Menu Icon

Debt Rattle March 31 2026

Mar 312026
 
 March 31, 2026  Posted by at 9:33 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  60 Responses »


Damien Hirst Spiritual Day Blossom 2018


• Trump Presents a Strong Statement Toward Iran – Rubio Responds (CTH)
• Israel Has Launched America Into The Third World War (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Geopolitics of the Third World War (Alexander Dugin)
• Iran’s Victory Would Have a Silver Lining (Paul Craig Roberts)
• EU Parliament Told Continent Is ‘On Track For CIVIL WAR’ (MN)
• US Senators Seek To Sanction Hungary Over Obstructing Ukraine Aid (ZH)
• Whatever the Ruling on Birthright Citizenship… (Turley)
• Springtime for RINOs (James Howard Kunstler)
• The Great Illusion of NATO is Fading Fast (Trenin)
• Tom Homan Bulldozed Jake Tapper’s DHS Funding Narrative (Matt Margolis)
• This Trillion-Dollar Firm Wants Out of Mamdani’s NYC (Stephen Green)
• Scott Jennings Destroyed the ‘No Kings’ Rallies, CNN Wasn’t Happy (Margolis)

 


 

https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/2038285905627136090?s=20 https://twitter.com/MichaelARothman/status/2038389429426147786?s=20

 


 


Rubio’s good.

• Trump Presents a Strong Statement Toward Iran – Rubio Responds (CTH)

As Secretary of State Marco Rubio appears for an interview on Good Morning America, President Trump released the following statement:


“The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran. Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately “Open for Business,” we will conclude our lovely “stay” in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet “touched.” This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year “Reign of Terror.” Thank you for your attention to this matter.” ~ President DONALD J. TRUMP

Secretary Rubio responded in real time to questions about the objectives. Rubio impressively underlined the objectives in Iran, reemphasizing the core intent of the military operation to remove the capacity of Iran to pose a threat to the stable alliances that have formed in the region.

Read more …

“The UN, EU, US, Russia, China, India are yet to try to stop Israel’s multi-year genocide of the Palestinians.”

• Israel Has Launched America Into The Third World War (Paul Craig Roberts)

“The Third World War has been initiated by the United States in the context of preserving, strengthening, and ultimately consolidating the unipolar model of world order. All others are offered a choice: to become obedient vassals or to be treated as enemies. It is against these opponents of the unipolar world that Washington is waging the Third World War. At stake is sovereignty.”


I think a more correct explanation of Trump’s change of posture is the power of the Israel Lobby over the US government, media, universities, and entertainment and Netanyahu’s ability to use this power to put the US again at war for Greater Israel as the George W. Bush administration was used in “the war on terror,” which was the opening phase of destroying “seven countries in five years” called for by the Zionist neoconservatives. It is the extraordinary control that Israel has over the United States that accounts for Trump’s change in posture. Trump inherited the war with Russia in Ukraine. He could not end it because the combination of the Israel Lobby and the US military/security complex is too powerful for an American president.

I am surprised that a person as thoughtful as Dugin does not see Netanyahu’s role in realigning Trump. Especially so because in February the former Israeli prime minister, Bennett, addressed the American Conference of Jewish Organizations and declared: “Turkey is the next Iran.” These were marching orders to the Israel Lobby to begin the demonization of Turkey and setting Turkey up as the next “terrorist” country to be destroyed. Dugin is very much aware of the threat posed by Greater Israel, but in his article he does not say that it is the Israel Lobby that changed Trump from a multipolar position to a unipolar position, thereby bringing wider wars to the world.

As best as I can tell, most governments defer to Israel’s explanations and justifications. The UN, EU, US, Russia, China, India are yet to try to stop Israel’s multi-year genocide of the Palestinians. In the US, UK, and some EU countries it is becoming a hate crime and a criminal felony to criticize Israel. American students are expelled from US universities for criticizing Israel. Even Putin defers to Israel and abandoned Russia’s Syrian ally to Greater Israel. As for the current conflict in the Middle East, Hezbollah secretary-general Qassem is the only person to accurately describe the war with Iran in terms of “the US-Israeli project of ‘Greater Israel.’” https://paulcraigroberts.org/finally-an-arab-leader-who-understands/

Read more …

“Washington has now fully adopted the neoconservative position and behaves as if it alone possesses genuine sovereignty ..”

• Geopolitics of the Third World War (Alexander Dugin)

(Translated from the original Russian version on RIA Novosti).
Many analysts are now advancing the hypothesis that the Third World War has already begun and that we are in its first stage. Whether this is so or not will become clear in the near future, but for now let us assume the validity of this hypothesis and attempt to survey its geopolitical contours.The essence of the Third World War lies in a radical transformation of the entire architecture of world politics. The international institutions that exist today have long ceased to correspond to the real state of affairs. They are still organized according to the logic of the Westphalian system and the bipolar world. The Westphalian model is based on the recognition of the sovereignty of all states acknowledged at the international level. The United Nations is built on the same foundation.


However, in practice, over the past hundred years, the principle of sovereignty has turned into pure hypocrisy. In the 1930s, a system took shape in Europe in which only three forces were sovereign, and these were strictly ideological: 1. the bourgeois-capitalist West (Britain, the United States, France, and so on); 2. the communist USSR; 3. the Axis countries with a fascist ideology. This situation persisted even after the end of the Second World War, except that one of the ideological poles—the fascist one—disappeared. The other two—the capitalist and the socialist ones—grew stronger and expanded. Yet once again, no national state was sovereign in itself. Some were governed from Moscow, others from Washington. The Non-Aligned Movement wavered between the two poles.

he self-dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the USSR put an end to bipolarity, and from that moment only the United States remained as the bearer of sovereignty. The United Nations and the Westphalian model became a fig leaf for global hegemony. Thus emerged the unipolar world. Already in the 1990s, it became clear that international law would have to be revised—either in favor of a world government (the liberal “end of history” scenario of Francis Fukuyama) or in favor of direct Western hegemony (as envisioned by American neoconservatives). European countries followed the world-government scenario and, as a preparatory stage towards it, ceded their sovereignty to the European Union. Everyone else was subtly encouraged to prepare for the same.

However, in the early 2000s, a new tendency emerged: the will to restore sovereignty in Russia and China. Moscow and Beijing moved to make sovereignty not a fiction but a reality. Thus, multipolarity made itself known. From that point onward, it was proposed that sovereignty be vested in “civilization-states”—both those already formed (Russia, China, India) and potential ones (the Islamic world, Africa, Latin America). These, in turn, coalesced into BRICS.

As a result, the unipolar project came into direct confrontation with the multipolar one. Both globalists and neoconservatives opposed multipolarity. The potential for conflict was evident, while the old norms and rules inherited from previous geopolitical eras no longer functioned. Whether the Third World War has already begun or not is ultimately secondary; its geopolitical content is clear: it is a war between unipolarity and multipolarity over a new architecture of the world, over the distribution of sovereign centers of decision-making: either confined to the West alone or shared among rising civilization-states.

Donald Trump returned to the White House for a second term in 2024 with an agenda that suggested he might accept multipolarity: rejection of interventions, criticism of globalists, direct conflict with liberals, sharp attacks on neoconservatives, a focus on domestic U.S. issues, and calls to return to traditional values—all of this gave reason to believe that Trump and his administration would align with multipolarity, while seeking to secure the most advantageous position for the United States within this new framework.

However, very soon the Trump administration began to move closer to the neoconservatives and to move away from its initial position. This was followed by support for the genocide in Gaza, continued provision of intelligence to Kiev, the seizure of Maduro, preparations for an invasion of Cuba, and finally a war against Iran, including the killing of the political leadership of the Islamic Republic. Washington has now fully adopted the neoconservative position and behaves as if it alone possesses genuine sovereignty in the world: without any reference to rules or international law, it asserts unilateral authority over the entire globe. It seeks to prove this in practice: through wars, invasions, abductions of heads of state, and the orchestration of regime-change operations.

The Third World War has been initiated by the United States in the context of preserving, strengthening, and ultimately consolidating the unipolar model of world order. All others are offered a choice: to become obedient vassals or to be treated as enemies. It is against these opponents of the unipolar world that Washington is waging the Third World War. At stake is sovereignty. Since there is as yet no single power capable of symmetrically opposing the United States, it is conducting military operations across several fronts simultaneously.

Read more …

“Israel wants to mobilize 15,000 working Israelis. Trump has sent 15,000 Marines and paratroopers. Iran has mobilized 1,000,000 troops. What does that tell you? ”

• Iran’s Victory Would Have a Silver Lining (Paul Craig Roberts)

Former Israeli Army officer says Israel’s military is “on the brink of collapse.” Israel’s capability, with US help, is assassinations and sneak attacks. Israel’s army is good at bombing civilians and shooting mothers and babies in the head. But when it comes to fighting, Israel is pitiful. Twice the vaunted IDF tried to occupy Southern Lebanon in order to steal the water resources there. And twice the Israeli army was totally defeated by a mere Hezbollah militia with no air force, tanks, or artillery. It might be about to happen for a third time.


The current war with Iran now expanded into Lebanon is disrupting Israeli life and bringing bombing home to them as Iranian missiles penetrate Israel and Washington’s air defenses without difficulty. More and more of Israel’s population is seeing the current war as an unnecessary “political war” and do not support it. If by “political,” Israelis mean the Zionist Greater Israel agenda, then the Israeli population’s support for the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel might not be very broad or deep and might be eroding. Possibly Israelis, as well as Muslims, are having the Zionist agenda imposed on them.

If this is the case, then the Israeli population’s support for the Israeli-American war on Iran may falter before the Iranian population’s support does. Already, the American public is heavily against Trump’s war against Iran. Unless the Trump-Netanyahu war criminals use their nukes, Iran is likely to win this war. The silver lining in an Iranian victory is the liberation of both America and the Israeli population from servitude to the crazed Zionist agenda of a Greater Israel from the Nile to Pakistan.

Americans should pray for an Iranian victory. Otherwise, their blood and money will continue to be used for Israel’s bloody purpose of Greater Israel. Israel wants to mobilize 15,000 working Israelis. Trump has sent 15,000 Marines and paratroopers. Iran has mobilized 1,000,000 troops. What does that tell you? If the dumbshit Netanyahu-Trump strike Iran with nukes, Iran will nuke Israel by destroying the nuclear plant at Dimona. Israel will no longer exist. Israel is tiny. lran is as large as Western Europe. An honest American has to ask himself how America became the vehicle for Israel’s wars for Greater Israel. Whatever happened to the requirement that the American government represents Americans’ interests, not those of some foreign country?

The 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by US VP Dick Cheney and the Zionists he positioned in the essential offices of the US government. The orchestrated “attack on America by Muslin terrorists” was the “New Pearl Harbor” that the American Zionist neoconservatives said was necessary to destroy seven Muslim countries in five years. It has taken longer than the five years that 4 Star General Wesley Clark said was the agenda shown to him by Pentagon generals. But America is now working for Israel on destroying Iran, after having disposed of Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Last month former Israeli prime minister Bennett came to America to address the American Organizations for Israel and gave them marching orders to begin demonizing Turkey as “the next Iran.”

Turkey has a leader who is just as stupid as America’s, as the UK’s, France’s, Germany’s, Russia’s, China’s, India’s. If Tayyip Erdogan understood the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel unfolding in front of his eyes, he would understand that he and his country are next and would have united with Iran to preserve Turkey’s sovereignty. But the fool thinks he can sit on the fence and ride both horses. In a world in which nuclear weapons and the ability to deploy deadly infections exist, and in which no objective, inquiring media exists, any fake news can rule.

There is nothing shameful about Iran fighting for its right to exist as a sovereign nation. But it is shameful for America to inflict harm on herself and others by fighting for Greater Israel.

Read more …

“Mass migration is shredding cultural homogeneity and paving the way for Balkanisation and violence..”

• EU Parliament Told Continent Is ‘On Track For CIVIL WAR’ (MN)

Europe’s ruling class has spent decades importing chaos under the banner of “diversity,” and now the bill is coming due in the most explosive way possible. A major conference held inside the European Parliament has heard stark warnings that the continent is barreling toward civil war as mass migration erodes trust, creates no-go zones, and fractures societies along ethnic lines. Professor David Betz of King’s College London cut straight to the point, telling the assembled lawmakers and experts: “Europe is on track for civil war”.


The event, titled Civil War: Europe at Risk?, was hosted by French populist-right leader Marion Maréchal and Sweden Democrats MEP Charlie Weimers. It also launched a new report documenting up to a thousand no-go zones across Europe based on public data including crime rates, sexual violence, youth gangs, unemployment, school performance, antisemitism, homophobia, mosque density, attacks on firefighters, and NGO presence. Maréchal opened the conference by reflecting that formerly peaceful and stable societies are “rapidly transforming before our eyes into societies of violence and mistrust”, stating that “the main basis of trust between citizens is cultural homogeneity”, which is now fast eroding.

She warned Europe is already under a great strain of “diffuse guerrilla activity”, which takes various forms, including “riots, looting, random attacks, anti-white racism, and terrorist attacks”. Weimers echoed the assessment, noting the impact of mass migration on cultural cohesion. The Swedish MEP reflected: “Western democracies that were once relatively homogenous societies have become deeply fragmented. Newcomers often share little in common with the indigenous population. More alarmingly, many have no intention of assimilating.” Both hosts said they were driven to hold the conference to find political answers and prevent “the horror of civil war”.

Betz, who has gained prominence for highlighting the collapse of social cohesion, described the trajectory in chilling detail. He warned of “a peasant revolt. A conservative uprising in which the ruled seek to punish their rulers for violating their obligations under the social contract, and for changing the rules of the game against their wishes. It will look something like Italy’s Years of Lead, the ‘dirty wars’ of Latin America, or maybe The Troubles of Northern Ireland, but on a larger scale.” He continued: “What is already a guarded society will become a radically more heavily fortified society as elites seek more protection with more walls, guards, and surveillance. It will be bloody… the Balkanisation of British life along ethnic lines [is underway].”

Betz further urged, “What I call assortative movement is already occurring, quite obviously in some places like Tower Hamlets in London, Sparkhill in Birmingham which are already ethnic enclaves, zones of negotiated policing with parallel legal systems, alternative economies, and… zones of endemic and large-scale out-group sexual predation… this ought to be more generally frightening.” “In government there are plenty of people who understand fully the gravity of the situation, although it is, career-wise, terminal to speak of it openly,” he added.

Betz also warned of the ultimate stakes for native populations. “Where does Balkanisation lead us? … it leads to the extinguishment of Britain in the sense of a coherent cultural entity dominated by people genuinely sharing the titular identity of ‘British’… it leads to large scale and widespread civil war…” “It is very possible that the Britons end up like the Canaanites or the Arcadians, a people of historic interest, their monuments visible here and there in some sort of ruination, of interest to archaeologists and historians,” Betz explained, adding “This would be a tragedy, but that is a very viable option in front of us, and in fact it is a possibility that is quite close.”

Weimers asked bluntly: “Where will Europe be in 50 years? Will there be a Europe in 50 years?” Betz further outlined how any future conflict might unfold, describing “the siege of urban areas but with a few 21st century twists. In many ways it will be reminiscent of the siege of Sarajevo, but much more dominated by paramilitary actors using system disruption tactics. Most importantly, infrastructure attack to degrade and destroy the life support systems of urban, non-native enclaves.” He continued, “The political object is very simple, it is to compel non-natives to leave.

The strategy is to create conditions of life in the cities so intolerable that leaving is preferable to staying… it’s not an implausible theory of victory because its central premise, the instability of the modern urban condition, at the best of times is something scholars of urban studies have been warning against for 50 years already.” Betz warned that “fuel systems are easy to attack, they are flammable if not explosive by definition, they are difficult to repair, and expensive to replace. In fact they are impossible to replace in civil war conditions where no insurance is available.” He continued, “Moreover, disruption of fuel has very rapid knock-on effects of everything else logistically, most importantly the food distribution system which is the traditional weapon of siegecraft.” The full conference is below:

Betz has continually warned of the deep social erosion he’s believes is cascading toward civil war in Britain and Eure. Retired British Army Colonel Richard Kemp has also warned that integration breakdowns have worsened over the past two decades, paving the way for inevitable conflict. Kemp outlined that there is “No government, the government now or any prospective government of the UK, has the guts to stop it” when it comes to the Islamification of Britain. The pattern is unmistakable. Globalist policies of open borders and elite denial have created parallel societies, eroded national identity, and left ordinary Europeans with no peaceful political outlet.

As Betz has noted, many in government already grasp the gravity but stay silent to protect their careers. As educational as this all is, Europe doesn’t need more conferences or reports. It needs leaders with the courage to end mass migration, restore cultural cohesion, and put their own people first — before the warnings stop being theoretical and the conflict becomes reality.

Read more …

“The ruling Fidesz party has made anti-Ukraine messages the central element of its election campaign and insisted on maintaining Russian oil imports.”

• US Senators Seek To Sanction Hungary Over Obstructing Ukraine Aid (ZH)

Because US Congress is perfectly functional, and all domestic issues have been resolved (one would very ironically think), the FT reports that a bipartisan pair of US senators are set to introduce legislation calling for sanctions to be imposed on senior Hungarian officials involved in obstructing aid to Ukraine. If passed, the Block Putin act would require President Trump to impose financial sanctions and visa bans on Hungarian government officials involved in the country’s purchases of Russian oil and gas, and who have sought to block support for Ukraine.


The introduction of the bill comes as Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has held up a €90bn EU loan to Ukraine as he faces a tough re-election campaign ahead of parliamentary elections next month. Opinion polls indicated Orbán, who has served as prime minister since 2010, could lose power. The opposition Tisza party’s lead stood at 23% points on Wednesday, according to pollster Median. Pro-government polls show a slight lead for Orbán’s ruling Fidesz. Orbán, historically aligned with Vladimir Putin, has accused Kyiv of disrupting the flow of Moscow’s oil to Hungary by stalling repairs to the Druzhba pipeline, which transits Ukraine.

Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Thom Tillis, co-chairs of the Senate Nato observer group, are set to introduce the legislation this week. The pair have been outspoken about Europe’s continued dependence on Russian energy. Tillis said: “The United States and our allies must remain united in supporting Ukraine and in cutting off the revenue streams that fuel Putin’s war.”“This bill holds senior Hungarian officials accountable while giving Hungary a clear path to get back in line with its allies by ending its reliance on Russian energy and stopping its obstruction of support for Ukraine,” he added.

Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, said: “It is beyond belief that vice-president Vance is reportedly planning on visiting Hungary to provide an electoral boost to a corrupt government that continues to help fund Russia’s war machine.” “If we want this war in Ukraine to end, the Trump administration needs to be consistent in holding our allies to the same standards; no one, especially Viktor Orbán, should get a free pass,” she said. While much of the continent has sought to wean itself off Russian oil and gas supplies since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Hungary and Slovakia have increased their dependence on Russian energy… and lucky for them, as now the “rest of the continent” is about to go dry as a result of the Iran war.

Complicating matters, Trump is very close to Orbán and has endorsed his re-election bid. Politico on Wednesday reported preparations were being made for US vice-president JD Vance to visit Hungary days ahead of the elections. Trump has criticized Europe for continuing to buy Russian energy and has urged the continent to take the lead in supporting Ukraine. “They’re buying oil and gas from Russia while they’re fighting Russia,” Trump said in his address to the UN General Assembly in September. The draft text of the bill, which has been seen by the FT, does not mention Orbán explicitly as a target of the sanctions. Therefore, it would fall to the Trump administration to determine which Hungarian officials have been involved in holding up aid to Ukraine and continuing the country’s dependency on Russian energy, a congressional aide said.

Orbán and his foreign minister Péter Szijjártó have long sought close ties with Russia, with Szijjártó meeting his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov more than 20 times since the start of the war in 2022. The ruling Fidesz party has made anti-Ukraine messages the central element of its election campaign and insisted on maintaining Russian oil imports. “If President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy wants to get his money from Brussels, he must open the Druzhba crude pipeline,” Orbán said in a video message to the Ukrainian president last week. “They tell us openly that they don’t want to allow cheap Russian oil through to Hungary, so the situation is very simple. No oil — no money.”

Read more …

Why does the American Bar Association.express an opinion?

• Whatever the Ruling on Birthright Citizenship… (Turley)

The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in the historic birthright citizenship case. It is a hearing that has been over 150 years in the making, since the ratification of the 14th Amendment. It is not just a long-debated question that has divided the nation, but it has divided many lawyers as well. For that reason, there was one brief that stood out before the court: the amicus brief of the American Bar Association. The ABA filed its “friend of the court” brief to argue that the matter is clear: Anyone who gives birth on our soil, even if here illegally or only briefly, may claim U.S. citizenship for their child.


Most nations on Earth, including many of our European allies, reject birthright citizenship, and many of us in this nation believe that it is a foolish policy. Yet, even as someone who opposes birthright citizenship, I have long believed and argued that there are good-faith arguments on both sides of this debate. The sponsors of this language clearly disagreed on the issue at the time of its enactment. Some stated at the time that the language did not allow for birthright citizenship.The debate comes down to six poorly chosen words: “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Those words were not in the original draft, but were inserted by an amendment. Thus, they were not superfluous or casual verbiage, but an intentional condition. They were placed in the middle of an otherwise clear statement that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States … are citizens of the United States.”

For more than a century, many have argued that the words reflect an intent to limit the amendment to citizens and legal residents who are subject fully to the jurisdiction of the United States. That brings us back to the bar association. Regardless of how one comes out in the fascinating historical and constitutional debate, this is a case one would expect the ABA to sit out. It clearly does not speak for all lawyers on the issue, yet, it filed a strident brief and laid out a parade of horribles about what would happen if the Supreme Court were to reject birthright citizenship.I found the brief to be one of the least compelling submissions to the court. But, once again, the media will portray the brief as speaking for American lawyers, even though the ABA represents less than two out of every ten attorneys.

I previously wrote a column on these pages on “the rise and fall of the American Bar Association,” exploring how the ABA has alienated many lawyers with its partisan advocacy. When it was founded on August 21, 1878, in Saratoga Springs, New York, the 75 lawyers present from 20 states (and the District of Columbia) wanted an organization to create a national system of standards for “the advancement of the science of jurisprudence, the promotion of the administration of justice.” It was created to focus on professional accreditation, education, and training. That changed in 1990, when advocates overrode earlier votes to remain neutral on the constitutional interpretations supporting the right to abortion.

The adoption of a pro-abortion position shocked many and fundamentally changed the culture at the ABA. (It is worth noting that the very arguments embraced by the bar association were later rejected by the Supreme Court in the Dobbs decision.)Since that time, the ABA has become fully captive to partisans who use the organization to support liberal and often Democratic Party positions. The result has been a steady decline in membership.Today, there are roughly 1.3 million lawyers in the U.S. Even if the ABA represented just half of that number, it would have 650,000 members. As recently as 2015, it still had 400,000. But more recently, membership has fallen to 227,000, or just 17 percent of the bar.

Despite complaints that the ABA has become a partisan organization, its leadership has doubled down with positions and programming that are echo chambers for the left. During Trump’s terms, the ABA has uniformly opposed him and his policies. The ABA brief in favor of birthright citizenship is signed by ABA President Michele Behnke. It simply declares the language and history clear and resolved. It then predicts a virtual meltdown of order and due process in this country if birthright citizenship is not upheld. The decline of the ABA to the point where it does not speak for most lawyers has followed a familiar model. The media also abandoned neutrality in covering such stories, with many journalism schools now teaching students that they are advocates for social justice.

Likewise, academia largely purged its departments of Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians, as it increasingly prioritized advocacy over education. All three of these groups have one thing in common beyond their liberal ideological bias and advocacy: They are all increasingly unpopular. Higher education and the media have plummeted in public trust to record lows. Like the ABA, which can no longer claim to speak even for most lawyers, there is little indication that the loss of trust is causing the leadership to do any soul-searching. As memberships and revenues decline, the use of these institutions for advocacy remains personally beneficial. Behnke is leading an organization that is a shell of its former self, but she (like academics and journalists) is lionized for taking these positions.

Ironically, Behnke has a role in two of these areas, as a board member for the University of Wisconsin Law School and the University of Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association Board.Faced with an ABA doubling down on these controversial positions, various states are moving to do away with its historical role in bar memberships. The brief reaffirmed for many lawyers that the ABA is no longer a neutral and fair representative for all lawyers. It will continue to represent a dwindling faction of lawyers who look at the association as more of a stridently ideological than a strictly professional organization. That is why, whatever the outcome in Trump v. Barbara, the American Bar Association is likely to be the loser.

