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Debt Rattle April 24 2026

Apr 242026
 
 April 24, 2026  Posted by at 9:35 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  42 Responses »


Georgia O’Keeffe New York Street with Moon 1925


• Trump Says Not Anxious, ‘All The Time In The World’ To End War (ZH)
• Mojtaba Khamenei With Medical Team In 24/7 Hideout, Generals Run Iran: NYT (ZH)
• Trump Orders U.S. Navy to Shoot Any Iranian Mine Ships (Catherine Salgado)
• Trump: Fossil Fuels Essential To National Security (JTN)
• Greg Gutfeld Savages the SPLC and the Democrats Who Took the Bait (Margolis)
• Judge Dismisses Kash Patel’s Defamation Lawsuit (CNBC)
• Lavrov Warns Of ‘Rampant Satanism’ In EU (RT)
• Professor Defines Elderly Americans as the New Class Enemy (Paul Craig Roberts)
• The Resurrection of Ron DeSantis (Scott Pinsker)
• Obama’s ‘Dreamer’ Fairy Tale Just Got Torched (Margolis)
• The U.S. Military Is Running a Bitcoin Node, Admiral Paparo Reveals (BCM)
• European Car Sales Jump 11% As Fuel Shock Drives EV Demand (ZH)

 


 

 


 


First they get a chance to tell him who to talk to. I don’t think he’ll give them much time.

• Trump Says Not Anxious, ‘All The Time In The World’ To End War (ZH)

A huge breakthrough in Lebanon, where President Trump has declared an extended ceasefire for three weeks – though there have still been reports of sporadic fighting involving Israel and Hezbollah – the latter which hasn’t signed on to a ceasefire: Israel and Lebanon agreed to extend their ceasefire by three weeks following a meeting in the White House with top U.S. officials, President Donald Trump said Thursday.


“The Meeting went very well!” Trump said in a Truth Social post announcing the extension of the temporary truce. “The United States is going to work with Lebanon in order to help it protect itself from Hezbollah,” Trump wrote, referring to the Iran-backed militia group. “The Ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon will be extended by THREE WEEKS,” he wrote. Meanwhile, that Iran timeline keeps getting more and more open-ended…

President Trump pushes back on claims he is anxious to end the war; says he has all the time in the world, Iran does not. However, consumer prices and at the pump could steadily rise and next fall’s Congressional midterms might beg to differ. Here’s some of what Trump said:

• Iran’s Navy is lying at the bottom of the Sea, their Air Force is demolished, their Anti Aircraft and Radar Weaponry is gone, their leaders are no longer with us, the Blockade is airtight and strong and, from there, it only gets worse — Time is not on their side!

• A Deal will only be made when it’s appropriate and good for the United States of America, our Allies and, in fact, the rest of the World.

The earlier reports of ‘air defenses active over Tehran’ was the result of a drill, Iran says. And more importantly, Tehran is rejecting Israeli media reports of a big shake-up centered on Iran’s Parliament Speaker.

Parliament Speaker Resigns after IRGC Intervention
Israel’s N12 News has issued a breaking headline claiming that Speaker of the Iranian Parliament Ghalibaf, who has appeared to run the day to day over the civilian government, has resigned from the country’s negotiating team following the intervention of the IRGC. There have been rumors and unverified murmurings that he was even arrested. Of course, given this comes via Israel – which is a party to the conflict – it should be taken with a grain of salt until verified; however Newsquawk notes it was enough to hit stocks and cause a spike in crude…

Meanwhile, Iranian social media accounts of Iran’s two highest civilian officials have sought to push back against the current White House/MSM consensus that Washington is dealing with a fractured, divided Iranian nation when it comes to negotiations:

Iran Asserts US Blockade Breached; Could Build Nuke “If We Wanted To”
US CENTCOM on Thursday announced its forces have redirected 33 Iran-linked vessels in the Hormuz Strait since the start of the blockade; however, Iranian state media is citing the below public source tanker data (in a Telegram post) to proclaim that four Iranian oil tankers successfully crossed the US blockade and enter Iranian waters.

According to the latest statements out of top Iran officials, Tehran is demonstrating “strength” in the strait, and also the foreign ministry has insisted that while the country is still not seeking nuclear weapons, it possesses the capability to create a bomb if needed. Via Al Jazeera: “We are not seeking to manufacture a nuclear bomb from our stockpile of highly enriched uranium, and if we wanted to, we could.”Meanwhile Iran’s foreign ministry has commented on the freeze on Pakistan talks, saying it has not decided to participate as of yet, but emphasized too that it is “not an option” to transfer out of the country its highly enriched uranium.

Read more …

The attack that killed his father injured Mojtaba much worse than they let on. If it didn’t outright kill him too. Today, they regret presenting him as the leader back then.

