reactor Archives - The Automatic Earth

The war isn't spiraling — it's ending on Trump's schedule.@BarbaraMBoyd breaks down what the media won't tell you: Iran's financial system was broken months before the first bomb fell. The energy independence was built in advance. And the states that refused to drill? pic.twitter.com/S6IxYiFsBT
— Promethean Action (@PrometheanActn) April 1, 2026

T. Casey Fleming told me the world is heading toward a point where it will either be all free like the United States or become entirely communist within the next decade.

“This is the final war.”

“The world will be won or lost within the next 10 years or less.”

“It will either… pic.twitter.com/a11qG7fpJI
— Jan Jekielek (@JanJekielek) April 1, 2026

Civilised people… https://t.co/YqyVsmSyeH
— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) April 1, 2026

https://twitter.com/PecanC8/status/2039361697069072753?s=20

Let’s open with the first trillionaire.

“Musk’s own holding in SpaceX would put the billionaire on track to become the world’s first trillionaire. ”

Well, he’s not yet. Maybe that’s a comfort to some..

The smartest man is also rhe richest?

Did you knowL there are only 20 or so countries in the world with a GDP over $1 trillion.

• Elon Musk’s SpaceX Set To Go Public in $1 Trillion Share Listing (BBC)

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is poised to become one of the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world. The company, which manufactures rockets, space exploration technology and Starlink satellites, is currently privately held. But on Wednesday it made a confidential filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering, which would allow shares to be traded in the stock market. The value of SpaceX once it goes public is expected to surpass $1tn (£751bn). That would make its eventual stock market debut one of the most financially significant in history.

Musk’s own holding in SpaceX would put the billionaire on track to become the world’s first trillionaire. The company is aiming to officially go public sometime in June, according to reports in Bloomberg, Reuters and the New York Times. A confidential IPO filing with the SEC allows a company to avoid immediately revealing information to the public while it requests feedback from the regulator. The next step will be for company executives to hold “roadshows” – meetings with big investors to convince them to buy shares. By making shares of SpaceX available for purchase by the public, the company is looking to raise $50bn or more, according to the reports.
Earlier this year, SpaceX took over xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence venture. After that all-stock merger, SpaceX is believed to have become the most valuable private company in the world, with an internal valuation of $1.25tn. Recently, Musk’s various companies have been becoming increasingly intertwined. Last year, xAI, best known for its chatbot Grok, took over X, the social media platform previously called Twitter that Musk bought in 2022. This degree of consolidation was a clear sign to investors that SpaceX was preparing to go public. Emily Zheng, a senior analyst at Pitchbook, earlier told the BBC that by bringing xAI under SpaceX, Musk could show potential investors that he was consolidating costs and able to easily share resources between his companies.
With its large-scale ambitions, SpaceX is in need of a massive cash infusion that going public can provide, Zheng added. The company is racing to keep up with the “sheer cost of compute, infrastructure, and energy” needed to expand, she said. Earlier this year, Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company, revealed it had invested more than $2bn in xAI. The billionaire said a significant share of Tesla’s manufacturing would begin to shift toward building robots, which would make use of xAI technology like Grok.Grok is already included in some Teslas as an AI assistant. SpaceX would also partner with Tesla and xAI in the massive chipmaking endeavour Musk announced last month, which he is calling Terafab. “
Tesla, xAI and SpaceX have all done amazing things that people did not think could be done before,” Musk said in a March presentation discussing Terafab. Musk started SpaceX in 2002 with the aim of reducing the cost of launching crafts into space, mainly by making rockets that could be launched more than once. It first contracted with Nasa in 2006. Today, most of SpaceX’s work continues to revolve around rockets and the operation of Starlink, a fleet of satellites offering internet connectivity across the globe. But Musk often discusses grander ambitions for the company, including putting data centers needed for AI in space and building a self-sufficient city on Mars, which many experts have said could be impossible to realise.

Epstein victim?!

• Trump Fires Pam Bondi As Attorney General, Blanche To Be Acting AG’ (ZH)

President Donald Trump has ousted Attorney General Pam Bondi, multiple outlets report. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is serving as acting AG in the interim. The move comes amid White House frustration with Bondi’s leadership at the Justice Department – particularly her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and what Trump viewed as insufficient aggression in targeting his political opponents. Trump had privately discussed firing her and floated EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin (or Blanche) as a possible replacement. Bondi met with Trump in the Oval Office Wednesday night ahead of his speech to the nation on the war in Iran, where she reportedly was informed of her ouster, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.

One of those sources said that by the time Trump took his place behind the podium for the address, Bondi already lost her job and was on her way back to Florida. -Fox News.And according to the WSJ, Trump weighed firing her in January but was persuaded not to do so. In a Thursday statement, Trump called Bondi “a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year,” adding “she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future, and our Deputy Attorney General, and a very talented and respected Legal Mind, Todd Blanche, will step in to serve as Acting Attorney General.”

Earlier:
Leaky little sharks are circling in DC – telling the NY Times and CNN that Pam Bondi may soon be out as Attorney General, and replaced with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. The frustration, per sources close to the White House cited by The New York Times and CNN, centers squarely on Bondi’s catastrophic mishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein files – a saga ZeroHedge has chronicled in excruciating detail as one of the most embarrassing self-inflicted wounds of the second Trump term. Recall Bondi’s infamous February 2025 Fox News appearance where she claimed the “client list” was literally “sitting on my desk right now to review.” Fast-forward months later: no list, endless redactions for “national security,” millions more pages “discovered” at the 11th hour, and zero indictments of any high-profile co-conspirators.
Beyond her disastrous testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee in February – the House Oversight Committee has also subpoenaed her over the “troubling disappearance” of documents, with her deposition still looming on April 14. Even Trump ally and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles admitted Bondi “completely whiffed” the response.

News: The president has informed Pam Bondi that her time as AG is nearing an end, multiple sources tell me.

Formal announcement hasn’t yet come aka all the normal caveats that he could change his mind apply; he’s been speaking with advisors on a possible replacement in recent…
— Shelby Talcott (@ShelbyTalcott) April 2, 2026

Trump is also reportedly pissed that Bondi has an apparent allergy to actual justice – namely, her failure to deliver on promises to go after his political foes (former FBI Director James Comey or New York AG Letitia James). Bondi’s DOJ has also been dragging its feet on broader accountability: no real movement on COVID-era prosecutions despite the obvious targets, a bizarre pivot toward “hate speech” crackdowns that even drew fire from the right, and a general pattern of not prosecuting what many see as a laundry list of potential criminals from the prior regime. Perhaps it was all by design. Either way, looks like Pam’s time is short.
What’s more, Bondi’s DOJ has been actively sabotaging the Trump coalition by maintaining Biden-era policies in court – rpeatedly mooting litigation on key issues rather than letting judges deliver precedent-setting knockout blows, defending outdated gun control measures like the 1934 National Firearms Act in suppressor cases, and choosing temporary tactical retreats over permanent wins that would prevent future Democrat administrations from simply flipping the switch back on.
Bondi’s nightmare before Congress was more or less the crescendo of her implosion. On February 11, she was hauled before the House Judiciary Committee for what was supposed to be a straightforward oversight hearing – and instead delivered one of the most disastrous performances in recent memory. As we reported live, Bondi exploded into a full-blown shouting match with Rep. Thomas Massie and top Democrats, dodging more than a dozen direct questions on why – after months of “reviewing” the files – the DOJ still had zero indictments of Epstein’s high-profile co-conspirators.
https://twitter.com/DerrickEvans4WV/status/2021639156611629391
She hemmed and hawed over the selective redactions (victims’ names left exposed while alleged abusers were blacked out), the sudden “discovery” of a million more pages, and the complete lack of accountability for the powerful men who enabled the operation. At one point she even whipped out what insiders called a “burn book” of lawmakers’ search histories in a desperate whataboutism that backfired spectacularly, drawing jeers from Epstein survivors seated in the gallery. So basically an angry stonewalling with clips that went absolutely viral. The base watched in real time as the woman tasked with draining the swamp instead looked like she was guarding it.