Read more …

“This sort of derangement is a novel psychopathology in the human species. . . a synthesis of low-IQ feminized brain scramble & neurotic lunacy.” JD Haltigan on X

• Springtime for RINOs (James Howard Kunstler)

Went to the No Kings assemblies in my town and the next nearby town on Saturday. Mental illness as far as the eye could see. Old folks, too, as far as the eye could see, predominately of the female persuasion: the devouring grandmothers. The Democratic Party has marshalled mental illness as its premier campaign strategy, and lately it is winning bigly around the country as mental illness becomes the go-to cope option for the ragged remnants of Boomerdom.


They believe things that are patently insane, for instance, the latest proposal by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) that illegal immigrants deserve reparations on account of being “traumatized” by U.S. immigration enforcement actions. If it feels like the Democratic Party is at war with our country you are not hallucinating. It is every bit as much a jihad as the Death to America crowd in Iran has explicitly pushed since 1979.

The president gets no help whatsoever from his own party, as you see in the disgraceful hijinks around the urgent issue of election reform. You know exactly how the election playbook was written: let x-million foreigners into the country illegally, give them (illegally) social security numbers, driver’s licenses, automatic voter registrations, addresses, mail-in ballots. . . and voila! They don’t even have to mail-in their own mail-in ballots. Lawfare ninja Marc Elias will arrange ballot pick-up service. And the cherry on top is that the census must count all the illegal aliens to add new congressional districts for extra seats in Congress.

So, in the face of that, Republican Majority Leader John Thune could not muster enough votes to save the SAVE Act. Or so he said. Looks more like lack a’wanna. Eerie lack a’wanna. On their tours of cable news, the hapless Republican senators, when asked, would not name their colleagues leaning against the SAVE Act. But you know who they are. Mitch McConnell, Murkowski, Tillis, Collins, Capito.

Leader Thune could not even manage to get Homeland Security funded with the prospect of Iranian sleeper cells awakening around the country. He just threw in the towel at three o’clock in the morning on Friday, and sent the whole crew home to meet the Easter Bunny. Chuck Schumer did an end-zone dance. The brokenness of our politics could not be more in your face. As things shape up this grueling springtime, Mr. Trump might have to go Abe Lincoln on these folks. That is, declare some sort of national emergency to save the election and the country.

Of course, the nation is more than a little distracted just now with doings in Iran. The No Kings folk are unabashedly rooting for everything to go wrong there, and not a few conservatives in the public arena are straining to conjure an Iranian victory in their black-pilled deliriums. Many claim they “have no idea” what we are doing there — can it be that hard? — or else they are rabidly exercised over our alliance with Israel in the operation. You know how that goes. Cue Tucker. He’ll explain.

The truth is we are pounding these savage Shia clerics and their Revolutionary Guard myrmidons to the garden of eternal bliss where the seventy-two virgins wait. Whatever remains of Iran’s legit government is bargaining under cover for an off-ramp now. Pakistan mediates. The parties sit in different rooms and pass notes through the mediators in a third room. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi pretends that he will not negotiate with Mr. Trump’s envoys, Witkoff and Kushner, both Jews, the horror! But that’s sheer fakery.

To avoid humiliation in the process, Iran is still lobbing missiles and drones around the Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Israel, and they will probably keep doing that until the very moment of capitulation. Anyway, in less than a week, Mr. Trump turns the lights off all over Iran, and then they are back in the twelfth century. . . no command communication, no juice for anything, no money, no food, no water, no nothing . . . and a population getting dangerously desperate to make it all go away. . . to return to some dim memory of what normal life once was in an Iran not ruled by psychotic death cultists.

Read more …

“America steps back, and the Alliance starts to wobble ..”

• The Great Illusion of NATO is Fading Fast (Trenin)

One of the more idealistic ambitions of the last Soviet leadership was the simultaneous dissolution of both Cold War blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Only half of that vision came to pass. The Warsaw Pact disappeared in the spring of 1991. NATO didn’t. Instead, it endured and expanded. Over the following decades, the alliance not only survived but grew from 16 to 32 members. It took part in military campaigns in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya, and steadily extended its reach. After the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, back in 2022, NATO expanded further, incorporating Finland and Sweden, while consolidating itself more firmly on an anti-Russian footing than at any time since the Cold War.


For the first time in its history, Russia found itself facing a unified military alliance stretching across Europe and North America. The idea of a “collective West” opposing Moscow ceased to be rhetorical and became a strategic reality. Yet by the mid-2020s, cracks had begun to appear. The return of Donald Trump to the White House marked a shift not in America’s commitment to NATO, but in how that commitment was defined. Trump has abandoned the familiar model of the US as a paternal, often indulgent leader of the alliance. In its place, he presented America as a demanding hegemon, insisting that its allies bear a far greater share of the burden.

Initially, European capitals reacted with unease. For decades, they had relied on Washington to shoulder the lion’s share of NATO’s costs. Yet they have adjusted. Military spending targets rose, even toward Trump’s proposed 5% of GDP. But the real shift went deeper than budgets. Under Trump, Washington’s strategic focus moved decisively away from Europe and toward China. While previous administrations had sought to integrate Beijing into global governance structures, Trump pursued confrontation, both economic and geopolitical. In his second term, containing China has become the central pillar of US foreign policy.

This inevitably required a redistribution of resources. The latest US National Defense Strategy made the logic explicit: Western Europe, with its combined economic and demographic weight, was capable of managing the Russian challenge on its own. America would remain within NATO, but its role would change. It would step back from the front line and expect Europeans to step forward. This recalibration was most visible in Ukraine. Trump, wary of escalation and unconvinced of Ukraine’s strategic value, reduced US involvement without ending support altogether. He shifted the financial and military burden increasingly onto Europe and began engaging Moscow directly, often without consulting European allies.

For Western European elites, this was deeply unsettling. They had invested heavily, politically and economically, in the Ukraine conflict. For some, it had even become a tool for consolidating the European Union and driving militarization as a means of economic stimulus. Then came a further shock. Trump’s remarks on Greenland and Canada in which he questioned the sovereignty of longstanding NATO members struck at the alliance’s core assumptions. Whether or not such ambitions were realistic was beside the point. What mattered was that the leader of NATO had publicly cast doubt on the territorial integrity of its own allies. This was unprecedented.

Taken together, these developments called into question NATO’s foundational principle: collective defense. For decades, Article 5 had been treated as an ironclad guarantee, underpinned by American nuclear power. Yet in reality, that guarantee had always contained ambiguity. When the treaty was ratified, the US Senate ensured that Washington wouldn’t be automatically committed to war.

Read more …

“.. if you want ICE to take the mask off, the threat level has to decrease. It’s up 8000 percent increase in threats against ICE officers..”

• Tom Homan Bulldozed Jake Tapper’s DHS Funding Narrative (Matt Margolis)

Border Czar Tom Homan hit the Sunday shows this weekend, and the liberal networks didn’t know what hit them. Over at CNN, he spent the segment repeatedly bulldozing Jake Tapper, and it was awesome. Homan wasn’t there to take any crap, and he repeatedly hammered the same indisputable point to Tapper: fund the Department of Homeland Security, and the problems go away.


For example, Tapper asked why, if the administration had the power to move money around to pay TSA agents without Congress, it took 41 days to act. This is a point many Democrats have been making lately, and Homan crushed it. He responded by broadening the issue beyond TSA, and that TSA pay does not address the larger DHS funding problem. “You’ve got the Coast Guard. You’ve got CISA. You’ve got the men and women of Secret Service. You’ve got a lot of people working at the Department of Homeland Security that isn’t getting paid,” he said. He argued the entire department should be funded because the country is facing a “heightened threat posture.”


The most effective part of Homan’s response was how he turned Tapper’s question back on Congress. He said he did not pretend to be an appropriations expert, but he was clear about the political bottom line. “I’m just glad that President Trump is able to pay the TSA agents. At least that’s a start,” Homan said. “But, again, there’s a lot more, many more, thousands more, tens of thousands more DHS employees who are not being paid that need to be paid.”

Tapper then tried (and failed) to hit Homan on the ICE deployment to airports, asking whether the agents would leave once TSA workers were paid. Homan refused to give him the answer he seemed to want. “We will see,” he said. He explained that the deployment depends on how many TSA workers return, how many have quit, and what each airport needs. He said he was working with TSA and ICE leadership to figure that out, while praising ICE for “plugging those holes” and helping keep airports secure.

When Tapper cited the TSA union’s criticism that ICE replacements were like “a teaspoon of cough syrup” for a patient with pneumonia, Homan fired back that the wait times had already gone down. He said he had seen improvements in Houston and that additional agents were being sent to Baltimore. “Every place we send ICE officers, the lines have decreased,” he said. “They need to decrease more.” Homan also pushed back hard on the idea that ICE was overstepping its role at airports. He said ICE officers were checking IDs and covering exits so TSA screeners could focus on the machines. “We’re doing the job TSA is asking us to do, so their officers can get back to main screening,” he said.

Tapper then moved to the DHS deal and asked why President Donald Trump would oppose a deal that Senate Republicans said was good. Homan did not budge. He said Trump wanted the entire DHS funded and open, and he accused Democrats of trying to change ICE tactics and force the agency to arrest fewer people. “They’re holding the department hostage because they don’t like what ICE is doing,” Homan said. “If they don’t like what ICE is doing, then change the law. That’s your job.” When Tapper brought up warrant changes, mask use, alleged mistaken detentions, and broader criticism of ICE, Homan insisted that the laws had not changed.

“Let’s talk about the masks. You don’t see ICE wearing masks inside the airports because they’re not on the street arresting criminals. You have got the agitators who cross the line and threaten ICE agents,” he said. “The same people in the Democratic Congress that want ICE to take off the mask are the same people who say ICE is going to shoot people inside airports. I mean, they can’t have it both ways. So, if you want ICE to take the mask off, the threat level has to decrease. It’s up 8000 percent increase in threats against ICE officers, and that’s because of a lot of the rhetoric coming from the Hill. Stop calling ICE Nazis and racists. Stop saying they’re going to shoot people inside airports. That’s going to drive the threat level down, and we can talk about masks.”

Read more …

Apollo Global Management manages a meager $900 billion in assets…

• This Trillion-Dollar Firm Wants Out of Mamdani’s NYC (Stephen Green)

As New York City’s filthy commie mayor struggles to fill a $5.4 billion budget gap with a massive soak-the-rich-then-soak-them-some-more tax hike, trillion-dollar asset management fund Apollo Global Management says it will open a secondary headquarters in Florida or Texas. “Apollo expects most of its future hiring to be in the second hub rather than Manhattan,” according to the New York Post, surprising literally no one.] “The reality is that you can’t propose budget after budget that vilifies employees and then be surprised when they decide to go somewhere else,” Partnership for New York City CEO Steve Fulop told the paper.


“New York City can’t tax people in sane states,” Your Friendly Neighborhood VodkaPundit sagely added while adding an extra dash of schadenfreude to his Bloody Mary. You know what happens after a huge firm like Apollo builds a second headquarters in a low-tax, liberty-loving state like Florida or Texas, right? Sooner or later, they shrink operations at the old HQ before finally boarding the windows and padlocking the doors. “TAX THIS!” to put it in language New Yorkers understand and enjoy. Before we get deeper into this, I’d like to apologize for the completely over-the-top hyperbole in the lead and in the headline. As it turns out, Apollo Global Management is nothing like a “trillion-dollar firm.” In fact, Apollo manages a meager $900 billion in assets, which is practically nothing, and certainly not even close enough to a trillion dollars for Mamdani and his commie cronies to ever miss it.

On the other hand, $900 billion here, $900 billion there, and pretty soon you’re pining for the days of $5.4 billion deficits. So about that deficit. NYC has an annual budget of about $127 billion, and chronic deficits of $4-6 billion. But that’s nothing for the city’s “Democratic Socialist” mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who wants to throw additional billions of Other People’s Money at public education (already some of the most expensive in the world, and with terrible results), legal services for illegals fighting deportation, city-run grocery stores, Homeless Inc., free buses, and more. NYC lavishes its 8.5 million people (and shrinking) with $127 billion in spending, not including whatever Albany contributes with state spending. That’s just shy of $15,000 per person in city spending alone, but I wonder if you’ll ever meet a New Yorker who feels like they get anything close to $15,000 in services.

The city’s budget is slightly more than the entire state of Florida ($117.4 billion) spends on the state’s 23.5 million people (and growing). Florida’s budget includes $16.75 billion in reserves and $250 million for debt reduction. But let’s look at Miami, Florida’s largest city, where the local government spends just $3,600 per denizen — or roughly a quarter of NYC’s largess. Yet the Post notes that Mamdani views his city’s deficit as “a crisis that can only be fixed with more taxes to build revenue.”

“Florida has already lured heavyweights like Citadel and Elliott Management,” the Post reminds readers, while “Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are hunkering down in Texas.” Wealthy individuals and trillion-dollar firms (sorry, I did it again!) like Apollo either have left New York or are eyeing the exits. And Mamdani is just getting started.

Read more …

“If he were a king, Senate Democrats would be powerless because if Trump were a king, or acting like one, he’d just be able to do it.”

• Scott Jennings Destroyed the ‘No Kings’ Rallies, CNN Wasn’t Happy (Margolis)

The “No Kings” rallies over the weekend were such a joke, and CNN’s Scott Jennings totally exposed them for what they really are on Sunday’s State of the Union. What happened was that CNN political commentator Ashley Allison argued that the weekend’s protests represented a growing resistance movement — one that had been slow to materialize after the 2024 election but was now picking up steam. She pointed to the crowds, the celebrity appearances, Bruce Springsteen and Jane Fonda lending their star power to the cause. “When you have millions of people peacefully go out, rock stars, Bruce Springsteen, Jane Fonda, all these folks coming out and saying, we don’t like it either, we’re not in isolation, it shows a unifying force that could be powerful,” she said. Snooze…


Anyway, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) was even more enthusiastic, boasting about how he attended six rallies over the weekend like it was a badge of honor or something. That’s when Jennings pounced.”That’s a lot of free speech for a country with a king,” he said. Subramanyam tried to brush it off, inviting Jennings to join them next time and offering to get him a T-shirt. But Jennings didn’t let up.”That’s a lot of free speech for a country with a king,” he said again.There’s a reason that Subramanyam tried to ignore that statement.

The entire premise of the “No Kings” movement — that America is somehow living under a monarchy — looks stupid when thousands of people can freely march through major cities with zero consequence on a random Saturday. I would also add that Trump really wants the SAVE America to pass, but Democrats are blocking it in the Senate. If he were a king, Senate Democrats would be powerless because if Trump were a king, or acting like one, he’d just be able to do it. Nevertheless, Subramanyam ignored Jennings and pressed on, saying the rallies showed genuine grassroots energy and that he’d even met a Republican attendee who said the Iran situation would keep him from ever voting Republican again — which I guarantee never happened.

But I digress. The next great moment came when Jennings exposed what the No Kings rallies were really about. “These No Kings rallies actually look pretty representative to me of the Democratic coalition,” he said. “I saw people flying the hammer and sickle in New York City. I saw Hezbollah flags. I saw Hamas flags. I saw Palestinian flags. I saw trans signs. I see weirdo liberal boomers out there. This is pretty representative of the Democratic coalition. And that’s who funds it as well, by the way.” Allison pushed back immediately, insisting that the fringe elements Jennings mentioned didn’t represent what the movement stood for. But Jennings wasn’t buying the “that’s not who we are” defense.”You like hammer and sickle? You like hammer and sickle flags?” he shot back as the table erupted. “They had a bunch of them. They come from somewhere,” he added. They sure did, no matter how uncomfortable that makes the left.

Read more …

 


 

 


 

https://twitter.com/NatCy891/status/2038711644625293539?s=20 https://twitter.com/CRRJA5/status/2038097858428080577?s=20

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle March 24 2026

Mar 242026
 
 March 24, 2026  Posted by at 11:06 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  67 Responses »


Edward Hopper Gas 1940


• 4D Chess: Trump Postpones Destroying Iran’s Power Plants (Pinsker)
• IEA Head Warns Iran War Sparked Energy Crisis Worse Than 1970s (ZH)
• CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper Gives Update and Overview Interview (CTH)
• Saudi Arabia Expels Iranian Diplomats (RT)
• Lights Out? (James Howard Kunstler)
• Are We On the Verge of a Breakthrough on the SAVE America Act? (Matt Margolis)
• Intel Board To Probe If Spy Agencies Withheld China Election Secrets (JTN)
• Truth Will Out: A Grand Jury Investigates the Real Russian Collusion Conspiracy (Turley)
• Tom Homan: How Immigration and Customs Enforcement Can Supplement TSA (CTH)
• Alarm Bells In Spain As Moroccan Diaspora Seeks Political Mobilization (RMX)
• French Election: Le Pen’s Populists Make Historic Local Gains (ZH)
• Major Gains for Germany’s AfD Nationalist Party (CTH)
• Western Europe Wrestles With Its Daddy Issues (Rachel Marsden)
• Jury Finds Musk Liable to Twitter Shareholders in Lawsuit (ET)

 


 

https://twitter.com/AdamMoczar/status/2035822308208660516?s=20 https://twitter.com/Alinavisooo/status/2035954387722674253?s=20

 


 

 


 


“.. that’s what investors do: They overreact to good news — and they overreact to bad news. In their minds, the most extreme possibility is always the most likely..”

• 4D Chess: Trump Postpones Destroying Iran’s Power Plants (Pinsker)

On Friday evening, President Donald Trump issued Iran’s mullahs a 48-hour deadline: Open the Strait of Hormuz or say goodbye to your power plants. And then, this morning — just 12 hours before the deadline ended — the president abruptly pulled the plug: But did you notice the timing? Trump delivered the ultimatum on Friday evening, after the U.S. markets had closed for the week. And he canceled his ultimatum on Monday morning, just before the U.S. markets reopened. And the new five-day deadline? Why, it conveniently begins after the U.S. markets close on Friday! None of this was coincidental. Meanwhile, Iran quickly claimed victory:

https://twitter.com/iribnews_irib/status/2036043430011208003

As NDTV World reported, “After Trump’s No-Strike Decision, Iran Media Bursts Out Laughing at Him”: Trump’s announcement about a five-day window in which the US would hold off on hitting Iranian power plants and related infrastructure was met in Tehran’s media ecosystem with a mix of derision and triumph. Iran media Press TV reported there was no contact for talks with the US, whether direct or indirect. […] Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesperson of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, in a post on X said, “Trump and America have backed down again. The field is still charging forward. Another defeat for the devil.” President Trump prides himself on being an elite dealmaker, but deals are only possible when each side covets something different. If all parties want the exact same thing, a compromise is impossible.

At this juncture in the war, the Iranians and the U.S.-Israelis have dramatically different objectives.Iran can’t go toe-to-toe with its foes militarily. It’s outgunned, outmatched, outclassed, outmanned, and overwhelmed. If the war is decided on the battlefield, Iran will lose — and embarrassingly, too. But there’s still one place where it can win: the arena of public opinion. Iran needs PR to decide this war. If the mullahs don’t look strong, tough, and unbeatable, the Iranian people will rise up and overthrow them. Which is why, in their minds, losing the war-war — but winning the PR war — is a perfectly acceptable outcome. After all, the number-one goal of a dictatorship is to retain its power.

President Trump is less concerned with PR than he is with reality. War, by its nature, isn’t won with press releases — but with bullets. Which makes the president’s calculations clear: He needs time to obliterate the last vestiges of the mullahs’ might, annihilate its stormtroopers, crush the regime, and maximize the probability of a successful Iranian uprising. Because if we win the war-war, the PR war will take care of itself. From Trump’s perspective, victory is the only litmus test that matters. But Trump needs a free hand to continue softening the Iranian regime. Yes, his primary battlefield is still the battlefield — but not even the president is immune to public pressure. Domestically, his MAGA base hasn’t left his side:

Yet among independents and Democrats, the war is dreadfully unpopular — with its biggest potential pain points coming from surging oil prices and/or a stock market collapse: Had Trump stuck to his 48-hour deadline — which would’ve elapsed AFTER the close of U.S. markets on Monday evening — panicked investors would’ve braced for the worst when trading began at 9:30 a.m., triggering a self-fulfilling prophecy of economic Armageddon. They would’ve anticipated oil shortages, starving civilians, mass migrations, and global chaos, because that’s what investors do: They overreact to good news — and they overreact to bad news. In their minds, the most extreme possibility is always the most likely. (It’s simply their psychology.) This means that Monday, March 23, would’ve been an absolute financial bloodbath — an even blacker Black Monday.

Read more …

It’ll be ugly. But how ugly?

• IEA Head Warns Iran War Sparked Energy Crisis Worse Than 1970s (ZH)

The head of the International Energy Agency intensified his apocalyptic warning about the global energy crisis, stating early Monday that the US-Israel war with Iran has sparked a shock far greater than the twin oil crises of the 1970s and the turmoil from the war in Ukraine combined.US-Israeli Operation Epic Fury has entered its fourth week, and emerging from the fog of war is the understanding that 44 energy assets across the Gulf region have been severely or very severely damaged by either U.S. and allied forces or by Iranian forces, according to IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol, who spoke at a media event in Australia on Monday. “This crisis, as things stand, is now two oil crises and one gas crash put all together,” Birol warned at the National Press Club of Australia in Canberra.


So far, the conflict has removed 11 million barrels of oil per day from global supply, which is more than the two prior oil shocks combined. There are concerns that repairs to QatarEnergy’s damaged LNG facility could take up to five years, while the disruption to energy flows has sparked a fuel crisis across Asia and is set to affect fertilizer and food supplies, as well as helium, potentially jeopardizing AI chip production.”The global economy is facing a major, major threat today, and I very much hope that this issue will be resolved as soon as possible,” Birol said.

As of 0710 ET, Brent crude futures plunged 11% on President Trump’s Truth Social desesclation comments – a sign the administration needs an offramp to avoid a further energy crisis globally, but more importantly, one at home with fuel prices at the pump exploding higher. Overnight, President Trump gave Iran a 48-hour ultimatum to reopen the Hormuz chokepoint or face a bombing campaign targeting Iran’s power plants. There were reports overnight that the Trump administration was preparing a diplomatic off-ramp plan, but Iran says the expanding war has effectively shut the door.

Betting website Polymarket shows that ten new wallets are betting $160,000 on a U.S.-Iran ceasefire by the end of March. “Almost no history, all created around the same time. Potential payout: over $1,000,000,” the Polymarket History account wrote on X.

https://twitter.com/PolymarketStory/status/2035737368141902238

On Friday, Birol told the Financial Times in an exclusive interview that the world is severely underestimating the scale of the Gulf energy shock and that it may take at least six months to restore disrupted oil and gas flows. “It will be six months for some [sites] to be operational, others much longer,” Birol warned.

Read more …

“..accepting there is a psychological component to the information flow, it seems like the best option to listen to the experts who are conducting the operation.”

• CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper Gives Update and Overview Interview (CTH)

The noise can seem overwhelming at times. There are those who say the U.S-Israeli joint military operation against Iran is a catastrophic miscalculation. There are those who say the operation is strategically succeeding. Many interests even appear to be cheering for the military operation to fail; others want the operation to escalate. It is difficult to find pragmatic facts about the events without shaped information to promote specific narratives. However, accepting there is a psychological component to the information flow, it seems like the best option to listen to the experts who are conducting the operation.


Giving his first interview since Operation Epic Fury began, CENTCOM Commander Bradley Cooper outlines the current status of the conflict and the elements he notes are of most importance. According to Adm. Cooper, Iran is “operating in a sign of desperation… In the last couple of weeks, they’ve attacked civilian targets very deliberately, more than 300 times.” “The Strait of Hormuz is physically open to transit,” he said. “The reason ships are not transiting right now is because the Islamic Republic is shooting at them with drones and missiles.”

“I’d like everyone to note is I’ve watched this over the last week, this extraordinary contrast between the comfort and protection that you’re seeing with the senior generals in the Islamic Republic, at least those that are still alive, who are up in deep bunkers and facilities in and around Tehran. And contrast that with the soldiers who are down on the ground who are unprotected. The generals are protected. The soldiers are not protected.” “They’re launching missiles and drones from populated areas and you need to stay inside for right now,” he said. “There will be a clear signal at some point, as the President has indicated, for you to be able to come out.”

Read more …

Iran against the Arab world?

• Saudi Arabia Expels Iranian Diplomats (RT)

Saudi Arabia has expelled several Iranian diplomats, citing Tehran’s strikes on its territory. The move comes after 12 Arab and Muslim countries, including those hosting US bases, denounced the Islamic Republic’s retaliation for the US-Israeli bombardment that began on February 28. On Saturday, the Saudi Foreign Ministry condemned what it described as Iran’s “blatant and repeated attacks targeting Saudi Arabia” and other Gulf countries, accusing Tehran of violating international law and the “principles of good neighborliness.” “Saudi Arabia has formally notified the Iranian military attaché, assistant military attaché, and three other embassy staff members to leave the kingdom within 24 hours,” the statement read, as quoted by the Saudi Gazette.


