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Debt Rattle November 3 2026

Nov 032026
 
 November 3, 2026  Posted by at 10:54 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , ,  No Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Seine with Pont de Clichy 1887


• Forcing Function (James Howard Kunstler)
• Iran’s Supreme Leader Floats More US Talks In Rare Overture (ZH)
• 15 Sweeping Actions Trump Took To Tighten Election Security (John Solomon)
• Alaska’s Decoy Scandal Brings Back the Usual Suspects (Turley)
• Is Abdul El-Sayed’s Campaign Imploding? (Margolis)
• The Nail in the Coffin of El-Sayed’s Campaign (Matt Margolis)
• End the Democrats’ Horror Movie (J.B. Shurk)
• The Jungle Devours Europe (J.B. Shurk)
• Zelenskyy Outlines Clouded Threats to Trump (CTH)
• AI Reality Check Triggers $2 Trillion Tech Stock Rout (RT)
• The Erasure of Western Civilization Accelerates (Paul Craig Roberts)

 

 

 

 

Today’s the midterms, the day everyone’s been working their way up to for ages. That means starting tomorrow we no longer have to talk about Al-Sayed, or Mary Peltola, two Dan Sullivans, Haley Stevens etc. At least, we can hope that. We can hope they fade back into the background where they belong.


And we should hope there still will be a United States worth saving. Which, I’ve said it before, should not have senators named Abdul nor Presidents named Mohamed. Names like that belong in muslim nations, and the USA is a Christian nation. It was founded as one and it always has been, ever since. And you can’t be both, as a country.

That one of the two main parties is turning its back on its own country is not a good sign. They let in some 15 miilion people through the southern border in the Biden years alone, looking to irrevocably change the country. But to do that a solid majority would have to agree it’s what they want. Instead nobody asked even the question. Because they know people wouldn’t agree.

The US is in danger. Not from outside forces, but from the inside. Europe kind of has the same problems. Where people like Marine Le Pen and Alice Weidel stand up against globalist forces there -luckily it’s the two biggest nations in Europe-, in America it’s Donald Trump. Who has dodged ten years of attacks, including with bullets..

What comes after Trump? The “democrats” will not cease atttacking. Can JD and Marco muster enough inner Trump to fight them off?

The US is in danger. The free world as a whole is.

 

 


Read this before you go vote.

“Where Enlightenment philosopher Descartes said, ‘I think, therefore I am,’ the Communist says, ‘I’m right, therefore I’m in charge.’ — Data Republican on X

• Forcing Function (James Howard Kunstler)


Credit: Kevin Sorbo

It was supposed to be an election, but the event we’re in is actually an attempt to overthrow the government. The coup is underway. It’s a turnstile into the next phase of this Fourth Turning. We know who the perps are. They have outed themselves. They have declared war on the republic on video. Is there any other remedy except to arrest the bums, take them off the game board, and stuff them into a courtroom?


And how might that happen? First of all, who are they? At the operational level, a gang of a thousand or so bureaucrats, retired bureaucrats, current and ex-military officers, politicians, lawfare artists and their accomplice judges, billionaire activists, and not a few non-citizen hostiles working through a constellation of well-funded NGOs and lesser groups, partnered-up with the Democratic Party to give them the aura of legitimacy.

Their plan is to cheat like hell in the election tomorrow, rendering the outcome inconclusive and contestable in order to foment enough civil unrest to force the president to declare an emergency — triggering a sequence of actions to, in turn, declare the president and his administration illegitimate and pass off authority to a select handful of state governors such as Newsom (CA), Pritzker (IL), Spanberger (VA), Whitmer (MI), Polis (CO), and Hochul (NY), and then hold a new constitutional convention to radically change the structure of the government to establish permanent one-party rule.

One big reason for staging the coup is that many of the plotters’ heroes and leaders have already committed many crimes against the nation and the people, and are afraid of finally being held accountable for them. They don’t want to lose their fortunes, their power, their status, and end up in prison. These would be former presidents Obama and Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, James Comey and many many other familiar names. Some of these may still be active in the current shenanigans.

The lower level operational plotters only became known very recently: Danielle Reiff (former USAID, the Democracy Renewal Group); Paul Zeitz (Renew to Thrive); Rear Admiral (Ret.) Mike Smith (National Security Leaders for America); Erica Chenoweth (Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the United Democracy Alliance); Julia Roig (The Horizon’s Project and Partners Global); her husband, Enrique Roig (former USAID / State Department official (Renew American Democracy, RAD); Ezra Levin, Leah Greenberg, and Matt Traldi (Indivisible).

Who elected them the bosses of our outfit? In fact, they are wannabe commissars, eager to push the rest of us around. They came up through a bureaucratic ecosystem of commissars. They are creatures of it. It’s all they know. We have seen their like before in the governments of the old Soviet Union and its spinoffs.

They are in company with another layer of better-known coup plotters outside and above the NGO orbit. Norm Eisen, head lawfare ninja who has been involved in every Deep State hoax of the past decade, including RussiaGate, the Ukraine Impeachment, the J-6 op and the House Committee that pretended to investigate it, the Mar-a-Lago raid, and most of the frivolous lawsuits engineered through the two years of Trump 2.0. Marc Elias is the election lawfare ninja who has engineered and organized much of the ballot fraud in at least four recent national elections. Mary McCord is a former FBI and DOJ executive officer, also involved in every hoax and attempted subversion since 2016. Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) are also active plotters.

Senator Elissa Slotkin, involved in the setup for Maidan coup in Ukraine, 2014, when she worked for Veep Joe Biden, happened to be in Poland about a month ago. You might have noticed over the weekend that an attempted coup was staged there by forces seeking to bring Poland under tighter EU control — to give up their currency (the Zloty) for the Euro, and to open up their border to “migrants.” The coup in Poland has apparently failed. But, at the same time that France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Belgium are exploding in riots starring their migrants. Is the coup in America an extension of what looks like an international effort to overthrow Western Civ? Kinda smells like it.

So, these birds are daring President Trump to exercise his maximum executive power. Seems to me that Mr. Trump has the will to take them on. Let them make their move. Let them attempt to foment riots here post-election. The president and his agency heads at the DOJ, FBI, and Homeland Security already have probable cause (reasonable, fact-based belief) that a crime is being committed, or is about to be committed, by certain persons in a particular place. The plotters have laid it all out in Zoom calls that they foolishly believed were not recorded and email memoranda that were not supposed to get loose.

And keep in mind that the President also happens to be Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, in case things get spicy. Arrest these plotters for seditious conspiracy (18 U.S.C. § 2384), insurrection (18 U.S.C. § 2383), advocating overthrow of the government (18 U.S.C. § 2385), and conspiracy to defraud the United States (18 U.S.C. § 2385). If they have done any of this plotting in concert with persons associated with foreign governments, charge them with treason (18 U.S.C. § 2381) and misprision of treason (knowing of it and failing to report it) (18 U.S.C. § 2382).

That ought to take the starch out of them. To this point, President Trump has been notably scrupulous in dealing with his political enemies, while they have employed every conceivable underhanded tactic, including attempted assassination. Their effrontery is monumental. The battlespace is prepared. Better believe the Gray Champion is moving to meet them there.

Read more …

Translation: Iran knows about the post-Nov. 3 deadline, so it suggests talks, thereby binding Trump’s hands.

Piece of advice: stop reacting to whoever claims to speak for the ayatollah.

Refuse to talk to a phantom. It’s been too long without any proof of life.

If that pisses off the IRGC, all the better.

• Iran’s Supreme Leader Floats More US Talks In Rare Overture (ZH)

Oil is tumbling in the wake of a somewhat rare headline out of Tehran Iranian President Pezeshkian says the Supreme Leader has granted the government some authority on dialogue, ISNA reports


OIL FALLS TO INTRADAY LOW, BRENT TRADES NEAR $106/BBL This marks some of the most significant confirmation yet that the Supreme Leader – who has been in hiding and not seen in public since the assassination of his father upon the opening of Operation Epic Fury – is still ‘open’ to a negotiated solution to the war. It has long been speculated that he and the more ‘hardline’ IRGC and affiliated officials are against talks and are preparing for war.

Presdient Trump too has signaled he wants to give diplomacy more time, amid reports that Israel’s Netanyahu is lobbying for more military action. Newsquawk notes of the immediate reaction in markets: Risk-on trade seen as reports Iran’s Pezeshkian said the Supreme Leader has granted the government some authority on dialogue got wider airing; downside in oil and the Dollar, with upside in US equity futures, Treasuries and spot gold.

Earlier in the morning a report in the NY Post included some of the details related to ongoing indirect dialogue:

• Earlier, sources said Iranian negotiators left the Doha talks on Sunday, but not due to difficulties in negotiations, with a draft proposal circulated for feedback and a follow-up meeting possible. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Baghaei also said the compression of Tehran’s seven-day proposal into two days is a sign of goodwill and that “America must make a decision”, which added modest pressure to the complex.

• It was also reported earlier today that Iran had reportedly conveyed seven conditions to Qatar for reaching an agreement with Washington, including lifting the US blockade of Iranian ports, according to Kyodo citing a senior Iranian official. Tehran is said to be willing to adopt a flexible position on nuclear issues if an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is reached, although significant differences remain as the US seeks simultaneous nuclear concessions.

Still, time is running out and Trump is threatening to “bring the hammer” on Iran; however, there’s still no articulated end game or what a ‘misson accomplished’ moment might look like, amid fears that Washington could be settling in for another ‘forever war’ – despite ‘assurances’ from admin officials like JD Vance.

* * *

Brent crude futures fell to $108.41 a barrel, while WTI slipped below $100 this morning, after Axios reported that President Trump favored giving diplomacy with Tehran more time before launching another round of “Epic Fury.” Separately, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Tehran could reopen the Strait of Hormuz within two days if the Trump administration accepts its demands.

“Oil prices eased on Monday, with Brent down 2.8% at about $110/bbl and WTI down 3.3% at $100.67/bbl, as hopes for diplomatic progress tempered the geopolitical premium embedded in crude following October’s rally. Iranian and Qatari officials have held three consecutive days of talks aimed at ending the conflict with the US and Israel,” UBS markets analyst Nana Antiedu wrote in a brief note earlier today.

Brent’s Friday gains have been erased ahead of the US session. There were other reports that Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he wanted diplomacy with Iran. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday that no decision had been made on new attacks on Iran and that Trump preferred a diplomatic resolution.

Read more …

“His opponents call him a threat to democracy, but his adherents point to thousands of illegal voters on rolls, missing or lost ballots, phony candidates propped up to confuse voters and say Trump’s actions actually improve the integrity of the election process.”

• 15 Sweeping Actions Trump Took To Tighten Election Security (John Solomon)

When President Donald Trump delivered a national address from the White House East Room in July, he promised sweeping actions to address long-standing election vulnerabilities that had been swept under the rug for years.


He revealed that U.S. spy agencies had known for years that American ballot counting machines had vulnerabilities that could be exploited by foreign powers. Similarly, the intelligence community has long been aware that China has vacuumed up 220 million American voter files and put itself in a position to meddle in future elections.

He also disclosed that the Homeland Security Department, by matching voter registrations with government databases, had identified tens of thousands of suspected foreigners who had improperly made it onto voter rolls. Some had even cast ballots.

The message: Election security is national security
Although Democrats in general have painted Trump as suppressing the vote of allegedly disenfranchised people, in the weeks that ensued, the Trump administration’s two-year effort to improve election integrity, grow the confidence of the American voting public and batten down the hatches on election security has come into clear focus. Here are the top 15 actions taken so far:

• The Justice Department and the Homeland Security Department have now prosecuted, arrested, or convicted more than 200 noncitizens or foreigners who illegally voted or illegally registered to vote in federal elections. It’s the largest in history, and it is a talking point that liberal activists often claim was a mere conspiracy theory. Results show near-daily arrests and court filings that show such fraud is more common than Democrats wanted to admit.

• War Secretary Pete Hegseth took steps to protect military voters by making it easier for military members and their families to vote. Hegseth ordered a one-day, military-wide voting stand-down day in October of each federal election year so that service members can register, request, and submit ballots in elections.

• The War Department also has closed loopholes in the absentee ballot application process that allowed purported U.S. citizens living overseas but have never lived in the United States to unlawfully get the same privileges reserved for service members abroad.

• The Department of Health and Human Services took steps to address numerous cases of nursing home residents who were taken advantage of by bad actors trying to steal their ballots or influence their votes. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz issued nationwide guidance that made clear that vulnerable nursing home residents have the right to vote, to decline to vote, and to receive voting assistance from a trusted person. The goal was to keep activists inside such nursing facilities from interfering with or coercing nursing home residents to vote a certain way.

• U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon moved to keep private student data out of the hands of partisan NGOs that were using it to target students for voting. That included a “Dear Colleague” letter reminding all state and local education agencies that if they share private student data with partisan NGOs they are violating federal law and will lose their federal funding.

• The Department of Justice, under Attorney General Todd Blanche, recently opened an inquiry into Facebook billionaire founder Mark Zuckerberg having requested information from nonprofits he funded.

• DOJ is also seeking details about the use of state private motor vehicle data to allegedly help give Democrats an advantage in get-out-the-vote drives dating to 2020.

• The DOJ put state election officials on notice: if they violate federal election laws, they will be held accountable. That prompted an effort by some states and liberal activists to try to block such warning letters.

• Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s team at the Census Bureau is proposing a major overhaul for the 2030 Census to make sure that the number of US citizens are properly counted, avoiding repetition of mistakes from the 2020 Census. That mistake yielded least 5 erroneous Democratic House seats

• Homeland’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has gotten out of the business of censoring Americans’ political speech that it considered disinformation and returned the focus to ensuring state and local election officials have the tools that they need to keep our elections safe.

• CISA issued an historic report exposing the vulnerabilities in electronic voting systems and outlining commonsense mitigation strategies to ensure that election results are not impacted by manipulation or “glitches.”

• The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service has analyzed millions of publicly available voter files and identified tens of thousands of suspected foreigners who actually cast ballots. That has led to the enforcement crackdown by the DOJ, the FBI, and Homeland Security.

• FEMA has conditioned over a billion dollars of Homeland Security grant money on election security measures – like post-election manual audits of paper ballots and making sure the number of ballots cast does not surpass the number of voters in the election.

• Homeland Secretary Markwayne Mullin has made referrals to the DOJ regarding vulnerabilities in electronic voting systems that count votes on QR Codes and barcodes. DOJ is reviewing this information to determine if those systems comply with federal law or can be maliciously exploited.

• Trump has made the SAVE system at USCIS available at no cost to state and local election officials, enabling states to identify and scrub nearly 500,000 dead people from voter rolls.

Read more …

If this goes against ‘the real’ Dan Sullivan, how ugly will it get?

• Alaska’s Decoy Scandal Brings Back the Usual Suspects (Turley)

Marc Elias is back. The notorious Democratic lawyer who played a critical role in the 2016 Russia hoax is again in the news. His law firm has been identified by the New York Times as part of the expanding scandal involving Democratic effort to confuse voters in Alaska with a decoy candidate named Daniel J. Sullivan.


For those familiar with Elias’s checkered history, this is a case of rounding up the usual suspects.

The scandal involving Democratic candidate Mary Peltola has quickly snowballed this week. A New York Times blockbuster investigative report quotes former staff who claim she knew of a cynical effort by her own campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to confuse voters by recruiting and fielding a decoy “Dan Sullivan” candidate in the race against incumbent Sen. Daniel S. Sullivan (R-Alaska). State and federal investigations are now unfolding, with dozens of federal subpoenas raining down on Alaska.

The effort to get voters to cast mistaken ballots is grossly unethical and, even in these rage-filled times, a uniquely disgraceful scheme. Peltola and the Democratic Party had long denied any involvement in the other Sullivan’s candidacy. So when the Times produced evidence that she allegedly knew, and that Democratic staffers and lawyers had been deeply involved from the beginning, many of us were surprised — that is, until the name “Marc Elias” emerged. Then it made more sense.

The Elias Law Group was already in the news this election cycle for threatening reporters with defamation lawsuits if they kept asking questions about the health of former Gov. Roy Cooper, the Democratic nominee for Senate in North Carolina. Earlier, Elias caused a stir during an unsuccessful Democratic gerrymandering effort, raising the idea that Democratic leaders could abolish the entire Virginia government after courts blocked their attempted radical redistricting plan.

The fact that figures such as Peltola and Cooper wanted to be associated with any law firm headed by Elias is itself an indictment of their judgment and standards. Despite his losses in cases such as National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, Elias is still a favorite of many on the left thanks to his aggression and partisan fervor. The controversies that make him notorious to many make him popular with others.

Elias was the general counsel to the Clinton presidential campaign when it secretly funded the infamous Steele Dossier and pushed the false Alfa Bank conspiracy theory. (His fellow Perkins Coie partner, Michael Sussmann, was later indicted but acquitted for making a false statement to the FBI.)

Clinton campaign officials lied to reporters during the 2016 campaign, denying any involvement in the Steele Dossier. Journalists discovered the truth after the election — that the Clinton campaign had hidden payments for the dossier as “legal fees” among the $5.6 million paid to Perkins Coie. New York Times reporter Ken Vogel said that when he tried to report the story, Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’”

Times reporter Maggie Haberman later observed that “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.” The Federal Election Commission ultimately sanctioned the Clinton campaign for the subterfuge.

While raising money as the self-proclaimed defenders of democracy, Elias’s group has been involved in gerrymandering and efforts criticized as seeking to invalidate Republican votes, including unsuccessful efforts to challenge Democratic electoral losses.

In Maryland, Elias’s team supported another abusive gerrymandering scheme that a court found not only violated Maryland law but the state constitution’s equal protection, free speech and free elections clauses. The court found that the proposed map “subverts the will of those governed.” One media site accused Elias and his group of “making millions off gerrymandering efforts” while publicly denouncing Republican gerrymandering.

In 2024, Elias’s legal team was also accused of pushing “to bar third-party presidential candidates — including Cornel West — from swing state ballots where they might siphon votes” from Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Likewise, the New York Times reported that the Elias firm’s work “on behalf of a Soros-funded PAC in Texas … was opposed by a left-leaning election watchdog as undermining laws intended to limit the influence of major donors.”

His group’s work for New York’s redistricting effort was ridiculed as not only ignoring the express will of the voters and also effectively negating Republicans’ votes. In 2024, the Chief Judge of the Western District of Wisconsin criticized the Elias Law Group for one of its challenges. Judge James Peterson (an Obama appointee) said that the argument “simply does not make any sense.”

Now, Elias’s group is linked to the decoy scandal in Alaska, which allegedly aimed to make voters cast mistaken ballots. What distinguishes lawyers involved in this type of voter disruption is less their talent as their willingness. There are simply some things that most lawyers will not do.

There is also a difference in how lawyers are treated in such controversies. It often seems that election controversies involving Republican lawyers are more likely to end with bar charges and disbarments. Take John Eastman, the former Trump lawyer disbarred in California after a state bar panel found that he had pushed unfounded legal theories and conspired to obstruct the electoral vote count on Jan. 6, 2021.

Although I publicly disagreed with Eastman’s theories, I opposed the effort to disbar him as setting a dangerous precedent for lawyers seeking to advance novel or unpopular theories of recovery or liability. After all, lawyers on the left routinely advance dubious theories, including some that are more ideologically than legally driven. Such controversies rarely rise to the level of disbarment, especially when more appropriate sanctions are available, ranging from reprimands to fines.

Eastman is currently asking the Supreme Court to overturn his disbarment. It is unlikely that Elias Law Group or Peltola’s lawyers will face similar disbarment efforts — nor should they, in my view, unless they were involved in criminal conduct. But the disparate treatment afforded to counsel in this country by party remains a growing concern. What draws a shower of bar complaints for Republican lawyers brings a windfall of clients for Democratic lawyers.

The New York Times has produced sources alleging that lawyers for Peltola’s campaign were involved in this effort, even though they previously told a federal court that they “lack knowledge or information” and “deny any allegation about those purposes.” Such filings and statements could raise ethical or even criminal questions in investigations at both the state and federal levels.

Meanwhile, though, tens of thousands of voters in Alaska have already cast ballots that included the decoy Sullivan candidate. This could result in a nasty fight in Congress if Peltola prevails in the vote count. And when it happens, that is where we will find Marc Elias in his element.

Read more …

After today no more Abdul?

• Is Abdul El-Sayed’s Campaign Imploding? (Margolis)

Two days before Election Day, Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s Senate campaign looks like it’s imploding. That’s a stunning development, because campaigns are typically heavily controlled operations.


“Every word. Every image. Every debate quip,” Spencer Pratt noted last month. “Everything, down to the color of the font you choose, is calculated to invoke a specific feeling, and most of the time, it’s easy to decipher what the campaign is trying to convey with these choices, and that is the goal.” Pratt added, “You don’t get to choose everything that happens in the campaign, but you do THINK about everything that happens in a campaign and choose your strategy for presenting it to the public or spinning it.”

What’s happening with El-Sayed’s campaign right now defies every bit of that. A Sunday unity event meant to make peace between El-Sayed and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), the rival he narrowly beat in a bitter August primary, has collapsed into a public feud on the eve of the election. The cause? El-Sayed won’t denounce a blatantly antisemitic ad.

The New York Times laid out the mess on Saturday. “Ms. Stevens and Dr. [sic] El-Sayed, who have been publicly quarreling for days about Israel, were initially expected to attend the Sunday event together, part of an effort by Representatives Debbie Dingell of Michigan and James E. Clyburn of South Carolina to broker a peace between the two Democrats days before a critical election.

It was unclear if Ms. Stevens, who lost to Dr. [sic] El-Sayed by less than a percentage point in a bitter August primary, would abide by his request that she stay away from the event.But by Saturday night, it appeared that the late-hour push by Democratic leaders to bridge the rift between Dr. [sic] El-Sayed, a progressive, and Ms. Stevens, a moderate, may have badly backfired.

Democrats in Michigan were left to confront how little they had to show for a three-month push to coalesce after one of the state’s most bruising primary races in memory. And Democrats across the country were anxiously wondering if the bickering between Dr. [sic] El-Sayed and Ms. Stevens might sink his chances in a race that could determine control of the Senate.

When the Times starts openly fretting that Democrats could lose the Senate over a temper tantrum, you know things have gotten ugly. Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) organized Sunday’s event specifically to bring the two camps together. Stevens set one condition for showing up on Sunday. El-Sayed had to denounce a viral ad from Rebellion PAC that shows a couple who can’t afford groceries because of Israel. El-Sayed’s campaign didn’t make the ad, but prominent Democrats haven’t stopped calling on him to condemn it.