Massie: "Here is an email that was sent by the victims' lawyers to the DOJ. It was a list of names not to release. What did the DOJ do with this email? They released it! Literally the worst thing you could do the survivors you did." pic.twitter.com/oSzA1dV2jj
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 11, 2026

The timing is telling. Rumors of Bondi’s exit have swirled for months, but they intensified this week after Trump met with Zeldin (a reliable MAGA foot soldier who ran New York and has been showered with praise by the president for his EPA work). Bondi was still glued to Trump’s side yesterday – riding in the motorcade to Supreme Court arguments and sitting in the audience for his primetime Iran address – but the non-denial denial from the White House speaks volumes: “Attorney General Pam Bondi is a wonderful person and she is doing a good job.” AKA – “you’re on thin ice.”
Zeldin, for his part, has zero of the Epstein baggage and a track record of hawkish loyalty during Trump’s first term. If the move happens, it would mark the second high-profile Cabinet shakeup of the term after Kristi Noem’s ouster at DHS – a clear signal that even Trump is no longer willing to tolerate the kind of institutional inertia and base-alienating fumbles that defined too much of his first go-around.
For now, Bondi remains in place… but the clock is ticking. As one person familiar with the discussions put it, the Epstein fallout has become a genuine political liability.

The reason to attack them.

• Iran’s Friends To Make Life Much Harder For Israel And The US (Sadygzade)

The war’s second ‘ring of fire’ is no longer forming around Iran. It is already there. What we are witnessing is not a limited clash between a state under pressure and its immediate enemies, but the gradual emergence of a wider regional confrontation in which Tehran’s allied forces are moving from symbolic solidarity to practical engagement. In Lebanon, Iraq, and now once again in Yemen, groups aligned with Iran are opening new fronts and making any American or Israeli campaign far more difficult to execute. If Iran cannot stop pressure by matching superior military power plane for plane or missile for missile, it can still answer by stretching the battlefield across time and space.

That is the real significance of the current escalation. Wars are easiest to sell and easiest to sustain when they look concentrated, technically manageable, and politically clean. They become much harder to continue when every strike produces another zone of instability, when every advance prompts retaliation, and when every promise of decisive success runs into a new and costly complication. Iran and the forces loyal to it understand this perfectly well. Their goal is not necessarily to win a spectacular conventional victory over Israel or the US. They are trying to deprive their adversaries of a quick result, to turn military superiority into strategic over-extension, and to make the price of escalation rise with every passing week.
Israel is getting mired in Lebanon
Lebanon has become the clearest example of this dynamic. Israel entered the confrontation with Hezbollah expecting that greater firepower, harsher pressure, and deeper incursions would eventually impose a new reality in the south of the country. But so far the campaign has not produced the kind of result Israeli leaders would need in order to claim genuine success. Israeli officials are still speaking openly about expanding operations and about the need for a broad security zone in southern Lebanon. That does not sound like a completed military mission. It sounds like a campaign still searching for a workable outcome.
Israel remains capable of inflicting enormous damage on Lebanon. It can devastate border villages and infrastructure, and force large numbers of people from their homes. But the ability to destroy is not the same as the ability to impose control. A military campaign can appear overwhelming on television and still fail to neutralize the armed force it was meant to break. Hezbollah remains capable of hitting Israeli territory, and that single fact tells us that the war in Lebanon has not been resolved in Israel’s favor.
Israel is also suffering losses, not only in military terms but in political and psychological terms. Reports of fallen soldiers and continuing battlefield casualties show that Hezbollah is still able to turn southern Lebanon into a dangerous combat zone for the Israeli army. This is important because Israel’s military doctrine relies heavily on speed, on offensive initiative, and on the demonstration of dominance. A campaign that drags on, consumes manpower, exposes soldiers to attrition, and leaves northern Israel under continuing threat is not simply unfinished. It becomes strategically corrosive. It undermines the image of effortless superiority on which deterrence partly depends.
There is also the issue of equipment and operational pressure. Public claims about destroyed Israeli vehicles are often difficult to verify independently, and any serious analysis should avoid repeating battlefield propaganda as fact. But even without dramatic and unverifiable numbers, the broader reality is evident.

“The United States desperately needs a decisive victory in its war ..”

• The Price of Underestimating Iran (Lukyanov)

The outcome of the war with Iran will determine America’s capabilities on the world stage for years to come. That is what makes the current conflict in West Asia so consequential, far beyond the region itself. US policy toward Iran has become increasingly erratic. Rather than focus on the president’s shifting rhetoric, it is more useful to examine the logic underpinning the confrontation. Washington appears to have convinced itself that the moment is right to act decisively against Tehran, exploiting what it perceives as a window of vulnerability.

The objective, viewed in isolation, has a certain cold rationality. A single, well-executed strike could, in theory, achieve several long-standing goals at once: settle the historical grievance of the 1979 embassy crisis, remove a regime seen as hostile to Israel, gain leverage over key energy resources and transport routes, and weaken emerging Eurasian integration projects. Advisers appear to have presented this as a rare opportunity. The president accepted the argument. But such ambitions rest on a fundamental miscalculation. Iran is not Iraq in 2003, nor Afghanistan in 2001. Its military capabilities are far more substantial than those of any adversary the United States has confronted directly in recent decades. It is a large, resilient state with deep strategic depth and a capacity to inflict serious disruption on global trade and energy flows.
This last point is critical. Iran’s geographic position gives it leverage that few countries possess. Even limited escalation could threaten shipping routes and economic stability far beyond the Middle East, directly affecting the interests of the United States and its allies. That reality alone complicates any attempt at a quick, clean victory.Moreover, the political context is very different from past US interventions. The current display of force, lacking even the formal justifications that accompanied earlier campaigns, has unsettled Washington’s partners. Allies that might once have felt compelled to support the United States are now more hesitant, weighing the risks of involvement against uncertain outcomes.
The original assumption appears to have been that Iran would capitulate quickly. What that capitulation would look like was never entirely clear: regime collapse, coerced compliance along the lines of Venezuela, or a negotiated settlement sharply limiting Tehran’s power. In any case, a prolonged conflict was not part of the plan.= Now that the conflict has dragged on, a more fundamental question has emerged: what exactly constitutes success?
This dilemma reflects a broader shift in American foreign policy. “America First” is often interpreted as isolationism or restraint. In practice, it has meant something else entirely, the pursuit of US objectives without responsibility and, ideally, without cost. The underlying principle is simple: achieve maximum benefit while minimizing commitments. For a time, this approach appeared to work. In his first year, Donald Trump managed to pressure partners into accepting American terms, often by leveraging overwhelming economic power. But that strategy depends on the absence of meaningful resistance. It becomes far more dangerous when applied to a situation that cannot be controlled.
Creating a major geopolitical crisis and expecting others to absorb the consequences while Washington extracts advantages is a different proposition altogether. It risks destabilizing not just adversaries, but the entire system in which the United States itself operates. In earlier decades, US leadership was framed in terms of a “liberal world order,” where advancing American interests was presented as beneficial to all. The concept of a “benevolent hegemon” emerged from this period. Trump’s worldview rejects that premise. Instead, it assumes that US prosperity must come at the expense of others, and that it is time to reverse the old balance.
This shift carries profound implications. A hegemon that no longer seeks to provide stability must rely more heavily on coercion. But coercion, to be effective, requires credibility. The dominant power must demonstrate clearly that it can impose its will when necessary.
Iran has become the test case.

Recently someone wrote it would be incorrect to label him “ayatollah”. Anyone remember who?

• Mojtaba Breaks Silence, In Message Praises Hezbollah & Shia Leaders (ZH)

The new, younger Ayatollah Khamenei – who may have been wounded in the early days of US-Israeli strikes, hasn’t been seen in any public way, not even on TV, throughout the war. There have not so much as been any official recent images of him circulated. But Mojtaba Khamenei has apparently been issuing some limited written statements, mainly encouraging foreign proxies in their joining the war against US and Israeli forces in the region. State media has indicated he’s not making public appearances given the ongoing relentless bombing campaign and the Islamic Republic’s wartime footing.