‘The kingdom will take all necessary measures to protect its sovereignty, security, territory, airspace, citizens, residents, and national interests, in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter,” the ministry said, warning of “serious consequences” for diplomatic relations between the two countries. The announcement follows a similar move by Qatar, which expelled Iranian military and security attachés, along with their staff, in response to a strike on an LNG facility at Ras Laffan Industrial City, one of the world’s most important gas processing and export centers. Iran targeted Ras Laffan in response to Israeli airstrikes on the South Pars gas field, which were also condemned by the Gulf states. Iran has also repeatedly targeted Prince Sultan Air Base in Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia, which hosts American troops.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran was targeting US military sites in the region in self-defense. He also claimed that the United States had used UAE territory during the recent bombing of Kharg Island. Tehran has warned that retaliation will continue for as long as Arab states allow the US to use their territory for attacks on the Islamic Republic. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian earlier apologized to the Gulf states for striking civilian infrastructure with missiles and drones.

Read more …

“This is Hitler’s last days with Persian characteristics.” —LH Grey on X

• Lights Out? (James Howard Kunstler)

It’s not only darkest before the dawn, but the groupthink is murkiest, and the light at the end of the tunnel might be an explosion up your wazoo. Iran’s increasingly headless Revolutionary Guard (the IRGC) whirls in its gyre of martyrdom as the last traps are sprung under it. Tell the wide-eyed houris of paradise to primp for a fresh harvest of true believers.Looks like Mr. Trump is not chickening-out, as his detractors like to insist. Looks like somebody is already turning off the juice around Tehran, likely the Israeils. It will be very hard soon enough for the headless IRGC to tell its body of psycho-killers what to do.


Individual units are probably on their own now, anyway, wondering what the other units might be doing. . . might be thinking, while also, about now, the sore-beset, long-suffering, good-and-goshdarn pissed off, ordinary Persians will discover that nobody’s in charge, and maybe, at long last, it’s their turn to act, as the lights flicker out. On the ground, in the apartments, the cafes, the offices, the grand bazaars of Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz, and Shiraz life has already gotten super-impossible. Whatever’s left of the government just issued banknotes in the denomination of ten million rials, worth seven US dollars.

Everybody there has plenty of money. Everyone is a millionaire, but they won’t be swanning around Fereshteh Street in top hats and monocles, shopping for Hermès, Louis Vuitton, and Rolex. In actuality, nothing can function normally anymore when the currency is absolutely worthless, including the regular distribution of food and fuel, and you know from history that revolution is always only nine missing meals away. Something will have to give.

The American news media, especially The New York Times, remains implacably peevish over Operation Epic Fury. The news media remains locked in its own epic fury at Mr. Trump running the executive branch, because, uh, why? The tweets! The mystifying hair-do! The gold filigree plastered around the Oval Office! Ucchhh. . . ! It drives them batshit. They want the Iran op to fail because then Mr. Trump will fail. . . and then. . .? And then. . . ? You detect that maybe they haven’t thought that through exactly.

Perhaps the news media believe it’s unfair to deprive the Islamic State of a nuclear bomb and its arsenal of missiles and drones. (It can’t be that the news media are anti-war because they continue to be one hundred percent behind the Ukraine war.) They don’t want that to end anytime soon because, uh, well, Russia!) In reality, the news media abhors decisive action and especially any change in the geopolitical status quo, and super-especially one that inch-by-inch reveals that the USA has interests that actually intersect with the interests of post-soviet Russia.

Like preserving Western Civ. Unlike the poufs, cucks, and bozos running Euroland who are busy throwing two thousand years of history under the wheels of Jihad, and racing with eyes-wide-shut into a neo-medieval future without heat, lights, industry, art, or square meals. Europe — Great Britain in particular — yearns for an epoch-ending spasm of war against Russia because. . .uh. . . because Putin (like, because Trump). You understand they are completely incapable of prosecuting such a war, since they lack armies, navies, and sufficient weapons, but they can’t stop nattering about it.

The US news media can’t accept the possibility that the US Military is proceeding systematically and by clear stages to disarm the IRGC crazies. What has the IRGC got left? Apparently, they have missile launchers embedded in urban neighborhoods, the old human shield routine, same as Hamas and Hezbollah. And spidey-hole missile silos in the desert, supposedly hard to detect beneath the shifting sands. Not to mention the “underground cities” as much as 500 meters deep where missiles and drones are made and stored. They are core parts of Iran’s military architecture. We know where most of them are. Let’s see how they work if the electricity goes out across Iran. Do they all have backup generators and diesel fuel to keep the generators running more than a few days?

Read more …

“We’re using a playbook that in a slightly different form was used in 1964 to overcome a cloture gap of thirty-two votes..”

• Are We On the Verge of a Breakthrough on the SAVE America Act? (Matt Margolis)

I’ve been admittedly skeptical that the current effort to pass the SAVE America Act will succeed. I want it to pass. Desperately. And from where I sit, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t pass. But we all know why something so popular and commonsense can’t get to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature. Democrats in Congress don’t want election integrity and are fighting against it like their power is on the line. Despite my skepticism, Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), the lead sponsor of the bill, is confident the SAVE America Act is going to pass — and after just six days of debate, Democrats may already be looking for a way out.


As you know, the bill does two things. It requires proof of citizenship when registering to vote and a voter ID when casting a ballot. Polls repeatedly show that Americans overwhelmingly support these ideas, regardless of political party or race. And Sen. Lee knows it, too. “Americans overwhelmingly believe that voters in the United States, you need to be US citizens,” Lee said. “So our bill does two things in order to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.”The fight right now isn’t really about the merits. Let’s be honest about that. It’s about the Senate’s cloture threshold, the 60-vote supermajority needed to end debate and move to a final vote. Republicans don’t have those numbers on their own, which means they need Democrats to break ranks.

Lee’s strategy is to make them do exactly that, and he’s drawing on a historical playbook to get it done.”We’re using a playbook that in a slightly different form was used in 1964 to overcome a cloture gap of thirty-two votes,” Lee said, referring to the landmark Civil Rights Act debate. Back then, the Senate debated for sixty days before enough votes materialized to close debate. Today’s cloture deficit is far smaller. “We’ve got only a ten-vote cloture deficit to overcome here,” Lee noted. “This is a simpler bill, and it’s preferred by eighty-five percent of American voters.”

The math is encouraging, but Lee argues that the process takes time — and that’s entirely the point. Lee described how sustained debate wears members down and eventually forces movement. “Members grow exhausted over time, and with that exhaustion, we’ll find ways of achieving consensus, perhaps some minor modifications to the legislation, either face-saving or to alleviate substantive concerns,” he said. “We can get there. This will pass if we give it enough time.” He was careful not to overpromise a timeline. “I don’t know exactly how many weeks, just as they didn’t know when they started the process in 1964,” Lee acknowledged. But he added quickly: “I don’t think it’ll take that long.”

According to Lee, the early signs are apparently promising. After only six days on the floor, he says Democrats are reportedly already hunting for an exit, which tells you something about the political pressure building around this vote. The only secret to passing the SAVE America Act, Lee says, is time and willpower. Six days in, it looks like the willpower is holding — and the clock is doing the rest of the work.

Read more …

Withheld them from Trump, that is.

• Intel Board To Probe If Spy Agencies Withheld China Election Secrets (JTN)

The civilian board that oversees America’s spy agencies will probe whether political bias kept intelligence analysts from sharing with Congress and President Donald Trump evidence that China meddled in elections dating to 2020, its chairman says after an explosive report by Just the News “We ran a decade-long investigation in the Congress into China, and so this new bombshell that you just dropped is very concerning to me, and it should be to the Congress,” President’s Intelligence Advisory Board Chairman Devin Nunes told the Just the News, No Noise television show.


“This information was likely around in 2019, probably in 2020. I don’t know. We’re going to have to unpack this and figure out why this didn’t get to the Congress and why this didn’t get out to the American public,” Nunes said. Nunes, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee before he left Congress to run the company that operates President Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform, added: “Clearly, this is a scandal that’s brewing.” Nunes was named last year by Trump to lead the PIAB, a nonpartisan body made up of distinguished civilians from the national security, political, academic, and private sectors charged with independently overseeing the Intelligence Community’s day-to-day management or operational responsibilities.

Just the News earlier this week disclosed declassified documents showing Chinese intelligence gained access to multiple states’ voter registration data in 2020 and conducted some voter influence efforts but chose to keep that intelligence quiet because spy agency analysts opposed Trump and his policies, even deriding the president as “that vulgarian in the Oval Office.”Similar revelations in 2024 that China hacked Great Britain’s voter registration database led to a national outcry and reforms in that country. But in America, most policymakers have been kept in the dark. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., called on Trump this week to declassify and release all evidence related to China’s meddling from 2020 forward.

Nunes said a review of what happened with the China meddling allegations was directly aligned with the board’s current mandates. “We’ve been working directly with the CIA to depoliticize all of these agencies. President Trump gave us clear direction that he wants the politicization taken out of these intelligence products,” Nunes explained. The board’s effort recently prompted CIA Director John Ratcliffe to rescind or revise 19 intelligence reports the agency produced dating back to the Obama era because they were politically biased or used poor spy tradecraft, including one analysis suggesting that women who pursue traditional motherhood were at danger of becoming violent extremists.

“I think this is just the start of Director Ratcliffe trying to clean up the CIA,” he said. “Obviously, we’re here to help. We’re held here to help all the agencies as Chair of the President’s intelligence board, and we’ll continue to do that.” Nunes said the declassified documents uncovered by Just the News on the China election meddling were deeply concerning because “if you don’t have the — if you want to call it the truth transparency — real intelligence agencies getting the information to the policymakers and the decision makers, it’s a major problem.”

Read more …

We need to see indictments. You can’t just let these people walk.

• Truth Will Out: A Grand Jury Investigates the Real Russian Collusion Conspiracy (Turley)

This week, we learned that the probe into the Russian conspiracy theory in Florida is moving forward with the disclosure that former FBI Director James Comey has been subpoenaed. What is different in this probe is that it is pursuing the real Russia conspiracy — the creation of a false narrative to kneecap the first Trump administration. At issue is what could be the greatest political hit job in history. Of course, the growing evidence of this conspiracy continues to be buried by one of its key components: the media. Nevertheless, the “truth will out,” and it appears to be coming out in Florida.


Headed by Jason A. Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, the investigation is building on information uncovered by House and Senate committees that was long buried by the Biden administration. That evidence appears to show a knowing effort to manufacture a Russian conspiracy hoax at the urging of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Ironically, the Washington Post and the New York Times received Pulitzer Prizes for their reporting promoting this Russian conspiracy hoax. The media spent years in wall-to-wall coverage of disproven allegations, including many claims made in the debunked Steele Dossier that had been secretly funded by the Clinton campaign.

The true Pulitzer Prize-worthy story was staring the media in the face the whole time: a conspiracy to create a false conspiracy narrative to elect Clinton and later to derail the Trump administration. The latter effort succeeded with help from top intelligence figures. During the election, the Clinton campaign repeatedly lied to the media about its funding of the Steele dossier. When journalists discovered after the election that the Clinton campaign had hidden payments for the Steele dossier as “legal fees” among the $5.6 million paid to Perkins Coie, they were reportedly stonewalled.

New York Times reporter Ken Vogel said at the time that Clinton Campaign General Counsel Marc Elias had denied involvement in the anti-Trump dossier. When Vogel tried to report the story, he said, Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman later wrote that “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.” The key period was shortly before the 2016 election. We now know that the campaign and its surrogates shopped the conspiracy to their contacts in the Justice Department and in the media. They found eager allies.

Shortly before the 2016 presidential election, Peter Strzok, a key figure in the investigation, texted FBI lawyer Lisa Page to assure her “that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected,” adding that they “can’t take that risk.” He added that they had it all in hand because “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.” In fact, whether it was known to Strzok or not, there was an insurance policy in the works. In July 2016, then-CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Barack Obama on Hillary Clinton’s alleged “plan” to tie then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.” Brennan is believed to be a target of the current investigation, including possible perjury before Congress.

In reality, within days of that briefing on how Clinton would create this conspiracy theory, the investigation began, just as the Clinton campaign hoped it would. Early on, the FBI was told by the CIA that its sources — and the Steele dossier — were unreliable. However, key FBI officials continued the surveillance and the investigation targeting the Trump campaign and key figures. One official later pleaded guilty to lying to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to continue surveillance without an evidentiary basis.

At the end of 2016, a CIA assessment found that “Russian and criminal actors did not impact recent U.S. election results by conducting malicious cyber activities against election infrastructure.” That presidential daily brief was scheduled to be published on Dec. 9, 2016, but the office of James Clapper, Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, reportedly stopped the publication “based on some new guidance.” Clapper later joined Obama, along with John Brennan, Susan Rice, John Kerry, Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe, and others, in a meeting that would ultimately inject the debunked theory directly into the media.

Read more …

“..CNN needs to build a narrative, so the reality of simple explanations works against their interests.”

• Tom Homan: How Immigration and Customs Enforcement Can Supplement TSA (CTH)

Apparently, CNN needs to play the game of pretending that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) do not already operate in U.S. airports. Airports are border checkpoints, and the “customs” part of both ICE and CBP are functions that happen as part of regular duty for CBP and ICE officials.As Tom Homan notes, CBP/ICE already exist in airports and can assist Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials in various duties including, customs checks, routine security, entrance/exit security as well as baggage and pre-boarding security checkpoints that do not involve the use of x-ray and scanning machines. In fact, more than half the functioning work of TSA agents can easily be handled/supported by ICE/CBP agents. But CNN needs to build a narrative, so the reality of simple explanations works against their interests.


Read more …

Too late. “..900,000 Moroccan nationals were living in Spain in 2024..” “What is now causing alarm is not just the scale, but the potential for political mobilization.”

• Alarm Bells In Spain As Moroccan Diaspora Seeks Political Mobilization (RMX)

Spain is facing mounting concern over the long-term consequences of years of large-scale Moroccan migration, as warnings grow that a sizable and increasingly organized community could begin to exert coordinated political influence. Official figures cited by La Región show that nearly 900,000 Moroccan nationals were living in Spain in 2024, making them the largest Muslim group in the country. More than 226,000 are concentrated in Catalonia, with numbers continuing to rise sharply. What is now causing alarm is not just the scale, but the potential for political mobilization.


The Spanish news outlet referenced a 2023 speech by Enaam Mayara, then-president of the Moroccan parliament’s upper chamber, in which he openly called on Moroccans living in Spain to enter politics, join parties, and take part in elections. His goal was clear: to build influence inside Spanish institutions and defend Moroccan national interests from within. “The community in our northern neighbor should be encouraged to participate in that country’s political process,” Mayara said. “Members of the Moroccan community should be encouraged to become members of parliament in the country of their nationality in order to defend the interests of their homeland whenever necessary.” “The Moroccan community must integrate into Spanish political parties to form a lobby that defends Morocco,” he added.

The comments sparked fears that what began as migration could evolve into coordinated political leverage. More recently, Morocco has moved to strengthen its grip on diaspora identity through education. Earlier this month, in response to the suspension of the Arabic language and Moroccan culture program in the Spanish regions of Madrid and Murcia, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita called for reforms to overseas teaching programs that could trigger a “qualitative transformation” in how Arabic language and Moroccan culture are taught to children living abroad.

The changes will place greater responsibility for diaspora education under a new institutional structure, with a focus on expanding cultural and linguistic ties between Morocco and its citizens overseas. The push comes as Moroccan-funded programs are already deeply embedded in Spain’s education system. Hundreds of schools across the country offer Arabic language and Moroccan culture classes financed by Rabat, with teachers selected and paid by Moroccan authorities.

Read more …

Essentially, they’re being called extreme right wing because they don’t want to live in a muslim country.

• French Election: Le Pen’s Populists Make Historic Local Gains (ZH)

Marine Le Pen’s National Rally delivered its strongest performance ever in French local elections on Sunday, capturing dozens of municipalities and installing an ally as mayor of Nice – while socialists predictably held onto key urban centers, including Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Lille. The results of the second-round municipal vote on Sunday mark the clearest sign yet that the populist party is no longer a protest movement but a genuine governing force in parts of France – and a growing threat to President Emmanuel Macron’s centrists and the traditional right ahead of the 2027 presidential election.


Jordan Bardella, the 30-year-old RN president widely seen as the party’s next presidential standard-bearer, hailed the night as “the greatest breakthrough in its entire history.” Speaking to cheering supporters, he said voters had delivered “a message of deep aspiration for change.”Marine Le Pen, still battling a conviction that could bar her from running in 2027, struck a similar note: the party is now “implanted everywhere” and ready to govern.

https://twitter.com/Inevitablewest/status/2035821656787107861?

high-stakes runoffs in Marseille, Toulon and Nîmes after left-wing and center-right candidates formed tactical alliances against it. In Paris and other major cities, the party remained marginal.The party did secure one major symbolic prize: former Les Républicains leader Éric Ciotti, who defected to the RN orbit, won the mayor’s office in Nice, France’s fifth-largest city.

Read more …

“.. the European Commission has many tools and techniques to shift the outcome. This single small Hungarian election is the most critical election for the EU since Brexit. There are trillions at stake!”

• Major Gains for Germany’s AfD Nationalist Party (CTH)

Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative party the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won the biggest portion of the election, defeating the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who lost ground in the western area bordering France. However, the biggest electoral gains were for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, with gains that more than doubled its previous vote share. There is intense interest throughout Europe on the ideological shift in political sentiment mostly driven by economic concerns as well as rising nationalistic sentiment against the elitist minds in Brussels. Essentially those being ‘ruled’ are increasingly fed-up by those doing the ‘ruling.’


The AfD party is akin to the pragmatic MAGA base more focused on economic nationalism than all the nonsense associated with multiculturalism, green energy programs and terrible immigration policy. The ideological battle within Europe is ongoing, with some gains by nationalist parties over the collective mindset of the European elites. However, the European Commission doesn’t just have a finger on the scales, they have full control over the mechanics of the elections themselves. Yes, AfD doubled their share of votes to 20%, but CDU at 31% and the socialists at 26% is akin to mainstream corporate republicans and progressives respectively controlling 57% of the support base.

The biggest election to be held in Europe in the last decade or more, is going to be the election in Hungary which takes place April 12, next month. The European Commission is going all-in to try and manipulate the Hungarian voting base against Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the Fidesz party who is/are viewed by Brussels as standing in the way of their scheme to fund the ongoing war in Ukraine. Orban’s reelection campaign has been under relentless assaults from restrictions on EU social media, to outright propaganda and financing for his opposition Péter Magyar and the Tisza party.

Prime Minister Orban is strongly supported by President Donald Trump and the Trump administration; however, the scale of opposition to both of them is intense. Former leftist USAID Administrator Samantha Power spent time inside Hungary organizing the Tisza party to oppose Viktor Orban, and the totality of the European opposition to Orban cannot be underestimated. Every element of every political construct within the Europe Union is aligned to try and defeat Orban and the Fidesz party. Additionally, the government of Ukraine is actively working all intelligence angles to defeat Orban due to the $90 billion EU loan scheme that Hungary is blocking. Prime Minister Viktor Orban winning reelection this time in 2026 would be akin to Trump’s victory in 2016.

Do not underestimate the power of the U.K/European control system and the alignment of all their collective interests. Chancellor Fredrich Merz (Germany), President Emmanuel Macron (France), Prime Minister Keir Starmer (UK) along with the governing elites of Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands and many more, have all publicly taken positions against Hungary. As we saw in Romania, Moldova and Georgia, it is not simply a matter of what the Hungarian voters want that will determine the outcome of the Hungarian election, the European Commission has many tools and techniques to shift the outcome. This single small Hungarian election is the most critical election for the EU since Brexit. There are trillions at stake!

Read more …

“..a good example of the failure of international law, which is one way to describe a fire while refusing to notice that you’re actually holding a fire extinguisher.”

• Western Europe Wrestles With Its Daddy Issues (Rachel Marsden)

NATO is supposed to be a defensive alliance. That means members aren’t actually obligated to go bail out a member state that goes around the world punching other countries in the face. Easy mistake to make from the optics of other recent conflicts, though, where the term “defensive” has been doing a lot of impressive rhetorical gymnastics.

US President Donald Trump hasn’t been able to talk his ‘allies’ into coming along for the white-knuckle adventure this time. Largely because he threatened to invade Europe – specifically Greenland – barely weeks before asking for their help to do the same to another country. Apparently, they took his threat so seriously that they were getting ready to beat him to the punch by blowing up their own airfields first, according to the New York Times.


Before Trump just decided to go it alone and threaten to fix the global energy problem in the Strait of Hormuz by also blowing up a bunch of power plants in the region, he got to the “who needs these losers anyway” stage with Western Europe. Let’s see… Starmer is no Churchill, Trump says. Sick burn, if it were still 1940 and not just a guy declining participation in your dodgy group project. French participation doesn’t even really count, Trump says, because President Emmanuel Macron will be gone soon. Like a sitcom character whose hand is on the knob with one foot out the door in every scene.

But here in the real world, Macron is actually still the president of France for another year. And it’s not like anyone who could possibly replace him would be up for this political suicide mission that Trump’s proposing, either. Hardly a day goes by without French military brass appearing on TV, either telling Trump to go “f himself” or else comparing his invitation to something along the lines of buying tickets for the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.

The Irish president should just be grateful for Trump’s mere existence, he says. Who isn’t at this point, right? One day Trump’s telling all the NATO allies to just get in the van already. The van’s on fire, but minor detail. And they’re like, no thanks. Not interested in careening down regime change highway with Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu like a scene out of Mad Max.

So at first Trump tries to make it sound like it’s for their own benefit to go send their own troops to hangout in the Strait of Hormuz where missiles are flying around. Because they’re the ones who largely use the oil that normally transits through it when Iran hasn’t closed it because Trump and Bibi started bombing them. A phenomenon that does tend to complicate shipping schedules.

Probably doesn’t help either that Europe already had the experience of volunteering to do the heavy lifting for Washington just so an American president, Barack Obama, could brag to his people that America did a regime change without a single pair of boots on the ground. Right, because there were covert, European boots on the ground. In Libya. Led by the Brits and French, back in 2011. And that turned into a years-long mess for Europe and a migrant tsunami that kept rolling in long after the “mission accomplished” energy had worn off. So it’s no wonder that some of those 15 NATO countries that helped out in Libya aren’t up for a rerun. Once you’ve helped a friend move and it turns into a ten-year renovation project, the next time they call you just let it ring.

So Europe is banking on riding out the fuel disruption instead of prolonging it by getting involved with the risk of provoking an escalation. Unless of course the missiles stop flying. In which case, Macron will be there in a jiffy to film more heavily militarized thirst trap videos.n It’s one thing to not participate, but what are they actually doing to stop it, besides issuing strongly worded statements that reek of déjà vu?

The bloc’s chief diplomat says that it’s all such a good example of the failure of international law, which is one way to describe a fire while refusing to notice that you’re actually holding a fire extinguisher. Conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East “are products of erosion of the international law without accountability, judicial or political, the war will engulf the world once again,” Kaja Kallas said.nGotta love the passive verbiage doing the heavy lifting there. Really lets everyone off the hook. Yeah, international law just eroded on Iran. How did that happen? All by itself? Or because no one can bother actually trying to enforce it when it’s inconvenient because it involves the risk of eliciting the wrath of Daddy Trump?

She has no problem comparing the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran except in failing to notice that that one has involved like 20 packages of EU sanctions and the other zero. Or to notice that their favorite foster kid has been begging Trump to let him come play drone warfare in this war with the toys that they’ve been buying for him with money from the same EU taxpayers who are now being gauged on energy prices yet again as a result of this new war. The same war that the EU says violates international law.

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has said that he’s psyched to get over there and play in the sandbox with all his shiny new drones – which is one way to pitch the escalation that the EU says it doesn’t want. And the EU’s like, can’t you see – he’s really hurting here! “The longer the war continues in the Middle East, the more Ukraine suffers,” Kallas said. I’m really trying to lean into this whole Ukraine x Iran crossover. “I mean, Russia is already making money off the war in the Middle East with higher oil prices and the Strait of Hormuz closed, they can now again fund the war.”

Try telling that to your boy, Zelensky. Does he know that offering to help prolong the war with his drones would just be making Putin more money? But really, why should he even care when the EU keeps insisting on having their citizens pay for it all anyway.

