Pablo Picasso Still life with fruit basket 1942
The fastest spinning celestial object in the universe is a Neutron star called PSR J1748-2446.
It rotates 716 times every second, so its equator moves at about 25% the speed of light.
It is also 50 trillion times the density of lead and has a magnetic field a trillion times… pic.twitter.com/XpenhhMIlu
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) July 5, 2025
https://twitter.com/MustangMedicX/status/1941590425879576811
you have to admit, this model has quite a lot of explanatory power… pic.twitter.com/uXH6qWNQbR
— el gato malo (@boriquagato) July 6, 2025
Butler
https://twitter.com/TheGabriel72/status/1941925223411884368
Is this even a real feud?
• Trump Calls Musk A ‘Train Wreck’ (RT)
US President Donald Trump has lashed out at Elon Musk over the tech billionaire’s plan to launch a new political party, accusing him of promoting “disruption and chaos” and undermining the stability of the American political system. In a post on Truth Social late Sunday, Trump criticized Musk for what he described as erratic behavior in recent weeks, calling the entrepreneur a “train wreck.” He claimed that Musk’s proposal to form a third party – dubbed the “America Party” – would fail and only serve to divide voters. “I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks,” Trump wrote. “He even wants to start a Third Political Party, despite the fact that they have never succeeded in the United States – the system seems not designed for them.”
“The one thing Third Parties are good for is the creation of Complete and Total DISRUPTION & CHAOS,” the president added, accusing the Democratic Party for already bringing “enough of that.” Trump also defended his recently signed multitrillion-dollar spending package, dubbed the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which has drawn sharp criticism from Musk. The president claimed that the billionaire opposed the legislation only because it eliminated federal electric vehicle mandates that had benefited Musk’s business. Trump also took issue with Musk’s alleged attempt to have one of his associates appointed to run NASA, noting that the candidate was a Democrat and that the appointment would have raised concerns over a conflict of interest, given Musk’s ties to the space industry.
“My number one charge is to protect the American public!” Trump wrote. The remarks follow Musk’s announcement on Friday that he is moving ahead with the creation of the America Party, pledging to “give freedom back to the people” and attacking both major parties for “bankrupting” the country. The billionaire did not elaborate on how much progress he had made with the plan but briefly outlined his strategy and hinted that the first move could be expected “next year,” during the US midterm elections in November 2026, when 33 of the 100 Senate seats and all 435 House seats will be up for grabs. “The way we’re going to crack the uniparty system is by using a variant of how Epaminondas shattered the myth of Spartan invincibility at Leuctra: extremely concentrated force at a precise location on the battlefield,” Musk stated.
Musk previously insisted that his criticism of Trump and his policies was not about subsidies but was triggered by a sharp budget deficit hike he had been recruited to reduce. The tech billionaire was one of the key figures in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a much-hyped temporary organization established to cut budget costs and excessive federal spending. Since the honeymoon ended, Musk and Trump have been locked in a recurring war of words, with the US president accusing his former close ally of receiving more US government subsidies “than any human being in history,” threatening to sic DOGE on him, and even mulling a potential deportation of the South African-born entrepreneur.
“..which budgetary baseline is used: the current law baseline, always used to calculate tax cut impact on the deficit, or the current policy baseline, always used to calculate federal spending impact on the deficit..”
• Some In GOP Say ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Will Only Cost $441 Billion By 2034 (JTN)
Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” is under fire from budget watchdogs for permanently extending the bulk of the expiring 2017 tax cuts, a move that puts the total cost of the bill at $4.5 trillion and would lead to a primary deficit increase of $3.3 trillion by 2034. But Republican congressional leaders and the White House believe that a more accurate cost-analysis would zero out the impact of codifying the tax cuts, making the net cost of the budget reconciliation bill only $441 billion over the next decade. The drastic difference depends on which budgetary baseline is used: the current law baseline, always used to calculate tax cut impact on the deficit, or the current policy baseline, always used to calculate federal spending impact on the deficit.
Using the traditional current law baseline, however, would not allow Republicans to make the tax cuts permanent without having to find trillions more savings. So they adopted the current policy baseline in their version of the “big, beautiful bill,” breaking historical precedent. The Congressional Budget Office says this pivot merely papers over the true $3.3 trillion cost. Current law baseline assumes that extending tax cuts will directly cost the federal government however much taxpayers will save. But Republicans are arguing that maintaining existing tax rates should not be treated the same as a federal spending increase. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller noted in a social media post that “private money yet to be earned does not ‘belong’ to the government…CBO says maintaining *current* rates adds to the deficit, but by definition leaving these income tax rates unchanged cannot add one penny to the deficit.”