After a long period of relative silence, a message from Khamenei was publicized on Monday. In the message attributed to him, he “expressed his appreciation to the supreme religious authority (in Iraq) and the people of Iraq for their clear stance against aggression against Iran and their support for our country,” Iran’s ISNA news agency said, referring to the Iraq-based Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Sistani is based in Iraq and has long been a highly revered Shia cleric in the region.
The 56-year old Khamenei has on Wednesday apparently broken his silence again, this time praising Hezbollah for joining the war against Israel. Hezbollah has been launching hundreds of rockets on northern and central Israel, amid an emerging ground campaign in southern Lebanon, also as Israel bombs Beirut from the air.In the new words carried by Iranian state media, he praised Hezbollah for its “perseverance, steadfastness and patience” against “the most ruthless enemies of the Islamic world.”
Meanwhile, the CIA and Mossad are said to be trying to uncover Mojtaba Khamenei’s whereabouts and status. His 86-year old father did not appear to have been in hiding at all when he was slain by airstrike on the very first day of Operation Epic Fury.
The most likely explanation could be that the younger Khamenei is directing the war from a much more secure and hidden setting, for example a deep underground bunker – or in a remote part of the country. But some analysts have questioned why he wouldn’t make a video address, even if pre-recorded, offering to the world proof that he is a alive and is running the country and war. As for the most visible day-to-day leader, this is parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

A.K.A. Shock and Awe.

• European Allies Show ‘Shock And Anxiety’ to Trump Threat to Leave NATO (JTN)

European media responded to President Donald Trump’s remarks about the United States leaving NATO as an “existential threat” to the 77-year-old security alliance. Speaking with The Telegraph, a right-of-center British daily newspaper, Trump called the alliance a “paper tiger” and said he was “strongly considering” withdrawing from the 32-nation pact. Trump’s comments come after repeated criticisms of NATO member states for not joining the Israeli- and U.S.-led conflict with Iran. In the latest developments, Spain, France, and Italy refused U.S. access to their military bases or airspace for military actions against Iran.

“I was never swayed by NATO,” Trump said. “I always knew they were a paper tiger, and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin knows that, too.” Thirty of 32 NATO member states are in Europe (the U.S. and Canada are the exceptions). Israel is not a member of the alliance. The Guardian, another U.K. newspaper, said Trump’s remarks represented an “existential threat” that could be the “worst crisis in NATO history.” In Spain, El País said there was “shock and anxiety across Europe.” Among the European Union’s three largest economies, German media stressed that the Israeli and U.S. bombings of Iranian targets were “not our war” and said it was “correct” for the government to reject U.S. demands for support.
French media pursued a similar line, stressing that NATO was created to assure trans-Atlantic security, not offensive missions in the Middle East. Italy, meanwhile, tried to balance ties with the U.S. and European and NATO allies, trying to organize a coalition to discuss strategies to assure security in the Gulf region without entering the conflict. Trump might not be able to follow through on his threat to leave the NATO alliance due to a 2023 U.S. law that “prohibits any withdrawal from NATO” without approval from two-thirds of the U.S. Senate.

More Shock and Anxiety.

• EU Leaders Utterly Bewildered at Energy Vulnerabilities Now Evident (CTH)

They stopped their oil and gas exploration. They chose to chase ‘net zero’ academic pontifications. They closed their refining operations. They took apart their coal-fired electricity plants. They disassembled their nuclear power capabilities. Then, the absolute cherry on the proverbial cake, they voted to stop purchasing oil and gas from Russia.The EU is now in the Find Out stage of their FAFO positioning. Gasoline prices have skyrocketed. The last shipments of jet fuel have arrived. Major airline carriers are cancelling flights due to lack of fuel. Faster than the EU can organize meetings to discuss their position, EU destined LNG shipments have diverted to southeast Asia and India as the ASEAN nations bid higher purchase prices for the vessels literally on the water.

Folks, it’s quite an article written by EU Politico as they outline how each of the leaders from the nation states are now discussing how vulnerable they are to the changed oil/gas environment with the mid east conflict ongoing. The entire energy sector in Europe is now in crisis mode with leaders predicting it will get much worse within days, not weeks.mEU Politico – “Germany’s Friedrich Merz warns the economic fallout from the war in Iran is on track to rival that of the Covid pandemic or the Russian invasion of Ukraine. […] With the war in Iran threatening to choke off energy flows for the foreseeable future, Europe is facing a supply shock that promises to cripple manufacturing, ground airlines, hike up the price of food, spike borrowing costs and send inflation spiraling back to crisis levels.
As the last tankers carrying fossil fuels from the Persian Gulf pull into European ports, the scale of what is about to hit seems to be dawning on the continent’s leaders. “I’m living with the reality of this war and its consequences 24 hours a day,” Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told the La Repubblica newspaper. “I’m forced to know things that don’t let me sleep.” The conflict could last “years,” Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, warned in an interview with the Economist last week. The long-term effects, she added, are “probably beyond what we can imagine at the moment.”
[…] “Markets are now grappling with a scenario long discussed in theory but rarely thought of as a legitimate possibility — the effective shutdown of the world’s most critical energy chokepoint,” said Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, lead energy analyst for the Europe team at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.One immediate worry is that Asian countries, which before the war relied on the Gulf for some 80 percent of their gas and oil, are beginning to bid up the price of those products as they fight over dwindling supplies. That has diverted merchants with more flexible contracts toward Asia to exploit the higher profit margins, turning them away from Europe.
According to Charles Costerousse, a senior energy analyst at maritime consultancy Kpler, 11 U.S.- and Nigerian-flagged LNG tankers have been redirected from Europe to further east in the past few days. Within the next few days, the last tanker bearing Qatari LNG will arrive in Europe, he said.[…] For now, as the final Gulf tankers finish unloading their cargo this week, the clock officially starts ticking for Europe’s policymakers. The continent has weeks, not months, to brace for an impact that could reshape its economy for a generation. (read more)
The one element missing from the lengthy diatribe of EU leader quotes is any self-reflection; any admission their EU vulnerability was entirely driven by their own policies. No, that part of the equation is missing entirely. Everything in their mindset is a discussion of external events happening to them. There is no reconsideration of their prior stupidity, and/or a responsive effort to reposition their vulnerability. The EU is in a state of cognitive paralysis, and things are about to get much, much worse.

Could it trigger the end of the EU?

• Could an Orban Win Trigger ‘Maidan on Steroids’? (RT)

Polls ahead of the Hungarian elections point to an opposition victory, but players behind the scenes expect Prime Minister Viktor Orban to come out on top. Others say it’s a scenario ripe for a Kiev-style ‘color revolution’. With two weeks to go until Hungary’s parliamentary elections, Orban is facing the most credible threat to his power yet. Opposition leader Peter Magyar’s Tisza party is currently leading Orban’s Fidesz by 15 points, according to an aggregate of polls compiled by Politico. When looking at pollsters linked to Tisza or funded by the EU, the results are even more stark. A poll by the opposition-linked Median, for example, shows Tisza a whole 23 points ahead of Fidesz, at 58-35%.
However, Politico has also reported that “many” EU leaders secretly believe an Orban victory is “likely.” Hungarian EU Affairs Minister Janos Boka thinks that the disparity between public surveys and private sentiment is no accident, and that by skewing polls, Magyar and his allies in Brussels are “building the narrative that if they lose the election, then this is an illegitimate result.” Notorious intervention hawk Michael Weiss put Boka’s worries into words last week. “If Orban tries to steal this – and he almost certainly will – it’ll be Euromaidan on steroids in an EU/NATO country. Watch closely, America,” he warned in a post on X.
Weiss, who previously ran a Ukraine regime change outfit he claimed was journalism, was referring to the post-election coup that toppled a democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovich, in 2014. Orchestrated by the US, the Maidan/Euromaidan coup set in motion a chain of events that culminated in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.However, there are some fundamental points war hawks in armchairs would like you not to notice; differences between Budapest and Kiev that would make forced regime change a far more difficult prospect if Orban wins.
How the US masterminded Maidan
Presented by Western media as a popular uprising, the ‘Maidan’ revolution was a creation of the US State Department and run out of a very compliant US embassy. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a State Department sub-agency, pumped around $14 million into Ukrainian activist groups from 2011 to 2014, the US embassy funded pro-Maidan media outlets, and between 1991 and 2014, the US funnelled a total of $5 billion into “democracy-building programs in Ukraine,” a State Department spokesperson said in 2014.
The NED boasted in a 2015 report that US-funded organizations “played important roles in the peaceful protests in Kiev.” By the time the report had been published, the “peaceful protests” had descended into a bloodbath, with Western-funded far-right militias massacring nearly 100 pro-Western protesters in a false-flag operation, and pro-Western neo-Nazis burning 46 anti-Maidan protesters alive at the Trade Unions House in Odessa. Awkward questions for the neocons, neolibs, and the righteous.
Assistant Secretary of State for Europe Victoria Nuland promised military aid and a billion-dollar loan to opposition politicians, and famously handed out cookies to pro-Western activists in Kiev. Together with US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, she helped choose the government that would replace Yanukovich’s. When asked by an obsequious Pyatt in a 2014 phone call if the Europeans might disagree with her choice of candidate, the notorious hawk infamously declared “f**k the EU.”
Now the US backs Orban
The situation in Hungary is radically different. US President Donald Trump is a staunch ally of Orban, and has endorsed the Hungarian PM’s reelection campaign, while Vice President J.D. Vance is scheduled to make a high-profile trip to Budapest just days before the April 12 election.