Read more …

He made them rich, but it’s still not enough.

• Jury Finds Musk Liable to Twitter Shareholders in Lawsuit (ET)

A federal jury on March 20 found tech billionaire Elon Musk liable for misleading Twitter shareholders by driving down the social media platform’s stock price months before acquiring it for $44 billion in 2022. The decision follows a civil class action lawsuit filed by Twitter investors in October 2022. Musk agreed to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share in April 2022 but later tried to back out of the deal, leading the company to take legal action to enforce it. He ultimately completed the acquisition in October 2022 and rebranded Twitter as X. The shareholders alleged that Musk made misleading statements after agreeing to buy Twitter in April 2022, leading them to sell their shares. They alleged that he published the statements to drive down Twitter stock prices in a bid to renegotiate the deal.


In a verdict on March 20, jurors found Musk liable for misleading investors through two social media posts. The first post said the deal was temporarily on hold pending verification that bots accounted for less than 5 percent of users on the social media platform. In the second post, Musk suggested that the percentage of bots could exceed 20 percent and said the buyout of Twitter could not go forward until he received confirmation that it was less than 5 percent. However, the jury found that the plaintiffs failed to substantiate claims that Musk had engaged in a scheme to defraud investors. The plaintiffs attorney, Mark Molumphy, called the verdict an important victory for both Twitter investors and the public markets.

“I think the jury’s verdict sends a strong message that just because you’re a rich and powerful person, you still have to obey the law, and no man is above the law, Molumphy told The Associated Press.Musk’s legal team at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan said in a statement to multiple news outlets that they plan to appeal the verdict. “We view today’s verdict, where the jury found both for and against the plaintiffs and found no fraud scheme, as a bump in the road. And we look forward to vindication on appeal,” his legal counsel said.

Musk also faces a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which alleges that he violated federal securities laws by delaying disclosure of his acquisition of Twitter stock in March 2022, before making an offer to buy the company. The SEC said the delay had allowed Musk to buy more shares at lower prices, allowing him to “underpay by at least $150 million for shares that he purchased after his beneficial ownership report was due,” according to the January 2025 filing. Musk has sought dismissal of the suit.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/PM_ViktorOrban/status/2036091858829316542?s=20 https://twitter.com/Panchenko_X/status/2036097338179989660?s=20

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle February 13 2026

Feb 132026
 
 February 13, 2026  Posted by at 10:18 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , ,  68 Responses »


Paul Cézanne Forest 1902-04


• When Did It Become OK for Half the Country to Disregard Federal Law? (Thorne)
• There Is No Future For White People (Paul Craig Roberts)
• CNN Thinks Black Voters Are ‘Too Dumb’, Scott Jennings Torches Them (Margolis)
• Homan Announces End Of Illegal Immigration Crackdown In Minnesota (JTN)
• A Good Way To Destroy Your Country: Rogan Blasts Dems’ Open Border Insanity (MN)
• Are The Ukrainian Peace Talks A Hoax? (Paul Craig Roberts)
• What the Heck Happened in El Paso? (Sarah Anderson)
• NYC Mayor Urges State Lawmakers to Pass Tax Hikes on Wealthy, Corporations (ET)
• US Negotiating Updated New START Treaty With Russia – Vance (RT)
• US Attorney In New York Appointed By Judges Quickly Fired By White House (JTN)
• What’s Behind Von Der Leyen’s Two-Tier EU Plan? (RT)
• The Collapse of American Education (Paul Craig Roberts)
• ‘Snow White’ Lost [GULP] How Much Money? (Stephen Green)

 


 

https://twitter.com/latestincosmos/status/2021848499844002071?s=20 https://twitter.com/AndrewBolis/status/2021920991161856428?s=20

 


 


I often wonder that too.

• When Did It Become OK for Half the Country to Disregard Federal Law? (Thorne)

When did it become commonplace — celebrated, even — for half the country to simply disregard federal law? When did half the country conclude that it could just go ahead and subvert the will of the people, as expressed through the laws duly passed by their elected representatives, to its own preferences — even when these are in direct contradiction to federal statute? By “half the country,” I mean Democrats, of course. But seriously — how is this even a thing? It’s been going on for a long time, and it’s not just immigration law that these insurgents actively countermand. How many states have “legalized” recreational marijuana? Why do these people imagine they can “legalize” something that is a federal crime? (And no, I am not here to argue whether weed should be legal. If you don’t like the law, change it. You don’t get to ignore it in the meantime.)


Whatever happened to “No one is above the law?” Perhaps elitist leftists imagine that the lowly “brown” human beings they traffic and patronize are beneath the law. Or that foreign nationals present in the country illegally can simply override federal immigration law because they have already done so for such a long time. What other laws do officials, judges, and AGs routinely allow to be broken simply because the perpetrator has successfully done so for years? If I break into the museum and steal a Rembrandt, then I hang it on my living room wall and enjoy it for a certain number of years, does it then become mine to keep? What manner of incoherent lunacy is this?

Democrat activists don’t just ignore the law: They actively countermand it. On the municipal level, they create so-called sanctuaries, dedicated to impeding federal law enforcement wherever they can while aiding and abetting lawbreakers. On the state level, they afford benefits, licensure, voting rights, and more to illegal aliens who have no claim on such things. And on the national level, they invent things like DACA and the CBP1 app, using taxpayer money to facilitate the mass influx of illegal immigrants and “amnesty” scammers who have no business entering the country. But wherever the left has control, it subverts laws it dislikes.

The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution is pretty clear on the matter: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

So what does the law say about immigration? Check out the list of reasons why immigrant wannabes must be refused entry into the country that is found in the Immigration and Nationality Act at 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(4) (Section 212(a)(4)). They cannot be admitted if they are likely to become a public charge, have a history of mental illness, are unable to document vaccinations, have previous criminal convictions, and much more. But Democrats just wave them through. WT actual F? Thus, while I know it is vitally important that the SAVE Act passes, I also don’t imagine it will fix the problem of widespread Democrat election cheating right away. Democrat officials won’t submit to that law any more than they do the other federal laws they don’t like.

The tactic for getting away with this seems to be based on the fact that the insurgency is so widespread, so entwined into the culture, that half of Americans feel they are justified when they break or abet others who break federal law. With this lawlessness infecting so many, it becomes nigh unto impossible to rein it in. You certainly can’t arrest, try, convict, and penalize some 100 million people. You can’t even find a judge or a jury that reliably comes down on the side of the law. Resistance. Insurrection. Sedition. Insurgency. Rebellion. Treason. Mutiny. Insubordination. This behavior has many names, but it all comes down to the same problem: placing one’s own will above the will of the people who pass the laws, thereby breaking down the societal compact.

I hold out faith that the Trump administration is doing its part to break the cycle. It is not only enforcing immigration laws, but it is also hunting down the funding and organization behind the insurgency, hopefully resulting in arrests and decapitation of the movement. It is not only urging the passage of election integrity laws, but it is actively investigating past fraud and abuse, ideally in order to arrest and prosecute the ringleaders. Culturally, though, we have a long way to go to re-instill the concepts of civic duty, lawfulness, fairness, and shame in half the country.

Read more …

“As I have previously predicted, by 2050, 24 years from now, the only white people who will exist will be in zoos displayed as the oppressors of “sun people.”

• There Is No Future For White People (Paul Craig Roberts)

For decades, the white European ethnicities that comprise Western civilization have been under deadly attack. But the attack does not come from external enemies. It comes from internal enemies–the white gentile and Jewish educators who control the universities and historical narratives. mThe Western universities have defined Western civilization as racist, misogynist, antisemitic, and exploitative of people of color. The New York Times sponsors the 1619 Project that asserts that the United States was founded on racism. A sense of guilt has been implanted in the educated portion of the population living in Western civilization, and the guilt leaves them incapable of racial defense. A society whose enemies control its education and information has no chance of survival.


It was in the 1960s, six or more decades ago, that left-wing students mentored by their professors marched on university campuses demanding “Western civ has to go.” By 2026 several generations have been inculcated with a negative view of the civilization in which they live. This leaves them as putty in the hands of the leftwing and the Zionists who have begun the erasure of the very concept of white ethnicity. A few years ago, A Scandinavian intellectual and documentary filmmaker gave us the story that the original Swedes were black people. We next heard that the first woman in Britain was black. And then we heard that William Shakespeare was a black Jewish feminist from Venice. This unfounded allegation has the silver lining of allowing Shakespeare to again be read and even taught.

But the elimination of white people from history proceeds rapidly. Shakespeare, the master of the British language, is not even British but a Venetian. In its update of its curriculum, Cambridge University has concluded that there is no such thing as an Anglo-Saxon. Nor are there English, Scottish or Irish. Cambridge University indoctrinates its students that white ethnicities are merely constructs. The department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic studies at the University of Cambridge teaches that ethnic nationalism is a myth. There never was a British, English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish people with a coherent ethnic identity. White ethnicities are mere constructs. They are nothing real. Thus is identity, stripped from white ethnicities.

Tell me, please, University of Cambridge, if Beowulf is not an Anglo-Saxon piece of literature, what is it?Little doubt, the answer from Cambridge will be that Beowulf was a racist, anti-semite, misogynist, oppressor who killed the innocent Grendel because he/she was a person of color and a transgendered something, but certainly not the monster in the non-ethnic poem written by a black Jewish transgendered poet. In the new world being created, only Jews will have an ethnic reality. All gentile white ethnicities are constructs.

A French politician has said that the replacement of the French in France is nothing unusual. The French replaced the Romans just as the Romans replaced the Gauls. It is just normal for Arabs and Africans to replace the French.nIn Spain Spanish people led by a young Spanish woman welcome and encourage the replacement of the Spanish ethnicity by darker skinned boat people from Africa. She says that Spanish people are all horrible and need to be replaced. All over Western Europe, Western governments welcome the replacement of white ethnic nationalities by black immigrant-invaders. Yet the Western European governments want to go to war with Russia. Why? To preserve Europe for black immigrant-invaders?

Yes. The white Western elites are fighting for the conquest of Western civilization by black immigrant-invaders. In Scandinavia black immigrant-invaders largely escape charges for raping white women because mixed-race births help to replace white people. Rape of white women by black men is permitted as a white replacement tool. The way things are shaping up in Scandinavia it is permissible for an ethnic Swedish woman, which Cambridge University says does not exist, to abort a white baby, but it will be a hate crime for a white ethnic Swedish female to abort a baby of color. As I have previously predicted, by 2050, 24 years from now, the only white people who will exist will be in zoos displayed as the oppressors of “sun people.”

Read more …

“These ideas are popular with everyone but Democrats in Congress and the Democrats’ consultant class.”

• CNN Thinks Black Voters Are ‘Too Dumb’, Scott Jennings Torches Them (Margolis)

Scott Jennings wasn’t about to let Democratic operative Alencia Johnson get away with wild accusations about voter ID requirements, and the resulting exchange on CNN was a master class in dismantling talking points with simple, direct questions. Johnson kicked things off by claiming President Trump was “championing a bill that actually would take voting rights away from a lot of black people in this country.” But her argument immediately started to crumble when Jennings asked the most obvious question: “What voting rights is he taking away from black voters?” “The SAVE Act,” Johnson, a former advisor to Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign, insisted. “That is actually going to continue to disenfranchise overwhelmingly a lot of people of color.”


“How?” Jennings asked, justifiably perplexed. This is when Johnson tried to deflect, distancing herself from her own position. She claimed “There are so many civil rights organizations that have run the data” and invoked Chuck Schumer’s “Jim Crow 2.0” rhetoric. But Jennings wouldn’t let her off the hook. “How? You haven’t said how yet,” he pointed out. “I am talking about it. It’s the way that you’re putting new poll taxes on us.” Poll taxes? The SAVE Act does two things: It requires proof of citizenship when registering to vote and a photo ID to vote. That’s it. These ideas are popular with everyone but Democrats in Congress and the Democrats’ consultant class.

After multiple attempts to dodge, Johnson finally offered an answer: “It’s the way that we’re putting new poll taxes on this when you’re making people have to prove that they are citizens, that they have to prove with a voter ID.” Jennings couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Poll taxes?” he repeated incredulously. Johnson doubled down, calling it “kind of an idiom” and arguing that requiring people to prove citizenship makes it “harder for people to vote in this country.” That’s when Jennings lowered the boom.

He noted that 76% of black voters support requiring an ID to vote, along with 80% of Hispanic voters and 83% of Americans overall. “Are you saying that black voters are too dumb to know what’s good for them?” Jennings asked. “I mean, it sounds pretty condescending.”

The exchange perfectly illustrated how easily leftist claims about voter ID laws collapse under the slightest scrutiny. Johnson came loaded with buzzwords — Jim Crow 2.0, poll taxes, disenfranchisement — but couldn’t articulate a single concrete way the SAVE Act would actually prevent eligible voters from casting ballots, and even more particularly, why it would disproportionately affect minority voters. We all know what this opposition to basic election integrity reforms is really about. Democrats don’t want basic, commonsense election integrity reforms because they rely on a rigged system where it’s easy to steal elections. They invoke Jim Crow to try to scare Democrats, particularly black Democrats, into thinking that these basic safeguards are racist, but, as Jennings pointed out, the polling shows that not even minorities buy this argument.

Read more …

“.. it’s less of a sanctuary state for criminals.”

• Homan Announces End Of Illegal Immigration Crackdown In Minnesota (JTN)

White House border czar Tom Homan on Thursday announced the end of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration in Minnesota. “As a result of our efforts here, Minnesota is now less of a sanctuary state for criminals,” Homan said at a news conference, The Associated Press reported. “I have proposed and President Trump has concurred, that this surge operation conclude.” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched the crackdown, called Operation Metro Surge, on Dec. 1.


According to federal authorities, the crackdown focused on the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, and led to the arrest of more than 4,000 people. “The surge is leaving Minneapolis safer,” Homan said. “I’ll say it again, it’s less of a sanctuary state for criminals.”

Read more …

“… letting in unvetted masses isn’t mercy; it’s a calculated move to entrench power, sidelining American workers and safety.”

• A Good Way To Destroy Your Country: Rogan Blasts Dems’ Open Border Insanity (MN)

Joe Rogan has zeroed in on the Democrats’ border fiasco, calling it a direct path to America’s downfall by inviting criminals and chaos across the line. The podcast powerhouse argues that while the U.S. was built by immigrants, unchecked entry under Democratic policies is flooding the nation with murderers and cartel thugs, all in an effort to populate cities with voters loyal to the left—pure political gamesmanship at the expense of public safety. Rogan laid out the stark reality of America’s immigration roots clashing with today’s border free-for-all. “The whole thing is tough now because we’re a country that’s established by immigrants, but you can’t have an open border. You can’t just have anybody come through because there’s going to be a bunch of criminals that come through, and you don’t want that. You don’t want your country to be more crime infested,” Rogan said.


“You don’t want your country to have murderers and cartel members just coming into the country and now getting citizenship and being able to vote and organizing, and that’s crazy. That’s a good way to destroy your country,” Rogan urged. He further accused Democrats of turning illegal immigration into a cynical tool for power grabs, overwhelming sanctuary cities and stacking the deck in swing states. “When you just let everybody in, and you let in 10 million people, and how do you — unless they get arrested while they’re here — what do you do? And even then, like a lot of them during the Biden administration, they were getting let go. In sanctuary cities [they would let] people go. It’s just crazy,” Rogan said.

He added, “Because they just want a bunch of people in these swing states for the census. So they get more congressional seats, and if they get these people and give them the ability to vote, now you have a built-in voter base. You can just rig the election.” This critique comes amid the fallout from Biden-era policies like the CHNV migrant parole program, which fast-tracked over 530,000 nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela into the U.S. with legal status and work permits—straining resources and enforcement to the breaking point. Contrast that with President Trump’s 2025 crackdown, where executive actions on border security prompted over two million illegal migrants to self-deport, slashing southern border encounters to historic lows.

It’s a clear win for America First priorities, proving that strong enforcement works when leaders actually prioritize citizens over political stunts. Rogan’s takedown highlights the danger in Democratic compassion claims: preaching open arms while cities buckle under crime waves and resource drains. These policies erode the very fabric of fair elections and national sovereignty. As Rogan points out, letting in unvetted masses isn’t mercy; it’s a calculated move to entrench power, sidelining American workers and safety. Democrats’ border negligence is a betrayal of the American people, paving the way for more crime, division, and electoral manipulation.

Read more …

According to PCR, there should have been more Ukrainian victims, earlier. To prevent more later.

“Putin made an extraordinary strategic error when he refused early in the game to put down a strong Russian foot.”

• Are The Ukrainian Peace Talks A Hoax? (Paul Craig Roberts)

The so-called Ukrainian peace talks have puzzled me for sometime. For the conflict to be resolved requires Trump and Putin to work out an agreement between themselves, but this necessary meeting has not occurred. Trump has said repeatedly that he wants the issue resolved, but his terms have never been clear other than demanding a cease fire before the terms of the agreement are known. It is not clear that Trump has taken trouble to understand what Putin means by the root cause of the problem or that the real problem is the absence of a mutual security agreement between Russia and the West.

Perplexingly, the “peace process” has been characterized by Trump blaming Putin for not accepting a cease-fire in place of a negotiated agreement and adding more Russian sanctions as a punishment. This has never struck me as indicating any seriousness on Trump’s part toward finding a solution, and it has puzzled me that Putin continues to see hope in such an unpromising process. Russian foreign minister Lavrov has come around to my point of view. He says the negotiations continue in words, but not in deeds, which is a polite way of saying that the negotiations have lost their purpose.mLavrov has noticed what I have been pointing out for sometime, and that is that there is dialogue on paper but pressure in practice.

I called attention to the fact that it is inconsistent for Washington to allegedly pursue peace in Ukraine while it foments regime change in former provinces of the Soviet Union that border the Russian Federation. Washington seeks to win the allegiance of these provinces away from Russia as is currently underway in Armenia. These efforts follow Washington’s recent attempt at color revolution in former Soviet Georgia. To allegedly negotiate peace in Ukraine, while stirring up trouble elsewhere on Russia’s border gives the lie to the Ukrainian “peace process.” Just last Monday American vice president Vance was in Armenia on a high profile visit chipping away with American offers Armenia’s economic engagement with Russia.

Another peculiar aspect of this so-called “peace negotiations” is the two people who are conducting them. One, representing Trump, is Witkoff an American real estate developer. The other, representing Putin, is the American– Russian Kirill Dmitriev, an Atlanticist Integrationist in charge of the small $10 billion Russian sovereign investment fund. Both are trying to negotiate money deals, not the elimination of armed conflict. The Kremlin’s line is that it is a double-track policy to see if economic deals can be made, regardless of whether the Ukrainian situation can be resolved.

This strikes me as utter nonsense, and it seems to strike Lavrov the same way. Lavrov notes that Washington is interfering with Russian oil exports by illegally seizing Russian-flagged tankers at sea in international waters, and by applying sanctions to India for its oil and weapons deals with Russia. Clearly, Washington is increasing pressures on Russia. What basis does Putin have for continuing to pretend and to deceive the Russian people that Ukrainian peace negotiations are almost concluded? Why is a popular leader destroying his own credibility, or allowing Dmitriev and Witcoff to destroy his credibility?

Putin made an extraordinary strategic error when he refused early in the game to put down a strong Russian foot. It remains to be seen what consequences the world will pay for this extraordinary strategic blunder by the president of Russia..

Read more …

“Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who doesn’t have the sense God gave a goose..”:

• What the Heck Happened in El Paso? (Sarah Anderson)

On Tuesday night, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a NOTAM that imposed a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) over El Paso, Texas, and nearby southern New Mexico, including El Paso International Airport and Doña Ana County International Jetport in Santa Teresa, N.M. It cited “special security reasons,” and it banned all types of flights, including, in some cases, medevacs, up to 18,000 feet for the next 10 days (until February 20). Early Wednesday morning, the FAA suddenly announced that “the temporary closure of airspace over El Paso has been lifted” and “there is no threat to commercial aviation,” allowing all flights to resume as normal.


So, what happened? The Donald Trump administration says that Mexican cartel drones breached the U.S. border. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on X:

“The FA and [Department of War] acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion. The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region. The restrictions have been lifted and normal flights are resuming.” This sounds reasonable. El Paso sits right on the United States-Mexico border, and cartel drones are a rapidly growing threat. They’re used to smuggle in drugs, like fentanyl and methamphetamine, and they’re used to scout areas, looking for law enforcement. They’re also used in human trafficking coordination.

According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), 27,000 drones were detected within 500 meters of the border in the last six months of 2024. But others aren’t buying it, and by “others” I mean Democrats, Mexico’s Narco-President Claudia Sheinbaum, and the MSM. Rep Veronica Escobar, a Texas Democrat whose district includes El Paso, complained that she wasn’t notified, and urged the FAA to reverse the decision, stating that she felt there was no threat to the community. “The highly consequential decision by FAA to shut down the El Paso Airport for 10 days is unprecedented and has resulted in significant concern within the community,” she said.

“From what my office and I have been able to gather overnight and early this morning there is no immediate threat to the community or surrounding areas.” Sheinbaum, during her morning press conference, stated that she had no information about any of this either but would like the U.S. to share it with her. The Associated Press, however, claims it has the real scoop… from anonymous sources. It claims that the shutdown “stemmed from the Pentagon’s plans to test a laser to shoot down drones used by Mexican drug cartels” and that it “caused friction with the Federal Aviation Administration, which wanted to ensure commercial air safety, and the two agencies sought to coordinate.”

It also claims that a meeting between the Department of War (DOW) and the FAA was scheduled for later in February, but the DOW was eager to test the laser, so the FAA responded with the shutdown. It goes on to explain that some people missed their Valentine’s Day weekend flights. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who doesn’t have the sense God gave a goose, piled on by saying it’s “the lack of coordination that’s endemic in this Trump administration.” And then, yet another story came out, which has been published by various outlets, like CBS and Fox News, stating that what actually happened was that the military thought it was taking out a drone, but it turned out to be a mylar party balloon. This led to concerns from the FAA, and that’s why the airspace was eventually closed. This was confirmed by, again, anonymous sources and has been mocked online by both sides of the political aisle.

So, which was it? Catel drones, a misidentified balloon, or a little spat between two government agencies — maybe some combination of all three? No one seems to know for sure. Given the players involved, I’m not one to blindly trust the federal government, but I am more inclined to trust Duffy over Duckworth and “anonymous sources.”

Read more …

Socialism in America is like snow in the desert.

• NYC Mayor Urges State Lawmakers to Pass Tax Hikes on Wealthy, Corporations (ET)

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called on state lawmakers Wednesday to approve a 2 percent personal income tax increase on the city’s wealthiest residents as well as a hike in the corporate tax rate in a bid to close a multibillion-dollar budget gap. The mayor testified in a New York State Senate 2026 budget hearing about how the city’s projected deficit had decreased from $12 billion to $7 billion. He attributed the improvement to “assuming an aggressive posture on savings without compromising city services, incorporating updated revenue and bonus estimates, and using in-year reserves.”


Mamdani said nonetheless that New York remains “placed on a ledge,” and needs more revenue from high earners and businesses. “I believe the wealthiest individuals and most profitable corporations should contribute a little more so that everyone can live lives of dignity,” Mamdani, a democratic socialist, said in prepared remarks. “That’s why—along with raising the corporate tax—I’m asking for a 2 percent personal income tax increase on the most affluent New Yorkers.”

The mayor will release the city’s preliminary budget next Tuesday. He conjectured the personal tax surcharge, proposed to affect those earning more than $1 million annually, would close the remaining deficit by nearly half of what’s remaining. Mamdani also underscored his campaign pledge to increase the state’s corporate tax rate from 7.25 percent to 11.5 percent. Gov. Kathy Hochul and the legislature must approve any tax changes.

Read more …

Putin and Trump trust each other to get it done?!

• US Negotiating Updated New START Treaty With Russia – Vance (RT)

The US is continuing negotiations with Russia on an updated version of the New START treaty, Vice President J.D. Vance has confirmed. The strategic arms control agreement officially expired on February 5 after no formal extension was reached. Speaking to journalists on Wednesday in Azerbaijan, Vance stated that nuclear non-proliferation talks are ongoing and that the treaty will be different from its previous iteration. “It’s going to change compared to where it was, and that’s part of the negotiation that we’re engaging in with the Russians,” he said.


Preventing the spread of nuclear weapons remains a core priority for the administration of US President Donald Trump, Vance said, and that “more regimes across the world getting nuclear weapons” is the “worst thing that can happen” for the American people. Vance’s confirmation comes after Axios reported last week that US and Russian officials discussed the treaty on the sidelines of Ukraine peace talks in Abu Dhabi. A US official told the outlet that the sides had agreed to “operate in good faith” and begin discussions on updating the agreement, with some sources indicating a provisional six-month observance of the treaty’s terms.

