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Debt Rattle May 1 2026

May 012026
 
 May 1, 2026  Posted by at 9:05 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  25 Responses »


William-Adolphe Bouguereau Whisperings of Love 1889


• Defiant Mojtaba Khamenei: Gulf’s Future Will Be “Without US Presence” (ZH)
• Growing Division In Iran’s ‘Hardline Camp’ Emerges Over Halting All Talks With US (ZH)
• Secretary Scott Bessent Discusses “Operation Economic Fury” Against Iran (CTH)
• Trump: SCOTUS Voting Rights Act Decision a ‘Big Win’ (Salgado)
• Anthropic Wants a Reset. Trump Should Think Twice (Jeff Hunt)
• Dan Bongino Says He’s Scared of the FBI (CTH)
• Trump Notes Extended Conversation with Putin (CTH)
• DOJ Indicts Sinaloa Governor and Others in Sweeping Cartel Case (Anderson)
• U.S. Dept of Justice Indicts the Current Governor of Sinaloa, Mexico (CTH)
• Trump: US Studying Troop Cuts In Germany, As Spat With Merz Intensifies (BBC)
• No Aid for Kiev in US Military Budget for 2027 — Pentagon (TASS)
• Mamdani Is Already Facing a $6 Billion Budget Hole (Margolis)
• There’s a Name for What They’re Doing to Donald Trump (Thorne)
• Banksy Confirms He’s Behind Statue In Central London (BBC)
• The Biden Admin’s COVID Vaccine Cover-Up and Lies (Miranda Devine)

 


 

 


 


1) We have no idea if this is Khameini speaking. None. So don’t say it’s him. Explain.

2) We also don’t know if the US has battle-ready hypersonics.

• Defiant Mojtaba Khamenei: Gulf’s Future Will Be “Without US Presence” (ZH)

Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has never released video or voice messages, and he’s still not been seen or even photographed since the war’s start, and is believed to be severely injured and recovering. State TV on Thursday read aloud his written speech, which struck a defiant tone, declaring that the only place Americans belonged in the Persian Gulf is “at the bottom of its waters” and that a “new chapter” was being written for the whole region. State media cited security as the reason for having to read aloud his statement.


Khamenei says Iran will closely guard and protect its nuclear and missile capabilities, a clear and direct rejection of President Trump’s demand to hand over enriched uranium as the basis for a deal. Iranians will cling to the country’s nuclear and missile capabilities “as their national capital and will guard them like water, land and air borders,” Khamenei said.

“By God’s help and power, the bright future of the Persian Gulf region will be a future without America, one serving the progress, comfort and prosperity of its people,” Khamenei continued. “We and our neighbors across the waters of the Persian Gulf and the (Gulf) of Oman share a common destiny. Foreigners who come from thousands of kilometers away to act with greed and malice there have no place in it – except at the bottom of its waters.” He also vowed Iran’s forces will “secure the Persian Gulf region and dismantle the hostile enemy’s exploitation of this waterway.”

US Teases Hypersonic Missiles, CENTCOM to Brief Trump
As we detailed Wednesday night, United States Central Command has requested deployment of the Army’s long-delayed hypersonic Dark Eagle to the Middle East for potential use against Iran, seeking a longer-range capability to strike ballistic missile launchers deep inside the country, Bloomberg first reported. If approved, the move would mark the first deployment of the hypersonic system, which remains behind schedule and has not been declared fully operational, even as Russia and China have already long ago fielded their own versions.

The Pentagon has claimed time and again of late that it has local air superiority, meaning that in some parts of Iran its aircraft can operate without facing much of a threat. And yet dozens of MQ-9 aircraft, plus several crewed fighters, have been downed, showing that other parts of Iran’s airspace remain dangerous.The Bloomberg report hit just as Axios rehashed an earlier report, according to which President Trump will receive a briefing on new plans for potential military action in Iran on Thursday from CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper. The briefing signals that “Trump is seriously considering resuming major combat operations either to try to break the logjam in negotiations or to deliver a final blow before ending the war.”

Meanwhile the Iranian side has been claiming dozens of its vessels have breached the US naval blockade, which the Pentagon has been denying. Others say that while some ships have traversed the strait, they have not actually fully crossed the blockade.

Read more …

Iran has three governments, maybe 4:

1) IGRC
2) Mullahs
3) Civilian
+ maybe 4) Army

So who are you going to talk to?

• Growing Division In Iran’s ‘Hardline Camp’ Emerges Over Halting All Talks With US (ZH)

It remains difficult to know what’s really going on inside Iran, and to accurately assess the state of the country’s internal politics, but Financial Times describes a situation of hardliners vs. moderates duking it out to see whether negotiations with the United States should continue.


The report comes well after President Trump and the White House have at various times alleged Tehran governance is ‘fractured’ and the state is even ‘collapsing’ – which seems exaggerated if not flatly false. Those more independent-minded analysts outside the mainstream suggest the opposite is the case – that it’s Washington which can’t stick to any of its red lines and keeps moving the goal posts on negotiations. After all Trump did keep unilaterally extending the ceasefire, and the US has not resumed the bombings even though Trump clearly threatened to (even with ‘firm’ timelines) as the Iranians sat back

“At the heart of the dispute, which has played out in parliament and state media, is a push by Iran’s most hardline politicians to oppose the Islamic republic negotiating with the US over its nuclear program,” FT writes. “Their primary target is Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the veteran parliamentary speaker who led talks to US vice-president JD Vance in Pakistan earlier this month. Politicians linked to Paydari, an influential ultra-hardline faction, suggested that negotiators have not fully followed directives set by the new supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei,” the publication continues.

