring states. You do that, and you will bring the entire West to its knees. The US only gets about 3% of our oil from the Middle East. You would wipe out Europe for sure.”

Armstrong sees gold going as high as “$8,800 an ounce . . . and silver $150 per ounce. . .. Oil could test $200 a barrel. . .. It’s going to get worse this summer, and it’s a 250-year drought cycle in Iran. I wrote about this on my site.” In closing, Armstrong says, “Winston Churchill said, ‘In time of war, truth is very precious, and it needs a bodyguard of lies to protect it.’”


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“Russian-Chinese cooperation has truly limitless possibilities and potential, and we will continue to act in unison.”

• Iran War Crack-Up (Helmer)

Iran has made one point very clear to the United States. It will negotiate on terms for a “permanent peace” but not for a ceasefire. It will fight on against US troops if they land, against US bases in the Arab states, and against US vessels at sea; it will keep the Hormuz Strait closed. Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi repeated this point in three interviews he gave the NBC and PBS television networks on March 6, March 8 and March 9. President Vladimir Putin has made one point very clear to Iran. “I want to confirm our unwavering support of Tehran and our solidarity with our Iranian friends,” he said in his message of March 9 to the new Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. “Russia has been and will remain the Islamic Republic’s reliable partner. I wish you success in tackling the challenges in front of you, good health and strong spirit.”


The next day Putin telephoned Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to “reaffirm his principled stance in favour of de-escalating the conflict as soon as possible and resolving it via political means. Masoud Pezeshkian expressed gratitude for the support provided by Russia, including in particular the humanitarian aid granted to Iran.” De-escalation isn’t ceasefire first; as soon as possible isn’t a short war; humanitarian aid isn’t exactly military aid but it may be. Putin’s wish for Mojtaba Khamenei’s “good health” may extend to new Russian measures for his security; or they may be no more than Putin’s wish. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, then announced the maybes are mightnots.

“’All of these issues were not discussed during that conversation [with Pezeshkian]’ in response to a question whether the presidents discussed Iran’s alleged demands to the United States, including guarantees against the resumption of hostilities, the right for a full peaceful nuclear fuel cycle as well as possible compensations.” Not exactly nothing was said, Peskov meant. But he omitted to say if Putin told Pezeshkian that Russia’s support for Iran’s security and for the new Supreme Leader’s “good health” is “unwavering”.Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, however, did say this to Aragchi in their telephone call on March 10. Russia backs negotiations “with due consideration for [the] security interests of Iran and its regional neighbours”, the foreign ministry communiqué announced.

President Xi Jinping has made nothing very clear — by his silence. Instead, he has delegated Wang Yi to speak. Wang is a Communist Party Politburo member and Foreign Minister; the first rank is more important than the second. “China calls for an immediate stop to military operations to avoid the spiralling escalation of the situation”, Wang said on March 8. “All sides should return to the negotiating table as quickly as possible, resolve differences through equal dialogue, and make efforts for realizing common security.” That’s to say, ceasefire first; negotiations second.

Wang then told his spokesman to announce on March 11: “As to China-Russia relations, both sides develop bilateral ties based on the principle of non-alliance, non-confrontation and not targeting any third party.” This is the first time China has officially emphasized its non-alliance with Russia. At their last direct conversation on February 4, 2026, the Kremlin spokesman had said: “Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping once again noted that the comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation between our two countries are at an unprecedented level, are based on equality and mutual benefit, are not directed against any third parties, and are not subject to short-term political considerations.”

“Comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation” was the watchword of their joint communiqué in Moscow on May 8, 2025; and in Kazakhstan on July 3, 2024; Putin told Xi in Moscow on March 21, 2023, “Russian-Chinese cooperation has truly limitless possibilities and potential, and we will continue to act in unison.”

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“That is the signature of economic factionalism, which feeds an insatiable appetite for greater wealth seizure.”

• Eat the Rich: Sanders and Khanna Introduce Federal Billionaires Tax (Turley)

“Enough is enough.” With those words, Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt) launched a push to impose a 5% annual wealth tax on America’s billionaires. With Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Cal.), the legislation, “Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act,” echoes the growing “eat-the-rich” mantra on the left — seeking to replicate a disastrous push in California that has led to an exodus from that state and an estimated loss of $2 trillion in taxable assets. It is also flagrantly unconstitutional. Under the plan, Congress would target 938 billionaires to tap them for $4.4 trillion. That money would then be redistributed as a $3,000 direct payment to every man, woman, and child in a household making $150,000 or less – $12,000 for a family of four.


The timing of the move is telling. Not only is it calculated before the midterm elections, in which the Democrats hope to retake power, but it follows the push by California Democrats and unions to impose a similar wealth tax in that state. Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, has supported the state law, which includes a ruinous provision for startup entrepreneurs. The law would not only be retroactive to try to trap wealthy taxpayers who have fled the state, but also base wealth calculations on the voting shares of corporate executives. Often, with start-ups, entrepreneurs hold greater voting shares than actual ownership. However, just in case they need more incentive to leave the state, they will be taxed as if their voting shares represented actual wealth.

The practical problem is that the wealthy, like their wealth, are mobile. As a result, many are fleeing California. So now Khanna is joining with the nation’s leading Democratic Socialists to ensure there is nowhere to hide in the United States. For billionaires in California, they could be double-tapped for ten percent of their wealth. It has long been the dream of the far left. Years ago, Warren delighted Democratic voters in her run for the presidency by telling the rich she was coming after “your Rembrandts, your stock portfolio, your diamonds and your yachts.” In one debate, she dramatically rubbed her hands together after saying she would take some of the wealth of fellow candidate John Delaney, a self-made millionaire.

In my book, “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution,” I discuss the growing threat of “economic factionalism” as politicians fuel rage against the wealthy based on the false premise that they are not “paying their fair share.” While there are good-faith arguments for adjusting tax burdens to address budget demands, the top 1 percent pays more taxes than the bottom 90 percent combined.There is little reason to believe that a wealth tax targeting billionaires will not, if upheld, be later extended to lower tax brackets, starting with multimillionaires. That is the signature of economic factionalism, which feeds an insatiable appetite for greater wealth seizure.

The Sanders-Khanna plan is notable in its express commitment to direct wealth redistribution. It also explains why the left has made the packing of the Supreme Court a priority. As Harvard professor Michael Klarman explained years ago, the radical agenda to change the system to guarantee Republicans “will never win another election” requires control of the Supreme Court to uphold such measures.The problem is that the Constitution bars the implementation of such a federal wealth tax. When the 16th Amendment was ratified, it allowed for federal income taxes, and only income taxes: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

The effort to expand federal taxation beyond income taxes will require either a constitutional amendment or an enabling, packed Court.Nevertheless, these politicians will continue to dangle wealth distribution before voters. They will demonize figures like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk for their wealth while ignoring that these same figures are wealth and job creators, driving our economic growth. Instead, Sanders declared that “Billionaires cannot have it all.” The irony of Rep. Khanna (who has been floating a run for President in 2028) turning on his own constituents in Silicon Valley underscores the appeal of wealth-redistribution campaigns. He is turning the very heart of his state’s economic growth as state deficits and out-of-state migration increase.

For Sanders, the legislation is a key moment to advance his long-standing socialist agenda. He declared the beginning of the end of “unprecedented income and wealth inequality” in the United States through such redistribution. The stated objective of erasing wealth inequality highlights how this is just the start and the end of wealth taxation.As discussed in Rage and the Republic, none of this is new. Countries like France previously targeted the wealthy, triggering an exodus of taxpayers and their businesses from the country. It had to reverse its policy as the economy collapsed.

Of course, many young people have no memory of such failures in the 20th Century. Instead, they are drawn to the very same soundbites used in France and Great Britain before disastrous experiments with socialism. With no experience with socialist economies, figures like socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani can entice voters to “the warmth of collectivism.” There are legitimate concerns over the glaring and growing wealth gap in the United States. However, a wealth tax is neither a constitutional nor a practical way of addressing the problem.

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“.. the missiles “couldn’t have been launched without British specialists.”

• UK Behind Deadly Storm Shadow Missile Attack On Russian City – Kremlin (RT)

A Ukrainian strike on the Russian city of Bryansk using UK-made long-range Storm Shadow missiles would have been impossible without the direct involvement of British military specialists, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. The regional governor, Aleksandr Bogomaz, initially said the attack on Tuesday killed six people and injured 42, slamming the bombardment as an “inhumane terrorist act.” On Wednesday, he reported that the death toll had risen to seven, while confirming that the strike had involved Storm Shadow missiles. Peskov said on Wednesday the missiles “couldn’t have been launched without British specialists.”


He added that the strikes again show the necessity of the continued military campaign against Ukraine, as its success will ensure that “these barbaric actions by the Kiev regime don’t continue.” “One of the goals is to demilitarize Kiev and strip it of the ability to carry out attacks like this,” Peskov stressed. Ukraine has taken responsibility for the strike, claiming it was targeting a local microelectronics factory. Media reported that the attack came during a shift change at a local factory, when some employees were heading to the exit. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, seven British cruise-missiles were used in the attack. The UK and other nations backing the Ukrainian government “bear full responsibility” for civilian casualties in Bryansk, it said in a statement on Wednesday.

London is “prepared to bring the conflict to a new level in terms of damage and loss of life” using Ukrainian “puppets,” it added.] The ministry said the UN must react to the incident, stating that “silence will be taken as encouragement of criminal actions” of the Ukrainian government and its foreign backers. Governor Bogomaz announced a day of mourning in Bryansk, saying that 20 people remain in local hospitals, while nine of the most severely injured have been transported to specialized medical facilities. Storm Shadow cruise missiles are launched from the air and have a range of up to 560 km. Bryansk is located just over 100 km from the Ukrainian border and is internationally recognized as Russian territory.

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“.. the goal is to jeopardize the peace process to end the Ukraine conflict.”

• Ukraine Attacking Russian Gas Pipeline To Stop Deliveries To Europe (RT)

Kiev has been deliberately attacking the infrastructure of the TurkStream gas pipeline in an attempt to halt deliveries to European consumers, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday. The statement comes after pipeline operator Gazprom reported on Wednesday that the Russkaya compressor station in southern Krasnodar Region, which serves as the starting point for supplies through the TurkStream, came under attack overnight. The company said the Beregovaya and Kazachya compressor stations were also targeted the day before, adding that its facilities in southern Russia were attacked 12 times in the past two weeks.


On Wednesday, the Defense Ministry confirmed the attacks, saying: “the Kiev regime, in order to stop gas supplies to European consumers, launched another attack using strike aircraft-type UAVs on the infrastructure of the Russkaya compressor station.” The ministry stated that four Ukrainian drones were shot down by Russian air defense systems in the airspace adjacent to the station, two more were intercepted by fighter aircraft, and three were destroyed by mobile fire teams. The TurkStream transports Russian gas to Türkiye via the Black Sea, with one line dedicated to the Turkish market and another supplying countries in Southern and Southeastern Europe.

Last month, President Vladimir Putin said Russia has become aware of plans to attack the TurkStream and Blue Stream trans-Black sea gas pipelines, adding that the goal is to jeopardize the peace process to end the Ukraine conflict. Putin did not publicly attribute the alleged plot to a specific party, saying it would be discussed behind closed doors with the Federal Security Service (FSB) board. In October, FSB chief Aleksandr Bortnikov warned that Ukraine and the UK were jointly preparing an attack on TurkStream.

Gas and oil infrastructure in the Black Sea has repeatedly come under Ukrainian attacks amid the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The attacks involved long-range drone strikes against various facilities ashore, as well as repeated attempts to target Russian naval vessels patrolling the pipelines with sea drones. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to the attack, saying it highlights the “true nature and essence of the Kiev regime,” describing the strikes as “especially irresponsible against the backdrop of a global energy crisis that is brewing day by day.”

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Anything you say can and will be used… Soon as you say something anything about immigration you’re a racist, bigot, etc.

• The UN Warns Trump About Migrant Rhetoric. Seriously. (Manney)

As if we can’t hate the United Nations enough. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued a warning about President Donald Trump’s immigration rhetoric, claiming that describing migrants as criminals could increase racial hostility. Members of the committee argued that the language used by political leaders can fuel discrimination and possibly trigger hate crimes against migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers living in the United States.


The Committee was deeply disturbed by the growing use of derogatory and dehumanizing language and the dissemination of harmful stereotypes targeting migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. “Portraying them as criminals or as a burden, by politicians and influential public figures at the highest level, particularly the President,” the Committee said, “may incite racial discrimination and hate crimes.” It underscored that the systematic use of racial profiling and arbitrary identity checks by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) against people of Hispanic/Latino, African, or Asian origin has resulted in widespread arrests of refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, and people perceived as such.

The Committee also raised alarm that the lives and physical integrity of the above vulnerable groups are jeopardised by the excessive use of force and violence by enforcement officers during immigration operations. It cited that at least eight people have died since January 2026 during ICE operations or while in ICE custody, including protesters exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association and detained refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants.

The committee, operating within the United Nations human rights system, raised concerns about immigration enforcement actions carried out by federal agencies, including ICE and Customs and Border Protection. Committee members also referenced deaths tied to immigration detention and enforcement operations since early 2026. UN officials urged the U.S. government to review immigration enforcement measures implemented after January 2025. Committee members called for restrictions on enforcement operations near schools, hospitals, and houses of worship. They also pressed federal authorities to prohibit racial profiling and consider alternatives to immigration detention for families and minors.

Trump administration officials rejected the criticism. The White House accused the U.N. of bias and said Trump had delivered on many of his campaign promises, including securing the U.S. border. “No one cares what the biased United Nations’ so-called ”experts” think, because Americans are living in a safer, stronger country than ever before,” White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said when reached for comment. Administration officials argue that immigration enforcement remains necessary to address criminal activity tied to illegal entry and trafficking networks operating along the southern border.

The UN regularly presents itself as a global human rights watchdog, yet its own record has drawn scrutiny across multiple regions. Internal investigations into reconstruction programs in Iraq revealed allegations that UN development staff demanded bribes of up to 15% of contract values during a multibillion-dollar aid effort for postwar rebuilding projects. These accusations triggered whistleblower complaints about the misuse of funds intended for infrastructure and humanitarian aid.

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“New DOJ documents expose a 2011 plan by Epstein and former intelligence operatives to seize $70 billion in frozen Libyan assets ..”

• Forget The Island: Jeffrey Epstein’s Secret War For Libya’s Billions (Fetouri)

While NATO bombs were still falling on Tripoli in the summer of 2011, a different kind of predator was circling the Libyan capital from the safety of a Manhattan townhouse. Newly released 2026 US Department of Justice documents reveal that Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and alleged Israeli intelligence asset, was also a geopolitical vulture looking to feast on the remains of the Libyan state.,Epstein’s private correspondence reveals a cold-blooded calculation to bypass international law and tap into the $32.4 billion in Libyan assets frozen in the US. The tragedy of the Libyan people was presented as a commercial opportunity.


On September 18, 2011, while the streets of Libya were still engulfed in the chaos, a clandestine plan was being hatched in New York to capture the country’s sovereign wealth. In an email titled ‘New York – Optics are important’, Jeffrey Epstein’s associate, Greg Brown, urgently pushed the financier to bankroll a high-level meeting with future Libyan leaders during the UN General Assembly. The targets were not minor players; they included Dr. Mohamed Magariaf, who would soon become Libya’s head of state, and his key advisers, Dr. Noah and Fadel Hshad.

Brown identified this trio as the men who would soon hold the mandate to negotiate with global giants like Goldman Sachs. The prize was a staggering $40 billion in Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) assets invested across Sub-Saharan Africa on top of the amounts frozen in the US banks. By offering to “identify, manage and monetize” these funds, Epstein’s circle sought to position themselves as the ultimate gatekeepers of Libya’s post-war economy – a ‘play’ that Brown promised would generate hundreds of millions for their own pockets.

The operation was in fact a privatized intelligence effort designed to exploit the vacuum of the Libyan state. Additional emails from the same period reveal that Epstein’s network was not working in isolation, claiming that former operatives from Britain’s MI6 and Israel’s Mossad were “willing to assist” in the hunt for Libya’s billions. This shadowy alliance viewed the $32.4 billion in funds frozen in the US – as well as the additional $40 billion’s African portfolio – not as protected sovereign wealth, but as a “significant opportunity” for recovery on a contingency-fee basis. By leveraging the “fearless” reputation Greg Brown attributed to Epstein, the group aimed to convince the nascent Libyan leadership that only their network of spies-turned-fixers had the “juice” to navigate the web of global finance and retrieve the nation’s “stolen” assets.

To justify this unprecedented financial intervention, Epstein’s network relied on a carefully constructed narrative that painted all Libyan overseas wealth as ‘stolen and misappropriated’ by the Gaddafi family – a claim that has never been proven 15 years later. This was a deliberate mischaracterization; in reality, these assets were the legitimate holdings of the Libyan State funds, invested in blue-chip stocks like Pearson and global banking giants. By framing a diversified state portfolio as ‘criminal proceeds’, Epstein’s people and their intelligence associates sought a legal loophole to bypass UN sanctions and extract a ‘contingency fee’ from wealth that belonged to the Libyan people – not a single family.

This strategy of criminalizing state assets was particularly aggressive across the African continent. During the 2011 chaos, persistent rumors (often fed by Western intelligence) portrayed the Libya Africa Investment Portfolio as Gaddafi’s personal slush fund rather than a legitimate development vehicle.

his narrative reached its peak with allegations involving former South African President Jacob Zuma. Claims surfaced that Zuma had received $30 million in cash (and even stashes of gold and diamonds) from the late Libyan leader for “safe keeping.” Although Zuma repeatedly and sarcastically denied these claims, noting that he would hardly be struggling with legal fees if he possessed this fortune, the ‘ghost story’ of the ‘Gaddafi Trillions’ served a vital purpose. It allowed shadow players like Epstein to treat the continent’s sovereign investments as ‘missing treasure’ up for grabs rather than state-owned assets that should have remained under the protection of international law.

The true danger of Epstein’s ‘New York Optics’ play was an attempt to formalize a shadow guardianship over Libya’s sovereign institutions before they could even be rebuilt. By targeting the individuals tasked with negotiating the Goldman Sachs settlement, Epstein was looking to establish a precedent when private, unaccountable fixers would manage the nation’s legal disputes.

This was a direct assault on Libya’s financial sovereignty, after the assault on its political sovereignty by the NATO military invasion. While the United Nations mission (UNSMIL) and international community spoke of ‘transitioning to democracy’, Epstein’s documents reveal a parallel reality: A race to ensure that the LIA remained a black box controlled by Manhattan-based intermediaries. This interference likely contributed to the years of litigation and internal divisions that have kept billions of dollars in state wealth effectively paralyzed – leaving the Libyan people to pay the price for a ‘recovery’ process that was designed by predators for predators.

Perhaps the most damning indictment of this intervention is that it was built on a financial phantom. For 15 years, the international community has been regaled with tales of ‘Gaddafi’s hidden trillions’ – a narrative Epstein’s network eagerly exploited to justify their ‘recovery’ services. Yet, the 2026 reality remains stark: Not a single personal bank account or secret stash belonging to the late Muammar Gaddafi has ever been found. The billions frozen in the West are, and always were, the documented institutional assets of the LIA. LIA was created in 2006 to, among other portfolios, invest oil money for poor families in the country.

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New number: $70 billion.

• Epstein Guard To Testify As Oversight Committee Explores Potential MURDER (MN)

House Oversight Chairman James Comer is ramping up the heat on the botched handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s custody, announcing a subpoena for prison guard Tova Noel amid bombshell revelations of suspicious cash deposits and online searches just before the disgraced elitist’s alleged suicide.


With fresh DOJ documents unearthing red flags that scream cover-up, Comer’s move signals a long-overdue push for transparency against the bureaucratic stonewalling that has shielded powerful figures tied to Epstein’s web of abuse. Comer dropped the news during a Fox News interview, pointing to media reports and overlooked Justice Department records that cast doubt on the official narrative of Epstein’s 2019 death at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

“Well, the recent media reports, what you just said, are very concerning — especially the suspicious activity report on a $5,000 mysterious deposit that she had,” Comer told host Jesse Watters. “The reason that stands out to me, Jesse, is because very seldom are suspicious activity reports even reported for sums less than $10,000.” “That’s a mystery there, and that’s something that, according to the DOJ documents, they never looked into — never asked her about,” he continued. Comer emphasized broader questions lingering over Epstein’s case: “Because of this, because of the media reports, and because of the fact that, honestly, most people on the committee aren’t confident 100% that Epstein’s death was a suicide, we’re going to ask Ms. Noel to come in for a transcribed interview.”

“Again, no one’s accusing her of any wrongdoing, but we have a lot of questions about Epstein — questions about who else was involved in abusing girls,” Comer added. “Why did the government not do a better job of investigating and prosecuting Epstein when they had a chance years before they finally convicted him? Was Epstein a spy? Was our government involved in any way, shape, or form in trying to destroy evidence or hide evidence from any of those four properties?” “Now, was Epstein’s death a suicide, as the government has reported, or was there something else?” he questioned. “Again, no one’s accusing this prison guard of any wrongdoing, but I will announce tonight on your show that we are going to ask her to come in and sit for an interview because we have a lot of questions.”

The subpoena targets Noel, who was on duty the night Epstein died. DOJ records show she googled “latest on Epstein in jail” at 5:42 a.m. and 5:52 a.m., just 40 minutes before her colleague discovered the body at 6:30 a.m. Instead of conducting required checks, Noel admitted to napping and online shopping, while falsifying logs—a lapse that earned her a deferred prosecution deal from an Obama-era judge in 2021. FBI forensics flagged her search as the only notable one in a 66-page review of the guards’ computers. Noel denied remembering the searches, calling records “inaccurate.”mChase Bank flagged suspicious deposits into Noel’s account, including $5,000 on July 30, 2019—ten days before Epstein’s death. From December 2018, seven deposits totaled $11,880, coinciding with her assignment to Epstein’s unit. Yet DOJ investigators never questioned her about it.

An FBI briefing identified Noel as an “orange flash” on camera approaching Epstein’s cell at 10:40 p.m. the night before, carrying linens or clothing—the last approach to the tier. She denied it. Noel now faces a lawsuit for alleged assault at her new job as a medical assistant. The guard’s actions fueled a heated exchange between journalist Michael Shellenberger and Joe Rogan during his latest podcast episode.


This development echoes ongoing scrutiny of Epstein’s death. DOJ documents labeled his death a “MURDER” in one instance, showed it documented a day early, and highlighted the wrong noose being DNA-tested. As one X user noted in response to those revelations: “Epstein is alive. He was extracted, likely by our own government.” Another pointed to a bipartisan cover-up: “The evidence points to a cover-up: Trump’s first AG Bill Barr oversaw the initial Epstein “suicide” ruling amid massive irregularities, Biden’s DOJ continued the stonewalling, and now Trump’s team is doing the same. Epstein was likely a protected CIA/elite asset—too many powerful world leaders, billionaires & influencers were involved in his crimes. The government decided to bury it all to avoid total exposure & chaos.”

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“.. once Barack Obama came to the podium, he had an agenda.”

• The Politicking of Barack Obama (Victor Davis Hanson)

I’d like to comment recently on the politicking of Barack Obama. He’s been in the news recently, speaking at the Jesse Jackson funeral. What he did there, I’ll get to in a second, but he had a habit of talking down to black Americans as if they were naive, stupid, lacked his sophistication. Do you remember most poignantly when he told supporters of Kamala Harris, don’t dare, you don’t know what’s good for you. Don’t dare vote for basically a white racist like Donald Trump when you could empower a black woman. That didn’t go over very well, but he has a long history of that. Before I continue, though, the Democrats have a long history of using the venue of the funeral memorial service to hijack it and use it for political purposes.


In 2002, they did that with the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, and what should have been a memorial service turned into a four-hour campaign harangue. It was sort of the same way when Barack Obama went to the funeral of John McCain. He was asked to speak, and there’s no secret that John McCain and Donald Trump were not friends.Donald Trump felt that he had endorsed John McCain in 2008. John McCain had not turned the favor by explicitly telling the country that he would not vote for his own party’s nominee in 2016. John McCain, remember, had been a lifetime supporter of private medicine, and when Obamacare came on the scene, he was a vehement opponent. And when Donald Trump then was president, he had the votes to repeal Obamacare and bring in a free-market alternative.

John McCain inexplicably, in a late-night vote, flipped and decided to cast the deciding vote to crush that effort. And we have Obamacare today thanks to John McCain. He was never forgiven. Trump then said some things, and that all surfaced at the McCain funeral where Barack Obama sort of, without mentioning Trump, but it was very overt, the reference. He said that unlike people who are brash and think they’re tough and crude, basically, John McCain was tough, but he didn’t have to emphasize it. The next occasion came in 2020 for Barack Obama. That was at John Lewis’ funeral, and like the Wellstone funeral and the McCain funeral, once again, it was occasion to hijack the purpose, that is to honor the dead, and instead to use it for political purposes. So once Barack Obama came to the podium, he had an agenda.

And he was going to attack Donald Trump. And the way he did it was he said, we are suffering from racism and voter suppression. We don’t need voter IDs. We need a national holiday for balloting. We need to let prisoners vote, and we have too much Jim Crow racism in the country. Therefore, we’ve got to get rid of the Jim Crow racist filibuster footnote. He used it very ineffectively, but he used it in 2006 to deny the nomination of Justice [Samuel] Alito to the Supreme Court. And then he said that we have racist gerrymandering. That’s kind of ironic to see who’s been gerrymandering lately. And he has fully endorsed the efforts of Illinois, of Massachusetts, of Virginia, of California to ensure that Republicans don’t have House representation commensurate with their popular vote in their states.

In that long sermon, people were kind of startled. They thought, “Wow, this is a campaign. Is this a campaign advertisement, or is this an occasion for Obama to get relevance again after being out of office?” I would drop it there, but he did it again. He just went to the funeral of Jesse Jackson. I should add another footnote here that Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama were not close friends. Jesse Jackson said that he had been the trailblazer, the first African American presidential candidate that had a real chance to win. There had been others, but he felt that he was the most viable and that broke the barrier. And Obama was the beneficiary of that. He got so angry that in 2008 he got tired of Barack Obama, he thought, talking down to African Americans. So he said in a hot mic in the Fox Chicago studio, “I’d like to cut his” off, a vulgar reference to Obama’s testicles. But anyway, Obama was asked to speak.

Now, I would say in another footnote, all of these speeches at these funerals that Obama presents are basically about himself. He always relates anecdotes, not about necessarily just about the politician in question, but about his interaction with him. But in this particular Jesse Jackson speech, he went after division in the country using government. These are all sins he purportedly thinks that Donald Trump has committed—disunity, racism, valuing some people over others, and using the government to pursue enemies.

This was very, very rich. Very rich. Barack Obama, remember when he was president, he used the government to do what? Surveil Associated Press reporters, politicized the IRS to make sure they went after conservative groups and denied them tax-free status before his reelection effort. And remember most egregiously of all: He had at one point James Clapper, John Brennan, and James Comey in the Oval Office with him during the transition after Trump had been elected. And he basically said to them, your intelligence assessments from national intelligence, FBI, CIA are flawed because I’m not getting the results I want. I want Russian collusion. Collusion. Now go back and give me Russian collusion and Donald Trump.