And yet he’s refused. Speaking to reporters after a rally in Sterling Heights, outside Detroit, El-Sayed made his feelings about Stevens’ attendance clear. “I don’t want any distractions,” he said. Pressed about the ad and his fight with Stevens, El-Sayed dug in deeper. “It seems as though other folks are more interested in making this race about things that it’s not about,” he insisted.

Sorry, but an ad blaming Jews for grocery prices isn’t a distraction. It’s the whole story. Even Clyburn’s camp isn’t playing along. Clyburn said Saturday he had “no idea” whether Stevens would show up, and his adviser Antjuan Seawright made it plain who was running the show. “This is not Abdul’s event. … The invitation still stands,” Seawright said.

A party that can’t get its own Senate nominee to condemn open Jew-hatred has a much bigger problem than one disastrous weekend in Michigan. But this stuff shouldn’t be happening this close to the election. It feels like an implosion.

Read more …

“The trouble started with a blatantly antisemitic ad from Rebellion PAC, a group supporting El-Sayed, that pins high grocery prices on American financial support for Israel.”

• The Nail in the Coffin of El-Sayed’s Campaign (Matt Margolis)

The feud between Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) and Democrat Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has been simmering for a while now, and this weekend it exploded in spectacular fashion.


Stevens lost to El-Sayed in a heated Democrat primary and, like a good party soldier, endorsed him afterward. But the two never stopped clashing over one particular issue. Stevens is staunchly pro-Israel. El-Sayed has thrown his support behind Gaza and regularly attacks Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

The truce between them was fragile from the start, and Democrat leaders tried their hardest to hold it together. On Friday, Stevens announced she had accepted an invitation from Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) to join El-Sayed at a Detroit church service. Clyburn and Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) organized the Sunday event for one purpose: to get the two camps in the same room and patch things up before Election Day.

It didn’t last. The trouble started with a blatantly antisemitic ad from Rebellion PAC, a group supporting El-Sayed, that pins high grocery prices on American financial support for Israel. El-Sayed had an easy out. All he had to do was condemn the ad. Instead, he refused and brushed off the whole controversy as a distraction.

“It seems as though other folks are more interested in making this race about things that it’s not about,” he insisted. So the unity summit collapsed. Stevens still went to church in Detroit on Sunday alongside Mike Rogers, the Republican running against El-Sayed. For a Democrat who had endorsed El-Sayed just months earlier, that alone would have been a stunning rebuke.


Ahh, but there’s more… Soon after the service, Stevens posted a video to X endorsing Mike Rogers for the U.S. Senate. Hey, Michigan. As you may have seen, our Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, Abdul [El-Sayed], said that I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away,” Stevens said. “And he’s right. And that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today.”

Stevens clearly felt she couldn’t pretend to back the antisemitic El-Sayed anymore, and she aimed at the company he keeps. “I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign,” she continued. “I do not stand with Hasan Piker, who gets trafficked on our college campuses.”Piker, the far-left streamer, has built a huge following among young leftists with his relentless anti-Israel commentary. Citing a friend who reminded her that education is on the ballot, Stevens turned to what Michigan’s kids are watching.

“And what our students see, what our children see, and who we are as Michiganders is not hate and is not, what we are getting out from our Democratic nominee right now,” she said. She was careful to stress that she hasn’t switched teams. “I’m still a very proud Democrat,” Stevens added.


This is a huge sucker punch to the El-Sayed campaign, and it’s a devastating blow that was entirely self-inflicted. He could have ended the controversy with a single sentence. Instead, he doubled down on antisemitism. The fallout could be enormous. Stevens built real support across Michigan during her primary run, and plenty of those voters share her views on Israel. Michigan elections often hinge on crossover Democrats and independents, and Stevens just handed every one of them permission to vote for Rogers.

Bigotry against Jews is still bigotry, and thankfully, there are still some in the Democrat Party who get that. Their numbers have shrunk, and their party keeps testing their patience. But every time one of them puts conscience ahead of a party label, it proves that the line between right and wrong still means something, and that decent voters can still find each other across the aisle.

Read more …

Two excellent pieces by Shurk.

“The Democrat party is a monster that must be defeated.”

“The only impediment to the Democrats’ complete takeover of the Judiciary is the Supreme Court — or, more accurately, the stalwart defense of the Constitution coming from the jurisprudence of Justice Thomas and Justice Alito.”

• End the Democrats’ Horror Movie (J.B. Shurk)

It seems morbidly appropriate that America’s midterm elections come right after Halloween. What the Democrat Party offers voters this year is the culmination of many decades of cultural rot, psychopathy, and anti-Americanism. It feels as if we’re in the middle of a scary movie, doesn’t it? Are we hanging from the edge of a cliff? Yes. Are there evil monsters chasing us down? Yes. Does it seem as if every choice we make could be our last? Yes.


What the Democrat Party has become is truly horrific. Like Frankenstein’s monster, its political body is comprised of dead parts: Islamic supremacy, racial grievance, class warfare, cultural Marxism, cultish communism, child sacrifice, child mutilation, sexual deviance, and pagan gods. Everything the Democrats celebrate today is disgusting, gruesome, and deserving of an R-rating.

A lot of Americans have drifted from the Democrat to the Republican Party over the last few decades. It is apt that the two Republican presidents of the last century that Republican voters rate most highly — President Reagan and President Trump — both spent parts of their lives as members of the Democrat Party.

There was a time when Republicans and Democrats were not so different. President Kennedy’s low-tax, pro-manufacturing policies were very similar to Trump’s economic growth agenda today. Kennedy Democrats included anti-communist military veterans who would feel right at home in this century’s Republican Party.

Blue-collar workers who once identified as Democrats have realized that President Trump’s MAGA-fied Republican Party is the only party interested in supercharging the number of industrial and manufacturing jobs in the United States. Democrats (including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and communist darling Bernie Sanders) once campaigned for secure national borders and against illegal immigration — the very things that they demonize today.

What does it say about the Democrat Party that it has abandoned almost every salient belief that it once held dear? Democrats used to defend free speech, no matter how offensive the language. Now they censor dissenting points of view and justify the use of violence to stop “hate speech.”

Democrats used to believe that a person’s character is more important than the color of that person’s skin. Now they obsess over skin color and treat white people as second-class citizens. mDemocrats used to champion equality of opportunity for women. Now they punish high school girls who object to being forced to change in the same locker rooms as confused boys and ridicule girls who refuse to compete against boys in girls’ sports.

The Democrat Party used to include a huge number of hunters, military veterans, and other Americans who accepted the responsibility of self-defense. Now Democrats vilify gun owners as if they were domestic terrorists while protecting violent criminals who use weapons against innocent Americans.

The Democrat Party used to include a huge number of practicing Catholics, devout Protestants, and observant Jews. It included thoughtful scholars such as Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whose report on black poverty recognized marriage as the lynchpin to social mobility. It included cultural groups, civic organizations, and clubs that promoted strong, healthy families.

Now Democrats dismiss marriage and the nuclear family as vestiges of “patriarchy” and “white supremacy.” They use their power over legal associations and medical boards to promote the castration and mutilation of children. Many Democrats promote promiscuity and sexual fetishization as “healthy” lifestyles and not-so-subtly endorse incest, bestiality, and pedophilia.

At what point does it not become obvious that the Democrat Party has become the “safe space” for grotesque evils? When an illegal alien rapes and/or murders an American girl, Democrats in public office and Democrats working as “journalists” show more compassion for the rapist/murderer than they do for the broken victim.

This is monstrous, abhorrent, anti-American behavior that I would not have thought possible thirty years ago. Most of us remember a time when Americans took care of and protected other Americans. We beat back those who threatened our peace, and we hunted monsters that hurt American children. Now Democrats describe the monsters among us as victims and ignore the dead American girls and their suffering American families altogether. What a ghoulish, soulless party the Democrats have become.

Last week, an illegal alien from Mexico used a sledgehammer to damage an Iwo Jima monument in Quantico, Virginia, and during his act of desecration, the foreigner beheaded one of the statues depicting American marines’ utmost sacrifice in the Pacific Theater during the Second World War. The Battle of Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest conflicts in American history, and three of the men depicted in that monument never came home. Decapitating a hero’s likeness is an act of hatred against America and disrespect for all American veterans.

Nevertheless, Democrat politicians and Democrat “journalists” ignored the story as much as possible, and when forced to acknowledge it, Democrats blamed the incident on a generic “Virginia man,” as if the crime were a minor act of vandalism of no significance.

This is how little respect Democrats have for American heroes, American history, and American sacrifice. Democrats in office and Democrats in newsrooms write glowing propaganda in defense of foreign nationals who have no business being in the United States, but they completely disregard the vile acts of destruction that monsters perpetrate against American citizens and their cherished symbols.

We also know that if Democrats regain Congress and the presidency, the worst is yet to come.

President Obama and President Biden are responsible for over two-thirds of the district court judges currently on the bench. This is why some federal judge is always inventing laws or parts of the Constitution that do not exist or usurping Article II powers that belong to President Trump. The only impediment to the Democrats’ complete takeover of the Judiciary is the Supreme Court — or, more accurately, the stalwart defense of the Constitution coming from the jurisprudence of Justice Thomas and Justice Alito.

Democrats have made no secret of their plans to get rid of the Senate filibuster should they achieve a simple governing majority. With fifty Democrat senators and a Democrat in the White House in January 2029, they will unleash a barrage of legislation and finish the “fundamental transformation” of the United States government that began in earnest during Obama’s presidency.

Democrats will recognize the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as new states, adding four more Democrat senators to the upper chamber. Democrats will once again open America’s borders to foreign invasion and grant mass amnesty and citizenship to any foreigner in the world. By doing so, Democrats will greatly expand the number of Democrat voters and obtain an insurmountable supermajority in the House of Representatives.

As they have repeatedly promised, Democrats will add at least six new justices to the Supreme Court, ensuring complete ideological control over the federal judiciary. In three quick moves, the Democrat Party will successfully erect a one-party political system with permanent power over the federal government — indistinguishable from the monopoly power that the Chinese Communist Party has enjoyed since 1949.

That’s how fast Islamo-communism and the European Union’s brand of totalitarian globalism will take over the United States if Americans don’t fight back. We know what happens then. Democrat Senator Elissa Slotkin and her collaborators have promised to lock up Trump supporters. Democrat Senator Adam Schiff and Democrat Senator Chris Murphy promise to censor political dissent on social media — effectively killing the First Amendment.

The Democrat-controlled IRS, FBI, and DOJ will once again persecute us as “potential domestic terrorists.” Democrats will kill the Second Amendment and come for our firearms. Democrats will use taxpayer dollars to fund their Antifa paramilitary and NGO armies and direct them to burn down cities and attack Americans. Democrats will celebrate the assassination of Charlie Kirk and incite their followers to murder more of us.

Avoid this horror movie. Vote Republican on Tuesday.

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“Half a billion Europeans should be able to defend themselves.”

“Europe does not create new things; it steals (and taxes) America’s innovation and ingenuity. Europe does not build things; it depends on China for industrial output and manufacturing. Europe does not produce enough energy; even while declaring Russia its enemy, much of Europe depends upon Russian oil and gas to survive.”

• The Jungle Devours Europe (J.B. Shurk)

The European Union has over four-hundred-fifty million people. The non-E.U. nations of Europe — including the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Moldova, and Albania but excluding Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Turkey — have another hundred million people. Combined, Europe has over two hundred million more people than the United States and over four hundred million more people than the Russian Federation. As an “associate member” of the E.U., Canada would give Europe another forty million bodies.


There is no reason why Europe should struggle to defend itself with this kind of population advantage. In fact, it is downright embarrassing that it depends on Americans from the other side of the ocean to secure its borders when the United States (with its significantly smaller population) has military obligations throughout the world. It has been eighty years since the Second World War, and somehow the European Establishment still hasn’t figured out how to survive without American money and muscle.

Professors and pundits toss out all kinds of reasons why this is the case: The Europeans were saddled with debt and destruction after two continental wars within thirty years and had to rebuild much of their infrastructure and manufacturing capacity. As the Soviet Union and the U.S.-led allies carved up post-war Europe, the Cold War froze the continent in a state of transition for the next half-century. U.S. political leaders embraced America’s transformation into a global empire with global responsibilities. Peace in post-WWII Europe seemed fragile, and parts of Europe appeared broken; two generations had been lost to war and depression, and a sense of nihilism extinguished much of the early-twentieth-century exuberance that pervaded the continent before the First World War.

All of this is true. Still, there is no excuse for the continent to be struggling with the responsibilities of political sovereignty four generations after the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Josep Borrell, the E.U.’s former high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said in a speech four years ago, “Europe is a garden. We have built a garden.” After a heavy pause, he then observed, “The rest of the world…is not exactly a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle. The jungle could invade the garden. The gardeners should take care of it.”

Political leaders from around the world took umbrage at Borrell’s condescending view of non-European nations and saw in his garden/jungle demarcation the residual bigotry of European colonialism.

Aside from his rather tone-deaf description of Europe, though, Borrell’s view of the continent seems anachronistic. European greatness hasn’t existed for more than a century. Most of the noble houses have fallen, while most of the extant aristocrats live in obscurity.

Europe does not create new things; it steals (and taxes) America’s innovation and ingenuity. Europe does not build things; it depends on China for industrial output and manufacturing. Europe does not produce enough energy; even while declaring Russia its enemy, much of Europe depends upon Russian oil and gas to survive. Europe does not mine anything; it depends upon child slaves in Africa to do its heavy lifting. Europe does not have babies; it depends upon mass immigration for population replacement.

Europe does not generate real economic growth; it depends upon central bank magic tricks, investment bank commissions, and government spending to conjure the illusion of a functioning economy. Finally, Europe does not defend itself; it depends upon NATO, which is to say that it depends upon the United States of America to protect its half a billion people from real and imagined enemies.

If Europe is a “garden,” it is because the rest of the planet allows it to exist as one. It would have no vegetation if the “jungle” did not supply it with imports; it would have no “gardeners” if America did not secure Europe’s lands and keep trespassers out.

The United States is the only reason that Europe is not part of the “jungle” today. Americans have subsidized Europe’s economy for eighty years by allowing Europe to enjoy the advantages of one-way tariffs against U.S. manufacturers and the security umbrella of America’s military might. Europe survives because of the kindness of strangers living in towns across America.

This one-sided relationship cannot continue as it has for most of the last century. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her Eurocentric friends in Brussels, Berlin, London, and Paris believe that their “garden” should remain the focus of the world. They believe that their “climate change” fanaticism should drive economic regulation around the globe. They believe that their International Criminal Court should be the planet’s chief arbiter of “justice.” They believe that their multicultural, cosmopolitan, Marxist-socialist brand of globalism should become a kind of secular religion for all nations. In essence, Europe wants to force the “jungle” to play by its rules.

But this is not how the “law of the jungle” operates.

The lions, elephants, hippos, and hyenas don’t have any use for Brussels bureaucracy. They see no need to bow down to unelected Queen Ursula or to respect her “European values.” They do not cripple their food supplies out of misplaced devotion to “global warming” gods. They do not outlaw oil and gas exploration, bankrupt refineries, or shutter nuclear power plants while depending upon adversaries and enemies to keep the lights on and the heat flowing. They do not outsource their security to jungle predators with the misguided expectation of not becoming prey.

The jungle doesn’t stop at the garden’s entrance just because the old empires from the last millennium like to pretend that they still matter.

In the capitals of Europe, incompetent gardeners continue to insist that everything will be fine just as soon as they can expel disruptive forces such as Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump. So long as they can censor social media platforms, Europe’s gardeners will be able to disseminate the “proper narratives” to the masses. So long as they can force “green energy” regulations on China, India, Russia, and the United States, Europe’s gardeners will be able to regulate markets and limit the jungle’s economic growth. So long as they can replace their own people with foreign immigrants, Europe’s gardeners will be able to sufficiently “divide and conquer” their own populations.

But you cannot invite the jungle into the garden and expect the garden to survive. The jungle grows fast, and the garden requires too much attention. Without the means to beat back the jungle, the garden is eventually overrun.

This is Europe’s last chance at survival. If it does not put down its ideological obsessions and pick up the tools needed for real economic growth, Europe will be impoverished. If it does not relinquish its love for bureaucratic regulation and free its workers so that they may prosper, Europe will become irrelevant. If it does not give up its “rules-based” delusions and build walls for its own defense, Europe will be devoured.

The jungle does not care that old cathedrals, monuments, and palaces exist all over Europe. The jungle does not care about Europe’s past glories. Europe is just another place for the jungle to conquer next.

Half a billion people should have a say about Europe’s future. They should not have to follow Queen Ursula, Chancellor Merz, President Macron, Prime Minister Burnham, or Prime Minister Carney down the path toward extinction. They should not have to watch their economies implode while the gardeners promise them nothing but “climate change” austerity and nuclear war with Russia. The people of Europe should not have to behave as statues for the gardeners while everything around them is destroyed.

For eighty years, Europe’s leaders have failed to bring peace and prosperity to the continent. For the garden to live, the gardeners must go.

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“Lukoil Remains a Target Until U.S. Gives Weapons..”

It’s not Ukraine vs Russia.

The “rest of NATO” is attacking the US.

Trump says he doesn’t want Zelensky (read: the West) to attack Russia’s energy. It happens anyway.

• Zelenskyy Outlines Clouded Threats to Trump (CTH)

Against the background of the Oleshky ceasefire, Fox News’ Trey Yingst sat down with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss the current situation in the ongoing NATO proxy conflict with the Russian Federation.


Zelenskyy’s recent attacks into Russia, or at least to the extent we can call them ‘Zelenskyy’s attacks’ when we really don’t know what interests are directing the targeting, have been hitting very specific Russian energy infrastructure. Ukraine targeted Novokuybyshevsk oil refinery, and another big refinery in the Samara oblast owned by the Russian state energy giant Rosneft.

Then came another major drone strike. According to ASTRA on November 1, a drone attack targeted the LUKOIL refinery, also known as NORSI, in the city of Kstovo. The facility is among Russia’s five largest oil refineries and has an annual processing capacity of approximately 15–17 million metric tons of crude oil. The NORSI refinery produces gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, fuel oil, bitumen, and other petroleum products. It is Lukoil’s largest facility.

You can see from the insert (image above) the drone attacks into the city of Kstovo travelled a considerable distance to reach their LUKOIL target. It should also be noted that since the time of the Trump administration’s requests to stop targeting Russian oil refining capacity, Ukraine has actually expanded those attacks specifically targeting refining capacity.

The attacks against Russian oil refining in the Samara region happened at the same time western media attention was following the ceasefire in Oleshky, southern Ukraine. The full geopolitical context here needs to be considered.

Ukraine officials told the Kyiv Independent newspaper they never agreed to a request from President Trump, Emissary Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to pause refinery strikes for 30 days. The raids on Russia restarted during the ceasefire in Oleshky apparently as Zelenskyy sought to take advantage of the media distraction. As a consequence, Kremlin officials said, Kyiv was “simply ignoring” US wishes.

The strikes deep into Russia also restarted immediately following statements last week by Zelenskyy about the full restoration of their ability to use Starlink satellite guidance systems. The timing cannot be simply coincidental.

Last month President Trump lifted US sanctions on Russian diesel in an effort to lower the global impact of rising diesel fuel prices. What Zelenskyy is doing is not only counter to the request from the U.S. administration but is factually counter to the interests of everyone living in Europe including -in the longer term- Ukraine.

The continued strikes against oil refineries only benefit a narrow segment of western financial and banking interests. However, those stakeholders are the same interests attempting to use NATO to expand conflict with Russia and remove the roadblock that President Trump represents.

This sets the stage for Fox News’ Trey Yingst to ask Zelenskyy specifically about the targeting of Russian oil refining against the backdrop of President Trump requesting he stop. Zelenskyy never answers the question, instead he deflects and says if President Trump gives Ukraine patriot missiles, then Ukraine will consider stopping their attacks against Russian oil refineries. WATCH:

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The people behind Zelenskyy, essentially all these western financial interests who operate within NATO, ultimately do not want President Trump and President Putin to form a strategic partnership. Which circles back to the catch-22: Canada, the U.K and Europe are all facing the same problem…. MONEY! Where are they going to come up with the funds to pay for a military investment they have declined to make for the past 50+ years?

It’s not just an issue of finding funds for a standing military, hardware, ships, submarines, aircraft, tanks, heavy and light artillery, missiles and drones etc., they also have to fund the technological capabilities to use and deploy modern weapons. They need advanced manufacturing, steel works, technological guidance systems, large numbers of strategically placed satellites, a space program that includes rockets to put them into orbit, and much, much more.

At scale this is multiple trillions, and that doesn’t include the baseline manufacturing systems needed to create all this independent infrastructure. It’s one thing to say, ‘we will build out our military capacity’, and it’s another thing entirely to actually build it.

Does Canada or Europe even have the human resources (engineering) to create all this infrastructure? Think about it. Then overlay three decades of an energy ideology that expressly limits their capability to even follow through with such an endeavor.

When you really stand back and look at the required level of investment needed, in addition to the time it takes to build all of the ancillary processes that are required to meet such an expressed objective, it really puts the position of the Canadian, British and European opposition to President Trump into context.

What is more feasible? Doing what is required to build-out your own military defense systems; or is it simply easier to get rid of the person who stops you from using the USA as your standing army? 25+ years of Global Warming, Climate Change, Net Zero, Carbon Trading, Carbon Taxing, Build Back Better etc. advocacy, revolves around the singularity of one issue, energy production.

From that baseline the western nemesis of a multi-trillion investment and banking system, built around the destruction of the coal, oil and gas carbon-based energy sector is Russia. Additionally, over the past 10 years as western interests have stopped building oil refining capacity, Russia has expanded oil refining capacity. All ‘modern’ opposition to Russia in the last 25 years, is now culminating…. But the root is something everyone misses. The root commonality of interests is Energy Production and the carbon-trading schemes.

The advocates for the system of dependencies created by the “climate change/net zero” energy processes are the same advocates who have created carbon-trading exchanges. And those same advocates supporting Ukraine are specifically supporting the targeting of Russian energy production vis-a-vis Russian oil refineries.

The British, European and Canadian climate change group (ideology, banking and finance) – what Mark Carney called the “middle powers” – versus the USA, Russia, China, Mexico, South/Central America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. That’s an interesting geopolitical contest.