Signed in 2010, New START puts caps on the number of strategic nuclear warheads and launchers that can be deployed and establishes monitoring mechanisms for both Russian and American arsenals. It was initially set to expire in 2021 but was extended for five years at the time. However, Moscow suspended the verification mechanisms of the treaty in 2023, citing Ukrainian strikes on elements of Russia’s nuclear deterrence and accusing the West of being actively involved.

Last September, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed extending the treaty for one more year, provided that Washington reciprocated. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the initiative “remained unanswered.” Moscow has repeatedly warned of the dangers of allowing the treaty to lapse. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who signed the original treaty, stated that “the world could enter a dangerous new phase of uncertainty” if the agreement expired, predicting that the global nuclear club will likely expand.

Read more …

Weird. They’re not sure who appoints who?

• US Attorney In New York Appointed By Judges Quickly Fired By White House (JTN)

A U.S. attorney who was appointed by federal judges in New York was quickly fired by the White House. On Wednesday, Donald T. Kinsella, 79, was appointed as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York in a private ceremony, The New York Times reported. Then, Kinsella said, he received an email from a White House official hours later, telling him that he was being removed from the post. Kinsella told The Times that he did not yet know whether the White House email carried the force of law, and that he would discuss it with the district judges in the morning and go from there.


Before Kinsella’s appointment, the Trump administration had suggested it would fire any prosecutor chosen by district judges. It is unclear whether there is any recourse for the Northern District judges. “Judges don’t pick U.S. Attorneys, @POTUS does. See Article II of our Constitution. You are fired, Donald Kinsella,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche posted on X on Wednesday.mKinsella is a former criminal chief of the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of New York, which prosecutes crime in cities such as Albany, Syracuse, and Utica.

He was to replace John A. Sarcone III, whom a judge found last month to be serving in the position unlawfully. Sarcone dropped the title of acting U.S. attorney this week, as his 210-day term had expired, and his office’s website now lists him as first assistant, typically the title of a U.S. attorney’s top deputy. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized Kinsella’s firing. “Everyone knows Trump only cares about one quality in a U.S. attorney: complete political subservience,” Schumer said. “The people of upstate New York deserve a qualified, independent prosecutor, not another political loyalist.”

Read more …

The European Commission president won’t let individual member states stand in the way of her maximalist goals…

She’ll blow up the union yet.

• What’s Behind Von Der Leyen’s Two-Tier EU Plan? (RT)

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants groups of EU countries to pass ambitious economic reforms without the consent of the entire bloc. The move is about trade, regulations, and – of course – Ukraine.nEU leaders will meet in Belgium’s Alden Biesen castle on Thursday to discuss the bloc’s moribund economy. The meeting comes two years after former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi released a report calling on Brussels to slash regulations and invest up to €800 billion annually, or face “slow agony” as the economies of China and the US pull ahead.


Von der Leyen immediately opposed borrowing Draghi’s recommended €800 billion, given that her EU member underlings have yet to come up with the €90 billion to be borrowed for Ukraine that was announced last December. However, in a letter to the bloc’s leaders on Monday, she proposed a “deep house cleaning” of red tape and regulations, new trade deals along the lines of the one signed with India this month, and the elimination of remaining trade barriers between member states.

One paragraph in the letter stands out: “Our ambition should always be to reach agreement among all 27 Member States. However, where a lack of progress or ambition risks undermining Europe’s competitiveness or capacity to act, we should not shy away from using the possibilities foreseen in the treaties on enhanced cooperation.” In a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, von der Leyen made her position even more clear. The commission, she said, will “crack down” on “unnecessary” national laws standing in the way of her reforms.

The EU’s Amsterdam and Nice treaties allow a minimum of nine member states to cooperate on certain policy initiatives without the consent of the rest of the bloc. According to the EU’s legal database, “the procedure is designed to overcome stalemate where a particular proposal is blocked by one or more Member States who do not want to take part. It does not, however, allow for an extension of powers outside those permitted by the EU Treaties.” Member states cannot veto the establishment of enhanced cooperation groups, except on matters of defense and the bloc’s common foreign policy.

What is the letter really about?
According to von der Leyen, her proposed reforms are so important that they risk delay or dilution if subjected to the bloc’s normal unanimity requirement. However, her letter neglects to mention a key European industry that would benefit from “enhanced cooperation”: the weapons industry. Last month, German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil proposed creating “a Europe of two speeds,” in which Germany, France, Poland, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands – the so-called ‘E6’ – would collaborate on defense spending, lobby for increased military expenditure in the EU’s next multiannual budget, and raise money to turn “defense into an engine for growth.”

“Europe has to become stronger and more resilient,” Klingbeil said in a letter to his French counterpart, Roland Lescure. “Work towards this goal needs to be sped up in all dimensions. Continuing as before is not an option.” Klingbeil’s proposal would likely face staunch opposition from Europe’s dissident center. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, and Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis have all spoken out against the EU’s increased militarization. By recruiting three more countries and using the mechanisms of enhanced cooperation, the E6 could bypass this opposition and form an ideologically-aligned bloc within the bloc.

Why is this important for Germany?
Strengthening the European arms industry is an existential matter for Germany. Berlin’s decision to abandon Russian gas imports has left the country reeling, with its economy contracting in 2023 and 2024, and flatlining last year. Industrial giants such as BASF, Bosch, and Volkswagen have closed factories in Germany, but the weapons sector is booming. Rheinmetall, Germany’s largest defense contractor, has seen its stock rise more than 1,750% since January 2022, largely on the back of massive orders of 155mm ammunition and Leopard tank components for Ukraine. Airbus and Thyssenkrupp, both of which have substantial defense divisions, are up around 200%. Rheinmetall is now Germany’s sixth-largest company by market capitalization, outranking Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW.

According to some estimates, defense spending has accounted for as much as 20% of total EU economic growth since 2022. nUkraine benefits in material terms from every Rheinmetall shell it fires and tank it repairs at the company’s facility near Lviv. Kiev also benefits from any political decision that lets its most fervent supporters in Europe – namely the European Commission, France, Germany, and Poland – act without interference from the rest of the bloc. For example, when the European Commission proposed a €90 billion debt-funded loan to Ukraine last year, it was opposed by Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. The EU Council used enhanced cooperation to issue the loan last month, with the first payment to Kiev expected in April.

Von der Leyen has used the Ukraine conflict to dramatically centralize power in the EU. Aside from using enhanced cooperation to issue a loan that Kiev will never be able to repay, the EC president has proposed an end to the unanimity requirement for foreign policy and defense decisions, and until this week planned to create a dedicated intelligence unit under her control, citing the supposed threat of Russian “hybrid warfare. Now that the EU economy is buckling under the weight of the commission’s decisions, namely its abandonment of cheap Russian oil and gas, von der Leyen is yet again tearing up the rulebook to achieve her goals. Ahead of Thursday’s meeting in Belgium, it seems that the much-vaunted unity of the bloc is of little concern to her if it stands in the way of her ambitions.

Read more …

“As the current generation being educated is content to ask AI for answers, they will never be able to answer a question themselves..”

• The Collapse of American Education (Paul Craig Roberts)

Forty percent of US fourth graders cannot read. Even fewer can read at their grade level. One teacher responsible for 110 eighth graders reports that only two can read at grade level. Teachers report that kids are not capable of comprehending the content of written material, and that thinking and working out the answer to a problem is beyond their ability.


https://www.bitchute.com/video/M8fPk94kCupI

The 15 minute video in the URL above is worth your time. It shows us that we are raising a generation that is incapable of functioning in any job, or understanding domestic and foreign concerns that require public input in a democracy. In effect, without an educated and thinking public, there can be no democracy. Therefore, the failure of education means the replacement of our political system with something else. The information in the video blames technology, especially artificial intelligence, which is beginning to undermine the comprehension powers of adults as well. The latter part of the video might strike some as a case for better teacher pay, but as the video makes clear pay is not the reason teachers are leaving education.

The adverse impact of artificial intelligence on learning is just the latest stage in the collapse of education. In previous articles, I have dated the decline in education from the destruction of neighborhood schools. People of the same socio-economic class fit together in more manageable ranges of ability. This makes it possible to hold all students in class to the same standard. Some do better than others, but there are not large differences that result in many who cannot fit within the standard range.

The neighborhood schools were destroyed by social engineering or the integration of different socio-economic classes under the same standard. The result was there were too many who could not meet the standard. Instead of questioning the policy, the blame was placed on racism. To avoid racism the educational standards were lowered. This let the Genie out of the bottle. Other deterioration followed, and the classroom degenerated into chaos and loss of teacher control. Today teachers say they are behavioral managers, not teachers.

Another adverse development was the creation of education departments in universities. In my early schooling years, education degrees were new on the scene. Those who taught my generation had degrees in the subjects that they taught. The math teacher had a math degree.The history teacher had a degree in history. The English teacher had an English degree, and so on. Most of the teachers were teaching because they love their subject, and their appreciation of the subject often passed on to the students and gave them an interest in math, history, language. Teachers had competence in the subject matter instead of in educational theory.

Today we already experience the decline in competence of graduates. Checkout clerks are not permitted to exchange for customers the equivalent in smaller bills for a larger one, because they don’t know how to do it. Customer service representatives are very limited in the help that they can provide. A real problem has to be moved up a level or two to a supervisor. To get an issue resolved today can require 30 minutes or one hour or half a day. I remember when issues were resolved in three minutes and that whoever answered the phone had the authority to resolve the issue. Today the time it takes to resolve the simplest issue is extraordinary.

As the current generation being educated is content to ask AI for answers, they will never be able to answer a question themselves. Everyone will think the same, which will be whatever AI answers. Therefore, those who control the database for AI will control understanding. Moreover, there will be no one capable of challenging the narrative in the AI database. The consequences of this is extraordinary. Everyone will think the same. Diversity will not exist. Those who control the database will have total control. Humanity simply ceases to exist.These are the real problems that we face, not whether we should destroy Iran for Israel, or whether Gaza should be turned into a resort. Does the fact that the real issues are unaddressed mean that the educational collapse has already gone so far that we can no longer think clearly and comprehend the real threats that we face?

Read more …

“:Nobody can say for sure because nobody actually knows, not even the people who signed the checks.”

• ‘Snow White’ Lost [GULP] How Much Money? (Stephen Green)

You had to figure that Disney’s live(ish)-action Snow White reboot would lose money, but even my eyes watered when I read this morning that the oft-derided musical lost about $170 million. But get this, had Disney not produced the movie in the U.K. — and received a reported $65 million (!!!) in tax credits — then Snow White would have lost the Mouse House a jaw-dropping $235 million……and entered the Hollywood Hall of Shame as one of the 10 biggest money-losing movie of all time, somewhere between Disney’s 2012 stinker, John Carter, and Peter Berg’s Battleship from the same year.
I could go over all the reasons with you again — bad concept, Rachel Zegler, bad script, Rachel Zegler, bad casting, Rachel Zegler, bad new songs, Rachel Zegler, budget-busting reshoots, Rachel Zegler, budget-busting (and unnecessary) CGI dwarves, and also Rachel Zegler — but we’ve been over all this before. Instead, let me ask one vital question that nobody at Disney seems to have asked themselves or one another: How is it even possible to lose that much money on a picture that could have been shot for probably $100 million, with another $50 million in marketing costs? That’s an easy one: Disney spent a well-reported $336 million to produce a frickin family musical, and another estimated $100 million to market it.

Factor in those U.K. tax credits and the movie theater’s take, Snow White needed to sell around $740 million in tickets for Disney to break even. That’s almost Star Wars money. For a family musical. Absurd! At a more reasonable budget — back when studios still cared about that kind of thing — Disney would have started making money at something closer to $260 million. Had there been any grownups in charge at Disney able to enforce some cost-discipline, a $100 million Snow White would have been a much better movie than the one they made for more than three times that much. Budgets — real budgets — force everyone involved to deliver value. Disney’s reckless corporate bosses just sign the checks and pray for the best, it seems.

But there’s a bigger story to tell. Let’s look at another big loser, John McTiernan’s The 13th Warrior. It’s impossible to say exactly where it places on the list of All-Time Box Office Bombs, thanks to Hollywood’s notorious accounting gimmickry. It might have lost as “little” as $130 million (adjusted for inflation), or as much as $243 million (ditto). John Carter might be the biggest flop of all time at $274 million in today’s dollars, or maybe in 11th place at $153 million. Nobody can say for sure because nobody actually knows, not even the people who signed the checks. That’s Hollywood for you, but Snow White wasn’t shot in Hollywood. In order to qualify for the U.K.’s lavish film-production tax credits, studios like Disney must follow the U.K.’s accounting rules — and the Brits don’t put up with the tricks that we do. So you can pretty much take it to the bank that Snow White did indeed lose $170 million.

But here’s the biggest part of the story. Adjusted for inflation, and applying a bit of Kentucky windage to account for Hollywood accounting witchery, eight or maybe nine of the biggest box-office losers of all time were released in just the last 15 years.Probably seven of the next 10 did, too. In fact, out of the 139 biggest box office bombs listed on Wikipedia (for losing about $100 million or more in today’s dollars), 123 of them were made since 2000. Folks, Hollywood as we know it was born in the 1920s, and those studios basically printed money for 80 years.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/2021610914328256676?s=20

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle September 23 2025

Sep 232025
 
 September 23, 2025  Posted by at 9:55 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  54 Responses »


Frans Hals Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer 1626

 

• ‘Absolute Miracle’ May Have Saved Lives During Charlie Kirk Murder (ET)
• Bullet That Hit Charlie Kirk Purportedly Made No Exit Wound (HUSA)
• Building a Legacy: Charlie Kirk’s Memorial (Salgado)
• Moscow Ready To Respond To Any Threat – Putin (RT)
• Putin Makes Nuclear Treaty Offer To US (RT)
• Trump Declares Antifa a Terrorist Group (Catherine Salgado)
• Biden’s FBI Tried to Entrap Trump’s Border Czar Before the Election (Margolis)
• Why We Are at War (Richard C. Lyons)
• Disney Gives Kimmel Show Back, But Nexstar & Sinclair Still Refuse To Air (ZH)
• The Funniest Joke Jimmy Kimmel Never Told (Turley)
• Trump Links Tylenol To Autism Risk During Pregnancy (RT)
• Personal Note (James Howard Kunstler)
• EU Looks To ‘Le Pen-Proof’ Its Budget – Politico (RT)
• Macron Warns Against Seizing Frozen Russian Assets (RT)
• Britain’s Fate Is Decline, Not Upheaval – And History Explains Why (Bordachev)

 

 

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1970169307867890068

https://twitter.com/Juliesnark1731/status/1970092182196642217

https://twitter.com/TheBritLad/status/1970047562565488823

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/1970153374310945092

 

 

 

 

Hmmmm. “‘This would have taken a moose or two down, [or] an elk.’”

• ‘Absolute Miracle’ May Have Saved Lives During Charlie Kirk Murder (ET)

A spokesperson for Turning Point USA provided an update on the assassination of the group’s founder, Charlie Kirk, earlier in September and said Kirk’s body “stopped” the bullet from producing an exit wound. Citing a surgeon at the hospital that assisted Kirk, spokesman Andrew Kolvet wrote in a post on X that the bullet that killed Kirk on Sept. 10 at Utah Valley University “‘absolutely should have gone through, which is very very normal for a high powered, high velocity round.’ “‘I’ve seen wounds from this caliber many times and they always just go through everything,’” the surgeon said, according to Kolvet’s post. “‘This would have taken a moose or two down, [or] an elk.’” But the bullet “didn’t go through” because “Charlie’s body stopped it,” Kolvet said in the Sept. 20 post.

“I mentioned to his doctor that there were dozens of staff, students, and special guests standing directly behind Charlie on the other side of the tent,” he said. The doctor then told Kolvet, according to his post, that it “‘was an absolute miracle that someone else didn’t get killed’” by the bullet. According to the doctor, the shot “‘likely would have killed those standing behind [Kirk] too.’” “Even in death, Charlie managed to save the lives of those around him,” Kolvet wrote, noting that the doctor told him that the bullet had been recovered. It was discovered underneath Kirk’s skin. Officials have said the gun used in the shooting was a Mauser 98 model chambered in .30-06. According to prosecutors, the suspected assassin, Tyler Robinson, had told a male with whom he was in a romantic relationship that it was his grandfather’s gun. Authorities also said DNA on the trigger of the rifle that killed Kirk matched that of Robinson.

The authorities have released text messages said to be between Robinson and his romantic partner, whom prosecutors said identifies as a transgender female and was Robinson’s roommate. In these messages, Robinson allegedly said he plotted the attack for about a week and used a scope. Officials said Robinson had become “more political” in recent years, expressing more left-wing and pro-transgender views. When the roommate asked the suspect why he shot Kirk, according to the charging documents, Robinson said in response: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”Kirk had become a prominent force in politics and was credited with energizing the Republican base, particularly among youth, and helping President Donald Trump win back the White House in 2024.

Robinson’s roommate appeared shocked in the text exchange after the shooting, according to court documents, asking Robinson “why he did it and how long he’d been planning it.” While authorities say Robinson has not been cooperating with investigators, they say his family and friends have been talking to officials. Robinson made his first court appearance last week, with a judge declaring the suspect indigent and provisionally appointing a public defender. That public defender has not yet been named. The suspect faces capital aggravated murder, obstruction, witness tampering, and other charges. A capital murder charge means that Robinson could receive the death penalty. His next court date is set for Sept. 29. Robinson has not issued any public statements in response to the allegations.

Read more …

“Kolvet’s claims have been met with widespread skepticism online.”

• Bullet That Hit Charlie Kirk Purportedly Made No Exit Wound (HUSA)

Call it a miracle—though many are calling bullshit. Andrew Kolvet, the executive producer of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” said Saturday that he spoke with the surgeon who worked on conservative activist Charlie Kirk at the hospital. According to Kolvet, the surgeon said the .30-caliber bullet that hit conservative activist Charlie Kirk made no exit wound because Kirk is “like the man of steel.” “He said the bullet ‘absolutely should have gone through, which is very very normal for a high powered, high velocity round. I’ve seen wounds from this caliber many times and they always just go through everything. This would have taken a moose or two down, an elk, etc.’ But it didn’t go through. Charlie’s body stopped it,” Kolvet said on Twitter/X.

The surgeon supposedly explained that “his bone was so healthy and the density was so so impressive that he’s like the man of steel. It should have just gone through and through. It likely would have killed those standing behind him too.” The coroner found the round just beneath Kirk’s skin, Kolvet added. By comparison, the .30-caliber round that Secret Service counter-sniper David King fired at alleged would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks made five wounds. According to the medical examiner who autopsied Crooks, he suffered five gunshot wounds—an entry wound, an exit wound, a re-entry wound, and “two corresponding, partial re-exit wounds.”

“There is a corresponding, partial gunshot re-exit wound on the lateral right upper back … There is an additional, corresponding partial gunshot re-exit wound on the lateral right upper back,” stated Crooks’s autopsy report, which was obtained exclusively by Headline USA. The bullet that hit Crooks came from a 300 Win Mag cartridge, which is more powerful than the .30-06 that allegedly was used in the Kirk assassination—but both have the same caliber bullet. Kolvet’s statement comes amidst public questions about what happened to the .30-06 round said to have slain Kirk. Ballistics experts have floated various theories about what really happened, speculating that Kirk may have been shot from somewhere else—possibly from his right side or even from below. Kolvet’s claims have been met with widespread skepticism online.

https://twitter.com/KitKlarenberg/status/1969707314618790326?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1969707314618790326%7Ctwgr%5E47736aecc70ef1bad7a6a7699346024dd87bba18%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fheadlineusa.com%2Fbullet-that-hit-charlie-kirk-purportedly-made-no-exit-wound%2F

Read more …

“‘Except a corn of wheat fall onto the ground and die, it abideth alone.”

• Building a Legacy: Charlie Kirk’s Memorial (Salgado)

The most important officials in the United States, including the president, gathered to pay tribute to one man yesterday. Pastors glorified his faith, academics praised his intellect, and hundreds of thousands of people chanted his name. This man did not hold elected office. He was not a billionaire or an entertainer or a star athlete. He was a patriot who believed so strongly in free speech and the truth that he changed history. In a little over a decade, Charlie Kirk went from being a teenager with a lot of enthusiasm but no money or connections to becoming leader of a world-shaping movement, a man whom the most famous and powerful patriots of our era were proud to know. His loss to assassination was a grievous blow for America, which needed his talent and his vision for years to come. It was also a personal tragedy for his wife and little children.

But at only 31 years of age, Charlie Kirk left behind him a legacy much greater than that of many an octogenarian. As Donald Trump said, Charlie was “one of the giants of our nation,” a true “martyr for American freedom.” White House official Stephen Miller, speaking with intensity, declared, “The day Charlie died the angels wept, but their tears have turned to fire in our hearts.” He told Charlie’s enemies, “You have nothing, you are nothing, you are wickedness….You thought you could kill Charlie Kirk; you have made him immortal.” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth compared Kirk to St. Paul and described him as “a warrior for country, a warrior for [Christ],” in the best tradition of American courage. His fellow cabinet member, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said that Charlie Kirk, like Christ his Master, “changed the trajectory of history.

Charlie’s other overarching passion was free speech,” and “there’s a lot worse things than death and one of those is if we lost our constitutional rights in this country.” As the true warrior he was, Hegseth continued, “Charlie died with his boots on, and he died so that we did not have to undergo those fates worse than death.” Every speaker referred to the importance of faith for Kirk, from his pastor Rob McCoy to gospel singers to the president (read Chris Queen’s piece). As Kennedy said, “Charlie’s mission was Jesus Christ and also free speech.” Erika Kirk, before forgiving her husband’s murderer, said that “more than anything, Charlie wanted to do not his will but God’s will,” and “after Charlie’s assassination we didn’t see violence, we didn’t see rioting,” but “instead we saw what my husband always prayed we’d see in this country. We saw revival.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Charlie would want everyone watching or attending the memorial to believe we’re created by God, that we sinned and were redeemed, and that at the end of time all believers will have a great re-union, including with Charlie himself. Jack Posobiec, rosary in hand, urged attendees to put on the armor of God, “for Charlie.” Dr. Ben Carson read John 12:24 because Charlie was shot, he said, at 12:24 p.m. on Sept. 10: “‘Except a corn of wheat fall onto the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’ And I want to thank Charlie for his sacrifice, because much fruit is going to be realized.” Kirk’s encouragement to young people to get married and raise families was also a recurring theme. Kirk’s Chief of Staff, Mikey McCoy, thanked Charlie for urging him to get married and helping him meet his wife, who stood beside him holding his arm.

While some ignorant, elitist leftists sneered at Kirk’s lack of a college degree, Hillsdale College President Dr. Larry Arnn lauded Kirk’s intellect and was proud to remember that Kirk had taken multiple online courses through Hillsdale. “I keep a list in my head of the 6 or 8 young people, and I’m very privileged, I get to know many inspiring young people who are the best I ever saw. Charlie is the only one who was never a full-time student at Hillsdale College who was on that list,” Arnn said, announcing an honorary degree for Kirk. Donald Trump Jr. said Kirk “was like a little brother to me,” but amid the heartbreaking tragedy, “we won’t be intimidated…Our message of faith, family, and country will not be silenced.” Don Jr. urged, “His legacy must be that when they took his life, a million more Charlies stepped up to fill the void. We are all Charlie!”

Vice President JD Vance, tears in his eyes, said of Kirk, “He changed the face of conservatism in our time and in doing so he changed the course of history….[Debate] was the vehicle for bringing the light of truth to dark places.” The most moving speech of the day was the eulogy by Mrs. Erika Kirk, who stood strong even as she wept, filled with love and forgiveness for friends and foes alike, describing the beauty of her marriage, the excruciating heartache of Charlie’s assassination, and her plans to carry on her husband’s vital work of free speech and outreach to young Americans.

Finally, Donald Trump paid tribute to the man he credits with ensuring his 2024 election victory. “Charlie’s murder was not just an attack on one man,” Trump stated, but on “our entire nation….The gun was pointed at him but the bullet was aimed at all of us.” Kirk changed history in his three decades of life on earth, Trump declared, before ending by calling Erika out on stage again to embrace her.

It was my great honor to attend the memorial of Charlie Kirk, a visionary and American hero. As someone only a few years younger than Kirk, his sudden death provokes a question in me as well as many of my fellow Gen Z and millennial Americans — what will my legacy be? Charlie Kirk was one in a billion. But while he was the indispensable man, he needed the staff, volunteers, fans, and friends who helped him make his movement a success. Now that he is gone, We the People are left to take up his banner, practice his courage, display his faith and patriotism, and prove to the bloodthirsty Democrats that we are all Charlie Kirk now.

