Saul Leiter Man with flowers, NY 1950s
BREAKING 🚨 Tulsi Gabbard is Doubling Down on what she released AGAIN today. She’s determined to make sure Obama is held accountable
Tulsi is a MACHINE 🔥 pic.twitter.com/U62zX8vnaj
— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) July 19, 2025
https://twitter.com/BarronTNews_/status/1946621370105790687
https://twitter.com/PU28453638/status/1946338084833923411
TRUMP DROPS POST HINTING ABOUT PROSECUTING OBAMA & HIS THUGS.
Obama named the most corrupt president we've ever seen and is tied to treasonous acts against another U.S. president.
A conspiracy at the highest levels of government was exposed with evidence. Literal treason.
New… pic.twitter.com/hukKanLFlW
— The SCIF (@TheIntelSCIF) July 20, 2025
Clint
https://twitter.com/ProudElephantUS/status/1946291703469466044
This is possibly the most alarming act of treason since the Lincoln assassination. For an outgoing president to engineer a coup against a succeeding president is unthinkable in America.
I knew Tulsi Gabbard would be the most effective Cabinet member. pic.twitter.com/VMSvFAN2Oi
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) July 19, 2025
Everyone needs to watch this, soak it in, and understand the magnitude of what we are watching play out. Accountability is coming.
DNI Tulsi Gabbard talks in detail about what she found in the newly declassified documents that prove Obama and many in his administration… pic.twitter.com/Y3I51aHYNz
— TheStormHasArrived (@TheStormRedux) July 19, 2025
So uhhhh remember last month when Trump posted that “All roads lead to Obama” and asked us if we wanted “public military tribunals”?
Most people brushed it off and didn’t take it seriously.
After today… I’m not so sure.
He might be serious. pic.twitter.com/LpewMdkbqt
— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) July 19, 2025
Comey
Hey everybody, watch James Comey lie under oath in 2017 about the seriousness of "Russian election interference."
The memo that DNI Gabbard released proves clearly that Comey was lying during this testimony. He needs to be held accountable for the damage he did to this country. pic.twitter.com/rowA74bs4C
— MAZE (@mazemoore) July 19, 2025
PDB
“I’VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS”
“THEY WITHHELD THE PRESIDENT’S DAILY BRIEF SO THAT THEY COULD SET THIS UP!” – @JackPosobiec details more information found in Gabbard’s report and talks about what could be next.@CarolineWren @Bannons_WarRoom pic.twitter.com/DfRTyUpCSv
— Real America's Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) July 18, 2025
Tulsi Gabbard nuked the entire US political system with her report on Friday. It will take time for it to sink in. She doesn’t merely accuse Comey and Brennan, she says former president Obama is guilty of treason. An accusation lifted at Trump many times over the past 10 years of course, but the difference is Tulsi brings the receipts. Even then, it will be hard to get the MSM to report on all the court cases we will see, in anything like a neutral fashion. If only because the media, too, will be among the accused.
• Obama Admin Engineered The Russia Hoax To Undermine Trump (Margolis)
Fox News Digital has uncovered damning evidence that the Obama administration deliberately “manufactured and politicized intelligence” to push the now-debunked Russia election interference narrative, despite contradictory assessments from within the intelligence community itself. According to newly declassified documents that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released Friday, there’s “overwhelming evidence” that Barack Obama and his national security inner circle went to work immediately after Donald Trump’s stunning 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton. Their goal? Lay the foundation for the Trump-Russia hoax that would consume the nation for years. This wasn’t a matter of bad judgment; it was a calculated operation to delegitimize Trump’s presidency before it even began.
“Documents revealed that in the months leading up to the November 2016 election, the intelligence community consistently assessed that Russia was ‘probably not trying…to influence the election by using cyber means,’” the report reveals. “One instance was on Dec. 7, 2016, weeks after the election, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s talking points stated: ‘Foreign adversaries did not use cyberattacks on election infrastructure to alter the U.S. presidential election outcome.’” Fox News Digital obtained a declassified copy of the Presidential Daily Brief, which was prepared by the Department of Homeland Security, with reporting from the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, FBI, National Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security, State Department and open sources, for Obama, dated Dec. 8, 2016.
“We assess that Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent US election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure,” the Presidential Daily Brief stated. “Russian Government-affiliated actors most likely compromised an Illinois voter registration database and unsuccessfully attempted the same in other states.” But the brief stated that it was “highly unlikely” the effort “would have resulted in altering any state’s official vote result.” “Criminal activity also failed to reach the scale and sophistication necessary to change election outcomes,” it stated. Declassified documents reveal that the FBI raised serious concerns about a 2016 Presidential Daily Brief (PDB), which claimed that Russia was trying to undermine the U.S. election.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence had assessed that Russia’s efforts were likely aimed at sowing doubt in the process — not disrupting it — and noted that cyberattacks on election infrastructure failed to cause any real impact. Internal FBI communications show agents pushed back, drafting a formal dissent and warning the brief shouldn’t move forward until their objections were heard. As a result, the brief’s release, originally slated for Dec. 9, 2016, was delayed following “new guidance” from ODNI. “It will not run tomorrow and is not likely to run until next week,” wrote the deputy director of the Presidential Daily Brief at Office of the Director of National Intelligence, whose name is redacted. The following day, Dec. 9, 2016, a meeting convened in the White House Situation Room, with the subject line starting: “Summary of Conclusions for PC Meeting on a Sensitive Topic (REDACTED.)”