Russian President Vladimir Putin has inquired about the potential for the U.S. to remove sanctions against Lukoil, a quasi-private energy company based out of Russia. Before, getting too weedy about it, remind yourself of the statements that surfaced during the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, August, 2025.

You might remember that both the U.S and Russia spoke of strategic partnerships surrounding the energy sector. Obviously, this makes sense when we consider the “west” is actually fractured on the topic of energy. There are two competing interests that overlap in the financial side of the issue, the ‘trillions at stake’ aspect.

On one side you have the “climate change” team, those who are fully invested (literally) in the financial mechanisms of the climate change, green new deal, build back better talking points. The Green Energy team in the west. The Paris Climate Treaty and carbon-trading proponents et al.

On the other side you have the pragmatic energy team in the west. These are the Trump-minded and aligned western perspectives that look at oil, natural gas (LNG), clean coal and nuclear technology. These are the “all the above” aligned voices in the more pragmatic view of low-cost energy production and development.

In the middle, between both sides of the fracture, are the banking and finance systems. This is the BIG MONEY play, with the Climate Change team supported by banking ideology inside the city of London, while the Carbon Use team is constantly having to assemble finance and insurance from outside the banking control mechanisms.

The Climate Change team have support based on ideology within the finance system. However, the Carbon Use team have the advantage of low-price outputs, global dependency and actual profits as leverage. This is a fight essentially inside the larger energy sector, and we are all very familiar with it because it has been happening for decades.

Read more …

“Investors worry whether hundreds of billions put into AI development will bring the profits companies have promised..”

• AI Reality Check Triggers $2 Trillion Tech Stock Rout (RT)

An estimated $2 trillion in market value was wiped from the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 during October as investors grow increasingly skeptical that enormous spending on artificial intelligence will ever pay off.


On Friday, the Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.9% in its biggest one-day fall since June. Over the whole month, the Nasdaq shed about 5.2%, its worst showing since March 2025, while the S&P 500 slipped 1.2%, and the Dow – which includes many traditional businesses – still finished October up 1.5%.

Among the hardest-hit companies was Google owner Alphabet, whose shares plunged 12.6% on Thursday in its worst day on record. The slump was triggered by its earnings showing slower growth in search advertising, its core business.

While search advertising revenue still grew 12%, Google executive Philipp Schindler acknowledged that its AI Mode brings in less ad revenue per search than traditional results. At the same time, Alphabet is spending heavily on AI infrastructure, putting further pressure on its cash flow. The company’s net profit also slid 25% year-on-year, largely due to investment-related losses, while Thursday’s share plunge erased nearly $500 billion from its market value.

Amazon reported negative free cash flow of $42.4 billion over the preceding 12 months, largely due to AI investments, with its shares falling 1.4% on Friday. Chipmaker Intel came out worse, plunging 28.6%, its worst day since 1974, after forecasting weaker profits amid trouble in its PC and manufacturing businesses.

Nvidia – which produces powerful chips used to train and run AI systems – slipped 4.2%, becoming the biggest drag on the S&P 500, while rival AMD dropped 10.9%.

Commenting on the slump, Globalt Investments senior portfolio manager Keith Buchanan, described the current state of the market as “scrutinizing” and “discerning”. “Last year was hope. This year is: At the end of day, how does this all work in real-world terms, like how to finance [it] and who gets the economics. Those questions are much more difficult to answer,” he told CNBC.

Enormous spending on AI and data centers has become a staple of US tech giants in recent years. Together, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Alphabet are projected to spend more than $700 billion on data centers, computing equipment and other long-term investments in 2026 alone, and much of it is AI-related.

According to various estimates, global AI-related investment is valued at between $900 billion and $2.7 trillion dollars this year, depending on the methodology. Companies are also borrowing more to finance expansion, fueling concerns among investors.

Market analysts meanwhile warn of further near-term losses. Bank of America strategist Michael Hartnett expects weakness until mid-November, while Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson says the S&P 500 could fall even further within weeks before recovering by year-end.

Other major tests for the US market are the midterm elections on Tuesday, which could reshape AI regulation, as well as quarterly results from Apple, Nvidia, AMD and Palantir, and Friday’s jobs report.

Read more …

“..the left’s march through the institutions is now undoing classical music..”

In 1999, on the verge of the new millenium, some org (Edge.org?) asked people to name the no. 1 invention/achievement in mankind’s history.

Most said penicillin, moon landing, etc, the obvious things.

One person said: the symphony orchestra.

• The Erasure of Western Civilization Accelerates (Paul Craig Roberts)

Heather Mac Donald is an outstanding reporter and analyst of America’s woke era, which might be America’s last era as wokism is a civilization-killer. Her article, “The Boston Symphony Surrenders,” in the Autumn 2026 issue of City Journal masterfully explains the defeat of Western civilization by DEI.


In previous issues, she lowered the boom on curators of two of America’s most important museums who regard the artistic treasures under their control as racist artifacts and use them as exhibits of white racism. I already knew that Western civilization was drawing its last breath, and her articles convinced me that destruction of the Western belief system was complete.

In her current article she explains that the left’s march through the institutions is now undoing classical music.

In his 12 years as conductor and artistic leader of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons revived the orchestra’s finances with rising ticket sales and earned the love and respect of the orchestra and public. The Boston Symphony had been impoverished by its management class. Mac Donald reports: “In 1965, the BSO had about half a dozen managerial staff serving 100 musicians–a ratio of roughly 14 instrumentalists to every administrator. By 2025, while the orchestra still consisted of about 100 musicians, the ratio of musicians to administrators was close to parity.”

The management class, of course, blamed difficulties on classical music’s lack of wide appeal and in an ill-considered decision hired DEI champion Chad Smith (not the famous rock drummer–he would have been better) as president and CEO of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the autumn of 2023. Less than two and one-half years later Andris Nelsons was removed for opposing subordination of standards to diversity.

Chad Smith’s position is that classical music does not “expansively and inclusively serve our communities.” He said that the orchestra was not serving young people who do not see themselves reflected in classical music. Smith’s enthusiasm was not for artistic merit and performance but for race- and gender-based programing and hiring. Artistic merit rang of white racism. The orchestra should be playing multicultural and multidisciplinary combinations of Arabic, Brazilian, and rap music, not isolating music by Mozart and Beethoven.

Nelsons had introduced some non-classical music into performances, but he was not prepared to sacrifice the core repertoire and artistic performance to “community values” of those with no appreciation for classical music. As for hearing “community voices,” Mac Donald asks the right question: “Isn’t classical music about hearing composers’ voices?”

Chad Smith’s intent of marching through the Boston Symphony is about transforming the orchestra from an artistic achievement into a babel of voices, and Chad Smith regarded Andris Nelsons as in the way of DEI’s war on merit.

The Boston Symphony paid a high price for the diversity that neither the musicians nor the audiences wanted. In 2025 the Leipzig Orchestra voted another 7 year extension of its contract with Nelsons as that orchestra’s chief conductor. Last June Nelsons was presented with Germany’s most prestigious musical award as Conductor of the Year.

Clearly, the board of the BSO consists of weak-minded and weak-willed non-entities who have betrayed a treasure entrusted to their care. DEI is taking another piece of civilization away from us. Hold on to your classical music records, tapes, and CDs as live performances of classical music are on their way out.

Ballet will be the next artistic performance to disappear from Western civilization. Ballet will probably continue to exist only in Russia as America advances down its path to becoming a Sodom & Gomorrah Tower of Babel.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle August 9 2026

Aug 092026
 
 August 9, 2026  Posted by at 10:05 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  42 Responses »


Claude Monet The Pond at Montgeron 1876


• Joint Chiefs Chair Pushing For Iran War Off-Ramp (ZH)
• Bessent Outlines Capital Markets Making the Strait of Hormuz Irrelevant (CTH)
• Iran’s Economy Is In Shambles As War Takes Its Toll (ZH)
• Trump Has Already Won in Iran, by Any Definition That Matters (Eric Florack)
• Iran Releases Video of Supreme Leader For ‘First Time’ – Except It’s Old (ZH)
• The Republic Will End in 2032 (Martin Armstrong)
• Long Before Trump Elected, Two Dozen Dem State AGs Plotted To Sue Him (JTN)
• How to Make a Political Fortune as a Far-Left Democrat (Turley)
• Abdul El-Sayed Is an American Tragedy (David Harsanyi)
• The Money Trail Behind Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed (CTH)
• Oxford Union Debate Debacle Exposes Real Limit Of Free Speech In Britain (MN)

 


 

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/2085821582136463641?s=20 https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/2085817213135827445?s=20 https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/2085872702095835337?s=20

 


 


“.. mounting pressure on President Trump to disengage the US armed forces from his failing, five-month war on Iran “

In other news today:

Iran’s Economy Is In Shambles..

Trump Has Already Won in Iran..

• Joint Chiefs Chair Pushing For Iran War Off-Ramp (ZH)

In another sign of mounting pressure on President Trump to disengage the US armed forces from his failing, five-month war on Iran, America’s top general has been carefully working with other Trump advisers to communicate that continued depletion of the Pentagon’s arsenal is unlikely to alter Iran’s stance, while escalation is likely to backfire, CNN reported on Friday evening, citing “sources familiar with the matter.”


Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine has been using side conversations with cabinet officials — including CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance — to ensure they have a shared, clear picture of the military situation before they meet with Trump, CNN’s sources say. Summing it up, one said, “Caine is looking for an off-ramp.”

In a July congressional hearing, Caine said “airpower has its limits.” Nicknamed “Razin Caine,” the general said to be reiterating that caution in his behind-the-scenes discussions with likeminded officials who think a major escalation of US attacks on Iran could cause disastrous fallout for the region and US interests.“There really isn’t much else to hit since it is whack-a-mole with drone and missile sites. Bombing power plants would be publicly a lot more significant,” one source said. Others said hitting Iranian infrastructure would likely rally the country’s citizens around the government — even more than the war has done already

Last weekend, the US military seemed poised to carry out Trump’s threat to unleash “the biggest attack since World War II,” but he called it off, at least in part because of profound concerns raised by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Iran had promised to wreak havoc up and down the Gulf. “The only ones in favor of the operation were elements of CENTCOM,” said one source, referring to the Pentagon’s Central Command, which is responsible for action in the Middle East. The source also pointed out that Israel also wants escalation of the war.

“I think it is just his way of protecting the military,” a source said about Caine’s cautionary campaign. In addition to squandering the lives of at least 18 US service members and wounding more than 600 more, the five-month Trump-Netanyahu war on Iran has severely depleted the US arsenal. Referring to Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), two sources this week told Reuters that “Washington has used virtually all of these weapons,” further substantiating earlier media reports and think tank studies that sounded alarms over dwindling munitions. It’s not just offensive weapons that are running out: Low air defense missile supplies are also of grave concern, particularly to Gulf states that would face what would likely be a devastating Iranian backlash to a major new US assault on Iran.

Earlier this year, one source criticized Caine for failing to pointedly counsel Trump on the pitfalls of taking on such a well-equipped and geologically-protected adversary. “He’s definitely pulling punches,” the source said then, adding that Caine was much more candid with fellow military officers than with his commander-in-chief. Now, Caine is apparently intensifying his approach. Though warning of the dwindling arsenal, Caine is said to have assured Trump that, if he does order a major escalation, the Pentagon could manage to cause plenty of destruction across Iran. However, it probably wouldn’t put a crack in Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz, much less substantially affect the nuclear situation that was fraudulently advanced as the casus belli — for decades: https://twitter.com/GBC_Press/status/2084705295142711521?s=20

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“What was once a geopolitical lever is being engineered into irrelevance. Bessent gets it: markets don’t absorb coercion; they arbitrage it away.”

• Bessent Outlines Capital Markets Making the Strait of Hormuz Irrelevant (CTH)

Secretary of State Scott Bessent gets it. When asked about the Strait of Hormuz, Bessent notes that yes, things will likely never return to the way they were before; however, there is a distinction that must be applied. Even if Iran completely acquiesced to all of the most stringent terms and conditions requested by President Trump, they will never again recapture the position they held with the Strait of Hormuz as a chokepoint.


Capital markets respond to risk in the medium and long term; risks are always mitigated. With the Strait now identified as a strategic risk, the emphasis will be on forever neutralizing that risk and avoiding the issue in the future. As a consequence, Iran’s strongest point of leverage is disappearing now and will continue to disappear. WATCH (prompted):

As further explained by James Thorne on X: “By repeatedly signaling its willingness to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran hasn’t strengthened its hand, it has accelerated the market’s exit. Capital does not tolerate chokepoints; it routes around them. Saudi Arabia is expanding its East-West pipeline. The UAE has already built out Fujairah as a bypass. Iraq is revisiting overland export corridors. Every marginal dollar now flows toward redundancy, not reliance. What was once a geopolitical lever is being engineered into irrelevance. Bessent gets it: markets don’t absorb coercion; they arbitrage it away.

Energy markets are not static, and they are not sentimental. The shale revolution already diluted OPEC’s grip. LNG has globalized gas. Now infrastructure is doing the same to maritime risk. Once these pipelines are built, they don’t get unbuilt. Volume shifts become permanent. Pricing power follows. Tehran’s miscalculation is classic: overplay a scarce asset, and the world invests to make it abundant. The more Iran rattles Hormuz, the faster it erodes the very leverage it seeks to exploit. In the end, this is not deterrence. It’s substitution and substitution, once funded, is irreversible. Iran is underwriting its own marginalization.“

A 40-year generational problem is being resolved forever!

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But: “.. his failing, five-month war on Iran..” Yeah Yeah

• Iran’s Economy Is In Shambles As War Takes Its Toll (ZH)

Despite the bluster from Iranian officials on social media, it should come as no surprise that the country is not doing well economically. From the beginning of the conflict to current day, Iran has been dealt an estimated $270 billion to $300 billion in total damage due to a steady barrage of strikes, including numerous infrastructure targets from bridges, highways, railways, airports, etc. The three-month-long US blockade on Iran’s oil exports have also taken a toll, with national oil output dropping from 2.2 million bpd to less than 300,000 bpd. It is likely that there has been some long term damage to the regime’s oil wells and they have lost approximately $6 billion in oil revenues so far.


With a general information blackout in place, getting a proper estimation of the damages can be difficult. However, in recent months many Iranian leaders and media sources have indicated a dangerous shift in the stability of the country. The situation has become so volatile that citizens are reportedly turning to theft in order to get their hands on basic necessities including food. Iranian newspaper Jahan-e Sanat has reported increased theft of basic groceries over recent months, with store workers linking the trend to rising poverty. Related reports say meat is in short supply, there is reduced consumption of staples, subsidy shortfalls, and broader poverty pressures.


Analysts note that while full state collapse or famine has not yet occurred, the combination of high food inflation, currency weakness and job losses is placing severe strain on households. Iran’s President, Masoud Pezeshkian, seemed to confirm the decline last week when he noted that the country was facing economic “difficulties and problems,” while claiming the enemy was trying to provoke protests. At Iran’s 33rd Conference on Monetary and Banking Policies (around June 2026), he questioned why people wake up to find their purchasing power has fallen and stated there are “hundreds of ways to overcome the economic impasse.” He noted that policymakers take people’s money and “return it with reduced value.”

Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati presented a recovery roadmap and acknowledged an ongoing GDP contraction. He stated that “the combination of war and cruel sanctions has posed serious challenges to the country’s economy. Most importantly, people’s livelihoods have been severely affected because various sectors of the economy have been impacted by sanctions.” He also cited inflation at around 53%, which appears to be a underestimation of the real currency destruction taking place. Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani has discussed infrastructure damage (e.g., bridges, tunnels, gas and electricity capacity losses), adjustments to gasoline rations, and challenges with subsidy payments disrupted by banking issues or cyberattacks.

These admissions are often wrapped in claims of resiliency despite the crisis, but the biggest danger (inflation) has yet to fully play out. SCI data for the Persian month of Khordad (ending ~June 21, 2026) showed overall year-on-year inflation of 88.6% (up from pre-escalation levels around 50%). Food inflation reached 134%, with oils/fats at 278%, red meat/poultry at 178%, and bread/cereals at nearly 139%.The rial hit record lows of around 1.5–1.9 million per USD at various points during the war. This has amplified import costs and eroded purchasing power.

Crippling infrastructure damage and currency devaluation might help to explain Iran’s desperate insistence on charging tolls in the Strait of Hormuz. If their oil industry is facing a multi-year setback and damage to infrastructure is extensive, tolls on shipping through the strait may be their only source of economic recovery.

Iranian citizens turning to theft to make ends meet is a far more profound issue than a similar trend would be in the US or Europe. In Iran, punishment for a first offense for theft of food is three months to one year of incarceration and up to 74 lashes. Multiple thefts can result in the amputation of fingers, life in prison or execution. The point is, stealing is no small matter in Iran and for people to turn to theft suggests extreme economic derailment.

Even if the war ends this week as negotiations reportedly carry forward, Iran faces a long and arduous road to recovery. It is likely that a collapse of the existing system is inevitable. Whether or not this actually leads to civil unrest as the regime fears is anyone’s guess.

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“Trump has a win, gang — a real one, with real barrels of oil and real dollars behind it and real peace being made, not a rhetorical win built on vibes and cable-news handwringing. ”

• Trump Has Already Won in Iran, by Any Definition That Matters (Eric Florack)

Ask ten people whether America is winning the Iran war, and you’ll get twelve different answers — not because they disagree on the facts, but because they’re quietly answering completely different questions while pretending to answer the same one. This war has now run past five months, with day-by-day tracking putting us at day 161 as of this week, and depending on which yardstick you grab, the exact same set of facts spits out wildly different verdicts.


And here’s what irritates me every single time: the people screaming “Trump has lost” have a very specific, very consistent full-time job — casting literally anything this president does as a failure, regardless of what actually happened on the ground. These aren’t analysts weighing evidence. They’re activists working backward from a conclusion they picked out months and years ago, before the first bomb was dropped. Politics isn’t a factor in their assessment. Politics is the entire assessment. Now let’s look at what actually happened, instead of what certain people needed to happen.

From a military standpoint, the United States and Israel can make a genuinely strong claim to success, and no amount of ill-motivated reasoning changes the scoreboard. The opening strikes on February 28 killed Ali Khamenei along with a swath of Iran’s senior military leadership, and the campaign flattened a long list of military and government targets outright. Israel has flown over Iranian airspace with relative freedom ever since. If winning means “we accomplished our stated objectives,” the tactical ledger tilts hard in this direction. Iran’s ability to bully its neighbors doesn’t come close to the muscle it flexed a year ago, and that gap isn’t closing anytime soon.

Then there’s the “ammunition” whining. Critics keep insisting we’ve drained our munitions stockpile down to dangerous levels, as if that’s supposed to land as some kind of gotcha. Here’s the part they conveniently skip: with Iran sitting in the wreckage it’s currently sitting in, our actual operational needs have dropped right alongside theirs. We don’t need what we needed on February 27, because the threat we needed it for doesn’t exist in the same form anymore. And every single time Iran fails to meet Trump’s demands, more of its remaining capability gets vaporized. Every time Iran’s rulers expose some new attempt at violent enforcement of their will, Trump takes it off the table, permanently, usually within hours.

Resolve in this case means making the victory we’ve already won permanent. That approach burns far less ammunition and spares far more lives than any alternative anyone’s seriously proposed. Funny how that detail never makes it into the wordy whines of “quagmire.”It comes down to this, plain and simple: The victor gets to define victory, and that’s us, not the people rooting against us. A year ago, Iran held the ability to yank over a fifth of the world’s energy supply off the table whenever it felt like throwing a tantrum. It can’t do that anymore. Full stop.

Look at what that actually means on the ground. The UAE, which watched its exports crater to 1.9 million barrels a day when this war opened, is now pumping close to 4 million barrels a day — past prewar levels, not just back to them. Regional flows overall have clawed back to roughly three-quarters of where they stood before Iran decided to play chokepoint games with the global economy. And the $200-a-barrel oil apocalypse every panic-merchant in the financial press was confidently predicting back in March? Never happened. Didn’t even come close. Crude settled back down near prewar territory instead, because the workarounds held and Iran’s leverage evaporated right along with its air defenses.

None of that happens by accident, and none of it happens without the campaign that put Iran in the position it’s currently in. Every barrel moving through Fujairah instead of getting held hostage in the Strait of Hormuz is a direct, measurable consequence of degrading Iran’s ability to make good on its threats. You don’t get to claim the oil markets stabilized in spite of the war. They stabilized because of it.

I’ll grant the critics one thing, since I try to play fair even with people who don’t return the favor: The polling on this war is genuinely ugly, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Approval numbers are underwater, allied publics aren’t thrilled, and nobody enjoys watching a war grind into its sixth month. But polling measures how a war feels while it’s happening. It doesn’t measure what the war actually accomplished. Those are two different questions, and only one of them matters five years from now, when historians are writing the actual ledger, instead of pollsters chasing this week’s mood.

And who is pushing the polling? Yeah, maybe that deserves some closer scrutiny. By and large, people who have been desperately trying to snag the president on any minutiae they can are selling them to us. Remember, these are the same inDUHviduals who claimed Trump had no chance of winning elections. You may recall how that turned out. Expecting a fair reading on these matters from that crowd is kinda like expecting gasoline to taste good.

Trump has a win, gang — a real one, with real barrels of oil and real dollars behind it and real peace being made, not a rhetorical win built on vibes and cable-news handwringing. And the naysayers, the Democrats wringing their hands on cable news and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) counting its losses back in Tehran, and the press alike, have exactly nothing of substance to say about it. Watch how fast the subject changes the next time someone brings up the actual numbers, instead of the force-fed poll of the week.

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The guy is pining for the fjords. But they need a religious leader. Let’s see what they come up with.

• Iran Releases Video of Supreme Leader For ‘First Time’ – Except It’s Old (ZH)

Update(2210ET): Iran’s state Mehr has purported to release video of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei for the ‘first time’ since the start of the war, and since he was wounded in a US-Israeli airstrike in the opening days of the attacks of over five months ago. The state-released footage is titled “First Images of the Leader” – and shows the Ayatollah addressing students, after months of speculation over his status, or whether he is even alive. He has not been seen or heard from directly since the war began, amid conflicting reports and accounts. The video has no date or location given. It appears to be in response to recent Israeli media reports alleging his deteriorating health.