Miller and others also argue that the baseline disparity encourages fiscal irresponsibility by treating tax cliffs and spending cliffs differently. By using the current policy baseline for determining the cost of federal spending extensions, CBO assumes that perpetually reauthorizing expiring federal spending costs nothing, as it simply maintains the status quo. CBO also automatically accounts for inflation in appropriations spending, treating increased appropriations spending as an extension of current policy and thus having no impact on the deficit. The majority of budget analysts have countered that even if the scoring methods should be changed, it still won’t change the deficit impact of the “big, beautiful bill” and will set a dangerous precedent for future budget reconciliation bills.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget stated Wednesday that the Senate’s use of current policy baseline “poisons the environment for bipartisan budget and trust fund deals – by signaling that the majority party will unilaterally add to the debt by cutting taxes and pad their appropriations priorities.” House lawmakers are expected to vote on the Senate’s changes to the bill Wednesday. If they approve the Senate’s use of current policy baseline to score the tax cuts, they will open the door for any future majority party to use the same tactic.
If so, name one reason why Ghislaine is in jail.
• FBI Epstein Memo: No Clients, No Blackmail, Definitely Killed Himself (HUSA)
Deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein and his colleague, Ghislaine Maxwell, were both charged by the Justice Department with sex trafficking—and Maxwell was convicted. But according to the DOJ, the two apparently didn’t have any clients. In a bombshell FBI memo leaked to Axios and published Sunday night, officials said they’ve reviewed more than 300 gigabytes of Epstein evidence—and haven’t found any vast human trafficking or sexual blackmail operation. “This systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list.’ There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties,” the unsigned memo said.
The FBI also reiterated its previous claim that Epstein did kill himself. In an attempt to demonstrate that Epstein’s cellblock was secure the night he purportedly killed himself, the FBI released footage from the once camera that was recording. However, the camera only showed a tiny sliver of a staircase leading to Epstein’s cell. According to a DOJ-OIG report released in 2023, only two cameras in Epstein’s housing unit were recording—and those cameras had numerous blind spots. The camera in Epstein’s cell block, which had at least three other inmates, wasn’t recording. Nor was the camera covering one of the elevator bays that led to Epstein’s floor. The DOJ-OIG report also revealed that prison officials actually knew about the malfunctioning cameras the day before Epstein died.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz said his staff interviewed an MCC technician, who started to repair the cameras on Aug. 8, 2019, but did not finish his work. The technician told the inspector general he had “no idea” why he did not stay at the facility to resolve the problem that day. Epstein’s death was ruled a suicide by hanging after he was found dead in his jail cell on August 10, 2019. But his lawyers contested that claim. Skeptics point to malfunctioning surveillance cameras, sleeping guards, and broken bones in Epstein’s neck as indications that his death was something other than suicide. Because of Epstein’s extensive fraternization with high-profile politicians and celebrities such as Bill Clinton, former Israeli PM Ehud Barak, Prince Andrew and Bill Gates and many more, some claim that Epstein’s death was actually a hit job to silence him. Proponents of that theory include Epstein’s former partner, Maxwell, who’s serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking.
“I believe that he was murdered. I was shocked, and I wondered, ‘How did this happen?’ Because I was sure he was going to appeal, and I was sure he was covered by the non-prosecution agreement,” Maxwell told British reporter Jeremy Kyle of TalkTV in 2023. The non-prosecution agreement referenced by Maxwell was a sweetheart deal Epstein signed with the Department of Justice in 2008, in which he pleaded guilty to a state charge of procuring for prostitution a girl below the age of 18. Epstein was housed in a private wing of the Palm Beach County Stockade, and was reportedly allowed to leave the jail on “work release” for up to 12 hours a day. After the Miami Herald published an expose on Epstein and his non-prosecution agreement in late 2018, Epstein was arrested again on July 6, 2019, on federal charges for the sex trafficking of minors in Florida and New York.
From Bongino, whose office just released the Epstein memo: “..precisely why hard-working Americans simply do not trust the media.”
The media or the FBI?
• Bongino Drops a Truth Bomb Destroying the New York Times (Margolis)
On Saturday, the New York Times editorial board published an article claiming that Trump’s “politicized FBI” has “made Americans less safe.” That’s rich. I’m old enough to remember when the Obama administration and the Biden administration actually did weaponize the FBI against Donald Trump. And I’m pretty sure everyone on the NYT editorial board is, too. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino wrote a scathing response to the article, calling it “precisely why hard-working Americans simply do not trust the media.” Bongino’s tweet, which quickly gained traction online, took direct aim at what he described as a “poorly thought out hit piece” that misrepresented the sweeping reforms he and Director Patel have implemented at the Bureau.
Bongino’s frustration was palpable as he laid out his case point by point, lambasting the Times for what he saw as a glaring lack of evidence to support their central claim. “The conclusion of the piece is so ridiculous that a child could debunk it,” Bongino wrote. He noted that the article’s authors “comically assert that you are ‘less safe’ because Kash and I have aggressively reformed the FBI. Yet, they produce NO evidence whatsoever to backup that claim. And the reason they don’t produced any evidence, is because the numbers tell the opposite story.”