The meeting included top officials in the National Security Council, Clapper, then-CIA Director John Brennan, then-National Security Advisor Susan Rice, then-Secretary of State John Kerry, then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, among others, to discuss Russia. The declassified meeting record shows that Obama administration officials agreed to recommend sanctions against members of Russia’s intelligence agencies — if their cyber activities met the legal threshold under an executive order targeting foreign cyber interference. But that wasn’t all. Following the meeting, then-DNI James Clapper’s executive assistant instructed intelligence agencies to produce a new assessment “per the president’s request,” specifically aimed at detailing how Moscow allegedly tried to influence the 2016 election. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence would lead the effort, with help from the CIA, FBI, NSA, and DHS, effectively setting the wheels in motion for the Trump-Russia narrative.
The story confirms what many long suspected: Obama-era officials deliberately leaked false claims to the media about Russian interference in the 2016 election, pushing a narrative they knew wasn’t supported by actual intelligence. According to documents obtained by Fox News Digital, a Jan. 6, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) was politically weaponized, contradicting prior assessments and burying evidence that Russia lacked both the intent and ability to hack the election. Officials revealed that the ICA suppressed internal dissent — such as FBI and NSA skepticism about Russia’s role in the DNC leaks — and was based on debunked sources like the Steele Dossier. Despite this, the flawed report triggered a chain reaction: media smears, the Mueller investigation, two impeachments, and deep damage to U.S.-Russia relations. Intelligence officials now say this entire operation was designed to delegitimize President Trump and overturn the will of the voters.
DNI Tulsi Gabbard called the plot “a treasonous conspiracy” to subvert the Constitution and called for full accountability. She confirmed that all related documents have been handed over to the DOJ. Meanwhile, former CIA Director John Brennan and ex-FBI Director James Comey are under criminal investigation for their roles in pushing the phony narrative. As President Trump put it: “I think they’re crooked as hell… maybe they have to pay a price for that.” This wasn’t the work of a few rogue officials freelancing their partisan vendettas; it was a coordinated effort that implicates the highest levels of the Obama administration, including Barack Obama himself. The declassified documents lay out a damning paper trail: Obama was personally briefed on intelligence that debunked the Russia-collusion claims, yet his team deliberately buried those facts, rewrote assessments at his request, and fed a false narrative to the press that ultimately ignited a multi-year witch hunt against his successor.
This was no accident. It was a deliberate abuse of power, an attempt to sabotage the incoming president before he even took office, all under the guise of “protecting democracy.” From Obama to Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Rice, and Lynch, this wasn’t just dirty politics; it was a subversion of the peaceful transfer of power. And now, with criminal investigations underway and the full truth coming to light, we know that the real election interference operation wasn’t run from Moscow — it was orchestrated in Washington, D.C., at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
“This particular real estate bubble, which is unprecedented in magnitude, is bursting. This creates deflationary pressures and undermines the value of collateral supporting large portions of China’s shadow banking system.”
• China’s Economic Demise And Its Impact On The US (Lance Roberts)
Few are as candid and historically accurate as hedge fund manager Kyle Bass when identifying structural breaks in the global economy. In a recent interview, Bass painted a grim but telling picture of China’s economic condition, warning: “We are witnessing the largest macroeconomic imbalances the world has ever seen, and they are all coming to a head in China.” While China has long been touted as the next great economic superpower, its recent trajectory reveals a far different story, one marked by policy missteps, systemic financial rot, and a rapidly eroding growth engine. Bass didn’t mince words either: “China’s economy is spiraling with no end in sight.” China’s GDP deflator, the broadest measure of prices across goods and services, continues to decline as economic activity erodes.
For investors around the globe, this isn’t just a regional concern; it’s a seismic macroeconomic event that will ripple through capital markets. The implications are significant for U.S. investors because when global economies falter, especially one as large and interconnected as China’s, capital doesn’t just vanish. It moves. That movement will significantly impact U.S. assets as flows transfer back into U.S. dollars and Treasury bonds. This global repositioning of capital isn’t merely a symptom of market volatility; it reflects a profound reevaluation of risk in the face of deteriorating confidence in China’s financial system. We must examine what’s breaking in China to understand why this matters so profoundly. Bass emphasized that the issue’s core lies in the real estate sector, which accounts for roughly 30% of China’s GDP.
This massive share of economic activity is under severe strain, with property developers defaulting, sales volumes collapsing, and home prices declining across major cities. However, this should be unsurprising as, after the financial crisis, we wrote many times about the mass overbuilding of “ghost cities” that were responsible for China’s growth at the time. However, the “bullwhip” effect of that massive overbuilding was inevitable. “They’re sitting on 60 to 70 million vacant homes. It’s a Ponzi scheme that is finally collapsing.” – Kyle Bass. This particular real estate bubble, which is unprecedented in magnitude, is bursting. This creates deflationary pressures and undermines the value of collateral supporting large portions of China’s shadow banking system.
Adding to the concern is the Chinese Communist Party’s refusal to implement reforms that would bring greater transparency, capital discipline, and market-based corrections. Rather than allow markets to clear, Beijing is opting for control through capital restrictions, state intervention, and increased surveillance of financial activity. “China is experiencing a slow-motion banking crisis, and capital is doing everything it can to escape.” – Kyle Bass. That capital flight is inevitable and, as noted, will significantly impact the U.S. economy and financial markets. This exodus of domestic and foreign capital will reshape the global macro landscape. We recently discussed that the “Death of the Dollar” narrative was vastly exaggerated. While that post goes into more detail, there are five primary reasons why the dollar will remain the reserve currency of the world:
• Lack of a viable alternative currency
• Strength of the U.S. economy
• Network effects and global financial inertia
• Limited scope of de-dollarization efforts
• Resilience amid policy changes.
Most importantly, the dollar dominates the composition of global currency transactions.
China’s economic collapse only exacerbates the world’s dependence on the U.S. dollar for trade and storing reserve assets to support that trade. In times of crisis, investors don’t seek yield; they seek safety. Despite the U.S. running its fiscal imbalances and maintaining high levels of debt, the U.S. dollar and Treasury bonds remain the world’s premier safe havens. There is no alternative with the same depth, liquidity, and perceived security.
