subpoenas Archives - The Automatic Earth

Elon Musk just reduced American crime politics to a single question on Joe Rogan.

And answered it like it was arithmetic.

Musk: “While obviously not everyone who’s a Democrat is a criminal, almost everyone who is a criminal is a Democrat.”

That’s not a partisan attack.

That’s… pic.twitter.com/9vOHqaUGT4
— Dustin (@r0ck3t23) May 12, 2026

https://twitter.com/AlecLace/status/2054011075914342417?s=20

Big party for Trump?

• Trump Ready To Raise “Core of China’s Core Interests” In Xi Summit (ZH)

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to raise the issue of increasingly costly US arms transfers to Taiwan during their bilateral summit at the end of this week, spanning Thursday through Friday. Taiwan of course remains the “core of China’s core interests” – as Beijing has in the recent past characterized the issue. While Trump officials have previewed that it will be focused on trade and investment, the White House too is reportedly placing Taiwan and regional geopolitical hot button issues on the agenda.

“I’m going to have that discussion with President Xi,” Trump told reporters at the White House, specifically on the question of weapons sales. “President Xi would like us not to, and I’ll have that discussion. That’s one of the many things I’ll be talking about.”

Also there’s the looming question of the future of the Iran war and blockaded Strait of Hormuz. Currently there’s a stalemated situation and supposed ceasefire which is barely holding. By many accounts, Trump was hopeful that the Iran ‘excursion’ would be wrapped up by now, but it now seems to be sliding into protracted quagmire – critics point out. The WSJ says that Beijing is feeling confident as it prepares to receive Trump and what’s looking to be a rather large entourage: But behind the scenes, Beijing feels more emboldened, and more insistent on defending areas it regards as vital to its long-term strategic interests.
These include resisting U.S. pressure to relax its grip over global supply chains and fundamentally rebalance trade between the two countries. They also include urging Washington to look the other way as it pressures Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own, and as it projects military power across Asia. “They feel very well about how last year played out,” said Jonathan Czin, a fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution and a former U.S. intelligence officer focused on China. “They showed they could weather the storm and the administration had to climb down from the tariffs and spend most of the past year trying to mollify China.”
As for more implications of the Iran war dragging on as Trump goes to Beijing, CNBC writes: Iran’s ambassador to China Reza Rahmani Fazli in a Tuesday post on X pressed Tehran’s case with Beijing, saying that the relationship between the two is too strong for the U.S. to overcome. The bottom line is that higher energy prices are baked in for the foreseeable future. The price of crude oil makes up about half of the cost of a gallon of gas, according to the Energy Information Administration.
And U.S. elections are less than six months away. The 2026 midterm elections will be a crucial referendum on Trump and the Republican Party as they seek to retain a lock on both chambers in Congress. Trump early Tuesday put out the following message on Truth Social, teasing that the next regime change operations could be unleashed on China’s small island-nation ally in America’s immediate backyard…

For some further big picture analysis on how the Iran gambit has raised the stakes, and made the Beijing summit more unpredictable, the below is some fresh Rabobank commentary outlining related developments to watch:
In a case of curious timing, the US just imposed fresh sanctions on individuals and firms involved in facilitating Iranian oil sales to China, and Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao yesterday released a new 30-year shipbuilding plan. That plan anticipates the acquisition of 11 nuclear-powered Trump class battleships, new underwater drones, and an ongoing review to the Ford class aircraft carrier design to increase lethality and reliability while reducing unit costs and production lead times. The planned expansion of the US fleet and shipbuilding industrial base is undoubtedly a reaction to China’s growing naval strength and substantial advantage in production capacity. The message to Xi is an unsubtle one.
The FT’s Gideon Rachman characterises Trump as arriving at Xi’s court in a state of supplication, having effectively lost the trade war vs China and the shooting war vs Iran. This perhaps overstates the weakness of Trump’s position by ignoring the fact that the US has tightened its grip on global energy supply chains and has shown that is has the power to put its foot on the hosepipe of Chinese energy imports whenever it likes. In the flurry of commentary over China’s bumper trade surplus in April, it seems to have been missed that import volumes for crude oil were down sharply, but values were higher. Yesterday’s April PPI figures for China also underscored the uncomfortable effects that the Iran war is having on the Chinese industrial economy.
Xi will be acutely aware of this, and he will also be aware that the US holds similar power to disrupt Chinese food imports if it was of a mind to do so. Seapower IS power, as the shipbuilding plan should remind us all. In this respect, Trump holds better cards than the FT is giving him credit for. Perhaps it is no coincidence that China bought more soybeans in April than it had done for months.
Some more of Trump’s latest commentary amid his hope for a ‘good’ Xi meeting:

Trump: If you have the right president, I don't think Taiwan invasion will happen. I have a very good relationship with President Xi.

We're 9,500 miles away. He's 67 miles away. But there’s a lot of support for Taiwan from Japan and countries in that area. 2X pic.twitter.com/8ipHIKy4pM
— Tymofiy Mylovanov (@Mylovanov) May 12, 2026

Iran “demands”? They don’t even want to talk about nukes. Perfectly unrealistic.

Even Saudi Arabia was bombing Iran.

• Iran Specifies 5 Demands To Restart Peace Talks With US (ZH)

Iran on Tuesday revealed its demands in a counteroffer to the United States that President Trump shot down on Sunday, which has put the whole conflict and Pakistan-mediated talks in a holding pattern and stalemate, as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively blocked. The demands hinge on war reparations, Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and an end to US sanctions – things which the White House balked at, with war reparations especially being focus of rejection by the US side, and the lack of taking up the nuclear issue, which Iran has insisted is a non-starter and would only be dealt with after the war is settled.

Trump had previously made clear on Truth Social that “I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘Representatives.’ I don’t like it — TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” Al Jazeera correspondent Ali Hashem has listed the following five conditions that it sees as the basis for reentering talks:

1) Ending the war on all fronts, including Lebanon
2) Lifting all sanctions
3) Releasing frozen Iranian assets
4) Compensation for war damages and losses
5) Recognition of Iran’s sovereign rights over the Strait of Hormuz
Again, all this according to Tehran must be agreed to while at the same time Iran is pushing back against nuclear negotiations. In a Monday press briefing Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei had publicly alluded to several of these, including in his words, “Demanding an end to the war, lifting the blockade and piracy, and releasing Iranian assets that have been unjustly frozen in banks due to U.S. pressure.” Also, there was mention of “Safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz and establishing security in the region and Lebanon were other demands of Iran, which are considered a generous and responsible offer for regional security” – before talks could begin in good faith.
Tehran apparently feels it can weather the tightening economic noose its under, given Tanker Trackers on Tuesday said Iran has not successfully exported any crude oil by sea over the past 28 days. To our best knowledge, Iran hasn’t successfully exported* any crude oil by sea over the past 28 days. Some refined products managed to escape because US OFAC did not slap sanctions on those tankers.
In addition, Kharg Island hasn’t loaded any tankers since 2026-05-06 as a result…
— TankerTrackers.com, Inc. (@TankerTrackers) May 12, 2026
Trump, just before his departure to China, remarked to Axios: “Iran will either do the right thing or we will finish the job… we are either gonna make a deal or they will be decimated.”

If/when they go in again, it’ll be for a long haul.

• Trump Considering Resuming Airstrikes As Talks With Iran Stall – Axios (RT)

US President Donald Trump is considering resuming the bombing campaign against Iran as peace talks remain stalled, Axios reported on Monday, citing three US officials familiar with the matter. On Sunday, Trump rejected Iran’s latest terms as “totally unacceptable” and said the ceasefire reached around a month ago was “on massive life support.” According to Axios, Trump was set to meet with his national security team on Monday to discuss next steps, including potentially resuming Project Freedom – an operation aimed at guiding ships through the Strait of Hormuz – as well as restarting airstrikes and hitting the remaining 25% of targets identified by the Pentagon but not yet struck.

The Washington Post, citing a CIA assessment, reported last week that Iran retained about 75% of its pre-war mobile launchers and roughly 70% of its missiles, and could withstand a US naval blockade for at least three to four months. Trump suspended Project Freedom within 24 hours of announcing it last week, following a request from Pakistan, which has acted as a mediator in the conflict. NBC later reported that the president shelved the initiative after Saudi Arabia refused to allow the US to use its bases and airspace to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on Sunday that the US had “no alternative” but to accept Tehran’s terms. “The longer they drag their feet, the more American taxpayers will pay for it,” he wrote on X. Iranian state media described Trump’s demand to shut down the country’s nuclear sites as “a non-starter that Iran has rejected for decades.” According to Press TV, Iran’s conditions include the lifting of sanctions, reparations, and a new framework governing the Strait of Hormuz that would recognize “Iran’s sovereign control over this vital waterway.”

You can accuse everyone in Kiev of corruption. Can’t go wrong.

• Zelensky Chief of Staff Yermak Charged with Corruption, Money Laundering (CTH)

Andrey Yermak is not just some random high-level government official in Ukraine. Andrey Yermak was President Zelenskyy’s right hand, chief of staff, organizer of the functions of Ukrainian government and the guy who controlled the systems that keep all other government officials working on the agenda of the President. If you took Susie Wiles and Marco Rubio’s responsibilities and combined them into one job function, that would be the scale of importance and influence that Andrey Yermak controlled inside the Ukrainian government and the office of President Zelenskyy.

Today, following an explosive criminal corruption charge that surfaced less than 36 hours ago, Andrey Yermak appears in court to face charges of corruption, theft and money laundering. Yermak was under investigation for his role in theft through the energy sector and now stands accused of using construction projects near Kiev as a tool to launder money to himself and other high-level government officials.
There are three facets to this I find very interesting. First, is the timing. Second, is the often-overlooked admission by National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) about them working closely with FBI investigators in Europe and American intelligence units. Third, is the way they caught him: “The anti-corruption bureau shared part of a wiretapped conversation as part of its case and said six more people had been identified as suspects.”
(Via BBC) – “[…] For years he was a close friend of Zelensky, and led Ukraine’s talks with the US until an anti-corruption raid on his flat last November prompted his resignation. Ukraine’s Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office (Sapo) said it was asking the Kyiv court to either place him in preventive detention or give him bail of about $4m (£3m). The head of the National anti-corruption bureau (Nabu) stressed that Zelensky himself was not part of the pre-trial investigation.
Yermak had been the president’s closest adviser throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion, until he became caught up in a broader inquiry by Sapo and Nabu into an alleged $100m (£74m) embezzlement scheme in Ukraine’s nuclear energy sector. As part of Operation Midas, ex-Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov was charged with abuse of office, while businessman Timur Mindich reportedly fled the country after he was flagged as a suspect and ex-Energy Minister Herman Haluschenko was detained while trying to leave. Like Yermak, Mindich was once part of Zelensky’s inner circle and co-owned the president’s former TV studio Kvartal95, before sanctions were imposed on him. Mindich denies wrongdoing.
The latest claims center on an elite housing project called “Dynasty” in a village outside Kyiv where millions in construction funds were allegedly laundered. The anti-corruption bureau shared part of a wiretapped conversation as part of its case and said six more people had been identified as suspects. On November 17, 2025, reports surfaced indicating that Yermak, then head of Zelensky’s office, might have been recorded by NABU. Subsequently, Yermak’s residence was searched on November 28, and by evening, Zelensky had dismissed him from his position.
Since late April, Ukrainian media outlets and parliament members have continued to publish new excerpts from the recordings. These reveal Mindich discussing with Rustem Umerov, the current Secretary of the Security Council and former Defense Minister, details of embezzlement from multimillion-dollar contracts, funding for drone manufacturing through a company affiliated with Mindich, and potential candidates for the Ukrainian ambassadorship to the United States. Keep in mind, Rustem Umerov is the current lead negotiator and point of contact for U.S. peace efforts.
Russia Federation President Vladimir Putin suggested last weekend that the war in Ukraine was “coming to an end.”
Interesting timing.

What do you use 40 biolabs for? Do we need to pay more attention?

• Tulsi Gabbard Probes 120 Foreign Biolabs Funded by US – 40 in Ukraine (CTH)

According to a report within the New York Post, Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is now investigating 120 foreign biolabs that are funded by the U.S. government – potentially involved in ‘gain of function’ or weaponized virus research. More than 40 of the labs are identified operating in Ukraine. Keep in mind, DNI Gabbard recently took control of the CIA development of Artificial Intelligence systems pulling In-Q-Tel, the CIA-backed venture firm, under management of ODNI. Through a series of what seems like well-coordinated moves by Secretary Rubio, CIA Director Ratcliffe and DNI Gabbard, a significant amount of the CIA’s operations is no longer in the dark network. https://twitter.com/WarClandestine/status/2053944250870489500?s=20

USAID has been dissolved (Rubio/Ratcliffe); the Directorate of Analysis taken out of CIA and into ODNI (Ratcliffe/Gabbard); the President’s Daily Brief now assembled by the ODNI (Ratcliffe/Gabbard); Artificial Intelligence systems, In-Q-Tel under ODNI management (Ratcliffe/Gabbard), and now Intelligence Community (CIA) biolabs being identified, investigated and potentially removed from operation. The biolab issue is a current concern given the discoveries of former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director, Anthony Fauci, lying to congress and the American people about funding gain of function research in Wuhan, China. However, given recent events we might even file this under proactive election integrity measures.
WASHINGTON — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is investigating more than 120 biological laboratories abroad that were funded by US taxpayer dollars for decades, as part of an effort to end potentially risky experiments with viruses pursuant to President Trump’s executive order on so-called “gain-of-function” research.Gabbard told The Post Monday in a statement that her team is going “to identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain and what ‘research’ is being conducted to end dangerous gain-of-function research that threatens the health and wellbeing of the American people and the world.”
“The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the catastrophic global impact research on dangerous pathogens in biolabs can have,” the spy chief also said. “Yet despite these obvious dangers, politicians, so-called health professionals, like Dr. Fauci, and entities within the Biden administration’s national security team lied to the American people about the existence of these US-funded and supported biolabs and threatened those who attempted to expose the truth.” Under new guidance from Gabbard, the US Intelligence Community will review research at all US-funded biolabs, which would include facilities engaged in gain-of-function experiments that could increase the transmissibility of viruses, as well as work for defensive purposes against dangerous pathogens.
Office of the Director of National Intelligence officials noted that the foreign labs extend into more than 30 countries, and several had received funding in the past through a Department of Defense program that sought to dispose of weapons of mass destruction after the end of the Cold War. More than 40 of the biolabs under review are located in Ukraine — and could “be at risk of compromise” due to Russia’s war, ODNI officials noted. (read more)

“Euroskeptic FPO leader Christian Hafenecker has called on Vienna’s money laundering watchdog to investigate..”

• Nearly $22 Billion Secretly Shipped To Ukraine – Austrian Politician (RT)

A right-wing Austrian politician has demanded that the country’s Finance Ministry explain how nearly $22 billion in cash and gold was shipped to Ukraine from Austria since 2022 without triggering concerns about money laundering or regulatory oversight. In a statement published on Sunday, Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) Secretary General Christian Hafenecker called out what he described as Vienna’s “two-class justice system” for overlooking massive payments to Kiev, while keeping a tight hold on taxpayers’ purse strings.

“We’re not talking about play money here: 1,030 registered cash and gold shipments, around €12 billion ($14 billion) plus $7.75 billion, physically transported over 1,300 kilometers into the war zone,” Hafenecker said. “And the responsible finance minister simply tells me… ‘We know nothing, we’re not investigating anything, we haven’t collected any information.’ That’s not an answer, that’s dereliction of duty,” he added. By comparison, Austrian money laundering rules require a private citizen withdrawing as little as €12,000 from an inherited account to prove the origin of the funds, and any person crossing the EU’s external border with more than €10,000 in cash must declare it, Hafenecker said. “This is a two-class justice system in finance.”
The politician demanded full disclosure on all cash shipments from Austria to Ukraine since the escalation of the conflict, a full audit by the country’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority, and a report by the Austrian Money Laundering Reporting Office in parliament. Earlier this year, the Euroskeptic FPO party demanded that Vienna cut all financial aid to Ukraine, denouncing the country as a corrupt “bottomless pit,” following a wave of high-level embezzlement scandals in Kiev.
Major probes by Ukraine’s Western-backed anti-graft agencies have implicated senior officials in Vladimir Zelensky’s government since last year. Two ministers and the Ukrainian leader’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, stepped down following the massive scandal. Russian President Vladimir Putin has slammed the current leadership in Kiev, calling it a “criminal gang” sitting on “golden potties,” and interested far more in personal enrichment than in the fate of ordinary Ukrainians.

Obama, Clinton, Brennan, Clapper. You can fill a phonebook. “FBI Director Kash Patel has removed about ten percent of the problem in his agency.”

• John Brennan: Still “Legions” of His Allies at DOJ, FBI and CIA (CTH)

Appearing on MSNBC to talk to Lawfare ally Nicole Wallace, wife of New York Times narrative engineer Michael Schmidt – the guy who received leaks from FBI Director James Comey via Daniel Richman, former CIA Director John Brennan notes there are “legions” of operatives still embedded within the DOJ, FBI and CIA who are working against President Donald Trump. This is not a surprise as we have noted the Trump administration continues to take apart the tentacles of Lawfare and Intelligence operatives in Main Justice, various U.S. Attorney offices, FBI Headquarters, FBI field offices and various Intelligence Community silos.

Marco Rubio has been working to clean up the National Security Council as well as the State Department operations, including USAID. Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe have been working on the NSA and CIA collaboratively, and Todd Blanche has been working through the Dept of Justice. FBI Director Kash Patel has removed about ten percent of the problem in his agency.

Unbelievable. Former CIA Director John Brennan just said the quiet part out LOUD, that there are still a "legion" of bureaucrats within the intel and justice communities who are actively sabotaging the executive authority of President Trump:

"There's still a legion of… pic.twitter.com/XhBLzhy7s2
— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) May 11, 2026

The core problem goes back to what we outlined on these pages {GO DEEP} and is not limited to those operatives who remain from the Obama/Biden era. Some of the problems surface as a result of ‘republican’ voices recommending “sleeper cell” staff and sketchy personnel for positions in the administration. [I’ll put an example below] One way to tell if the agency head or leader understands the challenge is by paying attention to how they talk about the agency’s mission objective. Leaders like Marco Rubio and Tulsi Gabbard have openly acknowledged the problem and are actively tackling corruption within their ranks. Even John Ratcliffe has admitted his agency was politically weaponized and has taken steps to address it. There’s still a lot of work ahead, but their actions show visible progress.
People like Pam Bondi and Kash Patel have praised the institutional embeds without drawing attention to the corruption beneath them. Thankfully, Acting AG Todd Blanche seems to be taking a more confrontational approach internally, so maybe Kash Patel will follow suit. This isn’t about style—it’s about results, and there’s an urgent need for action. To give an example of “sketchy” recommendations and predictable outcomes, I would draw attention to the lesser visible appointment of Morgan Ortagus. Do you remember this very weirdly worded announcement, two weeks prior to the inauguration?

I have no idea who “them” is referencing in the announcement.
[…] “I’m not doing this for me, I doing it for them”
There were always three options for “them”: (1) the strong republican support people; or (2) people in the Middle East who would be dealing with her; or (3) Stephen Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Regardless, of who “them” was, it was obvious President Trump was not thrilled by “their” request. Mrs. Morgan Ortagus is a long time Deep State operative with roots in the U.S. intelligence community and USAID {citation}. It was very predictable that she would undermine the goals of President Trump and she only lasted six months in the job. Ortagus was quietly dispatched from her position in June 2025.
CTH predicted Mrs. Ortagus would be a big mistake because she was, quite frankly, one of the “legion” insiders referenced by former CIA Director John Brennan. Ortagus’s entire career profile was/is textbook intelligence operative, likely legacy CIA. Not coincidentally, former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was removed from his position only a month before Ortagus lost hers. On the day he was announced CTH said National Security Advisor Mike Waltz would be the first administration member to get the boot, because in the non-pretending world Waltz was a horrible choice just like Ortagus. Mike Waltz was removed as National Security Advisor in May 2025, Ortagus was removed as Middle East envoy in June.
If the goal was to eliminate the Deep State, President Trump couldn’t take on a deeply corrupt Intelligence Community while also appointing its allies. Their close ties to the Intelligence Community made the failures of both Waltz and Ortagus predictable. That said, behind the veneer of John Brennan’s statement on MSNBC is a guy who realizes the Trump administration has changed the dynamic and the agency systems Brennan is talking about no longer exist; at least they no longer have the same capabilities. The need for control is a reaction to fear, and Brennan’s fear is both visible and very well founded.
The DOJ and FBI operate under the influence of the Intelligence Community, which ultimately holds the reins. The key figures leading the IC have made changes to the institutions that have significantly reduced the impact of bad actors within the DOJ and FBI. The key positions are the National Security Advisor, the Secretary of State, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe are the people to watch, and we can tell by the counsel(s) they have put into place that each of them has clear eyes and a steady hand on those critical institutions. Since mid-year 2025, around the same time Waltz and Ortagus were dispatched, you will note significant changes began surfacing in the National Security Council, the State Dept, the DNI and importantly the CIA. Some of the changes make headlines, many do not; however, each is important and builds on a larger goal of dismantling a highly weaponized and political intelligence apparatus.
Internationally, what we see in the reaction of allied -or oppositional- governments and their intelligence agencies, is in large part a geopolitical reaction to the consequential changes being made by Rubio, Gabbard and Ratcliffe. Each building upon a system that fundamentally changes U.S. policy to be in alignment with President Trump. Each of them should be commended. Domestically, the accountability developments involving James Comey, John Brennan, John Bolton, Michael Atkinson, Eric Ciaramella and others yet to emerge, stem from the transparency brought by the same trio working upstream from Main Justice and the FBI. The combined intelligence apparatus of the U.S. can cut through the chaff and countermeasures of Lawfare operatives, and I feel optimistic watching them in action.
Again, it’s not just the silo heads that are making a positive impact, it is the personnel decisions they are surrounding themselves with. The amount of sunlight now coming over the horizon is toxic to the interests of those who organized shadow operations. As long as Rubio, Ratcliffe and especially Gabbard, keep pushing the truth to the surface; as long as they keep exposing all the corruption that was used to manipulate and weaponize our government; as long as they keep strategizing on ways to declassify evidence former officials buried under false pretenses; then the DOJ, FBI and more importantly We The People, will have information we can use to make decisions.
Ultimately, it is the truth which makes evil enterprise retreat.

Excursion??

His name is not on every list ,but Nvidia’s Jensen Huang is very much part of the group. As Trump himself confirmed.

• Here Are The People Accompanying Trump On His China Excursion This Week (JTN)

President Donald Trump will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in China this week and is taking a notable cohort with him to the Asian powerhouse. Trump arrives in Beijing on Wednesday for a two-day summit, which will include talks about sanctions on Iranian oil and the conflict in the Middle East at large. The group of powerful American CEOs and billionaires include Trump ally Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook, according to CBS News. Here is the rest of the notable American executives expected to go on the two-day excursion:

BlackRock’s Larry Fink
Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman
Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg
Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon
Meta’s Dina Powell McCormick
Micron’s Sanjay Mehrotra
Qualcomm’s Christiano Amon
Illumina’s Jacob Thaysen
Mastercard’s Michael Miebach
Visa’s Ryan McInerney
Cargill’s Brian Sikes
Citi’s Jane Fraser
Cisco’s Chuck Robbins
Coherent’s Jim Anderson
GE Aerospace’s H. Lawrence Culp.
The trip comes after the president postponed the original trip because of the conflict in the Middle East. The summit will take place May 14-15, with the president arriving May 13.

“We have been absolutely ignored by a sitting member of Congress.”

• Minnesota Democrats Block Ilhan Omar Subpoena (JTN)

Minnesota House Republicans want help from U.S. congressional oversight leaders after Democrats on a state committee blocked an effort to subpoena U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar over communications tied to the Feeding Our Future fraud investigation. Rep. Kristin Robbins, R-Maple Grove and chair of the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Oversight Committee, announced Friday she has asked congressional leaders to assist in securing the records.