As for definitions, there’s also the problem of the West imposing broad brush labels of ‘hardline’ and ‘moderate’ from afar, based fundamentally on speculation and we might say, circular logic. After all, any Iranian official who is against pursuing more negotiations – while understandably coming to the conclusion that Washington can’t be trusted (after it bombed Iran twice during talks) – gets automatically labelled ‘hardliner’ by the MSM, and this also carries all kinds of implications overlapping with radical Islam.

But yes, there are clearly holdouts pushing for Tehran not to engage at all, to completely shutter communications, which would likely mean certain return to war: “Negotiations are now pure damage and nobody should go for negotiations,” Mahmoud Nabavian, a member of parliament close to the Paydari who accompanied Iran’s negotiating team to Pakistan, told local media. And another key section from the report is in the following:

He [Nabavian] criticized inclusion of Iran’s nuclear programme in talks as a “strategic mistake” and implied this is not what the top leader sought. Another hardline politician, Ali Khezrian, claimed to state television that the supreme leader opposed continuing the talks.Officials “should know that at this sensitive time their obligation is to thoroughly obey and carry out the guidelines of the supreme leader,” Nabavian said.

On Monday, 261 out of 290 MPs issued a statement supporting Ghalibaf and the other negotiators. However, prominent members of Paydari were absent from the list of signatories. The longer the Hormzu standoff goes, and the more the anti-Tehran rhetoric flows out of the White House and from Trump on Truth Social, the more likely the Paydari faction and others are to influence broader numbers of Iranian leaders and sectors of the public.

Read more …

“The Strategy to Freeze Iran’s Economy”

• Secretary Scott Bessent Discusses “Operation Economic Fury” Against Iran (CTH)

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent outlines Operation Economic Fury and the financial pressure campaign against the Iranian regime with Larry Kudlow.



KEY POINTS:
0:00 Introduction: Operation Economic Fury
0:39 Max Pressure: The Strategy to Freeze Iran’s Economy
2:04 Tracking the Money: Seizing IRGC Assets and Crypto
3:14 The Oil Blockade: Kharg Island at a Standstill
4:10 US Economic Resilience: Why Critics Are Wrong
6:04 IRS Modernization and Signature Tax Policies
7:33 Global Reshoring and the Manufacturing Boom
8:10 Geopolitical Chess: The UAE’s Break from OPEC
10:27 Federal Reserve Friction: Jay Powell vs. Kevin Warsh

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“Democrats transformed it into an excuse to do exactly what it was meant to prevent. ”

• Trump: SCOTUS Voting Rights Act Decision a ‘Big Win’ (Salgado)

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against racist gerrymandering in a landmark decision Wednesday, President Donald Trump enthusiastically celebrated the decision. The Voting Rights Act was originally supposed to prevent the formation of congressional districts based on racial discrimination, but unfortunately, Democrats transformed it into an excuse to do exactly what it was meant to prevent. And therefore, the Court’s ruling against such abuse is very significant for protecting the integrity of our political system.


Trump posted on his his Truth Social platform April 29, “Today’s 6-3 Supreme Court decision in the Callais case is a BIG WIN for Equal Protection under the Law, as it returns the Voting Rights Act to its Original Intent, which was to protect against intentional Racial Discrimination. Thank you to brilliant Justice Samuel Alito for authoring this important and appropriate Opinion. Congratulations!” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon was just as excited as the president. “Extremely gratified to see this decision we’ve been waiting for! I was proud to co-author the brief for the United States as amicus in this important case, perhaps one of the most important developments in decades in Voting Rights Act jurisprudence!” she posted.

Less enthusiastic were Democrats who have benefited from such racist rigging of our system. Former President Barack Obama, for instance, whined, “Today’s Supreme Court decision effectively guts a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act, freeing state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities…The good news is that such setbacks can be overcome.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who drew up one of the most outrageous and blatantly biased gerrymandered maps in the country, actually had the chutzpah to complain also, and added in an insult to the governor of Florida over a congressional map there likely to favor Republicans more. “The same day MAGA gutted the Voting Rights Act, Trump’s pipsqueak DeSantis rushed through rigged maps. No debate. No public input. They’re scared of VOTERS. This November: FAFO,” he hysterically threatened. Because only Democrats are allowed to redraw districts, apparently.

Here’s why Democrats are so mad:

The Supreme Court also delivered a religious freedom win on Wednesday, when it ruled unanimously in favor of faith-based ministries challenging state government overreach. After New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport harassed First Choice for helping pregnant women instead of recommending they kill their babies, the court ruled in favor of the pro-life center rather than the abortion-loving Democrat. It is certainly a day on which patriots can applaud the court.

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“Anthropic has been engaged in a form of regulatory capture by pushing frameworks that raise barriers to entry, allow it to dictate terms to suppliers, and concentrate power among a small number of well-connected firms. The more complex and restrictive the system becomes, the more it advantages companies already embedded in Washington.”