From a Sputnik piece on the same topic: “..the delivery of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine has been a “total bust,” as Ukrainian pilots have only managed to learn how to take off, not how to land.”
• Zelensky May Not Last Much Longer – Seymour Hersh (RT)
The political future of Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky appears increasingly uncertain, according to officials in Washington cited by legendary journalist Seymour Hersh. The prospect of the politician being replaced by former armed forces commander Valery Zaluzhny is reportedly growing amid waning domestic support and mounting frustration in Washington. Zelensky suspended national elections under martial law and opted not to step down after his presidential term officially ended in 2024. His former top military commander, who was dismissed earlier this year and later appointed ambassador to the UK, has reportedly long been considered a potential successor. “Zelensky is on a short list for exile, if [US] President Donald Trump decides to make the call,” the veteran reporter wrote on Friday.
One US official familiar with internal discussions suggested that if Zelensky refuses to step down — which they believe is the most likely scenario — he may ultimately be removed by force. Zaluzhny is currently seen as the most credible successor to Ukraine’s leader, according to “knowledgeable” officials in Washington cited by Hersh, who added that the “job could be his within a few months.” Zelensky’s popularity, which soared to 90% in the early months after the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, has steadily declined due to battlefield setbacks and ongoing economic difficulties. The latest polls suggest that only 52% of Ukrainians still trust him, while around 60% would prefer he not seek another term.
Western media outlets have recently shifted their tone, with some portraying Zelensky as increasingly authoritarian. Others have reported that officials in Washington believe “it’s time for an election and new leadership.” Russian officials have also raised concerns about Zelensky’s legitimacy, arguing that any international agreements signed under his leadership could be legally challenged. While Moscow has expressed a willingness to negotiate with Zelensky, it remains skeptical of his authority to finalize any lasting deal.
My hot take:
Trump’s 50-Day “deadline” for Russia has nothing to do with altering Russian behavior.
It has everything to do with giving Russia time to establish itself more firmly.
While Trump disposes of Zelensky.
— Scott Ritter (@RealScottRitter) July 18, 2025
Putin has zero reason to meet.
• Zelensky Wants Personal Meeting With Putin (RT)
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has once again called for a personal meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying this is the only way to secure a lasting peace. Moscow considers this pointless until the countries’ delegations find some common ground. Putin offered in May to resume direct negotiations – from the point at which Ukraine unilaterally abandoned talks in 2022. However, Zelensky challenged him to come and meet in Istanbul personally. Ukraine eventually agreed to send a delegation amid reported pressure from Washington, and since then the sides have held two rounds of talks, resulting in prisoner exchanges but no breakthrough toward ending the conflict.
The talks stalled in June after Kiev dismissed Moscow’s peace proposals. It later declared the process “exhausted” and indicated it had only taken part to avoid appearing dismissive of US President Donald Trump’s diplomatic initiative. On Saturday, Zelensky stated that the “pace of negotiations must be increased,” offering to hold a new round of talks next week – and once again demanded a personal meeting with Putin. “A meeting at the level of leaders is needed to truly ensure a lasting peace,” he said, adding: “Ukraine is ready.” Zelensky’s presidential term expired last year, but he has cited martial law, which he imposed, as grounds for remaining in office. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova recently accused the Ukrainian actor-turned-politician of pushing for a personal meeting with Putin to reaffirm his political legitimacy, claiming he “is insanely afraid of being forgotten, of becoming unnecessary for the West.”
Despite Zelensky’s dubious legal status, Putin previously said he is open to a potential meeting – but questioned Zelensky’s authority to sign binding agreements. “I am ready to meet with anyone, including Zelensky. That’s not the issue,” the Russian president stated in June. “The question is different: Who will sign the documents?” According to Moscow, legal authority in Ukraine now resides with the parliament, not with Zelensky. On Tuesday, Ukrainian lawmakers once again extended martial law and general mobilization for another 90 days, with just a single dissenting vote.
“Everyone says they want peace, but there’s still war. That means someone is lyin..,”
• Putin and Trump Need To Meet – Orban (RT)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has called for an in-person meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump, describing it as the only realistic path to ending the Ukraine conflict. In an interview with the Ultrahang YouTube channel published on Thursday, Orban called Trump “the man of peace” but voiced skepticism about the sincerity of other Western governments and officials in Kiev. “Everyone says they want peace, but there’s still war. That means someone is lying,” he said, accusing some parties of having a vested interest in prolonging the bloodshed. “They want the war to continue, no matter what they say.” A deal won’t come from Kiev. It must come from Washington and Moscow. Until then, there will be no peace.
“The conflict will not stop until the Russian and American presidents sit down at the negotiating table,” Orban added. He expressed hope that such a meeting could lay the foundation for a broad agreement addressing not only Ukraine, but also global trade and arms control. Earlier this week, Trump said he was “very, very unhappy” with Putin and threatened Moscow’s trade partners with “severe” secondary tariffs if no diplomatic progress is made within 50 days. Budapest has consistently criticized efforts to arm Kiev and opposes its EU and NATO ambitions, warning that it prolongs the conflict at growing cost to European economies and taxpayers.
Trump has indicated that Washington will no longer fund Kiev’s war effort, but has allowed other NATO members to continue purchasing US-made weapons for Ukraine. Since returning to office in January, Trump has held several phone calls with Putin and has alternated between assigning blame to Moscow and Kiev for the lack of progress. In May, Ukraine agreed to resume direct negotiations with Russia under pressure from Washington. However, talks stalled after two rounds, with Kiev declaring the process “exhausted” and indicating it had only participated to avoid appearing dismissive of Trump’s diplomatic initiative. Moscow has said it remains committed to achieving its core objectives in Ukraine but prefers a diplomatic solution. The Kremlin has expressed hope that, despite his public statements, Trump is also applying private pressure on Kiev.