Read more …

Trying to beat Russia amounts to suicide.

• Moscow Ready To Respond To Any Threat – Putin (RT)

Russia is ready to respond to any threats, President Vladimir Putin has said, adding that Moscow still supports a diplomatic path to ease tensions despite the West’s destructive policies.Speaking ahead of the Security Council meeting on Monday, Putin sounded the alarm with regard to the “extreme danger of further deterioration” of the geopolitical situation, particularly amid the Ukraine conflict.= He added that while Russia had offered “specific ideas” to correct this trajectory, these “warnings and initiatives received no clear response.”There should be no doubt about this: Russia is capable of responding to any existing and newly emerging threats. Responding not with words, but through the application of military-technical measures, Putin warned.

He noted Moscow’s decision to abandon the unilateral moratorium on the deployment of ground-based intermediate- and shorter-range missiles last month, describing it as a forced step caused by the need to counter plans to deploy US- and other Western-made missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Putin stressed, however, that Russia is not interested in warmongering and saber-rattling. “We are confident in the reliability and effectiveness of our national deterrent forces, but at the same time we are not interested in further escalating tensions or fueling an arms race.” He added that Russia has always prioritized “political and diplomatic methods for maintaining international peace, based on the principles of equality, indivisibility of security, and mutual consideration of interests.”

Putin signaled that Moscow is ready to prolong the 2010 New START Treaty, the last remaining arms control pact between Russia and the US, which expires in February. It limits each side to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and 700 deployed delivery systems, and provides for inspections and data exchanges to verify compliance. This initiative, Putin said, “could make a significant contribution to creating an atmosphere conducive to substantive strategic dialogue with the United States.”

Read more …

“The New START Treaty will expire on February 5, 2026, signaling the imminent end of the last international accord directly limiting nuclear missile capabilities.”

• Putin Makes Nuclear Treaty Offer To US (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow will continue to adhere to a key nuclear arms control treaty signed with the US for one year after its expiration, provided Washington agrees to do the same. Speaking ahead of a Security Council meeting on Monday, Putin said global strategic stability has been increasingly threatened by what he described as the destructive actions of Western nations. He stressed that while Moscow is ready to meet any threat, it is and always has been interested in political and diplomatic methods of resolving conflicts.

Russia is prepared to follow the 2010 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) treaty for one year after its expiration next February, provided the US reciprocates and refrains from actions that could break the nuclear status quo, such as deploying interceptor systems in space, Putin offered. The Russia-US treaty establishes limits on the numbers of intercontinental-range nuclear weapons both sides can deploy. Below is the full text of Putin’s speech, as published on the Kremlin website:

Good afternoon, colleagues,

We have several topics to discuss today, including matters related to migration policy. However, I would like to begin with an issue of prime importance, one that is critical to safeguarding our national interests, Russia’s sovereignty, and without exaggeration, international security as a whole. I am referring to the situation in the realm of strategic stability, which, regrettably, continues to deteriorate. This is driven by a combination of factors, which are negative, compounding existing strategic risks and generating new ones. As a result of the destructive actions previously taken by Western countries, the foundations of constructive relations and practical cooperation between nuclear powers have been significantly undermined.

The basis for dialogue within relevant bilateral and multilateral frameworks has been eroded. Gradually, the system of Soviet-American and Russian-American agreements on nuclear missile and strategic defense arms control – long relied upon to stabilize relations between the two largest nuclear powers and to enhance global security – has been nearly dismantled. Let me reiterate: We have repeatedly examined the causes and potential consequences of this situation. We attribute the numerous challenges that have accumulated in the strategic sphere since the beginning of the 21st century to the destructive actions of the West, their destabilizing doctrines and military-technical programs designed to undermine global parity and pursue absolute, overwhelming superiority.

We have consistently and thoroughly addressed these issues, criticized this approach, and not only highlighted the extreme dangers of further deterioration but also repeatedly proposed concrete ideas for joint solutions. However, our warnings and initiatives have not received a clear response. Let me emphasize and let there be no doubt: Russia is fully capable of responding to any current or emerging threat, not with words, but through concrete military-technical measures. A clear example is our decision to end the unilateral moratorium on the deployment of ground-based short- and intermediate-range missiles. This was a forced move needed for ensuring an adequate response to the deployment of similar US and other Western-made weapons in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, which poses a direct threat to Russia’s security.

Our plans to strengthen the country’s defense capability are being developed with full regard to the evolving international situation, and they are being implemented in a comprehensive and timely manner. We are confident in the reliability and effectiveness of our national deterrent forces. At the same time, we are not seeking to further escalate tensions or fuel an arms race. Russia has consistently upheld the primacy of political and diplomatic methods for maintaining global peace, based on the principles of equality, the indivisibility of security, and mutual respect for interests.

Let me remind you that the last major political and diplomatic achievement in the field of strategic stability was the conclusion of the Russian-American New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in 2010. However, owing to the profoundly hostile policies of the Biden administration, which undermined the fundamental principles on which this treaty was built, its full implementation was suspended in 2023. Nevertheless, both parties have declared their intention to continue voluntarily observing the central quantitative limits of the strategic offensive arms treaty until its expiry. For nearly 15 years, this agreement has played a constructive role in maintaining balance and predictability in the sphere of strategic offensive weapons.

The New START Treaty will expire on February 5, 2026, signaling the imminent end of the last international accord directly limiting nuclear missile capabilities. A complete renunciation of this treaty’s legacy would, from many points, be a grave and short-sighted mistake. It would also have adverse implications for the objectives of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In order to prevent the emergence of a new strategic arms race and to preserve an acceptable degree of predictability and restraint, we consider it reasonable to maintain at this turbulent time the status quo established under New START. Accordingly, Russia is prepared to continue observing the treaty’s central quantitative restrictions for one year after February 5, 2026.

Following that date, based on a careful assessment of the situation, we will make a definite decision on whether to uphold these voluntary self-limitations. We believe that this measure is only feasible if the United States acts in a similar spirit and refrains from steps that would undermine or disrupt the existing balance of deterrence. In this connection, I would like to ask the relevant agencies to maintain close oversight of American activities related to the START arsenal in the first place. Particular attention must be directed towards US plans to expand strategic components of its missile defense system, including preparations for the deployment of interceptors in outer space. We believe that the practical implementation of such destabilizing measures could nullify our efforts to maintain the status quo in the field of strategic offensive arms. We will respond appropriately in this case.

I believe that Russia’s initiative, if implemented, could make a substantial contribution to creating the conditions necessary for a substantive strategic dialogue with the United States – provided, of course, that the grounds for its full resumption are secured and that broader steps are taken to normalize bilateral relations and remove core security contradictions.

Let us now turn to the current agenda.

Read more …

“..a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.”

• Trump Declares Antifa a Terrorist Group (Catherine Salgado)

President Donald Trump officially designated Antifa a domestic terror organization on Monday. In his Sept. 22 executive order, Trump defined Antifa as “a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law. It uses illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide to accomplish these goals.” Antifa became particularly infamous during the 2020 summer of love and the so-called “mostly peaceful” protests, and it remains a source of violence in the United States, with Portland just one city still enduring months of anti-ICE Antifa riots.

Antifa, as defined, Trump continued, “involves coordinated efforts to obstruct enforcement of Federal laws through armed standoffs with law enforcement, organized riots, violent assaults on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement officers, and routine doxing of and other threats against political figures and activists.” It is obvious that the federal government needs to take action against Antifa, which follows in a very long tradition of Democrat domestic terrorism stretching back to the mid-19th century. The KKK’s power is almost entirely a matter of the past, and hopefully that will be said one day soon of Antifa.

The president explained further that “Antifa recruits, trains, and radicalizes young Americans to engage in this violence and suppression of political activity, then employs elaborate means and mechanisms to shield the identities of its operatives, conceal its funding sources and operations in an effort to frustrate law enforcement, and recruit additional members.” This enhances the threat, as does the fact that Antifa has ties to other political organizations. Therefore, since Antifa has made it obvious through the cities it has torched and the other crimes that its members have committed that it is a domestic terror organization, Trump officially announced:

Because of the aforementioned pattern of political violence designed to suppress lawful political activity and obstruct the rule of law, I hereby designate Antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization.” All relevant executive departments and agencies shall utilize all applicable authorities to investigate, disrupt, and dismantle any and all illegal operations — especially those involving terrorist actions — conducted by Antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa, or for which Antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa provided material support, including necessary investigatory and prosecutorial actions against those who fund such operations. The president previously expressed his intention not only of investigating Antifa and its funding sources further, but of designating other radical leftist organizations as domestic terror groups too.

Read more …

And these guys still work at the FBI?

• Biden’s FBI Tried to Entrap Trump’s Border Czar Before the Election (Margolis)

Another day, another Biden scandal that the media desperately tries to dump on Trump. This time, MSNBC is working overtime to spin a damning story about Joe Biden’s FBI into yet another bogus hit piece on the Trump administration. Last year, while Biden and his minions were still calling the shots at the FBI, the bureau launched a brazen undercover operation targeting incoming Border Czar Tom Homan. Federal agents, posing as shady businessmen, tried to bait Homan with a $50,000 bribe in exchange for help securing contracts under a future Trump administration. It was a manufactured setup, designed from the start to entrap a Trump ally. The whole thing blew up in Biden’s face. When FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche reviewed the case, they immediately exposed it as a political hit job.

“This matter originated under the previous administration,” they said in a joint statement. “They found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.” Translation: Biden’s FBI wasted taxpayer dollars trying to entrap one of Trump’s top immigration advisors, and they failed. But instead of admitting Biden’s corruption, MSNBC twisted the story with a headline that made it sound like Trump’s DOJ covered up wrongdoing: “Tom Homan was investigated for accepting $50,000 from undercover FBI agents. Trump’s DOJ shut it down.” This isn’t journalism—it’s propaganda. Do you think it’s a mere coincidence that Biden’s team launched the sting while Homan was advising Trump’s 2024 campaign—knowing full well he would play a major role in Trump’s second term? They weren’t investigating a crime; they were trying to create one.

“Mr. Homan never took the $50,000 that you’re referring to. So you should get your facts straight, number one,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday during the White House daily press briefing. “Number two, this was another example of the weaponization of the Biden Department of Justice against one of President Trump’s strongest and most vocal supporters in the midst of a presidential campaign.” She added, “You had FBI agents going undercover to try and entrap one of the president’s top allies and supporters, someone who they knew very well would be taking a government position months later.” Leavitt continued, “They found zero evidence of illegal activity or criminal wrongdoing. And the White House and the president stand by Tom Homan 100% because he did absolutely nothing wrong, and he is a brave public servant who has done a phenomenal job in helping the president shut down the border.”

This is the Biden playbook: weaponize the Justice Department against political enemies. They tried it with Trump himself, dragging him through endless witch hunts. When that didn’t stop him, they moved on to targeting his inner circle. And when even that failed, the media stepped in to try and salvage the narrative. MSNBC’s shameless story proves the corporate media isn’t just biased—they’re active participants in political persecution. They took a story that completely vindicates Homan and twisted it into anti-Trump propaganda, counting on their audience to never read past the headline. The sad truth here is that Americans are being lied to by “journalists” who sold their souls to the Democrat Party.

Read more …

“..a Democratic Party that is diametrically opposed to the reconciling systems on which this nation was founded.”

• Why We Are at War (Richard C. Lyons)

Polarity is in the nature of things, in fact, just as the poles of north and south exist, matter itself is drawn into being at opposites, as in the forces of magnets. So are we; we are social creatures of this world given to being at opposites. When our nation’s founders gathered in Philadelphia 238 summers ago, with the wealth of all of their collected libraries, they studied history’s opposed factions: from the Plains and Coastal parties of the Athenians, to the factions of Marius and Sulla in Rome, to the Byzantine parties of the Blue and the Green, to the Guelphs and Ghibellines of the Florentines, to the literary houses of Verona, the Montagues and Capulets, whose differences devoured the lives and loves of innocents. One of the great fears of that great intellectual company was that America would fall, broken by such opposing factions.

They deliberately wrote the Constitution, our social compact, to overcome such factions. Firstly, by creating a Constitution based on common law, with protections of individual and property that shield everyone against the ambitions of government, or any party thereof. The founders crafted a Constitutional Republic based first on federalism, which allowed people as varied in interests as a Boston lawyer and a Key West fisherman to live under distinct state and local laws best suited to themselves. Much of our Constitution has to do with voting into office, by a majority, those representatives freely chosen to represent the citizens’ interests. If anyone does not represent the citizens’ interests, they are as easily voted out, thus ensuring that governance is representative of the people’s will.

Our free enterprise system came into being with our nation; The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith, was published in the same year as the Declaration of Independence; and the personal property rights espoused by John Locke were ensconced in our highest law in the 5th Amendment, among the Bill of Rights, including the “takings clause,” which forbids government from taking from an individual what they have earned by their labors and investments. Lastly, at the time of our nation’s founding, the Judeo-Christian ethic was omnipresent, with it’s Ten Commandments, the first common law of humanity, and its highest law: to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Each of these systems of law, of federalism, of representation, of free enterprise and of the ethos of Judeo-Christianity has helped reconcile our society as a whole and has been responsible for our nation’s peace and prosperity since the Constitution’s signing 237 years ago.

Who can argue with a common law that protects the wealthy and the poor? Who can argue about a system of diffused power, allowing localities and states to create their own laws? Who can argue with the right of people to empower those whom they would wish to represent them? Who can argue with the principle that the people who are entitled to wealth are those who have earned that wealth themselves? Who can argue with the notion that Judeo-Christianity is perhaps the best ethos for advancing peace through mutual respect, respect for the law, charitability, and humility? So why are we so opposed and at the point of war with one another in our nation today? Until November1963, both of our political parties, their patrons and, their constituents believed in every one of these societally reconciling systems. Then the momentum in the Democratic Party to more fully institute socialism began.

Today, the Democrats believe devoutly that the Constitution is a “living” document, which is to say, they can change or disregard whatever they don’t like in the text or kill it altogether as a document of “negative rights.” Today, the Democrats don’t believe in federalism; they desire all the wealth and power of the nation to be invested in one capital, Washington D.C., to be parceled out to family, friends and allies of their own. Today, Democrats do not believe in representative government; they believe in bureaucrats appointed for life to eternal agencies in the never constitutionally enumerated power of the Administrative State. Their only concern for the chambers of Congress is as a central exchange between the taxpayer and those agencies, which are the power base of the Democrat Party.

Today, Democrats do not believe in property rights; they believe that what is theirs is theirs and what is yours is theirs. They believe anyone who has earned wealth has done so illegitimately and those who haven’t have a superior moral right to it anyway, so long as the Democrats get an overall cut. Lastly, the Democrats’ idea of Judeo-Christianity is to pronounce publicly that they privately believe in it, while acting against it with every meaningful national vote they take and every regulatory rule they make. What is at opposition today is a conservative Republican Party that believes profoundly in the reconciling promise of these foundations of our society. And a Democratic Party that is diametrically opposed to the reconciling systems on which this nation was founded.

The Democratic Party has become what this nation fought against in the Second World War, the Cold War and the Middle Eastern wars. The Democrats — or the liberal left, progressives, or Democratic Socialists — have become a tyrannical bunch of bastards who have renounced their good parentage, and they are getting very violent about it. God Bless Charlie Kirk, who fought and died for all of these reconciling societal blessings.

Read more …

But you can still not watch it.

• Disney Gives Kimmel Show Back, But Nexstar & Sinclair Still Refuse To Air (ZH)

Hours after 400 artists signed an ACLU letter in response to Jimmy Kimmel’s firing, the late-night host’s ‘indefinite termination’ for propaganda surrounding the Charlie Kirk assassination has been turned into a week’s vacation. According to Variety, Disney and ABC are bringing the comedian back to its schedule Tuesday night. “Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive,” the company said in a statement. “We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”

Of note, none of the Nexstar or Sinclair affiliates will carry the show. Despite Kimmel’s return, it is not immediately clear if his show will be available across the entire country. Sinclair, for its part, had said that it would not go back to running Kimmel’s show on its stations until the late night host apologized for his comments, met with Sinclair representatives and made a donation to Turning Point, the organization that Kirk founded. Sinclair, it should be noted, owns the ABC station in the Washington, D.C., metro area, among other markets. Nexstar, similarly, could also choose to continue to preempt the show, though of course it would still be accessible online across the country after it runs on ABC. -Hollywood Reporter

Kimmel’s show was pulled last Wednesday after the host said that Charlie Kirk assassination suspect Tyler Robinson was ‘MAGA’ – when he’s very clearly not based on what we know. In response, FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened to revoke ABC affiliate licenses over the comments, which he described in a podcast interview with host Benny Johnson as “the sickest conduct possible.” As The Blaze’s Auron Macintyre opines: “ABC is putting Jimmy Kimmel back on the air because terrorism works in America.” Guess who predicted it? Does Roseanne Barr get her show back too now?

Read more …

“So Kimmel is now a hero of democracy — all he had to do was spread disinformation. That makes this the funniest joke that Kimmel never told.”

• The Funniest Joke Jimmy Kimmel Never Told (Turley)

Democrats were finally outraged this week. No, it was not about the murder of Charlie Kirk, but rather the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night comedy show. Democratic leaders are taking to the airways to denounce the decision to take Kimmel off the air after he spread disinformation about Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer. The same leaders and pundits who have for years fought for censorship in the name of combating disinformation are now making the very arguments they ridiculed just months ago. Democrats once wrote letters to Internet carriers suggesting that Fox News, the most popular cable news network, should be taken off the air in the name of combating disinformation. That was when the Democrats controlled the White House and were targeting conservatives.

Suddenly, now, disinformation is no longer a valid reason to censor and alleged government-corporate alliances are a menace to free speech. After the tragedy in Utah, many on the left immediately tried to deflect responsibility for the murder by claiming that Kirk’s killer was actually a Trump supporter. On his show, Kimmel declared that “the MAGA Gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” The far-left motivations of the alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, were already well known. His family confirmed that he had been radicalized with leftist ideology and cited pro-transgender views. This was not even a joke — it was just a false factual claim made by Kimmel on national television. And it came at a time when others were spreading this lie.

Despite stories to the contrary, many repeated the false claim. For example, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe posted that “Kirk’s apparent assassin seems to have been ultra-MAGA, exploding the GOP/MAGA attempt to pin the blame for this tragedy on liberals.” (Previously, Tribe had claimed that the October 2023 massacre of Israelis by Hamas was a “wag-the-dog” operation to distract from corruption allegations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu). The disinformation took hold on the Internet and social media. One poll showed that a plurality of Americans think Robinson was a conservative. Call it assassination denial. It is all the rage. Former MSNBC and ESPN host Keith Olbermann wrote after Kimmel’s suspension, “Burn in hell, Sinclair. Alongside Charlie Kirk.” He added that “nothing [Kimmel] said was untrue.”

Curiously, some of these politicians and pundits are claiming that, yet again, democracy will die if Kimmel is not allowed to spread disinformation. There are reports that Kimmel was refusing to apologize and planned to double down on the attacks on conservatives in his next show. Faced with a revolt by affiliates and a potential exodus of advertisers, Disney’s head, Bob Iger, pulled the plug. (By the way, Kimmel’s ratings had been falling for years, and he had a smaller audience than the Colbert Show, which was itself discontinued due to loss of money). The hypocrisy was pure comedy. For years, these same voices demanded censorship of individuals deemed to be spreading disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation. The last category was used by the Biden administration to target statements “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”

At the same time, they mocked claims that corporations were working with the government to maintain this censorship system. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) ran on a pledge to impose new criminal and civil penalties for anyone spreading disinformation. Now, however, censorship is intolerable. Warren told CNN “we know there was federal interference … We saw the government step up and give a hard shove and then we saw a compliant company turn around and suspend Mr. Kimmel.” She added that his collaboration with corporations “truly undermines the whole premise of the First Amendment.”

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) called the suspension one of “the most blatant attacks on the free press in American history.” Schiff had previously demanded that Twitter suspend an array of users and “reduce the visibility” of blacklisted individuals — including a journalist who held opposing views. When Elon Musk reduced censorship at X, it was Schiff who warned Facebook not to follow his example by restoring free speech protections. Schiff threatened legislative action if the company moved to “alter or roll back certain misinformation policies.” This week, Schiff is outraged by a company’s decision to suspend a host who refused to correct a false story he had spread.

For years, I appeared before these same leaders in Congress as they defended corporate censorship and dismissed allegations of collaboration with the government. I would not cancel Kimmel so long as his show was profitable. But I have long maintained that companies can limit the free speech of employees at work. I do not believe Kimmel should be censored on social media for spreading false information. At the same time, ABC does not have to lose money or viewers because an employee attacks others with vile, false claims. Now Disney is accused of killing democracy itself, in league with Trump. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) attacked Trump for “trying to destroy our democracy” and acting like “many would-be despots.”

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) used Kimmel’s suspension as evidence that “fascism is not on the way, it is here.” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) insisted that suspending a host for spreading false information about a murder was “North Korea-style stuff” while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) insisted that it is “what Putin would do.” It is a curious spin, since Putin and Kim Jong Un value media figures who spread false information — particularly about murders. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) went so far as to compare Kimmel to Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense and “Penman of the revolution.” So Kimmel is now a hero of democracy — all he had to do was spread disinformation. That makes this the funniest joke that Kimmel never told.

Read more …

It deactivates something?!

• Trump Links Tylenol To Autism Risk During Pregnancy (RT)

US President Donald Trump has drawn a connection between the use of Tylenol during pregnancy and rising autism rates in America, calling the increase in diagnoses “one of the most alarming public health developments in history.”Speaking at a White House briefing alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday, Trump said pregnant women should avoid acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, unless absolutely necessary. He said the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would begin updating warning labels and launch an information campaign aimed at pregnant women.

“Taking Tylenol is not good,” Trump said during the event. “They are strongly recommending that women limit Tylenol use during pregnancy unless medically necessary… If you can’t tough it out, if there’s a problem, you’re going to end up doing it, but ideally you don’t take it at all.”= Citing an increase in autism rates, Trump said the condition has become far more prevalent over the last two decades. “The meteoric rise in autism is among the most alarming public health developments in history,” he said. The FDA issued two separate news releases confirming a formal response to growing evidence of neurological risks linked to acetaminophen during pregnancy. The agency said it has initiated a label change for all acetaminophen-containing products, including Tylenol, to reflect studies suggesting an association with autism and ADHD.

“The FDA is taking action to make parents and doctors aware of a considerable body of evidence about potential risks associated with acetaminophen,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said. The FDA acknowledged that while some studies show an association between prenatal acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental disorders, a causal link has not been established. It stressed that acetaminophen remains the only over-the-counter medication approved for fever relief during pregnancy and warned that alternatives like ibuprofen and aspirin can pose known risks to fetal development.

Tylenol manufacturer Kenvue responded to the developments by defending the drug’s safety. “We strongly disagree with any suggestion that acetaminophen causes autism,” the company said, warning that discouraging appropriate use during pregnancy may put mothers and infants at risk from untreated fever or pain. In another announcement, the FDA said it is initiating approval of leucovorin calcium tablets for patients with cerebral folate deficiency (CFD), a condition linked to developmental delays and autistic features. Though the agency cautioned that more studies are needed to assess the drug’s full efficacy in autism-related populations, it said the initiative reflects a broader strategy to repurpose existing medications for neurological conditions.

Read more …

“I’ve never talked to a Democrat who ever wanted to listen. They start to glitch out if you try.” — Sasha Stone

• Personal Note (James Howard Kunstler)

This past summer, I tried to open a line of communication with a West Coast relative. We exchanged a few letters. I tactically steered the conversation away from the political. Here was the closer salvo from my relative:

Jimmy, on a completely personal level, and in different times, I think we could have been very good friends. At this point in our history, I find what you say in your blogs and Kunstlercast to be outrageous, deceptive, and ugly. I disagree with almost everything you hold dear politically, and even if, for instance, we agree about the horrors of Big Pharma, your worship of Kennedy makes me ill. Your language falls right into all the clichés of the far right ideologies I loathe.Maybe someday things will change. For now, this is the last you’ll be hearing from me.

Frankly, what stung most keenly was the accusation that my language fell “into all the clichés of the far right ideologies. . . .” I like to think that I am allergic to clichés, though it’s possible that I am deluded about that. If anything, the dynamic collective thought disorders of our time present themselves in astonishingly fresh ways — for instance, a Supreme Court nominee who can’t define what a woman is. (Makes you kind of wonder how such a mind could parse Article Two of the Constitution.)