• Anthropic Wants a Reset. Trump Should Think Twice (Jeff Hunt)

Last week, something unusual happened in Washington. Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, went to the White House in an attempt to make peace with the Trump administration. This is the same company that has been in open conflict with the Pentagon over the use of its technology and, as a result, was recently labeled a “supply chain risk.” Now its chief executive is knocking on the door, looking for a reset.That alone should raise a simple question: why now?


Amodei and Anthropic have openly opposed the direction President Trump is now taking on artificial intelligence. Amodei has been one of the most vocal critics of the administration’s decision to allow controlled exports of AI chips, even going so far as to compare a recent White House–approved sale of AI processors to “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea.” That’s not a nuanced policy critique. It’s an attempt to frame the president’s approach as reckless and dangerous—and to box policymakers into adopting the very restrictions that benefit his company while discouraging competitors and new entrants.

This is happening because Anthropic has built itself into something more than a technology company. It has become a political actor, deeply embedded in the regulatory mindset of the previous administration. The company has staffed its ranks with a significant number of former Biden officials who helped design and defend the very AI policies that President Trump is now unwinding and is going in “big” to support candidates who have called the President’s policies “bigoted.” The worldview that shaped those policies — and helped put the United States at risk of falling behind in the AI race — didn’t disappear when those officials left government. It followed them into the private sector.

That helps explain why Anthropic has been so consistently aligned against Trump’s AI agenda. This isn’t just about technical disagreements over governance frameworks or export categories. It’s about a fundamentally different view of how America should compete. On one side is a strategy rooted in market interference and government restriction. On the other is a strategy rooted in scale, competition, and global engagement while protecting America’s national security interests.

Anthropic has clearly chosen a side and used its position to argue for failed policies, including the export restrictions pushed during the Biden years that attempted to wall China off from American technology. Those policies didn’t slow China down. They sped it up.

Cut off from U.S. chips, Chinese firms invested heavily in domestic alternatives, built parallel supply chains, and moved closer to technological independence. The United States has seen this before. During the race to develop 5G technology, Washington similarly tried to restrict access, only to see Huawei step in, lock in global market share, and export its standards to much of the world. The risk now is repeating that mistake on a far larger scale with artificial intelligence.

President Trump’s approach reflects a different understanding of how global competition works. Rather than retreating from the market, the administration is staying engaged and allowing controlled exports of less advanced chips while keeping the most cutting-edge technology protected. The goal is not to give competitors like China an advantage, but to ensure they remain tied to American platforms, standards, and supply chains. In effect, it flips the script on a strategy China has used for years with rare earth minerals — building dependence that translates into long-term leverage.

That’s precisely the approach Anthropic has historically questioned and why its sudden effort to make peace with the White House should be viewed with skepticism. This isn’t just a disagreement over policy details. It’s a broader effort to shape the regulatory environment itself. As White House AI czar David Sacks has argued, Anthropic has been engaged in a form of regulatory capture by pushing frameworks that raise barriers to entry, allow it to dictate terms to suppliers, and concentrate power among a small number of well-connected firms. The more complex and restrictive the system becomes, the more it advantages companies already embedded in Washington.

[..[ AI will shape the next century of economic and geopolitical power. The United States cannot afford to fall behind because it listened to the loudest voices urging it to slow down. And it should be especially wary of taking advice from companies that have spent years opposing the very strategy now keeping America in the lead. Let’s give the Trump administration room to cook — blending technological advantage, national security protection, and American global market domination. Anthropic may want a reset. But Washington should remember exactly where the company has stood — and why.

Read more …

“On day #1, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino should have terminated [..] any and all of those FBI agents and support personnel with extreme prejudice ..

• Dan Bongino Says He’s Scared of the FBI (CTH)

I have less than zero sympathy or consideration of credibility for both individuals in the video below. Former Deputy Director Dan Bongino sits down for a dramatic, Q-feeding therapy session with Mr Tick-Tock himself, Sean Hannity. In a widely discussed interview, the co-dependent enabler – masking himself as the victim of all things deep state, says on one hand there are honorable ‘rank and file’ within the FBI as an institution, and on the other hand he fears they will target him once President Trump leaves office. Go figure.


If you face reality and stop pretending, you then look at the facts with cold pragmatism: • The Robert Mueller investigation used 40 FBI agents, issued 2,800 subpoenas, executed 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 secret orders for communication records, used 50 pen registers and interviewed 500 witnesses, all to prove there was a Trump-Russia conspiracy afoot. All of it was complete nonsense. That is the reality of the thing.

On day #1, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino should have terminated (or suspended pending criminal investigation) any and all of those FBI agents and support personnel with extreme prejudice and then held a press conference to make the announcement. Delivering mysterious statements about the scale and scope of the institutional problem, pouring fuel on innuendo, proclaiming vague possibilities, while hiding behind some opaque ‘trust me bro‘ reasoning for a currently mysterious inability to explain exactly what the heck he is talking about, is unadulterated dramatic ‘clickbait’ prose intended to feed an audience willing to be deceived.

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“ZELENSKYY: “But I still get my money, right?“

• Trump Notes Extended Conversation with Putin (CTH)

As you are aware, CTH is watching the small details closely on the U.S-Russia alignment against the backdrop of friction with the European Union, the U.K and NATO on issues surrounding Iran. In the past several days there have been several smaller moments lost amid media chatter of bigger news items, this is one such example today in the Oval Office.