Robbins sent letters to U.S. Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights. The move comes days after Democrats on the state committee voted against authorizing a subpoena for Omar’s communications connected to the Feeding Our Future investigation. All five Republican committee members supported the motion, while three DFL members opposed it, leaving Republicans just short of the six votes required.
“Minnesota House Democrats chose to protect Rep. Omar rather than support our effort to get the truth,” Robbins said in a statement Friday. “Without at least one Democrat vote in support of the motion to subpoena these communications, we cannot get the two-thirds majority required to compel Rep. Omar produce the documents.” Republicans on the committee have repeatedly sought testimony and records from Omar related to trial exhibits introduced in the federal criminal case U.S. v. Bock. Robbins said Omar’s office has not responded to multiple requests, including an April 22 letter requesting records by May 5. “We have been ghosted,” Robbins said during Tuesday’s hearing. “We have been absolutely ignored by a sitting member of Congress.”
The committee’s Republican members have focused heavily on Omar’s sponsorship of the federal MEALS Act in 2020, legislation they argue loosened oversight requirements in federal child nutrition programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Rep. Omar had some role, whether inadvertent or not,” Robbins said Tuesday. “She passed the MEALS Act in March of 2020, and that took the guardrails off the federal school nutrition program, which created the conditions for Feeding Our Future.”
Federal prosecutors have described the Feeding Our Future case as one of the largest pandemic-era fraud schemes in the country, alleging more than $250 million intended for child nutrition programs was fraudulently claimed through fake meal reimbursements. Robbins said the committee became interested in Omar’s involvement after learning of communications between her office and individuals later convicted in the scheme. She also pointed to a 2020 video in which Omar promoted meal distribution efforts at Safari Restaurant, a Minneapolis site prosecutors later identified as a major participant in the fraud.
Democrats on the committee pushed back against the effort. Rep. Dave Pinto, DFL-St. Paul, questioned the timing of the subpoena. “We know the president and federal administration have got no hesitation going after political enemies and investigating them in all sorts of ways,” Pinto said. “If there’s any sort of wrongdoing by Congresswoman Omar—and if there’s no wrongdoing by Congresswoman Omar – I have no doubt the Trump Administration will do all it can with all the resources it has.” Rep. Isaac Schultz, R-Elmdale Township, argued the subpoena effort was part of a broader push to understand fraud in Minnesota government programs.
“Feeding Our Future is one part of the picture as it relates to what we know is to come in the fraud we’ve seen in Medicaid,” Schultz said. “Now, we have this opportunity to use our tools here in the House of Representatives to issue this subpoena to gain a greater understanding.” Robbins said Friday she hopes action from the congressional oversight committees will help Republicans obtain the records. “I hope the federal oversight committees will be able to help us get the facts about Representative Omar’s involvement in the case,” Robbins said. “If she has nothing to hide, she should testify before our committee and produce the trial exhibits.”

“There is every reason to think the justices will leave this one where it belongs: in Virginia, under Virginia law, after Virginia Democrats tried to rig the map and got caught.”

• Scott Jennings Nukes the Democrats’ Gerrymander Hail Mary (Margolis)

Virginia Democrats lost big time in the redistricting wars and have considered all kinds of ways to respond — including trying to force the retirement of all of the justices on the Virginia Supreme Court. That scheme isn’t likely to happen, but they are hoping to drag the U.S. Supreme Court into this. The whole saga is a perfect example of how a party can overplay its hand and then act stunned when the cards fall flat. The Virginia Supreme Court struck down the Democrats’ map, saying the process violated the state constitution and nullified the referendum vote. That map would have shifted Virginia from a 6-5 split to a 10-1 advantage for Democrats, which is exactly why they wanted it so badly.

And they’re trying to drag the Supreme Court into this? It’s a Hail Mary for sure and not a very good one. Does anyone actually believe that this will succeed, that the Supreme Court will even take the case? It makes no sense. There’s really no jurisdiction for the U.S. Supreme Court to get involved. The only thing this emergency appeal does is make them look more desperate.And Scott Jennings called them out on it. CNN’s The Arena, he mocked the idea that the U.S. Supreme Court would wade into this fight. “There’s a better chance of me sprouting wings and flying out of that window over there than the United States Supreme Court dealing with this in any way, because this is a state Supreme Court ruling on a state constitution.”
He added, “The U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t deal with these kinds of things, number one. Number two, the freakout in Virginia has been so extreme. You even have Democrats over there who are saying they want to effectively, politically decapitate the entire Virginia Supreme Court by putting an age limit of 54 so they can get rid of every existing justice and install people who will promise to rule a certain way on a certain case. “ “You know, they went from, ‘Oh, this is just a temporary map thing’ to ‘Let’s burn down the entire Virginia Supreme Court’ in about two seconds over there in Virginia, which tells you all you need to know about just how power hungry and corrupt the Democrats are in Virginia.”
That is the real story here. This was sold as a temporary map fix and morphed into a power grab so aggressive that even the state’s own courts slammed the brakes. “This is not going to work at the U.S. Supreme Court,” Jennings declared. “And this whole project of maximum warfare by Hakeem Jeffries is completely blown up in their face.”

.@ScottJenningsKY on Democrats going DEFCON-1 since losing their Virginia gerrymander…

“There's a better chance of me sprouting wings and flying out of that window over there than the United States Supreme Court dealing with this in any way, because this is a state Supreme… pic.twitter.com/psPQNUUig1
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 11, 2026

The Supreme Court is set to decide on May 14 whether it will take the emergency appeal. There is every reason to think the justices will leave this one where it belongs: in Virginia, under Virginia law, after Virginia Democrats tried to rig the map and got caught.

“Virginia’s General Assembly adopted a new map in February that would have favored Democrats in 10 of the state’s 11 seats in the US House ..”

• Virginia Democrats Ask US Supreme Court to Reinstate Congressional Map (Hyde)

Virginia Democrats, along with their state Attorney General, have asked the US Supreme Court to override the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision last week that struck down a partisan redistricting plan. ABC News reports Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones wrote in the emergency application filed on Monday that the Virginia Supreme Court was “deeply mistaken” when it invalidated a ballot measure to amend the state constitution that would have netted Democrats as many as four new congressional seats.

The state Supreme Court had ruled last Friday, in a 4–3 decision, that Democrats had violated the state Constitution, by failing to follow proper procedures, while racing to get the measure on the ballot before the midterm elections. According to SCOTUSblog, Virginia’s General Assembly adopted a new map in February that would have favored Democrats in 10 of the state’s 11 seats in the US House—a potential increase of four seats from the current balance between Democrats and Republicans in Virginia.
The new map hinged on obtaining approval for an amendment to the Virginia constitution that would give the state legislature the power to draw a new congressional map outside of the normal cycle following the decennial census. In a referendum held in April, Virginia voters approved that amendment by a margin of three percentage points. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the referendum was not valid because the General Assembly had not followed proper procedures when it put the new amendment on the ballot.
In Monday’s 24-page filing, Jones argued: “The irreparable harm resulting from the Supreme Court of Virginia’s decision is profound and immediate. By forcing the Commonwealth to conduct its congressional elections using districts different from those adopted by the General Assembly pursuant to a constitutional amendment the people just ratified, the Supreme Court of Virginia has deprived voters, candidates, and the Commonwealth of their right to the lawfully enacted congressional districts.” Legal experts told ABC News last week that they believe Democrats have little chance of a successful appeal at the US Supreme Court because the state Supreme Court would be the highest authority dealing with state constitutional issues and no federal issues are at stake.
According to former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, “The Virginia Supreme Court is the final authority on Virginia constitutional questions. This is the end, folks. You will have the same map in 2026 that existed in 2024. That is now unchangeable and immutable.” Politico reports that Chief Justice John Roberts, who oversees emergency appeals arising from Virginia, instructed the Republicans who challenged the Virginia referendum to respond to Jones’ appeal by Thursday at 5 p.m.

“Blanche, on Tuesday, indicated that the DOJ probe would use compulsory authority to bring in witnesses, including from the press.”

• Acting AG Blanche Warns Reporters To Expect Subpoenas In Leaks Probe (JTN)

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Tuesday indicated that the Department of Justice would subpoena reporters as part of its probe into leaks of classified materials. The FBI, this month, opened a probe into Senate Democrats over the possible leak of classified materials related to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation hearings. At issue was the leak of an intercept from the National Security Agency (NSA) concerning Gabbard. More recently, Trump has reportedly complained of rampant leaks related to the ongoing Iran war, The Hill reported.

Blanche, on Tuesday, indicated that the DOJ probe would use compulsory authority to bring in witnesses, including from the press. “Prosecuting leakers who share our nation’s secrets with reporters, in turn risking our national security and the lives of our soldiers, is a priority for this administration,” he said. “Any witness, whether a reporter or otherwise, who has information about these criminals should not be surprised if they receive a subpoena about the illegal leaking of classified material.”
The Trump administration has long maintained a strained relationship with the press, dating back to his first term, which saw pervasive leaks to the media, especially from the Department of Homeland Security over immigration enforcement efforts.

“..the Supreme Court basically supported one vote, one person guaranteed in perpetuity, and the rest is just map wars..”

• The Language Got a Little Salty on CNN Monday Night (Matt Margolis)

If Bakari Sellers thought he could trot out an emotional guilt trip and quietly justify racist gerrymandering on live TV, Kevin O’Leary wasn’t about to let that slide. He didn’t just push back—he pulled the curtain back on the whole performance, forcing a raw, uncomfortable showdown between the U.S. Constitution and Sellers’ political theater. And Sellers let loose with some salty language in the process. The exchange began with host Abby Phillip laying out the stakes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling that racial gerrymandering is unconstitutional. She noted that states may soon try to redraw maps in ways that could leave the minority party with no meaningful representation, which isn’t true, of course.

I could get into all the states that have had conservative representation gerrymandered into oblivion, but I’ll do that another time. O’Leary jumped in with a blunt take, saying the Supreme Court had effectively settled the matter. “I think everybody should take confidence in the fact the Supreme Court basically supported one vote, one person guaranteed in perpetuity, and the rest is just map wars,” he said. “And I think we should get used to it. And I think it’s, as you said, a state-based situation. Add this to the mix. At the end of the day, the state decides at the state level. It’s in the Constitution. Get over it.” That, apparently, set Sellers off.
“The problem with that sentiment is that you were born in 1954,” Sellers shot back, immediately turning the argument into a generational and moral rebuke. O’Leary, never one to miss a chance to needle someone, replied, “Yes,” when Sellers noted his age, then joked, “By the way, I’m a vampire.” Sellers clearly wasn’t in the mood and just pressed on with patronizing O’Leary. According to Sellers, O’Leary had lived through the entire post-Brown era and should understand what that history means. “During your lifetime, we’ve actually had Brown v. Board of Education,” Sellers said. O’Leary interjected, “I remember.” “Yes, Brown v. Board of Education, I don’t know how you remember it. I think you were like two months old.”
The temperature kept rising as Sellers tried to ground his point in personal history. “My mother was born in 1951. She desegregated schools. My father was shot in the Civil Rights Movement,” he said. “Those people—” Before he could finish, Phillip stepped in to let him continue. Sellers accused O’Leary of being “utterly disrespectful.” Then came the line that guaranteed the clip would travel fast. “So, I’m going to finish this comment. So, what I’m telling you is that there are people in this country who fought, died, and bled for the right to vote. Don’t be a d**k, just understand. Just understand.”
O’Leary didn’t care for that and pushed back immediately, insisting he was simply defending the Constitution. “I’m not a d**k. I’m pointing something out to you. The Constitution’s being upheld. You have a problem with that? You have a problem with the Constitution of the United States of America?” he asked.

WILD MELTDOWN: Bakari Sellers YELLS at Mr. Wonderful: “DON’T BE A DICK” on CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip during a heated discussion about the Democrats’ gerrymandering efforts.

Sellers: “There are people in this country who fought, died, and bled for the right to vote. Don’t… pic.twitter.com/Gv5UN44D4O
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) May 12, 2026

Phillip tried to restore order, scolding Sellers, “I just want everybody to reset with a modicum of respect at this table.” But Sellers didn’t care, “I want you to understand that there’s a price that was paid for this right. There is a price that we uphold. And whether or not you value that—” O’Leary cut in again, clearly not caring about Seller’s belittling tone. “Where are you going with this?” Sellers answered by making the point even more directly. “Whether or not you value that or not, there are people who bled, sweat, and died, and were in prison for access to the ballot box.”

No kings, no billionaires!

• Socialist Storytime: AOC Spins Anti-Capitalist Fable About the Founders (Turley)

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is fast becoming the greatest fabulist since Aesop. Recently, Ocasio-Cortez insisted that true billionaires are a capitalist myth since “you can’t earn a billion dollars.” However, her greatest work of fiction may be her insistence that the Framers fought against billionaires and would have joined her and other socialists in seeking to eradicate them today. Bertrand Russell once noted that “there is something feeble and a little contemptible” about those “who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.”

The American left has long peddled such “comfortable myths” as the wealthy “not paying their fair share” of taxes. (The top one percent of income earners pay over 40% of federal taxes, and that percentage goes up to 70% for the top ten percent). However, Ocasio-Cortez has become a liberal Homer for her reputation for spinning collectivist tales. What is impressive is her myth-within-a-myth signature style: “You can’t earn that, right? And so you have to create a myth… you have to create a myth of earning it.” In a discussion at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, Ocasio-Cortez gave her revisionist account of the Founders as, surprise, budding anti-capitalists:
“I want to talk about how this is in the heritage of our country, because America was founded… you look at Thomas Jefferson writing to Madison in revolt of British aristocracy. The American Revolution was against the billionaires of their time. And we are declaring independence from such an extreme marriage of wealth and power and the state that the voices of everyday people did not exist.”In my recent book, “Rage and the Republic,” I discuss the economic philosophy of the Founders in exploring the history and future of this unique Republic.
While Ocasio-Cortez references our 250th anniversary, she ignores that it is also the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Smith’s free-market theory was an instant hit with the founding generation. These men had just created the first major Enlightenment Revolution based on a belief in natural rights that came from God, not governments. Yet, they knew that true individual liberty could not be achieved without economic freedom. Smith’s economic theory was the perfect companion for their political theory.
The combination of American democratic theories and free market theories produced the world’s most successful and oldest democracy in history. In Rage and the Republic, I discuss the threats to this Republic, including from figures like Ocasio-Cortez, in spreading socialist myths. The book calls for a recommitment to what I call a “liberty-enhancing economy.” That is why this particular myth told by Ocasio-Cortez was so jarring. The Founders were great believers in capitalism and the free market. They were not fighting “the billionaires of their time” over their wealth. Many of the Founders were themselves quite wealthy, including banker Robert Morris Jr., who was known as the “Financier of the Revolution.”Adjusting for inflation and current rates, Morris would be a billionaire today.
The Founders believed in unleashing everyone’s ability to become a Morris. They fought against the taking or occupation of property by the government. Aat the very top of their stated purpose for the American Revolution was “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The phrase was virtually ripped from the page of John Locke’s “life, liberty, and property.” Locke believed that there was a natural right to property created by what God left “in common” for humanity. Preceding any government, it was a right that belonged to human beings by divine grant. Hardly a roaring endorsement of socialist ideals or, as Zohran Mamdani put it, the “warmth of collectivism.”
George Mason relied on Locke for his draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which Jefferson relied on heavily. Mason wrote of “the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” bOf course, the property reference was changed to happiness in the Declaration, which reflected the more transcendent values of these Enlightenment devotees. While reduced to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” the original language appeared in the Fifth Amendment and, later in the Fourteenth Amendment, protecting citizens from being “deprived of life, liberty, or property.”
In his 1792 essay “Property,” Madison echoed Lockean values in declaring that good government “secures to every man whatever is his own.” Other early figures, like Chief Justice John Marshall, wrote, “The power to tax is the power to destroy.” The new myth-making on the left is meant to revive what I previously described as “economic factionalism,” seeking political power with this type of “eat-the-rich” rhetoric. It is working (as it has in history). In California, many are pushing a “billionaire’s tax,” while far-left figures like Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are pushing for a federal variation. In states from Washington state to Virginia, Democrats are virtually chasing wealthy taxpayers out of blue states with planned millionaire taxes.
To achieve such radical change, you must first destroy the values upon which this Republic was born, convincing people that their fundamental ties to capitalism are as ephemeral as true billionaires. The greatest irony is that Ocasio-Cortez personifies what the Founders truly wanted to combat. They feared mobocracy and the tyranny of the majority, the arbitrary power that can come from majoritarian abuse. Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, and others are truly not new or particularly interesting additions to the political dialogue. They are the same voices of democratic despotism that Madison and others sought to quell.

A trial balloon?

• Media Spreads Hantavirus Hysteria In Attempt To Save Disgraced WHO (ZH)

The establishment media has been drumming up fear after a recent outbreak of Hantavirus on a cruise liner traveling from Argentina to West Africa. The Guardian has used the opportunity to assert that the US is currently ill equipped to deal with future pandemic threats, largely because of Donald Trump (of course) and the dramatic US exit from the now disgraced World Health Organization. Is Hantavirus a serious danger to the world, or, is it another hyped up virus like Covid being used to trigger public hysteria? And if it is being hyped, who (or WHO) stands to benefit?

For decades the WHO constructed its image as a global angel of benevolence; the primary line of defense against what they said was the inevitable invasion of a population rending plague. However, when the time finally came in the form of a mutated Coronavirus (Covid), they dropped the ball, and evidence suggests they may have done it deliberately.During the initial outbreak in China, the WHO echoed CCP propaganda suggesting that human-to-human contact was unlikely and, knowingly or unknowingly, aided China in hiding details behind the outbreak.
Details surrounding the involvement of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the largest dangerous disease lab in Asia, were actively dismissed (or suppressed). Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus even praised China’s “transparency”. The WHO then set up a joint task force to determine the origins of Covid, only to let the Chinese dominate the investigation and lead it away from the activities at the Level 4 lab in Wuhan. The Chinese wanted to push the theory of animal-to-animal mutation instead of the gain of function research that was ongoing at the lab (partially funded by US interests in the Obama Administration).
Today, evidence overwhelmingly suggests that Covid originated in the Wuhan Lab. In January 2025, the CIA assessed that a lab-related origin is more likely than natural spillover. This determination matched with similar FBI assessments. In 2025, German Intelligence also reported their findings, indicating a 90% likelihood that Covid was engineered and originated at the Wuhan Lab in China. Of course, anyone who made this claim online during the pandemic response was called a dangerous “conspiracy theorist” and was deplatformed (much like Zero Hedge).
The WHO would go on to exaggerate the death rate of the virus, claiming an initial Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of 3.4%. This data was based on studies which ignored mild cases as well as asymptomatic cases, thus artificially pumping up the death rate. Dozens of studies as early as May 2020 showed that the median Infection Fatality Rate (a more accurate number) was only 0.27% (later adjusted to 0.23%). The WHO continued to spread disinformation and hysteria surrounding covid while ignoring the true IFR data. That is to say, all the lockdowns, the mandates, the social media censorship, the arrests, the push for vaccine passports, etc. – all of it was over a virus that 99.8% of the population would easily survive.
The WHO has been exposed as a perpetrator of pandemic disinformation and is no longer trusted by the public. The US under the Trump Administration has exited the organization on these grounds, and as a result the WHO has lost at least 20% of its total funding. It is now facing dire financial conditions. In response, the UN and the establishment media have been running a spin campaign to present the WHO as indispensable. It is therefore not surprising that the WHO and the media are suddenly jumping on the cruise line Hantavirus story as if it is significant, while at the same time arguing that Trump is putting the public at risk by not participating in the WHO’s antics. They need the money badly, and so they’ve decided to remind the public why we should be afraid.
For those who are unaware, Hantavirus is a common virus around the world and in the US. Estimates show around 100,000 cases of the disease occur annually. In 2023, there were 40 cases in the US. The virus is most often contracted when humans are exposed to dried rodent feces and urine, floating as particulates in the air which are then inhaled into the lungs. The spread from human to human is rare and only occurs with the South American strain. Contraction is difficult, with the virus passing from one person to another through “prolonged contact with bodily fluids”. It makes you wonder what kind of pleasure cruise these people were on when the most recent outbreak started? The point is, the story is being inflated from a normal event into a crisis event.
This is probably why the Spanish Government set up an elaborate bus transfer of supposedly highly infectious cruise passengers, only to drop off a psychiatrist with the Ministry of Health down the road without protective gear like he’s going home after school. The bottom line? Hantavirus is all over the world and it’s not a threat to the vast majority of people. The artificial media panic and the opportunism of the WHO may be an effort to test the waters for another fraudulent pandemic scare, but the majority of the propaganda seems to be aimed at restoring the WHO’s reputation and saving it from financial ruin.

The North African nation poses the biggest problem for the bloc in terms of arrivals, Thanos Plevris has said

• Over 500,000 Waiting To Cross Into Europe From Libya – Greek Minister (RT)

The EU might be on the verge of a new migrant crisis, with more than half a million people waiting in Libya alone to cross into Europe, Greek Migration Minister Thanos Plevris has said. The bloc was first inundated by asylum seekers from the Middle East and Northern Africa during the 2015 refugee crisis, when a million migrants entered Europe, straining welfare systems and prompting tens of millions of European voters to turn to far-right political parties. Greece remains one of the bloc’s main entry points, registering 48,771 arrivals in 2025, according to UNHCR data. According to the UN refugee agency, 7,589 migrants and asylum seekers have arrived in the Mediterranean country this year as of May 3, including 5,615 by sea.

Athens has introduced a number of tough policy measures in a bid to stem the flow over the past years, including detention for those denied asylum. Commenting on the situation on Sunday, Plevris said that Greece was “the first country to criminalize illegal residence” and would not allow those denied protection to just roam free. “Those who are not entitled to asylum will be detained,” the minister told a local broadcaster, adding that Athens would “operate within the law but will go to its limits to protect the borders.” He also described the situation in Libya as the biggest problem faced by his country and the EU. According to Plevris, around 550,000 people have gathered there and are now seeking to enter Europe.
In February, Plevris also announced that it was working together with Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Denmark to create “return hubs” for rejected asylum seekers outside of the EU’s borders, with Africa being the preferred destination. Libya became a key transit point for human trafficking and migration to Europe via the Mediterranean following a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 that led to the overthrow and assassination of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi. The EU has struggled to manage the migration crisis since 2015, with Greece, Italy, and Spain receiving the highest number of arrivals across the Mediterranean.

This could soon be the world’s leadership:

Patriots who secure borders, put citizens FIRST, and put their own country above all.

The next 5 years will bring a full world revolution.

The globalist agenda is fast crumbling. pic.twitter.com/91fihWv5UZ
— The British Patriot (@TheBritLad) May 11, 2026

Congratulations, Giga Berlin Team! https://t.co/0bfWV5ilfn
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2026

Professor Jiang states that greek civilisation flourished because it was based on two values, Arete and Eudaimonia, both coming out of Homer's epic poems Iliad and Odyssey. pic.twitter.com/aSyg1OvMRN
— well-meaning (@FreshSummerWind) May 12, 2026

We have a virus ‘scare’ every 6 years – you have to be either a coincidence theorist or a conspiracy theorist.
Which one are you?
In the comments please pic.twitter.com/NEoaNqtini
— Andrew Bridgen (@ABridgen) May 11, 2026

https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/2053784729493602624?s=20

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Debt Rattle April 26 2026

Apr 262026

April 26, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:06 am Finance Tagged with: Brennan, Democracy Shield, Elon Musk, EU, Europe, freedom, Grand Jury, Kushner, Kwasniewski, Reza Pahlavi, subpoenas, White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Witkoff 20 Responses »

Paul Klee Sicilian Landscape1924

• Shots Fired at Correspondents Dinner, Shooter Dead, Trump Evacuated (Salgado)

• Trump Says WHCD Shooting Was Another Assassination Attempt (Margolis)

• Secret Service Agent Shot but in Good Condition (Salgado)

• Something’s Changed: Trump Explains Why People Want to Kill Him (Tim O’Brien)

• “We Have All The Cards”: Trump Cancels Witkoff-Kushner Trip To Pakistan (ZH)

• Chaos in Iran, Trump Drops the Hammer on Talks (Robert Spencer)

• The EU ‘Democracy Shield’ Is The End of Freedom In Europe (Kwasniewski)

• DOJ Quietly Retracts John Brennan Subpoenas, Offers No Explanation (AP)

• Great News – Subpoenas for Brennan Grand Jury Testimony are Withdrawn (CTH)

• Iranian Prince in Exile Reza Pahlavi Delivers a Brutal Message (CTH)

• The United States of America v. John Roberts (A.J. Christopher)

• Trump Plans an Ambush at White House Correspondents’ Dinner (Pinsker)

https://twitter.com/CharlieK_news/status/2047813345948885350?s=20 https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/2047798246852964628?s=20

How luxurious is Elon Musk's private jet? pic.twitter.com/vEmhNPzCgx
— Naomi (@Naomi_Namiko) April 24, 2026

Cybercab has started production pic.twitter.com/MAeswanf96
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 24, 2026

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/2047877294476116184?s=20

Telepathic control of robot arms https://t.co/oX21dgBA1z
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 24, 2026

Elon Musk's answer to why he's still working, despite being worth over $800 Billion pic.twitter.com/tQL6fq9U5x
— The Driven Man (@Thedrivenman) April 24, 2026

If you don’t see by now that Donald Trump is a very brave man, good luck.