• Mojtaba Khamenei With Medical Team In 24/7 Hideout, Generals Run Iran: NYT (ZH)

The NY Times in a new deep dive of what governing structures now look like inside Iran says what’s already long been obvious to many in the wake of longtime Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death: “When Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ruled Iran as the supreme leader, he exerted absolute power over all decisions about war, peace and negotiations with the United States. His son and successor does not play the same role.” The publication says it was able to interview at least half-a-dozen Iranian insiders, including IRGC officials, and individuals who know the younger Khamenei “well”. The NY Times describes of Mojtaba Khamenei: “His father, wife and son were all killed. Access to him is extremely difficult and limited now. He is surrounded mostly by a team of doctors and medical staff who are treating the injuries he sustained in the airstrikes.”


Apparently even top ‘trusted’ generals and IRGC commanders do visit him for fear of being surveilled and tracked to his location by Israel and the United States. Per the sources cited in the Times, “Though Mr. Khamenei was gravely wounded, he is mentally sharp and engaged, according to four senior Iranian officials familiar with his health.” And more: “One leg was operated on three times, and he is awaiting a prosthetic. He had surgery on one hand and is slowly regaining function. His face and lips have been burned severely, making it difficult for him to speak, the officials said, adding that, eventually, he will need plastic surgery.”

All of this provides an explanation as to why he has never been seen or heard from in public since Trump’s Operation Epic Fury began on February 28. He has not so much as been photographed, and when state media has issued a few prior statements, it does so via text or what appears to be AI-configured audio over state media airwaves. This fact has unleashed an avalanche of speculation as to his fate over the course of the war, and who is “really in charge”. And yet it’s also well-known that Iran is able to function militarily based on autonomy and dispersion of command among units, with the IRGC given more independence to act.

The White House has alleged there are essentially two factions vying for power and direction over the war – the civilian leadership and the IRGC command sides. “Mojtaba is not yet in full command or control,” Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa for Chatham House, claimed in the NYT report. But as expected the situation is nuanced: “There is, perhaps, deference to him,” he continued. “He signs off or he is part of the decision-making structure in a formal way. But he is presented with fait accompli presentations right now.”

As we and other have pointed out, in public at least the de facto day-to-day leader of the country remains speaker of the Iranian Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. He has taken point as lead negotiator with the United States in Pakistan, and has been the public face of updating his country and the world on both the status of the war and the now stalled negotiations. One other interesting detail in the Times report is seen in the following:

Messages to him are handwritten, sealed in envelopes and relayed via a human chain from one trusted courier to the next, who travel on highways and back roads, in cars and on motorcycles until they reach his hide-out. His guidance on issues snakes back the same way. Some pundits have correctly pointed out that skepticism is warranted, also given the NYT’s often deeply inaccurate reporting on Bush’s Iraq war invasion, and other Mideast conflict zones including Syria: With all due respect, remain skeptical about the credibility of the The New York Times report.

The NY Times alleged findings has it to the conclusion that even big decisions are currently under control of the generals and IRGC apparatus: “The combination of concern for his safety, his injuries and the sheer challenge of reaching him has resulted in Mr. Khamenei’s delegating decision making to the generals, at least for now,” the report concludes.

Read more …

Seems a bit late.

• Trump Orders U.S. Navy to Shoot Any Iranian Mine Ships (Catherine Salgado)

President Donald Trump announced that he has given orders to the United States Navy to eliminate any Iranian vessels that they catch trying to drop more mines in the Strait of Hormuz. The president posted on Truth Social Thursday, “I have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be (Their naval ships are ALL, 159 of them, at the bottom of the sea!), that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz.” Trump emphasized, “There is to be no hesitation. Additionally, our mine ‘sweepers’ are clearing the Strait right now. I am hereby ordering that activity to continue, but at a tripled up level! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”


The Iranian regime dropped as many mines in the strait as they could during the active phase of the joint Israeli-U.S. Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion. After the ceasefire announcement and the initial Iranian violations by bombing other countries, the murderous mullahs also absolutely refused to remove mines from the strait but demanded tolls from any countries that sent ships through anyway.

Furthermore, on April 23, Trump posted, “Iran is having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is! They just don’t know! The infighting is between the ‘Hardliners,’ who have been losing BADLY on the battlefield, and the ‘Moderates,’ who are not very moderate at all (but gaining respect!), is CRAZY! We have total control over the Strait of Hormuz. No ship can enter or leave without the approval of the United States Navy. It is ‘Sealed up Tight,’ until such time as Iran is able to make a DEAL!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

It is not clear to whom Trump referred as “moderates,” because all the leaders of the Iranian regime still in power are part of the world’s worst terrorist regime that has been attacking Americans for nearly half a century. Tens of thousands of Persian freedom protesters remain in prison, many scheduled for execution.

