Jul 282026
 
 July 28, 2026  Posted by at 9:14 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  29 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Femme 1930


Trump Ready For ‘Strong Military Action’ If Talks Fail (ZH)
CENTCOM Chief Believes US Strikes Around Hormuz No Longer Effective (RT)
Iran’s Regime Builds More Scaffolds for Protesters (Salgado)
Rubio’s Genius Move: Venezuela Quits the ICC (Anderson)
Insider Politics is an Elite Clique (CTH)
Democrats Keep Digging Their Hole Deeper (Amy Denton)
The Democratic National Committee Is Imploding (Matt Margolis)
Rick Scott Joins Push to Force SAVE Act Vote (Salgado)
The Fair Share Myth and Other Socialist Fables (Turley)
Jury Duty For Illegal Aliens (CTH)
Will the “Fat Lady” Finally Sing? (James Howard Kunstler)
Greece Refuses EU Sanctions Against Russia (TASS)
Judge Boasberg Keeps Ruling Against POTUS, But Keeps Getting Overturned (JTN)
Prosecuting The Prosecutor: Will Jack Smith Face Criminal Charges? (JTN)
Chamath Warns Ban On Open-Source AI Would Tank The Market (ZH)

 


 

https://twitter.com/Tironianae/status/2081321145375014970?s=20

 


 


“Trump Cites ‘Deep Talks’ – Warns of Expanded Action; Houthis Claim Responsibility for New Aramco Attacks..”

Trump Ready For ‘Strong Military Action’ If Talks Fail (ZH)

President Trump has told Axios on Monday that he decided to pause American military attacks on Iran in order to give negotiations another chance, despite there currently being no evidence that Tehran has been urgently requesting them. Trump warned in the comments that war could immediately return with expanded strikes if diplomacy fails.But it seems there’s at least some indirect ‘note passing’ between capitals going on, even as Saudi Aramco facilities have apparently come under drone assault from Iran-aligned militants in Yemen and Iraq. Axios writes that “The talks are being conducted mainly between Iran and Oman.


But Qatar, Pakistan, Egypt and Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, are actively involved.” “We are in very deep talks with Iran. If they don’t work out, we will go back to very strong military action,” Trump said in an interview. Again, very deep talks?… The Iranian side is certainly not confirming this, but instead quite the opposite. Tehran has definitively stated its position that there are no talks currently happening. It seems it is merely the mediating powers that are most urgently trying to get the sides back to the negotiating table. Trump said he won’t give diplomacy “much time” and that it “either goes fast or not at all.”

“All of the people that deal with Iran asked me: ‘Don’t fire,'” he also said, perhaps alluding to reports like the following: The top U.S. military commander in the Middle East recommended ending the bombing campaign around the Strait of Hormuz after concluding it reached the limits of its effectiveness, a recommendation that helped shape President Donald Trump’s decision to pause strikes against Iran, Axios reported Sunday. Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, advised Pentagon leaders, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the White House last week that two weeks of sustained airstrikes had weakened Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping through the strategic waterway, multiple sources familiar with the discussions said.

As for new reported strikes on Saudi Aramco facilities (below), and particularly the sprawling Abqaiq site, the Houthis are claiming responsibility.

Previously Trump vowed to hold Iran directly responsible for any attacks carried out by its proxy groups.

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“Admiral Brad Cooper reportedly told President Donald Trump that designated bombing targets in southern Iran had largely been exhausted”

CENTCOM Chief Believes US Strikes Around Hormuz No Longer Effective (RT)

The top US commander in the Middle East, Admiral Brad Cooper, advised President Donald Trump that striking Iranian targets around the Strait of Hormuz was no longer effective, Axios reported on Sunday, citing two people familiar with the matter. Cooper, who leads US Central Command (CENTCOM), reportedly told Trump that the designated bombing targets in the area had largely been exhausted. He added that there was no point in continuing the strikes unless the US returned to major combat operations, according to Axios.


Trump paused the strikes on Friday, abruptly ending a 13-day bombing campaign amid reports that regional mediators were rushing to broker a new ceasefire. Several US news outlets reported that Trump was also concerned about dwindling stocks of interceptors used to counter Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone attacks on American bases across the Middle East. Trump, however, denied that the US was running short of ammunition.= The Strait of Hormuz, a vital maritime chokepoint, remains closed to regular commercial shipping despite US strikes on Iran’s port infrastructure and military sites in the country’s south.

The US resumed its maritime blockade of Iran earlier this month following attacks on tankers attempting to transit the strait. Both sides have signaled that the truce, first reached in April and later expanded through a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on June 17, is effectively over. The latest round of hostilities erupted over differing interpretations of the MoU, which was intended to provide more time for negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran insists it has the right to control all traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and has labeled routes designated by the US Navy as illegal.

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52,000 and counting..

Iran’s Regime Builds More Scaffolds for Protesters (Salgado)

The terrorist Iranian regime is planning to execute more political prisoners while also continuing its indiscriminate attacks on neighboring countries.


About a week ago, the murderous mullahs hanged 19-year-old Erfan Esfandiari and 23-year-old Gol Mohammad Mohammadi for participating in the freedom protests this year that culminated in the regime massacring between 40,000 and 52,000 of its own Persian people. This month, Iranian attacks on Jordanian and Iraqi targets also resulted in the deaths of four American soldiers: 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, and Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton. Of course, the death-worshipping ayatollahs see this all as a great success for them, so they want to pile up more casualties.

The Kurdish militias are potential allies if the United States wished to reach out to them; prospective ground troops should there be yet another escalation in the never-ending conflict with the Iranian regime. The ayatollahs obviously understand this, which is why they are now reportedly bombarding the Kurds, an ethnic minority that lives in parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. The Kurds face different levels and outbursts of persecution in each country where they live, including Iran, which is why they are not exactly friendly with the terrorist Tehran regime.

Meanwhile, the ayatollahs are also getting ready to execute up to four political protesters, triggering another wave of protests. Unfortunately for the protesters, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — the entity that organizes international terrorism and enforces domestic tyranny — is also out on the streets.

Whenever Israel has to defend itself and strikes Lebanese or Gazan jihadis, practically the whole world goes crazy with fury. There are riots in every Western country and condemnations from most governments on the killing of terrorists. But for some reason, when Hamas’s sponsors in Tehran butcher innocent civilians, the self-righteous Westerners and Muslim dictators who decried Israel fall silent or barely object.

We cannot make lasting peace with people who believe that murdering innocents is laudable.

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“..on Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel, and Khan applied for arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant in May of 2024..”

Rubio’s Genius Move: Venezuela Quits the ICC (Anderson)

On Friday, the Venezuelan regime’s current Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia announced that “interim president” Delcy Rodríguez had instructed him to express to the current UN secretary-general that Venezuela had made the “firm and irrevocable decision to denounce the Rome Statute and initiate its definitive withdrawal from the [International Criminal Court (ICC)], in accordance with Article 127.” He added:


Venezuela considers that the Court’s actions reflect a demonstrated geographical bias, which has disproportionately concentrated its work on African and Latin American countries, to the detriment of the Global South. This pattern reveals an international justice system that, far from being applied equitably, has been instrumentalized to deepen inequalities among peoples and disregard their right to self-determination and sovereignty.

This bias is not a mere procedural coincidence, but the reflection of an institution that has placed its mechanisms at the service of interests alien to justice and the peoples it claims to protect. For this reason, we reject this dimension of lawfare, which perpetuates the persecution against the Venezuelan people and exacerbates the inequalities that international justice should correct. We reiterate our commitment to a genuinely equitable justice, respectful of the sovereignty and self-determination of peoples.

The United States State Department responded almost immediately on Saturday, welcoming the move and calling on all other members to follow the South American nation’s lead. It also pointed out that the court serves no real purpose, as it had been investigating Nicolás Maduro since 2018 with “no result.” Here’s more: The United States welcomes the decision by interim President Delcy Rodriguez and Venezuela to withdraw from the ICC and the new Venezuelan government’s partnership on American-led efforts to dismantle the corrupt and worthless ICC. The so-called court has been ‘investigating’ Nicolas Maduro since 2018 with no result.

The ICC has instead wasted its resources on investigating and charging persons from countries that have competent, independent judicial systems and which never submitted to the jurisdiction of the court. This is blatant overreach, political bias and selective enforcement. The ICC is neither credible, independent, nor legitimate. Thanks to President Trump’s leadership and the efforts of brave American service members, Maduro is now facing justice in a U.S. court for crimes he has committed. It is time to dismantle the ICC. The U.S. calls on all members of the ICC to withdraw from the Rome Statute.

If you’ll remember, Marco Rubio came out a couple of weeks ago and basically told the ICC where it could go and said the United States will dismantle it “brick by brick, if necessary.” Here’s something I wrote about that earlier this month: We’re starting by launching a diplomatic campaign with a simple message: ‘sovereign states over globalism.’ He added that, ‘Those who benefit from American security must not stand idly by while those who provide that security are targeted.’ And that’s only the beginning, Rubio said. We’ll use every tool at our disposal to take down the ICC with the help of every ally really to join our cause.

Of course, we also know that Rubio is largely running Venezuela, so this isn’t some big coincidence. Delcy and the rest of the regime were given their orders and followed them. It’s mutually beneficial. These criminals still overseeing the country buy themselves some insulation against future warrants, and Rubio kicks off his diplomatic campaign to encourage other countries to follow with a concrete example.

As the State Department mentioned, Venezuela is no stranger to the ICC. In 2018, several other Western Hemisphere countries — Argentina, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, and Peru — referred the regime and its security forces to the court for “crimes against humanity,” largely based on crackdowns on protests in 2014 and 2017 that led to death, violence, arbitrary detentions, and forms of torture, including severe beatings, electric shocks, asphyxiation, sexual assault, and other brutal techniques.

In 2021, under prosecutor Karim Khan, the ICC opened a case against Maduro’s regime, while also signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with it, promising cooperation and “positive complementarity” — which is basically letting Venezuela handle cases domestically if it can show genuine progress. For two years, nothing happened but a lot of talk. During this period, the regime claimed it was conducting its own investigations.

In 2023, after no progress, the ICC reopened the investigation and even set up a technical office in Caracas to work with Venezuelan authorities. However, the court shut it down, claiming it received no cooperation. There’s also the factor that Khan’s sister-in-law, Venkateswari Alagendra, is a lawyer representing Maduro’s regime. Not a conflict of interest at all. In 2025, a judge ordered Khan to recuse himself from the case, a case on which there has still been no progress made.

In 2026, the Donald Trump administration took matters into its own hands and decided that we’d prosecute Maduro on our soil, but this comes after seven plus years of the ICC dragging its feet on one of the most abusive regimes in the world. To put that in perspective, on Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel, and Khan applied for arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant in May of 2024, roughly seven months later. There’s no bias going on here. Nothing to see. But this also shows us that Venezuela was already hostile toward the court. It’s also important to note the language used by the regime. It says the court has “disproportionately concentrated its work on African and Latin American countries.”

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“There was always a problem for George Clooney in the political world which centered around his intelligence. Clooney is not a smart fellow, ..”

“Amal Clooney then went to work for the International Criminal Court (ICC) ..”

Insider Politics is an Elite Clique (CTH)

The relationship between George Clooney and Barack Obama is well known and well documented. However, there are some interesting aspects that fill in a story and highlight how the constructs of U.S. political circles are always managed. The origin of Clooney’s intersection with the Chicago machine likely begins during his time as an actor playing the role of Dr. Doug Ross in the TV series ER (circa mid 1990’s). The show was based in Chicago. Fast forward a few years, and Clooney was considered an alternate fellow traveler for potential as an insurance policy during the 2012 reelection of Obama.


There was always a problem for George Clooney in the political world which centered around his intelligence. Clooney is not a smart fellow, and efforts to educate him on matters of strategic politics were doomed to failure. He was not competent as lead; the male AOC of his time. However, in 2012 those who control the mechanisms of Democrat politics were worried about the reelection of Obama when contrast with the chaos created by the Arab Spring, which he purposefully triggered.

Enter Amal Alamuddin, an international “human rights” lawyer with significant leftist bona-fides. Amal Alamuddin was Lebanese and British. In/around mid-2012, Clooney was told by his lawyer that Amal was coming to his home on the Amalfi coast of Italy; the lawyer said, “This is the woman you need to marry.” Given the frustration of Clooney’s intellectual challenges, the objective was to immerse Clooney in competency and see if it would rub off. Controlled leftism is always following a similar playbook (again, see AOC as a reference).

On June 30, 2012, the overthrow of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarek was concluded. Part of the USAID regime change operation, the part that triggered the original Islamist Spring, worked with great success to install Muslim Brotherhood member Mohammed Morsi. Morsi took power in Egypt and quickly went to work on the platform of extremist Islam. In November of 2012, President Mohammed Morsi issued a provisional constitutional declaration that granted him unrestricted authority and the authority to legislate without the need for judicial oversight or review. The objective was a new Egyptian constitution based on Islamic Law, Sharia Law.

In the background of the Obama administration, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton running the USAID operation supported by CIA Director Leon Panetta, the September 12, 2012, Benghazi crisis in neighboring Libya presented a problem. The U.S administration and the international control agents who supported the Muslim Brotherhood had their hands full. Morsi in Egypt was going fully Islamist at the same time Libya was in turmoil. Back home the Benghazi crisis was filling the headlines as the U.S. reelection loomed large. Clooney was in London and the Amal Alamuddin operation was still ongoing. That’s the context for this video clip.

Listen to George Clooney talk about asking Amal Alamuddin to come meet him and what Alamuddin was working on at the time. The video is prompted; it only takes around 30 seconds to get the point.

Amal Alamuddin was working for the Muslim Brotherhood on the Egyptian constitutional changes in support of the objectives of introducing Sharia Law on behalf of Mohammed Morsi, the hand-selected leader approved by Barack Obama. For those who are only just beginning to realize how candidates, politics and elections are controlled by global elites, you can literally see how the small group was operating through this example. Obviously, Obama won re-election; however, despite getting married to Amal Alamuddin, now Amal Clooney, George Clooney’s intellectual deficiency could never be overcome.

Although, to be fair, there are still Obama operatives at work within the DNC who don’t want to give up on the Clooney enterprise. Six months after Obama’s second inauguration, in June 2013, the Egyptian people had enough of the hardline extremism. The military led by General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, dispatched Morsi, closed the border with Libya, outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, put the remaining extremists like Mohammed al-Zawahiri (brother to al-Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri) into jail and saved themselves from the Islamist spring.

Amal Clooney then went to work for the International Criminal Court (ICC) and was part of the legal team that assembled the war crimes charges against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that have recently been in the headlines. Clooney was working for ICC lead prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan who has also been in the headlines recently. “:

”(UK Guardian) – The prosecutor of the international criminal court, Karim Khan, has been removed from office after the court’s governing body concluded in June that he had committed serious misconduct in connection to allegations of sexual abuse. The ICC’s member states voted on Friday to oust the British prosecutor in an unprecedented move that concludes a damaging episode for the court two years after the allegations were first raised. According to sources familiar with the result, 82 of the court’s 125 member states voted in favour of removing Khan at a special meeting at the UN’s headquarters in New York. (more)”:

…And now you probably know more than you ever wanted to know about these things.

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“Someone close to the disaster, who did not want to lose his or her job, spoke to the New York Post, saying, “The midterms are going to come before we know it and then we’re going to be really f****d.”

Democrats Keep Digging Their Hole Deeper (Amy Denton)

Today’s Democrats are so far from the Democrat Party of twenty or thirty years ago that no Democrat back then would be willing to claim them now. The leaders of the Democratic Party of today do not seem to understand that the farther and farther they go to the left, the less people will be willing to donate to them. Putting aside the mess that ActBlue built with its creative fundraising, the Democratic National Committee is in serious financial trouble. Ever since Kamala Harris’ disastrous campaign burned through $1.5 billion—yes, billion with a “b”—the DNC has had the problem of what to do with the remainder of her debt.


In August 2025, the DNC agreed to pay off $20.5 million in campaign debts while Harris agreed to raise money for the DNC to “make the entity whole financially.” Where the money came from to pay that amount off is anybody’s guess. The DNC already had financial problems as of June 2025, with the main fundraising committee looking to borrow money.Wait a minute. If your fundraising committee needs to borrow money, what does that say about how capable the committee is of raising funds? Nothing good.

Because of Harris, because of ActBlue, because of whatever dumpster fire was going on, major donors were pulling back, forcing the fundraising committee to look at borrowing money simply to keep the lights on. While the Republican National Committee has more money than it knows what to do with, the DNC does not. Someone close to the disaster, who did not want to lose his or her job, spoke to the New York Post, saying, “The midterms are going to come before we know it and then we’re going to be really f****d.”

That was last year. This year, the hits keep on coming with the news that the DNC put up its building in Southeast Washington, D.C. as collateral on a $15 million line of credit last year. And yet, the DNC did not declare the building as collateral in its monthly or loan-related filings to the Federal Election Commission. Why not? Was it supposed to and just “forgot”?

The DNC has two goals this election year. First, take back the House and/or the Senate in the midterm elections. Second, win as many gubernatorial and local elections as possible. Both are nearly impossible to do without money. As of June 2026, the DNC had $16 million in its accounts and $18 million in debt. In contrast, over the same period, the RNC had $128 million in cash and no debt. Rather amazing, isn’t it? Completely ignore the electorate, advocate for illegal aliens and genital mutilations of children, and the money starts to dry up. Who would have thought?

The DNC states that using its building as collateral has been done before and was not news. A spokesman for the DNC stated that the building had been used as collateral in 2019, 2018, and 2014, among many other years. Here’s the kicker: the DNC doesn’t own the whole building, only part of it. So, what does it do? Put the part it owns up as collateral?

All of the financial problems have landed firmly on the shoulders of Ken Martin, the Democratic Party chair. Apparently, Martin has not had success in getting donors to maximize their donations, which has led to the low level of cash on hand. Nor has he handled the pressure well. According to an internal human resources inquiry, in early July, he chucked a phone at an aide in frustration after speaking with donors and political allies. The phone did not hit the aide but left other aides who witnessed the incident shaken.

The phone throwing incident on top of the lack of fundraising and the ever-growing skepticism of the Democratic faithful has only led to the deepening of the tense mood in the DNC. Add in the highly edited explanation of what really went wrong in the autopsy of the 2024 presidential election loss, and it becomes obvious why Martin has not been successful in his time as DNC chairman, even though he’s only been chairman since February 2025. In eighteen months, not only have the DNC’s fortunes not reversed, but they’ve also grown worse.

Not so according to Martin. In an op-ed on Substack, he defended the lack of cash on hand, stating that the DNC made the decision to spend more on electoral assets such as more people, earlier organizing, and stronger state parties. Stronger state parties? I don’t know about the rest of the country, but the Texas Democratic Party is a mess. While that is amusing to conservatives and Republicans, it is not helpful to the Democratic Party overall. He ends the editorial with, “A party is not a savings account. Its purpose is to build power.” Wow. If that is indeed the case, the DNC will have quite a time on its hands come November.

Another problem for the DNC is the 2028 Democratic presidential primary schedule. South Carolina is the first state to vote in the Democratic primary, with Nevada and New Hampshire coming next. Dating back to 1972, New Hampshire was the first state to vote in the Democratic primary; it’s a state law. New Hampshire lost the first-in-the-nation primary status in 2022. This year, it came in a distant third. What will happen in 2028 when the primary season begins in New Hampshire? No one really knows.

Having to mortgage the building it only partly owns seems to be the least of the DNC’s problems at the moment. Perhaps the party will find a way to right the ship; perhaps the party will simply make things worse. Considering what has already happened this year in Maine and the appalling lack of decent candidates elsewhere in the country, it doesn’t appear likely. The DNC does look like it is going to go down with the ship instead of righting it. That anonymous source who said that the DNC was f****d could well turn out to be more prophetic than intended.

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“The DNC has paid more than $700,000 in interest on that $15 million line of credit, averaging over $75,000 a month, and starting in January it owes $1.66 million in principal payments every month.”

The Democratic National Committee Is Imploding (Matt Margolis)

The Democrat Party has spent months promising a blue wave midterm election and projecting confidence, but behind closed doors, the Democratic National Committee is in turmoil. =According to a New York Times report, the Democratic National Committee can’t pay its bills and Chairman Ken Martin is paranoid and unhinged. In other words, the committee is drowning in internal chaos. This is threatening to blunt whatever momentum Democrats thought they had heading into the midterms, which are now just 100 days away.


PJ Media previously reported that the DNC put up its own DC headquarters as collateral for a $15 million line of credit last year. That was bad news on its own. But it’s gotten worse. Party leaders have now asked vendors to hold off sending invoices until after the midterms, according to three people briefed on the discussions. Ouch. And then there’s the issues with Chairman Martin. According to the report, he has become isolated, anxious about his job security, and dependent on a shrinking circle of trusted aides. More than two dozen current and former Democrats and DNC officials described his behavior to the New York Times, most speaking anonymously because nobody wants their name near this dumpster fire.

And who could blame them? Just how unhinged has Martin become? Well, in early July, Martin allegedly threw his phone at a junior aide’s desk while reprimanding him, prompting a formal HR complaint. Accounts differ on how hard he threw it, though everyone agrees it hit the desk, not the aide. Martin later met with HR about his behavior. The DNC declined to comment, and Martin declined an interview request. Martin has also made dark jokes about how long he’ll last as chairman, even though his term runs through 2029, but he still insists he’s committed to the party and hopeful about November.

The big problem for the Democrats, of course, is the money gap with Republicans. President Donald Trump controls a $400 million super PAC. The Republican National Committee reported $128.5 million in cash on hand. The DNC is $2 million in debt. Before filing its July report, the DNC even transferred $1 million out of its 2028 convention fund to prop up its main accounts.The loan hasn’t helped. The DNC has paid more than $700,000 in interest on that $15 million line of credit, averaging over $75,000 a month, and starting in January it owes $1.66 million in principal payments every month. The DNC has funneled money to its House and Senate campaign arms every cycle for more than a decade, but officials have privately told congressional leaders that won’t happen in 2026.

There isn’t any cash left to give, and a big factor in this debacle is Kamala Harris. In 2024, Kamala Harris raised a ton of money in her campaign but left behind millions in debt that the DNC spent much of last year paying down with her help. Last fall, Martin sent $3 million each to Democratic gubernatorial campaigns in Virginia and New Jersey, structuring the loan for those transfers, hoping the wins would revive DNC fundraising. The bet hasn’t paid off yet. Martin’s paranoia bled into his own team. This spring, he confronted the party’s finance director over what he believed was an effort to push him out.

In May, finance chairman Chris Korge was already talking with other officers about an emergency meeting on the party’s finances. Martin read those talks as a plot against him, and when the two finally spoke late one Tuesday night, things got ugly fast. The emergency meeting Korge wanted eventually happened in Pittsburgh in June. For the first time, party officers had to sign nondisclosure agreements just to be in the room. I wrote before that this was the sign of a huge problem. Well, there’s the proof.

Make no mistake about it, the Democratic National Committee is a dumpster fire right now. It’s deep in debt, can’t pay its vendors on time, and its chairman is a paranoid wreck who needs nondisclosure agreements to keep its own board members quiet. We’re 100 days out from the midterms, hardly enough time for things to turn around for the Democratic National Committee. This is gonna be fun to watch.

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“Right now Senate Democrats enjoy all the benefits of the filibuster with none of the political cost—and without even having to work for it. Enforcing a real talking filibuster would change that dynamic overnight.”

Rick Scott Joins Push to Force SAVE Act Vote (Salgado)

RINO and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) thought he could get to the August recess without having to vote for election integrity legislation or a budget resolution. But two Republican senators have now stepped up to force a roll call vote on the SAVE America Act.


Get-out-the-vote warrior Scott Presler triggered the upset in the Senate by begging one senator — any senator — to request a roll call vote and force senators to go on the record about the SAVE America Act before the recess. This action is in accord with Senate rules and is based on Article I, Section 5, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) responded to Presler by offering to take up the challenge, and then notified Thune, “I hereby object to any effort to put the Senate into recess in August—at least until such time as the Senate has passed the SAVE America Act—and hereby request a roll call vote.”

Then on Sunday Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) joined in the effort. “I stand with [Mike Lee]. I will vote to stay in session unless we have passed the SAVE America Act. The American people expect us to deliver. They deserve secure elections,” Scott wrote on X.

Scott subsequently reposted Presler’s enthusiastic message of gratitude. “Senator Rick Scott, On [sic] behalf of millions of Americans, thank you for being one of the very few Senators that actually care about us,” Presler exclaimed. “Thank you for working tirelessly to pass the SAVE America Act & secure our elections. We are finding illegal aliens on the voter rolls in Pennsylvania. This is a constitutional crisis.” Presler has been going through the non-juror and registered voter data in Pennsylvania.

https://twitter.com/ScottPresler/status/2080797691366240285?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2080797691366240285%7Ctwgr%5E4424297fc6ffead79f47802d5981c97d6cbc9a3c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fcatherinesalgado%2F2026%2F07%2F26%2Frick-scott-joins-in-forcing-save-act-vote-lee-explains-his-plan-n4955475

Thune wants Americans to believe he can’t get the SAVE America Act or any of its provisions through. But Lee has laid out a plan. Back on July 22, Lee posted on X, “We could break the Democrats’ filibuster the old-fashioned way: make them actually speak on the Senate floor, knowing we can ‘call the question’ and pass it at a simple-majority threshold the minute they stop speaking. We could add pressure by working through weekends and recess weeks as needed, with a public commitment to keep the Senate in session until the bill passes.”

He went on, “Right now Senate Democrats enjoy all the benefits of the filibuster with none of the political cost—and without even having to work for it. Enforcing a real talking filibuster would change that dynamic overnight. We could also advance key provisions of the SAVE America Act using budget reconciliation. Or we could nuke the filibuster.”

The House had actually found a workaround to thwart Democrat shenanigans, as the pre-recess House budget resolution included provisions of the SAVE America Act and vital military funding. Unfortunately, Thune, ever the backstabber, delivered a nonsensical lecture about the importance of consulting Democrats—you know, the ones who aim to defund ICE and oppose funding related to the Iran conflict, fund foreign criminals, and kill all election integrity efforts—while coming up with a “bipartisan” funding package. With Republicans like him, who needs Democrats?

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“.. his promised “warmth of collectivism.”

The Fair Share Myth and Other Socialist Fables (Turley)

New York City socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani is back in his element. After admitting that he cannot fulfill his campaign pledge to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mamdani returned to his class warfare narrative. This week, he taunted the city’s highest-earning taxpayers with a letter informing them of another special tax awaiting them in the Big Apple.As wealthy citizens flee the city, Mamdani strongly suggests that those who remain are going to get burned by his promised “warmth of collectivism.” In doing so, he repeated a socialist myth about how the wealthiest taxpayers are not paying “their fair share.”


Mamdani went on X to tell those with second homes in New York City worth more than $5 million that “you’ve got mail” and a “new pied-a-terre tax.” He gleefully declared, “The best city in the world deserves the best p arks, libraries, and schools in the world. That’s only possible when we all pay our fair share.”The fair share myth is a virtual mantra among socialist and Democratic leaders, from Mamdani to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). In my book, “Rage and the Republic,” I address the false claim that the wealthy are not “paying their fair share.” In fact, the top 10 percent already pay more taxes than the bottom 90 percent combined.

In 2023, the top 1 percent paid an estimated 38.4 percent of all federal individual income taxes. One can certainly raise the need for additional taxes to support public works, but it is simple demagoguery to claim that the wealthy do not pay their fair share when the top 10 percent pay an estimated 75 percent of federal income taxes. The U.S. income tax system is already the most progressive in the developed world, even before additional New York state and city taxes are added in.=The demonization of the wealthy is one of the oldest tactics of politicians seeking to empower themselves by harnessing mob rage.

Combined with pledges of free stuff under socialism, it creates a dangerous delusion among disgruntled citizens. Another common fable has been repeated by socialists such as Darializa Avila Chevalier, the prison abolitionist who won a recent primary for Congress in New York. This radical, who once boasted how she wiped her hands on the American flag in lieu of a napkin, was pressed on whether there has ever been a “successful model of socialism anywhere in the world outside the U.S., in terms of both human rights and widespread economic justice.”

She responded by citing Sweden and Norway, as other figures such as Sanders have done before her. Indeed, the claim of successful Scandinavian socialist systems is a sort of Marxist bedtime fairytale, told to children about a workers’ paradise in quaint Nordic fishing villages. But Sweden’s experience only shows the limits of socialism even in a relatively small nation. Decades ago, after disastrous results to its economy, Sweden turned away from the very kind of socialist theories increasingly fashionable in the U.S. today.

Norway has large public welfare systems, it is true. But there is a very specific reason for that: It has enormous direct oil revenues supporting a very small population. The Norwegian state produces about 120 barrels of oil for every man, woman and child living in the country. If the U.S. could produce that much oil per person through a state-controlled entity, it would be more oil than the entire world produces today and worth enough money to replace all federal individual and corporate income tax revenue. In truth, countries like Denmark and Sweden strongly embrace capitalist principles today.

They are listed among the most capitalist nations on Earth — in some rankings ahead of the U.S. Indeed, many of their leaders have expressed disbelief or amusement at longstanding claims by American leftists about their being socialist nations. In 2015, Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen observed, “I know that some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.” Likewise, the former Swedish Social Democratic Minister of Finance Kjell Olof Feldt said, ” That whole thing with democratic socialism was absolutely impossible. It just didn’t work. “

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“The Scale of Ineligible People Called for Jury Duty Starts to Highlight Number of Illegal Aliens Currently on Voter Rolls”

Do you want your court case decided by people who have no right to be in the country?

Jury Duty For Illegal Aliens (CTH)

In most states the jury duty summons process comes from registered voter rolls. As a consequence, when a person is called for jury duty and is then disqualified as a non-citizen, we have another way to judge the scale of non-citizens on the voter rolls.


Reviewing lists of disqualified non-citizen jurors is now taking place in many counties led by citizen inquiry. The disqualification records, “non-juror” lists are public records in many states and counties. These reviews are turning up tens-of-thousands of non-citizens who are on juror lists, which means they are also on voter rolls.

(New Jersey Globe) – About 75,000 noncitizens are summoned for jury duty in New Jersey each year, based on data from three state government agencies, including the Motor Vehicle Commission — a stunning figure that widens the scope of a growing controversy over government databases that may incorrectly identify noncitizens as eligible voters and jurors.While the number is alarming, there’s no indication that noncitizens have served on a jury since the judiciary implemented additional guardrails to prevent it.

“Prospective jurors are asked about their citizenship and other qualifications when they complete the mandatory juror qualification questionnaire,” said Pete McAleer, a spokesman for the New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts. “Those who advance are reminded of the eligibility requirements during jury orientation and are directly questioned about their citizenship during jury selection by the judge and, as permitted, the attorneys.” In between, potential jurors watch a training video that includes the citizenship requirement.

The revelation of noncitizens making their way into jury pools comes three days after Gov. Mikie Sherrill disclosed that an alleged software glitch at motor vehicles led to the inclusion of roughly 6,600 noncitizens on New Jersey’s voter rolls; Sherrill blamed the vendor, IDEMIA, and said less than 400 noncitizens have voted in recent elections. According to McAleer, the judiciary processes more than one million summonses annually for potential jury service and randomly selects records provided from the Division of Elections, the Division of Taxation, and the MVC. (read more)

That 75,000/yr number are just those summoned people who disqualified themselves by being truthful about their status. I firmly believe the average non-pretending American will soon to realize/admit that many non-citizens actually remained on juries and passed judgement during trial.

Illegal aliens voting in elections is happening, we all know it and even though the media is still trying to retain their lies, you can tell that stance is softening against the reality. However, illegal aliens sitting as jurors in trials, will create a big-time constitutional mess that is something the communist left and media will never admit.

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“The Fauci diary is amazing. He monologues like a Scooby Doo villain.” El Gato Malo on “X”

Will the “Fat Lady” Finally Sing? (James Howard Kunstler)

Remember Covid-19? Seems like long ago in a world that time forgot. Well, you get to revisit the whole sketchy business on Wednesday, July, 29, when Dr. Anthony Fauci is called to testify about it to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chaired by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). Though half the USA is still psychotic and unable to process reality, the other half of the country understands that Dr. Fauci has some ‘splainin’ to do.


Dr. Fauci was initially invited but declined to appear (didn’t feel like it), so the committee issued a subpoena compelling him (under penalty of up to a year in jail for failure to show). Because Dr. Fauci was given a peremptory pardon by “Joe Biden,” he cannot legally invoke the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. He will have to answer the questions. Of course, Dr. Fauci has demonstrated in previous appearances that he is a world champeen of failing-to-recall stuff and, at age 85, one might expect him to work that angle to the max.

One big question hanging over the whole proceeding is whether Covid-19 was concocted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology or “jumped from animals to humans” as Dr. Fauci posited around the 2:14 mark (near the end) of this video from a White House press conference, April, 13, 2020:

The Intel Community now kind of leans toward the lab leak theory. Anyway, that all leads to another question as to whether Dr. Fauci directed his agency, the NIAID, to arrange funding for gain-of-function research at Wuhan on coronaviruses found in Asian bats. IOW, did they make the chimeric virus on-purpose? In past testimony, Dr. Fauci has equivocated and dissembled about that, played word games that led to raised voices between himself and Sen. Paul.

As it happened, then-Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard recently unearthed the paper trail of emails and memoranda between Dr. Fauci and his colleagues / partners in other corners of the epidemiological world that show how, at the time, they were all scrambling to cover their collective asses in the Covid-19 business. One partner in particular, Peter Daszak of the New York based EcoHealth Alliance, which had channeled many grants to Wuhan since 2014, was especially active in fabricating alibis and ruses — including a major paper in the UK’s leading medical journal, The Lancet (the article was later nullified).

Behind that smokescreen of confabulation lies the wreckage of American society by the evil Covid-19 business. It was even evident at the time (spring 2020) that President Trump suspected he was being played by the committee of “experts” that had been set up to make Covid-19 policy. His body language suggested as much in news conferences where he shifted uncomfortably from side to side, watching while others spoke at the podium, as if rehearsing his later YMCA dance. At one point, April 23, 2020, (Fauci wrote in an email) President Trump called advisor Deborah Birx (“Scarf Lady”) into the Oval Office and yelled at her: “You and Fauci have destroyed the country and the economy. I should never have listened to you. You have completely destroyed us.” (Thanks to @JeffreyTucker on “X” for citation.)

And that was only the beginning of an event that led to a more momentous string of operations against the welfare of the American people, including the mass shutdown and ruin of small businesses, the orchestrated George Floyd riots, the year-plus of no school, and the mass mail-in ballot policy that enabled widespread voting fraud, ushering-in the election of Deep State tool “Joe Biden,” with the epic fuckery his handlers later laid on the body politic — including the open border, universal DEI, transsexuals celebrated on the White House lawn, the Ukraine money-laundry, weaponization of law and intel, build-out of the USAID-NGO grift matrix to fund Democratic Party operations, and much more.

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“EU may abandon current sanctions mechanism against Russia due to Greece’s position.”

The LNG ships are often Greek.

Greece Refuses EU Sanctions Against Russia (TASS)

The European Union may revise its mechanism for imposing sanctions on Russia after Athens delayed the adoption of the latest package of measures for several weeks, securing exemptions for a Greek shipping company, the Financial Times reported.


Athens refused to support the new sanctions package until the remaining EU countries agreed to grant an exemption for the company Dynagas, according to the report. The Greek side reportedly sought to ensure that the company’s vessels could continue transporting Russian liquefied natural gas to countries outside the bloc. This marks the first instance of the EU’s collective economic sanctions regime against Russia being relaxed, the publication said. At the same time, the existing strategy allowed capitals to see that many EU member states would face the economic consequences of sanctions decisions, the newspaper said.

Now, new approaches to imposing restrictions are being discussed in Brussels, according to the FT. Officials are considering the possibility of approving sanctions individually or in small thematic batches. This approach is expected to reduce the risk of a national veto by a single country delaying the approval of other measures. Greek officials, for their part, argued that the ban on LNG transport had been agreed to by mistake, would harm the company Dynagas rather than the Russian economy, and would benefit rival shipowners from China and other non-EU countries, the publication said.

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“In April 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit shut down Boasberg’s contempt inquiry, with the majority describing it as an improper “judicial intrusion into the autonomy of a coequal department.”

Judge Boasberg Keeps Ruling Against POTUS, But Keeps Getting Overturned (JTN)

A controversial federal judge keeps ruling against President Donald Trump and then consistently gets overturned by higher courts. James “Jeb” Boasberg, the chief judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, has seen some of his highest-profile decisions stayed, overturned or sent to appellate courts for review. Boasberg, 62, was appointed to the federal bench by President Barack Obama in 2011 after serving nearly a decade on the District of Columbia Superior Court, and has decided several cases connected to the Trump administration in the areas of immigration and executive authority.


In March 2025, he temporarily blocked the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to rapidly deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua without traditional immigration proceedings. When deportation flights continued, Boasberg later determined that he found probable cause to pursue criminal contempt proceedings against administration officials. That contempt effort ultimately did not survive after appellate review.

Boasberg’s problem: Accepting separation of powers
In April 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit shut down Boasberg’s contempt inquiry, with the majority describing it as an improper “judicial intrusion into the autonomy of a coequal department.” Boasberg also ordered the administration to provide due-process protections for Venezuelans deported under the Alien Enemies Act. The Supreme Court vacated that order on April 7, 2025. He also directed the U.S. government to facilitate the return of more than 130 deportees so they could challenge their removals. That order is reportedly still under appellate review.

Roberts: Impeachment not the answer to activist judges
Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment after one of his deportation rulings, which led to Chief Justice John Roberts deciding to issue a rare public statement. “Impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” he said. Attorney General Pam Bondi later directed the U.S. Justice Department to file a judicial misconduct complaint alleging Boasberg made inappropriate comments about the administration during a Judicial Conference meeting. The complaint was ultimately dismissed by another federal judge, who concluded it did not establish misconduct.

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“Allegation stems from Smith’s closed-door deposition before the House Judiciary Committee on December 17, 2025.”

Prosecuting The Prosecutor: Will Jack Smith Face Criminal Charges? (JTN)

Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith spent years investigating and prosecuting Donald Trump. Now, with Trump back in the White House as the president, Smith has become the subject of a potential criminal investigation of his own. Earlier this month, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan referred Smith to the DOJ for potential criminal prosecution, alleging he made false statements during congressional testimony. President Trump has repeatedly argued that Smith should be held accountable for what he has described as politically motivated prosecutions.


Whether Smith will indeed face criminal charges remains uncertain. Although Congress can recommend prosecution, the decision ultimately rests with the Justice Department, and any case would face significant legal and evidentiary hurdles. On July 22, Jordan, an Ohio Republican, sent a formal referral letter to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, asserting that there is “strong evidence” that Smith violated 18 U.S.C. § 1001, the federal statute prohibiting materially false statements to the federal government. The allegation stems from Smith’s Dec. 17, 2025, closed-door deposition before the Judiciary committee.

During the deposition, Smith testified that his office had sought only lawmakers’ “toll records” – that is metadata such as call logs – and had not sought warrants for the contents of members’ text messages. Jordan contends in his letter that Justice Department records produced this month contradict that testimony. According to the referral, Smith’s investigation ultimately obtained text messages from 44 members of Congress, with some records reportedly acquired through the National Archives rather than by subpoena. Jordan argues that Smith’s testimony created the misleading impression that investigators had never obtained the substance of lawmakers’ communications.

Smith’s attorneys, Peter Koski and Lanny Breuer, rejected the allegation, arguing that Smith answered the specific question posed to him truthfully and was under no obligation to volunteer information beyond its scope. They contend the referral itself acknowledges that Smith did not make a false statement but instead criticizes him for failing to provide additional, unrequested information.

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the committee’s top Democrat, likewise dismissed the referral, arguing that Republicans characterized Smith’s testimony by conflating questions about subpoenas with questions about presidential records maintained by the National Archives. “This referral, if ever brought before a judge, will get laughed out of court,” Raskin said in a statement. A DOJ spokesperson confirmed receipt of the referral and said the department “will investigate all evidence of criminal conduct.”

A Long-Running Conflict
Jordan’s referral is the latest development in a years-long dispute between congressional Republicans and Smith, who in November 2022 was appointed special by Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee two high-profile criminal investigations involving Trump. The Judiciary committee began investigating Smith’s office in 2023, and Smith testified publicly before the committee in January 2026. Republicans have repeatedly questioned the conduct of Smith’s investigations into Trump, while Democrats have defended his work as consistent with the rule of law.

The possibility of criminal liability was also raised during Blanche’s confirmation hearing, when Missouri GOP Sen Josh Hawley asked whether Smith could be prosecuted for false testimony. He responded only that testimony before Congress is taken “very seriously.” Trump has long characterized Smith’s investigations as politically motivated “witch hunts,” while Smith has maintained that the evidence supported criminal charges against Trump and that any investigation into Smith himself would amount to political retaliation. Smith resigned from the Justice Department shortly before Trump’s second inauguration after overseeing the federal prosecutions involving classified documents and alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Could Smith Actually Be Prosecuted?
The referral alone does not initiate criminal charges. Under federal law, Congress may recommend prosecution, but the Justice Department retains exclusive authority to decide whether to investigate and bring a case. To secure a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, prosecutors generally must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant knowingly and willfully made a materially false statement. An answer that is incomplete, imprecise, or arguably misleading may not satisfy that standard, particularly if it is responsive to the specific question asked.

Supporters of Jordan’s referral argue that newly disclosed records contradict the overall impression Smith left during his testimony.Smith’s defenders counter that his statements were literally accurate because they addressed only the subpoenaed toll records discussed during questioning, not every method by which investigators obtained communications. As with many alleged false-statement cases, the precise wording of both the questions and the answers could become central to any prosecution.

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“Tank The Market … and crater Anthropic and OpenAI ..

It would seem to me that someone stealing your AI model is inevitable.

That said, how do you know which model something is stolen from?

Chamath Warns Ban On Open-Source AI Would Tank The Market (ZH)

Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya warned that any U.S. move to ban open-source AI would blow a hole in corporate balance sheets and drag the stock market down. “If the United States government intervenes, it will tank the stock market. Not debatable,” Palihapitiya said on the “All-In” podcast released over the weekend. “Now, you can debate which companies get tanked. For example, if they said, ‘No more open source. American companies cannot use open source.'”


“Okay, let’s take an average normal company, Coca-Cola,” Palihapitiya continued. “‘Hey, Coca-Cola, you’re trying to use AI to improve your business. You know what? You can only use these two options. And those things cost 50-100x more than your other best alternative that you may use otherwise.'” “That will eventually show up in your costs. And so this incredibly important input into your cost model is now orders of magnitude, multiples greater than your competitors that are outside the United States, simply because you’re in the United States,” he added. “You’re forced to absorb costs that aren’t rational nor market-driven. So then Coca-Cola has to get re-rated.”

Palihapitiya then turned on the labs themselves, arguing that their revenue depends on government-erected barriers rather than real market demand. “But then you look at the people who are selling those tokens, and this is where Anthropic and OpenAI need to understand, if the government comes in and actually tells you that there’s no open source, their valuation will crater,” he said. “Why? Because all of that revenue is artificially being propped up. It’s not being driven by market demand where you’re being forced to compete. It’s because of regulatory capture where you now get an artificial constraint. But it only works in one market.

“All roads lead to market chaos if anybody gets involved, so we should just not get involved.” Palihapitiya’s co-host, former AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks, went further, accusing Anthropic of running to Washington for regulatory cover.

“If you say that American companies can’t use what’s in the public domain, or that somehow it’s tainted with IP theft, you are basically going to put a dagger through the heart of the entire American open source ecosystem,” he added. The fight has consumed Washington since Moonshot AI’s release of Kimi K3. The Beijing startup’s open-weight model beat Anthropic’s Fable 5 and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol in blind front-end coding tests, according to Axios, and unlike its closed American rivals, anyone can download it.

Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, Palantir and more than 20 other companies fired off a joint letter on Friday urging policymakers to avoid “premature restrictions” on open-weight models, warning that such limits would “stifle competition or drive innovation overseas,” CNBC reported.

Anthropic did not sign.

If the letter was meant to cool things off, it didn’t. The Trump administration spent the week accusing Moonshot of stealing American technology outright. White House science chief Michael Kratsios said Wednesday that Moonshot built Kimi K3 by distilling Anthropic’s technology, and accused the startup of obtaining restricted Nvidia GB300 chips through servers in Thailand.

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https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/2081565782534680581?s=20

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Jun 282026
 
 June 28, 2026  Posted by at 9:56 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  25 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn Belshazzar’s feast 1635-38


The Shooting in the Strait Ain’t over, But… (Larry Johnson)
Iran Launches Drone Attack Targeting Bahrain (JTN)
Why is The Ukraine War Hardest to End? (CTH)
Zelensky Telegraphs 40-Day Pressure Offensive On Russia (ZH)
Ukraine Closes Week Of Drone Attacks On Russia By Hitting Weapons Plant (ZH)
Democratic Establishment Accuses Socialists of Exploiting Ballot Access (JTN)
One Democrat — and Only One — Has Had Enough of the Commies (Robert Spencer)
The Obama Halo Is Starting to Flicker. Finally! (David Manney)
When Extremists Run the Government (J.B. Shurk)
Culture of Grievance- When Victimhood Becomes Social Currency (Brooks)
Bookmark and Reference Point – June 2026 (CTH)
Volkswagen To Slash 100,000 Jobs (RT)

 


 

https://twitter.com/JasonJournoDC/status/2070611688009703759?s=20

 


 


Can Trump still avoid the war?

The Shooting in the Strait Ain’t over, But… (Larry Johnson)

A little over a week since the US and Iran signed the MoU, some ships that had been trapped in the Persian rushed to travel through the corridor, with many trying to use an alternative route on the southern side of the Strait along the Omani coast. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) had coordinated this alternative routing with Oman – hugging the UAE and Musandam Peninsula coastline, avoiding the central passage that Iran had mined. This route was significant because it bypassed Iran’s designated corridor entirely, which ran closer to Iranian territorial waters.


However, Iran and Oman agreed on a new framework (joint working group) for the future administration of the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, June 24, 2026. The two countries agreed to establish a joint working group between their foreign ministries to discuss: Future navigation rules and administration of the strait. Services provided (e.g., safety, pilotage). Associated costs (in accordance with international standards). Both emphasized their sovereignty over their territorial waters in the strait.

The naval arm of the Revolutionary Guard issued a warning Thursday against using the new route. In a statement carried by Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, naval officials said the route was established without notice or coordination with Iran, calling it “unacceptable and completely dangerous.” According to the IRGC: “The only authorized route for passing through the Strait of Hormuz is the one declared by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Vessel traffic outside these routes is extremely dangerous and prohibited. Violators will be dealt with.” The day before, the Guard had threatened one tanker over the radio, with a soldier warning “You are in range of my missiles and maybe (I) fire on you,” according to the private security firm Ambrey.

On Thursday the Ever Lovely, a Singapore-flagged ship operating in the fleet of Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine, attempted to transit the strait using a narrow channel near the coast of Oman in accordance with a route organized by the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) security monitor. The Ever Lovely was struck by a drone belonging to Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran allegedly shot at least four drones at ships traveling through the Strait on Thursday. One of those hit the upper deck of the Ever Lovely. On Friday, the US attacked Iran in ‘response’ to strikes on the commercial vessel in Strait of Hormuz a day earlier:

Iran’s IRIB reported that an explosion was heard at 11:15 pm at the Taheroui pier in Sirik. A military source said the blasts were caused by a projectile hitting the pier area, adding that around five hours earlier, several warning shots had been fired from Sirik toward violating vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Reports also indicated that two warning missiles were fired earlier from around Karpan toward the strait. US Central Command said its forces carried out strikes against Iran on 26 June in response to Iran’s attack the previous day on the Singapore-flagged cargo ship M/V Ever Lovely as it exited the Strait of Hormuz along the Omani coast. CENTCOM said US aircraft targeted Iranian missile and drone storage sites and coastal radar positions after the vessel was hit by a one-way attack drone.