However, analysts – as well as social media users in Iran – were quick to identify the footage as old material from his past lectures in Qom. This has in turn resulted in accusations of a cover-up, and that Tehran is in damage control concerning his status. For example, one hawkish US-based think tank researcher and pundit, Jason Brodsky, has commented on the released footage as follows: “This footage is old, from before the war. It was first circulating in March. It’s telling Iran’s regime’s Mehr News feels the need to circulate old video of Mojtaba.”

Foreign press reports, including Russian and Chinese state channels, have been reporting the footage soon on the heels of Iranian state media circulating it…

Proof that it is actually archived footage and not in reality recent ‘proof of life’ imagery…

:
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Is an interview a better format for him?

• The Republic Will End in 2032 (Martin Armstrong)

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Two dozen of them.

• Long Before Trump Elected, Two Dozen Dem State AGs Plotted To Sue Him (JTN)

Nearly two dozen state attorneys general banded together as early as April 2024 to plot litigation against President Donald Trump long before he was reelected, according to a confidential document obtained by The Center Square. The document was signed approximately three months before President Joe Biden exited the race and Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president. It was signed nearly seven months before Trump was reelected by 2.3 million more votes than Harris, almost nine months before he was inaugurated.


State attorneys general have sued the Trump Administration nearly 100 times since January 2025. The coordinated effort appears to have a nickname: the “Project for Federal Accountability.” Former Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who was a Republican when he was in office but now often votes for Democrats, said he believes the timing was unusual. He described signing similar documents during his tenure from 2001 through 2013, but not for any hypothetical lawsuits planned so far in advance of government action.

“That’s not normal at all,” Shurtleff said. “It’s a big selling point now. I get lots of emails from people running for attorney general, lots of texts and emails saying, ‘We’ve got to stop President Trump’ or ‘We’ve got to work together as state attorneys general. That’s why you need to give me money!’ and vice versa. It goes both ways… I don’t think that’s the best use of an attorney general’s time.”Not all of the lawsuits have been joined by each attorney general, and some offices take the lead on different cases. At last count, California Attorney General Rob Bonta has participated in 82 lawsuits. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has joined at least 75 lawsuits.

Washington State Attorney General Brown has joined 70 lawsuits. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has joined 46 lawsuits. At a news conference on Tuesday, Bonta stated the lawsuits are “apolitical.” He announced the lawsuits have cost California taxpayers $19 million and that he will continue to file them as needed. “If (Trump) doesn’t want to get sued, all he has to do is follow the law,” Bonta said. “I don’t think our cases are likely to be dismissed… Trump shows no sign of slowing down, so we will continue to sue him.”

So far, 11 cases have been closed in favor of the plaintiff and four cases dismissed in favor of the federal government, according to Just Security — a nonpartisan digital law and policy journal at New York University.The document, titled “PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL COMMON INTEREST AGREEMENT,” also incorporated plans to withhold some information from the public surrounding the lawsuits, indicating the parties “wish to pursue their common interest concerning Federal Accountability issues and litigation(s) addressing such issues, while avoiding any waiver of the confidentiality of those privileged materials.”

At least 22 Democratic attorneys general appear to have signed the common interest agreement. Zero Republican attorneys general appear to have signed it. Three Democratic attorneys general — in Oregon, Virginia and Wisconsin — have declined to say whether they signed the agreement. The Virginia Attorney General’s Office flipped from red to blue in January 2026. One year earlier, Pennsylvania went the opposite direction. Voters elected a Republican to succeed a Democrat in January 2025. Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday has not responded to questions asking whether his state remains part of the common interest agreement.

When attorneys general have sued prior administrations, it was typically after the administration took action — not before. For example, Shurtleff pointed to a 2012 lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) after its passage in March 2010. He was one of 22 Republican attorneys general who signed onto the case, which ended with a partial victory and partial defeat before the United States Supreme Court.

Seven attorneys general signed the common interest agreement on April 28, 2024, with District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s signature appearing first. California’s signature was left undated, and 13 other attorneys general joined in May or June 2024. Hawaii Attorney General Anne E. Lopez was the last known signatory on Nov. 12, 2024 — seven days after Trump won a second term. Trump secured enough delegates to become the presumptive Republican nominee in March 2024.

The majority of attorneys general who signed the agreement have declined to comment or answer questions. Some have downplayed the timing of the agreement or otherwise minimized the extent to which they had been preparing for litigation against the Trump Administration. “There is nothing particularly significant about that date,” wrote Richie Taylor, communications director for the Arizona Attorney General Mayes’ office. “The office has common interest agreements with Republican AG’s as well as Democratic AG’s depending on the litigation.”

Former Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who is now the state governor, announced one day after the election that his office had already been preparing potential litigation against Trump for “months.” “We knew from our extensive experience during his first term that we would need to be prepared from day one if he was reelected,” Ferguson said at the time. “My team has gone line-by-line through Project 2025 and has been tracking remarks by Trump on the campaign trail… A concern I have is that Donald Trump, I believe, and his administration, may well be better prepared on their end.”

The Center Square reached out to Ferguson’s office requesting an interview for this story but did not receive a response. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said the planning began “as soon as it was clear that Trump was going to get the nomination.” “We’re pleased that we responded before January 2025,” Brown told The Center Square in an interview. “We talked through a host of possibilities, and we wanted to be prepared, not to get caught off guard.” Brown said none of the lawsuits were filed before the 2024 election, and the attorneys general were not circumventing the will of voters.

“I don’t think we were going after him, or any AG was, because he hadn’t been elected (yet),” Brown said in an interview. Prominent Democrats who were not state attorneys general have supported the actions. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, described the planning efforts more simply and with more partisanship. “Look where we are now,” Kaine told The Center Square in an interview at the Capitol. “(The Democratic attorneys general) did what Republican attorneys general did with President Obama’s stimulus plan in 2009: ‘everything he’s for, we’re against.’”

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“Lie to People Who Want to be Lied to”

• How to Make a Political Fortune as a Far-Left Democrat (Turley)

A financial journalist once offered simple advice: “Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich…Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.” That axiom appears to have been taken to heart by radical Democratic candidates who this week issued transparent denials of past outrageous comments. Their calculus is clearly that the last thing that voters want to hear is the truth about their past views.


Certain cultural touchstones are considered inviolate in some states, such as beef in Texas. In 2022, Talarico said he was reducing his meat consumption as part of climate-related efforts. Texas Democratic Senatorial candidate James Talarico was roasted after a video surfaced of his calling to reduce meat consumption and “I am proud to say that our campaign has officially become a non-meat campaign. We are only buying vegan products from our local vegan businesses.”

The backlash was so great that Talarico has been eating whole cows to prove that he is not all-hat and no cattle. Obviously, lying about your positions is hardly a phenomenon confirmed to the far left. Many Republican candidates have also made painfully transparent pivots. However, the spins this week threaten to knock the planet off its axis. In Wisconsin, Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong seems to be coasting to a primary win despite radical views such as defunding police. In an episode of “Pod Save America,” Hong was asked about her 2020 statements declaring “police exist to uphold white supremacy” and “I support defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police.”

Hong responded with a convoluted spin: “My views have only become stronger in that I’m serious about public safety and I will not abolish the police.” Hong’s views on Thanksgiving took the axiom to a whole new level. Hong previously stated: “Cancel Thanksgiving. Should have done this in 1621. If it takes a worldwide pandemic for us to realize we should stop celebrating colonialism and the original superspreader event that killed Indigenous folx and women so be it.” That did not go over well in Wisconsin, only slightly better than coming out against cheese.

Hong did not deny her 2021 statement for weeks, including when confronted on CNN by host Kaitlan Collins. Asked directly if she still hated Thanksgiving, Hong offered her now much-ridiculed “I’m a chef” response, stating that, as a chef, she works to “bring more people to the table.” Hong seemed to morph into Chauncey Gardner from Being There in offering non-sequiturs of being a “very serious gardener.”

When that interview fell flat, Hong decided to lie and claim that she was just joking in 2021 and “loves” Thanksgiving, her now “favorite holiday.” No one reading her quote or her later interviews would believe that it was a joke. It was not a joke for weeks until her responses became a joke. Abdul El-Sayed skipped the transitional period and went straight to the lie in his controversy this week when a video surfaced of his saying how he hates the iconic Mackinac Island. Growing up in Chicago, one of my favorite things was to go with my family to the island, which is the quintessential small American town. I actually have never met anyone who hated Mackinac Island…until now.

In the video, El-Sayed states “I hate Mackinac so much. It’s funny cause, like, if we win, this is gonna be, like, the summer home. Every time I’ve ever come here I’ve hated it.”El-Sayed was clearly informed that declaring that you despise the most popular tourist location in Michigan is not a vote getter. So, El-Sayed simply told his supporters what they wanted to hear: you cannot believe your lying eyes and ears. His campaign issued a bizarre statement that sought to convert his controversial comments into his opposition to the elite and privileged class, saying that he was actually referring to the Mackinac Policy Conference which is simply an annual nonpartisan forum for public policy discussions.

El-Sayed claims that he was referring to the conference as being like a summer home for governors. He maintains that he was referring to a conference as the entire island. El-Sayed knows that it does not matter. He could have claimed that he was referring to hating Mackinac Island Pizza Company. It does not matter. His supporters do not want the baggage and he simply needed to unload it. With the election in November, the next predictable step will be for Hong to join El-Sayed on Mackinac Island for a public Thanksgiving dinner. Talarico will be on hand to carve the bird with enthusiasm.

The real problem is that these individuals spent years throwing red meat (or, in the case of Talarico, tofu) to the far left. These statements were not considered extreme or controversial until they found themselves speaking to a wider audience. Then they sounded just crazy. Moreover, some lies are unlikely to register with voters who may prefer to live in delusion. The fact that the Mamdani markets will ultimately sell the most expensive produce in New York is an inconvenient fact that is best ignored.

The model for far-left politicians appears to be Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger who ran as a moderate and then governed from the far left. Spanberger, for example, pledged not to gerrymander districts to eliminate all Republican districts and then immediately moved to do so. Many voters likely did not believe her on gerrymandering, taxes, or other broken pledges before the election. They just needed her to say it. So, you might have to visit Mackinac or feign enjoyment at Thanksgiving or barbeques for a few weeks. Then you can do a Spanberger.

Abraham Lincoln may have said “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” However, the fact is that you do not have to fool all of the people all of the time, just enough to win over the course of a few weeks.

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“..no one forced El-Sayed to appear with a Holocaust-denying, traitorous imam who holds vigils for terrorists and asks Allah “to grant victory to our brothers in Iran.”

• Abdul El-Sayed Is an American Tragedy (David Harsanyi)

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Democratic Senate nominee, grew up in an affluent suburb of Detroit. The median household income in his hometown of Rochester Hills, named after Revolutionary War hero Nathaniel Rochester, is roughly $120,000. Not bad. By the time El-Sayed graduated from the local high school, well over 95% of his classmates were also headed to college. At the University of Michigan, an institution co-founded by the Catholic priest Gabriel Richard and Presbyterian minister John Monteith, El-Sayed excelled, graduated with high honors, and delivered his class’s commencement speech.


After receiving a full scholarship to the University of Michigan Medical School, El-Sayed won a Rhodes Scholarship, a prestigious academic award named after Cecil Rhodes, a diamond mining magnate and champion of the British Empire. He then attended Oriel College — “The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” to be exact — at the University of Oxford, ultimately earning a Doctor of Medicine degree from Columbia University, a school named after the great Italian explorer Christopher Columbus.

Born into a society of unprecedented wealth built on American work ethic, capitalistic imagination, Christian ethical and communal norms, and liberal freedoms, El-Sayed won the generational lottery. Every step of his impressive career was sustained by foundational institutions of Western culture and American exceptionalism. El-Sayed didn’t adopt Third World Marxism because of his color or his circumstances. He is one of the luckiest people to ever live. He is an extremist by choice.Our meritocratic system, imperfect as it may be, offered El-Sayed the opportunity to parlay prodigious intelligence into a very good living, advancing Western medical science or caring for his community. Instead, he’s chosen to degrade the nation.

El-Sayed’s movement, the people who support him most vociferously, want to abolish not only constitutional governance, eliminating virtually every institution, but also to get rid of our capitalistic system, and import Third World bigotry and violence. Marxists and the Islamists share a deeply illiberal and anti-Christian outlook, but they also share a near-universal antisemitism. In virtually every Islamic majority nation, even ones where there are no Jews, over 90% of the population is antisemitic.A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 44% of American Muslims expressed a favorable opinion of Hamas, a group that has murdered dozens of Americans.

This is the culture El-Sayed fosters. Virtually every day, the candidate spreads some medieval conspiracy about the “genocidal,” “bloodthirsty” and “evil” disposition of world Jewry.Yet, at the same time, El-Sayed won’t take a public stand on the death of America’s enemy, terrorist leader and mass murderer Ali Khamenei, for fear of insulting his constituents. If this is true, and we have no reason to believe otherwise, there is something deeply wrong and un-American happening in this country. Judging from his friends, there is something deeply wrong with El-Sayed, as well.

After all, no one forced El-Sayed to appear with a Holocaust-denying, traitorous imam who holds vigils for terrorists and asks Allah “to grant victory to our brothers in Iran.” No one forced El-Sayed to closely ally with Hasan Piker, a man who believes 3,000 innocent Americans deserved to die on 9/11, who wants the streets to “soak in red capitalist blood,” and who says he holds no patriotic feeling for America but celebrates mass murderers such as Mao Zedong. At this point, even if El-Sayed condemned Piker, which he hasn’t, no one should believe it.

Of course, when El-Sayed empathizes with an American Islamic terrorist who attempted to murder a kindergarten filled with Jewish children in Michigan — “hurt people hurt people” — he gives the game away. The truth is that El-Sayed’s Islamic background makes him especially appealing to the Democratic Socialists of America wing of the Left. But he isn’t a first-generation immigrant worth celebrating. Indeed, he should know better. In his commencement speech at Michigan, El-Sayed claimed that one of the hallmarks of the “American dream” was an “audacity to believe we can change this world.”

If El-Sayed really wants to “change the world,” the place to start is Cairo, Khartoum or Damascus, not Ann Arbor. As the writer Hussain Abdul Hussain retorted, changing America is “a nightmare, one that I left behind and came to America to live the American Dream, as a proud Arab who believes in America, not in changing it.” Like El-Sayed, and millions of others, I also won a generational lottery. My parents fled European socialism and fascism. While I may or may not be hopelessly wrong on a host of issues, I have zero interest in importing any of the detestable, failed philosophies or ancient prejudices of the wider world.

That, however, seems to be El-Sayed’s mission.

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Watch out!

• The Money Trail Behind Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed (CTH)

Some people have started looking at the Muslim Brotherhood network similarities behind Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in 2026 and the former Illinois Senate candidacy of Barack Hussein Obama. Indeed, if you look at the political timeline, there is a comparative similarity between a mid-term senate race (Obama in ’06) and El-Sayed in ’26; with politically higher aspirations for 2028.In this video, Promethean Action PAC’s Barbara Boyd looks at the money behind the New York mayor and the Michigan senate candidate. Strong ties to the Brotherhood.


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“He held up the envelope and indicated it contained a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad. The chamber erupted in frantic attempts to stop him opening it.” “..the West should resist Islam “in the strongest terms on free-speech grounds alone.”

• Oxford Union Debate Debacle Exposes Real Limit Of Free Speech In Britain (MN)

In the heart of the Oxford Union, a supposed bastion of open debate, a single brown paper envelope triggered pure panic. Commentator Laurence Fox stood to argue that the West is right to be suspicious of Islam. He held up the envelope and indicated it contained a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad. The chamber erupted in frantic attempts to stop him opening it. Rules were suddenly invoked. Relevance was questioned. Respect was demanded. The Muslim president of the Union interjected that her very presence should have been enough to persuade Fox that Muslims believe in free speech.


“My wife asked me not to show this for fear of repercussions for my family,” Fox said. “But I told her that if I did not, I would have submitted to Islam.” He continued that the West should resist Islam “in the strongest terms on free-speech grounds alone.” Fox opened the envelope and revealed a cartoon of Rees-Mogg. Laughter and applause followed. The fear that had gripped the room evaporated the instant it became clear the image did not depict Muhammad. In that moment the argument was settled more effectively than any speech could manage.

The debate took place under the motion “This House believes the West is right to be suspicious of Islam.” Speaking for the motion were actor and free-speech campaigner Laurence Fox, Tommy Robinson, and writer Jonathan Sacerdoti. Against them stood Oxford Union president Arwa Elrayess, a 20-year-old Muslim of Palestinian heritage from Gaza, Rees-Mogg, and others. Outside, left-wing protesters tried to block entry. Inside, the atmosphere was already charged.

Fox made free speech the centrepiece of his case. He cited polling showing that 78 percent of British Muslims believe no publication should print pictures of Muhammad, rising higher among some groups. He noted that Britain had long abandoned its own blasphemy laws. Then he produced the envelope. Jacob Rees-Mogg, speaking against the motion, reached for procedure, recalling that as a former Union librarian he believed props were against the rules. Others in the audience scrambled for any technicality that might prevent the image from appearing. The chair eventually ruled that props were permitted.

Jonathan Sacerdoti, who spoke alongside Fox that night, later described the episode in The Spectator. The opposition and their guests, he wrote, “squirmed in discomfort, terrified at the very suggestion a drawing of Mohamed might soon be unveiled.”When the real image appeared, the relief was palpable. “It seems we had found the limit of free speech they had all denied existed. That limit was Islam.” Elrayess had positioned herself as a defender of open debate by inviting the motion and the speakers in the first place. She told the chamber:

“Free speech and debate is not something I do despite being a Muslim, it is something I do because of it.” Yet when the practical test arrived – the possibility of a Muhammad cartoon – the institutional machinery of the Union moved to stop it. The title of president was offered as proof of principle even as the principle itself was being restricted in real time.

Fox’s point lands without further explanation: the taboo is real, the fear is real, and the clever arguments about compatibility evaporate the moment the cartoon is threatened. This is not an abstract philosophical dispute. Britain has already seen teachers driven into hiding for showing Muhammad cartoons in classrooms. Publications and individuals face credible threats for the same act. The Oxford Union, with its historic claim to be a last redoubt of free speech, demonstrated in real time that the same constraint operates even among those who insist no such constraint exists.

Fox closed his demonstration with a clear declaration. “So it is in that spirit that I will not submit. I show you this as an Englishman who believes in free speech. I will not submit. I will not bow down.” The image he actually showed was of a British politician. The image that produced terror was the one everyone understood could not be shown.

The motion was defeated in the chamber that night. The larger argument was not. Free speech that collapses the moment it risks offending one particular religious sensitivity is not free speech at all. It is a managed privilege granted on condition of silence. The Oxford Union’s panicked reaction to a piece of paper proved the case more cleanly than any speech could. The West has every reason to notice when its most elite institutions flinch.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/WallStreetApes/status/2085560883020026021?s=20 https://twitter.com/PrivateReports/status/2085791980442075523?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle June 4 2026

Jun 042026
 
 June 4, 2026  Posted by at 9:37 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  27 Responses »


Herbert James Draper A Deep Sea Idyll 1902(?!)


• Trump Says He’d Like To Meet Iran’s New Supreme Leader (ZH)
• Iran’s War Math Still Doesn’t Add Up (David Manney)
• IRGC Says Trump Ongoing Talks Narrative ‘Not Reality (ZH)
• “Next Month, Next Quarter, Next Year” (Schwartz)
• Tulsi Gabbard Gives Us a Heartfelt Update on Her Husband’s Health (Anderson)
• Day 2: Rubio Enters a Hostile Clown Show (Sarah Anderson)
• Marco Rubio Went to Capitol Hill Today, and the Smackdown Was Brutal (Anderson)
• Marco Rubio Testimony to Senate Foreign Relations Committee (CTH)
• Supreme Court AGAIN Rules in Favor of Alabama’s Pro-GOP Map (Salgado)
• Just How Crazy Mamdani’s Housing Scheme Really Is (Spencer)
• Why Is Ukraine So Eager To Start A New War? (Vitaly Ryumshin)
• SpaceX Reportedly Targets $135 IPO Price (ZH)
• Is This a Sign a Supreme Court Vacancy Is Coming Soon? (Margolis)
• COVID-19 Was Spread Intentionally on Multiple Continents (Korsgaard)

 


 

https://twitter.com/JasonJournoDC/status/2062163095334654319?s=20 https://twitter.com/TrumpDailyPosts/status/2061952291469693079?s=20

 


 


“After three days their military was virtually wiped out. And then if you read the New York Times you think they‘re doing fantastically.”

“It’s good if they‘re confused, and the Iranians are confused..”

• Trump Says He’d Like To Meet Iran’s New Supreme Leader (ZH)

After US-Israeli strikes assassinated the last longtime Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, President Trump says he would like to meet the new one. Trump said he “would like to meet” Iran’s Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, in an interview published Wednesday. In surprising remarks, Trump told the New York Post’s Pod Force One: “I would like to meet him, and we probably will meet at some point, depending on how it all works out.” Trump reasoned that “They’ve already agreed they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon” – suggesting this could be the basis for new direct diplomatic engagement.


And yet the Iranians have already for years consistently stated they were never intent on achieving a nuclear bomb. All recent high level US intelligence community assessments have tended to support the claim that Iran was not seeking a nuke before the attacks of June as well as March into April, under Operation Epic Fury. But Trump has also dismissed the intelligence, insisting that Iran was ‘very close’ before the US-Israeli interventions. While Trump is now expressing openness to meeting the Ayatollah – who is said to be in hiding and only having limited, low-tech communications with his officials, for fear of being tracked by the CIA or Mossad – the Supreme Leader himself has not voiced a desire for such a meeting.

Tehran at this moment doesn’t appear in the mood for ‘talking’ – and has lately said it is ready to let its military retaliation and response do the ‘negotiating’. The US President once again made claims about the text of the possible agreement. He claimed that “Iran has agreed not to acquire nuclear weapons.” –Bloomberg This seems another element of confused messaging from the White House, which has many times denounced the Ayatollah and his regime as ‘murderous’ and ‘evil’ and a ‘tyrant’ – and yet now Trump apparently wants to sit down with him for tea time or something.

Trump in the NY Post interview actually addressed the general atmosphere of confusion and contradictions from his administration, and from him personally. “It’s good if they‘re confused, and the Iranians are confused,” Trump stated. He added: “But no, it‘s just the way I am. It changes. I could leave here, I could give you an answer, and then in 20 minutes go into the Oval Office and I’ll realize my answer is now incorrect. Facts change and things change quickly.” In this context, he went on to defend the controversial decision to go to war in the first place, saying it could not have been delayed as Iran was on the brink of having a nuclear weapon.