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“.. only 3 or 4 percent of felony cases are decided by juries. In the US jury trials have already been abolished, not by law, but by non-usec..”

• The Era of Truth and Freedom is Over (Paul Craig Roberts)

The British Parliament is in the process of abolishing the right to trial by jury. The law, which seems about to pass, removes a jury trial for defendants whose crimes are punishable by a sentence of three years or less. Instead of a jury of one’s peers, a judge will determine a defendant’s innocence or guilt. Next the cutoff will be 5 years, then ten, then jury trial will disappear, and England will return to the Dark Ages. The appointed judge will decide according to the wishes of he who rules. The reason the Labour government gives for abolishing trial by jury is an 80,000 case backlog that is choking the British justice system, a backlog that the Labour government says will rise to 200,000 in 9 years.


So, first British governments for decades allowed massive numbers of third world immigrant-invaders into Britain, many of whom turned out to be practitioners of crime. Their crimes, many of which are never prosecuted such as the 180,000 gang-rapes of British girls covered up by British governments for 30 years, overwhelmed the ability of the court system to process, and the solution is to abolish trial by peers, one of Britain’s greatest contributions to justice. For eight centuries from Alfred the Great to the Magna Carter to the Glorious Revolution (1680) the British built freedom and the protection of liberty from arbitrary power into law and civil society. And now a great achievement of Western Civilization has been lost to immigrant-invaders.

Possibly, trial by one’s peers had already been lost in Britain. I do not know if plea bargaining has become a feature of the British justice system. In the “free” United States plea-bargaining is, according to the US Department of Justice, the dominant way to decide felony cases. According to the US Department of Justice, only 3 or 4 percent of felony cases are decided by juries. In the US jury trials have already been abolished, not by law, but by non-use. A plea bargain is self-incrimination, against which the US Constitution and British legal practice protect a defendant from being tortured into a confession, whether innocent or guilty.

Despite the Constitutiion, Americans are coerced into self-incrimination by the cost of paying defense attorneys, by the prosecutor’s threat that he will pile on more charges if the defendant insists on a jury trial. A defendant who insists on a jury trial faces not only a hostile prosecutor, whose time is used up in a jury trial when he could be building his conviction rate with plea bargains, but also a hostile judge whose court docket is clogged by a jury trial. A plea bargain takes a few minutes. A jury trial takes a day or several weeks and requires a lot of effort and resources and attention by the judge..

If the defendant is without financial resources, his public defender knows that if he competently represents his client he will not be assigned more cases by the court. The defendant is told by his lawyer that a jury that trusts the system will think that of so many charges against the defendant at least one of them will be true. The defendant will be told that the penalty for one conviction will be worse than the plea bargain that has attorney can negotiate for him. The process works to break down the defendant’s resistance to self-incrimination.

And, so, prosecutor, defendant and his attorney appear before the judge. All three swear that no deal has been made, that the defendant admits his guilt to a charge of a crime that never happened, but which carries a lesser sentence than the original crime for which the defendant was indicted. When I have written that America’s jails are full of innocent people, this is what I mean. Defendants admit to a crime never committed in order to avoid prosecution for one that did, whether or not the accused committed the crime.

The fact that 96-97% of felonies never go to trial means that the police evidence is never tested in court. Time has taught the police that they don’t need any evidence. Their work load is easy. The police just pick a plausible defendant and turn him over to the plea bargaining system. Feminist ideology and blacks taught that white people are racists have added their part to undermining the integrity of juries. A white male with feminists and blacks on his jury can be convicted out of hate. This is justice in the “free” West today. Even the British have now abandoned the struggle for justice for which they fought for eight centuries.

What more evidence does a sentient person need to understand that the foundations of freedom that made Western civilization unique and a magnet to the world no longer exists. This is why the United States, once the repository of these truth and freedom preserving institutions, can betray all morality, all law, by intentionally attacking a girl’s school in Iran for children of Iranian Guards in order to demoralize the Iranian military force in hopes of reducing its ability to resist Israeli-American unprovoked aggression against the Iranian nation. Trump and Netanyahu opened their war by murdering 185 little girls.

Do governments so totally evil, so overflowing with self-righteousness and self-justification for their crimes against humanity as Washington and Israel have a right to exist? This is the question that is before us. Yet the entire world, including Putin and Xi, refuse to confront the question, preferring to defer to evil.

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He’s definitely not his biggest fan.

• Putin Is Again on the Wrong Track (Paul Craig Roberts)

Just as Putin destroyed the reputation of the Russian military by refusing to win an ongoing minor conflict, he is again demonstrating the worst kind of judgment in calling for a return to peace and stability in the Middle East. Is Putin aware of the Zionist Israeli agenda of Greater Israel? How can he not be aware when Netanyahu himself has held up a map of Greater Israel? How can Putin not be aware when Tucker Carlson asked Washington’s ambassador to Israel how Israel could claim an entire region in which there were different countries and received the answer that the Israelis should just go ahead and take it all now? How can Putin be aware of Greater Israel and call for a return to peace and stability? The only stability permitted by Israel’s agenda is when Israel stretches from the Nile to Pakistan.


Just as Israel used the US to clear out of the way Iraq, Libya, and Syria, Israel is now using Trump to remove Iran as an obstacle to Greater Israel. The only way Israeli-American aggression in the Middle East can be avoided is for Israel’s agenda of Greater Israel and Washington’s agenda of hegemony to be negotiated away. Any other negotiations are mindless distractions from reality. The Israeli-American demands for hegemony are totally inconsistent with any possibility of peace and stability. When confronted with such hegemonic demands, how stupid must you be to call for “peace and stability”?= Why are there no calls for Israel to negotiate its agenda of Greater Israel, for Washington to negotiate its growing demands for hegemony over other countries?

If Putin convinces Iran to call off a war that Iran must fight to victory if the ancient country is to survive, Iran will be destroyed. Having betrayed Syria, is Putin now going to betray Iran in exchange for Washington removing sanctions on Russian oil so Putin can negate for Israel and the US the impact of the closed Strait of Hormuz? Is Putin aligning Russia with Washington and Israel against a BRICS partner? If Putin were a real leader, he would be calling for negotiating an end to the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel. The US cannot do it, because America is completely under Israel’s thumb. Unless the rest of the world can bring itself into acknowledging the reality of the agendas of Greater Israel and American Hegemony, the world will continue on the path to Armageddon.

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“Rasmussen survey finds 56% of U.S. voters believe COVID shots caused significant deaths — and 42% say CDC employees should be fired for their pandemic response.”

• 56% of Americans Now Suspect COVID-19 “Vaccines” Caused Mass Deaths (Hulscher)

Public opinion is shifting—and they want action. A new Rasmussen survey of 1,158 likely U.S. voters—conducted September 7–9, 2025, with a ±3% margin of error—reveals that 56% believe side effects from the COVID-19 shots have likely caused a significant number of unexplained deaths. Nearly one-third (32%) say it’s very likely. Only 35% still dismiss the idea.This shows that what was once called a “conspiracy theory” has become the mainstream view. The majority of Americans now believe vaccine harms are real and widespread.


Support for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reflects this shift. Half of voters (50%) say government health officials deserve criticism for their handling of the pandemic, while 42% even think CDC employees should be fired for their role in misleading the public. Among those who strongly believe the shots caused deaths, over 70% want CDC firings.

Partisan divides remain—70% of Republicans, 46% of Democrats, and 54% of independents think the vaccines likely caused deaths—but the skepticism crosses party lines and racial groups. In fact, black (64%) and Hispanic (57%) voters are even more likely than white voters (54%) to suspect deadly vaccine effects. According to the survey, RFK Jr. is viewed favorably by 45% of voters, with strong support among Republicans and independents, even as Democrats turn sharply against him.The takeaway: A credible, nationally representative poll now confirms most Americans believe COVID-19 shots have killed many people, and they want accountability from the CDC and government health leaders.

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Debt Rattle February 23 2026

Feb 232026
 
 February 23, 2026  Posted by at 10:52 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  60 Responses »


Edgar Degas Danseuse au Tutu Vert 1887


• JPMorgan De-Banked Trump Shortly After Jan 6th Capitol Chaos (ZH)
• Susan Rice Joins Call for a Revenge Purge If Democrats Re-Take Power (Turley)
• Trump Calls on Netflix to Fire Susan Rice (Matt Margolis)
• Europe To Recruit Migrants For “National Defense” (ZH)
• Sen. Kennedy Tells Us What He Thinks of AOC (Spencer)
• Scott Bessent Outlines “Multiple Tools” Now Deployed in Tariff Policy (CTH)
• Scott Jennings Drops Massive Truth Bomb About Supreme Court on CNN (Margolis)
• Mamdani Is Collapsing Faster Than We Thought (Margolis)
• CNN SLAMS Keir Starmer’s ATROCIOUS Ratings (MN)
• Starmer Appoints ‘Queen Of Woke’ As UK’s Top Civil Servant – Reform UK (RT)
• German Court Rules X Must Turn Over Data on Hungarian Govt Support (CTH)
• Hungary and Slovakia Push Back on Ukraine’s Oil Dispute (Manney)
• NASA Chief Blasts Boeing Over Botched Starliner Mission (RT)
• Investigation Exposes Cover-Up of Obama Center Taxpayer Scam (Matt Margolis)
• Is Tucker Carlson’s Career Toast Now? (Matt Margolis)

 


 

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On January 22 2026, the Epoch Times wrote: Trump Sues JPMorgan Chase Over Alleged Debanking . A month later, on February 22, new docs confirmed it all and they said: Documents Confirm JPMorgan Closed Trump’s Bank Accounts After Jan. 6 Capitol Breach . Also on February 22, Zero Hedge then cited the Epoch Times. see below.

We now know for double sure that one month after Jan.6, 2021, which is also right after his first presidential term, JPMorgan closed over 50 bank accounts tied to Donald Trump. Fankly, that raises more questions than I can answer. (Where do the contents go?) Trump filed a $5 billion lawsuit. And he should win. Banks should not feel free to act on political whims.

• JPMorgan De-Banked Trump Shortly After Jan 6th Capitol Chaos (ZH)

New court documents released Friday show JPMorgan Chase told President Donald Trump a month after the January 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol that the bank was closing his accounts. The disclosure was made amid a $5 billion lawsuit Trump filed against JPMorgan and its CEO Jamie Dimon. JPMorgan, the nation’s largest bank, said for the first time late Friday that it cut off more than 50 Trump accounts in February 2021, shortly after Mr. Trump’s first term ended. The accounts included those for Trump hotels, housing developments and retail shops in Illinois, Florida and New York, as well as Mr. Trump’s personal private banking relationship that handled his inheritance from his father, according to letters filed to the court.


JPMorgan did not specify in those letters a specific reason for the mass account closings. In one unsigned note to Mr. Trump, dated Feb. 19, 2021, the bank wrote that he would need to “find a more suitable institution with which to conduct business.” The letter closed with, “Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter” – a phrase that President Trump often uses. As NYTimes reports, the President has maintained for years that his bank account closures were politically motivated, and a spokesperson for his legal team said the newest court documents are “a devastating concession that proves President Trump’ entire claim. [JPMorgan] admitted to unlawfully and intentionally de-banking President Trump, his family, and his businesses, causing overwhelming financial harm, the spokesperson said.

President Trump is standing up for all those wrongly debanked by JPMorgan Chase and its cohorts, and will see this case to a just and proper conclusion. the attorneys added. Mr. Trump’s lawsuit, which named Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, as a defendant, contended that the bank put Mr. Trump on a blacklist because it “needed to distance itself from President Trump and his conservative political views.” That echoed earlier complaints from Mr. Trump that Capital One similarly closed his accounts and that Bank of America refused to accept billions of dollars in deposits after the Jan. 6 riots. The bank told The Epoch Times over email it will seek to dismiss the claims. “Plaintiffs’ threadbare allegations do not allege sufficient facts to plead a claim,” the institution said.

JPMorgan told The Epoch Times last month that the case “has no merit.” “[JPMorgan Chase] does not close accounts for political or religious reasons,” JPMorgan previously said. “We do close accounts because they create legal or regulatory risk for the company.” “We regret having to do so, but often rules and regulatory expectations lead us to do so.” These comments were made last month, days after Trump announced on social media his intention to sue the bank.

Since then, Trump’s lawyers have alleged in court documents that JPMorgan closed the president’s accounts because of its “‘woke’ beliefs that it needed to distance itself from President Trump and his conservative political views.” “In essence, [JPMorgan Chase] debanked Plaintiffs’ Accounts because it believed that the political tide at the moment favored doing so,” the lawsuit states. JPMorgan added it supports the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent the weaponization of the banking sector. There is still much legal wrangling to come. JPMorgan this past week asked that the case be moved from Florida state court, where Mr. Trump has had some success in litigation, to a federal court in New York.

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One scary lady.

• Susan Rice Joins Call for a Revenge Purge If Democrats Re-Take Power (Turley)

As Democrats plan for the possible takeover in the midterms and 2028 election, they are already openly discussing their push for radical changes in our political system, including packing the Supreme Court to guarantee that those changes are allowed. Many are also pledging trials, impeachments, and investigations of anyone who supported President Donald Trump in a purging of politics and government. The latest to join the revenge purge pledge is Susan Rice, Democratic powerbroker and top policy adviser to both President Barack Obama and Joe Biden.In an interview this week, Rice declared that supporters of Trump can expect the proverbial knocks on their doors:


“A very prominent public figure, who has served at nearly the very highest levels, once told me … ‘Revenge is best served cold,’ and the older I get, the more I see the wisdom of that.”She added: When it comes to the elites, you know, the corporate interests, the law firms, the universities, the media … it’s not going to end well for them, for those that decided that they would act in their perceived very narrow self-interest, which I would underscore, is very short-term self-interest, and, you know, take a knee to Trump. The promise to crackdown political opponents is hardly unexpected in this age of rage. Indeed, Democrats can point to the purging of the federal ranks, particularly at the Justice Department, as further justification for a tit-for-tat response.

Democratic politicians and pundits have been fueling the anger of their base with ludicrous claims that democracy is about to die since the 2020 election. They have now used anti-ICE protests to stoke the anger in the hope that it will return them to power in the midterm elections. Bravo star and liberal podcast host Jennifer Welch praised footage of a “No Kings” protester celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk. After playing the clip, Welch laughed with joy and declared, “So listen up, Democratic establishment. You can either jump on board with this s—, or we’re coming after you in the same way that we come after MAGA. Period.”

The pledge for revenge purges is an obvious way to further motivate a mob. In my book, Rage and the Republic, I discuss how elected officials often try to enlist mobs to advance their political agendas — only to be consumed by the unrest they helped fuel. This yielding to a “mobocracy” was one of the critical dangers that the Framers sought to deter through protections against majoritarian tyranny. It is a history that figures like Rice are ignoring in the hope of riding this rage wave back into power. The fact is that history has shown that “it’s not going to end well” for establishment figures like Rice who believe that they can control a mob.

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“How much is she being paid, and for what??? Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

• Trump Calls on Netflix to Fire Susan Rice (Matt Margolis)

On Preet Bharara’s podcast, Obama’s scandal-scarred former U.N. ambassador promised that any corporation, law firm, university, or media outlet that “took a knee to Trump” will be targeted when the left is back in charge. “It’s not gonna end well for them,” she warned, casting basic engagement with the Trump administration as a kind of original sin that must be punished. And now President Donald Trump wants accountability. On Saturday, Trump called on Netflix to fire Rice. “Netflix should fire racist, Trump Deranged Susan Rice, IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.


“She’s got no talent or skills – Purely a political hack! HER POWER IS GONE, AND WILL NEVER BE BACK. How much is she being paid, and for what??? Thank you for your attention to this matter.” In her interview with Bharara, Rice argued that major institutions are sensing a political shift and regretting their support for Trump. But that won’t stop the Democrats from settling scores aggressively. “If these corporations think that the Democrats, when they come back in power, are gonna, you know, play by the old rules, and say, ‘Oh, never mind, we’ll forgive you for all the people you’ve fired, all the policies and principles you’ve violated, all, you know, the laws you’ve skirted,’ I think they’ve got another thing coming,” Rice said.

She pointed to redistricting as proof that Democrats are done playing nice. “Just like when Trump thought, ‘Okay, I’ll redistrict, and the Democrats won’t have the guts to play hardball,’ they’re gonna be surprised. Democrats have had a belly full, and we’re not gonna play by, you know, the old set of rules, when these guys are playing by a very different set of rules.” Rice made clear that companies that accommodated the Trump administration will face consequences — big tech, media, universities, and law firms. “There will be an accountability agenda,” she warned. She even urged businesses to brace for investigations. “They better preserve their documents. They better be ready for subpoenas. If they’ve done something wrong, they’ll be held accountable.”

The only companies that would avoid the wrath of vengeful Democrats would be the ones that were on the “right” side of history. “If they haven’t broken the law, good for them,” she said. “If they’ve done the right things, good for them. That also will be noted and remembered.” We all know what that really means: If they were loyal to the Democratic Party, they’re in the clear. Her message was blunt. “This is not going to be an instance of, you know, forgive and forget… the damage that these people are doing is too severe to the American people and to our national interest,” Rice said.

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Muslims will defend the Christian heartland. Yeah yeah. Europe will no longer be Christian. And that’s a big deal, because then it will automatically become Muslim. Yes it will. And only then will the original population start defending itself. Much too late. Now there will be blood.

• Europe To Recruit Migrants For “National Defense” (ZH)

Europe’s lack of military readiness has become painfully obvious in recent years, due largely to the war in Ukraine as well as the Trump Administration’s efforts to force NATO members to fulfill their basic obligations. Specifically, Russia’s successful use of attrition tactics against NATO supported forces in Ukraine has exposed a significant weakness in western military doctrine.New and cheap technologies (including drone technologies) are making large scale maneuver warfare obsolete. The era of super-weapons dominating the battlefield with minimal manpower is over. As was the case in WWI and WWII, troop strength and boots on the ground are once again the key to victory.


A Washington DC-based defense think-tank, Center For A New American Century (CNAS), has come to the same realization and suggests a novel (as well as predictable) solution: Exploit mass immigration from Ukraine and third world countries to the west as a resource to fill the persistent void in military recruitment numbers. Writing for Foreign Policy, the CNAS notes: “Closing manpower gaps may prove harder than writing bigger checks. The continent’s demographic crisis compounds the problem: Births in the European Union fell below 4 million in 2022 for the first time since 1960, shrinking the pool of potential recruits as geopolitical threats—chief among them, Russian aggression—demand larger, more capable forces…

The argument, of course, presupposes that Russia has any intention of invading greater Europe. There is no evidence that this is Vladimir Putin’s goal. However, the Russian bogeyman does make for a useful excuse to justify the development of a unified EU military force. The threat of war can also be exploited by European officials as a way to justify open borders and mass immigration from the third world. Immigration from Ukraine makes some sense – It is a legitimate war torn country and Ukrainians are close to the rest of Europeans in terms of cultural attitude. But, EU elites need a rationale for flooding the region with third worlders and war with Russia seems to be their ticket. The CNAS uses the “demographic collapse” claim as a catalyst.

“Ukraine’s grinding war of attrition has laid bare an uncomfortable truth: Emerging capabilities in the form of high-tech weaponry cannot substitute for boots on the ground. Soldiers, sailors, marines, coast guardsmen, and airmen are the backbone of national defense. Yet the European Commission estimates a 43 million reduction in the bloc’s working-age population by 2070…” “…Meanwhile, Europe continues to grapple with significant migration flows from Africa, the Middle East, and other regions. These arrivals, often young, male, and seeking better opportunities, represent exactly the demographic cohort European militaries desperately need. Many migrants arrive with valuable skills: language abilities, cultural knowledge of strategic regions, technical expertise, and, most importantly, motivation to prove themselves and build new lives.”

It should be noted that these kind of articles from think-tanks are not so much “suggestions” for future policy initiatives. Rather, they are propaganda pieces designed to promote policies that governments already intend to implement in the near future. A number of European countries have already begun the groundwork for recruiting migrants for national defense. Ireland just recently announced that their are reviewing a possible program to give fast-track citizenship to immigrants who volunteer to join the military. Irish leaders assert that this is necessary to boost defense capabilities, but they also argue that it is need to increase Ireland’s “diversity.” Several other European governments are looking at similar programs, including Germany, France and Spain.

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“But our plan for dealing with her, as I have said before, has always been ‘Operation Let Her Speak.’”

• Sen. Kennedy Tells Us What He Thinks of AOC (Spencer)

Sen. John N. Kennedy (R-La.) is easily the funniest guy in the United States Senate, and would be the most hilarious politician in all of Washington were it not for the wit who currently occupies the Oval Office. Of course, most of his competition in this regard is no competition at all, as politicians are historically likely to be people who take themselves altogether too seriously. Today’s Democrats in particular are some of the sourest, unpleasant, and humorless people on the entire planet, so weighed down are they with the noble and never-ending struggle against Orange Man Bad, borders, gender, sanity, and common sense. And nobody, and I mean nobody, takes himself or herself or ximself more seriously than the average leftist who thinks that he (or she or xe) is nobly defending — well, not exactly the nation, which they want to leave borderless and defenseless, but at very least all the people who think the right thoughts and check all the proper boxes for the correct candidates — from the spread of “fascism.”


It’s doubtful that even a tiny percentage of these po-faced, self-righteous, self-important clowns even know what fascism is, but whatever, dude. They’re still busy saving us from it, and one of our principal saviors is none other than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-The Queensboro), who recently went down in flames at the Munich Security Conference. After AOC sputtered and stuttered and hemmed and hawed and faked her way through an answer to a question about whether the U.S. should defend Taiwan militarily in the event of an attack from Communist China, President Donald Trump commented acidly: “Her performance was horrible. I was surprised, actually. I didn’t know she was stupid.”

One who did know that, however, was Sen. Kennedy, and on Friday, he didn’t hold back. “The Congresswoman,” Kennedy said as Charles Hurt of Fox News chuckled in the background, “is kind of like Vice President Kamala Harris, but with more bartending experience.” If you’d like a word salad with your beer, you’ll be happy to know that Kennedy was just getting warmed up.“She has never been accused,” Kennedy continued, “of being a policy maven. You put her in a presidential primary with Elizabeth Warren or Rahm Emanuel, they will devour her like a light snack.” The senator then added semi-apologetically: “I probably shouldn’t say this, but she can get me back.” No doubt about that, but can AOC be as funny as John Neely Kennedy? Not a chance? Will she even try, or just huff and puff about how evil Republicans are lowering the civil tone of our august legislative bodies? The smart money is on the self-righteous posturing.

Kennedy’s most uproarious jab came next: “Someone told me a joke today. They said Congresswoman Cortez announced today categorically that she is not a moron. And she went on to say she hasn’t even been to Utah, much less embraced their religion.” Buh-dum tiss! Kennedy then reiterated: “Now she can get me back, I don’t dislike the congresswoman.” And then he concluded with another zinger: “But our plan for dealing with her, as I have said before, has always been ‘Operation Let Her Speak.’ And so far, it’s working, and my message to my friend the congresswoman, is ‘You go girl! You just keep it up.’” Can we clone Sen. Kennedy? Can we get 52 more of him to fill out the ranks of Senate Republicans? Imagine the hilarity if we had 53 Kennedys instead of the likes of Thune, McConnell, Murkowski, Collins, and so many others. Not only would the legislation be better, but so would the laughs, and there’s a lot to be said for that.

Sen. Kennedy https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2025199354311520451?s=20 https://twitter.com/Jules31415/status/2025262073802858614?s=20 Read more …

There are so many options. Why did he pick the wrong one?

• Scott Bessent Outlines “Multiple Tools” Now Deployed in Tariff Policy (CTH)

Speaking to the Economic Club of Dallas, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent outlines what technical procedures the Trump administration will trigger now to retain tariff authority. As anticipated Bessent outlines section 232 tariffs, section 301 tariffs, and Section 122 tariffs. WATCH (prompted):


Section 232 [Steel and Aluminum examples] of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (19 U.S.C. §1862, as amended) authorizes the President to impose trade restrictions—such as a tariff or quota—if the Secretary of Commerce determines, following an investigation, that imports of a good “threaten to impair” U.S. national security. {SOURCE}

Section 301 tariffs are a trade enforcement mechanism established under the Trade Act of 1974. They allow the U.S. government to impose tariffs on imports from countries that are found to be engaging in unfair trade practices. The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) conducts investigations to determine if a country is violating trade agreements, and if so, it can impose tariffs as a corrective measure {SOURCE}

Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 allows the U.S. president to impose tariffs of up to 15% to address “large and serious” balance-of-payments deficits. This authority can be exercised without prior congressional approval for a limited duration of 150 days. After this period, any tariffs must be extended by Congress. {SOURCE}

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“This is a properly functioning government today.

• Scott Jennings Drops Massive Truth Bomb About Supreme Court on CNN (Margolis)

Whatever you think about the Supreme Court’s ruling Friday on tariffs, the ruling was a blunt reality check for the Democrats, whose rhetoric about the high court has been vicious in recent years. On CNN’s NewsNight, host Abby Phillip was walking through the financial fallout from a court ruling, citing a CBO report that found U.S. businesses absorb about 30% of import price increases, while consumers bear the remaining 70% — with the net effect pushing consumer prices up by roughly 95 percent of the domestically borne tariff costs. Inflation has remained low and stable under President Donald Trump, but whatever. The left loves to push their narrative regardless of the facts. Scott Jennings promptly called out her inconsistency.


“Well, which is it?” he said. “You said all of it was passed through to the consumers. You said that most of it was absorbed by some of the companies. It sounds like maybe it might be a little bit of both.” While Phillip suggested refunds should mirror how the tariffs were collected, Jennings predicted a bureaucratic nightmare, warning of massive sums of money at stake and years of litigation likely to follow. Then Jennings shifted gears entirely, and this is where things got interesting.

“I’ll just say, you know, politically, today, you know, it was a big breaking news day, but I just think we ought to acknowledge something,” he said. “This is a properly functioning government today. The president of the United States, the head of the executive branch, made a policy decision. The Supreme Court, it renders legal opinions about these kinds of decisions, made a decision, they said, you can’t do that. The president of the United States said, ‘Okay, I agree, and I will acknowledge your decision. I’m going to use a different statute to try to do what I want to do.’ This is properly functioning government.”

He wasn’t done. Jennings went straight at the media narrative that has dominated coverage of this Supreme Court for the past two years — the one that cast the court as essentially a rubber stamp for whatever Trump wanted.”For every Democrat and every media person that has gone on for the last year or two about how this Supreme Court is a wholly owned subsidiary of Donald Trump, that it’s not independent, that it does whatever he says to do, obviously, that narrative was obliterated today.”

He drove it home: “So, to me, I thought this was actually — I thought the ruling was sound. I think the president is sound to try other statutes. And I think the narratives about the court not being independent and the president not obeying the court were totally blown up today.” How can you argue with that logic? You can’t. Democrats have become so obsessed with the narrative that the court has been a rubber stamp for Trump; they’ve literally considered packing the court because of this narrative. Frankly, the conservatives on the Supreme Court have shown far more independence than any of the leftists on the court.