That would be great. If Trump doesn’t get all braggadocious about his part.
• Putin, Trump and Xi Could Meet In September – The Times (RT)
US President Donald Trump could meet his Russian and Chinese counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, at an upcoming event marking the 80th anniversary of victory over imperial Japan in World War II, The Times has reported. China has announced plans to honor the date with a military parade in Beijing in September, and Moscow has confirmed that Putin will attend. The Soviet Union, China and the US cooperated in the fight against Japan during World War II. Both analysts and ordinary Chinese have called on Xi to “seize the opportunity,” invite Trump and host a three-way summit during the upcoming victory celebration, The Times wrote on Friday.
“Why not align Trump’s visit with the September 3 commemoration?” Renmin University of China Professor and popular Chinese opinion leader Jin Canrong told the Guancha news outlet last month. “If the leaders of China, the US, and Russia were to stand together during the military parade, it would be a great positive signal to the world,” he suggested. According to The Times, Beijing “tacitly encouraged speculation” on the subject by refusing to deny a report by Japan’s Kyodo News released last month, which claimed that the decision to invite Trump had already been made. Relations between Washington, Beijing, and Moscow have soured in recent years over the Ukraine conflict, accusations of Chinese cyber warfare, and what the US describes as “unfair” market practices.
Since the start of his second term in January, Trump has moved to thaw diplomatic ties with Russia and pushed for a settlement in the Ukraine conflict. However, on Monday, he expressed exasperation with the pace of the talks and threatened 100% secondary tariffs on Russian trading partners if the hostilities aren’t resolved within 50 days. Trump has also reignited a trade war with Beijing, which earlier this year rattled global financial markets. The tit-for-tat tariff standoff peaked with 145% US duties on Chinese imports and 125% retaliatory levies from Beijing. Tensions appear to have eased following a trade deal last month under which China relaxed restrictions on key rare earth mineral exports.
Brussels has nothing.
• Trump Toughens Stance In EU Trade Talks – FT (RT)
US President Donald Trump has ramped up his demands in trade talk with the EU and is pushing for a minimum tariff of between 15% and 20% in any deal with Brussels, the Financial Times reports, citing informed sources. The negotiations between Brussels and Washington have been underway since early April, when Trump announced a set of measures aimed at protecting American manufacturers he called the ‘Liberation Day.’ They included a blanket 10% tariff on all imports from the EU and most other US trading partners. The duties have been put on hold pending the talks, but the US president warned that they would grow to 30% if no deal is reached between Washington and Brussels by August 1. The tariffs would be applied on top of the existing sector-specific duties, such as 50% on steel, aluminum duties and 25% car imports levies introduced by the US earlier this year.
The Trump administration is hardening its stance in talks with the EU in order to test the bloc’s “pain threshold,” the FT said in an article on Friday. According to the paper’s sources, the president was also “unmoved” by an offer from Brussels to reduce the 25% car tariffs and wants them to stay as they are. EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic provided a “downbeat” assessment of his recent discussions with the Americans during the meeting of the bloc’s ambassadors on Friday, two people briefed on the matter said. An EU diplomat has told the paper that if Trump insists on 15% to 20% duties, the EU would be forced to retaliate. Brussels has prepared several packages of counter-tariffs against Washington, but delayed their implementation until August 1.
“We do not want a trade war, but we do not know if the US will leave us a choice,” the source said. A second EU diplomat stressed that “the mood has clearly changed” in Brussels in favor of retaliation, adding that “we are not going to settle at 15% percent.” Washington has so far largely avoided retaliation for its tariffs, while collecting a record high of $64 billion in customs duties in the second quarter of 2025, according to the US Treasury.
For now, this is simply about the reserve currency. Stop the threats and they will let you keep it.
• Trump Issues New Threat To BRICS (RT)
President Donald Trump has claimed that BRICS is “fading out fast,” while warning that any attempts by the group to challenge the US dollar will be met with a harsh economic backlash. Speaking at the White House on Friday, Trump denounced what he called BRICS’ attempts to weaken the dollar. “They wanted to try and take over the dollar, the dominance of the dollar… And I said, anybody that’s in the BRICS consortium of nations, we’re going to tariff you 10%.” Trump stressed that Washington will spare no effort to preserve the dollar’s hegemony. “The reserve currency is so important. You know, if we lost that, that would be like losing a World War.” Washington “can never let anyone play games,” Trump said, adding that he has decided to “hit them [BRICS] very, very hard.” “If they ever really form in a meaningful way, it will end very quickly,” he said.
Trump also claimed his threat to impose 10% tariffs on imports from the BRICS had completely derailed the group’s summit in Rio de Janeiro earlier this month. “They had a meeting the following day and almost nobody showed up,” he said. However, the BRICS summit featured broad participation at the highest level. While China’s President Xi Jinping was absent from the meeting, his country was represented by Chinese Premier Li Qiang. Russian President Vladimir Putin was also absent, but addressed the summit remotely. Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa and Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto, as well as leaders from Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE attended in person.
In October, Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov stated that the share of national currencies in trade among BRICS countries has reached 65%, with the share of the dollar and euro plunging below 30%. Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explained that BRICS countries are exploring dollar alternatives “to shield themselves from US arbitrariness.” However, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said that BRICS has never been meant as a rival to the US, although warning that “the language of threats and manipulation… is not the way to speak to members of this group.”
“Resolving a conflict like Ukraine requires deep historical understanding and genuine commitment to due diligence.”