“Even though Trump’s team can appeal, the damage is real. This ruling will probably keep Trump tangled in civil litigation for the rest of his presidency and likely beyond..”

• Judge Keeps Democrats’ January 6 Witch Hunt Against Trump Alive (Margolis)

A federal judge appointed by Barack Obama ruled this week that President Trump’s speech at the Ellipse on January 6, 2021, is not protected by presidential immunity — keeping a Democratic-driven civil lawsuit alive and ensuring Trump will be fighting this battle for years to come. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Trump’s rally remarks fell outside the “outer perimeter” of his official presidential duties, applying the framework the Supreme Court established in its immunity ruling back in 2024. That ruling gave presidents full immunity for core official acts and presumptive immunity for acts within the outer perimeter — but left unofficial acts exposed. Mehta used that opening to let this bogus lawsuit walk right through.

Mehta was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by Obama in 2014 and confirmed the same year. In 2021, he was appointed to the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, succeeding Judge James Boasberg, who served as presiding judge from 2020 to 2021. It sure is a small world when it comes to Obama-era appointees making consequential rulings against a Republican president.
It should come as no surprise that this is not Mehta’s first rodeo targeting Trump. He previously refused to dismiss these same claims back in February 2022, ruled against Trump in a case involving congressional access to his financial records, and sentenced former Trump adviser Peter Navarro to four months in jail for defying a January 6 committee subpoena. Mehta has had his fingerprints on the anti-Trump legal machine for years.
Mehta denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the civil litigation, meaning Democratic lawmakers and Capitol Police officers who sued Trump can continue to pursue their case. The plaintiffs falsely claim Trump’s Ellipse speech incited the crowd to riot. The problem with their claim, of course, is Trump’s speech itself. Trump literally told the crowd at the Ellipse to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” That’s the “incitement” Democrats keep telling us about. The speech itself is the best evidence that the insurrection narrative is a myth, but Mehta waved that aside anyway.
Joseph Sellers, an attorney for the Democratic lawmakers suing Trump, couldn’t contain his excitement. “We’re very pleased that the court recognized that President Trump cannot avoid accountability for his conduct on Jan. 6, 2021,” he said. “This decision, if it holds up, is going to pave the way to a trial in federal district court on these claims.”Trump’s legal team made it clear they’re not done fighting this.
“The facts show that on January 6, 2021, President Trump was acting on behalf of the American people, carrying out his official duties as President of the United States,” the team said in a statement. “President Trump will continue to fight back against the Democrat Witch Hoaxes and keep delivering historic results for the American People.”
Even though Trump’s team can appeal, the damage is real. This ruling will probably keep Trump tangled in civil litigation for the rest of his presidency and likely beyond — precisely what Democrats designed these lawsuits to accomplish. While the president focuses on governing and delivering results for the American people, a group of partisan plaintiffs and their enabling activist judges are still obsessed with their January 6 lies.

Too small brains.

• We May Finally Be Close to Ending the Democrats’ DHS Shutdown (Margolis)

The Democrats’ DHS shutdown may finally be ending soon, after Republican leaders and President Donald Trump hashed out a plan. The two-track strategy announced Wednesday strips the left of one of its most effective tools for obstruction — and leaves them with nobody to blame but themselves.

The partial shutdown has dragged on since mid-February, making it the longest of its kind in American history. The core fight came down to one thing: Democrats refused to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol after two anti-ICE agitators attacked federal agents and were killed in self-defense. The left, blaming the agents for the deaths, demanded reforms that would have effectively made immigration law unenforceable. Republicans wouldn’t budge. Then Democrats finally caved last week, agreeing to fund DHS without the reforms they had demanded. But House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected the deal because it didn’t fully fund ICE and Border Patrol, which were already funded through 2029.
Trump broke the logjam Wednesday with a Truth Social post endorsing funding ICE and Border Patrol through budget reconciliation — the legislative process that will bypass Senate Democrats entirely. “We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us,” Trump wrote.
Speaker Mike Johnson, who initially opposed the funding deal announced Friday, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune quickly got on board. Their joint statement outlined the two-pronged approach: fund most of DHS through the standard appropriations process until October, then lock in three years of immigration enforcement funding through reconciliation — completely insulated from Democratic obstruction. “In the coming days, Republicans in the Senate and House will be following through on the President’s directive by fully funding the entire Department of Homeland Security on two parallel tracks: through the appropriations process and through the reconciliation process,” they said.
The Senate Budget Committee had already begun building the reconciliation framework to make it happen. That process allows the Senate to move legislation with a simple majority instead of the 60-vote threshold that typically gives Schumer and his caucus veto power over Republican priorities. This plan looks almost identical to what the Senate tried to pass just last Friday — the same bill House Republicans shot down in spectacular fashion, with Johnson himself calling it a “joke.” House conservatives had demanded that immigration enforcement funding stay bundled with the rest of DHS appropriations.
Johnson’s reversal also signals something significant. I previously wrote that Johnson may have been attempting to force the Senate GOP to nuke the filibuster. If that were the case, this agreement would mean Republicans have effectively conceded that nuking the Senate filibuster isn’t happening. If killing the filibuster were on the table, there would be no need for a two-track workaround. The reconciliation path is a creative solution, but it’s also an acknowledgment of the limits of the current Senate majority.
“It is now abundantly clear that Democrats place allegiance to their radical left-wing base above all else,” Thune and Johnson said. “We cannot allow Democrats to any longer put the safety of the American public at risk through their open border policies, so we are taking that off the table.” If Republicans can push the reconciliation package through, Democrats will lose the ability to use DHS appropriations as a weapon against Trump’s immigration agenda for the rest of his term. They spent months blocking ICE funding to protect their base, and now they may end up with zero leverage to show for it.

We have questions.

• AI Giant Anthropic Suffers Strategic Code Hemorrhage (RT)

AI giant Anthropic has mistakenly published its own top secret internal code, triggering a viral wave of github rewrites and inflicting potentially catastrophic commercial damage on the Amazon-backed business model. The developer of the Claude chatbot described the incident as a release issue “caused by human error, not a security breach,” according to US technology news website VentureBeat on Tuesday. Anthropic was designated a “risk to national security” by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in February after disagreements with the Pentagon over the use of its artificial intelligence systems.

The leak involved more than 500,000 lines of code linked to Claude Code, Anthropic’s AI coding assistant, which helps users write and manage software through natural language commands, according to Axios and The Verge. The material included unreleased features, performance data, and developer notes. The code spread rapidly online, with versions of the code being placed on code-sharing platform GitHub and replicated thousands of times within hours, according to Ars Technica and The Verge. Anthropic moved to remove the material and issued takedown notices, but the material had already been widely copied and circulated, the reports said.
According to VentureBeat, by exposing the “blueprints” of Claude Code, the leak may have given “bad actors” a “road map” to bypassing security checks or tricking the tool into running hidden commands or accessing data without the user’s knowledge. A separate data leak reported in February exposed internal materials revealing details of Anthropic’s unreleased model, known as Claude Mythos, after thousands of draft documents were left accessible in a public data cache.
The model was described in the leaked material as the company’s most powerful system to date which could pose “unprecedented cybersecurity risks” if deployed widely. The company has withheld its release due to concerns over its capabilities and potential misuse, according to US business magazine Fortune.

Just passing on. Are mini-nukes the answer?

• Nano Nuclear Submits Construction Permit For Kronos Reactor In Illinois (ZH)

Nano Nuclear submitted a Construction Permit Application (CPA) to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for their Kronos microreactor project at the University of Illinois. The filing marks the latest step in a project we’ve tracked since site characterization began last fall. Kronos is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) engineered for commercial deployment. It delivers 15 megawatts of carbon-free baseload power using meltdown-resistant TRISO fuel and helium coolant. The design emphasizes walk-away safety, autonomous operation during grid outages, and scalability through multiple units. Intended uses include powering artificial intelligence data centers, industrial electrification, military bases, and remote communities.