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Wait till he starts raising taxes.

• Mamdani Is Collapsing Faster Than We Thought (Margolis)

You can’t say we didn’t warn New York what was going to happen if it elected Zohran Mamdani, but I gotta say, I don’t think anyone predicted it would start collapsing so quickly. But, alas, it has. That socialist utopia that Mamdani was supposed to deliver has instead turned into a slow-motion fiscal catastrophe a mere two months in — and even the liberal media is starting to notice. Mamdani unveiled a $127 billion budget for fiscal year 2027 this week — a staggering $5 billion increase over the prior year. But what’s $5 billion between socialists, right?


To put that into perspective, Mamdani’s proposed budget is actually larger than the budgets of 47 U.S. states, including Florida, which has nearly twice the population. And somehow, it still isn’t enough. The city is staring down a $5.4 billion deficit, with the real gap potentially closer to $12 billion when you do the actual math. So what was his plan? Tax someone else. Mamdani went straight to Albany looking for a handout, demanding that Gov. Kathy Hochul raise taxes on the “ultra-wealthy” and the most profitable corporations. When Hochul told him to pound sand and cut spending instead, he obviously couldn’t do that, and now he is looking at saddling homeowners with a 9.5% property tax hike.

“Faced with no other choice, the city would have to exercise the only revenue lever fully within our own control,” he said. “We would have to raise property taxes. We would also be forced to raid our reserves. To balance the budget as required by law, our preliminary budget takes the only path within our control: the second path. The options of the second path are the options of last resort. Options that we will only employ if there is no other means of arriving at a balanced budget.” As a New York resident, I can say there’s finally something I can agree with Hochul on. Why should the rest of the state subsidize Mamdani’s socialist experiment in New York City?

Let it foot the bill for the mistake of electing Mamdani. Remember, this is the guy who campaigned on affordability and making the rich “pay their fair share,” and now he’s already in a position where he has to tax regular people to cover the costs of his promises. This budget crisis he’s facing two months into his term comes on top of him taking heat for poor trash cleanup and snow removal on his watch. Two months into the job, and the basics aren’t getting done. Conservatives warned about exactly this before last year’s election. We said a self-described democratic socialist running one of the world’s most financially complex cities was a recipe for disaster. Voters in New York went ahead anyway. Now the city faces the reckoning that was entirely predictable.

“No one in New York is ambitious enough to dramatically reshape city government, and residents either vote for class warfare or vote with their feet,” the Washington Post editorial board observed. “A reckoning will have to come eventually. The question is how bad it gets before reality sets in.” That question may answer itself sooner than anyone expected. “No one in New York is ambitious enough to dramatically reshape city government, and residents either vote for class warfare or vote with their feet,” the Washington Post editorial board observed. “A reckoning will have to come eventually. The question is how bad it gets before reality sets in.” That question may answer itself sooner than anyone expected.

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The “leaders” of the large Eropean nations all poll in the sewers..

• CNN SLAMS Keir Starmer’s ATROCIOUS Ratings (MN)

Keir Starmer’s approval ratings have plunged to historic lows, with even CNN calling them “absolutely ATROCIOUS” and noting that President Trump appears “downright like Abraham Lincoln” by comparison. This brutal takedown highlights how Starmer’s globalist policies are alienating Brits across the board. As the Labour leader clings to power, his war on free speech and commitment to protecting illegal immigration is fueling a backlash that could spell the end for his regime. With polls showing just 20% approval, Starmer’s grip on Number 10 looks increasingly tenuous. The Overton News clip, which has gone viral on X, captures CNN’s scathing assessment of Starmer’s popularity nosedive.


In the segment, analyst Harry Enten declares, “The se numbers are absolutely ATROCIOUS! I mean, you never see numbers like this in the United States of America.” Focusing on the dire stats, Enten points out, “Britons who like Keir Starmer, look at this — overall it’s just 1 in 5! It’s just 1 in 5, 20%!” Even within his own ranks, support is crumbling: “His OWN party, Labour, he’s just at 52% there.” The commentary escalates, revealing, “I’ve even seen numbers with satisfaction in the TEENS — and this is actually HIGHER than the lowest.” The most striking line compares Starmer unfavorably to Trump: “You know, we always talk about Donald Trump being unpopular in this country — but Donald Trump looks downright like Abraham Lincoln compared to Keir Starmer’s numbers at this point!”

The latest YouGov survey from February 2026 shows Starmer’s net favourability at -47, with only 22% viewing him positively against 69% unfavorably. That’s an improvement from January’s -57, but still abysmal for a sitting PM.Other trackers paint an even grimmer picture. Ipsos reported satisfaction in the teens late last year, aligning with CNN’s observations. Opinium’s February poll pegs his net approval at -44, with over half the public calling for his resignation. Starmer’s woes stem from policies that prioritize globalist agendas over British interests. Mass immigration continues unchecked, straining public services while borders remain porous. Economic missteps, like burdensome regulations on businesses, echo the failures of socialist experiments.

Recall our earlier coverage where a former aide to Starmer revealed how a “stakeholder state” – an unelected network of insiders, NGOs, and civil servants – effectively controls the UK government. Paul Ovenden described this “political perma-class” as diverting power from voters to elite priorities, wasting resources on fringe issues while ignoring secure borders and sovereignty. This shadowy influence explains Starmer’s disconnect from the public, leading to approval ratings that rival the worst in postwar history. Historical comparisons show that every UK PM with similar low ratings either lost big or resigned before the next election. Adding fuel to the fire is Starmer’s aggressive stance against free expression. Threats to ban platforms like X over AI-generated content have drawn international condemnation.

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“Romeo set out plans for civil servants to spend around 20% of their working hours on diversity objectives such as encouraging workers to display their preferred pronouns and “recruiting non-binary staff,”

• Starmer Appoints ‘Queen Of Woke’ As UK’s Top Civil Servant – Reform UK (RT)

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has appointed the “Queen of Woke” as his new cabinet secretary, Reform UK party spokesperson Zia Yusuf wrote on X on Friday. Antonia Romeo’s elevation to the UK’s most senior civil servant position is the “embodiment of all that’s wrong” with the current establishment, Yusuf argued. While heading the Department for International Trade (DIT), “she bombarded staff with weekly emails pushing Transgender Awareness Week, Bi Visibility Day, and even recommended watching films about trans parenthood,” he claimed. During her time working in the Home Office, “65,000 illegal migrants have crossed on her watch,” he said.


During her stint at the DIT, Romeo set out plans for civil servants to spend around 20% of their working hours on diversity objectives such as encouraging workers to display their preferred pronouns and “recruiting non-binary staff,” the Telegraph reported on Friday, citing internal documents. She also reportedly instructed staff to join a “gender non-conforming book club” as part of their corporate performance review. Starmer has argued that Romeo is the “right person” for government to deliver a “period of national renewal.”

Only 15% of Britons approve of the prime minister’s job performance, according to an Ipsos poll from last month. His approval ratings have been battered by dissatisfaction with his handling of the ongoing migrant crisis, a surge in arrests related to comments made online, the cost-of-living crisis, and the resurgence of the Pakistani rape gang scandal. Most recently, revelations emerged that Starmer appointed Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US despite knowing of his ties to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Starmer has maintained that he “was lied to” during the vetting procedure.

The waning popularity of the prime minister’s Labour Party is expected to culminate in major losses to Reform at the upcoming local elections, according to projections from the pollster ElectoralCalculus. On Monday, Starmer’s government reversed its plans to postpone the elections until next year after a legal challenge from Reform.

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“This effort against PM Orban by the European Union is part of the reason why Secretary of State Marco Rubio was so strong in his words of appreciation and support for Orban during his recent visit to Budapest…”

• German Court Rules X Must Turn Over Data on Hungarian Govt Support (CTH)

The European Union has a major targeting effort against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an ally of President Trump who does not support giving additional funding to the Ukraine war effort. Hungary is having national elections in April. Previously, USAID Administrator Samantha Power spent considerable time in Hungary organizing activist groups to conduct operations against the government {2023 – Go Deep}. Last week a German based NGO called Democracy Reporting International, won a ruling from a Berlin judge to force the X platform to turn over data related to support for Viktor Orban and the government of Hungary.


All of this opposition to Prime Minister Orban seems to be coordinated by quasi government agencies on behalf of Brussels and their interventionist intentions. We may remember it was also information from German intelligence, that was behind the nullification of the Romanian first-round election. However, Viktor Orban is fighting back and refusing to approve the funding of the Ukraine war despite the massive pressure campaign from inside the European Union.

As noted by Hungarian Minister Zoltan Kovacs, “Many have asked how Hungary can block the €90 billion Ukrainian war loan if we are not participating in it. clarified that the loan does not affect Hungary and does not entail any financial commitment for us. As Hungary is not part of the cooperation, in most of the decision-making procedures we do not even vote. However, he pointed out that for the scheme to function, the EU’s seven-year budget guarantee rules must be amended – and this requires the approval of all 27 member states, not only the financing member states. We are now blocking this decision, without which the war loan cannot be disbursed.”

https://twitter.com/PM_ViktorOrban/status/2025284661853782466?s=20

(Via Politico) – A court in Germany on Tuesday ordered Elon Musk’s social media site X to hand over data related to the upcoming election in Hungary to researchers for scrutiny. The court in Berlin ruled in favor of rights group Democracy Reporting International in its bid to access data to research influence campaigns and disinformation in the election. The group took its case to court after X in November refused its data access requests. The European Union’s rules for social media platforms, the Digital Services Act, obliges big online platforms like X to grant external researchers access to data to scrutinize how platforms handle risks, including election interference. The European Commission in December fined X €40 million for breaching that obligation, as part of a €120 million levy.

This effort against PM Orban by the European Union is part of the reason why Secretary of State Marco Rubio was so strong in his words of appreciation and support for Orban during his recent visit to Budapest.

RUBIO: “The President has an extraordinarily close relationship to the prime minister. He does. And it has had tangible benefits in our relationship. I’m not going to speculate about the future. What happens in this country is up to the voters of this country to determine and decide, and we love the people of Hungary. But I’m not – but there’s no reason to sugarcoat it. I’m going to be very blunt with you. The prime minister and the President have a very, very close personal relationship and working relationship, and I think it has been incredibly beneficial to the relationship between our two countries.” {Source – Transcript}

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When will the EU implode?

• Hungary and Slovakia Push Back on Ukraine’s Oil Dispute (Manney)

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico delivered a blunt warning, saying Slovakia would halt emergency electricity exports to Ukraine unless Kyiv restored Russian oil transit through Ukrainian territory, setting a firm deadline of Feb. 23. The dispute centers on the Druzhba pipeline, which still supplies Russian crude to parts of Central Europe. Russian forces struck Ukrainian energy infrastructure in late January, an attack that damaged equipment tied to the Druzhba system in western Ukraine. The flow of oil to Slovakia and Hungary stopped that same day. mUkrainian officials blamed Moscow and offered alternative routes, including the Odesa-Brody pipeline and maritime shipments.


Fico responded by declaring a state of emergency in Slovakia’s oil sector, saying he would instruct SEPS, Slovakia’s state grid operator, to suspend electricity deliveries to Ukraine if oil transit didn’t resume. Slovakia supplied roughly 18% of Ukraine’s record electricity imports in January, and doubled its support compared with the previous year. Oil transit to Slovakia and Hungary has been disrupted since late January after a Russian strike hit the Druzhba pipeline, a key route carrying Russian crude to Central Europe. Ukraine’s pipeline operator said this week that the Jan. 27 attack damaged critical infrastructure and that repair works are ongoing.

In a letter to the European Commission, Ukraine’s embassy to the EU proposed using the Odesa–Brody pipeline or maritime routes as temporary alternatives to supply Hungary and Slovakia while repairs are completed. Fico accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of treating Slovakia as a “hostile country,” saying Kyiv first halted gas flows, costing Slovakia €500 million annually, and has now stopped oil supplies, causing further losses. He also defended his decision to refuse Slovakia’s participation in the EU’s planned €90 billion military loan for

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó escalated the pressure at the European level by blocking a major EU financial package for Ukraine that required unanimous approval. Budapest tied its position directly to the restoration of oil transit through Druzhba. It’s through that route that most of Hungary’s oil supply from Russia is delivered.When the EU adopted its 2022 oil embargo against Russia, Hungary and Slovakia both secured exemptions. Since then, Orbán has delayed or opposed several sanction packages and has resisted long-term funding commitments, while Fico shifted Bratislava away from the prior government’s strong military backing of Ukraine.

Disputes over gas transit agreements in late 2024 also strained relations. Kyiv ended certain transit agreements when contracts expired, increasing pressure on downstream countries that still rely on Russian supply routes. Each confrontation reinforces the same pattern: energy needs still drive national policy, even during wartime. Ukrainian officials labeled the moves as political blackmail, arguing that the infrastructure damage resulted from Russian attacks and that repairs and legal transit options were still under discussion. Officials in Kyiv also noted that only a handful of EU member states still import significant volumes of Russian oil.

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Boeing is gone. But it’s a big bloated corpse.

• NASA Chief Blasts Boeing Over Botched Starliner Mission (RT)

NASA chief Jared Isaacman has slammed Boeing for failures that plagued the botched debut mission of its first crewed spaceship, Starliner, which left two astronauts stranded for nine months last year. A billionaire private astronaut and close associate of SpaceX founder Elon Musk, Isaacman, who was appointed NASA administrator two months ago, also offered a blistering critique of the agency’s previous leadership, claiming that its decision-making risked creating “a culture incompatible with human spaceflight.” The remarks were made at a press conference on Thursday during the release of a sweeping report on the Starliner mission, which saw two astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, stuck in space for nine months instead of the planned one week.


The capsule returned empty in September 2024 while the crew came home on a different vehicle in March 2025.The report states the loss of control during the capsule’s rendezvous with the ISS constitutes a Type A mishap – the most serious category of anomaly. It identifies critical design flaws in Boeing’s spacecraft, presenting 61 recommendations to address the issues before any future crewed Starliner mission. It also exposed management failures, stating that the mission “was marked by chaotic meeting schedules, unclear roles, and communication breakdowns.” “Mistrust between NASA and Boeing was intensified by selective data sharing, perceived favoritism, and inconsistent transparency,” the report added.

Boeing is facing public scrutiny over numerous safety issues and incidents involving its commercial aircraft and repeated delays in delivering key government contracts. Despite its troubles, the US government continues to contract with the company because NASA has a strategic goal to maintain two independent American systems for transporting astronauts to the ISS. SpaceX, the agency’s other partner, has also experienced technical issues affecting ISS operations, including delayed astronaut returns and aborted missions.

With both US contractors facing challenges, Russia remains the only other country capable of independently transporting people and cargo to the ISS. While Western sanctions over Ukraine targeted Russia’s aerospace industry, space cooperation was deliberately exempted to keep the station operational. Last week, Isaacman publicly stated his desire to meet with Roscosmos head Dmitry Bakanov and expressed interest in attending the launch of the Soyuz MS-29 mission from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, scheduled for the summer of 2026.

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“.. leaving taxpayers high and dry and putting them on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars to support the ugliest building in Chicago,”

• Investigation Exposes Cover-Up of Obama Center Taxpayer Scam (Matt Margolis)

Barack Obama promised Chicago a “gift” with his Obama Presidential Center. Instead, he delivered yet another boondoggle, buried in secrecy, with missing money, and stonewalling straight out of a Chicago corruption playbook. When Obama got approval to build his presidential center in Jackson Park, he vowed the project would be privately funded. Every penny, he said, would come from donations to his foundation. Taxpayers, he insisted, wouldn’t be on the hook. That was the sales pitch — and like so many Obama promises, it’s proven to be fiction.


The Obama Foundation may be paying for the building itself, but taxpayers have been secretly shouldering hundreds of millions of dollars in hidden infrastructure costs. Roads were torn up, utilities relocated, and parkland reshaped — all to serve Obama’s monument to himself. Cornell Drive, a major four-lane roadway that once ran along the park’s lagoon, has been erased so Obama’s massive campus could dominate the landscape. This wasn’t just a minor tweak to city planning. It was a taxpayer-funded overhaul of a historic public park — one that Obama’s team couldn’t have pulled off without Chicago and Illinois residents footing the bill.

Back in 2018, officials estimated public infrastructure costs at $350 million. Fast forward to today, and that number is almost meaningless. The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) now admits to roughly $229 million in “state-managed spending.” Chicago’s records show another $206 million linked to the same project. No one in city or state government will say how those figures line up — or whether the total cost is far higher. And if you don’t think there’s something scandalous going on, then why are all the agencies involved being tight-lipped about it?

Fox News Digital filed Freedom of Information Act requests with IDOT, Chicago’s Department of Transportation, the Office of Budget and Management, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office, and Governor J.B. Pritzker’s administration. Not one produced a complete accounting of public spending. IDOT offered vague numbers. The city stalled and refused to release records. Pritzker’s office contradicted itself, then stopped responding entirely. OBM even admitted it had “no responsive records” — an absurd claim for the agency that manages the city’s capital budget.

This is a coordinated cover-up, plain and simple. The Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor is now investigating whether multiple agencies violated the state’s open records laws. But you don’t need a court order to see what’s going on. Obama’s so-called “gift” turned into a taxpayer-financed vanity project — protected by the same political machine that made Chicago famous for corruption.

To make matters worse, Obama’s promised $470 million “endowment” to shield taxpayers in case the foundation ran out of cash has barely materialized. The fund has just $1 million in deposits — one-fifth of one percent of what was pledged. “Illinois Republicans saw this coming a mile away. Now, right on cue, Illinois Democrats are leaving taxpayers high and dry and putting them on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars to support the ugliest building in Chicago,” Illinois GOP Chair Kathy Salvi told Fox News Digital. “Illinois’ culture of corruption is humming along with pay-to-play deals to their allies and friends while lying to Illinois voters.”

Read more …

Strange stories.

• Is Tucker Carlson’s Career Toast Now? (Matt Margolis)

Tucker Carlson just had one of the most embarrassing weeks in recent media memory. In the span of a few days, he fabricated a detention story, spread a debunked antisemitic smear about Israel’s sitting president, and then had to crawl back with an apology, as the public watched the wreckage of his career unfold in real time. Last week, Carlson flew into Ben-Gurion Airport on a private jet to record an interview with U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee. He never left the airport. Critics noted the obvious irony: a man who lectures his audience about Israel couldn’t bring himself actually to set foot in the country. After the interview, Carlson claimed that airport security had “hauled” his executive producer into a side room, seized his team’s passports, and demanded to know what was discussed with Huckabee.


That story fell apart almost immediately. The Israel Airports Authority stated that Carlson was “politely asked a few routine questions, in accordance with standard procedures applied to many travelers,” and that the conversation took place in a VIP lounge specifically to protect his privacy. The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem confirmed his group “received the same passport control questions that countless visitors to Israel” receive. Then, leaked security footage surfaced showing Carlson smiling, hugging, and posing for photos with airport staff. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called Carlson a fraud and said he “fabricated a tale about being supposedly harassed by our security forces.”

The detention story was bad. What came on Friday was worse. Carlson released the Huckabee interview and used it to launch a series of outlandish claims and accusations. He called Israel “probably the most violent country on earth,” questioned its right to exist, accused it of controlling American foreign policy, and declared it a police state. He claimed Netanyahu believes in “blood guilt” — that he punishes not just wrongdoers but their entire bloodlines — even though Netanyahu has never said anything of the sort. His claim that “Prime Minister Netanyahu has way more influence over American foreign policy than Americans do” echoed antisemitic tropes that have circulated for decades.

Then came the Epstein bomb. Carlson repeatedly pressed Huckabee about Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s supposed connection to Jeffrey Epstein’s island. “The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island,'” Carlson said on air. Huckabee said he was unaware of any such connection. And for good reason — there isn’t one. Herzog appears in the Epstein files only through news articles that ended up in Epstein’s emails. Carlson was basing his allegation on a fake, AI-generated image that circulated online after the Epstein files were released.

After Huckabee learned the claims were false, he wrote on X that Carlson’s allegations “could be the stuff of libel lawsuits” and that “it was hard to follow Tucker’s line of questioning.” On Saturday, Carlson released a video apologizing, acknowledging he had no evidence and saying, “I’m sorry to imply that I knew something I didn’t know.”] That apology changes nothing. More than a million people watched the original interview without a warning that its core claims were false. Carlson threw out a serious accusation against a sitting head of state without doing five minutes of verification, and the only explanation is confirmation bias.I don’t know what happened to Tucker Carlson, but it looks like we’re watching his career blow up in front of our faces in slow motion.

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https://twitter.com/Jules31415/status/2025406665386766644?s=20 Tulsi https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/2025310000286236865?s=20 Mar-a-Lago CAFitts

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle March 7 2025

Mar 072025
 
 March 7, 2025  Posted by at 10:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  45 Responses »


James McNeill Whistler Symphony in White, No. 3 1867

 

• Are All of Biden’s Presidential Actions ‘Null and Void’? (Margolis)
• Europe’s ‘ReArm’ Plan “Is Going To Come At A Vast Cost” (Rabobank)
• European Leaders Want ‘Forever War’ In Ukraine – Musk (RT)
• Lavrov Compares Macron to Hitler and Napoleon (RT)
• Macron’s Remarks on Use of Nuclear Arms a Threat to Russia – Lavrov (Sp.)
• Kremlin Reacts To Macron’s ‘War’ Speech (RT)
• EU Must Win Arms Race – Poland (RT)
• Macron Should Apologize – Moscow (RT)
• Trump Begins CIA Cuts – NYT (RT)
• US Ready To Change Legal Status Of 240,000 Ukrainian Migrants (RT)
• Lavrov Weighs In On US Decision To Halt Intel Sharing With Ukraine (RT)
• ‘Science Should Be An Engine For Freedom’: NIH Nominee Bhattacharya (JTN)
• Obama Judge Indefinitely Blocks Trump Admin Funding Freeze (ZH)
• DOGE Looking To Cut More Than 80,000 Employees At Veterans Affairs (JTN)
• IRS Reportedly Plans To Cut Half of Its 90,000 Workforce (JTN)
• Elon Musk Says Amtrak, US Postal Service Should Be Privatized (ET)
• Trump Planning Major NATO Shakeup – NBC (RT)
• Trump Wants To Sideline EU – Politico (RT)
• EU Seeking To Bypass Opponents of Ukraine Aid – Kallas (RT)
• Israeli FM ‘Didn’t Know’ Kiev Glorifies Holocaust Perpetrators (RT)

 

 

 

 

1987

 

 

Destiny

PAC
https://twitter.com/i/status/1897633263750877606

Tulsi

Sachs Maidan

Rubio

Kash
https://twitter.com/i/status/1896935794532556981

 

 

 

 

Autopen. Could be explosive. Will the Trump admin want to pursue it? It has Pandora written all over it.

• Are All of Biden’s Presidential Actions ‘Null and Void’? (Margolis)

The Biden presidency might have been the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the American people. A shocking investigation by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project has revealed that virtually every document bearing Joe Biden’s signature during his presidency was signed by an autopen — except for one. What makes this revelation particularly damning is that the only document confirmed to have Biden’s actual signature was his letter announcing his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race. Let that sink in for a moment. Remember when House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) revealed his discussion with Biden when Biden couldn’t recall signing the executive order halting LNG exports? Now we know why — he probably didn’t. The real question is: Who did? Who was running the country while Biden was not all there?

The use of the presidential autopen dates back to the 1950s, and there’s been much debate about its legality. In 2013, Barack Obama became the first president to sign a bill into law using an autopen. He was vacationing in Hawaii at the time. His office relied on a 30-page memo from President George W. Bush’s legal team asserting that the president’s presence was not required as long as said president had authorized the signature. What’s not clear, in the case of Biden, is who was running the autopen and whether Biden was aware it was happening. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is demanding that the Department of Justice investigate whether Biden’s obvious cognitive decline allowed unelected bureaucrats to essentially run the government without presidential oversight. If this is true — and let’s be honest, all signs point to yes — every executive order, every pardon, and every official action taken under Biden’s name could be constitutionally void.

Bailey’s letter to Michael E. Horowitz, the inspector general of the Department of Justice, spells it out perfectly. “I write to request that you conduct a full investigation into President Biden’s mental capacity in his final days in office. By now, Biden’s mental decline is famous. Under the 25th Amendment, his inability to make decisions should have meant a succession of power. Instead, it appears staffers and officers in the Biden administration may have exploited Biden’s incapacity so they could issue orders without an accountable President of sound mind approving them. That would explain why the Biden administration’s orders were aggressively much farther to the left than any previous President. If in fact Biden’s staffers were exploiting his mental decline, those orders are null and void.”

The evidence is overwhelming. We know that Biden’s handlers desperately tried to prevent anyone from meeting with him one-on-one. Even Democratic insiders admit the truth. DNC fundraiser Lindy Li recently spilled the beans and acknowledged that Biden wasn’t running the show; his staff, his wife, and Hunter were. Thanks to the Heritage Foundation’s investigation, we now have proof that Biden’s signature was automated throughout his presidency — which raises serious questions about whether he was aware of what was being signed in his name at all. The Oversight Project rightfully points out that since Biden revoked Trump’s executive privilege, we can easily determine who controlled the autopen and what safeguards, if any, were in place.

The implications are staggering. We essentially had a presidency by proxy, with unelected staffers wielding presidential power while the man himself was barely cognizant enough to read a teleprompter. This isn’t just a scandal; it’s potentially the biggest constitutional crisis in American history. The American people deserve to know who was really calling the shots during the Biden administration. If these allegations prove true, every single action taken under Biden’s name needs to be scrutinized and potentially nullified. The truth must come out, and those responsible must be held accountable.

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The end of Europe’s welfare state.

“They created a wasteland and called it democracy.”

• Europe’s ‘ReArm’ Plan “Is Going To Come At A Vast Cost” (Rabobank)

The US has increased its pressure on Ukraine to pause the war by turning off military intelligence to it, removing Kyiv’s ability to fire missiles into Russia. This action has further outraged and –given their reliance on US systems in NATO– terrified Europe. Note President Eisenhower did the same vis-à-vis then-and-current ally South Korea in 1953, which didn’t want to stop fighting; the US didn’t want a direct war with China, or more inflation, and made it clear military aid would stop until an armistice was achieved. That frozen conflict seems where Ukraine-Russia is heading, especially as President Zelenskyy just said what rejected what the Russian terms for any formal peace deal (demilitarisation, formal renouncement of lost territories) would be.

Europe has added its own pressure on Zelenskyy as Germany’s ministry of defence admits it can’t supply more materiel to Ukraine either as it’s out of stock. That underlines the need for the German announcement on infrastructure investment and rearmament yesterday, which saw 10-year Bund yields rise 31bp on the day, their worst performance since 1997. EUR jumped. Ahead of today’s EU ReArm summit President Macron addressed his nation, stating: “Our prosperity and security have become more uncertain, and it must be said, we are entering a new era… if a country can invade its neighbour in Europe with impunity, then no one can be sure of anything anymore, and it is the law of the strongest that applies, and peace can no longer be guaranteed on our continent itself.” He added that the future of Europe will not be set by the Kremlin or Washington, DC, and spoke of extending the French nuclear umbrella to Europe.