Speaking of hardliners, one of the main Iranian leaders supposed to be negotiating with the United States, with whom Vice President JD Vance met in Pakistan, just went on Arab language television to smirk, boast, and defy the U.S. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Baqer “Death to America” Ghalibaf (or Qalibaf) needs to go back on the elimination list, because he is making it perfectly clear he has no intention of ever making peace with the “great Satan” America and the “little Satan” Israel.

“I, as a soldier, am fighting in the realm of negotiations,” Qalibaf smirked. “In this situation, negotiations constitute a form of fighting. I ask our dear people to unite around the three fighting arenas, which, in fact, constitute one battlefield — raising the flag of victory and making our people’s gains official.” He claimed that Americans removing Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz were a “violation of the ceasefire.”

Read more …

“The five orders seek to address a number of bottlenecks and impediments to coal, natural gas and petroleum production, including financial support, infrastructure development, improved supply chains, and permit expediting.”

• Trump: Fossil Fuels Essential To National Security (JTN)

President Donald Trump has signed five executive orders that address critical segments of the nation’s energy infrastructure – a move made under the presidential determinations of the Defense Production Act that allows a U.S. president to mobilize industry for purposes of national security. The two-term president has long pushed for energy development and the infrastructure to support it as a key aspect of national security. The orders, signed amid the U.S. war with Iran, seek to address issues with the aging electricity grid, the need for natural gas pipelines, coal supply chains and large-scale electricity projects. They don’t refer to wind and solar energy, but they identify “intermittent energy” as a threat to a secure supply of energy.


Iran and neighboring Persian Gulf states account for as much as 50% of the world’s oil reserves, but the U.S. is not dependent on the region for its oil. Still, the orders signed Tuesday by Trump will go a long way toward helping secure American energy dominance, David Blackmon, an analyst with over 40 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, said on his “Energy Additions” Substack, “Taken together, these five actions represent the most comprehensive federal push for all-of-the-above energy in modern history. They cut through the red tape, provide the financial backstops markets sometimes need for massive infrastructure bets, and explicitly reject the notion that we can ‘transition’ away from reliable hydrocarbons without destroying our economy and security,” he wrote.

Order 1: Large-scale energy development
Focuses on large-scale energy development, covering a range of activities from the development of power plants to financing. It aims to cut through red tape and long permitting times to accelerate projects. Reduces financial risks, regulatory delays and other barriers that impede investment and development. Supports the deployment of power plants, supports manufacturing, enables infrastructure construction, site preparation and financing in the early stages of the projects. Prioritizes domestic energy-related manufacturing to support infrastructure development.

Order 2: Grid infrastructure
Aims to shore up America’s electricity grid, which has run into bottlenecks due to long lead times for things like transformers, dependency on foreign supply chains and permitting delays. Transmission projects can take decades and cost billions of dollars. The order identifies America’s aging and inadequate grid as a threat to national defense and economic prosperity. Identifies the need to reduce lead times on equipment and infrastructure, including transformers, conductors, substations and related raw materials. Encourages increased domestic production of materials and components. Identifies purchases, purchase commitments and financial support as actions needed for development of U.S. production capabilities.

Order 3: Domestic petroleum production
Emphasizes that an intermittent energy supply leaves the U.S. vulnerable to hostile foreign actors, and encourages an increase in production, transportation, refining and generation capacity of domestic petroleum production. Provides support for exploration, storage and pipelines Identifies petroleum products as essential for fueling the military and economy Cuts through permitting delays and financial constraints

Order 4: Liquefied natural gas production and infrastructure
This order appears to be directly in response to the impacts of Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has thrown liquefied natural gas markets into chaos and driven up costs. The order states that “hostile foreign actors” weaponized America’s reliance on foreign energy, which caused dramatic swings in international commodity markets. The U.S. has been largely shielded from these shocks due to it being the largest producer of natural gas in the world, and the support of export terminals likely aims to make the U.S. more capable of supplying its allies’ energy needs.

The order seeks to: Provides support for pipelines, compression and processing facilities, underground storage, and export terminals Seeks to remove financing constraints, permitting delays and infrastructure bottlenecks Calls for purchases, purchasing commitments and financial support for the development of natural gas production capabilities.

Order 5: Support for the coal industry
America’s coal industry has long been in decline. It’s partly due to competition from natural gas, but climate policies that began under the Obama administration sought to force coal-fired electrical generation into early retirement. Trump’s order identifies coal as an important energy resource that provides baseload power to the grid. Supports coal mining and rail and barge logistics, export terminals and life-extension work on power plants and on-site stockpiles of coal. Addresses financial constraints, long lead times on maintenance, and expensive repair cycles Provides financial support for the development of production capabilities

Blackmon acknowledged the orders aren’t “magic bullets,” but they will be encouraging to investors, developers and allies that the federal government is supporting American energy production. Energy Secretary Chris “Wright now has the tools to act decisively to speed permitting, reshore supply chains, and speed crucial projects long stuck in bureaucratic limbo to finally break ground,” Blackmon wrote.