• Shots Fired at Correspondents Dinner, Shooter Dead, Trump Evacuated (Salgado)

UPDATE. 12:15 a.m. Eastern: Apparently, the shooter has been identified:

NEWS: The attempted shooter at the White House Correspondent's Dinner is 31 year old Cole Tomas Allen from Torrance, California and he is in custody.
— Karol Markowicz (@karol) April 26, 2026

UPDATE, 9:26 p.m. Eastern: President Donald Trump issued a statement on Truth Social:
UPDATE, 9:20 p.m. Eastern: Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich is reporting that the would-be shooter tried to get into the hotel with a gun, but the “counter assault team did their job.”
Hello from backstage.

We’re in a hold behind the stage right now. Staff are going out to reset the head table.

POTUS never left and is down the hall from me. He wants the show to go on.

We’re told by his detail someone tried to get through the mags with a gun. The counter…
— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) April 26, 2026

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro says Interim Chief of Police of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Jeffrey Carroll is heading over to take charge of the investigation and that Mayor Muriel Bowser is also coming.
Original story:
The shooter who fired off multiple rounds at the White House correspondents’ dinner Saturday evening is reportedly dead, and Secret Service agents successfully took President Donald Trump off the stage to safety. Fox News announced around 9 p.m. EDT that Trump was going to return, and the dinner could go on as planned.
CNN’s Scott Jennings relayed the report from his network’s chief White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins, who confirmed that the shooter is dead. Jennings also shared video footage of the stage and Secret Service rushing Trump out after the shots went off. Fox News’ Bret Baier, who was at the dinner, just reported live that the threat is neutralized, and people are exiting the building. Fox News, however, said that the shooter might have been detained rather than shot.
https://twitter.com/ScottJenningsKY/status/2048202135880265878
WHAT JUST HAPPENED AT WHCD;

Trump was introduced with First Lady 15 mins ish ago

Five or so mins after he was seated shots range out: POP POP POP POP. Sounds like five to me where I’m sitting.

Everyone immediately hit the floor.

Secret Service immediately took POTUS out…
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) April 26, 2026

The shooter seemingly did not fire in the main area where the dinner was happening. Baier said he thought the shots came from a “light box” in a sort of entrance area. It is not clear what that means. Baier did not confirm that the shooter was dead and said that information was still sparse. Security was searching room to room. The mainstream media have, of course, been encouraging violent hatred against President Trump for years with their extreme rhetoric framing him as worse than Hitler and the KKK. Perhaps they will be less extreme in their language now that they themselves faced such a potentially deadly situation. An announcement made live on stage, streamed by Fox News at about 9 p.m. EDT, indicated that the press is not being told to leave the building.

JUST IN: CNN’s Wolf Blitzer says he was just feet away from the White House Correspondents dinner shooter, says he was thrown to the ground by a police officer.

“It was a very, very serious weapon, he starts shooting.”

“I happened to been a few feet away from him as he was… pic.twitter.com/6ajscWy7Q9
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) April 26, 2026

Yep. And he just wanted to continue, Every day has this threat level.

• Trump Says WHCD Shooting Was Another Assassination Attempt (Margolis)

During the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night, an as-yet-unidentified shooter fired multiple rounds in an entrance area near the event at the Washington Hilton, prompting Secret Service agents to evacuate President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and other officials, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, to safety. There have been conflicting reports, but it appears that the shooter was neutralized and detained, and a Secret Service agent was shot, but was wearing protective gear. No injuries were confirmed among attendees, who sheltered under tables amid chaos.

President Trump had wanted to resume the dinner, but the event was ultimately canceled. But Trump did give a press conference soon after returning to the White House. Flanked by FBI Director Kash Patel and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Trump began by quipping that what happened was “very unexpected” but also “ incredibly acted upon by Secret Service and law enforcement.” “And this was an event dedicated to freedom of speech that was supposed to bring together members of both parties with members of the press,” he continued. “And in a certain way it did, because the fact that they just unified… I saw a room that was just totally unified. It was, in one way, very beautiful. A very beautiful thing to see.”
He then offered details about what happened. “A man charged a security checkpoint armed with multiple weapons, and he was taken down by some very brave members of Secret Service, and they acted very quickly.” Trump wasted little time before announcing he had ordered surveillance footage of the attack released publicly, a move consistent with his administration’s stated commitment to transparency. “And I’ve just released, for purposes of transparency, clarity, I’ve ordered it to be put out. You probably have it by now, put out on Truth, and put out on many other platforms. A tape showing the violence of this thug that attacked our Constitution, and also showing how quickly Secret Service and law enforcement acted on our country’s behalf.”
As for the Secret Service agent who took a bullet, Trump revealed he had spoken with the agent directly. “Really did a great job. One officer was shot, but saved by the fact that he was wearing, obviously, a very good bulletproof vest. He was shot from very close distance with a very powerful gun, and the vest did the job. I just spoke to the officer, and he’s doing great. He’s great shape. He has very high spirits, and we told him we love him and respect him, and he’s a very proud guy. He’s very proud of what he does, Secret Service agent.” Trump also used the moment to point out that the incident is further proof that the White House ballroom project is very much needed.
“I didn’t want to say this, but this is why we have to have all of the attributes of what we’re planning at the White House. It’s actually a larger room, and it’s much more secure. It’s drone-proof, it’s bulletproof glass. We need the ballroom. That’s why Secret Service, that’s why the military are demanding it.” He pressed the point further: “They’ve wanted the ballroom for 150 years for lots of different reasons. But today’s, uh, a little bit different because today we need levels of security that probably nobody’s ever seen before.” Trump made that abundantly clear without being subtle about it, that the Washington Hilton isn’t secure enough. “It’s not a particularly secure building.”
From there, Trump made it clear that he saw this as another assassination attempt. “So, as you know, this is not the first time in the past couple of years that our republic has been attacked by a would-be assassin who sought to kill. In Butler, Pennsylvania, less than two years ago, you know, all know that story. And in Palm Beach, Florida, a few months after that, we came close. We really had, again, we had some great work done by law enforcement.” Trump then issued what amounted to a direct appeal to the country.
“But in light of this evening’s events, I ask that all Americans recommit with their hearts in resolving our differences peacefully. We have to, we have to resolve our differences. I will say, you had Republicans, Democrats, independents, conservatives, liberals and progressives. Those words are interchangeable perhaps, but maybe they’re not. But yet everybody in that room, big crowd, record-setting crowd. There was a record-setting group of people, and there was a tremendous amount of love and coming together. I watched. I watched, and I was very, very impressed by that.”
He also confirmed that he, Melania, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were all evacuated quickly, crediting the speed and professionalism of the Secret Service response. When it came to Hegseth, Trump couldn’t resist a jab wrapped in a compliment.
https://twitter.com/RichSementa/status/2048231706960843079?s=20

“This is why we need the ballroom…”

• Secret Service Agent Shot but in Good Condition (Salgado)

The shooter at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday evening did hit a Secret Service agent who will survive thanks to his body armor, Fox News confirmed a little before 10 p.m. EDT.

The Secret Service agent received treatment and is in good condition, Fox News reported. Many of the mainstream media talking heads who were at the dinner tonight have deliberately fueled violent hatred against Donald Trump with extreme rhetoric, calling Trump a Nazi and a racist and a threat to democracy. They put the lives of Trump, his Secret Service, and everyone around them in danger. Notably, the Democrat-induced partial government funding shutdown has left Secret Service without paychecks for weeks now as the Dems hold up Department of Homeland Security funding.

BREAKING: "The shooter charged the magnetometer closest to the front door… and took a shot at a Secret Service member at the ballroom."@seanhannity describes what he's been told directly from top White House officials in the wake of shots fired at the White House… pic.twitter.com/C2bNPV25up
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 26, 2026

Poor Erika Kirk was present and extremely traumatized by the event, a person present at the dinner who spoke to Fox News stated. It must feel as if she is reliving the nightmare of her husband Charlie’s assassination. Trump posted at one point on Truth Social, “Quite an evening in D.C. Secret Service and Law Enforcement did a fantastic job. They acted quickly and bravely. The shooter has been apprehended, and I have recommended that we ‘LET THE SHOW GO ON’ but, will entirely be guided by Law Enforcement. They will make a decision shortly. Regardless of that decision, the evening will be much different than planned, and we’ll just, plain, have to do it again.”
Fox News sources reported that the president was pushing hard to return to the stage and continue with the dinner as planned but that everyone around him, both security and family, were urging him not to do so. They felt they could not guarantee his safety as the situation was at that time. nApparently, the Secret Service won out, because Trump followed up with the following message on Truth Social:
Law Enforcement has requested that we leave the premises, consistent with protocol, which we will do, immediately. I will be giving a press conference in 30 minutes from the White House Press Briefing Room. The First Lady, plus the Vice President, and all Cabinet members, are in perfect condition. We will be speaking to you in a half an hour. I have spoken with all the representatives in charge of the event, and we will be rescheduling within 30 days.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said that Interim Chief of Police of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, Jeffrey Carroll, was heading over to take charge of the investigation and that Mayor Muriel Bowser was also coming. Of course, D.C. Democrat officials are absolutely part of the problem in fueling violent hatred against Trump, just as the mainstream media is.

“It comes with the territory. If you want to do a great job, I really believe that….It doesn’t happen to people that don’t do anything..”

“Tonight was the first time they got to experience for themselves the real danger Trump faces every day. They not only got to watch how he handles it, but because they were witnessing this as they tried to hide under tables, they could feel it, too.”

• Something’s Changed: Trump Explains Why People Want to Kill Him (Tim O’Brien)

In President Donald Trump’s press briefing following the latest attempt on his life by a would-be assassin, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, sitting in the front row in the White House Press Briefing Room, still in the gown she wore to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, asked Trump if he thought he was the intended target of the gunman. This question came within a couple of hours of when the shooter attempted to breach security and shot a Secret Service agent, who survived thanks to a bulletproof vest, before being subdued. Trump said he was intercepted at the outer layer of his protection detail — the “first line of defense.”

Since the shooter did not get anywhere close to the president, Collins’ question is a fair one, even though it seems pretty likely the president was the target. After two earlier overt attempts on his life and the steady number of death threats he receives, he appears to have been the obvious subject of the shooter’s plans. But what Trump said in response is worth noting. The magnanimous Trump, still wearing his tuxedo, respectfully told Collins that he wasn’t sure if he was the target, but he added that he has studied a lot of assassinations. I’m going to go out on a limb and say his interest in the subject really piqued after July 13, 2024, when a would-be assassin shot and struck Trump’s ear at a rally in Butler, Pa.
Trump told Collins, more humbly than is characteristic for him in this room, that he could have been the target because his presidency has been “impactful.” He said that with presidencies that aren’t impactful, “they leave you alone.” But in his case, he said, just look at “the list.” He said it backs up his claim, and he’s right. Not all of the most impactful presidents experienced direct attempts on their lives while sitting in the White House, but most who have been the target of attempted assassinations were, to varying degrees, consequential in some way. He reiterated that point later in the briefing while commenting on the fortitude of his administration in its continued pursuit of his agenda.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2048237808695812607
“It comes with the territory. If you want to do a great job, I really believe that….It doesn’t happen to people that don’t do anything,” he said, shortly before wrapping up the briefing and exiting the room. In addition to Trump, other presidents who were targeted for assassination include Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, Ronald Reagan, Andrew Jackson, Harry Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Gerald Ford, George W. Bush, and Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt famously continued speaking after being shot, pausing briefly before insisting on finishing his speech.
This is not to say that all of these men were equally “impactful” on the trajectory of the country, but Trump has a point. If you do nothing, they do leave you alone. Trump has done quite a bit. He’s been impactful. He is being impactful, and it seems that long before this latest attempt on his life, he made peace with the risks he was taking in order to achieve what he wants to achieve. This was self-evident.
Trump is rarely described as “selfless.” As for the people who were in the room with him, most of them hated him before they walked into that room. Tonight was the first time they got to experience for themselves the real danger Trump faces every day. They not only got to watch how he handles it, but because they were witnessing this as they tried to hide under tables, they could feel it, too. Nothing is more persuasive than feeling it. As a result, they could no longer ignore or downplay the simple fact that he accepts the risks because he is trying to leave the country better than the way he found it. One word for this is “courage,” but don’t tell the legacy media I told you that.
On hand at the dinner at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., was a crowd of 2,700 that included members of the news media and their “plus ones.” It’s impossible to speculate on what effect this event had on all of them, or if anything will change. Experience tells me nothing material will change in Trump’s relationship with the media. But one person stands out in my mind: the chair of the event, Weijia Jiang of CBS News and the current president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. She was on the dais with Trump when the shooting happened. Before the shooting, you can see on video how relaxed she was.

President Trump was rushed off of the stage by Secret Service at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. pic.twitter.com/U71YqZdmno
— richlux713 (@RichLux713) April 26, 2026

After the shooting and once the room settled down, Jiang had to take to the podium and tell the room the event would continue at another time. In this video, you can see she was still visibly shaken by the evening’s events.

Weija Jang, President of the White House Correspondents' Association, relayed the president's message to the crowd, saying, "Thank God everybody is safe. And thank you for coming together tonight. We will do this again. Thank you." pic.twitter.com/ZVYroEBZoL
— The National Desk (@TND) April 26, 2026

And later in the briefing with Trump, hers was the first question he took, and it was as conciliatory as it gets in that room. But take note of Jiang’s demeanor as Trump responds to her question. It appears, at least to me, that regardless of how she may have felt about Trump before the evening, something had changed by this point.

White House Correspondents Association president and CBS senior WH correspondent Weijia Jiang gets the first question during the post-shooting press conference. She notes his unfortunate history with such attacks and wanted to know what was going through his head:

JIANG: As you… pic.twitter.com/Kmv2dLiXI3
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) April 26, 2026

For those few members of the media who are open to it, maybe just a handful allowed themselves to see Trump as human for a change. I’m not getting my hopes up, but I’d be remiss not to mention this. Meanwhile, Trump may have just punctuated his presidency in a way that he himself never anticipated, and the timing of his statements in this particular briefing may be just the thing to make sure his framing of an “impactful” presidency sticks for the rest of his term. Trump has been and will be impactful, and as long as he lives, nothing will stop him.

Strike 1 to Iran. This kind of delay is over. Let’s move to the next one. This is methodical.

Trump’s tactic is giving them a chance at everything, though he knows what that means. So, a chance, but only once.

Don’t forget, this could lead to a serious war, with many victims. Lots of people would hold that against Trump.

He’s covering his bets. Trump might not have hit Iran on his own, but he doesn’t mind having done it. He grew up with the images of the 1970s.

He did it now because Bibi said he’d nuke Tehran if he didn’t, and Trump did not want to take that risk.

• “We Have All The Cards”: Trump Cancels Witkoff-Kushner Trip To Pakistan (ZH)

In a sharp reversal first reported by Fox News, President Trump has personally canceled the planned trip of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Pakistan. Trump told the outlet that he halted the delegation just as they were preparing to leave: “I’ve told my people a little while ago they were getting ready to leave, and I said, ‘Nope, you’re not making an 18 hour flight to go there. We have all the cards. They can call us anytime they want, but you’re not going to be making any more 18 hour flights to sit around talking about nothing.’”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has reportedly already left Islamabad, Pakistan, following Saturday talks with the country’s prime minister. So much for that “cautious optimism” that Pakistani officials were citing as a sign of progress. The Pakistan-mediated channel is now in clear stalemate, with the Trump administration signaling it sees no value in further shuttle diplomacy on Iran’s current terms.
***
Iran Foreign Ministry Insists ‘No Meeting is Planned’ Even With US Delegation En Route
Not too much that’s new or bombshell happened overnight, with a second round of US-Iran negotiations still in limbo, but with the US delegation led by Witkoff-Kushner said to be departing Saturday or else en route. A small Iranian team has already been there since Friday, engaging the Pakistanis, also amid reports that they will submit a written presentation of their conditions for ceasefire and where things stand from Tehran’s point of view.
Iran has denied that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s trip to Pakistan will include new talks with Washington, rejecting reports that President Trump is sending envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to actually restart negotiations. So once the US side arrives, it would be interesting to see what happens next. Potentially they could start in separate rooms with messages delivered, and thus the interaction would be indirect.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said in a post on X early Saturday that “no meeting is planned to take place between Iran and the US” during the visit and that Tehran’s positions will instead be conveyed to Pakistan. Araghchi said earlier he is undertaking a “timely tour” of Islamabad, Muscat, and Moscow to “closely coordinate” with partners on bilateral issues and consult on regional developments. Iranian state media said the three-leg trip forms part of Tehran’s ongoing diplomatic push to secure an end to US-Israeli aggression.
Reports of ‘Optimism’ amid ‘Stalemate’ in Talks
At the moment there’s no direct contact between Tehran in Washington on the diplomatic front. The Pakistanis have been back at the center of shuttling messages back and forth between US and Iranian officials. Al Jazeera has presented commentary Saturday citing “optimism” but also an ongoing stalemated situation: So we are still in that stalemate, but Pakistani officials are telling us that their presence here and the Americans coming is an indication that behind-the-scenes diplomacy is working.
There’s been shuttle diplomacy, and as one diplomat said, it’s been relentless diplomacy that has been put forward by Pakistan from all sides. There’s been, in the last 24 hours, conversations that have been held not just between the Pakistanis and Iranians, but also between the Pakistanis and the Russians – Russia is going to be one more stop when the Iranian foreign minister leaves. An important overnight headline: Sources close to Pakistan-Iran talks say negotiations are progressing through “Iranian concessions” in exchange for “American flexibility regarding the issue of frozen funds,” according to Al Hadath. And also this: Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Islamabad said Pakistani mediators are “cautiously optimistic” regarding Iran-US talks.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian:

The enemy is attacking our infrastructure and putting us under siege so that people become dissatisfied.

We currently do not need the people's sacrifice, but we request that people reduce electricity and energy consumption.

For example, at… pic.twitter.com/Nq2A8WMqPC
— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) April 25, 2026

Iran Military: Ready & Waiting To Fight
Iran’s military warned the United States it will face the “reaction of Iran’s powerful armed forces” if the blockade of Iranian ports continues, according to Tasnim News Agency.The Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said the armed forces possess “greater power and readiness than before to defend sovereignty, territory, and national interests, which the country’s army experienced part of this power and offensive capability during the Third Imposed War.” This is actually consistent with what even Trump predicted – that the ceasefire has been used by Iran to regroup, rearm, and reposition its forces. Currently the only regional fighting remains in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, despite there technically being a Trump-backed three week Lebanon ceasefire:

“.. you’re not going to be making any more 18-hour flights to sit around talking about nothing’.”

• Chaos in Iran, Trump Drops the Hammer on Talks (Robert Spencer)

Shortly before noon on Saturday, Fox News’ Aishah Hasnie reported that President Donald Trump “just told me over the phone he has unilaterally cancelled Witkoff and Kushner’s trip to Pakistan to meet with the Iranians.” Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have been carrying on the on-again-off-again negotiations with what remains of the Islamic Republic’s leadership, in hopes of striking some deal that would definitively end the mullahs’ nuclear threat. Hasnie’s assertion that Trump called off the talks “unilaterally” is a bit of a stretch, as Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had already left Islamabad before Witkoff and Kushner had been scheduled to arrive. And so in calling off their trip, Trump was simply recognizing reality.

The president explained: “I’ve told my people a little while ago they were getting ready to leave, and I said, ‘Nope, you’re not making an 18-hour flight to go there. We have all the cards. They can call us anytime they want, but you’re not going to be making any more 18-hour flights to sit around talking about nothing’.” Shortly thereafter, Trump added: “I just cancelled the trip of my representatives going is Islamabad, Pakistan, to meet with the Iranians. Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work! Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their “leadership.” Nobody knows who is in charge, including them. Also, we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!” President DONALD J. TRUMP
All this follows Trump’s announcement from last Tuesday, when he postponed the resumption of military action until the talks could run their course: “Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal. I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the Ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other”. President DONALD J. TRUMP
The latest call-off of the talks does not, of course, necessarily mean that a resumption of military action is imminent, or even in the offing at all. The situation at the moment is extremely volatile, as it is not even clear who exactly is in charge in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and there seem to be at least two factions: fanatics from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who want to pursue war with the U.S. and Israel even if it means the fiery destruction of the nation, and a more pragmatic group that appears to include Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and others among the most prominent survivors from the prewar regime.
Behind both factions is the mysterious figure of Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late supreme leader and his putative successor. Mojtaba, however, still has not actually been seen or heard since he was made supreme leader, and was reportedly left disfigured and crippled from the airstrike that killed his father. It is also possible, given this regime’s long record of duplicity, that Mojtaba Khamenei is actually dead, and that regime officials are pretending that he is still alive and directing the nation’s affairs from his hospital bed because he gives them some claim to legitimacy, however tenuous.
Trump likely continues to hold out hope that the Iranians will return to the negotiating table. As recently as last Tuesday, he asserted that “Iran can get themselves at a very good footing. If they make a deal, they can make themselves into a strong nation again, a wonderful nation again.”
Yet even after the Iranian leadership and military has taken a severe pounding, there is no indication whatsoever that if the Islamic Republic of Iran becomes “a strong nation again, a wonderful nation again,” it will also be a friend to the United States. If the current regime, whoever is actually in charge of it, remains in power, it will simply be a strong and wonderful jihadi rogue state.
That orientation is fundamentally anti-American. It should not be forgotten that in a nationally televised address in November 2023, the late Khamenei explained, “The situation between America and Iran is this: When you chant ‘Death to America!’ it is not just a slogan – it is a policy. I have stated the reasons previously. For many years, from the 1940s to the 1970s – that is 30 years – the Americans did everything they could do against the Iranian nation. They hit Iran in any way they could – financially, economically, politically, scientifically, and morally.”
Despite the fact that this was not true then and isn’t true even now, the Islamic Republic remains determined to hit us back, one way or another, in any way that the opportunity arises to do so. The Iranian leadership will keep looking for that opportunity.

Europe’s “leaders” are all hugely impopular. They need to hide that.