This is going to come at a vast cost. If you think a 31bp rise in Bunds captures the scale of shocks involved in a soft-power Europe trying to set its own future in a hard-power world then you spend too much time in soft-power circles. For starters, the FT op-eds today that ‘Europe must trim its welfare state to build a warfare state’: like it or not, that is starting to sound a bit MEGA (Europe, not America) and DOGE. One wonders what the ECB will say about it today.

Europe is outraged by US actions vs Ukraine and what some call the White House’s “reverse Nixon” strategy (so, ‘Noxin’?) of trying to split Russia from China, as with China vs the USSR in the 1970s: there is talk of Trump–Putin kinship or kompromat even in the financial press. However, facing a united China and Russia, when until this week Europe refused to rearm, is something all geostrategists, some belatedly, see as a deeply flawed US strategy. Moreover, the eurocentric fail to spot that Trump is not only pivoting from Europe to focus on Asia –which the EU largely thinks of in terms of trade not security– but is trying to use the quid pro quo gained there for Putin’s help with nuclear negotiations with Iran.

After all, Tehran is close to a nuclear weapon and Israel, who just rehearsed a joint strike on it with the US, to having to remove what it sees as an existential threat the hard way. Were that to occur, it would have a vast negative impact on the US and European economies. That key issue isn’t even part of current EU conversations; but as Europe rearms and tries to find its own place in the world, it will find it has to join more such dots in more locations at an ever-higher price. It also goes without saying that the odds of ‘Noxin’ and an Iran deal success are very low; but the alternative scenarios are not ones markets want to think about. Again, they do not imply just a 31bp move higher in 10-year Bunds. Especially not when the Chinese embassy in the US tweets: “If war is what the US wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end.”

Read more …

Leaders that will all be voted out soon. So why do it?

• European Leaders Want ‘Forever War’ In Ukraine – Musk (RT)

European leaders who are pushing against a peace agreement in Ukraine want a perpetual state of war, tech billionaire Elon Musk said in a statement on X on Thursday. His remarks come in response to a recent video of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen arguing that peace in Ukraine could be more dangerous than the ongoing conflict with Russia. Musk, who is also currently a senior adviser to US President Donald Trump, has repeatedly called for a peaceful resolution of the conflict and has spoken out against continued military aid to Kiev, arguing that it could lead to an escalation and risk a nuclear confrontation. Responding to a post featuring Frederiksen’s latest remarks, he argued that some European leaders “want the forever war” and asked how many more people will have to lose their lives.

“How many more parents with no sons? How many more children with no fathers? By their logic, it never ends,” Musk wrote. Frederiksen, who stated last month that “peace in Ukraine is actually more dangerous than the war that is ongoing now,” told journalists earlier this week that “Ukraine has to win this war.” She claimed that if Russia is allowed to win, it will continue to take military action against other European countries. “If we end this war now with some kind of a ceasefire, it will give Russia the possibility to mobilize more funds, people, and maybe to attack another country in Europe,” she said.

Her statements echoed comments by other EU leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, who has recently claimed that Russia poses a threat to the entire bloc and called for defense spending to be ramped up. Russia has also rejected unsubstantiated claims that it intends to attack European or NATO countries with Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissing such statements as “nonsense” and fear mongering by EU leaders aimed at alarming citizens and raising defense budgets. Moscow has warned that one of the key reasons for the Ukraine conflict was NATO expansion towards Russia, including the bloc’s promise that Kiev would eventually become a member.

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“..the French president’s “predecessors, who also wanted to fight Russia.”

• Lavrov Compares Macron to Hitler and Napoleon (RT)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has compared French President Emmanuel Macron to Adolf Hitler and Napoleon Bonaparte, saying that he is also looking to impose a defeat upon Russia. During an address to the nation on Wednesday, Macron labeled Russia a “threat to France and Europe” and announced that he was considering expanding Paris’s nuclear deterrent to cover other EU member states. He insisted that the bloc needs to strengthen its independence when it comes to defense as there are doubts about the US continuing to protect the EU after the administration of President Donald Trump “changed its position” on the Ukraine conflict and became “less supportive” of Kiev. The French president insisted on further assistance to the government of Vladimir Zelensky, claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not stop if he is allowed to defeat Ukraine.

When asked to comment on Macron’s statements by journalists on Thursday, Lavrov mentioned Hitler and Napoleon, describing them as the French president’s “predecessors, who also wanted to fight Russia.” The two European dictators sent their armies into Russia in 1812 and 1941, respectively, but ended up suffering crushing defeats. The difference is that Hitler and Napoleon “said directly: ‘We must conquer Russia, we must defeat Russia.’ And he [Macron], apparently, wants the same thing, but for some reason says that we must fight Russia so that it does not defeat France; that Russia is creating a threat to France and Europe,” he stressed.

The minister refuted the French leader’s claims that Moscow has plans to attack Western Europe, calling such notions “unreasonable.” “President [Vladimir] Putin has said many times that this is absolute nonsense. I think that any sane person would understand that [by launching its military operation] Russia only wants to eliminate the root causes of the situation created by the West in Ukraine,” he explained. Lavrov also said that Moscow views Macron’s statement about widening France’s nuclear umbrella as a “threat towards Russia.” “If he considers us a threat, if he is calls a meeting of the chiefs of staff of the [Western] European countries and Britain; if he says that it is necessary to use nuclear weapons; if he prepares to use nuclear weapons against Russia – this is, of course, a threat,” he insisted.

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“..former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell was right when he said, in his usual manner, that the conflict in Ukraine could be stopped very quickly, within two weeks, if military aid to the Ukrainian government was halted..”

• Macron’s Remarks on Use of Nuclear Arms a Threat to Russia – Lavrov (Sp.)

Moscow sees French President Emmanuel Macron’s words on possible use of nuclear weapons as a threat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday. “Of course, this is a threat to Russia. If he [Macron] considers us a threat, gathers a meeting of the chiefs of General Staff of European countries and Britain, says it is necessary to use nuclear weapons, prepares to use nuclear weapons against Russia, this is, of course, a threat,” Lavrov told a news conference. On Wednesday, Macron said that Russia had become a “threat” to France and Europe, therefore, it was necessary to open a discussion on the use of France’s nuclear weapons to defend the entire European Union. Emmanuel Macron has the opportunity to call Russian President Vladimir Putin anytime, and accusations that Russia is allegedly preparing a war against Europe are unwise, Lavrov said.

“Macron periodically proudly declares that he will definitely call Putin and talk to him. He has such opportunities. No one forbids it. On the contrary, the president constantly emphasizes his openness to contacts with all his colleagues. And regarding these, frankly, unwise accusations of Russia in preparing a war against Europe and France, Putin has repeatedly said, calling such thoughts delusional, nonsense. Probably, it is absolutely clear to any sane person that Russia does not need this,” Lavrov told a joint press conference with Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Amon Murwira. Russia sees no possibility for achieving a compromise on possible deployment of European peacekeepers in Ukraine, Lavrov said. “We see no room for compromise. This discussion is being conducted with an openly hostile purpose. They are not hiding what they need it for,” Lavrov.

Suspension of US intelligence transfers to Ukraine confirm Russia’s statements that such assistance was provided to Kiev and it helped to carry out strikes deep into Russia, Sergey Lavrov said. “As for the current situation with the provision of military assistance and the pause that the US has announced, and the pause that was announced with respect to the provision of intelligence information, this has confirmed what we have always said, our president has repeatedly noted that without the direct participation of the West, the US, the UK, France, Germany, and other countries that provide intelligence data and help use the technologies for using this data to launch long-range missiles at our territory, the Ukrainians could not do this,” Lavrov said. The suspension of military aid to Ukraine from the United States may help to quickly end the Ukrainian conflict, Sergey Lavrov said.

“It has been said many times that former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell was right when he said, in his usual manner, that the conflict in Ukraine could be stopped very quickly, within two weeks, if military aid to the Ukrainian government was halted. This is the answer to your question. We agree with this assessment. Another thing that Josep Borrell added was that this should never be done, because first you need to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, and then dictate the terms of peace to it,” Lavrov told reporters. The Russian foreign minister noted that Russia is ready for a frank dialogue on the settlement of the Ukraine conflict.

“We are ready for an honest conversation, taking into account all the root causes of this conflict, including, of course, the main one – Russia’s security and guarantees against NATO’s continued expansion into Ukraine, which would then be used to create constant threats to Russia,” Lavrov said. In addition, the Russian official said that French President Emmanuel Macron’s statement about Russia and Ukraine was nervous and very verbose. “Macron, as I understand it, said in his lengthy, rather nervous statement yesterday [March 5] that the war should not be allowed to end with the surrender of Ukraine,” Lavrov said.

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“Following the 2022 escalation, both politicians admitted that the purpose of the accord from the West’s perspective had merely been to buy time for Kiev to strengthen its military..”

Macron said that Russia cannot be trusted because it violated the Minsk agreements. 4 days before the Russian invasion (February 20, 2022), Macron told Putin that the Minsk agreements have no legal force and are worthless!

• Kremlin Reacts To Macron’s ‘War’ Speech (RT)

https://twitter.com/i/status/1897386604404306352

French President Emmanuel Macron’s speech focusing on Russia earlier this week was “highly confrontational,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday, arguing that it signals an intent to further escalate tensions. In his address to the nation on Wednesday, Macron labeled Russia “a threat” to the EU and called for a significant increase in defense spending to counter the perceived danger posed by Moscow. He also said that France would be prepared to deploy troops to Ukraine should a truce be reached in the conflict. Commenting on the remarks during a regular press briefing, Peskov stressed that it hardly conveyed a message of peace: “France apparently is contemplating war, a continuation of war.” This stance naturally elicits a negative reaction in Moscow, he suggested.

Macron’s address adhered to the conventional Western narrative portraying Russia as the unprovoked aggressor in the Ukraine conflict and claimed that Moscow has ambitions of conquest in Ukraine and beyond. However, according to Peskov, the French leader selectively ignored crucial events and circumstances that contributed to the current Ukraine crisis. Among these, he pointed to NATO military infrastructure “encroaching, or rather making seven-mile strides” towards Russia’s borders, creating significant security concerns for Moscow. Peskov stated that Russia had no choice but to respond to this growing threat. He also refuted Macron’s claims that Russia violated the Minsk Agreements, citing former French President Francois Hollande’s acknowledgment that the West never genuinely intended for them to succeed.

In 2015, Hollande and then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel co-mediated a roadmap purportedly aimed at peacefully reintegrating the then-breakaway regions in Donbass back into Ukraine. Following the 2022 escalation, both politicians admitted that the purpose of the accord from the West’s perspective had merely been to buy time for Kiev to strengthen its military with NATO support. Peskov also remarked that in 2014 France and other European nations “deceived” then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich by endorsing his power-sharing agreement with Western-backed militants, who violated the deal within hours and forcibly removed the democratically elected leader, all without any protest from Paris.

The EU is currently promoting a substantial military buildup that would cost some $840 billion and be funded through debt. Brussels asserts that European security risks have been intensified by the shift in Washington’s policy under President Donald Trump, who is seeking a resolution to the Ukraine conflict while urging Europe to assume responsibility for future security guarantees for Kiev. Peskov observed that while this does not make the US a friend of Russia, it at least opens avenues for normalizing bilateral relations.

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“The war, the geopolitical uncertainty and the new arms race started by Putin..”

• EU Must Win Arms Race – Poland (RT)

The EU must escalate its military buildup and win the arms race against Russia, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said. This comes amid growing efforts by EU leaders to increase defense spending, citing what they describe as a threat from Moscow, which Russia has repeatedly denied. Tusk’s remarks also come as US President Donald Trump and his administration increasingly push European NATO members to take greater responsibility for their own defense. Washington has suggested that Europe should rely less on US military aid, particularly regarding Ukraine, and instead ramp up its own military spending. In a message posted on social media on Thursday, Tusk accused Moscow of starting a new arms race and insisted that Europe must respond.

“The war, the geopolitical uncertainty and the new arms race started by Putin have left Europe with no choice. Europe must be ready for this race, and Russia will lose it like the Soviet Union 40 years ago,” Tusk wrote, adding that from today, Europe will arm itself faster than Russia. His comments follow recent statements by French President Emmanuel Macron, who has claimed that Russia poses a threat to the EU. Macron has urged the bloc to increase defense spending and has also proposed expanding Europe’s nuclear deterrence, potentially extending France’s nuclear umbrella to other EU countries in response to the perceived risks from Moscow.

Moscow has dismissed the accusations that it poses a military threat to Europe and has condemned Macron’s latest statement as “highly confrontational.” Russian President Vladimir Putin called Western claims of an impending Russian attack “nonsense.” He has also accused European leaders of stoking tensions and using the perceived Russian threat as a pretext to justify increased military spending. In December, Putin also stressed that Russia does not want to be bogged down in an arms race, which would be detrimental to the social and economic development of the country. He warned, however, that Russia will take all necessary measures to ensure the security of itself and its allies.

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“Macron should invite his predecessor… Hollande, to the Élysée Palace to have a heart-to-heart talk with him… Then he’ll probably hear from Hollande… that he had no intention of implementing the Minsk agreements..”

• Macron Should Apologize – Moscow (RT)

French President Emmanuel Macron should apologize for making “misleading” claims about the origins of the Ukraine conflict, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has told RT. In particular, Zakharova criticized Macron for alleging that Russia was to blame for the failure of the Minsk Accords. The agreements were brokered in 2014 and 2015 to halt fighting between Ukraine and the now-Russian Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, with France and Germany as guarantors. They were ultimately not implemented, and Moscow later accused Kiev and the West of using them to strengthen Ukraine’s military instead of securing peace. In a televised address on Wednesday,

Macron, however, blamed Russia of violating the accords and cited them as proof that the West “can no longer take Russia at its word” when it comes to resolving the conflict. “We cannot forget that Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and that we negotiated a ceasefire in Minsk at that time. And Russia did not respect this ceasefire,” the French president alleged, claiming that Moscow poses a direct threat to France and the entire EU. Zakharova condemned Macron’s comments as “aggressive and destructive” and pointed out that former French President François Hollande and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel have “openly confessed, and not under torture or pressure” back in 2022 they never intended to enforce the accords.

“Macron should invite his predecessor… Hollande, to the Élysée Palace to have a heart-to-heart talk with him… Then he’ll probably hear from Hollande… that he had no intention of implementing the Minsk agreements while representing France,” Zakharova stated, suggesting that after speaking to Hollande, Macron would “have to apologize to his own population for misleading them.” Macron has been a vocal advocate of strengthening Europe’s defenses against Russia and reiterated this position in his latest address. Moscow, however, has repeatedly denied having any plans to attack either the EU or NATO, with President Vladimir Putin dismissing such speculation as “nonsense” on multiple occasions.

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“..effectively granted Ratcliffe the authority to remove any CIA employee for any reason without the right to appeal.”

• Trump Begins CIA Cuts – NYT (RT)

The administration of US President Donald Trump has begun cutting CIA staff as part of a broader effort to downsize government agencies, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing sources. The first dismissals reportedly targeted officers hired within the past two years, many of whom were still on probationary contracts. According to sources familiar with the situation, several recently hired CIA employees were summoned to a location away from the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where they were asked to surrender their credentials without prior notice. The firings have reportedly led to anxiety among remaining CIA staff, with some employees allegedly avoiding calls from security out of fear they may be next.

A CIA spokeswoman confirmed to the New York Times that certain recently hired officers had been let go but did not specify how many. She signaled that the dismissals were performance-based, as did several unnamed officials who spoke to the outlet. The reported firings come amid Trump’s efforts to cut government ranks as part of a drive to eliminate wasteful state spending, bureaucracy, and corruption – a campaign spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under billionaire Elon Musk. During the first cabinet meeting of his second term, Trump pledged to “cut down the size of government,” arguing that federal agencies had become “bloated” and “sloppy.” On February 11, he signed an executive order on workforce optimization, mandating large-scale reductions across government agencies and limiting hiring to essential positions.

The report also follows a federal judge’s ruling that cleared the way for CIA Director John Ratcliffe to fire employees at will. In late February, Judge Anthony J. Trenga ruled on a lawsuit brought by officers dismissed after Trump’s order to cut diversity programs in government agencies. That decision effectively granted Ratcliffe the authority to remove any CIA employee for any reason without the right to appeal. The Trump administration has previously cracked down on the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington’s primary mechanism for funding political projects abroad, firing some 2,000 employees and putting nearly all remaining staff on leave. According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, Trump is also preparing an executive order aimed at dismantling the Department of Education, which he has repeatedly criticized as a “big con job.”

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And “around 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans..”

• US Ready To Change Legal Status Of 240,000 Ukrainian Migrants (RT)

US President Donald Trump’s administration is preparing to revoke the temporary legal status for all refugees, including around 240,000 Ukrainians – a move that could speed up their path to deportation, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a senior administration official and three sources familiar with the matter. Expected to come into force in April, the decision is part of a broader crackdown on immigration which Trump launched since assuming office and marks a dramatic shift from the reception Ukrainians received under the previous administration of Joe Biden. The outlet noted that the effort to revoke protections for Ukrainians was already in progress before a verbal altercation between Trump and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky in the Oval Office last week.

According to sources, the move is part of a broader Trump administration initiative to eliminate the legal status of over 1.8 million migrants who entered the US through temporary humanitarian parole programs introduced under the Biden administration. In addition to the 240,000 Ukrainians, the administration plans to revoke parole for around 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans this month, the administration official and one of the anonymous sources told the outlet. Shortly after assuming office on January 20, Trump signed a number of executive orders introducing tougher immigration controls, including a decree instructing the Department of Homeland Security to “terminate all categorical parole programs.”

An internal US Immigration and Customs Enforcement email reviewed by Reuters indicated that migrants losing their parole status could face fast-track deportation proceedings. Other executive orders also included enhancing vetting for visa applicants, limiting birthright citizenship, directing the armed forces to guard the southern border with Mexico, and erecting additional barriers. Trump also repealed 78 executive orders signed by Biden, including directives related to immigration.

The development comes amid a deepening rift in US-Ukraine relations. Tensions have escalated in recent weeks following Zelensky’s ill-tempered meeting with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent over a minerals deal, culminating in a tense public argument between Trump and Zelensky in the White House last week. Zelensky was accused of “disrespecting” the US, with Trump insisting that the Ukrainian leader does not want peace. A proposed minerals deal between the US and Ukraine was left unsigned as a result.

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“Without the direct involvement of the West [..] Ukraine would not be able to use these technologies and data to launch long-range missiles at our territory. This is a very important acknowledgment,”

• Lavrov Weighs In On US Decision To Halt Intel Sharing With Ukraine (RT)

Ukraine is entirely incapable of launching long-range missile strikes on Russia without direct support from Western nations, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, citing the recent US decision to pause intelligence sharing with Kiev as proof. On Wednesday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed that the US had halted intelligence sharing with Kiev, adding that the restrictions could be lifted if Ukraine demonstrated a commitment to peace negotiations with Russia. Washington has also frozen military assistance to Kiev, with both moves following a public spat between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky during an Oval Office meeting last week. The talks ended with Trump accusing Zelensky of “disrespect” and reluctance to seek peace with Moscow.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Lavrov highlighted the consequences of the US decision on intel sharing. “Without the direct involvement of the West – namely the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and other countries – Ukraine would not be able to use these technologies and data to launch long-range missiles at our territory. This is a very important acknowledgment,” the minister said. At the same time, Lavrov declined to speculate on how long the freeze would last, stressing that Russia is focused on eliminating the root causes of the conflict, including securing guarantees that NATO “will not continue to absorb Ukraine as a territory that could later be used to create permanent threats against the Russian Federation.”

Ukraine has long used advanced Western-made weapons, including US-supplied HIMARS and ATACMS, and British Storm Shadow missiles, to target Russian facilities, including civilian ones. In the fall of 2024, the administration of then-US President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use American long-range missiles for strikes deep into Russian territory despite Moscow’s warnings that this would escalate the conflict. In response to Ukrainian long-range strikes using Western weapons, Russia deployed its newest intermediate-range ballistic missile system, the Oreshnik, to target Ukraine’s Yuzhmash military-industrial facility in the city of Dnepr. Russian President Vladimir Putin described the Oreshnik as impossible to intercept, noting its warheads travel at ten times the speed of sound. Putin has said that Ukraine could launch missile strikes deep into Russia only if it receives reconnaissance data from satellites operated either by the EU or the US.

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“..Senate Democrats seem to have thrown in the towel on defending their own COVID record and heroes including Dr. Anthony Fauci..”

• ‘Science Should Be An Engine For Freedom’: NIH Nominee Bhattacharya (JTN)

Senate Democrats and some Republicans liked the status quo at the National Institutes of Health before the second Trump administration and Department of Government Efficiency started closely scrutinizing its grant decisions, headcount and wildly generous reimbursement for “indirect costs” to institutions at the expense of money for their researchers. That seemed apparent at Wednesday’s Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing for NIH director-nominee Jay Bhattacharya, who faced repeated bipartisan demands to oppose President Trump who nominated him and immediately undo decisions made by agency leaders and the president’s Department of Government Efficiency, especially mass terminations and funding freezes.

Best known for his pioneering research on widespread COVID-19 immunity by April 2020 and vocal opposition to prolonged school closures and vaccine mandates, the Stanford medical professor and health economist barely drew criticism for his own record. He mentioned just a single vaccine whose safety record troubled him when asked by Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J.: “COVID vaccines for young men causing myocarditis,” which is inflammation of heart muscle. Like their House colleagues a month earlier, Senate Democrats seem to have thrown in the towel on defending their own COVID record and heroes including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the four-decade director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Instead they assailed Trump and DOGE boss Elon Musk, with ranking member Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, telling Bhattacharya he’d be subservient to the unofficial leader of DOGE and asking Chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., to haul billionaire Musk before the committee. Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., asked Bhattacharya whether he’d follow the law when Trump gave him an illegal directive. When he rejected the plausibility of the hypothetical, she responded “that strains credulity” and denounced his “disappointing answer.”

Sanders repeatedly cut off Bhattacharya as he tried to answer leading questions about unilaterally capping high prices for drugs developed through NIH research and using his “bully pulpit” to pressure TV stations to ban ads for “unhealthy foods.” The nominee barely got to answer that the U.S. could have saved untold spending on drugs by treating serious COVID infections with the “cheap steroid” dexamethasone, as documented in a July 2020 New England Journal of Medicine study. “A lot can be done through executive orders,” Sanders answered, referring to Trump’s first-month deluge, when Bhattacharya told him that previous NIH directors said only Congress can impose price caps. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., called bullplop on Democrats for not cosponsoring his bill to remove junk food from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which he said would disproportionately improve health for poor people.

The ophthalmologist cheered Bhattacharya’s tout of steroids that cost “pennies” to treat serious COVID, which he said Fauci rejected in March 2020. Paul called it “the best cure and the cheapest,” and Bhattacharya frowned that the U.K. did that research instead of NIH. Just as Democrats pivoted to praising COVID vaccines as “life-saving” after the novel therapeutics were found unable to stop transmission, to make infection more likely via the antibody “class switch” and to cause heart inflammation in young people, several used the compound adjective to describe research subject to NIH’s funding pause. So did Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who also joined Democrats in branding NIH’s new 15% cap on indirect cost recovery – in line with private foundations’ reimbursement ratios – a violation of congressional directives. She called the cap “ill-conceived and completely arbitrary” and a “one-size-fits-all approach,” a jab often applied to federal COVID guidance.

Bhattacharya reminded senators his own research received NIH grants and he served on a standing NIH grant committee for a decade, but said the agency must recover from the cratering public trust in public health leaders due to their pandemic management. His NIH will “vigorously regulate” research that could cause another pandemic, he said, referring to the theory favored by the FBI, CIA and Department of Energy that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a Chinese lab conducting gain-of-function experiments, indirectly funded by Fauci’s agency. Bhattacharya promised Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., he’d work with Congress to keep taxpayer money out of foreign biolabs such as Ukraine’s, publish records with “limited obfuscation” and require funding recipients to report “politically inconvenient” results.

Tuberville had asked about an NIH-funded study on youth gender transitions and mental health whose negative findings were intentionally withheld for seven years, helping create a false medical consensus on so-called gender affirming care for young people. He urged Bhattacharya to be “very visual on television” with his transparency message. Bhattacharya said he’ll prioritize research on chronic diseases including obesity and diabetes and reversing the slide in life expectancy, which has not returned to pre-pandemic levels, and make it “replicable, reproducible and generalizable,” a weakness for the agency. He noted NIH’s “research integrity scandal” on Alzheimer’s disease, which he has studied, and its devotion to the “amyloid hypothesis,” an explanation for Alzheimer’s that may be based on falsified data and which he said crowded out study of other hypotheses.

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“..the Court finds that the public interest lies in maintaining the status quo and enjoining any categorical funding freeze.”

• Obama Judge Indefinitely Blocks Trump Admin Funding Freeze (ZH)

A Rhode Island US District Judge has indefinitely blocked President Trump’s freeze on federal grants and loans, arguing in his ruling that the White House had “put itself above Congress” and undermined democracy. In a Thursday ruling, Judge John McConnell Jr., an Obama appointee – prohibited the Trump administration from freezing or otherwise impeding the disbursement of appropriated federal funds, WSJ reports. The decision is a victory for Trump critics who say he has trampled on Congress’s authority in his effort to cut federal spending and overhaul agencies. McConnell’s order follows a similar one issued by a different federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 25. The judge had previously issued a temporary restraining order, which on Thursday he converted into an injunction, a more permanent form of relief.

“The Executive’s categorical freeze of appropriated and obligated funds fundamentally undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government,” wrote McConnell. “Here, the Executive put itself above Congress,” he continued. “It imposed a categorical mandate on the spending of congressionally appropriated and obligated funds without regard to Congress’s authority to control spending.” Of note – McConnell was very active in Democratic politics before becoming a judge – serving 14 years as treasurer of the Rhode Island Democratic State Committee, and donating heavily to Democratic political candidates. McConnell’s ruling came after 22 Democrat states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit which challenged a directive from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directing them to pause funding while it assessed whether various government programs complied with executive orders issued by Trump which target foreign aid, DEI, and green energy projects.

While OMB then rescinded that directive, the states say that come Congressionally-approved funds were still being improperly withheld – and that the initial OMB policy rollout sowed confusion among state governments, nonprofits, and lawmakers. McConnell issued an earlier temporary restraining order (TRO), in which he said that the administration couldn’t “pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel, or terminate” its federal financial-assistance obligations to the states. According to the judge, state governments face “significant disruption in health, education, and other public services” due to the funding freeze, and as such, “the Court finds that the public interest lies in maintaining the status quo and enjoining any categorical funding freeze.”

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“In February, [..] VA said it was continuing to hire for more than 300,000 mission-critical positions that are exempt from the federal hiring freeze..”