“I couldn‘t, I know because this is too important. If I did that, they would have had a nuclear weapon. They would have had a nuclear weapon two weeks after the B-2 bomber struck. So if I did that, they would have had a nuclear weapon.” Trump: “He’s missing a lot of different parts.” He again in the interview called it a necessary “excursion” – saying, “They‘re not going to have a nuclear weapon, lots of other good things are going to happen.” From the interview, on the question of boots on the ground in Iran… “You don‘t need boots on the ground right now. We wiped out much of their military with just bombing.

After three days their military was virtually wiped out. And then if you read the New York Times you think they‘re doing fantastically.” Trump elsewhere addressed the controversial Axios report which said Trump ‘steamrolled’ Israeli PM Netanyahu in a phone call. Per Bloomberg, “Trump said he swore at Benjamin Netanyahu in a call this week as the president tried to deescalate fighting in Lebanon and keep peace talks with Iran on track.” “I did,” Trump said, acknowledging he chastised his ally. “I wouldn\t say angry. I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon, ` you know.”

Read more …

“Tehran tried to create a spectacle, while Washington created a result.”

• Iran’s War Math Still Doesn’t Add Up (David Manney)

Reckless, stupid, crazy, or crazy like a fox. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps managed to check the first three boxes Tuesday night, but it never came close to checking the fourth.Iran fired ballistic missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain, where American forces and regional partners help hold the line in a region Tehran keeps trying to bully. U.S. Central Command said two missiles fired toward Kuwait fell short or broke apart in flight, while U.S. and Bahraini forces intercepted three missiles aimed at Bahrain.American forces also knocked down Iranian drones threatening civilian shipping and struck an Iranian military ground-control station on Qeshm Island near the Strait of Hormuz. From the South China Morning Post:


Two Iranian missiles shot at Kuwait fell short or broke apart in-flight, several ballistic missiles aimed at regional targets failed and three missiles heading for Bahrain were intercepted, US Central Command said. Since the conflict began in late February, Iran has repeatedly attacked targets in Bahrain and Kuwait, where US military bases are located. Central Command said US forces also downed Iranian drones targeting civilian shipping in regional waters and carried out strikes on Qeshm Island near the Strait of Hormuz in response to the attempted attacks by Iran.

In a statement carried by the official IRNA news agency, the Revolutionary Guards claimed they had struck the US military installations in response to the strike on Qeshm Island. Give Tehran credit for one thing: it found a way to turn a missile attack into a regional safety demonstration. Kuwait and Bahrain got sirens, nervous families, air defenses, and another reminder that Iran doesn’t only threaten Americans when it lashes out; it threatens every neighbor forced to live near its tantrums. President Donald Trump has kept pressure on Iran while leaving room for talks, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers sanctions relief would require Iran to give up its nuclear activity.

Iran, meanwhile, keeps acting as if leverage means firing expensive hardware into the sky and hoping nobody notices when gravity, air defenses, and American readiness ruin their show. The latest episode followed claims from Iranian sources that Tehran had stopped communicating with mediators about extending a ceasefire. President Trump disputed those claims and said talks continued. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has tried to wrap Tehran’s demands in diplomatic language, but missiles aimed toward Gulf neighbors speak more clearly than any prepared statement. Any regime that pauses diplomacy to launch weapons tells the world which tools it trusts the most.

Iran’s leaders seem trapped in the same old loop; they provoke, threaten, launch, miss, deny, and then announce some grand moral victory to whoever still has the patience to listen. The missiles and drones fail, the bases remain, and the regime still expects applause from its propaganda machine. Somewhere in Tehran, somebody probably stamped the operation a success because the printer still had ink. Behind the noise sits a colder reality; Iran’s economy keeps bleeding. Its people keep paying for the ambition of clerics and commanders who confuse defiance with competence.

It’s been rough for the regime’s people; Iran’s Central Bank put year-over-year inflation at 77.2% in May, with daily and general needs up 113.8% from the year before. One would think that leaders with any semblance of sanity and common sense might want fewer missiles and more bread, but Tehran has never shown much talent for learning from the pain it causes its own people.American restraint also deserves notice. U.S. forces answered direct threats without turning the Gulf into a free-fire zone. They destroyed incoming threats, protected American troops, helped partners, guarded shipping, and hit the control node tied to Iran’s aggression.

Tehran tried to create a spectacle, while Washington created a result. Iran’s latest missile show revealed rage, not genius. The IRGC wanted fear and delivered embarrassment, also wanting leverage, and handed Gulf partners another reason to tighten ranks with the United States. It wanted to prove strength and instead proved that American defenses, allied coordination, and steady nerves still carry weight.Crazy like a fox requires cunning. Iran brought fireworks, failure, and the same old appetite for humiliation. It’s past time for the U.S. to put the regime out of its misery and help the Iranian people.

Read more …

IRGC tries to lead the conversation.

• IRGC Says Trump Ongoing Talks Narrative ‘Not Reality (ZH)

State media statement on Wednesday: IRGC-linked Tasnim claims Tehran has frozen all back-channel communication with Washington over Israeli operations in Lebanon, directly contradicting Trump’s assertion that messages are arriving daily from Iran. Tasnim: “Trump’s claim that Iran is confirming the issue is completely different from reality.” Iran’s Foreign Minister is meanwhile articulating that Iran will lay down some new red lines via military strikes, which he has dubbed ‘self-defense’ in nature…


President Donald Trump is still trying to present some bright spots, telling NY Post he believes the situation in the Strait of Hormuz will “resolve itself fairly quickly” and went so far to say he expects to meet with Iran’s supreme leader “at some point.”

Major Attack on Kuwait International Airport: One Dead, 63 Injured
Kuwait International Airport has come under Iranian missile and drone attack on Wednesday, in a significant strike that killed one person and left 63 people injured – according to the country’s health ministry, with several of the victims being seriously wounded. A passenger terminal was directly struck, damaging facilities including diplomatic missions at the airport, Kuwaiti authorities have said. Area hospitals conducted seven major emergency surgeries following the incident, underscoring that it was a mass casualty event.

Kuwaiti defense ministry spokesperson Brig Gen Saud Abdulaziz Al-Atwan described the attack as “criminal Iranian aggression which resulted in significant material damage to the building and injuries.” It confirmed engaging 13 missiles and 17 drones total which were fired from Iran. Civil aviation authorities immediately suspended traffic and transferred arriving flights to separate unaffected airports after “terminal one came under Iranian attacks causing casualties and damage.” The cross-border airport attack came after violent exchanges of fire between the US and Iran, which at first looked like limited one-off incidents, but then became an extended tit-for-tat.

The Overnight Catalyst: US-Iran Exchange Fire in Hormuz
Overnight, the US military deployed a Hellfire missile to disable a tanker attempting to bypass the American blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. Following the intercept, American forces engaged in a wider kinetic exchange, stating they repelled subsequent Iranian reprisal strikes across the region and launched retaliatory attacks against military sites on Iran’s Qeshm Island.

In response, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) claimed it launched a missile and drone barrage targeting the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain – an assertion that Central Command (CENTCOM) has explicitly denied. The IRGC had also sent several missiles on two US bases in Kuwait, which were said to have been intercepted.

GCC Blasts ‘Cowardly Attacks’
Serous damage and chaos at Kuwait International Airport: The Gulf Cooperation Council has in response slammed Iran for their “ongoing aggression” against member states Bahrain and Kuwait, denouncing the “cowardly attacks on civilian objects” which mark a “dangerous and unprecedented escalation.” But Tehran is not backing down and is instead issuing further hardline warnings and threats, per Al Jazeera citing state media:

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says retaliatory strikes “should serve as a lesson” for the United States after it fired a barrage of missiles and drones at Kuwait and Bahrain. While Iran’s foreign ministry is warning that the overnight US assault on Qeshm Island continues a severe breach of the ceasefire, President Trump is saying that “conversations between us have been going on continuously” – in reference to the Iranians.

Read more …

By Molly Schwartz, cross-asset macro strategist at Rabobank

• “Next Month, Next Quarter, Next Year” (Schwartz)

In a tense Congressional Hearing before the foreign relations committee, Marco Rubio defended the Trump Administration’s war in Iran, praising the success of US military operations destroying Iranian military and nuclear facilities. He also said that a deal with Iran could happen “today, tomorrow, or next week.” However, the recent military escalations between the US and Iran, the refusal of Israel and Hezbollah to cooperate, and reports of Pezeshkian’s resignation — leaving Iran in the hands of the IRGC — mean that a deal seems to lie more on the horizon of next month, next quarter, or maybe even next year.


Our base case that we see passage through the Strait disrupted for at least three more months still stands as we have yet to see any tangible headlines to suggest an accelerated timeline. The negotiations currently lie in Iran’s hands, as Bloomberg reports Iran’s Mehr news saying that “officials in Tehran are discussing their ‘final text’ to send to the US.” One might be hesitant to truly deem this text as “final” (if it even exists), as it may be more of a “final_v3.doc”, or a “final_FINAL_v6.doc”, or even a “final_FINAL_totallyforrealthistime.doc”.

The most promising resolution right now is that the IRGC remains in power, but enriched uranium is handed over to an executor, like China, though we have yet to see any confirmed updates that this is a feasible solution that Iran would actually agree to at this juncture. The extended 60-day ceasefire is still ongoing, while both the US and Iran are dedicated to keeping the Strait closed and exchanging fire. CENTCOM posted on X today to show off the USS Abraham Lincoln enforcing the US blockade, which has apparently redirected 122 vessels to “ensure compliance.”

Yesterday, Trump slammed Vulcan’s Hammer on the AI industry, signing an executive order, “Promoting Advanced Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Security.” The executive order lauds how the administration has “unleashed tremendous technological growth and economic investment in AI by slashing the bureaucratic constraints that the prior administration placed on America’s AI developers and researchers, and by instead encouraging AI innovation and accelerating responsible AI adoption across government and industry.”

Part of the executive order is intended to support the AI industry, seeking to utilize AI in federal cybersecurity programs, and utilize AI models (potentially Mythos?) to pinpoint vulnerabilities. However, the order also seeks to impose new restrictions, likely in response to the emergency meeting triggered by Mythos a few months ago. This includes lots of classified processes and frameworks to make sure that an evil AI model, the likes of that in a Philip K. Dick novel, doesn’t usurp the American government as the presiding force leading the world’s global hegemon (or more likely, making sure these models can’t be used to hack into sensitive government websites).

The process is referred to as a “voluntary framework” so that AI developers can submit their new models to the government 30 days before release to the public. Though the order also clarifies that “nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize the creation of a mandatory governmental licensing, preclearance, or permitting requirement for the development, publication, release, or distribution of new AI models, including frontier models.”

Read more …

“Both Tulsi and Abraham are in our prayers.”:

• Tulsi Gabbard Gives Us a Heartfelt Update on Her Husband’s Health (Anderson)

On Tuesday morning, outgoing Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard posted a video on social media to let her followers know that her husband, Abraham Williams, was having surgery. She appears to be standing outside the hospital.


“Good morning. We’re getting ready to head into the hospital now for Abraham’s surgery,” Gabbard says. “And I just wanted to take a moment to say ‘thank you’ with all of our hearts to all of you who have shared such beautiful messages and prayers and well wishes for Abraham. We’re truly humbled and so grateful to be surrounded by so much aloha from all of you during this tough time. Aloha.”

Here’s the video:

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/2061788108727705658?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2061788108727705658%7Ctwgr%5E5949055dbcd121e1d76cc6b15d37bb92257dad88%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F02%2Ftulsi-gabbard-gives-us-a-heartfelt-update-on-her-husbands-health-n4953508

While Gabbard hasn’t posted an update since, her father, Mike Gabbard, who is a state senator in Hawaii, did post on X on Tuesday afternoon to let followers know that “Abraham is out of surgery and all went well.” He included a beautiful picture of the couple.

If you’ll recall, back in May, Gabbard announced that she was resigning from her position as DNI to spend more time with her husband who was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. “Unfortunately, I must submit my resignation, effective June 30, 2026,” she said after thanking the president for the opportunity. “My husband, Abraham, has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer. He faces major challenges in the coming weeks and months. At this time, I must step away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle.”

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/2057876821421527476?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2057876821421527476%7Ctwgr%5E5949055dbcd121e1d76cc6b15d37bb92257dad88%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F02%2Ftulsi-gabbard-gives-us-a-heartfelt-update-on-her-husbands-health-n4953508

Williams, who keeps a fairly low profile, is actually a cinematographer, photographer, and filmmaker, and the two met in 2012 when he did some work for her congressional campaign. Both are avid surfers, and he eventually proposed to her on a surfboard. They were married in April 2015 in Hawaii.

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1910168836550303992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1910168836550303992%7Ctwgr%5E5949055dbcd121e1d76cc6b15d37bb92257dad88%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F02%2Ftulsi-gabbard-gives-us-a-heartfelt-update-on-her-husbands-health-n4953508

He’s been by her side through her time in Congress, multiple political campaigns, and her time spent in the Donald Trump administration. She calls him her “rock” and best friend.

“Abraham has been my rock throughout our eleven years of marriage — standing steadfast through my deployment to East Africa on a Joint Special Operations mission, multiple political campaigns and now my service in this role,” she wrote in her resignation letter last month. “His strength and love have sustained me through every challenge. I cannot in good conscience ask him to face this fight alone while I continue in this demanding and time-consuming position.”

Personally, I have to add that I’ve been a big Tulsi fan for years — she won me over in 2019 when she owned Kamala Harris during a primary debate when they were both running for president. I hate that we are losing her as a public servant for now, but I am glad she is able to take the time to support her husband as he fights this battle. Both Tulsi and Abraham are in our prayers.

Read more …

Not his first clown rodeo…

• Day 2: Rubio Enters a Hostile Clown Show (Sarah Anderson)

“Is this the Foreign Affairs Committee, or is this a circus?” That quote from Secretary of State Marco Rubio pretty much sums up what happened on Wednesday morning when he testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the FY27 Department of State Budget Request. In case you missed it, this is Rubio’s second day of hearings on Capitol Hill, and what he’s had to deal with so far today makes yesterday look tame. These Congress critters aren’t serious people. On Tuesday, I joked that it’s more like “Democrats, who were supposed to be asking questions, talked at Rubio and complained about everything Donald Trump does without giving the secretary a chance to respond.”


Wednesday was more of that — this isn’t even a hearing, Rubio said — but the “questioning” went beyond foreign policy, whether it was the lady criticizing the secretary’s shoes or the guy playing video upon video of Donald Trump’s so-called “cognitive decline.” I’ve never seen anything like it. Again, I’m just going to have to let the video clips speak for themselves because I don’t even know how to explain it anymore than saying “Congress is a clown show.”

Where to even start? Here’s Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.) getting mad that Rubio didn’t mention Ukraine in his opening remarks and talking to the secretary like he’s a toddler. For what it’s worth, Keating was one of the first to speak, and I guess this set the tone for the entire “circus.” This is only a short clip, but there was a lot of yelling.

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2062191973604204700?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2062191973604204700%7Ctwgr%5E546fb9583372a698ed9c56b512c81b898bcb8bcf%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F03%2Frubio-enters-the-clown-show-aka-congress-and-you-just-have-to-see-this-n4953535

Next, I’ll go with the most ludicrous of interactions: Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) spending his entire five minutes playing videos of Trump “sleeping” during his “North Korea-style” Cabinet meetings and proof of his “cognitive decline,” and Rubio’s rightfully incredulous response. The secretary joked that Lieu fancies himself a medical expert and went on to explain how the president has more energy than people much younger than him and how he calls him at all hours of the night. Pop your popcorn. This one’s good:

https://twitter.com/OffThePress1/status/2062206241951105050?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2062206241951105050%7Ctwgr%5E546fb9583372a698ed9c56b512c81b898bcb8bcf%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F03%2Frubio-enters-the-clown-show-aka-congress-and-you-just-have-to-see-this-n4953535

Then there was Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) who felt the need to use her time talking about who won the 2020 election and… Rubio’s shoes. Seriously.

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2062198413140136178?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2062198413140136178%7Ctwgr%5E546fb9583372a698ed9c56b512c81b898bcb8bcf%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F03%2Frubio-enters-the-clown-show-aka-congress-and-you-just-have-to-see-this-n4953535

One congresswoman said her bit, which included calling Rubio the “overlord” of Venezuela, and then she simply got up and left before he could respond. Here’s his response:

As I’m writing this, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Penn.) is calling Rubio a “comedy show” because he’s trying to answer her questions. This is giving me a headache — I can only imagine how the secretary feels. I’d share some of the actual substance that was discussed, but, well, there wasn’t much. With few exceptions, the only time Rubio actually got to answer any questions was when the Republican members of the House allowed him some of their time to do so. It was pretty shameful.

The hearing is actually still going on, and there’s another one on Wednesday afternoon — I’ll take one for the team and watch that too and bring you any noteworthy sound bites — but I think this gives you an idea of how things have gone. I’ll end on a fun note. Rubio continued his run of using rap lyrics during his public appearances. Today, it was a line from Kanye West’s “Stronger.”

Unfortunately, he didn’t take my previous advice and use “Mo Money, Mo Problems,” but I was still amused.

Read more …

Much more coming.,.

• Marco Rubio Went to Capitol Hill Today, and the Smackdown Was Brutal (Anderson)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio made his way back to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs on the FY27 Department of State Budget Request. It went as these things usually do: Democrats, who were supposed to be asking questions, talked at Rubio and complained about everything Donald Trump does without giving the secretary a chance to respond. And he, as he usually does, handled it with intelligence, wit, and… actual information with context.


Honestly, it’s almost boring at this point — I believe Rubio thinks so too. After finishing his opening remarks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he ended with, “So anyways, I look forward to your questions. At least that’s what it says here. I’m not sure if I really look forward to your questions. I look forward to probably half your questions.” A couple of things I noted: The Democrats must have gotten together and decided they’d all coordinate when talking about Iran. Nearly every single one referred to it as “Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran.” (You can’t see me, but I’m rolling my eyes.)

I also noted that these Democrats love to talk about how many people have allegedly died due to the end of USAID and the restructuring of how we handle humanitarian aid around the world — for what it’s worth, their numbers are false — but they seem to turn a blind eye to the people who die at the hands of the regimes in countries like Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba, as well as at the hands of narco-terrorists, cartels, and criminal groups around the globe, and get mad that the United States is intervening to stop this. You can’t have it both ways, but I digress. Let’s get to a few highlights from the hearings.

The biggest smackdown of the day was when Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) decided to accuse Rubio of partying the night away while JD Vance was working on negotiations with Iran. She kept talking about him being at some “party” with President Trump. Rubio asked her what party she was referring to, but she couldn’t quite come up with an answer and continued with her accusations, asserting that while he was at this party, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff — two people who were never confirmed for this by the U.S. Congress, she says — were doing his job. The secretary did not take that sitting down.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about! I know your staff wrote up this cute statement for TikTok, but it’s not true. And it’s not real. That’s not what happened,” Rubio said. He explained that he was not at a party; he was on the phone constantly with all parties involved and “co-located with the president in the midst of a high stakes negotiation so that I could immediately inform him about events occurring halfway around the world.”

For what it’s worth, I believe she’s referring to the UFC fight in Miami. Trump made an appearance, and Rubio was there with some of his children, but it was widely reported that the secretary spent most of the night on the phone and keeping the president updated on what was going on in the Middle East. Here’s the video. This exchange is a must-watch:

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2061849591780135052?s=20

I’m not going to get too deep into everything the Congress critters talked about, but I do want to highlight a few more important exchanges, like this one in which Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) made up a bunch of stuff about Iran that was giving me Kamala Harris word salad vibes.

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2061841598649180172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2061841598649180172%7Ctwgr%5E4be138b21dd4974e9e0dfe8e5ca1c9c6589b0409%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F02%2Fmarco-rubio-went-to-capitol-hill-today-and-the-smackdown-was-brutal-n4953499

And then there was Sen. Chris “Margaritas in El Salvador” Van Hollen, who seemed oddly nervous during the entire thing — possibly because he remembers how Rubio owned him last time they did this. If you’ll recall, he told Rubio he regretted voting for him, and Rubio replied, “Your regret voting for me confirms I’m doing a good job.” Van Hollen started out by saying that Trump’s entire foreign policy was a “dumpster fire” and then went on to spew a bunch of leftists lies about, well, pretty much everything. Anyway, here are a couple of their exchanges for your viewing pleasure.

https://twitter.com/StephenGardnerX/status/2061850629187031273?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2061850629187031273%7Ctwgr%5E4be138b21dd4974e9e0dfe8e5ca1c9c6589b0409%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F02%2Fmarco-rubio-went-to-capitol-hill-today-and-the-smackdown-was-brutal-n4953499

Something else Rubio tried to hammer home to these people during these hearings is that the State Department is doing what’s in the United States’ best interests. It’s all common sense, but as we know, many Democrats lack that. I’ll leave you with a few of those videos.

Read more …

” Just like Q-Anon advocate Mike Flynn recently taking a job that pays him $100,000/month to lobby for the Republic of Srpska (aka ‘Serb Republic’..”

• Marco Rubio Testimony to Senate Foreign Relations Committee (CTH)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The U.S. Senate as a whole and members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee specifically, have lost millions of dollars wealth for themselves and their families as a result of Rubio eliminating USAID. As a consequence, while they cannot publicly showcase that specific motive for opposition, the committee as a whole is not happy about losing a substantial portion of their stakeholder interests.


The families of all the senate committee members exist inside the think tanks, NGOs, political orgs, PACs and lobbyist companies for various foreign governments. Just like Q-Anon advocate Mike Flynn recently taking a job that pays him $100,000/month to lobby for the Republic of Srpska (aka ‘Serb Republic’, for advice, counsel and introductions), so too all the family members of the senate leverage their DC connections to foreign governments for personal gain.

Thus, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now being questioned by the very Senators he has defunded. Yes, Michael Flynn signed an agreement within the Trump administration not to lobby for foreign governments; but that was only a paper promise. That’s one of the reasons why it is more than a little silly for people to mention Flynn’s name as a potential DNI nomination.

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“.. we can’t be sure the activist District Court won’t try again and waste more time and money.”