Read more …

“The SPLC’s whole model, Gutfeld argued, depended on a steady supply of racism — and when organic hate proved insufficient, the group manufactured it. ”

• Greg Gutfeld Savages the SPLC and the Democrats Who Took the Bait (Margolis)

For years, the Southern Poverty Law Center occupied a kind of sacred space in American media — the unquestioned arbiter of hate, the group whose pronouncements landed on front pages without so much as a raised eyebrow from the reporters who carried their water. Turns out, the whole operation may have been rotten from the inside. On Wednesday’s episode of Gutfeld!, host Greg Gutfeld savaged the SPLC and the Democrats who bought into the false narrative it was selling.


Gutfeld began by playing a montage of Joe Biden clips hammering the same line about the infamous Charlottesville hoax — that Donald Trump called neo-Nazis “very fine people.” Biden ran that narrative into the ground. He even built his 2020 campaign around it. He said it over and over, repeating the lie incessantly as gospel.

Now the SPLC, long treated by the media as the gold standard on American hate groups, has been indicted by a grand jury for allegedly funneling millions in donor funds directly to the extremist groups it claimed to be fighting — including the KKK and neo-Nazis. Gutfeld’s response was characteristically blunt. “I would say you can’t make this stuff up, but that’s exactly what these hate mongers were doing, funding the very extremist groups it claimed to fight,” he said. “The arsonist may have been running the fire department. It’s like donating to save the whales and finding out that the money was going to feed The View.”

The SPLC’s whole model, Gutfeld argued, depended on a steady supply of racism — and when organic hate proved insufficient, the group manufactured it. Actual hate groups in America, he noted, have been about “as robust as Blockbuster Video.” That’s a problem when your fundraising, your media relevance, and your entire reason for existing depend on the country being crawling with white supremacists. So the SPLC has a reputation for labeling virtually any organization it can as a hate group, such as Turning Point USA or the Family Research Council. “Hate morphs into ideas that liberals hate,” Gutfeld said, “especially since it’s the only tool they have to ruin people by calling them bigots.”

And, of course, the press was a willing partner in all of it. Every hate map published by the SPLC got treated like scripture. If the SPLC said your neighbor’s bowling league was a hate group, Gutfeld quipped, it was front-page news, no questions asked That manufactured climate of fear had real political consequences. Gutfeld rolled a series of Biden clips, in which he insisted that white supremacy was “the most lethal threat to the homeland today. Not ISIS, not Al-Qaeda, white supremacists.” Biden repeated variations of this false claim across multiple appearances, each one more emphatic than the last. That narrative, Gutfeld argued, traces directly back to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville and the “fine people hoax.”

“The entire narrative of Biden’s candidacy was based on a hoax created by a left-wing group, then protected by the media, who did no investigation into who these haters were,” Gutfeld noted. “The media’s oddly incurious, in addition to corrupt and stupid.” One detail Gutfeld found particularly telling — the identities of the torch carriers at Charlottesville were never seriously investigated. The same media apparatus that tracked down every Capitol Hill grandmother from January 6 somehow never got around to finding out who those people actually were or where they came from. That asymmetry, he suggested, tells you everything about whose narrative the press was protecting.

The SPLC’s reach extended well beyond the Biden campaign and cable news chyrons. Corporate America lined up to fund what now turned out to be a racket for funding hate. “It’s about politicians who embrace them, the corporations that donated to them,” Gutfeld said, and the media outlets “who needed to make the lies true so they could say it’s racist to deport people in the country illegally, so that everyone in the next Star Trek is trans and that hiring based on merit is as out of date as the canned beans I donate to food drives.”

Gutfeld acknowledged that the allegations still need to be proven in court. But the broader point, he said, stands regardless of how the legal case unfolds. “America is one of the least racist societies in human history,” he concluded, “and that’s bad for business if your business is racism.” And, as we know, that’s exactly the business the Democratic Party is in.

Read more …

It’s quite OK to write and publish that the head of the FBI, known for his long working hours, is really a drunk who hangs out in bars at all hours. That is just hyperbole. Well, unless he’s a democrat, we fear.

• Judge Dismisses Kash Patel’s Defamation Lawsuit (CNBC)

A Houston federal court judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit by FBI Director Kash Patel alleging that former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi defamed him by saying Patel last year had “been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of” the bureau’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. “The Court finds that Figliuzzi’s statement is rhetorical hyperbole that cannot constitute defamation,” U.S. District Court Judge George Hanks Jr. wrote in his decision. “Accordingly, Dir. Patel has failed to state a claim against Figliuzzi, and his lawsuit must be dismissed.”