• DOGE Looking To Cut More Than 80,000 Employees At Veterans Affairs (JTN)

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is planning to cut 80,000 positions as part of an “aggressive” overhaul of the agency that runs programs for veterans and members of their families. The VA’s chief of staff, Christopher Syrek, told top VA officials on Tuesday that it would to return to 2019 staffing levels of just under 400,000 employees. That would require dismissing about 83,000 employees after the VA expanded during the Biden administration. It will work with the Department of Government Efficiency to create a workforce optimization plan, Syrek said in an internal memo obtained by multiple news outlets, including Government Executive, which first reported on the memo. He said VA will “move aggressively” to reduce bureaucracy, cut the department’s footprint and “increase workforce efficiency,” the outlet reported. House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Democrats said the move could hurt veterans.

“83,000 VA employees are set to be fired,” the committee wrote on X. “These cuts won’t just impact those seeking health care. They will create chaos across every aspect of VA – delaying benefits, straining claims processing, and making it nearly impossible for student veterans and schools to get the assistance they need. Veterans will suffer the consequences.” The VA added staff quickly during the Biden administration as it staffed up to address increased coverage under the PACT Act, a law that expanded VA health care and benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances. News of the overhaul comes after relatively minor cuts at the agency. Earlier this week, Veterans Affairs started cancelling close to 600 “non-mission critical” and “duplicative” contracts valued at about $1.8 billion – and this is just the beginning, according to the department.

The cancellations result from the early stages of a “deliberative, multi-level review” by some of the people responsible for the contracts, VA senior leaders and contracting officials and will allow Veterans Affairs to redirect about $900 million back to veteran benefits and services, the agency said. The 585 contracts the department has begun canceling “represent less than 1% of the roughly 90,000 contracts VA currently has in place,” and the department plans to perform a thorough review of all of them. In February, VA dismissed more than 1,400 probationary employees in non-mission critical positions. At that time, VA said it was continuing to hire for more than 300,000 mission-critical positions that are exempt from the federal hiring freeze. Earlier that same month, VA announced it dismissed more than 1,000 of its 43,000 probationary employees in a move expected to save $98 million a year. The agency said those let go included non-union probationary employees who have served less than a year in a competitive service appointment or who have served less than two years in an excepted service appointment.

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“This will ensure that the IRS is not going after the wealthy and is only an agency that’s really focused on the low income,” he said. “It’s a travesty.”

• IRS Reportedly Plans To Cut Half of Its 90,000 Workforce (JTN)

The Internal Revenue Service reportedly plans to cut its roughly 90,000-employee workforce by as much as half, as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce. The cuts will be made through a mix of attrition, layoffs and incentivized buyouts, two people familiar with the situation told the Associated Press. The reduction of the federal workforce is being led by the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, which is being led by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. Those being laid off are mostly probationary employees who have not yet gained civil service protection.

The agency has already cut roughly 6,000 employees, or bout 6% of its workforce, Reuters reported in late February. Philip Hackney, a University of Pittsburgh tax law professor and Former IRS lawyer, warned such cuts could unfairly target the country’s underclass. “This will ensure that the IRS is not going after the wealthy and is only an agency that’s really focused on the low income,” he said. “It’s a travesty.”

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“I think logically, we should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized..”

• Elon Musk Says Amtrak, US Postal Service Should Be Privatized (ET)

Elon Musk, who is advising President Donald Trump on reducing government waste and downsizing the federal workforce, has called for privatizing the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and passenger rail operator Amtrak. “I think logically, we should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized,” Musk said at a March 5 Morgan Stanley conference. “I think we should privatize the Post Office and Amtrak for example.” Amtrak, a government-owned company created in 1970, reported an adjusted operating loss of $705 million in the prior fiscal year. USPS, also government-owned, has accumulated over $100 billion in losses since 2007, including $9.5 billion in the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2024. Neither Amtrak nor USPS responded to requests for comment on Musk’s remarks by publication time. The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) voiced opposition to Musk’s idea of privatizing USPS, emphasizing the service’s public mission.

“A friendly reminder on behalf of every American who depends on USPS (including 51.5 million rural addresses): It’s called universal service, not ‘as much as possible’ service,” NALC wrote in a post on X. “And we’ll #FightLikeHell to protect it.” Trump has previously suggested that the USPS could be privatized, a move that would allow for more flexibility in pricing and labor negotiations. During Trump’s first term, his administration proposed a restructuring plan for USPS, citing “extremely high” fixed costs and an inability to support its financial obligations. The plan highlighted over $100 billion in unfunded liabilities, a decade of consecutive losses, and a growing capital investment backlog. “A privatized Postal Service would have a substantially lower cost structure, be able to adapt to changing customer needs and make business decisions free from political interference, and have access to private capital markets to fund operational improvements without burdening taxpayers,” the proposal stated.

Last month, Trump said he was considering merging USPS with the Commerce Department, a move that Democrats said would violate federal law. Calling USPS “a tremendous loser for the country,” Trump said the objective of such a move would be to have a “post office that works well and doesn’t lose massive amounts of money.” Democrats have consistently opposed privatization efforts, warning that changes to USPS operations could disproportionately impact rural communities and those dependent on postal services for essential goods and medication. Trump has also repeatedly pushed to cut Amtrak’s federal funding, which totaled approximately $2.4 billion last year. His past budget proposals sought to reduce Amtrak’s funding by 40–50 percent and eliminate long-distance routes, arguing that resources should be redirected to higher-traffic corridors. Musk, comparing U.S. rail service to China’s high-speed system, criticized Amtrak as a “sad situation,” saying, “It will leave you with a very bad impression of America.”

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Trump questions Article 5.

• Trump Planning Major NATO Shakeup – NBC (RT)

The US could decide to only defend those NATO countries that actually meet the bloc’s spending requirements, four former and current officials have told NBC. Such a policy would mark a major departure from a core article of the military bloc, which states that an attack on any NATO member is to be treated as an attack on all of them. A similar principle would apply to joint military exercises and American overseas deployments, the report said. Washington could choose to prioritize drills with those NATO partners that meet the defense spending targets and also reposition its forces in Europe according to the same criteria.

The administration of President Donald Trump has previously signaled that it was planning to reduce its military presence in Europe. The president also recently urged the EU to take the lead in its own defense and to bear the brunt of any future security guarantees for Kiev. Last month, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said that Washington intended to refocus its military priorities on countering China. He also warned the EU nations that they should not assume the presence of US troops on the continent will be indefinite. Some senior US officials contacted by NBC denied that the mutual defense clause – Article 5 – could be affected by any policy changes. Senator Chris Coons, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for Defense, said that Trump’s nominee for the NATO ambassador’s position, Matthew Whitaker, “gave very reassuring answers” on the administration’s commitments to Article 5.

Trump has repeatedly criticized NATO members that fail to meet the bloc’s current defense spending threshold of 2% of GDP. The president floated the idea of raising mandatory defense spending by members to 5% of GDP, though none – including the US – currently meet that threshold. According to NATO estimates, 23 bloc members met the 2% threshold as of 2024, with just five, including the US, coming in above 3%. Poland was the only member to spend more than 4% of GDP on defense.

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“..too divided and insufficiently nimble to respond to the scale of the storm that Trump is whipping up over Ukraine,”

• Trump Wants To Sideline EU – Politico (RT)

US President Donald Trump wants to sideline and destroy the European Union, an entity that he has long disliked, Politico has claimed in an article published on Thursday. The outlet argued that Trump is taking advantage of the cracks within the bloc caused by the Ukraine conflict. The administration in Washington has recently launched negotiations with Russia to broker peace in the Ukraine conflict and has excluded the EU from the process, which has elicited condemnation from Brussels. Trump has also halted American military aid to Ukraine, leaving the bloc jostling for funds to support Kiev. Washington’s anti-EU push “is triggering a crisis in Brussels institutions. The EU as a bloc is scrambling to prove its relevance,” Politico wrote. The Ukraine conflict has exposed differences among EU members in defense priorities, economic interests, and diplomatic approaches.

While countries such as Poland and the Baltic states have advocated for stronger military backing of Kiev, others, particularly Hungary and Slovakia, have pushed back, calling for a negotiated settlement with Russia. The financial burden of military aid and energy security concerns have also fueled tensions. Right-wing movements in several EU nations have questioned the bloc’s commitment to Kiev. “Trump will sideline the EU and play divide-and-rule with national leaders,” the publication wrote. While European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with US Vice President J.D. Vance in Munich last month, neither she nor European Council President Antonio Costa has had a face-to-face meeting with Trump, it noted.

The European Council, the body made up of the heads of state or government of all EU member states, “is being agonizingly exposed as too divided and insufficiently nimble to respond to the scale of the storm that Trump is whipping up over Ukraine,” Politico added. With Washington halting over $1 billion in arms shipments, Kiev faces potential shortages of ammunition and equipment. The EU is exploring alternatives to continue backing Ukraine militarily, despite the peace process initiated by the US and Russia. Von der Leyen on Tuesday unveiled a €800 billion plan aimed at bolstering the EU’s defense. In recent weeks, Trump has also targeted the bloc’s trade practices, describing them as “an atrocity” and announcing plans to impose a 25% tariff on EU goods. He also claimed that the bloc was “formed to screw the United States.”

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Trump wants to sideline EU, and the EU wants to sideline its own members.

“They created a wasteland and called it democracy.”

• EU Seeking To Bypass Opponents of Ukraine Aid – Kallas (RT)

The EU is working on a new mechanism whereby a “coalition of the willing” would continue providing military aid to Kiev despite opposition by Hungary, according to Kaja Kallas, the bloc’s foreign policy chief. Kallas made the announcement on Thursday after arriving in Brussels for an emergency summit of the bloc’s 27 countries to discuss boosting defense and Ukraine aid amid waning US support.Asked by reporters about Hungary’s attempt to block aid to Ukraine, Kallas acknowledged the issue is “increasingly difficult” and explained that Brussels is considering a new initiative called a “coalition of the willing,” so that “one country cannot block everybody else.” She did not provide any details about how the mechanism would work in practice. Hungary has already rejected an EU draft text on Ukraine that included security guarantees for Kiev and a new military aid package. Budapest has also called on the EU to begin negotiations with Russia.

The idea of creating a “coalition of the willing” – a group of countries ready to support Kiev militarily – was first proposed by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at an emergency summit in London this past Sunday. The meeting in London was summoned shortly after Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s ill-fated trip to Washington. The term “coalition of the willing” is most closely associated with the designation given to the countries supporting the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 on the ultimately disproven allegations of possession of weapons of mass destruction.“We are still striving for having the unity of 27 members,” Kallas said, but added that if unanimity cannot be reached, Hungary will have to “speak for themselves.” The military aid package for Ukraine reportedly being prepared by the EU is worth at least $6.2 billion, making it one of the bloc’s largest arms commitments since 2022. However, Hungary has indicated that it will veto the initiative.

Earlier this week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled the so-called ReArm Europe initiative, an €800 billion plan aimed at bolstering the EU’s defense capabilities. The proposal was prompted by US President Donald Trump’s freezing of military aid to Ukraine while urging the EU to take greater responsibility for its own defense. Moscow has long warned against Western arms shipments to Ukraine, arguing that they only prolong the conflict without altering the outcome, while increasing the risk of a direct Russia-NATO clash. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko has suggested that the EU could contribute to resolving the crisis by halting military and logistical support to Kiev.

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Without a past of nazis and holocaust, the country would not exist. It has one of the prime secret services in the world. But no idea what happens in Kiev.

• Israeli FM ‘Didn’t Know’ Kiev Glorifies Holocaust Perpetrators (RT)

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has claimed ignorance of the well-documented fact that Ukrainian nationalists responsible for atrocities against Jewish people are venerated as heroes by Kiev. Moscow, in response, has offered to enlighten the Israeli official on the matter. On Monday, Sa’ar held a press briefing to mark Israel’s presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). West Jerusalem emphasized that anti-Semitism, which fueled Nazi crimes during World War II, “has not been eradicated from the world.” The minister seemed taken aback when a reporter asked for his thoughts on the modern-day glorification in Ukraine of Nazi-allied historical nationalist figures such as Stepan Bandera. In 2016, the Kiev city council renamed a large street in honor of Bandera, located just 3 km from Babi Yar, where an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 Jews and thousands of others were exterminated under Nazi occupation.

“First of all, I didn’t know about it. I will check it,” the official responded, pledging to issue a statement of condemnation “if there is a necessity.” Bandera and other nationalists, including those directly implicated in wartime atrocities, have been celebrated in modern Ukraine for years – something the reporter described as “common knowledge.” The Russian government expressed bewilderment at the exchange, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova sarcastically questioning the competence of Israel’s diplomatic staff. “How so? What is the Israeli embassy in Kiev doing then? And in Moscow too?” she wrote on social media, offering a collection of relevant documents in English for the minister’s convenience.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry and its embassy in Kiev have in fact issued multiple statements denouncing the veneration of such figures. In January 2022, the diplomatic mission described that year’s annual torch march commemorating Bandera’s birthday as “desecrating the memory of the victims of the Holocaust in Ukraine.” No such condemnation was issued the following year, however. The embassy explained to Haarez that “we’ve made our position clear many times, but apparently there is nothing we can do, at least at the moment.” Moscow views the current government in Kiev as dominated by neo-Nazis and radical nationalists and insists that any potential peace deal with Ukraine must include a reversal of policies discriminating against ethnic Russians.

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Elon

 

 

Nap
https://twitter.com/i/status/1897477371051360561

 

 

Feeders

 

 

Cheetah
https://twitter.com/i/status/1897665976646373393

 

 

Secret

 

 

Jekyll island

 

 

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Concentration Camps

Jun 242019
 
 June 24, 2019  Posted by at 7:31 pm Finance, Primers Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  12 Responses »

Unknown Anne Frank 1941
Merwedeplein, Amsterdam

 

As I watch the – if you ask me pretty vapid- discussion develop that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) started by using the term “concentration camps” to describe the places on the US-Mexico border where “migrants” are being held, and where some of them die, I think back. Now, I actually like AOC, because she’s young (29) and that means she’s the future, simple as that.

And if there’s anything America needs today it’s young people, not even more Joe Biden or Donald Trump or Nancy Pelosi. America’s young people need someone to speak up for them, and the old guard is not going to do that, if only because they have no idea what their grandchildren are thinking or doing.

Being just 29 also means AOC will say silly things and make mistakes, but more importantly it means she’s allowed to make mistakes. So when she calls the border facilities “concentration camps”, I don’t have a huge problem with that, certainly now that kids are actually dying in them. As I read has happened.

 

As bad as the Holocaust was, there’s no need to give anyone the exclusive right to use the “concentration camp” term. History has been rewritten enough to exclude the gays, the Roma, the gypsies victims etc etc who were “exterminated” in WWII, from our past. Could AOC have done better by using “internment camps” or some such term? Yeah, maybe, but she was going for the shock effect, and she wasn’t around in the immediate aftermath of WWII.

Was she perhaps wrong in going for the shock effect? Not that I can see. She just doesn’t understand it the same way older generations than hers do. Where she did slip is in blaming it all on Trump. Because what comes out now is how Obama was the master “extraditor”. Under his 8-year administration, countless -100s of 1000s, millions even?- migrants were extradited that the media didn’t pay attention to.

None of that excuses what is happening under Trump, but it does provide perspective. As does America’s long-term support for the very people whose ancestors were the victims of the actual WWII camps, in suppressing another people, the Palestinians, in much the same way their parents were suppressed and murdered . That is something I have a hard time comprehending. And that inevitably makes me wonder what Anne Frank would have made of it all. Who, far more than Benjamin Netanyahu, and far more than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, would be considered an authority on the topic.

I published the article below on January 11 2010, almost 9 1/2 years ago. Time doesn’t just fly, time has gone hypersonic. AOC’s focus is different from what that of older generations is. But you can’t hold that against her. She’s not trying to insult WWII victims, or their legacies. She should probably still be careful though, about swinging big terms like “concentration camps” around, and about blaming everything wrong on Trump. But, as I said, she’s allowed to make mistakes.

Here’s my take on the death of Miep Gies at the age of 100, whereas Anne Frank never made it beyond 15. Originally from Monday, January 11, 2010:

 

 

Ilargi: Miep Gies died today. She was 100 years old. Born Hermine Santrouschitz in 1909, Miep worked for Otto Frank in Amsterdam when WW2 started. She helped hide the Frank family in the “achterhuis” on the Prinsengracht, the secret room (annex) in the shadow of the Westerkerk church the family lived in for a long time, until they were betrayed.

After Anne was put on a train to the Bergen Belsen concentration camp in 1944 and died there from typhus in March 1945, Miep managed to retrieve her diary, which she handed to Anne’s father, Otto, the sole survivor from the household, in 1945, after the war had ended. In 1947 Otto had his daughter’s diary published, and everything else, including now Miep Gies, is history.

Now I’m not Jewish, nor was I born and bred in Amsterdam proper, but I am an Amsterdammer nonetheless, and have for as long as I can remember been aware of what happened to the Jordaan neighborhood in the city that borders on the part of the Prinsengracht where the Westerkerk and the Anne Frank House are. To this day, there are a ton of words in Amsterdam that are unique to the city, and there are a ton more in the Dutch language at large, that are all joods, jiddish, yiddish.

Every Dutch person knows that Mokum means Amsterdam. A yiddish term. Like mazzel! (good luck), bajes (prison), gabber (mate, friend), gein (fun), geteisem (‘bad’ people), goochem (smart), jatten (to steal), kapsones (“hot air” behavior), penose (criminals), pleite (outtahere), schlemiel (dumbass), smeris (cop), smoes (excuse), sores (trouble), stiekem (stealthily), tof (nice!).

The Dutch language would be a hell of a lot poorer if not for the centuries of Jewish culture that enriched the country, and most of all Amsterdam. Rembrandt and Vermeer, and all of their 17th century peers, would not have created what they did without the Jews. The tulip bubble, well, perhaps, but the spice trade that made the city the center of the universe would never have happened without Amsterdam’s Jordaan people. And no, rich they were not. In fact, for most of them most of the time, they were the poorest of the poor.

And it’s all still there, the culture, the songs, the humor, the words. It’s just that the people are not. They were renditioned away.

Through the ages, Holland was a refuge for Jewish people from all over Europe. In the 1940’s, they were put on transport trains to camps, and 90% never came back, including Anne. The city center, and the Jordaan, may now be populated with well-to-do 21st century citizens, but if you take the time to stand still on one of the many bridges in the hood and you listen well, you can still feel the emptiness left behind by those who were forced to die like so much cattle.

And that, my friends, is my personal hinterland. That is me.

And don’t worry, I know about the Dutch part in the slave trade, and a 100,000 other despicable trades. My people are about as guilty as they come. And that is me too. But my people were also welcoming the Jews for centuries when they were cast out everywhere else.

History is a multi-pronged tool, a bird of many feathers and a beast of many moods. Nothing changed there, and nothing ever will. We are a blood-thirsty species, more, much more, than we are willing to allow. It will decide our way forward as it has our ways in the past. And we will not make it a pretty picture. We simply can’t. We’ll be cruel as can be. As we are.

But we will also have always another Anne Frank and another Miep Gies. One lived to be 15 years old, the other 100. Both saw, first-hand, more gratuitous violence than most of us will ever see in our lifetimes. There is some layer of comfort in there, and I hope you will forgive me for not being able to identify it off the bat. I’m just sure it’s there.

Here’s Miep Gies in her own words:

I am not a hero

‘More than twenty thousand Dutch people helped to hide Jews and others in need of hiding during those years. I willingly did what I could to help. My husband did as well. It was not enough.

There is nothing special about me. I have never wanted special attention. I was only willing to do what was asked of me and what seemed necessary at the time.”

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle May 11 2019

May 112019
 
 May 11, 2019  Posted by at 9:28 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  4 Responses »


Pierre-Auguste Renoir Riding in the Bois de Boulogne (Madame Henriette Darras or The Ride) 1873

 

• Labour Without Energy Is A Corpse; Capital Without Energy Is A Sculpture (Keen)
• Traditional Economics Has Absolutely Screwed Us (Tyee)
• House Dems To Bundle Numerous Contempt Citations For Trump Advisers (R.)
• House Democrat Subpoenas Six Years Of Trump Tax Returns (AP)
• FISA Applications Were Illegally Obtained – DiGenova (PJ)
• William Barr vs. Eric Holder: A Tale of Two Attorneys General (McConnell)
• Fugees Founder, Banker Charged In 1MDB, Obama Campaign Scandal (RT)
• Crisis? What Crisis? (Jim Kunstler)
• Manning Could Delay US Superseding Indictment Against Assange (Sp.)
• Dutch Court Blocks Extradition Of Man To ‘Inhumane’ UK Prisons (G.)
• Varoufakis On Eurozone: ‘We Created A Monster’ (Exp.)
• 70 Migrants Dead After Boat Capsizes Trying To Reach Europe From Libya (G.)
• Nearly All Countries Agree To Stem Flow Of Plastic Waste Into Poor Nations (G.)

 

 

First saw this a few days ago, and it slipped from my radar. Now, Steve Keen announced that he got a grant for his work with Tim Garrett and Matheus Grasselli on “developing models of production in which energy plays [a role] in production (and, necessarily, in climate degradation)”. Yes, you read that right: in 2019, economists need to begin the study the role of energy in an economic system, because it’s always been ignored. What a crazy field that is.

• Labour Without Energy Is A Corpse; Capital Without Energy Is A Sculpture (Keen)

With the simple insight that “labour without energy is a corpse, and capital without energy is a sculpture”, I realised why economists have failed to properly incorporate the role of energy in production for so long. All previous attempts had treated energy as a third “factor of production”, on an equal footing with Labour and Capital. But that treatment is simply unrealistic. Adding energy on its own to a production process is like letting off a bomb in a factory: it will produce mayhem, not output. Equally, both Labour and Capital are “sterile”, to use the old Physiocratic term: without energy, they can’t produce anything.


Figure 1: The incorrect way to show energy as a factor of production

The correct way to incorporate energy into economic models of production, therefore, is to see energy as an input to both Labour and Capital (in vastly different forms, of course), which enable them to perform useful work. By the Second Law of Thermodynamics, this useful work necessarily results in disorder (waste energy, mainly in the form of waste matter, including CO2). Also by the Second Law, entropy increases globally, even though it can be reduced locally by the application of energy; so the increase in disorder in the waste from production necessarily exceeds the reduction in disorder manifest in output itself (raw materials turned into finished products).


Figure 2: The correct way: Energy as an input to labour and capital, output as necessarily generating waste

This useful work is what we call GDP, though we currently erroneously measure this as the inflation-adjusted sum of all monetary output—which means we add the cost of traffic accidents to GDP. Instead, the true measure of GDP is the sum of all the useful things we produce and consume: in transportation, that is moving a mass from one location to another in a given time, and traffic accidents (and congestion) subtract from it.

Read more …

Palm oil or orangutans? For economists, an easy choice.

• Traditional Economics Has Absolutely Screwed Us (Tyee)

Capitalism is killing the planet. That is the gist of an exhaustive United Nations report on the bleak state of the world’s biodiversity. One million species face extinction in what has been aptly called a global murder-suicide, driven by a race to commodify ecosystems and externalize the costs of their destruction. If you were looking for a perky read to start your week, this report was not it. However, the collective efforts of 350 leading experts from 51 countries have resulted in the definitive wake-up call for those still doubting the dire consequences of business-as-usual on our one and only planet. A Noah’s ark of iconic species seems bound for oblivion due to our growing collective consumption and population.

Will your children be able to enjoy a world with wild elephants, orcas, or blue whales? Sixty per cent of primate species are threatened with extinction. The taste of a tuna sandwich may soon be consigned to lore. All of this has been happening in plain view but only recently has this become economically relevant by cutting into the bottom line. Up to $577 billion in global crop production is at risk due to collapsing populations of pollinating insects. One-third of commercial fish stocks are in steep decline with another 60 per cent being fully exploited, leaving only seven per cent of the world’s fisheries under safe management. This is exacerbated by regulatory failure where landings may be 50 per cent higher than reported, and illegal fishing accounts for up to one-third of the global catch.

Expanding agriculture is one of the main drivers of exploding extinction rates. Between 1980 and 2000, about 100 million hectares of tropical forests — roughly the area of France and Germany combined — were converted for grazing, monoculture plantations like palm oil, or short-term subsistence farming. Desperate humans and multinational companies both encroach on remaining rainforests, seeing only as far as the next growing season or financial quarter. Why does economics prioritize palm oil over orangutans? Because palm plantations are profitable, producing almost five times the oil yield per hectare of sunflowers, coconut or soybeans. Consumers too unintentionally contribute to this destruction, driving a market for a ubiquitous ingredient found in everything from lipstick to ice cream.

Read more …

McGahn, Barr, Mueller, Mnuchin, are these all the same?

• House Dems To Bundle Numerous Contempt Citations For Trump Advisers (R.)

U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said lawmakers may bundle numerous contempt citations from different committees into a single resolution that the full House of Representatives could then vote on. “There obviously are going to have to be, perhaps from our committee and certainly from other committees, other contempt citations to enforce subpoenas,” Nadler told reporters. Asked about bundling citations together, the New York Democrat replied: “It’s a great idea. In fact, I suggested it … It just makes sense, to spend as little floor time as possible, to group them together.”


A consolidated contempt vote is among options Democrats are considering in response to Trump’s stonewalling of congressional investigations into his presidency and business investments. Another option is reviving Congress’s “inherent” contempt authority. Some Democrats say that would allow lawmakers to fine uncooperative officials up to $25,000 per day. Some Democrats are also calling for impeachment proceedings against recalcitrant Trump Cabinet members. Nadler said Congress faces “the unprecedented situation in which the administration is essentially stonewalling all subpoenas – we’ve never had this before in American history, so far as I know.”

Read more …

They lost two years on the Russia collusion story. Doesn’t look so smart now, does it?

• House Democrat Subpoenas Six Years Of Trump Tax Returns (AP)

A top House Democrat on Friday issued subpoenas for six years of Donald Trump’s tax returns, giving the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and the IRS commissioner, Charles Rettig, a deadline of next Friday to deliver them. Richard Neal, the chairman of the House ways and means committee, issued the subpoenas days after Mnuchin refused to comply with demands to turn over Trump’s returns. Mnuchin told the panel he wouldn’t provide Trump’s tax records because the panel’s request “lacks a legitimate legislative purpose”, as supreme court precedent requires.

Neal reminded the two Trump appointees in a Friday letter that federal law states that the IRS “shall furnish” the tax returns of any individual upon the request of the chairmen of Congress’s tax-writing committees, and that ways and means “has never been denied” a request. The White House and the Democratic-controlled House are waging a multi-front battle over investigations into Trump, with the administration refusing to comply with subpoenas for the unredacted Mueller report and documents related to testimony by the former White House counsel Donald McGahn. If Mnuchin and Rettig refuse to comply with the subpoenas, Neal is likely to file a lawsuit in federal court.