• The EU ‘Democracy Shield’ Is The End of Freedom In Europe (Kwasniewski)

Mass censorship is coming to Europe, and it is being labeled the Democracy Shield. Jerzy Kwasniewski, head of the board of the Ordo Iuris Institute, writes: “Under the banner of protecting democracy, the European Union is rolling out a web of regulations that critics say will curb free expression, sideline conservative voices, and reshape the public sphere through opaque moderation, labeling, and algorithmic controls, Remix News provides the full article here below:

The year 2026 will go down in the history of European integration as a special moment. The European Union, under the banner of protecting democracy, has begun systematically restricting freedom of speech and real political pluralism. Thus, it embarks on the well-trodden historical paths of every authoritarian regime, resorting to violence and censorship as public support wanes. A report recently published by the Ordo Iuris Institute leaves no doubt: we are dealing with a project for a profound overhaul of the public sphere that will primarily target conservative communities, including Catholics.
The new EU mechanisms, ironically referred to as the “Democracy Shield,” are not a single piece of legislation. This is a coordinated regulatory system—from the Digital Services Act (DSA), through codes of conduct on “hate speech” and “disinformation,” to the regulation on political advertising. Their common denominator is the now-official departure from the European cult of free speech and its replacement with a system of preventive restrictions, in the name of… true freedom and democracy.
The European Commission claims that its aim is to create a “safe” information space in which “reliable” messages are meant to dominate, that is, in practice, narratives aligned with the liberal consensus . The problem is that the criteria for the EU’s “credibility,” for what is considered prohibited “disinformation,” and—what is particularly harmful—”divisive speech” are extremely vague and prone to ideological interpretation. As a result, it will not even be independent courts, but online platforms cooperating with non-governmental organizations selected by Brussels that will decide what content may reach citizens of the European Union. Including Polish citizens.
This system is multi-stage. First—mechanisms for reporting and removing content that, in practice, incentivize rapid takedowns, even at the expense of freedom of expression. Secondly—a labeling system under which statements labeled as “unverified,” “misleading,” or “political” are subject to mandatory restrictions on platforms such as Facebook or X. Thirdly—there is to be algorithmic intervention that limits the reach of content deemed problematic.
It is worth emphasizing the role of so-called trusted flaggers and fact-checker networks. It is precisely these entities, often financed with public funds from the European Union or the Member States and ideologically uniform, that gain a privileged position in the content moderation process. In practice, this means cleverly delegating censorship to entities that are not subject to any democratic oversight.
Even more troubling are the regulations concerning political advertising. The definition of “political speech” has been framed so broadly that it encompasses not only the activities of political parties but also public awareness campaigns concerning the protection of life, the family, or national identity. This means that Catholic pro-life organizations or movements defending marriage as the union between a woman and a man may be subjected to restrictive requirements and even sanctions. Even now, our own Ordo Iuris Institute and Center for Life and Family, as well as our friends from Polonia Christiana’s PCH24 news portal and their editorial team should start preparing to implement a “replacement language.” The censorship game, well known here in Poland from the communist era, is making a comeback.
At the same time, restrictions on the targeting and funding of political messages make it much more difficult to reach voters. In practice, the largest platforms, such as Facebook, have already stopped running “political” ads to avoid legal risk. It is no longer possible to freely promote petitions opposing abortion or same-sex unions there.
The Polish political context cannot be ignored. The introduction of these instruments specifically in 2026, just before the crucial parliamentary campaign in Poland, is no coincidence. Restricting the reach of conservative speech, making it harder to organize public-interest campaigns, and selectively labeling content as “problematic” will have a real impact on election results.
From the perspective of socially engaged Catholics, this is particularly dangerous. Unequivocal assessments concerning the protection of life from conception, the indissolubility of marriage, the condemnation of the aberrations of gender ideology, and even clear support for national sovereignty within the European Union will increasingly be classified as “controversial” or “divisive.” In the new regulatory model, such content may be restricted not directly—through a ban—but through invisible mechanisms of reach reduction and stigmatization.
This does not, of course, mean that the state has no right to combat crimes online or to protect citizens from real threats. The problem is that the European Union has crossed the line between protection and control, between security and social engineering.
Therefore today, more than ever, courage is needed to defend freedom and the right to publicly proclaim one’s faith. Not as a privilege for the select few, but as the foundation of a healthy society. If we allow, under the pretext of combating “disinformation,” the voices of those who defend life, the family, and sovereignty to be curtailed, democracy will quickly become a grim dictatorship hidden behind a facade of apparent diversity and tolerance.

Globalism in Europe Is On The Verge of COLLAPSE

French President Emmanuel Macron just announced he’s leaving politics for good in 2027 after his party got demolished in elections.

Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally party is surging in France.

The same right-wing wave is… pic.twitter.com/1YWawaA7O9
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 24, 2026

To go after the larger threat.

• DOJ Quietly Retracts John Brennan Subpoenas, Offers No Explanation (AP)

Greasy Deep State eel in a human skinsuit, John Brennan, may have slipped the proverbial noose once again. In what appears to be now standard operating procedure for the administration, the Department of Justice assigned Trump ally Joseph diGenova to serve as the special prosecutor for the ongoing case regarding former Obama-appointed head of the CIA Brennan and his alleged role in the criminal conspiracy to frame then-president-elect Trump as a Russian asset in 2016. Now, the DOJ, according to internal sources, with stunning parallels to the botched James Comey prosecution, has withdrawn its subpoenas of individuals associated with Brennan, opting instead for “voluntary interview” requests.

Via Associated Press (emphasis added): “The Justice Department has withdrawn subpoenas issued in the investigation of former CIA Director John Brennan, with officials asking for voluntary interviews instead of testimony before a grand jury, two people familiar with the matter said Tuesday. A small handful of subpoenas were known to have been issued over the weekend for witnesses to appear before a grand jury in Washington. But investigators on Monday evening informed lawyers that the subpoenas were being withdrawn in favor of requests for voluntary interviews, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press to discuss developments in an ongoing investigation. The reason for the reversal in course was not immediately known.”
I’m sure Brennan, his comrades, and their respective teams of $1,000/hr lawyers will jump at the “voluntary interview” invite. They’re here to assist the government in any way possible in the furtherance of justice.These are red-blooded patriots, after all. They just want what’s best for America. Speaking of true-blue, red-blooded Americana, here is John Brennan in 2021, immediately after the Jan 6 fedsurrection, having transitioned into a “journalist” at MSNBC, joining an entire lineup of “retired” spooks speaking truth to power for the masses on the network, declaring a war on “an unholy alliance of religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians” — a war that the Biden administration went on to wage with all the weight of the federal government:
“[The Biden intelligence services] are moving in laser-like fashion to try to uncover as much as they can about what looks very similar to insurgency movements that we’ve seen overseas… It brings together an unholy alliance of religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians. And unfortunately I think there’s been this momentum that generated as a result of unfortunately the demagogic rhetoric of people that’s just departed government, but also those who continue in the halls of Congress. And so I really do think that the law enforcement, homeland security, intelligence, and even the defense officials are doing everything possible to root out what seems to be a very very serious and insidious threat to our democracy and our republic.”

“I suspect, well, let’s consider, Ciaramella has been given the opportunity to cooperate as a witness in the 2017 Brennan case; perhaps in exchange for something like limited immunity in the 2019 impeachment issue. The timeline tracks.”

• Great News – Subpoenas for Brennan Grand Jury Testimony are Withdrawn (CTH)

Several people have inquired about the Washington DC subpoenas for former CIA Director John Brennan being withdrawn, and what does that mean. I intentionally did not write about it at the time because I wanted to look closely at the fact pattern. The DOJ is still planning to send requests for voluntary interviews and grand jury testimony according to media reports.From my perspective, this is a good sign. Potentially a very good sign. The issues around the CIA targeting President Trump are extensive, attached to numerous individuals and entities, and generally complex. Normally, an investigation of this scope would begin with questions to the outer perimeter individuals who were carrying out the instructions of those above them.

It is from those types of lower-level interviews that material is gathered for use in examining the truthfulness of those who organized and directed the operations. In the example of John Brennan’s false statements to congress surrounding the ICA (Intelligence Community Assessment), or the inclusion of the Steele Dossier in the analytical material, there are key people within the Directorate of Analysis, National Security Agency and National Intelligence Council who can give first-hand statements about Brennan’s instructions. Those types of interviews are just as important as questioning John Brennan himself, and for obvious reasons those interviews should come first.
Here is where it becomes important to remember a key thing that happened between the time the investigation of Brennan began and the arrival of investigative Asst to the AG, Joe DiGenova. Do you remember the recent criminal referral by DNI Tulsi Gabbard for former CIA Analyst Eric Ciaramella?
BACKGROUND: Former CIA Director John Brennan was being investigated during the time that DNI Tulsi Gabbard was working on retrieving and declassifying the material surrounding the first impeachment effort against President Trump. CIA Analyst Eric Ciaramella was the “anonymous whistleblower” that triggered the report to Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson that started the impeachment operation. This same CIA Analyst Eric Ciaramella was also involved in the fabrication of the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, which is at the heart of the false testimony to congress that John Brennan is being investigated for.
Eric Ciaramella was criminally referred by DNI Gabbard for his actions in relation to the impeachment operation. This sets the DOJ up with the potential for a plea agreement with Ciaramella on his impeachment conduct, in exchange for testimony against Brennan on the ICA construct. Suddenly we see reports of DOJ Brennan subpoenas being withdrawn immediately after the DOJ criminal referral for Eric Ciaramella is introduced. **nudge-nudge* *wink-wink** See the dynamic? I’m not saying this is happening, but the timing is awfully coincidental, no?
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has withdrawn subpoenas issued in the investigation of former CIA Director John Brennan, with officials asking for voluntary interviews instead of testimony before a grand jury, two people familiar with the matter said Tuesday. A small handful of subpoenas were known to have been issued over the weekend for witnesses to appear before a grand jury in Washington. But investigators on Monday evening informed lawyers that the subpoenas were being withdrawn in favor of requests for voluntary interviews, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press to discuss developments in an ongoing investigation.
The reason for the reversal in course was not immediately known. The months-old Brennan investigation is one of several criminal probes the Justice Department has opened over the last year against President Donald Trump’s perceived adversaries. It centers on one of the Republican president’s chief grievances — a U.S. intelligence community finding that Russia interfered on his behalf during his successful 2016 presidential campaign. TIMELINE:
Aug – Nov 2025: CTH emphasizes need for ICIG Atkinson material to get to Ciaramella/Brennan
December 2025 – Brennan attorney notified he is under investigation.
Jan – March 2026 – DNI gains access to Atkinson transcript from HPSCI
March 2026 – DNI assembled ICIG Atkinson material from Ciaramella report and investigation.
March 25 – HPSCI releases transcript to DNI.
April 13 – HPSCI released ICIG declassified transcript / DNI releases ICIG Ciaramella report.
April 15 – Eric Ciaramella criminal referral.
April 21 – Brennan witness subpoenas withdrawn.

Hopefully the timeline helps people to understand what is likely happening in the background. I suspect, well, let’s consider, Ciaramella has been given the opportunity to cooperate as a witness in the 2017 Brennan case; perhaps in exchange for something like limited immunity in the 2019 impeachment issue. The timeline tracks.

Is he really a prince?

• Iranian Prince in Exile Reza Pahlavi Delivers a Brutal Message (CTH)

Two years after the Russia-Ukraine war began, people kept wondering why I continued to ask why no western media were boots on the ground in Ukraine delivering news of the conflict. I called it “world war reddit” for a reason. That question loomed even bigger given the relentless on-the-ground reporting over the U.S-Iran conflict. Why were/are international journalists almost immediately embedded in Iran to cover the details of the conflict, yet that same approach never took place in Ukraine. For Ukraine there was no daily reports on the fighting; no frontline reports with journalists in helmets and flak jackets; no live interviews or reports of the back-and-forth battles between Russia and Ukraine; no ‘coming to you live from Kiev‘ tonight, nothing. However, as soon as military conflict breaks out in Iran – all the familiar war/conflict reporting surfaced again.

But I see the Ukraine war reported on Telegram, some say. True, but really? What you “see” is through a social media prism that is structurally controlled by Western intelligence operations. World War Reddit! For additional context, when the U.S. went to war in Iraq/Afghanistan, how did it impact your daily life? That’s analogous the same impact within Russia that I experienced in 2024 (3 months) and 2025 (1 month). All recognizable impact is sanctions related. One of the reasons I traveled from Western Russia to Poland -specifically driving across Ukraine- was to see for myself. I shared that story before. The reality of the Ukraine conflict, World War Reddit, is entirely against the interests of those who are constructing the false impression of it.
In reality the Eastern Donbas region is very pro-Russian and when the Russian Federation took over towns and geography, driving back the Ukraine military, Russian troops were factually greeted as liberators. Now, there is a slow-grinding stalemate, and the losses on the Ukraine side are well beyond what has been reported by government officials. I provide this context of reality -vs- media presentation because Iranian Prince Reza Pahlavi is strongly calling attention to the bias and willful blindness of European media. WATCH:

“I want to speak directly to the people of Europe. In the past two weeks I have had two major press conferences — one in Stockholm, one in Berlin. Between them 150 journalists attended. We spent more than two hours together.” Not a single one of those 150 journalists asked about the 40,000 Iranians slaughtered on the streets of my country on January 8th and 9th! Not a single one of the 150 journalists asked me about the 19 political prisoners executed in the last two weeks.
When I told them 20 more are currently sentenced to death, nothing. Not a single one of the 150 journalists asked me about them. When I stood next to a mother and next to a father who lost their sons on January 8th and 9th, and asked them to hear their stories, not a single one of the 150 journalists asked them a question.
[…] It is clear to me that my 40,000 brave, innocent compatriots who were slaughtered in the fight for liberty are of little interest to these journalists. They seem more interested in criticizing America and asking why the United States and Israel killed the dictator that has slaughtered our people for 47 YEARS — than criticizing the regime doing the slaughtering. They seem more interested asking questions about Iran’s past and history than about what is happening in Iran today; or about the democratic future Iranians are seeking. One member of parliament even told me they didn’t think Iranians are ready for democracy. To that member of Parliament, to those journalists, I remind you: Iranians aren’t just “ready” for democracy. 40,000 people just gave their lives for it, and I won’t let that be in vain.”
So know this, whether or not Europe stands with us; whether or not your journalists do their jobs; whether or not your politicians demonstrate their courage to act, I will fight for my people and my country. Even if we have to do this alone – we will fight until Iran is free”! I don’t know if this guy is the right one to lead the charge to bring a more politically democratic outcome for the people in Iran, but what he is saying about the willful blindness of western media is absolutely correct.

“There is also the behavior of the three leftist judges, which is shockingly juvenile for persons occupying such prestigious positions.”

• The United States of America v. John Roberts (A.J. Christopher)

The Supreme Court is under attack. It has been under attack for years, almost exclusively from the left. And by “under attack,” I don’t mean the peaceful criticism. I mean everything from challenges to its legitimacy to outright ignoring its rulings to death threats against conservative justices. This began years ago. Chief Justice John Roberts initially responded by trying to stay apolitical and by trying to ignore the criticism. When President Barack Obama called him out during his 2010 State of the Union address, Roberts called the stunt “very troubling.” In the last two decades, that has been the entire extent of his pushback against the left.

In the last couple years, leftist district judges and leftist federal judges issue decrees and stays that directly contradict recent rulings from the Supreme Court itself. Last August, Justices Brett Kavanaugh Neil Gorsuch also publicly rebuked lower courts for having to reverse orders from lower courts regarding issues that the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) had already addressed. But not by Roberts. Last September, a group of anonymous federal judges criticized recent emergency stays that SCOTUS granted. In interviews with NBC News, these judges said such rulings imply that the lower courts are doing shoddy work (yes, that’s the point). One judge quipped, “It’s inexcusable. They don’t have our backs.” Far be it from me to explain to this judge that the job of SCOTUS is not to “have their backs.”
It’s John Roberts’ job to explain this to them. And yet, nary a peep. District Judge Brian Murphy has twice openly flouted SCOTUS decisions. For his obstinacy, Justice Elena Kagan, of all people, publicly rebuked him. But still nothing from Roberts. Then there is the internal drama. It burst into the open with the Dobbs decision, which the liberal justices deliberately slow-rolled in an attempt to stave off the inevitable. The problem arises because no SCOTUS decision is binding until the justices’ opinions are finalized and publicized. If a justice happens to die in the interim, then that justice’s vote is nullified.
This rule applies even if a justice dies from assassination. Like, you know, what almost happened to Brett Kavanaugh in June 2022. An armed suspect showed up outside his home, and his presence was made known to the authorities only because the suspect got cold feet and called the police and turned himself in. The would-be assassin was upset the upcoming (and, at that time, unreleased) Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and helped decodify legalized infanticide. But how did he know about the upcoming Dobbs decision? Because one of the justices’ staffers unprecedentedly leaked it to the press. This has never happened before on the Supreme Court. It happened on Roberts’ watch.
Who was the leaker? Who knows? Roberts refused to let the FBI investigate, and instead handed the investigation to federal marshals. There is speculation that Roberts did so to prevent the executive branch from encroaching on his turf. As a result, to this day we have no idea who the leaker was.
There is also the behavior of the three leftist judges, which is shockingly juvenile for persons occupying such prestigious positions. There is Justice Elena Kagan, who screamed “so loudly” at fellow liberal Justice Stephen Breyer that the “wall was shaking.” Why was she screaming? Because Breyer disapproved of Kagan’s tactic of slow-rolling the Dobbs decision because of the threats to the lives of his conservative friends on the bench. Breyer was that rare liberal that put the value of human life above his personal opinion, and he supported publishing the Dobbs dissent quickly to diffuse the threats. Kagan, on the other hand, was perfectly willing to risk the murder of her fellow justices in order to possibly skew the decision.
This is the Roberts’ court. Then there is the “wise” Latina, who thinks that colorblind, impartial justice requires one to consider race and upbringing while trying to excuse why the law should be applied unequally upon the citizenry. Regarding a disagreement on a recent immigration ruling, Sotomayor told the Lawrence Journal-World that her colleague Brett Kavanaugh is “a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.”
Continuing, she quipped that “There are some people who can’t understand our experiences, even when you tell them.” I’m confident that Sotomayor wouldn’t understand the “experiences” of Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, or Sheridan Gorman, even if they told her. But they can’t tell her. Because the very illegals for whom Sotomayor so passionately fights murdered them. If this is the left’s definition of what it means to be “wise,” then I’m glad they consider me “deplorable.” Sotomayor issued a hand-in-the-cookie-jar apology, but the fact remains is that this sort of backstabbing culture is being allowed to fester within the hallowed walls of SCOTUS.
This is the Roberts’ court.
And finally, we have that morbid disaster of a flaming clown car, more commonly known as Ketanji Brown Jackson. In a recent speech at Yale, she called the judicial rulings of her conservative colleagues “utterly irrational.” This from the person who couldn’t give a definition of a woman. Back in August, she blasted her colleagues for “lawmaking” from the bench, impervious to the fact that this is exactly what the lower courts have been doing since Jan. 20, 2025.
This is the Roberts court.

Where people go to show us they’re not funny. Did Colbert ever make that clear. The whole Jon Stewart clan once witnout Jon Stewart did.

In hindsight, an unfortunate headline…

• Trump Plans an Ambush at White House Correspondents’ Dinner (Pinsker)

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner’s featured entertainer, Oz Pearlman, is worth spelunking down the YouTube rabbit hole to learn more about. Pearlman was born in Israel and worked briefly at Merrill Lynch before launching his second career as a mentalist. Currently, he’s the biggest, most sought-after mentalist on the planet. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear he was psychic. He “guessed” Joe Rogan’s ATM PIN in an interview. (Rogan’s shocked response: “Yeah… that’s weird. Yeah, I don’t like that.”) He’s baffled all the top news and entertainment TV shows. With clockwork precision, he plucks your deepest, darkest secrets straight out of your brain. It’s spooky: Like a scholar reads books, he reads minds.

Only he doesn’t: Pearlman openly admits he doesn’t have any psychic ability. These are all tricks, based on his understanding of body language, psychology, and social behavior. There’s absolutely nothing “psychic” about him. But because he’s so thoroughly mastered his craft, you’d swear otherwise: Somehow, he’s always a step ahead. Remind you of anyone? Of course, it helps when your audience is predictable. The more predictable an audience, the easier it is to know what it’ll do next. If an audience is predictable enough, you could probably anticipate its every move. Remind you of anyone else? That’s our segue for today’s story: Saturday, April 25 is the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner — which will be attended by, for his very first time as president, Donald J. Trump.
He attended a few dinners as a private citizen, most notably in 2011, when then-president Barack Obama taunted him from the podium. Since then, he hasn’t been back. So many are wondering… why now? Why tonight? The audience, after all — and the event itself — are predictably predictable. Every (non-Trumpian) year for the past 20 years, it’s been the exact same thing: If the president is a Democrat, he’s met with kid gloves and fawning praise. If he’s a Republican, he’s vilified, mocked, and personally insulted. And if he’s Donald Trump — a.k.a. “literally Hitler” and the terrible, evil Orange Monster — he’s excoriated unmercifully. This is an audience that hates his frickin’ guts. Yet now he’s attending.
Ex-emcee Stephen Colbert will be skipping the dinner. So is the HuffPost. Hundreds of journalists have signed an open letter, asking their colleagues to “forcefully demonstrate opposition to President Trump’s efforts to trample freedom of the press.” In their evenhanded, completely unbiased opinions, “these are not normal times, and this cannot be business as usual with the press standing up to applaud the man who attacks them on a daily basis.” Many journalists will be wearing special hankies to protest the man they’re paid to cover (“without fear or favor!”). In the goofiest, lamest, most cringeworthy example of virtue-signaling yet… well, CNN’s Jake Tapper will explain:
So why would Trump waste his time by spending an evening with a gaggle of journalists who plot his demise? Why would he help his enemies publicize their complaints, lies, and political grievances? Some speculate that the choice of Oz Pearlman as emcee was a factor: He’s not a partisan comedian, but a mentalist — which minimizes chances it’ll devolve into yet another anti-Trump roast. That was surely something the White House considered before signing up: In 2006, Stephen Colbert’s vicious mockery of President George W. Bush skyrocketed his career. If you’re a comedian, attacking Republican presidents is very good for business. Pearlman probably won’t do that. Being a partisan hack isn’t his business model.
But I suspect it’s more than just Pearlman’s inclusion. From the White House’s perspective, one of two things will likely happen tonight — and either outcome plays into the president’s hands. First, there’s a chance it won’t be a complete and total anti-Trump rally. Not a GREAT chance, but a chance. I’d give it a very low probability. Because Pearlman won’t be the only speaker, and the ballroom will be filled with journalists, many of the biggest names in their industry. Like it or not, journalists have a vested interest in drawing attention to themselves: eyeballs = success.mShamelessness is their signature trait. It’s what they do best.
All Trump can reasonably hope for is that their attacks will be muted. Because almost certainly, some left-wing journalist will seize the opportunity to give “literally Hitler” a piece of his mind. But if the Trump-bashing is kept to a minimum, the president comes across as magnanimous, courageous, and confident, jumping right into the lion’s den and charming all the lions.= The second outcome expects things will go haywire: The media can’t resist the urge to draw its daggers and attack. Despite Pearlman emceeing the event, one way or another, left-wing agitators will hijack the dinner. This is, I suspect, what President Trump is counting on. Nothing rallies a people, a party, and/or a movement like a common enemy. Furthermore, if you’re a Republican, few institutions are more detestable than the mainstream media.
I think Trump wants the media to make jackarses of themselves and attack him tonight — so he’ll have an excuse to counterpunch ‘em right back! Because it would be an excellent opportunity to unite Red America by reminding us who our real enemies are: a dishonest media that propagandizes anti-Americanism, secularism, and deep state leftism.Expecting D.C.’s journalists to act “fair and balanced” is a fool’s errand. Decades of experience virtually guarantees it won’t happen. Which means, tonight’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner is obviously an ambush — so why the heck is Trump walking into it? Most likely explanation: He’s planning an ambush of his own.

DEEP STATE PANIC MODE

DOJ’s Todd Blanche is green lighting a FULL INQUIRY into Liar Cassidy Hutchinson’s FAKE J6 Testimony against Trump, REVIVING the case against Dirty Cop Comey, launching subpoenas on Fani Willis’ Team…and going FULL STEAM AHEAD on Treasonous Brennan. pic.twitter.com/zedoKhEikF
— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) April 24, 2026

HATE HOAX: Apple CEO Tim Cook funded the SPLC for nearly a decade. The SPLC used the money to fund KKK & Neo-Nazi leaders. The DOJ announced indictments. Cook resigned the day before.

h/t @TheRipCord https://t.co/35LV1mgLDN pic.twitter.com/G6IEJdB4uR
— @amuse (@amuse) April 24, 2026

This is earth-shattering.

Senator Ron Johnson just revealed that Secretary Kennedy provided him with 11 MILLION pages of HHS documents on the COVID vaccine.

What the documents exposed about the FDA is truly disturbing.

JOHNSON: “We have now uncovered the fact that FDA… pic.twitter.com/ifnpm4tqVu
— Overton (@overton_news) April 23, 2026

Greg Gutfeld says all the mainstream media knew that the Southern Poverty Law Center was funding fake white supremacy hoaxes but they went along with it anyway to help Democrats

This is one of the bigger scandals in decades. This is domestic terrorism and the media participated… pic.twitter.com/h3aFv4VK1q
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) April 25, 2026

BREAKING NEWS ‼️‼️

TRUMP drops post about Arizona's ENORMOUS 2020 Election FRAUD Scandal. Forensic Evidence of 25,000+ counterfeit ballots. This is just ONE state. Imagine the entire country… pic.twitter.com/pydMg3TrGZ
— MASTER POOL (@mrpooln) April 24, 2026

Today is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.

Over 3 million Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Yazidis, and Maronites were killed by the Ottoman Turks.