The dismissal came a day after Patel filed an unrelated $250 million defamation lawsuit in D.C. federal court against The Atlantic magazine over a new article that alleged he has abused alcohol. While ruling on the key question of defamation in Figliuzzi’s favor, the judge denied his request that he be awarded court costs and attorneys’ fees under Texas’ anti-SLAPP law. SLAPP is an acronym for Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation. Figliuzzi’s lawyer, Marc Fuller, in a statement to CNBC, said, “This is a victory for press freedom and the First Amendment.”

“Director Patel’s claim against Frank was baseless, and we are pleased that the court dismissed it,” Fuller said. Figliuzzi, former assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, made his crack about Patel on May 2, 2025, on the MS NOW show “Morning Joe.” “Yeah, well, reportedly, he’s been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building,” said Figliuzzi. Patel sued him in June, accusing Figliuzzi of “fabricating a specific lie” about the FBI director because of Figliuzzi’s “clear animus” toward him.

Read more …

Member states have backed the Kiev authorities’ “blasphemous practices” at a major Orthodox monastery, the Russian foreign minister has said

• Lavrov Warns Of ‘Rampant Satanism’ In EU (RT)

There is “rampant Satanism” in certain EU member states, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has alleged, citing their connivance in the Ukrainian authorities’ “blasphemous practices” at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Orthodox monastery.Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, the government in Kiev has intensified its crackdown on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church over allegations that it has connections to Moscow. The Ukrainian authorities have since conducted numerous raids on monasteries and launched dozens of criminal cases on collaboration charges against clerics, as well as property seizures.


At the same time, Vladimir Zelensky’s government has backed the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which the Russian Orthodox Church considers schismatic. Speaking at a Russian Foreign Ministry reception on Wednesday dedicated to Orthodox Easter, Lavrov stated that the Ukrainian leadership has rejected “their spiritual and civilizational roots.” “The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been persecuted for over a decade now, with churches [forcibly] taken over, vandalized and clergy and parishioners harassed,” he said.

Particularly “outrageous and disgusting” is the Ukrainian authorities’ initiative to create an “inventory and inspect the holy relics in terms of their historical and scientific value” at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra monastery. According to Lavrov, the “Ukrainian Ministry of Culture used this bureaucratic formula to conceal its legalized blasphemous practices, while several European countries have turned a blind eye to these developments or even directly supported them.” “There is rampant Satanism in these countries, too,” the Russian foreign minister concluded.

Last March, the first reports emerged of Ukrainian government officials and police forcing their way into the catacombs of what is considered the nation’s most significant monastery and the final resting place of several Christian saints. Incidentally, this is not the first time Lavrov has suggested there are Satanic tendencies in the West. Speaking in February, after the US Department of Justice released a large trove of the so-called Epstein files, the Russian foreign minister said that the materials had “revealed the face of the West.” “Every normal person knows this is beyond comprehension and pure Satanism,” Lavrov stated then.

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PCR does not like getting old.

• Professor Defines Elderly Americans as the New Class Enemy (Paul Craig Roberts)

A Yale University professor of law and history, Samuel Moyn, has resurrected and redefined Marxian class conflict. In the old Marxism, the capitalists exploited the workers. In Moyn’s version, elderly Americans exploit the young. Moyn’s solution, espoused, of course, in the New York Times (April 21), is for the old to be dispossessed of their homes, jobs, accumulated wealth, and political and judicial offices. These dispossessions and more are needed for “intergenerational justice,” by which Moyn means redistribution from the aged to the young, and in order to stop older Americans from “Hoarding America’s Potential.” Moyn thinks that a poorly educated and undisciplined youth can manage all of America’s affairs better than better educated and more disciplined older Americans.


Moyn builds his case against “gerontocratic society.” Older Americans, that is more experienced Americans, are overrepresented in political life and have too much power. This results in inequality and injustice and in regressive public policies.

Moyn claims that older Americans are overrepresented in elections which gives them a stranglehold. What Moyn means is that older Americans take their citizenship responsibility more seriously than do the young and actually vote in elections. By being overrepresented in voting due to youthful disinterest the elderly have amassed “excessive power” that “harms society” by resisting open borders and “environmental remediation” (global warming claims), and denying society youthful creativity and dynamism such as we are currently observing in New York City.

Other evidence of unfairness and inequality are the rise in the median net worth of the elderly and fall in net worth of youths and that the elderly have a larger share of wealth than the young. Apparently, it is beyond Moyn’s comprehension that the elderly got established in life before so many well-paying American jobs were offshored and before robotics and AI cut into remaining good jobs. It doesn’t dawn on Moyn that the elderly have had many more years to accumulate wealth than have youth via such means as paid off home mortgages.

Moyn also blames the elderly for owning more homes than the youth. Again he overlooks the obvious. The replacement jobs for the “dirty fingernail” jobs sent abroad don’t support both a mortgage and a car payment. Why does Moyn think it is the elderly’s fault that the median age of a home buyer has risen from 30 in 1981 to 56 in 2024?