Backing up his rebuttal with a barrage of statistics, Bongino offered a “small snippet of data points” that he says prove the effectiveness of the FBI’s new direction. Among the highlights, he touted the Bureau’s violent crime initiative, “Summer Heat,” which he notes has the murder rate “trending to be the lowest in U.S. history by a longshot.” He promised that “Summer Heat is coming to a city or town near you soon as we assist your community in removing criminal predators from the streets.” Bongino didn’t stop there. He detailed that the FBI’s renewed focus on violent crime has led to the arrest of 14,000 violent criminals—a 62% increase from the same period last year. “We rescued over one hundred children from being preyed on, while arresting over 825 violent child predators, and 140 human traffickers,” he added.
The numbers continued to pile up. Bongino reported that agents had “locked up 51 foreign intelligence operatives for spying and smuggling dangerous substances into our country.” He also highlighted the Bureau’s work with federal partners, stating, “we apprehended, imprisoned, and deported over 18,000 illegal aliens. Many of these illegal aliens had violent criminal histories. As a result, last month, again, ZERO illegals were admitted into our country. The same partners arrested nearly 800 rioters for attempting to stop enforcement operations.” Drug seizures were another point of pride: “We seized 44,000 kilos of cocaine, 3,500 kilos of meth, and 1,210 kilos of fentanyl in just the last few months. This is a 22% increase from the same time period last year.
“In addition, we locked up one of the most dangerous gang leaders in the county, and we dismantled gang operations in nearly every corner of the country, including the largest TDA gang takedown ever.” Bongino also noted progress on the FBI’s most wanted list: “We locked up 3 of the ‘Top-Ten’ most wanted FBI targets, and we’re closing in on another.” He hinted at further successes in counter-terrorism, stating, “I’d like to talk more about some of the incredible work being done by our counter-terror teams, but the information, as you would imagine, is classified. But I promise you, it’s happening.” The successes that Bongino reported are what happens when the FBI is focused on fighting crime, not settling political scores as it did under Obama and Biden. Yet the New York Times doesn’t care about facts, just their anti-Trump narrative.
“There is no level of countervailing tariffs the EU can announce that impacts the position of Trump. Even if the EU were to end all trade with the USA, that only feeds into the goals and objectives of the Trump administration.”
• EU Trade Team Accepting Baseline Tariffs (CTH)
The intransigent European Union are hitting a dead end with immovable Trump on the issue of tariffs. The resulting dynamic is what we would expect given 75 years of the Marshall Plan (European Recovery Plan) as part of the EU’s only point of reference. In order for the EU to maintain their socialistic form of government, they need to continue the economic benefits from one-way tariffs that exploits the American consumer market. President Trump’s plan to force reciprocity is against their entire economic foundation. The EU simply cannot fathom life without the status quo. In many ways the EU is in the same position as Canada. From their perspective, economic reciprocity is not sustainable; they would have to change their social compacts. This is the core of the conflict. The EU trade delegation hit a brick wall in Washington DC, as the U.S. trade team reiterated the baseline tariffs are not something within the negotiation dynamic.
BRUSSELS — “The European Union is weighing a provisional trade deal with the United States that would maintain a 10 percent tariff on most exports, the European Commission told EU ambassadors on Friday. The EU executive reported back after a crucial round of talks in Washington on Thursday, in which Trade Commissioner Mar os Sefkovic sought to head off a threat by President Donald Trump to impose a 50 percent tariff on all European goods from July 9 if no deal is reached.
In addition to the baseline tariff, conversations would continue on providing relief to specific industry sectors such as cars, two national officials cited top Commission officials as saying. The outcome fell short of expectations in European capitals after the Commission’s trade negotiating team had previously said the possibility of “up-front” tariff relief for some industries was under consideration. The U.S. levies 25 percent tariffs on cars and 50 percent on steel and aluminum. (read more)”
As we highlighted in term-1, these ongoing negotiations with the EU on the issues of trade are extremely challenging. However, in term-2 President Trump’s position is much simpler; why keep arguing about the same problem only to end up in negotiations of intransigence? Instead, if the EU is going to continue negotiations as a collective, President Trump is now favoring just sending the EU a letter informing them of the tariff rates applied to each of their industrial sectors. This is the most direct and impactful way to end the stalemate.
The EU cannot fathom the new level of ambivalence carried by President Trump, and by extension his trade team, toward the conversation. There is no level of countervailing tariffs the EU can announce that impacts the position of Trump. Even if the EU were to end all trade with the USA, that only feeds into the goals and objectives of the Trump administration. The EU has no power in this dynamic beyond their purchasing power, and if the EU doesn’t want to level the purchasing – thereby maintaining a trade deficit, then Trump will equalize the financial imbalance with tariffs. Canada is in the same position, hence their alignment with the EU.
“..Trump said “It just seems like he wants to go all the way and just keep killing people. It’s not good. I wasn’t happy with it”..”
• Zelensky’s Latest Call With Trump Was ‘Most Productive’ He’s Ever Had (ZH)
The White House rhetoric on Ukraine could be slowly shifting, after President Trump said he was “very unhappy” with a Thursday phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. After a single night’s record drone attack of some 500 UAVs sent on Ukraine, Trump said “It just seems like he wants to go all the way and just keep killing people. It’s not good. I wasn’t happy with it” – in reference to Putin. But it should be remembered that the White House just days prior halted some shipments of defense aid, which speaks louder than words. European allies are predictably upset and Kiev is now dealing very carefully with Washington, and handling Trump with kid gloves, given it is in a precarious situation on the battlefield. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, announced Saturday that his latest conversation with Trump this week was the best and “most productive” he has ever had.