Mostly, I would have liked to know what those “far right ideologies” are, exactly, but it looks like I will never find out now. Maybe it is being opposed to censorship. . . or against Ukraine’s entry into NATO. . . or wanting coherent procedure for foreigners seeking to enter the USA. . . or keeping biological men out of the women’s swim lanes. . . or saying that ivermectin is a safe and effective anti-viral med. . . or supposing that people charged with felonies should not be released to the streets without significant cash bail. Stuff like that.

As it happened, we were not discussing these matters in our brief correspondence, but I was at something of a disadvantage since I am a professional writer who posts his opinion for public scrutiny and my relative is not. Of course, I describe what is a pandemic of broken family relations in our country. And social relations. I have been cancelled by most of my old friends, too, and I’m quite sure that I am not a special case. I am mystified by what these relatives and old friends actually believe these days. When we were hippies back in the day, they were very much opposed to war, turned-off by attempts at censorship, and deeply averse to the dark operations of the CIA and FBI. Now, they seem avid for intel ops and hoaxes, eager for war, and all-in for censoring ideas that make them feel “unsafe.”

There are various useful theories for this state-of-affairs, all pretty cross-compatible. Strauss and Howe’s Fourth Turning template of generational cycles explains a lot. Elizabeth Nickson has some fine insights about the extreme discontents of women these days leading them to summon political demons. Mattias Desmet, the Belgian psych professor has his Mass Formation theory, which states that societal anxieties provoke aligned “radical intolerance” among a populace. I recommend Wendy Williamson’s recent blog discussion of The Law of Reversal. Joseph Tainter’s classic, The Collapse of Complex Societies lays out the pitfalls of our “over-investments in complexity.” I wrote a book in 2005 titled The Long Emergency which describes the drawn-out collapse of our techno-industrial economy — the widespread apprehension of which helps define the societal anxieties described by Dr. Desmet that bring on his “Mass Formation Psychosis.”

All these theories tend to imply an inflection point where our assumptions about human progress get undermined, provoking an intense loss of faith in institutions and authorities, resulting in epochal socio-political disorder. Wouldn’t you agree we are seeing exactly that now? That the net effect of all this is of a society driven insane. Surely, the craziness is amplified by the novel connectivities of the Internet and exacerbated by many other high-tech innovations from ubiquitous camera surveillance to cryptocurrency to drone warfare.

In our country these days, all of this has apparently produced two camps at war psychologically, now verging on something like a hot civil war. One camp calling itself “progressive” insists on a roster of ideas, policies, and practices that look patently absurd, abusive of the public interest, and hostile to the values of Western Civ. The other camp styles itself as “conservative” seeking to preserve Western Civ and the advancement of our so-called way of life — an ever growth-seeking high-tech economy.

Personally, I doubt that the latter is possible. I believe we’re due for a pretty serious time-out from the sort of economic “growth” we enjoyed the past two-hundred years. That high-tech mega-fiesta has thrown off a lot of entropy, which is now working hard to slow things down and make us stop a lot of what we are doing. It manifests in many ways, but most vividly by flinging us into social disorder, turning what had been communication and correspondence into a rising babel that is driving us crazy. That is exactly why it is so hard to talk to our relatives and old friends. But mark this: there is a time coming when we will get tired of being crazy, and then things will go differently for us. We’ll start talking again.

Read more …

“At the European Council in December 2026, there will be blood on the walls..”

• EU Looks To ‘Le Pen-Proof’ Its Budget – Politico (RT)

The EU leadership is trying to fast-track talks to reach a deal on the bloc’s new budget before the French presidential election in April 2027, Politico reports. EU officials reportedly fear it could be won by right-wing firebrand Marine Le Pen or one of her allies from the National Rally party. The EU’s next seven-year budget is scheduled to come into force on January 1, 2028. The proposal by the European Commission currently being discussed amounts to €1,816 trillion ($2,136). It requires unanimous approval from all 27 member states to pass. The risk of the right-wing forces defeating French President Emmanuel Macron in the election is the main reason budget negotiations are being accelerated, the outlet said in an article on Monday, citing five officials and EU diplomats.

The concern in Brussels is that the National Rally’s platform, which includes slashing Paris’ contribution to the EU budget and reducing military aid to Ukraine, could disrupt the already complex talks, it said. Le Pen has been banned from running for public office after a French court found her guilty of embezzling European Parliament funds earlier this year. She has challenged the ruling. The National Rally’s second most prominent figure, Jordan Bardella, is also believed to be capable of winning the election, according to the article. European Council President Antonio Costa is working to secure a budget deal in the council by the end of 2026, his spokesperson, Maria Tomasik, told journalists on Friday.

“At the European Council in December 2026, there will be blood on the walls,” a senior EU diplomat told Politico, referring to the negotiations. There is “annoyance” over attempts to speed up the budget talks in countries including Italy and Poland, which argue that it leaves them less time to make changes to the proposal and benefits the Northern European nations, according to the outlet. A poll by Ifop published on Saturday suggested that Macron’s ratings have fallen to 17%, the lowest during his two-term presidency. Hundreds of thousands protested across France last week against government policies, including additional austerity measures proposed by newly appointed Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu.

Read more …

Word from your banker.

“Ignoring international law would lead to “the beginning of total chaos,” the French president has said..”

• Macron Warns Against Seizing Frozen Russian Assets (RT)

French President Emmanuel Macron has pushed back against the idea of seizing frozen Russian assets, warning that doing so could backfire on the West and undermine global stability. In an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation aired on Sunday, Macron was asked about what the West was planning to do with the $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets which were frozen after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. “We are all very much attached to being compliant with international rules. You cannot seize these assets from the central bank, even in such a situation,” the French leader said, describing it as “a matter of credibility.”

“When some countries start to disrespect international laws… this is the beginning of a total chaos. So we will respect international law. We are predictable, and we will not do all impossible things with these frozen assets,” he added, recalling that Kiev’s Western backers are already using proceeds from the frozen assets to prop up Ukraine. Throughout the conflict, Western policymakers have considered seizing Russian assets – most of which fall under EU jurisdiction – but have so far refrained due to the lack of a legal basis and fears it would damage global trust.

Last year, however, G7 nations supported a $50 billion loan to Ukraine secured by the income from Russian reserves. Western nations have also directly handed over to Kiev approximately $4.3 billion in proceeds from Russian assets. This month, the EU Commission floated a proposal to use Russian assets to back a reparation loan to Ukraine, which Kiev would be obligated to repay only if it receives “compensation” for damages from Moscow. Russia has denounced both the freeze and the profit-transfer scheme as “theft,” warning that confiscation would damage the global financial system and trigger retaliation from Moscow.

Read more …

“Protests in London will change nothing – Britain’s people were bred to endure..”

• Britain’s Fate Is Decline, Not Upheaval – And History Explains Why (Bordachev)

The demonstrations in London earlier this month – up to 150,000 people protesting immigration and government incompetence – drew attention in Russia and abroad. Some observers even wondered if Britain might finally be approaching a breaking point. Perhaps, like Nepal or France in past years, mass anger could reshape politics. But such hopes are misplaced. Britain will never experience revolutionary upheaval. Its culture is not one of defiance but of endurance. The United Kingdom has, over centuries, become a bastion of injustice disguised as stability, where ordinary people are conditioned to accept their powerlessness. This cultural inheritance, once an imperial advantage, now guarantees slow decline.

Britain is unique in Western Europe: it was created not through union or invitation, but through conquest. In 1066 Norman knights crushed the native English and divided the land into fiefdoms. Unlike Russia, where foreign warriors were invited to defend the realm, or Hungary, where nomads fused with locals to form a people, England’s story was one of subjugation. That pattern hardened in 1215, when barons forced King John to sign the Magna Carta. Propaganda later elevated the charter as the foundation of English liberty. In reality it entrenched oligarchy: the power of the wealthy over crown and people alike. Where monarchs elsewhere often stood with peasants against feudal tyranny, in England the crown itself was shackled by landowners. Injustice became not an aberration but the system’s operating principle.

Geography reinforced the pattern. For centuries there was no frontier of freedom. Only in 1620 did dissenters finally flee on the Mayflower, planting English settlements in North America. By then, 600 years of endurance had shaped a national character: patient, fatalistic, and resigned. In Russia, by contrast, peasants had begun migrating east as early as the 11th century. Freedom was found in movement: new villages, new lands, and eventually a new people. This restless expansion created Russia’s unique statehood and ethnic identity. The English, trapped on their island, cultivated instead a tradition of enduring injustice. By the 18th century, Britain was sending its sons to wars around the world. They returned crippled, if at all – as Rudyard Kipling later immortalized. Yet they went meekly. A society drilled in obedience did not question orders, however insane. That made Britain dangerous abroad, but docile at home.

Popular uprisings were crushed without hesitation. Laws such as the Settlement Act of 1662, tying workers to their parishes, or the Poor Law of 1834, abolishing basic relief, stripped away rights. Only after 1945, under pressure from the USSR’s example, did Britain adopt limited welfare protections. Even these are now eroding, with no real resistance. This tradition once gave Britain its edge. Armies could be raised, colonies conquered, wars fought with little domestic dissent. But in the modern world, where political vitality depends on public will, the same habit of resignation has become a liability. Unlike Russians, who carved out freedom by settling new lands, or French and Germans, who rebelled and migrated, the English learned to endure. Their legacy is a society where injustice is not challenged but accepted – and where any hope of transformation evaporates before it begins.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

statin

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Debt Rattle January 6 2025

Jan 062025
 
 January 6, 2025  Posted by at 10:58 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  67 Responses »


Rembrandt van Rijn Saskia en profil in expensive attire 1640-45

 

• Trudeau Out: Canadian Prime Minister “Likely To Resign” This Week (ZH)
• Musk Renews Attack On British PM Over Rape Scandal (RT)
• Elon Musk And The Pack Raping of Over 250,000 English School Girls (SCF)
• Musk Calls For Reform UK To Oust Farage (RT)
• Reform UK’s Farage Disagrees With Musk’s Urge to Cede Party Leadership (Sp.)
• Musk Compares Soros To Star Wars Villain (RT)
• An American Honor No Longer Means Anything (Paul Craig Roberts)
• Trump’s Plan to End Currency War 3.0 (Jim Rickards)
• US House Speaker Vows To End ‘Deep State’ (RT)
• US Deep State: Its Roots, Tools and Enablers (Sp.)
• Zelensky Says He ‘Despises’ Russians (RT)
• Zelensky Says ‘Too Bad’ Ukraine Doesn’t Have Nuclear Weapons (RT)
• Trump Border Czar Homan Pushes Back Over Trump Admin Deportation Plans (JTN)
• EU Could Establish Asylum ‘Return Hubs’ In Third Countries By March (RMX)
• California Governor Orders Investigation Into Ultra-Processed Foods (ET)

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/ImMeme0/status/1875939747706937693

Jordan Peterson

Grooming

Starmer

 

 

 

 

It’ll take years to recuperate from the damage he did..

• Trudeau Out: Canadian Prime Minister “Likely To Resign” This Week (ZH)

Back on New Year’s Eve, when looking at the global tsunami of resentment and loathing at establishment politics and corrupt politicians that crushed incumbent political parties and politicians around the globe, we eyed the one person that was long overdue to be swept in the tidal wave. We are talking of course about Canada’s prime minister Justin Turdeau (sic)… and we are delighted to announce that his time has now also come: citing a source, Reuters reports that Canadian Prime Minister and the world’s most iconic virtue signaling blackface, Justin Trudeau, is “increasingly likely to announce he intends to step down, though he has not made a final decision.” The source spoke to Reuters after the Globe and Mail reported that Trudeau was expected to announce as early as Monday that he would quit as leader of Canada’s ruling Liberal Party after nine years in office.

Following the news, odds that Trudeau would be out before April surged to 97%. Trudeau’s departure would leave the party without a permanent head at a time when polls show the Liberals will be crushed by the official opposition Conservatives in an election that must be held by late October. Sources told the Globe and Mail that they did not know definitely when Trudeau would announce his plans to leave but said they expect it would happen before a emergency meeting of Liberal legislators on Wednesday, and could come as soon as today. An increasing number of Liberal parliamentarians, alarmed by a series of gloomy polls, have publicly urged Trudeau to quit. It remains unclear whether Trudeau will leave immediately or stay on as prime minister until a new Liberal leader is selected, the Globe and Mail report added, although it is unclear how he hopes to continue after confirming defeat.

Trudeau, who was recently mocked by Trump who proposed that he become governor of the “51st state of Canada”, took over as Liberal leader in 2013 when the party was in deep trouble and had been reduced to third place in the House of Commons for the first time. If he does resign, it would prompt fresh calls for a quick election to put in place a stable government able to deal with the administration of President-elect Donald Trump for the next four years. The prime minister has discussed with Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc whether he would be willing to step in as interim leader and prime minister, one source told the newspaper, adding that this would be unworkable if LeBlanc plans to run for the leadership.

Trudeau, 53, had been able to fend off Liberal legislators worried about the polls and the loss of safe seats in two special elections.But calls for him to step aside have grown since December, when Trudeau tried to demote Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, one of his closest cabinet allies, after she pushed back against his proposals for more spending. Freeland quit instead and penned a letter accusing Trudeau of “political gimmicks” rather than focusing on what was best for the country. “The country could face instability, notably from an economic threat in the potential of a 25% US tariff on Canadian imports from the incoming administration,” said a recent letter sent to the prime minister by Kody Blois, who leads a group of Liberal members from the four easternmost provinces. “Simply put, time is of the essence,” Blois said, adding that it’s “not tenable for you to remain as the leader.”

Trudeau propelled the Liberals to power in 2015 promising “sunny ways” and a progressive agenda that promoted the rights of women and a promise to fight climate change. But the everyday realities of governing gradually wore him down and like many Western leaders, the need to deal with the effects of the pandemic ate up much of his time. Although Ottawa spent heavily to protect consumers and businesses, racking up record budget deficits, this provided little protection from public anger as prices soared. A botched immigration policy led to hundreds of thousands of arrivals, straining an already overheated housing market. The Canadian currency strengthened as much as 0.4% to C$1.4388 per dollar after the Globe report before paring those gains. The currency has been trading near its weakest level since March 2020 and has lost more than 7% against the greenback in the past year. “Traders may be buying the loonie on the view that the worst is over for Canadian politics after all the recent uncertainty,” said Ken Cheung, a strategist at Mizuho Bank.

Read more …

“Prepare for some epic cringe..”

• Musk Renews Attack On British PM Over Rape Scandal (RT)

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk renewed his assault on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday, attacking his handling of the grooming-gangs scandal in a series of posts on social platform X. Musk commented in one post about reports that the Home Office had allegedly urged the police forces in 2008 not to investigate sexual exploitation of underage girls given that they had purportedly made “informed choices” despite being below the legal age of consent. “Starmer must go. He is [a] national embarrassment,” he wrote. The billionaire also mocked the upcoming statement from Starmer to address Musk’s allegations, expected on Monday. “Prepare for some epic cringe,” he wrote in a subsequent post.

Musk launched a massive attack on Starmer earlier this week, accusing him of failing to tackle the grooming-gangs issue or to properly investigate numerous assaults on underage girls at the time when the incumbent Prime Minister led the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service, from 2008 to 2013. Among other things, the billionaire called the grooming gangs a “state-sponsored evil,” stating Starmer was “complicit in the RAPE OF BRITAIN” and should not only resign but also face criminal charges. Gangs across the UK, involving men of predominantly Pakistani origin, rape-tortured vulnerable girls on an industrial scale over the last thirty years, with multiple independent inquiries indicating systemic failures to investigate the crimes. According to three separate reports published in 2013, 2014, and 2015, local politicians and police alike opted to cover up the rapes partly out of fear that bringing the perpetrators to justice would be seen as “racist.”

Apart from personally attacking the British PM, Musk also sparred with British media and politicians over the “rape gangs” and other issues. He reiterated his calls for the release of right-wing activist Tommy Robinson, jailed in England on contempt of court charges. The billionaire sharply criticized the coverage of his remarks, suggesting the British media was complicit in hushing up the “rape gangs” issue as well. “This is the same media that hid the fact that a quarter million little girls were – still are – being systematically raped by migrant gangs in Britain. They are beneath contempt. Despicable human beings,” Musk wrote. The Robinson affair has also apparently caused a rift between Musk and the leader of the Reform UK party Nigel Farage, whom he had previously called the “only hope” for Britain. After the politician refused to back Musk’s stance on Robinson, the billionaire urged Reform UK to oust its leader as well.

Read more …

“..until the great unwashed can storm those gilded cages and finish off what Musk has started, Musk’s protestations, like those of others before him, will only amount to so much hot air..”

• Elon Musk And The Pack Raping of Over 250,000 English School Girls (SCF)

Elon Musk threw the cat among the pigeons when he recently highlighted the pack raping of over 250,000 English school girls by packs of middle aged Pakistani men, who got away with their crimes for over a quarter of a century, thanks to the collusion of the British judiciary, the British constabulary, the British social services and the British political system, which are now all trying to squirm their way out of taking responsibility for the rankest of crimes they are all fully complicit in. Given how widespread was Official England’s collusion with these multiple Pakistani rape packs, there can be no talk of letting the (oxymoron of) British justice take its course or of “learning from our mistakes”.

Heads have to roll, literally, and the first head on the chopping block must be that of British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer (who was the Director of the Crown Prosecution Service during these grooming gang rape gang revelations, who was the boss of the CPS lawyer who originally dropped the prosecution of Kabeer Hassan because he believed the 15 year old girl made “a choice to be a prostitute” and who discredited her as a witness even after reviewing DNA evidence and hours of testimony), followed by King Charles, who is not only the brother of Jeffrey Epstein sidekick, Prince Andrew, but who recently knighted Peter Mandelson, another key Epstein (and Tony Blair) conspirator, and who, in his role of Prince of Wales, was also bosom pals with Sir Jimmy Savile, the BBC’s child rapist in chief.

Although the urge to dispense vigilante style justice on these benighted “victims” is fully understandable, it serves no overall purpose because the British police who interviewed Vanessa George no doubt also felt like ripping her apart when they unsuccessfully tried to coax out of her the names of the babies she sexually molested as part of the prolific online grooming gang she was active in. When we recall that Australian “entrepreneur” Peter Scully had thousands of paying customers watching him rape and torture to death baby Daisy, and that the Syrian Arab Republic has been surrendered to MI6 assets, who keep child sex slaves as a matter of course, it is very difficult to see how anything less than getting fully medieval on every last one of these criminals and their white collar enablers would be appropriate.

Not that there is anything new or novel in these crimes. The Pall Mall Gazette, to its eternal credit, exposed the white slave trade in Victorian Britain and, though it is a half a century ago since I first read of it, the crimes they uncovered still sicken me to my core. Then there is the Paedophile Information Exchange and the North American Man/Boy Love Association, both of which were very active in the 1970s and both of which enjoyed widespread political support from senior politicians who remain active to this day.

And let’s remember Liberal Chief Whip Cyril Smith, Lord Ahmed, and child rapist Imran Khan MP (brother of alleged sex pest and notorious Russophobe Karim Ahmad Khan). Then there is Australian Peter Tatchell, who first shacked up with an under age English school boy, when he fled the Australian draft. Though he is often linked to the paedophile movement, Tatchell’s main activities have been advocating on war and peace issues that are aligned to NATO’s objectives. In this latter role, he has been an opponent of Jeremy Corbyn, of Syria and of Russia and has linked up with Volker Beck and other child sex advocates with similar pro NATO, Russophobic backgrounds and agendas. Tatchell, his sexual proclivities notwithstanding, is a handy gay imperialist radical NATO’s media can wheel out to give their criminal enterprises a radical sheen that Musk, perhaps despite himself, is now scraping off to reveal the grime beneath.

Although Sodom and Gomorrah are supposed to be the Bible’s benchmark in depravity, none of their ancient pack rapists are in the same league as England’s Pakistani pack rapists, England’s knights and their Labour Party apologists, Tatchell, Peter Scully’s customers, or Lord Janner, another of Blair’s well connected Zionist chums, who buggered Jewish waifs who survived the Holocaust. And, though the more prudish amongst us could be forgiven for reaching for the smelling salts, something much more potent than that old cure is urgently needed to deal with all these criminals. Although Musk has probably his own libertarian agenda afoot in turning his guns on the Pakistani pack rapists, they deserve all the incoming Musk gives them and their equally vile white collar collaborators.

But even Musk’s ire is nowhere near enough to balance the scales of justice. Although a rosary of top security prisons along the lines of El Salvador’s CECOT prison for the pack rapists and their friends and enablers would be a good start, not even that would be enough unless the judges, cops, social welfare workers and politicians who enabled all this are thrown in there along with the pack rapists and all belonging to them.

Because turkeys do not vote for Christmas or Thanksgiving Day, such a solution will not happen irrespective of whether Musk helps his pets make a political breakthrough in Germany and England. But Musk, at day’s end, is irrelevant in all of this, at least until the great and the good of Germany and England wrest power away from the Pakistani pack rape enablers. Though Musk has rattled our overlords’ cages, until the great unwashed can storm those gilded cages and finish off what Musk has started, Musk’s protestations, like those of others before him, will only amount to so much hot air that will get lost in the bread and circuses that keep the relatives of the raped in their opiated, emasculated and politically paralyzed state.

Read more …

Farage IS Reform UK. It’s either him or Tories and Labour.

• Musk Calls For Reform UK To Oust Farage (RT)

Elon Musk has called for Nigel Farage to be replaced as leader of Reform UK, marking a dramatic reversal in the Tesla billionaire’s support for the right-wing leader. The announcement came just hours after Farage failed to back Musk’s inflammatory comments about British politicians. “The Reform party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes,” Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns, on Sunday afternoon. His statement comes weeks after praising Farage and describing Reform UK as Britain’s “only hope.” The fallout appears to be tied to disagreements over far-right activist Tommy Robinson, who was jailed in England on contempt of court charges, as well as Musk’s recent controversial claims.

Earlier this week, the South African-born US tycoon called Prime Minister Keir Starmer “complicit in the rape of Britain” due to his oversight of the UK prosecution office during past grooming gang scandals. He also accused health minister Jess Phillips of being a “rape genocide apologist.” Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, Farage distanced himself from Musk’s remarks. “I don’t agree with everything he stands for,” the politician said. “But I do believe in free speech. I think he’s a hero.” Farage also rejected Musk’s calls to allow Robinson to join his party, saying he is “not what we need” in Reform UK. Musk, by contrast, has described the jailed activist as a political prisoner and repeatedly championed his release.

Reacting to Musk’s post, Farage expressed surprise but reaffirmed his stance. “Elon is a remarkable individual, but on this, I am afraid I disagree. My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform, and I never sell out my principles,” he wrote on X. The rift comes despite Musk and Farage meeting last month at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, where reports suggested the tech mogul was considering a $100m (£80m) donation to Reform UK. Farage has since acknowledged their disagreements but emphasized the value of Musk’s influence. “Free speech is back,” he said. “Well, you may find it offensive, but it’s a good thing, not a bad thing.” Musk’s escalating comments have drawn condemnation from UK politicians, with Labour MP Wes Streeting branding them “disgraceful.”

Read more …

“Well, this is a surprise! Elon is a remarkable individual but on this I am afraid I disagree..”

• Reform UK’s Farage Disagrees With Musk’s Urge to Cede Party Leadership (Sp.)

The head of the British right-wing populist party Reform UK, Nigel Farage, disagreed the words of the US entrepreneur Elon Musk that the party needed to remove him from the post of leader. Earlier, Musk, who called for a vote for Reform UK, said that the party needed to replace its leader Farage. As the British newspaper Telegraph pointed out, Musk and Farage disagreed about the founder of the far-right organization English Defense League Tommy Robinson, whom Musk praised on his social network, while Farage said that Robinson was “not the one we need.” “Well, this is a surprise! Elon is a remarkable individual but on this I am afraid I disagree. My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform and I never sell out my principles,” Farage said on X in response to Musk’s post.

Following the elections held in July, Labour won an absolute majority (402 seats) in parliament, while Reform UK won only five seats. At the same time, Farage’s party took third place in the number of votes, gaining 14.3%. In terms of the percentage of votes cast, it took second place in 98 constituencies, 89 of which were won by Labour. Such a gap between the votes cast and the number of parliamentary mandates is explained by the electoral system in force in the country, in which the candidate who receives the maximum number of votes in his constituency gets into parliament.