During a press availability with the Artemis II astronauts, President Trump was asked for an update on the Ukraine conflict and seemingly stalled negotiations between U.S. intermediaries and Russia. At 04:12 of the video below, President Trump notes he spoke at length with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin today on issues related to the Ukraine conflict, and {{{thoughtful-pause}}} Iran. WATCH:

President Vladimir Putin is in no hurry to ceasefire in Ukraine, and the U.S. military operation in Iran is not against his interests. On April 12, 2026, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent quietly extended the sanction relief for Russia, permitting oil/gas sales loaded on vessels by 4/17/26 for transit and sale through 5/16/26. This permits Russia to push oil to Asia, specifically China, India and ASEAN countries where it is needed, while simultaneously the UAE and Saudi Arabia increase oil pumping avoiding the issues with the Strait of Hormuz.

This is happening while the U.S. is providing large oil and LNG supply increases to South/Central America, Europe and Japan to offset any global shortages. Russia supplies China, India and Southeast Asia; the U.S. supplies Europe and Japan; the UAE supplies India and Australia; while Saudi Arabia supplies Africa and Europe. Global markets stable, Iran then faces operation financial fury led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. So, we can reasonably see the general tone of the conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Well, after this press briefing, President Trump sent the following message on Truth Social.


During the press briefing President Trump noted, yet again, his profound disappointment with Europe, the U.K and NATO allies. Trump delivered praise for King Charles as a statesman but separated the political policy aspects of the U.K from his impression of the monarch. These remarks about drawing down U.S. troop levels in Germany comes against the backdrop of German Chancellor Fredrich Merz being highly critical of President Trump’s intention to incapacitate Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. Chancellor Merz is looking for any distraction he can come up with to avoid the issue of a severely contracting German economy.

Most Americans do not fully appreciate how the German national identity is defined by their industrial economy. The traditional people of Germany have a self-image that is -in large measure- the result of their economic condition. Everything centers around industriousness. Weaken that a little bit and the hardcore German people get visibly angered.mCommissar and European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, is also not happy. “In just 60 days of conflict, our bill for fossil fuel imports has increased by over €27 billion, without a single molecule of additional energy,” she told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.”

For all reasonable intents and purposes President Trump has withdrawn support for Ukraine. At the same time President Trump has openly been questioning NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte about the seemingly irrelevant purpose of the alliance. Now, we might think this is just some transitional matters that have been visited before in various peaks and valleys of the geopolitical relationship. However, that is not the case this time. How do we know this time it is something far more significant? Well, the EU is debating dropping their climate goals.

BRUSSELS — Energy companies will be able to break the EU’s pollution limits and get away with it, under measures being considered by the European Commission ahead of a gathering of EU leaders in June.

The EU executive is considering a “zero-penalty” option that would allow national authorities not to fine companies that break strict rules governing methane emissions scheduled to come into force next year, according to two people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive discussions. (


ZELENSKYY: “But I still get my money, right?“
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How far into Mexico would they go?

• DOJ Indicts Sinaloa Governor and Others in Sweeping Cartel Case (Anderson)

The Donald Trump administration is not playing around when it comes to cartel activity in Mexico, even if Mexican officials aren’t exactly willing to play ball. On Wednesday, a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York unsealed a 34-page indictment charging Rubén Rocha Moya and nine other current or former high-ranking Mexican officials with drug trafficking and weapons offenses. The defendants are accused of partnering with the “Los Chapitos” faction of the Sinaloa Cartel (the sons of El Chapo) to help smuggle massive quantities of fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine into the U.S.


Rocha Moya is the current governor of the Mexican state of Sinaloa, which the Department of Justice calls the “geographic epicenter of the global narcotics trade.” He’s also a member of former Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and current president Claudia Sheinbaum’s Morena Party. Others charged include the mayor of Culiacan, a sitting senator, and the deputy attorney general for the Sinaloa State Attorney General’s Office. The men indicted allegedly took millions in bribes, gave the cartel protection from prosecution, leaked intel on law-enforcement ops, and provided state resources, like police cars and radios.

One of them, Juan Valenzuela Millan (or “Juanito”), a former high-level Culiacán Municipal Police commander, was also charged with the kidnappings of a DEA source and the source’s relative that resulted in their deaths, allegedly after they were handed over to the cartel.They all face life sentences with a mandatory minimum of 40 years, except for Mr. “Juanito,” who faces a mandatory life sentence.

“The Sinaloa Cartel is a ruthless criminal organization that has flooded this community with dangerous drugs for decades,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “As the indictment lays bare, the Sinaloa Cartel, and other drug trafficking organizations like it, would not operate as freely or successfully without corrupt politicians and law enforcement officials on their payroll. The support of corrupt foreign officials for deadly trafficking of drugs must end. Let these charges send a clear message to all officials around the globe who work with narco-traffickers: no matter your title or position, we are committed to bringing you to justice.”

Rocha Moya responded with a statement of his own on X (translated from Spanish): “I categorically and absolutely reject the accusations made against me by the Southern District of New York Federal Prosecutor’s Office, as they lack any truth or foundation whatsoever. And this will be demonstrated, with full force, at the appropriate time. This attack is not solely against my person; but against the movement of the Fourth Transformation, its emblematic leaderships, and the Mexican women and men who represent that cause.