• Trump’s Ultimatum To Russia Is Bluster and Bluff (SCF)
What’s behind Trump’s angry ultimatum to Russia this week? The short answer: failure and frustration. Donald Trump promised American voters that he would end the Ukraine war in 24 hours upon his election in November 2024. Six months into his presidency, Trump has failed to deliver on his boastful promises. This week, Trump flipped his pacemaker image by pledging billions of dollars worth of new American weaponry to Ukraine. He also issued a warning to Russia to call a ceasefire within 50 days or else face severe secondary tariffs on its oil and gas exports. The tariffs, quoted at 100 percent, will be applied to nations purchasing Russian exports, primarily Brazil, China, and India. The latter move indicates that the U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine against Russia is really part of a bigger geopolitical confrontation to maintain American global hegemony.
In any case, Moscow dismissed Trump’s ultimatum. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Moscow would not comply with pressure and that Russia would not back down from its strategic goals in Ukraine to counter NATO’s historic aggression. It is clear that Trump and his administration have failed to understand Russia’s strategic position and the root causes of the conflict. Trump’s supposed diplomacy is seen to operate on a superficial basis more akin to showbiz, with no substance. He wants a peace deal with Russia to show off his vaunted skills as a business negotiator and to grab the limelight, headlines, and adulation.
Resolving a conflict like Ukraine requires deep historical understanding and genuine commitment to due diligence. Moscow has repeatedly stated the need to address the root causes of the conflict: the expansion of NATO on its borders, the CIA-sponsored coup in Kiev in 2014, and the nature of the NATO-weaponized Neo-Nazi regime over the past decade. Trump and his administration have failed to appreciate Russia’s viewpoint. Thus, expecting a peace deal based on nothing but rhetoric and vacuous claims about “ending the killing” is futile. It won’t happen.
This failure, based on unrealistic expectations, has led Trump to adopt an increasingly bitter attitude towards Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent weeks. Ironically, Trump has accused Putin of duplicity and procrastination when, in reality, it is Trump who has shown no serious commitment to resolving the conflict. Now, with chagrin and bruised ego, Trump has reacted with frustration over what are his own failings by issuing ultimatums to Russia. Trump’s 50-day deadline for a Russian response to his demands has a similarity to the 60-day deadline he threatened Iran with, after which he carried out a massive bombing attack on that country. Trump’s aggression towards Iran has turned out to be a fiasco and failure. Threatening Russia is even more useless.
This proclivity for threatening other nations has the hallmark of a Mafiosa megalomaniac. It is also causing Trump to lose support among his voter base, who believed he was going to end “endless wars.” It’s shambolic. Biden’s war is becoming Trump’s war because, at the end of the day, it is the U.S. imperial deep state that rules. Trump’s mercurial switch from professing peace in Ukraine to ramping up the promise of weapons shows that his previous aspirations were always hollow and contingent on other interests. It seems that the 47th American president did not want peace after all. What was driving his apparent desire to end the conflict in Ukraine – what he deprecated as “Biden’s war” – was simply to cut American financial costs.
2016
After the 2016 election, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Amy Klobuchar traveled to Ukraine together. After the trip they held a press conference and declared that Russia attacked the USA by hacking the 2016 election.
It was all lies. pic.twitter.com/8rKXSLpoaE
— MAZE (@mazemoore) July 19, 2025
“..related to the late financier’s alleged “client list,” which the administration says does not exist…”
• DOJ Asks Court To Unseal Jeffrey Epstein Grand Jury Testimony (JTN)
The Justice Department on Friday afternoon formally asked a federal judge to unseal grand jury testimony related to the prosecution of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, fulfilling President Donald Trump’s directive on Thursday. Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to file the request in a Truth Social post, where he criticized the news media for its focus on the administration’s handling of the Epstein case. Bondi vowed to do so. The Justice Department claimed in its filing that the release of the additional information in the case was “a matter of public interest.”
“The public’s interest in the Epstein matter has remained,” the filing reads. “Given this longstanding and legitimate interest, the government now moves to unseal grand jury transcripts associated with Epstein.” The department said it will file a similar motion in the case against former Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, CNN reported, though Trump did not direct the publication of testimony in her case. The Trump administration has faced heavy backlash for its handling of the case, particularly related to the late financier’s alleged “client list,” which the administration says does not exist.
Epstein is so last week…
• The Epstein Enigma (James Howard Kunstler)
Do you detect the signs of Rope-a-Dope in Mr. Trump’s recent blasts against the Epstein mess? It must be obvious that anything he says will be violently opposed by his Democratic Party enemies. So, now he’s got them slavering for release of the Epstein files, whatever they are, or rather, whatever’s left after former FBI Director Christopher Wray & Co. curated them, shall we say. (They had many years to get it done.)
I’m not the first to point out that the president’s most rabid enemies ignored the Epstein case during the entirety of “Joe Biden’s” four-year ectoplasmic visitation in the White House. (They were up to their eyeballs siccing Fani Willis, Letitia James, and Alvin Bragg on Trump.) “Squad” stalwart Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said the other day that she was “too busy” to delve into Epstein. Everybody else from Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to Jamie Raskin (D-MD) just barfed up word salad on MSNBC to excuse themselves for overlooking the matter. But since Mr. Trump affected to quash the whole psychodrama in the harshest tones, they’ve got all the time in the world to pore over Epstein docs. Well, maybe they’ll get what they asked for.
So, yesterday, the president ordered AG Bondi to release the grand jury testimony that has been under seal for years and years, and she has promised to do that today, Friday, July 18, subject to the court approval, meaning it could invite a months-long legal battle. Gawd knows what’s in there, but at least it was kept out of Christopher Wray’s clutches. So, it’s separate from the videos and other stuff alleged to be in the FBI possession. Many say, not altogether convincingly, that the names of “victims” and witnesses must be protected. There’s much confused public controversy as to whether girls allegedly trafficked by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were children or young adults (who would be middle-aged now), and that issue is apparently separate from whatever commercial “child porn” was in the FBI’s Epstein file cabinet that AG Bondi has referred to.