“Regarding the conversation with the president of the United States, which took place a day earlier, it was probably the best conversation we have had during this whole time, the most productive,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. “We discussed air defense issues and I’m grateful for the willingness to help. The Patriot system is precisely the key to protection against ballistic threats,” he added. Zelensky has also been asking Washington to slap more sanctions on Moscow, something Trump has so far resisted in order to give better space for peace negotiations to take off. Asked by reporters over whether Zelensky’s request for more Patriot missiles would be honored, Trump replied, “They’re going to need them for defense… They’re going to need something because they’re being hit pretty hard.”
Trump had further said of the Zelensky call, which happened Friday, “We talked about different things… I think it was a very, very strategic call.” This suggests that some new decision-making could be afoot regarding supplying Ukraine. There have been recent reports, however, that Trump is prioritizing defense of Israel, even diverting arms and ammo away from eastern Europe for that purpose. Trump has been expressing deep frustration at lack of momentum in US-backed peace efforts, for which he’s criticized both warring sides.
Ukraine in NATO is a declaration of war.
• NATO Talk Becoming Toxic – Kiev (RT)
Discussions with the West about NATO membership for Kiev have become increasingly tense and unproductive, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgy Tikhy has said, describing the talks as “toxic.” Western nations initially backed Kiev’s aspirations to join the US-led bloc, but Ukraine’s military struggles and shifting American policies have led to a decline in support. The dialogue with NATO partners has now reached a dead end, Tikhy lamented in an interview on the YouTube channel of journalist Aleksandr Notevsky on Friday. “All the arguments and counterarguments have already been presented, and each new round of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to NATO goes in circles,” he stated. The discussions “have become, to put it simply, very toxic,” he added.
Ukraine formally applied for fast-track NATO membership in September 2022, months after the escalation of the conflict with Russia. Although the bloc has consistently stated that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO,” it has never set a specific time frame for accession. At the 2023 NATO summit, the requirement for Ukraine to complete the Membership Action Plan was removed, thus simplifying the path to membership. However, the final communique only stated that an invitation would be extended “when allies agree and conditions are met,” without providing concrete timelines or criteria. Ukraine’s future membership was discussed at last year’s NATO summit and the joint communique explicitly reaffirmed that Kiev’s accession was inevitable.
Since then, however, a number of leaders of NATO countries have soured on the idea, weighing the risks of further escalation with Russia and the bloc’s long-term security priorities. US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has been more emphatic, stating that Kiev “can forget about” joining the NATO, noting that its attempts to do so were “probably the reason the whole thing started,” referring to the Ukraine conflict. At the recent NATO summit in June, Ukraine was barely mentioned in the final communique, while its leader, Vladimir Zelensky, failed to secure support for Kiev’s future membership. Russia has repeatedly characterized Ukraine’s attempt to join NATO as a red line and one of the root causes of the conflict. Moscow has demanded that Kiev legally commit to never joining any military alliance.
It would solve his credibility issues.
• Moscow Outlines Why Zelensky Wants To Meet With Putin (RT)
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is seeking a personal meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to defend his claims to legitimacy and resist Western attempts to push him out of power, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. Zelensky’s presidential term expired last year, and Moscow views him as illegitimate. In an interview with First Sevastopol TV released on Saturday, Zakharova was asked why she believes the Ukrainian leader is so insistent on meeting with Putin. “Because he needs to reaffirm his legitimacy, not through legal procedures, but by any other means to prove that he is in power,” she stated. Zelensky’s five-year presidential term ended in May 2024, but he refused to hold a new election, citing martial law.
Moscow has declared him illegitimate, insisting that under Ukrainian law, legal authority now rests with the parliament. According to Zakharova, Zelensky also seeks a meeting with Putin because he is driven by “a monstrous fear of being consigned to oblivion.” “He is insanely afraid of being forgotten, of becoming unnecessary for the West. That somehow the West will sideline him. And you can see he doesn’t step away from the microphones. I think he already sleeps with a webcam,” she said. Zelensky has on numerous occasions insisted that he wants to meet with Putin, describing this as a prerequisite for peace.
In May, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested that a meeting between Putin and Zelensky could be possible, but only after negotiations between Moscow and Kiev reach “specific arrangements” on various diplomatic tracks. This year, Russia and Ukraine held two rounds of direct talks, which did not result in a breakthrough with regard to ending the conflict, but led to several prisoner exchanges.