This is what an actual genocide looks like. Not whatever people are calling a genocide today. pic.twitter.com/n3jD6hYLbv
— Dr. Maalouf ‏ (@realMaalouf) April 24, 2026

https://twitter.com/GustBrian/status/2047864908524773756?s=20

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Debt Rattle September 17 2020

Sep 172020

September 17, 2020 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:19 am Finance Tagged with: Assange, CDC, Covid19, critical race theory, Fauci, Hunter Biden, Lisa Page, Mueller, New Zealand, Pelosi, Redfield, subpoenas, Tide pods 11 Responses »

René Magritte Sixteenth of September 1956

• CDC: US Should Have Enough Vaccine To Return To Regular Life By Q3 2021 (CNBC)

• Trump Admin Shuts Down CDC Training Based On Critical Race Theory (Fox)

• President Trump’s Ban on Critical Race Theory, Explained (FEE)

• Subpoenas Coming For Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Halper Et Al (ZH)

• Mueller Team Had Lisa Page’s Phone It Claimed Was Lost (ET)

• Treasury Flagged Foreign Money Flowing To Hunter Biden-Tied Firms (JTN)

• Senator Kennedy: There Are Times When I Think Pelosi Has Eaten Tide Pods (ZH)

• The Democrat Ticket Is Puzzling (Paul Craig Roberts)

• 60% of US Business Closures Due To The Pandemic Are Now Permanent (CNBC)

• New Zealand In Recession After Worst Quarterly GDP Fall On Record (G.)

• Julian Assange Interrupts Extradition Hearing Again (SMH)

• Claims Assange ‘Endangered Lives’ Rubbished In Extradition Hearing (Haddad)

We passed 30 million total global cases overnight. That is a lot of people. And at 300,000 new cases a day, 9 million will be added each month.

India hasn’t breached the 100,000 number in one day so far.

You can think what you want about performances like this one by CDC head Robert Redfield, but the problem with the CDC, as well as the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, headed by Fauci, should be obvious. The same will go for similar bureaus in other countries. That is, they basically go unchallenged for decades (I know, there was SARS), which inevitably makes them lazy and riddled with inertia.

This is best exemplified by the fact that Fauci has been heading his institute since 1984. Plenty of time to get all chummy with the Big Pharma people he sees on a regular basis, and one thing leads to another. And then when an emergeny occurs, we find out that they have no way left to deal with an emergency, because they’re all rusty and dusty. Which of course they will vehemently deny.

Meanwhile, Fauci has said may different, even contradictory things, and Redfield does no better. First, there is no vaccine, so this is pure hypothesis. And even then it will take another year?! Great message. Which the CDC itself walked back within hours to boot. And the way he’s flopping that piece of cloth around, saying it’s better than a vaccine, is just horrible. He’s had 9 months to drown the US in N95 masks, and be effective. So where are they?

• CDC: US Should Have Enough Vaccine To Return To Regular Life By Q3 2021 (CNBC)

The U.S. should have enough Covid-19 vaccine doses for Americans to return to “regular life” by the third quarter of next year, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told a Senate panel he expects vaccinations to begin in November or December, but in limited quantities with those most in need getting the first doses, such as health-care workers. He said it will take about “six to nine months” to get the entire American public vaccinated. “If you’re asking me when is it going to be generally available to the American public so we can begin to take advantage of vaccine to get back to our regular life, I think we’re probably looking at third … late second quarter, third quarter 2021,” he told the U.S. Senate Appropriations subcommittee on labor, health and human services, education, and related agencies.

The CDC later walked back Redfield’s testimony after President Donald Trump criticized him at a White House press conference. The CDC said Redfield’s timeline referred to when all Americans will complete their immunizations. “He was not referring to the time period when COVID-19 vaccine doses would be made available to all Americans,” CDC spokesman Paul Fulton Jr. said in an email to CNBC. At the hearing, Redfield said the Trump administration’s Covid-19 vaccine program Operation Warp Speed was unprecedented. He told lawmakers that a vaccine usually takes four to six years. There are no approved vaccines for the coronavirus. Three drugmakers are currently in late-stage testing for potential vaccines and expect to know if they work by the end of the year.

Public health experts have previously said that most Americans likely won’t get immunized with a coronavirus vaccine until the middle of next year. Whichever vaccine is authorized by the Food and Drug Administration, it will likely be in short supply once it’s cleared for public distribution, medical experts warn. The vaccine will likely require two doses at varying intervals, and states still face logistical challenges such as setting up distribution sites and acquiring enough needles, syringes and bottles needed for immunizations.

Redfield

NEW: CDC Director Redfield to US Senate cmte.:

“These facemasks are the important, powerful public health tool we have … I might even go so far as to say that this facemask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine.” pic.twitter.com/7LJZ3U9xi1

— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 16, 2020

“..It’s unclear why the CDC proceeded with the training..”

• Trump Admin Shuts Down CDC Training Based On Critical Race Theory (Fox)

President Trump’s administration canceled another critical race theory training that was set to occur through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) despite the president’s recent executive order banning those types of events, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said Tuesday. OMB Director Russ Vought announced the decision just a day after Discovery Institute researcher Chris Rufo reported on the training, underscoring the administration’s recent responsiveness to news on this issue. “Glad to report, per @POTUS’s directive, this training is being cancelled immediately,” Vought tweeted, alongside Rufo’s post about the issue. Rufo’s revelations appeared to prompt Trump’s executive order earlier this month.

Rufo noted on Monday that the CDC was hosting a training focused on “systems of structured inequality,” blaming systemic racism for deaths from COVID-19 and at the hands of police. It admonishes the “myth of meritocracy” and “myth of american exceptionalism,” among other objectives that Rufo said represented “textbook critical race theory.” It’s unclear why the CDC proceeded with the training, which appeared to take place on Thursday. Rufo responded to Vought’s announcement by demanding accountability and threatening to release names of those involved if the CDC didn’t take action on its own.

A senior administration official told Fox News that all agencies are supposed to adhere to the president’s order, and that the president’s team is attempting to stop trainings that are continuing despite the cease and desist order. In Vought’s initial letter on the issue, he denounced the trainings as un-American. “According to press reports, in some cases these training have further claimed that there is racism embedded in the belief that America is the land of opportunity or the belief that the most qualified person should receive a job,” he said. “These types of ‘trainings’ not only run counter to the fundamental beliefs for which our nation has stood since its inception, but they also engender division and resentment within the federal workforce,” he said.

Vought also directed agencies to identify ways to sever government contracts that supported those trainings. Last week, Rufo flagged a training through an Education Department contractor, which purportedly pushed for radical changes to education and doing “away with prison,” among other things. One document stated that “schools are built to manage racism” and that “we all” seem to abide by a racial contract that says it’s ok for white people to kill [B]lacks with immunity.”

“Just as Marxism demonized capitalists, CRT vilifies white people..”

• President Trump’s Ban on Critical Race Theory, Explained (FEE)

Critical Race Theory is a branch of Critical Theory, which began as an academic movement in the 1930s. Critical Theory emphasizes the “critique of society and culture in order to reveal and challenge power structures,” as Wikipedia states. Critical Race Theory does the same, with a focus on racial power structures, especially white supremacy and the oppression of people of color. The “power structure” prism stems largely from Critical Theory’s own roots in Marxism—Critical Theory was developed by members of the Marxist “Frankfurt School.” Traditional Marxism emphasized economic power structures, especially the supremacy of capital over labor under capitalism. Marxism interpreted most of human history as a zero-sum class war for economic power.

“According to the Marxian view,” wrote the economist Ludwig von Mises, “human society is organized into classes whose interests stand in irreconcilable opposition.” Mises called this view a “conflict doctrine,” which opposed the “harmony doctrine” of classical liberalism. According to the classical liberals, in a free market economy, capitalists and workers were natural allies, not enemies. Indeed, in a free society all rights-respecting individuals were natural allies. Critical Race Theory arose as a distinct movement in law schools in the late 1980s. CRT inherited many of its premises and perspectives from its Marxist ancestry. The pre-CRT Civil Rights Movement had emphasized equal rights and treating people as individuals, as opposed to as members of a racial collective.

“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” Martin Luther King famously said. In contrast, CRT dwells on inequalities of outcome, which it generally attributes to racial power structures. And, as we’ve seen from the government training curricula, modern CRT forthrightly judges white people by the color of their skin, prejudging them as racist by virtue of their race. This race-based “pre-trial guilty verdict” of racism is itself, by definition, racist. The classical liberal “harmony doctrine” was deeply influential in the movements to abolish all forms of inequality under the law: from feudal serfdom, to race-based slavery, to Jim Crow.

But, with the rise of Critical Race Theory, the cause of racial justice became more influenced by the fixations on conflict, discord, and domination that CRT inherited from Marxism. Social life was predominantly cast as a zero-sum struggle between collectives: capital vs. labor for Marxism, whites vs. people of color for CRT. A huge portion of society’s ills were attributed to one particular collective’s diabolical domination: capitalist hegemony for Marxism, white supremacy for CRT. Just as Marxism demonized capitalists, CRT vilifies white people. Both try to foment resentment, envy, and a victimhood complex among the oppressed class it claims to champion.

Critical Race Theory
https://twitter.com/i/status/1306000528757923848

The Senate Homeland Security Committee appears to be getting restless about the Durham probe.

• Subpoenas Coming For Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Halper Et Al (ZH)

The Senate Homeland Security Committee voted on Wednesday to authorize subpoenas for dozens of Obama-era officials involved in ‘spygate,’ including former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, former DNI James Clapper — and longtime US intelligence operative Stephen Halper, who the Obama administration paid nearly half-a-million dollars to help the FBI spy on the 2016 Trump campaign. The committee authorized chairman Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) to issue notices for taking depositions, subpoenas, records requests, and testimony related to the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation – along with the DOJ Inspector General’s review of said investigation, as well as the “unmasking” of individuals connected to the Trump campaign, transition team, and administration, according to Fox News.

“The committee also authorized subpoenas for Sidney Blumenthal, former Obama chief of staff Denis McDonough, former FBI counsel Lisa Page, former FBI agent Joe Pientka, former ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, former FBI director of counterintelligence Bill Priestap, former White House national security adviser Susan Rice, former FBI agent Peter Strzok, former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith – who pleaded guilty to making a false statement in the first criminal case arising from U.S. Attorney John Durham’s review of the investigation into links between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign – among others.”

As part of the authorization, Johnson may subpoena “the production of all records” related to the FBI’s initial Russia probe, as well as unmasking requests for “James Baker, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, DOJ official Bruce Ohr, FBI case agent Steven Somma, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Teftt, former deputy assistant attorney general Tashina Gauhar.” Halper, meanwhile, is a former government official and longtime spook for the CIA and FBI, who was outed as the FBI informant who infiltrated the Trump campaign after the Washington Post and the New York Times ran reports that corroborated a March report by the Daily Caller detailing Halper’s outreach to several low-level aides to the Trump campaign, including Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.

These contacts are notable, as Halper’s infiltration of the Trump campaign corresponds with the two of the four targets of the FBI’s Operation Crossfire Hurricane – in which the agency sent counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and others to a London meeting in the Summer of 2016 with former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer – who says Papadopoulos drunkenly admitted to knowing that the Russians had Hillary Clinton’s emails. The 74-year-old Halper who split his time between his Virginia farm and teaching at Cambridge, approached several Trump campaign aides during the 2016 US election for purposes of espionage – on behalf of the FBI, headed at the time by the recently very quiet James Comey. Halper continued to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page well after the election, and now we find that he was trying to infiltrate the Trump administration.

Does anyone except the principals actors think these things should NOT be investigated?

• Mueller Team Had Lisa Page’s Phone It Claimed Was Lost (ET)

An official who worked on special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation wrote in a recently released email that he or she was in possession of an iPhone belonging to Lisa Page three days after the former FBI lawyer’s last day on the job and at a time when the device was thought to have been lost. The special counsel’s office (SCO) and the Justice Department previously claimed to have no documents to show who handled Page’s iPhone after she turned it in on July 14, 2017, or who improperly wiped it two weeks later, before it could be checked for records, in violation of SCO policy. But documents released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Sept. 11 tell a different story, with three officials certifying that Page turned over her phone and one claiming to have been in possession of it.

“I have her phone and laptop,” an administrative officer with the initials LFW wrote in a July 17, 2017, email to Christopher Greer, an assistant director at the DOJ Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO). Beth McGarry, the executive officer at the special counsel’s office, told Greer in an email sent earlier in the day that Page “returned her mobile phone and laptop.” On the same day, a property custodian officer, whose name is redacted in the documents, signed a form on which Page certified that she turned in her phone and the officer certified that “all government property has been returned or otherwise properly accounted for.” The July 17 timing of the two statements and the signature is significant. The DOJ Office of Inspector General (OIG) previously concluded that there were no records of who had the phone after July 14. The records about Page’s phone are part of a DOJ disclosure that revealed that members of the Mueller team improperly wiped at least 22 iPhones before they could be checked for records.

[..] Mueller’s team used a total of 92 iPhones, according to the documents. Four of the phones appear in the inventory logs, but not on the records officer’s log, suggesting they were either recorded without their unique asset tag or evaded the officer entirely. One of the four phones belonged to deputy special counsel Aaron Zebley. Another belonged to Zainab Ahmad, a special counsel attorney. One phone was partially wiped. Four phones were improperly handed over to the OCIO and wiped before the records officer’s review. As many as seven phones with no asset tags noted by the records officer were either reassigned or wiped before the officer could assess the device for records.

The pattern of questionable deletions has drawn the attention of lawmakers. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the chairmen of the finance and oversight committees, respectively, sent a letter to the DOJ and the FBI last week asking for more information about what happened with the phones. “It appears that Special Counsel Mueller’s team may have deleted federal records that could be key to better understanding their decision-making process as they pursued their investigation and wrote their report,” Grassley wrote. “Indeed, many officials apparently deleted the records after the DOJ Inspector General began his inquiry into how the Department mishandled Crossfire Hurricane.”

His dad is running for president. Which is when in America the family is dragged in. But where is Hunter? Too much of a liability? The press can’t ask Joe, because all questions are pre-scripted.

• Treasury Flagged Foreign Money Flowing To Hunter Biden-Tied Firms (JTN)

A Treasury Department agency that polices financial threats such as money laundering flagged several foreign transactions to Hunter Biden-connected businesses as “suspicious” during the end of the Obama administration and the beginning of the Trump administration. The concerns from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) were highlighted in Suspicious Activity Reports turned over to Senate committees over the last year in conjunction with investigations into the Russia and Ukraine scandals, according to several officials familiar with the evidence. As those Senate investigations wind toward the issuance of their first official report later this month, an essential question has emerged:

Did U.S. law enforcement or intelligence agencies do anything to determine if the money flowing to Vice President Joe Biden’s son posed any criminal or intelligence threats? [..] Senate Democrats first called attention to the existence of the SARs in a little-noticed letter late last year and are now bracing for the flagged financial transactions to be a major revelation in a joint report they expect to be published by the GOP-led Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the Senate Finance Committees as early as next week. “The Republicans have had this in their back pocket for some time to make headlines as the election drew closer,” one Democratic source told Just the News.

[..] The SAR reports were requested as Senate investigators dug into a labyrinth of global businesses that Hunter Biden and his business partners became involved with in Russia, China, Ukraine and elsewhere while his father Joe Biden served as the vice president and Obama administration foreign policy point person. That includes Hunter Biden’s controversial addition in spring 2014 to the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian gas firm with a long record of corruption allegations. SARs are one of the law enforcement community’s most powerful and secretive tools in the war against money laundering, drug cartels and terrorist threats, providing real-time warnings from financial institutions to FinCEN that certain transactions have characteristics that make them suspicious.

Treasury typically receives or generates one million to two million Suspicious Activity Reports a year. So a SAR report in and of itself is not evidence of wrongdoing, but it is usually a starting point for investigation, experts say. The question that remains is whether FBI or ODNI did anything to investigate these suspicious reports after they were alerted by FinCEN. [..] Hunter Biden’s globe-trotting business activities have long generated controversy because they often occurred in the shadows of his father’s foreign policy portfolio. Hunter Biden, for instance, traveled aboard Air Force Two in December 2013 with the vice president to Beijing, walking away soon after with a stake in an investment fund that received funding from the state-owned Bank of China. As his father’s administration took several actions favorable to Beijing, such as opening U.S. capital markets to Chinese companies, Hunter Biden closed deals in China.

“Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi aren’t going to agree to anything until we agree to spend a trillion dollars bailing out New York and California and that’s not going to happen in your or my natural life..”

• Senator Kennedy: There Are Times When I Think Pelosi Has Eaten Tide Pods (ZH)

GOP Senator John Kennedy used a startling cultural reference to portray his belief that believes Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is crazy, saying that he often thinks she has ‘is one of those people who tried Tide Pods’ laundry detergent. Appearing with Sean Hannity, Kennedy was addressing Pelosi’s obsession with the $3.4 trillion coronavirus bill. “Sean, with respect, there are times, particularly recently, when I think Speaker Pelosi is one of those people who tried Tide pods,” Kennedy hilariously stated. “I want you to think about what she proposed today, this is what the speaker is threatening to do,” he continued, adding “She is threatening to keep the House Democrats in session and prevent them from going home and running for reelection unless the Senate Republicans agree to the speaker’s $3.4 trillion coronavirus bill.”

“On the one hand we can vote for Pelosi’s $3.4 trillion bill or we can agree to allow her to put the House Democratic majority into jeopardy. That’s just bone deep down to the marrow foolish,” Kennedy urged. Kennedy further emphasised that Nothing is going to get done while the Democrats refuse to back down over something that is never going to come to fruition. “Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi aren’t going to agree to anything until we agree to spend a trillion dollars bailing out New York and California and that’s not going to happen in your or my natural life,” Kennedy added.

PCR worked at the Reagan White House.

• The Democrat Ticket Is Puzzling (Paul Craig Roberts)

Those of you old enough to remember President Reagan will remember all the presstitute insinuations about Reagan being senile and falling asleep at cabinet meetings. Of course, the presstitutes were never at cabinet meetings. Reagan successfully confronted the two major problems of his time—stagflation and the nuclear armageddon that could result from misunderstood intentions or a warning system error. Reagan’s supply-side policy deep-sixed stagflation—the simultaneous rise of inflation and unemployment—and his negotiations with Soviet President Gorbachev ended the Cold War.

The Establishment has buried both achievements, and today Reagan is understood as the president who made Americans feel good while he cut taxes for the rich and poured money into the Pentagon and defense contractors. Reagan’s “star wars” was more illusion than real. It’s purpose was to convince the Soviets to end the Cold War. This was also the purpose of his military interventions against leftish takeovers in the US “sphere of influence.” The reason for these interventions was to give the message to Moscow that there would be no further territorial gains for communism. Americans today, especially the youth, know nothing about how the Reagan administration gave us two decades of economic growth without having to pay for it with rising inflation, and they do not know that Reagan ended the Cold War.

Today the rightwing and Russians themselves believe that Reagan won the Cold War. That was not Reagan’s goal. President Reagan told those of us involved that the purpose was “to end, not win, the Cold War,” and that we must never act or speak in any way that implied that we had prevailed over the Soviets. Wikipedia, a disinformation website, opens its account of Reagan’s foreign policy with a blatant lie: “The foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration was the foreign policy of the United States from 1981 to 1989. The main goal was winning the Cold War.” The ignorance of whoever wrote this is extraordinary.

The Soviets never would have agreed to losing the Cold War. President Reagan understood this, which is why he emphasized that our purpose was to end, not win, the Cold War.

And counting.

• 60% of US Business Closures Due To The Pandemic Are Now Permanent (CNBC)

Yelp on Wednesday released its latest Economic Impact Report, revealing business closures across the U.S. are increasing as a result of the coronavirus pandemic’s economic toll. As of Aug, 31, 163,735 businesses have indicated on Yelp that they have closed. That’s down from the 180,000 that closed at the very beginning of the pandemic. However, it actually shows a 23% increase in the number of closures since mid-July. In addition to monitoring closed businesses, Yelp also takes into account the businesses whose closures have become permanent. That number has steadily increased throughout the past six months, now reaching 97,966, representing 60% of closed businesses that won’t be reopening.

“Overall, Yelp’s data shows that business closures have continued to rise with a 34% increase in permanent closures since our last report in mid-July,” Justin Norman, vice president of data science at Yelp, told CNBC. Yelp’s September report marks six months since March 1, the date that the company considers to be the beginning of the business crisis. In order to gather closure data, Yelp monitors changes in business hours or descriptions on its app, offering an immediate, localized view of the impact the pandemic has had on small businesses. “Despite the hard hit small businesses have certainly taken, we’ve seen that home, local, professional and automotive services have been able to withstand the effects of the pandemic better than other industries,” Norman noted.

The data supports the trend that most consumers are choosing to stay home over patronizing establishments physically, as home and professional services such as landscapers, contractors and lawyers, see a much lower closure rate than clothing stores and even home decor businesses. Auto and towing services also reported a relatively low closure rate. “Consumers still need these services,” Norman said. “Through the rise of virtual consultations, and contactless or socially distanced services, these businesses have been particularly resilient during this time.” Throughout the past six months, restaurants, bars and nightlife venues have been hit the hardest by the restrictions brought by the pandemic: 32,109 restaurants have closed, as of Aug. 31. The number of restaurants forced to permanently close is slightly above Yelp’s total average, at 61%.

New Zealand has spin doctors too: “Robertson said economic analysts were predicting the September quarter to show “a record jump back to growth in the economy..”

• New Zealand In Recession After Worst Quarterly GDP Fall On Record (G.)

New Zealand has entered a recession with the economy contracting 12.2% in the June quarter – the largest drop since such records began in 1987. Paul Pascoe at Stats NZ said the GDP fall was “by far the largest on record in New Zealand” and reflected months spent in lockdown. Industries such as retail, accommodation, restaurants and transport saw significant declines; as did construction and manufacturing at 25.8% and 13% respectively. Household domestic spending dropped by 12%. Annually, GDP fell by 2% – the first annual decline since the March 2010 quarter. New Zealand’s economic retraction is higher than Australia’s 7% and Canada at 11.5%, but much less than in India, Singapore and the UK.

The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, placed New Zealand in a strict one-month lockdown on 26 March. No one was allowed to leave their home unless buying groceries, medicines, or taking an hour of exercise in their neighbourhood. At the time Ardern said the lockdown was necessary to control the spread of the virus and her priority was saving lives at any cost. Fewer than 2,000 people have become infected with the virus in New Zealand while 25 have died. The country’s efforts at containing the disease have been widely praised by epidemiologists around the world. The finance minister, Grant Robertson, said Thursday’s figures were “expected” and the result of the government’s “go hard, go early” response to the pandemic.

“This result was better than the treasury forecast of 16% and at the lower end of other commentators’ expectations,” Robertson said. “The June quarter includes almost the entire time New Zealand was in alert level 4 which we moved into on March 26 so this result is not surprising.” Robertson said economic analysts were predicting the September quarter to show “a record jump back to growth in the economy”.

“This must be corrected. “The damage to me will be irreparable if the media reports that I harmed people, when it is not true,” he said.”

• Julian Assange Interrupts Extradition Hearing Again (SMH)

Julian Assange has again interrupted his extradition hearing, claiming that he never put informants lives at risk, when he published hundreds of thousands of State Department documents on his WikiLeaks website. The 49-year-old intervened in his extradition hearing for the second time since it’s resumption at the Old Bailey in London last week, earning him another stern reprimand from the judge hearing his case. Assange cried out from the dock after lunchtime during evidence being given by former military analyst Daniel Ellsberg who leaked the classified Pentagon Papers that revealed the US government knew it would not win the Vietnam War based on existing resources.

Ellsberg was pursed under the Espionage Act as is Assange. All charges against him were eventually dropped and he has become a vocal supporter of Assange as well as Chelsea Manning, who leaked to Assange the hacked files. Ellsberg also supports Edward Snowden who leaked classified documents he had access to as a CIA subcontractor. The United States government has asked Britain to extradite Assange to face 18 counts of violating the Espionage Act with most charges relating to computer hacking. However, the US government is pursuing Assange over the publication of unredacted documents which exposed the names of informants. The distinction the US government is repeatedly trying to make separates Assange from the press which also published information revealed by WikiLeaks but without naming journalists, human rights advocates and dissidents who were informing on their governments and repressive regimes.