Anyway, Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure says: “Disclosure is permitted to government attorneys or personnel (including state or tribal officials) deemed necessary to assist in enforcing federal criminal law, such as in complex investigations involving organized crime or public corruption.” The current state of the Epstein scandal looks a little like a ruse by Mr. Trump to hang his enemies out to dry and sell them the clothes-line to do it with. In all their garish attempts to get Trump, the Democrats have only ended up Wile E. Coyote’d every single time. Why would this round be any different?
Meanwhile, Naomi Wolf by way of Eric Weinstein has come up with quite an original view of what Jeffrey Epstein was about in the strange role he played among the so-called elite. I will link to her recent substack entry below this blog so you can see for yourself. For Ms. Wolf, it was all about the Silicon Valley “network” of tech moguls, their vast power and influence, and an effort by this group, using Epstein as a broker, to steer science generally in the direction that benefited them and their companies. Epstein served as a middleman between politicians, the weapons industry, the big research universities (all those grants!), and linked intel services such as CIA, Mossad, and MI6.
This is what Eric Weinstein means when he describes Epstein as “a construct.” He was less a person than a function. Epstein cultivated the “list” of elite scientists, tech entrepreneurs, academics, and movie stars with lavish parties and trips to his various compounds in Manhattan, Florida, the US Virgin Islands, and his New Mexico ranch — all in the service of building this tech-and-science network that would become a gigantic mutual aid-and-allegiance society advancing the interests of themselves and their institutions. In the process, certain goodies in the form of young ladies groomed in the sexual arts were made available. Some members of this elite network indulged and some did not, the theory goes.
Pepe travels a lot, but his mind is stuck in place.
• And It’s One, Two, Three, What Are We Fighting For? (Pepe Escobar)
All of you Vietnam vets and draft resisters will recognize where this column’s headline is coming from. Oh yes, this ain’t the late 1960s anymore, so it’s time to revamp it – no AI needed – and expand it: from now on, be assured everyone in the wild, wild West will be forced to fight and/or endure three overlapping NATO wars.
War number 1
It’s Europe v. Russia, of course. Not proxy anymore: hot ‘n nasty, direct. Considering the advanced rottenness of the whole Ukrainian front, new fronts are already proliferating: the South Caucasus; clandestine ops in the Baltic Sea; MI6 recruiting frenzy across Central Asia; fresh terrorism ahead in the Black Sea, especially Crimea. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson succinctly nailed it: we are already on WWIII. Actually we are already deep in the extended preamble to WWIII. Circus Ringmaster in D.C. and the billionaires/donor class behind him are of course clueless. Re-reading Keynes – The Economic Consequences of the Peace – is an absolute must like never before. History does repeat itself. Yet this ain’t 1914 or 1935; now nuclear weapons may come into play.The Kremlin and Russia’s Security Council are very much aware of the high stakes. In his recent interview to Kommersant, Sergei Shoigu even rolled out some key NATO numbers to stress the threat Russia faces: over 50,000 tanks and armored vehicles; over 7,000 combat aircraft; over 750 warships; 350 military and civilian satellites; an immense offense (italics mine) budget. Well, what sly Shoigu did not say is that when push comes to shove, it only takes Mr. Khinzal, Mr. Sarmat, Mr. Zircon and Mr. Oreshnik to deliver a few strategic business cards to paralyze the whole NATO machinery in a matter of minutes.
War number 2
It’s the Empire of Chaos v. Iran in West Asia, with Eretz Israel as much as proxy as a lead actor. The Circus Ringmaster – whose only “strategy” is to concoct shady deals to enrich himself and shysters in his close circle – dreams of an Israeli-centric West Asia, a toxic crossover of the Abraham Accords 2.0 with the IMEC corridor, creating, as Alastair Crooke defined it, “a business-led West Asia, centered on Tel Aviv (with Trump as its de facto ‘President’), and via this business connectivity corridor, be able “to strike further beyond – with the Gulf States penetrating into BRICS’ south Asian heartland to disrupt BRICS connectivity and corridors.”Using the Arabs against BRICS won’t cut it even with MbZ in the UAE and MbS in Saudi Arabia, who have both realized the business scam will only work if there is real peace in Gaza; some sort of humanitarian solution for the Palestinians; and rebuilding the Gaza strip. The death cult in Tel Aviv will never allow any of the above: their plan is to kill them all, steall all their land, and eradicate their culture. And as the genocide goes on – totally legitimized by the NATO sphere – the death cult keeps bombing anything in sight, perpetrating the balkanization of Syria, and expanding Eretz Israel.
And the countries that send the forces will use it as a casus belli.
• Russia Will Target Multinational Forces in Ukraine (Kyle Anzalone)
The Russian Foreign Ministry said any troops from third countries deployed to Ukraine will become targets. European nations have discussed plans to send their soldiers to Ukraine if a ceasefire with Russia is reached. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova explained that any country that joins a coalition of the willing and deploys troops to Ukraine will become targets. “We have repeatedly stated that a deployment of armed forces of other countries in Ukraine under any pretense would be absolutely unacceptable,” she said. “We regard this as preparations for foreign military intervention. We will consider these so-called ‘multinational forces’ as legitimate military targets,” she added.
Several European countries have said they would be willing to join a “coalition of the willing” to deploy soldiers to Ukraine after a ceasefire with Russia is reached. Earlier this month, UK Defense Minister John Healey said, “The prime minister has always been clear that he’s ready to put troops into Ukraine to help reinforce a ceasefire.” “The coalition of the willing” is an infamous phrase used by the George W. Bush administration to try to sell the Iraq War. Moscow says it is unwilling to enter into a ceasefire with Ukraine and is seeking a permanent end to the conflict that addresses the Kremlin’s security concerns.