In June, Putin said he was open to meeting with Zelensky, but suggested that the Ukrainian leader lacks legitimacy for signing binding agreements. “I am ready to meet with anyone, including Zelensky. That’s not the issue – if the Ukrainian state trusts someone to conduct negotiations, by all means, let it be Zelensky. The question is different: Who will sign the documents?” In autumn 2022, Zelensky signed a presidential decree banning talks with the current Russian leadership, after the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye voted in referendums to join Russia. Though Zelensky has not canceled the decree, he has since insisted that it only applies to other Ukrainian politicians, not to himself.
“..these are simply attempts to create an artificial external enemy in order to justify such a militaristic line to militarize Europe.”
• NATO Chief ‘On Magic Mushrooms’ – Medvedev (RT)
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has mocked NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte for suggesting that Beijing might ask Moscow to attack NATO territory in Europe as a diversion if China decides to make a move on Taiwan. Rutte, speaking to the New York Times on Saturday, said Chinese President Xi Jinping may tell his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin: “I’m going to do this, and I need you to keep them busy in Europe by attacking NATO territory.” He also urged stronger NATO defenses, warning that “if we don’t, we’ll have to learn Russian.” “SG Rutte has clearly gorged on too many of the magic mushrooms beloved by the Dutch,” Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said on X on Saturday.
“He sees collusion between China & Russia over Taiwan, and then a Russian attack on Europe. But he’s right about one thing: he should learn Russian. It might come in handy in a Siberian camp,” Medvedev joked, hinting at the harsh conditions at the region’s remote prison camps. Beijing, which considers Taiwan its own territory under its One China policy, has repeatedly demanded that the US and its allies stop interfering in China’s internal affairs. Washington, however, continues to supply weapons to Taiwan. Russia supports the Chinese position, condemning Western arms sales and diplomatic visits to the island. Moscow has also repeatedly dismissed claims that it plans to attack NATO, calling such statements baseless and part of Western scaremongering.
The Kremlin has maintained that “these are simply attempts to create an artificial external enemy in order to justify such a militaristic line to militarize Europe.” Russian officials have also argued that European NATO countries are using the supposed Russia threat to deflect from their own domestic problems. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the “old horror story about the Russian bear” an easy excuse in light of economic stagnation and falling standards of living in Europe. At its recent summit, NATO members discussed increasing defense spending targets to 5% of GDP, though no formal agreement was reached. Some European nations expressed concern that such a level would be a heavy financial burden, potentially straining domestic budgets and public support for defense policies.
“..the phase-out means “fighting for our households and businesses” so they won’t bear the costs of “harmful ideological decisions” from Brussels..”
• Slovakia ‘Ready To Fight’ For Russian Gas – Fico (RT)
Slovakia is “ready to fight” for its right to import Russian gas and will continue to block Brussels’ proposals to phase out Russian energy, Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Saturday. Fico stressed that energy security is a strategic priority for Slovakia, and that EU efforts to change its supply mix threaten national sovereignty. Slovakia vetoed the EU’s 18th round of sanctions on Russia for the second time on Friday, citing concerns over the RePowerEU plan, which seeks to cut Russian energy imports by 2028. The plan is being discussed alongside sanctions targeting Russia’s energy and financial sectors. Brussels is seeking to pass the phase-out as trade legislation – requiring only a qualified majority.
Fico insists, however, that the plan amounts to sanctions and must be unanimously approved. He previously warned that the move could jeopardize energy security, raise prices, and trigger costly arbitration with Gazprom over Slovakia’s long-term energy contract. Speaking during celebrations for Slovakia’s Saints Cyril and Methodius Day, Fico called the phase-out plan a “disruption” of Slovakia’s national interests.“We refuse to support another sanctions package against the Russian Federation, unless we know who will protect us, and how, and compensate for the damage that will be caused to Slovakia by the ideological proposal of the European Commission to stop supplies of Russian gas,” he said. “Slovakia wants to be sovereign and self-determined. And we must answer whether we are ready to fight for it. I am ready to fight this difficult battle. We are going to get through it.”
Fico added that vetoing the phase-out means “fighting for our households and businesses” so they won’t bear the costs of “harmful ideological decisions” from Brussels. He went on to say that Slovakia is at a crossroads – between giving in to pressure from “bureaucratic structures” in Brussels and defending its interests. He urged the public to choose the latter and accused the EU of ignoring national interests and violating international law by forcing harmful policies onto member states. Fico argued that Slovakia must pursue cooperation “based on equality and mutual benefit,” not external political agendas.
Hungary has also blocked the Russian energy phase-out plan, with Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto warning that it would “destroy Hungary’s energy security” and cause price spikes. Moscow has condemned the Western sanctions as illegal and counterproductive, particularly those targeting energy, noting that energy prices in the EU surged after the initial sanctions on Russia were introduced in 2022. Russian officials warn that the EU’s rejection of Russian supplies will push it toward more expensive imports or rerouted Russian energy via intermediaries.
“.. I use the HiPerGator in connection with my work for the Florida Institute of National Security, which uses AI to explore kinetic and financial war fighting scenarios. I have built extensive neural networks that will be running on the HiPerGator.”