• Supreme Court AGAIN Rules in Favor of Alabama’s Pro-GOP Map (Salgado)

The U.S. Supreme Court on June 2 intervened again to confirm its previous ruling that will allow Alabama to move forward with a map eliminating racial gerrymandering. In Allen v. Milligan, SCOTUS ruled 6-3 that Alabama is right to redraw its congressional map to eliminate race-based districts, just as it ruled in Louisiana v. Callais and Allen v. Caster. The Voting Rights Act does not allow race-based gerrymandering, the Court previously ruled, and that still holds true in spite of an activist District Court.


The reality is that judicial activists are mad because the map is likely to favor Republicans once it is drawn constitutionally and not based on voters’ skin color. Democrats have spent decades convincing many black Americans that Republicans are racist (when the opposite is more true), and now Dems are seeing that effort backfire in more than one state. This is a purely partisan fight. SCOTUS cited Callais in its Allen v. Milligan ruling, as that was the original decision this year clarifying how to comply with the Voting Rights Act.

Below are excerpts from the majority ruling:

After Callais, we vacated District Court injunctions that prevented the State of Alabama from using a congressional map that it enacted in 2023. See Allen v. Caster, 608 U. S. ___ (2026). The District Court had held that the State’s map violated §2 because it had only one district in which black voters were a majority and did not include an additional ‘[b]lack-opportunity’ district… Two weeks after we vacated its injunction, the District Court entered another injunction on largely the same grounds…

The District Court also failed to follow our instruction in Callais that the mere fact that voters of different races vote for different parties is not relevant to proving racially polarized voting patterns… The State has also made a strong showing of irreparable harm and that the equities and public interest favor it. We have repeatedly cautioned that lower federal courts should not ‘alter the election rules on the eve of an election.’ So this was all a waste of taxpayer money again to make the Supreme Court reiterate what it already ruled.

To be honest, if Republicans would simply comply with the law instead of bowing to every idiotic, anti-law ruling from activist judges, it would save vast amounts of time and money. The reason judges have been issuing outrageous rulings thick and fast recently is that they know Republicans will even ignore the Constitution itself to comply with the court rulings. The GOP keeps assuring Americans they have to act thus or they’ll “set a bad precent” for Democrats, but after two centuries of Democrats violating every law and court ruling they wish, that’s not a convincing argument.

In Alabama’s case, the Supreme Court had already ruled for the new map — so why on earth would the contrary decision of a District Court matter? Fortunately, the Supreme Court rightly intervened again, but we can’t be sure the activist District Court won’t try again and waste more time and money.

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If there’s one place that can claim the title Capital of Capitalism, it’s New York City.

So of course it draws in the opposite too, becaue opposites attract. But they do not match.

• Just How Crazy Mamdani’s Housing Scheme Really Is (Spencer)

They voted for him, and so they have him, but that doesn’t mean that even New Yorkers are thrilled to see the systematic destruction of what was once the greatest city in the world. More of them voted for the young, handsome, dynamic candidate than for the sleazy retread corruptocrat Andrew Cuomo or the clownish Curtis Sliwa, but that doesn’t mean that New Yorkers are collectively ready to don Mao jackets and start singing the praises of the five-year plan. Mamdani’s audacious scheme to socialize New York City housing is already coming in for severe criticism.


One sign that some New Yorkers are aware of what Mamdani is really all about was an unsigned editorial in the New York Post on Monday. The Post Editorial Board wrote that Mamdani’s “‘Block by Block’ plan to build 200,000 subsidized apartments entails a lot of handwaving, magical thinking and reliance on ‘responsible stewards’ . . who have been failing to manage the real-estate portfolios they already have.” Mamdani promises that “if ‘community land trusts, nonprofits or even the tenants themselves’ control the city’s housing stock, these miracle-workers will ‘expand New Yorkers’ access to safe, stable, and affordable homes.’”

However, the Post points out that “programs that do all this are so old and tired that Mamdani’s Gen Z policy experts appear never to have heard of them, maybe because the experiments had already failed when they were building fantasy housing projects out of Legos.”

Indeed. If socialists learned from experience, there would be no more socialists. There is system on the planet that has been tried so many times and failed just as many times, and yet constantly gains new young adherents who don’t know how bad socialist regimes really have been, or would care if they did know, because in their youthful arrogance, they’re sure they’re going to do right this time what their elders kept doing wrong. Mamdani is going to be the world’s first socialist to build a society. Sure, and he is also going to sprout wings and fly to Mars.

Mamdani announced, of course, that he planned to seize rental properties from landlords who have not maintained them properly — in the judgment of none other than Mamdani and his cronies. He then intends to hand over ownership of those properties to “community land trusts” and “non-profits.”

Oh yeah, that’ll fix everything. As foredoomed as this idea is as any sort of real solution to New York’s housing problems, it has long been high on Mamdani’s to-do list. Intifada on the Hudson: The Selling of Zohran Mamdani shows how he has made socialized housing schemes a centerpiece of his program ever since he entered politics. “People often ask,” Mamdani wrote on Dec. 3, 2020, “what socialists mean when we say we want to ‘decommodify’ housing. Basically, we want to move away from a situation where most people access housing by purchasing it on the market & toward a situation where the state guarantees high-quality housing to all.”

One of Mamdani’s leading critics, New York City Council member Vickie Paladino, explains what’s really going on here: “The properties will then be turned over to nonprofits. This is no small detail. This is in fact the whole point. The idea here is to build up Zohran’s DSA-connected nonprofits with a multibillion-dollar portfolio of hard assets — New York City real estate. This portfolio could theoretically reach into the hundreds of billions or even the trillions, depending on how aggressive they get. Now these highly political nonprofits would become the new land barons of New York, complete with all the political clout, leverage, and reach that goes along with it. It would be a true nightmare scenario.”

Mamdani’s housing scheme would thus be a great leap forward for securing socialist control of New York City for the indefinite future. Also, once his Marxist comrades control New York City’s housing market, who will actually get the housing? Not political undesirables, i.e., patriots. Instead, the lucky recipients will be Muslim migrants, including an unknowable number of criminals and jihadis, and others who will help the leftist/Islamic alliance stay in power.

It will all work wonderfully — until, that is, Mamdani and his friends run out of other people’s money. The Post points out that “Community Development Corporations, non-profit groups that own and manage ‘deeply affordable’ apartments, have been around for decades, and are barely managing to keep themselves afloat as it is. CDCs operate more than 200,000 subsidized city housing units, and face the same problems as private landlords: rising costs (especially insurance), unsustainable debt, deferred maintenance and nonpaying tenants. Turns out that removing the ‘profit’ line from a balance sheet by getting rid of private ownership doesn’t repeal the laws of math when costs run higher than income.”

It isn’t going to be any different this time around. New Yorkers who have already caught on to Mamdani can only hope that enough of their fellow city residents will catch on to tbe truth about this smooth socialist before he does too much damage.

Read more …

“Why Kiev is reviving fears of a northern front despite little evidence of military preparations..”

Ukraine has become a money making casino. First for Zelensky and his gang, but now for politicians from everywhere.

They need one thing for sure: war. So they can order weapons, real or not

• Why Is Ukraine So Eager To Start A New War? (Vitaly Ryumshin)

For the first time in a long while, Belarus has again found itself at the center of the Ukraine conflict. For more than a month, Vladimir Zelensky has been warning Ukrainians about a supposed threat from the north. Minsk, he claims, is preparing to enter the war and he’s even threatened Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko with either a pre-emptive strike or a kidnapping in the style of Nicolas Maduro. The rhetoric has now reached the point where Zelensky has ordered preparations for the circular defense of cities in Ukraine’s northern regions, including Kiev itself. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron has called Lukashenko for the first time since 2022, apparently to persuade him not to enter the conflict.


The problem is that nothing visible is happening on the Belarusian side of the border. There’s no mobilization and no unusual concentration of Belarusian forces and no redeployment of Russian units. The only recent event that could be stretched into a military signal was last week’s Russian-Belarusian nuclear exercise. But even that took place in the Osipovichi district, in the center of Belarus, and was more about strategic deterrence than any ground operation against Ukraine. The more obvious question is why Lukashenko would want to join the military operation at all. Such a move would be wholly out of character for him and would run against the geopolitical role he has tried to carve out for Belarus.

Lukashenko has always sought to preserve room for maneuver and he kept doing so after 2020, when he became de facto persona non grata in the West, and even after the conflict escalated in 2022. In the Ukrainian crisis, Belarus has remained largely a passive observer and that arrangement has suited Moscow. For Russia, he’s a valuable diplomatic asset, not a military one. Of course, a repeat of the February 2022 thrust towards Kiev may sound tempting in theory. But with all due respect to Belarus, its army is not suited to the role of battering ram, especially in conditions of modern warfare dominated by drones and constant surveillance. Could the reverse be true? Perhaps Zelensky is preparing to strike Belarus first, overthrow Lukashenko and open a second front against Russia.

His pointed invitation to the fugitive opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya gives this theory a certain surface logic, but the military reality makes it deeply implausible. The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ last major offensive operation was the incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region. To mount it, Kiev gathered around 30,000 troops, weakening its positions in Donbass and losing large areas there as a result. Even then, the operation failed to produce a decisive strategic outcome. A serious attack on Belarus would require far more resources. Since then, Ukraine’s army has weakened further and its present ceiling is local counter-attacks in Donbass, so it’s in no position to open a major new front.

Nor would it make strategic sense. Any escalation with Belarus would risk creating another 1,000-kilometer front stretching across Ukraine’s northern flank, with direct threats to Kiev. However odious the Kiev regime may be, it can’t fail to understand this. That’s why the current escalation around the ‘Belarusian question’ should be understood politically, not militarily.

The timing is telling. Zelensky began to raise the alarm just as relations between Minsk and Washington showed signs of thawing. In March, the US eased sanctions on Belarus and Washington spoke of reopening its embassy. There was even talk of a possible Lukashenko visit to America and a meeting with Donald Trump. For Kiev, this is dangerous because Zelensky may fear that the eloquent Belarusian leader could charm Trump and persuade him to increase pressure on Ukraine to bring the conflict to an end. Lukashenko might also secure further sanctions relief, potentially turning Belarus into a hub for the transit of American goods to Russia.

From Kiev’s point of view, that scenario must be prevented. Hence the effort to present Minsk as an imminent threat, because if Belarus can be cast once again as Russia’s military accomplice rather than as a possible diplomatic channel, any US-Belarusian rapprochement becomes far harder to sustain.

Domestic politics may also be driving Zelensky’s rhetoric. Since late April, the noose of a corruption scandal has been tightening around his circle and the latest revelations from the ‘Mindich tapes’ have led to formal charges against Zelensky’s closest aide, Andrey Yermak. For the first time, the name ‘Vova’ has appeared in case materials, alongside the mysterious ‘R1’, the anonymous owner of one of the mansions in the ‘Dynasty’ housing cooperative, where, by a happy coincidence, Zelensky’s closest friends had planned to live. I

n such conditions, inflating a new military threat is politically useful as it allows Zelensky to tell Ukrainians that the gravest crisis is still ahead, and that he remains the horse that cannot be changed midstream. But the old ‘Russian card’ is wearing thin in the fifth year of hostilities. Ukrainians are tired, mobilized society is fraying, and endless emergency politics no longer works as it once did. So now Kiev is reaching for the ‘Belarus card’. Will it work? Probably not. At most, it may buy Zelensky a little time, a little fear, and a little more room to maneuver, but as a strategy, it’s thin gruel. Or to put it more appropriately, it is worthy only of a carrot, and a dry one at that.

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“..As Morningstar says valuation should be halved..”

• SpaceX Reportedly Targets $135 IPO Price (ZH)

Last week, Elon Musk called Bloomberg’s “SpaceX Said to Cut IPO Value” story “false,” marking the latest clash between Musk and the MSM over coverage of his companies. Reuters has released a new report, which, based on sources, says SpaceX is planning an IPO at a price of $135 per share, aiming to raise a record $75 billion by selling about 555.6 million shares at an estimated $1.75 trillion valuation. SpaceX’s roadshow is expected to begin Thursday, with a potential Nasdaq debut under the ticker SPCX on June 12. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA, Citigroup, and JPMorgan are leading the deal.


Sources said the IPO is “structured as an all-primary offering,” which means the proceeds will go to SpaceX rather than existing shareholders. Musk will reportedly be subject to a 366-day lock-up period. At a $1.75 trillion valuation and projected 2025 booking revenue of $18.67 billion, SpaceX would trade at roughly 94 times trailing sales. The company also reported a $4.94 billion net loss in 2025, compared with a prior-year profit, with Starlink internet as the major profit engine.

Beyond Reuters’ reporting, there was a separate report from Morningstar analysts stating that SpaceX’s valuation should be less than half of the $1.75 trillion figure, and closer to $780 billion. Morningstar equity analyst Nicolas Owens wrote in a note that his team “doesn’t see Grok as one of the leading AI labs today,” adding: “We think the company has been significantly overvalued and investors will have opportunities to buy the stock at more attractive levels after the IPO.” Polymarket odds for “SpaceX IPO closing market cap above ___ ?” currently stand at 89% for a market cap above $1.8 trillion.

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“..when a growing cohort of conservative judges is crafting opinions designed to get attention, it tells me they sense something is in the air ..”

• Is This a Sign a Supreme Court Vacancy Is Coming Soon? (Margolis)

Speculation about a Supreme Court vacancy has been running hot pretty much since Trump returned to office. With midterm elections this fall potentially reshaping President Donald Trump’s grip on the judiciary, much of the chatter has centered on Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. However, sources close to both say neither has plans to retire this year. Allegedly.


Here’s the thing: Supreme Court justices rarely telegraph a retirement months in advance. When a justice decides to step down, the announcement tends to arrive quietly and suddenly, usually in late spring or early summer as the Court’s term winds down. Denials at this point aren’t proof. Here’s what might tell you considerably more: Conservative appellate judges across the country are behaving as though a vacancy is imminent.

A growing number of federal appeals court judges are issuing high-profile opinions that legal observers describe openly as auditions for the Supreme Court. The tactics are calculated and unmistakable. Some judges are using sharp language, adopting rhetoric designed to catch President Trump’s attention. Others are recording video dissents, a media-savvy move that ensures their opinions travel well beyond the courthouse and into conservative legal circles, including the White House orbit.

Legal scholars watching this pattern say the strategy is deliberate. According to them, these judges understand that Trump values a combative style and public loyalty, and they are writing to reflect those priorities, in hopes of getting noticed by Trump and those advising him before the next vacancy materializes. If an announcement happens, it will be near the close of the current SCOTUS term, which concludes in roughly one month. Inside conservative legal circles, the working assumption is that Trump would move quickly. He reshaped the federal judiciary at a historic rate during his first term and shows no sign of slowing down.

The judges who are positioning themselves for that moment know the terrain. Their opinions zero in on subjects that resonate with Trump’s base, like immigration and cultural disputes, where the federal courts have become a central battleground. Every emphasis in these rulings carries intent. Conservative legal organizations that helped vet Trump’s earlier nominees are tracking this body of work and refining informal shortlists for the next opening. None of this means that a vacancy will happen, but it sure seems like judges are expecting it. Perhaps they know more than we do? It’s very possible.

And, should a vacancy take place this year, there’s very little that Democrats can do to stop it. The elimination of the judicial filibuster removed any real pressure on a Trump nominee to appeal to senators across the aisle. Republican presidents can now prioritize ideological conviction over bipartisan palatability, and judges angling for a nomination understand that calculus perfectly. As for the midterms, while it seems likely that Republicans will hold the Senate, it’s still very much a coin flip at this point. Hopefully, Trump will get the opportunity to secure at least one more seat on the Supreme Court while he still can.

Losing Alito or Thomas will be difficult, but securing a conservative majority for another generation is critical. I have no idea what will happen, but when a growing cohort of conservative judges is crafting opinions designed to get attention, it tells me they sense something is in the air. I’m starting to think that Trump’s next Supreme Court pick may come sooner than most people expect, because the competition for that spot is already well underway.

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Anyone seen Fauci lately?

• COVID-19 Was Spread Intentionally on Multiple Continents (Korsgaard)

The COVID-19 pandemic is long over. The headlines have shifted to a relentless cycle of bloody invasions and political scandals. It is very tempting to file the years of lockdowns, vaccine tyranny, and assaults on freedom into a folder of “unfortunate history” and never open it again. Most have. But the victims and a few researchers continue to ask questions and demand answers.


How many victims were there? Using U.N. population data, I have calculated that the pandemic years were associated with 20.5 million excess deaths. However, the total “growth loss” was a staggering 32 million people, as fewer babies were born than projected. This makes the pandemic comparable to World War I, which incurred a cost of 15 to 22 million deaths. But while historians have meticulously documented every bullet and bayonet of the Great War, the origin of the pandemic still remains a mystery.

First, we were fed a narrative about the novel coronavirus having a natural origin. For good reasons, many suspected that this was a limited hangout. Then came the second story: catastrophic incompetence—careless Chinese scientists allowed the virus to escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the rest is history. Unlike the narrative of a natural origin, there was some circumstantial evidence supporting the incompetence hypothesis, and many accepted it and moved on.

In my new book, The New September 11th: Solving the COVID-19 Pandemic, I present evidence that the virus was indeed made in a lab, but it did not leak by accident. Instead, suppressed genomic and epidemiological evidence strongly suggests that the virus was released on different continents within months of one another.

What is some of that evidence? In the book, I rigorously analyze all the data and systematically dismantle the false narratives, misdirections, and cover-ups by both Beijing and Washington. To provide the full context in an article is impossible, which is why I wrote the book. However, I will now explain the most important evidence in simple terms and in as few words as possible.

In late December 2019, molecular biologists identified and sequenced the coronavirus for the first time in Wuhan. The strain was young—meaning that it had only circulated for a few weeks [1]. Whether a lab leak or a spillover event at the wet market gave rise to the virus, they are both single-point origin hypotheses: the idea that the virus emerged in one location before spreading across the globe [..]

If the single-point origin holds water, every variant found across the globe is a direct descendant of the original parental strain in Wuhan. But this is not the case. Independent research groups from Italy, Brazil, Morocco, Angola, France, and others have conducted their own investigations into archived biological samples, identifying old strains of the virus long before it had even emerged in Wuhan. This is evidence of multiple viral introductions, a scenario that I have named the Parallel Release in Multiple Environments (P.R.I.M.E.) hypothesis. Here is a brief summary of one of the studies:

While the pandemic was well underway, researchers at the University of Milan began a retrospective search for the virus within their archives [2]. They were prompted by previous studies that had identified the virus before the official timeline and a mysterious increase in a rash now recognized as a COVID-19 symptom. Knowing that pre-pandemic research is a highly controversial matter, the researchers took extreme precautions to avoid cross-contamination and false positives. They, for instance, used 183 control samples (which never turned positive) and performed every stage of the study in physically separate laboratories in a facility that was free from the coronavirus.

Shockingly, multiple pre-pandemic samples were positive for RNA and/or antibodies. The earliest case dated back to September 12, 2019—an eight-month-old boy from Milan whose urine and serum samples were positive for the spike protein and two types of antibodies. This is long before the virus emerged in Wuhan. The researchers also sequenced the genetic material and confirmed that nine of their patients had indeed been infected with the novel coronavirus in 2019. Most shockingly, the strains were old, not young as they were in Wuhan months later. A technique called molecular clock analysis showed that the virus present in Italy had been circulating since mid-summer 2019.

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https://twitter.com/cryptogoos/status/2062056663709004178?s=20 https://twitter.com/CharlesMullins2/status/2062041643679989874?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Debt Rattle March 14 2026

Mar 142026
 
 March 14, 2026  Posted by at 10:15 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,  63 Responses »


Paul Cézanne Village derrière des arbres, Île-de-France 1879


• Iran’s New Supreme Leader Wounded, Likely Disfigured, Hegseth (Reuters)
• Mojtaba Khamenei Is Nowhere to Be Seen (Rick Moran)
• There Are Many Who Complain About ICE (Michael A. Letts)
• Sec 301 Trade Investigations Into 16 Economies Including The EU (CTH)
• Witkoff and Kushner Meet Russian Delegation in Florida (CTH)
• Bessent Greenlights Sale Of Russian Oil At Sea To “Promote Stability” (ZH)
• Bessent: “Narrowly Tailored, Short Term Sanction Relief” for Russia (CTH)
• Merz Slams Trump Admin For Temporarily Lifting Russian Oil Sanctions (JTN)
• Nearly 1 Out Of Every 2 Muslims Under 40 Has ‘Islamist’ Attitudes (RMX)
• Order of Battle (James Howard Kunstler)
• Zelensky Plotting Suspending Elections For Years – Media (RT)
• Mamdani’s Wife Worked With Author Who Called Jews ‘Rabid Demons’ (Salgado)
• Ex-Columbia Professor Calls for Violence, Glorifies Murder of Jews (Turley)
• Musk Whips Out ‘Macrohard’ In Disruptive Tesla-xAI Bid (ZH)
• Honda Just Lost Billions on EVs It Can’t Sell (Stephen Green)
• Gavin Newsom Has a ‘Hillary Clinton Problem’ (Robert Spencer)

 


 

https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/2032639700196786606?s=20 https://twitter.com/TheChiefNerd/status/2032597866611408953?s=20

 


 


He has some info on that which he holds behind.

• Iran’s New Supreme Leader Wounded, Likely Disfigured, Hegseth (Reuters)

Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is wounded and likely disfigured, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday, questioning Khamenei’s ability to govern after nearly two weeks of U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. No images have been released of Khamenei since an Israeli strike at the start of the war that killed much of his family, including his father and wife. The Reuters Iran Briefing newsletter keeps you informed with the latest developments and analysis of the Iran war. His first comments came in a statement read out by a television presenter on Thursday. In the statement, he vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz shut and called on neighboring countries to close U.S. bases on their territory or risk Iran targeting them. ntinue


“We know the new so-called not so supreme leader is wounded and likely disfigured. He put out a statement yesterday. A weak one, actually, but there was no voice and there was no video. It was a written statement,” Hegseth told a briefing. “Iran has plenty of cameras and plenty of voice recorders. Why a written statement? I think you know why. His father – dead. He’s scared, he’s injured, he’s on the run and he lacks legitimacy.” An Iranian official told Reuters on Wednesday that the newly appointed supreme leader was lightly injured but was continuing to operate, after state television described him as war-wounded.