Although CENTCOM presented this as a powerful strike on Iran, and the US media trumpeted it as an act of major retaliation, the US response inflicted little damage and could reasonably be interpreted as a symbolic gesture rather than a punishing attack. The IRGC Public Relations department issued the following statement: Following the Israeli regime’s violation of the ceasefire in southern Lebanon, the treaty-breaking US regime also violated its commitments once again. Under various pretexts, including the transit of a vessel accused of navigating through an unauthorized route in the Strait of Hormuz, the US launched an airstrike against the coasts of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In response to this aggression, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy struck positions where the US terrorist military is stationed in the region. Under Article 5 of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, responsibility for regulating navigation through the Strait of Hormuz rests with the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, the United States sought to violate this commitment by encouraging various parties to defy it. It received the necessary response, and the same will apply in the future. If the aggression is repeated, Iran’s response will be broader than this.

Instead of marking a return to war, this exchange of fire can best be categorize as military political theater. I believe that Iran, thanks to intel from the Russians or the Chinese, has learned that the US has issued orders that will initiate the return to CONUS of the aircraft, vehicles and troops that had been deployed to the region in preparation for the February 28 attack. Because of the limited damage inflicted by the US attack, I believe that Iran chose to respond in a limited fashion rather than escalate and run the risk of the US cancelling the redeployment order.

For now, Iran remains in control of the Strait of Hormuz and ships wanting to transit the Strait are adhering to Iran’s new policy.

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Iran makes it a teritorial war in/on its own territory.

Iran Launches Drone Attack Targeting Bahrain (JTN)

Iranian drones attacked Bahrain after overnight airstrikes by the United States. The U.S. strikes followed an Iranian attack on a cargo ship on Thursday. A tanker was hit by a projectile in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, according to Britain’s maritime security agency. No one was injured and Iran hasn’t officially claimed responsibility for the attack. These attacks occurred despite Iran and the U.S. reaching an interim deal to end the war.
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Because the west can fight Russia in Ukraine. They don’t want it to stop.

Why is The Ukraine War Hardest to End? (CTH)

Mike Steger from Promethean Action PAC argues the reason the Ukraine war is hardest to end is simply because Ukraine represents the proxy state of all the globalist stakeholders who need another large conflict in order to eliminate the problem of a moral-based Christian perspective within the ‘West.’ Essentially, without Russia as the enemy, the factional war they need to retain power is much harder to achieve. Promethean Action PAC YouTube: “Mike Steger explores the concept of “color revolutions” and argues that the same strategies used to influence governments abroad are now shaping politics across the West.


From Ukraine and the Arab Spring to Brazil, Europe, and the United States, Mike examines how non-governmental organizations, media networks, political activism, and government institutions have evolved into powerful geopolitical tools.The discussion also explores President Trump’s efforts to reshape U.S. foreign policy, dismantle longstanding government programs, push election reforms, and challenge what Mike describes as the political establishment ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.”

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Putin can’t let this go on forever.

Zelensky Telegraphs 40-Day Pressure Offensive On Russia (ZH)

The Ukraine war is quite obviously escalating, especially regarding Ukrainian leaders seeking to “bring the war” to Russian soil, amid nightly drone attacks which have come in the hundreds and even thousands of late. President Volodymyr Zelensky is seeking to seize on the momentum of repeat drone hits on Russian refinery and energy infrastructure – a reality Russia has suffered over many months, leading to a current fuel crisis spanning dozens of cities and regions, and especially Crimea, which has temporarily halted fuel sales to common citizens altogether this week.


Ukrainian media is touting a new Zelensky plan to ramp up the pressure on Russia over the next 40 days, aimed at “pressuring Russia to end its war”. He has ordered Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU) to launch a new 40-day operation, which also includes “plan for long-range sanctions, medium-range sanctions, and the results achieved by the SBU,” Zelensky said on X. He’s further calling it an “influence operation.” “For several months in a row, the SBU has demonstrated the highest performance in defending Ukraine’s positions on the front lines through the use of various types of drones,” Zelensky said on Thursday evening. According to more of the statement:

I approved a 40-day influence operation for the Service against the aggressor state aimed at compelling it to end the war. Importantly, for several months in a row, the SSU has demonstrated the highest performance in defending Ukraine’s positions on the front lines through the use of various types of drones. The Center of Special Operations “Alpha” leads in terms of the occupier’s personnel and equipment neutralized. Earlier, in mid-June, Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov proclaimed “Hell is beginning,” for Russia and its military. “Logistics are being cut off. Crimea is being isolated,” he said at the time.

Ukraine’s asymmetric warfare against Russia’s much-larger and better armed military machine is in a significantly better position than the status of a year or so ago. Russian forces still have the upper-hand on the front line in the east, but the pain clearly being inflicted on Russia’s economy can’t be ignored at this point.This sets up a potential slide into tit-for-tat escalation which could unleash a WW3 scenario. In the meantime this is an interesting-timed warning from Latvia and Poland:

Western intelligence agencies are increasingly concerned that Russia may be preparing a limited hybrid operation targeting NATO’s eastern flank, potentially involving the Baltic states or Poland. Such a move, officials believe, could be an attempt to test the alliance’s unity as the war in Ukraine enters a new phase.According to reporting by The Guardian, intelligence officials from two NATO countries have warned that Moscow is considering a “provocation” rather than a full-scale military attack.

At the moment inside Russia, many regions of Russia seem powerless to stop Ukraine’s inbound drone waves, given also that conventional air defenses are set up to defend primarily against larger, faster-moving projectiles like missiles or jets. President Trump has lately suggested that Ukraine is doing well in the war, or at least much better than it once was. Kiev now feels the pressure to keep this narrative going, also so it can attract more and more weapons and intelligence help. But at some point Russia will feel it necessary to strongly reassert its red lines. This could come in the form of another massive escalation, and against ‘decision-making centers’.

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Escalation.

Ukraine Closes Week Of Drone Attacks On Russia By Hitting Weapons Plant (ZH)

Ukraine announced Saturday that it used its Flamingo cruise missiles overnight to strike Russia’s Titan-Barrikady weapons plant, which reportedly manufactures parts for its powerful Oreshnik missile. The military plant is in Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, which is a major industrial city in southwest Russia. Writing on X, President Zelensky described it as a “major industrial complex” where Russia “produces artillery systems and specialized military equipment, including components for missile launch systems.” “Every Russian defense facility involved in the war against Ukraine is a legitimate target for our long-range strikes,” he wrote.


The Associated Press reports, “Volgograd Gov. Andrei Bocharov confirmed an attack on a business in the region’s Krasnooktyabrsky district, saying 10 people had been wounded and taken to a hospital. He said production facilities at the site were damaged but did not identify the company.” Additionally, “Ukraine’s state security service said Saturday morning that Ukrainian forces also struck an oil pumping facility in Russia’s Vladimir region that supplies fuel to Moscow, for the second time this month.” But on the other side of the border, Ukrainian media reports that Russia was also busy with now nightly airstrikes:

Russian forces targeted production facilities belonging to the Naftogaz Group, Ukraine’s largest national oil and gas company, in the Poltava and Kharkiv regions. The barrage of attacks included 129 drones, of which 113 were destroyed or jammed by Ukrainian forces, Ukrainian media reported. The Russian overnight attacks on Ukraine killed two people and injuring more than 20, according to state officials. At a moment much of the globe’s attention remains fixated on Iran and the fate of energy shipping through the largely blocked Strait of Hormuz, the Ukraine war is rapidly escalating.

Ukrainian leadership has issued some astounding stats on the escalation on its side of the border: Russia attacked Ukraine with 1,400 drones and 1,500 guided bombs President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on Saturday, June 27, that Russian forces deployed approximately 1,400 attack drones, 1,500 guided aerial bombs, and 19 missiles of various types, including ballistic missiles, against Ukraine over the past week. In a statement published on Telegram, Zelensky noted that 15 Ukrainian regions were subjected to Russian attacks during the seven-day period. He highlighted that the cities of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, and Sumy faced near-daily bombardment.

But it also over the past week has sent projectiles into Russia in the thousands. Ukraine’s asymmetric warfare strategy against Russia’s much-larger and better armed military machine has put Kiev in significantly better position – in terms of potential negotiating leverage – than the status of a year or so ago. Russian forces still have the upper-hand on the front line in the east, but the pain clearly being inflicted on Russia’s economy can’t be ignored at this point. There are reports of fuel shortages across dozens of regions and especially in Crimea over the past several days.

President Trump has lately suggested that Ukraine is doing well in the war, or at least much better than it once was. Kiev now feels the pressure to keep this narrative going, also so it can attract more and more weapons and intelligence help. But at some point Russia will feel it necessary to strongly reassert its red lines. This could come in the form of another massive escalation, and against ‘decision-making centers’.

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The party has been taken over.

Democratic Establishment Accuses Socialists of Exploiting Ballot Access (JTN)

The Democratic Socialists of America have adopted a strategy to exploit the Democratic Party’s ballot access to boost their own candidates at the expense of incumbents, a plan which achieved remarkable success in New York City this week. The victory of two DSA-backed candidates and one former member delivered a shock to the Democratic Party establishment, which has begun to call for better policing of the party’s primaries against candidates who are only seeking to exploit it, not join it. “I say this with no ill will or animosity: if you hate the Democratic Party, then please don’t run for our nomination,” said Jaime Harrison, who served as the Democratic National Committee Chairman from 2021 to 2025.


“Don’t use our resources. Don’t rely on our volunteers. Don’t use our infrastructure. Don’t ask Democrats to invest their time, money, and energy in your campaign,” he added. “Focus on building the party you actually support.” The DSA – which calls for abandoning capitalism, defunding the police, and nationalizing key industrial sectors – has long publicly stated its intent to do just that. Ahead of the New York City primary elections on Tuesday, NYC DSA Co-Chair Gustavo Gordillo explained that his party is using the Democrats to access the ballot, but aims to achieve a fundamentally different agenda.

“We’re on the Democratic Party ballot line. We contest the primaries, and when they’re in the legislature, they’re part of the Democratic Party caucus, but we don’t agree with the way the Democratic Party establishment organizes or runs its party apparatus,” he told Spectrum News in an interview. Gordillo was rather open about taking advantage of Trump-hating Democrats. In a clip on X, he said:”We’re using the Democratic Party as a ballot-access vehicle, not because we share its goals […] We build our own organization, get elected under the Democratic label, caucus with Democrats when it’s useful, and push our own agenda from the inside.”

“I think in terms of the agenda, there’s a problem in the Democratic Party where they are funded by billionaire donors, and at the same time, they’re trying to represent the working class, and in our opinion, you have to choose between the billionaire class and the working class,” Gordillo said. “It’s just impossible to satisfy all of them.” The DSA is currently running a strategy known as the “dirty break”– “where DSA continues to run candidates on the Democratic Party’s ballot line, while building the infrastructure and base of supporters necessary to one day run our candidates independently,” as described by the party’s youth wing.

Various forms of the strategy have been referenced in party resolutions since 2019, when the party first defined it as a key goal: “to form an independent working-class party, but for now, this does not rule out DSA-endorsed candidates running tactically on the Democratic Party ballot line.” The party’s youth wing, the Young Democratic Socialists of America, identified the strategy by name in 2022, adopting a resolution at its convention that year. “Therefore, be it also resolved that YDSA is committed to, within DSA and on the left in general, a bold and transformative ‘dirty break’ approach to elections and electoralism,” according to convention documents.

The youth wing argues that the success of Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who was elected as a Democrat in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District in 2018 (she now represents the 12th after redistricting), has proven that the “dirty break” strategy is a viable one. “Tlaib often acts as a tribune of the people, using her role in Congress to agitate around working-class issues rather than pass legislation,” reads one article on the YDSA’s website. Since Tlaib’s victory in 2018, the DSA’s power in Democratic strongholds appears to be growing.

Last year, DSA member Zohran Mamdani upset the Democratic political establishment and won election to the mayor’s office in New York City on a socialist platform. Earlier this week, he flexed his newfound political influence in the city to catapult three other socialist candidates to victory in Democratic primaries for the U.S. House of Representatives.

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The one true democrat is Fetterman.

One Democrat — and Only One — Has Had Enough of the Commies (Robert Spencer)

The communist takeover of the Democrat Party is in full swing, and some might find that surprising, as the Democrats have looked like a communist party for many years now. But what was hidden ten or twenty years ago is all out in the open now, and as ever more avowed socialists are getting elected, one Democrat is sounding the alarm. But only one.


That’s telling. The Evil Party, as conservative pundit M. Stanton Evans indelibly dubbed the Democrats back in the 1970s (he called the Republicans the Stupid Party, which is just as apt) started on the path of socialism back in 1933 with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, and confirmed its commitment to the socialist path in the 1960s with Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. What’s happening now is simply the open avowal of the trajectory the party has been on for nearly a century. And so it’s less surprising that only one Democrat is speaking out than it is that there is still one Democrat who believes in freedom.

And yeah, you guessed it: it’s Sen. John Fetterman (D-Common Sense). On Wednesday, Fetterman commented on X on a story about the Democrat primary victory of a Marxist convert to Islam who hates the United States and Western civilization, but is now heading to Congress anyway, Darializa Avila Chavalier. “Anti-Israel. Anti-America. Anti-Western Civilization,” Fetterman wrote. “Why am I the only Democrat in the U.S. Senate that refuses to excuse this or defend any of those self-identified communists? Because your party comrades, senator, are communists themselves, and/or cowards and opportunists. Fetterman, however, is none of those things. He declared: “I said months ago, I said the Democratic Party is becoming an orgy of socialism. These recent elections vindicate my description.”

Fetterman zeroed in on Avila Chevalier, noting that she “described America as a f*****g disgrace. She posted ‘f**k Kamala Harris’ and posted that she forgot napkins and wiped her hands on the American flag. She wants to abolish the border, abolish prisons. That is a deeply disturbed individual.” No, she isn’t actually disturbed at all. She is just a committed and consistent Marxist internationalist. Those who are arguably disturbed are the Democrat Party bosses who got behind her candidacy, and the voters who sent to Washington yet another exponent of the most catastrophically failed political and social system in the history of mankind.

Avila Chevalier won’t be alone in the nation’s capital. Referring to another Marxist, Maine senate candidate Graham Platner, by his street nickname, Fetterman quipped: “P-Hustle and Chevalier: the dirtbag left’s new power couple.” And they’re not just that. They’re also the new face of the Democrat Party, along with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other Washington-bound socialists. Will Fetterman therefore finally leave the party, as has been rumored as often as he has denied the rumors? This time, he seemed to leave the door open to such a switch ever so slightly.

“Even if I changed my party,” Fetterman declared, “my votes or views wouldn’t change. I address this very directly. That’s the truth.” Whatever he does next, Fetterman is without any doubt one of the strangest political figures in American history. During his campaign for the Senate, he never gave any indication of being anything but a doctrinaire, down-the-line leftist, and attention focused less on his policy positions than on the fact that, after suffering a stroke, he seemed barely able to formulate a coherent sentence.

After being hospitalized for depression, however, he emerged not only able to speak clearly and lucidly, but he also began to take a number of common-sense stands, which inevitably led him away from the left. And his analysis of what has gone wrong with the Democrats is more accurate and convincing than almost all the other post-mortems. This doesn’t mean that Fetterman sees everything clearly now, and he certainly hasn’t made a full break with the left. But it’s as rare as it is refreshing to hear from an honest man.

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‘Well, damn. I thought this was the big bad boogeyman telling us this guy’s a threat to democracy, which I believe he is, but still..’

The Obama Halo Is Starting to Flicker. Finally! (David Manney)

Charlamagne tha God didn’t sound like he was asking permission. The Breakfast Club co-host heard former President Barack Hussein Obama mock President Donald Trump as tougher from a distance than face to face, then pushed the charge back across the table. From Fox News:


“So I just didn’t understand what he meant unless he was talking about the kiki they had at the [Jimmy] Carter funeral. But to me, that goes both ways. You kikiing in his face too, ’cause by the way, Trump has been saying wild stuff about you, bro, been saying wild stuff about you and your wife, but you was just right there kikiing with him at the President Carter funeral. So I can say it goes both ways. Don’t neither one of y’all be having that energy in each other’s face. At least from what we saw,” the radio host said.

Kikiing is an informal slang term for relaxing or gossiping. Charlamagne referred to Obama and Trump speaking to one another at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral, at times smiling and laughing with each other. Former first lady Michelle Obama did not attend. “So when I heard President Obama say that, I’m like, ‘Well, the same thing can be said for you.’ Don’t none of y’all be having that same image. Like we saw President Biden say, ‘Welcome home to Donald Trump.’ Like, so, it’s just like what are y’all? I didn’t understand that part. Like that just sounds like something slick to say on the podcast,” Charlamagne said.

“It sounds good on a podcast, OK? It goes viral. But when you really take a step back and look at it, don’t none of y’all be having that same energy for each other when you see each other. That’s what be confusing us because we be like, ‘Well, damn. I thought this was the big bad boogeyman telling us this guy’s a threat to democracy, which I believe he is, but still,'” he said. Obama, he argued, has often sounded different depending on the room, the crowd, and the moment. From a host whose platform has shaped political talk among younger black listeners, the jab carried more weight than another cable panel gripe.

Obama has spent years being treated less like a politician and more like a civic mood. To his admirers, he represented calm, cool, firsts, and finish. The new Obama Presidential Center in Chicago’s Jackson Park leans hard into that story. The center opened a week ago with four floors devoted to the Obama presidency, the 2008 campaign, the Oval Office, and the promise of democracy. Museum tickets are already sold out, with another block scheduled for July 8.

Fox News’ Jesse Waters sent a reporter to the Obama Center, which, as we were lectured, was built on stolen land — and I’m not talking about land pulled out from the public at Jackson Park — who asked visitors some difficult questions. A shrine can draw crowds and still invite questions. Stephen A. Smith, ESPN host and executive producer of First Take and host of Straight Shooter, questioned how Obama and former President Bill Clinton built large fortunes after careers in public office.

Smith’s larger point hit a sore nerve: elected leaders should prosper only when Americans are prospering too. Coming from a black broadcaster with his own huge audience, the criticism wasn’t easy to wave away as stale right-wing noise. From Fox News: The sports commentator and host of the “Straight Shooter” podcast weighed in on any profits President Donald Trump is making while serving in the nation’s highest office. “I don’t give a damn what money politicians slide into their own pockets from time to time,” Smith said on Wednesday’s episode of his podcast. “If the American people are prospering, get yours. It’s a capitalistic society.”

Smith went on to cast doubt on how former President Bill Clinton obtained his multi-million dollar net worth. “I’ll confess something to ya’ll,” Smith continued. “Clinton was a lawyer in Arkansas. Grew up poor, relatively broke. How the hell him and the Clinton Foundation is worth hundreds of millions of dollars beat me.” Smith also pointed to former President Barack Obama’s similar high net worth. “Barack Obama was a community organizer who became the president of the United States and, last time I checked, that salary ain’t over $450,000, if I remember correctly,” Smith said. “I got to double check that,” he added. “How the hell you depart from office worth over $200 million?”

According to an investigation conducted by Forbes, both Bill and Hillary Clinton have netted approximately $240 million since leaving office in 2021. Bill Clinton is reportedly responsible for the majority of the couple’s earnings, raking in $189 million by authoring books and $106 million in paid speeches. Obama owns real history; he won two national elections, became America’s first black president, and signed a health law that remade a large part of American life — and not in a good way.A legacy with weight can still carry vanity, scolding, and blind spots. The growing irritation around Obama isn’t about denying his place in history; it’s about asking why the man who preached unity so often left half the country feeling accused, condescended to, or dismissed.

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2070307172634730759?s=20

The cracks didn’t appear only this week. Obama campaigned for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, including a pointed message to black men who weren’t sold on her candidacy. President Trump still won, and AP VoteCast found that he expanded his coalition with gains among younger voters and black and Hispanic men.

Democrats can pretend those voters misunderstood the assignment, but many voters may simply be tired of being assigned a role by a man with an ego larger than the sun.The left, who said the Obama years represented healing, sold us a bill of goods. Instead, the country got lectures on bitterness, guns, religion, race, police, and resentment. His defenders called it truth-telling, but many of us heard something colder: a gifted person who can read out loud quite well, who explained their very own country back to them with a raised eyebrow.

A man can have grace, talent, and historical importance while still leaving behind a politics that divided more than it inspired. Obama’s halo isn’t gone because too many institutions still polish it. The center in Chicago will attract crowds, glowing photos, and reverent tours. Yet the old automatic applause is much weaker.Charlamagne the God and Stephen A. Smith aren’t conservative backbenchers; they speak to audiences Obama once seemed able to reach by instinct. When voices like theirs start asking sharper questions, the problem is no longer Republican criticism.

The concern is that memory is catching up with the myth.

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“Two can certainly play the “extremist” game.”

When Extremists Run the Government (J.B. Shurk)

Politicians, government bureaucrats, central bankers, spy agencies, and mainstream news outlets lie to us every day. For some people, the previous sentence is patently obvious. For others, that sentence represents “fringe” thinking. For certain law enforcement agencies in North America and Europe, that sentence reveals potentially dangerous “extremism.”


“Extremism” is such a morally squishy word. It means nothing. It suggests that the average beliefs of the average person in the average part of an average town are, on average, correct. Should a person’s beliefs move too far away from the “average,” then that person will eventually fall into the “extremist” abyss. Of course, the average person long believed that the sun and planets revolved around the Earth. The average person long believed that bloodletting cured disease. The average person long believed in magic. Relativity, microbiology, atomic physics, and quantum mechanics belonged to the “extremists.”

Defining “extremism” depends upon which populations are included when calculating an “average.” To the average American, Islamic terrorism is religious extremism. To the average jihadi in the Middle East, terrorism is part of the Islamic faith. One man’s “extremist” is another man’s “religious cleric.” Unsurprisingly, as more jihadists migrate to America, the more supportive of Islamic terrorism the Democrat Party becomes. We now have several Hamas-supporting members of Congress who define Americans opposed to Islamic conquest as “extremists.”

For a decade, Americans were told to be on the lookout for Islamic terrorism: “If you see something, say something.” Now, if you see something and say something, you will most likely be denounced as an “Islamophobic bigot.” If the definition of “extremism” can shift 180 degrees since the Islamic terror attacks on September 11, 2001, then “extremism” is a nebulous political label.

In the United States, citizens overwhelmingly support federal legislation that would require photo ID, proof of citizenship, and other safeguards to ensure that elections across the country are free, fair, lawful, constitutional, and secure. Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans in Congress prefer to maintain the current “on your honor” system that can be gamed to permit large-scale vote fraud and rigged elections. By any polling measure, Congress’s point of view is far from that of the average American. Members of Congress, in other words, are the extremists! If you listen to the extremists in Congress, however, our elections have never been more secure.

In fact, when you look at some of the most important policy issues today, it becomes quite clear that Congress is ground zero for extremism. Most Americans want Congress to stop spending more money than it receives in taxes; Congress has put us forty trillion dollars in debt. Most Americans want secure borders and an end to illegal immigration; Congress has enabled an evil human trafficking system to exist for over fifty years that rewards criminals and has flooded the country with somewhere between fifty and a hundred million (nobody knows for sure!) illegal aliens. Most Americans are concerned about lowering fuel and food prices;

Congress has wasted trillions of dollars on “Green New Deal” scams that raise the household costs for fuel and food. Most Americans believe that college admissions and job hiring should be based on a person’s merit, skill, character, knowledge, and hard work; Congress continues to divide Americans by the color of their skin and their sexual eccentricities. Most Americans believe that men and women are biologically distinct; Congress pretends that biological sex is an imaginary social construct. Most Americans believe that a dollar saved today should maintain the same value ten, fifty, or even a hundred years from now; Congress thinks printing and spending dollars, depreciating the U.S. currency, and artificially spiking the dollar-denominated valuation of stocks, homes, and other assets is the best way to fake a constantly “improving” economy.

Most Americans believe that we should refrain from military engagements overseas whenever possible; Congress can’t ever get enough of forever-wars. Most Americans want their representatives to work for American citizens; Congress believes it should work on behalf of non-Americans all over the world. Most Americans view their country as a nation; Congress views the United States as both a global empire and a home for every person on the planet. On the most important issues, Congress is filled to the brim with extremists. They should be put on official security lists and monitored whenever they travel more than fifty feet from their taxpayer-financed homes. Instead, in the United States and throughout the West, the extremists run things.

That would explain why Christians are targeted for their beliefs. That would explain why the governments of Europe and North America have flooded their countries with unassimilable malcontents from the third world. That would explain why men are allowed into women’s restrooms and why pedophiles are accorded more respect than heterosexual married couples. That would explain why Western governments have declared war on “climate change” when most people don’t care about elites’ obsession with the weather. That would explain why so many European and North American politicians are willing to risk a nuclear war with the Russian Federation, while ordinary citizens have never been less willing to fight for the defense of their respective countries.

Perhaps the more that ordinary Westerners realize that it is the people running their governments, universities, and bureaucratic institutions who are most extreme, the less willing they become to do what those extremists say. Six years ago, the extremists locked down the world because of COVID. They closed churches, bankrupted businesses, disrupted childhood education, prevented family members from being together, and killed a lot of people with fake “vaccines.” If public health extremists tried to pull another COVID today, would ordinary Westerners do what the politicians and bureaucrats say? Or would Western citizens conclude that extremist governments endanger both their lives and liberties?

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“The entrepreneur of outrage need not solve problems; indeed, solving problems may threaten his relevance.”

Culture of Grievance- When Victimhood Becomes Social Currency (Brooks)

Every civilization develops a moral language—a set of virtues that it celebrates and vices that it condemns. For much of human history, societies lauded courage, resilience, self-sacrifice, duty, honor, and perseverance. The individual who overcame adversity was admired. The citizen who contributed more than he consumed was esteemed. To endure hardship without surrendering one’s dignity was considered noble. Increasingly, however, modern Western society appears to have inverted this hierarchy. Today, victimhood often functions as a form of social capital.


To claim injury is to acquire moral authority. To assert oppression is frequently to gain status. Public discourse, particularly within academia, media, politics, and social media, often rewards not those who demonstrate resilience, but those who can most persuasively locate themselves within narratives of historical or contemporary disadvantage. This is not to suggest that oppression does not exist. It plainly does. Human beings have always oppressed one another. History is replete with examples of slavery, discrimination, persecution, exploitation, and injustice. Serious societies acknowledge these realities honestly.

Yet acknowledging injustice and organizing one’s entire social order around grievance are two very different enterprises. The modern culture of grievance is distinguished not merely by its concern for injustice, but by its tendency to elevate grievance itself into an identity. In such a framework, suffering confers legitimacy. Personal agency is often deemphasized in favor of structural explanations. Individual responsibility, once considered indispensable to human flourishing, is increasingly treated as secondary to historical narratives of power and oppression. Why? Part of the answer lies in incentives.

Human beings respond to incentives whether they exist in economics, politics, or culture. If a society rewards certain forms of behavior with status, attention, influence, institutional support, or financial gain, those behaviors predictably proliferate. Social media has accelerated this process dramatically. Platforms built upon visibility and engagement naturally privilege outrage, conflict, and emotional intensity. Claims of victimization generate attention. Attention generates followers. Followers generate influence. Influence often generates money, prestige, and institutional power.= Grievance, in the digital age, has become monetizable.

The entrepreneur of outrage need not solve problems; indeed, solving problems may threaten his relevance. A permanent sense of crisis sustains audiences, donations, speaking engagements, media appearances, and political mobilization. The incentive, therefore, is often not reconciliation but perpetuation.= A grievance resolved is a constituency diminished. This dynamic extends beyond social media influencers. Entire political movements, activist organizations, and institutional bureaucracies can become dependent upon the continued existence—or perceived existence—of oppression. The maintenance of moral urgency becomes essential to organizational survival.

Consequently, there exists a temptation to expand definitions continually, to discover ever more subtle forms of harm, and to reinterpret ordinary human conflicts through increasingly elaborate frameworks of oppression.

Disagreement becomes violence.

Words become trauma.

Discomfort becomes harm.

Failure becomes victimization.

Ordinary interpersonal conflict becomes evidence of systemic injustice.

The danger is not merely conceptual confusion. The danger is cultural infantilization.

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In case 2027 and 2028 get confusing.

Bookmark and Reference Point – June 2026 (CTH)

Events in 2027 and 2028 are likely to be very confusing. As a consequence, CTH needs to establish datapoints in real time that can later be referenced and reviewed to make sense of things when CTH starts to put the data into a very difficult to accept storyline. This process is similar to setting the 2012 election “splitter strategy” as a reference; that leads to the 2014 RNC winter meeting and rules changes; that led to the 2015 lineup of RNC candidates; that led to our ability to show how the ‘splitter strategy’ was being deployed for the 2016 GOP nomination. The defeat of Jeb didn’t happen in New Hampshire 2016; his defeat was an outcome of assembling years of previous datapoints which proved the illicit roadmap and made the RNC scheme very clear from the outset.


Elon Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion ($54.20/share) [April through October ’22]. He sold Tesla shares, leveraged more and assembled a $25 billion investment group to cover the remainder. When the financing dust settled Musk controlled Twitter and investors were in for around $25 billion. Musk later created the ancillary company xAI and when the deadline terms of the Twitter investment were due, he essentially repaid the $25 billion debt by transferring the investors into $25 billion worth of xAI holdings. [Key Point – the originating $25 billion investment was not repaid, just modified]

In 2026, Musk then did an IPO on SpaceX. This culminated in stock sales, valuations and generating $100 billion in cash on hand. A few weeks later Musk then sold 7 tranches of SpaceX bonds worth $25 billion to generate liquidity. He then used the $25 billion offering as the financial mechanism to repay the $25 billion remaining in investor debt. Summary: Twitter’s $25 billion debt transferred to $25 billion xAI stock, then transferred to $25 billion in payout or bond holdings; the option is for the original Twitter investment group to take (cash out or hold SpaceX bond paying 5% annually). [Key point – the originating $25 billion to purchase Twitter is now inside the SpaceX bonds]

This was a smart financial gameplay over the past roughly 5 years. This is how it developed and this is the reality in June of 2026. The originating $25 billion borrowed to purchase Twitter is now either: (a) fully repaid, or (b) sitting in long term SpaceX bonds (depending on investor choice). Musk and his investment friends purchased Twitter for $52 per share. Current valuation is $12 to $15. Twitter investors, Musk’s friends and Musk himself, essentially lost 76% on the purchase (total loss -$33 billion). A loss isn’t a loss until it is realized. There was strong incentive to take each of the various repayment shifts. Twitter => xAI => SpaceX bonds.

[SIDENOTE: What’s the smartest way to get rid of a $33 billion loss without hurting the investors? ANSWER: Transfer the loss to someone else. How do you transfer a $33 billion loss? You IPO a larger holding, putting the depreciated asset in the hands of retail. SpaceX investors are now unwittingly carrying the loss.] In the next few years people will argue with me about this. That’s why writing this now is important. What is outlined above is factual. Most of the money borrowed from investors to purchase Twitter is now resting inside SpaceX bonds. People will deny this, because people have a short-term financial memory for things.

The biggest Twitter investment holdings belonged to Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Larry Ellison, Marc Andreessen and a host of investment funds including the sovereign state fund of Qatar.mWhen Elon Musk bought Twitter, he initially permitted sunlight into the background operation of the company. That sunlight was known as “The Twitter Files“.The files showed how the social media platform coordinated with various intelligence agencies within government on the approved information allowed to exist within the platform. Three journalists were allowed to ask the Twitter legal counsel to run search terms and review the responses (if approved by the legal counsel). That’s how the research worked.

The three journalists were Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger. Thanks to the Twitter Files and the public interest around them, Bari Weiss launched/expanded her online media network The Free Press. Bari Weiss was a Ron DeSantis supporter. Elon Musk was a Ron DeSantis supporter. Ron DeSantis 2024 campaign was launched on Twitter. The Twitter File research group was shut down by Elon Musk with no immediate public statement as to why.

Billionaire Larry Ellison (Oracle) retained his Twitter holdings as well as his relationship with Musk. When Twitter was under attack from Democrats (’22, ’23, ’24) Ellison was the financial backstop and stabilizing force. Larry Ellison then purchased the TikTok platform with Marc Andreeson. Larry and David Ellison then purchased CBS-Paramount. David Ellison then installed Bari Weiss as CBS News Editor in Chief and bought her company The Free Press. David Ellison, the technology heir son to Larry Ellison who controls Paramount, the owner of CBS, is poised to complete a $111 billion purchase of CNN’s parent company Warner Bros/Discovery as soon as July 2026.

Billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison now directly or indirectly controls and influences: Twitter, TikTok, CBS and CNN. As noted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September of 2025, control and influence of TikTok and Twitter was the #1 and #2 most important strategic geopolitical interests of the government of Israel. These were Prime Minister Netanyahu’s own words. Billionaire Larry Ellison is a very strong supporter of the Netanyahu government.

PREDICTION: If Marco Rubio stays out of the 2028 race [big ‘if’], then all of the Larry Ellison holdings will be used to promote or position Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over Vice-President JD Vance. The Israel -vs- Qatar narrative is based on an anti-Vance operation. Prepositioned politics. [My ‘out there’ suspicion is political narrative control is the entire reason Twitter was purchased]

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Now the rest..

Volkswagen To Slash 100,000 Jobs (RT)

Volkswagen is considering closing four German factories and cutting up to 100,000 jobs, Reuters has reported. Amid soaring energy costs and competition from China, the company’s profits have plummeted in recent years. Should the cuts go ahead, Volkswagen will close factories in Hanover, Zwickau, and Emden, as well as an Audi plant in Neckarsulm, Reuters reported on Friday, citing sources within the company. These closures would result in the loss of 45,000 jobs, on top of the 50,000 layoffs agreed upon with trade unions in 2024.


Volkswagen executives will discuss the cuts at a meeting next month. According to a separate report by Germany’s Manager Magazin, the company is also weighing a 15% cut in investment over the next five years. A spokesperson for the world’s second-largest carmaker said that they would not comment on “confidential documents,” but admitted that “the entire group, including its brands and subsidiaries, must undergo far-reaching change.”

Volkswagen employs more than 667,000 people worldwide, almost half of them in Germany. However, the company has been forced to scale back production at home since 2022, when Berlin’s decision to abandon Russian gas imports in favor of renewables and expensive American liquified natural gas (LNG) left the industry reeling from higher energy costs.

The German economy has experienced two years of contraction followed by two years of sub-1% growth. Volkswagen already closed one automobile assembly plant, in Dresden, last December – the first time it had closed a factory in Germany in its nine-decade history. BASF, Bosch, Continental, and more than a dozen other German manufacturers have closed one or more facilities over the last four years.

With energy costs eating into Volkswagen’s profits, the company’s electric vehicles are no longer able to compete with offerings from its Chinese rivals. Once the dominant automaker in China, Volkswagen now sells fewer vehicles there than domestic brands BYD and Geely. In Europe, BYD and fellow Chinese brands Chery, SAIC, and Leapmotor have all doubled their market share over the last year. Back in Germany, Volkswagen’s internal union and the IG Metall metalworkers’ union have vowed to resist the job cuts. “Should such plans go ahead, we would do everything in our power to prevent them,” the organizations said in a joint statement on Friday.

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https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2070544213326823464?s=20

 

 

 

 

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May 112026
 


Willem de Kooning Door to the River 1960


Trump Says Iran Response “Totally Unacceptable” (ZH)
President Trump Rejects Latest Offer from Iranian Representatives (CTH)
Trump: Only Way To Secure Border Is Vote Republican (Sharyl Attkisson)
Iran Responds To US Peace Proposal (ZH)
Trump Ignored CIA Warnings on Iran (Paul Craig Roberts)
Bombshell Evidence About the 2020 Election Is Coming (Matt Margolis)
The CIA, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and John Brennan (CTH)
Dan Bongino Offers Chilling Warning to Barack Obama (Margolis)
Trump Celebrates Jobs Report for Mother’s Day (Catherine Salgado)
Mark Carney Celebrates “Europe Day” In Toronto with Obama and Alex Soros (CTH)
Democrats Keep Betting Gazillions on Bad Ideas (David Manney)
Too Many Democrats Are a Special Kind of Stupid (Derek Hunter)
Europe is Russia’s Principal Adversary – Trenin (RT)
West Rewriting World War II History – Moscow (RT)
The Digital Revolution Will Destroy Humanity (Paul Craig Roberts)

 


 

https://twitter.com/WellsJorda89710/status/2053320258744729765?s=20 https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/2053122234068115961?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2053482025584038202?s=20 https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/2053257268087677123?s=20 https://twitter.com/warDaniel47/status/2053156858693591061?s=20

 


 


We had to take the time, and to go through the motions, to get to this point.

Trump Says Iran Response “Totally Unacceptable” (ZH)

President Trump has just issued a statement on his TruthSocial feed rejecting ‘unacceptable’ Iranian proposal for ending war.


Iran offered to transfer some of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to a third country, but rejected the idea of dismantling its nuclear facilities, the Wall Street Journal reported. Iran disputed the report, according to Iran’s semi-official news agency Tasnim. And with the fragile ceasefire still holding for now, the odds of a peace deal by the end of May have plummeted.

Iran: We’ll Immediately Strike French & British if they Approach Strait
Iran has newly warned of “a decisive and immediate response” to any deployment of European military vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, and has further declared that the Islamic Republic alone controls security in the strategic waterway. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi issued the warning Sunday in a post on X after France and Britain announced plans to deploy warships to the region. “Whether in times of war or peace, only the Islamic Republic of Iran can establish security in this strait and will not allow any country to interfere in such matters,” he said.

Gharibabadi said France plans to deploy its flagship aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, to the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, while Britain plans to send a warship to the area under the stated goal of protecting freedom of navigation. Already these Western allied assets are moving through the Suez Canal as of days ago. “Any deployment and stationing of extra-regional destroyers around the Strait of Hormuz, under the pretext of protecting shipping, is nothing but an escalation of the crisis, the militarization of a vital waterway, and an attempt to cover up the true root of insecurity in the region,” he stated.

https://twitter.com/AJEnglish/status/2053401460491116840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2053401460491116840%7Ctwgr%5Ece6cb09f58d70198dbd5467eac3f1706918b834b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Firan-responds-us-peace-proposal-ayatollah-meets-top-general-discuss-readiness

But France and Britain have previously sought to clarify that their warships will remain largely in a background support role when compared to the US naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman region. Their ships would only directly join Persian Gulf operations only once the war ended, according to reports.

Trump: Iran is Playing Games With the United States
New Sunday Truth Social statement soon on the heels of Tehran submitting its response to the US peace proposal, via Pakistan: Trump said Iran had been “playing games with the United States, and the rest of the world, for 47 years,” adding that it had been “laughing at our new GREAT AGAIN country,” but stressed that “they will be laughing no longer!”

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They had to say they refuse to hand over all the nuke material.

President Trump Rejects Latest Offer from Iranian Representatives (CTH)

Delivering a message from his Truth Social account, earlier today President Trump rejected the latest proposal from Iran to settle the current embargo, sanctions and conflict.

“I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called “Representatives.”

I don’t like it — TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!

Thank you for your attention to this matter.”


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also appeared on U.S. media today with a lengthy broadcast interview on CBS 60-Minutes. The primary topic of the interview is the Iran conflict and Netanyahu’s perspective on what Americans should expect from this engagement. Interestingly, one of the fatal flaws in the Tucker Carlson theory of Israel leading the conflict, is the position of the Arabs in the Middle East as it relates to the U.S. military confrontation with Iran. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Egypt all strongly support the U.S-led military effort to eliminate the threat Iran represents. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) does not want the U.S. to ease up on Iran.

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“Their leaders are gone,” was among the first things Trump said about Iran..”

“.. we produce much more oil and gas than Russia and Saudi Arabia put together.”

Trump: Only Way To Secure Border Is Vote Republican (Sharyl Attkisson)

Iran is obviously at the top of the list when it comes to the immediate topics President Trump is handling. He came to this recent Full Measure interview straight from the Situation Room., with whom the U.S. has been at war since Feb. 28. “The first set, the A team is gone, the B team is gone, and part of the C team is gone. It’s very interesting because, you know, they make a deal, and then they break it, then they make a deal, they break it. It’s a difficult group. But from a military standpoint, I mean, if we left, if we left today, it would take them 20 years to rebuild.” When asked, amid a fragile ceasefire, whether it’s accurate to say the combat operations are “over and done,” he replied, “No, I didn’t say that.”


“I said, they are defeated, but that doesn’t mean they’re done. We could go in for two more weeks and do every single target. We have certain targets that we wanted to, and we’ve done probably 70% of them, but we have other targets that we could conceivably hit. But even if we didn’t do that, you know, that would just be final touches. But even if we didn’t do that, it would take them many years to rebuild.” President Trump also called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) a “paper tiger” after the alliance – funded with more U.S. money than any other country– failed to answer Trump’s call for assistance with Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 25% of the world’s oil supply passes.

You know, the interesting thing is many of those NATO countries use – we don’t use – the strait. We don’t need it,” Trump said. “In fact, boats are coming up to Texas, Louisiana, and Alaska and filling up with oil. We don’t need the strait. We were trying to keep it open “to help Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and UAE, others,” the president continued. We don’t need it. …We’re now producing more oil and gas than Russia and Saudi Arabia put together. Think of that, Sharyl. If you take everything that Russia does, everything that Saudi Arabia puts out, we produce much more oil and gas than Russia and Saudi Arabia put together. And by the end of this year, that number will probably double.”

Full Measure also asked about the NFL’s move to place more games on expensive pay channels. The Justice Department is investigating the practice. “It’s so tough,” Trump replied. “You got people that love football. They don’t make enough money to go and pay this. … And they could be killing the golden goose. I mean, they have that stupid kickoff thing that you can’t watch. It’s unwatchable. I hate the games where they, you know, they have the new phony kickoff.”

On vaccine safety, Trump said: “I believe in vaccines,” But “if you look at Denmark and other countries, you have 12, 14, I think 17. And we have like 82 [CDC-recommended doses for American children]. But I look at these beautiful little babies, and they get a vax. I mean, so like a big glass of stuff pumped into their bodies. And I think it’s a very negative thing to do … I would love to see much smaller shots, like four visits to the doctor, and I think you would have a much better result with the autism.” On illegal immigration and America’s record-low homicide rate, Full Measure asked the president, “As straightforward as securing the border seemed to be once you got into office, it almost implies that another president could reverse it as quickly … Is there any way to protect against that in the future?” “Yeah. Vote Republican. It’s very simple,” he replied.

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Don’t pay attention to a thing they say. They’re only stalling. They will not ever voluntarily accept Trump’s conditions. You got to coax thwm.

Iran Responds To US Peace Proposal (ZH)

After days of waiting, Iran has submitted its response to the latest US peace proposal to mediator Pakistan, despite the recent flare-up in renewed exchanges of fire in the contested Strait of Hormuz this past week. “Iran has submitted its response to the latest US proposal to end 10 weeks of war, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported on Sunday, without providing any further details,” Bloomberg confirms in a fresh headline. “Tehran hasn’t yet given any public indication it would accept President Donald Trump’s plan that stipulates Iran permits passage through the Strait of Hormuz and Washington ends its blockade on Iranian ports in the next month.”


IRAN REPLY TO US PROPOSAL INCLUDES ENDING WAR ON ALL FRONTS: TV
This comes as Qatar’s PM has warned Iran that using the Strait of Hormuz as a pressure card, to choke the global economy, “would only lead to deepening the crisis” – and amid reports there could still be sporadic attacks on Gulf countries like the UAE. According to more of the limited details: Sources in both camps have told Reuters the latest peace efforts are aimed at a temporary memorandum of understanding to halt the war and allow traffic through the Strait of Hormuz while they discuss a fuller deal, which would have to address intractable disputes such as Iran’s nuclear program.

The latest from Iran’s president:


President Trump told Fox News days ago, “They want to make a deal. We’ve had very good talks over the last 24 hours, and it’s very possible that we’ll make a deal.” He had said if this happens “it’ll be over quickly” and oil prices will plummet.

IRGC Fresh Warning on US Bases
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has warned any attack on Iranian oil tankers and commercial ships will be met with assaults on US bases and “enemy ships” in the region, Al Jazeera reports. “Warning! Any aggression against the oil tankers and commercial vessels of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be met with a heavy attack on one of the American centers in the region and the enemy’s ships,” the IRGC Navy said in the statement.

https://twitter.com/PressTV/status/2053441168071934410?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2053441168071934410%7Ctwgr%5Eb7d1d419b13f4661b2523236de8066bb1d640d28%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Firan-responds-us-peace-proposal-ayatollah-meets-top-general-discuss-readiness

Tehran is accusing the US side of severely violating the ceasefire earlier this week, by firing on and disabling two Iranian-flagged tankers trying to reach Iranian ports. State media reviewed of these hostile incidents: In a statement, the spokesman for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said the “aggressive, terrorist and marauding US military” had targeted an Iranian oil tanker sailing from Iran’s coastal waters near Jask toward the Strait of Hormuz, as well as another vessel entering the strategic waterway near the UAE port of Fujairah.

The spokesman also said civilian areas along the coasts of Bandar Khamir, Sirik and Qeshm Island came under aerial attacks carried out “with the cooperation of some regional countries.” The IRGC further said it will respond “powerfully and without the slightest hesitation” to any aggression or attack. Indeed there are reports that during the past week’s skirmishes Iran fired on three US warships seeking to exit waters of Iran’s coast.

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Bibi told Trump: “I’m going to nuke Tehran”. Did he drag him into a war?

Trump says Iran was two weeks away from having nukes, and would have used them on Israel. Is he wrong?

Trump Ignored CIA Warnings on Iran (Paul Craig Roberts)

The US has been dragged into war by Israel despite CIA assessments that Tehran was not building a bomb “The narrative and agenda spun by a foreign government – Israel — won the argument and forced us into this war.” — Former Chief of US Counterintelligence Joe Kent. Washington joined Israel’s war against Iran despite intelligence assessments that the Islamic Republic was not developing nuclear weapons, US former counterterrorism chief, Joe Kent, revealed. Kent, who resigned in protest as head of the US National Counterterrorism Center in March, revealed that Israel dragged Washington into another never-ending conflict that does not serve American interests.


Kent said the entire US intelligence community, including the CIA, had agreed before the escalation that Tehran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon. He added that US Intel agencies also warned Trump that Iran would target American bases across the Middle East and shut down the Strait of Hormuz if attacked by Israel or the US. As Trump gets his intelligence information from Netanyahu, we might as well save money by shutting down the 17 or so US intelligence agencies. Let’s see, the US is at war with Russia and Iran. Will China be next or will it be Cuba or Denmark?

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Drumroll getting closser.

Bombshell Evidence About the 2020 Election Is Coming (Matt Margolis)

Something big is on the horizon — and the people saying so aren’t fringe voices on a podcast. They’re senior Trump administration officials. Monica Crowley, the U.S. government’s chief of protocol, dropped a significant claim on Wednesday: hard evidence that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election is coming, and it’s coming soon. “He did win in a landslide, and we will soon be able to give evidence about that,” Crowley said. Now, she didn’t lay out a timeline or spell out exactly what the evidence would look like, but the message was clear.