Moyn demonstrates faulty reasoning throughout his case against the elderly. He alleges that the elderly are privileged because more dollars go to the elderly than to children, which he thinks makes it “clear that older Americans have helped widen the chasm between classes in our neoliberal era.” The “more dollars” are of course Social Security and Medicare payments. But these are retirement age programs sponsored and legislated by liberals, not reactionary elderly, that the elderly have paid for in Social Security and Medicare taxes on their wages and salaries for all of their working life. It is beyond Moyn’s imagination that it is the neoliberal policies, such as offshoring American high-productivity jobs, that have damaged the prospects for American youth. It was not the elderly who took down the ladders of upward mobility that characterized the old American “opportunity society.”

In the end Moyn has written a brief for removing any remaining requirements that voting depends on proof of citizenship. He claims that this reduces voting by younger Americans. However, the claims are nonsensical. All any American citizen, regardless of age, has to do to vote is to register. But Moyn sees registration as a burden the elderly put on the young to make it inconvenient for them to vote.

Moyn wants to violate the age discrimination laws by bringing back mandatory retirement. So what happens to the elderly who cannot survive without a paycheck? Moyn doesn’t seem to care. Any false argument will do to move them aside.

Moyn wants to force elderly homeowners out of their home with progressive property taxes that rise the longer the elderly insist on living in their own homes. Apparently, Moyn thinks that widespread selling will collapse house prices, and the youth will be able to buy in a buyers’ market.

One of the many worrisome revelations in Moyn’s article is that it demonstrates that neither Yale law school nor The NY Times opinion editor have a concept of private property. Property is just something that is redistributed from those with a negative image to those with a positive image. Moyn sets the images: the elderly are regressive; the youth are dynamic and creative. Formerly property was redistributed from capitalists to workers. The liberals preferred from rich to poor. Moyn says from the old to the young.

I could continue, but this is enough for all to see that a Yale University law professor is positioning the American elderly as the next victim to be plundered. The NY Times supports the plunder of the elderly as does Moyn’s publisher of his attack on old people, Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth — and What to Do About It.

Note: Many years ago I predicted that the approval of abortion would lead to euthanasia of the old. If birth can be terminated because someone sees it as a problem, old age can be terminated as well. Moyn has initiated the attack on the elderly. First they will be dispossessed, which will increase their burden on society. Then a legislated lifetime will become law. As morality in the Western world has been greatly weakened, there will be no opposition to aborting the elderly.

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DeSantis is a political animal. Trump is the opposite.

The Supreme Court is an interesting place for him to go.

DeSantis and conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, that source said, “almost have a father-son relationship and would be a hell of a legacy for Trump.”

• The Resurrection of Ron DeSantis (Scott Pinsker)

His one mistake was challenging Donald Trump in 2024. More specifically, it was challenging Trump — and failing. Like Omar Little said on The Wire, “You come at the king, you best not miss.” Gov. Ron DeSantis came at the king… and missed very, very badly. Were it not for his ill-advised 2024 campaign, DeSantis would be on the GOP’s 2028 shortlist for president, along with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. In an alternate reality, Vance, Rubio, and DeSantis would be our Big Three. I’ll go one step further: Had he not challenged Trump in 2024, DeSantis probably wouldn’t even be the governor right now.


Although we still think of Trump as the quintessential New Yawker, he’s been a Floridian for quite a while. As are a slew of his top cabinet members and closest advisors: Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Rubio. Mike Waltz. Key supporting staff. Even scandal-tarred Florida congressman Matt Gaetz was (briefly) floated for attorney general — before being replaced by fellow Floridian, the since-fired Pam Bondi. But does DeSantis want to work in D.C.? After all, he’s still the governor of Florida, America’s third-most populous state. That’s a plumb position for a young, ambitious politician. (Plus, the weather in Tallahassee is way better.) Axios says yes (April 21): Scoop: DeSantis ‘Begging’ Trump for Prime Role in Administration

“President Trump has told confidants that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is “begging” for a job in Trump’s administration — including attorney general — Axios has learned. DeSantis also has expressed interest in being secretary of defense and even a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court, according to six sources briefed on the discussions.” Why it matters: DeSantis has to leave office at the end of his second term in January and is “looking for what to do next,” according to one source who said Trump is inclined to consider helping out his understudy-turned-rival-turned-friend. Inside the room: DeSantis’ future was on the menu after the two men had lunch at Trump National Doral Golf Club in Miami a week ago Sunday.