Hegseth was joined by General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a briefing in which they emphasized U.S. military strikes to knock out Iran’s missile and drone capabilities and its navy. ‘NO QUARTER’ During the briefing, Hegseth said that the United States would show no mercy in the war. “We will keep pressing, keep pushing, keep advancing. No quarter, no mercy for our enemy,” Hegseth said. “No quarter” is the refusal to spare the life of someone who has expressed their intention to surrender – something prohibited by law. “International humanitarian law prohibits the use of this procedure, that is, ordering that there shall be no survivors, threatening the adversary therewith, or conducting hostilities on this basis,” according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Read more …

“The February 28 airstrike that took out Ali Khamenei also killed his wife, his daughter, Mojtada’s wife, Ali Khamenei’s son-in-law, and at least three grandchildren.”

• Mojtaba Khamenei Is Nowhere to Be Seen (Rick Moran)

Mojtaba Khamenei, the new Supreme Leader of Iran, was “elected” Supreme Leader of Iran on March 8. In fact, the Assembly of Experts, the body charged with electing the Supreme Leader, met virtually only once and then only to confirm Mojtaba’s choice as leader. Reports from sources like Iran International indicate that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) applied significant “psychological and political pressure” on the clerics to ensure a quick victory for Mojtaba, aiming for regime continuity during the war. Khamenei the Younger is a cutout, a stand-in for the IRGC. On March 9, the regime held “Allegiance rallies” to “celebrate” Khamenei the Younger’s elevation (installation?) to the Islamic version of the Peacock Throne.


At the rally in Tehran’s Revolutionary Square, a life-sized cardboard cutout of Mojtaba was hauled on stage to be properly venerated. “State media broadcast regime loyalists hailing and swearing allegiance to a cardboard Khamenei,” writes Amit Segal of The Free Press. If that’s not bizarre enough, consider this: the only word we’ve heard from Mojtaba Khamenei was third-hand. The first Official Statement was written only and read by an anchor.mIs Mojtaba Khamenei still alive? The February 28 airstrike that took out Ali Khamenei also killed his wife, his daughter, Mojtada’s wife, Ali Khamenei’s son-in-law, and at least three grandchildren. Mojtaba was injured, according to the official reports, on his legs, hands, and arms.

“At the most critical juncture in the history of the Islamic Republic, its new Supreme Leader is a ghost,” reports WOIN. The fact that Khamenei did not use his own voice in the statement poses a significant problem for intelligence agencies.Even if Tehran eventually releases an audio tape claiming to be Mojtaba, there is almost zero baseline to verify it. He has spent his entire adult life operating in the shadows of the security establishment. In fact, the only publicly known recording of his voice in existence is a brief, years-old, one-minute clip of him telling seminary students that his theology classes were canceled.In today’s AI world, anyone can use an AI software like Elevenlabs and create an entire speech in Khamenei’s voice just for $11 a month.

Audio is the easiest medium to manipulate in the world of AI and a country obsessed with camera and public appearances using audio tapes, is raising suspicions among the experts. And down the rabbit hole we go. “Iranian opposition groups in the diaspora are openly claiming that Mojtaba is actually in a deep coma, being treated in absolute secrecy,” according to the WOIN report. “The theory suggests the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forced the Assembly of Experts to name Mojtaba as leader to maintain a facade of dynastic stability.”If Khamenei is dead or in a coma, who is in charge? The same people who have been in effective control of Iran for the last 30 years: the Revolutionary Guard Corps senior commanders.

Amit Segal writing in The Free Press: “The truth is that even if the conspiracy is false and Khamenei is only suffering from minor leg injuries, that may still be the case. It is far from unheard of for the successor to a powerful dictator to serve primarily as a military figurehead. The regime needs Khamenei to have a pulse, but not much more. In a Freudian slip early in the war, Iran’s foreign minister claimed that the attacks on neighboring states were “not our choice,” indicating that IRGC elements may have acted independently of the government.

The regime’s official narrative is that Khamenei is being kept away from the public for security reasons. Israel has already announced its intention to reunite the son with the deceased father. But if this is truly about security, it is still a dangerous game. There are times when absence increases a leader’s mystique—a regime in crisis is not one of them. Since Khamenei’s election in 1989, the Revolutionary Guard Corps has been aggrandizing power unto itself. They’ve appropriated most of the largest and most profitable businesses, giving pieces of the corporations to favored clerics and military commanders.

Following the death of the Supreme Leader, the Guards really turned the screws on the Assembly of Experts.“The pressure from the Revolutionary Guard to announce Mojtaba Khamenei as his father’s successor as quickly as possible was so intense that the IRGC Intelligence Organization forced several dissenting members of the Assembly of Experts into this choice by threatening them and their family members. Their silence following the selection is likely a result of those same threats,” according to Iran Wire.

Read more …

“ICE continuously reports progress made across the United States with new arrests every single day – and no, not in a “Gestapo” manner. More like “we know which criminals to track down and arrest” manner. Just look at their track record.”

• There Are Many Who Complain About ICE (Michael A. Letts)

Negative talk about ICE agents these days is very commonplace. Just take a good look at social media and across various news outlets. You’ll see it everywhere. “They’re causing chaos in Minneapolis!” But you know what you don’t see with all this negative talk? What they’re actually doing when it comes to their job.President Donald Trump didn’t put this group together just to spite the American public. He put them together to make a difference and clean up the mess left behind by Joe Biden – that mess being the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants that seeped their way into the United States thanks to his lazy border policies.


And while they all aren’t criminals, a good portion of them all – including a number of child sex offenders. The worst of the worst, if you ask me. After all, these are full-grown men who are going after kids. And abusing them in the most awful way you can imagine. Well, good news, folks. Based on this report, ICE has really cracked down on this particular group of criminals. ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Houston recently arrested 414 criminal illegal aliens charged with child sex offenses of some kind during Trump’s first year in office. That’s nearly twice the amount of similar predators arrested during the final year of the Biden administration, when he was scrambling to make up for his previous years of screw-ups. (Only 211 were arrested at that time.)

“While elected officials and media pundits across the country were zealously trying to manipulate the American public with fake news stories about ICE’s public safety mission, the brave men and women of ICE were quietly going about their business to arrest and remove more than 400 dangerous child predators from our local communities,” ICE ERO Houston acting Field Office Director Gabriel Martinez noted in a statement. “Thanks to their tireless efforts, parents across southeast Texas can sleep a little better tonight knowing that these pedophiles and child rapists are no longer a threat to their children.”

And keep in mind that this is only one specific city. ICE continuously reports progress made across the United States with new arrests every single day – and no, not in a “Gestapo” manner. More like “we know which criminals to track down and arrest” manner. Just look at their track record. But this is nothing new. Law enforcement officials have always buckled down in the face of criticism and continued doing the job to the best of their ability – even when the tide was turned against them.

This reminds me of several years ago when the “defund the police” campaign kicked off following the death of George Floyd. Because of the act of a certain few, thousands of police officers went through a wave of hatred and unfair restraint at the hands of foolish Democratic officials who felt the need to drain their funds in favor of other programs. And why? Online hatred. But while some of these officers retired or simply didn’t want to deal with such restraints anymore, many persevered. In the face of this newfound hatred, they continued doing their job – and effectively, as such. And because of that, many of these officers remain in the field, continuing to fight for what’s right – despite what’s being said about them.

That’s kind of the point overall here. ICE is facing all sorts of criticism, a majority of it undeserved. But they’re still persistent in getting the job done. As a result of this, over 400 criminals are headed back to their home countries – and, again, this is just from one region of the United States. Imagine the overall effectiveness of the program, which goes into thousands or higher. Say whatever you want about law enforcement officials. It’s your right to have an opinion. Just keep in mind it’s an opinion. The facts are right there. ICE is getting the job done. Police are getting the job done. Anyone can say whatever they want. But remember, actions speak louder than words. Here’s to the actions of our law enforcement officials. Keep going!

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Tariffs still.

• Sec 301 Trade Investigations Into 16 Economies Including The EU (CTH)

When the Supreme Court made their ridiculous decision to nullify the import tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) use, the high court noted several alternate approaches would not be legally problematic. One of those approaches would be the use of Section 301 trade tariffs. Yesterday USTR Jamieson Greer quietly announced that a Section 301 review would be taking place for the following countries: China, the European Union, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Japan, and India.” Section 301 tariffs are a trade enforcement mechanism established under the Trade Act of 1974. They allow the U.S. government to impose tariffs on imports from countries that are found to be engaging in unfair


USTR PRESS RELEASE – WASHINGTON — Today, United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced the initiation of investigations regarding the acts, policies, and practices of various economies under Section 301(b) of the Trade Act of 1974 relating to structural excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors.The investigations will determine whether those acts, policies, and practices are unreasonable or discriminatory and burden or restrict U.S. commerce. The economies subject to these investigations are: China, the European Union, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Japan, and India.

“The United States will no longer sacrifice its industrial base to other countries that may be exporting their problems with excess capacity and production to us. Today’s investigations underscore President Trump’s commitment to reshore critical supply chains and create good-paying jobs for American workers across our manufacturing sectors,” said Ambassador Greer.

“The Trump Administration’s reindustrialization efforts continue to face significant challenges due to foreign economies’ structural excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors. Across numerous sectors, many U.S. trading partners are producing more goods than they can consume domestically. This overproduction displaces existing U.S. domestic production or prevents investment and expansion in U.S. manufacturing production that otherwise would have been brought online. In many sectors, the United States has lost substantial domestic production capacity or has fallen worryingly behind foreign competitors.”

Additionally, Section 232 [Steel and Aluminum examples] of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (19 U.S.C. §1862, as amended) authorizes the President to impose trade restrictions—such as a tariff or quota—if the Secretary of Commerce determines, following an investigation, that imports of a good “threaten to impair” U.S. national security. Section 232 is currently covering all the steel and aluminum import tariffs. Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 allows the U.S. president to impose tariffs of up to 15% to address “large and serious” balance-of-payments deficits. This authority can be exercised without prior congressional approval for a limited duration of 150 days. After this period, any tariffs must be extended by Congress.

Section 122 has already been deployed to retain the “baseline reciprocity tariffs.” USTR Greer is now walking through the process of deploying Section 301 and will eventually become the legal underpinning to replace Section 122 and retain all tariff status without congressional extension needed. Most of this is technical and legal compliance as several of the aforementioned nations have already finalized free trade agreements.

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A very practical meeting. In the same way that sanctions are unpractical.

• Witkoff and Kushner Meet Russian Delegation in Florida (CTH)

The fact that Team Russia and Team USA would be discussing a strategic economic alliance on the issue of energy is not a surprise to those who watched both President Putin and President Trump outline that same content discussion in Alaska last August. However, given the current conflict with Iran and the escalating oil price issue, Russia and the USA discussing Russian oil capacity and U.S. sanctions therein takes on a new angle.


It has been obvious that domestic U.S. politics, in combination with the Russia-Ukraine war, has impeded President Trump from organizing a strategic reset with Russia pulling away from historic conflicts. However, CTH is also clear-eyed on the longer-term ramifications for Eastern Europe when contrast with Putin’s ambitions to fix what he perceives as prior Russian Federation mistakes regarding the West (more on that at the end). As noted in social media exchanges from Witkoff and Dmitriev, the discussion was productive.


All indications of this meeting give the appearance of less focus on progress in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and a higher focus on current economic conditions -created by the Iran conflict- that could be enhanced with cooperation between the U.S. and Russia. According to Kirill Dmitriev, Russian special presidential envoy for investment and economic cooperation with foreign countries and director general of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), relayed through the Russian News Agency (TASS), “he visited the US upon orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin, taking part in a meeting of the heads of a working group on economic cooperation between the two countries.”

According to the envoy, the meeting addressed both promising projects that can help restore Russia-US relations and the current crisis on global energy markets. The US is becoming increasingly aware of the role of Russian oil and gas in ensuing the stability of the world economy, as well as of the [in]effectiveness of sanctions against Russia, Dmitriev said after the meeting. “We discussed promising projects that could contribute to the restoration of Russian-American relations and the current crisis on global energy markets,” Dmitriev also wrote in a Telegram post. “Today, many countries, primarily the United States, are beginning to better understand the key, systemic role of Russian oil and gas in ensuring the stability of the global economy, as well as the ineffectiveness and destructive nature of sanctions against Russia.”

With the strong likelihood that Russia’s restart of their flagship LNG terminal Arctic-2 was directly related to the August summit in Alaska {SEE HERE}, there is already a baseline established for strategic cooperation President Trump would have no problem with Russia introducing millions of barrels of oil into the global market given the issues created by conflict in/around the Strait of Hormuz. However, obviously the issues for streamlined Russia oil exports surround (1) preexisting sanctions, (2) domestic U.S. anti-Russia politics and (3) the political and economic position of the anti-Russia European Commission leadership.

As we previously outlined with the Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) benefit, Russia previously extracted, liquified and pumped massive amounts of LNG into floating storage platforms from Arctic-2. Those LNG supplies doubled and tripled in value in a few days once Qatar shut down their production facilities and are now being sold to various Asian countries.

Europe has a massive energy problem with severely low LNG storage rates and now a shortage of oil, with EU gasoline prices rising much higher & faster than the rest of the world. Europe is facing a severe energy crisis overall and now their preexisting economic troubles are being amplified. More than ever Europe needs the Russian oil/gas, but ridged ideologues will never compromise on their anti-Russia position. They have even steeper sanctions against Russian oil/gas scheduled to trigger at the end of this month. It will be interesting to see how President Trump navigates the potential benefit from Russian energy products into the global market against the backdrop of all the geopolitical angst and political opposition against Russia.

[..] Here’s where/why Trump is being careful and pragmatic. President Trump doesn’t want to see an outcome where Russia is eventually stronger than Europe. There’s not enough frictionless history between the USA and Russia to trust Putin when he says the Federation has no plan to expand into Europe. The USA can/should be strategic allies with Russia. However, it would be much better if a strong Europe existed at the same time. Hence, Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Rubio continuing to emphasize that Europe needs to stop cowering in politically correct wokeness. The EU is destroying itself at the same time Russia is getting stronger.

.


Last point, the Lyndon LaRouche team, Promethean Action PAC, are very happy with the ongoing fracture of the USA away from the UK/EU group. However, be cautious around Political Action Committees who say, “President Trump needs people to understand what he is doing” and we are here as his official policy interpreters.

Remember, President Trump doesn’t need policy interpreters.

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In the global market.

• Bessent Greenlights Sale Of Russian Oil At Sea To “Promote Stability” (ZH)

In a statement late Thursday on X, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the U.S. will allow countries to purchase Russian crude oil already at sea. The move aims to temporarily boost global supply availability, as the IEA warned earlier that the Middle East conflict has sparked one of the worst energy shocks on record. “To increase the global reach of existing supply, @USTreasury is providing a temporary authorization to permit countries to purchase Russian oil currently stranded at sea,” Bessent said.He continued, “This narrowly tailored, short-term measure applies only to oil already in transit and will not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government, which derives the majority of its energy revenue from taxes assessed at the point of extraction.”


UBS analyst Nana Antiedu told clients earlier this morning that about 124 million barrels of Russian-origin oil were at sea across 30 locations worldwide. More specifically, Bloomberg analysts said about 30 Russian tankers are in Asian waters and may be available for purchase. These tankers carry about 19 million barrels of Russian crude and 310,000 tons of refined products. Bloomberg data show these Russian tankers are signaling “for orders” or, in other words, have no clear destination yet. They could be unloaded in Singapore or Malaysia.

Robert Rennie, head of commodity research at Westpac Banking, was quoted by Bloomberg as saying, “Of course, any supply helps, but this is a smaller help than it looks.”Rennie estimated that of the 125 million to 150 million barrels of Russian crude on the water, about a third is off China and is likely to end up in storage, while 30 million to 40 million barrels are in India and are likely to be consumed there. Rennie said the rest is in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. “We are only really talking about replacing maybe four or five days of lost Gulf exports. Sure, it helps, but it is no panacea,” he added. Bessent’s office also issued India a 30-day waiver at the beginning of the month so that New Delhi could buy Russian oil at sea to build reserves and cushion against an oil shock.

Brent crude futures are largely unchanged from when Bessent posted on X overnight. President Trump said the U.S. has “plenty of time” in the Iran war. Brent hovers around $100/bbl as of 0630 ET. The Trump administration has taken several steps to combat triple-digit Brent and WTI prices, including the planned release of 172 million barrels from the U.S. SPR. The release is part of a much larger 400-million-barrel SPR dump worldwide, agreed upon by the 32-nation IEA. This comes as the IEA warned about the worst-ever energy shock to hit the world. Also, the Trump administration is waiving a century-old law that requires U.S. ships to transport goods between American ports, so that domestic supplies can be shifted around more quickly.

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Relief at the pump.

• Bessent: “Narrowly Tailored, Short Term Sanction Relief” for Russia (CTH)

President Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are facing mounting criticism for creating a window for Russia to sell oil and gas to the global market via “narrowly tailored, short-term” sanction relief. However, few people are putting the issue into context, and the background here is exceptionally interesting. According to the terms announced by Secretary Bessent, the license to sell applies solely to Russian crude or petroleum products loaded onto vessels as of March 12 and is valid through midnight Washington time on April 11.


The sanction relief license to sell will be done in globally recognized petrodollars and applies only to preexisting oil and petroleum products that are already in transit at sea. However, here’s where it gets very interesting and the ramifications are significant. Immediately following the Alaska summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump, Russia restarted Arctic-2 LNG terminals and began increasing oil production for storage on ‘floating platforms.’ President Trump met with Putin on August 15, 2025, and the curious increase in Russian production began on August 18, 2025. In the past six months Russia has been pumping sanctioned oil and gas and storing it on ships and mobile sea platforms, seemingly (at the time) with no customers.

Suddenly, against the background of the Iran conflict, all of that previously stored ‘on the water‘ production, now worth double, is authorized for global sale (in petrodollars). Either Russian President Putin is the luckiest guy in the world, or Russia knew something. In 2025 what Russia did following the Alaska summit did not make sense; now it does and the ramifications are stunning.President Trump was looking for a way to organize a strategic partnership with Russia on the issue of energy production but was hampered by the preexisting sanction regime and strong opposition from domestic and international politics. The ‘coincidental’ timing’ of Trump meeting with Putin and then subsequently Russia producing massive amounts of oil and gas for storage on the water suddenly starts to take on an entirely new light.

Did Putin know something was coming, something that would eventually make the Russian over production and ‘on the sea’ storage worth billions. The implications here are quite remarkable; however, they simultaneously explain most of the behaviors since the Iran confrontation began. Media reports highlight that Vladimir Putin was asked about a previous joint agreement for military support between Iran and Russia and why Russia did not respond when Iran was attacked. Foreknowledge would explain that reaction. Additionally, the Russian Federation president never responded to the Trump operation to take down Venezuelan dictator Maduro and seize control over Venezuela’s oil production.

If there was some discussion inferring that a ‘limited sanction relief’ protocol might be possible, that would explain why Russia began storing oil and gas at sea. This fact pattern would also indicate that President Trump’s decision toward Iran was made at least six months ago, with a set of geopolitical events planned between the Alaska summit and the eventual confrontation with Iran. TIMELINE: Trump and Putin meet. Three days later Russia begins pumping oil/gas and storing it at sea. President Trump then triggers the Venezuela western hemisphere security operation; Russia stays silent. President Trump then triggers the confrontation with Iran; Russia rejects involvement. And then two weeks after the Iran confrontation begins, Trump removes sanctions on Russian oil/gas “in transit” at sea.

Suddenly all of the Russian produced and stored product ‘on the water’ has greater value and new customers. Just a coincidence? No way. The United States needs the oil/gas market stability that Russia can provide. Venezuela was/is to Trump as Ukraine was/is to Putin. We’ll keep watching. Enjoy the rest of your day.

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Merz doesn’t mind if gas is $3,00. Beating Russia is what counts.

• Merz Slams Trump Admin For Temporarily Lifting Russian Oil Sanctions (JTN)

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Friday fumed over the White House’s decision to ease sanctions on Russian oil amid the ongoing Iran war, warning that it would bolster the Russian war effort against Ukraine. “We think that’s wrong,” he said, according to Politico. “There is currently a price problem, but not a supply problem. And in that regard, I would like to know what other factors led the U.S. government to make this decision.” “We want to ensure that Russia does not exploit the war in Iran to weaken Ukraine,” Merz said. “Nor will we allow Moscow to test NATO on its eastern flank and up here in the north.”


Merz made the remarks during a meeting with Norwegian Prime Minster Jonas Gahr Støre. The German chancellor was joined by French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, both of whom shared his sentiments. The administration lifted sanctions on Russian oil this month on a temporary basis. As of press time, Brent crude oil stood just shy of $100.00 per barrel.

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“This study should set off all the alarm bells. It is a societal time bomb. We must not only talk about migration, but also about integration and religion”

• Nearly 1 Out Of Every 2 Muslims Under 40 Has ‘Islamist’ Attitudes (RMX)

A newly released study by the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), nearly 50 percent of Muslims under the age of 40 in Germany hold “Islamist” views, with these Muslims expressing an attraction to Islamism, a preference for Sharia law over the German Basic Law, and harboring anti-Semitic prejudices. The findings, described as “explosive in nature,” were featured in the latest edition of the “Motra Monitor.” The study reports that as of 2025, Muslims in Germany under the age of 40 (45.1 percent) hold “latent or manifestly Islamist attitudes.“ Some German politicians have already voiced their views on the study’s release. Wolfgang Kubicki, a prominent politician in the Free Democrats (FDP) and former MP, stated on X:


“This study should set off all the alarm bells. It is a societal time bomb. We must not only talk about migration, but also about integration and religion. The policy of naively looking away has favored this development. The naivety must stop.” He further stated that “anyone who demands a caliphate is an enemy of democracy. Enemies of democracy without German citizenship must leave the country. Neighborhoods where ghettoization provides fertile ground for radicalization must be restructured. Islamic associations without a clear demarcation from extremists must not be interlocutors for politics. Germany must act secular and self-confident.” He further called for an end to headscarves in schools and other state institutions “not to harass or suspect the wearers, but to make it clear that the only binding source of our values is the Basic Law.”

Beyond rising crime rates, terrorism offenses, and demographic change, the soaring numbers of Muslims in Europe also raise fundamental questions about worldview and society.mThe “Motra monitor,” a monitoring system tracking radicalization, spans 598 pages. It is published by the BKA and receives funding from several entities, including the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Family Affairs. While the report addresses various forms of extremism, including right-wing movements, it places a significant focus on Islamist extremism.