He indicated earlier this week that he was leaning toward filing a court case immediately but changed course after meeting with lawyers for the House. Neal originally demanded access to Trump’s tax returns in early April. He maintains that the committee is looking into the effectiveness of mandatory IRS audits of tax returns of all sitting presidents, a way to justify his claim that the panel has a potential legislative purpose. Democrats are confident in their legal justification and say Trump is stalling in an attempt to punt the issue past the 2020 election. In rejecting Neal’s request earlier this week, Mnuchin said he relied on the advice of the justice department. He concluded that the treasury department was “not authorized to disclose the requested returns and return information”. Mnuchin has also said that Neal’s request would potentially weaponize private tax returns for political purposes.

Read more …

I don’t think John Solomon is done yet.

As for the Papadopoulos $10,000 story, how is that an “explosive revelation”? Have known that for a long time.

• FISA Applications Were Illegally Obtained – DiGenova (PJ)

Washington attorney Joe diGenova claimed in an interview last night that the Department of Justice inspector general has determined that “the final three FISA extensions were illegally obtained,” and the first one is still being investigated. For the past year, DOJ IG Michael Horowitz has been investigating the FBI’s 2016 surveillance activities and his report is expected later this month or in early June. Washington power couple Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing appeared on Lou Dobbs’ Fox Business Network show Thursday night to talk about the latest turns in the “SpyGate” saga. “The only question now is whether or not the first FISA was illegally obtained,” diGenova said.

He told Dobbs that the latest revelations in investigative reporter John Solomon’s piece at The Hill, have prompted further investigation from Horowitz’s team. On Thursday, Solomon reported that newly unearthed memos show that a high-ranking government official from the Obama State Department met with former British spy Christopher Steele in October of 2016, and figured out pretty quickly that his dossier was a political hit job intended to slime Donald Trump on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. [..] DiGenova said the inspector general was unaware of the memos, which were obtained last week through open-records litigation by the conservative group Citizens United. “The Bureau hid those memos from Horowitz. As a result of that, they are doing some additional work on the first FISA,” diGenova explained, adding: “It may be that all four FISAs will have been obtained illegally.”

[..] DiGenova and Toensing shared another explosive revelation on Sebastian Gorka’s Salem Radio talk show “America First” on Thursday. According to Toensing, the FBI tried to frame former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos by having an informant give him $10,000 in cash during a trip to Israel in the summer of 2017. An individual allegedly talked the then-29-year-old into traveling to Israel to make a deal, and invited him to his hotel room. “And there on the bed is $10,000 in cash in a suitcase,” she continued. Papadopoulos took the money and gave it to his lawyer, who has it still. Toensing said when Papadopoulos returned to the United States, he was greeted by FBI agents at Dulles Airport and they started searching through everything that he had “the second he landed.”

She added, “in fact, they already had his baggage from the plane. He couldn’t believe they had his baggage.” “It was a set up!” exclaimed Gorka. “It was a complete set up,” agreed Toensing. DiGenova explained that the Feds already knew that he hadn’t declared that he had $10,000 and were expecting to find the undeclared cash so they could arrest him and “put the thumbscrews on and make him squeal,” as Gorka put it. Worst of all, according to Toensing, “one of the FBI agents said to him, ‘this is what happens when you work for Donald Trump.’”

Read more …

Good read. To a large extent, the Democrats made their own bed. Very far from a black and white story.

• William Barr vs. Eric Holder: A Tale of Two Attorneys General (McConnell)

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has declared it a “constitutional crisis” that Attorney General William Barr refuses to divulge the small parts of the Mueller report that contain grand-jury material. By a straight party-line vote, the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Barr in contempt of Congress. What did Pelosi think when Barr’s predecessor, Eric Holder, refused to divulge documents to a congressional committee and was held in contempt? “Ridiculous!” she said. What did Holder and Obama say? That the House subpoena was a violation of “separation of powers.” To partisans, the difference between the cases is obvious. Barr is defending Trump; Holder was Obama’s self-proclaimed “wing man.”

That is enough for many journalists and most politicians. The rest of us might want to know: What is the legal or constitutional difference between Holder’s refusal to provide documents and Barr’s? Here is the background of the Holder contempt. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), a unit of Holder’s Department of Justice (DOJ), conducted an operation called “Fast & Furious,” intended to track illegal gun sales. In fact it put hundreds of weapons in the hands of Mexican criminal gangs, leading to the death of an American officer. On February 2, 2011, after news of the operation emerged, Holder’s assistant attorney general sent a letter to Congress declaring that the Obama administration had no knowledge of the operation. This letter was false, as Holder later admitted.

A congressional committee wanted to know why it had been misled. BATFE employees leaked to Congress that the department was still suppressing the truth about the operation and retaliating against whistleblowers. The committee wanted to dig into that. It demanded DOJ documents “relating to actions the Department took to silence or retaliate against Fast and Furious whistleblowers,” so that it could determine “what the Department knew about Fast and Furious, including when and how it discovered its February 4 letter was false, and the Department’s efforts to conceal that information from Congress and the public.”

Read more …

“..funnelled [over $21 million] personally and through straw donors to President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, then lied about it to the Federal Elections Commission in 2015.”

• Fugees Founder, Banker Charged In 1MDB, Obama Campaign Scandal (RT)

A founding member of the Fugees is accused of conspiracy to funnel illegal campaign contributions to Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign and lying about it, in a spinoff of the 1MDB corruption scandal. The indictment against Prakazrel “Pras” Michel, 46, was unsealed on Friday, the government says he received over $21 million from Malaysian businessman Low Taek Jho (also known as “Jho Low”) and funnelled it personally and through straw donors to President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, then lied about it to the Federal Elections Commission in 2015. Michel was charged with conspiracy to defraud US government, falsifying records, and making a false statement. He appeared before a federal judge in Washington, DC on Friday and pleaded not guilty.


Mr. Michel is extremely disappointed that so many years after the fact the government would bring charges related to 2012 campaign contributions,” said his attorney Barry Pollack. “Mr. Michel is innocent of these charges and looks forward to having the case heard by a jury.” Michel is best known as one of the founding members of the Fugees, an award-winning group that set music charts on fire with ‘Killing me softly’ in 1996 and launched the solo careers of Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill. Low, 37, was also charged in the case, adding to the existing indictments against the Malaysian businessman already wanted for conspiring to launder billions of dollars and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Read more …

“..he rode on the back of that fraud for two years, as if touring a political landfill on a donkey, leaving the public to stew in anxious hallucinations.”

• Crisis? What Crisis? (Jim Kunstler)

Information emerged over the weeks since the Mueller Report’s release that Mr. Mueller and his team knew unequivocally that the Special Counsel’s mission and the FBI operations that preceded it were based on concocted political bullshit supplied by Mrs. Clinton and her network of flunkies and fixers, ranging throughout the permanent DC bureacuracy (a.k.a. the Swamp), to outposts in foreign intel services and the political kitty-litter box known as Ukraine. Mr. Mueller must have suspected this from the outset, but knew for sure by the summer of 2017, and omitted to advise the American public that he had uncovered a fraud. Rather, he rode on the back of that fraud for two years, as if touring a political landfill on a donkey, leaving the public to stew in anxious hallucinations.


What else did Mr. Mueller do, or omit to do? He never engaged US government forensic computer analysts to examine the DNC servers at the heart of RussiaGate story. Rather, he allowed the conclusions to stand of a company called CrowdStrike, hired by the DNC itself to supposedly investigate the theft of emails, especially those of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Mr. Mueller never bothered to interview the one person who might have known exactly who supplied the purloined emails to Wikileaks, namely Julian Assange. Mr. Mueller also did not bother to interview several dozen retired Intel Community computer experts, led by William Binney, former Technical Director of the NSA, who determined that the hack was accomplished by direct download by an insider onto a flash drive.

Read more …

This is about what the US wants to add to the Assange charge once he’s been extradited.

• Manning Could Delay US Superseding Indictment Against Assange (Sp.)

According to Manning’s legal team, her release was triggered by the expiration of the term of the grand jury that had demanded her testimony. She will be back in court on May 16, trying to convince a new grand jury of what she failed to prove to the last one: that she cannot be forced to cooperate, as she fundamentally disagrees with the concept of a grand jury, which she says use activists’ testimonies against them. “This will go on until they get what they want or she continues to stay in jail,” Joe Lauria, editor-in-chief of Consortium News, told Radio Sputnik’s Loud and Clear Friday. “She’s in a position where she could delay or slow down what the Justice Department wants to do in terms of a superseding indictment against Assange.

Nobody believes that they are going to want to just put him in jail for five years… this initial indictment is a placeholder, and they have a deadline of June 12 to give to British court the charges; the decision has to be made in the UK,” Lauria said. However, there is a way around that, Lauria told hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou, called the Doctrine of Specialty, which, according to reference website USLegal.com, is “a principle of international law that is included in most extradition treaties, whereby a person who is extradited to a country to stand trial for certain criminal offenses may be tried only for those offenses and not for any other pre-extradition offenses.” “Once the asylum state extradites an individual to the requesting state under the terms of an extradition treaty, that person can be prosecuted only for crimes specified in the extradition request,” the website notes.

“This doctrine allows a nation to require the requesting nation to limit prosecution to declared offenses.” “In other words, Assange could come to the US based on this very silly charge that he tried to help Chelsea Manning hack into a computer — when she had top secret clearance and total access anyway — clearly he was trying to just help her hide her identity. But, he could come to the US and they could start adding charges there. I suspect that might happen if she doesn’t testify — which she will not do, obviously; she’s made that abundantly clear.” “They clearly need something from her, or they wouldn’t be throwing her back in jail, effectively, because she refuses to testify,” Lauria said. “But she’s not going to say a damn thing; she’s not going to cooperate, at incredible personal expense to herself, and that just goes to show what a person of principle she is.”

Read more …

Curious but still..

• Dutch Court Blocks Extradition Of Man To ‘Inhumane’ UK Prisons (G.)

Judges in the Netherlands have refused to send a suspected drug smuggler back to the UK because of concerns that conditions in British jails are inhumane. An initial application to extradite the unnamed man, who had been on the run for two years, was refused this week due to the reported state of HMP Liverpool where he would probably be sent.The court of Amsterdam heard how inspectors had found “some of the most disturbing prison conditions we have ever seen” and “conditions which have no place in an advanced nation in the 21st century”, in reference to report on the state of prisons in the UK published last July.


A surprise inspection of HMP Liverpool in September 2017 found it was infested with rats and that inmates lived in squalid conditions, afraid of being attacked because of increasing violence. Similar conditions were found in HMP Birmingham and HMP Bedford. The Dutch judges said on Wednesday they were concerned the man, who was wanted in relation to cocaine and heroin smuggling on Merseyside, was at “real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment” if returned. The man had been made the subject of a European arrest warrant at Liverpool magistrates court in July 2017. His lawyer argued that the extradition should be refused based on the prison inspectors’ reports.

Read more …

“.. If you start with a monetary union, you make sure there will not be a democratic political union.”

• Varoufakis On Eurozone: ‘We Created A Monster’ (Exp.)

Former Greek financial minister Yanis Varoufakis branded the eurozone “a monster” for allegedly taking away financial oversight from European Union member states. Mr Varoufakis, an outspoken opponent of the European monetary union, claimed the creation of the common currency led to an “undemocratic political union”. Recounting his first meeting with other eurozone Finance Ministers in 2015, Mr Varoufakis said: “When I was in the Eurogroup, Wolfgang Schauble was very clear. The first time he spoke, in my presence, he said –spectacularly and very honestly – ’democracy cannot be allowed to change economic policies.’


Mr Varoufakis continued: “We’ve created a monster. We’ve created a monetary union that has a central bank without a state behind it because the European Central Bank (ECB) doesn’t have a corresponding state. Before the euro, you had the Treasury, the ministry of finance and you had the central banks – correspondence. “The ECB is a gigantic central bank with no state behind it and you’ve got 19 states without a central bank. This is not the way to create a monetary union which is consistent with the political union.” He added: “The fallacy in 1992 with Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterrand, is that they believed you start with a monetary union and then you move towards a democratic political union. “No. If you start with a monetary union, you make sure there will not be a democratic political union.”

Read more …

Not sure the biggest EU monster is a finance one.

• 70 Migrants Dead After Boat Capsizes Trying To Reach Europe From Libya (G.)

As many as 70 people trying to reach Europe from Libya have drowned after their vessel capsized in the deadliest such incident in the Mediterranean since January. According to survivors, at least 16 of whom were rescued, the boat left Zuwara in Libya, where renewed warfare between rival factions has gripped the capital, Tripoli, in the past five weeks. The vessel capsized 40 miles off the coast of Sfax, south of Tunis, as it headed towards Italy. The survivors reported that a Tunisian fishing boat came to their rescue and transferred them to a Tunisian coastguard vessel.


The incident came as overall number of people reaching Europe has decreased, whilethe journey has become increasingly dangerous. So far this year, 17,000 migrants and refugees have entered Europe via the sea, about 30% fewer than in the same period last year, according to the International Organization for Migration. The IOM said 443 people have reportedly died on Mediterranean crossings since 1 January, compared with 620 in the same period in 2018. The Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) thinktank said that one person died for every eight people who left Libya from January to April, based on analysis of figures from the Italian interior ministry.

Read more …

There’ll always be a dictator somewhere who invites a few million dollars. There’s only one solution: stop producing the stuff. 2 trillion drinks containers were sold in 2018. Cut it out.

• Nearly All Countries Agree To Stem Flow Of Plastic Waste Into Poor Nations (G.)

Almost all the world’s countries have agreed on a deal aimed at restricting shipments of hard-to-recycle plastic waste to poorer countries, the United Nations announced on Friday. Exporting countries – including the US – now will have to obtain consent from countries receiving contaminated, mixed or unrecyclable plastic waste. Currently, the US and other countries can send lower-quality plastic waste to private entities in developing countries without getting approval from their governments. Since China stopped accepting recycling from the US, activists say they have observed plastic waste piling up in developing countries. The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (Gaia), a backer of the deal, says it found villages in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia that had “turned into dumpsites over the course of a year”.


“We were finding that there was waste from the US that was just piled up in villages throughout these countries that had once been primarily agricultural communities,” said Claire Arkin, a spokeswoman for Gaia. The legally binding framework emerged at the end of a two-week meeting of UN-backed conventions on plastic waste and toxic, hazardous chemicals that threaten the planet’s seas and creatures. The pact comes in an amendment to the Basel convention. The US is not a party to that convention so it did not have a vote, but attendees at the meeting said the country argued against the change, saying officials didn’t understand the repercussions it would have on the plastic waste trade.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle October 28 2018

Oct 282018
 
 October 28, 2018  Posted by at 9:32 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  4 Responses »


Salvador Dali City of drawers – The Anthropomorphic Cabinet 1936

 

• OECD Countries’ Retirement Assets Surpass $43 Trillion In 2017 (PiO)
• As The Housing Market Stagnates, American Homeowners Are Staying Put (MW)
• Economist Slams ‘China Model’ That ‘Inevitably Leads To Confrontation’ (SCMP)
• Rand Paul Seeks To Punish Saudi Arabia For Khashoggi Killing (Pol.)
• Saudi Arabia Says It Is A Beacon Of Light Fighting ‘Dark’ Iran (G.)
• EU To Make Contingency Plans For A Second Brexit Referendum (Ind.)
• Germany’s Fragile Coalition Braced For More Upsets (G.)
• Russia-Turkey-Germany-France Talks On Syria Kick Off (RT)
• “My” Suspended Twitter Account (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Mexico Honors Migrants At Day Of The Dead As Caravan Treks North (R.)

 

 

2/3(?!) of it is in the US.

• OECD Countries’ Retirement Assets Surpass $43 Trillion In 2017 (PiO)

Retirement assets in OECD countries hit a record $43.4 trillion at the end of 2017, well above the pre-crisis level. The OECD said in its annual Pension Markets in Focus report that assets invested in all funded and private pension systems across 87 jurisdictions grew 12.1% over the year, and increased 53.9% compared with figures at the end of 2007. The report said assets are unevenly distributed worldwide, with less than $200 billion across 78% of the reporting countries, while 8% held more than $1 trillion each: the U.S. with about $28.2 trillion; the U.K. with $2.9 trillion; Canada at $2.6 trillion; Australia with $1.8 trillion; the Netherlands with $1.6 trillion; Japan at $1.4 trillion; and Switzerland with $1 trillion. The remaining 9% of assets, or about $3.9 trillion, are split among the other 29 OECD countries.

The largest amounts of assets are located in some of the biggest economies in the world and with a long history of retirement savings. High investment returns from equity markets partially explain the growth of these assets, said the report, with the real net investment rate of return on retirement assets exceeding 4% on average in 2017. U.S. retirement plans achieved a 7.5% real net investment rate of return in 2017, added the OECD. Funding levels for DB funds improved in the U.S., to 59.6% at end-2017 from 56% a year earlier; but worsened from 2007 figures of 68.6%. The funding ratio was calculated as the ratio of total investment and net technical provisions for occupational defined benefit plans using values reported by national authorities in the OECD template.

U.K. funding levels improved to 90.5% as of the end of 2017, up from 85.8% a year earlier, but down from 108.8% as of the end of 2007. Denmark had the highest funding level of OECD countries in the report, at 135.1%. However, that level was down from 146.1% a year earlier, but improved over the 127.4% funding level as of the end of 2007.

Read more …

Bad time to become a real estate agent.

• As The Housing Market Stagnates, American Homeowners Are Staying Put (MW)

Housing-market headwinds are keeping American homeowners in their properties for the longest stretches on record, in a sharp distortion of the mobility Americans have for decades prized. Across the country, homes that sold in the third quarter of this year had been owned an average of 8.23 years, according to an analysis from Attom Data Solutions. That’s almost double the length of time a home sold in 2000, when Attom’s data begin, had been owned. It’s partly the long tail of the housing crisis that’s created stagnant conditions and a less dynamic housing market, Attom spokesman Daren Blomquist told MarketWatch.

As of the second quarter, 2.2 million homeowners were still underwater on their mortgages, meaning they owe more to their lending institution than the home is worth, according to data from CoreLogic. Another 550,000 have 5% equity or less, meaning that if that property were to be sold the transaction costs, such as a real-estate agent’s commission, would likely leave the homeowner with nothing. The hypercompetitive market that’s emerged from the wreckage of the crisis is also keeping people in place. Many homeowners have ample equity in their homes, but hesitate to list those homes because they’re worried about finding a property to buy if they do sell. A few others may be trapped by “rate lock” — enjoying the benefits of their ultralow mortgage rates, and unwilling to spend more on financing costs.

Read more …

Interesting that he gets to say it.

• Economist Slams ‘China Model’ That ‘Inevitably Leads To Confrontation’ (SCMP)

Using the “China model” to explain the country’s economic success over the past four decades is wrong and dangerous, according to an influential Chinese economist, who says this misconception has inevitably led to antagonism between China and the West. Zhang Weiying, one of the most prominent liberal economists in the country and a professor at prestigious Peking University, made the comments in a lecture on October 14. An edited version of his speech was published on the university’s website on Wednesday. The speech is a wholesale negation of the “China model” theory that has gained traction in recent years, as the country becomes more confident in promoting its own development path under President Xi Jinping.

Zhang lashes out at those who attribute China’s economic growth to an exceptional “China model”, which includes a powerful one-party state, a colossal state sector and “wise” industrial policy, saying it is not only factually wrong, but also detrimental to the country’s future. “The theory of the ‘China model’ sets China as a frightening anomaly from the Western perspective, and inevitably leads to confrontation between China and the West,” he said. “The hostile international environment we face today is not irrelevant to the wrong interpretation of China’s achievement in the past 40 years by some economists.”

The economist’s rejection of the “China model” comes as debates about the country’s economic future are heating up. The world’s second largest economy is losing steam – growth is at its slowest pace since 2009 – as it marks 40 years since its market reforms. At home, it is grappling with a mountain of debt, plunging stocks and an ailing private sector. Abroad, tensions over the prolonged trade war with the United States appear to be spilling over into defence, diplomacy and politics. Zhang said the trade war not only reflected conflict between China and the US, but between China and the larger Western world. It also went beyond trade to reflect the clash over value systems, he said.

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Like his dad, strongly anti-war.

• Rand Paul Seeks To Punish Saudi Arabia For Khashoggi Killing (Pol.)

Sen. Rand Paul says he’s not going to let Saudi Arabia off the hook after journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in Turkey by agents linked to the Saudi government. The Kentucky Republican said Saturday he’s intent on forcing another vote to block billions in arm sales to the autocratic Middle Eastern kingdom and won’t settle for targeted sanctions, seeking to capitalize on negative public sentiment surrounding the Oct. 2 killing. “Are we going to do fake sanctions? Are we going to pretend to do something by putting sanctions on 15 thugs. Or are we going to do something that hurts them?” Paul said in an interview here, explaining that he thinks Saudi Arabia is trying to wait him out until Khashoggi fades from the headlines before announcing the arms sale, which would allow him to try and stop it.

“They know if they have the vote they might lose. So they’re probably not going to make any announcement until this dies down,” Paul said. Rather than focusing simply on Khashoggi, Paul has made a broader critique of Saudi Arabia as supporting “violent Jihad” and a brutal civil war in Yemen. But he’s noticed a substantive shift in the way his colleagues are now talking about the country. [..] Paul, a longtime Saudi critic, has previously forced votes to block the arms sales, but they have failed given a strong hawkish wing in the Senate that wants to keep a key ally against Iranian influence in the Middle East. Paul says that has changed. “We would win the vote right now. It would be a very bad vote if 60, 65, or even 70 people voted to cut the arms sales for now and the president were to veto that, that would be bad,” he said.

President Donald Trump has been more circumspect when discussing arms sales, questioning the wisdom of canceling sales that he believes creates hundreds of thousands of jobs. Paul said he’s tried to convince the president to come to his position, but he’s not there yet. “He says he doesn’t want to disrupt the arm sales. And it’s something we have an honest disagreement on. I don’t think arms are jobs programs,” Paul said. He said their “discussions aren’t really that much that back and forth.” [..] Paul also broke further with the president on foreign policy. He called it a “terrible idea” for the United States to back away from nuclear and weapons agreements with Russia and said he’s asked Trump to appoint nuclear negotiators in a bid to preserve the NEW START treaty and the INF agreement.

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Not sure how this would help their case at this point.

• Saudi Arabia Says It Is A Beacon Of Light Fighting ‘Dark’ Iran (G.)

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister has described the kingdom as a “vision of light” in the region as it tries to control the fallout from Jamal Khashoggi’s killing – its biggest diplomatic crisis since the 9/11 attacks. After more than two weeks of international outrage over the journalist and dissident’s death, Adel al-Jubeir sought to portray the country as the moral beacon of the Middle East, in stark opposition to Iran, Saudi Arabia’s arch-rival. “We are now dealing with two visions in the Middle East,” Jubeir told a security summit in Bahrain on Saturday. “One is a [Saudi] vision of light … One is [an Iranian] vision of darkness which seeks to spread sectarianism throughout the region. History tells us that light always wins out against the dark.”

Condemning the media coverage of Khashoggi’s killing as “hysterical”, Jubeir rejected a call from Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, to try the 18 suspects in Turkey, stressing that they would be “held accountable” on Saudi soil. [..] Erdogan reiterated during an address to parliament on Friday that Riyadh must disclose the location of Khashoggi’s body and identify who ordered his killing – a sign that Ankara is willing to keep up the pressure on the beleaguered kingdom and its de facto ruler, the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. [..] Jim Mattis, the US defence secretary, who also spoke at the summit in Manama, said that Khashoggi’s killing had “undermined regional stability”. Washington was considering additional punitive measures against those responsible after issuing visa bans for the suspects in the case, Mattis added.

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5 months left. Nothing decided on.

• EU To Make Contingency Plans For A Second Brexit Referendum (Ind.)

The EU’s chief negotiator has been warned to make contingency plans for a second Brexit referendum, as pressure builds to give the public a final say on leaving. Prominent Remain politicians met with Michel Barnier in Brussels this week and said it was time to start “serious contingency planning”, as The Independent’s petition neared one million signatures and the future of Brexit looks increasingly uncertain. In a visit on Friday, Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, told Mr Barnier that the negotiating period should be extended so Britain could have “time to have a referendum”. The warning comes after 700,000 people took to the streets of London last weekend to make the case for a vote on the final deal.

For there to be time to hold a referendum, the EU would likely have to extend the Article 50 negotiating period, which will automatically expire on 29 March 2019, leaving Britain to slide out with a no-deal Brexit. The calls for an extension came from across a number of parties. Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable said following a meeting with Mr Barnier on Thursday: “My message to Michel Barnier was clear: it’s time to start serious contingency planning for a People’s Vote. We know the UK government has started making such plans as a result of the growing demand for such a vote, demonstrated by last weekend’s march. “The EU should do the same, because MPs who back the People’s Vote are fast forming the biggest and most cohesive bloc in Westminster.”

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This will have an increasing effect on Europe as a whole. Who’s going to listen to Merkel as she’s fading at home?

• Germany’s Fragile Coalition Braced For More Upsets (G.)

[..] voters in the central state of Hesse have the power to deliver a second electoral upset within a fortnight to Germany’s embattled ruling parties, potentially plunging both into fresh crises. The regional election is seen as decisive for the future of Merkel’s rickety coalition government. Last-minute polling showed support plummeting for both her Christian Democrat Union (CDU) and coalition partner the Social Democrats (SPD) in a swing state traditionally seen as a bellwether for national politics. Both parties were predicted to drop 10 points each since the state’s last regional election in 2013. Such a trouncing would come on the heels of a disastrous result in Bavaria that was widely seen as a protest against the failings of the Berlin government.

“None of the parties are there for us,” said Müller, who has voted for both CDU and SPD in the past, but was still undecided. “What should I do? I have to vote, it’s my duty to stop the far right getting into power. But I also know I won’t be heard. I can vote for whoever I like; the politicians will still do whatever they want.” Hesse, home to Germany’s financial centre, Frankfurt, has been governed by CDU-led coalitions for the past two decades. But polls have the party nosediving to 28%, a result that would end the state’s CDU-Green coalition and leave a question mark over the future of CDU state premier and close Merkel ally Volker Bouffier.

With tensions running high in the CDU, mutinous members have implied that if Bouffier falls, it may cost the chancellor vital votes when she stands for re-election as party leader at its conference in early December. But Merkel, who joined Bouffier on the campaign trail last week, was at pains to play down the significance of the regional vote for her party, government and chancellorship. “Hesse, and what happens here, is being watched and considered from far beyond Germany’s borders,” Merkel told supporters on Thursday in Fulda. “I want to point out once again that on Sunday the vote is about Hesse. Afterwards we’ll talk again about Berlin.”

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The fighting in Idlib must cease. It’s the only outcome.

• Russia-Turkey-Germany-France Talks On Syria Kick Off (RT)

Leaders of Russia, Turkey, Germany and France have gathered in Istanbul to discuss the Syrian peace process. While the outcome of such tricky talks is hard to predict, the new format appears to be, at least, quite refreshing. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Istanbul on Saturday to talk Syrian reconciliation. The host, Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has put high expectations on the gathering. “The whole world is watching this meeting. I hope, that the hopes will be met,” Erdogan said, while opening the summit. The four leaders are also expected to be joined by UN Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura.