Multiple leaks throughout the war have exposed that a small number of American and NATO troops are inside Ukraine. However, Europeans are now discussing a large-scale deployment meant as a deterrent to a future Russian invasion. The escalating support for Kiev has led some in the Kremlin to argue for Moscow to take a more aggressive position against Ukraine’s Western backers. Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian President and current deputy head of the National Security Council, suggested launching preemptive attacks. “What is happening today is a proxy war, but in essence it is a full-fledged war,” Medvedev, who is now a senior Russian national security official, told the Tass news agency.
“We need to act accordingly. Respond in full. And if necessary, launch preventative strikes.” However, Medvedev also acknowledged that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ruled out attacking more European countries. “Let me remind you that our president stated unequivocally: Russia does not intend to go to war with NATO or ‘attack Europe’. Such claims by Western politicians are utter nonsense.” He continued, “I would also like to add that this kind of drivel is deliberately injected into the information space to destabilize an already difficult situation. It is yet another front in the West’s open war against us.”
They are clinically insane. We need to dismantle NATO before these maniacs get us all killed. pic.twitter.com/BEe1Gr6pbG
— Thomas Fazi (@battleforeurope) July 19, 2025
Anything written before Friday is old.
• The World Woke Up (Victor Davis Hanson)
In less than six months, the entire world has been turned upside down. There is no longer such a thing as conventional wisdom or the status quo. The unthinkable has become the banal. Take illegal immigration—remember the 10,000 daily illegal entries under former President Joe Biden? Recall the only solution was supposedly “comprehensive immigration reform”—a euphemism for mass amnesties. Now, there is no such thing as daily new illegal immigration. It simply disappeared with commonsense enforcement of existing immigration laws—and a new president. How about the 40,000-50,000 shortfall in military recruitment? Remember all the causes that the generals cited for their inability to enlist soldiers: generational gangs, obesity, drugs, and stiff competition with private industry? And now?
In just six months, recruitment targets are already met; the issue is mostly moot. Why? The new Pentagon flipped the old, canceling its racist DEI programs and assuring the rural, middle-class Americans—especially white males—that they were not systemically racist after all. Instead, they were reinvited to enlist as the critical combat cohort who died at twice their demographic share in Iraq and Afghanistan. How about the “end of the NATO crisis,” supposedly brought on by a bullying U.S.? Now the vast majority of NATO members have met their pledges to spend 2% of gross domestic product on defense, which will soon increase to 5%. Iconic neutrals like Sweden and Finland have become front-line NATO nations, arming to the teeth. The smiling NATO secretary-general even called Trump the “daddy” of the alliance.
What about indomitable, all-powerful, theocratic Iran, the scourge of the Middle East for nearly 50 years? Although it had never won a war in the last half-century, its terrorist surrogates—Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis—were supposedly too dangerous to provoke. Now? Most of their expeditionary terrorists are neutered, and their leaders are in hiding or dead. Iran has no air force, no real navy, no air defenses, and no active nuclear weapons program. Its safety apparently depends only on the mood of the U.S. or Israel on any given day, not to fly into its airspace and take out its missiles, nuclear sites, generals, or theocrats at will. What happened to the supposedly inevitable recession, hyperinflation, stock market collapse, unemployment spikes, and global trade war that last spring economists assured us would hit by summer?
Job growth is strong, and April’s inflation rate is the lowest in four years. GDP is still steady. The stock market hit a record high. Trade partners are renegotiating their surpluses with the U.S. It turns out that staying in the U.S. consumer market is the top priority of our trading partners. It seems their preexisting and mostly undisclosed profits were large enough to afford reasonable U.S. symmetrical tariffs. For now, news of tax cuts, deregulation, “drill, baby, drill” energy policies displacing Green New Deal strangulation, and $8-$10 trillion in potential foreign investment has encouraged—rather than deterred—business. Then there were our marquee elite universities, whose prestige, riches, and powerful alumni made them answerable to no one. And now, after the executive and congressional crackdown on their decades of hubris?
Supposedly brilliant university presidents have resigned in shame. The public has caught on to their grant surcharge gouging. Campuses have backed off their arrogant defiance of the Supreme Court’s civil rights rulings. They are panicked about the public exposure of their systemic antisemitism. They are scrambling to explain away their institutionalized ideological bias and their tawdry profit-making schemes and mass recruitment of wealthy foreign students from illiberal regimes. So, the mighty Ivy League powerhouses are now humbling themselves to cut a deal to save their financial hides and hopefully return to their proper mission of disinterested education. What happened to the trans juggernaut of sex as a social construct and its bookend gospel that biological men could dominate women’s sports?
People woke up. They were no longer afraid to state that sex is binary and biologically determined. And biological men who dominate women’s sports are bullies, not heroes. Where are the millionaire-scamming architects of Black Lives Matter now? Where is the “DEI now, tomorrow, and forever” conventional wisdom? Where is professor Ibram X. Kendi and his $30,000 Zoom lessons on how to fight racism by being racist? They have all been exposed as the race hustlers they always were. Their creed that it is OK for supposed victims to be racist victimizers themselves was exposed as an absurd con. So, what flipped everything?
We were living in an “emperor has no clothes” make-believe world for the last few years. The people knew establishment narratives were absurd, and our supposed experts were even more ridiculous. But few—until now—had the guts to scream “the emperor is naked” to dispel the fantasies. When they finally did, reality returned.
“.. it is just the latest chapter in a 2,600-year story of value, trust, and human ingenuity..”