This is not the first time Musk has called for voting for a right-wing party — he previously wrote in an article for the German newspaper Welt that the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was the only political force in Germany capable of saving the country from becoming a “shadow of its former self.” The publication of this article sparked heated debates both in the Welt editorial office and in Germany as a whole. Welt’s head of opinion Eva Marie Kogel resigned after the article was published, and Friedrich Merz, a candidate for chancellor of Germany from the opposition bloc of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU), called the article an unprecedented interference in the German elections.

Read more …

“..Soros has focused on global initiatives that strengthen democracy, human rights, education, and social justice.”

• Musk Compares Soros To Star Wars Villain (RT)

US-based tech mogul Elon Musk has likened liberal billionaire George Soros to Emperor Palpatine, also known as Darth Sidious, the principal villain in the Star Wars movie series. The barb followed Joe Biden’s decision to bestow the Presidential Medal of Freedom on the powerful financier. In recent months, Musk has emerged as an increasingly vocal supporter and close ally of President-elect Donald Trump, who has appointed him to co-head the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In a message on X on Saturday, Musk posted a collage that depicts President Biden conferring the decoration on the Star Wars anti-hero, with the caption reading: “George Soros looking quite good here. Must be the lighting.”

Commenting on another user’s post, in which they compared the 94-year-old billionaire to Magneto – the main villain in Marvel’s X-Men comic book series – the South-African tech tycoon who also holds US citizenship said Soros’ decoration was a “travesty.” On Saturday, President Biden named nineteen recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom – America’s highest civilian honor, “presented to individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.” The Democrat hailed those individuals as “good people” who “have made America and the world a better place.” Soros, whose propaganda and media network has supported coups and revolutions in multiple countries, did not attend the ceremony, with his son Alex accepting the award on his behalf.

According to a statement released by the White House, “through his network of foundations, partners and projects in more than 120 countries, Soros has focused on global initiatives that strengthen democracy, human rights, education, and social justice.” Also among those singled out by Biden for their contributions was former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who “made history many times over decades in public service.” In a post on X, Soros wrote: “As an immigrant who found freedom and prosperity in America, I am deeply moved by this honor.” Critics have accused the billionaire over his role in the collapse of the British pound in 1992 and in Thailand’s financial crisis five years later. Through his Open Society Foundations network, the businessman has actively attempted to influence political processes in multiple countries around the world. Its activities have been outlawed in several nations, including Russia, Pakistan and the Philippines.

Read more …

“Honors have become political payoffs..”

• An American Honor No Longer Means Anything (Paul Craig Roberts)

Everything Biden Touches Turns to Excrement. And now he has destroyed the US Medal of Freedom by awarding it to two crooks, one of whom Elon Musk says hates humanity. Hillary Clinton, whose 2016 presidential campaign financed the fake Steele Dossier that disrupted President Trump’s first term with accusations that he conspired with Russian President Putin to “interfere” in the 2016 election, was a Medal of Freedom recipient. George Soros, who made his billions by conspiring against the currency of the UK, America’s most reliable ally, is another recipient. Soros’ money is believed to have put in office the three black prosecutors responsible for the orchestrated indictments of Trump that were supposed to prevent Trump’s reelection. Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson, two members of Congress who led the House committee “investigation” of the orchestrated “Jan 6 attack on the Capitol.” Honors have become political payoffs. President Trump should attempt to restore the luster of the medal by awarding it and a pardon to the “Jan 6 insurrectionists” falsely prosecuted and imprisoned by the criminal Biden regime.

Read more …

“Don’t be fooled by false claims of new currency wars. Trump is trying to achieve a new era of currency stability and lasting prosperity.”

• Trump’s Plan to End Currency War 3.0 (Jim Rickards)

There has been a lot reported in recent days about the return of currency wars. With Trump 2.0 about to begin, let’s review his last term and what to expect in the second. Trump badly bungled his transition after first being elected president in 2016. He was not ready with a long list of loyal appointees. Many of his senior appointments such as Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, James Mattis as Secretary of Defense, and John Kelly as Chief of Staff secretly disliked Trump but accepted their roles as so-called “adult supervision” around the supposedly reckless Trump. They thwarted his agenda. That backstabbing came on top of the large number of Obama holdovers in the Deep State who saw themselves as a “resistance” movement.

Trump is doing a better job of preparing for a second term as president, but the resistance is not sitting still either. As reported in The Washington Post, Politico, The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo Finance and other outlets, Trump is working on a secret plan to devalue the U.S. dollar. The goal would be to cheapen U.S. exports and thereby help the U.S. balance of trade and create exported-related jobs. But critics say that this will only increase U.S. inflation as Americans have to pay more for their imported goods using cheaper dollars. The critics also say that other countries will retaliate against the U.S. by cheapening their own currencies (that’s the essence of a currency war) and no country will be any further ahead. In fact, the entire world will be worse off.

[..] So, are the critics right that Trump has a secret plan to devalue the dollar? And are they right that this new stage in the currency war will bring inflation and hurt the U.S. economy? The critics are wrong and don’t understand what Trump is actually trying to do. Trump is not trying to start a currency war; he’s trying to end it once and for all. In the first place, no president has the power to unilaterally devalue the dollar. That might have been possible under the gold standard or some standard of fixed exchange rates, but that has not been the state of the world since 1973.

[..] Far from the reckless, inflationary process the media claim, Trump’s actual plan is based on the highly successful model developed by James Baker for Ronald Reagan and implemented in the Plaza Accord of 1985 and the Louvre Accord of 1987. After the severe economic recession of 1982 and Paul Volcker’s policy of moving interest rates to 20%, inflation in the U.S. was finally reigned in. Inflation dropped from 13.5% in 1980, to 6.1% in 1982, and then 3.2% in 1983. Investment in the U.S. went on a tear. U.S. real growth was 16% from 1983 to 1986. Everyone wanted dollars to invest in the U.S. and the dollar boomed reaching an all-time high in 1985. Finally, the Reagan administration decided the U.S. dollar was too strong and was hurting U.S. exports and jobs.

Treasury Secretary James Baker convened a meeting of the finance ministers of France, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the U.S. at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. The purpose was not to fight a currency war. The purpose was to create order in currency markets out of the chaos that had prevailed since 1973. The parties reached a joint agreement that would devalue the U.S. dollar in an orderly fashion versus the French Franc, Japanese Yen, UK pounds sterling, and the German Deutschemark. Once the targeted level for the dollar was achieved, the parties would use their best efforts, including market intervention as needed to maintain those levels within narrow bands.

A separate meeting in Paris at the Louvre in 1987 agreed that the devaluation phase was over, and the dollar would be maintained at the new parities. This was not currency war; it was currency peace achieved by agreement and implemented in a cooperative fashion. The Louvre Accord (this time including the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Japan and Canada) ushered in a period of global prosperity that lasted twenty years until the Global Financial Crisis of 2008.

Trump’s goal is to repeat the success of the Plaza and Louvre Accords. Trump’s advisor on this is Robert Lighthizer, who is one of the most brilliant financial minds around and was Trump’s U.S. Trade Representative (2017-2021). Lighthizer was also USTR for Ronald Reagan from 1983 to 1985 so he’s a veteran of prior currency wars and was in the administration around the time the Plaza Accord was being developed. Lighthizer is the perfect individual to help Trump achieve the kind of success that Reagan and Baker had in the 1980s. The media are trying to portray Trump as reckless when in fact he’s proposing something highly beneficial for U.S. jobs and U.S. industry. Don’t be fooled by false claims of new currency wars. Trump is trying to achieve a new era of currency stability and lasting prosperity.

Read more …

Just because it sounds good?

• US House Speaker Vows To End ‘Deep State’ (RT)

US House Speaker Mike Johnson has outlined an ambitious legislative plan for 2025, pledging to prioritize tax cuts, border security and deregulation. In an appearance on Fox News, he also vowed to dismantle the “deep state.” Johnson, who was re-elected as speaker of the House in November 2024, emphasized that Republicans are prepared to act quickly on their agenda in the new Congress. “We’ve made a lot of campaign promises. And we’re going to be dismantling the deep state all along the way,” he said in the interview on the show Sunday Morning Futures. Central to the Republican plan is the prevention of what Johnson described as the “largest tax increase in US history,” set to occur if the 2017 tax cuts are not extended by the end of the year.

He promised to revive the economy by extending those cuts, eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits and tips, and increasing the cap on state and local tax deductions. The legislative package also focuses on boosting US manufacturing and reducing federal regulations. “We are going to incentivize American companies to manufacture in the US again, and we are going to make sure that the regulatory burden and the red tape that has smothered our free market is reduced and eliminated,” Johnson said on Sunday. To pass these reforms, Johnson plans to use budget reconciliation, a legislative mechanism allowing bills to pass the Senate with a simple majority.

He expects the package to be enacted within the first 100 days of the next Republican administration. The agenda also includes strict immigration policies aimed at enhancing border security. Johnson has expressed support for completing the US-Mexico border wall and increasing enforcement measures. Johnson’s re-election as speaker was widely viewed as a significant victory for conservatives. He has pledged to align closely with President-elect Donald Trump, who has similarly promised to dismantle the “deep state.” The term often refers to entrenched federal employees and bureaucracies some conservatives believe obstruct Republican policies.

Read more …

“The power that the Constitution gave to individuals now belongs to interest groups that determine elections with campaign contributions..”

• US Deep State: Its Roots, Tools and Enablers (Sp.)

The “deep state”, never part of the Founding Fathers’ design, has turned US democracy into fiction, former US assistant treasury secretary and renowned economist Dr Paul Craig Roberts says. What does he mean? The deep state, described by US political scientist Francis Fukuyama as a network of “unaccountable professional bureaucrats,” is really a far more extensive entity. According to Dr Roberts, it encompasses not only bureaucrats but also elected officials, Wall Street, major corporations and even foreign government lobbyists. The modern-day Leviathan is deeply embedded within the structure of the US government, with professional bureaucrats serving merely as pawns in the games of their overlords, the economist says. But the game begins long before governance — it starts at the very phase of elections. Behind the façade of democracy in the US, voters can only choose from candidates approved by the establishment or the ruling elite, argues Dr Roberts.

“The power that the Constitution gave to individuals now belongs to interest groups that determine elections with campaign contributions,” the former assistant treasury secretary in Ronald Reagan’s government stresses. “In the United States elected representatives at all levels of government up to and including the President cannot represent the interests of the people or of the country as a whole because they are dependent for their election to office on campaign contributions,” writes Dr Roberts. He explains that as a result, elected representatives are beholden to the individuals and interest groups who funded and supported them. Those include the influential Israel lobby, arms manufacturers, intelligence agencies, pharmaceutical companies, agribusiness corporations, Wall Street and others, all of whom provide funding and favorable publicity to those they help elect. Intelligence agencies also occasionally provide staged false flag events to give a candidate or a policy a boost, he notes.

Significant efforts were made in the past history to prevent money from dominating elections. In 1907, the Tillman Act became the first legislation in the United States to prohibit corporations from making monetary contributions to national political campaigns. For nearly a century, various measures were enacted to curb the influence of big money on the US political system, particularly during elections. But those efforts were effectively overturned in 2010 by a landmark US Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United versus the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which paved the way for unlimited corporate funding of political campaigns. That same year, a related federal court decision in the case of Speechnow.org versus the FEC further expanded the influence of money in politics by allowing unlimited contributions to political action groups who distribute the donations to candidates — ostensibly isolating the candidate from receiving funds directly from a donor.

Roberts says that those decisions gave corporations, the Israel lobby and the super rich the power to purchase the US government. “For American democracy to be restored, money must be taken out of politics,” he argues. Roberts says another long-running and quietly advancing process — now actively encouraged by the deep state — is the gradual erosion of state governments in the United States and the consolidation of authority within the federal government. “The US government today is very different from the one the Founding Fathers set in place,” the economist writes. “Democracy was distrusted as mob rule, so members elected to the House of Representatives were limited to two years,” Dr Roberts notes. “The Senate was not elected. The Senators from each state were appointed by the State legislators.”

“This ensured that Senators represented the interest of their states, not the interest of foreign countries, such as Ukraine and Israel, or the agendas of interest groups with bases in other states. Most governing rights resided in the individual state,” he explains. Roberts argues that Abraham Lincoln, the 16th US president, used the Civil War of 1861-1865 to curtail the Constitutional powers given to the states.”The purpose of the ‘Civil War’ was to concentrate all power in Washington’s hands,” he notes. “This anti-American revolution was completed in the 1930s by the Franklin D. Roosevelt regime which turned Congress’ legislative powers over to executive branch regulatory agencies.” Once all power is concentrated in the federal center, the deep state will gain nearly unlimited scope for maneuvering and exerting control, the economist warns.

Even though Donald Trump vowed on the campaign trail to rein in the deep state, there are signs that business will continue as usual, the economist said.”During the Obama and Biden years many corporation executives and boards favored Woke agendas that bit them, and now they are aligning with Donald Trump,” writes Dr Roberts.He noted the ongoing “pilgrimage” of Silicon Valley giants, US industrial leaders and wealthy tycoons to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, accompanied by seven-figure donations to the president-elect’s inauguration. Roberts recalls that last month Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr — nominated for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services — had dinner with Big Pharma executives, including Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, Lilly CEO David Ricks and Steve Ubl, CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

The economist highlights how RFK Jr previously condemned the same Big Pharma firms, accusing them of producing unsafe COVID-19 vaccines that harmed millions and creating treatments that undermined the health of American children. “In other words, even private interests that are harmful have to be negotiated with. This doesn’t leave much room for reform to reach very far,” Dr Roberts says. “The conclusion is that democracy in America and in Europe, are fictions,” writes Dr Roberts. “The entire West is ruled by the US neoconservative doctrine of American hegemony and by the US interest groups who benefit from this hegemony. This is so entrenched that Trump is unlikely to be able to do anything about it.”

Read more …

“The “most dynamic and powerful conversation between us” was in Russian, Fridman admitted.”

• Zelensky Says He ‘Despises’ Russians (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky explained his refusal to give an interview to Lex Fridman entirely in Russian, the only language in which both he and the podcaster speak fluently, which would have made the conversation easier for wider audiences worldwide to follow. In the introduction to the podcast published on Sunday, Fridman went to great lengths to explain why the three-hour conversation was conducted in a mix of Ukrainian, English, and Russian, and how listeners can switch audio tracks and subtitles to their liking. “Our conversation will be most effective and impactful if we speak in Russian,” the podcaster said in his opening question, prompting Zelensky to respond that he speaks it “perfectly,” but won’t do so “because this is how it is.”

“The people who attack us speak Russian. They attack people who were only recently told that this was actually in defense of Russian-speaking people, and this is why I respect neither the leader nor the director of today’s Russia, nor the people. I just… that’s it,” he said. Zelensky argued that he addressed Russians in their language back when the conflict escalated in 2022, but “they did not listen” and only “speak the language of weapons.” This is why I honestly despise these people, as they are deaf. They began the occupation in supposed defense of the Russian language, and that’s why, with all due respect, I would like to give an interview in Ukrainian. Despite Zelensky’s reluctance to speak Russian, during the interview, he repeatedly switched back and forth to better express his thoughts or use obscenities. The “most dynamic and powerful conversation between us” was in Russian, Fridman admitted.

The majority of Ukrainian citizens can speak or at least understand Russian, particularly in the east of the country. However, since the 2014 US-backed coup in Kiev, the new authorities have abolished Russian as an official regional language and adopted policies aimed at its suppression. In 2019, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law requiring Ukrainian to be used exclusively in nearly all aspects of public life, including education, entertainment, politics, business, and the service industry.

Moscow has repeatedly denounced Kiev’s crackdown on Russian culture and language as discrimination, insisting that “forced Ukrainization” violates international law and infringes upon the rights of native Russian speakers, who make up around a quarter of the population. Kiev has sharply intensified its de-Russification efforts since the escalation of the conflict with Moscow in February 2022. Ukrainian lawmakers have since imposed blanket bans on Russian-language works of art, concerts and performances, as well as movies, books, and songs. The study of Russian in schools and universities has also been outlawed.

Fridman Zel

Read more …

Yeah, that’s too bad…

• Zelensky Says ‘Too Bad’ Ukraine Doesn’t Have Nuclear Weapons (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has reiterated his regret that Kiev does not possess nuclear weapons to effectively deter Moscow while discussing Western security guarantees that would satisfy him during a podcast with Lex Fridman on Sunday. During the three-hour conversation published on Sunday, Fridman mentioned he had a “dream” that the Ukrainian leader, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and US President-elect Donald Trump all “get together in a room and make peace.” His question about which security guarantees could possibly satisfy both Ukraine and Russia prompted Zelensky to embark on a lengthy rant about how Western “partners” and “security guarantors” had betrayed Ukraine in the past. “Ukraine had security guarantees. The Budapest Memorandum, nuclear weapons are the security guarantees that Ukraine had.

Ukraine had nuclear weapons. I do not want to characterize it as good or bad. Today, the fact that we do not have them is bad,” Zelensky stated. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, around 1,700 nuclear warheads were left on the territory of Ukraine. While this stockpile technically made Ukraine the world’s third-largest nuclear power, the weapons themselves always remained under the operational control of Russia. The current government in Kiev has repeatedly claimed that Ukraine gave up “its” nuclear arsenal under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the UK, and the US. “The Budapest Memorandum, nuclear weapons, this is what we had.

“Ukraine used them for protection. This does not mean that someone attacked us. That doesn’t mean that we would have used it. We had that opportunity. These were our security guarantees,” Zelensky said. The Ukrainian leader went on to criticize the US, UK, and other nuclear powers for ignoring Kiev’s repeated pleas to protect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. “They didn’t give a f**k,” Zelensky said in Russian, despite actively avoiding speaking the language during the interview. “Russia didn’t give a f**k, neither did all the other security guarantors… None of them gave a f**k about this country, these people, these security guarantees, etc.”

Zelensky has repeatedly accused Moscow of violating the Budapest Memorandum and expressed regret that his country surrendered its nuclear weapons, declaring in early 2022 – before Russia launched its offensive – that Kiev had “every right” to reverse the decision. In October, he stated that he has only two options to ensure its security: join NATO or obtain nuclear weapons. Russia has argued that Ukraine never had any nuclear weapons to begin with, as the Soviet assets legally belonged to Moscow. Russian officials have also repeatedly stated that the 1994 document was undermined by NATO’s eastward expansion, which threatened Moscow’s vital security interests, and that it was the US that trampled it by sponsoring the Maidan coup in Kiev in 2014, according to Putin.

Read more …

“We’re hoping that President Trump will work with Venezuela like he did with Mexico and El Salvador and get these countries to take them back,” Homan said. “If they don’t, they’re still gonna be deported..”

• Trump Border Czar Homan Pushes Back Over Trump Admin Deportation Plans (JTN)

President-elect Donald Trump’s new border czar, Tom Homan, was a guest on CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” where host Margaret Brennan tried to argue that the Biden administration had deported more people than Trump during his first term in office. “Deportations are now at a decade high. They were at the end of 2024. Nearly 300,000 people deported by the Biden administration,” Brennan stated. She then said to Homan, “The incoming administration has promised the largest deportation operation in history. What’s the number? What’s the measure of success?” Homan turned the conversation to the Biden administration. He argued that 80 percent of the Biden administration’s deportation numbers are from Border Patrol arrests that were moved back across the southern border, according to The Hill.

“They weren’t interior enforcement arrests,” he said, adding the Biden administration is “playing a numbers game.” Brennan said that it’s still a higher number than when Trump was in office the first time. She pressed Homan as to whether success would come from arresting and deporting people already within the United States in addition to sealing off the southern border. “You can’t compare the number of deportations under Trump versus Biden,” he said. “When you consider a 45-year low in crossings, the number of deportations [is] going to be lower because we don’t have that population to process and deport.” Brennan questioned how they plan to deport so many people, particularly if other countries aren’t willing to accept them.

“We’re hoping that President Trump will work with Venezuela like he did with Mexico and El Salvador and get these countries to take them back,” Homan said. “If they don’t, they’re still gonna be deported. They’re just gonna be deported to a different country.” “We gotta put the safety of the American people first,” he continued. “We’ve had too many young women murdered and raped and burned alive by members of Venezuelan gangs. They need to be a priority under this administration. They’re gonna be a priority starting day one, and they will be deported.” Brennan concluded the interview, noting that the country will “stay tuned for the details.”

Read more …

The horse and the barn…

• EU Could Establish Asylum ‘Return Hubs’ In Third Countries By March (RMX)

The European Union may establish asylum return centers outside its borders as soon as March, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson revealed on Thursday during a meeting with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer in Vienna. The proposal, expected from the EU’s new migration commissioner, aims to stem the flow of irregular migrants who remain within the bloc despite having their asylum applications rejected. Kristersson is promoting the idea of “return hubs,” which would house individuals whose asylum applications have been denied, while they await deportation. He believes the centers will deter people with slim chances of success from seeking asylum in the EU. “It is a way of saying we do not accept that there is no difference between a refusal and a yes,” Kristersson told the TT news agency. “It will also reduce the driving forces if you know you have very little chance.”

According to EU data, only around 20 percent of migrants who are denied asylum actually leave EU territory. Kristersson says this undermines the system and creates “completely different concerns” as many end up going underground, working in the gig economy with others resorting to a life of crime. Kristersson cited Italy’s agreement with Albania as a model of how third-country processing could work. Under that pact, men from countries deemed “safe” by the Italian government have been transferred to Albania to await the outcome of their asylum applications, with certain exceptions for vulnerable individuals. However, Italian courts have repeatedly blocked the measure, setting Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s administration on a collision course with what Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has called “left-wing activist judges.

The Italian judiciary cited EU law stipulating that entire countries must be deemed safe, not just parts of them. This legal snag has effectively halted transfers to Albania pending a judgment from the European Court of Justice. At a press conference with Nehammer, Kristersson noted that Sweden is set to record its lowest number of asylum seekers since 1996. He attributed this drop partly to changing migration routes within Europe, as well as policy shifts. “After an extensive restructuring of our policy, we have reduced the numbers,” Kristersson said.

During the migrant crisis of 2015, more than 162,000 refugees sought asylum in Sweden. By 2024, that figure is projected to hover around 10,000. Still, Kristersson acknowledged that the initial decline largely began in 2016, when the EU tightened its external borders, and that many of his government’s new laws have yet to take effect. Several groups including Amnesty International have raised concerns that the proposed return hubs are incompatible with both EU and international law, with Kristersson conceding the plan presents “difficult questions” but stressing that doing nothing about the issue is not an option.

Read more …

Gavin Newsom and RFK. Odd couple.

• California Governor Orders Investigation Into Ultra-Processed Foods (ET)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Jan. 3 issued an executive order directing state agencies to recommend actions to target ultra-processed foods and related health concerns in the state. The governor’s office said that such foods are known to carry health risks and that Newsom’s actions are “designed to support affordable, healthy living and reduce the growing impact of chronic illnesses on Californians.” “The food we eat shouldn’t make us sick with disease or lead to lifelong consequences,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re going to work with the industry, consumers and experts to crack down on ultra-processed foods, and create a healthier future for every Californian.” The executive order asks the California Department of Public Health to provide recommendations to the governor’s office “regarding potential action to limit the harms associated with ‘ultra-processed foods’ and food ingredients that pose a health risk to individuals” by April 1, 2025.

It suggested that one of the potential actions could include warning labels for certain foods. The executive order also asks the California Department of Social Services to provide recommendations regarding “actions that the State can take to reduce the purchase of soda, candy, other ultra-processed foods and/or foods with synthetic food dye or other additives.” The governor also asked the California Department of Health Care Services to report by April 1 on the feasibility of requiring or encouraging Medi-Cal managed care plans and California hospitals to use their certain funds to “enhance access to fresh, healthy foods,” and “otherwise promote public health at the local level.”The executive order cited the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest updates to school nutrition standards and also asked the State Board of Education and the California Department of Education to identify by Oct. 1, “areas where California may adopt higher standards for healthy school meals.”

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for his upcoming administration’s secretary of Health and Human Services is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long criticized ultra-processed foods. A Nov. 22, 2024 report by the Congressional Research Service noted that there has been “increased attention by researchers and policymakers on the production, labeling, and marketing of ultra-processed foods.” However, there is no definition of what constitutes ultra-processed foods in U.S. laws or regulations. According to a recent report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 73 percent of adults 20 years old and older are overweight or obese, and 38 percent of children and youth between 12 and 19 years old are pre-diabetic.

“The widespread prevalence of nutrition-related chronic health conditions continues to be a major public health issue in the United States,” states the department in the report. Last September, Newsom signed legislation, Assembly Bill 2316, that bans public schools from serving foods containing six synthetic food dyes: Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, and Green 3. The law will go into effect at the end of December 2027.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

FCC

 

 

Füllmilch

 

 

Candace

 

 

Bernanke

 

 

Steve Keen

 

 

 

 

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