It is part of a perverse strategy to violate the constitutional order, specifically the national sovereignty advocated by Article 40 of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, which our movement defends as an invariable and non-negotiable principle. To the people of Sinaloa, I say that, with the courage and dignity that characterize us, we will demonstrate the lack of foundation for this slander.” Big Nicolás Maduro vibes there, and we all know how that ended. All of this comes after last week the U.S. Treasury “sanctioned 23 individuals and entities that comprise a sophisticated synthetic opioid procurement network with ties to the Sinaloa Cartel,” and the State Department imposed “visa restrictions on 75 individuals who are family members or close personal or business associates of persons linked to the Sinaloa Cartel.”

This appears to be the first time the DOJ has indicted a sitting Mexican governor. The Mexican Foreign Ministry confirmed that U.S. officials have requested the extradition of the individuals indicted to the United States, but that there is enough evidence. It added, “However, as is standard procedure in these cases, the Attorney General’s Office will determine whether there is sufficient evidence under Mexican law and the viability of the requests for provisional arrest for extradition.”

Read more …

“.. the Sinaloa cartel will go ultra-violent against Sheinbaum and Moya will likely take down the entire government apparatus with him..”

• U.S. Dept of Justice Indicts the Current Governor of Sinaloa, Mexico (CTH)

Oh boy, this indictment puts Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum in a really precarious position. If President Sheinbaum gives up the Governor of Sinaloa, Mexico, Ruben Rocha Moya to extradition the Sinaloa cartel will go ultra-violent against Sheinbaum and Moya will likely take down the entire government apparatus with him. [Ancillary to this, it now makes sense why all the various Mexican federal officials were publicly criticizing the Trump administration and CIA in recent days. They knew this in advance.]


The DOJ (SDNY) has indicted Mexican Governor Ruben Rocha Moya along with nine current and former Mexican officials for participating “in a corrupt and violent drug trafficking conspiracy with the Cartel to import massive amounts of fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine from Mexico into the United States.

“The defendants have played a variety of essential roles for the Cartel: among other things, the defendants have allegedly shielded Cartel leaders from investigation, arrest, and prosecution; caused sensitive law enforcement and military information to be provided to members of the Cartel and allied drug traffickers to assist the Cartel’s criminal activities; directed members of state and local law enforcement agencies, such as the Sinaloa State Police, the Investigative Police for the Sinaloa State Attorney General’s Office, and the Culiacan Municipal Police, to protect drug loads stored in and transiting through Mexico to the United States; and allowed brutal drug-related violence to be committed by members of the Cartel without consequence. In exchange, the defendants have collectively received millions of dollars in drug money from the Cartel.”

VIA LBR on Twitter: – […] This move represents a direct and aggressive escalation by Washington against the highest levels of the Mexican state apparatus. The indictments detail a systemic entanglement between regional Morena governance and cartel operations, effectively labeling the Sinaloa state leadership a criminal enterprise under U.S. law.

This legal assault by the DOJ decapitates the political leadership of one of Mexico’s most strategically sensitive states at a moment of extreme national fragility. By targeting a sitting governor, the U.S. is signaling a total collapse of bilateral trust and an end to the era of diplomatic shielding for Mexican officials. The move is designed to force a confrontation within the Sheinbaum administration, leaving Mexico City with zero room to maneuver between its domestic political alliances and the threat of total diplomatic isolation. The fallout will be immediate and chaotic.

Beyond the legal proceedings, these indictments serve as a precursor to broader sanctions and a likely reclassification of Mexican security cooperation. For the Mexican government, the era of managed stability in Sinaloa is over; Sheinbaum is now facing a direct challenge to state legitimacy and a physical security vacuum that will likely trigger a violent internal restructuring of cartel hierarchies and government control.”

“I would urge you to see the truth of the situation you are in Claudia. That is my advice. It is not for me to tell you what you should have done or not done. The world in which you seek to undo the mistakes you made is different from the world where the mistakes were made. You are now at the crossing, and you want to choose – but there is no choosing here. There is only accepting. The choosing was done a long time ago. … I don’t mean to offend you, but reflective women often find themselves removed from the realities of life. In any case, we should all prepare a place where we can accommodate all of the tragedies that sooner or later will come to our lives. But this is an economy few people care to practice, and that is because when it comes to losing leadership the normal rules of exchanges do not apply, because losing office transcends value. Nicolas Maduro would give his entire nation to exit his reality, and yet he cannot buy anything without office, because without office he is worthless.”

Read more …

In Germany, AfD just keeps on growing. As Merz wants to ban them.

• Trump: US Studying Troop Cuts In Germany, As Spat With Merz Intensifies (BBC)

The US is “studying and reviewing” whether to reduce the thousands of troops it has stationed in Germany, President Donald Trump has announced via social media. His remarks came days after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz criticised his approach to the war in Iran, suggesting that US had been “humiliated” by Iranian negotiators. Trump said in a social media post late on Wednesday that a decision on troop numbers would be made “over the next short period of time. Then early on Thursday he rounded on Merz, saying he should spend “more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!)”.


The US has a significant military presence in Germany, with more than 36,000 active duty troops assigned to bases across the country as of last December. Merz made no mention of Trump’s comments during a visit to German soldiers in northern Germany on Thursday, although he went out of his way to stress the importance of the Nato defensive alliance and “transatlantic solidarity”. Earlier this week, however, he told university students that “the Americans clearly have no strategy” and he could not see “what strategic exit” they were going to choose.”The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skilful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result,” he said.

He added that the “entire nation” was being “humiliated” by the Iranian leadership. Trump responded the following day with a post to Truth Social, where he said Merz thought it was “OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon” and “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” “No wonder Germany is doing so poorly, both Economically, and otherwise!” the post read. He picked up the same theme on Thursday, suggesting Merz should focus more on “fixing his broken Country, especially Immigration and Energy, and less time interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran Nuclear threat”.

Germany, along with the UK and France, was part of a 2015 deal with Iran to limit its nuclear operations, although Trump pulled the US out of the agreement in 2018.When asked about Trump’s initial post in a press conference on Wednesday, Merz said the “personal relationship between the American president and myself remains just as good as before”. He has not yet responded to Trump’s suggestion that he could reduce US troops in Germany. The US military deployment in Germany is by far its biggest in Europe, with about 12,000 troops in Italy and a further 10,000 in the UK. Many are stationed at the big Ramstein air base outside the southwestern German city of Kaiserslautern. And while Trump has proposed US troop reductions in Germany before, they have so far not come into effect.

In 2020, a proposal to move 12,000 US troops from Germany either to other Nato countries in Europe or back to the US, was blocked by Congress and then reversed by President Joe Biden.At the time, Trump had accused Germany of being “delinquent” because its military spending was well below Nato’s target of 2% of economic output (GDP). But that has changed dramatically under the Merz government: Germany is projected to spend €105.8bn (£91bn) in 2027 – with total defence expenditure next year set to reach 3.1% of GDP.Merz said after talks with Trump in Washington in March that Trump had assured him the US would maintain its military presence in Germany, adding that he had not expected anything else.

However, while Merz has this week complained of the economic consequences for Europe of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump has been angered by the response of Nato allies in Europe to the war in Iran.Over the past two months, the US president has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the 32-member Nato alliance, calling it a “paper tiger” and a “one-way street”.Earlier in April, a leaked internal Pentagon email detailed potential measures for the US to punish allies it believed had failed to support its campaign in Iran, including a suggestion that the US could seek to suspend Spain from Nato over its stance. A Nato official told the BBC that the alliance’s founding treaty “does not foresee any provision for suspension of Nato membership, or expulsion”.

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Let Europe pay.

• No Aid for Kiev in US Military Budget for 2027 — Pentagon (TASS)

The Pentagon’s draft budget for fiscal year 2027 does not include funding for military aid to Ukraine, Acting Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst confirmed. “That’s correct. There’s no USAI (Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative – TASS) funding in this budget,” he said while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, commenting on the US War Department’s recently released budget request for the upcoming fiscal year.


At the same time, Hurst noted that the Pentagon will soon begin using the $400 million military aid package for Ukraine previously approved by Congress. “They [the funds] were released very recently. And again, we got these funds, I believe, in March. And it takes time for funds to flow through the Department, but it’s going to get put to work very shortly. We’re going to work with the EUCOM commander to make sure we use these funds in the most appropriate way possible,” he said.

US Senator Mitch McConnell (Republican, Kentucky) wrote in an article published on April 29 by The Washington Post that the US Department of War is delaying the transfer of the $400 million military aid package previously approved by Congress. According to McConnell, the Department has also ignored related requests from the relevant Senate committees. He added that Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby bears responsibility for the delay in resolving issues related to the disbursement of the aid.

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A socialist mayor can’t be in New York. It’s not a socialist city.

• Mamdani Is Already Facing a $6 Billion Budget Hole (Margolis)

Well, that didn’t take long. Zohran Mamdani hasn’t even completed his first executive budget as New York City mayor, and he’s already got his hand out. The self-described democratic socialist swept into office promising a new utopia — and almost immediately delivered a fiscal crisis requiring a state bailout. Margaret Thatcher warned us about exactly this. Sooner or later, socialists run out of other people’s money. In Mamdani’s case, it took no time at all.


The mayor announced Tuesday that he’s pushing back the deadline for his first executive budget — originally due Friday — to at least May 12. Standing alongside City Council Speaker Julie Menin, Mamdani framed the delay as a reasonable response to uncertainty in Albany. In other words, he’s waiting to find out if Albany will bail him out over his $5.4 billion budget gap. “This adjustment reflects a very simple reality,” Menin said. “New York state has not finalized its budget, and until they do so, we do not have the necessary clarity to responsibly complete the city’s budget.” If they’re expecting a bailout, I wouldn’t count on it.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s spokesperson fired back with a statement that was, by Albany standards, refreshingly blunt. “The mayor and City Council need to work together, identify savings, and close the remaining gap.” Here’s what makes the optics especially rich. Just weeks ago, Mamdani posted a video bragging about how he was taxing the rich and how it was going to be a huge boon for the city. The message was clear: Tax the rich, fund the city, problem solved. Now he’s warning that without state intervention, he may have to raise property taxes on regular New Yorkers to close the shortfall.

Mamdani and Menin are pushing Hochul to scale back the state’s Pass-Through Entity Tax Credit, arguing that it functions as a loophole for the ultra-wealthy. “More than 95% of PTET credits go to those making more than $1 million a year,” Mamdani said. “More than 80% go to those making more than $5 million a year.” He estimates adjusting PTET could bring in around $1 billion in revenue — which still leaves roughly $4 billion-plus of the problem unsolved. Menin, hedging carefully, wants any PTET change to be temporary rather than permanent. Even she seems to sense this isn’t a long-term strategy.