• Superintelligence Will Never Arrive (Jim Rickards)
Readers know at least two things about artificial intelligence (AI). The first is that an AI frenzy has been driving the stock market higher for the past three years even with occasional drawdowns along the way. The second is that AI is a revolutionary technology that will change the world and potentially eliminate numerous jobs, including jobs requiring training and technical skills. Both points are correct with numerous caveats. AI has been driving the stock market to record highs, but the market has the look and feel of a super-bubble. The crash could come anytime and bring the market down by 50% or more. That’s not a reason to short the major stock indices today. The bubble can last longer than anyone expects.
If you short the indices, you can lose a lot of money being wrong. But it is advisable to lighten up on equity allocations and increase your allocation to cash in order to avoid the worst damage when the crash does come. On the second point, AI will make some jobs obsolete or easily replaceable. Of course, as with any new technology, it will create new jobs requiring different skills. Teachers will not become obsolete. They’ll shift from teaching the basics of math and reading, which AI does quite well, to teaching critical thinking and reasoning, which computers do poorly or not at all. Changes will be pervasive, but they will still be changes and not chaos.
Artificial Intelligence is a powerful force, but there’s much less there than meets the eye. AI may be confronting material constraints in terms of processing power, training sets and electricity generation. Semiconductor chips keep getting faster and new ones are on the way. But these chips consume enormous amounts of energy, especially when installed in huge arrays in new AI data centers. Advocates are turning to nuclear power plants, including small modular reactors to supply the energy needs of AI. This demand is non-linear, which means that exponentially larger energy sources are needed to make small advances in processing output. AI is fast approaching practical limits on its ability to achieve greater performance.
This near insatiable demand for energy means that the AI race is really an energy race. This could make the U.S. and Russia the two dominant players (sound familiar?) as China depends on Russia for energy and Europe depends on the U.S. and Russia. Sanctions on Russian energy exports can actually help Russia in the AI race because natural gas can be stored and used in Russia to support AI and cryptocurrency mining. It’s the law of unintended consequences applied to the short-sighted Europeans and the resource-poor Chinese.
Another limitation on AI, which is not well known, is the Law of Conservation of Information in Search. This law is backed up by rigorous mathematical proofs. What it says is that AI cannot find any new information. It can find things faster and it can make connections that humans might find almost impossible to make. That’s valuable. But AI cannot find anything new. It can only seek out and find information that is already there for the taking. New knowledge comes from humans in the form of creativity, art, writing and original work. Computers cannot perform genuinely creative tasks. That should give humans some comfort that they will never be obsolete.
A further problem in AI is dilution and degradation of training sets as more training set content consists of AI output from prior processing. AI is prone to errors, hallucinations (better called confabulations) and inferences that have no basis in fact. That’s bad enough. But when that output enters the training set (basically every page in the internet), the quality of the training set degrades, and future output degrades in sync. There’s no good solution to this except careful curation. If you have to be a subject matter expert to curate training sets and then evaluate output, this greatly diminishes the value-added role of AI.
“That’s all Biden ever was in that ticket: window dressing for a green senator trying to look presidential.”
• Fresh Obama-Biden Feud Details Are Here And They’re Delicious (Margolis)
It’s no secret anymore that Barack Obama and Joe Biden were hardly the BFFs that the latter claimed them to be. According to reports, Obama was a key player in the coup to force Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 election, and Biden is naturally very bitter about it. But the latest revelations about their toxic dynamic during the campaign go beyond personal bitterness. They expose a level of dysfunction within the Democratic Party that’s so raw and chaotic, it would make even veteran political insiders wince. A forthcoming book about the 2024 election has exposed what many conservatives suspected all along: Obama never really believed Biden was fit for a second term, and he wasn’t shy about letting everyone know it.
When the two met for lunch at the White House in 2023, Obama walked away “slightly incredulous” that Biden was even attempting another run, according to a report from The Guardian, which received an advance copy of the book. But here’s where it gets really good: Obama didn’t just keep his doubts to himself. After that lunch, the former president made a beeline for Biden’s senior staff, many of whom had previously worked under him, and delivered a brutal assessment that should have ended Biden’s campaign right there. “Your campaign is a mess,” Obama told them, cutting through any pretense of unity or support. This wasn’t constructive criticism from a concerned party elder—this was a public execution disguised as friendly advice.
The organizational chaos Obama identified was glaring. Biden’s team had split their operations between Washington and Wilmington, a decision that even Biden himself privately admitted was problematic. The Wilmington base was supposed to showcase Biden’s everyman appeal and Delaware roots, but Obama recognized it for what it really was: a logistical nightmare that would hamstring any serious campaign effort. The attempted fix reveals just how dysfunctional things had become. They shuffled Jen O’Malley Dillon to Wilmington as campaign manager while keeping Mike Donilon in Washington as chief strategist. This geographic split epitomized the kind of amateur-hour decision-making that Obama was calling out, and predictably, it solved nothing.