According to the Washington Times, she offered no further details on the nature of what’s being prepared. That ambiguity will inevitably give critics ammunition, of course. But here’s the thing, Crowley’s remarks didn’t just come out of nowhere. Her claims track almost perfectly with what FBI Director Kash Patel told Maria Bartiromo last month. As PJ Media previously reported, Patel appeared on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo and announced that arrests are coming over the coordinated effort to rig the 2020 election. “We are going to be making arrests, and it’s coming, and I promise you, it’s coming soon,” Patel said.

Two senior officials. Same message. Same urgency. That’s not a coincidence. Their argument — and they’re not alone in making it — is that a coordinated effort to undermine the 2020 election results led to Joe Biden being declared the winner. You’ve heard all the liberal arguments that no fraud was actually found, and courts confirmed the election was entirely above board, but that’s simply not true. Every legal challenge filed after the 2020 contest was rejected, not for lack of evidence, but for lack of standing. So, there’s a lot we still don’t know about the 2020 election — a lot that Democrats would rather not see the light of day.

Meanwhile, the legal machinery is already in motion. A federal grand jury in Florida is actively examining issues related to the 2020 election. The Department of Justice has also just brought in former U.S. attorney and Trump ally Joe diGenova to work alongside prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida. Then there’s Georgia — a state Biden only barely “won” in 2020. Back in January, federal agents executed a search warrant in Fulton County and walked out with ballots and other materials from the 2020 general election.You better believe Democrats are sweating over this.

The establishment media will dismiss all of this as election denialism, but the fact is that the 2020 election was never properly investigated. Instead, we were told to trust the results of the “most secure election in history,” and if you dared to question the results, you were mocked, censored, or demonetized. But a reckoning is coming. There are now search warrants, grand jury subpoenas, and federal prosecutors involved. The truth will come out. Whatever Crowley and Patel are sitting on, the clock is ticking. And if the evidence is as significant as they’re suggesting, the political fallout will be unlike anything this country has seen in a very long time.

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I’m sorry I have to cut this off (too long), but do try to click the link and read the whole thing. It’s a treasure trove by Sundance of what the indictmemts will be based on.

The CIA, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and John Brennan (CTH)

In 2008 Joe Biden was Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with oversight jurisdiction of the U.S State Dept., and by extension all foreign policy nominations etc.In 2008 John Brennan was working for the Obama campaign when someone from his outside government group, The Analysis Corporation, “hacked” into the state dept database to access the passport files and State Dept records of Barack Obama. John O. Brennan, Obama’s then top terrorism and intelligence adviser, was the owner of The Analysis Corp. The company was cited in March 2008 for penetrating the files of presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and John McCain in the State Department’s passport office.


At the time of the breach, John Brennan was working as an unpaid adviser to the Obama campaign. After the breach was revealed by the Washington Times, Brennan stated: “This individual’s actions were taken without the knowledge or direction of anyone at The Analysis Corp. and are wholly inconsistent with our professional and ethical standards,” Brennan’s company said in a statement sent to reporters after the passport breach was made public. (link) The Washington Times Reported – Passport application data includes such details as date and place of birth, e-mail address, mailing address, Social Security number, former names and travel plans. Mr. Obama was born in Honolulu in 1961 to a Kenyan father and American mother. He lived in Jakarta, Indonesia, from age six to 10.

Computer-monitoring equipment detected the activities by the three employees on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14, triggering alarms in each case, Mr. McCormack said. Mr. McCormack said the officials accessed Mr. Obama’s records “without a need to do so.” “In each case, we immediately contacted our contractors, their employer, and two were fired and one was disciplined,” he said. (link) But it is important to remember EXACTLY what Brennan’s background was before the State Department breach. Brennan spent 25 years working for the CIA prior to the security breach: Mr. Brennan spent most of his C.I.A. career as an analyst, but during the 1990s served a tour as the chief of the station in Saudi Arabia.

From 1999 to early 2001, he was chief of staff to George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, as the position was then called. At the end of his CIA. service, in 2004 and 2005, Mr. Brennan set up what is now the counterterrorism center. Yet, people would have us believe, after 25 years within the CIA, and after being the Chief of Staff to the Director, and after being the person who set up the counter terrorism center, and after being the CIA approved contractor for the State dept., well, John Brennan just didn’t know that someone from his firm was penetrating the passport files within the State Dept. on three occasions in Jan and Feb 2008 to look at information of the candidate who he was specifically working for. That was their story, and they stuck to it in 2008.

After the initial inquiry, federal investigators maintained that the target of the illegal activity was Senator Barack Obama’s passport file. It does not take a stretch to come to the conclusion this was for the sole purpose of cleansing records of information that would jeopardize Obama’s candidacy. As many people speculated at the time, the breach of the passport records of the other candidates was merely to create confusion. Brennan was, at the time, an unpaid advisor working with Obama’s campaign. Passport files include an applicant’s name, gender, social security number, date and place of birth, and passport number. Additional information may include birth certificates, naturalization certificates, or oaths of allegiance for U.S. born persons who adopted the citizenship of a foreign country as minors.

It is important to remember the oversight agency that would be investigating the breach – The Senate Foreign Relations Committee oversees the State Department. At the time Senator Joe Biden was the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when the breach would be investigated. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned Obama and personally apologized for the breach. “I told him that I myself would be very disturbed if I learned that somebody had looked into my passport file,” Rice told reporters. She phoned Clinton and McCain and offered similar apologies. Following the breach, State Department managers met with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, whose committee has oversight over the Foreign Service and the passport office. (link)

And, well, what do you know… Biden became the VP pick of Obama. State Department employee, Lieutenant Quarles Harris, Jr. who had the passport access, apparently was the guy who penetrated the database and scrubbed the records. Harris was killed – April 18th, 2008. Yes, Lieutenant Harris decided to cooperate with the FBI who were investigating the break-in. Soon after his cooperation became a matter of record, his body was discovered in his parked car; he had been shot twice in the head, likely a “suicide”.

Last point. In mid-February 2010, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs alerted WH reporters that certain questions about Obama’s job with Business International Corporation (BIC) would not be subject to discussion. BIC was well known in Washington DC to be a front company for the CIA; hence, many speculated the State Department passport records were scrubbed to erase any potential mention of Obama’s CIA activities and his personal information. You decide.Here’s the thing, and I do mean this with great seriousness:

If you take a close look at it, you realize that seemingly every function of the USAID as an institution came from the CIA. In essence, USAID was the operational cover for the CIA. The CIA seemingly created the mechanics of USAID for CIA purposes. Now, once you look at USAID as an outreach arm of the CIA, then suddenly everything USAID partnered with can realistically be looked at -at the very least questioned- as a CIA operation working with joint partners for CIA intentions.

This agency relationship means everything.

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“I’m gonna tell you, because what Barack Obama, former president, said the other day on, was it Colbert’s show? No, no, no. We’re not… No, no. Sorry. No, we’re not, we’re not doing that,” Bongino said.

Dan Bongino Offers Chilling Warning to Barack Obama (Margolis)

I still can’t believe that Barack Obama had the audacity to lecture Americans during his recent interview with Stephen Colbert about presidents misusing the Justice Department. “The White House shouldn’t be able to direct the attorney general to go around prosecuting whoever,” Obama said. “The idea is that the attorney general is the people’s lawyer. It’s not the president’s consigliere.” As I’ve pointed out before, the only president who arguably weaponized his Justice Department more than Barack Obama was Joe Biden. Barack Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, literally called himself Obama’s wingman. And, of course, Merrick Garland tried to put President Donald Trump in prison.


“Barack Hussein Obama is the king of weaponization,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement. “And documents declassified last year revealed he was present for key meetings that led to critical steps in the opening of the Russia Hoax investigation against President Trump.” Jackson added that “President Trump has restored integrity to the Department of Justice that Obama and Biden broke.” Of course, Colbert never challenged the insinuation that Trump is the one weaponizing the Justice Department. But Dan Bongino was just as furious about Obama’s comments as I was — and the warning he fired back should make Obama very nervous.

The former FBI Deputy Director fired back hard on his radio show. The warning he delivered wasn’t vague, and it wasn’t polite. “I’m gonna tell you, because what Barack Obama, former president, said the other day on, was it Colbert’s show? No, no, no. We’re not… No, no. Sorry. No, we’re not, we’re not doing that,” Bongino said. “You know, I know things too, Mr. President, and so do you. Not pretending I was at your level. You were the president. I was just the deputy director of the FBI, but it’s not a small thing, and I’m not letting you get away with this. No chance.”

That is not the language of a talk show host venting into a microphone. That’s a man with institutional knowledge, speaking directly to a former president who apparently understands exactly what’s being left unsaid. Bongino stopped short of specifying what information he was sitting on, which is precisely what makes the warning so striking. As the former FBI deputy director, he doesn’t deal in rumors. He’s had access to files, briefings, intelligence, and the kind of details that never make it onto cable news until someone decides the time is right.

What was Bongino talking about? Rumors on social media suggest it involves the Russian collusion hoax, surveillance, and unmasking, with details that might soon surface. His message to Obama is a clear warning: don’t push this. I think Obama wants to play the role of the elder statesman riding back into town to defend democratic norms. What he’s getting instead is a reminder that he left skeletons behind when he left office, and based on what Bongino said, those skeletons won’t be secret forever.

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“Confident job creators invest in new employees. That is exactly and undeniably what’s happening now thanks to the massive tax cuts and deregulation of [President Trump]..”

Trump Celebrates Jobs Report for Mother’s Day (Catherine Salgado)

In a rather amusing social media post, President Donald Trump issued a Mother’s Day message that focused on the new positive jobs report.The expected job growth for April 2026 was +65,000. But the actual growth was 115,000 added, an important win for the Trump administration. “Happy Mother’s Day weekend to all, especially to the 115 THOUSAND AMERICANS who found jobs in the month of April alone!” Trump celebrated excitedly in a May 8 Truth Social post going into the holiday weekend.


The president smugly boasted, “As usual, over 90 percent of Bloomberg Economists (nearly all of whom have a ‘Terminal’ case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME!) underestimated the strength of the Trump Economy. Despite the best efforts of Jerome ‘Too Late and Won’t Leave’ Powell, and the America Hating Democrat Party, more Americans are working today than ever before.” He ended exuberantly, “Happy Mother’s Day and, know that, we are MAKING AMERICA WEALTHY AND SAFE AGAIN!”

My own personal comment is that it would be wonderful if America got back to a point where fathers were doing so well financially that more mothers could afford to stay home as my mom did with their kids, which is very beneficial for the children. And of course, we hope the jobs reports will be even better in the future — I still know people who are struggling to find work. But certainly the latest report is very hopeful. But certainly many mothers across the country will rejoice at greater economic strength and a more hopeful financial prospect for themselves and their families. The jobs report was so great that even CNN — otherwise known as the Crazy Nutcase Network — was being complimentary of the success:

The Kobeissi Letter, which provides capital markets commentary, stated, “The unemployment rate was 4.3%, in-line with expectations of 4.3%. The US economy has now added +300,000 jobs in 2 months. Another stronger than expected jobs report despite the Iran War.”

Kelly Loeffler, administrator of the Small Business Administration, attributed the surge in job growth to smaller businesses rather than megacorporations. “Confident job creators invest in new employees. That is exactly and undeniably what’s happening now thanks to the massive tax cuts and deregulation of [President Trump],” she said. Don’t fall for Democrat doomsday propaganda. The job market isn’t disastrous as the screaming leftists want you to think.

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The anti-Trump crowd.

Mark Carney Celebrates “Europe Day” In Toronto with Obama and Alex Soros (CTH)

Be of good cheer. As Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney meets with Barack Obama, Alex Soros, and a mix of global figures and intelligence operatives in Toronto, the number of people who grasp the true purpose of this gathering is far greater than the attendees might imagine. The gathering, officially dubbed a “think tank” meeting, was closed to the media. Barack Obama gave the keynote address, and the assembly of political leftists took place as the U.S. and Canada remain at odds over differing worldviews and an economic dispute surrounding the USMCA trade agreement.


That said, the global audience of pragmatic ‘noticers’ understand that following Prime Minister Carney’s recent remarks in Europe and Canada about the next era of globalism being strengthened by the joint efforts of the British Commonwealth (Canada, Australia, U.K) and Europe, while putting the travels of Obama into context with his continued meetings at Number 10 Downing Street, the content of the ‘think tank’ assembly is transparent.mAll of the figures are aligned in common interest to strategize ways to defeat their indefatigable nemesis known as Donald J Trump.


It is both the policy of economic nationalism and the outcomes of seismic shifts in geopolitical alignment that cause the brain trust of leftists to assemble with urgency. There is a myriad of Trump victories recently that have begun to destroy their precious systems of control. President Trump is using the combined power of the U.S. Treasury, U.S. Military and U.S. Economy as a wrecking ball against one-hundred years of Euro-centric control operations. Heck, even the recently paused tariffs against EU automobiles is connected to the larger objective of ending the never-ending Marshal Plan. And, then there’s that little reference point of King Charles failed recent tour, against the backdrop of Starmer’s electoral collapse.

I doubt very much the arrival of Pete Buttigieg and Elissa Slotkin (CIA) will offset the leftist defeats in the redistricting effort. But, well, sure, I guess assembling to try and organize internal operations against Godzilla Trump may benefit from Soros and his Bazooka Joe glasses. In the economic competition, Canada faces the biggest vulnerability, as its entire system of investment, banking, and production relies heavily on maintaining trade preferences that benefit from the $30 trillion U.S. economy. Prime Minister Carney’s control measures are ultimately futile attempts to counter Trump’s insistent and justified reciprocity stance. This push for control stems from a place of fear.

Canada and the EU are trying to use China as a counterbalance and shield against Trump’s direct hits to their interests. However, along with all of those who can see the big picture behind the leftist assembly, Big Panda (Beijing) and Big Grizzly (Russia) well understand what is happening. Remember, all varieties of bears are omnivorous, and while Pandas may be cute the Kamchatka is very underrated. Thankfully, a God in control of all things doesn’t give us a President we need, He anoints a President He needs. The audience disliked Moses immensely, and the same can be said for David; however, each served His purpose.

Like I said at the beginning, be of good cheer. Prime Minister Carney may have blocked and controlled visibility on the assembly by restricting media access, but given what is very visible and viral on social media, a Great Awakening is very evident.

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I’m not for using “The Democrats” in this way. Too big a pool. But I do think in general “The Democrats” think Trump is hurting and the midterms are in the bag.

Problem is, they think that because they see and read only their own media, who tell them what they want to hear.

And then I see that a full 100% of MAGA voters will vote that way for the midterms again, and I think: you will be surprised.

Democrats Keep Betting Gazillions on Bad Ideas (David Manney)

Democrats keep treating politics like the busted education system, but with a bigger checkbook; spend more, hire more consultants, fund more ads, build more machinery, and then comes the important part. Act shocked when voters still ask whether anyone brought better ideas.Our favorite former first lady and failed presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, had a ginormous financial machine behind her. Her Grace Von Pantsuit, along with allied groups, raised and spent over $1 billion. President Donald Trump spent far less and whupped her, winning the White House.


Our favorite orator, Cackles, she of the salad shooter black belt, repeated the expensive lesson eight years later. The party raised nearly $2 billion and spent roughly $1.5 billion in a short race. History repeated itself once again when President Trump whooped her, too. Money bought ads, staff, consultants, celebrity help, staging, and noise. But it didn’t buy a message that could survive contact with voters worried about prices, the border, crime, war, and, most importantly, basic competence. Virginia then added a new chapter: Democrats and allied groups poured a ginormous amount of money into a redistricting referendum meant to reshape the state’s congressional map before the 2026 midterms.

Virginians for Fair Elections (snort!), a Democratic-aligned group, raised nearly $64 million by early April, including major help from House Majority Forward, a group aligned with House Democratic leaders. Leading the push was Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and the lightbringer herself, former President Barack Hussein Obama. I think that would be called the DNC’s east coast varsity squad. Voters narrowly approved the plan, but alas, it was not to be. Set to the sounds of liberal hearts breaking, the Virginia Supreme Court struck it down after finding the process violated state law.

The ruling left Democrats with a costly pile of ash where their money used to be, and a midterm advantage up in smoke. To Temu Obama, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and Democrats nationally, Virginia was to offset Republican redistricting gains elsewhere. Instead, the court reminded them that clever process games still have rules. Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, a Democrat, moved to defend the referendum, but the legal problem remained. Democrats spent a gazillion dollars trying to change the board, then watched judges tell them they were playing under a fabricated set of rules. What’s the definition of insanity? Repeatedly trying the same thing and expecting a different result.

That spotlights the pattern that keeps repeating, where the modern Democratic Party believes money replaces persuasion. When voters don’t buy the product, Democrats change the packaging, raise more cash, and then blame the market. Heaven forbid they buy and use a mirror. That same mindset runs through education, where taxpayers keep feeding an overpriced system that teacher union muscle shapes, while too many students — it’s for the children, you know — leave school unable to perform the basics: read, write, or compete as young people in the world’s leading superpower should.

President Trump exposes the weakness, because he doesn’t play by the timid rules Democrats have learned to expect from Republicans. He pushes back, fights, and forces arguments into the open. The left spent years building systems where money, credentials, institutions, and legal pressure could smother resistance before voters had any room to breathe. Trump stands there anyway, and asks a rough but fair question: What do you have to lose by walking away from the people who keep failing upward? That question once directly targeted black voters, and it still carries force. Moderates should hear it now.

People leaving California, New York, Illinois, and other blue strongholds have already voted with moving trucks. People fled taxes, disorder, school failures, housing costs, and one-party arrogance. How much worse would life get if they finally voted against the politics they already left behind? If it pleases them, Democrats can spend another gazillion dollars by hiring shinier consultants, booking friendlier entertainers, bankrolling more lawsuits, and dressing bad ideas in better lighting. Voters still know when groceries cost too much, streets feel less safe, schools fail their kids, and leaders talk down to them. Money buys a campaign, but it can’t buy character, courage, or a party worth following.

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Are you now, or have you ever been, to a restaurant that served matzo ball soup?

Too Many Democrats Are a Special Kind of Stupid (Derek Hunter)

Poor Democrats, learning the hard way (and very late in life) that actions have consequences and you can’t always get what you want…no matter how loudly you scream about it or demand it. The modern left has morphed into a never-ending drum circle of hatred and contempt for their fellow human beings who do not wish to be assimilated into the progressive collective of blind obedience. Democrats are learning a lesson they should have learned after losing the Civil War: people don’t want to be slaves. But Democrats have never learned that lesson; they view people as groups they own the votes of and can manipulate in order to achieve their political goals. It has worked for a very long time, but it’s working less and less now.


Part of the reason for their “coalition” fracture is that their policies are catching up to them. You can only promise to make things better for so long before people realize they’ve been getting steadily worse because of you, even Democrat voters. A bigger reason, however, is just how insane the party has gotten. Even stupid people will eventually realize you’re spitting in their faces while lecturing them about the rain. Many voters are reaching that point. How can anyone take seriously a party with a pundit like Harry Sisson, who, after the Virginia Supreme Court beat the dreams of Democrats creating new House seats like it was their redheaded stepchild, tweeted, “If Virginia can’t have their maps, then other blue states need to step up. Eliminate all of the Republican seats like they’re doing to us.”

Yes, genius, burn tens of millions more dollars trying to redraw deeper blue districts in New England, as the place where your control is absolute had gerrymandered everything decades ago. The only reason Republicans still have states they could gerrymander, and Democrats don’t, is because the GOP has been stupidly playing nice. No longer. Democrats brought this on themselves. I know they like to pretend “Texas started this!” But you have to have been denied oxygen in the birth canal to be that stupid. New England exists. New York’s redistricting exists; what California has been doing exists. Honestly, it’s about damn time Republicans stopped taking punches to the face and asking if the Democrats’ knuckles are OK and started hitting back.

They can no longer segregate people into congressional districts, and they’re acting like it’s a return to Jim Crow. They know that’s not true; they were the creators of Jim Crow and know exactly what it was like then…and they want it back. More Black Members of Congress represent majority-white districts than don’t, but Democrats still insist the country is racist and merit will lead to a “lack of representation.” Sorry, but you don’t need to be represented by someone who looks like you; it’s much more important that you be represented by someone who thinks as you do. Democrats have been working diligently for decades to make sure that doesn’t happen. And they’re losing.

But identity politics will not die easily; too much of the infrastructure of the left-wing industrial complex is built on it. Democrat U.S. Senate candidate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed — who famously fretted that people in my old neighborhood in Dearborn were very upset that the Ayatollah had been killed (instead of killing people) — is playing the “I’m Muslim” and “Jews are bad” cards in his campaign against candidates running on the “I’m a woman!” platform. Weird how liberal women can’t tell you what a woman is in any other aspect of life except where it benefits them, isn’t it?

El-Sayed’s campaign is so desperate to mine that little bit of gold from the Democratic Party’s hatred of Jews and Israel that he put out a press release condemning alleged “dark money” for being spent through an ad-buying agency that apparently contracted with AIPAC – the American pro-Israel group – at some point. His press release read, in part, “The Center for Democratic Priorities bought the airtime via Waterfront Strategies, an agency that AIPAC-affiliated Super PACs, such as United Democracy Project, have worked with in the past.” Are you now, or have you ever been, to a restaurant that served matzo ball soup?

While it’s important to remember just how broken these people are, you have to keep in mind that their leadership is not stupid; they’re evil. They know what they’re doing and why: it benefits them. The voters who go along with it, even after everything we’ve seen and Democrats themselves have shown, are the special kind of stupid who need to be grateful breathing is a reflex, as they would forget how to do it otherwise and suffocate on the streets.

Wise up already.

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” He defined Russia’s vision of victory as the vanquishing of neo-Nazi elements within Ukraine, as well as “those forces in Europe, primarily among the elites, that have built Russia into a bogeyman again.”

Europe is Russia’s Principal Adversary – Trenin (RT)

Europe has become Russia’s “principal adversary” for the first time since the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, the president of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), Dmitry Trenin, has told Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi. In the latest episode of Going Underground, the renowned international affairs expert said that “today, Russia is at war again, and this is not simply a war between Russia and Ukraine” but rather a proxy war against Moscow that is being waged by the West.


According to Trenin, while the US under President Donald Trump has increasingly distanced itself from the Ukraine conflict, European involvement has become progressively more prominent of late. He told Rattansi that elites in European capitals are using a perceived Russian threat in an apparent effort to consolidate the “crumbling” European Union and to “relaunch their economies through militarization.”“They’re trying, above all, to keep themselves in power” by pushing alarmist narratives regarding Russia, he added.

Trenin went on to describe Ukrainians as a “part of the bigger Russian nation” that is being “misguided” and “used by the West in [its]… very long war against Russia,” which dates as far back as the 16th century. The international affairs expert expressed confidence that Russia would eventually accomplish its goals in the conflict, though it would take a long time. He defined Russia’s vision of victory as the vanquishing of neo-Nazi elements within Ukraine, as well as “those forces in Europe, primarily among the elites, that have built Russia into a bogeyman again.”

Commenting on Trump’s attempts at mediation, Trenin claimed that the US president is “essentially powerless to insist on something that is of central importance to ending this conflict,” and so his role is rather limited in defining its course. According to the RIAC president, Trump has apparently been unable to get EU warmongers and the Ukrainian leadership to act on the understanding reached by him and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, last August.

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The West shows no respect. It needs an enemy to keep its arms industry going.

West Rewriting World War II History – Moscow (RT)

The West is busy rewriting the history of World War II, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has stated ahead of the 81st anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany. Russian officials have repeatedly accused the US and EU member states of distorting historical truth and belittling the crucial role of the Soviet Union, which lost an estimated 27 million people in what is known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War.


Speaking on Thursday, Zakharova said that defending historical memory is a fundamental priority for Russia. This is all the more important in light of revanchist tendencies in the West, according to the spokeswoman. She pointed out that the 51 nations that voted against the UN resolution on “Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance” late last year were mostly representatives of the “collective West.”

Zakharova accused EU bureaucrats of waging “historical aggression.” She cited resolutions by the European Parliament, as well as organizations affiliated with the Council of Europe, which “promote the rewriting of history,” with the Soviet Union “being ascribed responsibility nearly equal to that of [Nazi] Germany” for the start of World War II. The official also noted that “in some countries, the war on monuments and memorials in honor of fighters against Nazism is gaining momentum.” She singled out Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia as prime examples of this unsettling trend, citing the demolitions of Soviet war memorials there in recent years.

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PCR fears quantum computers.

The Digital Revolution Will Destroy Humanity (Paul Craig Roberts)

For some years I have been pointing out that the digital revolution, like nuclear weapons and laboratory manufacture of deadly pathogens that governments or terrorists can release, is a disastrous development for humanity. It is true that the digital revolution has benefits such as instant messaging, video conferences, real time access to news of events in foreign lands, real time access to entertainment and to live performances decades ago. The digital revolution has provided greater mpg and performance from internal combustion engines. And the list goes on.


But the benefits have a cost. Perhaps the highest cost is the total control the digital revolution gives governments or whatever the ruling entity is over people. The threat goes beyond the Chinese social control system in which your rights or privileges are determined by your behavior. The digital revolution allows government to prevent the emergence of truth by substituting for truth official narratives. We witnessed the beginning of this with the orchestrated “Covid pandemic.” By controlling the data base of artificial intelligence, governments can produce the “truths” that serve their agendas.

The interconnectiveness of information is more advanced than people realize. For example, the US State Department just announced that the passport of any parent behind in child payments of $2,500 has a cancelled passport. How does the Passport Office of the State Department know who in 50 states is behind in child support payments? President Trump is trying to create with an executive order a US passport with digital facial recognition without which a citizen cannot have a bank account, vote, or have a driving license, or, for that matter, do anything.

Digital currency is the greatest threat, perhaps, to human autonomy. Digital currency, unlike fiat paper currency or gold and silver coins, cannot be locked in a safe or buried on your grounds. It exists electronically only, and you can be denied access to it if you displease the ruling authority. This neutralizes all opposition from the people. A multi-billionaire suddenly finds that he cannot pay his electric bill. The young, who have no awareness or assets, may regard these threats as meaningless compared to the pleasure of scrolling the Internet. But sooner or later they will encounter another high cost of the digital revolution: the total absence of security of private information.

During the analogue days no such threat existed. To steal someone’s information you had to invade the space where the information was and copy it, or you had to climb a telephone pole that served that building or residence and attach, with court authority, a wire to the telephone of the residence or business. The Internet was developed as an open system. Thus, it is devoid of security. Currently encrypted passwords and secondary authentication serve to protect information. Nevertheless breeches are widespread and involve the largest companies and government data banks. The breech of AT&T’s security has left most American’s Social Security numbers available on the Internet.

According to a recent report, 100 million Mac users are at risk because hackers have succeeded in hijacking Apple’s “verified apps” to bypass Apple’s security. Hackers have succeeded in stealing “developer keys,” which provide a “digital passport” the allows hackers to disguise malware as Apple-approved apps. So you download the “approved” app, and the hackers have your computer. Apple, of course, will develop a response, but those affected before the corporation can act are in for a lot of money and frustrating wasted time. Such threats are innumerable. Perhaps the greatest is the advent of Quantum Computing.

Quantum computers can break encrypted passwords. Quantum computers use quantum mechanics to process information at higher speed that can be used to quickly overcome encryption. Once the Quantum Computers are available, the digital world belongs to hackers. So why give hackers this weapon? Where is the government doing government’s job? Where is the integrity of the corporations developing rule by hackers? No one seems to care. Hackers anticipating the quantum computers are currently downloading all encrypted information now, storing it awaiting the arrival of quantum computers, at which time the hackers intend to take over your assets and your life. Isn’t it so great that you can scroll the Internet?

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https://twitter.com/UPMHPM/status/2053131593204617432?s=20 https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/2053142283537596843?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2053468443073020101?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Apr 282026
 


Johannes Vermeer Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window 1657-59


A Feral and Savage Party (James Howard Kunstler)
No Conspiracy Required (Stephen Green)
Obama Said This About the Latest Trump Assassination Attempt (Margolis)
President Trump 60-Minutes Interview on Events During Attack at WHCA Dinner (CTH)
Again, Fetterman Breaks Ranks After the Third Attempt on Trump’s Life (Manney)
Melania Trump Deplores Jimmy Kimmel’s Disturbing Shooting Jokes (Salgado)
How the GOP Should Respond to the ‘Both Sides Are Guilty’ Nonsense (Pinsker)
The New York Times Explores the Case for “Microlooting” to Murder (Turley)
Muslim Voters Are Reshaping U.K. Politics (JTN)
Trump’s Prescription Drug Policies Make Small-Town Pharmacies Great Again (JTN)
Charlottesville: The Deceit Underlying the Hoax (Steve Cortes)
The Siege of Iran, and Other Matters (James Howard Kunstler)
Iran Offers New Proposal To Reopen Strait – Trump Open To Deal Via Phone (ZH)
Bessent: IRGC Leaders ‘Trapped’ Like ‘Drowning Rats’ By US Blockade (ZH)
Senator Chuck Grassley’s Office Requests Answers from DOJ and FBI (CTH)

 


 

https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/2048492303531364530?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2048439348463337953?s=20 https://twitter.com/CRRJA5/status/2048585821163254218?s=20 https://twitter.com/eagameover/status/2048427971476705443?s=20

 


 


“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.” —Ian Fleming

A Feral and Savage Party (James Howard Kunstler)

Don’t you love the way the news media pretends it can’t figure out the motive of Cole Tomas Allen, who tried to shoot-up Saturday’s White House correspondents’ gala. He was a creation of the very White House correspondents who ducked under their tables at the sound of his shots. Cole Tomas Allen had digested and internalized the “narrative” spewage of the Democratic Party’s propaganda department. MSNOW occupied his brain like a glistening parasite.


CBS tried to amplify the shooter’s own motive on Sunday night’s 60 Minutes show when Norah O’Donnell read out-loud from his manifesto, “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” and asked President Trump “What is your reaction to that?” Mr. Trump did not fall for the ruse — which was just an opportunity to reinforce a well-worn scurrility. “You’re a disgrace,” the president replied, and Ms. O’Donnell just continued with the interview as if his answer never registered. There it is.

In fact, Cole Tomas Allen traveled all the way from Los Angeles to Washington for the rare chance to find Mr. Trump and most of his cabinet all together in one room where he might be able to kill as many of them as possible. He styled himself: “Cole ‘coldForce’ ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ Allen. “I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done,” he concluded in his short manifesto, reportedly composed and sent out minutes before he left his room at the Washington Hilton to perform his rash deed.

That rage, you understand, was planted in his head by the likes of Norah O’Donnell of CBS news and the scores of reporters, editors, and news producers who had to abandon the festive menu starters of spring pea and burrata salad and crab terrine with a nice Veuve Clicquot when the shots rang out. The gala is a night when the Blob’s media errand boys and call girls like to treat themselves like royalty. (Meanwhile their hated enemies back in the truck stops of MAGAland get by on lowly chili-lime jerky and Little Debbie Zebra Cakes, washed down with Red Bull — good for five-hundred miles of hauling, at least.)

The former president can’t guess Cole Tomas Allen’s motives. He is a liar, a cad, and a fraud. As for political violence in general, you have not heard Mr. Obama complain about Antifa mayhem, BLM riots, tranny school murders, harassment of ICE officers, or any other violence approved by the Lefty-left. Mr. Obama is himself a bona fide seditionist. When he repeats the shibboleth “our democracy” he means simply the Lefty-left’s malevolent will to power — which is predicated on nothing more than feeding the Democratic Party’s never-ending rackets, doling out money to its captive clients for votes, solely to remain in power: Ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail. His mealy-mouthed sanctimony serves only his personal need to evade prosecution for his own crimes.

The only way Barack Obama can evade prosecution for RussiaGate and then for covertly running the “Joe Biden” White House from his HQ across town is if he is named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the RICO cases to come. That will be enough for historians to understand what happened here in the early 21st century. And what about the other traitors, the long list of Blob apparatchiks who schemed to overthrow the executive from 2016 to 2021, and then labored to throw thousands in prison, ran a fake pandemic op, queered two elections, hijacked the courts, shut down opposing opinion, and poisoned the minds of several assassins?

Justice is coming for them. They know it, and their “resistance” seeks to turn feral and savage in the months leading to the midterm elections. It will start in a few days with “Mayday Strong” rallies and street marches. Their slogan, “It’s workers over billionaires,” is just another lie. The part they leave out is that these actions are funded by billionaires: George Soros, Neville Roy Singham, Hansjörg Wyss, et al. Don’t expect the action to remain “mostly peaceful,” either. The idea, of course is to get violent so as to goad President Trump into invoking emergency powers to put down an insurrection.

I doubt that President Trump will shrink from invoking the Insurrection Act, an amalgamation of laws passed by Congress starting in 1792–1795 with the Militia Acts, then the key 1807 law signed by President Thomas Jefferson, and major amendments during and after the Civil War, including the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act. It is codified in Title 10 of the United States Code, Chapter 13, specifically §§ 251–255. It is a statutory exception to the Posse Comitatus Act (1878), which generally prohibits using federal troops for domestic law enforcement.

The Insurrection Act (with its predecessor statutes) has been invoked approximately 30 times in U.S. history by 16 presidents — Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, Arthur, Cleveland, Wilson, Harding, FD Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan, and Bush — in episodes ranging from the Whiskey Rebellion, the Southern Secession, many violent labor strikes, several race riots, and looting in natural disasters.

President Trump might have to use the Insurrection Act to stop what has been an ongoing coup against his elected administration by an opposition party that has turned criminal and traitorous. He may have to convene extraordinary military tribunals to adjudicate crimes that include those committed by the federal judiciary itself. If he does all this, it must include an executive order mandating common sense election procedure for the midterm: citizenship and photo ID required, paper ballots only, no vote-counting machines, voting only on one day deemed Election Day, and mail-in ballots limited only to military, people required to be out of the country, and the disabled. All this is looking increasingly unavoidable.

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“If the Democrats don’t knock this off, there really will be a civil war in this country, and it won’t end well for them, just like the last one they started in 1861.”

No Conspiracy Required (Stephen Green)

“The Democratic Party has created monsters among them,” Jan. 6 criminal defense attorney Marina Medvin posted to X in the wake of yet another assassination attempt on President Donald Trump Saturday night. “The most interesting part” of attempted assassin Cole Allen’s manifesto and social media posts is that they’re “generally indistinguishable from most liberal social medial accounts belonging to Democrat voters in America.” Dems, you have a problem.


“The same week the New York Times published a cozy interview justifying the murder of people whose politics you don’t like, the same week we learned that the Unite the Right Charlottesville rally was funded by the Left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center, President Trump survived his third assassination attempt,” Batya Ungar-Sargon wrote on Sunday. “A recent YouGov poll says it all: 25% of very liberal Americans consider political violence justified—compared to 3% of very conservative Americans. Another 17% of liberal Americans say it’s justified, compared to just 6% of conservatives.”The left has worked hard at normalizing political violence — and Allen’s murderous intent is the left’s new mainstream. Let’s start with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, widely believed to have 2028 presidential ambitions, speaking last week:

As John Bulkeley warned, “If the Democrats don’t knock this off, there really will be a civil war in this country, and it won’t end well for them, just like the last one they started in 1861.” Speaking of war, here’s Democrat House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries doing just that.

Barring some big change before the midterms, Jeffries will be the next House Speaker. Maybe you remember James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by four-term incumbent John Cornyn. Writing for the New York Times last month, pseudo-conservative David French praised him as “one of the most faith-forward politicians in the United States.” Here’s Talarico’s pastor on Sunday:

Please note that the pastor did not go on to chide people for having mixed feelings about an assassination attempt, but instead doubled down on the very rhetoric that Allen echoed on BlueSky and in his manifesto. In church, if you can believe it. Finally, here’s late-night host Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday, calling first lady Melania Trump “an expectant widow” right to her face.

One more? OK, one more:

And don’t even get me started on the mainstream media… but if CNN’s Jake Tapper is at all unusual, it’s only because he’s so high-profile.

As I’ve written here for two years, 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. Lee Harvey Oswald was a weird teen, easy to pull out of the crowd. He embraced “theoretical Marxism” in high school and soon after earned the name “Oswaldovich” from his fellow Marines. But he seems to have required renouncing his citizenship and a two-year stint in the Soviet Union to turn him into a lefty assassin. If his manifesto is anything to go by, all Cole Thomas Allen had to do was watch CNN and read the New York Times.

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“Allen’s manifesto made it clear he has fallen for the lies of the Democrats, radicalized by their rhetoric — including Barack Obama’s.”

Obama Said This About the Latest Trump Assassination Attempt (Margolis)

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting at the White House Correspondents Association dinner at the Washington Hilton, where 31-year-old Cole Allen of California tried to assassinate President Donald Trump and other administration officials, there was a lot of confusion. Early reports suggested that the shooter had been killed. Those reports turned out to be false. During that time, many people on the left were trying to distract from the obvious, that someone had tried to assassinate Trump again. Left-wing influencers started chiding conservatives, pointing out the obvious. They claimed we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Of course, they also claimed the shooting was staged, but that’s a whole other story.


And then there’s Barack Obama. “Although we don’t yet have the details about the motives behind last night’s shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner, it’s incumbent upon all of us to reject the idea that violence has any place in our democracy,” Obama wrote on X. “It’s also a sobering reminder of the courage and sacrifice that U.S. Secret Service Agents show every day. I’m grateful to them – and thankful that the agent who was shot is going to be okay.”

There’s just one huge problem with Obama’s statement. We already knew the shooter’s motive at this point. Obama posted his statement at 5:15 p.m. EDT on Sunday, and the shooter’s manifesto and its contents were first published late Sunday morning. So by the time Obama decided to weigh in, the manifesto had been in the public domain for several hours, and his anti-Trump motives were already widely reported.] Here’s what Cole Allen’s manifesto said:

“I am a citizen of the United States of America. What my representatives do reflects on me. And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes. (Well, to be completely honest, I was no longer willing a long time ago, but this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to do something about it.) […] Administration officials (not including Mr. Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest

Allen made clear that Secret Service agents were only to be engaged if necessary — and even then, he claimed he preferred to incapacitate rather than kill. Hotel security, Capitol Police, and National Guard personnel were to be avoided unless they intervened, and he explicitly stated that hotel employees and guests were not targets. In short, there is no doubt he came there to kill Trump and other Trump administration officials. And Obama’s response was to tell the public the motive remained unclear.

There’s a pattern here worth naming. When political violence touches conservatives, the motive becomes suddenly complex, nuanced, perhaps unknowable. The calls for unity arrive with a side of fog. Meanwhile, the very writings that explain everything are either broadcast for maximum damage or quietly tucked away to avoid inconvenient conclusions.

No one can honestly believe that Obama was clueless. So why keep pretending that the motive is some unsolvable mystery? The answer is the same reason some on the left rushed to claim the assassination attempt was staged. They understand how damaging this is, so the instinct is to downplay it, muddy the waters, and dodge any real reckoning with the kind of radicalism that keeps surfacing on their side. Allen’s manifesto made it clear he has fallen for the lies of the Democrats, radicalized by their rhetoric — including Barack Obama’s.

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He shows himself in total control. This is obviously not the first time he thinks about it. How could it be?

Donald Trump came out of this weekend a lot bigger than he went in. A lot.

President Trump 60-Minutes Interview on Events During Attack at WHCA Dinner (CTH)

President Trump details his experience at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where a gunman charged toward the ballroom. President Trump says he wasn’t worried and praised the actions of law enforcement.


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“Fetterman cut through the noise and picked action over argument. While others kept talking, he picked a solution.”

Again, Fetterman Breaks Ranks After the Third Attempt on Trump’s Life (Manney)

If the man wasn’t a bloody lefty, I’d create a chorus of people asking him to flip to the Republican side. When compared to other Senate freshmen, he’s ranked the second most leftist. Alas, I believe him to be the maverick that the media’s favorite maverick, John McCain, thought himself to be. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) didn’t hedge after the chaos at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner when a gunman, Cole Allen, rushed a Secret Service checkpoint and opened fire. The shooter has now been identified as 31-year-old schoolteacher Cole Allen of Torrance, Calif., who sprinted past security checkpoints inside the hotel armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and two knives. He never made it into the ballroom.


Gunfire was exchanged during the incident, but Allen was not hit, and police arrested him. A Secret Service agent was struck but was wearing protective gear. No other injuries were confirmed among the attendees. In seconds, a routine political event turned into a live test of how much risk members of the Trump administration accept when they gather away from the White House. Fetterman saw enough, telling fellow Democrats to drop the reflex of opposing anything “Trump” and back a practical fix: build a secure, bulletproof ballroom on the White House grounds. A hardened, on-site venue would let presidents host large events inside a controlled perimeter instead of relying on facilities that weren’t built for modern threat levels.

President Donald Trump drove the point home within hours, saying the shooting proved why a protected ballroom isn’t optional; it’s basic security. Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and senior officials moved off the stage as agents contained the threat. One Secret Service agent took a round to his chest and, thanks to his vest, survived. Cole Allen of Torrance, Calif., never reached the main seating area, but the gap between “contained” and “catastrophic” was very thin. Fetterman’s position isn’t a one-off; he votes with his caucus most of the time, yet he breaks from it on national security when it counts. He backs Israel, supports Trump’s effort to block Iran from getting nuclear weapons, and, last year, defended the ballroom plan as appropriate and in line with the White House’s long history of upgrades.

Private donors would fund the ballroom, which removes the usual fight over money. For years, security professionals have warned about concentrating the president, vice president, cabinet, and lawmakers at off-site venues like the Washington Hilton. A single breach threatens multiple layers of leadership at once. A White House ballroom keeps those events inside a fortified perimeter designed for current threats, not assumptions from the past 30 years. You can’t put it more plainly than Fetterman did on X.

His point isn’t partisan; it’s operational: protect the office, reduce exposure, and control the environment. Washington typically defaults to posture over progress when leaders dig in, defend their side, and stall anything tied to the other party. Fetterman, however, did the opposite; he looked at what happened and backed a fix already on the table. Allen’s “alleged” attack didn’t create a new problem; he exposed one that’s been tolerated and kicked down the road for years.

How many times will it take for people filled with common sense to look at the critics of the ballroom, smack ‘em in the head, and, in the most sarcastic tone possible, exclaim: It doesn’t bear repeating, but for some dunderheads, it does: a secure, on-site venue won’t solve every risk, but it closes obvious ones. The presidency demands more than ceremony and tradition; it demands infrastructure that matches the reality of modern threats. Fetterman cut through the noise and picked action over argument. While others kept talking, he picked a solution.

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‘Political Sickness:’

Melania Trump Deplores Jimmy Kimmel’s Disturbing Shooting Jokes (Salgado)

After vile “comedian” Jimmy Kimmel referred to First Lady Melania Trump as an “expectant widow” in a series of grossly inappropriate jokes before the Saturday assassination attempt on Trump administration officials, the first lady responded with dignity but without holding back on emphasizing just how dangerous the rhetoric is.


Just days before Cole Allen opened fire at the April 25 White House correspondents’ dinner, the host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! chortled, “Our First Lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.” That ugly display was part of Kimmel’s Thursday parody of the then-upcoming correspondents’ dinner. And the shooting highlighted vividly how irresponsible or downright bloodthirsty the media is for their constant pro-assassination rhetoric. No wonder the first lady wants ABC to take him off the air.

Melania posted on X Monday, “Kimmel’s hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn’t comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America.” That is exactly what we see across the political left in America now, a sickness that has pervaded not only their politics, but their minds and their morals as well.

Then, Melania continued by challenging the networks that platform such incredibly dangerous rhetoric. “People like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate. A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him,” she said. “Enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community.”

Jimmy Kimmel was also despicable about the Charlie Kirk assassination. He falsely claimed that Kirk’s murderer was MAGA (actually, Tyler Robinson was an LGBTQ leftist) and smirked that the right was trying to score political points off the tragedy. The problem is that he is mainstream for lefties. He might be a little more candid about his unholy glee when Republicans die or are in danger of death, but his mainstream media pals agree with him.

Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, was at the correspondents’ dinner on Saturday and understandably was extremely traumatized after the near-deadly incident, considering how recent her husband’s assassination was. But Kimmel thinks it is all a great big joke. While ABC is not a public broadcasting station that essentially receives a form of government subsidy, and therefore the government cannot challenge Kimmel’s employment directly, it is entirely reasonable for Melania to ask why the Walt Disney Company keeps funding this hideous human being’s show.

Why is Kimmel even still on the air? At the very least, Donald Trump needs to stop going on mainstream media like CBS News’ 60 Minutes and legitimizing these poisonous propagandists. The president and his wife are absolutely right that the media is fueling violent hatred, and therefore, Republicans should allow these same media stooges to fall into the complete irrelevancy they have so richly earned.

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Don’t get ahead of yourself: Only one man should decide and proclaim how the GOP should respond: the President.

How the GOP Should Respond to the ‘Both Sides Are Guilty’ Nonsense (Pinsker)

If you’re an absent-minded married shlub, you’ve probably played the “golly gee, both sides were wrong, let’s move on” card, too. It goes like this:

Wife: Scott, why haven’t you taken out the garbage yet? I asked you two days ago. It’s starting to stink.

Me: But that was in the past! We need to look to the future. Let’s not dwell on the blame-game, honey — we’re better than that.

Wife: What are you talking about? Just take the garbage out, please.

Me: Look, we both contributed to the garbage. You threw away plenty of stuff, too. Probably more than me.

Wife: I can hear the garbage truck coming! Take it out to the street before it’s too late!

Me: Really, we’re both at fault: You asked me to do something — and somewhere along the way, there was a communication breakdown. So instead of pointing fingers, let’s be grownups and admit we were both wrong. Mistakes were made, but life goes on. That’s why pencils have erasers. Right?

Wife: [sighs] Never mind, I’ll do it.

Me: Thanks, honey. While you’re up, can you grab me a beer?

Yeah: It doesn’t work when you’re married any better than it’ll work for the Democrats. On the heels of yet another assassination attempt, the American people are beginning to recognize the media’s Political Violence Blame-Game Template. After all, it’s really not that complicated: When there’s no political violence: Blame Donald Trump and the GOP for inciting this awful, terrible epidemic of violence that doesn’t exist (yet).When a Democrat is the victim: Blame Donald Trump and the GOP for “extremist language” and racist/fascist “dog whistles” that are an “existential threat to democracy.” Demand greater civility in political discourse — while threatening to jail Republicans who appear “threatening” to liberals. (The only long-term solution to political violence, of course, is to remove Republicans from power.)

When a Republican is the victim: Blame both sides. (“It’s everyone’s fault! How the heck did things spiral out of control?”) Neither party has a monopoly on unstable nutjobs, but according to opinion polls, one side is a helluva lot more likely to support political violence than the other. Spoiler alert: It’s not the GOP.

For the Babylon Bee, the parody writes itself:

The assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner will likely dominate the headlines for the next several days. Unlike most Black Swan events, this one will have extra-long legs because:

1) All the D.C. journalists who witnessed it are highly incentivized to continue talking about the most exciting moment of their careers. Like I wrote yesterday, if reporters like Brian Williams can’t resist bragging about fake bullets, you better believe they’re gonna be talking nonstop about the real thing.

2) There’s a legitimate mystery to investigate: Who, what, when, and how was Cole Allen, the (alleged) “Friendly Federal Assassin” radicalized? On the surface, he seems like your normal, typical, nondescript leftist. As far as we know, this wasn’t a kid who was in and out of mental hospitals. So, was he radicalized by TikTok and Reddit? By the Epstein conspiracy? A hate-merchant like Hasan Piker? What pushed him over the edge?

Which means, the mainstream media will play the “both sides are equally guilty” card, but its attention will be diverted: Journalists can’t investigate Allen, beat their chests and brag about their (remarkable) bravery, AND be laser-focused on blaming both sides. Not enough oxygen in the room. Too many competing storylines to juggle. And therein lies the GOP’s opportunity. Because the media’s attention will be divided, the GOP will have a free hand to publicize its own message to the masses — and counterprogram the mainstream media. But we’ll have to be picky: With all the competing storylines, only one or two “talking points” will break through.