• Red, White, and Bitcoin (Beirne)
Bitcoin may feel futuristic, but when you peel away its digital veneer, it is just the latest chapter in a 2,600-year story of value, trust, and human ingenuity. Having reached record highs, Bitcoin has been making headlines as nations declare strategic stockpiles and corporate America embraces the new asset class. Why now? The answer lies in a pattern as old as civilization itself: When governments corrupt a currency, people innovate their way to something better. As the saying goes, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” When the first coin clanked into existence in 600 B.C., it was not merely a gold and silver alloy stamped with the face of the Lydian king.
It was a financial revolution. For the first time, people could move past the inefficiencies of barter and instead use a medium of exchange to trade. But this value was not in the sparkle; it was the individuals’ collective understanding that these coins have worth. The integrity of that system has waxed and waned over the ensuing millennia, typically driven by governmental spending policies. The silver-backed Roman denarii enabled the empire to flourish, but as subsequent emperors diluted its value – reducing their silver content to fund wars and build grand palaces – citizens lost faith in their currency. When Emperor Nero reduced silver content from 98% to 83% in A.D. 64, Romans began hoarding old coins and rejecting new ones. By A.D. 260, the denarius contained just 5% silver. Inflation spiraled and commerce crumbled, contributing to the eventual fall of the empire.
The United States has battled currency crises since our nation’s birth, but unlike Rome, America has consistently innovated solutions along the way. After we declared independence from Britain, the Continental Congress printed the nation’s first paper money. Called “Continentals,” it was backed by neither gold nor silver – simply by belief in its value. While gold and silver are at least relatively scarce metals that constrain supply, paper can be printed. And that is precisely what the first U.S. government did. Desperate to pay troops and buy supplies necessary to wage the Revolutionary War, Congress turned to making more Continentals. Bills flooded the market, driving down value as Americans questioned whether the new nation could honor its promises.
In 1777, one patriot complained to his father as inflation spiked by an estimated 200%, writing, “America has much more to fear from the effects of large quantities of paper money than from the operations of British Generals.” Prices climbed so rapidly that George Washington himself came to refuse Continentals as payment. In fact, it became common to describe something of little value as “not worth a Continental.” The currency became such a laughingstock that sailors paid in the bills would sew them onto their clothes and parade through town to mock it. But rather than crumble like the Roman Empire, the U.S. innovated: This currency crisis was a driving force that led our Founding Fathers to scrap the American government under the Articles of Confederation and draft our current Constitution.
This change represented more than political reform – it was monetary advancement, shifting from discretionary to rule-based money. The new U.S. government adopted a bimetallic standard in 1792, which tied the value of dollars to both gold and silver. The country eventually simplified its approach by shifting to a de facto gold standard in 1834, which lasted until 1971 when President Nixon abandoned it in favor of fiat currency. Like the Continentals before it, the dollar has since been backed by belief in its value: full faith and credit of the U.S. government. And then came the 2008 financial crisis. Lehman Brothers fell, banks wobbled, and the public? They started asking: “What is money?”
It was then, from the digital shadows, that an anonymous figure – Satoshi Nakamoto – dropped a whitepaper like a patriot dropping a leaflet on the eve of the Revolutionary War: Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. No emperors. No banks. Just math, cryptography, and an unbreakable record called the blockchain. A new kind of trust was born – not in a ruler, but in code. What was initially viewed as an interesting hypothetical idea was quickly put to real-world use. Users beget more users. Trust grows. Entrepreneurs dream. It’s a full-blown historical saga unfolding in real time.
Bitcoin has risen above the other cryptocurrencies it inspired, in large part due to its scarcity: no longer could an Emperor add bits of cheap copper to silver coins or Congress print more paper because it is hardcoded that only 21 million Bitcoin will ever exist. Further, all Bitcoin transactions are verified by a decentralized network of approximately 20,000 individuals’ computers across the world, all checking one another beyond politicians’ control. In an age of runaway government spending, investors have turned to those scarce Bitcoin that no government can dilute. A decentralized system that guards the people from government domination – how American is that!
It is no coincidence that Bitcoin has skyrocketed to a $2 trillion valuation just as the U.S. national debt has reached record highs. Researchers debate how long fiat currencies last on average throughout history, with some placing time of death at between 27 and 35 years. Since the U.S. has been off the gold standard for over 50 years, history suggests the dollar is poised for decline. People are simply asking the age-old question: What is money, really? As trust is shaken in paper money due to inflation and ballooning federal spending, many are turning to innovation. Even nations themselves have begun to set up strategic reserves. In fact, the United States is the largest known state holder of Bitcoin – once again positioning America at the forefront of monetary evolution.
As John Adams advised in 1787, “All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from the defects of the Constitution, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.” It is incumbent upon Americans to arm themselves with knowledge and engage in the age-old American tradition of challenging broken systems with better ideas in the pursuit of liberty.
Aaron Siri
https://twitter.com/newstart_2024/status/1946312859824099353
Letterman
Trump has been the exact same person for 40 years.pic.twitter.com/e2vyaVrmPi
— (news) DOGE (@DOGE__news) July 18, 2025
CBDC
.@POTUS: "I also remain fully committed to my pledge never to allow the creation of a Central Bank Digital Currency in America. It won't happen." pic.twitter.com/kFMVlf4CSG
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 18, 2025
lipitor
They were preparing to put her in aged care.
Memory loss. Confusion. Leaving the iron on.
Her husband thought it was Alzheimer’s… until they found out the real cause.She’d been on cholesterol-lowering meds for 10 years.
Lipitor.
And after just 3 days off?
Her memory started… pic.twitter.com/eLXjEoMCi3— Barbara Oneill (@BarbaraOneillAU) July 19, 2025
Yellowstone
Yellowstone Super Volcano is huge.
Many speculate it is somewhat unstable.
What would potentially happen if it erupted. Apparently. pic.twitter.com/qeXkJ4LVus
— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) July 18, 2025
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