“Ron was begging me to be AG,” Trump told one confidant, who relayed the remark to Axios. Said another source: “There was a conversation at that lunch. I don’t think AG is real. But he’s gonna be looking for work and Trump likes him.” Among those three positions — attorney general, secretary of war, and Supreme Court justice — Axios suggests that the last two are a distinct possibility: …Trump would strongly consider DeSantis for the [Secretary of War] post if Hegseth left — though Hegseth remains in good standing with the president. “DeSantis is 100% not interested in the AG job, but he would be interested in two things: War secretary or Supreme Court, which would be his dream job,” said another source familiar with the discussions.

DeSantis and conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, that source said, “almost have a father-son relationship and would be a hell of a legacy for Trump.” The intrigue: DeSantis waged a bitter — but brief — primary bid in the 2024 presidential cycle against Trump, whose campaign and White House are stocked with critics of the governor. “Bygones are bygones,” said one Trump adviser. “But that doesn’t mean people forget.” Said another: “There’s a big reason the president wouldn’t pick Ron to be his attorney general: There’s a way-too-high chance he would try to f*** the president over.” [emphasis added]

Reading between the lines, it sounds as if DeSantis has (mostly) rebuilt his tattered relationship with President Trump, but obviously, a degree of mistrust remains. From Trump’s point of view, they’re still in the “trust-but-verify” phase.= Can’t really blame Trump for being cautious. When DeSantis’ decided to challenge Trump in 2024, it revealed something significant about his character — namely, his loyalty.

[..]

There’s a very real possibility that the gerrymandering push will benefit the Democrats more than the Republicans. Between California, Virginia, and Utah(!), the Dems now stand to gain 10 seats. Between Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio, the GOP will gain only 9. Which means, Republicans will be down a seat. Unless Florida’s governor gets involved. This is the moment DeSantis has patiently waited for. It’s his chance in the spotlight — his opportunity to save the day for the MAGAverse. Right now, Florida has 28 congressional seats. The GOP currently controls 20.

Under the Virginia’s precedent of gerrymandering seats 10-1 in the Democrat’s favor, why shouldn’t Florida match their numbers and gerrymander it, say, 25-3 for the Republicans? (That’s actually a more forgiving ratio than Virginia’s Dems gave us.) And we’d instantly go from -1 seat to +4. This week, we were reminded why we fell in love with DeSantis: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries threatened the governor not to pull a Virginia and redistrict Florida. DeSantis’ response was pure gold:

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“.. DACA recipients who commit crimes are deportable under existing law, just like any other illegal alien.”

• Obama’s ‘Dreamer’ Fairy Tale Just Got Torched (Margolis)

Last year, on the 13th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, an unconstitutional program he had conjured into existence by executive fiat, Barack Obama was singing its praises. “DACA was an example of how we can be a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws,” Obama said. “And it’s an example worth remembering today, when families with similar backgrounds who just want to live, work, and support their communities, are being demonized and treated as enemies.” And it’s all a lie.


Since President Donald Trump returned to office, his administration has arrested nearly 300 DACA recipients nationwide — 75 of them in Texas alone, who were previously protected from deportation. And here’s the number the left doesn’t want to talk about: of 270 DACA recipients arrested between Jan. 1, 2025, and Sept. 28, 2025, 250 — that’s 92% — had criminal convictions or pending criminal charges. Nine out of ten.

The breakdown is telling. Of those 270 arrests, 130 had criminal convictions, 120 had pending charges, and 14 were cited for immigration violations. Within the same window, 174 DACA recipients were removed from the country. According to the Department of Homeland Security, “Of those removed, 71 were convicted criminals, 66 had pending criminal charges, and 66 were in violation of immigration law. None of these applicants had been granted protected status at the time of their removal.”

DACA defenders insisted that the program’s beneficiaries were innocent, law-abiding, upstanding members of their communities. The best and brightest, vetted and re-vetted, posed zero threat to the communities they lived in. Democrats have pushed that line for years, insisting with practiced outrage that no, the administration isn’t shielding criminals — that just doesn’t happen.

The federal data proves otherwise. None of this is to say every DACA recipient is dangerous. There are over 505,000 currently active recipients in the country, more than 84,000 in Texas alone. But when 92% of the nearly 300 who wound up being targets for deportation had criminal histories, that’s a troubling statistic that undermines the very argument used to justify the DACA program, not to mention the desire to give these people a pathway toward full legal citizenship.

Of course, the media doesn’t want this detail to get out there. The Texas Tribune, which first reported on DACA recipients who were “targeted” for deportation, curiously left out the criminal records of the DACA recipients from its report: Since President Trump returned to office, his administration has begun to target DACA recipients for deportation as part of its mass deportation efforts. From January 2025 to November 2025, at least 261 DACA recipients have been arrested — 75 of them in Texas. And between 86 and 174 DACA recipients have been deported, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (The agency gave different figures to two different Democratic members of Congress who requested the information).