Ellsberg confirmed that when he leaked his cache of documents, he withheld four volumes of documents. But he said that the only withheld these because they related to negotiations which he did not want to jeopardise. Assange’s outburst came as the QC representing the US government, James Lewis, was cross-examining Ellsberg. Lewis cited an Ethiopian journalist who fled the country after being interrogated and threatened once he was outed as having been a source for the United States. Lewis also read out media reporting of a Chinese national named in the WikiLeaks cables reported being harrassed by non-state groups. The Chinese national fled to the United States.

Ellsberg claimed to have never seen evidence that an informant exposed by WikiLeaks was harmed or killed in retaliation. “I find the government highly cynical … am I right in believing not one of them who was subject to threats or interrogation by these brutal and ruthless regimes actually suffered physical harm? “Were any of the threats carried out? Even one? Isn’t the answer no?” Ellsberg said. “The rules are you don’t get to ask questions, I do,” said Lewis. Assange also rejected the claims that he put lives at risk. “Through his rhetorical sleight of hand he is suggesting that I put lives at risk,” Assange said from the dock. “This must be corrected. “The damage to me will be irreparable if the media reports that I harmed people, when it is not true,” he said. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser reprimanded Assange, for the second time in as many weeks. “I have warned you about this before, you are not entitled to interfere like this,” she said.

We all know this. Why does the US base its entire case now on this nonsense?

• Claims Assange ‘Endangered Lives’ Rubbished In Extradition Hearing (Haddad)

A senior investigative journalist who worked on the release of thousands of military and diplomatic cables with WikiLeaks has rubbished prosecution claims that Julian Assange and his organisation put the lives of U.S. service members and informants at risk. John Goetz, an investigations editor with the German public broadcaster NDR, had been a reporter with Der Spiegel at the time of the releases between 2010 and 2011. That included the Afghan and Iraq war diaries, in addition to the release of U.S. diplomatic cables that came to be known as Cablegate. James Lewis QC, on behalf of the U.S. government, told the Old Bailey last week that Assange is not being prosecuted for receiving the documents, but because he risked lives with “reckless publication”.

Goetz told the court on Wednesday (September 16) that Assange and WikiLeaks in fact had a “very rigorous redaction process” – on occasion more censorious than the Pentagon when the same documents were released by Freedom of Information Act requests. As the lead investigative journalist for Der Spiegel, Goetz was among a handful of journalists to be invited to the Guardian’s “bunker” in London where they, alongside WikiLeaks and New York Times staff, worked on removing sensitive names from documents. Goetz said that redaction and what Assange called the “harm-minimisation process” was central from the very beginning of his involvement in June 2010 and how Eric Schmitt of The New York Times was tasked with contacting the White House prior to publication due to the newspaper’s location and existing relationship.

As a result of that early communication, WikiLeaks and the partner publications withheld 15,000 documents from the Afghan War Logs “to protect innocents being harmed,” he said. “It was communicated to the White House that 15,000 documents would not be published because of the harm minimisation process and that is what happened.” While media partners worked on redacting specific documents, Assange was concerned with a technological solution that could aid the process due to the high volume of documents that were being evaluated, it was added. The same redaction process continued during the later publication of the Iraq War Diary and the U.S. State Department cables, Goetz said, but that communication with the State Department was later ceased when the department realised they were in fact helping journalists find the most damaging stories by requesting which files were to be redacted.

Goetz said: “There was a conference call with State Department officials such as PJ Crowley and others and they expressed in the phone call the numbers of the documents they were concerned about. “We were writing the document numbers down and it was easy to look at the documents where there were sensitive names to see if there was any significant names that had to be redacted. “We were very happy to receive these names and in many ways it was quite interesting to know which documents they were concerned about, but there was a pause in the conversation and then they – [the State Department] – stopped talking to us because it was clear that they were giving us an index of the most interesting stories.”

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A Social Experiment

Aug 102020

August 10, 2020 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:08 pm Finance Tagged with: Biden, DNC, Durham, election, FBI, Hillary, integrity, intelligence, media, MSM, Nadler, Obama, Pelosi, polarization, Schiff, subpoenas, Trump, Wray 17 Responses »

Cy Twombly Fifty Days at Iliam: Like a Fire that Consumes All before It 1978

Might as well call it a social experiment. Any other name, like “coup” or “fishing expedition” or “hookers peeing on a bed” or “justice being done” would just inflame “passions” and lead away from what should be the actual topic.

Whatever you call it, the fact remains that Donald Trump has been the first US president to be under continued investigation for the entire 4 years of his first term, and for about a year before it as well. And that should be a cause for alarm for anyone who cares even a little bit about the American political system, including those who abhor Trump. Because once you do that, it’s no longer about just one president, it’s about all who will follow him, and inevitably about the integrity and validity of the system as a whole.

In principle, there should be no investigations of a sitting president, and not even of a presidential candidate, because this risks endangering 1) the entire electoral process, and 2) the Office of the President (not for once, but for ever). In principle. If there must be an investigation, it must be based on solid evidence available beforehand, it must be short, and the President must be removed. If all of these three things are not guaranteed, no investigation is warranted, and the accusing parties should be “liberated” from the positions they held when they initiated the investigation regardless. Skin in the game.

It gets increasingly harder to write about American politics, or express an opinion in any other way, without being dumped into one of two camps, never to be heard from again in the other (except for ridicule or slander). There is no such thing as a neutral or objective viewpoint anymore. You’re either with us or you’re against us – or them.

Seeing -and projecting- the world in black and white is a tempting proposal for anyone afraid of being confused; it should, however, never be an excuse for the media to not present its viewers and readers with a full color palette. But we can see every single day how that went. Black and white it is. And in that environment, too claustrophobic to be put in a box, I might as well paint the picture as I see it. Yes, in color.

The “social experiment” I see progressing has two parts:

1) can a political party, aided and abetted by the media and intelligence services, unseat an elected president it has just lost an election to?

2) can a presidential candidate be elected while shunning the media, debates, etc., and only appear at times and in forms that have been pre-selected by her/his handlers for maximum effect, while hiding his/her weaknesses?

As for no. 1, it has evidently not succeeded, but that is certainly not for lack of trying. One investigation has followed the other non-stop since 2016, in public and behind the scenes, and they have all come up empty. Of course one side would contest that and still say there was lots of evidence, but if so, it obviously wasn’t very strong, or Trump would have been gone.

People may also claim that the mandate of the Mueller investigation was too narrow, but really, go back and watch the man’s pathetic (sorry, but it was) testimony in Congress after the fact, that should be enough. Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler and others have promised solid and inconvertible evidence many times, but we never saw any. Rest assured, whatever Trump may have done wrong, you would have heard about it by now.

Or to put it another way: he probably did many things wrong, but not the things he was accused of. In fact, the entire Putin puppet narrative is so idiotic it’s impossible not to ponder from time to time that it was designed from the get-go to support Trump, not hurt him.

As for no. 2, that looks even more experimental. The approach is helped along “wonderfully” by the pandemic, which provides plenty excuses to keep Biden hidden, but it goes against everything presidential campaigns have been built upon throughout American history: contact with voters. That very few people would believe Biden is his own man, and not a sock puppet, can’t help.

But there is more at stake. Presidential campaigns are one element of a much bigger process, and you can’t separate the two. Both parts of the “social experiment” seem to run afoul of the respect that bigger process, and ultimately the entire political system, necessarily demands from all participants, from an individual voter to a President. And that is much more important than either candidate. You can’t temporarily switch off that respect if and when that might suit your purpose, because you risk for it never to be switched on again.

You may dislike a presidential candidate, perhaps even intensely so, but that should never make you lose sight of the integrity, if not the sacredness, of the election process, of the political system, of the institutions, of the Constitution, and certainly not of the Office of the President of the United States. Because once you do that, you open the door for everyone to do the same in the future. And no, you can’t blame that on the candidate you don’t like, you do it.

When a candidate is selected through the primaries of his/her party, you must respect that, because if you don’t respect the process, you are lost, the system is lost, and there’s no telling when you’ll see it back, if ever. If that candidate is then elected President, a lot of doors that before allowed you to question and criticize him/her, should be closed. The country at that point has either a new President, or a second-term one. A different phase of the political process starts.

The House and the Senate become the critics, empowered by the system to hold the President accountable. But only the House and the Senate. Not the media, whose role it is, other than in the occasional opinion piece, to report on decisions made; not intelligence services, whose role it is to serve the country, and the new President it just elected; and not the opposition party, whose role it is to prepare for the next election, and to provide a degree of counterbalance, depending on how bad their loss was, on Capitol Hill.

The entire picture is crystal clear. So is everybody’s role in it. But now and then people -try to- refuse to accept their roles, obviously believing that they are more important than the integrity of the political system, and ignoring that in doing so they put the whole system at risk.

What was happening first became apparent in late 2015 – early 2016, when the New York Times began running multiple stories every day directed against Donald Trump. Mostly small bits, based on innuendo about his past, with a whiff of truth perhaps, but not more. The word “gratuitous” comes to mind. At a certain point, they did a dozen per day of the stories, it became assembly line work for the writers and editors..

The Washington Post chimed in, and so did CNN, MSNBC and others, including international press. It turned into a feeding frenzy, with all of them completely losing sight, voluntarily or not, of their roles as news providers. They all shape-shifted into opinion-only-makers, confident that their audience would not notice the difference, at least not at first. At that point it became a very Pavlovian thing.

Which is why I was initially going to name this essay “Trump vs Pavlov”. 100+ years ago, Ivan Pavlov “found” that if he rang a bell in front of a dog, and then gave her food, she would start to associate the two. When he increased the time-lapse between first, the bell, and then, the food, the dog would salivate in expectation of food at just the sound of the bell. In the end, all he had to do was ring the bell, with no food around, and the dog would salivate. So he had nothing to offer, no food, no substance, but the reaction was the same.

That is a very accurate description of what a large part of the US media have done -and become-. All they have to do at this point is mention Trump, or just show his picture, and their public will react the same every single time: Orange Man Bad. There doesn’t have to be any substance, any factual journalistic reports of wrongdoing. The “conditioned reflex” as Pavlov described it, has set in.

And their readers and viewers have become addicted to this. How could they not? They’ve been bombarded with 1000s of these bells ringing, and the substance may not be there, but the expectation of it is. If you’re a regular viewer of Rachel Maddow, what are the odds that your opinion is still your own after hearing RussiaRussia a million times? The only way it could be yours is if you switch her off.

I’ve written before that I don’t even think they really set out to do this. Initially, there were probably just some CEOs and owners and editors who didn’t like Trump and/or were affiliated in one way or another with the other party -and later candidate-. Who was counted on to win big anyway, so why not (well, because of the integrity of the political system!).

It was only later that they found out 24/7 anti-Trump “reporting” was a great business model for them. CNN was dying in early 2016, the New York Times was nor far behind, and all of a sudden numbers of viewers and readers and subscribers went through the roof.

Their problem is that if they succeed in making Trump lose in November, they will be back to where they came from before he appeared on the political scene. All of their “reporting” on US politics has devolved into a scheme based on ringing a bell, and on the scandal and anger their non-stop salivating audience have become addicted to, and mistake for substance.

If Joe Biden should win, that scheme is dead. They may hope to last a bit longer on the angry scandal of a possible persecution of Trump if he leaves office, but that would be it, and that’s not a business model. They can’t very well now turn on Biden and his puppeteers.

New York Times writer and editor Bari Weiss said it very well when she left the paper a few weeks ago, she summarized the essence of the MSM problem in just a few words:

“[..] the lessons that ought to have followed the election – lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans, the necessity of resisting tribalism, and the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society—have not been learned. Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else”.

Why edit something challenging to our readers, or write something bold only to go through the numbing process of making it ideologically kosher, when we can assure ourselves of job security (and clicks) by publishing our 4000th op-ed arguing that Donald Trump is a unique danger to the country and the world?

That’s the media. Second in line is US intelligence. Which, there’s no other way to put it, conspired against a presidential candidate and, when he was elected, a sitting president. The Strzok-Page “insurance policy”, the Obama Oval Office conversations where Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Susan Rice were present, plus 1,000 other things, the overall picture doesn’t exactly point to that famous seamless transition, and US Intel played a pivotal, because accommodating, role in that.

The best way to show this is perhaps that US intelligence themselves did not (could not) come up with a report on alleged links between the -prospective- president’s team and Russia, but took a dossier paid for by the president’s opposition and used it to discredit and persecute him and people in his team. The dossier was written by a two-bit MI6 hustler who hadn’t set foot in Russia in at least a decade, and whose main ‘Russian source’ wasn’t there either, but sitting in an office in the US.

That source in turn had contacts with a group of Russians whose very business model it was to make up and embellish whatever stories the highest bidder required, while failing to deal with their own severe drinking problems. That dossier was the entire foundation (or 99% of it) behind Rod Rosenstein appointing Bob Mueller as a Special Counsel. The appointment would never have been made, never have been possible, without the Steele dossier.

How was the dossier vetted by US intelligence, if at all? It’s very clear now what was wrong with it, but the all knowing and very clever intelligence people could not have figured that out 4 years ago, and instead cleared it for Mueller, for further FBI use, for FISA applications? How about their treatment of Michael Flynn, who they had already cleared only to resurrect the dead corpse of their investigation into his talks with Russian ambassador Kislyak? How would you, personally, spell “in good faith”?

We will see in the near future what the Durham investigation into all Russiagate players will come to. Apparently, Durham has just another three weeks to present at least something, because there is a two-month “no-go-zone” before the election, during which he would be accused of tampering with the election. And the premise for the Democrats and their sympathizers is that if Biden wins, all slates will be wiped clean.

They won’t, by the way. America still has a justice system, even if it is oftentimes crippled and grinding(ly) slow. Just watch Michael Flynn attorney Sidney Powell and her team. They have vowed to not only have their client be exonerated, but to fully clear his name, which according to their view has been besmirched by everyone up to and including Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

The third leg of the “creature” is the Democratic party. Who have stepped so far over their boundaries, nobody recognizes anymore that there were any. Or that the political system they are an integral part of, dictates that there are things they cannot do, lest they corrupt that system to the core.

Once you lose a presidential election, you prepare for the next one. You don’t use the next 4 years to try and frustrate the president you just lost to with all you got. The system should not allow it and can not tolerate it. There should be skin in the game for opposition politicians, who when they come with accusations of gross misconduct serious enough to remove a president, should be forced to step down when the accusations don’t lead to the intended result.

It should never be a free for all, in which you can simply try again the next morning. Because the system cannot work if that is possible. It can’t be that if you win a midterm election and get a majority in the House, you can then use that majority to make it impossible for a president to work on the agenda that made millions vote for him/her. That would cause the system to grind to a halt, and the system must always be more important than its temporary participants (even those who “sit” for 40-50 years).

When you look at the speaker’s list for the Democrat -non- convention next week where Joe Biden will be confirmed as their -virtual- candidate, you see that other than AOC, it’s just a long list of the same old people who were already there when they lost in 2016, and co-losers Hillary and Obama still have a very tight grip on the power and the purse strings.

Why they stick with Joe Biden, g-d only knows, and the same goes for whichever highly unpopular black woman they pick as VP who could soon be president. And sorry, but they all are. Kamala Harris was among the first to step down during the primaries because she didn’t get any votes. Susan Rice is not exactly “loved by the people” either, and the rest are no-names, except for Warren, but she’s both too left and much too white.

So you’re thinking: what’s going on there? That’s really the best you can do? But it does seem to be, likely because Barackillary have a small group of confidantes to choose from who they themselves are confident will be willing to cede all actual power to them once elected. And if Harris and Rice don’t get picked as VP, they’ll still exert a lot of power.

As will Pelosi, Schiff, Nadler, there’s more new blood at Madame Tussaud’s than at the upper echelons of the Democratic party. Yes, AOC can come in to represent the squad in a cynical move (no power but brings in lots of votes), but that’s it. For the rest it’s still just the broken left wing of the war party. But you’re right, they’re none of them, Trump. And that at the same time is the sole identity they possess.

Anti-Trumpism has become a political religion. Because Trump is the only topic that attracts clickbait and viewers. The only topic that rings a bell. Joe Biden rings no bells whatsoever. A while back Donald Trump jr tweeted:

Trump is really running against the media, Silicon Valley, the establishment, the swamp, Hollywood and maybe Joe Biden.

While investor GreekFire23 did even better:

Trump is running against himself in this election. The vote will come down to those who love him vs those who hate him. Biden is totally irrelevant and not even campaigning. Biden has no platform, no slogan, no stickers, no signs, no rallies, no followers. It’s Trump vs Trump.

What can still sink Trump is obvious: it’s the economy and the pandemic. America’s problem is that no matter who wins, those will still be its main problems by January 2021. And another problem has been added in the course of 2020: protests and violence in the streets.

Update: I thought I could leave it at that for now, step out for a moment, have a glass of wine, let it all sink in, and write a closing paragraph. But then I was sitting outside in gorgeous Athens and this popped up, which I very obviously can’t leave out:

Senate Chairman Subpoenas FBI Director Wray For Russiagate Records; Puts Bidens On Notice

FBI Director Christopher Wray has been subpoenaed by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs to produce “all documents related to the Crossfire Hurricane Investigation,” which includes “all records provided or made available to the Inspector General” regarding the FISA probe, as well as documents regarding the 2016-2017 presidential transition..

[..] The subpoena was issued by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) as part of his investigation into the origins of Russiagate. It gives Wray until 5 p.m. on Aug. 20 to produce the documents. Johnson also released a lengthy letter on Monday in which he defended his Committee’s investigation and accused Democrats of initiating “a coordinated disinformation campaign and effort to personally attack” himself and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) in order to distract from evidence his committee has gathered on Joe and Hunter Biden’s Ukraine dealings.

[..] Johnson’s committee has secured testimony from at least one State Department official who worked in Ukraine, and says the Bidens’ conduct created the appearance of a conflict of interest. “The appearance of family profiteering off of Vice President Biden’s official responsibilities is not unique to the circumstances involving Ukraine and Burisma,” wrote Johnson. “Public reporting has also shown Hunter Biden following his father into China and coincidentally landing lucrative business deals and investments there.

“Additionally, the former vice president’s brothers and sister-in-law, Frank, James and Sara Biden, also are reported to have benefited financially from his work as well.

I can’t let that go because it addresses exactly what my closing paragraph would have been about. Which is the risk of the giant divide that has developed in US society, getting even wider, and potentially leading to utter mayhem. Actually, it’s not even ‘potentially’ anymore, there already has been a lot of violence.

The Democrats think they will win easily on November 3, and then push through all of their their policies, after dumping on Trump for 4 years with their media and intelligence friends, but the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump, and most of their family and friends with them, don’t think so. That’s not a threat, it’s an observation.

They feel cheated out of their 2016 victory. They realize (or should I say “suspect”) that Russiagate and the Mueller probe and the Zelensky-linked impeachment “hearings” were empty vessels directed against the election outcome that they won fair and square, and I guarantee you they won’t take it sitting down.

Which means that no matter who wins, polarization will reach levels America has never seen, and, frankly, should never wish to. Because all of the people involved, bar just a precious few, will have to live together in the same country, and share the same society, streets, highways, stores and resources.

And sometimes I wonder: how are they going to do that? If Trump should win, how will the entire so-called left react, from the Democrats through the MSM to BLM? Will they just increase the protests and the violence in the streets?

Alternatively, if Joe Biden wins, how will the Conservative side of America react? Will they all go home and wait for what the DNC has in store for them, or will their reaction be pro-active? I know which reaction I would see them lean towards.

You have these two sides in society who appear further apart than even Moses could have hoped to bring back together again, you have the media who thrive on widening that divide even further, it’s a scary picture.

And in the meantime, while everyone’s busy blaming each other, who’s going to take care of the country?

We try to run the Automatic Earth on donations. Since ad revenue has collapsed, your support is now an integral part of the publishing process. Which seems only fair and just.

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Debt Rattle June 8 2020

Jun 082020

June 8, 2020 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 11:26 am Finance Tagged with: bankruptcies, BLM, Buffalo, coronavirus, Covid19, Hillary, Minneapolis, New York, New Zealand, plasma, rejuvenation, Rosenstein, Senate, subpoenas, Texas 27 Responses »

Harris&Ewing Protest: “Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage” 1916

• New Zealand Has Eradicated Virus (AP)

• 800-Day Plan: Air New Zealand Warns Of More Job Cuts, Less Flights (R.)

• China Stats Accurate, Lockdown Makes Little Difference – Nobel Winner (RT)

• Coronavirus in Texas: Cases, Deaths and Tests (TT)

• Guatemala President To Work Remotely After 18 Staff Get Coronavirus (R.)

• US Bankruptcies Soar 48% In May (ZH)

• Major Corporations Scramble To Support Black Lives Matter (JTN)

• Minneapolis City Council Votes To Disband Police Force (AP)

• Buffalo Police ERT Members Say Resignation Was Not In Solidarity (WKBW)

• NYPD, City Hall Deny Police Brass Shake-Up (Pix11)

• 33 Russia Collusion Probe Witnesses The Senate Could Subpoena (Solomon)

• Hillary: How Can Anybody With Beating Heart, Working Mind Support Trump? (Ind.)

• Rep. Jordan: Not Surprising McCabe, Rosenstein Disagree

• Out With the Old Blood (Mitteldorf)

Worldometer has global new cases for June 7 (midnight to midnight GMT+0) at + 113,090.

My count from about 6 am EDT to 6 am EDT is about + 108,198 cases. But it was Sunday yesterday, and Brazil ceased providing stats. Let’s see tomorrow.

New cases past 24 hours in:

• US + 18,905
• Brazil + 18,375 (first day gov’t stats are unavailable)
• Russia + 8,985
• India + 11,412
• Pakistan + 4,728
• Chile + 6,405

• Cases 7,113,012 (+ 108,198 from yesterday’s 7,004,814)

• Deaths 406,549 (+ 3,884 from yesterday’s 402,665)

From Worldometer yesterday evening -before their day’s close-:

From Worldometer:

From COVID19Info.live: Note: COVID19Info global cases and deaths are now higher than Worldometer’s.

Friends, can someone check my logic Re: Masks?
Any error?
If so Masks could SOLVE the pandemic. I have been saying Masks are NECESSARY since Feb, didn't realize they could be SUFFICIENT! pic.twitter.com/2Gk8q3LPCb

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) June 7, 2020

(plane is almost empty, so 2 surgical)

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) June 7, 2020

Of course congrats are in order. But also for New Zealand things are far from solved, it’s an isolated place now.

• New Zealand Has Eradicated Virus (AP)

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday she was confident New Zealand has halted the spread of the coronavirus after the last known infected person in the country recovered. It has been 17 days since the last new case was reported, while 40,000 have been tested in that time. And Monday also marked the first time since late February that there have been no active cases. Ardern also announced the Cabinet had agreed to another phase of the country’s reopening, to take place at midnight. “We are confident we have eliminated transmission of the virus in New Zealand for now, but elimination is not a point in time, it is a sustained effort,” she said at a news conference.

“We almost certainly will see cases here again, and I do want to say again, we will almost certainly see cases here again, and that is not a sign that we have failed, it is a reality of this virus. But if and when that occurs we have to make sure and we are, that we are prepared.” She said her government’s focus will be on the country’s borders, where isolation and quarantine will continue. Experts say a number of factors have helped the nation of 5 million wipe out the disease. Its isolated location in the South Pacific gave it vital time to see how outbreaks spread in other countries, and Ardern acted decisively by imposing a strict lockdown early in the outbreak. Just over 1,500 people contracted the virus in New Zealand, including 22 who died.

https://twitter.com/farmgeek/status/1269804429693169664

And congrats for Thailand too:

https://twitter.com/RichardBarrow/status/1269853178318577664

Quite optimistic.

• 800-Day Plan: Air New Zealand Warns Of More Job Cuts, Less Flights (R.)

Air New Zealand will be nimbler, fly fewer passengers and routes, and may cut more jobs as it targets a return to “healthy profits” by 2022, its chief executive said as he navigates the airline through the coronavirus crisis. Greg Foran laid out an 800-day plan to customers and staff under which the national flag carrier will look at how to further cut labour costs, including leave without pay, reduced hours or possibly laying off more people. “We must first survive, then revive and finally thrive,” Foran said in an email to staff and customers, as he forecast revenue for the next financial year to more than halve from recent levels. Shares of the airline surged 11 per cent to NZ$1.82, its highest in almost three months.