Nano Nuclear acquired the technology in 2024 from Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp. and positioned it as one of the first commercially ready microreactor platforms. The University of Illinois partnership targets the first full-scale Kronos research reactor deployment. We detailed the October 2025 launch of geotechnical drilling and site characterization work, followed by a ceremonial groundbreaking. Those steps built on state support from Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and positioned the campus project as the lead effort in Nano’s broader commercialization roadmap. The company has since expanded discussions for additional deployments in Texas, South Korea, and at U.S. federal sites.
Under the NRC process, staff will first review the application package for completeness and docketing. Once accepted, the agency will conduct a formal technical and environmental evaluation. Nano estimates this formal review phase will take approximately 12 months, after which the NRC could authorize construction. The timeline aligns with recent agency efforts to streamline advanced reactor licensing while maintaining rigorous safety standards.
Company executives described the submission as validation of years of engineering and pre-application engagement. Chief Technical Officer Florent Heidet called it “a defining moment” that separates ready projects from those still in early development. The milestone keeps Nano on track for initial test operations at Illinois by the late 2020s and supports its goal of factory-built, fleet-scale microreactor production.

What on earth happened since 1969?

We beat the Russians back then, only to be losing to China 57-odd years later?

• Artemis II and the ‘Waste of Space’ (Rick Moran)

Yesterday, four human beings sat atop the most powerful machine ever built and launched themselves toward the moon. Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency are set to fire their engine and send their spacecraft toward the moon. They won’t land on the surface. They won’t even go into orbit. They will slingshot around the moon and return to Earth. It’s a $60 billion space stunt. That’s the total cost of the Space Launch System (SLS) program to date, and given the fact that the astronauts are doing little except proving they can go into space, travel to the moon, and come back alive, it seems an awful “waste of space.”

How do we know it’s a “stunt”? The crew consists of one white guy, one black guy (Glover), one woman, and a Canadian. Hansen will be the first non-American to visit the moon. That sounds like a “made-for-TV” extravaganza. In the 1997 film Contact, 12-year-old Ellie Arroway’s widowed father, Ted, is helping his daughter discover the wonders of the universe through a telescope. “The universe is a pretty big place,” the father tells the daughter. “It’s bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it’s just us… seems like an awful waste of space.”
Ellie and Ted (the elder Ellie played by Jodie Foster alongside David Morse) were talking about the vastness of space and how it would be highly unlikely that humans were the only intelligent life. In the case of Artemis II and the SLS, the “waste of space” is the sheer, frustratingly stupid mix of politics, inefficiency, inexplicable decisions, and poor management that created a black hole for taxpayer dollars, a “forever program” that had the zombie-like ability to resist being killed, and the real possibility that the machine those four brave souls are flying in is not as safe as it should be.
NASA has inefficiency and waste built into its DNA. Because it’s government-funded, the agency needs friends in Congress to get anything done. This forces the agency to spread the pork as widely as possible. Key members of Congress who are lucky enough (or skilled enough at logrolling) to have a NASA contractor in their district make sure that programs that benefit that contractor, even if they’re wasteful and accomplish nothing, never get canceled or have their budgets cut.
Congress does not see the space program as a scientific endeavor or even as a national security necessity. To Congress, the space program is a means to gain cash for campaigns and jobs for constituents. Even when the White House tries to cancel or cut a program, Congress will inevitably restore the funding. That’s why the SLS is still going strong despite being six years late and billions of dollars over budget.
Reason.com: “As development began on the rocket, the projected budget cost through 2017 was $18 billion, a number that would soon start growing. Early in development, each launch was projected to cost $500 million, a number very optimistic in hindsight: According to the White House’s 2026 budget proposal, an SLS launch costs about $4 billion. Through last year, the total cost of the program has exceeded $60 billion.
The SLS program isn’t just way over budget. It’s way behind schedule too. Congress told it to fly by 2016, but the first launch didn’t come until 2022. The second launch will be Artemis II. When the first Trump administration started the Artemis program in 2017, the vision was to send Americans to the moon and then Mars. As the program developed, officials set a goal of having humans on the moon again by 2024. In April 2021, SpaceX won the bidding process to build the Human Landing System—the lunar lander that would deliver the astronauts to the moon’s surface. Blue Origin then sued NASA over losing out to SpaceX, and NASA had to pause work until the lawsuit ended. The suit was resolved in November, at which point SpaceX and NASA returned to work.
The oft-delayed launch of Artemis II was due to a series of hydrogen fuel leaks. The mission was pushed from its original February window to April as engineers worked to replace seals and address a subsequent issue with a clogged helium pressurization line. The rocket had to be rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) for these specialized repairs.It should be noted that Artemis II is a new system and will have bugs that need to be ironed out. But the same leaking hydrogen problem experienced in February also canceled the March launches. The RS-25 engine, which is being fueled by hydrogen, is considered very reliable. It’s also considered “too big to fail” because of its powerful congressional backers.
The engines are manufactured by Aerojet Rocketdyne, and the program supports thousands of jobs across multiple congressional districts. This makes a total engine redesign or a switch to a different propulsion system (like SpaceX’s Raptor or Blue Origin’s BE-4) politically difficult. Critics argue that the traditional contracting model incentivizes maintaining the current hardware rather than starting over with a cheaper, leak-resistant fuel like methane. Instead of replacing the engine, NASA and lead contractor Boeing have focused on “kindler, gentler” loading procedures and redesigned flight seals to fix the leak issues that plagued the February and March launch attempts.
NASA is shooting for a Moon landing by 2030. Given their track record, that seems more like wishful thinking. It’s more than likely that China will beat them there. It’s even possible that Elon Musk, who has abandoned his Mars dreams to go to the Moon, will reach the lunar surface before NASA. Sixty billion tax dollars for space could have been spent far more wisely. The magnificent unmanned probes we’ve sent to Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn have made spectacular discoveries that have not only expanded our knowledge of the universe but also shown us the way to a future in which humans aren’t tied to Earth or the Moon.bArtemis II is a helluva “waste of space” when you consider what that money could have been spent on.

Good points.

• The Soul-Crushing Cost of NOT Returning to the Moon for 50+ Years (Pinsker)

Question for our readers: What’s the greatest accomplishment in all of human history? Some might point to religious breakthroughs, i.e. the development of theological and/or legal doctrines. If you’re in the Ozymandias camp, you may favor big, impressive monuments — like the Great Pyramid of Giza. Or maybe you’re thinking of something more basic, like the invention of written language, which was developed independently at least four times. There are many more options, of course: The discovery of the New World. Metallurgy. Agriculture. Seafaring. The printing press. Germ theory. Unlocking the power of the atom. All the above altered the course of humanity.