Mamdani is also dusting off the familiar grievance that New York City sends more money to the state than it gets back — a claim some Albany lawmakers dispute. It’s a convenient argument when you need someone else to bail you out. This is socialism. Nothing is surprising about this. Conservatives have been saying this is what New York City was destined for if it elected Mamdani. We didn’t have a crystal ball; we just had common sense and history on our side. Now, Mamdani is learning in real time what every socialist eventually discovers. There’s always a bill, and eventually you run out of millionaires to hand it to.

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‘stochastic terrorism’

• There’s a Name for What They’re Doing to Donald Trump (Thorne)

Once upon a time, there was a societal pact in this country that, when a depraved lunatic committed an atrocity, no one would breathe a word of his motives, speech, or writings. When Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kicked off the school shooting craze at Columbine High School in 1999, we didn’t speak of what they thought they were accomplishing. Their so-called basement tapes were never publicly released, and authorities destroyed them in 2011. “Law enforcement officials have always regarded the tapes as a particularly infectious form of toxic waste, a primer in mass murder that could inspire more violence and must never be released,” reported the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition.


The understanding was that repeating a lunatic’s motivations could inspire copycats. Back then, society hoped to prevent more tragedy. Today’s Democrat establishment hopes to inspire it. So brazen have they become that, less than 24 hours after Cole Allen tried to assassinate President Donald Trump, CBS reporter Norah O’Donnell read the slander from his manifesto to his intended victim’s face. Trump called her out, saying, “Well, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would, because you’re horrible people.” He was right, but no matter: Management at CBS still went on to air those poisonous words on its Sunday show, 60 Minutes. Because everyone at that vile network is in on it.

So is every single newscaster, elected or appointed official, celebrity, and every other leftist with a sheen of authority or influence and a platform who repeats the litany of leftist accusations. But then, Democrats are the morally challenged segment of society, dating back to their slaveholder roots (now manifested as fighting to keep their cheap labor through trafficking poor people into the country to work for near-slave wages). Once they hid behind the “liberal” label, but that has morphed into what plainly animates them today: hate, perversion, and political violence. Cheering on an assassin, either explicitly or implicitly, is A-OK with them.

Democrats are also all about plausible deniability. Just ask Joe Biden’s grifty brother, Jim. This is why this sort of mass projection of violence in the hopes of triggering a nut with good aim is such a perfect fit for them. It’s called “stochastic terrorism.” Perhaps, in the case of the relentless attack on Donald Trump, we can more accurately call it “stochastic assassination.” Policy research agency RAND explained the concept in a 2024 report called “From words to actions”:

The role of the media in radicalisation and terrorism has been a topic of discussion in recent years. Citizens are increasingly at risk to be exposed to extremist ideas through social media and communication apps, which can lead to a normalisation of hatred towards certain individuals, groups or institutions and an increased acceptance of violence. A term that is gaining popularity in the media and popular scientific literature in the context of recent incidents of extremist violence in which the media may have played a role is ‘stochastic terrorism’.

This term refers to hostile, derogatory and/or dehumanising language by influential individuals towards a political, social, ethnic or religious group or individual. Through interaction on social media and traditional media, this language may lead to a climate of fear, which in turn increases the likelihood of someone turning to violence, even if the initial message does not explicitly call for it. Due to the implicit nature of these expressions, individuals responsible for (reinforcing) inflammatory discourse cannot straightforwardly be prosecuted, if at all. However, there is currently no legal definition or even a unified understanding of this somewhat elusive concept.

My colleague VodkaPundit explained how the left is leveling the tactic against the president: “…there’s no conspiracy required to produce a left-wing assassin like Tyler James Robinson or Ryan Routh. They just amp up the rhetorical pressure, 24/7/365, until somebody pops.”

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How do you install that in secret?

• Banksy Confirms He’s Behind Statue In Central London (BBC)

Street artist Banksy has confirmed a large statue that appeared in central London is his work. The sculpture – which bears his signature – depicts a suited man walking forward off a plinth while carrying a flag that covers his face. Its location – Waterloo Place, St James’s – is an area designed to celebrate imperialism and military dominance in the 1800s. The sculpture sits near statues of Edward VII, Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War Memorial.Banksy’s representatives told the BBC the statue was installed in the early hours of Wednesday, before the artist posted a video of it on his Instagram account on Thursday afternoon. On the statue’s position on the ceremonial island in Waterloo Place, Banksy said: “There was a bit of a gap.”


Since it appeared on Wednesday, crowds have gradually increased in size. Contractors were seen erecting safety barriers around the work on Thursday afternoon. Westminster City Council, which is responsible for the area, said: “We’re excited to see Banksy’s latest sculpture in Westminster, making a striking addition to the city’s vibrant public art scene. “While we have taken initial steps to protect the statue, at this time it will remain accessible for the public to view and enjoy.”

James Peak, creator of the BBC podcast series The Banksy Story, said: “Here, you’ve got a brilliant comment on a bumptious, chest puffed out man in power with the flag completely obscuring his vision, which is why he is about to fall off the plinth. “It is a wonderfully framed moment in time that you never really get with a statue.” He added Banksy had “pulled off another fantastic coup…the positioning is absolutely knockout”. “I don’t know how he’s managed to do it.

“How has he got a low-loader to there with all the security and put up a massive resin statue?”On the statue’s location, he added: “We’ve got to face up to the fact that Britain has an imperialistic history full of takeovers and part of that is the sort of extreme nationalism that Banksy absolutely abhors.” “Every (Banksy) piece is a campaign.”