The four-way summit is an entirely new format of talks on the war-torn country, which has endured years-long conflict. The meeting is all about testing the waters and trying to bring about different formats of talks on Syria, as if the leaders were to “synchronize watches” rather than reach a breakthrough, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Similar opinion was expressed by Germany, with Foreign Minister Heiko Maas stating that the summit effectively brings different sides together for the very first time. “There are Russians and Turks, who have been at the same format of talks with Iran. And on the other side, there are French and us, who partake in the so-called ‘Friends of Syria’ group,” Maas said ahead of the event, adding that having a “joint conversation” was a viable idea.

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Turns out, the story was a bit different than many reported.

• “My” Suspended Twitter Account (Paul Craig Roberts)

Dear Readers:

It is all over the internet and international media that Twitter has suspended my account. This is not the case. I do not use social media. I discovered that a Twitter account was operating in my name. I requested that the account be taken down. I have no recollection of giving anyone permission to operate a Twitter account in my name. I am still extremely busy trying to help family relatives impacted by Hurricane Michael and could only quickly look at the Twitter postings. It seemed to be mainly innocuous, consisting of links or quotes from my posted columns.

However, there were other things, such as appeals that money be sent to Alex Jones InfoWars and other things. I have no objection to Alex Jones. However, my webmaster and I were concerned that things could be posted that would be dangerous for me, such as libel, death threats to others, and so forth. To repeat, the account was closed at my request. To repeat, I do not use social media.

Paul Craig Roberts

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There’s something cynical about this, but also beautiful.

• Mexico Honors Migrants At Day Of The Dead As Caravan Treks North (R.)

Mexico City dedicated its Day of the Dead parade on Saturday to migrants, just as thousands of Central Americans were trekking from the country’s southern border toward the United States under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to disband. In an a twist on the traditional dancing skeletons and marigold-adorned altars making their way down the capital’s main thoroughfare, the parade also referenced Mexicans who emigrated as well as foreigners who settled in the capital. “The parade… is dedicated to migrants, who in their transit to other countries have lost their lives, and who in their passing through the country have contributed to a true ‘Refuge City,’” the Mexico City government said on Twitter.

In one segment, gray metallic panels representing the Mexico side of the U.S. border wall were stenciled with the phrase, “There are also dreams on this side.” Other presentations honored exiled Spaniards, Argentineans and Jews, Mexico City’s culture ministry said. The event ahead of Nov. 1 and 2, when Mexicans observe Day of the Dead in town squares, homes and cemeteries, coincided by chance with the journey of a migrant caravan traveling into Mexico, many fleeing violence and poverty in Honduras and Guatemala.

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Debt Rattle October 8 2018

Oct 082018
 
 October 8, 2018  Posted by at 9:18 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  14 Responses »


Paul Gauguin The Great Buddah 1897

 

• ACT NOW IDIOTS (BBC)
• World Must Take ‘Unprecedented’ Steps To Avert Worst Of Global Warming (R.)
• Energy Sector’s Carbon Emissions To Grow For Second Year Running (G.)
• Clouds Gather Over The IMF’s Paradise (O.)
• US Inflation Is The World’s Most Important Economic Variable (CNBC)
• Ron Paul: US Barreling Towards A Stock Market Plunge Of At Least 50% (CNBC)
• China Stocks Return From Holiday, Tumble 3% As PBOC Eases Bank Rates (MW)
• FBI’s Smoking Gun: Redactions (Solomon)
• Italy’s Di Maio Predicts ‘Political Earthquake’ For European Union (RT)
• Salvini Resists Germany’s Plans To Send Migrants Back To Italy (RT)
• Austerity Is The Wrong Prescription For The World’s Wellbeing (G.)
• Greece ‘to Claim €280 Billion’ in War Reparations from Germany (GR)
• ‘The World Is Against Them’: New Era Of Cancer Lawsuits Threaten Monsanto (G.)

 

 

Sure, but do what? Has anyone defined that?

• ACT NOW IDIOTS (BBC)

It’s the final call, say scientists, the most extensive warning yet on the risks of rising global temperatures. Their dramatic report on keeping that rise under 1.5 degrees C states that the world is now completely off track, heading instead towards 3C. Staying below 1.5C will require “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”. It will be hugely expensive, the report says, but the window of opportunity is not yet closed. After three years of research and a week of haggling between scientists and government officials at a meeting in South Korea, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued a special report on the impact of global warming of 1.5C.

The critical 33-page Summary for Policymakers certainly bears the hallmarks of difficult negotiations between climate researchers determined to stick to what their studies have shown and political representatives more concerned with economies and living standards. Despite the inevitable compromises, there are some key messages that come through loud and and clear. “The first is that limiting warming to 1.5C brings a lot of benefits compared with limiting it to 2 degrees. It really reduces the impacts of climate change in very important ways,” said Prof Jim Skea, who is a co-chair of the IPCC.

“The second is the unprecedented nature of the changes that are required if we are to limit warming to 1.5C – changes to energy systems, changes to the way we manage land, changes to the way we move around with transportation.” “Scientists might want to write in capital letters, ‘ACT NOW IDIOTS’, but they need to say that with facts and numbers,” said Kaisa Kosonen, from Greenpeace, who was an observer at the negotiations. “And they have.” The researchers have used these facts and numbers to paint a picture of the world with a dangerous fever, caused by humans. We used to think if we could keep warming below 2 degrees this century then the changes we would experience would be manageable.

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The IPCC’s estimates have been off by a large margin. Political pressure?

• World Must Take ‘Unprecedented’ Steps To Avert Worst Of Global Warming (R.)

Society would have to enact “unprecedented” changes to how it consumes energy, travels and builds to meet a lower global warming target or it risks increases in heat waves, flood-causing storms and the chances of drought in some regions as well as the loss of species, a U.N. report said on Monday. Keeping the Earth’s temperature rise to only 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) rather than the 2C target agreed to at the Paris Agreement talks in 2015, would have “clear benefits to people and natural ecosystems,” the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said on Monday in a statement announcing the report’s release.

The IPCC report said at the current rate of warming, the world’s temperatures would likely reach 1.5C between 2030 and 2052 after an increase of 1C above pre-industrial levels since the mid-1800s. Keeping the 1.5C target would keep the global sea level rise 0.1 meter (3.9 inches) lower by 2100 than a 2C target, the report states. That could reduce flooding and give the people that inhabit the world’s coasts, islands and river deltas time to adapt to climate change.

The lower target would also reduce species loss and extinction and the impact on terrestrial, freshwater and coastal ecosystems, the report said. “There were doubts if we would be able to differentiate impacts set at 1.5C and that came so clearly. Even the scientists were surprised to see how much science was already there and how much they could really differentiate and how great are the benefits of limiting global warming at 1.5 compared to 2,” Thelma Krug, vice-chair of the IPCC, told Reuters in an interview. “And now more than ever we know that every bit of warming matters,” Krug said.

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And after all the big words, here is reality.

• Energy Sector’s Carbon Emissions To Grow For Second Year Running (G.)

Carbon emissions from the energy sector are on track to grow for the second year running, in a major blow to hopes the world might have turned the corner on tackling climate change. Preliminary analysis by the world’s energy watchdog shows the industry’s emissions have continued to rise in 2018, suggesting that an increase last year was not a one-off. The finding comes as the world’s leading climate scientists issue a landmark report on whether the world can meet a tougher global warming target, of limiting temperature rises to 1.5C.

Dr Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), told the Guardian: “When I look at the first nine months of data, I expect in 2018 carbon emissions will increase once again. This is definitely worrying news for our climate goals. We need to see a steep decline in emissions. We are not seeing even flat emissions.” Emissions largely flatlined in 2014–16 after climbing for decades, raising hopes that global action on climate change was beginning to turn the tide – but in 2017 they grew by 1.4%.

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Silliest metaphor ever? “..while it is tempting to sail alone, countries must resist the siren call of self-sufficiency – because as the Greek legends tell us, that leads to shipwreck..”

• Clouds Gather Over The IMF’s Paradise (O.)

On Tuesday, the [IMF] will update its World Economic Outlook and has already warned that the effects of rising debt and trade wars are affecting the global projections. Last week, the IMF’s head, Christine Lagarde, said the outlook “has become less bright”, despite projections during the summer that there would be 3.9% growth for 2018 and 2019. [..] Adding to Lagarde’s comments, there were warnings last week in the IMF’s global financial stability report, which said there was a risk of another financial meltdown because both governments and regulators have failed to put in place needed reforms to protect the system. Lagarde said that while expansion of the global economy was running at its fastest rate in seven years, there were signs of slowdown.

In September, factory activity dropped as a result of changes in trading with the US – and Donald Trump did not escape (admittedly veiled) criticism. The growing use of trade barriers had resulted in a drop in imports and exports, Lagarde said, and investment and manufacturing output had also been hit. Trump has consistently championed unilateral trade deals in an effort to further his “America First” agenda. “History shows that, while it is tempting to sail alone, countries must resist the siren call of self-sufficiency – because as the Greek legends tell us, that leads to shipwreck,” said Lagarde. Also central to the concerns about the future of the global economy are debt levels, currently well above those seen at the time of the 2008 crash. The IMF warned that there was a risk that unregulated parts of the financial system could trigger a panic.

The rise of unregulated “shadow banks” and the lack of restrictions on insurers and asset managers were pinpointed as concerns – as was the growth of global banks to a scale larger than 2008 and the fear that they are again “too big to fail”. Lagarde has said she is concerned that the total value of global debt has risen by 60% in the last 10 years to reach an all-time high of £139tn. As central banks in more advanced economies raised interest rates, attracting investors back to them, she said, developing countries were suffering. “That process could become even more challenging if it were to accelerate suddenly. It could lead to market corrections, sharp exchange rate movements, and further weakening of capital flows.”

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I think perhaps it’s that 1.5ºC one?!

• US Inflation Is The World’s Most Important Economic Variable (CNBC)

U.S. inflation is the world’s most important economic variable. That proposition is explained by its corollary: Rising inflation is the only problem the U.S. Federal Reserve cannot solve by increasing its money supply. The Fed can deal with structural problems in credit markets by means of enhanced supervision, regulatory provisions and, all else failing, by open-ended lending in cases of systemic threats to the financial system’s stability. But none of those measures are applicable to situations of accelerating inflation and a deteriorating outlook for the value of fixed-income assets. That is a problem the Fed must address with sustained liquidity withdrawals, increasing credit costs and the ensuing growth recession of the U.S. economy.

[..] U.S. inflation has reached a point in an accelerating economy where the Fed needs to step in with a prompt and credible action to anchor inflation expectations. Markets are signaling that such measures are long overdue. The Fed is now well beyond the stage where it could think of fine tuning the economic activity in an environment of stable costs and prices. The U.S. economy is moving along at twice the rate of its noninflationary growth potential. That is unsustainable. As in the past, the restoration of American price stability will lead to a growth recession of unknown amplitude and duration.

The global reach of the dollar, and of the American financial system, are direct and powerful channels through which the Fed’s rising interest rates will affect demand, output and employment in the rest of the world. Those who think that they can avoid the impact of U.S. monetary policies should think again. The dollar remains an irreplaceable linchpin to the international monetary system. And that’s the way it will be for the foreseeable future. There is simply no viable alternative to the dollar’s global role as a unit of account, a means of payment, a transactions currency and a store of value.

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The name is Bonds. Sovereign bonds.

• Ron Paul: US Barreling Towards A Stock Market Plunge Of At Least 50% (CNBC)

Ron Paul believes the bond trading pits are giving investors a dire message about the state of the nation’s economy. According to the former Republican Congressman from Texas, the recent jump in Treasury bond yields suggest the U.S. is barreling towards a potential recession and market meltdown at a faster and faster pace. And, he sees no way to prevent it. “We’re getting awfully close. I’d be surprised if you don’t have everybody agreeing with what I’m saying next year some time,” he said last Thursday on CNBC’s “Futures Now.”

His remarks came as the benchmark 10-Year Treasury yield, which moves inversely to its price, rallied to seven year highs, intensifying fears over rising inflation. It may be beneficial for personal savings accounts, but it could deliver irrevocable damage to those in adjustable mortgages, or for auto buyers looking to finance a new vehicle. “It can be pretty well validated by looking at monetary history that when you inflate the currency, distort interest rates and live beyond your means and spend too much, there has to be an adjustment,” he said. “We have the biggest bubble in the history of mankind.”

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The world’s fastest growing economy for years now needs stimulus.

• China Stocks Return From Holiday, Tumble 3% As PBOC Eases Bank Rates (MW)

Chinese stocks led weaker action across Asia markets on Monday, as traders returned to work after a weeklong holiday, brushing aside the latest rate cut by the People’s Bank of China. Chinese stocks returned from the Golden Week holiday with opening declines of 2% after last week’s wide selling in Asia and a U.S.-listed benchmark of mainland companies falling nearly 5%. The major indexes in both Shanghai and Shenzhen were last down around 3%. On Sunday, the PBOC made a one percentage-point cut in banks’ reserve-requirement ratios. The central bank was widely expected to cut the metric again before year-end amid ongoing stimulus efforts.

But Monday was expected to be an up-and-down day as investors try and price in not just what’s happened so far this month but also what continues to lie ahead on the trade front. “This monetary policy tweak is the fourth in 2018 and despite the weakening Yaun and the Feds embarking on a more aggressive rate hike tangent than expected, suggests the Pboc are putting their greatest energies behind stimulating the flagging economy as opposed to the U.S.-China trade wars or Fed policy for that matter,” said Stephen Innes, head of trading APAC, at OANDA. A survey of China’s service sector came in mixed, with the sector expanding at a faster pace in September, but a subindex of employment abruptly contracted, falling to its lowest level since March 2016.

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Declassify!

• FBI’s Smoking Gun: Redactions (Solomon)

To declassify or not to declassify? That is the question, when it comes to the FBI’s original evidence in the Russia collusion case. The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI have tried to thwart President Trump on releasing the evidence, suggesting it will harm national security, make allies less willing to cooperate, or even leave him vulnerable to accusations that he is trying to obstruct the end of the Russia probe. Before you judge the DOJ’s and FBI’s arguments — which are similar to those offered to stop the release of information in other major episodes of American history, from the Bay of Pigs to 9/11 — consider Footnote 43 on Page 57 of Chapter 3 of the House Intelligence Committee’s report earlier this year on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Until this past week, the footnote really had garnered no public intrigue, in part because the U.S. intelligence community blacked out the vast majority of its verbiage in the name of national security before the report was made public. From the heavy redactions, all one could tell is that FBI general counsel James Baker met with an unnamed person who provided some information in September 2016 about Russia, email hacking and a possible link to the Trump campaign. Not a reporter or policymaker would have batted an eyelash over such a revelation. Then, last Wednesday, I broke the story that Baker admitted to Congress in an unclassified setting — repeat, in an unclassified setting — that he had met with a top lawyer at the firm representing the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and received allegations from that lawyer about Russia, Trump and possible hacking.

It was the same DNC, along with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, that funded the unverified, salacious dossier by a British intel operative, Christopher Steele, that became a central piece of evidence used to justify the FBI surveillance of the Trump campaign in the final days of the election And it was the same law firm that made the payments for the dossier research so those could be disguised in campaign spending reports to avoid the disclosure of the actual beneficiaries of the research, which were Clinton and the DNC. And it was, in turns out, the same meeting that was so heavily censored by the intel agencies from Footnote 43 in the House report — treated, in other words, as some big national security secret.

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He might well be right.

• Italy’s Di Maio Predicts ‘Political Earthquake’ For European Union (RT)

The bloc may expect a “political earthquake” after the 2019 European Parliament election, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio warned. Di Maio said he believes that what happened in Italy after the general election in March 4, when the popular vote brought an unlikely coalition of two anti-establishment parties to power, will happen in the whole Europe. The pro-EU centrist parties shrank significantly as a result of the latest Italian parliamentary elections. With the plebiscite that is scheduled for May next year “there will be a political earthquake at the European level,” Di Maio, who is also the Minister of Economic Development and the head of the Five Star Movement (M5S), stated. “All the rules will change,” the Italian high-ranking politician promised.

The Italian government and the EU authorities are at loggerheads over Rome’s targeted budget deficit at 2.4 percent of the GDP that exceeds the limits set by the EU. Rome believes that the forthcoming elections would favor the opponents of austerity. “The Europe of bankers, founded on mass immigration and economic insecurity, keeps on threatening and insulting Italians and their government? Relax, in six months 500 million voters will fire them. We keep going,” Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said.

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“Rome fears that Germany might eventually attempt to send back to Italy as many as 40,000 people..”

• Salvini Resists Germany’s Plans To Send Migrants Back To Italy (RT)

Rome has still not reached an agreement with Berlin on the repatriation of asylum seekers who had first registered in Italy, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said, vowing to close airports to German flights transferring refugees. “If someone in Berlin or Brussels thinks of dumping dozens of migrants in Italy via unauthorized charter flights, they should know that there is not and there will be no airport available,” Salvini said in a statement, adding that Italy will “close the airports” just as it earlier closed its ports to NGO vessels carrying migrants rescued in the Mediterranean. His sharp statement comes in response to the rumors first circulated by the Italian La Repubblica daily that Germany plans to speed up repatriation procedures ahead of the regional elections in the state of Bavaria, the home state of the Interior Minister Horst Seehofer.

The first charter flight carrying asylum seekers from Germany to Italy is reportedly scheduled for Tuesday, October 9, the media reported. Other media reports set the date of the flight on Thursday, October 11. Germany’s refugee and migration agency, the BAMF, allegedly already sent “dozens of letters” to the would-be repatriates informing them about the planned transfers to Italy, according to La Repubblica. Earlier, the German dpa news agency also said that such a flight is scheduled for “the coming days.” This information, however, was neither confirmed nor denied by the German authorities. Rome fears that Germany might eventually attempt to send back to Italy as many as 40,000 people, who arrived there from the southern European country, the Italian media report.

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“The country’s death rate had risen by about 5.6% in the decade running up to the first bailout in 2010 but then jumped by 17.6% in the six years that followed.”

• Austerity Is The Wrong Prescription For The World’s Wellbeing (G.)

Greece, which endured a slump longer and deeper than the Great Depression in the US, was forced by the so-called troika of the IMF, the EU and the ECB to cut health expenditure at a time when other European countries were raising theirs. Under Greece’s bailout, health spending fell from 9.8% of GDP in 2008 to 8.1% in 2014, a time when national output was contracting rapidly. The country’s death rate had risen by about 5.6% in the decade running up to the first bailout in 2010 but then jumped by 17.6% in the six years that followed. The rate rose three times faster than the rate in Western Europe overall.

[..] The troika’s austerity programme helped French and German banks avoid losses on their loans but at the expense of a rising Greek death rate. That has resulted in 50% less public hospital funding in 2015 than 2009, hospitals being left without basic supplies, the long-term unemployed stripped of their health insurance and those on low pay finding drugs more expensive because of a 20% cut in the minimum wage. The number of individuals with unmet healthcare needs has nearly doubled since 2010, with a considerable fraction reporting cost as the main reason for not receiving the recommended healthcare services.

Greece is not short of healthcare expertise. It has the second highest number of doctors per 1,000 people in the EU but that medical workforce has been forced to watch impotently as the health system has descended into chaos and people have died when they could have been saved. For the past eight years, Greece has been used in a laboratory experiment to test out a theory. The evidence from the report in the Lancet could hardly be clearer. Austerity kills.

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Not a chance, but kudos for trying.

• Greece ‘to Claim €280 Billion’ in War Reparations from Germany (GR)

Greece is about to launch a campaign to claim €280 billion ($323 billion) in war reparations from Germany, reports Der Spiegel. The German magazine notes that as long as Greece was dependent on EU support, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had avoided raising the issue. But now, after the end of the third bailout program, Athens is ready to take initiatives to claim the money, it says. The issue is resurfacing a few days before the official visit of Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to Athens where he will meet the President of the Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos and Tsipras. Der Spiegel says it is no coincidence that the two highest ranking Greek politicians have both raised the issue in the last few days.

It marks the beginning of a long campaign, which, according to the German magazine, will start in November. The Greek Parliament will endorse an audit report ready since August 2016, according to which Greece is entitled to €269.5 billion of repairs from the Second World War. In addition, Greece demands the repayment of a €10.3 billion occupation loan. The report remained under wraps throughout the last two years, but Tsipras seems ready to bring it back to the surface and start a campaign for war reparations, says Der Spiegel. In the second phase, Greece intends to present its arguments at world organizations such as the European Parliament, the European Council, and the UN.

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8,700 plaintiffs.

• ‘The World Is Against Them’: New Era Of Cancer Lawsuits Threaten Monsanto (G.)

[Dewayne Johnson’s] award of $289m, which included $250m in punitive damages, is a game-changer for the 46-year-old, who will leave behind a wife and three children. But Monsanto is fighting to keep it from him. “It’s a big red flag for the company,” said Jean M Eggen, professor emerita at Widener University Delaware Law School: “It brings more people out who might not otherwise sue.” Roughly 8,700 plaintiffs have made similar cases in state courts across the country, alleging that exposure to glyphosate-based herbicides led to various types of cancer. The impact could be huge if Monsanto continues to fight and lose in jury trials, and an accumulation of wins could force the company to consider settling with plaintiffs. “It could become very costly,” said Eggen, comparing the fight to the tobacco industry, which aggressively fought cases in court but eventually decided settlements were the best option. “It’s really a business decision.”

Monsanto may ultimately consider changing the labels to warn consumers about cancer risks and work to settle with consumers who have had high exposures, said Lars Noah, University of Florida law professor: “It’s sort of a wake-up call that their strategy was unrealistic.” Of the thousands of cases, there are more than 10 trials on track to start in 2019 and 2020, with court battles ramping up in California, Montana, Delaware, Kansas City and St Louis (where Monsanto is headquartered). Farmers, gardeners, government employees, landscapers and a wide range of others have alleged that Monsanto’s products sickened them or killed their loved ones. “This is a tremendous number of trials for one year and will allow plaintiffs to get critical evidence in front of juries – evidence not seen before,” said the attorney Aimee Wagstaff.

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Debt Rattle September 24 2018

Sep 242018
 
 September 24, 2018  Posted by at 9:31 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  3 Responses »


M. C. Escher Circle limit III 1959

 

• BIS Warns Zombies Are Crippling Global Growth (ZH)
• ‘Key Allies’ Want FBI Docs Blocked: Trump (AAP)
• White House Denies Trump Executive Order On Facebook, Google, Twitter (Ind.)
• Christine Blasey Ford Reaches Deal to Testify at Kavanaugh Hearing (NYT)
• OPEC Predicts Massive Rise In Oil Production Over Next Five Years (G.)
• Leading Tory Eurosceptics Unveil Rival Brexit Plans (Ind.)
• Labour’s New Brexit Referendum Won’t Offer Option To Remain (Ind.)
• How Michael Moore Lost His Audience (Variety)
• Panama Revokes Registration Of Last Migrant Rescue Ship In Central Med (R.)
• America’s Era Of Climate Mass Migration Is Here (G.)
• Air Pollution Rots Our Brains. Is That Why We Don’t Do Anything About It? (G.)

 

 

The benefits of easy money.

• BIS Warns Zombies Are Crippling Global Growth (ZH)

In the latest quarterly review from the Bank of International Settlements, the Basel-based organization that oversees the world’s central banks warned that decades of falling interest rates have led to a sharp increase in the number of “zombie” firms, rising to an all time high since the 1980s, threatening economic growth and preventing interest rates from rising. Zombie firms are defined as companies that are at least 10 years old, yet are unable to cover their debt service costs from profits, in other words the Interest Coverage Ratio (ICR) is less than 1x for at least 3 consecutive quarters. These types of companies, which first gained attention in Japan decades ago and have since gained prevalence in Europe and, increasingly, the United States.

According to a second definition, a requirement for a “zombie” is to have comparatively low expected future growth potential. Specifically, zombies are required to have a ratio of their assets’ market value to their replacement cost (Tobin’s q) that is below the median within their sector in any given year. According to authors Ryan Banerjee and Boris Hofmann, zombie firms that fall under the two definitions are very similar with respect to their current profitability, but qualitatively different in their profitability prospects, which may be a function of how central banks have “broken” the market. Graph 1 below shows that, for non-zombie firms, the median ICR is over four times earnings under both definitions. As the majority of zombie firms make losses, the median ICRs are below minus 7 under the broad measure and around minus 5 under the narrow one, so this is hardly a surprise.

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And that’s it?

• ‘Key Allies’ Want FBI Docs Blocked: Trump (AAP)

US President Donald Trump says “key allies” have asked him not to release classified FBI documents related to the probe into Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election, raising speculation the Australian government could be exposed. Former Australian high commissioner to the UK Alexander Downer has become a reluctant player in the controversy for his London drinks session with former Trump foreign relations aide George Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos, sentenced to 14 days’ jail for lying to the FBI, has repeatedly targeted Downer in Twitter tirades in recent days, claiming the former Australian foreign affairs minister recorded their meeting at the Kensington Wine Rooms in May, 2016, and was acting as a spy. Downer has strongly rejected this.

“Alexander Downer will go down in history as a stooge for (Hillary) Clinton who single-handedly caused irreparable damage between the USA-Australia,” Papadopoulos wrote on Twitter on Friday. “Congrats, buddy.” On Monday Trump ordered documents related to the FBI’s Russian investigation, including text messages from FBI figures Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, be declassified and released publicly. However, on Friday the president pulled back. “I met with the DOJ concerning the declassification of various UNREDACTED documents,” Trump announced on Twitter. “They agreed to release them but stated that so doing may have a perceived negative impact on the Russia probe. “Also, key Allies’ called to ask not to release.”

[..] “After reports are finally out that the British and Australian governments were actively spying and trying to sabotage the Trump campaign, those two governments called the president to ask for him not to declassify any FISA documents,” Papadopoulos wrote on Twitter. “Strange.”

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Taking another road. If 3/4 of Americans say Big Tech is politically biased, can’t very well not investigate.

• White House Denies Trump Executive Order On Facebook, Google, Twitter (Ind.)

The White House sought to distance itself Saturday from reports that President Donald Trump is considering an executive order that would subject tech giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter to federal investigations for alleged political bias. For weeks, top tech companies have been on edge, fearing that the Trump administration could seek to regulate the industry in response to the president’s tweets attacking social-media sites for silencing conservatives online. Their worst suspicions seemed to come true Friday night, with the emergence of a draft executive order that called for nearly every federal agency to study how companies like Facebook police their platforms and refer instances of “bias” to the Justice Department for further study.

But three White House aides soon insisted they didn’t write the draft order, didn’t know where it came from, and generally found it to be unworkable policy anyway. One senior White House official confirmed the document had been floating around the White House but had not gone through the formal process, which is controlled by the staff secretary. Asked about the document, Lindsay Walters, the deputy White House press secretary, said of the digital-age ‘whodunit’ on Saturday: “Although the White House is concerned about the conduct of online platforms and their impact on society, this document is not the result of an official White House policymaking process.”

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This dominates the news. Sex sells. But what a convoluted story it has become.