This means that we can’t say EVERYTHING we think about Cole Allen and left-wing political violence. We must be selective: It’s all about bang-for-the-buck. So how should the GOP counterprogram the Dems? Conservatives tend to favor intellectual, evidence-based arguments over raw emotions. It’s why we rely so heavily on statistics. Already on social media, we’re seeing swaths of posts about polling data — such as the one embedded above — that make a compelling mathematical argument about left-wing America’s sick tolerance of political violence.

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“Margaret Cho this week declared that “we need a feral, bloodthirsty, violent Democrat.”

The New York Times Explores the Case for “Microlooting” to Murder (Turley)

“It is so hard to live ethically in an unethical society.” That lament heard this week from New York Times opinion culture editor Nadja Spiegelman could well be the Democratic Party’s epitaph. Spiegelman was interviewing two left-wing influencers about how everything from shoplifting to murder may be excusable today in light of the unfairness they see in society.


The podcast, a product of the nation’s newspaper of record, reveled in the moral relativism that has taken over the American left. It featured the ravings of the antisemitic Marxist streamer Hasan Piker, who calmly explained how the murder of United Healthcare executive Brian Thompson was perfectly understandable. His rationalization came from Marxist revolutionary Friedrich Engels, who had called capitalism “social murder.” If capitalists are “social murderers,” then why not kill them? The logic is liberating and lethal for some on the left looking for a license for violence.

Mind you, this same newspaper had once condemned and effectively banned a U.S. senator for writing an op-ed advocating the use of the military to quell violent protests during the summer of George Floyd’s death. The Times even forced out its own opinion editor for having the temerity to publish such an opinion. But glorifying murder? The suggestion of open hunting season on corporate executives did not appear to shock or repel Spiegelman. After all, we are living in “an unethical society.” She explained that many felt that the murder of Thompson, the father of two, meant that “finally, someone can actually do something about health care.”

Even liberal comedians are practicing a literal version of slapstick. Margaret Cho this week declared that “we need a feral, bloodthirsty, violent Democrat.” To be far, Spiegelman did concede that it might seem a bit “scary” for some to start murdering our way to social justice. She also explained that shoplifting can be justifiable because people are “stealing from Whole Foods — not just for the thrill of it, but out of a feeling of anger and moral justification.” New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino also contributed to the podcast, titled “The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?” She immediately threw in her own experience with “microlooting” and explained why it is arguably moral: “I have, under very specific circumstances. I will say, I think that stealing from a big-box store [isn’t] significant as a moral wrong, nor is it significant in any way as protest.”

She detailed her own past thefts and added, “I didn’t feel bad about it at all, in part because the store was a corporation. And it certainly felt, in a utilitarian sense, I was like, this is not a big deal. Right, guys?” Not in the confines of the New York Times, where apparently you are entitled to all goods that are fit to pilfer. The bizarre exchange highlighted the moral chasm that is opening its maw on today’s political left. In my book “Rage and the Republic,” I write about how rage helps people excuse any offense or attack. It dismisses the humanity of others and provides a license to hate completely and without reservation. It is not really murder or theft if there are no real humans on the other side, is it?

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And the country.

Muslim Voters Are Reshaping U.K. Politics (JTN)

The growing numbers of Muslims in the United Kingdom, along with their organized and issue-driven politics, has made them an increasingly consequential – if not outsizes – part of the country’s electorate – representing new challenges for Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s center-left government and efforts to maintain a unified stance on key issues.Recent elections have shown the country’s estimated 4 million people, or roughly 6.5% of the country’s overall population, have been enough to determine electoral outcomes in specific districts and nudge national parties to re-calibrate their platforms.


U.K. foreign policy – particularly when it concerns heavily Muslim parts of the world such as Gaza and Iran – has become especially prickly, according to surveys. Changes among Muslim voters have also fragmented the traditional Labour Party coalition, and according to some reports, have accelerated a shift toward “transactional politics.” “The size of the Muslim population and even more so, the areas where it is concentrated are helping to leverage influence in key areas,” political scientist Rana Dancyger told Just the News. “They do not vote as a bloc, but their influence is large enough that their priorities must be taken into consideration.”

Census data shows that the U.K.’s Muslim population is concentrated in urban constituencies such as Birmingham, Bradford, parts of London, and cities in the north. The Muslim Council of Britain has for years identified dozens of constituencies in which Muslim voters could play a decisive role in tight races. That played out in 2024, the last national vote, where Starmer’s Labour Party lost significant support among constituencies with large Muslim populations, meaning hundreds of thousands of voters shifted away over protests on specific issues including the government’s policies on Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, where roughly 99% of the population Muslim. And likewise with Iran, who’s at war with Israel and the United States, and whose population is 99% Muslim.

It didn’t hurt Labour in the final tally, in which Starmer and his allies swept the Conservatives out of office for the first time in 16 years. But the shift helped to fuel growth for more extreme parties, such as the Liberal Democrats and the right-wing Reform UK party. The shift has forced Starmer’s government into a delicate balancing act, as positions that in the past would have been framed through political alliances – such as support for Israel or backing Israeli and U.S. policies toward Iran — now carry clear domestic consequences.

Even within the Labour Party itself, Muslim members of parliament, other government officials, and activists, have become more vocal in criticizing government policies, making it increasingly difficult for Starmer to maintain a unified message. One survey warned that the historic ties between the Labour Party and Muslim representatives could be “at a breaking point,” adding to Labour’s woes stemming from weak economic growth and indirect ties to scandals involving the Epstein files in the U.S.

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Wonderful.

Trump’s Prescription Drug Policies Make Small-Town Pharmacies Great Again (JTN)

President Donald Trump recently announced a substantial deal with drug manufacturer Regeneron to lower drug prices and onshore nearly $10 billion to $27 billion in U.S. manufacturing, further expanding access to domestic medicine, the absence of which has caused headaches for America’s thousands of community and rural pharmacies. “Seventeen of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, representing 80% of the branded drug market, have now agreed to sell their drugs to American patients at the lowest price anywhere in the world. This will result in the largest drop in prescription drug prices in the history of the United States of America,” Trump told the press Thursday during the announcement in the Oval Office.


Earlier in April, the Trump administration imposed a timed 100% tariff on patented pharmaceutical ingredients and products from most countries, which has accelerated the return of drug manufacturing to the U.S., producing stability and economic wins for independent pharmacies that have long struggled with supply-chain fragility. Key policy drivers include the April 2 Presidential Proclamation imposing 100% ad valorem tariffs on patented pharmaceuticals and ingredients (effective July 31 for major companies and September 29 for smaller companies). Companies with secretary of Commerce-approved onshoring plans qualify for a transitional 20% rate, which escalates to 100% on April 2, 2030, while MFN pricing agreements can yield 0% tariffs (with their own sunset provisions).

Complementary actions streamline FDA approvals and inspections to accelerate domestic manufacturing.The data have shown dramatic early results. In 2025 alone, drugmakers announced more than $370 billion in new U.S. manufacturing commitments – the largest reshoring wave in industry history – creating tens of thousands of jobs and dozens of new or expanded facilities. Major players have pledged over $480 billion total (e.g., Eli Lilly’s $27 billion for four new sites, Johnson & Johnson’s $55 billion including multiple plants, AstraZeneca’s $50 billion with a major Virginia facility, and similar multi-billion-dollar moves by Novartis, Roche, and others.)

The investments are generating roughly 44,000 direct manufacturing and support jobs while reducing reliance on overseas APIs, where 70–80% of U.S. generics and many branded drugs historically originated from China and India. For rural and small-town pharmacies, the re-shoring translates into tangible long-term gains. Independent operators – who often operate on razor-thin margins and serve Medicare/Medicaid-heavy populations – have faced chronic shortages, stock outs, and price volatility from global disruptions. Domestic production ramps are already easing those pressures by shortening supply chains, cutting transit risks and enabling faster replenishment.

Early signs that these policies are improving the industry, all the way down to small pharmacies, include stabilized generic supply in key categories (like antibiotics and diabetes treatments) and renewed local economic activity as new plants (many in heartland or Southern states) boost regional wages, supplier networks, and tax bases that indirectly support pharmacy viability. The administration’s parallel Rural Health Transformation Program further amplifies this by aligning pharmacies with goals like “sustainable access” and “make rural America healthy again,” positioning independents as frontline partners in expanded care delivery.

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“The SPLC created hate groups and activities like the Charlottesville rally, and the complicit media then weaponized these concocted offenses by spreading outright lies about Trump’s reaction to the staged events.”

Charlottesville: The Deceit Underlying the Hoax (Steve Cortes)

For years, Democratic politicians and their allies in the legacy media have spread the damnable Charlottesville Hoax: the propaganda myth that President Trump praised bigots who rioted in 2017 in the Virginia town. Of course, the opposite is true, as Trump actually said: “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”

Now, we learn that the entire hoax of Trump and Charlottesville is, itself, built upon another grand lie. The media and people like Joe Biden have continually pushed the narrative that some big, organic gathering of hateful Americans descended upon Charlottesville and represented some larger threat to the republic itself. But it now turns out that the “Unite the Right” rally was organized and financed by the highly partisan, left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center.

In a sweeping 11-count indictment, the Department of Justice and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche charge the advocacy group with criminal defrauding of donors and “manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.” The charges contained in this indictment are akin to the fire department becoming an aggressive criminal arson enterprise, setting fires all across a town, and then demanding more budget and authority to fight the very infernos it set ablaze.

So…the end result is that America endured years of propaganda that convinced a large segment of the population – in contravention of the facts – that their president supported violent hate merchants. Even worse, masses of unskeptical Americans, who consume only legacy media content, believed that the entire America First populist movement was based on bigotry, rather than patriotism.

Now, nearly a decade later, the truth is revealed about the deception that lay beneath that grand lie. There was a layer of duplicity here that is almost difficult to fathom. Only true Marxists could excuse this level of propaganda. The SPLC created hate groups and activities like the Charlottesville rally, and the complicit media then weaponized these concocted offenses by spreading outright lies about Trump’s reaction to the staged events.

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“What matters now is ending the war as quickly and decisively as possible. . . After that, people can wrestle over the “moral and constitutional” quandary to their heart’s content.” —Brandon Smith

The Siege of Iran, and Other Matters (James Howard Kunstler)

Other matters first, then Iran. The fall of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in an eleven-count fraud and money-laundering indictment is a watershed moment for exposing the bad faith business model of the Lefty-left: pay for the creation of imaginary monsters so you can pretend to be the defender of your fake victim-clients, the sundry “oppressed minorities” yearning to breathe free.


The money was paid to various manifestations of “white supremacy,” ranging from the good old Ku Klux Klan (more venerable in America’s memory than Frankenstein) to the avant-garde Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, affiliated with the Aryan Nation. And, turns out, the SPLC also engineered the Fine People Hoax in Charlottesville, 2020, that loomed so large in “Joe Biden’s” supposedly victorious campaign for president. The Left’s moral center-of-gravity is a black hole of grift and subterfuge.

Of course, this SPLC farrago might raise some questions about many other Lefty-left NGOs that infest our political landscape, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Black Lives Matter (BLM), and Al Otro Lado in California, which launders taxpayer money into all manner of freebies for illegal aliens — all of these orgs accused of rank improprieties. CAIR, which is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, was declared a terrorist or transnational criminal organization by Texas and Florida. BLM grifters in Atlanta and Oklahoma City were indicted for wire fraud and money laundering.

Between the zillions of dollars flooding the USA from foreign dark money pass-thrus like the Soros family’s Open Society Foundations, the checkbook of Shanghai American expat Neville Roy Singham, The Tides Foundation, The Hopewell Fund, et cetera, ad infinitum, plus the taxpayers of California, New York, Illinois, and Minnesota, vast fortunes are pumped into civic mischief and chaos creation here, including all the riots of recent years. Is it not time, a least, to revoke the 501(c)(3) tax exemption status of all these nefarious outfits? Should be easy. (Paging Treasury Sec’y and IRS chief Scott Bessent!)

Next up: The Democratic Party’s savage stupidity played out this week in Virginia with a big election win for a shamelessly impudent Congressional redistricting scam that would sculpt away all but one GOP district of eleven on the Virginia map. NGOs poured a ton of money into the op. The ballot proposition was worded artfully “to restore fairness in upcoming elections,” which, as always with the Lefty-left, was the exact opposite of what it was designed to do.

Within hours, Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack C. Hurley, Jr., ruled the proposition void and blocked Virginia from certifying the referendum. The case now speeds to the Virginia Supreme Court where the prop is expected to fail on at least four counts of blatant affront to the state’s constitution. Virginia’s new governor, former CIA analyst Abigail Spanberger, ran in 2025 on the explicit promise that she would not advocate a Congressional redistricting measure. This is exactly what Democratic Party bad faith looks like.

You’ve noticed, no doubt, that bad faith is not solely owned by the Democratic Party. We watch in wonder and nausea the bewildering psychodrama of Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) refusing to allow procedure that would get the Save Act passed (common sense election reform). Nor will Thune allow confirmation votes to proceed for nominated DOJ US attorneys and other jobs submitted by the executive branch. He shows every sign of wanting his party to lose. . .which means, allowing the Democratic Party to continue queering elections, including the crucial midterms. . . which means he wants our country to fail.

Seems like nobody knows what to do about Sen. Thune and his dishonorable cohorts in the chamber. If the president knows, he isn’t saying just now, and that would be consistent with his mode of fighting battles. But remember, Nicolás Maduro has been in US custody for months, and you can be sure he’s been debriefed on the subject of Dominion and Smartmatic voting machine shenanigans that originated in Venezuela years ago in order to ensure his own election. The FBI is also sitting on 2020 election evidence harvested out of Georgia, Michigan, and Arizona (perhaps other states, too). The truth about 2020 will come out, probably sooner than later, and when it does, Senator Thune will be sufficiently humiliated to drive him out of his post. He appears to be too dumb to realize that.

Now, as to Iran: The country’s putative “leadership” marinates in rage, impotence, and factional squabbling as the ceasefire dwindles. They can make some more mischief in the Persian Gulf, perhaps, but in a matter of days Iran’s oil industry will be permanently wrecked, its economy strangled, and its ordinary citizens in a desperate fury to make it all stop. If that doesn’t force a deal — no nukes, hand-over the 1000 pounds of Uranium, let in the neutral inspectors, etc. — then it’s onto the bridges and power plants. There really is no other way now. Show a little more patience. Won’t be long. The world will be a better place when this is over.

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Trump demands NO NUKES; not maybe, not halfway.. They can anwser yes or no. New proposals are useless.

Iran Offers New Proposal To Reopen Strait – Trump Open To Deal Via Phone (ZH)

Running a little ahead of schedule, Sunday evening brought this week’s infusion of pre-Monday-open optimism about prospects of ending the US-Israel war on Iran. Axios’ Barak Ravid, a veteran of Israeli intelligence who routinely posts anonymously-sourced scoops, reported that Iran has presented a new proposal for opening the Strait of Hormuz and ending the shooting — though Iran’s concept includes a potential non-starter via a proposed postponement of nuclear negotiations. No details were reported, beyond the notion of either an extended ceasefire or permanent end of the war that would accompany a full reopening of the strait.


Earlier on Sunday, President Trump said face-to-face discussions with the Iranians weren’t essential to ending the war. “If they want to talk, they can come to us, or they can call us. You know, there is a telephone. We have nice, secure lines,” he told Fox News. “They know what has to be in the ` agreement. It’s very simple: They cannot have a nuclear weapon; otherwise, there’s no reason to meet.” Sunday’s micro-dose of hope capped a weekend in which negotiations were perceived as grinding to a clear stalemate marked by a lack of warfare but also a continued choking of traffic through the vital Strait of Hormuz. On Saturday, Trump’s lead negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, were poised to travel to Islamabad for another round of negotiations with the Iranians when Trump nixed their trip at the last minute.

Iranian Foreign Minister Shuttles Between Pakistan, Oman, Russia
Iran’s Fars news agency reported that Araghchi has “conveyed written messages regarding Iran’s red lines to the American side through Pakistani intermediaries.” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has been on the go. On Saturday, he left Pakistan after meeting with Pakistan’s military chief, Asim Munir, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar. On parting, Araghchi said he’d had a “very fruitful visit,” while cautioning it’s unclear “if the US is truly serious about diplomacy.” Then he was off to Oman for talks centered on re-opening the strait — which lies between the two countries — then back to Pakistan. By Monday, Araghchi was in St Petersburg, Russia for discussions with President Putin. Commenting on the relationship via X, Iran’s envoy in Russia said:

“Iran and Russia are present in a united front in the campaign of the world’s totalitarian forces against independent and justice-seeking countries, as well as countries that seek a ` world free from unilateralism and Western domination.”Trump: Iranian Oil Infrastructure In Peril From Limited Capacity Trump told Fox News on Sunday that the US blockade on traffic to and from Iranian ports is putting major pressure on the country’s export infrastructure: “When you have, you know, lines of vast amounts of oil pouring through your system, if for any reason that line is closed because you can’t continue to put it into containers or ships, which has happened to them — they have no ships because of the blockade — what happens is that line explodes from within, both mechanically and in the earth.”

“It’s something that happens where it just explodes. And they say they only have about three days left before that happens. And when it explodes, you can never, regardless, you can never rebuild it the way it was.” That approximate scenario has also been outlined by the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. “Once the tanks are filled, Iran would have to shut down its oil fields, which risks long-term damage to the fields,” AEI’s Annika Ganzeveld told the New York Post. A worst-case scenario doesn’t only imperil Iran’s economy, but also threatens to put more upward pressure on global energy prices. Analysts differ on how much time Iran has before a forced shutdown of production — with estimates ranging from mere days to seven weeks.

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NO nukes and NO control of the Strait.

Bessent: IRGC Leaders ‘Trapped’ Like ‘Drowning Rats’ By US Blockade (ZH)

In the early evening of Monday, well after markets closed, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued the following on X (below), describing IRGC leaders as now “trapped like drowning rats” amid the enduring US naval blockade of Iranian ports, which will soon result in gasoline shortages and anger – and potential protests leading to uprising (according to US desires and aims). Also here is where things stand on the stalled negotiations, and an early hint of the potential White House reaction, per WSJ:


Iran has presented regional mediators with a new offer to stop its attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a full end to the war, including the U.S.’s lifting of its naval blockade of Iranian ports and the postponement of nuclear negotiations, according to officials familiar with the matter. nThe proposal, presented by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi during his tour of the region and Pakistan over the weekend, is designed to break the deadlock in the conflict and set talks back in motion, the people said. President Trump and his national-security team are skeptical of Iran’s offer, U.S. officials said. Trump previously said negotiations could happen over the phone instead of in person.

And: “Trump held discussions with aides Monday morning about the offer. While he didn’t reject it outright, officials said Trump sounded notes about Iran not dealing in good faith or being willing to meet his key demand: ending nuclear enrichment and vowing never to make a nuclear weapon.”

Meanwhile..

Rubio: ‘Will Not Tolerate’ Iran Control of Strait
The latest via WSJ on what Iran is proposing, centered on immediately lifting the US naval blockade on Iranian ports: Iran has presented regional mediators with a new offer to stop its attacks in the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for a full end to the war and a lifting of the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, according to officials familiar with the matter. The proposal, presented by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi during his tour of the region and Pakistan over the weekend, is designed to break the deadlock in the conflict and set talks back in motion, the people said. It would see discussions about Iran’s nuclear program shelved. Washington hasn’t responded to the proposal, one of the people said. Iran’s mission to the United Nations didn’t respond to a request for comment.

But US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told Fox News on Monday that the US will not tolerate Iran controlling or establishing a toll system in the Strait of Hormuz. Rubio further asserted that the strait would remain open either through international pressure or a coalition-led effort. Just days ago Iran began declaring that the first toll passage funds had been successfully transferred to the Central Bank of Iran, after Trump stated the US won’t allow a toll system. Rubio further said the US will not normalize the Iranians being essentially a gatekeeper, with countries seeking permission from Iran.

https://twitter.com/Martin_Sedi/status/2048783696749355471 Read more …

A theme that will grow in importance as we go along,

“Inside Chuck Grassley’s office there is an investigative team that every GOP senator and congressman will admit consists of the very best researchers and knowledgeable staff..”

Senator Chuck Grassley’s Office Requests Answers from DOJ and FBI (CTH)

First, it becomes very important for people to understand some of the inside baseball in Washington DC circles in order to hold context for what has been made public today by the office of Senator Chuck Grassley. Inside Chuck Grassley’s office there is an investigative team that every GOP senator and congressman will admit consists of the very best researchers and knowledgeable staff officials on how the Deep State operates. Grassley’s office is the venue, the vehicle or vessel, for those investigators to operate; Chuck Grassley is not organizing this group – he facilitates it.

Just as Robert Mueller served as the figurehead holding the legislatively authorized power of the special counsel—while the actual investigative work was carried out by his team—Chuck Grassley similarly acts as a symbolic leader, with the real action happening within the organization he oversees. Mueller at 75-years old (2019) was to the special counsel as Grassley at 93-years old (2026) is to senatorial inquiry.

That said, today the office of Senator Chuck Grassley sent a dispatch of connected information about Hillary Clinton from DOJ/FBI files retrieved over the past several years as part of a longer-term investigation. Grassley’s office released the FBI Washington Field Office’s 12-page “electronic communication” (EC) that opened a preliminary investigation into the Clinton Foundation. [SEE HERE] They also released a trove of documents showing overwhelming evidence of pay-to-play criminal activity by the Clinton family and emphasize lack of response from the DOJ which highlights both politicalization and weaponization of information by the Department of Justice and FBI.

The FBI and DOJ buried the investigations of Hillary Clinton, yet the evidence of corruption was simply overwhelming. With time running out on their ability to retain the venue, in essence Grassley’s office is urgently asking the DOJ and FBI, how could this not have been prosecuted?

Chuck Grassley, who turns 93 in September, has served in the U.S. Senate for 45 years. Grassley has spent more than 50 years in Congress overall, having served in the U.S. House from 1975 to 1981 before being elected to his first term as senator. In 2022, Grassley was elected to an eighth term, winning against Democratic challenger Michael Franken with 56% of the vote — a smaller margin of victory than in many of his previous elections. He will be 95 by the time his current term ends in 2028.

Currently, Grassley serves as president pro tempore of the Senate, in addition to being the Senate Judiciary Committee chair. I strongly doubt there will be another Grassley term in office and given the stakes of the 2026 midterm election it looks like the people in his office are trying to push out as much information as possible while it can still do some good. I would bet you a donut this is the correct context to view this information flow.

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https://twitter.com/RMXnews/status/2048534614755467353?s=20 https://twitter.com/Gitmo99/status/2048574878026985630?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Mar 132026
 


Willem de Kooning Woman 1969


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

 


 

 


 


It already does.

The War on Iran Could Remake the World (Lukyanov)

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

Iran Confirms New Supreme Leader Injured But Recovering (RT)

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


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

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

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Iran has a very serious water issue.

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

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


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

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

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


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

Iran War Crack-Up (Helmer)

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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New number: $70 billion.

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

The Politicking of Barack Obama (Victor Davis Hanson)

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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He’s definitely not his biggest fan.

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/2031914707989479467?s=20 https://twitter.com/XFreeze/status/2031684358327656503?s=20 https://twitter.com/ValerieAnne1970/status/2031792269636813252?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Mar 082026
 


Frida Kahlo Self portrait in a Velvet Dress 1926


Donald Trump Is a Great Man of History (Josh Hammer)
I Think We’re Going to Need a Bigger Military (Sarah Anderson)
The Real Reason Trump Fired Kristi Noem Is Not What You’ve Been Told (Margolis)
Can We Just Appreciate How Hardcore Trump’s New DHS Secretary Is? (Margolis)
Right Now, Russia is Like Amazon During COVID (CTH)
The White House Fool (Paul Craig Roberts)
US Military-Industrial Complex Agrees To Quadruple Bomb Production (ZH)
No Justification for US-Israeli War On Iran – Moscow (RT)
The End of Russia’s Gas Era (Dmitry Lekukh)
Is There Any Escape from Israel’s Control of America? (Glenn Greenwald)
Conversation with Alexander Dugin (PCR)
Will Reality Ever Dawn? (Paul Craig Roberts)
Prosecution of Maltese Man for Discussing Transition from Homosexuality (Turley)
The Clearest Sign Yet the Obamas’ Marriage Is a Total Lie (Margolis)
EU Nationalists Rally Around Orbán (RMX)

 


 

https://twitter.com/OCOCReport/status/2029958942114128203?s=20 https://twitter.com/apocalypseos/status/2030167724530262091?s=20

 


 

 


 


(Almost) half the country thinks he’s Hitler instead.. Dangerous.

Donald Trump Is a Great Man of History (Josh Hammer)

Most students of history have likely pondered the question: Is it the times that make the man, or is it the man that makes the times? The question, though superficially intriguing, seems to have an easy enough answer: Sometimes it is the times that makes the man, and sometimes it is the man that makes the times. Rarest of all is the man who is both summoned and elevated by the times, on the one hand, and who has the courage and conviction to shape the times in return, on the other hand. It is this lattermost group of men who we might refer to as the truly great men of history.Donald Trump is, on this metric, a great man of history.


In 2016, Trump was first swept into office, just a few months after the Brexit referendum in the UK, amid a broader wave of nationalist backlash to the regnant neoliberal global order. Trump, a lifelong free-trade skeptic with New York City outer-borough sensibilities, was the right man to lead at the right moment. He became the first president since Richard Nixon’s fateful trip to visit Chairman Mao in Beijing to begin decoupling the U.S. from its economic bear hug with the Chinese Communist Party. More recently, Trump has overseen a historic securing of America’s porous southern border and an equally historic withdrawal from dozens of transnational institutions.

Trump has met the moment and risen to the occasion in numerous foreign theaters besides China and the broader Indo-Pacific as well. He saw decades of American malaise, managed decline and overextended empire, and he has promptly reversed course.Trump and his administration have repeatedly proven willing and unafraid to criticize America’s European allies, nudging our core NATO partners to be better versions of themselves in such areas as military spending and defense self-sufficiency. He has responded to decades of buildup of murderous transnational nonstate cartels and Chinese and Russian entrenchment in our own hemisphere by reasserting the Latin America-centric Monroe Doctrine, as most spectacularly evidenced by January’s Operation Absolute Resolve extraction of fugitive Nicolas Maduro in Caracas.

And now there is the unfolding Operation Epic Fury in Iran. For 47 years, Iran’s revolutionary Shiite theocracy has been attempting to kill, and indeed killing, Americans. From the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983 to the Bush-era roadside IEDs in Iraq to the attempted (and indicted) assassination of Trump himself, the mullah regime in Tehran has a long and bloody track record when it comes to American loss of life — more than 1,000 Americans killed in total, according to U.S. Central Command. For decades, presidents kicked the can down the road, appeasing and negotiating with the mullahs as if they were atheistic Soviets and not 72 virgins-aspiring apocalyptic Islamists. The mullahs dissembled and stalled, while racing toward nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles on which to mount them.

And then Trump came along. Trump campaigned on ending so-called forever wars in the Middle East. His critics, both on the left and in certain pockets of the impotent right, have accused Trump of violating that promise with the current campaign. But those critics are wrong. Iran has been at war with us, whether or not we think about it and acknowledge it, since the founding of the revolutionary regime in 1979. The revolutionaries’ very first action was to storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran and commence a 444-day hostage crisis. Tehran’s “death to America” chants since then have been daily, and its anti-American atrocities have been legion.

With Operation Epic Fury, Trump isn’t starting a new forever war — he is ending one. Time and again, Trump has shown that he is willing to take actions that U.S. presidents of both parties long paid lip service to support but never actually effectuated. The notion that the world’s most zealous Islamist regime cannot acquire the world’s most dangerous weapons had been spoken so many times by so many different politicians over the decades that it had become old hat. No one actually acted on it until Trump tore up Barack Obama’s disastrous nuclear deal in 2018 and bombed key Iranian nuclear facilities during Operation Midnight Hammer in 2025. Now, with Operation Epic Fury, Trump is attempting to finish the job and permanently ensure that Iran no longer threatens American interests.

God bless him for it.

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“The New Monroe Doctrine.”

I Think We’re Going to Need a Bigger Military (Sarah Anderson)

Well, folks, the moment is upon us. If you’ve been reading this column for the last month, you know that I’ve been teasing this big meeting of Latin American leaders — those aligned with the United States — in Miami, hosted by Donald Trump and Marco Rubio. That will happen on Saturday, March 7, and I am not sure how much will be made public (though I do know someone who will be there, so fingers crossed, I get some info), but I’ll be around to cover what I can. I think this marks the official beginning of an exciting — and historic — moment for the United States and our entire region. According to Rubio, the summit will include leadership and heads of state from 13 countries. I can confirm 12:

  • Argentina
  • Bolivia
  • Chile
  • Costa Rica
  • Dominican Republic
  • Ecuador
  • El Salvador
  • Guyana
  • Honduras
  • Panamá
  • Paraguay
  • Trinidad and Tobago


I have heard rumors that number 13 could be Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, but I can’t confirm that one. Note that Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia were not invited, nor was Venezuela’s Delcy Rodríguez, because she’s not really a head of state. We run that country, and inviting ourselves to our own summit would be redundant. Initially, the reason for the summit was said to be to “stop China’s encroachment in the region,” but Karoline Leavitt has described it as promoting “freedom, security, and prosperity in our region.” Same thing? I imagine it will be a good bit of both anti-cartel measures and anti-China measures, along with some economic stuff. I also imagine that there will be a lot of talk about the future of Venezuela and Cuba because it’s going to take a regional effort to make them totally great again.

But this is a good team. These countries are all aligned or are ready to align with the United States and move away from China. They largely agree with everything Trump has done globally. They all have conservative or right-leaning leadership who are ready to take a hardline stance against the cartels and organized crime that plagues the Americas. As the Trump administration has stated, they are the “ISIS and the Al-Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere,” and they must be dealt with. Assuming this becomes a regular thing, I think Colombia, after its elections in a few months, and Venezuela, after it elects a real leader, will be able to join. Who knows, after Brazil’s October elections, it may even get to join Team Americas. I don’t have a lot of hope for Mexico, but Trump may have something up his sleeve.

We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Military
Maybe I’m just a big dork, but I’m really excited about this. I’m tracking all the presidential planes coming into Miami as I write this. The Summit follows the Pentagon’s Americas Counter-Cartel Conference, which Catherine has been writing about over the last 48 hours. It included “defense and security leaders from 17 countries across the Western Hemisphere.” She quotes Pentagon Chief Spokesman Sean Parnell as saying, “The Department of War values the strong partnerships that make collective action possible to prevent external powers from interfering in our neighborhood and confronting shared threats. We look forward to working with these committed nations to support efforts that strengthen regional cooperation and advance a safe, secure, and prosperous Western Hemisphere.”

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“..the fallout in Minnesota, the ad campaign, the allegations of infidelity, the mismanagement of her staff, and her constant feuding with the heads of other agencies..”

The Real Reason Trump Fired Kristi Noem Is Not What You’ve Been Told (Margolis)

The story you heard first — that President Donald Trump fired Kristi Noem over a $220 million ad campaign — isn’t wrong, exactly. But it’s incomplete. The ad spending lit the fuse; an eight-word question that Noem refused to answer in plain English plunged the detonator. Here’s what really pushed Trump to fire her. It was previously reported that the breaking point for Trump was when Noem testified on Tuesday that he had personally approved $220 million in Homeland Security advertising, including a cinematic spot of her riding a horse in front of Mount Rushmore with a voiceover that said, “From President Trump and me: Welcome home.” Trump says he never knew about it, and multiple reports indicated he was really upset over her claim.


So yes, Trump was already halfway out the door with Noem after Tuesday. Then came Wednesday. What went down that day sealed her fate. At the House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) asked Noem point-blank, “Have you had sexual relations with Corey Lewandowski?” Noem didn’t say no.“I am shocked that we’re going down and peddling tabloid garbage in this committee today,” Noem replied. “I would tell you is, that he is a special government employee who works for the White House. There are thousands of them in the federal government.” Lawmakers pressed her repeatedly. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) told her directly, “I really think you need to say the word ‘no’ into the record so that you can clear that up.” Noem never did.

“It kept mounting up,” said another source, who agreed that it was the last nail in the secretary’s coffin. A third source said, “There was just no going back with the two hearings. It all became about her and him.” Lewandowski himself told The Post he wasn’t sure what role the alleged affair played. “You’re asking me to speculate on things that I have no insight into,” he said when reached by phone. “The question about the affair at the hearing was actually the final straw. It was f—ing brutal,” a source told the Post.

Lewandowski, for his part, played dumb. Asked whether the affair question factored into Trump’s decision, he said, “You’re asking me to speculate on things that I have no insight into.” He also described himself publicly as merely an “unpaid volunteer” — despite DHS staffers describing him as Noem’s de facto chief of staff who ran what employees called a “reign of terror” inside the department. Noem and Lewandowski began to lose influence in January when a second anti-deportation activist, Alex Pretti, was killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, following the earlier fatal shooting of Renee Good. Trump sent in the pair’s internal rival, border czar Tom Homan, to calm and wind down the local operation.

An administration official said: “Replacing Kristi was based on the culmination of her many unfortunate leadership failures including the fallout in Minnesota, the ad campaign, the allegations of infidelity, the mismanagement of her staff, and her constant feuding with the heads of other agencies, including CBP and ICE.“Kristi’s drama sadly overshadowed and distracted from the administration’s extremely popular immigration agenda, which will continue full force.” In the end, Noem turned one of the highest-profile jobs in Trump’s cabinet into a liability — and Trump, who had reportedly “joked about” her relationship with Lewandowski for years, finally decided the joke wasn’t funny anymore.

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Political fisticuffs? No thanks,

Can We Just Appreciate How Hardcore Trump’s New DHS Secretary Is? (Margolis)

Whatever your verdict on Kristi Noem’s tenure at the Department of Homeland Security, one thing is beyond debate: her replacement is built differently. President Trump has nominated Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) to take over DHS. If you don’t know much about him, let me tell you: He’s hardcore. Before winning a Senate seat, Mullin ran a successful plumbing business, coached wrestling, and raised two Oklahoma State Wrestling Champions. He also holds a 3-0 MMA record in the Xtreme Fighting League. But here’s what I’m really talking about. And he literally challenged a union boss to fight in the middle of a hearing. It all started in June 2023 when Teamsters President Sean O’Brien mocked Mullin in a tweet, and Mullin responded by challenging O’Brien to an MMA fight for charity, which O’Brien apparently ignored.


It gets better. Then, in November of that year, O’Brien was testifying before the Senate, and Mullin read O’Brien’s tweet aloud and then challenged him to a fight right then and there. First, Mullin read O’Brien’s tweet accusing Mullin of being a “clown and fraud.” “Sir, I wish you was in the truck with me when I was building my plumbing company myself, and my wife was running the office, because I sure remember working pretty hard and long hours,” Mullin said.He kept reading, line by line, quoting O’Brien’s own words: “Pretends like he’s self-made. What a clown. Fraud. Always has been, always will be. Quit the tough guy act in these Senate hearings. You know where to find me. Any place, any time, cowboy.” Then he dropped the hammer: “Sir, this is a time, this is a place. You wanna run your mouth, we can be two consenting adults, we can finish it here.”

O’Brien didn’t back down. “Okay, that’s fine. Perfect,” he said. “You wanna do it now?” Mullin asked. “I’d love to do it right now,” O’Brien shot back. “Well, stand your butt up, then,” Mullin said O’Brien fired back instantly. “You stand your butt up.” And so Mullin stood up, ready to give O’Brien a much-deserved beating right there. It would have been great to see, but unfortunately, that’s when Bernie Sanders, who was chairing the hearing, had to intervene. The fight never happened. O’Brien wimped out. “O’Brien declined, instead suggesting they meet for coffee and work out their differences,” NPR reported. “Mullin accepted, but the two kept shouting at each other until the next senator, Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, started her questioning by talking over them.”

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Russia will be alright.

Right Now, Russia is Like Amazon During COVID (CTH)

We like the deep weeds, most do not. The geopolitical ramifications of the U.S. confrontation with Iran are vast and complicated; however, to encapsulate one of the most interesting dynamics consider this ‘tldr’ statement to open the discussion with your friends: Right now, Russia is like Amazon during COVID-19. What follows is not me saying President Trump and President Putin are holding nightly conversations, discussing steps or details, or even obliquely coordinating measures as Trump eliminates the generational threat posed by Iran.


However, I am saying that given the nature of all contact and communication between Trump and Putin, including extensive contacts by their representative emissaries, both Putin and Trump are well aware of each downstream effect from the Iranian confrontation. Two days after the U.S./Israel began Operation Epic Fury, President Vladimir Putin said Russia should consider shutting down oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) shipments to the EU in advance of the previously scheduled April deadline date when the EU would stop purchases.

First, remember ‘force majeure’ contract nullification is in place for every producer, supplier and transporter in the middle east. Second, with shipments from the Gulf of Oman greatly reduced, LNG prices along with oil prices are increasing rapidly. The result – ships filled with oil and LNG currently on the water are diverting in real time as international bidding for the content of the ships take place. If Putin stops selling LNG to Europe, and Europe cannot get LNG from the Gulf of Oman, and China/Asia are LNG dependent (not exporting), then where is Europe going to get the LNG to replace what Russia will no longer provide? Answer: The United States, and to a lesser extent, Norway.

[SIDENOTE: now does President Trump continuously smacking Great Britain about shutting down their North Sea oil and gas operations take on context? Geopolitical foresight? I digress. END SIDENOTE] The European Commission’s decision to phase out and ultimately stop purchasing Russian oil/gas was made in 2025 prior to the Iran conflict triggering. Europe’s replacement plan included increased LNG purchases from the U.S., Norway and middle east; the latter supply option is now void.

Europe’s decision to stop buying oil/gas from Russia puts them in a very precarious position. The supply option for Europe is suddenly very limited, and Putin’s statement about stopping the flow early was obviously made with this understanding in mind. [Go back to the sidenote above. Without question President Trump already knew that an LNG supply restriction from the middle east would disproportionately hurt Europe. Both President Trump and President Putin would understand this geopolitically obvious fact/reality. If Europe now has to purchase more LNG from America (at higher prices) President Trump’s leverage over Europe increases. If both oil and LNG prices increase substantially, the price of oil/LNG currently on the water increases.

[SIDENOTE #2 – Previously the EU confiscated their holdings of the Russian Sovereign Wealth Fund, value €210 billion held in Euroclear and another €50 billion from other G-7 countries; total €260 billion. From those seized assets the EU created a €90 billion loan scheme to Ukraine with no repayment mechanism, because the EU predicts Russia will be forced to pay reparations for war and the negotiated settlement will deduct the €90 billion loan scheme from the balance. Hungary, a Trump ally, is currently blocking the transfer of funds; but this payment scheme -created by the EU holding the assets- underpins why the EU will not permit the conflict to end without their approval. END SIDENOTE]

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“It is possible that events are now out of everyone’s hands and are on a course of their own.”

The White House Fool (Paul Craig Roberts)

Just as the whore media told us for three years that Ukraine was winning and Russia’s defeat was imminent, we are now hearing that Iran’s defeat is imminent. If so, why is Trump now speaking about sending in American troops? Why is the CIA offering large bribes to Kurd leaders to send Kurdish men to die for Israel in Iran? Why are executives of American armament companies suddenly summoned to the Pentagon to see how quickly Washington’s depleted supply of missiles can be overcome? Why have Japan and South Korea been ordered to return to the United States the missiles supplied to them? Who is really losing?


To answer this question, it is necessary to move beyond the war propaganda. It appears that not only did Trump allow Netanyahu, not the US Congress as the US Constitution requires, to take the United States to war for Israel, but Trump also allowed America to be taken to war without proper preparation and without a backup plan.It appears that Trump was convinced that the Iranian government was so weak that if a few bombs an d missiles were dropped on Iran, the government would collapse and Trump and Netanyahu could appoint a puppet government. It never occurred to Trump, despite warnings from the US military, what the situation facing him would be if Iran lasted longer than the limited supply of US and Israeli missiles. That’s such a question could be overlooked totally discredits President Trump.

Add to the situation these elements: The United States has proved itself unable to protect the small Arab city states that are sites for American air and naval bases. Trump is faced with a midterm election and a population, the majority of which does not support his war of choice for Israel. Apparently, Iran is yet to use it’s hypersonic accurate missiles, apparently planning to use those to severely punish the US, Israel and the Arab oil city states once Washington and Israel are empty of missiles for air defense. The strait of Hormuz is effectively closed. In the US premium gasoline prices have already risen by $.70 per gallon. Trump says the US Navy will escort oil tankers in and out of the Persian Gulf, but this would expose the U.S. Navy to easy destruction by Iran.

Possibly Iran, would not deliver Trump the humiliation of sinking a US aircraft carrier out of fear that Trump would reply with nukes. However, if Iranians understand that they are in a fight for their very existence, whether Iran goes out like Gaza or via nukes might not matter to the leadership. If oil flows stop and oil revenues dry up, the petro-dollars from the region will cease to underwrite AI’s data centers in the US, possibly setting off a major stock market contraction. Americans, caught between falling wealth and rising inflation, are likely to turn against Trump and the midterm election, leaving Trump with no protection from impeachment. You really have to be reckless to bring so many possible risks down on your head all at the same time and all for Israel. In no way does America benefit from Trump’s war in behalf of Israel’s agenda of Greater Israel.

Trump will have to save face. What can he do? Send troops into such a large country as Iran with unfamiliar and difficult terrain? If troops are sent and are chewed up, what is Trump’s remaining option? To nuke Iran or will Israel do it? It is entirely possible that Trump’s mindless act in attacking Iran has opened the door to nuclear war. Russia and China have already lost credibility from failing to stand by their allies, first Syria, then Venezuela, and now Iran. This will encourage Trump’s belief that both countries are paper tigers. If Iran is defeated, it means the end of BRICS and China’s New Silk Road. Trump’s success, if such is the case, with Venezuela, Iran, and in the meantime, Cuba, Greenland and whomever else, will encourage him to restore American hegemony over Russia and China.

At this point, Russia and China will no longer be able to continue their mindless policy of turning a blind eye to reality. Maybe the two countries leaderships will finally read the Wolfowitz Doctrine. As far as I can tell, not many people are aware of the catastrophe that can result from the American president allowing himself to be led to war by Netanyahu, and those few who are aware are considered unpatriotic. Trump’s ego will never allow him to admit that he has made a possibly catastrophic decision for all of humanity and cause Trump to withdraw and to act to restore the sovereignty and independence of American foreign policy from Israel’s control. Trump is simply too completely owned by the Zionists.

Perhaps Putin and Xi will wake up, but there are no signs of it. Both seem more interested in trade deals than in national survival. It is possible that events are now out of everyone’s hands and are on a course of their own. Humanity’s stupid and foolish leaders have betrayed humanity.

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Makes some people happy. They call themselves investors.

US Military-Industrial Complex Agrees To Quadruple Bomb Production (ZH)

U.S. Central Command said late Friday on X that U.S. forces struck 3,000 IRGC targets with air-delivered munitions during the first week of Operation Epic Fury, signaling that the campaign is only intensifying as it moves into next week.


President Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday that he would not accept a negotiated end to the war with Iran, suggesting the conflict could drag on for some time. “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” he said. We have reported that U.S. inventories of some critical munitions are running low, with U.S. forces scrambling for supplies of key air-defense interceptors as IRGC missiles and drones continue to target American and allied bases across Gulf states.

Dwindling supplies of critical munitions are being amplified by Ukraine’s continued need for interceptors amid relentless Russian missile and drone barrages, a major problem that likely prompted President Trump to host top U.S. defense manufacturers to discuss accelerating missile and bomb production. “We just concluded a very good meeting with the largest U.S. Defense Manufacturing Companies where we discussed Production and Production Schedules,” Trump said on Truth Social late Friday afternoon.

Trump said the CEOs of BAE Systems, Boeing, Honeywell Aerospace, L3Harris Missile Solutions, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon were all in attendance and “agreed to quadruple” weapons production. “They have agreed to quadruple Production of the ‘Exquisite Class’ Weaponry in that we want to reach, as rapidly as possible, the highest levels of quantity. Expansion began three months prior to the meeting, and the plants and Production of many of these Weapons are already underway,” the President said. “We have agreed to quadruple critical munitions production,” LMT wrote on X shortly after the meeting.

As the conflict is set to drag on for weeks and weapons production ramps up, the Goldman Sachs index for U.S. defense firms is primed for a breakout. One reason the breakout could occur is USCENTCOM’s X post, which reads “We Are Not Slowing Down.” Our defense pick since May 24, 2025, has been L3Harris, another defense firm that attended the meeting. Nearly a year ago, we outlined that L3Harris was a play on the “U.S. Hemispheric Defense Theme.” Since then, the stock is up more than 50%. What is clear to traders is that the moment Trump signals Iran is prepared to surrender, defense stocks and crude are likely to plunge as war risk premiums implode.

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Washington and West Jerusalem have described their strikes as preemptive measures to dismantle Tehran’s military capabilities

No Justification for US-Israeli War On Iran – Moscow (RT)

There is no justification for the ongoing US-Israeli strikes on Iran as the Islamic Republic posed no threat to either nation, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. Washington and West Jerusalem have framed their attacks on Iran as preemptive measures aimed at destroying its uranium enrichment and ballistic missile programs. The Islamic Republic insists that its nuclear program is peaceful and has denounced the strikes as entirely unprovoked. Speaking to RIA Novosti on Wednesday, Zakharova stated that “although we are hearing claims from the US and Israel that they are even supposedly defending themselves… no one attacked them, no one threatened them.” The Russian diplomat noted that Iran had always been willing to engage in negotiations with the West.


Moscow previously condemned the US-Israeli strikes as a “premeditated and unprovoked act of aggression” aimed at toppling a government that “refused to yield to the dictates of force and hegemonic pressure.” Commenting on the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the first wave of attacks unleashed last Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin characterized it as a “cynical violation of every norm of morality and international law.” The Russian Foreign Ministry has similarly denounced the “practice of political assassinations and the ‘hunting’ of leaders of sovereign states.”

According to Iranian authorities, aside from Khamenei and a number of senior commanders, at least 168 children, as well as teachers and staff, were killed in the US-Israeli bombing of an elementary school in the southern Iranian town of Minab on Saturday.While the Pentagon has said it is investigating the incident, the New York Times, citing newly released satellite imagery, verified social media posts and geolocated videos, reported on Thursday that American forces were likely responsible for the attack. According to the newspaper, the US military was targeting an adjacent naval base belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

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“Putin tells Russia’s energy sector: There’s no going back to EU..”

The End of Russia’s Gas Era (Dmitry Lekukh)

The current discussion about redirecting Russian gas flows away from Europe and toward other markets should not be understood as a short-term political maneuver. Judging by Vladimir Putin’s remarks on Wednesday, the signal is much deeper and primarily aimed at a domestic audience.In an interview with journalist Pavel Zarubin, the president noted that Russia could theoretically stop supplying gas to Western Eur opean markets immediately rather than in a month, as proposed by the EU. Moscow, he suggested, could instead concentrate on more promising markets elsewhere.


Formally, no final decision has been made. Putin has only instructed the government to study the issue. But even this preliminary statement should not be dismissed as rhetorical flourish. It carries a clear meaning. Contrary to what some observers assume, the signal is not primarily directed at the EU or other external players. It is addressed to economic actors inside Russia who still hope for a return to the old model, one in which the country’s energy industry was built around “traditional markets” in the West. In more human terms, the message could be interpreted as follows: are you certain that Western Europe remains a reliable partner?