Evidence of these tensions surfaced in the summer of 2025 when “young Muslims and radical left-wing Germans occupied the Gutenberg Memorial in Frankfurt to demonstrate against Israel, some of them willing to use violence.“ The study’s researchers highlight a concerning core demographic, noting that “manifest Islamist attitudes are most prevalent among Muslims under 40, at 11.5 percent.“

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“History doesn’t move in straight lines. What looks like stagnation can be prelude. Let’s not lose hope.” —RVassil on X

• Order of Battle (James Howard Kunstler)

Don’t lose your shit over mines in the Strait of Hormuz and the oil price shooting up. Iran has many thousands of mines. But something has to lay them out in the water. Iran has no more naval ships. They have small boats. The US can see everything moving on the surface, or sitting at docks. We are blowing them up methodically. The news outlets who want the US to fail in this operation (because: Trump) want you to think that we had no plan for dealing with this problem. That’s not so.


There are very few mines actually laid so far. Tankers are not going through the Strait of Hormuz because their captains are nervous. Their ships and their cargos are worth millions and the insurance costs millions. So, they’re waiting in place, hanging back. The US still has work to do destroying Iran’s shoreline defenses of missile and drone launch sites. Iran is firing all they’ve got left. Whenever they launch something, we see the geo-location on our satellites and radars. The mobile launchers are a little trickier because, obviously, they shoot and move. But they don’t always move fast enough, and there isn’t an endless supply of them.

The US Navy decommissioned its four Avenger-class minesweeper ships in the Persian Gulf in September, 2025, but replaced them with more agile Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs) capable of countering submarines and clearing mines. Two LCS ships — USS Santa Barbara and USS Canberra — quietly deployed in March 2025. An LCS uses an Airborne Laser Mine Detection System and an Airborne Mine Neutralization System via helicopter. In the water, it uses mine-hunting sonar and the Unmanned Influence Sweep System — all operated from unmanned surface vessels. The unmanned sweep vehicle triggers magnetic, acoustic, or combination mines, with the LCS at a safe distance.

The LCS vessels are armed with an 11-cell SeaRAM launcher for point defense that fires Rolling Airframe Missiles — fast, radar-guided missiles designed to knock down incoming anti-ship missiles and drones at short range. They also carry Longbow Hellfire missiles with updated software and hardware specifically to counter drones. The Longbow Hellfire uses radar-guided technology enabling it to engage targets through battlefield clutter, with a range of up to eight kilometers — giving the LCS the ability to engage drones before they get close. The LCS ships will be accompanied by Arleigh Burke-class destroyers equipped with Aegis and full missile defense suites for protection against the full spectrum of Iranian threats.

The oil markets are extremely sensitive to any changes in the oil environment, and war induces the most extreme changes. Even outside of war, weird things happen. April 20, 2020, was the apex of Covid-19 paranoia when everyday life was shutting down all over Western Civ. The price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures — specifically the May 2020 contract, which was expiring the very next day — crashed to an historic low of negative $37.63 per barrel. That is, sellers were literally paying buyers to take oil off their hands. By the following day, April 21, prices had rebounded back into positive territory, though still at very depressed levels around $10–$15 per barrel.

The current situation with oil in the $100 range is not going to be a one-day event, but it won’t last forever, either, so do your deep-breathing exercises and calm down. Of course, in America right now, a seditious news media will take every opportunity to induce exquisite anxiety in the public-at-large to deflect from the order-of-battle that President DJT is carrying out to 1) improve America’s geopolitical position and relations, and 2) to defeat the forces both external and domestic that seek to wreck the country.

Which is why you might see that the next move in the order of battle will be against the wrecking crew in our own country, including the political figures behind the decade-long conspiracy to undermine the president, the administrative rogues running the “resistance” in government agencies, the Lawfare ninjas queering the justice system, and the big money that funds the hundreds of NGOs attempting to instigate a color revolution here. I have visions of perp walks and indictments coming in on the zephyrs of spring.

It looks just now like Majority Leader John Thune and his RINO herd will trample the SAVE Act (election reform) into failure. But consider that Mr. Trump’s FBI has had more than a month to analyze the Fulton County, Georgia, ballot evidence from the 2020 election (while only last week it seized the Maricopa County, AZ, records, and for all we know the agency also has 2020 ballot evidence from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada, too). So, prepare for the public to be shocked and amazed at what has been discovered, and expect to see a sharp attitude change among embarrassed US Senators who will be compelled to come on-board for election reform.

Somewhere in all that, you might expect Cuba to fall — a momentous event, actually, considering the cumulative mischief Cuba’s government has provoked all over the western hemisphere since 1958. We don’t even have to do anything to make it happen, just respond in the aftermath with emergency food and fuel relief, and perhaps some help averting the vengeful slaughter of the old Castro governing network. We don’t want a bloodbath there.

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“Ukraine is facing a “financial catastrophe” that could halt its war effort and collapse the economy..”:

Got to feed the ever growing hunger for money.

• Zelensky Plotting Suspending Elections For Years – Media (RT)

Vladimir Zelensky has ordered his advisers to plot out a scenario where elections in Ukraine are suspended and the country commits to years of war, Ukrainskaya Pravda has reported, citing government sources. The tenure of Zelensky and of the Ukrainian parliament has long expired, but the Ukrainian leader has refused to hold elections since early 2024, citing martial law imposed amid the conflict with Russia. The situation has prompted international concerns over the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government, particularly from Moscow, which has repeatedly questioned Zelensky’s authority and suggested he may not be in a position to sign any peace agreement should a deal ultimately be reached.


Ukraine’s European backers want Kiev to continue fighting for up to two more years, though the country is facing a “financial catastrophe” that will consume not only its war budget but also its economy as a whole, the newspaper reported on Thursday. “The Europeans said: ‘Fight for another year and a half or two. We will give you money.’ Under their influence, [Vladimir] Zelensky gave the task to the political leadership to develop a plan to hold off elections in Ukraine for several more years and how the parliament will work in such circumstances,” an anonymous source from Zelensky’s administration told the outlet.

The risk of Kiev running out of cash has been growing rapidly. With a proposed €90 billion ($105 billion) EU emergency loan remaining blocked by Hungary, growing dissent within the Ukrainian parliament has slowed down the adoption of measures needed to receive funding from the International Monetary Fund, the newspaper warned on Thursday. The EU emergency funding scheme ended up derailed amid the oil standoff between Ukraine and Hungary and Slovakia. In late January, Kiev halted the Druzhba pipeline, which used to carry Russian crude to the two EU nations, citing alleged damage to the artery. While Moscow has denied attacking the pipeline, Budapest and Bratislava have accused Kiev of deliberately disrupting supplies for political reasons. Hungary has vetoed the €90 billion loan in retaliation, while Slovakia warned it could opt to block the proposed package as well.

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Muslims vs jews in Christian territory.

• Mamdani’s Wife Worked With Author Who Called Jews ‘Rabid Demons’ (Salgado)

New York socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife is already in the midst of a scandal about her jihad-aligned views after she was caught liking and promoting posts about Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre online, but it turns out she also translates that virulent antisemitism into her “art.” Rama Duwaji Mamdani is an artist, but in the socialist trend that all art is politics. One of the works she provided a leading graphic for was an essay by Susan Abulhawa called “A Trail of Soap.” Abulhawa has repeatedly issued the most outrageous accusations against and labels of Jews, including an unhinged rant about “Jewish supremacist vampires.” Abulhawa also claimed she wanted to vomit every time she hears the Hebrew language, and insanely argued, “Most of the people killed on October 7 were actually killed by Israel.”


Abulhawa further referred to Oct. 7, when Palestinian terrorists filmed themselves massacring families, raping women to death, and laughing as they gunned down civilians, as a “preemptive strike” after “seven decades of provocation.” Last year, again referring to the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, she raved: To any reporter who thinks to ask me about October 7, go to hell and don’t bother to contact me or my agent. I do not worship at the alter of October 7. I do not worship at the altar of the WWII holocaust. I do not worship at the alter of Jewishness, antisemitism, or any other penance imposed by zionists on the world. Zionism is a disease of jewish supremacy that rots your brain and dulls even minimal critical thinking skills.

It is people like Abulhawa who fuel real-world violence and the massive rise in antisemitic attacks ever since Oct. 7, 2023. As important context, God granted Israel as a “perpetual possession” (Genesis 17:8) to the Jewish people more than a millennium before Islam was even invented or the Arabs first conquered Jerusalem. The reestablishment of Israel in the modern era was exceptionally legal, and yet Muslims have been waging almost incessant war against Israel ever since then. Despite the constant Jihad, Israel has generously given land grants to the Muslim Arabs, including Gaza and Bethlehem, land which the Muslims have immediately turned into hotspots of terrorist activity. There has never been a state of Palestine in history, and Muslims in the modern day have been refusing offers of a state for decades, because they don’t want their own state (they already have 50 nations), they want to destroy Israel. Abulhawa is as dishonest as she is vicious.

There are numerous posts on Abulhawa’s X feed referring to Jews as “parasites,” which seems to be her favorite go-to insult. For example, she re-shared a video asserting that groups of Israelis were moving into Gaza to capitalize on genocide (there was no genocide in Gaza; the only attempted genocide was on October 7). “F*****g parasites on this planet. I want to puke every time I hear that fake language pretending to be Hebrew, without a trace of Semitic sounds, rejoicing in carnage, trying to get their greedy grubby hands on more of what does not belong to them. There’s something horribly wrong with these people,” Abulhawa spat. In another post, she called Israelis “soulless parasites.”

In February, she reposted a clip of Congress welcoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a claim that almost every member of the United States government is either Jewish or married to a Jew. Abulhawa screeched, “the whole world is zionist occupied, except Palestine. They’ve stolen our land and home and heritage, but we’ve at least kept our dignity, refusing to submit to these parasites on earth.” Apparently, burning Jewish babies to death is maintaining dignity — who knew?

In January, Abulhawa shared a completely unconfirmed report that Israeli soldiers had murdered a mother and daughter. Abulhawa gibbered, “they are demons on this earth. virulent parasites who suck the lifeblood from others, not even for their own survival, but for their sadistic amusement.”I could provide dozens more examples from Abulhawa’s X feed of the most vile antisemitic rhetoric (see more above, found by Jon Levine), but I think the point is clear, which is that Abulhawa is a pro-genocide Jew-hater, and Mamdani’s wife created artwork for one of her essays. If you can know a person by the friends he or she keeps, then Rama Duwaji Mamdani has some serious explaining to do.

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Go home.

• Ex-Columbia Professor Calls for Violence, Glorifies Murder of Jews (Turley)

Professor Muhammad Abdou, who until recently taught students at Columbia University, appeared online this week to spread calls for religious-based violence and glorify the murder of Jews. He did so as part of an event at the Union Theological Seminary, an institution associated with Columbia. While the university recently ended Abdou’s teaching, it is important to remember that this unhinged fanatic was previously chosen by Columbia faculty and administrators to teach their students. Those individuals remain at Columbia, and Abdou is just the latest example of the radical chic of higher education.


The Islamic studies scholar called on students to “be a threat” as part of the event titled “Death to the Akademy: How to be a thorn in their throat amidst snakes in the grass.” Teachers in higher education are often called “the academy.” According to a video on X from Manhattan Institute investigative analyst Stu Smith, the talk involved deeply disturbing and hateful comments.

Abdou told the students: “Let us engage in jihad, and there are rules for jihad, and Muslims know that Allah has commanded rules. We don’t engage in wanton violence, but we don’t accept the negative peace either.” One of the most chilling moments came when he praised Elias Rodriguez, the man facing multiple charges for the murder of a young Jewish couple. In what Abdou called the “assassination of two Zionists,” Rodriguez is accused of murdering Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, the two Israeli employees in 2025 in Washington.

Abdou does not discuss how this young couple dreamed of a life together or sought to bridge religious divides. They are just a couple of “Zionists” in his eyes. He then reportedly praised their accused killer: “God bless him. He took action. … Take action. Not only that kind of action, just to be very clear, because there’s also building. We need to destroy. We need to create alternatives.” The seminary stopped his in-person appearance, which led to condemnations from student groups. In an Instagram post, Queer Muslims NYC accused the seminary of “flagrant Islamophobia and utter disregard for Muslim students.” However, they claimed that the union continued to support the event with a virtual component.

This video is reminiscent of the speech of other radical faculty like Cornell Professor Russell Rickford, who celebrated the massacre in Israel on Oct. 7th. Their extremism was not a barrier to being hired. It was likely an enhancement. They are examples of why faculty members are unlikely to change the overwhelmingly liberal appointments. Conservatives and libertarians have been largely purged from most departments. While even a moderately conservative faculty candidate will often face organized opposition, radicals like Abdou and Rickford find an eager audience on faculties.

I encourage you to watch this video. This is the man who was interviewed and selected by faculty and administrators, not just at Columbia but at Cornell University and the University of Toronto. He was appointed as the Arcapita Visiting Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s Middle-Eastern, South Asian and African Studies (MESAAS) Program at the Middle-East Institute. He was also a Postdoctoral Fellow/Visiting Scholar at Cornell.

According to his bio, “he is a self-identifying Muslim anarchist and diasporic settler of color.” His credentials include “his organizing towards BIPOC and Palestinian liberation and involvement with post-anti-Globalization Seattle 1999 movements.”That appears to be the perfect resume for someone who wants to teach at leading universities. Those faculty and administrators are still at these institutions, and so is the radical culture that has taken hold of higher education in the United States. What is most striking about this video is how Abdou offers just pure hate. There is no discernible intellectual content or insight. Just rage masquerading as scholarship.

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Keeping busy.

• Musk Whips Out ‘Macrohard’ In Disruptive Tesla-xAI Bid (ZH)

Elon Musk on Wednesday announced a joint project between Tesla and his AI startup xAI, which he dubbed “Macrohard” or “Digital Optimus” that can ‘basically automate entire companies’ by observing and intelligently simulating their functions. The way it works, per a Wednesday post on X: “Grok is the master conductor/navigator with deep understanding of the world to direct digital Optimus, which is processing and actioning the past 5 secs of real-time computer screen video and keyboard/mouse actions. Grok is like a much more advanced and sophisticated version of turn-by-turn navigation software.”


So Digital Optimus is the ‘instinct’ while Grok is the ‘thinking part of the mind’ according to Musk. The setup will run “very competitively on the super low cost Tesla AI4 ($650) paired with relatively frugal use of the much more expensive xAI Nvidia hardware,” and “will be the only real-time smart AI system. “In principle, it is capable of emulating the function of entire companies. That is why the program is called MACROHARD, a funny reference to Microsoft.” -Elon Musk.It gets even more wild; Musk says it works “in all AI4-equipped cars, so your car can do office work for you when not driving,” and he will deploy millions of dedicated Digital Optimus units at Supercharger stations.

Grok itself suggested 10 use cases;
1. Auto data entry from invoices/docs.
2. Real-time code fix from error messages.
3. Deal hunting while shopping online.
4. Contextual email response generation.
5. Seamless enterprise software ops.
6. Auto video edits from timeline.
7. Live stock trade execution.
8. Tutorial step automation.
9. Instant security threat spotting.
10. Entire company workflow emulation.

According to Musk, Digital Optimus will be ready to rock in 6 months. xAI was acquired by SpaceX last month in an all-stock deal that valued the rocket maker at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion, which comes ahead of a potential SpaceX IPO later this year.

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All carmakers obeyed politics and lose. Except for Toyota, which didn’t jump in head first. And Tesla.

• Honda Just Lost Billions on EVs It Can’t Sell (Stephen Green)

Japanese automaker Honda just cancelled the production of three planned made-in-the-U.S.A. electric cars, including the 0-Series SUV, the 0-Series Saloon, and the Acura RSX — and the company says it will write off massive losses as a result. Still, better than building EVs nobody wants to buy. The company said the EVs had to go to avoid future losses, complaining about the “current business environment where the demand for EVs is declining significantly.” I follow these things, and I’d somehow never even heard of Honda’s 0-Series vehicles — assuredly for “zero emissions” — introduced at the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and were supposed to go on sale in the U.S. later this year.


The company’s 0-Series English-language and Japanese brag sheets are still up on the Honda website, for whatever that’s worth. Honda blamed U.S. tariffs (I’ll come back to those in a moment), the “volatile policy environment surrounding EV incentives,” (as Car and Driver put it), fossil fuel regulations, and changing consumer priorities in China. Honda says total write-downs could total $15.8 billion. While the epic losses won’t all come at once, Honda says it expects to lose between $2 billion and $3.5 billion in the current fiscal year, ending this month. According to Financial Times, that’s Honda’s first-ever annual recorded loss since going public 50 years ago.

What’s maybe most impressive about losing nearly [dr_evil_voice] SIXTEEN BILLION DOLLARS [/dr_evil_voice] on EVs is that Honda didn’t even try that hard, at least not compared to certain other automakers I could name — and am about to. GM said in January that it would suffer $7.6 billion worth of write-downs on its overblown EV plans, and in December, Ford announced a $19.5 billion write-down on its EV investments. That’s one of the largest in history. Europe-based Stellantis took one look at Ford’s losses and said, “Hold my beer.” Headquartered in the Netherlands, the Euro-giant also owns the old Chrysler Group brands, including Chrysler, Dodge, Ram, and Jeep.

Despite Europe offering even bigger subsidies and stricter mandates for EVs than this country does, Stellantis last month announced a whopping $26.6 billion in EV losses. Then there’s fussy old Toyota, which remained largely focused on hybrids and fuel-efficient ICE vehicles. That company seems to be doing just fine. American tariffs might have complicated Honda’s poor planning, but as you can see, they weren’t primarily to blame. Those same tariffs were supposed to help GM and Ford sell their cars — including EVs — but American EV makers took their lumps, too.

The real culprit here, of course, is Big Government. Washington, Brussels, and Beijing went all-in on subsidizing and even mandating a market into existence — a market that there simply wasn’t enough demand to serve. Not even with all the subsidies and mandates. So automakers retooled manufacturing facilities, built massive battery factories, and designed EVs (and pricy software to run them) from the ground up. Now they have to throw out some of the designs, scale back the battery production, and re-retool the plants.

Thanks, Big Government!

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Newsom is a good sign the Dems don’t have anyone.

• Gavin Newsom Has a ‘Hillary Clinton Problem’ (Robert Spencer)

The destroyer of California, Gov. Gavin Newsom, wants very, very much to be president of the United States, and if he ever attains his goal, he will do to the entire country what he has done to California. That’s why all reasonable Americans who value the nation as a relatively economically stable and free society should be deeply alarmed at the prospect of a Newsom presidency. Newsom is such a bad candidate that even some leftists are alarmed, albeit not for the same reasons that patriots are. On the left, the concern is that Gavin has a “Hillary Clinton problem.”


The term “Hillary Clinton problem” could refer to so very many difficulties and categories of difficulties that it veritably boggles the mind. Did Newsom use a private email server to conceal government business from watchdogs? Did he abandon our people to jihadis at Benghazi and then lie about it? Does Newsom intend, after losing (as all patriots hope) the 2028 presidential election, to frame his victorious opponent for collusion with Russia? Does Newsom have reputation for lamp-throwing temper tantrums? Do Newsom’s enemies have strange suicidal tendencies?

In this case, the “Hillary Clinton problem” phrase comes from MS NOW host Chris Hayes, who said: “I think Newsom has the Hillary Clinton problem, which is that Hillary Clinton was perceived outside of the Democratic Party and Democratic coalition as the ultimate lib, the libiest lib who ever lived, and was never actually like that much of a lib. It was like — and also had a record that was fairly centrist, particularly as a U.S. senator.”

Oh, good grief. Hayes is trying to sell Newsom – and Hillary Clinton — as centrists? They may be centrists if Chairman Mao is at one end of the spectrum and Uncle Joe Stalin at the other end, but that’s about it. Newsom has presided over California’s first-ever population decline. Luminaries including Elon Musk and Steven Spielberg have fled the state to avoid Newsom’s ever-growing tower of taxes and regulations. All Newsom promises for the nation if he moves into the White House on Jan. 20, 2029 is an open border, spiraling crime, and a federal government that bleeds the taxpayer even more than his California state government does now. What is centrist about all that?

Hayes added: “And that’s like the worst uncanny valley for a Democratic politician to be in, where the base doesn’t trust you because you don’t have a kind of organic relationship with the left parts of the party. And then the swing voter just thinks like, that’s a lib.” Right. Because the swing voter is still marginally sane, while the “left parts of the party” think that men can become women, that Old Joe Biden was a competent president, and that ever-expanding government control over every aspect of Americans’ daily lives is a positive development.

Whether the Democrats run Newsom in 2028 or some other nutbar, it is virtually certain that no one will be able to secure the nomination without appealing to the party’s socialist, anti-American, pro-Islamic Republic of Iran, pro-Hamas base. Hayes says that the “Democrats needed someone who had an authentic relationship with the party’s left-wing base, but also ‘communicates broadly’ and is viewed as nonpartisan.” This is like saying that V. I. Lenin has a chance to be elected if he “communicates broadly” with anti-Communists and is viewed as nonpartisan: it isn’t going to happen.

Hayes, however, thinks Newsom can do it: “I just think right now — and this could change — Newsom has the opposite set of factors. He has made very clear attempts to show that he’s bipartisan, centrist, independent.” How on earth has Gavin Newsom ever attempted to be “bipartisan”? This is the man who has sponsored a gerrymandering scheme that will totally disenfranchise the millions of Californians who are still Republicans.

Despite the facts, Hayes insisted that “substantive things he’s done” showed that Newsom had moved toward the center, and lamented: “But I haven’t seen evidence that that comes through. I just think there’s a reputational thing that’s very problematic. Also, the governor of California is a tough place to get the next Democratic nominee from.”

That may be. Newsom’s problem is indeed California, albeit for different reasons from the ones Hayes imagines. Newsom’s problem is that he has been governor of the nation’s most populous state since Jan. 7, 2019. He has a lengthy track record. Contrary to Chris Hayes’ imaginings, there is nothing centrist about it. So will America choose for president a socialist whose policies have wrecked his state? We shall see, but Gavin’s “Hillary Clinton problem” is not so much that he is wrongly not perceived as a centrist, but that like Hillary, he has always left a catastrophe in his wake. Ask Christopher Stevens about that.

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https://twitter.com/OluwaGbasten/status/2032110885594955948?s=20 https://twitter.com/MichaelARothman/status/2031972970621501937?s=20

 

 

 

 

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