What makes this story particularly delicious is how Biden’s staff reacted to Obama’s intervention. According to the book, some of them thought Obama was being a “prick” and felt he “disrespected and mistreated Biden.” The irony is palpable—these same staffers who spent eight years watching Biden serve as Obama’s “loyal” vice president were now discovering what many had suspected: Obama’s respect for Biden was always conditional and largely performative. Let’s be honest—conservatives saw this coming back in 2008. Joe Biden was a non-factor in the Democratic primary, barely registering in the polls and flaming out after a humiliating finish in Iowa. He wasn’t chosen for his political prowess or popular appeal—he was picked because Obama needed an “elder statesman” to paper over his lack of experience. That’s all Biden ever was in that ticket: window dressing for a green senator trying to look presidential.
And that’s precisely what makes this behind-the-scenes drama so revealing. It underscores the same glaring weakness that’s followed Biden from the moment he sought the presidency. Even his own party’s most prominent figure couldn’t pretend he was up to the job—because deep down, they all knew he never was.
The Pulitzer Prize will never be the same.
• Trump Lawsuit Exposes Uncomfortable Truths About Pulitzer Prizes (JTN)
President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board is forcing into the public eye uncomfortable revelations about how the news industry’s top prize giver handled the unraveling of Russia collusion allegations, exposing conflicts in testimony and an admission that people other than Trump complained about its 2018 awards to The New York Times and The Washington Post for their coverage of the now-discredited scandal. While the litigation in an Okeechobee County, Florida courthouse makes its way to the Florida Supreme Court, new admissions by the intelligence community have undercut the factual basis underlying some of the stories that won the two newspapers the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting.
One of those stories was a December 2017 report by The Washington Post that accused Trump of ignoring or trying to downplay U.S. intelligence claims that Putin tried to help him win the 2016 election. “Nearly a year into his presidency, Trump continues to reject the evidence that Russia waged an assault on a pillar of American democracy and supported his run for the White House,” the Post’s award-winning story declared. While there remains widespread consensus inside U.S. spy agencies that Russia hacked Democratic National Committee emails that embarrassed Hillary Clinton, the narrative the news stories spawned — namely, that Russia’s intent was to help Trump win the election — is disputed.
The claim that Putin was specifically trying to help Trump was included in a December 2016 Obama administration intelligence community assessment (ICA), but in fact there were concerns about that claim and the way that review was done inside the intelligence community, according to new evidence made public this month. CIA Director John Ratcliffe revealed last week that the two top career CIA officials for Russia directly objected to former Director John Brennan’s inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Obama-era ICA and that its conclusion that Russia’s intent was to help Trump was not strongly supported by the evidence. Ratcliffe’s new report directly assailed the Obama-era Russia assessment that anchored the Post’s December 2017 story, concluding it suffered from significant failures of spy tradecraft and other irregularities.
“The procedural anomalies that characterized the ICA’s development had a direct impact on the tradecraft applied to its most contentious finding. With analysts operating under severe time constraints, limited information sharing, and heightened senior-level scrutiny, several aspects of tradecraft rigor were compromised—particularly in supporting the judgment that Putin ‘aspired’ to help Trump win,” the Ratcliffe report concluded. [..] The new admissions by U.S. intelligence last week aren’t the only ones undercutting entries in the Times’ and Post’s award-winning submissions. Just the News reported in April that newly released FBI interviews with former National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers, a Navy admiral, show that the former spy chief directly refuted a Post article submitted in the Pulitzer-winning package that claimed Trump had “asked intelligence chiefs to push back against the FBI collusion probe” after former FBI Director James Comey “revealed its existence.” Rogers called the article’s assertions “wrong.”
“The interviewing team read to Rogers a quote from a media source that stated ‘President Trump urged [Rogers] to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election’ and ADM Rogers responded that the media characterization was wrong, and the President had asked about the existence of SIGINT [signals intelligence] evidence only,” the FBI report quoted Rogers as saying. Former Special Prosecutor John Durham concluded there was never any evidence that Trump colluded with Russia or Putin to hijack the 2016 election, and that the FBI engaged in significant wrongdoing in pursuing the case, including falsifying evidence and misleading the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to get permission to spy on Trump advisers.
Despite Durham’s findings and the newly released FBI and intelligence documents, the Pulitzer Prize Board has stood by the Times’ and Post’s reporting and its decision to honor them as examples of journalistic excellence. In 2022, it issued a statement saying two separate reviews found no problems with the winning articles. “Both reviews were conducted by individuals with no connection to the institutions whose work was under examination, nor any connection to each other,” the Pulitzer Board stated. “The separate reviews converged in their conclusions: that no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes. The 2018 Pulitzer Prizes in National Reporting stand.”
“Can Russia beat Europe in modern warfare? Well, turn off the electricity, turn off the internet and see what happens to social society in Prague, Rome or any region in Europe when the sirens start.”