The warning is simple. The current surge of EU interest in Russian oil and gas, fueled in part by instability in the Persian Gulf, may prove temporary. Betting the country’s long-term strategy on such fluctuating demand would be risky. For this reason, the emphasis on “promising markets” in the president’s remarks should not be overlooked. Putin rarely uses words casually in public speeches. In this case the term was clearly stressed, and the implication is obvious: Western European markets are increasingly viewed as declining rather than promising. From a long-term economic perspective, investing political capital and bureaucratic effort to preserve access to shrinking markets simply makes little sense.

If American suppliers want to dominate the EU gas market, Moscow appears increasingly willing to let them try. Ironically, however, even Washington seems ambivalent about fully taking on that role. There is a notable bipartisan consensus in the United States on this issue. The freeze on new long-term LNG contracts, after all, was introduced not by Donald Trump but by the Biden administration.In other words, the future of Europe’s gas market remains uncertain even for those who claim to benefit from Russia’s withdrawal.

Putin also pointed to broader structural trends that have reshaped the European energy landscape. The EU’s ambitious and expensive green transition has been underway for years, despite growing economic pressures. At the same time, geopolitical events have narrowed Western Europe’s access to traditional energy sources.The upheavals of the Arab Spring complicated access to southern resource bases, while the conflict in Ukraine effectively closed the eastern Russian corridor that had long supplied the EU. Against this backdrop, Russia’s strategic pivot toward Asia, a policy launched in the early 2010s, now appears less like a gamble and more like long-term planning. Analysts within the Russian leadership began promoting this shift well before today’s geopolitical tensions made it unavoidable.

None of this means Russia intends to abandon European customers entirely. Moscow still describes itself as a reliable supplier. But the EU is no longer the central pillar of Russia’s energy strategy. From now on, it will be treated as a residual market rather than a priority. And that raises a difficult question for the bloc’s policymakers. Is it wise to build long-term economic plans around partners whose own future, economically and politically, appears increasingly uncertain?

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No.

Is There Any Escape from Israel’s Control of America? (Glenn Greenwald)

PCR: Glenn Greenwald, one of the handful of real journalists who still exist in the Western world, where the Israel Lobby has murdered Free Speech despite the protection the US Constitution gives Free Speech in the First Amendment–impotent protection it turns out to be in Trump’s Zionist America–has just delivered the best news I have ever heard. Pray that he is correct and that Americans will be delivered from rule by Satanic Israel, the Nation of Unbridled Evil, the agents of Satan. Support for Israel in the US Has Collapsed, Radically — Finally Opening the Debate


GLENN GREENWALD
An article I wrote for Brazil’s largest newspaper documents growing opposition to Israel among Americans, and its relevance for other countries where Israel dissent is still taboo. This article was published this morning in Brazil’s Folha de S.Paulo, the country’s largest newspaper, where I am a columnist. It has been translated to English from its original Portuguese, and reformatted where necessary for re-publication on Substack. To read the original, you can find the link here: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/colunas/glenn-greenwald . For decades in the United States, absolute support for Israel was an unbreakable bipartisan consensus. The only argument about Israel in U.S. presidential elections has been when one candidate boasts that they are more pro-Israel than the other.

That the U.S. must always finance, arm, diplomatically protect, and even deploy its own soldiers to fight for Israel was affirmed by former President Barack Obama (who fed Israel weapons to bomb Gaza in 2014 and agreed in 2016 to give Israel $38 billion over 10 years), as well as Joe Biden and Donald Trump (who financed and armed Israel’s destruction of Gaza following the October 7 attack). mLast year, Trump joined Israel in bombing Iran. And now Trump, with Israel, has launched a highly dangerous regional war against Iran that both The New York Times and The Financial Times are accurately describing as a war for Israel.

Already, both countries are relentlessly bombing Tehran and other cities, killing at least hundreds of the same Iranian civilians they claim to want to “liberate.” The U.S. is on its way to doing to Iran what it did to Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya: not liberating it, but destroying it. For more than fifty years, prominent Americans were petrified to criticize Israel or question American devotion to it because of guaranteed reputational destruction. Powerful pro-Israel groups would instantly accuse anyone questioning Israel of anti-Semitism. That worked.

But all of that has changed over the last two-plus years, especially among younger Americans. They have, for the first time, seen the true face of Israel and U.S. devotion to that country. They hate what they see. And support for Israel in the U.S. has now collapsed. Every demographic group except for conservatives over 50 has now turned against Israel. That once-unthinkable shift is reflected by the vehement opposition to U.S. support for Israel’s wars from leading American conservatives, including Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and (before he was assassinated) [by Israel] Charlie Kirk.

So extreme is this collapse that the most recent Gallup data, as reported by The Financial Times this month, shows that “more Americans sympathise with Palestinians than Israelis for the first time since Gallup began tracking the sentiment.” A recent internal Democratic Party report concluded that the Biden-Harris support for Israel’s war in Gaza suppressed the youth vote and cost them the election. The reasons are not difficult to understand. The world spent two years watching daily videos of Israel incinerating families and children in Gaza [with the “Israeli Defense Force” defending Israel by shooting mothers and babies in the head with ZERO protest from the Trump regime and with the heinous war crimes paid for by American taxpayers.]

International tribunals as well as numerous genocide scholars – many of whom are Jewish, and even Israeli – have concluded that Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza [but you cannot say this in “free America.”] Yet while debate over Israel has finally become more permissive in the U.S., it remains strangely stifled in large Brazilian media [whores paid off by Israel.] Just over two years ago, in this paper, I harshly critiqued this extreme pro-Israel bias, with a particular focus on Globo, Brazil’s largest news conglomerate. That trend has only worsened, and the examples cited therein have continued.

The Brazilian Right also maintains a truly bizarre reverence for Israel, and for every new American and Israeli war. Supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro love to prance around declaring how powerful and just it is to bomb the enemies of Israel and the U.S. – from Venezuela and Iraq to Yemen and Iran – yet apparently never themselves want to fight in, or have their own country to pay for, any of those wars they glorify. The Scottish philosopher Adam Smith warned 250 years ago – in his 1776 book Wealth of Nations – that people will always be eager to support and cheer for wars, and will derive a warped sense of excitement and purpose from them, as long as they are kept at a safe distance away from the fighting. The Brazilian Right is superb at cheering on American and Israeli wars, and equally superb at ensuring they bear none of the burdens or costs.

Whatever else is true, basic journalism requires the inclusion of all reasonable perspectives or else it is crude propaganda. World opinion has now turned sharply against Israel and its joint wars with the U.S. It is long past time for Brazilian journalism to prominently reflect that dissent.

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From paulcraigroberts.org.

Conversation with Alexander Dugin (PCR)

Conversation with Alexander Dugin on the Sputnik TV program Escalation.

Host: Dear friends, today we are addressing a large and serious topic. Everyone is talking about it right now, and understandably so, because a historic event is unfolding. Let me remind our listeners: on February 28, 2026, a joint operation was launched by the armed forces of the United States of America and Israel. Strikes were carried out against Iran, as a result of which Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed. In addition, many other high-ranking figures were eliminated in the attack. Iran has begun responding with strikes against both Israel and American bases, and as we speak, military clashes are taking place. There are many questions about what the consequences will be, who will suffer most from these developments, and whether Iran will be able to withstand the pressure. But the first thing one wants to understand is: where is all of this leading?


Alexander Dugin: This is indeed an extremely important event. It is entirely possible that it could become the beginning of the Third World War, because forces of enormous scale are now involved. The actions of the Americans—Trump together with Netanyahu—directed against the political leadership of Iran were extraordinarily abrupt.

This is already the second such case. First, the United States abducted Maduro, establishing direct control over Venezuela and effectively occupying that country. Now they have destroyed the entire military-political and religious leadership of Iran. In significance, this is comparable to destroying the Pope or an Orthodox Patriarch, because the spiritual leader of the Shiites—the Rahbar, Ayatollah Khamenei—was revered not only in Iran. He was effectively the head of the entire Shiite world, which includes hundreds of millions of people across the globe. Before this, Israel eliminated the leadership of Hamas—a more limited case—and then the leadership of Hezbollah, which was already more serious.

Now the leadership of Iran has been directly and openly destroyed. This means that there are no longer any international norms, no rules, and the United Nations effectively no longer exists. That organization now belongs to the past, like a phantom limb from a vanished world. Trump himself essentially said as much: there is no international law; whatever he does is moral. This changes everything. The previous world order has collapsed. We had been gradually moving in this direction, but now the point of no return has been crossed. If a country can destroy the military-political and religious leadership of a sovereign state without any grounds whatsoever, then we are living in a completely different world—a world where everything is permitted, where law is replaced by force, where the principle operates: “If I can do it, I will.” [Or as Lenin put it, “neither more nor less than unlimited power, resting directly on force, not limited by anything, not restricted by any laws, nor any absolute rules. Nothing else, but that.”]

Trump’s behavior is particularly striking. All of this happened during negotiations involving Kushner and Witkoff, and according to available information Iran had agreed to almost all American demands—literally to almost everything. Despite this, such a strike followed directly against the leadership of the country. First of all, we must understand that in this situation we [Russia] are next. Venezuela, Iran, and before that Syria and Hezbollah—these are all regimes or political systems currently targeted by the United States, and they are our allies.

In effect, if such actions can be taken against our allies, if all of this goes unpunished, if Trump succeeds in everything he attempts, then at the next stage—perhaps even during negotiations between Kirill Dmitriev and Kushner and Witkoff—a similar operation aimed at regime change in our country could occur.

And what protects us from such a scenario? Nuclear weapons? Even here the question remains whether we would actually use them. In an extreme situation, the West has serious doubts that we would be prepared to take that step—we issue threats too often and fail to follow through. [ in other words, the Russian government does not sufficiently believe in Russian national sovereignty to defend the country.] At the same time, efforts are underway to surround and isolate our president. Our president, beyond any doubt, is the figure upon whom everything rests. In our country, and perhaps even in the world, everything depends on him. He is the one who restrains—the Katechon, as our Orthodox tradition describes it. Today this is simply a fact of geopolitics, a fact of the global order.

But if the Americans—Trump himself—become convinced that other Russian leaders who might, God forbid, replace our president would be more accommodating towards the West—and this was precisely the calculation in Iran, when the sovereign leaders of that country were physically eliminated because they pursued policies that did not align with American interests—then what would prevent Washington from attempting to implement the same scenario here? [Dugin forgets that Washington already has attempted regime change in Russia when Washington tried to assassinate Russian President Putin in his home.]

Trump is conducting a completely consistent neoconservative geopolitical strategy of attack. The states that were targeted by globalists under Biden, under Obama, and under Clinton are exactly the same states being targeted now. Nothing fundamentally new has appeared. Despite the scandals and disputes with European NATO allies, in the end those allies align themselves behind the United States and adopt the same position. For us, therefore, this is extremely serious. It is the final warning.

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“Will Russia and China, along with Iran, be destroyed by the inability of their leaders to recognize reality?”

Will Reality Ever Dawn? (Paul Craig Roberts)

It seems that Netanyahu is the only effective leader in the world, and that he is leading the world to Armageddon.mClearly, the Zionist goal of greater Israel is the dominant force in world foreign policy today and has been for sometime. The Zionist’s goal is, of course, aided and abetted by the delusions of the rest of the leaders and their fear to say anything negative about Israel.mWhy, for example, did the Chinese government sit on its insouciant butt and allow a war to start that cuts China off from 50% of its oil, when all China had to do was to form a mutual defense agreement with Iran, extend the Chinese nuclear umbrella to the protection of Iran, and provide a couple of squadron of Chinese fighter aircraft on Iranian airfields.


Putin could have done the same thing and, thereby, avoid the risks to the Russian Federation of an Iranian defeat. But Russia also was incapable of looking after its own interest. It appears that Putin’s delusional belief in his “special relationship with Donald Trump” has made Putin blind to reality. The only person who has a special relationship with Donald Trump is Netanyahu. It is the relationship of a servant to his Zionist master. The outcome of the war depends heavily on which side first runs out of missiles. Washington is already showing concern. Weapons industry executives have been asked what they can do to provide sufficient missiles for Washington to be able to continue the conflict, and missiles in the hands of Washington’s Japanese and South Korean allies have been recalled for use against Iran.

Another sign that Washington is less confident of the outcome than is President Trump is Washington’s effort to bribe the Kurds to send its soldiers to fight for Israel by invading Iran. Perhaps the ballistic middle reportedly fired at Turkey from Iran, is further evidence of Washington’s attempt to cover a bad bet. I suspect the missile, if there was one, was fired by Israel or the US and that its purpose is to drag Turkey and thereby the European countries that comprise NATO into the conflict with Iran. Clearly, neither the Russian nor the Chinese nor the Indian leaderships are doing anything to contain the developing catastrophe. Allowed to succeed in Iran, Trump will regard Russia and China as paper tigers. As Alexander Dugan says, “Today Iran, Tomorrow Russia.”

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What a story,

Prosecution of Maltese Man for Discussing Transition from Homosexuality (Turley)

We have been discussing the erosion of free speech rights across Europe, particularly within the European Union. The crackdowns on free speech in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France are often the focus of these columns. However, a recent case shows how smaller countries like Malta have joined this effort with a repressive vigor. Fortunately, the prosecution of Matthew Grech, 33, ended in acquittal this month, but not for a lack of effort by the government. The case should shock the conscience of anyone who values this “indispensable right.”


Grech faced up to five months in prison and a fine of 5,000 euros ($5,400) after he discussed his own history abandoning a homosexual lifestyle to become a born-again Christian. Not only did the government prosecute him for discussing his life, but it also charged journalists Mario Camilleri, 44, and Rita Bonnici, 45, for interviewing him. It was a full frontal attack on both free speech and the free press. The prosecution was brought under Malta’s “Affirmation of Sexual Orientation, Gender and Gender Expression Act.” The law makes it a crime to perform or advertise practices aimed at changing or suppressing a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Grech was the first to be prosecuted under the law after LGBTQ activists failed criminal complaints against him following his interview. Silvan Agius and Christian Attard filed a report alleging that a related Facebook post and the subsequent interview advertised illegal conversion practices and promoted their “efficiency.” Cynthia Chircop, a volunteer with the Malta LGBTIQ Rights Movement, filed a report with the Cyber Crime Unit that the video had “triggered emotions” of isolation she experienced as a teenager. The government alleged that the interview constituted “marketing” for the International Foundation for Therapeutic and Counseling Choice, an organization associated with Grech that advocates such transitioning away from homosexual lifestyles.

However, Magistrate Monica Vella ruled that sharing a personal account does not constitute marketing the procedures. She sought to protect “free exploration and development.” However, the law itself was not struck down. The acquittal was secured on the basis that it was a personal account and not marketing. The country still criminalizes programs that seek to help those who want to transition away from homosexual practices or lifestyles. In my view, such programs should be considered protected under free speech, religious, and associational rights.

Advocates in the United States have attempted analogous bans by other means. Roughly 23 states have laws banning conversion therapy for minors. The Supreme Court recently heard the case of Chiles v. Salazar, a challenge to Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors.

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Is she still a man?

The Clearest Sign Yet the Obamas’ Marriage Is a Total Lie (Margolis)

Jesse Jackson’s funeral was held Friday at the House of Hope on Chicago’s South Side. Every major Democrat who still matters showed up: Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, Jill Biden, California Gov. Gavin Newsom.That’s right: sitting with a bunch of other couples, Barack Obama once again went stag. The Obamas themselves issued a joint statement about Jackson’s death that made Michelle’s absence on Friday all the more glaring. “Michelle got her first glimpse of political organizing at the Jacksons’ kitchen table when she was a teenager,” the statement read. “And in his two historic runs for president, he laid the foundation for my own campaign to the highest office of the land.” If there was ever a funeral Michelle had a personal, deeply rooted reason to attend, this was it.


So what’s the excuse this time? Her absence at Jimmy Carter’s funeral in Dec. 2024 was bizarre enough. Her excuse was that she was “on vacation” in Hawaii. She skipped Trump’s second inauguration in Jan. 2025. Why? Her excuse was that she had nothing to wear. I’m not even joking.I could see her refusing to go to the Trump inauguration in protest, but skipping Carter’s funeral? Well, I know she’s not a big fan of white people, so maybe that’s it. But skipping Jesse Jackson’s funeral raises huge red flags. It may be the most telling sign yet that the Obamas are married in name only.

The Obamas have been the subject of divorce rumors for a while now, and to say they’ve not handled them well is an understatement. They appeared on a podcast together, which looked painfully scripted, and of course, there’s the obligatory birthday, anniversary, Father’s Day, and Mother’s Day posts on social media. The choreographed podcast appearances and coordinated anniversary posts on social media prove nothing. Bill and Hillary Clinton have been photographed holding hands, too; no one believes they have a happy marriage. Last June, Michelle said she was relieved she didn’t have a son, because he would have been “another Barack.” That’s not the kind of thing a happily married woman says in public.

The real tell is the explanation Michelle keeps offering. “One of the major decisions I made this year was to stay put and not attend funerals and inaugurations and all the things that I’m supposed to attend,” she told NPR last year. “That was a part of me using my ambition to say, ‘Let me define what I want to do, apart from what I’m supposed to do.'”That would be a compelling argument if she were actually retreating from the public eye. She’s not. She’s recently “written” a book. She does podcast interviews regularly. She gives speeches. From where I sit, she seems to be declining the specific events where the public would see her standing next to her husband. There’s a meaningful difference between stepping back from the spotlight and stepping away from your spouse.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again — the Obamas are almost certainly never going to officially divorce. The financial and reputational stakes are too enormous. Their entire brand was built on being the perfect couple. They were portrayed as the opposite of every messy political marriage the public had ever seen. They won’t ever get divorced because to do so would unravel decades of carefully constructed mythology. What we’re likely watching is the same arrangement the Clintons have run for years: a show marriage for the public to keep their legacies intact, while the actual relationship is a dumpster fire behind the scenes.

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He’s threatening members of the club, for pete’s sake. They should fire Von der Leyen because of it, but they don’t.

EU Nationalists Rally Around Orbán (RMX)

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has condemned remarks by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Budapest says amounted to a threat against Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Responding to comments made during a press briefing in Kyiv on Thursday, Szijjártó said the statement was “beyond every limit” and reflected what he described as “the kind of ‘culture’ coming from Kyiv.” “This is the man Brussels admires and the country they want to fast-track into the European Union,” Szijjártó said. “No one can threaten Hungary or its prime minister. No one can blackmail us just because we refuse to pay the price of Ukraine’s war and refuse to accept higher energy prices because of Ukraine.” Zelensky had been speaking to compatriots about the proposed €90 billion European funding package for Ukraine, and warned that a single EU leader should not block the measure, widely interpreted as meaning Viktor Orbán.


“We hope that in the European Union, one person will not block the 90 billion [euros]. Otherwise, we will give this person’s address to the armed forces, to our guys, let them call him and talk to him in their own language,” Zelensky said. The Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament also criticized the comments, saying that “statements suggesting intimidation or threats of violence are incompatible with democratic principles and with the spirit of mutual respect that should guide relations between partners.” The group noted that EU member states have already provided approximately €200 billion in support to Ukraine and said such rhetoric was difficult to reconcile with Ukraine’s ambition to join the European Union.

Tensions escalated further after Orbán responded on social media, declaring that Hungary would restore energy flows through the Druzhba oil pipeline by force, if necessary. b“There will be no deals, no compromise. We will break the Ukrainian oil blockade by force. Hungary’s energy will soon flow again through the Friendship pipeline,” Orbán wrote.m“President Zelensky’s threats are not about me. He is threatening Hungary. Unfortunately for him, he cannot stop me from protecting Hungarian families,” he added.

Several Members of the European Parliament stood in support of Hungary following the remarks. “Let me remind you that Hungary decided to take this step not out of some whim or bad mood, but in response to Ukraine halting the transit of oil to Hungary via the Druzhba pipeline,” noted Polish MEP Ewa Zajaczkowska-Hernik, affiliated with the right-wing Confederation. “Because of this, fuel prices in Hungary have risen, and Prime Minister Orbán is simply standing firm in defense of his citizens.” “Not another euro for Zelensky and his corrupt gang! We stand with Hungary,” added Austrian Freedom Party MEP Harald Vilimsky. https://twitter.com/RobertFicoSVK/status/2029662612707852700

“Zelensky has long been making a mistake by allowing himself to be used by the European Union to cooperate with Von der Leyen and the Brussels troop in the massive interference in the Hungarian election campaign,” added Spain’s Vox MEP Hermann Tertsch. “It’s very likely that their plan will backfire.” Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico also weighed in late on Thursday. In a video posted on social media, Fico expressed “full solidarity” with his Hungarian counterpart, and intimated that “if the Ukrainian president continues like this, it may be that other EU member states will also block the €90 billion loan.” He further urged key members of the European Commission and European Parliament to “distance themselves” from what he called Zelensky’s “outrageous blackmailing statements.”

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https://twitter.com/theUMreal/status/2030185782871290039?s=20 https://twitter.com/XCorpHub/status/2029935040814104625?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Mar 012026
 


Mark Chagall Peace window, UN 1967


Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is Dead (Matt Margolis)
Trump Announces Major Airstrikes Against Iranian Regime (Matt Margolis)
Saudi Arabia Joins U.S. in Fighting Iran (Salgado)
Trump Isn’t Starting a War, He’s Ending One (A.J. Christopher)
Russia Condemns US Attack On Iran, Warns Of ‘Radiological Catastrophe’ (ZH)
Barack Obama Is to Blame for Iran. Here’s Why. (Matt Margolis)
The Clash Of Civilizations Restarts History (J.B. Shurk)
The Devil (and Gavin Newsom) Went Down in Dixie (Scott Pinsker)
A Surprising Defense of Trump Came From Bill Clinton (David Manney)
How Profanity Has Taken Hold of American Politics (Turley)
Britain’s Islamic Bloc Vote Warning. America, Take Note. (Peter McIlvenna)
The EU Wants A Nord Stream Sequel, But Not All Members Are Buying It (Marsden)
Marine Le Pen Says She Will Not Run In 2027 Election If Under House Arrest (ZH)
Bhattacharya To Lead Top US Health Agencies At Trump’s Request (Attkisson)
RFK Jr. DESTROYS Media’s Trump Caricature, Celebrates Epic Win on Drug Prices (MN)

 


 

https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2027850917337346454?s=20

 


 

 


 

 


 

 


 


Iran is a formidable force. They had 35 years to prepare. They have a million missiles. They have a million soldiers. Question is: who has their finger on the button now Khameini’s gone?

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is Dead (Matt Margolis)

Despite some initial debate, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed during the airstrikes Saturday morning, Israeli officials report. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was assassinated in an Israeli strike on Tehran, with his body found under the rubble caused by an Israeli airstrike, senior Israeli officials were informed on Saturday evening, the Jerusalem Post reports. Documentation of Khamenei’s body was reportedly shown to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Khamenei has ruled the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1989, previously serving as president under Ruhollah Khomeini’s regime from 1981 until his ascension to supreme leader. He was 86 years old.


Earlier on Saturday, Iranian officials promised to release a recording from Khamenei soon after Israeli strikes targeted his Tehran compound. The preliminary assessment among Israeli officials was that Khamenei was hurt in the strike. No official confirmation has been received by Israeli, American, or Iranian sources. In the immediate aftermath of the U.S.- Israeli strikes, there was a several hour window where no one could say for sure whether Khamenei was dead, wounded, or merely in hiding. Israeli TV, citing unnamed intelligence sources, quickly assessed that Khamenei had likely been killed when his compound in Tehran was flattened, but officials in Israel, the U.S., and Iran all stopped short of formal confirmation, stressing that his fate was still uncertain.

https://twitter.com/Osint613/status/2027833699316764764

An Israeli official also confirmed to Axios that Khamenei was killed. Why it matters: The 86-year-old Khamenei led Iran for 35 years, making him one of the world’s longest-serving authoritarian rulers. His death is a massive blow to the regime and could accelerate its collapse, which U.S. and Israeli officials have stated as a goal of their operation. The big picture: Khamenei’s killing sets off an immediate succession crisis with no clear answer.Under Iran’s constitution, a council of clerics is meant to select a new supreme leader – but Israel’s strikes also targeted senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders and political leaders, leaving the regime’s chain of command in disarray. Israeli officials say they assess the Iranian minister of defense and the commander of the IRGC were also among those killed in targeted strikes on Saturday.

Yes, it’s official: https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2027839695007138207

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) once again had a sensible reaction:
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They have to go all the way now.

Trump Announces Major Airstrikes Against Iranian Regime (Matt Margolis)

President Donald Trump addressed the nation early Saturday morning in an eight-minute video posted to Truth Social, announcing that the United States had begun a joint military strike in Iran. The strikes, which followed a coordinated U.S.–Israeli joint assault on key Iranian military assets, represent the most significant American military action in the Middle East in decades. “A short time ago,” he began, “the United States military began major combat operations in Iran. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people.”


He framed the attack as a long-overdue reckoning. “Its menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world,” Trump said. “For 47 years, the Iranian regime has chanted ‘Death to America’ and waged an unending campaign of bloodshed and mass murder targeting the United States, our troops and the innocent people in many, many countries,” he said, as though ticking off the charges against a sworn enemy. Trump dove into history of Iran’s evil actions, from the 1979 hostage crisis to the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut in 1983, and even the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.

“Many died,” he said bluntly. “Iranian forces killed and maimed hundreds of American service members in Iraq.” He accused the regime of continuing “to launch countless attacks against American forces stationed in the Middle East” and striking “U.S. naval and commercial vessels in international shipping lands.” Then came his cutting declaration: “It’s been mass terror, and we’re not going to put up with it any longer.” “From Lebanon to Yemen and Syria to Iraq, the regime has armed, trained and funded terrorist militias that have soaked the earth with blood and guts,” he said, a vivid and gruesome description even by Trump’s standards. He pointed specifically to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, reminding the nation that more than 1,000 innocent people were killed, including 46 Americans, and that 12 U.S. citizens were taken hostage.

“Iran is the world’s number one state sponsor of terror,” Trump asserted. “It has always been the policy of the United States, in particular, my administration, that this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon. I’ll say it again — they can never have a nuclear weapon.” He reminded Americans of “Operation Midnight Hammer,” the 2025 strike that “obliterated the regime’s nuclear program at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan,” and painted Iran’s leadership as directionless and fanatical. “We tried. They wanted to do it. They didn’t want to do it. Again, they wanted to do it. They didn’t want to do it. They didn’t know what was happening. They just wanted to practice evil,” he said.

This new campaign was both an act of defense and destiny. The Iranian regime has long had nuclear ambitions, and nothing, not even that ridiculous nuclear deal with Obama, stopped them. And Trump understands that the regime was never going to stop pursuing nuclear weapons. “They rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore,” Trump said. Iran, he warned, had been “developing long-range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could soon reach the American homeland.”

[..] Finally, Trump turned to the people of Iran. “The hour of your freedom is at hand,” he said. “Stay sheltered. Don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.” He called it “probably your only chance for generations,” and pledged that “America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force.” “This is the moment for action,” Trump concluded. “Do not let it pass. May God bless the brave men and women of America’s Armed Forces. May God bless the United States of America. May God bless you all. Thank you.”

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BIG. Split up the middle east.

Saudi Arabia Joins U.S. in Fighting Iran (Salgado)

The Muslim kingdom of Saudi Arabia is so outraged at a retaliatory Iranian strike on a United States base on Saudi soil that it is planning to join the operation against Iran’s regime, according to Fox News. The Iranian regime might have made a fatal mistake in striking multiple Gulf states that host American military bases. Several of those countries, including Qatar, are often inclined to be favorable towards the genocidal Iranian dictatorship, but by hitting targets in those countries, the Iranian jihadis have likely made them into enemies. And if Saudi Arabia really is joining the operation against Iran, that would be a major development.


Fox News national correspondent Jennifer Griffin announced live on Saturday afternoon, “We’re just getting word that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia says they will join the U.S. in the operation against the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Operation Epic Fury has a new partner. The Iranian regime was so foolish that it managed to get Saudi Arabia at least temporarily on the same side as Israel, which really is shocking.Griffin continued, “They [Saudi Arabia] said that this comes in the wake of Iran attacking the U.S. base in Saudi Arabia. I just spoke to a senior U.S. official who said the Iranians made a big mistake by firing on Arab coalition partners. Now they are likely to respond. So by Iran firing missiles at UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, they are now likely to fire back at Iranian targets.”

In short, Griffin stated, “So those coalition partners are now going to enter this operation that started off as a U.S.-Israeli operation. That is very, very significant, and we haven’t seen that happen in the past.” No kidding. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia already made an announcement that it “condemns and denounces in strongest terms the blatant Iranian aggression and the flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Qatar, the State of Kuwait, and Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The Kingdom affirms its full solidarity with and unwavering support for the brotherly countries, and its readiness to place all its capabilities at their disposal.”

The official statement added, “Saudi Arabia calls on the international community to condemn these blatant attacks and to take all firm measures necessary to confront Iranian violations.” By that point, Iran had launched a retaliatory strike against a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia. Even the terror-sponsoring Qatari regime that has interceded for Khamenei’s dictatorship in the past posted, “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirms that the State of Qatar reserves its full right to respond to this attack in accordance with the provisions of international law and in a manner proportionate to the nature of the aggression, in defense of its sovereignty and in protection of its security and national interests.”

But since Qatar then followed that up by calling for an immediate cessation in hostilities, it is unlikely that the pro-terror state will take any military action to help the United States in this case. Qatar is likely ticked off that its pals over in Iran might dare to hit it.

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“We have “thou shalt not kill.” They have “thou shalt kill every infidel you find.”

Trump Isn’t Starting a War, He’s Ending One (A.J. Christopher)

As of this writing, the United States and Israel have begun what I can only assume to be the first round of military strikes on Iran. I also assume that the eventual goal is regime change, effected by the United States, but driven by the Iranian people. And I’m not alone. Over the past few days, the so-called “think” tanks are falling all over themselves to be the first to prophesy a quagmire, a “trap,” a “forever war,” and Iraq 3.0.


The dregs at Foreign Policy took a break from clamoring for a post-American world order to demand we not bomb Iran precisely to more quickly usher in said order. At Powerline blog, John Hinderaker gleefully straddles the fence as only he can by declaring his hope that Trump bombs the mullahs with the goal of regime change… and in the same sentence, expresses doubt that this will be accomplished. And if you’re willing to waste the brain cells, you can guess what ol’ Tucker’s position on it is.

But the absolute worst take must be from John Daniel Davison over at The Federalist. John’s main point is that if we allegedly “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear abilities with Operation Midnight Hammer, than why do we need to now bomb Iran again to prevent them from acquiring nuclear capabilities?bUm, well, because Iran is trying to rebuild them. As we knew they would. And if we keep bombing only their nuclear facilities, they will simply keep rebuilding them until the next Democrat gets elected president and we stop sending bombs and start sending pallets of cash again. So there’s that. John writes, “At a certain point, it begins to look like the Trump administration is fishing for a reason to strike Iran. Sorry, but that’s not good enough.” Fishing for a reason? I’ll give you a few reasons, John. You tell me if they’re “good enough.”

  • On November 4, 1979, the Iranian government took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
  • The Iranian government helped create, fund, and arm Hezbollah and Hamas.
  • On April 18, 1983, Hezbollah bombed the American embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people.
  • On October 23, 1983, Iranian-backed terrorists bombed the American and French barracks in Beirut, killing 307 people.
  • Over the next decade, Iranian-backed terrorists hijacked several planes, including TWA flight 847, which resulted in the killing of an American sailor.
  • On July 22, 1985, Hezbollah bombed a synagogue, a Jewish nursing home, and a kindergarten in Copenhagen.
  • On March 17, 1992, Hezbollah bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people.
  • On July 18, 1994, Hezbollah bombed a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people.
  • On June 25, 1996, Iranian-backed terrorists bombed Khobar Towers, killing 19 American servicemen.
  • Iran provided training and expertise to al-Qaeda to commit the 1998 embassy bombings
  • Iran provided training and expertise to al-Qaeda to commit the 2000 USS Cole bombing.
  • During the Iraq War, Iran supported the Shia insurgency against coalition forces.
  • During the Afghan War, Iran supported the Taliban insurgency against coalition forces.
  • Iran supported Syria’s Assad government in crushing its own revolution.
  • On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a genocidal war against Israel.
  • Iran trains and supports the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
  • Iran maintains close ties with the world’s most totalitarian governments, to include Russia, China, North Korea and, until recently, Venezuela.
  • Iran’s government is protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which is basically an Islamic version of Hitler’s SS.
  • For the last 47 years, Iran has been the foremost sponsor of terror in the world.


If these reasons aren’t “good enough” for John Daniel Davison, and we need to go “fishing” for more reasons, here’s another one: The Iranian government is founded on an offshoot of Islam called Twelver Shiism. It is an apocalyptic sect which holds that the twelfth imam Muhammad al-Mahdi (born 870 AD) never actually died, and has been in hiding this entire time. The Twelvers believe it is their divine duty to usher in the Apocalypse in order to trigger his return. Hence the unrelenting half-century war of terror against the West. We have “thou shalt not kill.” They have “thou shalt kill every infidel you find. That’s the mindset we’re up against. Not reason. Not logic. Not deals or agreements or easing of sanctions. Not a return to the “stable” order of the Cold War that so many “conservatives” seem to long for. The Ayatollahs, their IRGC henchmen, and their Hamas and Hezbollah proxies want all of us dead. All of us.

They would behead John’s kids in front of him and laugh as they did it. Still “not good enough,” John? Here’s one more reason: In the last 47 years, the geopolitical chessboard has never been so favorable to us and so unfavorable to Iran. In the last few years, Iran has lost both Hamas and Hezbollah as serious forces. Iran has lost its base in Syria. Iran has lost its base in Venezuela. Russia and China have quietly dumped Iran. The Houthis have been taught a few lessons. Iran has recently been militarily weakened in its humiliating defeat in the Twelve-Day War with Israel, as well as with Operation Midnight Hammer. And millions of the Iranian government’s own citizens openly despise the regime, and will be more than happy to see it relegated to the dustbin of history.

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Russia has to protest of course. But they’re happy too. Who wants to deal with a medieval regime?

Russia Condemns US Attack On Iran, Warns Of ‘Radiological Catastrophe’ (ZH)

As fully predictable, Moscow has blasted the major overnight and early morning US-Israeli strikes on Iran, calling the attack “a preplanned and unprovoked act of armed aggression against a sovereign and independent U.N. member state” and has demanded an immediate halt to the military campaign and a return to diplomacy. The Foreign Ministry in a statement on Telegram accused Washington and Tel Aviv of “hiding behind” concerns about Iran’s nuclear program while actually pursuing regime change, as also cited in The Associated Press. After all, even on Friday Iran was strongly signaling readiness to take enrichment down to zero, as our own headline and others indicated: Iran Reportedly Agrees To Give Up Nuclear Material In Breakthrough: ‘Peace Deal Within Reach’.


Moscow is further warning of Iraq-style catastrophe and a regional domino effect which could unleash terrorism and chaos for years to come. The attacks could trigger “humanitarian, economic and possibly radiological catastrophe” in the region, and charged the US and Israel of “plunging the Middle East into an abyss of uncontrolled escalation.” However, the Kremlin is unlikely to come to Iran’s rescue in any direct way, given it is carefully trying to balance and restore relations with Washington in the context of the Ukraine war.

As for that other raging conflict in Eastern Europe, now four years in, Ukraine has come out in support of the US attacks on Iran. This is understandable, given the Iranians have long supplied Moscow with suicide drones which have wreaked havoc on Ukrainian cities. China too has condemned the attack on Iran alongside Moscow, but using words much more restrained that Russia’s. “China calls for an immediate stop of the military actions, no further escalation of the tense situation, resumption of dialogue and negotiation, and efforts to uphold peace and stability in the Middle East,” its foreign ministry ministry said on X.

Most or all of the BRICS countries are expected to come out against the US-Israeli aggression. Europe is expected to by and large stay on the sidelines, fearing that any broader Mideast war would have spillover effects, such as another potential refugee crisis. The UK, Germany and France have said nothing specifically on the ‘legality’ of the unprovoked US attack on Tehran, but have instead condemned the Iranian response.They released a joint statement telling Iran to stop its attacks on US-Israeli assets and bases in the region. “We condemn Iranian attacks on countries in the region in the strongest terms,” French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said.

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JCPOA

Barack Obama Is to Blame for Iran. Here’s Why. (Matt Margolis)

Americans woke up Saturday to something big. The United States and Israel launched a massive joint offensive against Iran’s regime, known as Operation Epic Fury. According to reports, targets included Iran’s supreme leader and president. Major combat operations are now underway, and the implications are global. Predictably, Democrats in Washington and even some Republicans are questioning the strikes. But let’s be honest — this moment was long overdue. Iran’s reign of terror didn’t start yesterday. In fact, this confrontation is the direct result of the Obama administration’s disastrous decision a decade ago to appease, enrich, and embolden Tehran.


Barack Obama and his administration sold the world a fantasy with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly referred to as the Iran nuclear deal. This treaty was so bad that Obama didn’t even attempt to get the Senate to ratify it. He just pretended it wasn’t a treaty and signed it unilaterally, claiming it as a foreign policy victory for himself. In fact, Obama was so desperate to make the deal a defining foreign policy achievement of his presidency that the lies about the deal from the left have never stopped. He told us it was a historic diplomatic breakthrough that would block Iran’s path to nuclear weapons. In reality, it handed the mullahs a lifeline and a fortune. Sanctions were lifted. Tehran gained access to roughly $150 billion in frozen assets, and there was that infamous $1.7 billion in cash sent to the regime, much of it delivered on pallets in the middle of the night. Every step of the way, Obama was emboldening Iran, not containing it.

It didn’t take long for Iran to show what a joke the deal really was. Just three months after signing the deal, Tehran test-fired ballistic missiles in open violation of U.N. resolutions. German intelligence later reported that Iran was still seeking technology for a military nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed repeated violations of material limits — all while Obama kept reassuring us that the agreement was “working.” Even he eventually admitted Iran was violating the “spirit” of the deal, and that was as close as he’d ever get to admitting that his deal was a sham. nAnd while Obama’s State Department was congratulating itself, Iranian leaders were laughing. They bragged that the JCPOA favored Iran. Hassan Rouhani, then Iran’s president, boasted that the regime had used diplomacy to buy time and advance its nuclear program. The Obama administration believed it was outsmarting Tehran, but in reality, it had been duped.

It’s not as if the liberal media didn’t notice this either. The New York Times even reported in 2015 that Iran had breached its enrichment limits before the deal was finalized. Inspectors found that while the Obama White House claimed Iran’s program was “frozen,” the country’s nuclear stockpile actually increased by 20%. Iran was supposed to convert that material for peaceful use. Instead, they let it grow — and Washington looked the other way. By the time President Donald Trump took office, the JCPOA wasn’t the safeguard Democrats claimed it was; it was just a smokescreen. Obama’s grand achievement hadn’t restrained Iran’s nuclear ambitions one bit. If anything, it emboldened them to pursue nuclear weapons as never before. The regime’s missile program accelerated, its proxies expanded across the region, and its leaders grew richer, bolder, and more violent.

Nevertheless, when Trump took office in 2017, he didn’t immediately pull the plug. He gave the deal every chance to work. But by 2018, the evidence was clear: continued violations, broken promises, and a regime that had learned there were no consequences. So, in May of that year, Trump ended the charade and withdrew from the deal once and for all. Of course, Joe Biden wanted to revive the deal when he took office. While he never succeeded, the message to Iran was clear: the Democratic Party would always be there for the regime. If you want to know why negotiations with Iran always failed, the answer is obvious: they had to do was wait out Trump, and hope Democrats would be in power again.

Iran has been daring the world to stop it for years, and now, it is finally getting what it deserves.

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“Burma, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos fight against each other and themselves..”

The Clash Of Civilizations Restarts History (J.B. Shurk)

Western globalists won’t last long. Thirty-five years ago, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama made a name for himself by advancing the proposition that the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union promised the ascendency and universalization of so-called Western liberal democracy. As a Marxist-Hegelian who saw the progression of history as an evolutionary process with a natural and predetermined conclusion, Fukuyama envisioned Western-styled liberalism as both “the endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution” and “the final form of human government.” Expecting all human struggles to barrel toward a state of imminent equilibrium and future peace, Fukuyama stated out loud what many other late-twentieth century thinkers also believed: Humanity had reached the end of history.


After the 9/11 Islamic terror attacks in the United States, two decades of the “Global War on Terrorism,” communist China’s expansive “Belt and Road Initiative,” immigration-fueled social strife, the collapse of public trust in government institutions, the prevalence of pre-civil war conditions across Europe, the rise of Indian economic power,, the emergence of Donald Trump’s nationalism as a counterbalance to the World Economic Forum’s vaunted globalism, the return of the Russian Federation as a major source of European angst, the growth of “multiculturalism” and its attendant fracturing of national unity, the “great powers” competition for hydrocarbon energies and other natural resources, the new geopolitical race to project strength in the Arctic, and the ever-present discussion of an impending World War III — just to name a few of the numerous global conflicts of the first quarter of the present century — Fukuyama’s “end of history” argument has probably reached the end of its usefulness.

Before the curse of humanity’s short memory stores Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis in the cupboard until it can be retrieved, dusted off, and recycled for practical use next century (just as Fukuyama had done with the historical conceptions of Hegel and Marx), it is worth noting how much of the academic world bought into this argument. I remember listening to two young political science professors discussing Fukuyama’s work after the 9/11 terror attacks, and even then — in the midst of such a horrific rebuke to the proposition that a globalized form of Western liberalism was preordained — both academics were staunch believers in the “end of history” and disagreed only about whether Professor Fukuyama was worthy of so much praise for having merely stated what was glaringly obvious.

I was around another man at the time named Samuel P. Huntington, and he had written an essay and book that took Fukuyama’s thesis to task. In The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Professor Huntington argued that unbridgeable cultural conflicts would continue to remake the world. Although critics called him “racist,” “Islamophobic,” “ignorant,” and even “Hitlerian” for dismissing the unifying effects of “diversity” and “multiculturalism,” Huntington’s predictions for a volatile twenty-first century were much more accurate than anything coming from the “end of history” camp. Still, even after death, the man who dispassionately forecasted a civilizational clash and an emerging period of global uncertainty is still maligned as “prejudicial,” “white supremacist,” “bigoted,” and “imperialist.”

Is there any conflict raging in the world today that can’t be described in terms of competing cultural values? Israel and its Islamic neighbors have been in a perennial state of war for eighty years. Indian Hindus and Pakistani Muslims remain at each other’s throats. Christianity and Islam have added fuel to fiery tribal conflicts that continue to rage across the continent of Africa. Armenia’s Christians and Azerbaijan’s Muslims struggle to maintain peace. The Balkans remain a potpourri of combative cultures and ethnic groups whose simmering passions can quickly boil over. Burma, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos fight against each other and themselves as civilizational loyalties turn ancient resentments into recurring bouts of violence. The War in Ukraine centers around the contested Donbas region whose people more closely align with the language, religion, and culture of Russia than with the historic identity that unites the people living in the western two-thirds of Ukraine. Everywhere in the world, battle lines are drawn around civilizational identity. Religious conflict, historic grievance, and cultural incompatibility drive violence around the planet.

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“Black people are roughly 20% of the Democratic Party. In the critical primary state of South Carolina, nearly 60% of the voters are black.” […] Gavin Newsom is slick, but he’s no Slick Willy.”

The Devil (and Gavin Newsom) Went Down in Dixie (Scott Pinsker)

I love Charlie Daniels, but this has always bothered me: From the lyrics to his classic “Uneasy Rider”:


I I just ordered up a beer and sat down at the bar
When some guy walked in an’ said, “Who owns this car?
With the peace sign, the mag wheels, and four on the floor”


Well he looked at me and I damn near died
And I decided that I’d jus wait outside
So I laid a dollar on the bar and headed for the door

Jes’ when I thought I’d get outta there with my skin
These five big dudes come strollin’ in
With this one old drunk chick and some fella with green teeth

Okay, so first one guy walks in. Then five more guys come in — plus a drunk woman and the green-toothed gentlemen. That’s eight guys! Then the lyrics continue:
An’ I was almost to the door when the biggest one
Said “You tip your hat to this lady, son”
An’ when I did, all that hair fell out from underneath

Now the last thing I wanted was to get into a fight
In Jackson Mississippi on a Saturday night
‘Specially when there was three of them and only one of me

Wait — how did it go from eight to three?! Like I said, I love Charlie Daniels, but my boy’s not the greatest at math. Oh well. Still a heck of a storyteller. And his biggest hit was “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” (Of course, since the Devil went DOWN to Georgia, the implication is, Hell must be north of Georgia. I’m thinking Richmond, Va.) Either way, the devil wasn’t the only one defeated in Dixie: Gavin Newsom, the exquisitely coiffed governor of California, just rolled snake eyes, too. Even his hometown news site admitted it. From SFGATE:”Newsom Is Touring Southern States. It’s Exposing Some Hurdles in His Path to 2028″.

Newsom began the first stretch of the book tour for his memoir “Young Man in a Hurry” this weekend in the South, with stops in Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina. His team said starting in that region was “quite intentional” — but he’s already ruffled some feathers. While he is mostly sharing heartening anecdotes from the book, including how he handled being a student raised by a single mother and struggling with undiagnosed dyslexia, he is also clearly using his hourlong stage appearances to appeal to potential swing voters. No, it’s NOT about appealing to swing voters — at least, not yet. Newsom only cares about Democratic voters because, without them, swing voters are meaningless. He’s got to win his party’s nomination first.

That’s why his book tour was built around a Bizarro version of the Southern Strategy: Newsom needs black support. It’s his biggest vulnerability. We discussed this earlier in the week:”Black people are roughly 20% of the Democratic Party. In the critical primary state of South Carolina, nearly 60% of the voters are black.” […] Gavin Newsom is slick, but he’s no Slick Willy. There’s a reason why Toni Morrison dubbed the Man from Hope our “first black president.” Whereas Bill Clinton had an aw-shucks, good-natured, instantly relatable Southern charm, Gavin Newsom is as white as mayonnaise. Newsom isn’t “street” — unless that street is Wall Street. He’s the Patriarchy personified. Without black support, Gavin Newsom risks being the next Bernie Sanders. In CNN’s 2020 postmortem on Sanders’ loss to Joe Biden, the #1 reason cited was: Lack of Black Support.

Sanders ran into a wall in 2016 among black voters. Hillary Clinton catapulted herself to victory by winning blowouts throughout the South, where black voters make up a huge chunk of primary voters. Sanders needed to improve upon his performance. Instead, Sanders did as bad in 2020 among this pivotal group. Among African Americans who voted for Biden or Sanders, Sanders won just 23% in the median state with an entrance or exit poll. That was the same percentage he garnered in 2016. Black voters propelled Biden to his big win in South Carolina, which started him on his journey to defeating Sanders. This is why Gavin Newsom set up shop in Dixieland: He’s learned from Sanders’ campaign mistakes. Striking gold in New Hampshire or Iowa is meaningless if your cupboard is bare in the South. Trouble is, he tried to bond with black Democrats by playing up his stupidity. Here’s the video:

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“For Clinton to say, under oath, that Trump showed no indication of criminal involvement doesn’t neatly fit into partisan talking points. ”

A Surprising Defense of Trump Came From Bill Clinton (David Manney)

Every once in a while, politics delivers a moment nobody sees coming. Former President Bill Clinton, under oath, reported that President Donald Trump never gave him any indication he was involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal conduct. That sworn statement now adds a new wrinkle to one of the most combustible and easily proven false stories of the last decade. Bill Clinton has been facing questions about his own past ties to Epstein. Flight logs show Clinton traveled on Epstein’s private jet several times in the early 2000s, but he’s maintained he cut off contact after learning more about Epstein’s behavior. In this recent sworn exchange, Clinton reportedly stated that during his interactions with Trump, he never saw or heard anything suggesting Trump engaged in Epstein’s crimes.