• Christine Blasey Ford Reaches Deal to Testify at Kavanaugh Hearing (NYT)

Senators looking to confirm or refute the allegations will face a nearly impossible task. Complicating matters, Dr. Blasey has said she does not recall the specific date or location of the house where the alleged incident occurred, though she believes it was during the summer of 1982. Judge Kavanaugh’s prospects were further clouded on Sunday when The New Yorker reported on a new allegation of sexual impropriety: A woman who went to Yale with Judge Kavanaugh said that, during a drunken dormitory party their freshman year, he exposed himself to her, thrust his penis into her face and caused her to touch it without her consent.

In a statement, Judge Kavanaugh denied the allegation from the woman, Deborah Ramirez, and called it “a smear, plain and simple.” The New Yorker did not confirm with other eyewitnesses that Judge Kavanaugh was at the party. The Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate her story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge. Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.

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Hmmm. Methinks is rates rise, US shale is in deep doodoo.

• OPEC Predicts Massive Rise In Oil Production Over Next Five Years (G.)

World oil production will soar to new records over the next five years, as a dramatic expansion in demand from airlines offsets the arrival of electric cars, according to a report from Opec. In a forecast that will dismay environmentalists – and which questions the theory that oil company reserves will become “stranded assets” – Opec’s annual report significantly revised production estimates upwards. Most of the production increase will come from countries outside Opec, led by explosive growth from frackers in the United States, with China and India leading the increase in demand.

Opec expects global oil demand to reach nearly 112m barrels per day by 2040, driven by transportation and petrochemicals. That is up from almost 100m today and higher than last year’s projection. Coal will continue to be be burned in record amounts, despite concerns about its impact on climate change. Opec estimates that coal usage in the OECD countries will plummet by a third by 2040, but it will increase by 20% in developing countries to reach five times the volumes burned in the west. The world’s airlines will be the single fastest growing user of oil, increasing consumption by 2.2% a year on average, to 2040.

However, the largest absolute growth is expected to come from road transport. The number of vehicles on roads across the world are expected to leap from 1.1bn now to around 2.4bn in 2040. In its central scenario, Opec expects just 320m of those to be electric, a number that climbs to 720m in a scenario where battery-powered cars take off rapidly. It said that if the higher prediction for electric cars came to pass, oil demand would only slip slightly to 109m bpd rather than 111.7m bpd by 2040, the report said.

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Who cares about deadlines?

• Leading Tory Eurosceptics Unveil Rival Brexit Plans (Ind.)

Leading Tory Eurosceptics are to spell out rival Brexit plans that directly contradict Theresa May’s proposals, setting the scene for intense Tory infighting just weeks before a deal is meant to be agreed with the EU. The rebel plans are likely to demand looser future relations with Brussels and are to be laid out by ex-cabinet minister David Davis and lead eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg, but are also said to enjoy support inside the cabinet. In a sign of the impending hostilities, Brexit secretary Dominic Raab launched a pre-emptive attack on the approach taken by the Eurosceptics on Sunday, saying the kind of free trade deal they outline is “off the table”.

Ms May will meet her top team during the morning to discuss the fallout of last week’s summit in Salzburg where EU leaders torpedoed her “Chequers” proposals, forcing the prime minister to accuse them of disrespecting the UK. Monday’s cabinet meeting could also see a new clash between senior ministers over Britain’s future immigration policy and whether EU citizens should be afforded any kind of special status.

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But that’s what his own people want.

• Labour’s New Brexit Referendum Won’t Offer Option To Remain (Ind.)

Remaining in the EU would not be on the ballot paper in a new Brexit referendum under Labour, John McDonnell has said. The shadow chancellor said Labour would “go for a people’s vote” on leaving the EU if it cannot push the government into calling a general election but any vote would only be on the terms of the deal. Rows over Brexit have dominated the start of Labour’s annual conference where more than 100 constituency parties submitted motions demanding a second referendum and thousands of people joined a march demanding a people’s vote on the final deal.

On Sunday, Jeremy Corbyn suggested Labour would shift its Brexit stance towards a vote on the final deal if party members backed it, but insisted that an election was a better way to solve the crisis. Unite boss Len McCluskey, a close ally of Mr Corbyn, went further, saying Labour could back a referendum on Theresa May’s deal or no-deal. However he said offering voters the chance to remain in the EU was “wrong”. Asked to guarantee that Labour would allow staying in the EU on the ballot paper, Mr McDonnell told the Today programme: “My view at the moment is that parliament will decide what will be on the ballot paper. “We’ll be arguing that it should be a vote on the deal itself, and then enable us to go back and do the negotiations.”

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He simply lost it, in more than one sense.

• How Michael Moore Lost His Audience (Variety)

The films of Michael Moore have been faltering at the box office for several years now. This weekend, though, the lackluster performance of his latest truth-to-power opus, “Fahrenheit 11/9,” was notably dramatic, if not downright stark. The movie is a sequel, of sorts, to “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Moore’s scathing riff on the administration of George W. Bush. That movie, when it was released in 2004, made $119 million, becoming the highest-grossing documentary of all time. It was a special moment, of course. America was still grappling with the shock of 9/11, and Moore’s film became a lightning rod — a catharsis for liberals (or some of them, anyway) and a symbol, for conservatives, of everything that was wrong with liberalism. But one thing, perhaps, that everyone could agree on is that in “Fahrenheit 9/11,” Michael Moore, for good or ill, had become instrumental in defining the national dialogue.

“Fahrenheit 11/9,” his scathing riff on the administration of Donald J. Trump, will be lucky to gross one-tenth of what “Fahrenheit 9/11” did. That’s more than just a staggering comedown. It symbolizes a couple of things at once: how different the two eras are, but also how Michael Moore’s audience — there’s no other way to put it — has gradually drifted away. It symbolizes that Moore is no longer defining the dialogue. A Trump-era conservative would probably say, “It’s about time! Michael Moore has lied so much that it’s all finally caught up with him.” A Trump-era liberal would probably say, “I still agree with him, but I’ve seen enough Michael Moore movies. I know his message already.”

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There must be a country with a flag to share.

• Panama Revokes Registration Of Last Migrant Rescue Ship In Central Med (R.)

The Panama Maritime Authority has revoked the registration of search and rescue ship Aquarius 2 in a move that means there will be no charity rescue ships off the Libyan coast in the near future unless the vessel can find a new flag to sail under. Aquarius 2, the one remaining charity rescue vessel still operating in the Central Mediterranean area, is currently at sea with 58 survivors on board. The decision by the Panama Authority (PMA) means that once the ship comes into port it will be deflagged and will not be allowed to operate again unless it can find a new flag.

SOS Mediterranee, one of the charities that operates the Aquarius, said in a statement it was reeling from news of the revocation, which it said followed pressure from the Italian government. “On Saturday … the Aquarius team was shocked to learn of an official communication from the Panamanian authorities stating that the Italian authorities had urged the PMA to take ‘immediate action’ against the Aquarius,” it said. Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said the Italian government had applied no pressure on Panama.

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Interesting for sure, but perhaps a bit premature.

• America’s Era Of Climate Mass Migration Is Here (G.)

The population shift gathering pace is so sprawling that it may rival anything in US history. “Including all climate impacts it isn’t too far-fetched to imagine something twice as large as the Dustbowl,” said Jesse Keenan, a climate adaptation expert at Harvard University, referencing the 1930s upheaval in which 2.5 million people moved from the dusty, drought-ridden plains to California. This enormous migration will probably take place over a longer period than the Dustbowl but its implications are both profound and opaque. It will plunge the US into an utterly alien reality. “It is very difficult to model human behaviour under such extreme and historically unprecedented circumstances,” Keenan admits.

The closest analogue could be the Great Migration – a period spanning a large chunk of the 20th century when about 6 million black people departed the Jim Crow south for cities in the north, midwest and west. By the end of this century, sea level rise alone could displace 13 million people, according to one study, including 6 million in Florida. States including Louisiana, California, New York and New Jersey will also have to grapple with hordes of residents seeking dry ground. “There’s not a state unaffected by this,” said demographer Mat Hauer, lead author of the research, which is predicated on a severe 6ft sea level increase.

There are established migration preferences for some places – south Florida to Georgia, New York to Colorado – but in many cases people would uproot to the closest inland city, if they have the means. “The Great Migration was out of the south into the industrialized north, whereas this is from every coastal place in the US to every other place in the US,” said Hauer. “Not everyone can afford to move, so we could end up with trapped populations that would be in a downward spiral. I have a hard time imagining what that future would be like.”

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Like the angle.

• Air Pollution Rots Our Brains. Is That Why We Don’t Do Anything About It? (G.)

Researchers from Beijing University and Yale School of Health published research last month showing that people who live in major cities – which is, today, most of us – are not only suffering from increases in respiratory illnesses and other chronic conditions due to air pollution, but are losing our cognitive functions. The study showed that high pollution levels lead to significant drops in test scores in language and arithmetic, with the impact on some participants equivalent to losing several years of education. Other studies have shown that high air pollution is linked to premature birth, low birth weight, mental illness in children and dementia in the elderly.

We’re only just beginning to understand how the air we breathe affects not just our physical environment, but our mental capacity as well. And the air we breathe is changing in the long term, as well as the short. Rising carbon dioxide levels – the main driver of climate change – aren’t just a hazard to the earth and other living creatures, they’re also affecting our thinking. At higher levels, CO2 clouds the mind: it makes us slower and less likely to develop new ideas, it degrades our ability to take in new information, change our minds, or formulate complex thoughts.

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Debt Rattle July 30 2018

Jul 302018
 
 July 30, 2018  Posted by at 9:13 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  1 Response »


Salvador Dali Meditative rose 1958

 

• Julian Assange’s Fate Is Being Decided At The Moment (ZH)
• The Dollar Will Continue To Surge, Crush Emerging Markets Stocks (F.)
• China’s Yuan Hits 13-Month Low On Weaker Fixing And Depreciation Bets (R.)
• The Chinese Economy Is Held Together By Capital Controls (Peters)
• Beijing To Shut 1,000 Manufacturing Firms By 2020 (R.)
• Hedge Fund Manager Steve Eisman Bets Against Tesla (MW)
• This Is What A No-Deal Brexit Actually Looks Like (Dunt)
• As US Pushes For Mideast Peace, Saudi King Reassures Allies (R.)
• Support For Macron & Merkel’s Coalitions Plunges To Record New Lows (RT)
• IMF Reiterates Call For Greece To Meet Pledges (K.)
• Number Of Migrants Prevented By Turkey To Reach Europe Increases 60% (An.)
• Worms Frozen In Permafrost For Up To 42,000 Years Come Back To Life (ST)
• Greece Fire Death Toll At 91, 25 Remain Missing (K.)

 

 

Ecuador refusing to meet Assange’s lawyers is not a good sign.

• Julian Assange’s Fate Is Being Decided At The Moment (ZH)

Ecuador is holding high level discussions with Britain over the fate of Julian Assange, who has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 after being granted political asylum, according to comments made by President Lenin Moreno to Spain’s El Pais daily newspaper. “The issue of Mr. Assange is being treated with the British government and I understand that we have already established contact with Mr. Assange’s lawyers so we can find a way out.” Not true, says Assange’s Attorney Carlos Poveda in a Sunday LaJournada article retweeted by the official WikiLeaks Twitter account. “The defense of Julian Assange is concerned about the contradictions of the government of Ecuador, which claims to be seeking a solution to the asylum of the founder of Wikileaks through dialogue, with all parties, but refuses to meet with their lawyers, said Carlos Poveda, one of the activist’s lawyers.” -LaJournada (translated)

“We have followed very closely the statements of President Lenin Moreno both in the United Kingdom and Spain,” said Poveda. “And I must warn that even the legal team that presides (the former judge of the Spanish Supreme Court) Baltasar Garzón requested a hearing to meet in London or Madrid, but they told him that Moreno’s schedule was full during the whole tour.” In other words – Moreno is talking out of both sides of his mouth while feigning a new found concern for Assange’s fate (after referring to the WikiLeaks founder as a “hacker”, “an inherited problem” and a “stone in the shoe”). “We know how (Moreno) addresses the issue , said Poveda, who said that the president’s statements leave us confused. In relation to the recent declarations of the Ecuadorian agent chief executive, of which his government is in “permanent” communication with London and with the legal team of Assange, Poveda maintained that that does not happen.” -LaJournada (translated)

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It’s much worse for Brazil and Turkey than it is for China.

• The Dollar Will Continue To Surge, Crush Emerging Markets Stocks (F.)

A robust greenback is excellent for the U.S. economy because it attracts capital into the economy. More capital will result in yet more growth. But at the same time, the strong dollar is a nightmare for emerging markets because investors take their capital away and send it to the U.S. Emerging markets include lesser developed economies such as China, Russia, Brazil, and India. The result of this change in the value of the dollar has been falling values for stocks in emerging markets. The Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO), which tracks a basket of emerging markets stocks, has lost more than 6% this year while the S&P 500 gained more than 5%, according to data from Yahoo Finance. The figures do not include dividends.

Unfortunately, for those invested in emerging markets the rally of the greenback is probably not over yet. Friday morning we learned that U.S. growth in the second quarter hit 4.1%, according to the government’s first estimate. Meanwhile, growth in the single currency area of Europe, the so-called eurozone, has limped along at less than 1% for the last decade. The latest reading was a paltry 0.4%, according to data from Tradingeconomics.com that you can see here. Japan’s economy, the third largest in the world, is contracting, according to the latest reading. That differential in growth, between the U.S. and other developed economies, should be enough to keep cash flowing into the U.S. and away from other economies.

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Mixed blessings. A weaker yuan has benefits, too.

• China’s Yuan Hits 13-Month Low On Weaker Fixing And Depreciation Bets (R.)

China’s yuan fell to a fresh 13-month low against the dollar on Monday, weighed by a much weaker central bank fixing and expectations the Chinese currency has further to fall as U.S. trade tensions worsen. In addition to developments in the global trade environment, investors are focusing on the amount of liquidity policy makers have injected into the financial system. “Together with announcements by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) that will ease credit conditions, and a more gradual shift in the monetary stance over the last two months, this represents a significant change towards more accommodative policy,” analysts at Moody’s said in a note.

Prior to market opening, the PBOC lowered the midpoint rate to 6.8131 per dollar, largely matching market forecasts, 189 pips or 0.28 percent weaker than the previous fix of 6.7942 last Friday. In the spot market, the onshore yuan opened at 6.8159 per dollar and eased to a low of 6.8401 before changing hands at 6.8353 at midday, 213 pips weaker than the previous late session close and 0.33 percent softer than the midpoint. The onshore spot yuan hit its lowest intraday level since June 27, 2017. The offshore yuan was trading 0.10 percent weaker than its onshore counterpart at 6.8422 per dollar as of midday.

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“The Chinese are dying to get their money out.”

• The Chinese Economy Is Held Together By Capital Controls (Peters)

“Russia at its very worst is a moderate threat to the US,” said the investor. “They have modest regional ambitions. They’re mischievous. But plenty of countries don’t do what we want.” If they wanted to nuke us, they would’ve during the Cold War. “China is the real strategic threat. They’ve coopted much of the US political and financial system,” he said. “Wall Street makes a ton of money from China.” No one that matters makes money from Russia. “It’s so telling that everyone is in hysterics over Russia. It’s a distraction that makes you wonder if the Chinese aren’t enabling or pushing the narrative.”

“The best way to bring Beijing to its knees is by running a tight monetary policy in the US,” continued the same investor. “China has the world’s most overleveraged, fragile financial system.” In 2008, China’s total debt-to-GDP was 140%. It is now roughly 300%, while GDP is slowing. “The economy is held together by capital controls. If those fail, the whole system fails.” The capital flight in 2015/16 cost the government $1trln in reserves, and that was with ultra-dove Yellen in charge. Imagine what would have happened with Volcker at the helm. “The Chinese are dying to get their money out.”

“Engineering a decade of rolling Chinese financial crises would be the most effective foreign policy the US could run,” continued the same investor. Forget about the South China Sea, don’t bother with more aircraft carriers, just let Beijing try to cope with their financial system. “And we’re 80% of the way there – we instigated a trade war, implemented a massive fiscal stimulus, which created the room to raise interest rates,” he said. “The combined policy mix makes capital want to leave at the same time it makes the dollar more attractive and effectively shuts down new investment inflows to China.”

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That’s just the city itself.

• Beijing To Shut 1,000 Manufacturing Firms By 2020 (R.)

China’s capital Beijing will shut around 1,000 manufacturing firms by 2020 as part of a program aimed at curbing smog and boosting income in neighboring regions, state media said on Monday. Beijing will focus on dynamic, high-tech industries and withdraw from “ordinary” manufacturing, the Communist Party paper People’s Daily reported, citing a recent policy document published by the Beijing municipal government. The city has already rejected registration applications from 19,500 firms, and shut down or relocated 2,465 “ordinary” manufacturers, the paper said.

China launched a plan to improve coordination in the smog-prone Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in 2014 amid concerns that competition between the three jurisdictions was wasting resources and creating overcapacity and pollution. It plans to strip Beijing of manufacturing and heavy industry, as well as relocating universities and some government departments into Hebei’s new economic zone of Xiongan. The government also wants to create an integrated transport network and unify standards in areas such as welfare and education to make Hebei, known for its heavy industry, more attractive for investors. An official with Hebei province earlier this year said the plan has helped drive average incomes in Hebei up 41 percent since 2013, although they are still only half the level in Beijing.

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‘..being smart’s not enough you gotta execute and he’s got execution problems.’

• Hedge Fund Manager Steve Eisman Bets Against Tesla (MW)

‘Look, Elon Musk is a very, very smart man but there are a lot of smart people in this world, and being smart’s not enough you gotta execute and he’s got execution problems.’ That is the view of Steve Eisman, the hedge-fund manager and investor who garnered prominence on Wall Street for his bets against dicey mortgage products engineered by some of the world’s biggest banks. Now Eisman is betting against Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc. because, as he put it during a Friday interview on Bloomberg TV, he doesn’t see value in the company and doesn’t believe Tesla is doing enough in autonomous driving. “I don’t see the value in Tesla,” Eisman said. “We’re short Tesla,” meaning he is betting that the price of the company’s shares will fall over time.

Eisman said Tesla’s quarterly results could be pivotal for the electric-car manufacturer whose polarizing founder has been ensnared in a series of controversies in recent weeks and has been described by critics as a distraction for Tesla. [..] For his part, Eisman finds more appeal in betting on General Motors, which he says would benefit if autonomous driving takes off and has emerged as a well-run institution after the 2007-09 financial crisis. “The one stock in my portfolio which I say hasn’t worked yet but has the potential for a big home run is General Motors.” Eisman garnered fame after his story of subprime mortgage glory was told in Michael Lewis’s “The Big Short,” where he wagered correctly that arcane mortgage securities would eventually rock the financial system to its very core.

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Sometimes one thinks they do it on purpose.

• This Is What A No-Deal Brexit Actually Looks Like (Dunt)

March 30th 2019 becomes Year Zero. Overnight, British meat products cannot be imported into the EU. To bring these types of goods in, they have to come from a country with an approved national body whose facilities have been certified by the EU. But there has been no deal, so there’s no approval. This sounds insane. After all, British food was OK to enter Europe with minimal checks on March 29th, so why not on March 30? Nothing has changed. The reason is that food is potentially very dangerous, so we have strict systems in place for it. Imagine that right now someone is eating a burger made from the meat of a cow with a neurodegenerative disease, like BSE. This is what happened in Britain in the late-80s and led to the deaths of 177 people.

Tomorrow’s tabloid front pages will ask certain very important questions. Where did the meat come from? Was it produced domestically or imported? Who was responsible for its production, transport and storage? The people responsible will be hauled in front of cameras and Commons select committees. Ministers will have to give statements to parliament. The press will demand that heads roll. The BSE outbreak almost brought down the government. That’s how severe these threats are. And there are plenty more around, including foot and mouth, avian flu, and African swine fever, plus those that do not exist yet. This is why the certification system for food coming into Europe is so stringent and detailed.

After Brexit, we will fall out of the eco-system of EU rules, agencies and courts and become an external country. That means certification requirements will apply to us too. Certificates are approval stamps, designed per product and country, documenting the fact that it meets the various standards for human health and animal welfare. Say a container full of pork loins is sent from Leeds to Amsterdam after Brexit day. It will need to be signed off by a vet to say that the meat was slaughtered, stored, quality assured, sealed and despatched in a certain manner, with appropriate documentation proving compliance. This will be a cold splash of water to the face for Britain.

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A preposterous headline of course. But interesting that the king whistles MBS back.

• As US Pushes For Mideast Peace, Saudi King Reassures Allies (R.)

Saudi Arabia has reassured Arab allies it will not endorse any Middle East peace plan that fails to address Jerusalem’s status or refugees’ right of return, easing their concerns that the kingdom might back a nascent U.S. deal which aligns with Israel on key issues. King Salman’s private guarantees to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his public defense of long-standing Arab positions in recent months have helped reverse perceptions that Saudi Arabia’s stance was changing under his powerful young son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, diplomats and analysts said. This in turn has called into question whether Saudi Arabia, birthplace of Islam and site of its holiest shrines, can rally Arab support for a new push to end the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, with an eye to closing ranks against mutual enemy Iran.

“In Saudi Arabia, the king is the one who decides on this issue now, not the crown prince,” said a senior Arab diplomat in Riyadh. “The U.S. mistake was they thought one country could pressure the rest to give in, but it’s not about pressure. No Arab leader can concede on Jerusalem or Palestine.” Palestinian officials told Reuters in December that Prince Mohammed, known as MbS, had pressed Abbas to support the U.S. plan despite concerns it offered the Palestinians limited self-government inside disconnected patches of the occupied West Bank, with no right of return for refugees displaced by the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967. Such a plan would diverge from the Arab Peace Initiative drawn up by Saudi Arabia in 2002 in which Arab nations offered Israel normal ties in return for a statehood deal with the Palestinians and full Israeli withdrawal from territory captured in 1967.

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Shaky grounds.

• Support For Macron & Merkel’s Coalitions Plunges To Record New Lows (RT)

The people’s dissatisfaction with the leading EU governments appears to be rising, as fresh polls show a record decline in the ratings of French President Emmanuel Macron and of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalitions. Support for Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party, Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU), has gone down to its lowest level since 2006, an Emnid poll, published by Bild am Sonntag, has revealed. The CDU/CSU are currently polling at 29 percent, their lowest result in 12 years. Merkel’s party came out tops in the country’s federal election in September 2017 with 33 percent of the vote. Such a situation is worrying for CSU, which seems to be at risk of losing its absolute majority in Germanys’ largest state of Bavaria after the regional election in October.

The survey provided no explanation for the results, but Merkel’s coalition nearly fell apart in June over a rift caused by the migrant crisis. [..] Meanwhile, in France, Macron also “has beaten his own anti-record,” the Journal du Dimanche wrote, commenting on the results of the survey, carried out for the outlet by Ifop. Support for the French President has fallen from 41 to 37 percent in the period between July 18 and 27, the research revealed. It’s the worst ratings the 40-year-old has had since he became French president in May 2017, claiming 66.1% percent of the vote in a run-off against Marine Le Pen. Macron’s previous worst result was recoded in August 2016, when he was backed by 40 percent of the French population.

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This devolves into Beckett and Ionesco. Meaningless.

• IMF Reiterates Call For Greece To Meet Pledges (K.)

The IMF is due to publish its Article IV Report on the course of the Greek economy on Tuesday. This will include the much anticipated Debt Sustainability Analysis, which was carefully examined at a meeting last Friday, with the board confirming the medium-term sustainability of the Greek debt as well as the need for the government to remain committed to reforms. The IMF’s executive board spent about an hour pouring over the contents of the report and the reform course that Greece needs to pursue in the post-program period. Fund sources told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency on Friday that the Article IV Report’s timing is important – even if it is a routine process – as it comes a few days before the completion of the European Stability Mechanism’s program next month.

ANA-MPA added that the board acknowledged the achievement of significant results by Greece, but also stressed there should be no complacency and that it is necessary for the country to implement its pledges so that the sacrifices already made do not go to waste. Another issue addressed at the meeting was that of bad loans in Greece, with several IMF board members expressing doubts over the high targets set for the reduction of nonperforming exposures.

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But arrivals are also up vs last year.

• Number Of Migrants Prevented By Turkey To Reach Europe Increases 60% (An.)

The number of migrants held trying to reach Europe from Turkey using illegal routes has increased by 60 percent this year, according to data from the Coast Guard Command. A total of 14,470 migrants were held in the first seven months of this year, especially in the Aegean Sea, as well as in Turkey’s southern Mediterranean Sea and the northern Black Sea, the data revealed. This figure was 9,152 during the same period in 2017. According to the data, most migrants prefer to use the illegal routes in Aegean Sea to cross into Europe as a number of Greek islands are located close to Turkish coasts. A total of 13,336 irregular migrants used the Aegean Sea to cross into Greece this year, the data revealed.

Among the irregular migrants intercepted by Turkey so far this year, 1,640 were held in January, 1,363 in February, 1,849 in March, 2,534 in April, 3,398 in May, 1,925 in June, and 1761 in first 29 days of July. Coast Guard data shows 54 irregular migrants lost their lives this year while the figure was 20 during the same period in 2017. In March 2016, the EU and Turkey reached an agreement to stop irregular migration through the Aegean Sea, and improve the conditions of more than 3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey. Turkey hosts some 3.5 million Syrians – more than any other country in the world.

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Hope?!

• Worms Frozen In Permafrost For Up To 42,000 Years Come Back To Life (ST)

Nematodes moving and eating again for the first time since the Pleistocene age in major scientific breakthrough, say experts. The roundworms from two areas of Siberia came back to life in Petri dishes, says a new scientific study. ‘We have obtained the first data demonstrating the capability of multicellular organisms for longterm cryobiosis in permafrost deposits of the Arctic,’ states a report from Russian scientists from four institutions in collaboration with Princetown University. Some 300 prehistoric worms were analysed – and two ‘were shown to contain viable nematodes’. ‘After being defrosted, the nematodes showed signs of life,’ said a report today from Yakutia, the area where the worms were found.

‘They started moving and eating.’ One worm came from an ancient squirrel burrow in a permafrost wall of the Duvanny Yar outcrop in the lower reaches of the Kolyma River – close to the site of Pleistocene Park which is seeking to recreate the Arctic habitat of the extinct woolly mammoth, according to the scientific article published in Doklady Biological Sciences this week. This is around 32,000 years old. Another was found in permafrost near Alazeya River in 2015, and is around 41,700 years old. Currently the nematodes are the oldest living animals on the planet. They are both believed to be female.

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It has taken PM Tsipras a full week to visit the area today, only some 25km from his office.

• Greece Fire Death Toll At 91, 25 Remain Missing (K.)

Fire officials in Greece have raised the death toll from a wildfire that raged through a coastal area east of Athens to 91 and reported that 25 people are missing six days after blaze. Before the national fire service updated the official number of fatalities Sunday night, it had stood at 86. Greek officials previously had not provided a tally of the people reported missing. The fire sped flames through the village without warning on July 23. A database maintained by the Center for the Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels shows it as the deadliest wildfire in Europe since 1900. The vast majority of victims died in the fire itself, though a number drowned in the sea while fleeing the flames. Dozens of volunteer divers, some of them retired Navy Seals, kept searching the sea on Sunday looking for the bodies of more possible victims.

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