“DACA does NOT confer any form of legal status in this country,” DHS has said on this issue. “Any illegal alien who is a DACA recipient may be subject to arrest and deportation for a number of reasons, including if they’ve committed a crime.” In other words, DACA recipients who commit crimes are deportable under existing law, just like any other illegal alien. The program never granted immunity. In the end, the Trump administration is doing something radical by Washington standards: enforcing the law as written. And the left can’t take it.

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“..many nodes operate behind firewalls and are not publicly visible..”

• The U.S. Military Is Running a Bitcoin Node, Admiral Paparo Reveals (BCM)

The United States military has an active node on the Bitcoin network, according to Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM). The disclosure, made at a House Services committee hearing, marks the first known confirmation that a U.S. military combatant command is directly participating in the Bitcoin peer-to-peer network. “We have a node on the Bitcoin network,” Paparo wrote. “We’re doing a number of operational tests to secure and protect networks using the Bitcoin protocol.” The statement landed one day after Paparo made waves in Congress with testimony that framed Bitcoin as a tool of American power.


What Paparo said yesterday
On April 21, Paparo testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee during a FY2027 defense authorization hearing. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) asked Paparo whether U.S. leadership in Bitcoin could give the country an edge against China in the Indo-Pacific theater. Paparo did not deflect. He told the committee that INDOPACOM’s research centers on Bitcoin as a computer science tool — not as a financial asset. “Our research into Bitcoin is as a computer science tool,” Paparo said. “It’s the combination of cryptography, a blockchain, and a proof of work. And Bitcoin shows incredible potential as a computer science tool that through the proof-of-work protocols, actually imposes more cost than just the algorithmic securing of networks and our ability to operate.”

He described Bitcoin as “a peer-to-peer, zero-trust transfer of value” and said that “anything that supports all instruments of national power for the United States of America is to the good.” The testimony was notable for what Paparo did not say. He did not describe Bitcoin as a reserve asset, a payment system, or a speculative instrument. He framed it as a computer science system with direct military relevance — a distinction that set his remarks apart from most official government commentary on crypto.

What running a Bitcoin node means
A Bitcoin node is a computer that runs the Bitcoin software, maintains a full copy of the blockchain, and independently validates every transaction and block against the network’s consensus rules. Nodes do not mine Bitcoin. They enforce the rules of the protocol and relay data across the peer-to-peer network.Running a node gives an operator direct, trustless access to the Bitcoin network without relying on any third party. The operator’s computer connects to other nodes worldwide, verifies incoming transactions and blocks, and rejects anything that violates Bitcoin’s protocol rules.

For INDOPACOM, operating a node positions the command as a first-hand participant in the Bitcoin network, not an observer.The disclosure that the military is conducting “operational tests to secure and protect networks using the Bitcoin protocol” suggests the command is moving beyond theoretical research and into active experimentation with Bitcoin’s cryptographic architecture as a defensive tool. As of early 2026, there are an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 publicly reachable full nodes on the Bitcoin network, though the actual number is likely higher since many nodes operate behind firewalls and are not publicly visible.

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I wanna know: How many of the EVs are European made? Is it all BYDs and Tesla’s?

• European Car Sales Jump 11% As Fuel Shock Drives EV Demand (ZH)

European auto sales posted their strongest monthly gain in almost two years in March, as robust demand emerged for fully electric and hybrid models. The surge in demand follows the US-Iran conflict, which disrupted energy flows through the Hormuz chokepoint. As a result, petrol and diesel prices at the pump in Europe soared. Another issue is China flooding the continent with cheap EVs, undercutting already struggling domestic automakers.


Bloomberg cited new-vehicle registration data for last month showing an 11% rise to 1.58 million, as demand for EVs and hybrids continued to strengthen. EV deliveries jumped 42%, with growth across all major markets, including a 66% increase in German EV sales, driven by subsidies and more affordable models.

March’s surge in demand offers relief for struggling European automakers facing a number of issues, including excess capacity, U.S. tariffs, and weak demand in the Chinese market. The problem with Europe is that Brussels had the grand idea of allowing Chinese brands such as BYD and Geely to flood the continent with cheap EVs, undercutting rivals such as VW, Porsche, and Mercedes. Data for the month also showed that BYD more than doubled its European sales in March to 37,580 vehicles and is preparing to start production at its new plant in Hungary later this quarter. This means China’s market share in Europe is increasingly growing.

Tesla also participated in last month’s surge, with March registrations up 84% to 52,600, leaving it just ahead of BYD year-to-date. While it is quite obvious that the surge in Brent crude prices into triple-digit territory in March influenced consumer behavior, driving EV purchases because of the fuel shock that unfolded at petrol stations, we take a look at a UBS note showing that, over the past four decades, oil price shocks have typically remained elevated for five months following prior military events. All of this suggests that, with elevated prices in Europe and elsewhere, EVs will regain consumer favor. Yet in the U.S., with federal subsidies eliminated, demand remains muted.

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