Trump has repeatedly acknowledged knowing Epstein socially in the 1990s, appearing in photographs from that period. He’s also publicly stated that he broke off contact with Epstein years before Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea. In 2019, Trump told reporters that he hadn’t spoken to Epstein in about 15 years and described himself as “not a fan.” “Trump barred Epstein from Mar-a-Lago after Epstein behaved inappropriately toward a club member’s teenage daughter, according to journalists from the Miami Herald and Wall Street Journal. The reporters included some information about Trump’s links to Epstein in their 2020 book, “The Grifter’s Club: Trump, Mar-a-Lago, and the Selling of the Presidency.”

A Mar-a-Lago member told the journalists that Trump had “kicked Epstein out after Epstein harassed the daughter of a member,” Sarah Blaskey of the Miami Herald reported. “The way this person described it, such an act could irreparably harm the Trump brand, leaving Donald no choice but to remove Epstein.” The incident happened around October 2007, when Mar-a-Lago’s registry listed Epstein’s account as “closed,” the Miami Herald reported. Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges involving underage girls. He died in a Manhattan detention facility while awaiting trial. His longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted in 2021 on federal sex trafficking charges and later sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Clinton’s reported testimony stands out for one simple reason: it cuts against the common political storyline. Clinton and Trump have been rivals since Trump rode the escalator, trading barbs publicly and representing opposite poles in American politics. For Clinton to say, under oath, that Trump showed no indication of criminal involvement doesn’t neatly fit into partisan talking points. Statements under oath carry legal weight; false testimony risks perjury. That context matters; when a former president speaks under penalty of law, the words deserve attention. The broader Epstein scandal has touched powerful names across finance, politics, and entertainment, while Congressional interest remains high. Lawmakers continue seeking documents and testimony tied to Epstein’s network as calls for full disclosure have come from both sides of the aisle.

Clinton’s sworn statement doesn’t erase Trump’s past social proximity to Epstein, but it adds a factual element that complicates sweeping accusations. When critics assert that association equals guilt, sworn testimony suggesting otherwise forces a pause. While it’s fair to call the moment unexpected, it’s also fair to ask whether legacy political commentators who’ve spent years speculating will give equal attention to testimony challenging their narrative. Ignoring inconvenient details only subtracts from their sinking credibility. The Epstein case remains one of the most disturbing and long-reaching criminal sagas in modern history. Justice for victims remains central. Factual clarity about who did what remains essential, and when sworn testimony contradicts assumptions, it can’t be brushed aside.

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“I don’t swear in public very well, but we have to f–k Trump. Please don’t tell my children that I just did that.”

How Profanity Has Taken Hold of American Politics (Turley)

“Respectfully, f–k off.” Those words by California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s spokesperson, Izzy Gardon, summed up the current race to the bottom of American politics. Democrats appear in a competition of the profane where voters are now subject to a virtual carpet-bombing of f-bombs and other indecent language. Gardon’s response was to a standard media inquiry after Newsom’s controversial statement to a black interviewer. In an Atlanta event, Newsom declared: “I’m like you … I’m no better than you. I’m a 960 SAT guy … literally a 960 SAT guy. You’ve never seen me read a speech because I cannot read a speech.” It was widely denounced as racist, but Newsom insisted that he was only talking about his struggle with dyslexia.


The spin quickly fell apart after his statement, “I’m like you … I’m no better than you,” which suggested he thought the audience in Atlanta had low scores. Reporters followed up to ask for proof about his disability, including his claim that “I cannot read.” The response was an f-bomb from Gardon. Newsom, too, unleashed a profane attack on Sean Hannity of Fox News — who gave the California governor a chance to respond to his critics. When Hannity criticized Newsom’s comments in Atlanta, the governor posted several four-letter words on X, concluding with: “Spare me your fake f—ing outrage.” There was a time when political leaders maintained basic standards of civility and avoided profanity in public. Presidents like Lyndon Johnson could be quite salty in private, but drew a line in public.

Rporters followed up to ask for proof about his disability, including his claim that “I cannot read.” The response was an f-bomb from Gardon. Notably, one of Richard Nixon’s objections to his tapes being made public was the inclusion of foul language used in the Oval Office. He noted in his book In the Arena that “since neither I nor most other presidents had ever used profanity in public, millions were shocked.” It was not long ago that Trump’s then-new White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci shocked many with a profane diatribe. He defended it as “an Italian thing.” At the time, I wrote that, as someone who was raised in an Italian family, we clearly had a different upbringing. I noted that if I used that language in public, my Sicilian grandmother would have ended the diatribe with a backhand.

Profanity sometimes added to the mystique of military leaders who sought to convey that they were unconcerned with social norms as warriors. Gen. George Patton was known to drop some doozies. In one scene in the famous eponymous movie, Patton is asked about the Bible next to his bed and whether he really prayed. Patton responds, “I sure do … Every godd–n day…” Politics was different. The public once looked to political leaders as role models who exemplified social norms. It now appears that profanity is viewed as an essential element of political speech on the left.m mPolitics was different. The public once looked to political leaders as role models who exemplified social norms. Katie Porter this week thrilled a crowd by waving around a sign reading “F–k Trump.” Porter was previously criticized for using such language to abuse staffers to “get out of my f–cking shot” in an interview.

At the State of the Union, Rep. Rashida Tlaib wore a button on the House floor reading “F–k Ice.” Such behavior is not just limited to Democrats. President Trump has used profanity on occasion. However, the Democrats appear to have made profanity a signature element in their campaigns.Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Texas, seems a perpetual profanity machine, regularly telling figures like Elon Musk to “f–k off” and dropping the f-bomb at a higher rate than prepositions. Some are virtually giggly over swearing in public. Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) declared, “I don’t swear in public very well, but we have to f–k Trump. Please don’t tell my children that I just did that.” The crowd roared with approval that Dexter was feigning being naughty with dirty words.

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Muslims born in Britain. Now poised to take over. How will the Christians defend themelves? They don’t even know they’re under threat.

Britain’s Islamic Bloc Vote Warning. America, Take Note. (Peter McIlvenna)

Britain’s Gorton and Denton by-election on Feb. 26 was more than just a local upset. It gave a glimpse into demographic changes that could shape U.S. politics. The Green Party’s Hannah Spencer won with 41% and 14,980 votes, turning this Labour stronghold into the Greens’ first northern seat. Reform UK came second with 29% of the vote, and Labour finished third with 25%. Turnout was low at 48%. The main story: Muslim bloc power flipped a seat, and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s strategy did not work. The seat’s divided nature tells the story. Manchester wards like Burnage, Gorton & Abbey Hey, Levenshulme, and Longsight are changing fast: 40% Muslim, 62% U.K.-born, and 30% are graduates or students.


In Longsight, 60% are Muslim and 52% U.K.-born, making it a diverse, urban area where Gaza is a common topic. The Greens succeeded by using multilingual flyers, focusing on Palestine, and promoting anti-Islamophobia messages. Instead of attacking others, they built coalitions. That bloc, along with tactical left-wing voters, overshadowed everything else.Tameside wards, including Denton North East, South, and West, feel very different: less than 3% Muslim, 86% U.K.-born, and over 80% white British. These are working-class areas with few graduates and strong local roots. Reform UK led here, getting over 40% in some places by appealing to “keep Britain British” sentiment. Still, Manchester’s voters decided the outcome. This is a story of two different visions, almost like a modern Dickens novel.

Manchester is moving away from traditional English and British identity, with lower native birth rates, more multiculturalism, less connection to Christianity and old values, and a shift toward new cultural expressions. Tameside, on the other hand, is more cautious about fast cultural change, holding on to traditions and trying to keep established cultural identities. It is similar to the old divide between East and West Germany. The East kept its German identity, had little migration, and held onto traditions. The West became more multicultural, saw fewer native births, and its religious makeup changed. Gorton-Denton is a smaller version of this: Manchester shows the changing face of old England, while Tameside tries to stay recognizably British. The Greens won by understanding that concentrated bloc votes and progressive alliances now matter more than nostalgia.

Farage’s role was chaotic. Before the election, he avoided criticizing Muslims, maybe to appeal to more voters. But after losing, Farage accused others of “sectarian voting,” “cheating,” and “dangerous Muslim sectarianism.” He complained about “family voting,” with observers noting it in twelve percent of sampled cases, where husbands and wives crowded voting booths—the highest rate ever recorded. Democracy Volunteers flagged 68% of polling stations. No mosques were used as polling places; the council managed the process. Still, Farage’s comments sparked controversy. Critics say he changes his stance: soft on Islam to grow Reform, but harsh when things go wrong. Either way, he seems unsettled, caught between his supporters and the need to win votes.

Now, America faces similar questions in its primaries. The Muslim population is under 2% nationally, but is expected to grow due to higher birth rates and migration. CAIR reported 38 Muslim winners across the country last year. Zohran Mamdani won New York’s mayoral race with strong support for his socialist and pro-Palestine views. Ninety-seven percent of Muslim voters supported him, along with major donors, and Gaza became a key issue. Does this sound familiar? If the Gorton-Denton approach shows up in other places, like Dearborn, Queens, or Minneapolis, organized turnout could affect close elections.

Strong support from certain communities may help some candidates, while others might choose more moderate strategies. Family-based turnout, like what was seen in the U.K., could change usual voting patterns. Demographic changes are likely to continue, with some areas keeping traditional majorities and others forming new coalitions. The message is clear: Pay attention to demographic trends, or you might be surprised by changes in election results. Primaries are still important—voters may choose to stick with the status quo or join coalitions that want change. The lesson from Britain is that traditions alone may not be enough when organized participation increases.

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“Ukraine’s oil pipeline blackmail has Hungary demanding that support for Kiev be cut off..”

The EU Wants A Nord Stream Sequel, But Not All Members Are Buying It (Marsden)

The Druzhba, or ‘Friendship’, oil pipeline is really living up to its name. All the ‘friends’ are fighting with each other. And now Hungary, worried about the EU’s slack attitude about what happens to its oil source, is saying that it’s time to deploy the army to protect it. Critics of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban argue that he only wants troops deployed inside the country because he’s down in the polls ahead of the April national election and he’s going to try some kind of autocratic jiu-jitsu to cancel them. Which totally ignores the fact that Ukrainian secret services are actively attacking the pipeline’s infrastructure – and there is something really fishy about the EU’s permissiveness around it.


Everyone from the Kiev Independent to French state media, France 24, has been attributing to the SBU, Kiev’s secret services, drone strikes on February 23, targeting a Russian oil pumping station serving Druzhba – citing actual SBU sources. And the EU’s position has been, “Look, it’s up to Ukraine if they want to fix it.” It’s not like they owe the EU anything, right? Just billions of euros, and counting. Can’t even get a repair job these days for that price, apparently. So Hungary’s been saying, “Hey, are you jokers going to actually do something about this? Because we’re putting our foot down on your whole ‘cash for Ukraine for European defense contractors’ charade and unilaterally canceling the next episode of your Russian sanctions unity show with a veto, until you reel in your spoiled brat foster kid.”

The EU says it would welcome the reactivation of landlocked Slovakia and Hungary’s fuel source running across Ukraine and delivering Russian oil. Funny that’s the case only now that it’s been bombed and the tap has been turned off – after years of official EU policy to ditch the Russian fuel that runs through it. But Brussels also said that it’s ultimately up to Little Zelya, Vladimir Zelensky, as to what he wants to do. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has been sounding like a waitress at Denny’s who’s fed up waiting for Little Zelya to decide what he wants while he kicks his little feet against the high chair. Queen Mommy, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, insists that he should be able to freely choose between blackmailing Hungary over oil or resuming the flow – with all the nonchalance of deciding between pancakes or a kid’s combo, even though it’s the Europeans whose interests she’s supposed to be defending and who are paying the tab.

“This risks our sovereignty, and we are not willing to tolerate this in silence,” Szijjarto said. “It is very frustrating that here in Brussels they usually stand on the side of a non-EU member state against EU member states. The European Commission behaves like a Ukraine Commission, and this is unbelievable.”

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Here’s democracy for you. Wait, didn’t that start in France?

“If I cannot be a candidate, Bardella will determine at what level he needs my presence, my advice and my experience,” Le Pen has stated about her protegé ..”

Marine Le Pen Says She Will Not Run In 2027 Election If Under House Arrest (ZH)

In March 2025, Le Pen was convicted on charges dating back years ago, in a move that was widely contested and seen as a highly political attempt to keep her from running in next year’s presidential election. Now, she says she has no intention of running if her ban from running is lifted, if it means she must wear an electronic tag, i.e., ankle monitor. She is also ready to place full trust in Jordan Bardella, current leader of the National Rally (RN) Le Pen’s comments came during an interview with French television station BFMTV, her first since French prosecutors asked a court to uphold her five-year ban. A ruling on her case is expected on July 7.


“You cannot campaign under these conditions. Can you campaign without going out in the evenings to meet your constituents at rallies?” she asked, referring to the idea of having to campaign while wearing a monitor and under house arrest. Prosecutors had asked for Le Pen to be sentenced to four years in prison (three of which were suspended) and a fine of €100,000.In France, shorter prison sentences are often commuted, meaning that if the court follows the prosecutor’s request, Le Pen could spend anywhere from a few months to a year under house arrest, wearing an anklet. However, Le Pen has said she would not campaign under such circumstances. Le Pen says she will be present in court on July 7 to hear the Court of Appeal’s decision.

“Of course I will go, as I went every day to the trial in the first instance and on appeal because I respect justice,” she told BFMTV. Regarding the 2027 election, Le Pen said regarding RN leader Jordan Bardella: “The best-case scenario is that I am elected president of the Republic and he is my prime minister.” However, if she cannot run, then “Jordan will find himself a prime minister,” and she will take whatever “role he wants me to have.” Emphasizing that Bardella will be free to make his own choices, Le Pen told listeners, “If I cannot be a candidate, he will determine at what level he needs my presence, my advice and my experience.”

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A good thing about Covid: we found some really good people in the US. No, it ain’t Fauci.

“You don’t have to worry about looking over your shoulder, that you aren’t ideologically pure enough. You just focus on science that can translate over to solving the longevity problems that the United States has, the chronic disease problems, the real problems.”

Bhattacharya To Lead Top US Health Agencies At Trump’s Request (Attkisson)

The head of the National Institutes of Health is now at the helm of a sub-agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya says President Trump personally asked him to take the CDC job temporarily until a permanent director can be named. “It’s hard to say ‘no’ to the president. What it means is that I will still be the director of the NIH. That’s my main day job,” Bhattacharya told “Full Measure” in a recent interview at NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland. “But over the next couple of months, I’m gonna go work with folks at the CDC to help get the agency in a place where the new director, whoever ends up being Senate confirmed, we’ll have an organization that’s running well so that they can get their priorities in place.”


Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bhattacharya was a medical doctor and professor at Stanford University, “happily publishing in journals.” But during Covid, he became a very vocal opponent – for scientific reasons – for government-mandated lockdowns to try to stop the spread of the virus. “I did a bunch of research that suggested that the lockdowns were not helping people, in fact, were causing tremendous harm to the poor children in the working class, all the school closures and all that,” he says. Bhattacharya helped create and get thousands of signatures on the Great Barrington Declaration to speak out against the lockdowns on public health grounds. For that, he became a target of the head of NIH at the time, Dr. Frances Collins, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who headed the NIH Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

It was later revealed that the two men orchestrated a “devastating take-down” of Dr. Bhattacharya and his colleagues to silence and discredit them. Today, it’s a stunning reversal of fortunes for Dr. Bhattacharya that he was chosen to head up the very agency whose leaders had conspired against him. Bhattacharya says one of his main goals is to remove politics and ideology from science to “leave a lot more space for actual science.”“The cultural shift is, is enormous,” he says. “The purpose and the mission of the NIH is to do research that improves the health and longevity of the American people,” Bhattacharya said. “First of all, everyone should be behind that mission. And then second, once you say that’s the mission, that we’re only gonna be focused on the mission, it frees you up from all of the baggage.

“You don’t have to worry about looking over your shoulder, that you aren’t ideologically pure enough. You just focus on science that can translate over to solving the longevity problems that the United States has, the chronic disease problems, the real problems.” Establishment medicine figures who were frequently proved wrong about approaches to Covid and matters of Covid vaccine safety and effectiveness criticize most every decision and move Bhattacharya now makes. He says in response to the criticism: “If the NIH’s mission is to do support research that translates into better health and longer life for Americans, well, the NIH over the last 15 years has failed in its mission.

“And so the idea that it’s anti-science or politicizing the agency to remove political agendas from the agency, it’s almost Orwellian. And so when I see these stories, my general understanding of them is that it’s people that benefited from the old system where the focus was in part on ideology.” Bhattacharya says part of the steps to remove politics from the NIH is to begin a new plan to genuinely study vaccine injuries and treatments. “We’re working on that,” he told “Full Measure.” “One of the things that Tony Fauci’s old NIAID is gonna be doing is studying vaccine injury.”

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Bobby’s become a big Trump fan.

RFK Jr. DESTROYS Media’s Trump Caricature, Celebrates Epic Win on Drug Prices (MN)

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered a powerful takedown of the fake news narrative surrounding President Trump, exposing the blatant lies and highlighting the administration’s groundbreaking success in driving down prescription drug costs—a move that puts American families first and crushes Big Pharma’s grip. Kennedy’s remarks come amid the Trump administration’s aggressive push to overhaul healthcare, including the implementation of the Most Favored Nation policy, which ensures Americans no longer foot the bill for the world’s highest drug prices. Kennedy noted that the U.S. had been paying two to four times as much for prescription drugs as other nations, with the administration securing agreements from “60 or 70” drug companies to end this disparity.


This victory builds directly on Trump’s longstanding commitment to dismantle Obamacare’s inefficiencies and redirect funds to the people, as we detailed in our earlier coverage of his plan to scrap the “STUPID” system and empower Americans. Kennedy didn’t hold back on the media’s relentless smear campaign against Trump. “The caricature you see in the press: ‘Narcissistic bombast, who is uneducated, not thoughtful, lacks compassion.’ The ACTUAL person is the OPPOSITE of those things!” Kennedy stated. He praised Trump’s intellect and expertise across multiple fields, noting “He’s extremely detail-oriented, he’s an encyclopedia in many areas, in business, in sports, in the arts, in architecture, in building.”

Kennedy emphasized Trump’s unparalleled ability to deliver results, stressing “He knows how to, above all, he just knows how to get things done.” “He understands the uses of power probably better than any president that I can name and I’m pretty familiar with all the presidents,” Kennedy added. “So I don’t think we’ve ever had somebody who understands the use of power that he does. And the boldness with which he moves and which he expects us to move, I think has inspired all the people who work here right now to do things that people told them before were not possible,” he further urged. Tying it to the drug price breakthrough, Kennedy highlighted how Trump’s leadership turned promises into action.

“We were paying the highest drug price of any country in the world, now we’re paying the lowest. Every president’s promised to do that and all of them have said it’s insurmountable, you can’t do it, but we were able to do it!” he emphasised. This aligns with the broader Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) mission. As Calley Means has previously pointed out, key wins include lowering drug prices alongside reforms like eliminating food dyes and acknowledging vaccine injuries—proving MAHA is “WINNING big” despite leftist opposition. This drug price overhaul, part of Trump’s executive actions, ensures nearly 95% of medications are now the cheapest globally, delivering affordability without stifling innovation—a stark contrast to the bloated systems of the past.

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https://twitter.com/NicHulscher/status/2027428352978558997?s=20 entanglement

 

 

 

 

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Feb 242026
 
 February 24, 2026  Posted by at 10:34 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  61 Responses »


Piet Mondriaan The red cloud 1907


TRUMP Declares WAR On Euro CENSORSHIP (MN)
EU Says Trump’s Tariff Workaround Violates Trade Deal (ZH)
The Supreme Court has Ruled on Tariffs, but Who Will Ultimately Pay? (Turley)
Bessent Signals No Retreat After SCOTUS Tariff Ruling (David Manney)
AOC Has Instagram Meltdown. It’s a Sight to Behold. (Matt Margolis)
AOC’s Ignorance Is No Laughing Matter (Stephen Soukup)
Trump is Losing His Base – Mark Taylor (USAW)
Obama’s ‘Gift’ Sticks Taxpayers With $200M+ Bill (ZH)
CNN Finally Admits the Truth About Democrat-Run Cities (Matt Margolis))
Trump is Netanyahu’s Puppet (Paul Craig Roberts)
Judge Says Jack Smith’s Final Report on Trump Can Never Be Released (ET)
British Police Take Former Ambassador Mandelson into Custody (Manney)
The Putin Plan for Cuba and The Castro Family (Helmer)

 


 

https://twitter.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/2025573014155227301?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2025580547527856295?s=20

 


 

 


 


Europe’s last hope before the curtain closes. These guys want to operate in darkness. Because they all, Starmer, Macron, Merz, have one thing in common: they’re painfully unpopular back home.

US State does what I’ve been doing (trying to do) for many years:: give people a peek behind the curtains.

TRUMP Declares WAR On Euro CENSORSHIP (MN)

As European governments ramp up their assault on online freedom, the Trump administration is striking back hard with Freedom.Gov—a portal designed to equip European and British citizens with tools to shatter digital barriers imposed by overreaching bureaucrats. The move exposes the hypocrisy of so called “safety” laws that geofence truth, forcing websites to block users or demand ID, all while claiming to protect the public from their own thoughts. A growing number of websites have chosen to simply block users rather than comply with arduous censorship demands in response to Europe’s Digital Services Act and the UK’s Online Safety Act, with many more hidden behind government-mandated age-verification making linking a real-life identity to internet use a prerequisite for access.


The U.S. government is launching a ‘Freedom.Gov’ website that will give British and European visitors the tools to access censorship-free parts of the internet they have been geofenced out of by their own governments in the name of public safety. The new initiative is the work of the U.S. State Department and led by Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers, who has been a key figure in bringing President Trump’s message of freedom to Europeans in recent months. Government insiders say the Freedom.Gov portal may feature a Virtual Private Network (VPN) tool to allow European users to bypass domestic controls and claims its use won’t be tracked.

A State Department spokesman is quoted as saying: “Digital freedom is a priority for the State Department, however, and that includes the proliferation of privacy and censorship-circumvention technologies like VPNs.” A placeholder website for the planned anti-censorship service is already active. The Freedom.Gov site first became active in January and was blank apart from the text “fly, eagle, fly”. Today, an updated landing page proclaims “Freedom is coming. Information is power. Reclaim your human right to free expression. Get ready.” In a crystal-clear message to the censorious British authorities cracking down on internet freedoms, the page also features an animated logo of Paul Revere on his famous 1775 midnight ride, warning the Minutemen of the approaching British troops.

The decision to launch the service will inevitably bring the U.S. into some sort of conflict with European capitals, given the pro-freedom move would force those governments to either defacto accept that their censorship laws will either be openly bypassed by their own citizens with the assistance of Washington, or to block Freedom.Gov, and clarify their opposition to the free dissemination of information.mThis puts Washington in the unfamiliar position of appearing to encourage citizens to flout local laws, without stopping to note this is, of course, not actually unfamiliar at all. The United States through the CIA and other agencies maintained a large network of censorship-busting initiatives through the Cold War using the latest technology of the time.

Among those efforts was Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Liberty, sending unfiltered news and other programming through high-powered broadcasts into the Soviet nations behind the Iron Curtain. This effort was something of a game of cat-and-mouse between the free West and the Communist East, with Soviet authorities attempting to block out the broadcasts with radio interference equipment of their own. In those Soviet countries, when the Western radio broadcasts did get through, those who tuned into them faced arrest “or worse” at the hands of the authorities. Today, the British government has already started to react to the use of VPNs to circumvent its new internet controls—imposed, it says, for the sake of public “safety”—and is moving to defacto outlaw them.

Pro-Freedom and anti-surveillance campaign group Big Brother Watch responded to the government’s plan to crack down on VPNs, saying: “The Prime Minister’s announcement that the government intends to restrict access to VPNs for under-16s represents a draconian crackdown on the civil liberties of children and adults alike. The only way such restrictions could be enforced effectively would be for VPN providers to require all users to undergo age-assurance measures.”

The group continues, “Having to provide ID or a biometric face scan to access a VPN utterly defeats the point of a technology designed to enhance privacy online. The ability to receive and share information absent state snooping is a vital part of living in a free democracy.” “There is a reason authoritarian governments in countries such as China, North Korea, Iran, and Belarus ban or restrict VPNs. Anonymity and enhanced privacy allow journalists, whistleblowers, campaigners, and dissidents to communicate securely,” they further urge. This latest escalation builds directly on the Trump administration’s earlier vows to counter British PM Kier Starmer’s censorship frenzy, where Under-Secretary Sarah B. Rogers warned that America would unleash its full arsenal against threats to X and free speech, treating the UK like Iran if needed.

Rogers stated: “With respect to a potential ban of X, Keir Starmer has said that nothing is off the table. I would say from America’s perspective, nothing is off the table when it comes to free speech.” It also extends Trump’s pattern of offering lifelines to UK and European dissidents, including asylum for “thought criminals” prosecuted for silent prayers or online posts challenging mass migration and gender ideology. nSources previously confirmed the White House was scouting cases, tying free speech erosion to Britain’s immigration failures.

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They don’t want transparency.

EU Says Trump’s Tariff Workaround Violates Trade Deal (ZH)

Update (1715ET): Europe is now getting ‘legal’ over the whole thing – claiming that Trump’s new tariff workaround violates levels permitted in their trade agreement, Bloomberg reports. The European Commission, which handles trade matters for the bloc, told lawmakers Monday that the new global tariff will be added to levies that are already in place, according to Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee. The new cumulative rate means some goods would be above the 15% ceiling the EU and US agreed to in their trade deal.Under Trump’s new tariff program, some products including butter, plastics, textiles and chemicals would have levies above that 15% ceiling, according to people familiar with the commission’s assessment. The new global tariffs can stay in place for as many as 150 days.


* * * Update (9:40am ET): In response to the EU’s decision to freeze ratification of Trump’s landmark deal, the US president has come out swinging and on Truth Social threatened any countries that “play games” with the supreme court decision that they “will be met with a much higher tariff.” It just isn’t clear what the procedure for these much higher tariffs – aside from Section 122 which is limited to 150 days – will be now that IEEPA has been ruled unconstitutional.

Earlier: In the aftermath of Friday’s SCOTUS decision to reverse Trump’s tariff policy, one lingering question is what happens to the bilateral trade deals Trump struck with various countries (and which supposedly would lead to hundreds of billions of fresh investment into the US). Well, in the case of the EU we no longer have to wonder: {This] morning, the European Union said it would freeze the ratification process of its trade deal with the US and was seeking more details from the Trump administration on its new tariff program. Zeljana Zovko, the lead trade negotiator in the European People’s Party group on the US deal, said in an interview with Bloomberg that “we have no other option” but to delay the approval process to seek clarity on the situation.

The main political groups in the European Parliament say they’ll suspend legislative work on approving the trade deal on Monday, days after the US Supreme Court struck down Trump’s use of an emergency-powers law to impose his so-called reciprocal tariffs around the world. The center-right EPP, which is the largest political bloc in parliament, will be joined by parties including the Socialists & Democrats and the liberal Renew group to back freezing the process. According to Bloomberg, Bernd Lange – chairman of the parliament’s trade committee – called an emergency meeting later Monday to reassess the EU-US trade accord. He said over the weekend that parliament should delay work on the trade accord until the EU receives more clarity on the new tariffs. EU ambassadors will also meet Monday afternoon to discuss the US trade relationship.

Trump’s announcement following the court decision to impose a 10% global tariff, which he then increased to 15%, left many questions unanswered for American trading partners, stirring up more economic turbulence and uncertainty about the US policy. As a reminder, the deal struck last summer between Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would impose a 15% tariff rate on most EU exports to the US while removing tariffs on American industrial goods heading into the bloc. The US would also continue to impose a 50% tariff on European steel and aluminum imports. The bloc agreed to the lopsided deal in the hopes of avoiding a full-blown trade war with Washington and retaining US security backing, particularly with regards to Ukraine. Parliament had been aiming to ratify the agreement in March.

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“Unless members want to further add to the deficit, Congress should intervene to uphold the tariffs retroactively. But that may not be possible.”

The Supreme Court has Ruled on Tariffs, but Who Will Ultimately Pay? (Turley)

Friday’s blockbuster ruling on tariffs was hardly welcomed by the Trump administration, but it was also widely expected. The Supreme Court clearly established in its 6-3 decision that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not afford presidents authority to issue sweeping, unilateral tariffs like those imposed by President Trump over the last year. The justices fractured on other issues. And they left one issue conspicuously unaddressed: What happens to the hundreds of billions of dollars collected from these tariffs so far? Many of us predicted that the administration would lose this fight. That view was reinforced after oral arguments, when a majority of justices raised possible reasons why the president might not possess this power.


Then again, he does possess similar powers under other laws, which the administration has already announced he will use. Although Trump said he was “ashamed” of the conservative justices who ruled against him, their opinion is consistent with the conservative interpretive approach taken in prior statutory cases. The majority defended Congress’s core power over the purse, maintaining the balance among the branches of our tripartite system. There were good-faith arguments on both sides, but these conservative justices ruled regardless of the political or practical repercussions, based on what they believed was demanded by the Constitution. The most surprising votes were not the three conservatives but the three liberal justices, who historically have not been deterred by ambiguity in statutes in deferring to presidents.

They have repeatedly also found delegated authority in independent agencies without worrying too much about the separation of powers. Democratic politicians openly celebrated from the loss. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) seemed gleeful over the idea that the country will have to incur massive penalties, costs that could undermine the current economic growth figures. Newsom, who has led his state into a deep deficit and triggered an exodus of taxpayers, eagerly called for economic penalties for the country: “Every dollar unlawfully taken must be refunded immediately — with interest. Cough up!”

In reality, the tariffs are not going away. Trump will just have to rely on less nimble laws, but he can pursue the same policies in the name of other causes, such as securing greater market access and other concessions from foreign governments. So what about “coughing up” those past tariff dollars? Newsom may ultimately be disappointed. Unless members want to further add to the deficit, Congress should intervene to uphold the tariffs retroactively. But that may not be possible.

Democratic politicians like Newsom are not likely to want to help Trump, even if that means wounding the national economy and the federal budget. But this may offer Republicans a unique opportunity to force such a vote. Do Democrats truly want to vote to give hundreds of billions back? There are already more than 1,000 claimants. Justice Brett Kavanaugh dealt with the problem directly in his forceful dissent. He criticized the majority for its silence on whether or how such refunds would be made. Most pointedly, Kavanaugh noted that the federal government “may be required to refund billions of dollars to importers who paid the … tariffs, even though some importers may have already passed on costs to consumers or others.”

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“.. tariff collections will continue at the same level because the rates and scope remain consistent. The mechanism changes, but the dollars don’t,..”

Bessent Signals No Retreat After SCOTUS Tariff Ruling (David Manney)

After the Supreme Court handed down a six-to-three decision limiting how President Donald Trump used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose so-called Liberation Day tariffs, his critics pounced, declaring the strategy dead. Do they know President Trump? Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on the air and made clear the administration isn’t backing down. One tool was whittled down, but the policy is still kicking. The Supreme Court ruled that the administration stretched IEEPA beyond its intended scope. While the statute allows emergency economic measures, the majority found that the tariff action did not fit the framework Congress had designed. The decision appeared to force surrender, but all it did was cause a pivot.


Bessent told Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo that tariff revenue wouldn’t stop, framing the ruling as procedural rather than authoritative. He said that the administration still has multiple statutory authorities to address trade imbalances and national security threats. The objective, he said, hasn’t changed: reduce trade deficits, protect domestic industry, and pressure the foreign governments that have been gaming the system. Bessent explained that the White House will move to Section 122 authority within days, as President Trump already announced a 15% global tariff, adjusting it over the weekend to maintain leverage.Section 122 allows temporary trade restrictions to address balance-of-payments concerns, and while formal investigations proceed, it remains in effect for 150 days.

Bessent said that the administration also plans to use Section 232, which addresses national security concerns, and Section 301, which targets unfair trade practices. Commerce Department reviews and United States Trade Representative studies will support those actions. Describing the shift as straightforward, Bessent argued that the Supreme Court’s decision clarified the boundaries and strengthened the administration’s footing under other statutes. “In a way, they have made the leverage that he has more draconian because they agreed he does have the right to a full embargo,” the secretary said. “Within three days, the President can put on the Section 122 10% global tariff. So, at Treasury for the full year 2026, we foresee no decrease in revenue,” he continued.

Some budget watchdog groups warned tariff revenue would fall. Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, shared uncertainty about the long-term math, an argument Bessent rejected outright, saying that revenue projections remain intact under the new authorities. “Yes, so, Maria, let’s take a step back here. And Maya MacGuineas should be ashamed, and they should take the word ‘responsible’ out of her organization’s name,” Bessent responded. “Everything she told you was completely irresponsible, and look, where were they when the Biden administration blew out the deficit that we had a fiscal contraction last year? So she should be ashamed.”


Using the phrase “new authorities,” Bessent meant that different trade laws already on the books, not a fresh attempt at a supposed power grab. The administration plans to rely on Section 122 of the Trade Act for temporary tariffs, along with Sections 232 and 301, statutes written specifically for trade enforcement, giving the White House a firm legal foundation even after the Supreme Court narrowed the use of emergency powers. Bessent went on to say that tariff collections will continue at the same level because the rates and scope remain consistent. The mechanism changes, but the dollars don’t, while he pushed back against claims that tariffs worsen inflation or cause exploding deficits. Years of runaway spending happened long before these trade actions.

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“Everyone’s got this story wrong, that this is about me running for president. Global democracies are on fire the world over.”

AOC Has Instagram Meltdown. It’s a Sight to Behold. (Matt Margolis)

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) traveled to the Munich Security Conference with big ambitions and came home with a reputation problem. The trip was supposed to bolster her foreign policy credentials ahead of a future Senate or presidential run. Instead, it turned into a masterclass in unpreparedness, and now she’s doing damage control in the worst way possible: a tearful late-night Instagram rant.


In the video, an emotional AOC, appearing to hold back tears, pushed back against critics who saw her faceplant in Munich, convinced she has no idea what she’s talking about. Her defense? It’s not her, it’s you, who’s the problem. “If you think that I don’t understand foreign policy because out of hours of discourse about international affairs, I paused to think about one of the most sensitive geopolitical issues that currently exist on Earth, I’m afraid the issue is not my understanding, but rather the problem is perhaps you’ve gotten adjusted to a president that never thinks before he speaks.” There it is. You can’t blame her for not knowing what she’s talking about; you’ve got to blame President Donald Trump.

Make no mistake about it, the Instagram video isn’t going to rehabilitate her, because the Munich footage still exists. And it was bad, in every sense of the word. When a panelist asked AOC whether the U.S. should commit troops to defend Taiwan if China attacks — a question any serious foreign policy thinker should be able to handle — she froze. What followed was genuinely painful to watch: “Um… You know, I think that, uh… This is such a, uh, you know, I think that this is a, um… This is, of course, a very long-standing policy of the United States, and I think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point.” She rambled for several more seconds without saying anything approaching a coherent position. Taiwan policy has been a central pillar of U.S. foreign relations for decades. This wasn’t a trick question.

That wasn’t pausing to think; that was clearly her not having the faintest idea how to respond. Her wealth tax moment wasn’t any smoother. Asked whether she’d impose one as president, AOC giggled nervously before managing this: “I don’t think that, um, I don’t think that anyone, and that we don’t have to wait for any one president to impose a wealth tax. I think it needs to be done expeditiously.”Argentine politician Daiana Fernández Molero wasted no time dismantling that position with actual evidence. “You have the recipe that many Latin American countries applied many, many times; that is some relief in the short term, but ends up being a tragedy for the future,” Molero explained.

“It’s like a public expenditure, huge public expenditure, price controls, sometimes wealth tax, and you end up with the wealth going away, and you have just the tax, and you don’t have wealth anymore. That was something that Peronism did many, many times.”Molero continued, “So all these recipes create a cycle. Then you have this short-term relief, but then it goes with inflation, shortage, then you have more poverty, and the cycle goes and goes.”

Once again, AOC came away from an exchange looking like the dumb kid way out of her depth. So she did what any entitled brat would do: she called a reporter to defend her. New York Times journalist Kellen Browning publicly confirmed that AOC “gave me a call,” and his subsequent article dutifully suggested she faced a “potentially frosty reception” and that critics missed “the substance of her arguments.” AOC told Browning, “Everyone’s got this story wrong, that this is about me running for president. Global democracies are on fire the world over.”

The left-wing media ecosystem spent years building AOC into a political phenomenon, with protective coverage that kept her weaknesses hidden as much as possible. Munich stripped all of that away. Without friendly gatekeepers controlling the narrative, her lack of depth became impossible to disguise.If this conference was her 2028 audition, she bombed it. And no amount of teary Instagram videos is going to make people forget how badly she bombed.

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“.. in the United States, the most prominent Marxist theorists actually gave up on workers altogether as allies in the fight against capitalism.”

AOC’s Ignorance Is No Laughing Matter (Stephen Soukup)

Over the past week or so, many on the political Right have understandably enjoyed a laugh or two at the expense of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, N.Y.). AOC went to the Munich Security Conference to provide “balance” to the Trump administration’s presence and to burnish her own credentials on the global stage. Instead, she mostly just made a fool of herself. Not only did she stutter, stammer, and offer a Kamala Harris-esque non-answer when asked about American interests in and obligations to Taiwan, but she also demonstrated a comically poor grasp of geography and a righteously ignorant understanding of history. In an effort to rebut and embarrass U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, AOC embarrassed only herself, showing that historical facts mean far less to her than identity-inspired fiction.


But while it’s inarguably fun to chuckle at and mock the ignorance of the smug congresswoman and presumed presidential aspirant, it is also important to acknowledge that her historical and political illiteracy extends beyond the superficial and touches on matters of real and critical importance. Notably, this purported champion of the working class does not know the history of working-class politics, does not understand the reasons for the collapse of the working-class-centered ideology, and, as a result, has never contemplated the dangers inherent in attempting to resuscitate that failed doctrine. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has long emphasized her biography and working-class roots to enhance her political status—and justifiably so. Her childhood may not have been quite the struggle she pretends it was, but she nevertheless endured economic hardships—especially after her father’s death—and was unable to find employment commensurate with her education. She was, famously, a bartender and a cocktail waitress before her election to Congress and, as a result, has long fashioned herself a champion of the working class and its purported priorities.

Indeed, on her trip to Munich, AOC emphasized her affinity with the working class and admonished democratic nations to erect a bulwark against totalitarianism by focusing on workers, workers’ rights, and worker-centered politics. “It is of utmost urgent priority that we get our economic houses in order and deliver material gains for the working class,” the congresswoman said, “or else we will fall to a more isolated world governed by authoritarians that also do not deliver to working people.” She railed against large corporations and especially billionaires, insisting that they had to be stopped from “throwing their weight around” in domestic and international politics. In short, the good congresswoman used her trip to Munich to urge the workers of the world to unite, because, as she sees it, they have nothing to lose but their chains.

There’s only one little problem with AOC’s exhortation: it’s ridiculous. Indeed, it’s been tried . . . and tried . . . and tried. It doesn’t work. And when I say that, I don’t mean that socialism doesn’t work or that communism has been tried countless times before and failed every time. That much is obvious by now. Rather, what I mean is that the workers of the world don’t care about the rest of the workers of the world. They don’t like the idea of being divided into classes, and they don’t have any particular affection for their fellow laborers. They don’t dislike other workers necessarily, but they don’t see themselves as a monolithic federation sharing the same interests, needs, or political predilections. Truth be told—and this is the key to understanding the silliness of the whole “global proletariat” nonsense—even the Marxists long ago gave up on uniting the workers of the world. In fact, in the United States, the most prominent Marxist theorists actually gave up on workers altogether as allies in the fight against capitalism.

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“God drove him to his knees, and it was supposed to humble him, but in some cases, it made him worse.”

Trump is Losing His Base – Mark Taylor (USAW)

Retired firefighter, Lieutenant Mark Taylor, author of the popular book “The Trump Prophecies,” predicted Donald Trump would become President five years before the 2016 Election. Many thought that was an outrageous prediction, but he was proven right. Taylor also looked like he got it wrong when he predicted Trump would be a two-term President. He was, once again, proven correct despite the four-year gap in his Administration. Now, Taylor is sounding the alarm that President Trump is losing the votes of people who gave him the biggest political comeback of all time. Taylor explains, “Here’s the prophetic warning: If you wait too late to act, the patriots are going to take matters into their own hands. . ..


There is video after video from patriots fed up as to how long it is taking to get some of this stuff done. I get emails and comments on social media, and people are feeling how hurt they are from the President. How they even feel betrayed and angry with this President because it is taking so long. Nobody has been held accountable in their eyes. I am telling you the perception of the patriots. . .. Trump is losing his base. I don’t want to see that happen. I want to see him succeed because if he succeeds, the country succeeds. There are certain things this President is doing that is hampering this process. He is waiting too long, and the patriots are getting ready to take matters into their own hands. No amount of military is going to stop this if it starts because right now, they are feeling hopeless.”

Yes, Donald Trump has done some very good things such as getting America out of the World Health Organization. Trump brought in trillions of dollars in investments and has begun removing millions of illegal aliens the Biden Administration let in with open borders. The Southern border is now closed, but the enemy is not just external, and it’s not only flesh and blood. Taylor says there is an enemy within and explains, “God is calling for a place of repentance, and that includes the people’s house, The White House. This includes who is in charge of the people’s house. . .. Susie Wiles (White House Chief of Staff) needs to be fired.

Taylor contends, “Paula White is a spiritual gatekeeper. The President has clairvoyants, psychics and remote viewers around him. He has intelligence people around him. His spiritual advisory board is completely combat ineffective in the spiritual realm. I believe Susie Wiles and her people are responsible for not only killing this presidency . . . but she has him going off track and going in a different direction, and she is responsible for killing the America First agenda. This is what a lot of patriots that I am hearing from are angry about. . .. If there is not a giant turnaround, I think we are going to hand it over to the Democrats (midterms in 2026) because the Republicans are not going to show up to vote because they lost all hope in the President.”

Taylor says, “Who has his ear is steering the President in the wrong direction. He has got to correct this at some point. He’s got to get rid of some of these people. You cannot empower the spirit of Jezebel the way Trump has and not be demonically influenced. He has to throw Jezebel off the roof and feed her to the dogs.” Taylor says he would advise President Trump to fire FBI Director Kash Patel, AG Pam Bondi, spiritual advisor Paula White and political advisor Susie Wiles just for starters. Please keep in mind, Wiles had a disastrous interview late last year with Vanity Fair where she said President Trump had an “alcoholic personality.” President Trump never drinks alcohol because he had an alcoholic brother.

In closing, Taylor warns, “You cannot have this stuff going on and expect God (The Father) to be in it. . .. God is showing me if Trump does not repent and turn back to God and start listening to God instead of his intelligence, the intelligence that is purposely trying to steer him off track, then God is showing me there is something coming for him. There is going to be a David moment, so to speak . . .. God took a child from David. I am not saying he’s going to do that. The assassination attempt was allowed. The bullet grazed his right ear. What is the right ear prophetic for? It is for what you are hearing now. He’s listening to the wrong people now. . .. God drove him to his knees, and it was supposed to humble him, but in some cases, it made him worse.”

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Send the bill to Reid Hoffman.

Obama’s ‘Gift’ Sticks Taxpayers With $200M+ Bill (ZH)

When former President Barack Obama announced plans for his presidential center on Chicago’s South Side, he described it as a privately funded investment in the city that would give back to the community that shaped his political career. And while construction of the brutalist eyesore itself remains privately financed through the Obama Foundation, taxpayers are footing the bill for massive infrastructure costs. A review by Fox News found that state and city agencies have not produced a unified accounting of total public expenditures tied to the project’s surrounding infrastructure. While individual agencies have disclosed partial figures, no single office has reconciled those totals or clarified how they overlap.


At the time the project was approved in 2018, public infrastructure costs were projected at roughly $350 million, to be split between the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago. Those estimates covered roadway modifications, utility relocations and related improvements necessary to accommodate the 19.3-acre campus in Jackson Park that nobody asked for. In July, the Illinois Department of Transportation said that approximately $229 million in state-managed infrastructure spending had been committed to the project. That total includes about $19 million for preliminary engineering, $24 million for construction engineering and $186 million for construction activities. A department spokesperson described the earlier $174 million figure as a preliminary 2017 estimate.

Now, Chicago’s most recent 2024–2028 Capital Improvement Plan lists more than $206 million allocated to roadway and utility work associated with the project. However, much of that funding is labeled as “state,” and neither state nor city officials have clarified how the figures relate to one another or whether they represent overlapping commitments. Fox submitted records requests to several agencies, including the Illinois Department of Transportation, Chicago’s Department of Transportation, the city’s Office of Budget and Management, the mayor’s office and Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration – yet, not one provided a consolidated, up-to-date accounting of total public infrastructure spending. The Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor is reviewing whether agencies complied with state transparency laws in responding to the requests.

The Obama Foundation defended the project, reiterating that the center’s construction – whose cost has grown from early projections of roughly $330 million to at least $850 million, according to its 2024 tax filings – is being financed by private donations. In a statement to Fox, foundation spox Emily Bittner said the organization is “investing $850 million in private funding to build the Obama Presidential Center and give back to the community that made the Obamas’ story possible,” adding that the project is intended to catalyze economic opportunity on the South Side. Bittner, of course, didn’t address the infrastructure costs – which have been extensive.

Chicago’s 2024–2028 Capital Improvement Program lists $206,078,058 for “Obama Presidential Center & Jackson Park – Infrastructure Improvements,” with most funding labeled as state sources. (City of Chicago Capital Improvement Program) Cornell Drive, a four-lane roadway along the eastern edge of Jackson Park, was removed and traffic rerouted farther west. Utilities, including water mains and sewer lines, were relocated, and new drainage systems were installed. City and state officials have said the changes were necessary to manage anticipated traffic and visitor demand.The center occupies 19 acres of public parkland transferred under a 99-year agreement for $10, a decision that prompted legal challenges arguing that the arrangement was not in the public interest. Courts ultimately dis missed those lawsuits.

Though often described as a presidential library, the Chicago complex will not function as a traditional library operated by the National Archives and Records Administration. Former President Obama’s official records will be maintained by the federal government at a facility in Maryland, while the Chicago site will be operated privately by the Obama Foundation. The foundation also pledged to establish a $470 million endowment intended to protect taxpayers in the event the project encounters financial difficulty. According to previous reporting by Fox News, that fund has received $1 million in deposits. Who didn’t see this coming?

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“.. not only are there never results, but there’s never any accountability either ..”

CNN Finally Admits the Truth About Democrat-Run Cities( Matt Margolis))

CNN’s Fareed Zakaria went off-script this week — at least by his network’s standards — and said the quiet part out loud: Democrat-run cities are a mess, and the politicians in charge either can’t or won’t do anything about it. Of course, this isn’t news to you, but for a CNN host to admit this is a big deal. Zakaria opened with Zohran Mamdani’s New York, calling it “a prime example of a problem Democrats seem unwilling to confront.” That’s a pretty remarkable admission from a CNN host, but I assure you, he was just getting started. “Blue cities are out of control,” he said, “promising more, spending more, delivering less, and pushing off the fiscal problems to some future day.”