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We will talk till we’re blue in the face.

• The Biden Admin’s COVID Vaccine Cover-Up and Lies (Miranda Devine)

As Dr. Anthony Fauci’s right-hand man, David Morens, was charged this week with conspiracy and destruction of federal records in the COVID-19 cover-up, another scandal over the vaccine was unfolding on Capitol Hill. According to a new Senate report and congressional testimony on Wednesday, Biden administration health officials deliberately ignored warning signs of possible serious reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine, including heart attacks, strokes, Bell’s palsy and sudden cardiac death.


Within three months of the vaccines being rolled out, in March 2021, red flags were fluttering out of the weekly data dumps from doctors and patients reporting health problems after the shots, according to internal emails and meeting notes provided by the Department of Health and Human Services to Sen. Ron Johnson’s Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. But when the FDA’s senior medical officer, Dr. Ana Szarfman, whose job was to monitor the vaccine data for warning signs, repeatedly raised the alarm throughout 2021, she was ignored, and emails show her colleagues tried to stop her from using a newer, more accurate statistical methodology to investigate the data.

On Sept. 9, 2021, Biden announced his vaccine mandates, with an implied threat to the roughly 80 million Americans who had not taken the COVID jab and whom he accused of prolonging the pandemic and putting everyone at risk, even though the vaccine did not stop transmission of the disease. “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin,” Biden said. “And your refusal has cost all of us.” On Sept. 16, Dr. Peter Marks, a staunch supporter of the COVID-19 vaccines who at the time led the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, told another senior FDA official in an email that Szarfman (who has since retired) “has been asked to cease and desist, because the strategy that she is using could create erroneous conflicts that feed in to anti-vaccination rhetoric.” Marks also complained that Szarfman’s work has “become a major distraction.”

The documents uncovered by Johnson’s investigation staff point to the same alarming secrecy and efforts to avoid accountability that landed Fauci’s adviser, Morens, in trouble. The secrecy included instructions from FDA officials to discuss findings in person rather than over email and stopping or limiting the distribution of the weekly vaccine safety reports with the alleged intent of avoiding FOIA requests. On March 26, 2021, Szarfman shared with colleagues her analysis of COVID-19 vaccine adverse events using the superior, newer “data mining” methodology that had found more than 20 statistically significant “safety signals” or potential red flags associated with the COVID-19 vaccines that were not previously detected by FDA’s current methodology, “including sudden cardiac death, Bell’s palsy and pulmonary infarction.”

Her analysis was conducted with Dr. William DuMouchel, then the chief statistician at Oracle and the inventor of the data-mining algorithm. However, “rather than warn the public or hold distribution of the vaccines for further investigation, records appear to indicate that Biden health officials ignored the statistically significant safety signals uncovered through the new methodology and were more concerned about Dr. Szarfman’s efforts rather than her troubling findings,” the interim report found. In April 2021, after Szarfman emailed colleagues with another data-mining analysis that apparently underscored the limitations of the FDA’s current system, one senior FDA official wrote to his colleagues, “[b]efore we potentially reach out to Ana, we should meet internally — many considerations not suited to email …”

Szarfman continued to bring her reports to colleagues, but they were ignored. In August 2021, about a month before Szarfman was directed to “cease and desist,” Dr. David Menschik, a senior FDA colleague of Marks, told a CDC official that the FDA planned to limit distribution of its weekly vaccine data-mining reports, which used to be sent around the FDA and CDC, citing “data-security reasons.” But emails among CDC officials uncovered by Johnson’s investigators point to a potentially more nefarious reason for the FDA’s decision to stop distributing its data-mining reports.

In a November 2022 email, one CDC official noted, “I think that because of the FOIAs [Freedom of Information Act requests] we may have asked FDA to stop sending these weekly data-mining outputs.” According to Johnson’s staff report, “in the months and weeks leading up to the FDA’s decision to discontinue its distribution of the weekly data-mining reports, there were several public requests made to CDC and FDA for that information. “On May 9, 2022, about two months before the FDA stopped sending CDC its weekly data-mining reports, Children’s Health Defense sent a FOIA request to CDC for the [vaccine] data-mining analyses.

“On June 23, 2022, 19 days before FDA sent its final weekly data mining report, Sen. Johnson wrote to then-CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky requesting the same information. “Then, on June 30, 2022, 12 days before FDA’s last distribution, the Informed Consent Action Network submitted a FOIA request to FDA for the [vaccine] data-mining records. “In light of these public and congressional requests, the timing of the FDA’s decision to end the distribution of its weekly data-mining reports seems particularly suspect. “The notion that Biden health officials took steps to limit the distribution of COVID-19 vaccine safety data in order to avoid more internal review or public scrutiny, it is completely unacceptable.”

Democrats on the subcommittee, like Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), were at pains to point out during the hearing that COVID-19 itself caused serious injury and death, calling as their witness a 41-year-old woman, Maria Young, who was hospitalized for two months and almost died in the months before the vaccines were developed. Of the 8 billion vaccine doses administered worldwide, multiple large studies suggest there has been no increase in long-term mortality among vaccinated people. However, the damage was done by the COVID cover-up and lies. They have driven widespread distrust of vaccination, including tried-and-true lifesaving vaccines.

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