Airlines have slashed thousands of jobs and set aside cash for impairments on aircraft as the coronavirus damaged demand amid global lockdowns. Even as countries re-open, profits may be threatened by people refraining from travel and lower fares due to discounts. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said last week that global airlines cut domestic fares by an average 23 per cent in May, and previously warned traffic would not return to pre-crisis levels until at least 2023. Foran envisions Air New Zealand will be 70 per cent of its pre-COVID-19 size by August 2022 and hinted at further layoffs as the second phase of a cost-cutting plan, to save around $NZ150 million began.

Well, the richest ones, those that can afford to quarantine dozens of people.

• Film-Makers Back To Work In New Zealand After Coronavirus (R.)

New Zealand’s capital has had an extra buzz of excitement over the past week since Hollywood director James Cameron and his crew flew in to film the much-anticipated sequel of the epic science-fiction film “Avatar”.The film is among a handful of productions kicking off in New Zealand as it begins to open up after containing the novel coronavirus, and looks to its film industry to give its battered economy a boost. New Zealand’s borders remain closed to foreigners but the government gave special permission for the 55 crew members working on the “Avatar” sequel to jet in on a chartered plane. “Certainly, the fact that we are able to start earlier than some countries is great, much as it’s distressing to see that the pandemic is still such a challenge around the world,” said Annabelle Sheehan, chief executive of the New Zealand Film Commission.

New Zealand’s mountains, meadows and forests, made famous by “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, have drawn several major film productions over recent years. About 47 productions were underway when Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern imposed a tough lockdown on March 26 to stop the spread of the coronavirus. It was a great success and the virus has been almost eliminated in New Zealand, which could be among the first countries in the world to return to normal this week, apart from the closed border. Avatar producer Jon Landau posted a picture of himself and director Cameron after landing last week and said they would self-isolate for 14 days in line with government rules.

“Your country has become a leader in how to deal with something like this, and I think films will want to come,” Landau told Radio New Zealand in an interview, referring to the coronavirus campaign. With people around the world cooped up at home, pressure is on film-makers and other content creators to make new material and get it out. But what’s holding them back is the lack of safe places to work, industry experts say. Now New Zealand is an option. “We’ve had a few international enquiries and that’s on the back of our COVID-free status,” said Gary Watkins, chief executive of Wellington-based Avalon Studios, which was used for the filming of the 2017 Scarlett Johansson starrer “Ghost in the Shell” and will also help with the new “Avatar”.

Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford defended the decision saying the border was only open to a few foreigners who were important for projects with significant economic value. New Zealand’s film industry is worth more than NZ$3 billion a year. A six-month international film can create an estimated 3,000 jobs. “You only need a few international people coming to trigger thousands of jobs,” said Sheehan. And New Zealand needs the jobs. The government expects hundreds of thousands to be lost because of the coronavirus.

Some people just don’t care about credibility, and neither does the Nobel committee. What utter nonsense.

• China Stats Accurate, Lockdown Makes Little Difference – Nobel Winner (RT)

Challenging the widespread belief that the worldwide anti-coronavirus lockdown has helped in slowing down the disease spread, Stanford Professor Michael Levitt said that it’s actually made very little difference. Speaking to RT’s Going Underground, Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist Levitt said that there was no reason to doubt China’s official coronavirus figures, since its statistics are corresponding with the dynamics observed elsewhere. “What happened in China outside of Hubei is exactly the same dynamics of the curve as what happened in New Zealand,” Levitt stated. “If China is forging statistics, they must have a time machine. And if they have the time machine, they would’ve beaten us in any competition anyway.”

The lockdown measures that have been implemented across many countries worldwide were actually not that effective, the scientist believes. The vast majority of the disease transmissions actually occurred before the lockdowns went into force – and in many countries the people were not that eager to abide by the rules, making the restrictions even more useless. Levitt believes that the best strategy for the government would have been focusing on protecting the elderly population and let others move freely.

“This virus really does seem to be limiting. It gets to about 500 to 1,000 fatalities per million people and then it stops. And this we’ve seen at so many places. I don’t think that Northern Italy practiced wonderful social distancing, I don’t think that social distancing was practiced wonderfully in New York City,” he said. What happened is that the virus is most infectious and most dangerous before you actually know it’s there. Sweden, for instance, which has been harshly criticized for its laissez-faire approach to the pandemic, remains within the European averages – and even falls behind the worst-hit nations, such as Belgium and the UK. “Sweden has had a much milder lockdown than anybody. The predicted number for Sweden was around 60,000 [deaths]. Sweden looks like it’s going to stop at 6,000 at the most,” Levitt said.

This one is for the Automatic Earth’s resident physician Dr. John Day in Texas.

“74,978 Texans tested positive for the coronavirus as of June 7 — 1,425 more than the day before and 10,691 more than a week ago.”

• Coronavirus in Texas: Cases, Deaths and Tests (TT)

Gov. Greg Abbott is looking at two specific metrics to justify his decision to restart the Texas economy — the positive test rate and hospitalization levels. Here’s how the numbers changed in the first two weeks of May when Texas began reopening. On March 4, DSHS reported Texas’ first positive case of the coronavirus, in Fort Bend County. The patient had recently traveled abroad. A month later on April 4, there were 6,110 cases in 151 counties. As of June 7, there are 74,978 cases in 235 counties. The Tribune is measuring both the number of cases in each county and the rate of cases per 1,000 residents.

The rate of cases per 1,000 residents is especially high in the panhandle’s Moore County, where infections are tied to a meatpacking plant. The rate of cases is also high in counties with state prisons such as Walker and Jones. In other rural areas where the presence of the virus has yet to be confirmed, testing has been scarce.

On April 6, the state started reporting the number of patients with positive tests who are hospitalized. It was 1,153 that day and 1,878 on June 7. This data does not account for people who are hospitalized but have not gotten a positive test. As of mid-April, concerns that Texas hospitals would be unable to accommodate a surge of COVID-19 patients seem to have been assuaged. As he makes decisions about how quickly to restart the Texas economy, Abbott says he is watching the number of hospitalizations and the hospitalization rate — the proportion of infected Texans who require hospitalization. [..] The first death linked to the coronavirus in Texas occurred March 16 in Matagorda County. As of June 7, 1,830 people who tested positive for the virus have died.

Daily infection rateGov. Greg Abbott said he is watching the state’s infection rate — the percentage of positive cases to tests conducted. The average daily infection rate is calculated by dividing the 7-day average of positive cases by the 7-day average of tests conducted. This shows how the situation has changed over time by de-emphasizing daily swings. Public health experts want the daily infection rate to remain below 6%.

And while you're watching AZ … keep an eye on Utah and North Carolina, they are spiking too. Probably not far behind AZ in running out of hospital beds. https://t.co/H7SmqhybaQ pic.twitter.com/7UTDM6kYDU

— Jim Bianco (@biancoresearch) June 8, 2020

Makes you wonder how many are on his staff.

• Guatemala President To Work Remotely After 18 Staff Get Coronavirus (R.)

Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said on Sunday that 18 employees at his office and on his security detail have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, so he will work remotely and the presidential offices will be disinfected. “I and the vice president will carry out our activities remotely. We’re healthy. We’ve been tested. We don’t have coronavirus,” Giammattei said in a televised address. The Central American country has registered 7,055 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 252 fatalities from the pandemic.

“An estimated $7.4 billion in rent for April hasn’t been paid (May numbers have yet to be released), or about 45% of what’s owed..”

• US Bankruptcies Soar 48% In May (ZH)

One month ago, when showing the uncanny correlation between defaults and the unemployment rates, we predicted that the number of Chapter 11 filings that is about to flood the US will be nothing short of biblical. All that was missing was a catalyst, one which according to Bloomberg arrived in late May as retail landlords started sending out thousands of default notices to tenants, who in turn experienced a collapse in foot traffic, sales and cash flow due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and were simply unable to pay their debt obligations. According to Bloomberg, restaurants, department stores, apparel merchants and specialty chains have been receiving notices from landlords – some of whom have gone as long as three months without receiving rent.

“The default letters from landlords are flying out the door,” said Andy Graiser, co-president of commercial real estate company, A&G Real Estate Partners. “It’s creating a real fear in the marketplace.” Pressure from default notices and follow-up actions like locking up stores or terminating leases was cited in the bankruptcies of Modell’s Sporting Goods and Stage Stores Inc. Many chains stopped paying rent after the pandemic shuttered most U.S. stores, gambling that they could hold on to some cash before landlords demanded payment. An estimated $7.4 billion in rent for April hasn’t been paid (May numbers have yet to be released), or about 45% of what’s owed, according to a recent analysis by CoStar Group, which also found that just a quarter of expected rent payments have been received by landlords.

“If the landlords don’t put a pause on their actions, you’re going to see more bankruptcies.” Last Thursday, these anecdotal reports were confirmed by the American Bankruptcy Institute which announced that as expected, corporate bankruptcies soared during May, pushing the number of filings to levels recorded in the wake of the 2007-09 recession. According to figures from legal-services firm Epiq Global, US bankruptcy courts recorded 722 businesses nationwide filing for chapter 11 protection last month, a yearly increase of 48% from 487 businesses in May of 2019. The surge was also seen on a month-over-month basis, which jumped by 28% from the 562 Chapter 11 filings in April.

In the same way that they all paint themselves green.

• Major Corporations Scramble To Support Black Lives Matter (JTN)

As protests and demonstrations against racism and police brutality drag on for another week across America, numerous corporations are scrambling to capitalize on the moment by donating to various Black Lives Matter organizations and allied causes, winning praise and sometimes sharp criticism for P.R. efforts that are by turns successfully deft and sometimes unfortunately clumsy. Corporations today appear to be keenly aware of the marketing benefits to striking that balance, which is likely why so many of them are hastily jumping on board with the current Black Lives Matter craze — some with success, others with more difficulty.

Uber Eats, the food delivery app of the rideshare company Uber, announced this week that black-owned businesses would have free delivery privileges on its system. Uber is suspending delivery fees for black-owned restaurants through the end of the year, the company said in a statement, and will also offer discounted rides to those who own and work at black-owned small businesses. Uber’s announcement was perfectly timed for both the political climate and the economic one: Most restaurants have been surviving on takeout alone over the last few months of coronavirus lockdowns, and owners are still depending heavily on takeaway business as reopenings progress slowly across the country.

Other companies have pledged substantial monetary donations for progressive and racially conscious causes. YouTube this week announced a $1 million donation “to address social injustice.” The company was not clear to what causes exactly it would be donating that money, the sum of which accounts for about 0.006% of the company’s yearly revenue of $15 billion. The clothing company Spanx, meanwhile — known for its undergarments that men and women wear to appear thinner — said in an Instagram post this week that it would be donating “$100,000 across national organizations focused on combating racial injustice: Black Lives Matter, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and The Minnesota Freedom Fund.”

[..] It is not immediately evident what it means exactly to donate to “Black Lives Matter,” a mostly loosely organized movement of disassociated activists and protesters across the country and the world. The campaign’s nominal central authority does accept donations, though it is not evident how those funds are dispensed. The companies Ganni, Anastasia Beverly Hills, Pretty Little Thing and others all pledged to donate to Black Lives Matter, among other causes.

I sort of see why they would do it, I can even see a few ways that might make it work, but a lot more ways that won’t. And if the council president says: “Our efforts at incremental reform have failed, period.”, shouldn’t the council perhaps disband itself also?

• Minneapolis City Council Votes To Disband Police Force (AP)

A majority of the members of the Minneapolis City Council said Sunday they support disbanding the city’s police department, an aggressive stance that comes just as the state has launched a civil rights investigation after George Floyd’s death. Nine of the council’s 12 members appeared with activists at a rally in a city park Sunday afternoon and vowed to end policing as the city currently knows it. Council member Jeremiah Ellison promised that the council would “dismantle” the department. “It is clear that our system of policing is not keeping our communities safe,” Lisa Bender, the council president, said. “Our efforts at incremental reform have failed, period.” Bender went on to say she and the eight other council members that joined the rally are committed to ending the city’s relationship with the police force and “to end policing as we know it and recreate systems that actually keep us safe.”

[..] Community activists have criticized the Minneapolis department for years for what they say is a racist and brutal culture that resists change. The state of Minnesota launched a civil rights investigation of the department last week, and the first concrete changes came Friday in a stipulated agreement in which the city agreed to ban chokeholds and neck restraints. A more complete remaking of the department is likely to unfold in coming months. Disbanding an entire department has happened before. In 2012, with crime rampant in Camden, New Jersey, the city disbanded its police department and replaced it with a new force that covered Camden County.

The last person to disband the police was Sting.

— God (@TheTweetOfGod) June 7, 2020

“57 officers did *not* resign in solidarity with the officers who pushed over a 75-year-old causing brain injury. This turns out to be a lie from the police union.”

“We quit because our union said [they] aren’t legally backing us anymore. So why would we stand on a line for the City with no legal backing if something [were to] happen?”

• Buffalo Police ERT Members Say Resignation Was Not In Solidarity (WKBW)

“It went bad. It went bad.” Two officers of the Buffalo Police Department’s Emergency Response Team spoke with 7 Eyewitness News under the condition their names not be used. The officers are part of the 57-person volunteer assignment team that resigned Friday, following an incident involving two of their members Thursday night in Niagara Square. They did not resign from the police department, only from their roles on the team. The officers we spoke with said the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association’s statement asserting all 57 officers resigned from ERT in a “show of support” with the two officers that were suspended without pay is not true.

“I don’t understand why the union said it’s a thing of solidarity. I think it sends the wrong message that ‘we’re backing our own’ and that’s not the case,” said one officer with whom we spoke. “We quit because our union said [they] aren’t legally backing us anymore. So why would we stand on a line for the City with no legal backing if something [were to] happen? Has nothing to do with us supporting,” said another. A representative from the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association told 7 Eyewitness News Reporter Hannah Buehler the officers resigned in “disgust” with how the two officers were treated. “Some of them probably resigned because they support the officer,” said another officer with whom we spoke. “But, for many of us, that’s not true.”

“The City, DA Flynn, they’re not representing those guys at all. They have to find their own lawyers, they have to come out of pocket.” 7 Eyewitness News was not able to reach PBA president John Evans to confirm this information or get a response to several officers shooting down his assertions, but we did obtain an email sent to PBA members by Evans. It states, in part: “In light of this, in order to maintain the sound financial structure of the PBA it will be my opinion the PBA NOT to pay for any ERT or SWAT members legal defense related to these protests going forward. This Admin in conjunction with DA John Flynn and or JP Kennedy could put a serious dent in the PBA’s funds.”

Things are going to change one way or another.

• NYPD, City Hall Deny Police Brass Shake-Up (Pix11)

Text messages and Facebook posts went into overdrive Sunday in New York’s law enforcement community, with claims top leaders in the NYPD were either resigning or being asked to leave, with replacements ready to step in. “This is not true,” tweeted Freddi Goldstein, press secretary to Mayor Bill de Blasio. NYPD Deputy Commissioner Richard Esposito, over the phone, also said it wasn’t true. But we’re learning there are tensions behind the scenes about the specific fate of two police officers involved in confrontations with protesters in the last twelve days. Both of the cops were suspended without pay on Friday. One of them allegedly knocked down a female protester, Dounya Zayer, outside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn in the early days of the George Floyd protests.

Zayer said she suffered seizures, as a result. Another cop was seen on video pulling down the mask of a male demonstrator and spraying the man’s face with pepper spray. Multiple sources said there’s anger among the rank and file—and among some of the NYPD brass—about the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office considering criminal charges against the two officers. When PIX11 called a spokesman for the Brooklyn DA’s office Sunday evening, we were told, “We’re investigating both of these cases. It’s not true both are going to be arrested imminently. It might happen in the future.” The NYPD has dealt with a lot of turmoil in the last two weeks. “This is all about pandering to anti-cop sentiment,” said a former NYPD Deputy Commissioner.

Multiple police officers have been under siege during the protests, trying to fend off looters, brick and bottle throwers and the burning of NYPD vehicles. Officer Yayon Jean Pierre was stabbed in the neck last week while working an anti-looting post, and two other cops were shot in the hand. Several other officers have been hit by cars, one of them hurt seriously. Sergeant’s Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins, said his phone was exploding with calls about behind-the-scenes clashes between the NYPD and City Hall. “The losers in this are not going to be the cops,” Mullins said. “It’s going to be the public.” Mullins said he didn’t believe the protests were continuing because of the NYPD. “I think it’s about overthrowing the presidency,” he said.

Again: storm warning. The “left” will try and label it all political. But if that fails, where are they?

• 33 Russia Collusion Probe Witnesses The Senate Could Subpoena (Solomon)

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson, Wis., now has the authority to subpoena the agencies and individuals he wants to interrogate or to turn over documents. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham hopes to get his subpoena power this week. [..] The scope of the subpoenas suggests a far-reaching inquiry. For instance, the FBI will be asked to surrender “all records related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. This includes, but is not limited to, all records provided or made available to the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Justice for its review that resulted in the report ‘Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation’; and all records related to requests to the General Services Administration (GSA) or Office of the Inspector General of GSA for presidential transition records from November 2016 through December 2017.”

The State Department will be asked to produce records of its contacts with Christopher Steele, the former MI6 operative who penned the unverified dossier that was used by the bureau as essential evidence in pursuing the case. And the DNI will be asked for all records related to the Obama administration’s unmasking of Trump campaign and transition figures in intelligence intercepts. The list of individuals that Johnson’s committee is seeking to question or seek documents from includes some familiar figures in the controversy, like fired FBI Director James Comey, ex-FBI Counsel James Baker, fired FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and his paramour, the former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice, whose final email on the day she left office about President Obama’s dealings in the Russia probe has stoked great intrigue.

Senate investigators plan to delve into discrepancies in stories between Comey and Brennan over the intelligence community assessment that Russia tried to help Trump win the 2016 election and Comey and Clapper over who briefed President Obama in early January 2017 about a sensitive intercept of a conversation between incoming Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and the Russian ambassador to Washington. One of the most anticipated witnesses is Bill Priestap, the former FBI assistant director of counterintelligence, who supervised Strzok’s Russia investigation and interacted often with former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.

Did you know that in addition to being the President of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin is also a computer wizard who can personally "hack the vote" in the upcoming Presidential Election? That's what I'm learning in the @nytimes: https://t.co/iSqVMWIhG1 pic.twitter.com/DiMKTHMsmj

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) June 8, 2020

The NYT literally fired their editorial page editor because he dared publish an op-ed that Leftists disagreed with.

The totalitarian Left will brook no dissent. To hell with Free Speech—we are Pravda.

New York Times: founded as an actual newspaper 9/18/1851.

Died: 6/7/2020. https://t.co/YIzBihdhtO

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 8, 2020

In other words: half the country are deplorables. Same issue, same question she asked in 2016. Never learned a single thing.

• Hillary: How Can Anybody With Beating Heart, Working Mind Support Trump? (Ind.)

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke out about her 2016 presidential rival Donald Trump, calling his time in office a “failure” and questioning how anyone could continue to support him. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Ms Clinton lashed out at President Donald Trump, criticising his leadership and characterising him as uncaring and incompetent. “What has been so surprising to me is how he can barely make an effort to rise to the occasion. I truly don’t think he can get out of his own way. Everything always has to be about him,” Ms Clinton said. She said Mr Trump tried to ignore the coronavirus pandemic until he was forced to address it, after which she claims he tried to turn the pandemic response into a “daily rally.”

Regarding the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests against police brutality and systemic racism in the US, Ms Clinton suggested she had initially hoped that Mr Trump was going to respond with empathy, but that it quickly became clear that wasn’t going to be the case. “He doesn’t have even the minor amount of empathy to fake it, to look like he is concerned, and he reverts to the belligerence and the threat-making and the photo-opping, all the tried and true tactics that feed his need for control and dominance and attention,” Ms Clinton said. Of Mr Trump’s “photo-opping,” his appearance at St John’s Church near the White House – and the tear gassing of protesters to clear the path for the president – has become one of the many flashpoints in the George Floyd protests.

“It was beyond my comprehension. We have never seen anything like this,” she said. “He is without shame. It is a mystery why anybody with a beating heart and a working mind still supports him.” She said that despite the fact that Mr Trump’s character was apparent during the election, even she wasn’t prepared for the degree to which the president would shuck norms. “So much of what we’re seeing now, sadly, was known about Trump and the kind of people who were loyal to him. But it turned out to be even worse than what I thought it would be,” she said. “Despite having my own front-row seat and being concerned about his character and behaviour, he has gone further and broken more norms and undermined our institutions more deeply than I thought would have been possible in such a short period of time.”

No, no problem, that would be great!!!@GenFlynn @JosephJFlynn1 @BarbaraRedgate @GoJackFlynn @SidneyPowell1 https://t.co/bPkOKUKvu8

— MaryFlynnONeill⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@flynn_neill) June 8, 2020

New Lincoln Project ad:

“All of the architects of the Iraq War think Donald Trump is unfit for office”

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 7, 2020

If that is true then why was the scope memo created in August of 2017 to look for Russian collusion from Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and Paul Manafort? pic.twitter.com/bU31wpjrfh

— CrossFireJazz (@ZZZJazzy) June 7, 2020

Jordan hasn’t had the best of times either.

• Rep. Jordan: Not Surprising McCabe, Rosenstein Disagree

It’s not surprising that former FBI Director Andrew McCabe and ex-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein disagree about the events surrounding the Russia probe, Rep. Jim Jordan said Thursday. “Somebody is not telling the truth because former FBI counsel Jim Baker told us when we deposed him last Congress, in the Judiciary Committee, that Rod Rosenstein was serious about wearing a wire and using the 25th Amendment to try to remove President [Donald] Trump from office,” the Ohio Republican told Fox News’ “Fox and Friends.” “Somebody is not being square and I guess maybe when you are engaged in this kind of wrongdoing which happened at the upper levels of the FBI, maybe it’s tough to keep your story straight.”

McCabe on Wednesday accused Rosenstein of lying about ex-FBI Director James Comey’s memos about his meetings with Trump. Rosenstein testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that McCabe should have told him sooner about the Comey documents, reports Fox News. “Mr. Rosenstein’s claims to have been misled by me, or anyone from the FBI, regarding our concerns about President Trump and the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russia are completely false,” McCabe said in a statement Wednesday. Rosenstein signed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act application to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, named Bob Mueller as special counsel, and broadened the scope of the Russia investigation, Jordan pointed out.

“The guy who did all of that now says there wasn’t anything there,” said Jordan. “That’s what we have been saying for three years … yet Rosenstein names Bob Mueller as a special counsel and puts our country three years of what we went through. That’s why people are upset about this and that’s why we have got to get to the bottom of it all.”

Colin Powell, who lied to the entire world about WMDs in Iraq, paving the way for an illegal war that killed and displaced millions of innocents, gave rise to ISIS, and destabilized the Middle East, is actually out here today lecturing us about lies. https://t.co/qDNyZK1Lrx

— Sarah Abdallah (@sahouraxo) June 7, 2020

Intriguing. Made me think of Einstein love of simplicity.

Diluting the blood of mice with saline/albumin rejuvenates them.

Original paper: Rejuvenation of three germ layers tissues by exchanging old blood plasma with saline-albumin

• Out With the Old Blood (Mitteldorf)

There is great promise in 2020 that we might be able to make our bodies young without having to explicitly repair molecular damage, but just by changing the signaling environment. Do we need to add signals that say “young” or remove signals that say “old”? Does infusion of biochemical signals from young blood plasma rejuvenate tissues of an old animal? Or are there dissolved signal proteins in old animals that must be removed? For a decade, Irena and Mike Conboy have been telling us removal of bad actors is more important. But just last month, Harold Katcher reported spectacular success by infusing a plasma fraction while taking away nothing. Then, last week, the Conboys came back with a demonstration of the rejuvenating power of simple dilution.

They simply replaced half of the blood plasma in 2-year-old mice with a saline solution containing 5% albumin. What is albumin? Blood plasma is chock full of dissolved proteins, about 10% by weight. About half of these are termed albumin. Albumin is the generic portion. It doesn’t change through the lifetime. It doesn’t carry information by itself. But albumin transports nutrients and minerals through the body. The Conboys took care to show that albumin has no rejuvenation power on its own, and had nothing to do with their experimental results. Rather, they had to replenish albumin in diluting blood, because the animals would be sickened if half their albumin were removed. Replacing the albumin in a transfusion is akin to replacing the volume of water or maintaining the salinity.