He then turned to Los Angeles, and the numbers he cited are staggering. Zakaria noted that the city’s homelessness budget for fiscal year 2025-2026 alone totals roughly $950 million. Not the cumulative total over several years. One year. And what has all that money bought? He explained that the LA Homelessness Services Authority reported that homelessness increased by 9% countywide and 10% within the city in 2023. A 2024 AP account found that homelessness had surged by 70% countywide since 2015 and by 80% within the city. “All this amid public frustration, despite billions spent,” Zakaria said. Then came perhaps the most damning detail. An audit reviewed $2.4 billion in city homelessness funding and found that “officials could not reliably track where it went or what it achieved.” That’s right. $2.4 billion has just disappeared into the bureaucratic ether.

To make matters worse, not only are there never results, but there’s never any accountability either, at least not for the people running the city. Zakaria moved on to Chicago next. He noted the city has a mayor whose approval rating is “deep underwater” and pension obligations so enormous they will “surely bankrupt the city at some point.” That’s a pretty frank diagnosis coming from a guy on a network that spent years cheerleading for this very brand of governance. Then Zakaria asked the key question Democrats never ask: “What is the theory of good government here?” His answer was cutting. “If the answer is keep adding programs, the city will keep producing unaffordability, because unaffordability is what happens when government becomes a machine that grows faster than the society it governs.”

Zakaria continued, “Zohran Mamdani’s basic instinct is correct: focus on affordability, especially housing, but not by providing government subsidies. These only seem to have driven up the cost of rent, as subsidies naturally do.” Here’s where Zakaria went wrong. Affordability isn’t an instinct for Mamdani; it’s a talking point. His instinct is to subsidize. It’s not like he wasn’t upfront about this during his campaign. So all the affordability problems New York City faces are going to get worse under Mamdani. Heck, he’s already gone looking to Gov. Kathy Hochul to bail out New York City — a mere two months into his administration. That’s the pattern. Spend more. Get less. Blame someone else. Repeat.

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Trump throw nukes? I doubt it.

Trump is Netanyahu’s Puppet (Paul Craig Roberts)

It seems clear that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has disrupted Trump’s negotiations with Iran about nuclear weapons by interjecting in the middle of the negotiations another demand- that Iran give up its missiles and its alleged proxy forces. Netanyahu’s demand is obviously intended to ruin the negotiations as the demand clearly would prevent Iran s ability to defend itself from Israeli attack. From the beginning Netanyahu has been determined to force the US to war with Iran, and that is the purpose of his demand that the deal with Iran includes the military disarming of Iran.


We see this in the news reports that the Trump regime is now considering whether the deal with Iran should also extend to Iranian missiles. Iran is willing to agree not to produce nuclear weapons, but cannot possibly agree to disarm itself of conventional weapons, especially after US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee recently acknowledged that Greater Israel is an ongoing Zionist project. If Iran has the Chinese battle control system that former British diplomat Alastair Crooke described, a US attack on Iran could result in an American defeat, the loss of aircraft carriers and US military bases in the area as well as heavy destruction of Israel. Why would Netanyahu expose Israel to this risk?

Could it be that he bets that an American defeat would lead to demand for revenge on Iran and the US would finally do what Israel wants and nuke the Iranian nation, thus removing Iran as a barrier to further Israeli expansion? Iran’s designation as a terrorist state and Iran’s alleged proxy forces are propagandistic claims used to justify a US military attack on Iran. As the world must know, the two terrorist states are Israel and the United States. Washington, for example, kidnaps foreign leaders of states, and Israel assassinates Iranian, Lebanese, and Yemeni leaders. Who has Iran assassinated ? What terrorist act is Iran responsible for?

The Israeli genocide of Palestine is reason enough for the Houthis in Yemen to oppose Israel. Israel’;s attempted expansion into Lebanon is sufficient reason for Hezbollah to oppose Israel. Perhaps Iran supplies them with weapons, but that doesn’t make them Iran s proxies. The US provides Israel with weapons. Does this make America an Israeli proxy? Insouciant Americans are unaware that Netanyahu and Washington are setting them up for a war that serves only Israel’s interest. Ever since Americans fell for the 911 narrative, they have been putty in the Israel Lobby’s hands, and their beliefs about the Middle East have been given to them by the Israel Lobby and it s many American associates. The prevailing ignorance can very easily produce a catastrophic war.

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“The Court strains to find a situation in which a former special counsel has released a report after initiating criminal charges that did not result in a finding of guilt.”

Judge Says Jack Smith’s Final Report on Trump Can Never Be Released (ET)

federal judge on Feb. 23 said that the final report on President Donald Trump compiled by a former special counsel shall not be released. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is based in Florida, said in a 15-page decision that she was granting requests from Trump and his co-defendants to keep part two of the report from former special counsel Jack Smith shielded from the public. Cannon said that Smith wrongly forged ahead with investigating Trump and others for allegedly violating federal law by gathering and retaining sensitive documents even after she ruled his appointment was unconstitutional and threw out the case.


“Rather than seek a stay of the Order, or clarification, Special Counsel Smith and his team chose to circumvent it, for months, by taking the discovery generated in this case and compiling it in a final report for transmission to then-Attorney General Garland, to Congress, and then beyond,” Cannon said. “The Court need not countenance this brazen stratagem or effectively perpetuate the Special Counsel’s breach of this Court’s own order.” She added later: “While it is true that former special counsels have released final reports at the conclusion of their work, it appears they have done so either after electing not to bring charges at all or after adjudications of guilt by plea or trial. The Court strains to find a situation in which a former special counsel has released a report after initiating criminal charges that did not result in a finding of guilt.”

The Department of Justice (DOJ) had appealed Cannon’s ruling, but dropped the appeal after Trump won a second term in office. The department also released part of Smith’s report just before Trump began his second term. The other part, which has not been made public, was not to be released, according to a January 2025 order from Cannon. Cannon announced in December 2025 that her injunction was set to expire in February this year. Trump and co-defendants said in filings on Jan. 20 that Cannon should permanently block the release of the other part of Smith’s report. Lawyers for Trump said Smith was illegally appointed, and all acts he undertook were thus void, so the release “would constitute an irreversible violation of this Court’s constitutional rulings in the underlying criminal action and of bedrock principles of the separation of powers.”

DOJ officials backed that position. “Put simply, Smith’s tenure was marked by illegality and impropriety, and under no circumstance should his work product be given the full weight and authority of this Department,” they said in a brief, adding later that making the second part of the report public would “lead to the public dissemination of sensitive grand jury materials, attorney-client privileged information, and other information derived from protected discovery materials, raising significant statutory, due process, and privacy concerns for President Trump and his former co-defendants.”

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Nothing to do with girls. That’s all just a cover.

British Police Take Former Ambassador Mandelson into Custody (Manney)

Peter Mandelson built a career inside the highest levels of British power, but that career collided with a police investigation tied to Jeffrey Epstein. On Monday morning, officers with London’s Metropolitan Police arrested Mandelson on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Police transported the 72-year-old former British ambassador to the United States to a London station for formal questioning. Authorities also searched two properties linked to him in Wiltshire and Camden. Mandelson served as business secretary and twice held cabinet rank under Labour governments, later becoming the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the United States.


That role placed him at the center of diplomatic strategy between London and Washington, while also placing him under scrutiny once the newly released Epstein files revealed how deep his association ran with the convicted sex offender. Officials removed Mandelson from his ambassadorial post in September, after the extent of his relationship with Epstein became public. He resigned from the Labour Party the same day the news broke that police had opened a formal investigation into whether he shared confidential government information, the reason behind today’s arrest. Mandelson hasn’t been charged, and he’s said that documents released by the U.S. DOJ didn’t indicate wrongdoing or misdemeanor on his part. He’s stopped talking in public since the beginning of the investigation.

Law enforcement works under a long-standing legal principle: evidence found by unlawful means can’t stand in court, and anything derived from it falls with it—fruit from the poison tree. The fallout from the Epstein files works similarly in public life: Names connected to Epstein don’t come out of the washer clean when associations become liabilities, and careers erode once those ties come to light. If he understood anything, Mandelson understood influence, spending decades navigating political power inside Westminster and abroad. Prime ministers relied on him to negotiate, strategize, and manage party operations. He easily moved between government offices and diplomatic leadership, and that access is now at the center of a criminal inquiry.

It’s rare for British police to arrest former cabinet ministers, which shows that investigators believe serious questions remain unanswered. Officials haven’t disclosed the exact nature of the alleged confidential material involved, confirming only that a former government minister was arrested in connection with an ongoing investigation into misconduct in public office. This circus shows that Epstein’s network extended beyond American shores, both politically and financially. British figures repeatedly showed up in released documents and flight logs, and each new disclosure reopened old wounds, forcing political leaders to confront uncomfortable connections. Mandelson’s arrest marks one of the most significant developments inside the U. tied to those files.

European royals, government officials, politicians, and others are losing jobs and titles over their connection to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. European law enforcement agencies are opening investigations based on recent troves of documents released by the U.S. government. …

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“This year we will mark the centenary of Fidel Castro’s birth, and we will do so together.”

The Putin Plan for Cuba and The Castro Family (Helmer)

President Vladimir Putin will not run the gauntlet President Donald Trump has established around Cuba with the Russian Navy to escort Russian-flagged tankers delivering crude oil and petroleum products to Havana. When Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla sat down in the Kremlin on Thursday to ask for more “solidarity, firmly demonstrated by you, the Government of Russia, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in the face of the tightening blockade of Cuba and the recent energy siege,” Putin responded enough is enough. He meant that solidarity with Cuba is one thing, but not at the risk of military conflict with the Trump Administration and its naval forces in the Caribbean.


This is Mikhail Gorbachev talking, responded the Kremlin security analysis medium, Vzglyad, not Nikita Khrushchev. “Please convey my best wishes to the President of Cuba and Army General [Raul] Castro,” Putin told the foreign minister. “This year we will mark the centenary of Fidel Castro’s birth, and we will do so together.” It is not the first time Putin has said there is nothing but historical memory to share between Russia and Cuba; and that he would trade Russia’s military positions in Cuba for its interest in business with the US. In a meeting with President George W. Bush on October 21, 2001, Putin had said he would remove the Russian military intelligence base in Cuba. “I don’t want to horsetrade or nickel and dime this thing or argue about who gets what,” Putin said to Bush in a recently declassified record. In the outcome that is exactly what Putin did – and the trade failed because Bush did not reciprocate.

In his meeting with Rodriguez, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was clearer in public what the Russian line means. “We call on the United States to show common sense and take a responsible attitude,” he said – “refraining from implementing its plans for a naval blockade of the Island of Freedom. We categorically reject the far-fetched allegations regarding Russia and Cuba, and cooperation between them, which is presumably threatening the interests of the United States or any other countries. All disputes should be settled exclusively through dialogue based on mutual respect and a balance of interests. We know that our Cuban friends are always ready for honest negotiations… All issues should be resolved solely through a mutually respectful dialogue aimed at finding a balance of interests. We know that Cuban friends are always ready for such honest negotiations. In turn, we will consistently continue to support Cuba, the Cuban people in protecting the sovereignty and security of the country.”

“I would like to reiterate our complete solidarity with our Cuban friends. I fully share the views on our relations and strategic partnership, which you [Rodriguez] have stated. I would also like to reaffirm the complete unacceptability of actions by the United States, which, as you have reminded just now, has adopted an executive order designating Cuba as a threat to US national interests. At the same time, the document says that this alleged threat is exacerbated by Cuba’s cooperation with Russia, which has been described in the document as a ‘hostile’ and ‘malign’ actor. We are confident that all states should define their national interests in a way that will include recognition of and respect for the national interests of all other countries.”

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https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2025925319882870883?s=20 https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/2025615047423352928?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2025707794658160837?s=20

 


 

 

 

 

 

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Feb 182026
 
 February 18, 2026  Posted by at 10:26 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  29 Responses »


Jean-Michel Basquiat Warrior 1982


Anthropic–Pentagon Talks Stall Over AI Guardrails (ZH)
Behind the Burnout and High Turnover Rates in the AI Industry (ET)
Bill Clinton Just Got Brutally Dissed By His Own Party (Matt Margolis)
The Obama Admin’s Prostitution Scandal And The Ruemmler-Epstein Connection (ZH)
Aliens Are ‘Real’ – Obama (RT)
Zelensky Launches F-bomb Laden Rant In Munich (RT)
The War Party Takes Munich (Kosachev)
The US Wants a Deal. Russia Wants a System (Lukyanov)
The Middle East Is Splitting Into Rival Blocs (Sadygzade)
In Defence of Sir Jim Ratcliffe (Charles Johnson)
Trump DOJ Seeks To Dismiss Steve Bannon’s J6 Conviction and Indictment (JTN)
Trump’s Surpising Reaction to Jesse Jackson’s Death (Matt Margolis)
Race Hustler or Civil Rights Icon? Jesse Jackson Dead At 84 (Rick Moran)
Regarding the Rev (Christian Josi)
‘Mr. Wonderful Destroyed CNN’s Anti-SAVE Act Narrative in 30 Seconds (Margolis)

 


 

AI Dalio Ed Dowd Deindustrialization was DELIBERATE. https://twitter.com/PrometheanActn/status/2023501026712539320?s=20 China

 


 

 


 


Will AI command the military?

Anthropic–Pentagon Talks Stall Over AI Guardrails (ZH)

Contract renewal talks between Anthropic and the Pentagon have stalled over how its Claude system can be used. The AI firm is seeking stricter limits before extending its agreement, according to a person familiar with the private negotiations and Bloomberg. At the heart of the dispute is control. Anthropic wants firm guardrails to prevent Claude from being used for mass surveillance of Americans or to build weapons that operate without human oversight. The Defense Department’s position is broader: it wants flexibility to deploy the model so long as its use complies with the law. The tension reflects a larger debate over how far advanced AI should go in military settings.


Bloomberg writes that Anthropic has tried to distinguish itself as a safety-first AI developer. It created a specialized version, Claude Gov, tailored to U.S. national security work, designed to analyze classified information, interpret intelligence and process cybersecurity data. The company says it aims to serve government clients while staying within its own ethical red lines. “Anthropic is committed to using frontier AI in support of US national security,” a spokesperson said, describing ongoing discussions with the Defense Department as “productive conversations, in good faith.” The Pentagon, however, struck a firmer tone. “Our nation requires that our partners be willing to help our warfighters win in any fight,” spokesman Sean Parnell said, adding that the relationship is under review and emphasizing troop safety.

Some defense officials have grown wary, viewing reliance on Anthropic as a potential supply-chain vulnerability. The department could ask contractors to certify they are not using Anthropic’s models, according to a senior official—an indication that the disagreement could ripple beyond a single contract. Rival AI developers are watching closely. Tools from OpenAI, Google and xAI are also being discussed for Pentagon use, with companies working to ensure their systems can operate within legal boundaries. Anthropic secured a two-year Pentagon deal last year involving Claude Gov and enterprise products, and the outcome of its current negotiations could influence how future agreements with other AI providers are structured.

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“.. a median hourly wage of $15 and a median annual salary of $22,620.”

Behind the Burnout and High Turnover Rates in the AI Industry (ET)

Across the artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain, insiders describe a precarious, high-turnover workforce with limited support and stability. This “invisible” human labor that labels data, evaluates outputs, and filters harmful material has become a revolving door of talent that navigates high-pressure gigs and burnout. Moreover, workers and industry experts say this talent churn can degrade the very AI models that workers are paid to improve. Across the board, workers who are hired to support, evaluate, or operationalize AI systems face similar challenges: high-stress environments that often involve complex tasks, unrealistic timelines, job instability, and low wages.


It’s no secret that the tech industry has long suffered from high turnover rates. Numbers vary, but many studies put the average rate of talent churn in the tech sector at between 13 percent and 18 percent. This becomes clear when considering the cost of replacing tech talent, which can be up to 150 percent of a worker’s salary, including recruitment expenses, onboarding time, productivity losses, and effects on customer relationships.Some have said that the loss of institutional knowledge alone makes worker retention critical. “People love to talk about the ‘magic’ of AI, but the work culture behind it is a meat grinder. I’ve seen talent turnover in model evaluation hit record highs because the work is repetitive and psychologically draining,” Barry Kunst, vice president of marketing at Solix Technologies, told The Epoch Times.

“When you lose a lead researcher to churn, you don’t just lose a body; you lose the ‘why’ behind the model’s safety guardrails.” Kunst said this is why he’s adamant about AI workforce stability, which he said correlates directly with model reliability. “If you’re rotating contractors every six months to keep labor costs low, your data governance will fail, period,” he said.Sovic Chakrabarti, the director of digital marketing agency Icy Tales, told The Epoch Times: “Team turnover is more common than people expect. “In some groups, especially those tied to model training, evaluation, or data labeling pipelines, churn can happen every few months.

“Short contracts, project-based funding, and constant reorganization mean people cycle in and out quickly.” Chakrabarti said he has worked on the development and support side of AI systems long enough to see patterns that, as he put it, “rarely make it into public discussions.” “That [workforce] churn absolutely leads to lost knowledge,” he said. “Important context about why a dataset was filtered a certain way, why a safety rule exists, or why a model behaved oddly in testing often lives in someone’s head. ”When that person leaves, documentation rarely captures the full story, according to Chakrabarti. “New hires inherit systems without understanding the original tradeoffs, which can quietly introduce risks,” he said.

Burnout rates among information technology workers are high. LeadDev’s Engineering Leadership Report 2025 found that 22 percent of the 617 polled engineering leaders and developers felt critically burned out at work. An additional 24 percent of respondents reported feeling “moderately” burned out, while 33 percent reported low levels of burnout. Some of this is driven by job security fears after two years of layoffs at big tech companies, but the pay for many of the workers fueling the AI revolution is often low. The Alphabet Workers Union, Communications Workers of America, and TechEquity led a study on the working conditions of U.S.-based data workers and found conditions similar to those of tech contractors in developing countries.

In a survey of 160 U.S. data workers, 86 percent worried about being able to pay their bills, and 25 percent relied on public assistance to get by. The same group reported a median hourly wage of $15 and a median annual salary of $22,620. Eighty-five percent of the study group said they’re expected to be “on call” for work, but only 30 percent reported being paid for that time. More than a quarter of respondents reported spending more than eight hours per week on call. “If there’s anything I wanted the general public to know, it is that there are low paid people [in the United States] who are not even treated as humans—just little more than employee ID numbers—out there making the 1 billion dollar, trillion dollar AI systems that are supposed to lead our entire society and civilization into the future,” Kirn Gill II, a search quality rater working on Google products at Telus, told the Communications Workers of America.

Chakrabarti said the work culture behind AI fuels these challenges. “There is real pressure to keep labor costs low,” he said. “I have seen unrealistic timelines, understaffed teams, and expectations to ‘do more with less’ while the stakes keep rising. That tension creates stress, especially when the systems affect millions of users.”

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“.. the party is so embarrassed by Clinton’s Epstein connections that they’re willing to airbrush him out of history entirely.”

Bill Clinton Just Got Brutally Dissed By His Own Party (Matt Margolis)

The Democratic Party put together a Presidents’ Day tribute on social media that snubbed one of their most electorally successful presidents in modern history. Bill Clinton, the guy who won two terms and left office with a 66% approval rating, got left out of the party’s official image like the creepy uncle no one wants to sit next to at Thanksgiving dinner. The post from the Democrat Party’s official X account showed a “Happy Presidents’ Day” collage featuring JFK, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, FDR, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. Notice anyone missing? The only Democrat presidents they skipped were Clinton and Harry Truman. You could probably argue that to today’s Democrat Party, all old white men look alike, but Clinton is still quite active in the party, and probably should have been included.


Naturally, the RNC pounced, retweeting the Democrats’ post with a photo of Clinton sitting next to Hillary, both looking appropriately concerned. “Forget someone again??” the caption reads. It’s the kind of burn that lands because everyone knows something weird is happening here. Fox News Digital reached out to the DNC to ask whether leaving Clinton out was intentional, but they didn’t receive an answer. The Clinton Foundation didn’t respond either. That silence speaks volumes when your own party features Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden—two presidents who collectively gave America stagflation, hostage crises, the Afghanistan disaster, and 40-year-high inflation—yet can’t find room for the guy they used to credit with balancing the budget. However, that was technically Newt Gingrich who did that. So, why did Bill get dissed? Fox News Digital offers a theory.

“Clinton, one of the most popular presidents in recent history, was not without his share of scandal. The late Kenneth Starr investigated Clinton for connections to a controversial 1978 land deal in the Ozarks nicknamed “Whitewater” dating to Clinton’s time as Arkansas attorney general. While Clinton was never charged with wrongdoing, Arkansas business partners Jim and Susan McDougal were convicted in connection with the failed Whitewater deal. Hillary Clinton had previously worked for the law firm that represented Jim McDougal’s bank. Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, Clinton’s successor, was also convicted. But the Whitewater case led Starr to discover what became the Monica Lewinsky scandal — wherein Clinton allegedly had a sexual relationship with a White House intern. On January 26, 1998, Clinton famously maintained his innocence in the face of impeachment over Starr’s case, declaring at the end of a childcare policy press conference:”

Not buying that. If presidential scandals were enough to warrant exclusion from the image, Barack Obama would never have made it. Many on social media speculate it has something to do with the fact that Clinton’s name appears all over the Epstein files. He flew on Epstein’s private jet at least 16 times between 2001 and 2003. Recently released documents include photos of Clinton with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, including one showing a shirtless Clinton in a hot tub with someone identified by the DOJ as a victim of Epstein’s abuse.

Both Bill and Hillary Clinton recently agreed to testify before Congress about their relationship with Epstein after facing potential criminal contempt charges. Sure, they claim House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is employing dirty tricks. Still, when your party won’t even put your picture on a Presidents’ Day card, the only possible explanation is that the party is so embarrassed by Clinton’s Epstein connections that they’re willing to airbrush him out of history entirely.

Happy Presidents’ Day, Bill.

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“The procedure for checking in prostitutes is hardly rigorous.”

The Obama Admin’s Prostitution Scandal And The Ruemmler-Epstein Connection (ZH)

Remember Obama’s 2012 Colombian prostitution scandal? Turns out, Jeffrey Epstein was involved… Newly released Department of Justice documents from the Epstein files have exposed a previously unknown connection between a 2012 White House advance-team scandal in Cartagena, Colombia, and Kathryn Ruemmler – the former Obama White House counsel who later became Goldman Sachs’ top lawyer. Ruemmler resigned from Goldman late last week, after the latest Epstein document dump revealed her extensive, affectionate, and years-long correspondence with the convicted sex offender.


The emails show she called him “Uncle Jeffrey,” accepted expensive gifts, and turned to him for advice on sensitive legal and reputational matters – including how to respond to a 2014 Washington Post report that accused her of helping suppress evidence of prostitution involving a rich kid White House aide whose daddy was a huge Obama donor. The WaPo report, by all accounts, cost Ruemmler a job as Obama’s Attorney General.

The 2012 Cartagena Prostitution Scandal
In April 2012, ahead of President Obama’s trip to the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, at least 20 Secret Service agents, military personnel, and others were involved in hiring prostitutes. The scandal led to multiple firings and disciplinary actions. A lesser-known element involved Jonathan Dach, a 25-year-old Yale Law student and unpaid White House advance-team volunteer (son of prominent Democratic donor Leslie Dach). Hotel records obtained by investigators showed a prostitute was checked into Dach’s room at the Hilton Cartagena shortly after midnight on April 3, 2012.

Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan briefed White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler on the evidence. The White House conducted a review, interviewed advance-team members (including Dach), and publicly declared “no indication of any misconduct” by White House personnel. Dach was later cleared and went on to work at the State Department. More recently, Dach was found to have ‘chronically violated state rules’ in his role as former chief of staff to Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D) by using a state vehicle as his personal car for nearly two years “and driving at speeds constituting reckless driving under Connecticut law.”

The 2014 Washington Post Revival and Ruemmler’s Response
In October 2014, while Ruemmler was in private practice at Latham & Watkins and reportedly under consideration to replace Eric Holder as Attorney General – WaPo published new details. Reporters Carol D. Leonnig and David Nakamura revealed that the White House had received specific evidence (hotel records and witness accounts) implicating a White House advance-team member but had not fully investigated or disclosed it. On October 9, 2014, Epstein emailed Ruemmler: “Doing fine. Was talking to reporters until late in the morning last night. Trying to isolate/contain wapo.”mOn October 17, 2014, Ruemmler forwarded Epstein a draft of her response to the Post reporter and asked for his input. In the draft she downplayed the allegations, writing:

“The whole thing is ridiculous – they had to obtain the record ‘under the table’ because the last thing the Hilton wanted to do is to voluntarily give over info implicating the privacy of their guests. The procedure for checking in prostitutes is hardly rigorous.”

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“When asked what question he most wanted answered upon becoming president, Obama joked that it was: “where are the aliens?“

Aliens Are ‘Real’ – Obama (RT)

Former US President Barack Obama has said he believes that aliens are “real” but dismissed longstanding conspiracy theories that the US is concealing proof of extraterrestrial life at a secretive military facility called Area 51. Obama made the remarks on the No Lie podcast with Brian Tyler Cohen released on Saturday. Asked whether aliens “are real,” the ex-president replied in the affirmative, adding “I haven’t seen them, and they’re not being kept in Area 51.” “There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States,” he added.


When asked what question he most wanted answered upon becoming president, Obama joked that it was: “where are the aliens?” Area 51 is a highly classified US Air Force facility at Groom Lake in southern Nevada. The CIA officially acknowledged the site’s existence in 2013, when declassified documents revealed it had been used since 1955 to test the U-2 spy plane and other experimental aircraft. The facility’s secrecy sparked decades of speculation about extraterrestrial research, including theories that crashed alien spacecraft were stored there and that it was a venue for meetings with extraterrestrials. There have been a few UFO sightings in the area, but the CIA claimed they were test flights of the U-2 spy plane.

However, conspiracy theories have also been fueled by hundreds of alleged UFO sightings elsewhere. Pentagon officials told Congress in May 2022 that there were nearly 400 reports of unidentified aerial phenomena by military personnel, up from 144 tracked between 2004 and 2021. In 2024, the Pentagon stressed, however, that it had “no evidence to indicate extraterrestrial life has visited the planet.” Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was not a “believer” in extraterrestrial life, adding, though, that he had met with “serious people that say there’s some really strange things that they see flying around out there.”

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“..a $100 million kickback scheme in Ukraine’s struggling energy sector.”

Zelensky Launches F-bomb Laden Rant In Munich (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky delivered a profanity-laden tirade urging Western countries to expel Russian citizens, including students.Speaking to Politico Playbook on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference Saturday, Zelensky called on US President Donald Trump and European leaders to ramp up sanctions against Moscow.“Europeans still didn’t put sanctions on nuclear energy of Russians, on [the state-run energy company] Rosatom, on people, on their relatives, on their children which live in Europe, which live in the United States, which study in the universities of Europe, which have real estate in the United States,” Zelensky said. “So, they have a lot of real estate, they have children, relatives everywhere. F**k away to Russia. Go home,” he added.


Zelensky’s remarks come as the US, Russia, and Ukraine prepare for a third round of three-way talks in Geneva. Moscow has criticized measures targeting Russian nationals and cultural “cancellation” abroad as Russophobia. The trip also comes amid a conscription crisis and ongoing blackouts in Ukraine caused by Russian air strikes, which Russia says aim to weaken Ukraine’s defense production. Zelensky’s reputation has been tarnished by multiple corruption scandals involving his inner circle, prompting the resignation of two government ministers and his longtime chief of staff. On Monday, anti-corruption agencies charged former Energy Minister German Galushchenko with money laundering linked to a $100 million kickback scheme in Ukraine’s struggling energy sector.

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Very correct: “Zelensky received the expected applause from Munich’s hawkish audience and once again demanded security guarantees from Washington. In plain terms, he was asking the United States to commit itself to direct war with Russia.”

The War Party Takes Munich (Kosachev)

This year’s Munich Security Conference was not merely disappointing; it was pointless. It produced no new ideas and no added value. Instead, it resembled a rally of a self-styled “coalition of the willing” for war. That, unfortunately, is consistent with Germany’s long tradition of failing to draw the right lessons from history. Western European leaders spoke almost exclusively about rearmament and the creation of an independent military capability aimed, openly or implicitly, at confrontation with Russia. The tone was unmistakable: preparation for war, not peace. At the same time, participants repeated the familiar mantra that “more must be done” to ensure Ukraine’s victory. The contradiction went largely unnoticed. What emerged instead was a disturbing impression that Western Europe’s war party has overwhelmed everything else, including common sense and the instinct for self-preservation.


There was something unsettlingly familiar about the atmosphere. One could not help recalling Germany in the spring of 1945, when defeat was inevitable yet resistance continued with fanatical intensity, sustained by fantasies of miracle weapons. In Munich itself, Bavarian Gauleiter Paul Giesler crushed an attempted surrender on April 28, 1945 by executing Wehrmacht officers and civilians who wanted to hand the city over to the Americans without a fight. Hitler rewarded this “loyalty” by appointing Giesler interior minister the day before his own suicide. Within days, Giesler shot his wife and then himself. History rarely repeats itself neatly, but it often rhymes, and Munich echoed loudly this year.

On stage, European figures such as Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, alongside American voices like Senator Roger Wicker, openly called for supplying Ukraine with ever more advanced weapons, including Tomahawk missiles, described with an alarming casualness as if it were a modern “wunderwaffe.” The old refrain was repeated yet again: Ukraine can win, but Russia is also poised to attack NATO. This logical contradiction has become a permanent feature of Western discourse.

Washington, for its part, played along. But cautiously. This time, it sent the ‘good cop’: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in contrast to last year’s ‘bad cop’, J.D. Vance. Gone were the blunt warnings about Western Europe’s inevitable collapse if it stayed the course. Instead came soothing assurances of American support and solidarity. Yet the underlying message remained unchanged: without the United States, the EU cannot survive. The transatlantic alliance was not restored; it was merely cosmetically repaired. Zelensky received the expected applause from Munich’s hawkish audience and once again demanded security guarantees from Washington. In plain terms, he was asking the United States to commit itself to direct war with Russia.

Germany, meanwhile, declared its readiness to rearm and assume leadership of the Western slice of Europe in a new confrontation with Moscow. At the same time, Emmanuel Macron cautiously signalled that the bloc must eventually negotiate with Russia. Albeit, if only to avoid being excluded altogether while talks proceed in a Russia-Ukraine-US format. He even floated extending the French and British nuclear umbrella to other NATO members. In other words, “all quiet on the Western Front.” Once again, the conclusion is unavoidable: there is little to be gained from dialogue with this EU. And furthermore, one is reminded why it was precisely “civilized” and “enlightened” Europe that became the cradle of the two most devastating wars in human history.

Equally telling were the subjects that never surfaced. Talk of corruption in Ukraine, or of where Western funds are going, or when accountability will begin, was absent. So too was the fate of Venezuela’s leadership and the precedent set for international law. Iran was barely mentioned, despite last year’s US-Israeli military actions and the obvious risks of escalation. Even Greenland appeared only in whispered conversations offstage. Why complicate matters, when invoking the Russian threat remains the safest and most reliable option? That, in essence, is all one needs to know about this year’s Munich Conference. A forum with a promising youth and a respectable maturity, now drifting toward ideological exhaustion.

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“Territory has, inevitably, grown in importance over time. But the core issue has remained unchanged: the principles governing security on the continent.”

The US Wants a Deal. Russia Wants a System (Lukyanov)

After last August’s meeting between the Russian and American presidents in Alaska, a new phrase entered diplomatic circulation: the “spirit of Anchorage.” The substance of the talks was never officially disclosed and can only be reconstructed from selective leaks. The form, however, was striking: a personal greeting, an honor guard, a shared limousine. Symbolism mattered. It was meant to signal seriousness. Yet the question remains: what exactly was born in Anchorage? And does it belong in the lineage of earlier diplomatic “spirits” that once defined entire eras? The term itself is not new. Before Anchorage, there was the “spirit of Yalta,” the “spirit of Helsinki,” and, briefly, the “spirit of Malta.”


All three marked turning points in relations between the great powers during the second half of the twentieth century. Yalta in 1945 laid the foundations of the post-war world order, recognizing the USSR and the United States as its central pillars. Helsinki in 1975 codified that order, even as it quietly set the stage for its eventual erosion. Malta in 1989 symbolized the end of the Cold War and, with it, the division of Europe.These meetings differed in format and outcome. Yalta brought together three victorious powers dividing spheres of influence. Helsinki was the product of prolonged multilateral negotiations designed to stabilize a tense status quo. Malta was a bilateral encounter that effectively ratified the retreat of one side under the banner of a “new world order.” But they shared one defining feature: each sought to determine the parameters of the international system itself.

Does Anchorage belong in this tradition? Formally speaking, the Alaskan talks focused on Ukraine. That immediately raises a fundamental question. How realistic is it to reach a durable settlement without the direct participation of one of the warring parties? Such an approach is only viable if one of the interlocutors, in this case the United States, is both willing and able to compel Kiev to accept decisions taken without it. Events since August suggest that Washington lacks this capacity, despite its considerable leverage. A more convincing explanation, however, is that it lacks the motivation. Donald Trump has made resolving the Ukrainian conflict a matter of personal prestige. But prestige is not the same as strategic necessity. For Trump and the narrow circle around him, the precise configuration of a settlement matters less than the avoidance of an outright Russian victory. Beyond that, the exact line of demarcation, and the conditions under which it is maintained, are not critical.

The United States would only deploy the full weight of its political and economic power if it perceived these negotiations as shaping a new world order. That was the case at Yalta, Helsinki, and Malta. It is not the case today. Moscow, by contrast, has invested Anchorage with precisely this broader meaning. From the very beginning of the military operation, Russia has framed the conflict not primarily in territorial terms, but as a question of European security architecture. Territory has, inevitably, grown in importance over time. But the core issue has remained unchanged: the principles governing security on the continent.

Today, this is often described as the question of “security guarantees for Ukraine.” In reality, it concerns the broader system within which such guarantees would exist. This may ultimately prove the most serious obstacle to any agreement. Washington’s approach is different. The current American administration does not think in terms of comprehensive frameworks or shared rules. Its vision of world order is far more fragmented and instrumental. Control is exercised through economic pressure, military presence, and political leverage applied selectively to specific regions and problems. It is a model of targeted intervention rather than systemic design. A kind of forceful acupuncture.

In this context, agreements are not about principles, but about transactions. They are designed to deliver concrete, often mercantile, outcomes rather than to establish enduring rules of interaction. Ukraine, from this perspective, is one issue among many, not the axis around which a new order would be built. If the goal is merely a political settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, the Russian-American format is insufficient. Ukraine itself would have to be involved, as would Europe. While Europe’s strategic weight is limited, it retains a significant capacity to obstruct any settlement it finds unacceptable. Ignoring this reality would be a mistake.

For the “spirit of Anchorage” to stand alongside Yalta, Helsinki, and Malta, it would need to aim higher: at the construction of a new global political system to replace the one that emerged after the Second World War and has endured, in various forms, for nearly 80 years. Washington does not see Moscow as a central interlocutor in such a project. At most, this role is tentatively assigned to China. However, even that is far from settled. As a result, the “spirit of Anchorage” hovers uneasily between two incompatible interpretations of what the conversation is actually about.

From the Russian perspective, it is about redefining the foundations of European and global security. From the American side, it is about managing a specific conflict without altering the broader architecture of power. When the parties are not even discussing the same subject, the risk is obvious. In such circumstances, the “spirit” inevitably fades, becoming less a guiding force than a rhetorical shadow. A ghost of an agreement that never quite came into being. Could this change? Possibly, but only if events intervene that force both sides to move beyond regional calculations and confront the need for a more fundamental reordering. Until then, Anchorage remains suspended between ambition and reality, its promise unfulfilled.

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Complex.

The Middle East Is Splitting Into Rival Blocs (Sadygzade)

Across the globe, the post-Cold War settlement that once carried the promise of Western primacy is no longer taken as an unshakeable fact. Its vocabulary remains in circulation, yet real-time history continues to contest its authority. In the space left behind, many states are seeking a different idea of order, one that sounds less like instruction from a single center and more like negotiated balance among several centers. In such a moment, regions that were once treated as arenas begin to behave like authors. The Greater Middle East is one of the first places where this change is becoming visible as a messy strategic recomposition in which security is no longer outsourced and alliances are no longer assumed to be permanent.


For decades, a simple model dominated strategic thinking in the region. Washington would remain the ultimate guarantor, and regional states would calibrate their risks inside the umbrella of American deterrence. That model did not always prevent wars, but it provided a framework for expectation. Even when trust frayed, the underlying assumption was that the US could be induced to act, and that the cost of ignoring its interests would be prohibitive. In recent years, however, the region has experienced a succession of shocks that have made the old calculus feel less reliable.

One of the most dramatic was the Israeli strike in Doha in September 2025, an operation that pushed a long-simmering anxiety into the open by showing how quickly escalation could breach political red lines in the Gulf. If such an event could occur with only limited external restraint, then the notion of an automatic security backstop began to look like a story the region told itself rather than a guarantee the system could still deliver.

It was in this atmosphere that the Saudi-Pakistani Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement, signed in September 2025, drew intense attention. It suggested that major regional players were preparing for a future in which protection would be organized through layered partnerships rather than delegated to a single patron. Analysts noted that the pact followed a pattern of disappointment with external responses, including perceptions of American restraint or hesitation when regional allies felt exposed. Whether the agreement functions as a hard war guarantee or as a strategic warning, it belongs to a wider movement in which states are building options.

Two emerging security configurations are now becoming visible across the Greater Middle East, and it is important to name their participants clearly. On one side, a prospective bloc is coalescing around Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Türkiye, Egypt, and Oman, with this core increasingly presented as a sovereignty-driven framework meant to reduce reliance on external guarantees and to deter destabilizing escalation, while Qatar, Algeria, and several other states observe this alignment with growing interest as a possible partner network rather than as a formal membership.

On the other side, a countervailing alignment is taking shape around Israel and the United Arab Emirates, whose partnership is reinforced by defense industrial cooperation and advanced technology collaboration, and whose strategic reach is further strengthened by Azerbaijan, which acts less as a conventional member than as a pivotal partner connecting overlapping networks because it maintains close ties to Türkiye while simultaneously sustaining deep security and energy links with Israel and expanding cooperation with Abu Dhabi.

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” In the 2017/18 tax year Ratcliffe was the fifth highest taxpayer in the country, footing a bill of £110.5 million.”

In Defence of Sir Jim Ratcliffe (Charles Johnson)

Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s statement that Britain has been “colonised by immigrants” has sparked a fierce reaction. From Starmer to Bluesky, to the Athletic and all the football social media pundits in between, the co-owner of Manchester United has been bombarded with the same attack lines repeatedly. He has been called a tax dodging, racist immigrant hypocrite. Such an uproar has flared up in such a short space of time because Ratcliffe is radically different from those who have issued similar statements before. Ratcliffe is not a political figure: you do not see billionaires nor football club owners voicing discontent like this. The pushback has been fierce because Ratcliffe has no political incentive to say any of this. He isn’t running for office, seeking favour, or chasing votes — which makes his intervention harder to dismiss. Part of the backlash, too, reflects an unease that his diagnosis may be accurate.


The remarks came from an initial conversation regarding the economic challenges Britain faces in general, not solely on immigration. The snippet that has been so widely shared is merely part of a wider statement of the economic problems Britain faces; Ratcliffe refers to the issues of “immigration” and “nine million people” on benefits simultaneously. Colonised is a strong opening salvo for a figure such as Ratcliffe, who is not known for any previous anti-migration stance. This generated responses of tone policing from his critics – cries that his choice of words were “disgraceful and deeply divisive” and that “this language and leadership has no place in English football” from Kick It Out, a notable “Anti Racism” football pressure group. There was no attempt to argue or debate: this was no more than tone policing, of “mate mate mate, you can’t say that mate”. It did not engage with the substantive point. It was not an argument.

The Prime Minister has pushed for Ratcliffe to apologise. Less than a year ago, Starmer was referring to Britain as an ”Island of Strangers”; he has little argument here. Sir Ed Davey has stated that Ratcliffe is “totally wrong” and is “out of step with British Values”. Once again this is weak tone policing, not an argument. Regardless, which British values are being violated in particular? What are British values precisely meant to mean here? The fact is that Ratcliffe’s vocabulary choice is nowhere near as divisive as the impacts of mass migration in the last quarter century.

Mass migration is the most important issue in British political debate. It has bought sectarianism, Bengali and Palestinian politics swinging both local council and Parliamentary elections, a deepening of housing crisis, the rape and murder of British women from taxpayer funded hotels and programs which bloat the welfare state even further. It is undeniable mass migration has defined British politics of the 2010s onwards. It has been much more harmful and divisive than any comment made by Sir Jim Ratcliffe. His words are nothing compared to the actions of Deng Chol Majek, or Hedash Kebatu, to name a couple of examples.

Critics have also cried that Ratcliffe is “an immigrant himself, dodging tax in Monaco”. The difference between Ratcliffe and migration into Britain is so different they are almost incomparable. In the 2017/18 tax year Ratcliffe was the fifth highest taxpayer in the country, footing a bill of £110.5 million. With such an extraordinarily high bill, it is no wonder that he has since moved to Monaco. Meanwhile, the average salary of of a migrant entering Britain in 2023 (which has fallen by £10,000 since 2021) was £32,946, according to a report by the Centre for Migration Control. From this we can estimate a migrant would pay about £5,000 in income tax. That means it would take over 22,000 (statistically average) migrants to foot the tax bill that Ratcliffe paid in one year alone. Ratcliffe has been an exceptional cash cow to the British state. He has been taxed incredible amounts and contributed more to this country than almost anyone currently living; to call him hypocritical since he dared to criticise migration and its impact on the welfare state is simply not fair.

Census data from the ONS in 2021 shows that migrants from four nations – Somalia, Nigeria, Jamaica and Bangladesh – head over 104,000 social homes in London alone. With such incredible numbers of subsidised housing going to foreign born nationals, it is absolutely correct to state that mass migration is costing the British economy a fortune. The same census states that over 70% of Somali born households are in social housing in England and Wales, whilst also being of lowest contributors to income tax in the nation – paying well under the £5,000 stated per head previously. The increase and sheer scale of benefit reliance for many immigrants in Britain is not sustainable, and it is a problem that is right to be addressed.

Perhaps the most nonsensical argument presented by some is that as co-owner of Manchester United he employs a significant number of immigrant players. Bruno Fernandes is not living in social housing in Wythenshawe. Benjamin Sesko is not in a single bed council flat in Hulme. When he arrived in Manchester last year, the first thing Senne Lammens did was not register for Universal Credit. Not a single foreign player is a drain on the state. They are, as elite athletes in the most lucrative league in the world, very clearly exceptions to the norm of British migration. The difference between Bruno Fernandes, who earns a reported £300,000 a week, and the over 40% of Bangladeshi immigrants who are economically inactive should really not need spelling out. We are referring to just 17 foreign senior team players who all earn more in a week than the average migrant – or Brit – will earn in a year. It is ludicrous to even attempt to compare the two. Regardless, employing or working with immigrants does not mean you waive your right to criticise the state of affairs in Britain. As an Englishman, Sir Jim Ratcliffe has a given and inalienable right to comment on the affairs of his country.

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“The move by DOJ is extremely rare — but not unprecedented — considering Bannon was already convicted and served time in prison. ”

Trump DOJ Seeks To Dismiss Steve Bannon’s J6 Conviction and Indictment (JTN)

In a stunning reversal, the Trump Justice Department on Monday asked the Supreme Court and a federal judge to dismiss the criminal contempt indictment and conviction of Steve Bannon for refusing to testify in the January 6 investigation by Congress, declaring such a request is in the “interests of justice” after years of politically weaponized lawfare by Democrats. The move by DOJ is extremely rare — but not unprecedented — considering Bannon was already convicted and served time in prison. “The government has determined in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of this criminal case is in the interests of justice,” Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in a brief to the nine justices, who were reviewing an appeal from Bannon’s lawyers.


“The government has accordingly lodged a motion in the district court under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48(a) to vacate the judgment and dismiss the indictment with prejudice,” the motion also states The filing noted that the law “allows the government to seek dismissal even after a jury finds the defendant guilty and the district court enters judgment.” Separately, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Perro asked a federal judge in Washington D.C. to vacate Bannon‘s conviction and dismiss the indictment. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Just the News that the Democrat-led House January 6 Select Committee was part of a larger weaponization machine that abused the justice system.

“Today the Department of Justice told the Supreme Court that Steve Bannon’s conviction arising from the J6 ‘Unselect’ Committee’s improper subpoena should be vacated,” Blanche said. “Under the leadership of Attorney General Bondi, this Department will continue to undo the prior administration’s weaponization of the justice system.” The request to the two courts to abandon Bannon’s case is the latest twist in a five-year legal saga. The Democrat-led House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol issued a subpoena on Sept. 23, 2021, to Bannon demanding documents and testimony related to the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6 attack.

Bannon, a private citizen, had been a policy adviser to President Donald Trump for approximately seven months in 2017. He declined to produce any documents, and the House voted the next month to hold him in contempt of Congress. On Nov. 12, 2021, federal prosecutors in the Biden administration secured a grand jury indictment against Bannon on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress. He was convicted and served time in prison.

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“I provided office space for him and his Rainbow Coalition, for years, in the Trump Building at 40 Wall Street..”

“He had much to do with the Election, without acknowledgment or credit, of Barack Hussein Obama, a man who Jesse could not stand..”

Trump’s Surpising Reaction to Jesse Jackson’s Death (Matt Margolis)

Jesse Jackson, the polarizing civil rights figure and race hustler, died Tuesday morning at age 84. Though his cause of death was not immediately shared, he had been previously diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder called progressive supranuclear palsy, which is reportedly similar to Parkinson’s disease. While the media will inevitably lionize him as a civil rights icon, Jackson’s legacy is far more complicated—marked by allegations of extortion, self-promotion, the notorious exaggeration of his role in the events surrounding Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, and his blatant attempts to be seen as King’s successor in the civil rights movement. You can read more about that in my colleague Rick Moran’s piece here.



President Donald Trump, who knew Jackson for decades before their political paths diverged, has weighed in on the controversial figure’s death with a lengthy and personal statement on Truth Social, reflecting on their long relationship. And it’s not at all what I expected. Last year, Trump’s reaction to the death of Rob Reiner and his wife was rather — well, let’s just say I wasn’t a fan of it. Naturally, I was expecting something similar about Jackson, and I was surprised to see it wasn’t like that at all. “The Reverend Jesse Jackson is Dead at 84,” Trump wrote. “I knew him well, long before becoming President.” He described Jackson as “a good man, with lots of personality, grit, and ‘street smarts,’” adding, “He was very gregarious – Someone who truly loved people!”

Trump also took aim at Jackson’s critics, noting, “Despite the fact that I am falsely and consistently called a Racist by the Scoundrels and Lunatics on the Radical Left, Democrats ALL, it was always my pleasure to help Jesse along the way.” He detailed several ways he says he supported Jackson and causes important to him. “I provided office space for him and his Rainbow Coalition, for years, in the Trump Building at 40 Wall Street,” Trump said. He also pointed to his criminal justice reform efforts, writing that he “Responded to [Jackson’s] request for help in getting CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM passed and signed, when no other President would even try.”

Trump further cited his administration’s record on historically black colleges and universities. He said he “Single handedly pushed and passed long term funding for Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs), which Jesse loved, but also, which other Presidents would not do.” In addition, he noted that he “Responded to Jesse’s support for Opportunity Zones, the single most successful economic development package yet approved for Black business men/women, and much more.”