But in my opinion, the single greatest accomplishment was walking on the moon. Even today, nearly 57 years after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left their footprints on the lunar surface, the accomplishment remains so utterly mindboggling that 10% of Americans don’t believe it happened. And, arguably, for good reason: No human has returned to the moon since 1972. If you’re under 55, the moon landing was something you read about — not something you remember watching live. For generations of Americans (including this 52-year-old scribe), there hasn’t been a day in our lives when we’ve gazed up at the sky and beamed with pride, knowing an American astronaut has “slipped the surly bonds of Earth,” soaring farther than an “eagle flew,” and “touched the face of God.”
About 25 years ago, when I worked in talk radio, I spoke to Buzz Aldrin on the phone. It was one of the few times a celebrity made me tongue-tied. I haven’t even been to Australia yet — and this guy walked on the flippin’ moon?! How can anyone compete with THAT? Imagine being at a bar, bragging about your Australian vacation, and in walks Buzz Aldrin. “Wow, you made it all the way to Australia, did you? How impressive. By the way, y’know that big white ball in the sky? It’s called the moon. That’s where I went, but please, tell me more about Australia.” Baby Boomers were shaped by the Kennedy assassination. Even today, 60+ years later, everyone still remembers where they were when they heard the fateful news.
Gen-X was shaped by the Challenger disaster. Until 9/11, it was the most jarring catastrophe of our lifetime, because it shattered America’s aura of technological invincibility. After all, we had so thoroughly conquered the cosmos, NASA actually let a schoolteacher named Christa McAuliffe hitch a ride on the shuttle as a PR stunt. Space travel was considered so mundane that none of the three major TV networks bothered to air the Challenger launch live. (CNN, still in its early years, was the exception.) How could the space shuttle blow up? We’re the nation that put a man on the moon! America doesn’t make mistakes like that!
The Challenger disaster took place on Jan. 28, 1986. That was over 40 years ago. And in the decades that followed, instead of inspiring wonder, pride, and belief in the American Dream, NASA became synonymous with budgetary bloat, technical malfunctions, and aborted missions. Uncoincidentally, as NASA’s achievements became a distant memory, each generation that followed has had less pride in America. 83% of the Silent Generation is extremely or very proud to be an American. For Boomers, it’s 75%. For Gen-X, it’s 71%. For Millennials, it’s 58%. And for Gen-Z, it’s just 41%.
There’s a crisis of patriotism among young Americans. If you want to know why so many young people are turning to socialism and communism, it’s because they lost their faith in the American Dream: Among the under-30 crowd, 34% have a favorable opinion of communism — and a whopping 62% feel favorably towards socialism. Just 50% favor capitalism.
These are damning trendlines. As the older generations die off, faith in America’s greatness is dying with them. It’s why Zoomers are now favoring socialism over capitalism by double-digits. Unless we (quickly) right the ship, we’re cheating our children and grandchildren of their American birthright. And if we’re not careful, it’ll cost us everything. It’s the responsibility of our leaders — whether they’re in government, the private sector, or in our homes — to inspire the next generation. To inscribe in their hearts and souls the belief that they can make the impossible possible — as long as they dream big, work hard, and pray with all their might. Why do you think the phrase “Make America Great Again” resonated so deeply?
Greatness is inspirational. Aspirational. Given a choice between greatness and mediocrity, greatness wins every single time. It brings out the best in us. That was the hidden cost of not returning to the moon for 50+ years: It cheated our children and grandchildren of their dreams. And sapped their pride in American greatness. But imagine a new national trajectory — where NASA, SpaceX, and American ingenuity rewrite the history books. One where Zoomers look to the sky and see a moon flooded with American astronauts and American footprints — and a permanent American moon base.Then, after reconquering the moon, we set foot on Mars. And from there, we venture even further.
Or we could do nothing. And then, when China lands a man on the moon by 2030 and builds a moon base, young Americans would gaze to the cosmos with resentment, rage, and regret: They’ve inherited a country whose best days are long gone. The Boomers got all the glory — and they got a nation in decline. And if you’re already worried about so many young Americans abandoning capitalism, what do you think will happen if America is lapped by a communist nation? More likely than not, the allure of communism and socialism will skyrocket — to the moon and beyond. Space travel isn’t cheap. Some, including my PJ Media colleague Rick Moran, argue the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. But dollars and cents aren’t the only way to measure cost: Dreams matter, too.
Dreamers are optimists; they believe our future will be greater than our past. They’re men and women of faith. The greater our dreams, the greater our country. A nation without dreams is a dying nation.As President Ronald Reagan said in his final primetime address: “We were meant to be masters of destiny, not victims of fate. Who among us would trade America’s future for that of any other country in the world? And who could possibly have so little faith in our America that they would trade our tomorrows for our yesterdays?”
After 50+ years, it’s time to give our kids a dream worth dreaming: Because they deserve nothing less.

https://twitter.com/RealHellenist/status/2039580324997582892?s=20 https://twitter.com/DiogenisSinopis/status/2039376870970470404?s=20

BREAKING: Greece has officially sold Makronisos to the Israelis. The uninhabited island will be renamed Neve Aegea and turned into a safe haven for Israeli citizens in case of regional conflict.
The deal covers 40 uninhabited Aegean islands. pic.twitter.com/HfUKZ6NCRe
— My_name_is_Nobody (@Nob0dymyname) April 1, 2026

Elon Musk: "Tesla isn't building a phone. They're leapfrogging the entire concept. The device in your pocket won't be a phone anymore. It'll be a super-thin AI edge node, a screen with radios that pings Grok/xAI servers for everything in real time."pic.twitter.com/fNXaLgNool
— Joe Rogan Podcast News (@joeroganhq) April 1, 2026

Major problem https://t.co/sDS6yLOEBH
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 1, 2026

Elon Musk just drew a line between xAI and every other lab on Earth.

Not a product line. A civilizational one.

Every major lab is racing over three inches of ground. Faster code. Better workflows. Smarter assistants. They are building tools. Useful, profitable, forgettable… pic.twitter.com/vghNPwwV8M
— Dustin (@r0ck3t23) April 2, 2026

Elon Musk exposes how The Biden administration took FEMA money meant for Americans in distress and sent it to luxury hotels for illegal immigrants in NYC

Even AFTER President Trump signed an executive order to STOP it, deep-state bureaucrats pressed send on $80 MILLION to the… pic.twitter.com/932H5sfD3v
— X Freeze (@XFreeze) April 1, 2026

Elon Musk: We should preserve unique cultures worldwide.

“There are great things in every culture. We don't want German culture to disappear. We don't want French culture to disappear. We don't want Korean culture, Japanese culture, or American culture to disappear, or any… pic.twitter.com/To2vIgeYhq
— ELON CLIPS (@ElonClipsX) April 2, 2026

True https://t.co/m1OG3TuVIy
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2026

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Debt Rattle August 2 2017

Aug 022017

August 2, 2017 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:04 am Finance Tagged with: bees, China, Fannie Mae, Monsanto, reactor, sanctions, slump, turtle, union, unmasking 1 Response »

Stanley Kubrick Men’s fashion show, New York 1948

• New Rule Makes It Easier To Get A Mortgage With Student Loan Debt (F.)

• US Auto Market Slump Persists (BBG)

• US Plans Trade Measures Against China (WSJ)

• US Begins Russia Drawdown After Kremlin Retaliates For Sanctions (R.)

• Former Obama Aide Rhodes A Person Of Interest In Unmasking Investigation (C.)

• For Sale: Two Half-Finished Nuclear Reactors -Never Used- (BBG)

• Nissan Runs One Of ‘Nastiest Anti-Union Campaigns’ In Modern US History (G.)

• Monsanto’s Sway Over Research Is Seen in Disclosed Emails (NYT)

• Pesticide ‘Drifting’ Wreaks Havoc Across US Crops (BBG)

• Bees Are Bouncing Back From Colony Collapse Disorder – A Little (BBG)

• 8 Migrants Dead Off Libya, 500 Rescued As Italy Prepares Naval Mission (AFP)

• EasyJet Passengers Left High And Dry In Greece Due to Mating Turtles (G.)

Desperately mining for a new generation of greater fools. Courtesy of government-owned Fannie Mae. What a world.

• New Rule Makes It Easier To Get A Mortgage With Student Loan Debt (F.)

For millions of Americans drowning in student loan debt, the prospect of getting a mortgage might seem out of reach. Last week, Fannie Mae changed underwriting rules that could make it much easier for people with student loan debt to qualify for a mortgage. The new rule impacts people with federal student loan debt who are currently on an income-driven repayment program. An income-driven repayment plan sets your monthly student loan payment at an amount that is intended to be affordable based upon your income and family size. Depending upon the plan, your monthly payment could be capped as low as 10% of your discretionary income. And if your discretionary income is low enough, your monthly payment could be as low as $0.

In order to qualify for a mortgage, a borrower needs to meet certain debt-to-income (DTI) requirements. That seems simple enough. However, there was confusion regarding federal student loan debt on an income-driven repayment program. When calculating a debt burden, should the underwriter include the standard student loan payment, the reduced payment, or something in between? The new statement from Fannie Mae makes it clear: the reduced payment can be used, even when the payment is $0. According to Fannie Mae, “if the lender obtains documentation to evidence the actual monthly payment is $0, the lender may qualify the borrower with the $0 payment as long as the $0 payment is associated with an income-driven repayment plan.”

This is important, because the payment calculation for a student loan (10% of the discretionary income) is different from the DTI requirement of a mortgage. Many Americans could find it easier to qualify for a mortgage while in student loan debt. Michigan-based mortgage broker Cassandra Evers told MagnifyMoney that the changes “allow a lot more borrowers to qualify for a home.” Previously, there was a lot of confusion among borrowers, lenders, and brokers, Evers said. “[The rules have] changed at least five or six times in the last five years.”

“You can’t jawbone the economy..”

• US Auto Market Slump Persists (BBG)

Here’s a bad sign for the U.S. economy: Auto sales just fell the most since August 2010, a year after the federal government’s “Cash for Clunkers” program to stimulate demand came to an end. Sales at General Motors plunged 15% in its home market in July, the biggest drop in more than a year. Its Detroit rivals didn’t fare much better: Ford reported its biggest sales decline since October and Fiat Chrysler had its second worst tumble this year. The disappointing showing underscores how Detroit has been struggling to live up to President Donald Trump’s prediction that it would become “the car capital of the world again.” The hometown automakers are instead laying off U.S. workers, particularly those who build passenger cars that have fallen out of favor with American consumers.

A demand slump has rendered spending on vehicles and parts a drag on U.S. economic growth, after years of contributing to expansion. “You can’t jawbone the economy,” said Diane Swonk, CEO and founder of DS Economics. “The auto industry was stronger than the rest of the economy for a while because they were giving credit to people who couldn’t pay loans. Sales crested sooner and now they are paying the price.” The traditional U.S. automakers each missed projections for declines that analysts gave in a Bloomberg News survey. While Nissan and Honda both beat projections, only Toyota posted a gain. Industrywide deliveries fell 7%, the steepest drop since the anniversary of “Cash for Clunkers,” a program that inflated U.S. sales in August 2009 as buyers traded in for more fuel-efficient wheels. The annualized pace of light-vehicle sales, adjusted for seasonal trends, slowed to 16.7 million in July, according to Autodata Corp., from 17.8 million a year earlier.

China is not liking this.

• US Plans Trade Measures Against China (WSJ)

The Trump administration is planning trade measures to force Beijing to crack down on intellectual-property theft and ease requirements that American companies share advanced technologies to gain entry to the Chinese market. The administration is considering invoking a little-used provision of U.S. trade law to investigate whether China’s intellectual-property policies constitute “unfair trade practices,” according to people familiar with the matter. That would pave the way for the U.S. to impose sanctions on Chinese exporters or to further restrict the transfer of advanced technology to Chinese firms or to U.S.-China joint ventures. American business frustration with Chinese trade and market-access practices has mounted in recent years, with U.S. business groups urging the government to take a tougher trade line with China.

Many organizations have complained that the Trump administration hasn’t pushed hard enough in areas like intellectual property, as it has focused more on Chinese manufacturing and China’s $347 billion trade surplus with the U.S. last year. That discontent has intensified as China’s economy continued to expand and its computer and software sectors became bigger competitors internationally. Western firms fear China will use the regulations to bar foreign investments in areas that Beijing targets for investment, including semiconductors, advanced-machine tools and artificial intelligence. One big question hanging over the White House review is whether the administration pursues any complaint through the World Trade Organization, or whether it chooses to impose penalties on its own without first seeking permission from the international body, which some Trump advisers have argued is incapable of dealing with China’s trade practices.

Has Trump even signed the new sanctions yet?

• US Begins Russia Drawdown After Kremlin Retaliates For Sanctions (R.)

The United States began removing furniture and equipment from a diplomatic property in Moscow on Tuesday in the first sign of compliance with a Kremlin order to slash its presence in Russia as retaliation for new U.S. sanctions. President Vladimir Putin has ordered the United States to cut around 60% of its diplomatic staff in Russia by Sept. 1, and said Moscow will seize two U.S. diplomatic properties in response to sanctions approved by Congress last week. The White House has said U.S. President Donald Trump will sign the sanctions bill, meant as a response to alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and to further punish Moscow for its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

On Tuesday, removal men began dismantling play equipment and barbecues at a U.S.-owned dacha (country villa) on the outskirts of Moscow, after being refused access the day before, according to a Reuters journalist at the scene. The dacha, which is being confiscated along with a U.S. warehouse in the south of the Russian capital, was used by U.S. diplomatic staff at the weekends and to host parties for students, journalists and other diplomats. [..] The ultimatum issued by the Russian leader is a display to voters at home that he is prepared to stand up to Washington – but is also carefully calibrated to avoid directly affecting the U.S. investment he needs, or burning his bridges with Trump. One person at the embassy, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media, said staff there were feeling depressed and despondent as they came to terms with the Kremlin’s order. “The mood in the office is very pessimistic,” the person said. “Everyone is just loitering, or sitting on job websites looking for a new job.”

Strange things were taking place.

• Former Obama Aide Rhodes A Person Of Interest In Unmasking Investigation (C.)

Former Obama White House National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes is now an emerging as a person of interest in the House Intelligence Committee’s unmasking investigation, according to a letter sent Tuesday by the committee to the National Security Agency (NSA). This adds Rhodes to the growing list of top Obama government officials who may have improperly unmasked Americans in communications intercepted overseas by the NSA, Circa has confirmed. The House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-CA, sent the letter to the National Security Agency requesting the number of unmaskings made by Rhodes from Jan. 1, 2016 to Jan. 20, 2017, according to congressional sources who spoke with Circa.

Rhodes, who worked closely with former National Security Adviser Susan Rice and was a former deputy national security adviser for strategic communications for President Obama, became a focus of the committee during its review of classified information to assess whether laws were broken regarding NSA intercepted communications of President Trump, members of his administration and other Americans before and after the election, according to congressional officials. The committee is requesting that the NSA deliver the information on Rhodes by August, 21. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, Rice and former CIA Director John Brennan have all been named in the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into the unmasking of Americans.

A letter sent last week from Nunes to Dan Coats, the director of National Intelligence, suggested that top Obama aides made hundreds of unmasking requests during the 2016 presidential elections. The story, which was first reported by The Hill last week, stated that the requests were made without specific justifications as to why the unmasking was necessary. Rice and Brennan have confirmed they sought the unredacted names of Americans in NSA-sourced intelligence reports but insisted their requests were routine parts of their work and had no nefarious intentions. Power also has legal authority to unmask officials, though the practice has not reportedly been common for someone in her position. Rhodes also had legal authority to unmask Americans in NSA-source intelligence reports. But intelligence and congressional sources question the extent of the unmasking.

Testament to insanity and waste.

• For Sale: Two Half-Finished Nuclear Reactors -Never Used- (BBG)

Looking to buy two half-finished nuclear reactors? It may be your lucky day. U.S. utility owner Scana Corp. dropped a plan to build two reactors at the V.C. Summer power plant in South Carolina on Monday after the projected total costs exceeded $20 billion. The cancelation of the project is another blow to the much-hyped (and thus far non-existent) nuclear renaissance in the U.S. As cheap natural gas squeezes the margins of nuclear generators, there’s only one company currently building reactors in the country — Southern Co., at its Vogtle plant in Georgia. So what’s a utility to do with two unfinished nukes laying around in South Carolina? Scana CEO Kevin Marsh said in a call with analysts that he wants to keep the equipment in operating condition in case someone in China, India or the U.K. wants to buy it.

A sale like that is easier said than done. “The Chinese are developing a competitive product, the Brits are in trouble with their nuclear projects and the Indians want to develop their own supply chain,” said Chris Gadomski, a nuclear industry analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance. It’s more likely the South Carolina project is “mothballed,” he said. Reactors have found new buyers and new life in the past. In 2016, the Tennessee Valley Authority turned on its Watts Bar 2 reactor after work had been suspended in 1985. Franklin L. Haney bought an unfinished, decades-old nuclear plant in northern Alabama at an auction last November for $111 million. The Bellefonte plant came with two partially built nuclear reactors, one that’s about 55% complete and another about 35% finished.

Haney still has to get the mothballed station into working order, find customers for its power and qualify for a federal nuclear production tax credit. Perhaps a similar fate awaits the V.C. Summer plant. “It makes more sense to let them sit in place, maintain them, and see if they can be revisited,” Gadomski said.

What, there are still unions?

• Nissan Runs One Of ‘Nastiest Anti-Union Campaigns’ In Modern US History (G.)

Days before a potentially historic union vote at the Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi, the car company has been accused of running one of the “nastiest anti-union campaigns in the modern history of the American labour movement”. The vote, a fiercely contested effort by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union to represent a foreign automaker’s US plant, is planned for Thursday and Friday this week. It comes as US unions are hopeful they can overturn a series of defeats as they seek to build membership in southern states, where manufacturers have moved to take advantage of lower wages and non-union workforces. In the closing days of the campaign, which has attracted support from the former presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, UAW officials and their allies have become increasingly confident of victory even as managers have pressured workers to vote no.