• When the Drones are Coming, They Turn Off the Internet (CTH)
Some thoughts on what I would call ‘modern warfare’ for citizen preppers. Some of this experience may pertain to urban areas, some perhaps pertinent overall. Dimitri’s wife is grabbing her purse to go to the grocery store, when he casually says “it’s 5:45.” She just as ordinarily replies, “I’ve got cash.” Dimitri sees the slightly puzzled look on my face and flippantly notes, “they turn off the internet at six thirty now,” shrugs, and goes back to reading his paper. Perhaps similar to London life during the blitz. Various municipal govts coordinated the shut down of lights and people wait. Others got about doing what they needed to do, sirens notwithstanding. There is a familiar life amid modern drone warfare, and with the similar control of electricity comes the need to add internet. When the drones are coming they turn off the internet.
As I contemplate the contrasts in social resilience, my most familiar reference point is life after a hurricane. In Florida when we are dealing with the aftermath of a hurricane, no power, no water, no internet, etc., you adapt to life without modern technological conveniences. If you’ve ever lived amid the aftermath of natural disasters, you understand the need for a plan and quick adaptation. Do it a few times and adaption becomes ordinary. Horrible in ways, yes; awkward, certainly. But you take things in stride; overcome, figure out the optimal solution and keep moving. However, not everyone is prepared to consider a disruption an ‘inconvenience’ and many people who need consistency to retain stability end up in panic. I think long term readers well understand the reference. As Dimitri goes back to the paper my mind shifts to stuff I’ve heard in bits and pieces but never given context before.
I think about this U.S. ‘Space Force’ thing, and now realize there are people who have gamed out modern warfare more than we discuss as a western technological society. My mind also thinks about those reports I read a few years ago about various western govt offices concerned about the ability of Russia to target U.S. satellites. Suddenly I realize cell phone and telecommunication is not their concern. There’s no internet; the problem is bigger than a temporary outage of Uber. I wonder how the commercial air traffic between Kazan, Moscow and St Petersburg is not disrupted. Old school stuff applies. Meanwhile, the kids, lots of them are playing outside as kids do – apparently life amid modern drone warfare is resilient. No one is staring at the sky.
It is very odd to see how quickly a non-technology driven society can adapt to no electricity and no internet as an ordinary part of daily life. An entire nation just figures out the optimal solution, in part because their time between analog and digital has been short. Russians have a totally different context of dependency. I’m also starting to realize how the flexibility within a non-technological society is an asset in modern warfare. Turn off the internet in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or any major metropolitan area – how would life be impacted? I can only imagine the reactions from a generation who has never known life without wi-fi. It would be a very good intellectual exercise to think carefully about what your life would be like without cell phone coverage or internet services. There are more than a few people who have never learned to read a clock with hands.
In Russia when the drones are coming they turn off the internet and sometimes the electricity. Stores stay open; people do the ordinary things people do, the trains still run, the busses stay on schedule and you can still get a hot coffee and a sandwich just about anywhere, albeit sans Starbucks. Private taxis, Uber equivalents, switch seamlessly to line up at pick-up points without issue. Try to duplicate that rapid on/off precision in Boston, Miami or St Louis… see my point? Then extend those thoughts to Paris, Frankfurt, Warsaw or Helsinki. Dimitri is thinking about ordering a pizza, while I’m starting to realize why NATO countries are going bananas. Can Russia beat Europe in modern warfare? Well, turn off the electricity, turn off the internet and see what happens to social society in Prague, Rome or any region in Europe when the sirens start. Yeah, NATO is going bananas as Putin’s best non-discussed weapon just looms quietly.
Putin’s strongest weapon is essentially a social infrastructure akin to a nation full of people who can live in the aftermath of a hurricane without needing a digital screen to provide directions to the next six hours of their life. Again, somewhere, in some office complex deep in the bowels of some agency or bureaucracy, someone has ran models of this and yet I cannot find a reference anywhere to ordinary people talking about it. In the glovebox of every taxi in Russia you will find a paper map; when was the last time you saw one in the USA? When the drones come, they always turn off the internet and sometimes the electricity. How would we deal with that… Think about it.
I NEED SOMEONE TO LOOK INTO WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS.
And…
WHEN WAS THE LAST CLOUD SEEDING?
~ Doc pic.twitter.com/ZFjtweIlSb
— Doc Pete Chambers (@DocPeteChambers) July 5, 2025
Never
— CowboyFL (@CowboyFL2) July 5, 2025
Renz
"Every childhood vaccine is going to be mRNA."
"It's going to alter their genetics." 😳 pic.twitter.com/NfVZM165B5
— Red Pill Dispenser (@redpilldispensr) July 6, 2025
dog
The Central Asian Shepherd Dog, also known as the Alabay, is a livestock guardian dog and one of the largest dog breeds in the world.
This one weighs 85 kg.pic.twitter.com/Mk8shwgc4v
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) July 6, 2025
Angels
Angels climbing the stairway to Heaven on the West front of Bath Abbey in Somerset, England, circa 1521 pic.twitter.com/qrUZ2HDB7M
— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) July 6, 2025
Henry
Henry the croc is 125 years old,
the oldest in the World
pic.twitter.com/yJAg8mErpt— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) July 6, 2025
https://twitter.com/TheFigen_/status/1941920348775010790
Incredible harmony 👏👇 pic.twitter.com/qvFJ6bz413
— Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) July 6, 2025
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