Calling Jackson “a force of nature like few others before him,” Trump also made a striking claim about Jackson’s political influence. “He had much to do with the Election, without acknowledgment or credit, of Barack Hussein Obama, a man who Jesse could not stand,” Trump wrote. Trump concluded by offering condolences to Jackson’s loved ones. “He loved his family greatly, and to them I send my deepest sympathies and condolences. Jesse will be missed!”

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“My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised.. ”

Race Hustler or Civil Rights Icon? Jesse Jackson Dead At 84 (Rick Moran)

He was a con artist and a “race pimp.” He was an opportunist, a race hustler, and a corporate shakedown expert who enriched himself by using funds earmarked for “the cause” for his own personal gain. He was an admirer of notorious racist and virulent antisemite Louis Farrakhan.Jesse Jackson, who died on Tuesday at the age of 84, was all of that. He was also one of the greatest orators of the 20th century, a groundbreaking political figure, one of the best political strategists in American history, and a towering figure in local Chicago Democratic politics. You can’t look at Jesse Jackson as a one-dimensional stick figure. Like all humans, especially those who have left their mark on history, he was a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. You can’t simplify his sins or his enormous contributions to American politics. He was a force whose impact will be felt for generations.


There is no doubting Jesse Jackson’s impact on American history. He was the first “serious” black candidate for president in that he energized the base of the Democratic Party in a multi-racial coalition that forced the party to swing hard left. His grassroots coalition, known as “Operation Push,” was the most dynamic organization in the U.S. until a scandal brought it down.He was given the opportunity to speak in prime time in the 1984 and 1988 conventions despite finishing far behind Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis in the nomination race. Both speeches are considered among the finest convention speeches in American history. “My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised,” Mr. Jackson said at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. “They are restless and seek relief.”

“His transcendent rhetoric was inseparable from an imperfect human being whose ego, instinct for self-promotion, and personal failings were a source of unending irritation to many friends and admirers and targets for derision by many critics,” writes the New York Times. Prominent black social critic Stanley Crouch once said that Jackson “will be forever doomed by his determination to mythologize his life. That mythologizing began in earnest within minutes of the assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis in 1968. While the rest of King’s inner circle was in shock, Jackson seized the moment, looking to wrest the mantle of “civil rights leader” from any of King’s close associates.

New York Times: “He was one of several aides who rushed toward Dr. King after he was shot. Later that night, Mr. Jackson hurried back to Chicago, parts of which were in flames in the unrest that followed the assassination. The next morning, he appeared on the “Today” show wearing the olive turtleneck sweater, blotted with blood, that he had worn the day before in Memphis. At a memorial convocation of the Chicago City Council that day, he declared, “I come here with a heavy heart because on my chest is the stain of blood from Dr. King’s head.” He added: “He went through, literally, a crucifixion. I was there. And I’ll be there for the resurrection.”

At least once publicly, he indicated that he was the last person to speak with Dr. King and that he had held his bloodied head as Dr. King lay dying. Others who were there said it never happened. Mr. Jackson’s account changed over time, from cradling Dr. King’s head to reaching toward it.If Mr. Jackson had been a figure of suspicion before, he became an object of outrage after Dr. King’s death. Some in Dr. King’s inner circle — including his eventual successor, Mr. Abernathy, and Hosea Williams, both of whom rushed to Dr. King when he was shot — questioned the accuracy of Mr. Jackson’s account and resented what they saw as his calculated grab to seize the spotlight as the First Mourner.

Over the decades, the story Jackson would tell about where he was and what he did during the assassination would go through several iterations. The storytelling revealed Jackson as a man desperate to be seen as King’s anointed successor. “If no one could replace Dr. King, Mr. Jackson was the one who spent most of his life trying,” writes the Times. It was never to be. Jackson couldn’t get out of the way of his own biases and racist dogmas. Where King reached out and begged for understanding, Jackson fueled the fires of racial division, while trying to claim he was a uniter, not a divider. His comments about New York City being “hymietown,” his friendship with Nation of Islam leader Farrakhan, and his insistence on being anywhere and everywhere a racial incident occurred in order to grab the spotlight and try to “racialize” the issue caused resentment and disgust among friend and foe alike. v

His “shakedowns” of corporate America, where he threatened companies with boycotts unless they adopted policies he prescribed (and donated cash to Operation PUSH), were outrageous and bordered on extortion. Jackson’s success as a political organizer was nothing short of astonishing. His 1988 presidential campaign was so successful that the Democrats were forced into trying to sideline him by putting up the white liberal governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis.

He tried again in 1988, and this time he began as a party heavyweight. In the Super Tuesday primary on March 8, he ran first or second in 16 of the 21 primaries and caucuses. Party leaders, fearing they could not win a general election with an assertively left-wing Black presidential candidate, desperately looked for an alternative. In the end, Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts won the nomination, even though Mr. Jackson had earned almost seven million primary votes — 29 percent of the total.

No radical left candidate would come close to matching that total until Bernie Sanders in 2016. There is little doubt that Jesse Jackson was one of the primary personalities responsible for dragging the Democratic Party to the far left. Through his rhetoric and consummate organizing skills, Jackson made a huge impact on the Democratic Party and thus, on American history.

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“Rest in peace, Reverend. America owes you a massive debt of gratitude. ”

Regarding the Rev (Christian Josi)

We lost an icon today. While it wasn’t entirely shocking considering his health condition, it certainly shocked me and, I imagine, many of us. He was an icon. Fought for others his entire life. Was at Dr. Martin Luther King’s side as he was assassinated. Did amazing work through Rainbow PUSH. My children watched him when he appeared on Sesame Street and thought he was cool. He was cool indeed. Imperfect? Yes, but aren’t we all… I met and befriended him later in his life. I’ll get to that.


But first, an old memory. It was 1984, and he was running for president. I was in college, living with my mother in Redlands, Calif. There is a place called the Redlands Bowl, which is sort of like a local Greek Theater… an outdoor venue. My mom’s house was a mile away. While at the time I was not a fan, I heard his speech from my bedroom. That powerful voice. And it impressed the young me. That strong, passionate voice… As for the meeting and befriending, I’ve been a longtime conservative (now libertarian) activist, but I have always sought out friends on the other side. My best friend from the other side is Dr. Julianne Malveaux, whom I used to watch on tv and get pissed off at.

When I moved to Washington years ago, a mutual friend put us together, and we became instant pals. Her work and history impressed me. Whilst rarely on the same page ideologically, our passions matched. Passion is power. No one had more passion or power than The Rev. Dr. Malveaux invited me two years ago to his annual MLK Day breakfast event. Before it began, she took me backstage. JD Pritzker was there, other important people, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to see him. In the flesh.

And what a nice visit it was. I introduced myself, and he said, “I know who you are, Josi”… as he looked me straight in the eye and shook my hand tight. It was a moment I will never forget. That’s when he won my loyalty. I saw his soul. The soul was a beautiful one.The look in his eye… the unexpected respect. We are a diverse nation. We can agree to disagree, but we cannot afford to be unkind to one another. Jesse liked everyone, as I saw firsthand. Maybe didn’t always agree, but there was respect. That’s the point. It’s not at all about partisanship; it’s about decency. Respect. Keeping Hope Alive is not a joke. It’s a fact. Now more than ever.

Rest in peace, Reverend. America owes you a massive debt of gratitude. And I owe you as well. Thank you for changing my view, for influencing me, and for your work to make our nation better.

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Too much conversation, not enough logic.

Mr. Wonderful Destroyed CNN’s Anti-SAVE Act Narrative in 30 Seconds (Margolis)

Entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary was on CNN’s NewsNight Monday, where he wiped the floor with the panel over the SAVE Act. This bill does two simple things: It requires proof of citizenship to register to vote and a photo ID to vote. But you know how this goes — the usual suspects on the panel called it “voter suppression.” O’Leary cut through the noise with clean, clear logic, essentially making the point that it is stupid the United States hasn’t already implemented this before. Leigh McGowan, a podcaster you’ve probably never heard of, sparked the debate by declaring, “I think the thing is that the SAVE Act is a voter suppression act wrapped up as a Voter Protection Act. That is not what we’re doing here. We are trying to make it incredibly difficult for certain people to vote.”


She went on about “nationalized elections” and the “federal government taking over what is a state’s job,” invoking “states’ rights,” and lamenting that bills like the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the For the People Act had failed (even though those were actual efforts to nationalize elections). “What we’re doing here is not that,” she said. “We’re talking about having ICE around voting places. We’re talking about taking people and making them afraid.” That has nothing to do with the SAVE Act, but I digress.

Eventually, Kevin O’Leary stepped in and did what leftists dread: He brought up facts. “This narrative has to be bipartisan by every metric,” he began. “Every 24 months, we go through this debate over and over again when every country — in the Nordic countries, in Europe, France, Switzerland, Canada, Australia — solved this problem decades ago.” He broke it down to the basics. “You’ve got to be a citizen to vote. You got to prove it. We all agree at the table on that one.”Then he landed the blow. “There’s such advancement in technology to make sure there’s no cheating. We should implement it here and get all this crapola over with. It’s getting almost boring. Every 24 months, ‘Oh, the election’s rigged!’ ‘Oh, this guy’s doing this, this guy’s doing that.’ No other country has this narrative.”

McGowan tried to defuse it with a half-joking concession. “Kevin, I agree with you. It is getting incredibly boring.” “It’s ridiculous,” O’Leary told her. McGowan, likely realizing the hole she’d dug, tried again: “We talk about this all the time. It’s incredibly boring. But it’s also not an actual problem. Like when you look at the statistics, voting — illegals voting — is not an actual problem in this country. You do need to show ID to be able to vote.”That’s not actually true. Only a handful of states actually require a photo ID to vote. Nevertheless, O’Leary replied, “But you agree, if you’re not a citizen, you can’t vote.” That forced McGowan into agreeing with the core principle of the SAVE Act. “I would agree with that,” she said, “but that’s not what the problem is.

The problem is that we have 0.001% of people that are illegally voting.” She rattled off statistics from the Heritage Foundation and the Brennan Center, trying to reduce the whole issue to a rounding error and claim that the SAVE Act is somehow unnecessary. Abby Phillip broke in again, perhaps realizing O’Leary had shifted the debate onto plain common sense. “It’s already illegal,” she reminded. McGowan echoed, “No one is doing that.”“So why don’t you just say if you cheat and steal and you’re illegal, you go to jail?” O’Leary asked. It’s a fair question. The left claims that fraudulent voting isn’t an actual problem, yet they fight like hell to ensure we don’t pass laws to enforce what they claim isn’t even happening. You can’t have it both ways.

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SKY https://twitter.com/forallcurious/status/2023522805179183424?s=20 https://twitter.com/ScottJenningsKY/status/2023498116046221337?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Jul 262025
 


Rembrandt van Rijn The Angel Appearing to the Shepherds 1634

 

Absolutely Not – Senators Want Special Counsel to Investigate Obamagate (CTH)
DNI Tulsi Gabbard Reacts to former DNI James Clapper Hiring Lawyers (CTH)
Barack Obama ‘Not Going to Be Indicted’ but There’s Good News (Margolis)
Actually, Obama Can Be Indicted. Here’s Why (Margolis)
Revenge or Justice? (Victor Davis Hanson)
“Baseless?” (James Howard Kunstler)
Zelensky’s Days are Numbered, He’ll Be the Ultimate Loser (Sp.)
Out of Grace: Zelensky Loses US Backing: Larry Johnson (Sp.)
Zelensky Broke The American Controls – and Now Faces The Consequences (RT)
Putin-Zelensky Summit Only Possible To Finalize Peace Deal – Kremlin (RT)
UK Could ‘Easily’ Stab US In The Back – Patrushev (RT)
Trump Makes Alina Habba Acting US Attorney In NJ (ET)
Israel Just Drew A New Map – Without Saying It Out Loud (Blade)

 

 

 

 

Nunes
https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/1948415920554324305
Tulsi

Rebate


hack
https://twitter.com/LarryOConnor/status/1947628066974359870

judge
https://twitter.com/RodDMartin/status/1948560536066511060

 

 

 

 

Sundance points out that a special counsel is counterproductive, because it won’t have the cross-agencies (silos) powers that Tulsi has. Guess the fact that Lindsey Graham is the one asking for a special counsel, should alert us.

Absolutely Not – Senators Want Special Counsel to Investigate Obamagate (CTH)

Senator Lindsey Graham (Judiciary Committee) and Senator John Cornyn (SSCI) are requesting Attorney General Pam Bondi to appoint a special counsel to look into the Obama administration’s weaponization of the U.S. Intelligence Community to target Donald Trump with fabricated smears and false evidence using a fraudulent Russia connection. This should be an immediate hard no for a few reasons. Number one, the special counsel process is where investigations go to die intentionally as a design of the legislative branch defense process. Second, the special counsel would not have cross-silo access to exfiltrate information unless it was accompanied by very specific Presidential authority. It just will not work. The intelligence community information that exposes the plot will be found in very distinct ‘silos’, essentially the intelligence agencies that house the information.

Additionally, inside each of the silos there is a formal and informal process to designate that information based on its internally defined national security value. An example of silo retention can be found in the issue of the FBI housing information in “prohibited access” files. These files are not even discoverable by most internal search efforts. Within the Sentinel system there are “Restricted Access” files that are used to control who can view the file information (sources and methods etc.). The FBI or investigative official (think authorized special counsel) can see the file but cannot access the information within it without a higher clearance level. In these files the Special Counsel can request access and then review. However, recently people discovered there are “Prohibited Access” files that makes the file invisible to both outside and inside searches or queries and are exclusively controlled by the FBI Director and FBI Deputy Director.

This is an example of a sub-silo (secret file keeping) within a distinct silo (FBI, Sentinel system). A special counsel would never discover the “prohibited” files, because there’s no way from outside the system to find it. It’s a little complicated but DNI Tulsi Gabbard has been finding, declassifying and releasing these ‘prohibited access’ types of information, because as Director of National Intelligence -her clearance and position- allow her to gain full administrative level access to the entire metadata of IC information. Tulsi can essentially log into all of the 18 intelligence agencies and review everything in the data storage system. A special counsel, regardless of authority, cannot do this. President Trump can demand full administrative access for himself and so can DNI Tulsi Gabbard. The rest of the silo administrators can only see the information inside their silo.

This limited access issue is how the intelligence agencies hide information. They rely on the inability of external reviewers to see the full scope and then cross reference to all other silos using the same terminology, data points and search sequences.

EXAMPLE – Making up an operational name like “Zero Footprint“, when DNI Tulsi Gabbard is looking at that operation, she can see the full scope of information related to Zero Footprint as the information goes from the White House (finding memo) to the CIA, to the State Dept, to the Pentagon, to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), possibly to the Joint Chiefs and then beyond to international partners (whole or part information shared). DNI Gabbard can see the entire continuum, cross reference each step in the process, see who handled the organization, communication, logistics, assignments and track each process, which enables her to map the inputs and outcomes along with the timeline. She can even see the briefings (or lack therein) to the Gang of Eight or PDB as they are recorded.

A special counsel has nowhere near this capacity. In the example above, the research required to find, extract, cross-reference, organize and then assemble the totality of all information related to such a large intelligence operation (fyi, Zero Footprint was real), takes a lot of time and effort. Tulsi Gabbard is able to designate very specific aides to assist in this process, but the demand on her time is extreme even with help. DNI Gabbard recently told Fox News (video below) she was/is using AI as a tool to do autonomous spider crawls through the various silos looking for information that pertained to specific points, phrases, times, dates and people within the 18-agency silo system. Hundreds of thousands of “return positive” files must then be sifted and reviewed for connection to the participants, and again timelines become the key.

This is a big shift in the use of AI data search engine capability within the national security information space; however, it is exactly what I have been talking about for the past several years as I traveled back and forth to DC. Now, keep in mind what I am describing above is “non-public” information. If you want to really understand the insanity of how the silos operate, you need to accept the same filing and hiding system exists even within public information. The congressional staff don’t even know what the other congressional staff are doing with information from within two different committees, like the Senate Judiciary Committee (FISC oversight) and the Senate Homeland Security Committee (DOJ-NSD), or Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (FBI – Cointel).

In essence, there is little to no information sharing within the silo process, even within the guys on the “same team,” and making matters worse sometimes a research team can gain information that is much more pertinent to the other guys looking at similar issues from within another silo. Discovering this is beyond frustrating; however, it does explain how independent researchers who share on open-source crowd sharing platforms can walk down a research trail much faster. Bottom line, a Special Counsel is an exercise in futility, unless that special counsel has the same review and extraction capability as President Trump and/or DNI Tulsi Gabbard. The best option is a team of investigators within Tulsi Gabbard’s office to continue the digging and connecting the information; then share the discoveries with DOJ officials. Previously, I said a small group within the National Security Council might also be able to deliver a similar outcome. Lastly, a tip-line allowing the private sector crowdsourcing to push puzzle pieces toward the research team might also be a big help.

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“Our representatives were never representing us. The true DC enemy is ‘We The People‘..”

DNI Tulsi Gabbard Reacts to former DNI James Clapper Hiring Lawyers (CTH)

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard appears with Greta Van Susteren to discuss the ongoing release of Intelligence Community documents showing how President Obama intelligence officials conspired to manufacture a false intelligence assessment, frame Donald Trump and begin the Trump-Russia narrative. At the end of this trail of manufactured evidence, we will inevitably end up at the Robert Mueller investigation. The continuum of the Trump-Russia narrative starts with Hillary Clinton (Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie), then transfers to the FBI (James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok); which includes the DOJ National Security Division (AG Lynch, DAG Yates, Mary McCord), then goes through the backdoor to Barack Obama (Susan Rice, Lisa Monaco) and the Legislative Branch (SSCI), and eventually elevates with DNI James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan manufacturing the 2017 intelligence product.

All of that collective effort, all of the former created inputs, eventually culminates into the Robert Mueller Special Counsel (Andrew Weissmann) and the Lawfare ideologues charged with upholding the manufactured premise. In my opinion, the greatest legal exposure is going to be with the Mueller team because that group intentionally and purposefully knew the information being received was fraudulent – yet they used it anyway. Keep in mind that John Durham laid the Mueller/Weissmann probe naked to their enemies. Unfortunately, Weissmann and Mueller do not have enemies in Washington DC, amid any party {. Our representatives were never representing us. The true DC enemy is ‘We The People‘ – and we choose to fight them. When Robert Mueller (silo 2) appeared before a congressional committee in June 2019 to answer questions about his Russia election interference report, he was asked about the origination of Trump-Russia.

Mueller’s jaw-dropping response was, “That was not in my purview.” Wait, how can your existence be predicated on investigating Trump-Russia, and yet the origin of Trump-Russia is not in your “purview”? See the problem?!

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The Supreme Court created a lot of leeway for what a president does in his official capacity. In what capacity did Obama sonspire against Trump?

Barack Obama ‘Not Going to Be Indicted’ but There’s Good News (Margolis)

Thanks to the evidence already released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, it’s now clear that Barack Obama engaged in corrupt efforts to sabotage President Trump. And we’re likely just scratching the surface. More damning revelations are almost certainly on the way. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean Obama will ever see the inside of a courtroom, let alone a jail cell, even if he deserves it. But don’t confuse a lack of prosecution with vindication. During a recent appearance on Real America’s Voice, investigative journalist John Solomon joined Steve Bannon to unpack the formation of a new Department of Justice Strike Force reportedly focused on unraveling the criminal conspiracy behind the Russia collusion hoax and the government’s weaponization against President Trump. And while Obama’s fingerprints are all over the operation, Solomon made it clear that a formal indictment is highly unlikely.

“What the team will do is they’ll bring in all the different skill sets,” Solomon explained. “I think the National Security Division will be brought in. Ironically, that’s the same division that pursued Donald Trump on the classified documents but took a dive on Joe Biden’s.” According to Solomon, this newly formed strike force is modeled after the methods used to break down organized crime families. The process will focus on collecting “overt acts of the conspiracy,” then analyzing the timeline to determine whether the statute of limitations applies or if charges can be brought due to long-hidden evidence. Grand juries, subpoenas, and strategic interviews are all expected. “There’ll be lots of work and then there’ll be grand jury subpoenas. There’ll be significant interviews going on,” Solomon said. “You’ll look for your cooperating witnesses.”

The goal? Reel in the smaller fish first. “One of the things that they do is they roll up people on the low end of the scale early, and then they try to get them to turn on their bosses and get us the truth,” he said. It’s the same strategy that brought down mob bosses and drug kingpins, and now it’s being turned inward, toward the deep state.Names like John Brennan and James Comey are among those believed to be in the DOJ’s crosshairs. But then came the elephant in the room: Barack Obama. “If the ultimate targets are someone like a John Brennan or … James Comey or Barack Obama — who, by the way, is not going to be indicted. Anyone who thinks Barack Obama’s going to be indicted: it’s not going to happen,” Solomon admitted.

That legal shield, ironically, may come courtesy of Donald Trump himself. “President Trump’s immunity victory last year in the Supreme Court’s gonna protect Barack Obama. Barack Obama should send a thank-you card to Donald Trump,” Solomon quipped. But while Obama may avoid prosecution, that doesn’t mean he’s off the hook entirely. “You could imagine a scenario where they lay out a conspiracy, and Barack Obama is named as an unindicted co-conspirator,” Solomon continued. “That would be one hell of a legacy for the 44th president.” Indeed, while Obama will almost certainly avoid legal consequences, the political and historical fallout could be devastating. If he’s officially named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to frame his successor, and the people who carried out that plot end up in prison, his legacy won’t just take a hit; it’ll be permanently disfigured. It’s hard to claim innocence when everyone who did your bidding goes down for the crime.

A scenario like that isn’t something CNN or MSNBC can memory-hole, no matter how hard they try. No, Barack Obama won’t be frog-marched out of his Martha’s Vineyard mansion. But if this investigation follows through, the myth of his “scandal-free” presidency could collapse under the weight of a conspiracy that once masqueraded as patriotism but now reeks of abuse, corruption, and cover-up. Obama may not go to jail, but history may render its own indictment.

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SCOTUS: “The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law.”

Actually, Obama Can Be Indicted. Here’s Why (Margolis)

This week, investigative journalist John Solomon told Steve Bannon that despite all the evidence that has been declassified linking Barack Obama to the Russiagate hoax, Obama won’t and can’t be indicted for his role in the Russian collusion hoax. “Anyone who thinks Barack Obama’s going to be indicted: It’s not going to happen,” Solomon admitted. “President Trump’s immunity victory last year in the Supreme Court’s gonna protect Barack Obama. Barack Obama should send a thank-you card to Donald Trump.” But is Solomon right? The case Solomon is referring to, Trump v. United States (2024), was, of course, extremely consequential, but also widely misunderstood. Democrats branded the ruling as the Supreme Court granting “blanket immunity” for presidents, but that’s not what it does at all.

While the Court recognized a degree of immunity for official acts of the presidency, it drew a sharp line between what a president does in his constitutional role and what he does as a private individual or political actor. From the ruling itself: “It is these enduring principles that guide our decision in this case. The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law.” With that in mind, the ruling does not give presidents the power to break the law with impunity. If a president lies to federal investigators, commits fraud, or abuses power outside the scope of his official duties, he can still face prosecution. The Court explicitly left the door open for criminal charges—even against sitting or former presidents—if the conduct in question was personal, political, or unrelated to the legitimate functions of the presidency.

And, let’s be honest: What Barack Obama did during the Russian collusion hoax wasn’t just political—it was a calculated abuse of power far outside the bounds of his official role. If a president lies to federal investigators, forges documents, or uses the office for personal or political revenge, those are not protected actions. He can be charged under the same criminal statutes as anyone else. For example, 18 U.S.C. § 1001 makes it a crime to lie to federal officials. Wire fraud, under 18 U.S.C. § 1343, covers schemes involving deceit through electronic communication. Other statutes—like aiding and abetting (18 U.S.C. § 2), being an accessory after the fact (18 U.S.C. § 3), or even seditious conspiracy (18 U.S.C.§ 2384)—can all apply if the president helps orchestrate or cover up unlawful acts.

That brings us to the documents released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, which suggest Barack Obama may have done exactly that. The material is nothing short of explosive. It confirms that Obama’s inner circle—including James Clapper and John Brennan, under Obama’s direction—engineered a political smear campaign disguised as an intelligence assessment. According to the files, a high-level meeting in December 2016, led by Obama’s top national security officials, launched the coordinated leaks to the media about so-called Russian election interference—even though pre-election intelligence assessments found no such evidence.

“The evidence that we have found and that we have released directly point to President Obama leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment,” Gabbard stated. So obviously, the evidence suggests Obama is not innocent. The only real question now is whether he’ll ever be held accountable—or if the system will once again protect one of its own. That’s an entirely different question.

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“Obama-era officials and Clinton-campaign activists destroyed President Trump’s own credibility to sustain a workable relationship with a nuclear Russia..”

Revenge or Justice? (Victor Davis Hanson)

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard just released a trove of apparently once-classified documents — with promises of much more to follow. The new material describes the role of the Obama administration’s intelligence and investigatory directors — purportedly along with former President Barack Obama himself — in undermining the 2016 Trump presidential campaign. In addition, their efforts extended to sabotaging the 2016-2017 presidential transition and, by extension, the first three years of the Trump presidency. The released documents add some new details to what over the last decade has become accepted knowledge. Congressional committees, special prosecutors, and the inspectors general had all previously issued reports that largely confirmed the general outlines of the skullduggery that began in 2015-16.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign, later aided by the top echelon of the FBI, CIA, and the Director of National Intelligence, sought — falsely — to seed a narrative that Trump had colluded directly with Russia to win unfairly the 2016 election. When that campaign gambit failed to alter the 2016 results, the Obama administration doubled down during the transition to undermine the incoming Trump presidency. Next, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s “all-star” legal team found no evidence of direct Trump-Putin collusion to hijack the election. But his investigation did sabotage 22 months of Trump’s first term, marked by constant leaks and hysterical rumors that Trump was soon to be convicted and jailed as a “Russian asset.” By 2020, the frustrated intelligence agencies and former “authorities” now absurdly further lied that Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop had “all the earmarks” — once again — of Russian interference.

So, what could be new about Gabbard’s latest release? One, after the 2016 election of Donald Trump but before his inauguration, Obama convened a strange meeting with his outgoing intelligence and investigatory heads — CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and a few others. Contrary to a four-year Democratic Party narrative that “18 intelligence agencies” had long claimed Russian collusion, the top directors apprised Obama that their expert colleagues had found no such evidence of Trump-Putin collusion. Yet outgoing President Obama allegedly directed them to ignore such an assessment. Instead, they began spreading narratives that President-elect Trump had been colluding with the Russians. Leaks followed. Media hysteria crested. And soon Mueller and his left-wing “dream team” of lawyers targeted President Trump.

Further new information may confirm that Brennan’s CIA — and those he briefed in the Oval Office — had known for some time that the Russians themselves were confused about why they were falsely being accused of colluding with Trump to rig the election. Of course, Russian operatives, like their Chinese counterparts, often seek to cause havoc in American institutions, such as hacking emails or spreading online disinformation. But they may have been nevertheless curious why Hillary Clinton was making such false accusations that they were working directly with Trump, and why the Obama administration was acting upon them. Obama has now claimed these new charges are outrageous and beneath the dignity of the presidency. He did not, however, flatly contradict the new information. He should have issued an unambiguous denial that he had never ordered his intelligence chiefs in December 2016 to ignore their associates’ assessments and instead to assume Trump’s collusion with Putin.

These sustained efforts of the Clinton campaign, Obama appointees, and ex-intelligence chiefs and their media counterparts between 2015 and 2020 severely undermined the 2016 Trump campaign. They bushwhacked the 2017 presidential transition. They hamstrung the Trump presidency. And they may well have hurt Trump’s 2020 election bid. Summed up, here is the damage caused by the Trump-Putin collusion lies: 1. They emboldened “experts” in 2020 to again lie blatantly and shamelessly to the American people that the incriminating Hunter Biden laptop was yet another fake product of Russian interference to help reelect Trump. 2. The media were equally guilty. Journalists partnered with current and ex-Obama appointees by disseminating fake documents like the Steele dossier and working with giants like Twitter and Facebook. During the 2020 campaign, the FBI and social media sought to censor accurate news stories that the laptop was indeed authentic and already verified as such by the FBI.

3. These operations may have had serious consequences for U.S. foreign policy. Dictatorial Russia is an adversary of the U.S. But by needlessly and falsely claiming that Russia had intervened in two elections directly to partner with Trump, Obama-era officials and Clinton-campaign activists destroyed President Trump’s own credibility to sustain a workable relationship with a nuclear Russia. In addition, the lying and extra-legal operations of the FBI and CIA only further convinced the paranoid Russians that they could not trust the U.S. government — given it had been engaging in the very conspiracy lies that were more akin to its own than America’s. Obama, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and others will likely never face legal consequences for the damage they’ve done to our institutions and foreign policy. But that does not mean they should be exempt from an ongoing and disinterested effort to find and finally expose the whole truth.

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“If you can arrest a former president named Donald Trump, you can arrest a former president named Barack Obama.” — Peachy Keenan on “X”

“Baseless?” (James Howard Kunstler)

Don’t you think it’s time for The New York Times to stop using the cliché “baseless” when referring to allegations — now, actually, official accusations— of the seditious conspiracy to run President Trump out of office after the 2016 election? Of all the fake “journalistic” blurts emanating from this bastion of degenerate sell-outs, “baseless” is the fakest, as if the word printed in a headline were so magically potent, the sheer assertion of it can make all your problems just — poof! — go away. It’s the thought process of wicked children who fail to develop a sense of true or false, right or wrong, who grow into adults specially licensed, by some new perversion of the social contract, to get away with anything. And those wicked children have become America’s managerial class, the elite who are supposed to do your thinking for you op-ed style, the credentialed experts, such as Tony Fauci, “economist” Paul Krugman, DEI avatar and NPR honcho Katherine Maher, Harvard law prof Lawrence Tribe. . . the list is interminable, but you get the picture.

This class is also the owner / operator of America’s political Deep State, which by 2016 had grown into a colossal racketeering operation, money-laundering gazillions of taxpayer dollars into NGOs dedicated to the country’s cultural and political destruction while it processed campaign donations into fantastic fortunes for people officially earning less than $200-K a year. The racket also managed to pay for the support of multitudes allergic to working for living, as long as they were available for riots and ballot-harvesting drives. It was working at such a high pitch by the end of Barack Obama’s two terms, with the most stupendously privileged creature in the Boomer bestiary ready to take her “turn” in the Oval Office — after amassing a $300-million-plus fortune serving as US senator (salary, $174-K / year) and Secretary of State (salary $199,700 / year, then) — that you must imagine the mighty freak-out at the prospect of one Donald John Trump, outsider vulgarian extraordinaire, promising to step in and drain the whole massive, putrid, necrotic, parasitical nepo-infested quagmire of predatory grifters, leaving them gasping for their lives on the stinking Potomac mudbanks like so many grunions dying on the beach at Redondo.

Barack Obama, apparently, Darth Vadar-ized himself and was handed a light-saber (Hillary’s Steele dossier) by John Brennan, Grand Duke of Planet Intel. . . and the rest should have been history — but instead festered in the US body politic for more than ten years like an inflamed tuberculoma and is now bursting out of the Beltway’s peritoneal cavity in a spectacular spray of ordure, sticking to everyone and everything like a thousand tails pinned on the everlasting Democratic donkey. Alas, Babylon-on-the-Potomac. . . . Also: “baseless,” my ass. . . . The basis for all this mischief is in the process of having proof supplied by the one figure, DNI Gabbard, in a position to retrieve the evidence, in writing, from the various heavily ring-fenced agencies over which she is the ultimate overseer, which has not been done before, especially back in the crucial weeks of late 2020 when John Ratcliffe was in that position. The reason Tulsi succeeded this time where Ratcliffe did not is probably due to newly available A-I systems which make collation of cross-searches much easier through the countless servers of the many intel agencies. And so, now it pours forth day by day.

That’s where things stand and the dust has not even begun to settle, with former President Obama seemingly hoisted on the petard of his own making back in December of 2016. Whether or not all the declassified info can be crafted into prosecutable cases is not yet determined, but you might imagine it will come together soon enough, if at all possible. It may not add up to treason per se, but there are plenty of other serious charges generally proceeding from deprivation of rights under color of law (18 U.S.C. § 242), to seditious conspiracy, i.e., overthrow of the president (18 U.S.C. § 2384) to stuff a number of former officials into orange jumpsuits behind bars.

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“The longer that Zelensky holds on and continues the fight with the encouragement of the West, he’s going to lose more and more..”

Zelensky’s Days are Numbered, He’ll Be the Ultimate Loser (Sp.)

“Russians hold all the cards. Zelensky has no cards. All he can do is play games and placate Trump,” says Michael Maloof, former senior security policy analyst in the US Office of the Secretary of Defense, in an interview with Sputnik. According to Maloof, Zelensky is stalling for time, hoping to paint Russia as an unreliable negotiator and gain favor with Trump. The Kremlin, however, has stated that any Putin-Zelensky talks are premature, as no common ground exists yet. “The longer that Zelensky holds on and continues the fight with the encouragement of the West, he’s going to lose more and more,” Maloof warns.

Zelensky is also facing unrest at home. On July 22, Ukrainians protested his attempt to take control of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO). “I think the internal strife is going to have to be accelerated to the point where [Zelensky] is going to have to focus all of his attention on that if he intends to survive politically. But I think his days are numbered,” says Maloof. He suggests that Ukrainians may soon act to “get what’s left of Ukraine back on a stable footing with proper governance and representation.”

“Right now, the Russian perspective is that Zelensky is not a valid leader because his term had expired as president and he’s operating under martial law,” the analyst points out. Western support is also faltering, particularly after Zelensky’s controversial NABU/SAPO law, which contradicts the 2015 Ukraine–US–EU agreement on governance and foreign oversight. The West still holds financial leverage over Ukraine, while “the ultimate loser in the end will be Zelensky,” Maloof concludes.

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“There is nothing that Zelensky can point to where he can say, hey, I’ve got great support here, and I’m in good favor with Washington..”

Out of Grace: Zelensky Loses US Backing: Larry Johnson (Sp.)

Volodymyr Zelensky is facing his first wave of mass protests since 2022 — and it’s a bad omen for him, veteran ex-CIA and State Department official Larry Johnson tells Sputnik. The trouble has brewed for the past month, according to the pundit. “We had a news article by Seymour Hersh… that indicated that his sources from the CIA and Department of Defense were telling him that Zelensky was on his way out, that they’re going to get rid of him,” Johnson says. Johnson says the first impression is the protests looked staged: Pre-printed signs, some oddly in English, while Ukrainians mostly speak either Ukrainian or Russian.

Protested Zelensky’s power grab over the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), but not forced conscription, or the failure to return bodies and pay families who have lost loved ones in the war. “The fact that there are rumors circulating that Washington wants to get rid of Zelensky is a sign that the relationship is not what it was two years ago under Biden,” the CIA veteran says. Zelensky tried to appoint his ex-Defense Minister Rustem Umerov as ambassador to the US, but Washington rejected it. Despite promises, Trump has no weapons to send — just deals to sell arms to Europe to pass to Ukraine. Signs show the US has grown tired of Zelensky. “There is nothing that Zelensky can point to where he can say, hey, I’ve got great support here, and I’m in good favor with Washington,” Johnson concludes.

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If anyone wants to get rid of anyone else in Kiev, they just accuse them of corruption and embezzlement. Can’t miss.

Zelensky Broke The American Controls – and Now Faces The Consequences (RT)

On July 22, large-scale demonstrations broke out in major Ukrainian cities – Kiev, Lviv, Kharkov, and Odessa – and continue to this day. The protests erupted after the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament) approved a law limiting the authority of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), effectively placing them under the control of the Office of the Attorney General. This legislation came shortly after NABU and SAPO launched an investigation into former Deputy Prime Minister Aleksey Chernyshov, one of Zelensky’s closest allies. Officials in Zelensky’s Office claimed that the reform was necessary to improve coordination among government bodies amid ongoing military operations and to combat Russian influence over anti-corruption institutions.

However, public outrage stemmed not only from the law itself but also from the rapid centralization of power in Ukraine. Protests persisted even after Zelensky restored the independent functioning of NABU and SAPO. Below, RT explores the motives behind the dismantling of these anti-corruption agencies and why the protests pose a threat to Zelensky’s administration. When Vladimir Zelensky took office in 2019, he vowed to support anti-corruption efforts, urging anti-corruption agencies to investigate all cases and hold even high-ranking officials accountable. However, those promises were never fulfilled. On July 22, the Rada passed Bill No. 12414, originally addressing amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code related to disappearances of people during wartime.

However, MPs from Zelensky’s Servant of the People party added amendments that effectively restructured NABU and SAPO, placing them under the control of the Attorney General, who is appointed by the president. Notably, many MPs who voted in favor of the bill and received it with applause are themselves under investigation by these anti-corruption bodies. The official justification for targeting NABU and SAPO was the investigation into Chernyshov, a presidential ally considered a candidate for prime minister, who faced allegations of abuse of power and illicit enrichment. A major corruption scandal in the construction sector emerged, making Chernyshov the highest-ranking official within the president’s team to be embroiled in such an inquiry.

According to the publication Ukrainskaya Pravda, Zelensky ordered the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to protect Chernyshov from arrest. Despite the allegations, the court did not suspend him from his post; however, he was eventually dismissed, and the ministry disbanded. Another notable case involves NABU’s investigation into Rostislav Shurma, the former deputy head of the President’s Office. After the case was initiated, he fled to Germany. In July, German authorities, in collaboration with NABU, conducted a search of his residence in the suburbs of Munich. NABU was preparing charges against Timur Mindich, a long-time friend of Zelensky and co-owner of Studio Kvartal-95, Ukrainskaya Pravda reported. He is suspected of embezzlement in the energy sector and drone production.

Sources indicate detectives may possess recorded conversations involving Mindich in which Zelensky is mentioned. These cases involving the Ukrainian leader’s close associates triggered the crackdown on the anti-corruption agencies. This narrative has been confirmed by The Times and The Economist. On July 21, the SBU and prosecutors conducted extensive searches related to NABU employees, targeting over 80 locations nationwide. Law enforcement acted aggressively, using armed groups to force people to the ground without presenting search warrants. Later, the agency reported the detention of Ruslan Magomedrasulov, the head of NABU’s regional office. Investigators claim his father is a Russian citizen, and he failed to disclose this before obtaining access to state secrets. Allegedly, he assisted his father in conducting business in Russia, and his mother reportedly receives a pension from the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and “makes pro-Russian comments” online. He is expected to face charges for “aiding Russia.”

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Putin already has a job. He can’t go sit at a table for endless negotiations.

Putin-Zelensky Summit Only Possible To Finalize Peace Deal – Kremlin (RT)

A summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky should only take place to finalize a peace settlement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. Zelensky has repeatedly called for a face-to-face meeting with Putin in the past several months. The Ukrainian delegation has also proposed the idea during rounds of bilateral talks in Istanbul, framing such a summit as essential to ending the conflict. While the Kremlin has not ruled out a possible Putin-Zelensky meeting, Russian officials have consistently emphasized that the groundwork must be laid first.

“A summit meeting can and should put a final point in the settlement and record the modalities and agreements that are to be developed in the course of expert work. It is impossible to do the opposite,” Peskov told reporters on Friday. Following the third round of Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul this week, the Kremlin spokesman accused Kiev of prematurely pushing for a summit. “They are trying to put the cart before the horse,” Peskov said, stressing that “work needs to be done, and only then can the heads of state be given the opportunity to record the achievements that have been made.” Moscow has consistently pointed to concerns about Zelensky’s legal authority.

While Russia has stated it is open to negotiations with him, officials have warned that any documents signed under Zelensky’s name could face legal challenges in the future. Zelensky’s presidential term expired in May 2024. He has refused to hold new elections, citing the ongoing state of martial law in Ukraine. Russia has argued that his status as head of state is no longer valid and that legal authority in Ukraine now lies with its parliament. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has suggested that Zelensky’s insistence on meeting both Putin and US President Donald Trump may be aimed at getting “a massive legitimacy boost” and using the meetings as a pretext to further delay elections.

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“The United Kingdom would not hesitate to sabotage a potential thaw in US-Russia relations..”

UK Could ‘Easily’ Stab US In The Back – Patrushev (RT)

The United Kingdom would not hesitate to sabotage a potential thaw in US-Russia relations, a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed on Friday. Nikolay Patrushev, a longtime national security official and senior Kremlin adviser, accused London of being prepared to carry out a false flag in order to derail efforts by US President Donald Trump to resolve the conflict in Ukraine and normalize ties with Moscow. “If necessary, London would easily stab Washington in the back. I believe officials in the White House realize what kind of ‘ally’ they are dealing with,” Patrushev told RIA Novosti.

His comments followed a statement last month by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), which alleged that British intelligence was directly involved in orchestrating covert Ukrainian operations. The SVR claimed the UK had acquired torpedoes of Soviet and Russian design for potential use in a false flag incident – specifically, a staged attack on an American naval vessel in the Baltic Sea. Since Trump’s return to office in January and the departure of Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, Russian officials have frequently pointed to London as the primary force behind the continued conflict in Ukraine. They argue that the British government’s firm support is an obstacle to peace and a strategic effort to block reconciliation between Washington and Moscow.

Moscow has portrayed the Ukraine conflict as a NATO-driven proxy war meant to weaken Russia at the expense of Ukrainian lives. Past reporting by The New York Times and The Times of London has confirmed that both US and British officials have played more active roles in directing Ukrainian military strategy than publicly acknowledged by their governments.

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Why did the U.S. district court judges of New Jersey refuse Habba and pick her assistant? i haven’t seen a single reason. Just because they could?

Trump Makes Alina Habba Acting US Attorney In NJ (ET)

President Donald Trump withdrew his nomination of Alina Habba to serve as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor, a Justice Department official confirmed on Thursday. The development comes after a federal court declined to retain Habba in the role of U.S. attorney for New Jersey and opted to install Desiree Leigh Grace. On Tuesday, U.S. district court judges of New Jersey selected Grace, who was Habba’s first assistant, to serve as U.S. attorney as Habba’s 120-day term in the office was reaching its end. Attorney General Pam Bondi then fired Grace in response to the judges’ decision. “[Habba] has been doing a great job in making NJ safe again. Nonetheless, politically minded judges refused to allow her to continue in her position, replacing Alina with the First Assistant,” Bondi wrote on X after the decision.

“Accordingly, the First Assistant United States Attorney in New Jersey has just been removed,” she said. “This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges — especially when they threaten the President’s core Article II powers.” A Justice Department official told The Epoch Times that Trump withdrew Habba’s nomination to be New Jersey’s U.S. attorney, and she was appointed first assistant U.S. attorney. This means Habba becomes the acting U.S. attorney, as the position is now vacant after Grace’s firing. “Donald J. Trump is the 47th President. Pam Bondi is the Attorney General. And I am now the Acting United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey,” Habba wrote in a statement posted to X. “I don’t cower to pressure. I don’t answer to politics. This is a fight for justice. And I’m all in.”

Earlier on Thursday, Grace wrote on LinkedIn that she’s honored the judges selected her “on merit” and that she is prepared to follow that order and “begin to serve in accordance with the law.” “I’ve served under both Republican and Democratic administrations. I’ve been promoted four times in the last five years by both—including four months ago by this administration. Politics never impacted my work at the Department. Priorities change, of course, and resources are shifted, but the work and the mission were steady,” Grace said.

However, due to Habba now serving as acting U.S. attorney, Grace likely can no longer assume that office. Habba previously served as Trump’s defense attorney in multiple court cases. Last week, Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney of the Northern District of New York, John Sarcone III, was rejected by judges on that district court. Bondi then appointed Sarcone as a “special attorney” to her, granting him the powers of a U.S. attorney indefinitely.

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“By offering the far right a symbolic prize on annexation, Netanyahu appears to be stalling a government collapse..”

Israel Just Drew A New Map – Without Saying It Out Loud (Blade)

In a significant yet non-binding move, the Israeli legislature has overwhelmingly approved a declaration urging the immediate extension of Israeli sovereignty over Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley. The motion, which passed by a vote of 71 to 13, was backed by right-wing and center-right factions including Likud, Shas, Religious Zionism, Otzma Yehudit, and Yisrael Beiteinu. The text declares that the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas — referred to in Israeli political discourse as the “Simchat Torah Massacre” — proves that the creation of a Palestinian state poses a mortal danger to Israel’s existence. “The Knesset declares that the State of Israel has the natural, historical, and legal right to all parts of the Land of Israel,” the resolution reads.

“The Knesset calls on the Government of Israel to act without delay to apply sovereignty… over all areas of Jewish settlement in Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley.” Though labeled symbolic, Palestinian experts view the vote as laying the bureaucratic foundation for a permanent Israeli presence and governance in the West Bank, the heartland of a future Palestinian state as envisioned by international consensus. Saad Nimr, professor of political science at Birzeit University in the West Bank, told RT the implications of the Knesset’s move are far-reaching. “This is not symbolic at all,” Nimr said. “It means these settlements are now treated as Israeli cities. They’re no longer ‘occupied’ under military law. This is the legal and bureaucratic infrastructure of annexation.”

He continued: “The Israeli ministries — not the military — will now oversee health, welfare, planning, and infrastructure in these areas. It’s not about theory. It’s about bulldozers, budgets, and expansion.” Dimitri Diliani, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, echoed that sentiment. “To describe the vote as symbolic is dangerously naive,” Diliani warned. “In Israeli politics, symbolism is often a precursor to de facto annexation. While the Knesset motion lacks binding legislative authority, it institutionalizes consensus in both government and opposition to expand the State of Israel’s settler-colonial project with new domestic political legitimacy.” Diliani added that members of the Knesset are already pushing legislation to replace the internationally recognized term “West Bank” with the biblical “Judea and Samaria” — further entrenching a nationalist narrative in Israeli law.

Many analysts see the vote not only as ideological, but also as a tactical political maneuver to preserve Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fragile governing coalition. “It’s quite clear this was a political exchange,” said Nimr. “[The leader of the National Religious Party–Religious Zionism Bezalel] Smotrich and [the leader of the Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power”) party] Ben Gvir threatened to leave the government if negotiations in Doha led to a Gaza ceasefire. This vote is Netanyahu’s way of keeping them on board.” By offering the far right a symbolic prize on annexation, Netanyahu appears to be stalling a government collapse – even as truce talks with Hamas continue under Qatari mediation. Diliani described the move as “opportunistic,” adding: “It’s designed to pre-empt mounting international legal scrutiny, particularly after the International Court of Justice advisory opinion in July 2023, which declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal.”

The reaction from the international community was swift but toothless. Jordan condemned the vote as “a blatant violation of international law.” The European Union and the Arab League issued similarly worded rebukes, reaffirming their commitment to a two-state solution. But both Palestinian analysts were unshaken by the lack of meaningful repercussions. “The historical record teaches us that international consensus does not always translate into action,” said Diliani. “Israel’s alignment with key Western powers, particularly the United States, has only grown stronger – even amid documented live-streamed Israeli genocide in Gaza and tremendous war crimes in Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank.” He cited continued US military support, which amounts to $3.8 billion annually in aid and has reached nearly $20 billion in additional military assistance since the war on Gaza began in October 2023.

“Israel continues to enjoy extensive trade privileges with the EU,” Diliani added. “Over three-quarters of a million illegal colonial Israeli settlers reside in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Yet the response from the international community remains negligible. Absent deterrent sanctions or accountability mechanisms, Israel interprets this as tacit permission to proceed.” Nimr was equally scathing. “Israel went into this decision with an overwhelming majority in the Knesset. That means they don’t care about the international community’s opinion. The EU witnessed with their own eyes the genocide in Gaza, the use of hunger as a weapon, and still didn’t take any real action.” “If there is no punishment,” Nimr said, “it’s interpreted as agreement. So now, they feel they have a green light.”

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