“People are rallying,” says Frank Figgers, co-chair of the Mississippi Alliance for Fairness at Nissan. The UAW is undertaking an extensive door-to-door campaign to visit workers in their homes to discuss the union. The UAW has shipped in staff from all over the country to help in the effort. Other unions from around the south have shipped in organizers from across the country to assist in the outreach to the plant’s nearly 4,000 workers. Nissan has responded with fierce opposition. The company has blitzed local TV with anti-union ads and stands accused of both threatening and bribing workers to vote no. It requires workers to regularly attend anti-union roundtable group meetings as well as one-on-one meetings with their direct supervisors, some of whom have worn “vote no” T-shirts to work. The Republican governor, Phil Bryant, has also come out hard for Nissan. “If you want to take away your job, if you want to end manufacturing as we know it in Mississippi, just start expanding unions,” Bryant said last week.

Evil incorporated.

• Monsanto’s Sway Over Research Is Seen in Disclosed Emails (NYT)

Documents released Tuesday in a lawsuit against Monsanto raised new questions about the company’s efforts to influence the news media and scientific research and revealed internal debate over the safety of its highest-profile product, the weed killer Roundup. The active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, is the most common weed killer in the world and is used by farmers on row crops and by home gardeners. While Roundup’s relative safety has been upheld by most regulators, a case in federal court in San Francisco continues to raise questions about the company’s practices and the product itself. The documents underscore the lengths to which the agrochemical company goes to protect its image. Documents show that Henry I. Miller, an academic and a vocal proponent of genetically modified crops, asked Monsanto to draft an article for him that largely mirrored one that appeared under his name on Forbes’s website in 2015.

A similar issue appeared in academic research. An academic involved in writing research funded by Monsanto, John Acquavella, a former Monsanto employee, appeared to express discomfort with the process, writing in a 2015 email to a Monsanto executive, “I can’t be part of deceptive authorship on a presentation or publication.” He also said of the way the company was trying to present the authorship: “We call that ghost writing and it is unethical.” A Monsanto official said the comments were the result of “a complete misunderstanding” that had been “worked out,” while Mr. Acquavella said in an email on Tuesday that “there was no ghostwriting” and that his comments had been related to an early draft and a question over authorship that was resolved. The documents also show internal talk about Roundup’s safety.

“If somebody came to me and said they wanted to test Roundup I know how I would react — with serious concern,” one Monsanto scientist wrote in an internal email in 2001. Monsanto said it was outraged by the documents’ release by a law firm involved in the litigation. “There is a standing confidentiality order that they violated,” said Scott Partridge, vice president of global strategy for Monsanto. He said that while “you can’t unring a bell,” Monsanto would seek penalties on the firm. “What you’re seeing are some cherry-picked things that can be made to look bad,” Mr. Partridge said. “But the substance and the science are not affected by this.”

How does a farmer protect himself from Monsanto, DuPont and BASF?

• Pesticide ‘Drifting’ Wreaks Havoc Across US Crops (BBG)

Larry Martin in Illinois says he’s never seen anything like it in his 35 years of farming. Arkansas soybean grower Joe McLemore says he faces the loss of his life savings. They’re among farmers across the U.S. suffering from a pesticide “drifting” across from neighboring fields onto their crops, leaving behind a trail of damage. Although not a new problem, it’s re-emerged with a vengeance this year. At least 2.5 million acres (1 million hectares) have been damaged in this growing season through mid-July, according to estimates from Kevin Bradley, a professor of plant sciences at the University of Missouri. Dicamba, the offending herbicide, is produced by seed and crop-chemical giants Monsanto, DuPont and BASF.

It’s been around for decades, but in recent years it gained a new lease of life after the companies developed new dicamba-resistant soybean and cotton seeds, allowing farmers to spray crops later in the growing process. Dicamba is fine if you’re growing those genetically modified varieties, but not if you’re cultivating others and the chemical wafts over from another farm. The situation is so bad that states including Missouri, Arkansas, and Tennessee have placed restrictions on dicamba use at various times during the summer. Martin, a third-generation farmer, says an 80-acre soybean field of his has been damaged by dicamba. McLemore, who started out on his own eight years ago, after two decades working on someone else’s farm, says 800 of his 1,026 acres of soybeans have suffered damage.

3%? That’s hardly ‘bouncing back’.

• Bees Are Bouncing Back From Colony Collapse Disorder – A Little (BBG)

The number of U.S. honeybees, a critical component in the agriculture industry, rose in 2017 from a year earlier, and deaths of the insects attributed to a mysterious malady that’s affected hives in North America and Europe declined, according a U.S. Department of Agriculture honeybee health survey released Tuesday. The number of commercial U.S. honeybee colonies rose 3% to 2.89 million as of April 1, 2017 compared with a year earlier, the Agriculture Department reported. The number of hives lost to Colony Collapse Disorder, a phenomenon of disappearing bees that has raised concerns among farmers and scientists for a decade, was 84,430 in this year’s first quarter, down 27% from a year earlier. Year-over-year losses declined by the same%age in April through June, the most recent data in the survey.

Still, more than two-fifths of beekeepers said mites were harming their hives, and with pesticides and other factors still stressing bees, the overall increase is largely the result of constant replenishment of losses, the study showed. “You create new hives by breaking up your stronger hives, which just makes them weaker,” said Tim May, a beekeeper in Harvard, Illinois and the vice-president of the American Beekeeping Federation based in Atlanta. “We check for mites, we keep our bees well-fed, we communicate with farmers so they don’t spray pesticides when our hives are vulnerable. I don’t know what else we can do.” Environmental groups have expressed alarm over the 90% decline during the past two decades in the population of pollinators, from wild bees to Monarch butterflies. Some point to a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids as a possible cause, a link rejected by Bayer AG and other manufacturers.

In the USDA study, beekeepers who owned at least five colonies, or hives, reported the most losses from the varroa mite, a parasite that lives only in beehives and survives by sucking insect blood. The scourge, present in the U.S. since 1987, was reported in 42% of commercial hives between April and June this year, according to the USDA. That’s down from 53% in the same period one year earlier. Among other factors, beekeepers said 13% of colonies in the second quarter of this year were stressed by pesticides, 12% by mites and pests other than varroa and 4.3 by diseases. Bad weather, starvation, insufficient forage and other reasons were listed as problems with 6.6% of hives.

What does it mean to be human?

• 8 Migrants Dead Off Libya, 500 Rescued As Italy Prepares Naval Mission (AFP)

The bodies of eight migrants have been found at sea off the coast of Libya by rescuers coming to the aid of four rubber dinghies, the Italian coast guard said Tuesday. Some 500 survivors were pulled to safety, the coast guard told AFP, illustrating the huge challenge that continues to bedevil authorities as people try to reach Europe. The latest deaths came as the Italian government presented plans for a naval mission in Libyan territorial waters that aims to reduce the flow of migrants from the coast. Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, which was taking part in the rescues, said the corpses were recovered by the Santa Lucia merchant ship.

“We are here to stop more people drowning, today eight dead and four drifting boats” in distress, Proactiva’s founder, Oscar Champs, said on Twitter. The charity said there were 79 women and 39 minors — including four young children — among those rescued. Nearly 95,000 people have been brought to safety in Italy this year, a rise of 1% on the same period last year, according to the interior ministry. The government intends to send a logistics ship that could support Libyan units and will also offer a patrol boat, Italian Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti told lawmakers on Tuesday. However, Italy has no intention to create a naval blockade, which would be a “hostile act,” she said, insisting that support for the Libyan mission was the aim and cooperation was necessary.

If you read between the whining, what a lovely story. Night curfew because turtles are important. Perhaps that’s what it means to be human.

• EasyJet Passengers Left High And Dry In Greece Due to Mating Turtles (G.)

Scores of easyJet passengers were stranded on the Greek island of Zakynthos (also known as Zante) after their plane developed technical difficulties and a replacement aircraft was prevented from flying in because of mating turtles. [..] The airline said the night curfew – apparently in place because of vulnerable loggerhead turtles breeding nearby – had prevented an alternative aircraft being sent out. The sea turtle breeding season is well under way in Zakynthos. According to Archelon, a group dedicated in protecting sea turtles in Greece, late June to early July see the highest levels of spawning. The group has recorded 500 nests on the island so far, but that is fewer than in previous years.