In preparation for this experiment, the Conboys have invested years in miniaturizing the technology for blood transfusions, so that mice can be subjected to the same procedures that are commonplace in human hospitals. The Conboy lab replaced 50% of mouse blood plasma. They got spectacular results with a single treatment, based on a lucky guess. They have not yet experimented with 30% or 70%. They don’t know yet how long the treatment will last and how long it needs to be repeated. As with previous papers from the Conboy lab, the group focused on repair and stem cell activity as evidence of a more youthful state. Three separate tissue samples were taken from liver, muscle, and brain. “Muscle repair was improved, fibrosis was attenuated, and inhibition of myogenic proliferation was switched to enhancement; liver adiposity and fibrosis were reduced; and hippocampal neurogenesis was increased.”

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Fact: Huawei is 99% owned by the Huawei Investment Holdings Trade Union Committee with less than 500 employees (not Huawei Technologies) which is under the umbrella of the All China Federation Trade Union headed by a Xi loyalist who cleaned up Sichuan and Chengdu after Bo Xilai https://t.co/tfJ84ZiRLX

— Cartogropher Balding 大老板 (@BaldingsWorld) June 8, 2020

ICYMI: A Siberian zoo that closed its doors to visitors for over two months says the lockdown has encouraged a baby boom among its animals https://t.co/VpfesKNtZN pic.twitter.com/CCnuPthZ1z

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 8, 2020

Elmer Fudd has singlehandedly solved the US gun problem:

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime.

Debt Rattle June 6 2020

Jun 062020

June 6, 2020 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 11:04 am Finance Tagged with: Biden, Bill Gates, care homes, coronavirus, Covid19, defaults, evictions, Flynn, jobs report, Lisa Page, Senate, subpoenas, superspreaders, Trump 15 Responses »

F.A. Loumis Independence Day 1906

• Just 20% Of Coronavirus Cases Responsible For 80% Of Transmissions (RT)

• Hydroxychloroquine Does Not Cure COVID19, Say Drug Trial Chiefs (G.)

• A Second Major COVID Study Is Retracted (Newser)

• UK Care Home Residents Face Steep Hike In Fees (BBC)

• Bill Gates Dismisses ‘Bizarre’ COVID19 Conspiracy Theories (RT)

• Tidal Wave Of Defaults And Evictions Looms (NPR)

• Surprise: The BLS Admits Another Phony Jobs Report (Mish)

• Biden Clinches Nomination, Readies For Fall Showdown With Trump (JTN)

• Biden: 10-15% of Americans Are ‘Not Very Good People’ (JTN)

• Lisa Page Is The New National Security And Legal Analyst At NBC News

• Senate Approves 35 Subpoenas for Obama Administration Officials (NBC)

• Letter From Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, ‘I Am Not Done’ (SAC)

Worldometer puts global new cases for June 5 at + 130,529. Another record.

Note: I count not from midnight GMT to midnight GMT, as they do, but from about 6 am EDT to 6 am EDT.

My count over the past 24 hours is over + 147,000 cases.

New cases past 24 hours in:

• US + 25,393
• Brazil + 30,136
• Russia + 8,855
• India + 9,944
• Pakistan + 8,719
• Mexico + 4,346

Containment in Switzerland, a figure with dates of action:

(time arrow is from 20 cases on way up to 20 on way down) pic.twitter.com/37HNXdSjaW

— Yaneer Bar-Yam (@yaneerbaryam) June 5, 2020

• Cases 6,871,728 (+ 147,632 from yesterday’s 6,724,096)

• Deaths 398,663 (+ 5,110 from yesterday’s 393,553)

From Worldometer yesterday evening -before their day’s close-:

From Worldometer:

From COVID19Info.live:

Those who don't want to see US troops on US streets should reflect that that's probably how most of the rest of the world feels. They don't want US troops on their streets, or US drones, US bombers & US missiles overhead. In fact, US military anywhere in their neighborhoods.

— George Szamuely (@GeorgeSzamuely) June 5, 2020

I don’t suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute

Superspreaders are simply people stupid enough to socialize a lot in long lasting events in closed spaces. That’s why “..roughly 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes.”

• Just 20% Of Coronavirus Cases Responsible For 80% Of Transmissions (RT)

The latest research into so-called “superspreader events” could inform public policy across the world, to help fight the widely feared “second wave” of coronavirus infections, but without the need for strict lockdowns. A “superspreader” is an infected person who transmits a virus to a large number of people. A growing body of evidence has found that superspreaders account for the vast majority of coronavirus transmissions. In the latest study on superspreaders, epidemiologists in Hong Kong analyzed over 1,000 coronavirus cases between January 23 and April 28, and found that just 20 percent of cases were responsible for 80 percent of total transmissions, data which could impact policy around the world. About 350 of the cases were community transmissions, while the rest were imported cases.

More than 50 percent of the community transmission cases were traced back to just six superspreader events, all of which involved indoor social gatherings that lasted several hours. “Superspreading events are happening more than we expected, more than what could be explained by chance. The frequency of superspreading is beyond what we could have imagined,” Ben Cowling, one of the study’s co-authors said. The study also found that 70 percent of infected people did not pass the virus to anyone else, further highlighting the need for a highly targeted response to defeating the pandemic. The work has yet to undergo peer review, but joins a growing body of work indicating the particular method of transmission which has spread the coronavirus to every corner of the globe, with disastrous consequences. If corroborated, however, this research could inform future public policy across the world.

Among the Hong Kong superspreading events studied, each ‘superspreader’ coronavirus carrier infected three times the average infection rate. The majority of the superspreader cases were traced back to a wedding, an event at a temple, and several bars in Hong Kong’s Lan Kwai Fong district. “You might be wondering if our study, or the experience of Hong Kong, with its small number of total infections, is more broadly representative. We think so,” Cowling wrote, referring to a widely studied phenomenon known as the “80-20 rule” or the “Pareto principle,” in which, for many events, roughly 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes.

[..] One model from researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine took it one step further and suggested just 10 percent of coronavirus cases may have accounted for at least 80 percent of transmissions worldwide. Similar results were found in coronavirus research conducted in Israel and China.

I can barely survive in this 110° heat; and, yet COVID is not only surviving, it's thriving! pic.twitter.com/ROBQBXM3Aw

— KillingMyCareer (@MelaynaLokosky) June 6, 2020

Two “studies” embarrassingly flattened but they just keep on coming.

Again, nobody of any importance to the discussion has ever claimed HCQ cures COVID19. Why keep referring to that? It is not a vaccine, there is no claim to that. Remember, meanwhile remdesivir is being touted because it MIGHT shorten hospital stays by a few days.

As for this trial: there is no data in this piece on the stage at which patients wre given HCQ. If they were already severely sick, it would have been too late. Also, no mention of zinc.

Why do all these medical professionals volunteer to look ridiculous?

• Hydroxychloroquine Does Not Cure COVID19, Say Drug Trial Chiefs (G.)

Hydroxychloroquine does not work against Covid-19 and should not be given to any more hospital patients around the world, say the leaders of the biggest and best-designed trial of the drug, which experts will hope finally settle the question. “If you are admitted to hospital, don’t take hydroxychloroquine,” said Martin Landray, deputy chief investigator of the Recovery trial and professor of medicine and epidemiology at Oxford University. “It doesn’t work.” Many countries have permitted emergency use of the drug for Covid-19 patients in hospitals, following claims from a few doctors, including Didier Raoult in France, that it was a cure, and the ensuing clamour from the public. President Donald Trump backed the drug, saying it should be given to patients, and later said he was personally taking it to protect himself from the virus.

Landray said the hype should now stop. “It is being touted as a game-changer, a wonderful drug, a breakthrough. This is an incredibly important result, because worldwide we can stop using a drug that is useless.” The first results from the Recovery trial, which has been testing seven therapies for Covid-19, swiftly followed the retraction of a paper in the Lancet medical journal on Thursday night claiming that hydroxychloroquine was linked to an increased risk of death in Covid-19 patients. The authors of the paper withdrew it after the US company Surgisphere refused to cooperate with an independent audit of the data it had supplied for the study.

Supporters of the drug hailed the paper’s retraction, but the World Health Organization and countries that have authorised use of the drug are now likely to change their position. The Recovery trial is a “gold standard” randomised controlled trial, designed to find an answer to a question by recruiting patients in similar circumstances either to take the drug or to take a placebo. Their doctors and the researchers do not know which ones are taking the genuine trial drug.

[..] Since March, when the trial began, a total of 1,542 patients had been randomised to receive hydroxychloroquine, while 3,132 patients were randomised to receive only normal care. Over 28 days, 25.7% of patients on hydroxychloroquine died, compared with 23.5% of the others. The difference is not statistically significant – it could have arisen by chance. But the clear conclusion was that hydroxychloroquine did not work, said the researchers.

“.. I did not do enough to ensure that the data source was appropriate for this use..”

Fire the man, defund him. He never saw the data or the sources, he simply believed what he was fed because it served his purposes and those of his funders.

• A Second Major COVID Study Is Retracted (Newser)

First, the esteemed Lancet medical journal retracted a major study on Thursday about hydroxychloroquine. Then, the New England Journal of Medicine did the same with another big study related to COVID-19 and blood pressure drugs. Both retractions have a common denominator: They relied on data supplied by a US analytics company called Surgisphere, which is coming under increasing scrutiny over the credibility of its international database. The Lancet study had cast doubt on the effectiveness of the anti-malarial drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as a coronavirus treatment, reports the Wall Street Journal. The retraction is now renewing the hope that the drugs (highly touted by President Trump) can work safely after all, and the World Health Organization already has said it would resume trials, notes the New York Times.

“It is now clear to me that in my hope to contribute to this research during a time of great need, I did not do enough to ensure that the data source was appropriate for this use,” says Harvard’s Mandeep Mehra, who was the lead author of both studies. “For that, and for all the disruptions—both directly and indirectly—I am truly sorry.” Both studies listed as a co-author Surgisphere founder/CEO Sapan Desai, whose name appears only on the NEMJ retraction. His company claims to have collected patient data from hospitals all over the world, but now red flags are going up. The Journal, for instance, got in touch with a dozen big US hospitals, and none shared patient data with the company. Surgisphere previously said it couldn’t name the 671 hospitals in the Lancet study out of privacy concerns. The controversy illustrates the rushed state of research amid the pandemic, notes the Times.

It’s cheaper to die, gramps.

• UK Care Home Residents Face Steep Hike In Fees (BBC)

Some older people in care homes are being asked to pay more than £100 a week extra in fees to cover the costs of coronavirus. Age UK said residents who pay their own fees are facing the bills to pay for protective gear and rising staff costs. It adds “insult to injury” for people who have “been through the mill” during the pandemic, the charity said. The government said it provided £600m for infection control in care homes and £3.2bn for wider council services. Care home residents who fund themselves have effectively subsidised the care system for many years, paying far more for their support than those funded by their local authority.

Age UK says on average these residents are charged just over £850 pounds a week, and some are now seeing their fees rise by 15%. It is not clear how many care homes have asked self-funding residents to pay more. There are 400,000 people estimated to be living in care homes in England, with 167,000 believed to be self-funders and 45,000 part self-funders. Caroline Abrahams, director of Age UK, said older people and their families have “been through the mill” in recent months as outbreaks occurred in one in three care homes. “It is adding insult to injury that after going through so much, some residents who pay for their own care are now facing a big extra bill – on top of already expensive fees.”

The bogeyman speaketh. Extreme fear ensues.

• Bill Gates Dismisses ‘Bizarre’ COVID19 Conspiracy Theories (RT)

“It’s almost hard to deny this stuff because it’s so stupid or strange that even to repeat it gives it credibility,” Gates said on numerous conspiracy theories swirling around him since the coronavirus crisis began and he became an outspoken champion for a vaccine. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has just recently pledged $1.6 billion to vaccine alliance group Gavi, which will use the money to immunize children in poorer nations. Conspiracy theories linking Gates to the origins of Covid-19 or arguing he wants to track citizens through microchips under the guise of ensuring they are vaccinated against the virus were mentioned over a million times before May, according to Zignal Labs, a media analytics company.

The theories continue to swirl around social media and a poll from Yahoo News/YouGov from late last month even found 28 percent of respondents believed Gates wanted to use the coronavirus as an excuse to track and store their information. Among Republican respondents, that percentage was even higher. “I’ve never been involved in any microchip type thing,” Gates said, calling the poll results “concerning.” He did admit “data systems” would be a good idea to track a Covid-19 vaccine, but “there’s no chips or anything like that.” Gates has thrown his support behind a “national tracking system.” Concerns and theories about Gates’ influence have only intensified as his standing in the world has increased.

Already the second richest man on the planet with a net worth of about $100 billion, he is about to become the largest donor to the WHO, a position previously held by the US before President Donald Trump cut ties with the international group over their handling of the pandemic. In the last two years, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has accounted for over 12 percent of the WHO’s budget, which equates to approximately $530 million, according to Devex. It is followed by Gavi alliance (8.18 percent) that the foundation also sponsors. The US gave slightly more in that time frame with payments equalling around $890 million. Lawrence Gostin the director of WHO’s Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, told Devex the potential of a private foundation becoming the largest donor to the organization could be “transformational.” “It would enable a single rich philanthropist to set the global health agenda,” he said.

Storm warning.

• Tidal Wave Of Defaults And Evictions Looms (NPR)

Americans are skipping payments on mortgages, auto loans and other bills. Normally, that could mean massive foreclosures, evictions, cars repossessions and people’s credit getting destroyed. But much of that has been put on pause. Help from Congress and leniency from lenders have kept impending financial disaster at bay for millions of people. But that may not last for long. The problem is that these efforts aim to create a financial bridge to the future for people who’ve lost their income in the pandemic — but the bridge is only half-built.

[..] millions of people are getting help from all kinds of lenders. According to the latest available numbers from the credit bureau TransUnion, about 3 million auto loans and 15 million credit card accounts are in some kind of program to let people skip or make partial payments. Those are probably low estimates. According to the analytics company Black Knight, 4.75 million homeowners — or 9% of all mortgages — have entered into forbearance plans. Lawmakers don’t want these delayed payments to hurt credit scores. Congress mandated that people who were current on their payments before the outbreak should still be reported as current on their payments while in a hardship program. And that appears to working for now.

“What we’re seeing consistently across the board is actually credit scores are moving upward,” says Matthew Komos, a vice president at TransUnion. He says that’s both on a month-to-month and year-over-year basis. But looking ahead, advocates say people could run into big trouble because the terms of these hardship programs can be all over the map. “Credit cards, auto loans, installment loans, there are no federal guidelines,” says Aracely Panameño, a director at the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending. She says when it comes time to make up for all those skipped payments, there are federal rules for repayment plans for home mortgages but not for many other types of loans. So she says lawmakers need to protect people. Otherwise, she says, lenders could make demands beyond what people can afford. “You must have a capacity to catch up with your payments in an affordable way,” Panameño says.

Hard to believe the BLS is still paid for their reports.

• Surprise: The BLS Admits Another Phony Jobs Report (Mish)

BLS Admits Another Error “In the household survey, individuals are classified as employed, unemployed, or not in the labor force based on their answers to a series of questions about their activities during the survey reference week (May 10th through May 16th). Workers who indicate they were not working during the entire survey reference week and expect to be recalled to their jobs should be classified as unemployed on temporary layoff. In May, a large number of persons were classified as unemployed on temporary layoff. However, there was also a large number of workers who were classified as employed but absent from work. As was the case in March and April, household survey interviewers were instructed to classify employed persons absent from work due to coronavirus-related business closures as unemployed on temporary layoff.”

“However, it is apparent that not all such workers were so classified. BLS and the Census Bureau are investigating why this misclassification error continues to occur and are taking additional steps to address the issue. If the workers who were recorded as employed but absent from work due to “other reasons” (over and above the number absent for other reasons in a typical May) had been classified as unemployed on temporary layoff, the overall unemployment rate would have been about 3 percentage points higher than reported (on a not seasonally adjusted basis). However, according to usual practice, the data from the household survey are accepted as recorded. To maintain data integrity, no ad hoc actions are taken to reclassify survey responses.”

Job Revisions The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for March was revised down by 492,000, from -881,000 to -1.4 million, and the change for April was revised down by 150,000, from -20.5 million to -20.7 million. With these revisions, employment in March and April combined was 642,000 lower than previously reported. [..] Total nonfarm payroll employment fell by 20.5 million in April, and the unemployment rate rose to 14.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

The official unemployment rate is 13.3%. However, if you start counting all the people who want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6. U-6 is much higher at 21.2%. Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.

It’s important to put the jobs numbers into proper perspective. In the household survey, if you work as little as 1 hour a week, even selling trinkets on eBay, you are considered employed. In the household survey, if you work three part-time jobs, 12 hours each, the BLS considers you a full-time employee. In the payroll survey, three part-time jobs count as three jobs. The BLS attempts to factor this in, but they do not weed out duplicate Social Security numbers. The potential for double-counting jobs in the payroll survey is large.

The payroll survey (sometimes called the establishment survey) is the headline jobs number, generally released the first Friday of every month. It is based on employer reporting. The household survey is a phone survey conducted by the BLS. It measures unemployment and many other factors. If you work one hour, you are employed. If you don’t have a job and fail to look for one, you are not considered unemployed, rather, you drop out of the labor force. Looking for jobs on Monster does not count as “looking for a job”. You need an actual interview or send out a resume. These distortions artificially lower the unemployment rate, artificially boost full-time employment, and artificially increase the payroll jobs report every month.

The article says “Biden said”. But we have seen 1000 times now that Biden is incapable of stringing more than 3 words together (one more time below).

So it’s not “Biden said”, but “Biden’s handlers said”.

• Biden Clinches Nomination, Readies For Fall Showdown With Trump (JTN)

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Friday night officially clinched the Democratic nomination for president, setting up a fall showdown with President Trump. Biden secured enough delegates in Tuesday’s round of primaries to finish with 1,993, two more than needed to secure the nomination at the party’s convention in Milwaukee in August, The Associated Press announced. The former vice president and senator immediately issued a statement laying out his vision for the fall campaign.

“It was an honor to compete alongside one of the most talented groups of candidates the Democratic party has ever fielded — and I am proud to say that we are going into this general election a united party,” Biden said. “I am going to spend every day between now and November 3rd fighting to earn the votes of Americans all across this great country so that, together, we can win the battle for the soul of this nation, and make sure that as we rebuild our economy, everyone comes along.”

This would be humorous if it weren’t so serious.

Biden tries a COVID attack on @realDonaldTrump and it ends up a jumbled mess.pic.twitter.com/vUsIFlmzHf

— James Hirsen (@thejimjams) June 6, 2020

A comment made after calling Trump a “divisive leader”. Biden trying for Hillary 2.0.

• Biden: 10-15% of Americans Are ‘Not Very Good People’ (JTN)

Presumed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden says that 10-15% of Americans are “not very good people.”Biden made the comment late Thursday during an online campaign event that he was having with black supporters, moderated by actor Don Cheadle. The conversation centered on race relations in America in the wake of the death of George Floyd in police custody on Memorial Day.

The former vice president was explaining his belief that President Trump has been a divisive leader and that while “the vast majority” of Americans are honorable people, “there are probably anywhere from 10 to 15% of the people out there that are just not very good people.” Biden has been criticized for his tendency to make gaffes during public appearances. This comment, in particular, is reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s widely panned statement on half of Trump supporters being a “basket of deplorables,” whose ideas and actions were “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic”.

Reader Tip: Coming Later

Our Daily Presidential Tracking poll today shows Black Likely Voter approval of the job @realDonaldTrump is now over 40%.

— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) June 5, 2020

Obama dropped 26,171 bombs on 7 different countries in 2016 alone.

Obama expanded drone strikes ten fold.

Obama bombed Libya back to the stone age.

Obama armed Al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria.

Obama enabled Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war in Yemen.

Obama is a war criminal. https://t.co/HFf49ZhtWt

— Sarah Abdallah (@sahouraxo) June 5, 2020

Life imitates Bizarro World.

Robert Mueller’s office deleted 19,000 text messages between Lisa Page and her lover Peter Strzok. Why?

• Lisa Page Is The New National Security And Legal Analyst At NBC News (DC)

Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page is the new national security and legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, the network announced Friday. “We’re very happy to welcome to our network Lisa Page, former FBI lawyer who worked as special counsel for Robert Mueller’s legal team,” Nicolle Wallace said. “She worked on the Russian government disinformation probe and on the Hillary Clinton email investigation.” Page was discovered in 2017 to be having an affair with former FBI agent Peter Strzok, who worked on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation before he was removed for showing bias against President Donald Trump in text messages exchanged with Page.

Thousands of the lovers’ text messages, which were sent on agency-issued phones, were released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI in 2017. Page sued the DOJ and FBI for releasing her text messages, alleging that it was “illegal.” Page testified in July 2018 that the FBI did not see strong evidence of Russian collusion with President Donald Trump 10 months after beginning its investigation. She worked on the Mueller probe before evidence of her affair led to her dismissal from the team. Page spoke in an interview with The Daily Beast in December 2019, asserting that “there’s no fathomable way” she “committed any crime at all.”

JUST ANNOUNCED: @MSNBC welcomes Former FBI Lawyer @NatSecLisa as an NBC News & MSNBC National Security & Legal Analyst. pic.twitter.com/cubW4jCQFm

— MSNBC Public Relations (@MSNBCPR) June 5, 2020

It’ll be a fun summer, but more bizarre than you’ve ever imagined.

• Senate Approves 35 Subpoenas for Obama Administration Officials (NBC)

The Senate Homeland Security Committee on Thursday authorized the issuing of nearly three dozen subpoenas of Obama administration officials as part of Senate Republicans’ investigation into the origins of the FBI and special counsel probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Trump campaign. The Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, met to consider more than 50 additional subpoenas, but postponed action until next week. Republicans on the panels are looking into flaws in FISA application process, the “unmasking” of Trump campaign and transition officials, including ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn, and the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign more broadly — actions that President Donald Trump has collectively dubbed “Obamagate” and dismissed as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt.”

[..] The Homeland Security and Judiciary committees are considering issuing subpoenas for former CIA Director John Brennan, ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey, former Obama chief of staff Dennis McDonough, former national security adviser Susan Rice and ex-FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. The Judiciary panel is also considering subpoenas for current FBI Director Christopher Wray and former Justice Department officials, including former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Judiciary member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, asked Democrats on the panel to consider how they would feel if the situation were reversed and the Trump administration were looking into the former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.

WATCH: @TedCruz Goes NUCLEAR on Rod Rosenstein over the Russia probe. pic.twitter.com/u6IBL60NeF

— BlazeTV (@BlazeTV) June 3, 2020

“..if the United States wants to survive the onslaught of socialism..

• Letter From Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, ‘I Am Not Done’ (SAC)

Former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who has been fighting the courts to have his case thrown out, said “I am not done’ in an email to a journalist that was posted Friday on Twitter that “I am not done.” Flynn’s inference is important, as evidence discovered this year by the Justice Department has revealed that the three star general was allegedly set up by bureau agents investigating President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and their debunked theory that the campaign conspired with Russia. The Justice Department asked the court last month to drop the charges against Flynn and people from all across the country are fighting on his behalf. Flynn hasn’t spoken publicly in years. In fact, the first time people heard from the three star general was when he withdrew his guilty plea months ago, through his lawyer, Sidney Powell.

“This letter means that Lt. Gen. Flynn has not given up on the country and neither should you,” a very close friend of Flynn’s told me on Friday. The friend said it was in response to the growing unrest in the country and a warning that Americans need to be involved in the political process. He wrote the email to Scott Kesterson, a documentary filmmaker and journalist that spent 3 and half years in Afghanistan. Flynn warned ‘if the United States wants to survive the onslaught of socialism, if we are to continue to enjoy self-government, to secure the God-given individual blessings of liberty for ourselves, for our families, then good Americans must accept that each has a moral obligation to participate in the political life of our country.”

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Fox News with the “look at the stock market gains after the killing or beating of unarmed black men” was not a take any of us were prepared for pic.twitter.com/QSiV28iAbj

— Salvador Hernandez (@SalHernandez) June 6, 2020

‘Very expensive and very well-engineered designed fireworks to get these effects of hearts and variations of planets in a solar system. Sixty-four seconds of fireworks in Japan at Mount Fuji, this show is said to be the first of its kind in the world (spherical pyrotechnics)’ pic.twitter.com/Pidz1rJVMr

— willem middelkoop (@wmiddelkoop) June 5, 2020

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime.