Trump Archives - The Automatic Earth

“Fascism, Nazism, Communism, and Socialism are only superficial variations of the same Monstrous theme: Collectivism.” -Ayn Rand
🔥🔥🔥🎯🔥🔥🔥

Ayn Rand was right when she wrote these words, and she is still right now.

“Fascism, Nazism, Communism and Socialism are only… pic.twitter.com/O5r0Dqwo1V
— Toni (@ToniLL22) July 9, 2026

🚨 HOLY SMOKES. KAROLINE LEAVITT UNLEASHED!

"REPORTER": The ICE agent k*lled her recklessly and unjustifiably!

LEAVITT: "You're a left-wing HACK, you're not a REPORTER!" 🔥

"You shouldn't even be sitting in that SEAT! You're pretending like you're a journalist, but you're a… pic.twitter.com/dcTnYKl0u2
— War Correspondent (@warDaniel47) July 9, 2026

Joe Rogan: "You say that China has 10 years to go…"

Guest: "At most."

Joe Rogan: "What do you mean by that?" pic.twitter.com/SNrGLbNWvk
— Joe Rogan Podcast News (@joeroganhq) July 10, 2026

A rich tapestry today, if I say so myself.

• Trump Agrees To Renewed ‘Talks’ With Iran, but Says Ceasefire Still ‘Over’ (JTN)

President Donald Trump on Friday announced that Iran had sought to resume peace talks with the United States and that he had agreed to do so, but would not halt combat operations in the interim. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has asked us to continue ‘talks.’ We have agreed to do so, but the United States has stated to them, in no uncertain terms, that the Cease Fire is OVER! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” he posted on Truth Social.

Trump renewed strikes on Iran this week, declaring the ceasefire over and asserting that the Iranians had not negotiated in good faith. Last month, the U.S. and Iran signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was meant to extend the ceasefire for 60 days. The war began in February, but was in a state of nominal ceasefire for months, despite intermittent flare ups. Active hostilities resumed on both sides this week.

“I’ve been No. 1 [on Iran’s kill list] for a long time, and it’s the way life is, you know.”Then Trump quipped, “I hope you’ll miss me.”

“That’s the way they act, and that’s the way they’ve done it for 47 years..”

• Trump Reveals His Plan for If Iran Succeeds in Assassinating Him (Margolis)

President Donald Trump knows that Iran wants to see him dead. And if by chance it succeeds, he has plans in place for what should happen next. In an exclusive interview that The New York Post published Friday, Trump revealed he has left standing orders for the U.S. military to respond to his assassination with overwhelming, unprecedented force. “I’ve been on their list for a long time. That’s what we’re dealing with,” Trump told The Post. “The only thing is, I’ve left instructions — if anything happens, to just literally bomb them at levels that they’ve never seen before.” No big deal, just the president calmly laying out his own contingency plan for revenge from beyond the grave.

Asked about reports that Israel recently flagged fresh intelligence on a plot to kill him, Trump waved it off as nothing new. Iran has wanted him dead since 2020, when he ordered the strike that killed Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, and nothing about that has changed. “No, no. Israel came up with nothing. No, no,” he said. “I’ve been No. 1 [on Iran’s kill list] for a long time, and it’s the way life is, you know.”Then Trump quipped, “I hope you’ll miss me.” What a very Trump thing to say, don’t you think?
As you know, authorities have foiled multiple assassination plots against Trump since the nearly successful attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13, 2024, including the most recent one at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting back in April. So this isn’t a one-time scare. It’s an ongoing campaign.
Iran hasn’t exactly hidden its intentions lately, either. Demonstrators at the funeral for Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei this week unfurled banners openly calling for Trump’s killing. One eulogist told mourners, per Iranian media, “Why shouldn’t we kill the one who killed my imam and my leader? … Trump’s killing is our duty… Why is the most despicable man in the world still alive?” That message came at the funeral of Iran’s own supreme leader, broadcast for the world to see.
Meanwhile, Trump called off the US-Iran cease-fire and their nascent memorandum of understanding after Iran fired on three ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday and Tuesday. nIn response, the president removed the US waiver on Iranian oil sanctions and launched nearly 200 strikes across Iran on Tuesday and Wednesday. Trump’s frustration with the Iranians was on full display at the NATO summit in Ankara this week, calling them “evil” for unleashing attacks in the strait despite the cease-fire and an additional promise to ramp down tensions as they buried slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Despite his efforts to make a deal with Iran, Trump openly talked in Turkey that Iran was still out to kill him. “They had leaders, they’re gone. Then they had another set of leaders, they’re gone. Now they have another set of leaders — they may be gone, who knows?” Trump said at the summit. “And you know what? I may be gone too. Because I’m their No. 1 target — it’s out all over the place. Because they’re scum.” He made clear the pattern isn’t new. “That’s the way they act, and that’s the way they’ve done it for 47 years,” Trump added.

“If he doesn’t, it’s still law,” Johnson said last week of the president’s refusal to sign.”

• Trump Won’t Sign Landmark Housing Bill In Protest Over Stalled SAVE Act ZH)

President Donald Trump declared Friday morning that he won’t sign the sweeping bipartisan housing bill awaiting action on his desk in protest of the Senate’s failure to pass his signature elections legislation. Unless the president issues an outright veto by midnight, however, the housing package will become law Saturday without his signature.In a Friday morning Truth Social post, Trump said he was withholding his signature “in PROTEST” over the Senate’s inability to pass the SAVE America Act, a comprehensive elections overhaul that would require photo identification to vote and proof of citizenship to register, and would bar most mail-in balloting, with exceptions for military service, disability, illness and travel.

The president asserted that the elections bill is “polling at 97% with the Republican Party” – a figure he offered without citing a source – and called its failure “a serious threat to any politician who votes against it.” He renewed his demand that Senate Republicans “TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER,” warning that Democrats would abolish the 60-vote rule “in their very first hour” back in power. Rendering “Democrats” throughout with a derisive misspelling, Trump added that the “title of DUMB” would revert to Republicans if the party allowed the stalemate to stand.
A Deadline, Not A Veto This is of course performative unless Trump actually vetoes it. Under the Constitution, a bill becomes law automatically if the president neither signs nor vetoes it within 10 days, excluding Sundays, while Congress is in session. That clock on the housing measure – the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act – runs out at the end of Friday. Because Congress has remained formally in session through the window, the “pocket veto” that would let the bill die quietly is widely viewed as unavailable. That leaves Trump two choices: veto the legislation outright, or let it lapse into law. His post on Friday, notably, promised only not to sign it.
A veto would face long odds. The Senate approved the package 85-5 on June 22, and the House passed it 358-32 – margins far beyond the two-thirds needed in each chamber to override. Congressional observers caution, though, that override votes can scramble such numbers, as some members retreat rather than be seen defying the president. Lawmakers overrode a Trump veto of a defense bill once before, in the final weeks of his first term. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., a close Trump ally, has already conceded the likely endgame. “If he doesn’t, it’s still law,” Johnson said last week of the president’s refusal to sign.

”Viktor Medvedchuk says the uncovering of the schemes “would have spelt a disaster for the Kiev regime ahead of the NATO summit”

• Kiev Behind Monaco Attack Over Tycoon’s Plan To Expose Corruption (TASS)

Last week’s bombing attack in Monaco was carried out by Vladimir Zelensky’s special services as Ukrainian oligarch Vadim Yermolayev was planning to expose Kiev’s corruption schemes, Viktor Medvedchuk, head of the Different Ukraine movement and former leader of the banned Opposition Platform – For Life party, told TASS. “Western media immediately saw the link between the attack on businessmen Yermolayev and the regime of Zelensky, who sought to keep him quiet. Yermolayev was planning to address the European Parliament and explose corruption schemes in Ukraine, a scenario that would have spelt a disaster for the Kiev regime ahead of the NATO summit,” the politician explained.

Namely, active officers of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) have been implicated in the attack, Medvedchuk said. “The detained suspects in the murder of Anastasia Berezovskaya, 39, the individual wanted by Interpol for the attempted assassination of businessman Vadim Yermolayev in Monaco, are Ukrainian security officers,” he said. One of them, according to Medvedchuk, is Vladislav Reut, 33, a native of Zhitomir, who has served with Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR). And the other detainee is Vitaly Zhikovich, 49, from Uman, who served for Kiev Region police until 2020. “We are talking about a special operation carried out by [Ukrainian] security officers and orchestrated by the criminal regime of Zelensky,” Medvedchuk stressed.
On June 29, an explosion occurred in the entrance of an apartment building in Monaco. According to BFMTV, one of the three injured was Yermolayev, a citizen of Cyprus, whom the media included on the list of the wealthiest Ukrainian businessmen. It was reported that he owned a network of fraudulent call centers in Ukraine. Yermolayev renounced his Ukrainian citizenship in 2019. In 2023, Kiev imposed sanctions against him.

“Reaching a truce with Russia will prompt “all” Ukrainian men to flee the country, while the West will forget Kiev, the head of corruption scandal-plagued firm Fire Point has claimed..”

• Ceasefire Worst-Case Scenario For Ukraine – Zelensky’s Favorite Arms Maker (RT)

A ceasefire with Russia would be the “worst-case scenario” for Ukraine, threatening the country’s statehood, the head of Vladimir Zelensky’s favorite arms manufacturer, Fire Point, has said. Denis Shtilerman made the remarks in an interview with Ukrainian outlet LIGAnet published on Wednesday. The company, which has recently been embroiled in a number of corruption scandals, stands to profit from the conflict. Shtilerman argued that the fighting should continue regardless, insisting that a truce with Russia would leave Ukraine in an even worse position.

He also questioned whether Kiev’s Western backers would honor any security commitments made as part of a ceasefire. “Look, if a truce is reached, it would – most regrettably – be the worst-case scenario for our state. We must remember how the US and other countries treat their obligations,” Shtilerman said. “I am talking about international agreements in which they guarantee the territorial integrity and independence of other states. And what do we see? Nothing.” Shtilerman also said Kiev would be abandoned and forgotten by its backers if a ceasefire is reached – echoing Russian officials who have warned that Ukraine is only useful for the West as a tool against Russia.
“If there is any kind of truce, we will be forgotten very quickly. There will be no investment appeal – there will be no money here. The borders will open, and all the men will leave. After that, the Russians will come in and seize the country,” Shtilerman said. Fire Point, which originally operated as a film scouting agency owned by Zelensky’s associates, has emerged as a ‘miracle’ player in Ukraine’s defense sector, producing an array of long-range drones and missiles used to strike deep into Russia. The company has been actively promoted by the Ukrainian leader during his regular overseas trips and has reportedly secured contracts worth up to $1 billion in a matter of months.
The image of the company has been damaged by the corruption scandal related to Zelensky’s inner circle and his former close associate Timur Mindich, the central figure in an alleged $100 million corruption scheme in the energy sector. Surveillance recordings recently published in Ukrainian media suggest Mindich effectively controlled Fire Point while enjoying preferential treatment from then-Defense Minister Rustem Umerov.

“If bloc members continue to ramp up their spending, they will eat themselves from the inside, and Russia won’t have to lift a finger ..”

• NATO Is Spending Itself Into Oblivion (Scott Ritter)

On the eve of this week’s NATO summit in Ankara, Türkiye, the bloc released a report titled ‘Defense Expenditure of NATO Countries (2014-2025)’. On the surface, the report shows a staggering increase in the level of defense spending by several NATO members over the course of the previous decade, with Lithuania leading the way with an increase of some 777%. In aggregate, NATO members, in seeking to meet the 2% GDP threshold for defense spending set by the US a decade ago, has seen a $1.364 trillion increase in the money invested in the militaries of the respective members over the past decade. That’s a lot of money.

Two questions emerge from this data: First (and foremost), has this increase led to any qualitative or quantitative advantage on the part of NATO over Russia? And second, can NATO members sustain this kind of growth in defense expenditures over the course of the next decade? It must be understood that the NATO of 2014 was very much an empty shell when it came to meaningful projection of military power. Over-reliant upon the US for its core defense needs since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO had become a shadow of its former self, a far cry from the cutting-edge military organization that had been built up in the decade of the 1980s.
The reality is that despite the massive increase in defense spending, NATO’s military capabilities were not advanced in any meaningful fashion over the course of the past decade. This has become evident as NATO has, in the past few years, discussed the potential of deploying military forces on Ukrainian soil as part of any peacekeeping arrangement, should the Russia-Ukraine conflict reach a negotiated conclusion. It became obvious that the ‘big three’ European powers (France, the UK, and Germany) lacked any meaningful ability to project sustainable military power of any appreciable strength into Ukraine. This remains the assessment today.
Most of NATO defense expenditure has been in the form of sustaining an aging, decrepit system out of touch with the reality of modern conflict. And to the degree modernization has taken place, it has simply replaced an aging equipment set within a legacy system tied down in Cold War-era doctrine with a newer equipment set still hamstrung by tactics and operational theory ill-suited for the modern battlefield. Germany’s ill-fated decision to create a one-off fund of €100 billion ($114 billion) in 2022 to help revive a flagging Bundeswehr stands as a case in point regarding the efficacy of much of NATO’s defense spending over the course of the past decade – by 2025 the fund had run out, with little or nothing to show for it.
Russia. Ukraine has fielded the most capable non-Russian military in Europe today, and its forces are being bled white in the kind of war of attrition NATO forces could never survive. In short, the $1.34 trillion that NATO has spent in increased defense expenditures since 2014 has left the bloc treading water. NATO’s task is to build and sustain a modern military capable of fighting a modern enemy, such as Russia.
In this, NATO has failed. The next question is can NATO spend its way out of its current predicament? On paper, the answer is a heavily caveated ‘yes’. Anything is possible, in theory, if one is willing to throw enough money at the problem. But NATO’s problems are systemic in nature and tied to events it is not in control of. NATO has found itself engaged in a proxy war with Russia that compels it to divert valuable military resources – fiscal and material – to Ukraine, which has become a giant furnace which consumes all that is fed into it without advancing the problem favorably vis-à-vis Russia.
But money doesn’t grow on trees, and at the end of the day the NATO appetite for war will far outstrip the ability of its constituent membership to pay the bill. Military industrial capacity is lacking across the board, and the costs associated with fixing this deficit are prohibitively high. So, too, are the costs associated with the kind of massive military expansions being considered by nations such as Germany, which seeks to triple the size of its armed forces by 2029.
Even if the money were available for such an endeavor, the public appetite for supporting and sustaining this kind of expanded military infrastructure is lacking. The more Germany – and by extension, Western Europe – pours into defense, the more alienated society becomes, creating domestic political problems for those seeking massive increases in defense spending. In short, NATO is spending itself into oblivion.
While Russia cannot afford to remain stagnant in the face of increased NATO defense expenditures, especially when such increases are tied to increasingly bellicose statements about the potential for war between Russia and NATO in the coming years, the fact is the NATO defense expenditure phenomenon is a self-containing problem, meaning the bloc’s ability to continue defense expenditures at the present rate of growth will more than likely lead to the political and economic collapse of the individuals and political parties which currently advocate in support of such policies. All Russia really needs to do is keep the Ukrainian furnace burning, and NATO will consume itself.

“Moscow’s goodwill toward Western-backed negotiations has been exhausted, the foreign minister says..”

• Russia No Longer Believes West Wants Ukraine Peace Talks – Lavrov (RT)

Moscow no longer believes the West is genuinely interested in negotiating an end to the Ukraine conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. Speaking at a news conference with Mozambican Foreign Minister Maria Manuela Lucas in Maputo, Lavrov accused the West of “imitating a willingness to negotiate while openly issuing ultimatums to Russia.” He argued that although the West has been calling for talks, it has spent more than a decade undermining every attempt to reach a peaceful resolution between Russia and Ukraine.

“In 2022, Russia and Ukraine had already reached a negotiated settlement. It was undermined by the very same West, openly and publicly,” Lavrov said. “We will no longer believe the West when it claims to want negotiated solutions. Our reserve of goodwill and hope has been exhausted once and for all.” Russia insists that the conflict has its roots in the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev and subsequent attempts by the new Ukrainian government to suppress the rebellion in Donbass by force. Ukraine later failed to implement the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements, which were intended to reintegrate the breakaway regions into Ukraine by granting them broad autonomy through comprehensive political reform.
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande, who mediated the Minsk talks in Belarus alongside Russia, later said that Kiev used the Minsk agreements to buy time to rebuild its military and economy. Lavrov argued that their remarks show the guarantees provided by France and Germany were “false.” According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, during peace talks in Istanbul in 2022, Ukrainian negotiators initially agreed to drop plans to join NATO in favor of neutrality and to limit the country’s armed forces, but later walked away from the negotiations under pressure from then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
While Johnson denied that he sabotaged the talks, he acknowledged in a 2024 interview with the Wall Street Journal that he had “thought that any deal with Putin was going to be pretty sordid.” Former US Undersecretary of state Victoria Nuland similarly said in 2024 that Washington advised Ukraine to not agree to Russia’s terms in Istanbul. US-mediated negotiations have also stalled in recent months as President Donald Trump has focused on the war with Iran. Russia has said it is ready to resume the talks at any time, provided that they are focused on addressing the “root causes” of the conflict, including Ukraine’s plans to join NATO.

“Escalation against Russia does not guarantee a peaceful resolution, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis has warned..”

• ‘We Are Not At War’ – Czech PM Questions Bloc’s Ukraine Strategy (RT)

The Czech Republic remains skeptical about NATO’s strategy of continued military support for Ukraine, to which it does not contribute financially, Prime Minister Andrej Babis said as he left the bloc leaders’ summit in Ankara, Türkiye on Wednesday. Babis’ party won last year’s election on a nationalist platform that included reversing the Ukraine aid policy championed by his predecessor, Petr Fiala, and urging a diplomatic resolution of the conflict with Russia instead. The declaration approved by NATO leaders in Ankara this week highlighted a pledge of €70 billion ($80 billion) in military equipment, assistance and training for Ukraine in 2026, with a similar amount expected the following year.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis speaks to press ahead of a NATO summit in Ankara. July 8

The money is not a new package, but rather past commitments, including the European Union’s “loan” approved in April. The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia opted out of the mechanism.”We are not at war. Ukraine is at war,” Babis told reporters on Wednesday, when asked whether NATO’s increasing spending would pressure Moscow to negotiate, adding, “I don’t know, time will tell.” The prime minister said discussions during the summit focused on weapons rather than peace.Babis said the Czech Republic intended to reach the required NATO level of 2% of GDP level for military spending next year, but also needed money for healthcare, raising police salaries, and other domestic priorities.

Kremlin calls US backing of Ukrainian escalation delusional
Ukraine is seeking additional Western funding to ramp up long-range kamikaze drone attacks on Russian oil refineries, tankers and other targets. During a US-Ukrainian meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed the escalation “creates the space to negotiate the end of this war,” with President Donald Trump endorsing his reasoning. Commenting on the American remarks on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the US leadership was basing its policy on “delusions that escalation and military pressure leads to a peaceful settlement track.” The a proach may prolong hostilities, but would also prompt Russia to “create a bigger buffer zone” with Ukraine, he warned.
Czech coalition strained by aid payment
The aid issue caused tensions in the Czech ruling coalition just before the summit, after Foreign Minister Petr Macinka announced the transfer of an unspecified sum to PURL, a NATO fund through which European members pay for American weapons intended for Kiev. Parliament speaker Tomio Okamura, a vocal critic of Ukraine, blasted the move for going against the coalition agreement, but Babis sided with Macinka, saying the money had been allocated by the Fiala government and could not be returned to the budget. The prime minister said the one-off small contribution to purchase interceptor drones was preferable to a direct transfer to the Ukrainian government.

“The private-equity takeover of the Pentagon..”

• The Men Who Own the War Now Run It (Antiwar)

There was a time when the arms dealer waited in the corridor. He financed the campaign, endowed the think tank, took the general to dinner, and hoped the man inside the office would remember him when the contract came up. The wall between the money and the decision was thin, often corrupt, but it was there. Someone held the public trust, and someone else tried to buy it, and you could at least tell the two apart. That wall is gone. The financier no longer waits in the corridor. He holds the office. He signs the checks. He is the buyer and the seller, the regulator and the regulated, the public interest and the private portfolio, fused into a single man in a single suit, and the arrangement is entirely legal, which is the whole problem.

One of these men may already be familiar from a previous article. His name is Friedrich Merz.
The chancellor was the warm-up act
From 2016 to 2020, Merz chaired the supervisory board of BlackRock’s German arm, the local office of the largest pool of private capital on earth – a fact confirmed, without embarrassment, by his own party’s foundation. Then he climbed back into politics, and in March 2025, as chancellor-in-waiting, he drove through the outgoing Bundestag — deliberately before the newly elected parliament could convene – the constitutional amendment that exempted defense spending from Germany’s debt brake. The borrowing limit Germans had treated as sacred since 2009 was gone. German military spending rose 24 percent in a single year to $114 billion, the largest in NATO Europe, and BlackRock held stakes in the very contractors – Rheinmetall, Hensoldt – that the money would flow toward.
He broke no law. He simply spent four years learning, from the inside, how the machinery paid out, and then went and pulled the lever. The arrangement was a particular kind that no scandal quite captures, because nothing in it is hidden. It sits in plain view, in regulatory filings and procurement requests, and it works precisely because everyone involved can say, truthfully, that they broke no rule. It reads as a German problem only until you cross the Atlantic. There the same face turns up in an American suit, several of them, installed not adjacent to the war machine but at its controls.
The banker who became the Navy
Consider John Phelan, who until March 2025 had no connection to the military beyond a seat on a charity board. His career was money: he co-founded MSD Capital, the private investment firm that managed the personal fortune of Michael Dell, and later founded his own firm, Rugger Management. He gave Trump’s joint fundraising committee $834,600 in April 2024. Months later he was nominated to run the United States Navy, and in March he was confirmed, handed a $263.5 billion budget and command of nearly a million sailors and Marines.
Before his confirmation, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote to him about the obvious. He had recently earned over $5 million in capital gains from Palantir, a defense-software contractor that took in $541 million from the Pentagon in fiscal 2024 alone, and whose relationships Phelan’s own acquisition vehicle had once advertised. She asked him to divest his defense holdings and to recuse himself, for four years, from matters touching his former clients and employers, noting that a dozen Biden appointees had voluntarily gone beyond what the ethics laws required. Phelan declined to make the stronger commitment. He was confirmed anyway, 62 to 30, with eleven Democrats joining every Republican in the room.
The man overseeing the Navy’s shipbuilding budget was, weeks earlier, a private investor with money in the companies the Navy buys from. Nobody hid it. It was printed in his disclosures and read aloud at his hearing, and it changed nothing.
The private-equity takeover of the Pentagon
Phelan is the modest case. The full expression of the thing sits one floor up, in the office of the deputy secretary of defense, where Stephen Feinberg runs the day-to-day of the entire department. Feinberg co-founded Cerberus Capital Management and led it for thirty-three years; in his own sworn testimony to the Senate he put the firm’s portfolio at over $65 billion. He was a major Trump donor, and by the time he was confirmed in March 2025 he was, at a listed minimum net worth of $2 billion, the wealthiest official in the administration. What he has built since is not influence over the Pentagon. It is ownership of its investment arm.
Feinberg has surrounded himself with a circle of advisers drawn from his old firm. The group includes former Cerberus managing director John Gallagher and a deal team led by Cerberus alumnus George Kollitides – who was, until 2015, chairman and chief executive of Remington, the gunmaker Cerberus owned. Industry executives nicknamed the squad “Deal Team Six,” a joke on the SEAL unit that killed bin Laden, and Kollitides told a Milken Institute audience he found the name both fun and fitting while explaining that economic warfare has been a part of all successful nations for thousands of years. A Stanford professor watching this described it plainly: private equity has just acquired its largest organization.
The organization it acquired writes checks the size of nations. Under Feinberg, the Pentagon stopped merely buying weapons and began buying companies. It took a $400 million preferred-equity stake in the rare-earth miner MP Materials, enough to make the United States government the firm’s largest single shareholder at roughly 15 percent – ahead, as it happens, of BlackRock. It put $1 billion into an L3Harris rocket-motor unit slated to go public in 2026. Stakes in Trilogy Metals, Vulcan Elements, and ReElement Technologies followed, a portfolio that a group of House members warned was locking federal policy to the fortunes of individual firms – picking winners, and by definition creating losers.

“.. some European officials are questioning why they were even invited, as they don’t see left-wing terrorism as a threat to their countries..”

• A Rubio Summit That Saves the World? (Sarah Anderson)

I didn’t receive an invitation and most of you probably didn’t either, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invited the foreign ministers and other senior officials from over 60 countries to Washington, D.C. next week for a summit. The goal? To combat the “resurgence of transnational far-left terrorism,” according to Washington Post reporters who say they saw documents related to the matter. The documents make it “clear that the focus is on ‘far-left terrorists,’ who, the note says, are ‘increasingly turning to organized, deadly violence to advance their political objectives.'” As the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) reports, “In recent years, the United States has seen an increase in the number of left-wing terrorism attacks and plots.” In 2025, far-left terrorist attacks outnumbered those from the far-right. Here’s more:

More contentious politics in the United States and the expansion of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement appear to have reenergized violent left-wing extremists. The left-wing movement as a whole has not returned to its violent heights of the 1960s and 1970s, but the number of terrorist incidents involving left-wing extremists so far this year puts 2025 on pace to be the left’s most violent year in more than three decades. Moreover, 2025 marks the first time in more than 30 years that left-wing attacks outnumber those from the far right.
Unlike the highly structured far-left groups of the past, modern far-left and anarchist extremism relies heavily on decentralized, cross-border networking that is often organized online. Both U.S. and European intelligence agencies have pointed to growing coordination between decentralized Antifa and Antifa-like networks and European autonomous groups, especially surrounding major global events. This often leads to riots, arson, attacks on law enforcement, attacks on infrastructure and symbols of capitalism, and destruction of public and private property. News of the summit comes after the Trump administration released its counterterrorism strategy in May of this year.
While the strategy prioritizes hemispheric threats, like cartels, gangs, and other designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations that operate in the Americas, as well as Islamic terrorist groups, our national counterterrorism activities will also “prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist. We will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home, identify their membership, map their ties to international organizations like Antifa, and use law enforcement tools to cripple them operationally before they can maim or kill the innocent. We will do the same with the state sponsors of such groups and those governments undertaking lethal plots on U.S. soil or against Americans anywhere.”
But it sounds like we’re not stopping here at home. This ministerial Rubio is hosting will help strengthen cooperation in intelligence-sharing and law enforcement between nations that want to eradicate crime. The countries included in the invitations were most of Europe, some of Asia, and many nations from the Western Hemisphere.
Of course, as with anything the Trump administration does, there is some blowback. According to the Washington Post, some European officials are questioning why they were even invited, as they don’t see left-wing terrorism as a threat to their countries. Domestically, there is some concern that expanding counterterrorism activities against these groups could create a slippery slope for dealing with political activists, as well as create an opportunity for the next Democrat who becomes president to go after conservatives, even though the Trump administration’s strategy specifically states, “our counterterrorism powers will not be used to target our fellow Americans who simply disagree with us.”
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said that far-left terrorism is “an old threat re-emerging with strong transnational links and new convergences,” according to the Post. He added, “Because this threat has not been adequately addressed in the past, each engagement, designation, or security assistance program creates a compounding effect supporting countermeasures at home and abroad.” Now, Trump and Rubio are attempting to adequately address it.
Does this sound ambitions? Yes. Is it necessary? Also, yes. It’s about time someone treats left-wing extremism and chaos as the transnational threat that it is. And if Rubio and Donald Trump’s Shield of the Americas summit in March was any indicator, this won’t be just some boring diplomatic meeting that’s all talk and no action. We’ve seen the Shield in action several times in just a few short months. It will be interesting to see exactly who shows up to this summit next week.

“.. repeatedly raping a 10-year-old girl: “a cultural thing.” “It’s a Constitutional Thing”

Thanks Marco. Screw you, Walz.

• Rubio Deports Convicted Rapist Protected by Walz (Turley)

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has failed in his extraordinary effort to protect a Laotian rapist from deportation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has confirmed that he revoked Tue Lue Vang’s legal status and removed him from the United States. After repeatedly raping a 10-year-old girl between 2002 and 2004, Vang insisted it was “a cultural thing.” Well, this is a “constitutional thing” that the Secretary of State, not the Governor of Minnesota, determines who may remain in the United States after such a serious offense.

He was convicted in 2006 of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. A Department of Justice (DOJ) Immigration Judge issued Vang a final order of removal on October 31, 2006 after his conviction. Minnesota’s Board of Pardons, composed of Walz, state Attorney General Keith Ellison, and state Chief Justice Natalie Hudson, granted his clemency. (They noted that the victim wrote a letter on his behalf.) They also pardoned another Laotian criminal illegal alien — a convicted armed robber — before he could be deported. At the time, Walz wrongly referred to Vang as a “citizen”:
“I can find no reason how Minnesota will be safer or better if Mr. Vang is deported to a country he has not been to since he was a child.I do not see how it would serve his family, nor the economic interest where we have a taxpaying citizen who is creating job growth and living a life free from any criminal activity. Rubio told Fox News: “Just weeks ago, a foreign child rapist was freed to once again endanger America’s children after receiving a pardon from Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Tue Lue Vang admitted to committing heinous crimes against a 10-year-old girl in Minnesota. He attempted to pay his victim for her silence and dismissed his acts of child abuse as a ‘minor thing.’
Just days before he was scheduled to be deported, the Minnesota Governor pardoned him, setting him free to endanger American families once again.” He added, “Americans should never have to live in fear that foreign sex predators — shielded from deportation by their own elected officials — could endanger them or their children.” Vang was convicted in 2006 of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. He repeatedly raped the girl between 2002 and 2004, and told authorities after he was arrested that “it is a cultural thing…to marry and have sex with girls as young as 12.” Rubio told Fox News Digital, “Americans should never have to live in fear that foreign sex predators — shielded from deportation by their own elected officials — could endanger them or their children.”
Vang’s use of Laotian culture was notable for some of us who have spoken or written about “the cultural defense.” I have long drawn the line in the use of the cultural defense on such violent acts. However, troubling outliers remain in the cases. In January 1985, Japanese immigrant Fumiko Kimura tried to commit oyako-shinju (or parent-child suicide) after learning of her husband’s infidelity. She walked her infant daughter and 4-year-old son in the frigid ocean off Santa Monica. The children drowned, but she was rescued. While she had lived in the United States for some 14 years, she claimed the cultural defense (even though oyako-shinju is illegal in Japan). She was successful.
Kimura received just one year in jail and five years’ probation. She then reunited with her husband. There have been several cases involving “marriage by capture.” We have had some cases related to the custom of zij poj niam, particularly in relation to the Hmong culture, where a man abducts a woman he intends to marry and takes her to his family home. The woman is expected to resist as a sign of her virtue. In a prior case, Kong Moua, a Hmong tribesman, drove to the Fresno City College campus and kidnapped a young woman from her job in the student finance office. She took her to his cousin’s house, but the Hmong woman did not believe in the cultural practice and called police.
Charged with rape and kidnapping, the defense successfully claimed the cultural defense. It secured a lesser charge of false imprisonment, and then the judge sentenced Kong Moua to just 120 days in jail and fined him $1,000, with only $900 of that going to the victim as reparations. It is unclear whether Vang was making such a claim, but most judges would reject it. The effort by Walz to keep him in the United States was equally dubious as a constitutional matter.

“How did a popular American writer of the 1940s come up with a novel that accurately portrayed the activities and historical role of Elon Musk as a pioneer in the exploitation of space?”

• Elon Foretold – The Man Who Sold the Moon (J.R. Dunn)

Nobody in the 1850s ever wrote a novel about a man who changes society by figuring out how to mass-produce horseless carriages. Similarly, nobody a century later wrote the story of the man who turns the world upside down by building miniature electronic brains in his garage. So how did a popular American writer of the 1940s come up with a novel that accurately portrayed the activities and historical role of Elon Musk as a pioneer in the exploitation of space? That man was Robert A. Heinlein, and his book, published in 1950, was titled The Man Who Sold the Moon.

Sci-fi has largely been a despised and dismissed genre, with some reason. It started out as pure pulp (at least in this country; in the UK, largely thanks to H.G. Wells, it was a serious and respected genre, with most writers producing a sci-fi novel at one time or another). The prose in U.S. sci-fi was subliterate. Characterization was nonexistent, consisting of types – the eccentric scientist, the stalwart space skipper, the evil space pirate, etc. Plots were minimal at best. The writers were either nerds or hacks. The editors were bottom of the barrel, and the readers didn’t care. (They still don’t.) The genre needed a serious shake-up, and at the beginning of the 1940s, that’s just what it got.
Robert A. Heinlein was a former naval officer, ex-mine owner, and ex-political operative forced into writing by illness. He was the farthest thing in the world from a hack. Internationally traveled, vastly erudite in a number of fields, and widely read, Heinlein was well aware of the stagnant status of sci-fi. John W. Campbell, editor of the unfortunately named Astounding Science Fiction, had long been on the watch for a writer capable of breaking up the logjam in the field. Heinlein filled that role and more. Within months, he was leading the genre. Within a couple of years, the primitives were gone, and those who remained were trying to match Heinlein.
As a writer, Heinlein was methodical – both in artistic and professional senses. He was devoted to realism, no easy trick when writing sci-fi. He dropped the generic space-opera settings of the 30s, instead compiling a chart of possible historical events involving the U.S. over the next two centuries to serve as a consistent background for his work. Heinlein later said that he simply extrapolated current trends into the future. All the same, the accuracy of some of the chart’s predictions is spooky. One prime example: the 1960s is labeled “The Crazy Years.”
The Man Who Sold the Moon was one of the keystone novels of the Future History sequence. It dealt with a 21st-century business magnate named Delos D. Harriman, who is convinced that exploitation of space is the next step and intends to put the U.S. on the moon in a big way. In this fictional world – so unlike our own – there is activity in space, but it’s limited strictly to Earth orbit. (I’m not sure that they have a space station that enables Democrat pols to take publicity trips.)
Harriman liquidates his holdings and obtains loans and contributions from other businessmen, using every possible goad and gimmick. (In one case, he shows up at the office of a commie-hating executive wearing a hammer-and-sickle button on his lapel: “From where you’re sitting, this is the exact size of the moon seen from earth.”) He oversees every aspect of the project from the design of the rocket to the training of the crew, overcoming obstacles, fighting lawsuits and government interference.
Harriman is up to his ears in debt, under fire over various scams he’s pulled along the way (One concerns USPO envelopes supposed to be canceled on the moon to be sold to collectors that may or may not have actually been on the ship. This will bring a smile of recognition to those who recall the Apollo 15 postage “scandal.”) At last, the rocket is ready. It lifts off, headed for the bright strand of Lune. …and it all goes perfectly. The ship lands, spends a short time on the surface, and returns to Earth, to the expected outcry from cranks claiming it was all a hoax. But Harriman pays no attention. He’s completing an even larger rocket, one that will set up an actual base on the lunar surface.
The book ends with Harriman watching that one lift off. He’d wanted to be aboard himself, but corporate board members, with so much investment money riding on the program’s success, wouldn’t allow it. Harriman was the key man, and if he was lost, everything else would go with him. There would be many other flights, and he would surely be aboard one of those…. But one of his associates, watching him, whispers, “He reminds me of Moses, gazing out over the promised land.” Moses, of course, never entered Israel himself, only resting his eyes on it from a distance.

“Witness list expanding in multi -conspiracy probe out of Fort Pierce. . . .” Paul Sperry, Real Clear investigations.

• Scenario (James Howard Kunstler)

Seth Rich, when he was alive, at his leisure

The scene: February of 2027, a federal courtroom in Stuart (Martin County), Florida, the third day of trial in the RussiaGate matter. Defendants seated on the right (from the judge’s vantage) are so numerous they require two tables, including John Brennan, James Comey, James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, Rod Rosenstein, Strzok & Page, Bruce Ohr, Lisa Monaco, Mary McCord, Christopher Wray, Marc Elias, and seven other former federal officials.

Former President Barack Obama and former Sec’y of State Hillary Clinton, named as “unindicted co-conspirators,” are not present in the courtroom for the sake of decorum. Former MI6 agent, the slippery Christopher Steele, purveyor of the infamous “dossier,” is on-the-lam, whereabouts unknown. The charges against the bunch are Seditious Conspiracy (18 U.S. Code § 2384), Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice (18 U.S.C. §§ 1503, 1512, 1519), Conspiracy Against Rights / Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law (18 U.S.C. §§ 241, 242), Perjury (18 U.S.C. § 1621), Concealment (18 U.S.C. § 1001).
At 10:00 a.m., a “surprise” witness is ushered into the room. Gasps erupt from all angles. The witness is immediately identified by his snow-white hair and beard. Everybody sees it is Julian Assange. He is a surprise witness for security reasons. He has been flown from Sydney to New Delhi to Frankfurt, and finally to Miami in a US government airplane, the lone passenger.
Recall: in June 2024, Assange reached a plea deal with the US DOJ: guilty on one count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defense information. He was sentenced to sixty-two months (time served), crediting the approximately five years he had already spent in Britain’s Belmarsh prison while fighting extradition — but not counting the six years and ten months he was holed-up before that in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. There was no additional jail time, supervision, or financial penalty.
Assange is sworn and seated, led through preliminary questions as to his identity, place of residence, his former occupation running the news service known as Wikileaks, blah blah. The prosecuting federal attorney will now turn to the subject of one Seth Rich — remember him? The twenty-seven-year-old was working for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2016 as Voter Expansion Data Director. At 4:00 a.m. July 10, 2016, Rich was found dead, shot twice in the back, on Flagler Place NW, in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in what police called “a botched robbery.”
Rather bizarrely from a police procedural standpoint, Rich’s wallet, stuffed with money, his watch, and his cell phone remained on his person. Only his laptop was taken in the “robbery.” It has been a “cold,” unsolved case all these years. Sometime before the murder, as early as Spring 2016, well before the Democratic party’s nominating convention, Assange’s Wikileaks received a large packet of information containing as many as 58,000 emails hacked out of the account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.
The emails detailed many curious machinations inside the DNC that year, including sketchy efforts underway to derail Clinton’s rival, Bernie Sanders, excerpts from Clinton’s paid private Wall Street speeches (e.g., to Goldman Sachs), references to Clinton’s health problems, her private email server issue, various Clinton foundation dealings, and a lot of strange chatter about “pizza” and other mundane food items that would eventually spawn the “PizzaGate” story alluding to alleged child sex cult activities centered around John Podesta and his brother Tony. It was quite a juicy load. But Wikileaks sat on it until just before the election. That spring and summer, Hillary was already laboring under the scandal about the private email server she had set up in her suburban Chappaqua, NY, home.
She had apparently used it casually when she ran the State Department to conduct official government business, including classified information, instead of her official government email address. That itself was against the law, apart from what else the content of the Podesta email trove revealed. The FBI had been working the server case that spring, and just weeks before the convention, FBI Director Jim Comey made a big public show of exonerating Hillary, declaring incorrectly that he declined to prosecute — since it is not the FBI’s job to prosecute, only investigate, and for the DOJ to actually decide whether to prosecute. But he did add for the record that her doings had been “extremely careless.”

“As Germany’s public debt expands, the dynamics of its sovereign bond market are beginning to change.”

• Germany’s Debt Crisis Crescendos (Thomas Kolbe)

As Germany’s public debt expands, the dynamics of its sovereign bond market are beginning to change. On Wednesday, the placement of new German government debt came close to failure for the first time. Only the intervention of Germany’s Finance Agency prevented a more serious outcome. Germany’s descent into the league of heavily indebted nations is unfolding at breathtaking speed. A brief chronology of recent events illustrates the trend. Last Friday, Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil presented the key parameters of the federal budget for 2027. Federal spending is set to increase by €30 billion to €555 billion, roughly six percent more than the previous year. Unsurprisingly, the country’s borrowing requirements are rising at a similar pace.

On Monday, the minister spoke at length about supposedly advanced fiscal consolidation efforts. Taken in its original meaning, fiscal consolidation implies placing meaningful constraints on excessive government spending and at least slowing the pace of fiscal deterioration. Wednesday’s events in the bond market demonstrated precisely the opposite. What happened around midday was close to unprecedented in modern German public finance. During the auction of new federal bonds, Germany came dangerously close to a failed issuance. Only the intervention of the German Finance Agency, the institution responsible for issuing federal debt, prevented a more severe market signal.
What happened? bSeeking additional liquidity, Germany attempted to issue €6 billion of ten-year federal bonds. Under normal circumstances, such auctions are routine affairs. Pension funds, insurers, banks and hedge funds require high-quality sovereign debt to manage their balance sheets and diversify portfolios.This auction proved very different. At a yield of 3.09 percent, bids totaled only €4.022 billion. Ultimately, merely €3.902 billion was actually allocated. Roughly €2.1 billion, around 35 percent of the intended issuance, remained unsold, forcing the Finance Agency itself to absorb the excess supply temporarily.
Had the auction failed outright, the consequences could have been considerably more severe. A failed sovereign auction sends a powerful shock signal through financial markets and can trigger broader bond sell-offs and sharp increases in borrowing costs. That this did not occur is largely thanks to institutions such as the German Finance Agency and the European Central Bank — the intervention fire brigade of European capital markets — which can temporarily mask unsustainable fiscal policies by absorbing excess sovereign debt.
The auction’s bid-to-cover ratio, measuring demand relative to supply, fell to a worrying 0.7. Nor was this the first problematic auction in July. Already on July 1, Germany’s issuance of seven-year federal bonds encountered similar difficulties. In that case as well, the Finance Agency intervened by retaining roughly one quarter of the offering instead of the customary ten percent normally withheld to provide liquidity in the secondary market. Primary Dealers, which constitute the first line of absorption for newly issued sovereign debt within the euro area’s financial architecture, were evidently unwilling to absorb the full volume.
Could this represent the first signs of growing market turbulence caused by Germany’s rapidly expanding debt burden? By the end of this year, Germany’s official debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to approach 70 percent. Including the government’s various off-budget special funds, the effective figure already moves toward 80 percent. Unfunded liabilities embedded in Germany’s social insurance systems — particularly the statutory pension system — amount to several multiples of annual GDP.
None of this is extraordinary in today’s world of highly indebted governments. The United States currently carries a debt ratio near 125 percent of GDP. However, the world’s largest economy possesses considerably greater economic resilience than Germany, whose competitiveness has been weakened by years of costly energy policies. Globally, average sovereign debt now stands around 95 percent of GDP, roughly comparable to the euro area.

The final solution: “..the bloc plans to phase out new petrol and diesel cars by 2035..”

Europe had a great car industry for 100 years.

• What’s Driving Europe’s Auto Industry Crisis? (RT)

European carmakers are facing one of the toughest crises in their history. Plant closures, layoffs, and shrinking profits have become increasingly common as Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers continue to expand their global footprint. German luxury carmaker Porsche has become the latest victim. The company is expected to cut an additional 4,000 jobs, the Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Monday. In March, the sports car manufacturer reported a 93% drop in operating profits following a costly pivot away from its long-term EV strategy.

But these setbacks are only part of the story. Behind them lies a combination of soaring energy costs, mounting regulatory pressure, shifting supply chains, and intensifying international competition that is reshaping one of the region’s most important industries. Since the Covid-19 pandemic and the global semiconductor shortage, European carmakers have been battered by weakening consumer demand and persistently high production costs, largely driven by elevated energy prices. The slump is evident in sales. Across the EU, new car registrations in 2025 remained nearly 30% below 2019 levels, while the UK market also failed to recover to its pre-pandemic performance.
At the same time, expensive energy has left European manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage compared with many rivals in Asia and North America. The strain is already triggering deep restructuring across the industry. Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW have announced job cuts and cost-cutting measures; Stellantis has reduced output at several European plants, particularly in Italy; Renault is continuing its restructuring in France; and the UK has seen factory closures as manufacturers struggle to contain rising costs.
Which countries have been hardest hit?
The crisis is weighing most heavily on countries where the automotive industry is a major source of jobs and economic growth. In 2019, the sector supported around 13.8 million jobs – 6.1% of total EU employment – and accounted for more than 7% of the bloc’s GDP. Germany has been hit hardest, with the industry shedding around 125,000 jobs since 2019. In France, automotive employment has fallen by roughly a third since 2010, dropping from about 425,000 to fewer than 290,000 workers. In Italy, the wider manufacturing sector has lost more than 103,000 jobs since 2008, while a further 12,650 automotive positions are considered at risk.
Spain also remains heavily reliant on vehicle exports, while the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary are even more exposed, with much of their industrial output dependent on foreign-owned carmakers. As a result, even relatively small production cuts can have an outsized impact on jobs and regional economies. Outside the EU, the UK also remains vulnerable. Although its automotive sector is smaller, it still supports around 200,000 manufacturing jobs and some 800,000 positions across the wider industry.
How much of the problem stems from energy prices?
Energy costs have become one of the key structural pressures on Europe’s auto industry. After the disruption of traditional energy flows, the shift away from relatively cheap Russian pipeline gas has increased reliance on more expensive alternatives, including liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from the US. For an energy-intensive sector such as automotive production – where steel, aluminium, chemicals, and battery materials are essential inputs – this has raised costs across the entire value chain.
The impact extends beyond final assembly plants. Suppliers of metals, plastics, and battery cells have also faced higher input costs, feeding through into vehicle prices and squeezing manufacturers’ margins. This is particularly significant for electric vehicles, which depend on energy-intensive battery production and raw material processing. Combined with competition from regions with lower energy costs, this has eroded one of Europe’s traditional advantages: cheap and stable industrial energy. As a result, energy has shifted from a competitive strength to a persistent headwind for European automakers.
Why are European carmakers losing ground to China? Europe’s weakening position in the global auto market is increasingly linked to the rise of China as the leading EV powerhouse. Chinese manufacturers have scaled up production rapidly, supported by fully integrated domestic battery supply chains – from raw materials processing to cell manufacturing – giving them a structural cost advantage over European rivals.
A vast domestic market also allows Chinese firms to produce at far larger volumes, lowering unit costs and speeding up innovation. By contrast, Europe’s market is fragmented across multiple countries and regulatory systems. European automakers also face higher production costs, particularly for energy and labor, alongside heavier regulatory requirements linked to emissions targets and industrial policy. According to the International Energy Agency, China produced 12.4 million electric cars in 2024, compared with 2.4 million in the EU and around 80,000 in the UK – roughly five times the combined European output.
The green transition impact
Under EU climate policy, automakers must meet increasingly strict COC emissions targets, while the bloc plans to phase out new petrol and diesel cars by 2035. This has forced manufacturers to invest heavily in EV platforms, battery plants, software, and factory upgrades well before these investments generate returns. The UK is following a similar path through its Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate, requiring rising EV sales ahead of a 2030 ban on new internal combustion engine vehicles.
The pressure has been amplified by slower-than-expected EV adoption across Europe. As demand lags behind targets, automakers are caught between costly EV investments and continued reliance on petrol and diesel models to sustain profits. Several carmakers warn that both EU rules and the UK s ZEV targets risk moving faster than consumer demand. Critics say regulation has outpaced market readiness, while supporters argue that slowing the transition would leave Europe trailing in the global shift to clean mobility.

Vague.

• RFK Jr. Plans to Create a List of Injuries Caused by COVID-19 Vaccines (ET)

Health officials are proposing a plan to clarify which COVID-19 vaccine side effects would be eligible for government financial compensation, according to a new notice. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and one of its divisions said in a description of a proposed rule released on July 1 that they plan to establish an injury table for COVID-19 vaccines through the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).

“The Table will list and explain injuries that, based on compelling, reliable, valid, medical, and scientific evidence, are presumed to be caused by covered COVID-19 countermeasures, and set forth the time periods in which the onset of these injuries must occur after the administration or use of these covered COVID-19 countermeasures,” a summary of the rule, which has not been made public, stated. COVID-19 vaccines fall under the CICP because previous health secretaries declared and extended emergency declarations for COVID-19, which opened up the option of emergency clearance of vaccines and other countermeasures under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who just announced that he was ending the emergency declaration, is authorized under the declarations to provide benefits to people injured by the vaccines under the act, HHS officials noted in the proposal summary. “Under the leadership of Secretary Kennedy, HHS is restoring transparency and accountability because the American people deserve clear, evidence-based information about both the benefits and the known risks associated with medical countermeasures,” an HHS spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email. The spokesperson said that more information will be available when the notice is published in the Federal Register.
Aaron Siri, Kennedy’s former lawyer, wrote to Kennedy in 2025, urging him to create a COVID-19 vaccine-injury table. He pointed to the readiness and preparedness law, which states that the health secretary “shall by regulation establish a table identifying covered injuries that shall be presumed to be directly caused by the administration or use of a covered countermeasure.” An injury table would help people injured by vaccines apply successfully to the congressionally created program, which requires “compelling, reliable, valid, medical, and scientific evidence” that an injury was a direct result of a countermeasure, Siri wrote on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network, which advocates for government transparency and change.
“A well-constructed injury table is needed for the CICP,” Richard Hughes IV, a former Moderna executive who is representing health groups in litigation against the administration that has halted some of its changes to vaccine guidance, told The Epoch Times in an email. “The real question is whether this administration would promulgate such a table or weaponize it to further platform misinformation.” Dr. Joel Wallskog, who suffered the neurological disorder transverse myelitis and other issues from COVID-19 vaccination and has sued the government over the CICP, told The Epoch Times in an email that the HHS proposal “is more appearance than substance.”
“It appears to do little more than streamline the process for the relatively small number of individuals whose injuries—primarily anaphylaxis and myocarditis/pericarditis—are already recognized under the current system,” added Wallskog, also the co-chair of the React19 nonprofit, which offers support to people injured by COVID-19 vaccines. “For everyone else who has been denied, nothing changes.” Erica Samp, who says she was injured by a COVID-19 vaccine, said in a post on X that she supported the plan but that she’s watching to see what details are included, including the covered injuries.
The CICP is both administered and adjudicated by HHS officials. It has compensated some people who have said COVID-19 vaccination caused health issues, but rejected others, including people such as Wallskog, whom doctors diagnosed as being injured by COVID-19 vaccines, The Epoch Times previously reported.
The CICP has, through June, compensated 60 COVID-19 vaccine injury claims, nearly all for myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation. The average compensation has been $4,000, aside from a few large payments, and about 99 percent of applications have been rejected. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine said in 2024 that COVID-19 vaccines definitely cause myocarditis and shoulder injuries, but that other possible harms could not be conclusively linked to the shots. Some outside organizations, such as React19, have said that the available evidence supports a link between the vaccines and additional problems.

Elon Musk just said what every government on earth already knows and none will admit.

Musk: “AI is moving 10 times faster than government, maybe more.”

Not slightly faster. Ten times. And the gap compounds daily.

Every institution ever built runs on the same architecture.… pic.twitter.com/Efrc3eVc5d
— Dustin (@r0ck3t23) July 9, 2026

SpaceX is building the Gigasat Factory in Bastrop to manufacture AI satellites at massive scale.

This facility is planned to enable rapid production and deployment of thousands of AI satellites starting as soon as late 2027. pic.twitter.com/avloaJJ32h
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) July 9, 2026

Elon and the SpaceX team are aiming to launch 1 MILLION AI satellites into space and when this happens… this company is going to look dirt cheap at $2 trillion.

Any company serious about AI will be relying heavily on SpaceX for compute.

Mark my words. pic.twitter.com/eMgPnivNMl
— Teslaconomics (@Teslaconomics) July 10, 2026

Optimus V3’s hand is getting scary good.

Hands are one of robotics’ nastiest little problems. Gripping is easy.

Knowing how hard to squeeze an egg, turn a tiny screw, fold fabric, or pick up something fragile without launching it across the room?

Different game.

Tesla… https://t.co/uKe3ptfBXL pic.twitter.com/1QlZT4Cw1G
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) July 10, 2026

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Debt Rattle July 1 2026

Jul 012026

July 1, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:37 am Finance Tagged with: birthright citizenship, blue states, communists, Euroclear, Latin America, pusillanimity, Supreme Court, Trump 28 Responses »

Jessie Willcox Smith From The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald 1920

• Supreme Court Rules on Landmark Birthright Citizenship Case (Athena Thorne)

• Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Executive Order (ZH)

• Here’s How Devastating the Birthright Citizenship Ruling Is (Margolis)

• Trump Could End Most Birthright Citizenship With 1 Simple Trick (Thorne)

• Cheer Up! The Birthright Citizenship Case Moves Us Toward Inevitable Victory (TH)

• A New Deal for Presidents? (Turley)

• Trump Gives Remarks and Opinion on Three Supreme Court Decisions (CTH)

• Blue States Refuse to Join 250th Anniversary Celebration on the Mall (Turley)

• Latin American Countries Moving to the Right (Anderson)

• Supreme Court Makes a Big Ruling in Favor of Free Speech (Anderson)

• The Supreme Court Just Settled the Trans Athletes Debate (Margolis)

• Democrats Have Always Been Communists (Margolis)

• Euroclear Files Lawsuit To Block $231.5 Billion Recovery (TASS)

• NATO and Ukraine Seeking Weapons To Target Russian Airfields – Moscow (RT)

• Ukraine In Bed With Mexican Drug Lords (RT)

• Western Media Distorting Ukraine Battlefield Reality – Journalist (RT)

• Pusillanimity Brings War, Not Peace (Paul Craig Roberts)

https://twitter.com/DanScavino/status/2071800878508421578?s=20

Elon Musk: "Our next product is Blindsight, which will enable those who have total loss of vision, including if they've lost their eyes or the optic nerve, or maybe have never seen even blind from birth, to be able to see again." pic.twitter.com/nZpWcFUgXB
— Joe Rogan Podcast News (@joeroganhq) June 29, 2026

https://twitter.com/JesseBWatters/status/2071753263259496912?s=20

Highest death count of any philosophy https://t.co/mdlVktiU73
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 29, 2026

https://twitter.com/GenFlynn/status/2071712711738609807?s=20

The COVID Coverup was VAST and DEEP, meant to stay under wraps forever.

Not on my watch. I am fighting every. single. day. to reveal more truth. pic.twitter.com/IfF380mYti
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) June 28, 2026

Birthright Citizenship belogs in the 19th century. A time before airplanes.

• Supreme Court Rules on Landmark Birthright Citizenship Case (Athena Thorne)

The U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision on the historic birthright citizenship case, Trump v. Barbara, on Tuesday morning. In a 6-3 decision, the court struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order, which had ordered that U.S. citizenship not automatically be conferred upon children born on U.S. soil whose parents are illegally present in the United States, or whose mother is visiting here legally but temporarily and whose father is not a citizen or lawful permanent resident. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson join the Roberts opinion in the full decision. Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissented.

“Roberts concludes that children born to parents who are in the United States unlawfully or temporarily are ‘born in the United States’ and ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ ‘Under the Constitution, they are citizens at birth,'” wrote Supreme Court expert Amy Howe at SCOTUSblog’s live coverage of the announcement. In practice, the ruling means nothing changes, and the nation will continue as it has been doing. Namely, every baby born on U.S. soil is automatically a U.S. citizen, regardless of the status of the parents. Apparently, it’s too much to ask that parents have at least the most basic allegiance to or standing in our country before we bestow its greatest gift — citizenship — on their offspring.
Howe added, “As others have noted, Kavanaugh writes that Trump’s EO conflicts with the federal law ‘[u]nless and until Congress enacts new legislation,” potentially leaving the door open for Congress to tighten up citizenship rules. The ACLU originally filed the suit as a class-action lawsuit (Barbara v. Trump) on behalf of affected families. The lead plaintiff, “Barbara,” is a pregnant “asylum seeker” from Honduras, though the suit also represents other families of various residency statuses. Lower courts ruled for the plaintiffs, sending the case up the chain to the Supremes.
The court heard arguments in the case on April 1, 2026, notes a Congressional Research Service (CRS) legal sidebar: The question before the Court was whether Executive Order 14160 (E.O. 14160, or the E.O.), “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” is constitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and authorized by 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a), a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that codifies the Citizenship Clause. The EO stated that: “The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”
Beyond the 14th Amendment, the case further examined the meaning of the phrase “domiciled residents” from the 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. In that case, Wong Kim Ark’s parents had maintained a legal, permanent domicile in the U.S. for over 20 years. Though not citizens (people born in China were prohibited from naturalizing at that time), the parents were legally present and conducting business here, and not serving in diplomatic roles. The Trump administration argued that this situation contrasts with that of foreign nationals who are illegally present in the country. Trump’s signed E.O. 14160 on Inauguration Day 2025. The CRS sidebar explained the intent of the original order: The E.O. seeks to interpret “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the Citizenship Clause to limit who may be considered a U.S. citizen from birth. […]
The E.O. outlines two categories of persons that, in the view of the executive branch, are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore are excluded from the Fourteenth Amendment’s grant of birthright citizenship: (1) a child whose mother was not lawfully present in the United States, and whose father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, at the moment the child was born; and (2) a child whose mother was lawfully but temporarily in the United States, and whose father was not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, at the moment the child was born. The E.O. asserts that children born in the United States to parents in either of these categories are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

“In response to the ruling, President Trump wrote that it was “too bad for our Country,” but that Republicans can “easily make up for it in Congress through Legislation…”

• Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Executive Order (ZH)

The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down President Donald Trump’s executive order curbing birthright citizenship. President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 2025. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)In a massive 194-page, 5-4 ruling, the Court affirmed a District Court ruling, holding that Executive Order 14160 – Trump’s attempt to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the U.S. to parents who are undocumented or only temporarily present – violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion, joined by Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson.

Justice Kavanaugh provided the sixth vote against the order while explicitly rejecting the majority’s constitutional theory, arguing the EO fails only because it conflicts with a 1940s immigration statute – leaving the door open for Congress, not the Constitution, to revisit the question.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court has ruled that the children of illegal aliens and foreign nationals born in the U.S. count as American citizens.

Roberts and Barrett joined all the liberals.

Disgusting. pic.twitter.com/FStIm0J3R3
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 30, 2026

Polymarket had it right on SCOTUS Birthright decision (it wasn't even close) pic.twitter.com/aIXK1g9kcz
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 30, 2026

In response to the ruling, President Trump wrote that it was “too bad for our Country,” but that Republicans can “easily make up for it in Congress through Legislation…”

Background
Birthright citizenship – the principle that nearly everyone born on U.S. soil automatically becomes a U.S. citizen – has stood as a foundational element of American law and identity for more than 150 years. Its modern constitutional anchor is the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
The clause was enacted primarily to overturn the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision (which denied citizenship to black people) and to guarantee citizenship to formerly enslaved people and their descendants. It established a clear rule of jus soli (citizenship by birth on the soil) with narrow historical exceptions, such as children of foreign diplomats or members of invading armies.

Original intent. Four Justices just threw it out. pic.twitter.com/OtGZOqCoY4
— NoNonsense2 (@NoMoNonsense2) June 30, 2026

The Supreme Court’s landmark 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark cemented this broad understanding. Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco to Chinese parents who were legal residents but ineligible for naturalization under then-existing exclusionary laws, was ruled a U.S. citizen. Justice Horace Gray’s majority opinion affirmed that the 14th Amendment codifies “the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country,” applying to children of resident aliens without regard to race or the precise immigration status of the parents (beyond the traditional exceptions).
For well over a century, this interpretation has governed practice: federal agencies, courts, and both political parties treated birth on U.S. soil as conferring citizenship almost universally, regardless of whether a parent was undocumented, a temporary visa holder, or a lawful permanent resident.

“.. the senator who authored the relevant language in the 19th century made it clear that it was never intended to cover foreign nationals or the families of foreign diplomats.”

• Here’s How Devastating the Birthright Citizenship Ruling Is (Margolis)

The Supreme Court handed down some good rulings on Tuesday, but one of them, Trump v. Barbara, was truly stinking hot garbage, to put it as nicely as possible. It was one of the most consequential rulings in a generation, and if you’re not furious about it, you haven’t been paying attention. As my PJ Media colleague Athena Thorne put it, the Supreme Court ruled that “any basic skank who can sneak onto American terra firma and give birth is automatically the parent of a U.S. citizen, with all the rights and benefits that implies.” On The Five on Tuesday, Jesse Watters didn’t hold back in his reaction to the ruling.

“I’m angry,” he said. “Are you?” And that set the tone for everything that followed. He focused on Justice Samuel Alito’s dissent, which Watters described as a genuine alarm bell. Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, he noted, saw this for what it was — a case with enormous implications that the court essentially fumbled. “He said in his dissent, this was one of the most important cases the court’s ever seen, and we blew it,” Watters said. “He and Thomas were basically like, ‘Yeah, this devalues and degrades U.S. citizenship because it opens it up for anchor babies and for birth tourists.’” The example Watters used was, honestly, terrifying.
Under birthright citizenship as it currently stands, a Chinese Communist Party official could bring his pregnant wife to Guam, deliver the baby on American soil, then fly that infant back to Beijing, complete with a U.S. passport in hand. That child could grow up in China, get funneled through whatever the CCP wants him for, and then, at 18, have access to American welfare programs. He could vote. And theoretically, at 35, he could become eligible to run for president. It’s a scary thought, because yes, that’s what the decision would enable. “That’s the stupidest thing anyone ever thought of,” Watters said. “Literally.”
The historical context makes the ruling even harder to swallow. Watters noted that the senator who authored the relevant language in the 19th century made it clear that it was never intended to cover foreign nationals or the families of foreign diplomats. The amendment’s architect agreed. So did the president at the time, Ulysses S. Grant. “The guy that sponsored it, the guy that initiated, the architect of, this 14th amendment, the AG, the president at the time, Grant, all said, yeah, no foreigners, no visitors,” Watters said.
Of course, none of those men could have imagined international air travel. They couldn’t picture an enemy nation strategically flying pregnant women to American territory as a coordinated demographic tactic. The 14th Amendment was written in a world where the idea of a hostile foreign government exploiting birthright citizenship for generational gain was simply inconceivable. We don’t live in that world anymore.
“This was also before airplanes,” Watters pointed out, “so no one could imagine enemies of the United States flying here to have babies that 18 years later they could use against us to sway elections, soak up welfare, and then steal our defense technology. Because that’s what they do, they steal it.” And the Democrat Party? They’re not innocent bystanders in any of this. “The Democrats are in cahoots with this,” Watters said. “They like it cuz they like it for money and power.” Watters didn’t pretend there are easy outs. Congress won’t act. The court didn’t protect the country. So what’s left? “I think the DOJ has to ramp up prosecutions of birth tourism fraud,” he said. “And Trump’s gotta deport even more because this is demographic destruction.”

" This was one of the most important cases the court has ever seen AND WE BLEW IT"@JesseBWatters destroys the Democrats and the Supreme Court for upholding birthright citizenship. pic.twitter.com/CUCaE3L4Wj
— The Five (@TheFive) June 30, 2026

As bad as this decision was, there are ways to fix this. Let’s hope Trump gets it done.

Don’t let pregnant women into the country.

• Trump Could End Most Birthright Citizenship With 1 Simple Trick (Thorne)

That was some disappointing poo from the Supreme Court on Tuesday about birthright citizenship, non? The court ruled that any basic skank who can sneak onto American terra firma and give birth is automatically the parent of a U.S. citizen, with all the rights and benefits that implies. It seems like a dark day for the republic, to be sure. But pause and catch your breath: If the outcome had been different, would the Democrats take “no” for an answer? Of course not! Democrats never take “no” for an answer. They keep pushing and cheating and indoctrinating and menacing and jiggling the handle every which way until they pass whatever disagreeable turd they’re trying to cram through.

We, too, can play that game. There is more than one way to skin a cat, after all. The justices say that babies born in our country to illegal aliens and birth tourists are U.S. citizens? Fine.What if these grasping, scofflaw women weren’t allowed into the country in the first place? Under the U.S. Code, the president has broad authority over who may enter our country. Specifically, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f) (INA Section 212(f)) says: Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.
My AI research assistant tells me that “This gives the President wide latitude to define a ‘class’ of aliens and suspend or restrict their entry if he determines it serves U.S. interests (e.g., public health, welfare, preventing ‘birth tourism,’ or resource strain).” Why, yes, I’d say birth tourism and resource strain are substantial concerns of the U.S. in this instance. Trump would absolutely be within his rights to pen-and-phone an end to the pregnant invasion — perhaps even the child-bearing-age invasion. Will leftists stamp their feet and sue to stop it? Of course they will. But Trump has issued other travel bans in the past — and won in court.
During Trump’s first term, through EO 13780 and Proclamation 9645, he took action to ban entry from terrorist-sponsoring nations, including Iran, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and Venezuela. Leftists whined and sued, labeling the actions as Trump’s “Muslim Ban” in their petty way. But in Trump v. Hawaii (2018), the Supreme Court affirmed the president’s right to control harmful foreign travel into the U.S. And in 2020, Trump’s administration created rules that consular officers must deny B-1/B-2 tourist visas to pregnant applicants if they believed the woman’s primary purpose in traveling to the U.S is to birth an American baby.
“A broader executive order could expand this by declaring pregnant non-citizens (or those reasonably believed to be pregnant) as a class whose entry is detrimental, potentially covering visa issuance, admission at ports of entry, and exceptions (e.g., for diplomats, certain humanitarian cases, or lawful permanent residents),” notes my AI research assistant. Seriously, the president could do this as fast as White House counsel can write it up.
And frankly, I’m optimistic that this obnoxious and unfair Supreme Court ruling will light a fire under Republican voters’ butts the same way the Dobbs decision that overruled Roe v. Wade did for the Democrats, turning our much-anticipated 2022 midterms red wave into a barely discernible pink trickle. Barbara v. Trump will have the twin effects of demotivating blue voters while firing up red ones. (My colleague Scott Pinsker has a more in-depth analysis of the positive political fallout from this decision here.)

It was close.

• Cheer Up! The Birthright Citizenship Case Moves Us Toward Inevitable Victory (TH)

Calm down about today’s birthright citizenship case, Trump v. Barbara. We were always going to lose. That was expected by anyone who understands how the courts work; what wasn’t expected is that this ruling was such a huge step toward eventual victory. You don’t have to be happy, but you don’t have to freak out. We’re winning.

Here’s the deal. Let me give it to you from the perspective of a politically informed lawyer, because I understand a little about how courts think, having been raised in a house with a mother who was a judge and appearing in courts all the way up to the Ninth Circuit for 30 years. It’s important you understand all the context to see where we are really at. It’s also important that you keep your feelings in check and not freak out like an emotionally incontinent teenage girl who catches her mom reading her diary.
Let’s talk about the 14th Amendment, which establishes birthright citizenship in the view of the very narrow majority. That “very narrow” part is key. For about 150 years, the common legal understanding of the 14th Amendment has been that it provides that, with narrow exceptions (such as the children of ambassadors), anyone born in the United States is an American citizen. And the text of the amendment can be read to support that. Now, you don’t have to like that, and you don’t have to agree with that reading—like most of you, I think the stronger argument is the one against birthright citizenship for children of transients and illegal aliens—but whether you agree or disagree, it’s not so legally ridiculous as to be disconnected from reality. And it was the reality until new scholarship, developed over the last couple of decades, began to seriously challenge it.
Let’s understand how the courts work. They don’t like changing things. They revere precedent. It takes a lot to get a new understanding of the Constitution to become the mainstream interpretation. Look at the Second Amendment. For a century, it was understood to allow pretty much any regulation of guns, as long as the regulation was “reasonable,” which it always ended up being in the eyes of the courts. The Heller decision completely changed that, and that decision was based on new scholarship. That’s the same process as we’re going through with birthright citizenship. We’re challenging something that’s been established, and you need to understand that our constitutional system is designed to make that hard.
Yeah, we lost today—barely. And that “barely” part is the good news. This was a 5–4 decision on the constitutional issue. Obviously, the three liberals voted against it because they will always vote the way that they perceive helps leftism. If illegal alien kids were believed to be aspiring Republicans, they would’ve been on the other side. None of these legal arguments that I’m talking about apply to them; they are hacks, and they don’t vote on principle. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett do vote on principle; their vote was entirely predictable to anyone familiar with how the courts work.
It’s just that their principle is wrong, reflecting the old and established view of the 14th Amendment that we are currently challenging with new scholarship. Lots of people are wrong, and it doesn’t make them the antichrist. Yes, I know all the arguments in favor of changing the understanding of birthright citizenship, and we don’t need to relitigate them here. Just understand that in any case, both sides believe in their arguments. What we need to do is make an effort to get folks nominated to SCOTUS who are more open to new challenges to old thinking because we are making a lot of new challenges to old thinking.
Frankly, I expected SCOTUS to punt completely and rule only on the executive order that President Donald Trump issued. There’s a principle in law that you try to resolve things without reaching constitutional issues if you can, and Trump challenged birthright citizenship with an executive order. Did he have the power to issue such an executive order? I expected the Court to rule that he did not and to avoid the constitutional issue entirely. If the Court decided to confront the constitutional issue, I expected a 7–2 ruling with Justice Alito and Justice Thomas in dissent. What we got was Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Gorsuch both stepping in and accepting, at least to some extent, the new thinking on the 14th Amendment citizenship clause.
This is huge, people. It’s enormous, and the dramatic implications in favor of reforming the old idea of birthright citizenship are being swamped by people freaking out over what was an entirely predictable response to anyone who’s vaguely familiar with how courts work. .

“That does not mean that Cook cannot be replaced, but it requires due process, not a “thank you for your attention.”

• A New Deal for Presidents? (Turley)

On Monday, Donald Trump sealed one of the most lasting parts of his legacy. In Trump v. Slaughter, the Court reaffirmed and reinforced the authority of presidents to determine who will carry out the functions of the Executive Branch. In so doing, the Court overruled one of the long-standing limits of presidential power in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. Humphrey’s Executor is hardly a household name. Yet the demise of the 1935 case represents a seismic shift in the balance of power within our constitutional system. In this case, the court decided that President Trump had the right to fire Rebecca Slaughter, a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission.

For decades, scholars and jurists have questioned where the Court found the authority for Congress to create a hybrid creature like the FTC — part legislative and part executive, with officials protected from removal by a president. Various presidents have chafed at this limiting doctrine. But Trump pushed aggressively against the precedent and appointed three justices who would prove critical in ending Humphrey’s Executor after more than 90 years. In a separate case, Trump v. Cook, the Court ruled that the president could not fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.
Both the win and the loss were vintage Trump. The win because he was unrelenting in his assertion of inherent powers. The loss in part because he is equally unrelenting in his use of social media to carry out policy. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that more than a tweet and conclusory letter is demanded in such a removal from the Federal Reserve, which has always held a unique position in the government and prior cases. Roberts wrote, “would in effect transform the Federal Reserve’s for-cause protection into at-will employment — an interpretive leap out of step with the statute Congress enacted and our Nation’s tradition of central banking protected from political interference.”
That does not mean that Cook cannot be replaced, but it requires due process, not a “thank you for your attention.” It is hard to overstate the transformation of the new executive branch during the Trump terms. The Slaughter case follows the Loper Bright decision, which ended the huge deference given to government agencies “interpreting” law to their own ends. Past Republican presidents have criticized the ““administrative state” that was iron-plated under the prior Chevron doctrine.
The result is that our government will remain markedly different from that of many of our allies, particularly the United Kingdom. In the UK, ministries operate with a considerable degree of independence and insularity. It is difficult for a prime minister to force through major changes when opposed by ministry civil servants.

From Monday.

• Trump Gives Remarks and Opinion on Three Supreme Court Decisions

During an oval office event to highlight President Trump signing three executive orders informing all agencies of government that federal officials will not be enforcing any rule that blocks citizens from repairing or modifying their own vehicles, President Trump took questions from the media on today’s Supreme Court rulings.

Divided.

• Blue States Refuse to Join 250th Anniversary Celebration on the Mall (Turley)

This morning, I discussed the upcoming Supreme Court decisions from the temporary Fox studio on the Mall, surrounded by the state pavilions. I was buoyed by the enthusiasm of the young National Guard members from Puerto Rico and Alaska. They are thrilled to be part of our 250th celebration. The only disappointment was the decision of 10 states—Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Pennsylvania—to decline to participate. Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro, refused, but the state’s two senators stepped in to ensure their representation. It is an utter disgrace for these states and another manifestation of our age of rage.

All of these states cited transparent excuses over the cost of participating in our anniversary despite their lavish spending in other areas. Massachusetts is a particular insult. The home of John Adams and other colonial leaders elected to sit out the celebrations. Recently, we discussed how a Massachusetts church ended the long-standing celebration of the Fourth of July to focus on the “on-going process within the congregation to better understand our own whiteness.” John Adams once wrote his wife Abigail to predict that Independence Day would be:
“celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.” Rather than Adams, Massachusetts now has figures such as Gov. Maura Healey, who balked at spending $100,000 to be counted among the states in the pavilion.
Gov. Shapiro did the same. This is a man who wants to be the next president of the United States but has opted out of participating, despite his state being home to our Independence Hall. It appears that he could not acquire space by simple adverse possession. Many people in Pennsylvania and across the country will not soon forget his ignoble stance or the two Pennsylvania senators’ efforts to ensure the state’s presence despite Shapiro’s efforts. These leaders decided to spread division at the very moment when we could overcome our differences to remember what we share as fellow citizens of this country.
They may see the rallying cry of “taxation without representation” replaced by “celebration without representation” for many disappointed voters. Despite the effort of blue states to boycott the celebration, tourists and participants appear to be having a ball. It is a beautiful space and filled with wonderful people from around our country. This morning I met Al Underwood, who was playing Paul Revere. He and his wife were delighted to participate and drove in from their home outside of Charlottesville. As these leaders in blue states sit out the celebrations, many of their citizens are rallying to support our unique republic.
E pluribus unum

With USAID gone…

• Latin American Countries Moving to the Right (Anderson)

Peru officially announced that it finally has a new president on Monday: The more conservative candidate, Keiko Fujimori, won by a slim margin of 50.1% to 49.9%.
https://twitter.com/DatosAme24/status/2071701118162501956?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2071701118162501956%7Ctwgr%5Ee8498459cdd99d38217dab723019c94f940c10a7%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F29%2Fwe-need-to-talk-about-these-latin-american-countries-moving-to-the-right-n4954502

We are cautiously optimistic about this news. Normally, I’d celebrate this as another new right-leaning leader in the Western Hemisphere, but Peru is a bit of a mess. It’s had something like nine presidents over the last decade, but most of them have been impeached or have faced corruption scandals, congressional gridlock, and various other issues.
Fujimori also comes with a little baggage. Her father is a former Peruvian president, and she’s run for election something like four times. But many say she could be the game-changer and bring some stability to the nation, especially economically. She’s also likely to be a good partner to the United States. We’ll just have to see how it plays out.
The actual run-off election was held earlier this month, and it’s taken over three weeks to count the ballots. Fujimori has held the lead for much of that time, though Sanchez did for a while. That said, I couldn’t help but notice that many media outlets have been reporting her as the winner for weeks without actually waiting for the final tally. I’ve had several people ask me why I wasn’t reporting on it, and while I knew it was highly likely she’d win, it wasn’t confirmed. And that’s about the slimmest of slim margins you can have between two candidates in an already chaotic country — anything was possible.
It’s just like when I reported on the Colombian elections and how the more conservative Abelardo de la Espriella (“El Tigre”) defeated Gustavo Petro’s hand-picked commie candidate Iván Cepeda. In the days following the election, Petro did what he does and spent hours mouthing off about it on social media — blaming Israel, blaming the United States, etc. So many media outlets ran to report that the election was being contested, that El Tigre’s win would not be honored. I actually had a few of you go after me for being naive to think it would.
Well, if that’s the case, I’m still being naive. Petro has big plans for himself post-presidency, and that’s mostly what he cares about: himself. Due to sanctions Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Scott Bessent have placed on him or threatened him with, he won’t be able to do those things — I believe he’s mentioned traveling the world, giving talks on *checks notes* climate change and writing erotic poetry — and he knows all eyes are upon him. It’s why Trump endorsed El Tigre multiple times and Rubio congratulated him on his win almost instantly. A subtle reminder. Petro can talk all he wants, but he knows he needs to be on his best behavior if he wants his freedom after he leaves office in August. Even Cepeda wasn’t really playing along with his shenanigans and has officially conceded.
The current president of Colombia likes to talk. Most of the time, it should be ignored. Which leads me to something else. Some of you aren’t going to like this, but there’s another false story that’s going around about the Latin American elections that a lot of my colleagues in conservative media keep touting but that I feel like I need to correct. It goes something like this: the closing of USAID is why the region is swinging to the right.
While it would be fun if that were true, it’s not correct. I’d say the real influence was Nayib Bukele, followed by Javier Milei, and then Donald Trump. But we have to give the voters themselves a little credit because this was in the works before Trump was even re-elected in 2024. Back in February, I wrote an article called “The Real Reasons Why Latin America Is Moving to the Right.” I won’t rehash it all, but crime, economic frustration, and mass migration backlash were the top three reasons I listed.
Crime is certainly number one. People are tired of gangs and cartels taking over their communities and bringing violence with them. They saw how Bukele turned the so-called “Murder Capital of the World” into a safe, desirable place to be, and they wanted that for themselves. Nearly every single person I’ve spoken to over the past year or so who lives in or is from Latin America has hailed Bukele as a hero, claiming they want someone like him to fix this. And almost every single “right-wing” candidate who has been elected in Latin America in recent years has promised exactly that — some have even brought him on as a consultant.

“The RNC has been preparing for this ruling, and we are ready to expand the ways we directly help and provide resources to Republican candidates across the country.”

• Supreme Court Makes a Big Ruling in Favor of Free Speech (Anderson)

The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday in a 6-3 decision that federal limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with their candidates violate the First Amendment, delivering a major victory for free speech and party operations and for Republicans. It should have an impact on the 2026 midterm elections. In National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC, the justices overturned the 2001 Colorado II precedent, clearing the way for unlimited coordinated spending by parties. The ruling is expected to reshape the 2026 midterm battlefield by empowering official party committees over super PACs.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court rules that putting limits on political party campaign finance expenditures VIOLATE the First Amendment.

BIG WIN for Republicans @NRSC!

The vote is 6-3. pic.twitter.com/b1dg1PSs5A
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 30, 2026

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett. The majority found that these caps are not narrowly tailored to the government’s interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption. It effectively overruled the key aspects of the 2001 precedent FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee (Colorado II), noting that subsequent cases have applied stricter scrutiny and that other tools (earmarking rules, disclosure requirements) are sufficient to address circumvention concerns. Dissenting Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that the decision opens the floodgates to corruption and that the majority was too quick to dismiss that.
Here’s some background on the case: In 2022, two Republican party committees — the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee — along with then-Senator JD Vance and then-Representative Steve Chabot, sued the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The Republican committees asserted that the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA) unconstitutionally restricts their ability to coordinate campaign advertising with their own candidates. This coordination allows the party and its candidates to unify their political message and spend money more efficiently.
For example, in the 2021-2022 election cycle, the senatorial committee spent about $15.5 million and the congressional committee spent about $8.3 million on such coordinated expenditures, which primarily fund political advertising. The plaintiffs argue that developments since a 2001 Supreme Court decision, FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee (Colorado II), which upheld these same limits, have rendered that decision obsolete. Specifically, they point to changes in campaign finance law, the rise of “Super PACs,” and shifts in the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence as reasons the restrictions no longer pass constitutional muster.
The plaintiffs filed their lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. As required by FECA for constitutional challenges, the district court certified the legal question to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit sitting en banc. The Sixth Circuit concluded that the FECA’s limits on coordinated campaign expenditures do not violate the First Amendment and denied both the facial and as-applied challenges brought by the plaintiffs.
“This is a massive victory for the First Amendment,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters. “Limiting the ability of political parties to work with and provide support directly to their candidates is not only ridiculous, it’s unconstitutional as the Supreme Court has now ruled. The RNC has been preparing for this ruling, and we are ready to expand the ways we directly help and provide resources to Republican candidates across the country.”
Ultimately, political parties can now coordinate more freely and spend without those previous dollar caps, shifting some power back to official party committees vs. independent super PACs and other outside groups.

“The majority concluded that “Title IX allows schools to provide separate women’s and men’s sports teams defined by biological sex..”

• The Supreme Court Just Settled the Trans Athletes Debate (Margolis)

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday to uphold state laws banning biological males from competing on female sports teams, delivering a tremendous victory for female athletes and the commonsense principle that biological sex matters in athletic competition. Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion in West Virginia v. B.P.J., which the court combined with Little v. Hecox. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch each wrote a concurring opinion. The 6-3 decision found West Virginia’s Save Women’s Sports Act and Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act both constitutional, rejecting claims that the bans violate Title IX or the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. A huge victory for women. Real women.

The majority concluded that “Title IX allows schools to provide separate women’s and men’s sports teams defined by biological sex, and West Virginia has permissibly maintained female sports for biological females consistent with Title IX.” The term “sex” in Title IX, the Javits Amendment, and the Title IX regulations cannot plausibly be interpreted to refer to anything other than biological sex. The ordinary meaning of the term “sex” at the time of enactment in the early 1970s was biological sex and not gender identity, particularly in the sports context.That conclusion required no legal gymnastics, just common sense. In the end, biology is biology. Title IX was supposed to bring fairness into sports, and the transgender movement has been.

That the Supreme Court had to even weigh in on this is quite sad, just as it was sad that states had even to pass laws that made it clear that girls’ sports are for girls, not boys who pretend to be girls.So, how did we get here? Well, Idaho passed the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act in 2020, the first law of its kind in the country. West Virginia followed in 2021. Both laws faced immediate legal challenges from the radical left, yada, yada, yada, and it went before the Supreme Court.
Honestly, the challengers were doomed to fail. They built their case primarily on Bostock v. Clayton County, the 2020 ruling that extended Title VII’s sex discrimination protections to gay and transgender employees. Their argument was that if you can’t discriminate against a transgender person at work, you can’t exclude one from a sports team. If that explanation sounds stupid to you, you’re not alone. Biological sex is largely irrelevant to workplace performance, but it is directly relevant to athletic competition, and no amount of self-identification or plastic surgery can change your biology.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February 2025 directing the federal government to pull funding from schools that allow biological males on female sports teams, calling such policies “demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls.” His solicitor general, D. John Sauer, filed a brief calling both state laws “eminently reasonable.” Today’s ruling directly validates that position. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, which was hardly surprising at all. Jackson, for one, was unable to define what a woman is during her confirmation hearings in 2022 because, in her own words, “I’m not a biologist.” Sotomayor wrote the dissenting opinion, joined by Kagan and Jackson.
The female athletes who intervened in both cases to defend these laws spent years fighting for the right to compete on a level playing field. The far left spent those same years calling them bigots for trying. Now that the highest court in the land has ruled on this issue, women can once again enjoy the fair opportunities they deserve under Title IX and not have to worry about biological males robbing them of awards and opportunities.

Nope. It’s recent.

• Democrats Have Always Been Communists (Margolis)

There’s a reason the Democrat Party keeps repeating the same three words like a broken record, and it has nothing to do with strategy. On The Five Monday night, Jesse Watters pulled back the curtain on what’s really driving the chaos inside the party, and it’s not Trump derangement this time. It’s something the establishment spent decades swearing wasn’t there. So what changed? Watters laid out exactly how the Democrat Party actually operates behind closed doors, and it’s not the grassroots fantasy they sell on MS NOW or CNN.

“The Democrat party’s a machine, and the donors tell you what policy you have to do,” he said. “The superdelegates choose the nominee, and then they all get talking points.” That’s the part nobody wants to admit. The party isn’t a movement. It’s a top-down operation, where money decides the agenda and everyone else just repeats the script. “That’s why every day, you hear, ‘big tent, big tent, big tent,'” he said. “They all say the same thing.” It’s not organic enthusiasm. It’s a memo.
But the machine broke down, and Watters didn’t let the Democrats off easy for it. The country got fed up, and according to Watters, the party earned every bit of that anger through pure neglect. “They’ve screwed up, and the country’s now pissed,” he said. “The party’s pissed because what’d they do? They did nothing. They made life more expensive and just focused on Mexicans and Ukrainians, and that let the communists creep in.”
That last line is the whole story. While Democrat leadership obsessed over border policy fights and foreign aid packages, something far more radical was setting up shop inside their own coalition. Watters called out the years of denial that made this moment possible. “They have been denying they’ve been communists for decades,” he said. “No, we’re not communists. We love America. We’re for strong borders. We love the police.” Then, the second the socialist wing started winning primaries, the welcome mat came out. “All of a sudden, the communists start winning, and they’re like, ‘Big tent! Come on in!’” Watters said. “They don’t believe in anything except power.”
Remember the soul-searching after Kamala Harris lost? Watters does, and he’s not letting anyone forget how that played out. “What did we hear after Kamala lost? The Democrats need to define who they are, right?” he said. “You can’t just be anti-Trump. What do Democrats stand for?” For a year and a half, the plan was a working-class makeover. Football games. Backing off the trans agenda, funding police instead of defunding them. You know, pretend to be the party of the working class. “And now the commies start winning, and they’re like, ¡viva la revolucion!” Watters said. “That was fast.” “The Democrats have more in common with communism than the Republicans have in common with fascism,” Watters continued, “and they think they can cobble some winning coalition together.”
He added, “Kennedy is exactly right. The communists are going to steal the Democrat banner to get on the ballot,” Watters said. “They’re going to win. They’re in a caucus with them when it works.” After that comes the reckoning. “Here comes the purge,” Watters warned. “And the purge is going to be ugly, and the establishment is going to get purged.” That sets up a brutal internal war between cash and conviction, a fight Watters says the party simply cannot win. “You’re going to have money versus passion, and that’s a fight they have to have, but that’s a fight they can’t afford because they are dead broke.”

.@JesseBWatters on the Dem Socialist Surge

"All of a sudden, the Communists start winning and they say… BIG TENT! Democrats don't believe in ANYTHING, except power!” pic.twitter.com/PHFqyPI6Fe
— The Five (@TheFive) June 29, 2026

The mask is off. The only question now is how much damage the Democrat Party does to itself before voters figure out who’s really running the show. And they may find out sooner than you think.

A lawsuit to avoid the inevitable.

• Euroclear Files Lawsuit To Block $231.5 Billion Recovery (TASS)

The Euroclear depository has filed a lawsuit in Belgium against the Bank of Russia in an attempt to block the enforcement of an 18.2 trillion ruble ($231.5 billion) Moscow Arbitration Court ruling over frozen assets, the Echo newspaper reported. On May 26, the Moscow Arbitration Court granted the central bank’s motion to enforce the ruling in its lawsuit against Euroclear.

In December 2025, the Central Bank of Russia filed an 18.2 trillion ruble lawsuit against Euroclear with the Moscow Arbitration Court, amid European Union plans to use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine. This amount includes frozen funds, the value of blocked securities, and lost profits. The Bank of Russia stated that the procedure for enforcing the decision using the defendant’s assets, including those located in foreign jurisdictions (both friendly and unfriendly), would be determined after the court ruling enters into legal force.

“The bloc is integrating Kiev deeper into its structures, risking a direct conflict with Russia, Maria Zakharova has said..”

Not risking, deliberately creating.

• NATO and Ukraine Seeking Weapons To Target Russian Airfields – Moscow (RT)

NATO is openly helping Ukraine acquire weapons capable of reaching strategic targets deep inside Russia, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. The latest joint arms development tender shows that the US-led bloc is actively integrating Ukraine into its structures, moving dangerously close to an open confrontation with Moscow, she warned. Zakharova was referring to a €250,000 ($285,656) bidding contract announced in mid-June by NATO’s Allied Command Transformation (ACT) – one of the bloc’s two strategic commands – in cooperation with the NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training and Education Center (JATEC). Created in February 2025, JATEC describes itself as “the first joint NATO-Ukraine organization in the NATO Command Structure.”

Although the contract does not mention Russia directly, it contains a clear reference to enhancing Ukraine’s long-range strike capabilities with “solutions” capable of “persistent airport denial.” The project gives priority to various unmanned systems or loitering munitions capable of flying in signal-denied, electronic-warfare-contested environments and effectively striking runways, fuel reserves, and ground support facilities. The tender stipulates that any solutions must be ready for combat deployment within 12 months and should not require extensive training for operators, with submissions due by late July.
The contract shows that NATO is accelerating Ukraine’s integration into its command structures and military-industrial complex, Zakharova said on Monday. The bloc “is steadily losing what remains of its rationality and drifting into an increasingly high-risk zone” in an effort to turn Ukraine into a “testing ground” for emerging military technologies, she added. However, NATO strategists are “clearly underestimating” the risk of further escalation of the Ukraine conflict into a direct confrontation with Moscow, the spokeswoman said. “With their recklessly aggressive actions, the Ukrainian-NATO partnership is giving the Russian military additional grounds to pay heightened attention to any enterprises involved in the development and production of weapons used against our country.”
The development comes amid broader European militarization, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte consistently urging member states to adopt a “wartime mindset.” Senior UK and German defense officials recently urged citizens to accept “difficult choices” on military spending as NATO states move to hit targets of 5% of GDP. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius claimed last year that Russia could attack a NATO member “as early as 2028,” insisting on the need for a costly military buildup.
Moscow has denied that it has any intention of attacking NATO countries, dismissing the claims as “nonsense” used to whip up anti-Russian hysteria. President Vladimir Putin warned last week that the bloc is no longer hiding its preparations for war with Russia and is using false claims about the supposed ‘Russian threat’ to justify its defense buildup. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in February that Russia has no reason to attack Europe unless it is attacked first. Earlier, he warned that the EU is sliding into a “Fourth Reich.”

Corruption fits.

• Ukraine In Bed With Mexican Drug Lords (RT)

Ukraine is deepening its cooperation with Mexican drug cartels to profit from the flow of narcotics, including fentanyl, into the EU, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has said. US President Donald Trump has made combating fentanyl exports to the US one of his priorities, designating it as a ‘weapon of mass destruction’. In a statement on Monday, the SVR said the Ukrainian security agencies are deliberately showing leniency toward the growing flow of drugs from Latin America to Europe, adding that Kiev is facilitating the trade due to financial strain.

“The corruption-ridden regime of Vladimir Zelensky seeks to get additional profit, especially in the situation of the inability of Western sponsors to satisfy all of its insatiable demands,” the agency said, adding that Kiev also values cartel help in recruiting mercenaries for the military. The agency named Odessa’s ports as the main entry points for narcotics destined for the EU via Poland, Moldova, and Romania, suggesting that Ukraine’s inadequate and deeply flawed border and customs controls make it an attractive route. According to the SVR, Latin American cartels also have their eyes on Ukraine’s black market of weapons.
Ukraine has long served as a storage and transit hub for drugs destined for the EU, including heroin, which is typically transported along the Northern and Caucasus routes from Central Asia and the Caucasus, according to a 2024 analysis by the EU’s drug agency (EMCDDA) and Europol, though the conflict has since disrupted some of these routes. Fentanyl flowing from Mexico has for months been in the crosshairs of Washington. In December, Trump designated the drug – which kills tens of thousands of Americans annually – as ‘a weapon of mass destruction’. Fentanyl is considered even more dangerous than heroin and other opioid drugs, as a lethal dose can be as low as 2 milligrams – around 10 to 15 grains of table salt.
In September 2025, the Mexican newspaper Milenio reported that the Jalisco New Generation Cartel sent members to Ukraine to learn combat drone tactics. Footage reviewed by the outlet shows cartel units operating modified civilian drones with military-style discipline.

The ongoing RT ban makes videos inaccessible.

• Western Media Distorting Ukraine Battlefield Reality – Journalist (RT)

Western media and politicians are misleading the public by hyping Kiev’s attacks on Russia while ignoring the devastating losses suffered by Ukrainian forces, independent Dutch journalist Sonja van den Ende has told RT. In an interview on Sunday, van den Ende argued that while headlines are dominated by Ukrainian strikes on Russian fuel refineries, which are presented as signs of Moscow’s weakness, there is little coverage of Kiev’s military casualties.

“About 2 million dead soldiers or dead servicemen from Ukraine. So this is not, this is not really headlines,” she stated, emphasizing that such figures are buried deep in articles if mentioned at all by Western outlets. Ukrainian regiment threatens journalists after report about training camp deathsREAD MORE: Ukrainian regiment threatens journalists after report about training camp deaths She added that coverage of strikes inside Russia serves as “a distraction” from Kiev’s problems.
Van den Ende said Kiev’s attacks, such as the drone strike on a vocational college dormitory in the town of Starobelsk in the Lugansk People’s Republic that killed 21 people, mostly teenage girls, are not being examined seriously by Western outlets. Around 50 foreign journalists from 19 countries visited the site at Moscow’s invitation, but the BBC and CNN refused to attend. The journalist also pointed to discussions in Germany and other EU states on cutting support for Ukrainian men residing there as another sign that officials privately understand the situation is worsening.
Ukraine has struggled to replenish its losses as Russian troops continue to advance steadily along the front line. The so-called “busification” campaign, in which conscription officers ambush men on the streets and outside their homes, often using violence against those who resist, has repeatedly sparked protests and outrage on social media.
The conscription crisis has prompted several of Ukraine’s European backers to review their asylum policies. Earlier this year, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed to restrict protections for Ukrainians, arguing that young men were needed in their home country. Several news outlets also reported earlier this month that the European Commission had urged EU member states to introduce restrictions on accepting Ukrainian refugees.

PCR insists Putin should have killed more Ukrainians.

• Pusillanimity Brings War, Not Peace (Paul Craig Roberts)

The naive and gullible men in the Kremlin were deceived by the Alaska agreement just as they were by the Minsk agreement. If they had read Trump’s Art of the Deal they would have learned how Trump was going to manipulate them.

It was totally clear to me in 2014 when Putin sat stupidly on his butt and permitted Washington to overthrow the Ukrainian government and install an anti-Russian Washington puppet that Russian inaction was leading to war. When Putin was forced into conflict with Ukraine by Washington and Europe eight years later, it was totally obvious that Putin’s slow-moving, restricted Special Military Operation would provide Washington and NATO ample time to get more and more involved and that the conflict that Putin thought could be limited to Donbas would widen and widen. And that is precisely what has happened.
Putin and Lavrov have said that Washington/NATO intend to turn Ukraine’s conflict with Russia into a war on Russia by the West. Despite finally acknowledging the reality that has been completely clear for 12 years, Putin still refuses to use the decisive force necessary to bring the conflict to a victorious end and stop the widening of the conflict. Putin is focused on gaining another kilometer in Donbas while Ukrainian drone attacks deep inside Russia increasingly disrupt Russian life and energy production and result in civilian casualties.
Having by his own inaction permitted the Ukraine conflict to widen out of control, Putin told military cadets in June that Russia’s nuclear forces will be strengthened and the fighting ability of the military improved in expectation of a war with Europe. This is a war that Putin’s pusillanimity has brought to Russia.
Apparently, Iran has learned nothing from Russia’s experience with Washington. Like Russia, Iran was maneuvered into peace talks that Washington had no intention of allowing to go anywhere. The function of peace talks is to trap Russia and now Iran in a process that prevents the decisive use of military force. Putin wanted negotiations more than he wanted a military victory. Iran was stopped from a decisive, conclusive victory by accepting a ceasefire.
It is inexplicable that any Iranian can possibly think there can be peace in the Middle East as long as the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel continues to be the foreign policy of Israel. It is extraordinary that during the 79 years that this agenda has been pursued no Muslim country has demanded that Israel be confronted with its aggressive agenda. Even today the Iranians have not demanded that the Greater Israel agenda be included in the peace negotiations. It seems clear that both Russia and Iran are more capable of avoiding reality than dealing with it. My conclusion is that two big wars remain on the agenda.
Among the legends that comprise World War II history is the explanation that Chamberlain’s pusillanimity at Munich caused the war. Putin has repeated what historians regard as Chamberlain’s fatal mistake. I myself do not accept the “peace in our time” explanation. World War II resulted from the British guarantee to Poland and from the British and French Declaration of War on Germany. But the Munich explanation has been the official explanation. Putin himself believes the Munich explanation of the war. Why did Putin repeat Chamberlain’s alleged mistake?

JD Vance just said the quiet part out loud at the Nixon Library: the same forces took down Nixon and Trump.@SJKokinda explains why—both men threatened Henry Kissinger's British "perpetual war" doctrine.

And Trump is now dismantling it. pic.twitter.com/djemCDU8er
— Promethean Action (@PrometheanActn) June 29, 2026

Somewhere in a database sits a paper that already describes your exact symptoms, written years before you ever got sick.

Nobody in the room ever read it to you.

Not because medicine failed. Because no human memory was built to hold a field this size.

Grok holds it. All of it.… pic.twitter.com/Ika8H2RmBh
— Dustin (@r0ck3t23) June 30, 2026

Elon Musk just posted “AOC is an actor”

He’s 100% correct, and here’s the proof. AOC was chosen to be in Congress by a Democrat casting call. She’s a political actor that was picked out of 10,000 applicants

AOC’s brother submitted her application and she was chosen by the… pic.twitter.com/BkuZlWdn4Y
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) June 30, 2026

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has officially terminated all HHS contracts with companies owned by Bill Gates, slashing hundreds of millions in federal funding. The move is part of Kennedy's broader effort to end government reliance on the Microsoft… pic.twitter.com/dGWn5c3ZcK
— MaggieWise ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@maggiewise111) June 28, 2026

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Debt Rattle June 30 2026

Jun 302026

June 30, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:15 am Finance Tagged with: E. Jean Carroll, Election Day, SAVE, SCOTUS, Starmer, Supreme Court, Trump 25 Responses »

Titian Venus of Urbino 1534

• Iran Foreign Ministry Contradicts Trump: No Talks will be Held (ZH)

• SCOTUS: The Chief Executive Is, You Know, the Chief Executive (Green)

• The Supreme Court Just Californicated Our Elections (Matt Margolis)

• Alito Warns Supreme Court Opened Pandora’s Box for Election Fraud (Margolis)

• Supreme Court Decides Crucial Mail-in Ballot Case (Salgado)

• Supreme Court Mail-In Ballot Decision Leaves Trump With a Simple Message (Arcand)

• SCOTUS Just Let a Rigged Verdict Against President Trump Stand (Margolis)

• Supreme Court Rejects Trump Bid To Appeal E. Jean Carroll Verdict (CNBC)

• ‘You’re Next!’: Democrats Discover the Mob has a Mind of its Own (Turley)

• The Most Engangered Species of All is White People (Paul Craig Roberts)

• Scott Bessent Bullish on Trump Economy, Predicts 3% Growth, 2% Inflation (JTN)

• Anthropic’s Exit a Wake-Up Call for Europe’s AI Ambitions (Lyman)

• It’s All They’ve Got Now (James Howard Kunstler)

• Starmer Eyeing Top NATO Position – Observer (RT)

• Biden’s Own Party Heckled Him During a Speech (Margolis)

• Raising Children in the 21st Century (CTH)

https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2071324683992264972?s=20

Extremely troubling https://t.co/Q1oycsMAL6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 29, 2026

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2071309367434211746?s=20

Warren Buffet: "I can end the deficit in five minutes. You juts pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for reelection." pic.twitter.com/xloXyu0KAK
— Teddy – PolyBackTest.com (@Bitcoin_Teddy) June 28, 2026

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2071299405211177385?s=20

Trump doesn’t want to restart the bombing. Iran knowa it. And uses it.

• Iran Foreign Ministry Contradicts Trump: No Talks will be Held (ZH)

Earlier Monday a White House official said the Witkoff-Kushner delegation was en route to Qatar for Iran talks, but it’s looking like Tehran will give the US a cold shoulder. Iran state Tasnim is citing Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, who says: “We will not hold any negotiation meetings at any level with the American side in the coming days,” directly contradicting prior reports coming out of Washington. Bloomberg is also confirming the new statement out of the Iranian side. President Trump himself early Monday morning stated on Truth Social: “Iran has requested a meeting. It will take place tomorrow in Doha.” Also Fars has separately stated within the last hours:

“No nuclear negotiations have been held with the US so far, and there will be no negotiations on nuclear issues until Iran’s conditions are met.”
More latest: “IRAN SAYS DELEGATION WILL VISIT QATAR BUT RULES OUT US TALKS” So it seems Witkoff and Kushner will merely meet with Qatari and Pakistani mediators? It remains an open question whether the Iranians will be present in Doha at all. It could be Tehran is issuing the contradictory messaging in order to keep leverage and pressure up, or else to try and humiliate the White House. The Islamic Republic has been warning that more US military action against Iranian territory and in the Hormuz Strait could result in Iran walking away from the negotiating process altogether.
Witkoff-Kushner Delegation En Route to Qatar, Iran Mum
Bloomberg reports Monday that Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will meet with Qatar’s prime minister on Tuesday to discuss the talks with Iran, also citing Axios which spoke to a White House official. Will the Iranians actually be there? On Wednesday US and Iranian technical teams will meet separately with Qatari and Pakistani mediators, Axios says Witkoff and Kushner will travel to Doha today: Axios. So it seems the US delegation is in motion, even as Tehran has as yet offered no concrete public confirmation that an Iranian high level team is in route.

The Supremes are largely in favor of Trump, but they let some nasty pieces slip. The mail-in ballot scene is not tenable. And neither is E. Jean Carroll.

SCOTUS acts as if it not part of what it regulates. Wrong.

• SCOTUS: The Chief Executive Is, You Know, the Chief Executive (Green)

“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America,” read the very first sentence of Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution defining the executive branch of the United States government. “And it means what it says,” the Supreme Court basically ruled Monday morning in a little case called Trump v. Slaughter. Let me set the stage for today’s momentous decision as briefly as possible. I might even have a little fun with it.

Early in his second term, President Donald Trump fired two Democrat commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter. The 1914 Progressive-era law establishing the FTC says commissioners can only be fired for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Trump — much to his credit, but stick a pin in that thought — made no such claim against either Bedoya or Slaughter. He fired them because he didn’t want them working for him any longer. Slaughter, whose resumé consists of legal and government positions having apparently nothing to do with trade, sued.
“The President illegally fired me from my position as a Federal Trade Commissioner, violating the plain language of a statute and clear Supreme Court precedent,” she claimed.The precedent Slaughter referred to is the 1935 case, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, upholding Congress’s authority to protect certain executive branch roles — like FTC commissioners — from getting the presidential heave-ho without cause.
So the way I see it, two things were at stake in Trump v. Slaughter. The first is the separation of powers issue concerning Article II, Section 1. Is executive power vested in the President of the United States of America, or can Congress create an executive branch position only partly within the executive power? The second was the precedent set by Humphrey’s Executor v. United States involving just the FTC almost a century ago.
And Another Thing: Sorry-not-sorry about the headline, but the decision in Trump v. Slaughter was just so gobsmackingly obvious to anyone but the most dedicated progressive that it amused me to sum it up in dated Valley Girl-speak. By firing Bedoya and Slaughter at-will instead of for cause, Trump launched a frontal attack on Humphrey’s — and succeeded.
Today, in a six-to-three decision, the Supreme Court upheld the notion that the president is the master of his domain, and effectively obliterated Humphrey’s. You can guess which six and which three, I’m sure. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, and the last lines read, “Subordinates who exercise the President’s power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people.” That right there is the crux of the issue. This is from my former colleague, Tyler O’Neil: Well said.
The whole notion of “independent agencies” is, in this amateur’s opinion, anathema to the Constitution. If there’s a legal foundation propping up the progressive administrative state existing outside the will of the voters, it’s the idea that there can be administrators immune to public pressure expressed by the only nationally elected official in the entire U.S. government — the President of the United States. Today, SCOTUS potentially blew apart that foundation, which very well might have been the White House’s goal from the start.

“Election Day used to mean something. After Monday, it doesn’t.”

• The Supreme Court Just Californicated Our Elections (Matt Margolis)

For most of us, Election Day is supposed to mean Election Day. Not Election Week. Not Election Month. On Monday, the Supreme Court decided that it no longer matters. In a 5-4 decision in Watson v. Republican National Committee, the Court ruled that federal election-day statutes do not stop Mississippi from counting mail-in ballots: “The federal election-day statutes do not prevent Mississippi from counting absentee ballots postmarked by election day but received up to five days thereafter; nothing in the federal election-day statutes requires ballots to be received by election day.” Mississippi passed that five-day grace period back in 2020 as a COVID-19 emergency measure.

Yet six years later, the “emergency” is still here for some reason, and now it has the Supreme Court’s blessing. Federal law has set a single, uniform Election Day since 1845, with Congress extending the same rule to congressional races in 1872. The Republican National Committee, the Mississippi Republican Party, the Libertarian Party of Mississippi, a Mississippi voter, and a county election official all sued, arguing that a state can’t quietly turn one day into a week just because counting mail-in ballots is inconvenient. A three-judge panel on the Fifth Circuit agreed with them. The full Fifth Circuit declined to revisit that ruling, over a five-judge dissent, and Mississippi ran to the Supreme Court instead.
Mississippi’s lawyer, Solicitor General Scott Stewart, told the justices that states have broad authority over how elections are run and that none of this matters because voters make their final decision by Election Day anyway. Paul Clement, representing the challengers, made the obvious point that when Congress created Election Day, casting a ballot and the government actually receiving it were “so inextricably intertwined” that “no one would have thought of one without the other.” In other words, a vote doesn’t count until officials have it in hand. That used to be common sense, but it got lost on a majority of the court.
It was widely expected that this ruling would go the other way. During oral arguments, which lasted more than two hours, a majority of the justices sounded as if they agreed with Clement. Then the actual ruling came down, and Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Court’s liberal wing to hand Mississippi the win anyway. Justice Samuel Alito dissented, joined by Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, with Brett Kavanaugh signing on in part. They were right, and it didn’t matter.
Here’s what makes this ruling so infuriating: We’ve already seen what this kind of system produces. Look at the recent Los Angeles mayoral race, where Spencer Pratt held a comfortable second-place finish, putting him on track for a November runoff against Karen Bass. Then the mail-in ballots kept trickling in, Nithya Raman posted a mathematically improbable surge, Pratt’s lead evaporated, and two Democrats walked into the runoff instead. That’s not an accident. That’s what happens when “Election Day” becomes a suggestion instead of a deadline.
More than a dozen other states have laws just like Mississippi’s, which means this ruling isn’t a one-state curiosity. It’s a green light. Expect more late-arriving ballot drops, more “improbable surges,” and more races that get decided long after voters went home thinking it was over. This case may have started in Mississippi, but it is going to make elections in America look a lot like California’s. Election Day used to mean something. After Monday, it doesn’t.

“..more opportunity for fraud and more uncertainty injected directly into the system Americans are supposed to trust..”

• Alito Warns Supreme Court Opened Pandora’s Box for Election Fraud (Margolis)

The Supreme Court just made it a lot easier for late-arriving mail-in ballots to count, and Justice Samuel Alito wants you to know exactly what that means for the integrity of your vote. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that federal law permits states to count non-military mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, authored the majority opinion. Alito wrote the dissent, and he wasted no time laying out why the ruling should worry every American who still believes in free and fair elections.

Alito then argued that the decision “leaves open opportunities for voter fraud that may further undermine Americans’ faith in the integrity of this country’s elections.” We all know he’s right. We’ve been covering the problems with mail-in ballots for years, and Alito also backed up his claim with receipts. Alito pointed to a bipartisan commission from 2005, co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, that concluded absentee voting was “the largest source of potential voter fraud” in American elections. Alito noted that “diverse sources have recognized that mail-in ballots increase the potential for fraud.”
Alito’s dissent goes beyond merely citing an old commission report. He laid out, in detail, why mail voting is inherently riskier than voting in person. “When someone votes by mail, it is harder for officials to verify the identity of the person requesting and completing the ballot,” he wrote. “Mail voting also presents a greater opportunity for voter manipulation, a more vulnerable chain of ballot custody, and a diminished ability to detect improprieties in real time.”
Alito warned that letting absentee ballots “pour in over the days and weeks after election day,” while preliminary results are already public, “creates greater opportunity for fraud and risks further undermining the public’s confidence in election integrity.” He even quoted Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s warning that when “thousands of absentee ballots flow in after election day and potentially flip the result of an election,” then “charges of a rigged election can explode.”
Alito also flagged a mess of unresolved legal questions the ruling raises, including whether ballot-recall services and the Postal Service’s or FedEx’s recall policies now violate Election Day statutes as applied to absentee ballots. He concluded that the majority’s decision “opens Pandora’s box” for state legislatures trying to figure out what the law actually permits going forward.= Republicans didn’t waste time reacting. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) called the ruling “a shockingly wrong” decision. Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-Ariz.) called it “disastrous,” warning that the decision “guarantees we’ll keep drifting away from” Election Day “as our sacred elections get bogged down by endless mail-in ballots and never-ending counts.”
The Democrat Party will tell you this ruling is about expanding voting access. That’s a total crock. Alito’s dissent makes clear what it’s really about: more opportunity for fraud and more uncertainty injected directly into the system Americans are supposed to trust. Pandora’s box is open now, and the worst part is, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett helped make it happen.

“… the court ruled 5-4 in favor of allowing Mississippi to count ballots received up to five days after Election Day ..”

• Supreme Court Decides Crucial Mail-in Ballot Case (Salgado)

The U.S. Supreme Court has finally handed down a ruling on a vitally important mail-in ballot counting deadline case. The decision comes amid controversy over election results altered by alleged mail-in ballots in California.

Unfortunately, the court ruled 5-4 in favor of allowing Mississippi to count ballots received up to five days after Election Day. This is a disaster, obviously a huge opportunity for fraud, an encouragement not to count expeditiously, approval for ballots not mailed in time and possibly harvested, and also indirectly ensures other states like California will count until they get the results authorities want. It was a very disappointing decision from SCOTUS, especially given our supposed conservative majority.

BREAKING: Supreme Court rules 5-4 that federal law does NOT require mail-in ballots to be received by Election Day

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberal justices pic.twitter.com/ynr2E9X9sX
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 29, 2026

Watson v. Republican National Committee addressed whether federal election-day statutes in 2 and 3 U.S. Code preempt state laws that permit election officials to count ballots allegedly cast by election day but received afterward. Michael Watson, Mississippi’s secretary of state, was the petitioner. Democrats — who love to railroad states on parental rights and free speech — are shrieking “states’ rights” in this case. Republicans, in contrast, are pointing out that counting ballots received after election day has nothing to do with constitutionality or lawful state election systems, but rather is an excuse for facilitating fraud.
The case’s importance came into focus with the early July elections in California. A week of Democrats “counting” and miraculously discovering more of a few million ballots in California finally put Democrat Xavier Becerra ahead of Republican Steve Hilton in the gubernatorial race. Meanwhile, distant third socialist Nithya Raman suddenly shot ahead of registered Republican Spencer Pratt for the Los Angeles mayoral runoff, days after Election Day.
DDHQ did confirm at last that Hilton would still be advancing to the general election, but a sudden series of statistically improbable drops managed to shove Pratt out of his second-place slot against Democrat Mayor Karen Bass. And yet, California still went on “counting.” The state accepts ballots that arrive after Election Day. Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, called the state a “fraudsters’ paradise.”As legal expert Jonathan Turley said, “As the Supreme Court readies its decision in Watson v. Republican National Committee (on whether to require votes by ‘election day’ in federal elections), the dysfunctional system in California is not helping those who want states to have the final say on such deadlines.”
“If we want fair and secure elections, Election Day should mean exactly what it says, which is why this decision makes it even more imperative that Congress pass the SAVE America Act,” said RNC Chairman Joe Gruters. “Democrats are inviting chaos at the ballot box by allowing elections to drag on for days and weeks after voters cast their ballots. Republicans are not going to be deterred by this decision, and the RNC will keep fighting to have elections end on Election Day as Americans want.”
When the original states ratified the Constitution, there was one Election Day. The whole process we have now of voting for months and using mail-in ballots and such nonsense would have absolutely horrified the Founders. They would also have understood what Democrats deny now, that such a system is all about creating a lot of opportunities for fraud.

SAVE!

• Supreme Court Mail-In Ballot Decision Leaves Trump With a Simple Message (Arcand)

President Donald Trump called the Republican National Committee’s Supreme Court loss on Monday “tremendous,” and he used it as an opportunity to push for the SAVE America Act once again. bThe court ruled that states are allowed to count mail-in ballots that were obtained after Election Day, as long as they were postmarked before that day. Specifically, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the majority opinion of the court’s 5-4 decision that “federal election-day statutes do not prevent Mississippi from counting absentee ballots postmarked by election day but received up to five days thereafter; nothing in the federal election-day statutes requires ballots to be received by election day.”

The president wrote on Truth Social that “it is more important than ever to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” which includes documentary proof of citizenship at the time of voter registration and limits for mail-in ballots, with workarounds if somebody is disabled, ill, traveling, or deployed. “The House of Representatives has approved this vital Act, THREE TIMES,” Trump added, before saying that the Senate “seems unable to do so.” “In a time when there is a powerful Communist Movement taking place in our Country, one more dangerous than World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or September 11th, all Dumocrats, and our five Republican Senate Hold Outs, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Thom Tillis, Bill Cassidy, and Mitch McConnell must vote to SAVE OUR COUNTRY. There can be no more excuses,” he wrote.
Collins has been supportive of the federal elections proposal; however, she voted against a push to attempt to attach to the “Secure America Act” reconciliation bill earlier this month, according to Fox News. Meanwhile, Cassidy has also been supportive of the bill, but he recently expressed skepticism about its ability to pass. “There are not the votes,” the Louisiana Republican told “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on CBS News on Sunday. In response to Trump’s post on Saturday, Cassidy, will not be returning to the upper chamber after losing his primary, said it’s “it’s irresponsible to postpone signing the Housing bill due to the SAVE Act.”

Mr. President, I don’t know which version of the SAVE America Act you’re referring to, but I am a cosponsor and support the latest version. I don’t know which staffer misled you, but thank you for your attention to this matter!!

Btw, it’s irresponsible to postpone signing the… https://t.co/NY3G62paNj
— U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (@SenBillCassidy) June 29, 2026

Some Republicans, like Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), have stressed the need to attach the bill to whatever legislation they possibly can. “Let’s add SAVE to the Housing bill. Let’s add SAVE to FISA Reauthorization,” Banks posted to X. “Let’s add SAVE to a new Reconciliation bill. We must pass the SAVE America Act.” “We must secure our elections once & for all,” he added.

Only US citizens should be voting in US elections.

Let’s add SAVE to the Housing bill.
Let’s add SAVE to FISA Reauthorization.
Let's add SAVE to a new Reconciliation bill.

We must pass the SAVE America Act.
We must secure our elections once & for all.https://t.co/jwFq8uU6u3
— Senator Jim Banks (@SenatorBanks) June 29, 2026

“Carroll claims, without any evidence, that Trump sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store ..”

• SCOTUS Just Let a Rigged Verdict Against President Trump Stand (Margolis)

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it won’t touch a 2023 jury verdict ordering President Donald Trump to pay E. Jean Carroll $5 million for sexually abusing and defaming her. While the court has handed Trump several key wins on challenges to his presidential actions, the refusal stings precisely because it’s the first time since he returned to office that he’s asked the justices to step into a personal legal fight, and they walked away from it. Carroll claims, without any evidence, that Trump sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store back in 1996.

She didn’t go public until 2019, and when she did, she didn’t go to the police; she put it in a book. Trump has always said the story was fabricated to sell that book, and everything she’s done since has just given credence to the accusations that she’s just a grifter. Trump’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court to step in, warning that it’s “deeply damaging to the fabric of our Republic for President Trump, in the midst of a historic presidency, to have to take his focus away from his singular and unique duties as Chief Executive to continue fighting against decades-old, false allegations and the myriad wrongs throughout this baseless case.” They added, “This mistreatment of a President cannot be allowed to stand.”
Trump’s legal team also argued Carroll sat on her “implausible, unsubstantiated assertions” for more than two decades to “maximize political injury to him and profit for herself.” They went further, pointing out that her account “precisely matches the plotline from an episode of one of admittedly her favorite TV shows, ‘Law & Order.'” A story that lines up that neatly with a television script deserved more scrutiny than it got, and that’s before you even get to the rest of Carroll’s track record, including a paid walking tour that conveniently started at the exact spot she claims Trump attacked her.
But the key part of Trump’s case wasn’t about Carroll’s lack of credibility. It was about what the jury never should have heard in the first place. His lawyers argued that jurors were wrongly allowed to hear testimony from two other women accusing Trump of assault, along with the 2005 Access Hollywood recording of Trump bragging about grabbing women. None of that evidence belonged anywhere near a trial about a specific 1996 allegation, and letting it in front of a jury all but guaranteed the outcome before the case even started.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals waved off those objections in 2024, ruling that “taking the record as a whole and considering the strength of Ms. Carroll’s case, we are not persuaded that any claimed error or combination of errors in the district court’s evidentiary rulings affected Mr. Trump’s substantial rights.” Now the Supreme Court has let that ruling stand without explanation.
This isn’t even Trump’s only Carroll headache. A separate 2024 jury ordered him to pay her $83.3 million over public statements disputing her account, a verdict that survived three separate appeals. His lawyers are now drafting a Supreme Court appeal in that case too, which was made possible by a special New York law that opened a limited window for sexual abuse survivors to sue over decades-old claims, a law tailor-made for exactly this kind of lawsuit, which Carroll helped make happen.
Carroll built an entire financial windfall on what was clearly a fiction, and the courts have signed off on every dollar of it. The Supreme Court had a chance to ask hard questions about evidence that should never have reached a jury. It chose not to, and Carroll cashes the check anyway.

A TV show. It shows justice as non-existent.

• Supreme Court Rejects Trump Bid To Appeal E. Jean Carroll Verdict (CNBC)

The Supreme Court on Monday said it would not hear an appeal by President Donald Trump of a New York federal court jury’s verdict awarding the writer E. Jean Carroll $5 million for having been sexually abused and defamed by Trump. Trump separately was found civilly liable by another Manhattan federal court jury for having defamed Carroll. She was awarded $83.3 million in that case, which Trump is appealing at a lower federal appeals court.

The Supreme Court did not explain why it rejected Trump’s request that it hear his appeal of the $5 million verdict from the 2023 trial, as is typical for such orders. None of the justices, three of whom were appointed to the high court by Trump, issued a written dissent to the decision. Trump’s lawyers said the trial judge in the case improperly allowed testimony from two other women who said they were targets of sexual misconduct by Trump.
Carroll, in a 2019 New York magazine article, first publicly alleged that Trump had raped her in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s. She later filed a civil lawsuit alleging rape and that he had defamed her when he denied her claims. A judge in May 2023 found that Trump had sexually abused Carroll and defamed her. CNBC has requested comment from Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, as well as from the White House and Trump’s attorney in the Supreme Court appeal, Michael Martinich-Sauter.

“Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.”

• ‘You’re Next!’: Democrats Discover the Mob has a Mind of its Own (Turley)

“You’re next!” This chant, at the victory celebration of the Democratic Socialists this week, was a message not for the oligarchs or the billionaires, but for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and the Democratic establishment. They were threatening that Jeffries would be the next to lose his House seat to a socialist candidate. It was a scene that has recurred throughout history, as establishment leaders are overtaken by the very mobs they sought to use for their own purposes.

For years, Jeffries has joined other Democrats in fueling the rage on the left in the hopes of becoming the next House Speaker. Whether calling for supporters to “fight in the streets,” denouncing the Supreme Court as “illegitimate” or posting an image of himself brandishing a baseball bat, Jeffries sought to portray himself as a class warrior worthy of the mob’s support. Other Democratic leaders followed suit — especially Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. It was Schumer who yelled threats at conservative Supreme Court justices in front of the court. A deranged man triggered by such rhetoric in the media later attempted to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Schumer and others portrayed their opponents as Nazis who threaten the very existence of democracy, and they stoked class conflict to inspire resentment for the wealthy.
Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison — now Minnesota’s attorney general — celebrated that Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump and his supporters. Figures like Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) (who is reportedly worth half a billion dollars due to his wife’s inherited fortune) have attempted to ride the rage wave by advocating a billionaire’s tax that is presumptively unconstitutional. By the time these establishment figures realized their armchair-revolutionary rhetoric would not convince the mob, it was too late.
Jeffries and figures like former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had endorsed candidates such as Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who perhaps more than anyone else personified the problem. He was the attack dog of the establishment, fueling rage and promising a spate of impeachments. But what the left saw was a trust-fund baby who had inherited a fortune, owns three houses, and has publicly pledged to use his inheritance to fund his reelection. He came across as the Democratic Richie Rich, and he lost on Tuesday by more than 30 points.
In my book Rage and the Republic, I discuss how these Democratic leaders are following the same self-destructive pattern of prior establishment figures in history who thought that they could use mobs against their opponents while hoping that they would be overlooked.
The American and French Revolutions were contemporary movements based on Enlightenment principles. But whereas our Revolution went on to become the world’s oldest and most stable republic, the French Revolution became the blood-soaked Terror. The French Revolution was not some spontaneous uprising of the proletariat or underclass. It was led by relatively affluent figures on the left, from aristocrats to journalists to lawyers. Maximilien Robespierre, who would later declare terror a virtue, was a lawyer who helped organize the revolutionary Jacobins.
These educated and affluent figures turned to working-class radicals as their muscle to terrorize their opponents. And not long after executing aristocrats and clergy, the radicals turned on the Jacobins themselves. “Moderates” were sent to the guillotine by Robespierre and his henchmen as they clung to power. But eventually, the mob came for them, too. After the Terror, French writer Jacques Mallet du Pan wrote, “Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.”
After candidates endorsed by socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani easily swept aside the establishment candidates in Jeffries and Schumer’s backyard, politicians and pundits began to panic. They never imagined the mob would turn on them. Even liberal media figures such as Ezra Klein and pandering academic figures have become targets of the left. Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, who has called for the effective trashing of the U.S. Constitution, had law students staging protests in his own home.
Others have sought to stay at the front of the mob. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) denounced the lengthy sentences handed down to nine violent Antifa figures in Texas for their roles in the ambush and attempted murder of a police officer who had responded to the disturbance they were creating at an ICE facility. The officer, Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross, barely survived a bullet to the neck.

“.. government-imposed multiculturalism that is a far greater threat to white existence than the threats posed by previous wars of conquest…”

• The Most Engangered Species of All is White People (Paul Craig Roberts)

Hanne Herland, the executive director of the highly regarded European News Service based in Norway, The Herland Report, reports that the BBC and the rest of the anti-white British presstitute media have yet to report the week-old Lowe Report’s findings that for 30 years British governments covered up multiple repeated gang rapes of a quarter of a million pre-teen white British girls, and then had them sodomized by dogs. The police would not act, and the parents were helpless.

If the parents made too much of a fuss, the parents, not the rapists, would be investigated for racist hate speech for accusing oppressed black people. The whore British media protected the criminals that corrupt British governmenrts permitted to walk unopposed into Britain by refusing to report the gang rapes. Now the whore British media refuses to report the Lowe Report. The British people know about it, but government and media denial deprive the facts of official status.
The death toll for white ethnicities came from decades of indoctrination that established the belief that there is no guilt in the entire world but white racist guilt and gentile anti-semitic guilt. White people are more demonized than Jews were by Nazis. One might have thought that hundreds of thousands of British fathers and mothers would have armed themselves with whatever weapons they could find and hunted down and killed the rape gangs. And also the whore media. The parents could have killed the police who protect the rape gangs, taken their weapons, and shot down the immigrant-invaders in the streets. They might have cleaned out the BBC and the rest of the scum British media as well.
But they didn’t. The ethnic British, like white ethnics everywhere, have been demonized for so many decades that white ethnics have lost the self-confidence necessary if one is to protect oneself, one’s children, and one’s family. This undeniable fact is why I recently wrote “The 21st Century is the Last Era of White People.” People with no will to survive will not survive. The white liberals’s demonizations of white people for decades have destroyed the self-belief of white ethnicities and broken their will to survive. Exampes abound. The ethnic French people are afraid to elect Marine Le Pen, who speaks for them, because they believe they would be electing a racist.
What we are witnessing in Britain, indeed all over the tiny part of the world that is white ethnic, is a threat to existence of white ethnicities by government-imposed multiculturalism that is a far greater threat to white existence than the threats posed by previous wars of conquest. And there is silence. No warnings have been heeded. Not Enoch Powell’s warning to the British, not Jean Raspail’s warning to the French, not Wilmot Robertson’s warning to Americans. All efforts to wake up white ethnics whose insouciance is dooming them to extermination have been unsuccessful.
The white ethnicities are too busy scrolling their cell phones. Moreover, they lack the will to recognize their danger. They have been too indoctrinated against themselves to confront an existential threat. Not even liberal progressive white people get a pass. They also “perpetuate racial harm” to people of color Robin Diangelo, a professor of education at the University of Washington and a “facilitator for a quarter of a century on issues of racial and social jusice,” assures us in Nice Racism. As racism is regarded by white liberals as the worst of all possible crimes and as aversive racism is allegedly inhernt in white genes, the only way to end racism is to end white people. It implies a holocaust on a wider scale than the one attributed to Hitler.
Their danger is illiustrated to white ethnicities daily, but they turn away from reality and find comfort in false reality. Essentially, white ethnicities lack the self-belief and the moral strength to save themselves and are actively engaged in turning power over to immigrant-invaders. They are too weak and full of indoctrinated guilt to survive. “Massive Racism against Whites: UK Rape Gang Inquiry Report shows 250,000 British girls raped but the Media deems it Not Newsworthy” https://hannenabintuherland.com/currentaffairs/massive-racism-against-whites-uk-rape-gang-inquiry-report/
I have been writing about the inability of white ethnics to defend themselves for many years. I have never had a response to my columns reporting mass rapes of Scandanivian and British females, and sometimes little boys. No white liberal has written: “This is awful. What can we do?”
No feminist has written: “What can we do to protect women and pre-teen girls from gang-rapes?”
No white liberal has written: “Out multicultural ideology was a mistake. How do we recover?”
No American conservative, no “white supremist” has asked what do we do to save ourselves.
Not a word. The weak-minded, weak-willed white ethnics hide their heads in the sand. When I speak it is like speaking to an empty room. This is why I have concluded that white ethnics are doomed. They have been too indoctrinated against themselves by their enemies to survive. Their demonization is institutionalized in the educational system and is finding its way into criminal justice systems. There are more British citizens in prison for complaining about the rape of their children than there are immigrant-invaders who raped the children.
The attack on white ethnicity is two-pronged. Not only can you be imprisoned for racism, but also for anti-semitism. The “privilege” that white ethnicity has is to be prosecuted for being white gentiles. The lack of organized resistence suggests that white ethnicities have accepted their fate. The immigrant-invaders see this and grow bolder. Meanwhile white ethnicities prepare their final war against themselves as the US and Europe prepare for war against Russia.

By year’s end.

• Scott Bessent Bullish on Trump Economy, Predicts 3% Growth, 2% Inflation (JTN)

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is confident the United States will weather the Iran conflict and a temporary spike in gas prices and finish 2026 with economic growth above 3% while hitting the Federal Reserve’s 2% inflation target. Bessent told Just the News that the recent revision upwards of the Gross Domestic Product is one of many signs the economy is still strong.”The president rightly believed that Iran was an existential danger, and had to be dealt with. It was a 90-day intervention there, but the economy, our economy, did the best in the world in terms of any major economy that pushed back on the naysayers, and first quarter, just got revised up to 2.1%,” Bessent said during an interview Friday on the Just the News No Noise TV program.

“I think that we are going to print more than 3% growth for the year, and importantly, the energy-generated inflation, crude oil prices today are lower than they were on February 27,” he added. For comparison, real GDP growth in 2025 was 2.1%, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Bessent also predicted that gasoline prices would “continue coming down” for the summer driving season. “We will be back towards the Fed’s 2% inflation target, and the message is job growth has been substantial. Moving into April, until April, we had seen real wage growth for working Americans,” he said.
“We’re going to get back on that track to try to help the American people recoup some of their big affordability losses under the Biden administration, where it was the worst inflation in 48 years,” he added.

Add that to Europe’s perils: no AI.

• Anthropic’s Exit a Wake-Up Call for Europe’s AI Ambitions (Lyman)

After months of debate in Europe on how to limit AI, Anthropic’s limits on its highest level systems is shining a light on Europe’s lack of large AI companies. Anthropic’s decision to shut off access to its most advanced artificial intelligence models raised alarm bells for European leaders already worried about over-dependence on foreign partners. In recent years, the EU has sounded alarms about too much dependence on Russian energy and Chinese manufacturing. Now, the decision by U.S. artificial intelligence leader Anthropic to suspend access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 systems has leaders worried about overreliance on U.S. technologies.

Earlier this month, the White House ordered Anthropic — owner of artificial intelligence assistant Claude — to cut off access to its highest level systems for “any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, over security issues. Anthropic responded by cutting off access to the models for everyone. Fable 5 is the consumer version of Anthropic’s AI agent, while Mythos 5, known for its ability to detect cybersecurity vulnerabilities, is the version that was accessible only to a select network of digital infrastructure companies.
Worries that Trump could “pull the plug”
The development comes after high-level worries that President Donald Trump could “pull the plug” on large swaths of the Internet in Europe. “It is no longer reasonable to assume that we can totally rely on our American partner,” Matthias Ecke, a German member of the European Parliament said last year. It also comes amid debate within Europe over the landmark AI Act designed to regulate artificial intelligence. Even Pope Leo XIV has entered the debate, issuing his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity) in May, calling for artificial intelligence to be reined in to assure that it “serves humanity.” The sprawling document was unveiled last month by the pontiff alongside Christoper Olah, Anthropic’s co-founder.
“Preventing AI from dominating humanity,” Vatican says
“Artificial intelligence now demands to be disarmed, freed from logic that turns it into an instrument of domination, exclusion, and death,” Leo said. “To disarm does not mean rejecting technology but preventing it from dominating humanity.” But European tech startups and their advocates have called for the implementation of the AI Act to be delayed or for the act itself to be weakened, arguing that it makes it too hard for them to compete against rivals in the U.S. and China.
“The EU’s AI Act risks creating a fragmented, unpredictable regulatory environment that will undermine innovation, discourage investment, and ultimately leave Europe behind in the global AI race,” read a 2025 letter signed by dozens of European AI founders and investors. Rules are necessary, the letter said, “but don’t regulate us into the ground.” Now, those voices are expected to be taken more seriously. The AI Act now appears almost certain to be “watered down” and Europe’s lack of competitiveness in the sector is now set to become a central priority at the Group of Seven (G-7) leaders’ summit set to get underway in France on Monday.
But experts say the AI sector in Europe will continue to suffer from insufficient investment, high energy cost, a complex regulatory environment, and the absence of national champions. A new fictionalized scenario called Europe 2031 earning headlines in European media points to a future where “over-regulation and a lack of ambition” mean that Europe is “left powerless as AI denominates defense, cybersecurity, and geopolitics.”

“. . . there is no saving the Left. Whatever happens to them, it will have to happen without people like you or me trying to get them to return to any place of sanity.” — Sasha Stone on Substack

• It’s All They’ve Got Now (James Howard Kunstler)

And the Lord made Sophie Cunningham of the Indiana Fever

A punishing heat-dome creeps over the eastern half of the country just in time for the gala Fourth of July week. The days are brutal, but anything and everything crawls out of the woodwork when that blazing sun goes down and the moon comes out. Everyone’s on edge, but the edge of what? I will tell you.

First, could there be a richer (or more obvious) target for bloody mischief than this year’s national holiday, the 250th birthday of a nation that millions lucky enough to live here have been trained-up to hate on? Even the sons and daughters (including pretend “daughters”) of millionaires have gone mad-dog on America, the poster-boy being Marxist-jihadi New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the Left’s new avatar-general.
Since no one is more hated than the, ahem, Celebrator-in-Chief, you might want to steer clear of conspicuous public celebrations this week. Antifa and even worse gangs are out there right now, making plans and laying traps. Maybe not so much in places like Texas, where eight Antifas were just sentenced collectively to 450 years in the slammer for shooting up the Prairieland ICE Detention Center in Alvarado. . . but here in the Empire State and other Blue-ish jurisdictions, all bets are off. Be careful ‘out there’ among the smokin’ ribs, the fireworks shows, and big music venues.
You can see how this summer, and the nauseating slide down to the midterm elections, are shaping up. The party of “Our Democracy” is desperate to an extreme now, all disfigured by a communist leprosy eating away at its public face (and a cancer of fraud metastasizing through its innards). It has become such an obvious monster, raging with its hair lit-up, that anyone with half a functioning brain is shying away, stealing off into the gloaming. The party has nothing left but chaos and, in the weeks ahead, anything that might be disrupted probably will be.
The objective is to create so much havoc and distress throughout the country — especially the big cities — that Mr. Trump will have to invoke the Insurrection Act, and by doing so, the Lefty-left hope to create conditions so adverse that an orderly Election Day cannot happen. The Insurrection Act would be the Left’s cue to declare Mr. Trump the very “king” whose coronation they have busily rehearsed all year, and then, voila, you get a new French-style American Revolution 2.0, complete with guillotine and transgender Jacobins turning the country upside-down.
You might consider the theory that the nation actually needs to suffer a genuine nightmare to wake up from. The Revolution 1.0 we celebrate this week was, after all, a nightmarish struggle rife with hardship and loss. Nine signers of the Declaration of Independence died from war-related tribulations. Five were imprisoned and tortured. Twelve had homes ransacked and burned. And then, of course, the military action itself, including travails such as the winter at Valley Forge, the disastrous New York Campaign, and the never-ending logistics crisis, no food, no clothing, no munitions.
In the present summer of travail we face, you can expect at least some major wake-up calls issued by the bloc in the country that has not gone insane — which happens to include many in Mr. Trump’s executive branch. I’m serenely confident that real evidence of 2020 election fraud will finally emerge, coincidental with indictments. Do you think that the Fulton County, GA, election records were seized last winter for no reason? Say goodbye to that old “baseless” talking point.
There are, of course, a whole lot of other seditious and treasonous Beltway villains nervously awaiting administration of the law. You know their names. It appears that the new supervising US Attorney in the Southern District of Florida, Joseph DiGenova, is reorganizing the so-called “grand conspiracy” case against this large cadre of coupsters into a folio of discrete cases — RussiaGate, Fake Impeachment #1, the Mar-a-Lago raid, etc. — to make them more manageable and move them more speedily forward. Don’t be surprised if one or more of these cases happens to drop before the midterms. (Democratic Party true-blue loyalists could be surprised, even shocked to their socks, since these indictments will refute everything that has become essential to their identities as the good and righteous people of this land.)

“The newspaper claimed the outgoing UK prime minister is considering becoming the military bloc’s chief in 2028:”:

Last week the guy was chased out of no. 10 with tar and feathers. Now this. You tell me.

He’s an utter failure.

Who wants a bigger job.

Because of it.

• Starmer Eyeing Top NATO Position – Observer (RT)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who is stepping down following a revolt within his own party, is interested in becoming the next secretary general of NATO, The Observer reported on Sunday. Starmer teared up last week when he announced that he would resign as prime minister and Labour Party leader in response to mounting pressure. Several ministers left his cabinet, and more than 80 Labour MPs urged him to step down after the party lost nearly 1,500 local council seats in last month’s elections. Former Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, who won the Makerfield by-election on June 18, is widely seen as Starmer’s successor.

According to The Observer, Starmer is interested in becoming NATO secretary general once Mark Rutte’s term expires in 2028, unless it is extended. The newspaper added that Starmer would require “some sustained government backing” for a successful bid. It said Starmer’s supporters point to his close relationship with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, claiming that the two sometimes “pocket dial” each other by accident, as well as his ties with other European leaders.
The NATO secretary general, usually a former head of government or senior diplomat, is selected through consultations among member states, with the final appointment requiring the unanimous backing of all 32 members.
Starmer led Labour to a landslide victory in the 2024 general election, vowing to bring stability after a string of short-lived Conservative prime ministers. However, his premiership quickly became associated with tax increases, welfare cuts, political scandals, and an increasingly controversial foreign policy agenda. He made support for Kiev a central pillar of his premiership while Britain grappled with defense funding shortages, procurement setbacks, and growing concerns over military readiness.
According to The Telegraph, Starmer was also criticized for spending too much time on international affairs and not enough on domestic issues, having traveled “more and further than any other British leader in official history.” The newspaper said he spent around two and a half months abroad during his first 17 months in office. Starmer’s relationship with US President Donald Trump also soured over his refusal to back the US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Trump said Starmer was “no Winston Churchill” and criticized his record on migration and energy policy. By contrast, Trump repeatedly praised Rutte as both a friend and an effective leader, even while criticizing NATO as a whole.

..Will Embarrass Himself for money..

• Biden’s Own Party Heckled Him During a Speech (Margolis)

It’s been two years since Joe Biden’s catastrophic debate against President Donald Trump, which ultimately made his party realize they could no longer pretend he was fit for office and forced him out of the race. Two years later, Biden is still proving how unfit he was, this time stumbling through a combative speech in front of the very people who used to cheer him on.

Biden showed up Saturday night at the Maryland Democrat Party’s Fight Back & Win Summit at Live! Casino & Hotel in Hanover, Md., to deliver a teleprompter-fed attack against Trump. The crowd was full of party activists, the kind of room that should have been the easiest audience of his career. Instead, hecklers interrupted him mid-speech, and by the time it was over, he struggled just to make his way off the stage. If Biden wanted to use the event to prove that he still has some fight in him, what he delivered instead was a reminder of exactly why the Democrat establishment forced him out of the race two years ago.
Of course, Biden put on a show with his usual attack lines. He accused the president of wrecking America’s alliances, enriching himself in office, and tanking the country’s standing both at home and abroad, calling it “corruption on a scale never seen before.” This is from the guy who literally tried to put Trump, his political rival, in prison. Then came the line that should embarrass every Democrat in that room. “Have you noticed that Americans are saying the economy under the Biden administration is a hell of a lot better than under Trump?” Biden asked, and the crowd actually applauded.
It’s not, of course. Rampant inflation under Biden crushed American families and handed Trump the White House back in the first place. Trump has since gotten inflation under control, something Biden apparently can’t bring himself to acknowledge even now. Biden kept swinging anyway. “It’s simply stunning to me,” he said of Trump’s conduct. “He has no shame, and frankly it’s embarrassing for the country. But Trump? Trump could care less.” He also went after what he called Trump’s “vanity projects,” ticking off a list.
“It’s not just his vanity projects — tearing down the East Wing of the White House making room for his ballroom. Putting his name on the Kennedy Center. Building an arch in his own honor. Even hiring his own pool guy to fix the reflecting pool,” Biden said, before adding, “Whoa — what a loser.” And then he got lost trying to exit the stage. Two years after that debate stage exposed him to the entire country that was pretending everything was okay, Biden refuses to go away, embarrassing himself repeatedly for speaking fees because now that he’s out of power (or at least his autopen is), he has no other way to make money

“A Culture of Instant Gratification Raised on Singular Views of Victimhood.”

• Raising Children in the 21st Century (CTH)

Katharine Birbalsingh, argues that the West’s moral crisis began with the values we taught our children. She explores how schools, culture, and social media have shaped a generation to see the world through the lens of oppressor and oppressed—and why restoring duty, responsibility, and moral character is essential to the future of Western civilization. As I watched this remarkable speech, I realized what Birbalsingh describes is what does not exist in Russia. When you talk to a person in Russia about DEI, victim mindset or the various equities of personage emphasized in the modern, cultural ‘west’; a Russian person has absolutely no reference point to engage in the conversation. Chapters: 00:00 A Moral Crisis in the West 02:04 How White Guilt Changed a Generation 03:47 The Values We Took for Granted 06:09 Teaching Children to See Oppressors and Victims 08:22 Why Young People No Longer Love Their Country 10:30 This Is a Civilizational Failure 11:35 Save Our Children, Save the West

ELON MUSK:

“THERE ARE NO LORDS AND PEASANTS AT TESLA. EVERYONE EATS AT THE SAME TABLE.”

“I ACTUALLY KNOW THE PEOPLE ON THE LINE, BECAUSE I WORKED ON THE LINE, I WALKED THE LINE, I SLEPT IN THE FACTORY, AND I WORKED BESIDE THEM. SO, I'M NO STRANGER TO THEM.

THERE ARE MANY… pic.twitter.com/gva31AQtpi
— Vivek Sen (@Vivek4real_) June 29, 2026

Jensen Huang says the next internet is not for humans. It is for agents.

"AI has become agentic, meaning that it can actually do work by itself."

"One agent can communicate with another agent and say, 'I have some work to do. Let's team up together and let's do some work.'"… pic.twitter.com/bcCnZRusdx
— Karl Mehta (@karlmehta) June 28, 2026

This is seriously so powerful.

President Trump is not perfect by any means but he is leading this country back to christ.

You can get mad all you want in the comment section if you dislike and hate Trump. That's just the devil speaking to you.

Video credit: Gregs… pic.twitter.com/jzfL6zZzn2
— Sassafrass84 (@Sassafrass_84) June 28, 2026

Monet's pond is a true oasis in Japan that looks like a painting come to life pic.twitter.com/OwxvOYj012
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 29, 2026

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

Debt Rattle June 26 2026

Jun 262026

June 26, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:09 am Finance Tagged with: NATO, Rutte, Trump, Vance 40 Responses »

VIncent van Gogh Quay with Men Unloading Sand Barges 1888

• It’s Official: The Democrat Party Is a Socialist Skinsuit (Stephen Green)

• The Democratic Socialists are Ascendant in New York (JTN)

• The Republican Party’s Dissidents Show Themselves the Door (Ben Shapiro)

• Mark Rutte Gives “Remain in NATO” Pitch to President Trump in White House (CTH)

• Anthropic Accuses Alibaba Of Illicitly Extracting Ai Capabilities (BBC)

• US National Security Agency (NSA) Loses Access To Key AI Tool (RT)

• Brexit at 10: The Divorce Britain Now Regrets (Galina Dudina)

• Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s EO Requiring Proof of Citizenship to Vote (AmG)

• A River in Egypt (Molly Schwartz)

• Suffer the Little Children, France Insists (Stephen Green)

• Kremlin To Contact Apple Before Responding To Removal of Apps (TASS)

• Apple Price Shock: Macs And iPads Jump $200 Or More, Memory Crisis Worsens (ZH)

• Fauci, The CIA, And The Unanswered Questions of COVID (RealClearWire)

We have rediscovered at great cost what America’s first @USTreasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton taught us: the nation that depends on its adversaries for critical inputs is neither truly sovereign nor truly prosperous.

As we approach 250 years of American independence, we would… pic.twitter.com/KVlebPnSJQ
— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) June 24, 2026

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/2069816129179058463?s=20 https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2069592469176476075?s=20

Donald Trump says he’s spoken to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and other top officials about potentially officially pulling out of NATO

Trump says there’s no point in paying for NATO if when we ask them to assist in a war, all the countries just say no

We are spending $950… pic.twitter.com/2eO4nZp10b
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) June 24, 2026

What, no war accounts to open with?

I think what used to be moderate Democrat voters, the party’s base, have vanished.

If there were a third option, they would dissolve.

To survive, they move left more and more.

• It’s Official: The Democrat Party Is a Socialist Skinsuit (Stephen Green)

Just about the last thing you should expect from some lefty political insider is a forthright admission of what they’re actually up to, but that’s exactly what happened when Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) New York City cochair Gustavo Gordillo spoke with NY1’s Spectrum News earlier this week. It seems like only yesterday [It was only yesterday, Steve —Editor] that PJ Media’s own Matt Margolis pronounced the Democrat Party “dead” after three far-left candidates “endorsed by socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani swept their targeted congressional primaries” against their traditional Democrat opponents.

Gordillo is here to tell you that not only is the Democrat Party dead, but he and his DSA comrades wear its skinsuit. “We’re using the Democratic Party as a ballot-access vehicle, not because we share its goals,” Gordillo boldly stated. “We build our own organization, get elected under the Democratic label, caucus with Democrats when it’s useful, and push our own agenda from the inside.” Here’s the kicker — the line that should have House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries losing sleep at night and/or wetting himself: “We see the Democratic establishment as an obstacle, not a home.” Of course, I have the clip for you, on the off chance you feel masochistic enough to watch the whole thing.

This is the DSA co-chair. Let me summarize what he says in this video:

We’re using the Democratic Party as a ballot-access vehicle, not because we share its goals. We build our own organization, get elected under the Democratic label, caucus with Democrats when it’s useful,… pic.twitter.com/zYwsv4J8Bt
— The Undercurrent (@NotTheirScript) June 24, 2026

“It’s more feasible to think about a statewide democratic socialist race, maybe then a democratic socialist in [14-term Rep. Gregory] Meeks’ seat, which I think is maybe a different kind of challenge,” Gordillo also told Spectrum News, signaling that DSA is far from finished with toppling the New York Democratic establishment. “Some are hoping Rep. Hakeem Jeffries is next,” Spectrum reported, and “one leader wouldn’t rule it out.” “Our congressional districts are going to look very different in 2028 if the measure to redraw the lines ends up being successful,” Gordillo added, hinting that Jeffries is on the menu. “So, I don’t think we can make any concrete predictions until that is further along.”
Sleep tight, Hakeem — but you aren’t the only Democrat establishment figure the DSA has its long knives out for. According to a New York Post report out on Thursday, Gordillo “warned Gov. Kathy Hochul that the emboldened far-left group will take aim at her over her reluctance to ‘tax the rich.'” Gordillo added, “I think we have to show New York what it means to have three Democratic socialists in the congressional delegation.” What it means is, should the Dems take hold of the House in November, come January, we’ll have fricken socialists helping pen legislation that could affect the entire country.
The NYT described Mamdani as “an undeniable power broker” in New York City politics, but he’s just getting started — and his DSA lieutenant Gustavo Gordillo made it clear that their ambitions extend far beyond the city. And they’ll happily wear the DNC as a skinsuit to achieve them.

Remember, this is JFK’s party. But not his voters.

Who are the Dems going to appeal to now?

In federal elections, you can’t go anywhere with Mamdani. Try him in flyover country.

• The Democratic Socialists are Ascendant in New York (JTN)

In a shock to the Democratic Party establishment, several socialist candidates in the mold of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani ousted incumbents and cemented their influence in the nation’s largest city, long considered the financial capital of the world. The candidates centered their campaigns on radical changes that have become the calling card of a new brand of socialist Democrats. Their platform includes abolishing ICE, ending deportations, opposing the state of Israel, implementing Medicare for all, and creating federal job guarantees.

Mamdani’s endorsements put the mayor on a collision course with establishment Democratic leadership, and he came out victorious. The socialist victories were specifically a defeat for Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who backed the old-school incumbents and doubted Mamdani’s potential for long-term influence over the party. The results have prompted more moderate Democrats to raise the alarm about the growing strength and influence of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) within their own ranks.
“People who do not support the DSA wring their hands at cocktail parties, while the DSA is organizing,” Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., told Axios. “It was a tough night,” Gregory Meeks, another Democrat from New York, told the outlet. New York Attorney General Letitia James said Mamdani’s endorsements threaten to “blow up” the Democratic Party.
NY AG Letitia James: “Disappointed” in Mandami
“Some of the candidates that he has supported are individuals who do not understand the politics of New York City, the cultural differences from district to district, who have not been part of the history and the struggle of some of these districts, and are relatively new to the body politic,” James told CNN. “All of us are a little frustrated with the Democratic Party. But you don’t blow it up. That’s what MAGA has done,” she added. Mamdani’s decision to endorse candidates challenging establishment-backed figures and bucking party leadership is part of an attempt to “radically” reorient the Democratic Party towards his vision, those close to the mayor have said.
“He’s seeing that opportunity – that we can radically change the Democratic Party,” said Faiz Shakir, an advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders and described as a friend of Mamdani’s. “Like Bernie, he’s not saying I’m doing this out of spite against you, dear leadership. He’s saying, I am supporting these candidates who have a better vision, and I am prepared to lose if it has to be the case.”
Platforms and policies defined
In perhaps one of the most shocking races of the night, DSA-endorsed Darializa Avila Chevalier knocked off five-term incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat, who helmed the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Espaillat has represented the Upper Manhattan district for nearly a decade and was backed by Jeffries. Chevalier, on the other hand, has been a community organizer who graduated from Columbia in 2016. Before running for office, she worked with the Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem, a public defenders office.
Chevalier’s worldview was heavily influenced by an internship with Tomorrow’s Youth Organization, teaching English to Palestinian children in Nablus, West Bank. The 2014 Israel-Gaza war, which lasted about 50 days, started just after she returned to the United States. “That was a really formative period for me, because I was essentially living in the heart of the occupation and seeing the way that Palestinians had to navigate all these systems, the impact that it had on children as young as the ones that I was working with,” Avila Chevalier told City & State New York. “I came back, and I couldn’t unsee all those things. And I started seeing them in our own systems, right? Our systems of policing, of deportation, of the controlling of our movement.”
Her identity as a pro-Palestine, and anti-Israel, activist was at the center of her long-shot campaign. Before launching her bid for Congress, Chevalier had spent years organizing and participating in protests against the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. The war was sparked when Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist group that controlled the Gaza Strip, conducted a deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The following day, Chevalier was out on the streets of New York, participating in a protest organized by leftist groups. Rallygoers held signs reading “Resistance is Justified when People are Occupied” and faced criticism for appearing to support the attacks that left more than one thousand Israelis dead. Some of the rally organizers were later sued for allegedly acting as “collaborators and propagandists” for Hamas in the United States.
Claims to be a “human rights advocate” for Palestinians
During the campaign, Chevalier defended attending the rally, suggesting Israel’s response to the Hamas attack had the potential to become “a really outsized reaction.” “I can only say I have been advocating for the human rights of Palestinians for my adult life. And as someone who has seen a pattern, whenever anything happens on the ground (in Israel), there’s always a really outsized reaction that costs thousands of people their lives,” Avila Chevalier told City & State earlier this month.
Chevalier’s activism ultimately encouraged her to convert to Islam because of the “grace and love and passion” that her Muslim friends had for “social justice,” she said in a speech at a New York Mosque. In addition to pro-Palestine activism, Chevalier has taken an extreme position on immigration law and deportations. Like many of her DSA colleagues, Chevalier calls for ICE to be abolished, but has gone even further to suggest that all deportations are wrong. “I still believe that all deportations are wrong,” Chevalier said in an interview with Vox earlier this month. When asked if that would include those who had committed criminal offenses in the United States after entering illegally, she doubled down.
Chevalier has also faced scrutiny for a series of deleted posts to social media expressing support for abolishing police, prisons and borders, seizing private property, and nationalizing industries. “A world without borders—just like a world without prisons or police—is possible, necessary, and the only moral way forward,” Chevalier posted to Twitter in September 2021. During that same month, she also posted: “Yes, literally, abolish the border” and “all deportation is wrong.” In a handful of posts, Chevalier appeared to express support for key tenets of Marxism and abolishing the police.
“Seize the means of production,” she wrote in one post. “No. It means ending policing full stop. Period. No more police at all ever,” she wrote in another. Chevalier tried to distance herself from her old tweets during the campaign. “I have grown considerably in the years since these tweets, and I am focused on our community and our community’s future,” Chevalier told CNN when the outlet asked about the posts.

A bit of motion there too. But Republicans have it easy compared to Democrats.

• The Republican Party’s Dissidents Show Themselves the Door (Ben Shapiro)

Tucker Carlson says he can no longer support the Republican Party. In that regard, he finds himself in familiar company. A growing faction on the populist right — including figures such as Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nick Fuentes — has increasingly positioned itself in opposition to core Republican foreign policy principles. Rather than seeking to persuade the party, many now appear ready to abandon it altogether. That may not be a crisis for Republicans. It may simply be a clarification. Political movements require ideological boundaries. Parties are more than coalitions of convenience; they are associations built around shared principles and priorities.

When those principles cease to align, separation is often healthier than endless internal conflict. Vice President JD Vance recently made that case during an appearance on Megyn Kelly’s show. Defending the administration’s approach to Iran, Vance argued that Republicans who disagree with specific policies should nevertheless recognize the alternative: empowering Democrats. Whether one agrees with his defense of the administration or not, the broader point is difficult to dispute. Political parties function by advancing a common agenda, not by endlessly renegotiating their foundational commitments.
Yet a segment of the so-called “horseshoe Right” appears interested in something else entirely. Rather than influencing the Republican Party from within, its leaders increasingly seem determined to pressure the party into abandoning longstanding principles in favor of a worldview markedly more sympathetic to adversarial regimes abroad. Carlson’s latest comments are a case in point. Speaking on the Can’t Be Censored podcast, Carlson announced that he no longer supports the Republican Party because, in his view, it has become immoral. He argued that Republicans have placed the interests of foreign countries above those of Americans and therefore no longer deserve his support.
“I voted Republican my entire life,” Carlson said. “I’ve been a consistent defender for 35 years of the Republican Party. … But there’s no defending this because it’s immoral.” That claim raises questions of its own. Carlson was registered as a Democrat from 2006 to 2020, explaining at various times that he did so in order to participate in Democratic primaries. Regardless, the larger issue is not his voter registration history but his definition of Republican principles. Carlson has become one of the most prominent voices arguing against support for Ukraine while expressing remarkable sympathy for Russia’s perspective in the conflict.
He has repeatedly criticized efforts to counter Iranian influence in the Middle East and has frequently attacked traditional Republican arguments centered on deterrence and strength.At some point, disagreement becomes philosophical divergence. If a political movement believes in peace through strength, maintaining American alliances and confronting hostile regimes, then those who reject those principles are under no obligation to remain within that movement. Nor is the movement obligated to redefine itself around their objections.Greene recently echoed Carlson’s frustration, declaring that she would no longer support what she called an “America Last Republican Party.”
Similar sentiments have emerged from other prominent commentators who argue that the GOP has betrayed its voters by refusing to embrace a more isolationist foreign policy. But dissatisfaction alone does not confer ownership. Being unhappy with a party’s direction does not mean the party must reorganize itself around every dissatisfied faction. Kelly, to her credit, recently suggested that disagreement with Republican leadership is not itself grounds for abandoning the party. That observation highlights a broader truth: Political coalitions inevitably contain disagreements. The question is whether those disagreements exist within a shared framework of principles or whether they reflect fundamentally different visions of America’s role in the world.
The current divide increasingly appears to be the latter. The Republican Party is free to debate tactics, priorities and individual policies. What it cannot do is function without a coherent identity. If peace through strength, support for American interests abroad, and opposition to hostile foreign powers remain central to that identity, then those who reject those principles may decide they no longer belong in the coalition. If so, there is nothing wrong with leaving. What would be a mistake is allowing those departures to become the blueprint for a new Republican Party. Sometimes political movements benefit not from expansion but from clarity. And sometimes the clearest statement is made by those who choose to walk away.

The motions. Going thru,

• Mark Rutte Gives “Remain in NATO” Pitch to President Trump in White House (CTH)

Against the backdrop of President Trump, Secretary Rubio and Secretary Hegseth pointedly telling NATO of the U.S. intention to draw-down U.S. military operations from Europe, NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte flies to Washington DC to make the pro-NATO sales pitch directly to President Trump.In one of the most transparent appearances in oval office history, a passionate, self-interested and professionally demure Mark Rutte pours on the praise for President Trump and puts on a massive sales pitch.

You can tell from President Trump’s demeanor, tone and general ambivalence, he too can see how over the top the praise and back-slapping is. Secretary Rutte was intensely and diplomatically focused on not allowing any accurate criticism or statement of disappointment from President Trump be left unchallenged to frame the tone and context of the meeting by the media. This is quite a desperate spectacle to witness when you understand the stakes for Europe which were carried by Rutte.

CTH readers can see through the professionally demure motivations of the NATO secretary, and it was obvious from President Trump’s response that Rutte was transparently playing to the U.S. audience and DC stakeholders. That said, you’ve got to give Rutte credit for tap-dancing that fine line. It was a great sales pitch, and President Trump was very courteous and respectful of the showmanship, but I doubt President Trump was moved much. The G7 assembly in Turkey will be very interesting.For the G7 (+13) in France, Zelenskyy went all-in with the Ukraine false flag and attack on Moscow. It will be interesting to watch what the “coalition of the willing” have planned for the next assembly.

“..29 million exchanges with Claude using thousands of fraudulent accounts..” Couldn’t Anthropic have seen this coming? You know, instead of whining to Pocahontas?

• Anthropic Accuses Alibaba Of Illicitly Extracting Ai Capabilities (BBC)

US artificial intelligence (AI) giant Anthropic has accused Chinese e-commerce and technology firm Alibaba of “brazenly” and “illicitly” extracting its Claude AI model’s capabilities. In a letter sent to two members of the US Congress, the San Francisco-based company said operators linked to Alibaba carried out almost 29 million exchanges with Claude using thousands of fraudulent accounts in what it called the largest extraction campaign of its kind. Anthropic urged Congress to penalise the companies behind attacks like this and to ramp up measures to prevent US tech from being stolen.

[..] Anthropic’s letter, dated 10 June and addressed to US Senators Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren, accused New York Stock Exchange-listed Alibaba of carrying out “the largest campaign to illicitly extract Claude’s capabilities”. According to Anthropic, the campaign was carried out through what are known as “distillation attacks”, which extracted answers from a stronger AI model to train a weaker one. Alibaba-linked operators targeted Claude’s most valuable capabilities, including its ability to tackle longer and more complex tasks and its approach to decision-making, Anthropic said.
These type of attacks are carried out on an “industrial scale” to enable Chinese companies to harvest and repackage US AI capabilities as their own, the company said. The letter also cited other alleged attacks, which Anthropic said posed a threat to the US military. “Distillation attacks turn hundreds of billions of dollars in American investment and [research and development] into a massive subsidy for our geopolitical competitors,” said Anthropic. It cited the US Department of Defense’s claims that Alibaba and several major firms like car maker BYD and tech company Baidu are tied to the Chinese military.
The companies have denied any such allegations, while Alibaba this week sued the US government in a bid to get its name removed from the Pentagon blacklist. US developers have previously accused Chinese competitors of using distillation attacks to train their models to rival American AI technology at a fraction of the cost. OpenAI has also previously accused Chinese groups of employing the same practice. Anthropic is a leading AI developer and, alongside ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, is gearing up for a blockbuster stock market debut that could make it one of the most vaulable companies in the world. But some of Anthropic’s more advanced models, such as Mythos, have raised cybersecurity concerns over their ability to target weaknesses in computer systems.

“The NSA has reportedly lost access to Anthropic’s advanced Mythos model amid a dispute between the tech company and Washington..”

Maybe the NSA can pretend they’re Alibaba.

• US National Security Agency (NSA) Loses Access To Key AI Tool (RT)

The US National Security Agency (NSA) has lost access to Anthropic’s advanced Mythos 5 AI model while using it to find software weaknesses, the New York Times has reported. The development comes amid Washington’s months-long dispute with the Silicon Valley firm. The cutoff came after the Trump administration imposed export restrictions on Anthropic earlier this month, citing national security concerns, according to the NYT. The loss “deprived” the intelligence agency of a “tool that has impressed and alarmed its analysts with how good it is at finding software weaknesses,” the outlet added.

During the tests, the model identified vulnerabilities in highly secure government networks “within hours,” the AP reported on Wednesday, citing an anonymous US official. Anthropic’s AI technology has been increasingly deployed on classified government networks and integrated into US national-security work, with its models used for intelligence analysis, operational planning, and cyber operations.
However, in February, the Department of War designated Anthropic a “supply chain risk” after the company refused to remove restrictions on some of its AI systems’ military applications. The firm said it opposed mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. US President Donald Trump subsequently ordered federal agencies to phase out Anthropic technology within a six-month window.
Anthropic sued the government, arguing that the measures were unlawful retaliation for its refusal to relax safeguards on AI’s military uses. Despite the phase-out order and ongoing legal battle, multiple media reports later claimed that parts of the US government continue to use Anthropic systems. The developments come amid warnings from researchers, technology leaders, and security officials that AI systems are being integrated into military and intelligence operations faster than governments and institutions can adapt to their increasing capabilities.
Experts have cautioned that the same tools that are used to strengthen cyber defenses could also automate attacks and lower barriers for malicious actors. On Monday, cybersecurity experts from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand – warned that rapidly advancing AI models could soon enable hackers to disrupt governments, businesses, and critical infrastructure on a global scale.

Brexit at Tiffany’s?!

“The UK wants back into the EU, but not on the EU’s terms”.

Galina Dudina, is a columnist at Kommersant daily newspaper in Moscow..

• Brexit at 10: The Divorce Britain Now Regrets (Galina Dudina)

Ten years ago, I was on a business trip in Brussels on the day of the Brexit referendum. Voting was already underway across the Channel, but in the European Quarter, the mood was almost serene. Journalists kept asking EU officials about Brexit, and the officials waved the questions away with jokes, as though the whole thing was a theatrical inconvenience rather than a potential political earthquake. In private conversations, I asked people the same question: if you had to place a bet, what would you choose? Everyone said ‘Remain’. In Britain itself, almost 13 million voters didn’t turn out at all, apparently unable to imagine the scale of what was coming.

We were all naive. Trump hadn’t yet been elected in the United States, the Covid disaster hadn’t yet rolled across the world, and the year 2022 hadn’t arrived yet. On the morning of June 24, 2016, the news that 51.9% of British voters had chosen to leave the European Union was read not only online, but on the faces of people in Brussels. Outside cafés and around the offices where EU officials gathered for lunch, people spoke into their phones in a state of disbelief. Today, around 57% of Britons say Brexit was a mistake, and despite the reverence traditionally attached in Britain to the “will of the people,” politicians are increasingly prepared to discuss whether the decision should one day be revisited.
Philip Rycroft, the senior civil servant who oversaw preparations for Brexit inside the British state, recently argued that “Brexit isn’t over” and “will never be over.” In his view, the British political class should now have an honest discussion not only about closer relations with Brussels, but also about a possible return to the Union. At first glance, this sounds reasonable because, ten years on, Brexit hasn’t produced the promised economic boom. Sterling hasn’t soared, and the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that, in the long term, the British economy will be around 4% smaller than it would have been inside the EU. Some economists put the loss in GDP per capita at 6–8%.
Nor has Britain escaped dependence on the rest of Europe. The EU remains its largest trading partner, accounting for around 41% of British exports and almost half of imports, while for British companies, Brexit has brought more paperwork, friction, and uncertainty. And yet the new talk of reunion isn’t quite the sober strategic rethink it pretends to be. It also belongs to a wider nostalgia that swept social media at the start of this year, when users in many countries began posting old photographs and memories under the slogan “bring back my 2016.”
Those now dreaming of a return to 2016, and to the EU, should remember what Britain’s membership actually looked like. Since joining the European Economic Community in 1973, Britain spent decades carving out a special status for itself, and while it was in the club, it was never quite like the others. It kept the pound, stayed outside Schengen, secured a rebate on its budget contributions, and negotiated opt-outs in sensitive areas.
There is little reason to think Brussels would now offer London the same package again. A returning Britain would have to accept a far less comfortable relationship, with economic dependence on the continent, migration pressures, tighter alignment with EU rules, and rising defense obligations. This is where public opinion becomes more complicated because, while many Britons may favor closer ties, or even rejoining in theory, only 36% support returning without the old exemptions. In other words, they want the lost stability of EU membership, but not necessarily the obligations that would now come with it.
Britain might also find that its place in the European queue has changed, and a new application would risk landing behind Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine, and Moldova. The former imperial power that once negotiated rebates and exceptions could return as just another applicant. Both Brexit and the current regret over Brexit are therefore more emotional than rational. It’s no accident that the most common metaphor for it is divorce, and many people know from experience that missing a former partner does not always mean reconciliation is possible, or wise.

It’s an absurd story. Nobody in the whole world can figure out why.

• Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s EO Requiring Proof of Citizenship to Vote (AmG)

A federal judge on Wednesday permanently blocked key portions of President Donald Trump’s executive order overhauling federal election procedures, ruling that the president exceeded his constitutional authority by attempting to impose new voting requirements without congressional approval. U.S. District Judge Denise Casper, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, concluded that the Constitution gives primary authority over elections to the states and Congress, not the executive branch.

The ruling makes permanent a preliminary injunction Casper issued last year in a lawsuit filed by Democratic attorneys general from 19 states. “While the Constitution vests the President with ‘executive Power’ and commands him to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,’ it does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” Casper wrote. “As a result, the President ‘plays no direct role in the process of appointing electors,’ nor does he have authority to control the state officials who do,” she added.
Trump’s executive order sought to require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, prohibit states from counting mail ballots received after Election Day even if postmarked on time, and withhold certain federal funds from states that declined to comply. Casper ruled that the administration lacked the authority to impose those changes through executive action. In her 59-page opinion, the judge also rejected the administration’s justification for the order, writing that the Justice Department failed to establish the widespread election problems it cited in defending the policy.
“There is no evidence in this record of widespread ‘illegal voting, discrimination, fraud, and other forms of malfeasance and error’ within American elections, which the Executive Order purports to safeguard against,” Casper wrote. The judge also concluded that the order would have disenfranchised thousands of voters.The decision is another legal setback for the administration’s efforts to repair federal election procedures. Courts have repeatedly blocked or limited several election-related initiatives advanced during Trump’s second term.
Additional lawsuits are challenging a separate executive order aimed at creating a nationwide voter database and tightening mail voting requirements. Earlier this week, another federal judge blocked the administration’s attempt to use an immigration database to verify voter rolls, while courts have also rejected Justice Department efforts to obtain state voter registration records. Despite the court rulings, Trump has continued urging Congress to enact proof-of-citizenship requirements through legislation.
The Republican-backed SAVE America Act passed the House but remains stalled in the Senate. Trump renewed that effort Wednesday, saying he would withhold his signature from a bipartisan housing bill until Congress approves voter citizenship verification requirements.

“Bessent noted that a born-again Venezuela is shifting back towards USD invoicing, and that post-deal Iran is likely to do so as well.”

• A River in Egypt (Molly Schwartz)

Scott Bessent took to CNBC’s Squawk Box yesterday to opine on the situation with Iran. Bessent echoed Trump’s comments that any released Iranian assets are to remain under US Treasury oversight and are restricted to use for food and medicine. However, money is fungible, and any released cash that is used to help civilians may mean more cash from other places that can be used to support the IRGC’s interests

Bessent’s comments also called attention to another philosophical outlook on the war and the Administration’s initially stated— though seemingly not truly intended—goal of regime change. This is where the waters gets murky, and where we can climb into our Felucca and begin our journey along a river in Egypt, drifting, perhaps, into a bit of strategic “denial” about what regime change actually means. If, hypothetically of course, Operation Epic Fury succeeded in asserting regime change in Iran, where does the US go from here? If the new Ayatollah says he is willing to table plans of further enriching uranium and wants to align itself with US interests, should the US just keep firing missiles? Do you keep Iranian assets under lock and key, even if the regime has shown you that it has changed?
Bessent said himself, “we didn’t have a regime change, but we have changed the regime.” If that is the genuine perspective of the Trump Administration, then the deal may not be as bad for the US as many perceive it to be. As our Global Strategist, Michael Every, has noted on multiple occasions, show of strength means everything in the arena of Middle Eastern geopolitics. There is a possibility that the current hardliners in the IRGC aren’t actually so hardline anymore, but are only presenting as such. Note that this is not a new base case for our outlook by any means (you can read more about our Hormuz outlook here), but food for thought.
If the regime truly has changed, this also could have big implications for USD dominance. Bessent noted that a born-again Venezuela is shifting back towards USD invoicing, and that post-deal Iran is likely to do so as well.
Brent crude oil fell below $75/bbl for the first time since the war in Iran began, sending US Treasury markets into a tailspin. US 2-year yields dropped almost 6bp to 4.21, while the 10-year sunk almost 10bp—the largest one-day downward move since October 2025. With “peace in the Middle East,” the case for hikes is losing water by the day, with the market now pricing in 27bp worth of hikes by October, and only 40bp worth of hikes at the peak—a significant downgrade from Monday, when two full hikes had been priced in by the April 2027 FOMC decision.
Such a dramatic move in rates would normally suggest a weaker dollar, but USD was actually the best-performing G10 currency on a one-day view and the best month-to-date. The DXY index continued its climb from last week’s FOMC meeting to 101.6—the highest level since May 2025. Meanwhile, EUR/USD broke below crucial support at 1.14, fueling additional EUR selling, with the pair trading at 1.1356 at the time of writing. While the following appears to be more of an instance of correlation rather than causation, it is also important to note that yesterday’s move coincided with comments from Bessent—perhaps another slow turn of the Felucca—that USD can remain strong even when interest rates are being cut.
While USD is soaring, JPY is plummeting. USD/JPY spent the day yesterday approaching the July 3, 2024 high of 162, with the 14D RSI at 71.83 suggesting that USD/JPY is overbought. According to Bloomberg, Bessent and Japanese Finance Minister Katayama spoke over the phone, with Katayama telling reporters that “she and Bessent agreed to take ‘bold’ steps on currencies if needed,” and said the nations are increasingly “aligned” on foreign-exchange policy.
The Bank of Canada released its Summary of Deliberations from the June 10 decision, written on papyrus. Recent Canadian economic data suggest that the Canadian economy has slipped into a technical recession, with two consecutive quarters of negative quarterly growth. The Governing Council piled into a felucca of their own, racing up de Nile, justifying that higher-frequency data suggest a “resumption of growth in the second quarter,” and that while the Canadian economy is weak, it is “not clearly in a recession.”

“It’s so hot that the schoolchildren are passing out in class and nobody is allowed to do anything about it.”

• Suffer the Little Children, France Insists (Stephen Green)

If Johnny Carson were still around and hosting The Tonight Show, he might launch a bit during tonight’s monologue with “Boy, it’s really hot out there in Nîmes today…” and then the audience would burst in, sounding almost rehearsed and shouting, “HOW HOT IS IT?” “It’s so hot that the schoolchildren are passing out in class and nobody is allowed to do anything about it.” Wait, that isn’t funny. But it is the situation in Nîmes, a city of about 148,000 in a lovely part of the south of France. Actually, I’ve been in the south of France, and all the parts are lovely (except Marseille, of course), but I digress.

The region is suffering a record-breaking, early-summer heat wave with temperatures soaring as high as 40–44°C, the way the French reckon it, or 104–111°F in actual degrees. This is when Americans would set the thermostat to 68° (actual degrees) or maybe go see a movie at a theater where they keep it that temp all the time.mBut at the École Primaire La Planette school in Nîmes, they have no air conditioning — naturellement — and according to Miss Jo on X and other sources, a child there “recently fainted because of the heat,” even while “classes were being taught in corridors to get out of the heat.”
Parents of the students there did what parents in America would almost certainly do in a similar situation, and they raised money to buy five portable air conditioning units for the school. The community got so involved that the parents needed just three days to raise the required €2,000. So far, so good. But Mayor Vincent Bouget is an actual member of the Parti communiste français (PCF), and if there’s one thing Communists can’t stand, it’s the community doing stuff. Bouget ordered the school to remove the A/C because “it sets a precedent,” and “in some neighborhoods, parents don’t have the means to act.”
I mean, I guess those parents could hold a fundraiser like the other parents did. The community seemed pretty excited to jump in and help. But no. What was Winston Churchill just saying about socialism? Ah, yes — here’s the quote: “Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” That line actually dates back to a speech Churchill gave in Scotland in 1948. But it’s so timeless that it still has that fresh quote smell. Unlike the schools in Nîmes, which likely smell like sweat and desperation. Honestly, I’d enjoy nothing more than to write about something, anything other than how vicious Europe is to its own people, but it just won’t stop being so vicious to its own people.
If I were a particularly coldhearted eugenicist, this is where I’d argue that it’s one thing to force young children to put up with potentially deadly heat, but it just makes good sense to deny A/C to old people who are nothing but burdens to the State. Which is exactly what happens even during normal summers, when tens of thousands of Europeans — typically older — die unnecessarily due to the heat. But that would be gross. And also wrong. This is America, and we have A/C for pretty much everybody who needs it. The way God and Willis Carrier intended.

~Weird.

• Kremlin To Contact Apple Before Responding To Removal of Apps (TASS)

Relevant Russian agencies will contact Apple before deciding how to respond to the removal of Russian apps, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “Naturally, before drawing any conclusions, it is necessary to establish contact with this service, and our relevant agency will do so. Of course, clarifications will be required from the corporation,” he said when asked a respective question. VK announced earlier that Apple had removed its apps from the store without explanation. The company clarified that apps already installed would continue to function on Apple devices, though users would not receive push notifications. VK also emphasized that it had never been subject to sanctions, a fact confirmed by numerous legal opinions from international and US lawyers.

I need a new MacBook. Mine is 8 years old. They just added $400+. Great. Volunteers?

• Apple Price Shock: Macs And iPads Jump $200 Or More, Memory Crisis Worsens (ZH)

Readers were warned as early as late January to front-run the coming memory shortage by purchasing their favorite electronics, whether PCs, laptops, TVs, smartphones, or anything else dependent on high-end memory chips, as unprecedented data-center demand was already beginning to emerge. Fast forward nearly five months, and just two weeks after Apple CEO Tim Cook warned that “price increases are unavoidable” for laptops and other devices, a Wall Street Journal report has confirmed that those hikes have now been passed along, potentially delivering sticker shock to customers.

Here’s what happened earlier: The Apple Online Store briefly went down, and when it came back online, prices for Mac computers jumped 15% to 20%, while iPad prices increased 15% to 25%. The company briefly took down its Apple Online Store early this morning as it typically does when announcing new products. When it came back online, the price tags for Mac computers rose roughly 15% to 20% and iPad prices rose 15% to 25%. Among the price increases, the base MacBook Air rose $200 to $1,299; the base MacBook Pro increased $300 to $1,999; the entry-level MacBook Neo increased $100 to $699. The iPad Air increased $150 to $749 and the iPad Pro increased $200 to $1,199. -WSJ

*APPLE RAISES VISION PRO HEADSET PRICE TO $3,699 FROM $3,499

*APPLE HOMEPOD NOW $349, HOMEPOD MINI IS $129, APPLE TV TO $199
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 25, 2026

However, iPhone prices remained unchanged, but the company told the outlet in a statement that additional price hikes could be on the way. “We have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices,” Apple said in the statement. “We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.” An Apple spokesperson placed the blame on the “rapid expansion of AI data centers, which has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage,” and this is why component prices surged.
Earlier this month, Cook told WSJ that price increases had become “unavoidable” because of higher component costs, adding, “There’s less supply at a time when consumers want devices, and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases.”Apple has historically revealed price hikes with new launches of iPhones, iPads, and other devices, making this overnight price hike extraordinarily rare. The high-end chip market is dominated by US-based Micron and South Korea’s SK Hynix and Samsung, which have all seen massive demand for high-bandwidth memory from AI “hyperscalers” such as Google, Meta, and Amazon.
Apple’s price hikes come hours after Micron delivered blowout quarterly earnings, touting gross profit margins that topped 80%. Shares soared nearly 18% in premarket trading. Micron executives told investors that “tight conditions” will persist beyond 2027 and that only suggests further price hikes are coming not just for Apple but also for other major big tech firms that sell devices. Micron Chief Business Officer Sumit Sadana said in a WSJ interview last night that “a couple of the customers who were being very aggressive with pricing at that time were not constructive,” without naming Apple…
Sadana noted, “A lot of the industry investments got shut down in 2023 because of really poor pricing and really poor margins.” A recent Morgan Stanley note found that memory prices have climbed sixfold over the past year, with new manufacturing capacity likely to take years to build and ramp up. The iPhone price hike may be unavoidable: JPMorgan analysts estimate DRAM and NAND could jump from roughly 10% to 15% of an iPhone’s total component cost today to more than 45% by 2027. Memory price spikes are already showing up in the Producer Price Index for semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturing.

At what point does Trump start raging at soaring memory prices

PPI Electronic Components is pulling entire core index higher pic.twitter.com/v9ufHmx0gG
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 11, 2026

… and at what point does President Trump start raging at memory prices, just as his administration has successfully sent oil prices crashing by entering a diplomatic phase with Tehran to secure a permanent peace deal?

Every politician everywhere is involved. Forget figuring it out.

• Fauci, The CIA, And The Unanswered Questions of COVID (RealClearWire)

Did Anthony Fauci manipulate the intelligence community (IC) investigation of the origin of COVID as outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard claims?Gabbard recently released previously unseen documents and communications during the COVID pandemic between the IC and the key member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Dr. Anthony Fauci. She claims they show that Fauci and the IC coordinated the investigation of the origin of the COVID to suggest it was a natural occurrence rather than a laboratory leak. She further charges that the documents reveal Fauci’s direct role in influencing and manipulating IC assessments in an attempt to discourage the lab-leak hypothesis.

It is not clear that the released information shows this, and a careful reading suggests a more complicated scenario. But what the messages do show is that an undue emphasis on Fauci’s actions risks missing a more important point – the hidden connection between public health officials and the IC during the pandemic.
The two theories on where COVID originated are that the virus evolved naturally from bats to man via an intermediate animal host; or that the virus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. The first was more widely accepted by scientists and most of the international press early in the pandemic, but the intermediate host has never been discovered so the theory remains speculative. The second theory, which has gained significant traction since initially being disparaged as conspiracy, is only circumstantial since no definitive proof exists. The answer as to how COVID originated remains unknown.
Where does Dr. Fauci, the government’s point man in the pandemic, fit in? He acknowledges the possibility of a lab leak, but initially came down firmly on the side of natural origin – aggressively so. He and his colleagues, notably his boss NIH director Francis Collins, attempted to publicly silence proponents of the lab leak theory. The rub is that Fauci was tangentially involved in “gain of function” viral manipulation research done in Wuhan and clearly misled Congress about this involvement.
Because gain-of-function research could have been responsible for the development of the virus in the Wuhan lab, this means Fauci has a conflict of interest on the COVID source: He could bear some responsibility for the entire affair if this was indeed a lab leak. So he has reason other than scientific inquiry to support the animal host theory. He is aware of that and has written in the past about the necessity and the attendant danger of doing gain-of-function research. He now strenuously denies it had anything to do with COVID.
Enter the IC and Gabbard’s document release.
There is uncertainty over whether Fauci frequented CIA offices early in the pandemic, something he was less than forthright about in his 2024 congressional testimony. It is unclear whether or how many times he was there, in part because a whistleblower claims the requirement to sign in was waived for Dr. Fauci. What is not in doubt are his contacts with the CIA after President Biden charged the IC with investigating the origin of COVID.
The CIA asked Fauci to provide recommendations for experts to consult in their investigation of the COVID origin; the extent of his influence on the agency’s investigation is unclear. At the time, some officials, aware of the potential conflict of interest, questioned in the documents whether relying on recommendations from someone deeply involved in coronavirus research could create the perception of improper influence regarding their findings. Nevertheless, the IC employed the experts Fauci recommended, who were never publicly identified. Their names have been redacted in communications and the information they provided has never been released.
The lack of transparency by the public health community and the CIA caused Republicans, led by Dr. Rand Paul, to suspect Fauci selected his CIA consultants based on their opposition to the lab-leak theory. Further, Paul proposed there was a self-justifying loop of information in which the medical experts put their thumbs on the scale of the IC report supporting natural origin. Public health officials (and some politicians who saw the lab-leak theory as a potential scandal) then turned around and used the “doctored” IC report to support the conclusions they provided to the public.
Neither of these accusations is supported or refuted by the released communications.

USAID money funded coronavirus research in China that killed millions of people https://t.co/AJJM70wDXq
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 23, 2026

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2069823459790618745?s=20

Javier Milei: I thought being on the left was a mental problem… But what I discovered is that being on the left is a disease of the soul.. Since they have no way or arguments, they go for physical violence.
pic.twitter.com/Jq15KKiHhR
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) June 24, 2026

I covered this a few years ago, sunscreen actually causes cancer, sounds crazy, but the biggest studies shows that.

The kind of cancer you get from the sun is Basal Cell carcinoma, which is not deadly, the survival rate from basal cell after five years is 100%

Lack of sun is… https://t.co/yy8OnVQJpA
— Jimmy Dore (@jimmy_dore) June 25, 2026

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Debt Rattle June 18 2026

Jun 182026

June 18, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:17 am Finance Tagged with: GPS, Iran, Kamala, MoU, Newsom, Nigel Farage, social media ban, Trump, UFC, Ukraine 15 Responses »

Priest and scribe Ka-aper ca. 2465-2323 BC

• Trump And Iran Sign MOU Deal Ahead Of Schedule (ZH)

• Read The 14-Point US-Iran Draft Deal Set For Friday Signing (ZH)

• Trump Shifting Focus Back To Ukraine: Where Do Peace Talks Stand? (RT)

• Trump Calls Out ‘Dumocrat’ Double-Cross,” Keeps Pulte As Acting DNI (ZH)

• 5 Arrested in Plot to Attack UFC Event at White House (ET)

• How Deep Are the Newsoms In It? THIS Deep. (Stephen Green)

• Kamala’s Anti-Trump Meltdown in Austria a Masterclass in Projection (Margolis)

• Ease In Our Time (Every)

• Nigel Farage’s ‘White Britain’: A Long-Overdue Step (von Hoffmeister)

• Nigel Farage’s ‘White Britain’ is a Fantasy (Graham Hryce)

• A Social Media Ban for Minors Requires Data From Everyone (ET)

• Canada is Next Up (CTH)

• The World Is Re-Discovering America In the World Cup — and Loving It (Moran)

• Russia’s New Warning Shot From Space (Martin Armstrong)

https://twitter.com/JesseBWatters/status/2067048468552536132?s=20 https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2067182879038406656?s=20

25 years ago, 90% of Republicans were proud or extremely proud to be American. 87% of Democrats felt the same way.

25 years later, 92% of Republicans are proud to be Americans. Just 36% of Democrats feel the same way.

It's not an exaggeration to say the left hates America. pic.twitter.com/RHKCB3GGUp
— Thomas Hern (@ThomasMHern) June 16, 2026

PRESIDENT TRUMP: "In 2024, almost 50% of inmates in German prisons were foreign migrants.. In Switzerland, it’s 72%.. When your prisons are filled with so-called asylum-seekers who repaid kindness with crime, it's time to END the failed Open Borders."

pic.twitter.com/2WIoAZw3ye
— FAN TRUMP ARMY (@TRUMP_ARMY_) June 16, 2026

The politicians who turned a blind eye to the Rape of Britain must go to prison pic.twitter.com/JFfHZSwiDc
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 16, 2026

Holy moly.

It will finish badly… https://t.co/d2YKeUh5Wr
— Brivael Le Pogam (@brivael) June 16, 2026

pic.twitter.com/U2CbkkvZwy
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 16, 2026

“If [the Iran deal] works out, I’m going to take the credit; if it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming [Vance].”

• Trump And Iran Sign MOU Deal Ahead Of Schedule (ZH)

Trump Signs Iran Deal Remotely Ahead Of Schedule. Confirming earlier speculation, Axios reports that the U.S. and Iran have remotely signed their memorandum of understanding to end the war and open the Strait of Hormuz, and the agreement is now in effect. The signing – which took place electronically between Trump, Vance and Ghalibaf – reportedly took place at dinner in France alongside President Emmanuel Macron. The signing was supposed to happen in Switzerland on Friday, but a diplomat from a mediating country and a second source familiar told Axios earlier on Wednesday that there had been discussions about signing and implementing it earlier

The diplomatic source said the discussions around accelerating the timetable were intended to open the strait sooner than Friday, as both parties were in agreement on that issue. Another factor may have been the political pressure on the White House to release the text of the MOU, which it sitll hasn’t done officially. The source familiar with the discussions claimed it was Iran that demanded the text not be published until the formal signing, and denied the White House was responding to political pressure. The only “public release” so far consisted of a senior administration official reading the agreement to reporters in a briefing call on Wednesday, after days of confusion about what was in it.
Ahead of the signing, Iran’s foreign ministry said the sides had agreed that the MOU should be signed electronically by both presidents. For Iran, the signing represents a major victory as it now stands to receive billions in unfrozen (and other) funds from the US and Gulf sources. While it’s now just a formality, the meeting between the U.S. and Iranian delegations headed by Vice President Vance and Iranian parliamentary speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf is still expected to take place as planned on Friday in Switzerland. They are expected to discuss the launching of negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.
The signing took place after this remarkable press conference earlier in the day in which Trump tried to justify conceding to Iran’s terms: As BBC’s Siavash Ardalan writes, Trump’s responses to the reporters’ questions to justify the agreement with Iran were bizarre and unprecedented in their own way: They asked him how he could allow $300 billion in investment in Iran. He said, “We’ve already inflicted $2 trillion in damage on Iran; $300 billion is nothing in comparison.” They asked why he’s giving Iran tens of billions of dollars. He said, “If we don’t return their own money to them, other countries will be afraid to put their money in our banks, and then the dollar’s position will weaken.”
They asked why the missile issue isn’t in the agreement. He said, “We’ve already destroyed 85% of their missiles anyway; the rest are buried underground, and besides, we sell air defense systems to the countries in the region so they won’t worry about Iran’s missiles.” They asked if he’s not worried that Iran will say, “We’re only producing nuclear energy for civilian purposes.” He said, “You can’t tell everyone else to produce electricity with nuclear power while only Iran can’t.” Finally, he said, “If we continue sanctioning Iran, 91 million Iranians will die of hunger—what’s the point of that, really?” Oh, and he joked that “If [the Iran deal] works out, I’m going to take the credit; if it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming [Vance].”

They should talk until about August 20. As the date approaches, Iran will say they need more time.

• Read The 14-Point US-Iran Draft Deal Set For Friday Signing (ZH)

With US and Iranian officials preparing to formally sign a memorandum of understanding in Switzerland on Friday, the conflict is entering the much-needed diplomatic phase to avert a potentially disastrous energy cliff. The MoU would open a 60-day negotiating window aimed at ending the war, restoring maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and hammering out the future of Iran’s nuclear program.

Bloomberg published the text of the 14-point draft MoU, offering the clearest look yet at the proposed trade: de-escalation and sanctions relief for Iran, in exchange for a ceasefire across all fronts, commitments on shipping access, and a broader nuclear deal to be finalized by the end of summer. But Iran’s Tasnim news agency cited an unnamed official earlier today, saying some of the MoU published by Bloomberg is inaccurate. The report did not specify the discrepancies. Bloomberg noted that some of the wording could be different between the English and Persian versions. Below is the text of the 14-point draft MoU:
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States, together with their allies in the current war, declare upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and undertake that from now on they will not launch any hostile action against each other, and will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other. The final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article and the remaining Articles
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to negotiate and reach a final agreement within a maximum period of 60 days, extendable by mutual consent
Immediately upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, the United States Lift the naval blockade and prevent any interference or obstruction against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and restore traffic within a maximum of 30 days to its full capacity; the traffic of ships shall be proportional to the pre-war volume of traffic on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States also undertakes to withdraw its forces from the surrounding areas within 30 days after the final agreement
Upon signing this Memorandum of Understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will immediately take steps to ensure that the movement of merchant ships from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa is resumed within 30 days to the pre-war volume, taking into account the need for the removal of technical obstacles and the neutralization of mines by Iran.
The United States undertakes, together with its regional partners, to create a comprehensive plan agreed upon by both parties for the rehabilitation and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran, While ensuring financing of at least $300 billion. The implementation mechanism of this plan, as part of the final agreement, will be formulated within 60 days.
The United States commits to ending, on a schedule to be agreed upon as part of the final agreement, all types of sanctions currently facing the Islamic Republic of Iran, including resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and all unilateral U.S. sanctions, both primary and secondary.
The Islamic Republic of Iran reiterates that it will never produce nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States have agreed that the fate of enriched material and the fate of all other mutually agreed nuclear-related issues, including Iran’s nuclear needs, will be adequately addressed in a final agreement; the final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article.
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States agree that, pending a final agreement, they will maintain the status quo: Iran will maintain the status quo on its nuclear program, and the United States will not impose new sanctions on Iran or strengthen its forces in the region.
The United States undertakes that immediately after the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and until the date of the lifting of sanctions, the United States Treasury Department will issue waivers for exports of Iranian crude oil, petrochemical products and their derivatives, and all related services, including banking, insurance, transportation, and the like.
The United States undertakes that, in light of the progress of negotiations towards a final agreement, frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be released and made fully available. These funds, whether held in the master account or transferred, will be used for any final beneficiary payment determined by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran and will be fully available for use. The United States undertakes to issue all necessary permits and licenses on this basis.
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States agree that an implementation mechanism will be established to oversee the successful implementation of and future commitment to the Final Agreement.
Following the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and upon receipt of assurances regarding the commencement of implementation of Articles 4, 5, 10, and 11 of this Memorandum of Understanding, and the continued implementation of these steps, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States will enter into negotiations for a Final Agreement solely with respect to the remaining Articles.
The final agreement will be approved through a binding resolution of the UN Security Council

Based on the text above, the first take of the MoU appears to be front-loaded economic relief for Tehran in exchange for a ceasefire, a nuclear freeze, and commitments to negotiate hard topics, such as the nuclear program, at a later date.
Who Stands To Benefit:
Tehran benefits most directly because it gets economic oxygen, oil waivers, frozen funds, sanctions relief language, and reduced US military pressure in the region. Hezbollah and Iran-aligned actors also benefit if “all fronts, including Lebanon” locks in a ceasefire that constrains Israeli operations. And, of course, the global economy because global shippers benefit if Hormuz reopens and war risk premiums in crude oil collapse. The Gulf states benefit if the conflict ends because energy exports through the Strait of Hormuz will resume. A report on Tuesday said that QatarEnergy was planning to ramp up LNG production in the coming months.
Where is Leverage Lost:
The US loses some coercive leverage once the Hormuz blockade ends, oil waivers are granted, and asset-release mechanisms begin. Israel loses freedom of action if the agreement binds the Lebanon front and limits further strikes. Sanctions and hawks lose leverage because the draft moves quickly toward broad sanctions dismantlement. The urgency behind the MoU and locking in peace talks for 60 days, with a formal signing event at the Bürgenstock resort in Switzerland on Friday, stems mainly from the world being headed for an energy cliff, as SPRs globally were being drained to offset the loss of Gulf production with the Hormuz chokepoint shuttered. Brent crude futures edged down overnight, trading around $79 a barrel on Wednesday morning.
One of the biggest uncertainties remains the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump stated that the critical waterway will reopen permanently and be toll-free, but the MoU suggests the toll-free arrangement may only last through the 60-day negotiation period. Another major uncertainty is Tehran’s compliance.

Zelensky represents a bunch of deeply corrupt neo-nazis. Trump knows this. For Europeans and US Democrats, Ukraine is a money whitewash vehicle. What is it for Trump?

• Trump Shifting Focus Back To Ukraine: Where Do Peace Talks Stand? (RT)

Where do the talks stand?
After Washington resumed direct contacts with Moscow following years of diplomatic freeze under Joe Biden, Russia, Ukraine and the US held three rounds of talks aimed at reaching a settlement. The negotiations yielded several tangible results, including major prisoner exchanges, the repatriation of fallen soldiers, and the exchange of peace memorandums. However, they failed to secure a peace deal, with key disagreements persisting, particularly over Moscow’s demand that Ukrainian forces withdraw from Donbass.A fourth round of talks, expected in March, was postponed after Washington shifted its focus to the Iran war. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has since described the process as being in a “situational pause” pending renewed US engagement.
What settlements have been proposed?
Following the Alaska summit, where Moscow and Washington stressed the need for a lasting settlement rather than the ceasefire sought by Kiev and its European backers, Trump unveiled a 28-point peace roadmap. According to leaked drafts, it called for Ukraine to abandon its NATO ambitions, drop territorial claims, and cap its military at 600,000 personnel. Moscow welcomed the proposal as a potential basis for peace. However, under pressure from the EU and UK, several key provisions were later removed or revised.
The updated 20-point plan reportedly included demilitarized zones, Western security guarantees for Kiev, an 800,000-strong peacetime Ukrainian military, a reconstruction fund for Ukraine, and a path toward EU membership. Russia confirmed receiving the revised proposal but declined to discuss its contents, accusing the Europeans of reshaping the framework and undermining peace efforts.
What are the next steps?
On Tuesday, Trump discussed Ukraine with Zelensky and other leaders during a closed-door G7 session and later held a separate meeting with the Ukrainian leader. While details were not disclosed, Zelensky said afterward that it was important to “coordinate positions.” Meanwhile, Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to resume contacts with Moscow after shifting their focus to the Iran war. Putin aide Yury Ushakov said preparations are under way following Sunday’s call between the Russian and US presidents. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later said no dates have been set and that the issue will likely be revisited after Washington signs its memorandum with Tehran.
Europeans split
European countries remain divided between those favoring engagement with Moscow and those seeking to maintain pressure on Russia. Hungary and Slovakia have urged direct dialogue with Moscow and criticized policies they say prolong the conflict. Those seeking to maintain pressure, which includes Poland, the Baltic states and much of the EU leadership, argues that political, economic and military pressure must continue. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reiterated that stance on Monday, calling support for Ukraine a top G7 priority.
France and Germany occupy a middle ground, backing continued aid to Kiev while acknowledging that any lasting settlement will require negotiations with Russia. That approach was tested last week when French, British, and German envoys met Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin in Moscow. According to Russia, however, they merely repeated calls for a ceasefire and security guarantees for Ukraine, prompting Moscow to argue that the countries arming Kiev cannot act as neutral mediators.
Trump’s position
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly claimed he could end the Ukraine conflict within 24 hours through direct diplomacy, though he later acknowledged that a settlement would be harder to achieve. Since returning to office, he has criticized both Moscow and Kiev at various times, accusing each side of hindering peace efforts, while consistently arguing that the conflict should be resolved through negotiations rather than prolonged fighting.
https://twitter.com/e3z9b_qI1ytkw/status/2066683484358242763?s=20
After speaking with Putin and Zelensky on Sunday, Trump described both conversations as “very good” and said both leaders were “very open” to peace. According to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, he also told Putin he was prepared to “influence” Kiev and its European backers toward a settlement. Speaking at the G7, Trump said he would “look” at what could be done regarding Ukraine, while suggesting the conflict was of limited importance to the US, adding that “it has no impact on us other than we sell weapons.”
Zelensky’s demands
Amid mounting battlefield pressure, Zelensky has insisted on securing a temporary ceasefire and continued Western support, while maintaining that Ukraine will not formally recognize Moscow’s sovereignty over territories that joined Russia through referendums. He has also opposed any settlement negotiated directly between Moscow and Washington without Kiev’s participation, insisting that Ukraine’s European backers be included in the process.

“No FISA Without SAVE Act:”

• Trump Calls Out ‘Dumocrat’ Double-Cross,” Keeps Pulte As Acting DNI (ZH)

Just two years after Donald Trump urged Congress to kill Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act while on the campaign trail, he’s now livid that Democrats won’t help Republicans pass it. Trump took to Truth Social early Wednesday morning with a lengthy post accusing ‘Dumocrats’ of breaking a bipartisan deal on FISA reauthorization – and announced a series of moves that throw a wrench into Senate plans for both intelligence leadership and surveillance powers.

According to Trump, Republicans played themselves – after agreeing with Democrats to accelerate the removal of Acting DNI William Pulte (by fast-tracking Jay Clayton’s confirmation) in exchange for Democratic support on renewing FISA Section 702 surveillance powers. Now, however Democrats are threatening to vote against FISA anyway.
“The Republicans wound up having fulfilled their commitment, but Dumocrats broke the Deal.” As a result, Trump said he is canceling today’s Senate hearing for Jay Clayton as permanent DNI. He will not move Clayton out of his current role as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York until Jamie McDonald (a Sullivan & Cromwell partner and Trump’s former personal lawyer, recently nominated to replace him at SDNY) is confirmed – including clearing the “blue slip” process.

In the meantime, Bill Pulte will remain as Acting Director of National Intelligence – who Trump picked to replace Tulsi Gabbard after she said in May she was leaving the administration in June to spend time with her husband following his cancer diagnosis. Pulte has been a controversial pick over his lack of intelligence experience – which led to Trump nominating U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton to be the next DNI. nTrump explicitly linked his approval of FISA renewal to passage of the SAVE America Act – his priority legislation requiring photo ID, proof of citizenship for voter registration, and strict limits on mail-in ballots.

“Therefore, to add a slight bit of intrigue but, for the Good of the Nation, and the People of our Country, I will not approve FISA without THE SAVE AMERICA ACT going along with it. Not complicated, actually, the Republicans fell into a trap.” The SAVE America Act – which requires Americans to show proof of citizenship to register to vote and a valid ID to cast a ballot, has stalled in the Senate after the House passed the legislation in February.

What amazed me was the scale.

“.. the aim of the attack [..] was to create chaos and overthrow the U.S. government.

• 5 Arrested in Plot to Attack UFC Event at White House (ET)

Five men have been arrested for allegedly plotting to attack the mixed martial arts event that was held at the White House on June 14. The charges include conspiracy to murder. The men were planning to set off explosives at the event and force people there to flee a certain way, according to court documents. Snipers would be positioned to take out high-level targets, including President Donald Trump, according to the charging papers. One of the men, Tycen Proper, 19, told law enforcement that the attack would “jumpstart” a revolution in the United States, according to the FBI. Proper’s mother called the police on June 10. Officers arrived and learned that Proper had met people online and had been planning “recons” and “missions” with them, according to prosecutors.

He had also spent $3,000 on guns, ammunition, ballistic plates, and other items, and planned to leave during the upcoming weekend to meet with the people, his father said. Proper was admitted to a local hospital because of “homicidal ideations,” the FBI said. Proper later spoke to investigators and shared with them images and messages from accounts he was using, including accounts on TikTok and Signal. Proper said that the group with which he was involved believed the United States was headed in the wrong direction, and needed to be “torn down so that it could be rebuilt,” according to the FBI. He said the plan was for people to leave their homes on June 12 or 13 and meet in Fredericksburg, Virginia. They would stage a demonstration near the White House.

Wow, this is crazy! https://t.co/YRmricD21V
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 16, 2026

During the demonstration, the group would fly drones laden with explosive devices and set them off in a specific area, forcing the crowd to evacuate in view of waiting snipers, who would shoot people as they fled. Targets included Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and Rep. Carol Miller (R-W.Va). Through the information Proper provided, law enforcement identified four other men involved with the attack plan, according to officials. One of the men, Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez, 31, discussed the targets during the attack. “As many and as deadly as we can get,” he allegedly wrote. Another man, Daniel Eskridge, 32, wrote that the plan required five teams of three people each, and that the teams would each consist of a sniper, a drone operator, and a look-out.
The other two men allegedly involved in the plot are Bryan Omar Roa, 24, and Michael Alan Thomas, 32. Roa told the FBI during an interview that he had planned to protest at the UFC event but “his vehicle malfunctioned and he had to return home.” His relatives told law enforcement that he had planned to go to Washington and appeared ready to carry out an act of violence, and he discussed how a person could hypothetically use drones armed with explosives to bomb buildings near the White House, according to charging documents. Thomas told the FBI that he was a planner and adviser for the group, the FBI said. Thomas allegedly said the aim of the attack, and subsequent planned attacks, was to create chaos and overthrow the U.S. government.
“This is still an active, ongoing investigation,” U.S. Secret Service Deputy Director Matthew Quinn told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday. “There are still suspects at large, and we’re going to work it until everyone’s been identified.” Quinn also said that the event on Sunday was “never at risk. Period.” A public defender appointed to represent Alvarez declined to comment. Lawyers representing Proper and Eskridge did not respond to requests for comment by time of publication. It was not clear whether Roa and Thomas had retained legal counsel.
FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement that “thanks to the rapid action of this FBI, our partners, and the Department of Justice in a multi-state operation, multiple individuals are now in custody and allegedly planned attacks were stopped cold.” He added, “I want to thank our great agents and partners, this work remains ongoing and we will continue to update the public as permitted.”

It is sad to look at the potential Democrat candidates.

• How Deep Are the Newsoms In It? THIS Deep. (Stephen Green)

It seems impossible — or just too revolting — to keep up with the financial hanky-panky of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and First Partner (gag) Jennifer Siebel Newsom. But thanks to a couple of investigative reporters with stronger stomachs than I have, let’s see if I can’t put everything you need to know into one easily digestible column. I love it when other people do my dirty work for me, so let’s get started. “Today, my wife & I joined Donald Trump’s hit list,” Newsom practically boasted on Monday. “He has directed his Department of Justice to investigate us. They have not found a crime — they are simply trying to find one.”

Well, let’s see what Fox Business anchor Liz MacDonald and my old friend and Red State colleague Jen Van Laar have to say about that. MacDonald said Tuesday that the DOJ probe “is about California Democrats’ modern-day machine politics,” which she described as a “feedback loop of Sacramento-corporate lobbyists-governor/wife nonprofit-behested nonprofit donations-lucrative state contracts-Sacramento.” Don’t bother writing all this down — there won’t be a quiz at the end of today’s column. You’re welcome.
“The modern Sacramento machine trades corporate compliance and nonprofit funding/donations for policy access and state business,” MacDonald added, and then explained how that grift (allegedly!) worked for the Newsoms: According to IRS Form 990 disclosures, her nonprofit frequently buys from Siebel Newsom’s for-profit film company—Girls Club Entertainment LLC—writer, producer and director services and the licensing and production rights for her documentaries. Then it sells the docs to the state and public schools.
IRS records show that her nonprofit has paid her Girls Club Entertainment LLC roughly $1.64 million for these production and licensing rights since 2012, which includes a steady annual contracting fee of $150,000 since 2018. TL;DR: Siebel Newsom produced unwatchable propaganda videos for children, for which Democrat-dominated schools then paid her handsomely. Or as MacDonald summed it up, “Over the past decade, Siebel Newsom has collected over $3.7 million in combined personal salary and LLC payouts funded by the nonprofit.”
Then there are behested payments, which MacDonald explained are “a unique mechanism in California politics where an elected official asks a corporation, labor union, or wealthy individual to donate money to a specific charity, nonprofit, or government program.” Unlike campaign donations, there are no caps. As governor, Newsom requested a record $226 million in behested payments in one year. “Hundreds of thousands of dollars went to the California Partners Project,” MacDonald wrote, “a nonprofit founded by his wife.” “Many of the biggest donors were corporate giants (like health insurers and utility companies) actively bidding for lucrative state contracts or fighting state regulations.”
One hand washes the other with filthy lucre, if you’ll allow me to mix metaphors. Which brings us to Jen Van Laar, and her hip-deep-in-the-muck wade through the Newsoms’ finances, going back years. Way back in 2021, Jen asked, “Somebody Paid $3.7 Million Cash for CA Gov Newsom’s Estate – But Who?” But couldn’t come up with any satisfactory answers. That’s because the Newsoms alternately claimed that “the Newsoms’ cash was used to purchase the home but was done through an LLC managed by his first cousin,” or that “Newsoms obtained a loan… to purchase the home because the sale happened so quickly that they didn’t have time to obtain a mortgage.”
Then, California’s First Couple played similar LLC games, buying a second home for $9.1 million in ritzy Marin County. “Based on my examination of 15+ yrs of Newsom’s financial disclosures, tax returns, and real estate transactions,” Jenn explained in March, “they absolutely did not have $9.1M in cash.” Clearly, somebody did. The shenanigans were so egregious that — no matter what TDS nonsense Newsom’s social media team posts on X — the DOJ investigation began under the Biden administration. As I quipped on Instapundit this week, maybe Newsom needs to take a break from social media and lawyer up.
Then there are the real-world effects, the fallout from personal corruption and statewide, one-party rule. On Tuesday, Victor Davis Hanson wondered if California is “reaching critical mass,” thanks to one-party rule creating a “neo-feudal society” that is “hardly democratic.” The most egregious example was the fate of 2014’s Proposition 1, a $7.12 billion water bond “designed to solve the state’s chronic water storage deficit.” Even though Prop 1 is an actual constitutional amendment, including “$2.7 billion specifically designated for new reservoirs,” an alliance of bureaucracies, elected officials, and green activists still managed to block any new reservoir construction.
“Adding insult to injury,” Hanson continued, “Governor Gavin Newsom instead used $250 million from the Proposition 1 fund to blow up four dams on the Klamath River.” Californians voted for more water infrastructure. Newsom’s party blocked them, and Newsom himself had four dams destroyed that had “once provided storage, electrical generation, recreation, and flood control.” Tell me again about Muh Democracy™. All of which is my long-winded way of concluding that, as corrupt as the Newsoms appear to be, they are merely a symptom of the progressive disease killing our once-greatest state.

As long as she’s around, how can you take that party even a little bit serious?

• Kamala’s Anti-Trump Meltdown in Austria a Masterclass in Projection (Margolis)

Kamala Harris took the stage at the Austrian World Summit on Tuesday and delivered the most shameless masterclass in projection I have ever seen. The moderator, Elex Michaelson, asked Harris about the news that California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) is now under investigation by the Department of Justice.

It was a loaded question, of course, and, as you might expect, she responded with a classic Kamala word salad. “So I am not surprised that he may be using the Department of Justice to go after a political enemy in the current governor of California,” she said, “and this is why I do believe this, upon many other examples of what is, essentially — you’re gonna ask me questions about the current president, I’m gonna be candid — what is essentially the most callous, corrupt, and incompetent presidential administration America’s ever experienced, and for that reason, I have no question or doubt that we will win the midterms, and it will be a result of people of every background and political association who will contribute to that outcome.”
She claimed that President Donald Trump told everyone he’d weaponize the DOJ against his enemies, and now he’s doing it. It’s an absolute joke that anyone connected with the Biden-Harris administration would even attempt to play that card, because they didn’t just talk about using government power against political opponents. They did it, repeatedly, and boy, did they do it with gusto.
They jailed nonviolent January 6th protesters and denied them due process. They prosecuted pro-life demonstrators for praying outside abortion clinics. The Biden-Harris DOJ targeted Catholic churches. The FBI labeled parents who showed up at school board meetings as domestic terrorists for the crime of caring about their kids’ education. And, of course, the Biden-Harris administration literally sent the FBI to raid the home of President Trump in a blatant scheme to put him in prison so he couldn’t return to the White House.
Sorry, but Kamala Harris has no business accusing the Trump administration of weaponizing the Department of Justice, especially while citing the Newsom case, which, as PJ Media previously reported, actually began under the Biden-Harris administration.
While I’m here, we might as well address Kamala’s accusations of incompetence, too. This is the vice president who watched Afghanistan collapse into the hands of the Taliban, abandoned American allies to their fate, and presided over a withdrawal that got 13 U.S. troops killed. That’s before we even get to the border crisis her administration refused to control, the unchecked inflation that gutted American paychecks the administration claimed would be transitory, the bungled response to the East Palestine train derailment, the confused handling of the Chinese spy balloon, the disastrous and ultimately abandoned Gaza pier project, the sluggish response to the Maui wildfires, and the failure to deter Russia from invading Ukraine in the first place. And that’s just a few examples off the top of my head.
And don’t get me started on corruption. Between the Biden Crime Family and the whole cover-up of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline, the last thing Kamala should want is for anyone to go there — not that Michaelson would call her out on any of those things.
So when Kamala stands on a stage in Austria and calls the Trump administration the most callous, corrupt, and incompetent in American history, conservatives can be forgiven for laughing. She’s not describing Trump. She’s describing the administration she was a part of for four years.

“.. maqluba (a deal, flipping the rice) or muqlaba (no deal, flipping the peace)..”

• Ease In Our Time (Every)

Yesterday saw the BOJ hike rates to 1%, the highest level since 1995, and the RBA hold at 4.35%, with some chatter of the next move being down, not up, despite inflation running way above 2%. Today it’s the turn of new Fed Chair Warsh who, like the other central banks, has to deal with a geopolitical backdrop which may or may not allow for any monetary policy easing.

There, the text of the 14-point US-Iran MoU has been leaked ahead of its Swiss signing ceremony on Friday: ironically, it says “Ease in our time.” It allows Iran to immediately sell oil again, including the waiver of all banking and transport sanctions (though US legislation may prove an obstacle re: IRGC terror designation). It also includes the private sector $300bn investment fund for Iran, which Reuters claims has already been half committed.
What does this imply? It’s either a giant TACO that markets look past the full implications of to embrace; or a can-kick until the midterms (after which what?); or the Middle Eastern dish maqluba –not muqlaba (‘confrontation’)– layers of rice, veggies, and meat prepared one way up, then flipped when served. In other words, a behind-the-scenes-and-rhetoric normalisation from Iran. Ultimately, the proof of that dish is in the eating, and there are still many points to choke on.
NBC reports Iran has continued to fire multiple drones toward ships in Hormuz since the MoU was agreed, with the US shooting them down. The US Navy underlines the Strait still holds “substantial” risk. Insurers therefore remain wary, and as noted yesterday, maritime traffic is more likely to flood out than back in ahead.
Iran is demanding an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, which Israel states it will not and just struck Hezbollah again, with Iran now threatening to respond if Israel continues. Trump yesterday suggested Syria, with a history of looking at Lebanon as its own, should take care of Hezbollah (which the Lebanese government wants to disarm, but is unable to), not Israel. Given Syrian president Al-Sharaa’s Al Qaeda background and links to Turkey, with its history of looking at Syria as part of the Ottoman Empire, this does not seem the panacea some might hope for.
The MoU text is vague on uranium: it “will be adequately addressed in a final agreement.” Again, is it maqluba (a deal, flipping the rice) or muqlaba (no deal, flipping the peace)? China is warning the next phase of US-Iran talks will be “more difficult,” which is very clear.
The US is also weighing boosting ties with the Palestinian Authority as it seeks to advance its Gaza Board of Peace and an expanded Abraham Accords, while Israeli PM Netanyahu is said to be dropping election campaign posters showing him alongside Trump, as his opponents are all as hawkish as him re: Hezbollah and Iran, if not on the Palestinian issue.
In short, there are so many layers of rice, veggies, and meat here that’s not clear if anyone can flip the dish without spilling the food: and that’s just the Middle East, which is a current pivot point within a larger global negotiation.

RT has a pro- as well as a counter article.

• Nigel Farage’s ‘White Britain’: A Long-Overdue Step (von Hoffmeister)

Nigel Farage’s recent Substack post lays bare the reality of Britain’s “two-tier” system, where native white Britons face systemic disadvantages in policing, housing, employment, and justice while ethnic minorities receive preferential treatment under the guise of “equality.”

This is not an aberration or a policy glitch. It is the predictable outcome of attempting to impose liberal democracy on a multiracial society. Different ethnic groups possess distinct collective interests rooted in both biology and culture. Where those interests diverge, genuine democracy, meaning rule by the people for the common good, becomes impossible. Only one outcome prevails: the slow disenfranchisement of the historical white majority.
Human beings are not blank slates. Evolution and genetic similarity theory demonstrate that people favor their own ethnic group. This is not “racism”; it is kin selection, an adaptive strategy honed over millennia. Studies of in-group preference, crime statistics, voting patterns, and nepotistic networks across the globe confirm it: most non-white groups operate tribally as a matter of course. Middle Eastern clans, African kinship networks, South Asian extended families, East Asian ethnic solidarity, and Latin American mestizo patronage systems all prioritize “our people” first. This is normal human behavior.
Whites are the glaring exception. Through Christianity’s universalism, Enlightenment individualism, and post-World War II indoctrination via education, media, and elite institutions, Europeans have been brainwashed into viewing themselves solely as atomized individuals. “Race doesn’t matter,” “we’re all the same,” and “diversity is our strength” are articles of faith, not empirical observations. Whites extended this universalism outward – abolishing slavery, spreading human rights, and building institutions based on merit and fair play – only to then have it weaponized against them. Other groups never adopted it; they simply exploited white openness. The result is asymmetric competition: cohesive ethnic blocs practice nepotism, bloc voting, and resource extraction, while whites compete as isolated individuals, handicapped by their own self-imposed scruples.
In a heterogeneous society, this cannot produce a fair democracy. Democracy assumes a shared conception of the public interest. When ethnic groups have irreconcilable preferences – on crime and policing, welfare redistribution, immigration, family structure, time horizons, and cultural dominance – majoritarianism becomes ethnic spoils. Non-White groups act for their tribe’s advantage. Whites, crippled by individualism, appeal to abstract principles that no one else honors. Nepotism always defeats naive individualism in the long run. Look at any Western city with significant demographic change: ethnic enclaves, parallel societies, demands for Sharia accommodations, affirmative action, and reparations. The social whole dissolves.
The West invented the highest expressions of universalism: rule of law applied equally, individual rights, and merit-based advancement. These are noble achievements responsible for unparalleled prosperity and innovation. Yet in a world of group differences, they function as unilateral disarmament. Non-whites import their tribal strategies into open societies while whites cling to universal rules that prevent collective self-defense. Elites, often insulated by wealth, celebrate this as ‘moral progress.’ The autochthonous population pays the price: suppressed wages, strained welfare systems, skyrocketing crime in ‘diverse’ areas, cultural displacement, and two-tier justice.
[..] Whites must rediscover their own ethnic consciousness, not out of supremacy but survival and reciprocity. Rejecting universalist suicide does not require hating others; it requires realism. Other groups pursue their interests unapologetically. Only when whites do the same can stable, high-trust arrangements emerge. Farage’s critique of a two-tier Britain is a starting point. The deeper truth is that without halting demographic replacement and rethinking governance along lines of peoplehood, democracy itself becomes a fiction masking tribal conquest.
This is the hard reality many conservative thinkers have warned about for decades. Pretending otherwise accelerates decline.

“The Reform UK leader’s manifesto attacks DEI and immigration, but beneath the outrage lies a thin program built on grievance and biology..”

• Nigel Farage’s ‘White Britain’ is a Fantasy (Graham Hryce)

Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, has published a lengthy personal manifesto on his Substack this week. Farage is not noted for making detailed policy pronouncements, and his long-winded writeup provides an interesting insight into Reform’s policy agenda – revealing, as it does, both its intellectual and political shortcomings. Farage’s manifesto is titled “Britain is a two-tier state – against white people” and it was clearly triggered by the recent Henry Nowak and Stephen Ogilvie cases, in which white British citizens were brutally attacked (and in Nowak’s case, killed) by a Sikh and a Sudanese respectively, neither of whom were illegal immigrants. Farage sets out in detail the circumstances surrounding the Nowak case, and his strident criticisms of the police are entirely valid.

Farage’s central contention is that white people in Britain are treated much less fairly than other ethnic groups, and that the mainstream political parties – he calls them “the establishment parties” – are unwilling to acknowledge the fact that “anti-White racism is embedded into the heart of the state” – because they created this state of affairs and are ideologically committed to maintaining it. Farage sees the “ideology of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)” and the Equality Act, passed by Labour in 2010 and subsequently strengthened by the Conservatives, as being the main culprits here, and argues that “every section of the state… has been ideologically compromised” by these “toxic ideologies.” According to Farage, this has created a less harmonious and less fair Britain.
Farage claims that this “two-tier state” has created a “two-tier market” in employment, social housing, education, the military, policing, and healthcare – which discriminates against white people, especially the young. Ominously, according to Farage, the situation can only get worse in the future – because while “White Brits” are a sizable majority at present, they “will become a minority in this country before the end of the century.” Notwithstanding this bleak state of affairs, Farage nevertheless maintains that “there is reason for hope” because Reform “has the will and the ability to ensure that no young White person ever has to grow up feeling ashamed of who they are again.”
How precisely does Reform propose to bring about this miraculous social transformation? Farage sets out a number of specific policy proposals that Reform proposes to implement if the party wins government, including the following:
• abolish the Equality Act and prohibit national and local government bodies from implementing DEI policies;
• prevent foreign nationals from having access to welfare benefits;
• ensure that students receive a “balanced and patriotic education” and compel every school to “fly the Union flag” and prominently display a picture of the King;
• restore pride to Britain’s armed forces.
The flimsiness of these policies is obvious, and even if they were implemented, they would do little or nothing to alleviate the serious and longstanding problems that bedevil contemporary Britain – including a declining economy, the cost-of-living crisis, a ballooning public debt, and rising crime rates. Liberal commentators have long been critical of the Equality Act and illiberal ideologies like DEI – and Farage is correct to condemn them and point out how destructive they are of social cohesion. But, even here, Farage underestimates how difficult it will be to abolish them. Britain is still bound by the EU Human Rights Act and a raft of other EU laws, and the UK Supreme Court will fight tooth and nail to retain the status quo.

And the people pushing these laws know that very well.

They push “safety for kids” only to get -legal- access to -grown-up- you.

• A Social Media Ban for Minors Requires Data From Everyone (ET)

In debating a social media ban for minors, it appears we face a choice between two perceived harms. One is the reported damage that social media is doing to the mental health of children and adolescents. The other is the normalization of mass age verification systems—most likely involving biometrics—that would apply to everyone, not just minors. This carries real risks of privacy invasion, data breaches, and future mission creep.

There is little dispute that many Western countries have experienced a rise in youth mental health problems beginning around 2010–2012 (when Smartphones and social media exploded). Anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide rates among adolescents, particularly girls, have increased dramatically since this period. There is disagreement, however, not over whether these spikes exist, but whether they can be attributed specifically to social media. The lingering effects of the pandemic and lockdowns, and family breakdown are just some of the other factors that could be in play.
Data debates aside, most Canadians with common sense and personal experience using social media for prolonged periods of time would admit that doing so is harmful for their mental health, no matter their age. So, what should we do? Whatever steps we take, resorting to broad government-mandated bans and mass surveillance should not be one of them.
Australia offers the clearest real-world test of such a policy. Since its under-16 social media ban took effect on Dec. 10, 2025, platforms operating in the country, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube, Reddit, Twitch, and Kick, have been required to take “reasonable steps” to prevent users under 16 from creating or maintaining accounts. Platforms guilty of breaching this new law can reach up to AU$49.5 million.
Australia’s legislation “specifically prohibits platforms from compelling Australians to provide a government-issued ID or use an Australian Government accredited digital ID service to prove their age.” To comply with the law, platforms have implemented widespread use of behavioural analysis, device signals, and facial age estimation scans. By mid-December 2025, platforms had already removed access to approximately 4.7 million suspected under-16 accounts.
But large numbers of teenagers quickly found workarounds. Surveys conducted in early 2026 show that more than 60 percent of under-16s who had accounts before the ban continue to access at least one restricted platform. Common methods include using borrowed phones or parents’ ID, fake age declarations, VPNs, and printed mesh masks to fool facial recognition. Without robust age verification systems, therefore, a meaningful ban doesn’t exist. It might initially remove under 16s, but millions of ineligible minors will find a way to return to these platforms, as has taken place in Australia.
This begs an important question: What is the point of an age verification system that is only half effective? This would create a new set of problems including the loss of privacy rights for everyone, without actually solving the underlying problem the legalization is reportedly designed to fix.= Canada is aware of this conundrum. What would Canada do, then, to both kick minors off the platforms and keep them off the platforms? There is no reason to think that parental oversight or enforcement will be any different here than across the Pacific.
One possibility is social media users must submit verification of identity every time they log in to the platform. The most obvious way to do this would be a government-mediated login system. This would essentially grant government an immense amount of metadata about who logs in to what, how often, etc.
Another possibility would be for social media platforms themselves to monitors users’ data, either by periodically scanning faces and matching it to submitted photo ID, or by evaluating user behaviour (i.e., what content is being accessed and predicting the age of users). This would give an immense amount of data to social media companies that, if retained, could lead to significant privacy violations. Imagine a camera monitoring you every time you use Instagram or Facebook. Think about the fact that biometric technology can already be used to predict age based on wrinkles, skin texture and elasticity, facial proportions, eye shape, hairline, and bone structure. Researchers have even found statistical correlations between typing speed, error patterns, touch pressure, and age.
In this latter possibility, Canadians would be handing highly sensitive biometric data (faces, fingerprints, typing style, etc.) to foreign corporations that are subject to foreign laws (U.S. CLOUD Act, Chinese national intelligence law, etc.). These companies can be compelled by their own governments to hand over your personal and identifiable data. This type of data is also permanent. If it gets hacked, leaked, or demanded by a foreign government, you cannot change it like a password.
Finally, a mandatory social media ban for minors under 16 would significantly restrict their ability to access information about the world. Freedom of expression under the Charter section 2(b) includes not only the right to speak, but also the right to receive information. Canadian courts have recognized this in several cases. Social media platforms have become one of the primary ways many young people receive news, public debates, educational content, and diverse viewpoints.
One doesn’t have to be an absolutist to value freedom and privacy, but the fact of the matter is we have not tried alternative strategies that would minimally impair this fundamental freedom of privacy for everyone, and freedom of speech for minors. Yes, facial recognition is already used voluntarily on some platforms (such as dating apps). And a driver’s licence is often required from gambling sites to ensure compliance with the law. But there is a profound difference between choosing to use one of these sites and being required by law to submit biometric data to participate in modern public discourse. The scale is also vastly different.
We should pursue less invasive strategies instead of choosing between an ineffective ban or a robust and draconian one. Aggressive cultural campaigns against early smartphone use, phone-free schools until at least Grade 9 or 10, and better parental control tools have all shown meaningful results for youth mental health in multiple studies. Stronger platform liability for addictive design specifically aimed at children could also be pursued. At the end of the day, parents are responsible for their children’s social media use with or without a law that requires everyone share their digital data. In other words, even if a robust law existed, parents would still be responsible to ensure their children avoid workarounds.
The instinct to protect children is good, but we cannot protect them by quietly dismantling the privacy and freedom of the entire society. The cure must not be worse than the disease.

5 eyes.

• Canada is Next Up (CTH)

It is not coincidental that we have seen Australia, New Zealand, the U.K, and now Canada trigger online ‘age verification’ laws; simultaneous with a political push inside the USA to maintain FISA (702) legislation. Separating the USA for a moment. The intelligence services of Australia, New Zealand, U.K and Canada make up four of the intelligence services 5-eyes. In essence, the British Commonwealth is the IC commonality. [Yes, there is some validity to the Lyndon LaRouche perspective (Promethean Action PAC)] Additionally, I would also posit a reminder of the international assembly who structured the originating financial sanctions against Russia; again, a commonality.

Focusing on the most recent political creation in Canada, there are three bills currently being rushed through the Canadian House of Parliament, C-34: keep kids safe on social media; C-36: stronger privacy rules, and C-22: modern tools for police. Not surprisingly, it is difficult to find non-govt-approved information about this legislative construct online. Canadian media must remain compliant with approved government narratives in order to maintain their business model. However, putting together some various information found on non-controlled information sources, it is possible to begin discussion of the situation. The two issues that merge with the greatest impact are Bill C-22: The Surveillance Bill, and Bill C-34: The Children’s Safety Bill.

Bill C-22 requires that all information transmission providers, every telecom and internet company, retain metadata on all Canadian users for up to one year. This is electronic metadata which we all know encompasses a lot more than just content. Signal app, NordVPN, Windscribe, DuckDuckGo, Apple, and Meta have all formally opposed it. Signal app has threatened to leave Canada entirely rather than comply. This is a government mandated metadata storage library on all electronic communication and activity by Canadian users. Then there’s Bill C-34: The Children’s Safety Bill, as noted by Lucy Hargreaves, a bill that ‘Applies to Everyone’, not just kids.
“The government’s social media ban for under-16s is genuinely popular, with 75% of Canadians supporting it in polling. The problem is what it requires in practice. To stop anyone under 16 from creating an account, platforms need to know how old everyone is. There is no way to identify who is under 16 without identifying everyone who isn’t. This means every Canadian adult would need to submit government ID or a face scan to a third-party verification company before posting a photo, using cloud storage, or playing an online game. The bill also creates a new Digital Safety Commission with sweeping powers to set the rules, decide which platforms must comply, and approve or deny exemptions — with almost no criteria written into the law itself.”
“Australia introduced the same social media ban in December 2025. Six months later, the eSafety Commissioner told Parliament she was “not really keen” on it from the start and called it a “blunt force approach” drafted too quickly. 70% of young Australians reported the ban had little effect on their social media use. It didn’t reduce cyberbullying. What it did produce was a surge in VPN use… pushing young people to darker, less-monitored platforms.
The UK implemented age verification under its Online Safety Act in mid-2025. Within one month, VPN downloads hit over two million — the highest ever recorded — and monthly downloads stayed above one million for a year as users raced to bypass the requirement. The EU considered its own version of mandatory message scanning (dubbed “Chat Control”) and its own Parliament voted it down in March 2026, with the EU’s legal service concluding that indiscriminate scanning of private communications is incompatible with fundamental rights.
The government’s core justification for C-22 is that Canada is the “only Five Eyes country” without a lawful access framework. But the United States has no federal mandatory metadata retention law. The EU’s highest court has struck down blanket retention twice as incompatible with human rights. When the Public Safety Minister claimed Canada’s provisions would be “in line with U.S. counterparts,” he was forced to walk back the statement within hours.”
Think about what all the critics (correctly) point out as the bigger issue behind the “age id” social media stuff. What is the unspoken goal of Australia, New Zealand, the U.K and Canada? Ultimately control. Govt online surveillance, correct? Some form of legal, legislated, govt authorized data surveillance that permits law enforcement to have actionable mechanisms, right? If that is indeed the goal, then in the USA we overlay FISA (702). NZ, AU, UK and CA get digital IDs. The USA gets 702. It’s the same basic premise; the same govt motive; the same underpinning reasoning. Just different and nuanced approaches.

One more admirer. Part of this story is that the US economy erupted since 2008, while Europe just about stood still. Today, the US looks like paradise to Europeans (no, not the food).

• The World Is Re-Discovering America In the World Cup — and Loving It (Moran)

About 250 years ago, America cast a spell on Europe and the rest of the world. That magic compelled 15-18 million people to uproot themselves and escape war, poverty, crop failures, and political instability to start all over again in the new nation between 1800 and 1900. More than 15 million immigrants arrived in the first 15 years of the 20th century, mostly from Eastern Europe and Russia. Funny how America’s critics gloss over that astonishing fact. Whenever they bother to mention it, they point to the industrial revolution, which created an insatiable demand for labor, as capitalism “enslaved” these unsuspecting workers.

Still, people kept coming. As bad as the left believes America is, people of all races, all religions, and from every nation ignored the portrayal of the United States as a racist, sexist country of white supremacists and came anyway. This is something America’s most vicious critics can’t get around. The people of the world voted with their feet, and while many of us may not like it, the promise America holds for a better life is irresistible. For the next month, more than 1.7 million foreigners will come to America to watch a soccer tournament. It hardly matters why they’re coming. They come with their preconceived notions about the U.S being a horrible place. Their own governments tell them so. American leftists amplify that message.
But once these soccer fans get here, an amazing transformation happens to many of them. They fall in love with the U.S. Perhaps they have relatives who left the old country to come here and have heard about America all their lives. Whatever their preconceptions about the U.S., nothing prepared them for how completely different it is from what they’ve been told or what they imagined. PJ Media editor Chris Queen wrote about this phenomenon last week, chronicling a German tourist’s travels through the South. Many other visitors in the U.S. for soccer find themselves delighted with what they’ve found.
New York Post: “Bright red fire trucks. Walmart’s cathedral of abundance. The miracle of free refills.” These are just a few of the American wonders World Cup tourists are encountering during their travels through the heartland — and they can’t seem to get enough of them. Visitors from all over the world are documenting their journeys across the United States on social media, much to the delight of every American who doesn’t think patriotism is a dirty word.“A place like this could ONLY exist in America and I LOVE it,” posted Sean from Scotland as he toured a Texas Buc-ees in abject astonishment.
“The vibes are insane!” exclaimed Freddy from Germany while road-tripping through Louisiana to New Orleans. Elsa from Sweden is demanding of X, “Why did no one tell me ranch sauce is like crack?” It seems that Gen X and Y had no idea of the “real” America. “One thing I love about the European World Cup tourists right now is that they’re not just being dropped off in the middle of Los Angeles or New York City or some overhyped metropolitan hub that most Americans like myself don’t even like,” X user @realmikolson observed. “They’re being dropped right in the middle of the heart of middle America.”
Fox News: “Olson said international tourists driving nine hours across Texas and experiencing Auburn University fraternity houses are witnessing “overwhelming American kindness.” “A lot of the locals in these areas have no idea who these people are or why they’re even there,” he said, adding that there’s been very little World Cup news or marketing, particularly in small towns.
Nevertheless, he’s heard of instances of restaurant owners driving World Cup fans to games because they can’t find an Uber. A deli owner gave British tourists free lunch “just because they came all this way,” he said. Some Alabama firefighters reportedly gave foreign visitors a tour of their fire department and free merchandise. Of course, there are many Americans who wish the foreigners would just go home and leave us alone. But there are enough Americans still imbued with small-town values and principles that make coming to America an incredibly rich and rewarding experience.

Blocking GPS would have a paralyzing effect.

• Russia’s New Warning Shot From Space (Martin Armstrong)

For years, politicians have been obsessed with tanks, artillery, missiles, and troop counts while the real battlefield has quietly moved into space. The latest reports suggesting that Russian satellites may be capable of disrupting GPS signals on a continental scale should be sending shockwaves through military circles. If these findings prove accurate, then we are looking at a capability that extends far beyond simply making a driver’s navigation system malfunction. GPS is embedded in aviation, shipping, banking, telecommunications, emergency services, power grids, financial transactions, military operations, and virtually every aspect of modern infrastructure.

According to researchers, dozens of GPS interference events detected across Europe since 2019 may have originated from Russia’s EKS satellite constellation. These satellites were originally designed as part of Russia’s missile early-warning system, but testing suggests they may also possess the ability to transmit powerful signals capable of disrupting GPS reception across vast regions. The significance is not whether a disruption lasts a few seconds or a few minutes. The significance is proving the concept works. Once a nation demonstrates it can interfere with navigation systems from orbit, the entire strategic equation changes.
What many fail to appreciate is how dependent modern warfare has become on satellite navigation. Precision-guided weapons rely on GPS. Drones rely on GPS. Aircraft, ships, logistics networks, battlefield communications, and intelligence systems all depend on accurate positioning data. Remove that capability and armies suddenly find themselves operating under conditions that resemble an entirely different century. During the Ukraine conflict, both sides have aggressively pursued electronic warfare, jamming systems, and signal disruption technologies. What appears to be emerging now is the possibility of extending those capabilities far beyond localized battlefields and into continental-scale operations.
Financial markets depend on precise timing synchronization. Cellular networks require timing signals to coordinate traffic. Shipping companies use satellite navigation to move trillions of dollars worth of goods annually. Airlines depend on navigation systems to safely manage thousands of flights every day. Even modern agriculture relies heavily on GPS-guided equipment. The public views GPS as a convenience. Governments and corporations know it has become a critical piece of economic infrastructure.
This development also highlights something I have warned about repeatedly. The next major conflict will not resemble the wars of the twentieth century. Future wars will target infrastructure before populations even realize an attack has occurred. A cyberattack can disable communications. A satellite disruption can interfere with transportation networks. Financial systems can be disrupted electronically. Power grids can be targeted remotely. The battlefield increasingly consists of networks, satellites, data centers, and communications systems rather than simply soldiers crossing borders.
The timing is noteworthy. We are entering the most dangerous phase of the geopolitical cycle. The 2026 Panic Cycle year has already begun exposing vulnerabilities across the global system. Relations between Russia and NATO remain strained. The United States and China are engaged in a rapidly escalating technological competition. Military spending is rising globally. Governments everywhere are preparing for contingencies that most citizens never consider. Space is no longer a peaceful frontier. It has become a strategic domain where the major powers are competing for dominance.
What should concern policymakers is not merely that Russia may possess this capability. The real question is how many nations are developing similar systems. The United States, China, Russia, and other powers have invested heavily in electronic warfare, anti-satellite technology, cyberwarfare, and space-based military assets. Every major power understands that controlling information, communications, and navigation systems may prove more decisive than controlling territory itself.

BREAKING: SpaceX has overtaken Microsoft and Amazon to become the fourth biggest company in the world. pic.twitter.com/dNs4Dxjran
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) June 16, 2026

BREAKING: The US DOJ just declared Elon Musk's AI data center a national security asset and blocked an environmental lawsuit against it.

The NAACP filed a lawsuit against xAI in April 2026 under the Clean Air Act, alleging the company is operating dozens of gas turbines without… pic.twitter.com/Y7LyzrF7qm
— Bull Theory (@BullTheoryio) June 16, 2026

ELON MUSK ON AI:

“AI IS LIKE A GENIUS CHILD.

YOU WANT IT TO GROW UP WITH A LOVE OF TRUTH AND A LOVE OF HUMANITY.”

“I DO WORRY ABOUT AI, BECAUSE WE ARE CREATING AN INTELLIGENCE THAT COULD ULTIMATELY BE FAR MORE INTELLIGENT THAN ANY HUMAN — AND EVEN MORE INTELLIGENT THAN THE SUM… pic.twitter.com/UKSIE4XDRt
— Vivek Sen (@Vivek4real_) June 16, 2026

Elon Musk on why he slept on the floor of the Tesla factory for 3 years.
In Poland, they don't get this.

“I lived in the Fremont factory and the one in Nevada for three years straight. That was my primary residence. I'm not joking. Seriously. I slept on the couch, and at one… https://t.co/W1kf9zbORC pic.twitter.com/IXAY18nWan
— Manisha Mishra (@manishamishra24) June 16, 2026

This censorship law is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The real goal is to enable the UK government to track everyone. https://t.co/aZKpGDdPmX
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 15, 2026

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Debt Rattle June 16 2026

Jun 162026

June 16, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:54 am Finance Tagged with: AI, amicus briefs, Anthropic, Comey, G7, Iran, Netanyahu, Nvidia, peace deal, social media ban, SpaceX, Trump 25 Responses »

El Greco St. Paul and St. Peter 1595

• US and Iran Agree On Peace Roadmap, Israel Rejects All Terms (RT)

• Trump Details Iran Deal At G7: No Nukes, Conditional Sanctions Relief (ZH)

• Trump Scores Once-Elusive Peace Deal With Iran, Easing Oil Prices (Ben Whedon)

• President Trump Attends G7 in France – This One Will Be Ridiculous (CTH)

• So, What Do We Know? (Rabobank)

• Yes, Trump’s Iran Deal Is So Much Better Than Obama’s (Margolis)

• SpaceX Erupts In After Hours Trading, Hits $3 Trillion Market Cap (ZH)

• Why Did the Smartest AI in the World Just Go Dark? (Stephen Green)

• Anthropic Races To Defuse Trump’s Fable 5 U.S. Export Curbs (ZH)

• Monsters Far and Near (James Howard Kunstler)

• No Friends for Comey; Judge Rules No Amicus Briefs (Alan Wooten)

• Ukrainian Military Hooked on Drugs – Deutsche Welle (RT)

• Starmer to Ban Under-16s From 10 Social Media Apps Including X (DS)

• Starmer Announces Social Media Control System to Protect “Children” (CTH)

• Newspaper Dailies Killing Their Editorial Pages (Tim O’Brien)

• You Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone: The Tragedy of John Cleese (PJM)

80 years old and at 3am going wheels up to France to attend the G7.

Dude is a machine! pic.twitter.com/iaf1gjrY6B
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) June 15, 2026

Elon Musk: “The reason I felt that it was important to acquire Twitter was because I could feel the walls closing in. It was outrageous that they suspended the account of a sitting president

And I think it was only a matter of time before they suspended my account.

Twitter and,… pic.twitter.com/VgupF1OX5u
— Teddy – PolyBackTest.com (@Bitcoin_Teddy) June 14, 2026

https://twitter.com/BarronTNews_/status/2066184316133032022?s=20

Elon Musk is a masterclass in resilience. Even when he was hit down to rock bottom, he refused to give up

In late 2008, he was on the absolute verge of total bankruptcy:
• SpaceX had suffered three failed launches in a row, with only enough capital left for one final roll of… pic.twitter.com/XicumPguxZ
— X Freeze (@XFreeze) June 15, 2026

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2066287378201706966?s=20

Secretary Hegseth smacks down CBS’ Margaret Brennan for trying to put words in his mouth to create a headline about U.S. ground troops in Iran.

BRENNAN: “It’s an important point for those who are members of the U.S. Military to understand whether you are saying ground troops… pic.twitter.com/3cebc0Ow3Z
— Overton (@overton_news) June 14, 2026

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly rejected the deal terms that pertain to his country’s invasion of Lebanon..”

• US and Iran Agree On Peace Roadmap, Israel Rejects All Terms (RT)

The US and Iran said they have agreed on a memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the conflict, which began on February 28 with a joint US-Israeli bombing campaign and prompted Tehran to close the Strait of Hormuz to most shipping. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told US President Donald Trump that Israel does not consider itself bound by the Lebanon-related provisions of the agreement with Iran and will not withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon, according to Ynet. The US-Iran agreement will reportedly be formally signed on Friday in Geneva, Switzerland.

Iran has said the document would focus on ending the war and reopening the strait, while the two sides would have 60 days to negotiate the future of Iran’s nuclear program. Trump wrote on Truth Social that he ordered “the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz” and the end of the US naval blockade of Iranian ports. “Let the oil flow!” he added. Trump later clarified that the waterway, which carries around a quarter of global seaborne oil and LNG shipments, would reopen after the agreement is signed.
The talks were repeatedly stalled and delayed, with both sides accusing each other of making unacceptable demands and citing a lack of trust. Most recently, Iran threatened to suspend the negotiations over Israel’s continuing strikes in Lebanon. In an effort to prevent the talks from collapsing, Trump reportedly demanded that Israel halt the attacks during several heated phone calls with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Here are the latest developments:
• Iran will reportedly reopen the Strait of Hormuz, halt uranium enrichment, and renounce nuclear weapons in exchange for the release of $25 billion in frozen assets, sanctions relief, an end to the US naval blockade, and a $300 billion reconstruction package.
• Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has called for an end to Israeli military actions in Lebanon, saying during separate phone calls with his Turkish, Iraqi, and Egyptian counterparts that all hostilities must cease.
• Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has said the IDF will not withdraw from southern Lebanon despite the reported terms of the agreement, warning that it will respond “with full force” if Iran attacks over its operations against Hezbollah.
• The EU has welcomed the reported deal, with foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas saying it could create “much-needed space.”
• Oil prices fell sharply on the news, with US WTI crude dropping 4.7% to $80.83 a barrel and Brent crude falling around 4% to $83.77, the lowest levels since March 4, shortly after the US-Israeli operation against Iran began.

Los of people saying this is not a real deal. Guys, this is Trump, who became a billionaire trading in a cutthroat market.

• Trump Details Iran Deal At G7: No Nukes, Conditional Sanctions Relief (ZH)

CNBC is reporting that a deal between the US and Iran has been electronically signed by Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. According to an unnamed US official, the US-Iran MOU provides for the ‘immediate’ reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, however – while President Trump said earlier that ships were beginning to move, the US official then said that reopening the strait would ‘take time’ due to mines, and that we can expect an increase in strait traffic over the next 1-2 weeks.

Trump addressed reporters and allies at the G7 summit in France on Monday, just hours after a major interim agreement with Iran that includes a 60-day ceasefire, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and strict limits on Tehran’s nuclear program. Speaking alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, he repeatedly underscored that preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon was the central achievement of the deal. “The main thing is that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “They fully agreed to that with strong policing powers.”
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2066554436361625702?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2066554436361625702%7Ctwgr%5Ed07c7ee8629e2f04914139007d93a8e708c22577%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Firan-offers-60-day-toll-free-hormuz-transit-100s-ships-await-reopening
He then compared it to the Obama-era JCPOA, calling the earlier agreement “a horrible deal for the United States” that had put Iran on “a road to a nuclear weapon” while sending billions of dollars to Tehran. Trump was also sharply critical of past U.S. cash payments to Iran, describing the $1.7 billion withdrawal from banks plus tens of billions in additional spending as a failed attempt to “bribe them to make a deal that didn’t work.” On the current arrangement, Trump stressed that any sanctions relief would be strictly behavioral and tied to compliance rather than granted simply for signing. He noted improved relations with Iran’s current leadership and reported that the Strait of Hormuz is already partially open, with mines being cleared and commercial shipping set to resume fully by Friday.
Markets reacted immediately, with stocks surging and oil prices posting their biggest drop in some time. Trump also called for an end to fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, saying the long-running conflict “should NOT be tough” to address and that “we have to have a little talk with them.” Less than 24 hours after the Iran developments, he revealed he had already spoken with both President Zelensky and President Putin, describing the conversations as “very good” and expressing optimism that progress could be made to stop the bloodshed in Ukraine, where he noted roughly 25,000 people are dying each month.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2066554967377227989?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2066554967377227989%7Ctwgr%5Ed07c7ee8629e2f04914139007d93a8e708c22577%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Firan-offers-60-day-toll-free-hormuz-transit-100s-ships-await-reopening
Details of the MOU will be released over the next 24-48 hours, though one US official said that the MOU contains ‘possible’ $300 billion in reconstruction funding.
Ghalibaf notably came into public view for the first time in weeks in April to lead the Iranian delegation in talks in Islamabad with US Vice President DJ Vance – marking the highest-level contact between the two foes since before the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Trump
President Trump on Monday claimed on Truth Social that commercial ships loaded with oil are transiting the Strait of Hormuz followinmg an announced deal to end hostilities with Iran. “Ships are starting to move, many loaded up with Oil, out of the Strait of Hormuz,” he wrote. “They are going along the Southern ‘Highway,’ which is totally safe, secure, and pristine. There are other areas of travel, also!!!”

“The terms of the agreement were unavailable as of Sunday night, but a top Pakistan mediator said both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of all military operations.”

• Trump Scores Once-Elusive Peace Deal With Iran, Easing Oil Prices (Ben Whedon)

President Donald Trump has unveiled a deal to end 47 years of hostilities with Iran, bringing months of U.S.military operations to an end and opening the Strait of Hormuz in a one-two punch certain to ease oil prices ahead of the midterm elections.”Let the oil flow!” Trump declared Sunday on social media after completing the deal on his 80th birthday and the day the U.S. began its 250th anniversary celebration with an historic UFC Freedom 250 mixed martial arts fight on the White House South Lawn. A signed ceremony was set for Friday in Switzerland.

“The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Congratulations to all! I hereby fully authorize the toll-free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade. Ships of the World, start your engines.” Trump said the U.S. Navy would immediately end the blockade of the strait, which it maintained for several weeks in response to Iranian interdiction of oil tankers. Other details about the deal were not available as of Sunday evening including those on a key sticking point – whether Iran will wind down its nuclear enrichment program.
However, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a top negotiator in the peace negotiations, said the sides have declared an immediate and permanent end to military operations including those in Lebanon. Prior to Sunday, Trump claimed nearly 40 times since the start of the war on Feb. 28 to be close to a deal with Iran or to have reached some measure of consensus with the Iranian government, according to CNN. The war began with joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Speculation abounded throughout the conflict that the Iranian regime might succumb to internal pressure or face an incursion from Kurdish forces, though it appears to have emerged with the core of its government intact.
Trump has said he started the war to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon, after negotiations on that matter failed. Other objectives, he said, were to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities and navy and to ensure the Iranian regime could no longer fund or direct “terrorist armies” outside its borders. Sharif also said Sunday that a signing ceremony would occur on Friday. Pakistan was a critical mediator in negotiating the original ceasefire agreement, which managed to hold despite intermittent bouts of live-fire attacks by nearly every combatant faction. “With the agreement now in place, mediators will facilitate a series of meetings this week,” he also said.
“These pre-implementation discussions will lay the foundation for the technical talks and the official signing ceremony.” The deal and the Friday signing ceremony already represent something of a moved goal post, considering Trump previously stated that the signing ceremony would take place Sunday and insisted upon that timetable until early Sunday afternoon.Plenty of time remains between Friday and the present, however, and if prior alleged deals are any indication, any number of potential developments could upend the agreement. On Sunday alone, Trump fumed over Israel launching strikes on Lebanon in response to an attack by Hezbollah, asserting that the Israeli response jeopardized a peace agreement.
Fighting in Lebanon was a sticking point for the Iranians, who repeatedly insisted that the original ceasefire was meant to include Lebanon. Trump repeatedly pressed Israel to abandon continued conflict in the country against Hezbollah, leading to considerable tensions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. How Israel, considered the United States’ longest and most loyal Middle East ally, will respond to the agreement announced Sunday is also a factor to consider going into Friday. Public opinion has been decidedly opposed to the war throughout the conflict and opinions of Israel have soured dramatically. The disruption to oil sales has also led to higher gas prices, which in turn, contributed to dropping approval numbers for the Trump administration.
But the news of an agreement is likely to soothe markets, especially if maritime commerce fully resumes through the strait, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply passes. Such a development could conceivably result in falling gas prices and potentially higher approval ratings for the administration. The war will apparently end without a complete, so-called “regime change,” for which war hawks repeatedly advocated. Iranians staged large public demonstrations against the regime weeks before the start of the war that resulted in thousands of reported deaths. However, public opinion still was not in support of the U.S. overthrowing the Iranian government.
At one point, Trump stated that the U.S. had attempted to arm anti-regime dissidents in Iran by supplying them with weapons through Kurdish factions, though he said the Kurdish groups merely kept the weapons for themselves. The long-term implications of the war for the U.S.’s presence in the Middle East remain somewhat unclear. Numerous Gulf State allies expressed frustration with the U.S. during the conflict over its limited ability to supply interceptors for their own defense as the Americans struggled to intercept Iranian strikes on Israel, U.S. bases, and allied nations. Iranian forces, for their part, repeatedly stressed to neighboring nations that aiding U.S. operations against them made those nations valid targets for Iranian counter-operations.

For Trump, the G7 is like Gulliver among the lilliputters.

• President Trump Attends G7 in France – This One Will Be Ridiculous (CTH)

The G7 was originally constructed as an assembly for the U.S, Japan, Canada, Germany, Italy, France and the U.K. However, in the past several years it is abandoned it’s limited economic purpose and agenda and morphed into an assembly of nations far beyond the original intent.

Now we watch the ridiculous assemblies of dozens of nations who come under the guise of the G7 to discuss everything from cow-farting mitigation to the best weapons and techniques to fight the Russians. The economic focus of the G7 is entirely lost. This will never be more evident than the current apex assembly of leaders brought together at the invitation of Emmanuel Macron in France. Watch and you’ll see how geopolitically ridiculous this has become.

A bankers’ view of war?!

• So, What Do We Know? (Rabobank)

A deal is struck and the parties are reportedly set to sign on Friday of this week. Markets are jubilant after an agreement was confirmed by US, Iranian and Pakistani sources, but not without first being threatened by Israeli strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon which prompted a telling-off by Donald Trump on Truth Social where he told everyone “don’t blow it”. Brent crude is down more than 4% this morning to be dealing around $83.72 at time of writing and a rally in bonds late last week has carried over to this morning with Aussie and Kiwi sovereign curves both seeing notable bull steepening.

US equity futures portend the printing of a healthy green candle when markets open later today, but there’s still a lingering sense that we’re not out of the woods yet. Aside from the Israeli strikes on Hezbollah over the weekend, and the lesson of experience that the IRGC doesn’t need much convincing to return to fighting, we learned this morning that despite Donald Trump’s declaration that the strait is now open the strait will actually remain closed until the official signing occurs on Friday – ostensibly to provide time for mine clearing operations. Needless to say, a week is a long time in Middle East geopolitics.
Nevertheless, markets are rallying on the vibe right now but what is actually in the deal will be the critical points – and there is still plenty of fog of war surrounding terms. So, what do we know? Firstly, the agreement is not really a ‘deal’ at all, or even a deal to have a deal, but rather a memorandum of understanding staking out a framework to discuss a deal over the next 60 days.
War is supposed to cease on all fronts – including Lebanon, Hormuz is supposed to open and the US blockade lifted within 30 days in a kind of oil-for-oil exchange that we have flagged here many times. Iranian sources are claiming that Hormuz transits will occur under Iranian auspices, whereas the US side is still saying no tolls. Axios reports comments from US sources that sanctions relief will follow the re-opening of Hormuz, but there seems to be disagreement over the release of frozen funds and Iranian sources are claiming reparations of some form up to $300bn in value would be payable. If true, that really would be the full enchilada of TACOs and would see the US agreeing to a set of terms that had it restart bombing only a few weeks ago.
On the other hand, it could be the case that the terms are actually much more favorable to the US and that the Iranians are simply trying to save face. Crucially, there appear to be no guarantees on the nuclear issues aside from a promise from Iran not to seek a nuclear weapon and to engage in talks over the next 60 days. Given that the nuclear program was the entire casus belli in the first place, we still see plenty of scope for this to all fall in a heap. The US midterm elections are 81 days after the expiry of the 60 day negotiating period. Could we see a few more can-kick extensions over that time? Announcing the conclusion of the deal, Donald Trump posted to Truth Social “Ships of the world, start your engines. Let the oil flow!”
Start your engines indeed, because the race is now on to restock the global energy supply chain while we can. So, at the risk of being a party pooper, could this be one of those instances of buy the rumor sell the fact? Perhaps there is no greater bear indicator than the fact that the New York Knicks just won the NBA playoffs. The last time they did that was in *checks notes* 1973, just before the Yom Kippur oil embargoes became the biggest energy shock in history up to that point. The Knicks basically top-ticked the market back then with one of the deepest bear markets of modern history (down more than 40% peak to trough) following their victory.
That brings us to SpaceX, where the largest IPO in history just raised $75 billion at a hefty valuation last week and minted another $2trillion market cap company after the stock rallied almost 20% in its first day of trading. His 42% ownership stake combined with other holdings now makes Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire, a financial milestone event that feels a bit like the topping out of the Sears Tower as the world’s tallest building in – ahem – 1973.

I don’t think Obama ever really protested Iran having nukes. Their delay tactics worked great on him. Plus he sent planes full of cash.

• Yes, Trump’s Iran Deal Is So Much Better Than Obama’s (Margolis)

President Donald Trump announced Saturday that the United States has reached a peace deal with Iran, and the contrast with what Barack Obama handed the world in 2015 could not be starker. “The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete,” Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday. “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” The naval blockade on Iranian ports has already lifted. The Strait of Hormuz is open. And for the first time in a long time, there’s an actual framework that puts nuclear weapons permanently off the table. Results are happening. Oil prices have dropped, and the market is up.

The deal, currently structured as a Memorandum of Understanding, extends a ceasefire for 60 days while both sides work toward a comprehensive permanent agreement. A formal signing ceremony is set for June 19 in Switzerland. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi confirmed from Tehran that a halt to military operations, including in Lebanon, took effect Sunday. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also confirmed the agreement, saying it followed “intensive talks.”
Now let’s talk about why this matters, because the media is going to spend the next week trying to muddy the waters. But make no mistake about it: this is clearly a better deal than Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). That was the official name of the deal that the left told us was a historic diplomatic achievement. Under that agreement, Iran kept its advanced centrifuges and retained the right to keep enriching uranium.
Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst broke down exactly why that was so dangerous. “During the Obama administration, it allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium,” Yingst explained. The enrichment process takes uranium ore through a series of chemical conversions until it becomes hexafluoride gas, which is then spun in high-speed centrifuges. Do that process enough times and you move from low-enriched uranium to 20%, then 60%, then 90%, which is weapons grade, a process, he explained, could take weeks or even just days.
“And so allowing the Iranians to keep advanced centrifuges and then enrich uranium eventually closer to weapons-grade material, set them on a path toward a weapon, because that is a process that is needed to create a nuclear weapon, even if they weren’t doing it at that moment,” Yingst continued. “This agreement does not allow the Iranians, according to this senior administration official, to keep any of their enriched material.”

FOX NEWS: “During the Obama administration, it allowed Iran to continuing enriching uranium…[President Trump’s] agreement does not allow the Iranians…to keep any of their enriched material.” pic.twitter.com/1q5HAN2f59
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 14, 2026

The inspection regime under Obama was a joke, too. Under Obama’s nuclear deal, Iran could delay inspections of suspicious undeclared sites for up to 24 days through a multi-step dispute process, giving critics reason to worry that evidence could be concealed before inspectors arrived. That concern was amplified by Iran’s long history of exploiting diplomatic delays while advancing its nuclear program.
Obama’s crappy deal relied on the expectation that Iran would comply in exchange for sanctions relief and other benefits. Trump’s framework assumes Iran will seek opportunities to cheat and ties any rewards to verified compliance. And, of course, there will be consequences for violations. Obviously, the next 60 days will tell us a lot. But right now, the Strait of Hormuz is open, a naval blockade is lifted, and global oil is flowing.

“.. retail investors have now bought almost as much SPCX over the last two sessions as they bought across the entire US stock market last week.”

• SpaceX Erupts In After Hours Trading, Hits $3 Trillion Market Cap (ZH)

Update (9:00pm): just a few minutes after the initial post, the squeeze is accelerating and SPCX hit just shy of $230, or $3 trillion in market cap, surpassing MSFT in value. And what is even crazier, tomorrow SPCX options start trading, which means one good, solid gamma squeeze could send this stock to $400, surpassing NVDA as the world’s biggest company in the process.

Earlier: After a relatively calm first day of trading, the gamma squeeze crew has finally sniffed out that SpaceX’s float makes it a perfect candidate for an OTM-call option driven meltup, and the stock soared ~20% today, adding over $400 billion in market in the regular session. Commenting on the move, Vanda Track earlier noted that SpaceX topped the leaderboard as the most bought stock by retail investors for a second consecutive session, with net buying potentially set to clear $100mn for the second day in a row.
On a net basis, retail investors have now bought almost as much SPCX over the last two sessions as they bought across the entire US stock market last week. In fact, today’s $93.8mn of net buying in SpaceX accounts for roughly 73% of all retail net buying across single stocks so far today.

The one notable development today according to Vanda, is that we’re seeing some appetite return to semiconductor stocks. Names such as MRVL, MU, SNDK and AVGO have all seen some modest buying today amid the rebound. However, retail flows remain selective rather than broad-based, with leveraged bearish ETFs such as SQQQ and SOXS also among today’s most bought securities by retail investors. Vanda’s conclusion is that “the broader message remains unchanged: SpaceX has not sparked a retail buying frenzy across the market. Instead, retail investors continue to direct capital into this one name, while maintaining a relatively cautious stance elsewhere.”
And since momentum elsewhere is fading, retail has decided to double down on the very illiquid SPCX after hours, where its low float has made it a great squeeze candidate by the retail crew, and the stock is now exploding higher, and at last check was trading just over $210, meaning the stock has added $250 billion in market cap after the close – or a total of $650 billion today alone…
… which translates into a market cap of $2.75 trillion or more than Apple’s $2.65 trillion, and just behind MSFT’s $2.97 trillion.

They’re slowly finding out AI aystems are nigh impossible to keep secret.

• Why Did the Smartest AI in the World Just Go Dark? (Stephen Green)

Two of the most powerful large language models in the world just got yanked from service, starting with a national security directive from the United States government during the Friday night news dump. “The U.S. government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees,” Anthropic said in a statement. “The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance.” Double emphasis in the original — and, I’d have to add, some claim not all their customers. But stick a pin in that thought for just a moment.

Although the administration failed to give any specific details, Anthropic says it believes the government became aware of a method of “jailbreaking” Fable 5, potentially unleashing the AI from its built-in guardrails against use in developing cyber exploits, deadly chemical synthesis, and other sensitive topics. That’s a big deal. The “Fives” are the latest version of Claude, Anthropic’s enterprise- and government-centric LLM. Fable is the “safe” version available to the public, while you might think of Mythos as the weapons-grade version. Because it is. What separates Fable from Mythos are the guardrails that, as Anthropic put it, are supposed to “greatly reduce the likelihood that Fable is misused for tasks related to cybersecurity (among others).” “
To date, the government has only given us verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak, which essentially consists of asking the model to read a specific codebase and fix any software flaws,” the company continued. “Our understanding is that one potential jailbreak was shared with the government.” Since “that perfect jailbreak resistance does not appear to be possible today, Anthropic adopted a defense in depth strategy” by shutting down both “Fives” until further notice. Again, the emphasis is in the original, but let’s come back now to “all their customers.”
Social media is awash in rumors that Fable 5’s underlying code wasn’t just stolen, but it’s out in the wild — successfully uploaded to Pirate’s Bay for anyone to run locally. Provided, of course, they’re in possession of a powerful enough system. While I can slowly run some stripped-down models on the M4 Pro Mac mini right here on my desk, I assure you I couldn’t run Claude. But don’t believe the rumors. Near as I can tell, they’re based on this prank posted to X on Friday.
https://twitter.com/PtrPomorski/status/2065743732792512621?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2065743732792512621%7Ctwgr%5E37d8ae1ea8e93e55a24707b6e741389460344816%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fvodkapundit%2F2026%2F06%2F15%2Fwhy-did-the-smartest-ai-in-the-world-just-go-dark-n4953976
The attached Community Note reads: “A Pirate Bay search for ‘fable’ returns no relevant results, and further, there is no ‘Other / Models’ category as claimed in the screenshot.”I asked Grok for any other examples, and it came back with this: “Pliny the Liberator extracted and dumped the full ~120k-character system prompt on GitHub shortly after launch. People are using it to emulate Fable-like behavior on Opus 4.8 or other models… but it’s instructions, not the model itself. Useful for prompting, not a full clone.” Good to know.
“The sudden regulatory intervention serves as a stark warning to the enterprise sector: centralized, cloud-based frontier models exist at the absolute mercy of government oversight and vendor compliance,” is how Venture Beat put it, but I’m not entirely sure that’s a bad thing. I don’t doubt that someday, something like Mythos 5 will escape into the wild, potentially setting up a situation like Frank Herbert’s The White Plague. In his 1982 novel, the Dune author postulated what might happen as genetic engineering becomes inexpensive and accessible enough for a deranged individual to create a plague capable of wiping out humanity.
The book’s distraught villain, John Roe O’Neil, nearly succeeds in doing just that. We have extremely powerful tools in LLMs like Fable, and as you know, tools are easy to refashion into weapons.

Is the US still ahead of China?

• Anthropic Races To Defuse Trump’s Fable 5 U.S. Export Curbs (ZH)

Anthropic’s Fable/Mythos 5 ranks number one in the world for model intelligence, widening the US-China gap. The gap may widen further because of “anti-distillation” features, and the models are now under US export control, which has shuttered access to the advanced models.
LLM model matrix pic.twitter.com/d64OIhoYDH
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 11, 2026

Late Friday, the US government banned foreign governments, companies, and individuals from using Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models after researchers at Amazon demonstrated to the Trump administration that some safeguards on Fable could be circumvented. People familiar with what’s happening inside the Trump administration told The Wall Street Journal that Anthropic sent top officials to the White House and held calls to resolve software vulnerabilities, including the alleged ability to ‘jailbreak’ the model.

DARIO REFUSED TO FIX JAILBREAK W/ ANTHROPIC MYTHOS MODEL: SACKS https://t.co/VArxay0cVA
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 13, 2026

Anthropic’s top security staff, including Nicholas Carlini, Logan Graham, and Dave Orr, were sent to Washington on Saturday to speak with senior US officials, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The move by the frontier AI lab aims to resolve vulnerabilities exposed by Amazon researchers. More color from WSJ: “People close to the company and the administration said both parties are interested in resolving the issue and restoring access to the cutting-edge models, but it isn’t clear what a solution would entail. Anthropic technical experts and government security researchers coming together was seen by some administration officials as a key step toward a compromise.”
The weekend discussions continue months of tension between the administration and one of America’s leading AI labs over how new, cutting-edge technologies are used and regulated. The Trump administration has recently taken more steps to control the fast-evolving industry.

The imminent “Anthropic – White House” ceasefire is the new imminent “Iran-US” ceasefire https://t.co/byCO9mLo2h
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 14, 2026

A Sunday letter by cybersecurity experts urged the Trump administration to lift the restrictions on the models, warning that such a move could hurt U.S. cyber defenses, create market uncertainty, and weaken America’s AI leadership. However, Jefferies analysts said quite the opposite, noting that “anti-distillation” features and US export control, “which could make it harder for open-source (Chinese) models to catch up.” “US models are improving at a faster pace likely due to compute advantage, but anti- distillation and US export control are new negatives for China AI,” the analysts said.

More from Jefferies: “Open-source models (mostly Chinese) may find it harder to improve given new anti- distillation features and US export control. More importantly, Anthropic introduced anti- distillation features on Fable 5. If Fable 5 detects suspicious distillation activities, it would downgrade the model to Opus 4.8 and notify users. While this seems to be targeting Chinese AI development, we believe this would set back open source progress if all closed-source model developers follow suit.
“Moreover, the US has imposed emergency export control on Fable 5, barring foreigners from using them (including foreign employees of US companies), given loopholes in the cybersecurity safeguards. However, since Anthropic has no tools to limit the use to US nationals only (ie, ID checks?), it has suspended both Fable 5 and Mythos 5 globally until it could come up with a way to enforce that export control.”

“We used to say that we don’t know what 2050 will look like. Now it’s more like we don’t know what 2030 will look like.” —Jesus Enrique Rosas

• Monsters Far and Near (James Howard Kunstler)

You must be thinking that reality is pushing its luck with the president bringing this Iran business — a war, actually, let’s face it — to a favorable conclusion around dinner time Sunday evening (yawn) and then Mr. DJT sliding directly into his seat on the White House lawn to enjoy the special 80th birthday edition of Testosterone Gone Wild, that is, a full card of tattoo-bedizend savages beating the crap out of each other UFC style, like it was a Hooters parking lot on wife-swap night. . . why, it just doesn’t get more surreal than that.

Imagine what Victoria Nuland, Robert Reich, George Stephanopoulis, Elizabeth Warren, and other good folks of that ilk must be thinking. The. . . (Sputter sputter) indelicacy of it all! A freaking peace deal, and now this low-rent spectacle of ultra-violence! Like their whole world had turned out to be the meanest, lowest, most sordid backwater of the Marvel Comics universe where no one has ever heard of chardonney. The ape-men slugging, kicking, gouging, and head-butting each other half to death is one thing. . . but to let the slip the opportunity to continue the Iran War with its downstream emoluments for another nineteen years. . . well, now that is an affront to all that is holy in the sub-basements of Foggy Bottom and the broom closets of Langley.
As you read this on Monday morning the cries for impeachment will be ringing across the District of Columbia like calls to prayer in Mamdani’s Caliphate on the Hudson. Surely, you’ll get more details on the Iran deal as Monday spins out, but the terms look not bad at all for Western Civ in the news media’s early shorthand reports: Teheran pledges no nukes, ever, no how, no way. They will allow their cache of super-enriched uranium to be destroyed. The Strait of Hormuz will reopen promptly, free to international shipping, no tolls, no piratical monkey-business. No more Iran funding terrorist proxy groups. That means you Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and sundry cadres of jihadi maniacs ‘out there’ in the world’s hotspots.
Speaking of which, Mr. Netanyahu felt the president’s wrath earlier on Sunday (once again) when he replied to a Hezbollah rocket salvo out of Lebanon with air strikes. But, hey, everybody knows that Israel always and ever answers every attack against it no matter what, because Never Again. Even Mr. Trump knows that, so the whole flap was a sort of mummery. Obviously, Hezbollah must be anxious to wreck the peace deal, since without Iran’s ongoing largess they will not know where their next meal is coming from, not to mention their next shipment of missiles. If Iran actually complies with the deal, Hezbollah can have no more support. There may soon be no more Hezbollah. (Boo-hoo.)
Which raises the next obvious concern, namely, Iran is not known for keeping its word with The Great Satan (us). There is every reason to believe that the vaunted deal is just another sorry episode of them stringing the USA along, playing us. But Mr. Trump has made it clear he reserves the option to rev up the bombers and “do a number on” the Islamic Republic if they pull a fast one on this.
For its part, Iran is crowing in its own state-controlled press that it has won the war. Iran can say whatever it wants to — world opinion will probably not be fooled — if it makes the people running the joint feel good about themselves losing a war. It’ll be Iran’s actions that matter. There’s a chance, perhaps a low-percentage chance, but a chance nonetheless, that Iran has been persuaded to stop being insane.

“He is facing two federal counts of threats against the president.”

86 47.

• No Friends for Comey; Judge Rules No Amicus Briefs (Alan Wooten)

No friend of the court briefs will be allowed in America’s attempted prosecution against its former FBI Director James Comey in a North Carolina federal courtroom. In the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Judge Louise Flanagan on Friday gave a one-page order explaining the discretion available to the court and the route she’s chosen. Comey, facing charges tied to his posting of an image of seashells spelling out 86 47 on the Outer Banks, is scheduled for arraignment on Sept. 30 in New Bern and trial Oct. 21. He is facing two federal counts of threats against the president.

“No federal rule of criminal procedure or local criminal rule provides for the filing of amicus briefs before this court,” Flanagan wrote. “It is a matter of this court’s discretion whether to allow. “Defendant and the government are ably represented by competent counsel.” The case is formally known as United States of America v. James Brien Comey Jr. Her order concluded, “Acting within its discretion, the court provides this notice that no amicus brief will be considered. Accordingly, any future motion requesting permission to file summarily will be denied.”
In May 2025, prosecutors say, Comey – a resident of Virginia – posted to social media seashells on the Outer Banks arranged to spell out 86 47 – a commonly interpreted reference for eliminating something (86) and the numerical count (47) of presidents. Comey was FBI director in the administration of former two-term Democratic President Barack Obama, serving from July 29, 2013, to May 9, 2017, when Trump fired him. His Senate confirmation was 93-1.
Comey was infamously investigating Trump ties to the Russian government when he was let go. Comey was deputy attorney general to John Ashcroft during the administration of former two-term Republican President George W. Bush. His career outside of politics includes law professor at Columbia, and time with Lockheed Martin and Bridgewater Associates.

You betcha. They’re experimenting with new drugs as we speak.

• Ukrainian Military Hooked on Drugs – Deutsche Welle (RT)

Drug addiction is emerging as a growing problem among Ukrainian troops as the conflict with Russia enters the fifth year, according to doctors and specialized organizations cited by Deutsche Welle. The report also cites the experience of a former Ukrainian Marine Corps officer who said he became addicted to drugs. Experts reportedly attribute the problem to combat injuries and psychological exhaustion, with many servicemen spending months on the front line without adequate rest or prospects for demobilization.

While narcotics are officially banned in the military, heavy losses, the lack of rotation, and acute manpower shortages forcing wounded troops back to the front before fully recovering are reportedly fueling the problem. According to the report published last week, more than half of Ukrainian soldiers serving on the front line have experience with the use of drugs, alcohol, or a combination of both. “No army in modern history has fought for four years without rotation,” psychotherapist Igor Alferov told Deutsche Welle. He added that when commanders refuse to grant leave, and “there is no one else to do the fighting,” the troops increasingly feel a sense of injustice.
Alferov also cited family problems as a factor, noting that many soldiers have relatives living abroad, causing spouses to drift apart. “She plans to stay in Europe because she sees prospects there for the children, while he remains at war in Ukraine, where every day carries the risk of death,” he said. A former Ukrainian serviceman and patient at a rehabilitation clinic told DW that drug addiction cost him his military career. “I had more than 200 men under my command and took part in a number of successful operations,” he said, adding that his condition deteriorated after being discharged from the hospital and that he eventually “lost control of everything.”
Earlier this year, a local resident rescued from Krasnoarmeysk in the Donetsk People’s Republic, which was liberated by Russian forces in late 2025, told TASS that most Ukrainian troops stationed in the city used drugs delivered by drones in the form of candies wrapped in camouflage packaging. He claimed that intoxicated soldiers often clashed with civilians, with some incidents ending in gunfire. The Guardian reported that many Ukrainian servicemen developed drug addiction, the scale of which is hard to assess due to limited official data, linking it in part to post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety from prolonged combat exposure.

Social media ban for kids is information control, pure and simple.

• Starmer to Ban Under-16s From 10 Social Media Apps Including X (DS)

Sir Keir Starmer is set to announce sweeping reforms tomorrow banning under-16s from 10 major social media platforms, including X, but not the Left-wing platform Bluesky. In addition, he will introduce daily curfews for 16 and 17 year-olds, going further than Australia’s restrictions. The Times has the story: Teenagers will be banned from certain social media platforms and have their daily usage curbed under sweeping reforms to be announced by Sir Keir Starmer on Sunday.

The ban will go further than the one imposed by Australia in December by targeting technology deemed harmful to children, including chatbots and certain features on gaming apps. Under-16s in Australia have been banned from using ten platforms: TikTok, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Twitch and Kick. It is understood that the UK will follow suit by raising the minimum age on social media to 16, from the average of 13, for the same ten sites. Curfews for older teenagers will be introduced. Daily social media use will be restricted for 16 and 17 year-olds in a move designed to curb unhealthy late-night scrolling habits.
A Government source said: “Keir has been clear we need a game-changer to keep our children — and future generations — safe online.” The reforms, which come two weeks after a public consultation on potential restrictions closed, will stop short of banning the messaging platform WhatsApp and apps considered to have educational value. However, the government will go further than Australia and introduce restrictions on romantic or sexual chatbots after several legal cases involving the AI agents mimicking relationships and encouraging children to take their own lives.
Kanishka Narayan, the online safety minister, has said the government — which will also give 16 and 17 year-olds the right to vote — could block conversations between children and strangers on gaming platforms. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, which was passed in April, gave ministers the ability to introduce measures to restrict harmful features on online services without needing to pass new laws. It is not clear when the ban will come into force or how effectively the government will be able to enforce it.

Social media ban for kids equals social media control for everyone.

Whatever your age, you have to prove it. How do you show you’re not 12? By proving you’re 48.

“..you now have to prove your age by proving your identity. It is obvious to the non-pretenders that proving your identity is the objective; the ruse to force the mandate is to prove your age.”

• Starmer Announces Social Media Control System to Protect “Children” (CTH)

Leftist British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has lost support among the majority of voters within the United Kingdom as evidenced by the shellacking his party took in the recent election. However, as the embattled leader clings to power by telling law enforcement to crackdown on anti-government voices, he extends the control mechanisms under the guise of “protecting children.” If you are a social media user or internet user in the U.K, you now have to prove your age by proving your identity. It is obvious to the non-pretenders that proving your identity is the objective; the ruse to force the mandate is to prove your age. This is the way a grand lie is deployed in order to achieve an objective. ‘All your information are belong to us.’

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a press conference with the announcement from 10 Downing Street. He announces a sweeping ban on social media for children under 16, describing it as a “big step” to protect young people from online harm. Starmer defends the policy as necessary to tackle “addictive algorithms, cyberbullying, and mental health risks.” Britain will follow Australia’s example in raising the minimum age to 16 for sites such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube, and Snapchat.

BIG PICTURE: Australia, New Zealand and Canada all have social media control systems in place. Now, the U.K joins with them. What does Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.K have on common? They are all part of the 5-Eyes intelligence network. This is an IC operation. Don’t lose sight of it. This is a freedom battle against aligned interests that have historically used the intelligence community as their main strategy. From the western globalist perspective, you must always accept their #1 priority is information control. It doesn’t matter what the tool or technique of the day being discussed it, the #1 issue -for them- is to control information.
Look at everything, including and importantly the current AI discussions and debate, through the prism of information control. COVID-19 taught you the lesson. Information control is the objective. Social media restrictions, internet restrictions, the terms ‘mis-dis-mal-information’ etc., the AI race, election systems they can manage, demonetizing or deboosting, CISA, NED, USAID, the payment to “influencers”, media bans, all of it, the sum of every effort, tool and technique is about controlling information.

“The Dirty Little Secret Behind ..”

“It died because its commitment to wokeness superseded popular attitudes and the business discipline it takes to serve a marketplace.:”

“.. the powers that be at America’s dailies have demonstrated they would rather drive their papers into the ground than betray a core leftist editorial philosophy.”

• Newspaper Dailies Killing Their Editorial Pages (Tim O’Brien)

Back in January I chronicled the death of a local newspaper daily, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which at the time was slated to close for good in May. I listed the many reasons for the newspaper’s demise and how it served as a great example of why so many American daily newspapers have expired. The newspaper industry would have you believe that the massive decline in America’s dailies was driven only by changes to news delivery technologies, but it’s much more than that, and yet they are related. Yes, the internet has made the need for an actual paper newspaper unnecessary, but that doesn’t explain why so many of these news organizations continued to decline even as they embraced the internet, social media, podcasting, and so many more on-trend platforms.

My contention in January, as now, is that news consumers get their news from sources they trust. This is common knowledge in the media and communications fields. People pick the source; the source no longer picks them. And we tend to pick sources that agree with our worldview. That’s why you are here on PJ Media, and you’re not right now listening to Barack Obama’s groupies over at Pod Save America. We live in ”media silos” which ensure that no regular listener of Pod Save America ever hears what we’re talking about here, and we never hear what they are saying there, unless of course they say something that ends up going viral on the X platform. More often than not, however, an algorithm looks at what you seem to really like, and it gives you more of that.
In my January eulogy for the Post-Gazette being declared dead by its long-time owner, Block Communications, I wrote: “It died because its commitment to wokeness superseded popular attitudes and the business discipline it takes to serve a marketplace. In short, leadership and staff put their own ideologies first, and they made their product irrelevant to the town they served. And they still have no idea. They openly ridiculed MAGA and the populist movement that put Trump in power in 2016. They did it again in 2020. And they did it again in 2024. Time and again, in big and small ways, they just couldn’t see the formula for success and adapt.”
In the TV world, if Fox News, the major conservative cable news network, is wiping the floor with the lib networks, wouldn’t it make sense to shift a little to the right? The same is true across all media. There is a demand for conservative content. But the powers that be at America’s dailies have demonstrated they would rather drive their papers into the ground than betray a core leftist editorial philosophy. Since January, the Post-Gazette was saved, if that’s what you want to call it. A Baltimore-based nonprofit news outlet called the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism bought the Pittsburgh “daily” at a bargain-basement price.
When making the announcement, Venetoulis pointed to its track record in salvaging local news organizations, and it said it had no plans to cut back on the newspaper’s editorial or distribution schedule. When the purchase was announced, most reports alluded to the likelihood that Venetoulis would be cutting personnel and making other changes. A moral win for the 240-year-old newspaper, but none of this changes the challenges the Post-Gazette faces. People still get their news elsewhere in growing numbers. So, unless Venetoulis makes changes to the product that the marketplace wants, the Post-Gazette will continue to fade in influence.
Speaking of changes, one of the most significant content changes the nonprofit newspaper made was the elimination of its editorial section. In an editorial on May 3, 2026, the newspaper announced it would no longer “support or oppose public policies or candidates for public office.” Hmmm.
Okay, so I get they won’t endorse candidates. Let’s face it, they haven’t had a great track record with endorsements of late (as with almost all other dailies in America), but the obvious reason is this: If a newspaper endorses only Democrats, who lose at the national level a lot, it’s going to lose credibility and alienate the conservatives it needs to attract to its pages. Yet if it endorses a Republican, it will lose newspaper staff, leadership won’t get invited to World Cup watch parties, or may get shunned on Parent-Teacher Night at the private schools where their kids attend. They may even lose their seat on the board of the local opera or symphony.
But why decide not to “support or oppose public policies”? I would think that’s why newspapers exist in the first place. Imagine Ben Franklin’s The Pennsylvania Gazette deciding in the 1770s not to take a position on public policies like the Stamp Act. What good would that have done? Of course, there will be no shortage of opinion in the newspaper. Surely, you’ll find it in the bias that permeates stories presented as “straight news.” You’ll also find actual columns from columnists from time to time, but those will be carefully curated, of course. This will be in keeping with the inherent ideologies at play in the nonprofit management of a legacy newspaper.

Like so many people who were once liberal and then met woke.

• You Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone: The Tragedy of John Cleese (PJM)

Over at Instapundit, Ed Driscoll notes a piece by S.D.Wickett, whom I presume to be a British writer. The article is around four years old, but the commentary is still valid. Indeed, the passage of time has moved us closer to the end the author is concerned about. I’d like to draw your attention to an anonymous post on the forum website 4chan, which forms the basis for what I have titled the Tragedy of John Cleese. It goes: “He was a Progressive, Liberal degenerate in 1960s uber-white uber-polite Britain. He could take the p*** out of the people he saw as uptight and repressed while enjoying the clean, safe streets and quiet little hamlets full of those same uptight, repressed, polite-to-a-fault, helpful, white Christian Englishmen.

“The best part was that those same British conservative Anglos were generally pretty humorous about themselves. So, when you made fun of them, they laughed along with you and shook their heads saying ‘Ha! You know, Margie, he’s got a point!’ It was heaven on earth for him, to be a popular counter-culture icon loved by conservatives and liberals alike for being hilarious, but also enjoy the benefits of a strong, stable and homogeneous culture. I’ve been a Python fan for a long time. But even back in the ’70s when they first burst onto the scene, I noticed they almost invariably targeted traditional conservatives — or at least members of the cultural majority. The one exception I can think of appears in the 1979 film, The Life of Brian:

That’s about as prophetic as the Pythons in general, and Cleese in particular, ever got. Since then, that small crack of light has widened, and thereby revealed to the remaining Pythons a lot they’d not faced before. Wickett continues: Now, he’s an old man, staring at a desolate wasteland where in London, Britons are now in the minority. Everyone is suspicious, the hamlets and villages are economic dead-zones. Every week, there’s a new group you’re not allowed to make fun of, no one has a sense of humour anymore. Little girls are being sold as sex slaves, women are harassed in the street and the men are suspicious and surly over their lowered living standards. The sinking realization that the world he made fun of, but loved more than anything, is gone forever and will never come back.

The horrifying conclusion that his own counter-cultural irreverence may have helped to kill it. So, he impotently gripes on Twitter and wonders where the laughter went, when did the jokes stop? Where are those wonderful, repressed and uptight conservatives So now, apparently, Cleese is making a documentary titled Cancel Me on the cancel culture phenomenon that my PJ Media colleagues and I have written about often enough. One really must wonder if he can see signs, however dimly, suggesting he himself has long been part of the problem. Wickett seems to wonder about that as well: “I want to bring the various reasonings right out in the open so that people can be clearer in their minds what they agree with, what they don’t agree with, and what they still can’t make their mind up about.”
He mentions political correctness as if it were new. Something that emerged out of a campus vacuum in the mid 2010s. Yet, its true origin is something far closer to home. John Cleese cut his teeth in the 1960s. As I’ve previously stated, it was a time of revolution, a springboard into hyper-modernity, hyper-liberalism. It was the death of the suit, the family, the stigmatic removal of undesirable and unbecoming behaviour. The normalisation of sex, drugs, and psychedelia. A time of free expression without limits, restraints, or shame. Hedonism without consequences. Pregnant? Just have an abortion. Bored at a party? Here, take this. ‘Only God can judge me, except he doesn’t exist.’
The last fifty years of evidence have finally handed us the bill, and it’s steeper than anyone, including Cleese, wanted to admit back when the dreaming was seen as being without cost. I’ve long maintained that Britain is the canary in this particular coal mine, and that we colonials are only a few stumbles behind them.
Buried inside the 1960s counterculture was the cheerful slogan “God is dead” — lifted, naturally, from Nietzsche’s Parable of the Madman, by people who couldn’t be bothered to read past the bumper-sticker version. Had they done so, they’d have found a warning, not a guide. Nietzsche wasn’t celebrating the death of God; he was outright terrified of it. His point? Without a moral and cultural framework, the foundation under everything crumbles. The social left grabbed that warning, mistook it for a manifesto, and promptly set about proving him correct, both in terms of the Judeo-Christian ethic and the culture that sprang from it.
The cultural rot and the cancel culture springing from it that has Cleese wringing his hands today is exactly what Nietzsche was describing. Shakespeare’s Miranda squealed with delight at her brave new world, blissfully ignorant of what lurked beneath the surface. Cleese and his fellow progressive cheerleaders spent decades doing the same, pompoms and all. Now they stand slack-jawed while Huxley’s ghost is joined by Rush Limbaugh and other cultural conservatives in saying, “See? I told you so.”
Turns out the architects of that brave new world built precisely what we were warned they would. Cleese is getting a masterclass in a very specific flavor of irony: you never know what you treasure until the revolution you spent your career championing shows up to confiscate and burn it. Or as another leftist icon, Joni Mitchel so famously put it, “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?” Cleese has a history with the left in the UK, the Labour Party, the Social Democrats, and the Liberal Democrats, but he has changed in recent years. Just this last February, he joined the Restore Britain party, which the Brit pass has laughably tagged as a “far right group.”
The really sad part? He will likely be called out by the far left for finally noting these things and for being open-minded enough to recognize the damage done by the positions he once championed. Did he cause all of this? Of course not. (No single raindrop, however fat and self-important, floods a valley alone). However, he makes a perfect starting point for diagnosing what led us to this pass. Will he ever own his role in it? Please. Red pills don’t get easier to choke down when you get older — they get harder. So, John Cleese, I’ll borrow from Bruce Willis here: “Welcome to the party, Pal.”

https://twitter.com/SidneyPowell1/status/2066373154633662892?s=20

Ukraine wasn't the first money laundering operation. Elites used Afghanistan and MANY other wars THEY STARTED to steal our tax dollars too.

Julian Assange on wars being used for money laundering:

"The goal is to use Afghanistan to wash money out of the tax bases of the United… pic.twitter.com/Nl9RhNsEat
— Bridgett Fertig (@LightOnLiberty) June 15, 2026

https://twitter.com/WellsJorda89710/status/2066376688447950964?s=20

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

Debt Rattle June 14 2026

Jun 142026

June 14, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:04 am Finance Tagged with: ActBlue, birthday, Carney, FISA, G7, Hunter Biden, Macron, managed poverty, migration, peace deal, Russia, suicide, Tren de Aragua, Trump 35 Responses »

John Singer Sargent Corfu-Lights and Shadows 1908

• President Trump ‘Utterly’ Defies Age As He Turns 80 (Earle)

• Trump Says Iran Peace Deal To Be Signed Sunday (ZH)

• Hillary Clinton Fears Revolution Preventing US From Being A Rainbow Nation (ZH)

• Trump Announces Strike on Tren de Aragua Leadership with Venezuela (CTH)

• Trump: We Got Another One -And This One Is HUGE (Sarah Anderson)

• Russia Is Single-Handedly Standing Against The West: Putin (ZH)

• Carney in France 3 Days Early for Trump Strategy Session with Macron (CTH)

• Why Have I Spent a Decade Focusing on FISA (CTH)

• Leftist Judge Blocks ActBlue Lawsuit to Protect Democrat Candidates (Margolis)

• “It’s Just Me”: The New Hunter Biden Seems Strikingly Like the Old (Turley)

• 400 Businesses, $6 Billion in Fed Contracts, No Physical Addresses (Salgado)

• A Villainous Blueprint For Managed Poverty (Veronique de Rugy)

• The Suicide Of Europe: Historic EU Migration Pact Goes Into Force Today (RMX)

https://twitter.com/RealAmVoice/status/2065601982237176076?s=20

JOE ROGAN: “As much as people hate Trump, and hate his decisions, and hate what he’s doing, and hate how he talks…”

“My experiences with him personally, have always been fun, unfortunately. Unfortunately for everybody else.”

“If he likes you and you’re on his good side, he’s… pic.twitter.com/UxH98F7kJZ
— Overton (@overton_news) June 12, 2026

Elon just created 4,400 millionaires in a single day.

400 of them are now worth over $100 million.

These aren't VCs. They're SpaceX employees, and the list includes welders, technicians, and cafeteria staff, because for two decades the company paid every level of the workforce… pic.twitter.com/tc2LuK7Gd7
— Shruti (@heyshrutimishra) June 12, 2026

https://twitter.com/playmatejaylene/status/2065419827263774941?s=20

pic.twitter.com/OC6l7harKj
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 12, 2026

Ukraine leads DIRECTLY to 9/11.

I hope the world is ready to find out What's TRULY been happening because the same disgusting rats that have been placing Biolabs in Ukraine to weaponize genetically supercharged viruses as exposed in 2018 by Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, were ALSO… https://t.co/qmlQfXCqzR pic.twitter.com/xziVr3MnPa
— Bridgett Fertig (@LightOnLiberty) June 12, 2026

I looked up and down for an article that simply congratulates Trump on his 80th.

Not that he wants to be 80.

Very hard to find. This, from the New York Post, was the only thing that came up in a Google search for “Trump”, “birthday”.

I still don’t understand why people dislike the man so much.

‘I don’t know where he gets the energy’.

• President Trump ‘Utterly’ Defies Age As He Turns 80 (Earle)

President Donald Trump on Sunday will become the second octogenarian to occupy the White House – and his admirers told The Post he still has plenty of spring in his step. “At least to date, he has seemed to utterly defy age,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), 55, who ran against Trump for president a decade ago. “I don’t know where he gets the energy that he displays, but he is up early in the morning and late at night,” he added. In a chamber where Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, 92, is the senior-most Republican and third in line to the presidency, Republicans who work closely with Trump insisted age is nothing but a number.

“He calls me at sometimes 2 o’clock in the morning,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). The 74-year-old lawmaker quickly added: “I mean, just because you’re 80 doesn’t mean you’re falling apart. For some people it does — but other people are fine.” “Age is relative,” agreed former Sen. John Breaux (D-La.), 82, who served three terms in the Senate – including two years alongside Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), who retired from the chamber at 100. “I knew people who were senile at 40, and I knew people in their 70s that were contributing members of the Congress. It depends on the individual, and you have to judge an individual not by the chronological age, but by their ability, and some are great at 80, and some are not so great at 40.”
And he’s not slowing down, said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, 82, a longtime Trump advisor who drew some life advice from the president. “President Trump, in the Kissinger tradition, has gained in stamina as he has gotten older. He is so interested in the wide range of things he is achieving that he has no time to get older,” he said. “His life invigorates him and fits what we now know about longevity. If you have a big goal, like what you are doing and have friends you live longer, healthier, and with more energy. All that fits President Trump.”
Trump keeps a vigorous schedule, regularly fielding questions from reporters during marathon press events and posting on Truth Social about war and peace during odd hours. “If there’s one thing I know about President Trump, it’s that nothing slows him down,” said Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), the former White House physician who tended to Trump after Thomas Crooks shot at him in Butler, Pennsylvania and wounded his right ear. The president plans to spend his birthday at a UFC fight organized on the South Lawn of the White House before jetting to France for the annual G7 meeting.
Eldest son Donald Trump, Jr. and his new wife Bettina, son Eric and wife Lara Trump, daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner all were set to join him for the bouts. Democrats are relishing the opportunity, for a change, to poke at the age of the other party’s standard bearer. Former White House spokesman Andrew Bates questioned Trump’s memory regarding inflation, despite Bates’ ex-boss, former President Joe Biden, delivering a 2024 debate performance so bad his wife thought he was having a stroke. “But you have to give it to him that a White House ballroom is the ultimate senior arts and crafts project,” he quipped.
Trump has been fatalistic when speaking after numerous attempts on his life. “I wasn’t worried. I understand life. We live in a crazy world,” he said after Cole Thomas Allen allegedly opened fire at the White House Correspondents Dinner in April. “It’s not a number I like, but I’m here nevertheless,” he said in a video posted Thursday by Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz. But if he frets about aging, he can turn to White House Physician Dr. Sean Barbabella’s memo after his latest visit to Walter Reed Medical Center. It proclaimed him to be in “excellent health” and estimated his cardiac age as “approximately 14 years younger than his chronological age.”

That was the birthday present Trump wanted for himself.

• Trump Says Iran Peace Deal To Be Signed Sunday (ZH)

President Trump said a long-awaited deal to end the war in the Middle East is scheduled to be signed on Sunday, paving the way for the opening of the strategic Strait of Hormuz. In a statement issued through Truth Social, President Trump first took a shot at President Obama: “Barack Hussein Obama’s Deal with Iran, the JCPOA, was an easy, beautiful, smooth road to a Nuclear Weapon, which Iran would have had six years ago, and would have used long before now.”

Then explained why his deal is different: “My Agreement with Iran is the exact opposite, A WALL TO NO NUCLEAR WEAPON! In fact, they no longer want a Nuclear Weapon, nor will they have one, either through purchase, development, or any other form of procurement. The Deal is scheduled to get signed tomorrow, and immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL.” Building relationships: “Our relationship with Iran is a much different and better one than previous Administrations have had. Unlike Obama’s Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in payments to them, including 1.7 Billion Dollars in green, cold cash, no money will exchange hands. We look forward to working with Iran, and the entire Middle East, long into the future.
About the nuclear dust: “At the appropriate time, when all is calm, we will go in and get the Nuclear Dust, buried deep under the powerful sunken granite mountains, thanks to our beautiful B-2 Bombers and their brilliant pilots, and downblend and destroy it, whether in Iran, or the United States. Hopefully, this process will all work out quickly, easily, and smoothly.If it doesn’t, we have the ultimate alternative, hopefully never to be used again!
Trump’s statement, however, ran counter to Iran’s foreign ministry which indicated earlier in the day that the deal would not be signed Sunday, according to state media reports. We shall see …
Iran Peace Deal Signing Expected Within 24 Hours, Technical Talks To Follow, Pakistan’s Sharif Says
After Friday witnessed a rare moment of agreement between Tehran and Washington saying that indeed a peace deal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is indeed ‘very close’ – there’s been more color issued by Pakistan. The country’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that the United States and Iran have agreed to the final text of the agreement, but that curiously Pakistan is now preparing for an electronic signing expected within the next 24 hours. Is this going to be history’s first Docusigned peace agreement?
Sharif further indicated this signing will be followed by technical-level ` talks this upcoming week - but this is definitely where the proverbial devil will be in the details. Contained within the MoU signing will reportedly be an extension of the April 7 ceasefire by 60 days, during which the Strait of Hormuz would gradually reopen - or we should say that this is at least the very optimistic version of things, given that Tehran still insists that its military is in control of the Strait, which the Pentagon has flatly rejected is a a reality. So Iran is seeking to hold on tightly to its obvious geographic leverage, while the US is rejecting that this is the case at all.
Another interesting possibly point of contention - but which looks to be merely papered over for now - is the status of the nuclear file, which has long been a major point of fierce contention. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi made clear Friday Iran’s understanding that terms dealing with the country’s nuclear program would be finalized in the 60 days after the initial agreement is signed. So in essence, this means Iran could get its wish of pushing nuclear negotiations back, only after the hot conflict has clearly ended. Iran has long sought to separate the issues of a final end to the war from consideration of its nuclear program.
Importantly Araghchi indicated the two sides could extend the 60-day period further, and a yet a lot could go wrong in such an extended interim. Still, it remains that Washington - and certainly the American public - doesn’t have the appetite for an escalation that would lead to a boots-on-the-ground scenario complete with full regime change operations (and this means almost inevitable nation-building).
We are closer to a peace deal than ever before. With finalisation likely expected in the next 24 hours, Pakistan is preparing for the electronic signing of the peace deal immediately after, followed by technical level talks next week.

We would like to thank United States of…
— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) June 13, 2026

Most Americans don’t want to live in a Rainbow Nation.

• Hillary Clinton Fears Revolution Preventing US From Being A Rainbow Nation (ZH)

The word “Democracy” is thrown around frequently within progressive circles as a call to arms; a rallying cry based on a fraudulent narrative of patriotic duty. Throughout the entirety of Joe Biden’s first and last term, the political left painted conservatives as a threat to democracy. Anyone who opposed pandemic mandates, compelled vaccination, open borders, mass immigration, gender ideology in public schools etc., was labeled a danger to society.

The inherent fallacy being that leftists (and by extension Democrats) represent the majority of the nation. However, this notion has been consistently debunked by multiple elections, polls and the fact that the vast majority of liberal movements have been exposed as astroturf funded by NGOs. If Democrats actually cared about democracy, they would listen to the actual American majority, instead of waging a propaganda war on the majority in order to manufacture a false consensus. And, the majority of Americans do not support multicultural or “intersectional” ideology. The liberal vision is on the decline and that’s a good thing.
Not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton disagrees. At the first Rainbow PUSH Coalition conference since the death of Reverend Jesse Jackson in February. Pete Buttigieg and Hillary Clinton took to the stage in front of a small audience in Chicago this week to sell their Utopian future, but mostly they slandered the Trump Administration. Their rhetoric continues to echo the message of the Biden era, that conservatives want the end of civil rights and voting rights in the US. Buttigieg asserted that the Trump Administration was “corrupt” and “corruption is bad”.

The former DOT Secretary makes no mention of the fact that he shares a stage with Clinton, widely known as one of the most corrupt politicians in recent American history. While Democrats spend endless media time trying to tie Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, it’s the Clinton Family that is well documented as being truly friendly with the globalist pedo pimp. Around 90% of Epstein’s political contributions went to the Democratic Party including multiple donations to Hillary Clinton. None of his donations went to Trump.
Buttigieg faced extensive backlash for his handling of the pandemic lockdowns, including his avid support for draconian mandates which were ultimately found to be useless in stopping the spread of covid; and all over a virus with a 99.8% average survival rate. He continues to echo the party line, calling for rigging of the Supreme Court to ensure Democrat supremacy.

Pete Buttigieg: We have to deal with a Supreme Court that is now a rogue Supreme Court. It’s time to think big. Nowhere in the constitution does it say there have to be nine justices… We could have 13.
pic.twitter.com/17epK62lyM
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) June 13, 2026

Buttigieg is expected to run in the 2028 Democrat primaries for President. Though, he lacks any mainstream popularity and, like most Democrats, he continues to campaign as if he’s running against Trump even though Trump is leaving office. Clinton, on the other hand, seems less concerned with Trump and far more concerned with the larger conservative and anti-woke movements which have left Democrats stunned and bewildered. Clinton calls these movements a “counter-revolution” which she believes is undermining the liberal order established over the last several decades. Clinton fearmongers with the usual rhetoric, claiming that civil rights and voting rights are under threat.

Hillary Clinton: "We are in a counterrevolution. It is a revolution to turn the clock back and take away the rights we have worked so hard to achieve. This counterrevolutionary crew in Washington right now doesn't want us to be a Rainbow Nation." pic.twitter.com/5sBnJuhwru
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) June 12, 2026

She is ostensibly referencing the end of redistricting using race-based gerrymandering, which exclusively worked in the favor of Democrats. But, this was enforced by the Supreme Court, not Trump or the MAGA movement. Clinton is also a vocal opponent of the Save Act, which would make proof of citizenship a requirement for voting in the US (a bill which is supported by around 80% of American voters). Her comments on the “Rainbow Nation” might be confusing for those who don’t understand what this entails. Jackson used “Rainbow” to describe a broad coalition of “marginalized groups” (Black Americans, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, LGBTQ+ people, low wage workers, etc.) uniting for political power and social justice. His organization commonly promotes Marxist “intersectionality” and multiculturalism.
Clinton has made similar anti-populist statements in recent months, arguing that the rise of American conservatism has the potential to break apart the liberal west. At the Munich Security Conference in February, she participated in panels on what they call the “West-West Divide”, warning of democratic backsliding on human rights (including women’s and LGBTQ+ rights), and authoritarian dangers. Clinton called for civil rights and grassroots networks to counter the weakening of liberal institutions. She made the same call for popular opposition in Chicago.
“We have to reconstitute the movements that moved us forward, that made it possible to claim we were trying to get to that more perfect union. They were not led by politically elected officials. They were led by clergy, they were led by business leaders, they were led by civic organizers, they were led by young people. So we don’t need to have a bunch of elected officials leading this new movement. We need to have it be from the bottom up, the grassroots, coming back to get organized and move forward again.” In other words, if they can’t win (or steal) the elections and if they can’t gain the majority approval of the voters, then they will turn to mob actions to disrupt reforms and force the public to accept woke ideology anyway. Democrats only romanticize democracy when it works in their favor. When it doesn’t, they completely abandon it.

Venezuela as the 51st state?

• Trump Announces Strike on Tren de Aragua Leadership with Venezuela (CTH)

President Trump announces a deadly strike on the leadership of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang with support from the interim Venezuela government.

TRUTH SOCIAL – “At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero, the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua, one of the most bloodthirsty Terrorist Organizations on Planet Earth. Before I returned to office, Joe Biden opened our Southern Border to millions of Illegal Criminals, and allowed this foreign army to rape, maim, and murder American Citizens with total impunity. During my Campaign, I pledged to expel these monsters from our Country, and bring Justice to the families of those they slaughtered, including the precious 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, 22-year-old Laken Reilly, and countless other beautiful souls. With this action, the United States Military has brought retribution for them, their families, and their loved ones.
Early in my Administration, I delivered on my promise to designate Tren de Aragua as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, deport thousands of evil criminals, and wage war against the Cartels, who have long been waging war against our Citizens, while weak leaders left America helpless and defensive. This action was coordinated closely with our friends in Venezuela, with whom we are working very well. As a result, Tren de Aragua terrorists no longer have safe haven in Venezuela or anywhere else and, under my leadership, we will find these vicious murderers and drugs lords anytime, anyplace, and send them to the depths of hell where they belong. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
~ President DONALD J. TRUMP
Venezuela’s government released a statement confirmed its participation in the operation and revealed it took place in the southeastern state of Bolivar. “During the operation, clashes occurred with members of criminal groups, resulting in the death of Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias ‘Niño Guerrero,’ the leader of one of these criminal organizations,” according to the statement.

“..Just in case you need a refresher, Nicolás Maduro claimed TdA didn’t exist, but the reality is that he was using the members as his own henchmen..”

• Trump: We Got Another One -And This One Is HUGE (Sarah Anderson)

On Friday night, Donald Trump announced that the United States, along with our “friends in Venezuela,” took out another very, very bad guy. This one is a big one. Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, aka Niño Guerrero, was the kingpin of c (TdA). He started out as a local thug, with a rap sheet full of homicides, robberies, and other crimes, but he turned a stint in prison into one of the biggest criminal organizations in the world. Here’s what I wrote about him in April 2025:

“But TdA actually dates all the way back to 2014 when a man named Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, aka Niño Guerrero, was locked up at Tocorón Prison, which is located in the Aragua state of Venezuela. According to the State Department, ‘During his time there, Guerrero expanded the influence of Tren de Aragua from extorting prison inmates and bribing prison guards to assuming the overall control of the Tocorón prison as well as the control of gold mines in Bolivar State, drug corridors on the Caribbean coast, as well as control of some of the clandestine border crossings between Venezuela and Colombia.’
The BBC reported that because of Guerrero’s growing power, the jail essentially turned into a luxury resort and included a zoo, nightclub, and swimming pool. ‘Families of inmates moved into the compound. Inmates had access to a makeshift bank, a betting shop, a restaurant, and a baseball diamond, while their children could marvel at flamingos and ostriches in the animal enclosure.’ Meanwhile, Guerrero came and went as he pleased, reportedly living ‘like a king.’ He had his own floor in the prison, complete with personal bodyguards. He also had no major rivals or opposition, which helped him grow TdA throughout Venezuela. It eventually made its way to the Colombian border. By 2018, it was spreading through other South American countries, including Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, and Brazil.
Leaders in these countries reportedly put pressure on Venezuela to shut it down. In 2023, the country’s government reportedly sent 11,000 soldiers and police into the prison to take control and after the fact, they claimed it went off without a hitch. However, Guerrero, who is currently 41 years old, wasn’t there — though it took Venezuela some time to make this information public — and a manhunt began across numerous South American countries. As of last summer, the State Department, in conjunction with Colombian National Police, have offered up to a $5 million reward for information leading to Guerrero’s arrest, as well as an additional $7 million for the arrest of two other TdA leaders.”
Just in case you need a refresher, Nicolás Maduro claimed TdA didn’t exist, but the reality is that he was using the members as his own henchmen, sending them to the United States and other countries to wreak havoc and even reportedly having them kill some of his enemies. Joe Biden’s open-border policies played right into the Maduro regime’s hands, while Trump and Marco Rubio designated TdA as a Foreign Terrorist Organization almost immediately when Trump began his second term.
The fact that our “friends in Venezuela” played a role in this (and let’s face it, they — and by “they” I mean “acting president” Delcy Rodríguez — really didn’t have a choice but to play ball) is an incredible turn of events from what was going on in that country just five or six months ago. Anyway, I won’t rehash the whole TdA story, but you can read more about it here: The Truth Behind Tren de Aragua. So what happened exactly? Here’s what Trump posted on Truth Social:
“At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero, the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua, one of the most bloodthirsty Terrorist Organizations on Planet Earth. Before I returned to office, Joe Biden opened our Southern Border to millions of Illegal Criminals, and allowed this foreign army to rape, maim, and murder American Citizens with total impunity. During my Campaign, I pledged to expel these monsters from our Country, and bring Justice to the families of those they slaughtered, including the precious 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, 22-year-old Laken Reilly, and countless other beautiful souls.
With this action, the United States Military has brought retribution for them, their families, and their loved ones. Early in my Administration, I delivered on my promise to designate Tren de Aragua as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, deport thousands of evil criminals, and wage war against the Cartels, who have long been waging war against our Citizens, while weak leaders left America helpless and defensive. This action was coordinated closely with our friends in Venezuela, with whom we are working very well. As a result, Tren de Aragua terrorists no longer have safe haven in Venezuela or anywhere else and, under my leadership, we will find these vicious murderers and drugs lords anytime, anyplace, and send them to the depths of hell where they belong. GOD BLESS AMERICA! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth also confirmed the news that Guerrero was killed: As did SOUTHCOM Commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan:

“We extend our gratitude to the Venezuelan security forces for their support to the successful joint operation against a Tren de Aragua compound that resulted in the death of the narco-terrorist organization’s leader Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias “Niño Guerrero.”… https://t.co/GT4z4FMyYq
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) June 13, 2026

Guerrero was reportedly hiding out in Bolívar state, specifically the mining area around Las Claritas at a TdA compound. I can’t express what a big blow this was to TdA, and to organized crime and drug trafficking in the Western Hemisphere in general. I’m sure the lefties in the U.S. will be besides themselves over it, but if my social media and communication with my Venezuelan contacts are any indication, most of the sane people in Venezuela, in Latin America, and in the United States are celebrating this almost as much as they did the capture of Maduro in January. They just want to know if Diosdado Cabello is next. Let’s hope.
https://twitter.com/iamGermania/status/2025941192869810310?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2025941192869810310%7Ctwgr%5E59850d30c63a003e8fb18de821213ac223484379%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F13%2Ftrump-we-got-another-one-n4953924

Should he have seen this coming? Be more suspicious? He suggested making Russia part of the west.

• Russia Is Single-Handedly Standing Against The West: Putin (ZH)

“It was they who carried out the coup d’etat in Ukraine, which forced us to take the people of Crimea under protection. When they started the war, they started bombing Donetsk using warplanes” – Putin in a fresh address to Russian service members came out swinging, giving a familiar lesson in recent history. And quite provocatively, he emphasized that Russia is now practically fighting against the entirety of the collective West in the Ukraine conflict in the Friday remarks. “Russia is standing against the so-called Collective West single-handedly,” Putin said, state media cited, and he noted that the ‘special military operation’ he ordered to stave off NATO encroachment is revealing itself to be “exceedingly high-tech.”

“The NATO nations are all, without exception, ramping up efforts to do all they can to orchestrate actions against Russia,” he added, sate media continued. He stressed that Moscow did not initiate the Ukraine conflict, but that the Western allies and their hegemonic expansion and meddling did. He perhaps for the first time acknowledged some pain inflicted on Russia due to Ukraine’s long-range drone waves, which for months have been inflicting serious damage primarily on oil and energy sites: Now, Western nations have set out to “inflict a strategic defeat on Russia,” but “this is not something that can be done,” Putin said.
“The enemy is expanding the use of [kamikaze] drones… trying to strike at our morale, trying to break up Russian society… and cause economic damage,” he noted, stressing that “they will not succeed.” These drones have grown more long-range in their targeting and increasingly effective, as Russia’s anti-air defense – which are set up primarily to intercept higher flying and faster inbound missiles or jets – seem powerless.
Or rather, if Ukraine sends 100 drones on Russia on any given night, at least dozens are bound to make it through, the recent pattern has shown. But Putin also seems to be strongly suggesting that Western intelligence is assisting Ukraine’s drone mayhem on the Russian populace. Earlier this month, the Putin-hosted St. Petersburg Economic Forum came under significant drone attack from Ukraine. Videos revealed that international dignitaries entered the venue against the backdrop of thick black smoke from drone hits on oil and other facilities.

“.. strategize with President Emmanuel Macron the best way to defeat Godzilla Trump. ”

• Carney in France 3 Days Early for Trump Strategy Session with Macron (CTH)

The media frame the early arrival of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney as part of a bilateral discussion ahead of the G7 which begins on June 15. However, those who have followed the nuance of geopolitics well understand Mark Carney is in Paris early so that he can strategize with President Emmanuel Macron the best way to defeat Godzilla Trump. There is a certain irony that amid the G7 only one economy is growing, the USA. EU leaders including U.K Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Emmanuel Macron himself are all barely hanging on to power with almost no public support.

Historically, Macron always tries to reposition his domestic lack of support by focusing on international affairs. Macron and Carney have one nemesis in common, President Donald Trump. Emmanuel Macron is famous for scheming subtle ways to overcome his own inadequacy, and hosting the G7 puts him in the spotlight. Mark Carney is coming back to Europe after previously giving a speech in Davos calling for a collective alignment of middle-economy nations to stand united against the terrible Trump. There is little doubt the pontificating duo has any other topic other than Trump in their scheme and planning folder.
Factually the G7 is a joke now, with likely around 15 to 20 countries showing up. The G7 used to be the USA, France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.K. Then they added the EU, which brings three more Brussels figureheads, and if the last G7 in Canada is any indication of the intention, there will likely be at least a dozen more showing up. This G7 is deemed critical due to the issues of Iran and Ukraine, in combination with President Trump’s international reset that has diminished the economic status of Europe significantly. Trump doesn’t chase the climate change agenda, and that is another policy disconnect from the rest of the group.
Macron wants to avoid the G6+1 narrative that has come to define the assembly in the era of Trump because France needs to be seen as a coequal within the group. However, in reality in addition to the USA the only other country that matters in this new geopolitical framework is Japan; all other nations are a mess of globalist chaos, domestic political trouble and economy shrinking energy problems. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and French President Emmanuel Macron need to position themselves as the leaders of the anti-Trump movement. Thus, they get together three days in advance to figure out the best way to diminish Trump’s appearance. That’s really what this early bilateral nonsense is about.

A key that fits in many doors?

• Why Have I Spent a Decade Focusing on FISA (CTH)

My dearest friends, I have not spent a decade focusing on FISA or the ‘702’ issues because defeating the pending surveillance state has been the priority; that is an ancillary matter against powerful financial interests. No, the core of my focus has always been on what FISA (702) represents. FISA (702) et al, is a tool, a key per se’. A key that unlocks a data library. We debate control of the key, but do not spend enough time focusing on the data library itself and what it represents. I’m not even sure if President Donald Trump is fully aware of this or not, but I am generally confident that DC insiders understand the potential.

The NSA database is essentially a library of information about activity. It is a storage box of metadata and within that data there is a sub-set, a flow of information related to election activity.Behind that part of the issue, with that thought in mind, you now have an expanded perspective of why the ODNI would be involved in election type investigative activity. The DNI is above the NSA Director. The ODNI is an access point to the data library. Tulsi Gabbard as DNI has a vested interest in all the data housed within that vault. Congress stood jaw agape at the appearance of DNI Gabbard in Fulton County, Georgia, without actually recognizing what stakeholder interests are represented by the content in Fulton County election warehouses.
Essentially, the NSA data vault shows XXX activity, and the factual paperwork supporting XXX exists in physical warehouses. The data is within a digital library. The factual paperwork is on the ground. Now, pause for a moment and understand the digital library is one aspect. Access to that digital library is an entirely different kettle o’ fish. The lockbox to open the digital record is accessed using the recently discussed 702 pathways. As presented for several years, the FISA (702) key is simply a tool. The tool is needed to unlock the data. Arguably, if you cannot access the data there is no reason to capture it. As a result, without FISA (702) there is no collection, because there is no need for metadata collection. Understood?
As a consequence, FISA (702) is not about foreign stuff as it relates to the common discussion; instead, it is the baseline of the entire data capture. Understanding this takes you to a mental reset. The capture is never discussed (see Edward Snowden -vs- James Clapper), we only see debate on the access. So, if you take your thinking back to the data collection itself, then you ask what is in that massive digital vault we call the NSA library. There’s a lot of stuff in there, including all of the electronic data that surrounds elections. All of that data can be filtered permitting a granular look at election outcomes and all the background electronic communication that comes attached to it. [Hence, the DNI stakeholder interest in Fulton, County.]
FISA (702) essentially represents the authority, the key that unlocks the ability to review the data. Think very carefully. If the database contains the digital records of elections, and if those digital records show manipulation of election data, then anyone accessing that massive library would represent a risk. How many people in DC are in elected office as a result of election manipulation? Now, does the recent display of extreme concern from specific people in congress start to take on a new context?

“There’s just one problem with that claim. Paxton’s investigation into ActBlue started in Dec. 2023. Talarico didn’t enter the Senate race until Sept. 2025…”

• Leftist Judge Blocks ActBlue Lawsuit to Protect Democrat Candidates (Margolis)

A federal judge handed ActBlue a get-out-of-jail-free card on Thursday, blocking Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton from pursuing a lawsuit against the Democrat fundraising platform. District Judge Richard Stearns decided the lawsuit was political. Specifically, Stearns concluded Paxton filed it to retaliate against ActBlue for raising money for his U.S. Senate opponent, James Talarico. Stearns wrote in his decision, “The lawsuit in Texas is undoubtedly an adverse action. And having previously found bad faith, the court agrees with ActBlue that the evidence in the record compels the conclusion that, far from protecting Texas consumers, the action was filed in retaliation for ActBlue’s fundraising on behalf of Talarico, Paxton’s current political rival for the Senate seat.”

There’s just one problem with that claim. Paxton’s investigation into ActBlue started in Dec. 2023. Talarico didn’t enter the Senate race until Sept. 2025. That’s nearly two years before the “political rival” Stearns claims Paxton was targeting even announced a candidacy. And the judge knows this, because his own ruling says so. The factual background section of that same ruling tells a different story. Stearns wrote:
ActBlue is a prominent fundraising platform for Democratic candidates for public office, amassing as much as $19 billion in donations, mostly from small contributors, since its founding in 2004. In December of 2023, Paxton began investigating ActBlue with the stated purpose of determining “whether ActBlue’s operations are compliant with all applicable laws.” The next month, he served ActBlue with a Request to Examine (RTE) to be conducted at ActBlue’s headquarters in Somerville, Massachusetts. Think about that for a second. Stearns literally acknowledged in his own ruling that the investigation began in late 2023, well before Talarico was a candidate. But he still “concluded” it was retaliatory? What a joke.
Here’s the real problem. The lawsuit itself has real substance. Paxton alleges ActBlue violated Texas law by misleading consumers about its fundraising practices. The platform told Congress in 2024 that it had stopped accepting donations via gift cards and foreign prepaid debit cards, only to quietly resume accepting gift card donations afterward. That’s a serious allegation, with nothing to do with Talarico. None. Nada. Zilch. It’s about whether ActBlue lied to Congress and, in the process, broke state consumer protection laws.
Paxton had already been pushing on this at the federal level. In 2024 (again, before Talarico was even a candidate), he filed a Petition for Rulemaking with the Federal Election Commission, to close the fundraising loopholes ActBlue exploits. This was a sustained, multi-front legal effort that predated Talarico’s Senate announcement by nearly two years. Reuters left all of that context out of its report on the injunction. Convenient. Paxton will obviously appeal the ruling. “Texas has every right to enforce its own laws to protect our citizens, and we will continue to fight to hold ActBlue accountable,” he said on X.
Good. Because what Stearns did here goes well beyond bad legal reasoning. ActBlue has funneled billions into Democrat campaigns, and now gets judicial protection the moment a state attorney general tries to examine whether its practices are even legal. The platform told Congress one thing, did another, and a federal judge decided the Republican who noticed was the real problem. Stearns isn’t applying the law. He’s running interference for a fundraising machine the entire Democrat Party depends on to stay competitive. If ActBlue’s practices hold up under scrutiny, it has nothing to fear from Paxton’s lawsuit. A judge swooping in to kill that scrutiny tells you exactly what this ruling is actually about: helping Democrats.

He needs money.

• “It’s Just Me”: The New Hunter Biden Seems Strikingly Like the Old (Turley)

Hunter Biden is once again reinventing himself with the help of an ever-enabling media and the Democratic establishment. The media is full of reports that people are rediscovering Hunter and finding him strikingly honest and refreshing. In his pitch, he assures viewers that now “it’s just me” and not some team of advisers. The problem is that, for some of us who have been critics of the Bidens for decades, there is nothing new about the new Hunter other than a podcast audience.

For the record, I have been a critic of the Biden family for decades as one of the most corrupt political families in U.S. history. Joe Biden and his family have been influence peddlers and self-dealers since his time in the Senate — enriching themselves with positions and shady dealings. Hunter Biden was the ultimate personification of that corruption — both financial and moral. He spent his life attacking those who tried to investigate his dealings, including filing ruinous lawsuits against individuals who would not yield.
At the same time, he spent lavishly with money that he acquired by leveraging the access and influence of his father. Some of this conduct continued during periods of sobriety as well as addiction. That includes his disgraceful record with regard to his daughter Navy Joan, whom he fought not to recognize or support. Hunter has repeatedly sought to reinvent himself with the help of an army of advisers. His current pitch is that everything that he did for literally decades was because he was an addict and that he is now proud and unafraid. The problem is that the facts do not fit the pitch. Hunter was cashing in on the family business from the moment that he emerged from law school. He was entitled and eager to use his father to enrich himself.
For a party that often seems on a recurring loop of mantras condemning white privilege and entitlements, Hunter Biden would seem the last person that the left would embrace. However, the use of his identity as a recovering addict is drawing crowds and accolades. He presents himself as a virtual sage as a result of the struggle. I have previously expressed sympathy for Hunter’s recovery and credited him for writing about it. However, his honesty about addiction is notably missing in his account of his influence peddling and corruption. He prefers to focus on how he spent the money and not how he got it.
We’re missing accounts of his strong-arming of foreign figures, such as BHR Partners CEO Jonathan Li. In the summer of 2019, Li wired $250,000 to Hunter Biden from Beijing, with Joe Biden’s Delaware home listed as the beneficiary address. There were diamonds as gifts, lavish expense accounts, and a sports car, in addition to massive payments that Hunter claimed were “loans.” There are messages like the one to a Chinese businessman , openly threatening Joe Biden’s displeasure if money is not sent to them immediately. In the WhatsApp message, Hunter stated:
“I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the Chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.” Hunter puts all of these dealings and his attacks on critics into a deep memory hole while thrilling liberal audiences as the liberated voice of reason.
Hunter continues to twist history to fit his needs. In an interview with Gov. Gavin Newsom, Biden explained how his infamous pardon was simply proof of “how much you know my dad loves me.” He said that his father “chose me over his legacy.” That last point may be the only unassailable point from his interviews. However, Hunter notably stuck to the same carefully crafted narrative put out by his family in interviews on the pardon — insisting that it was made necessary by Trump’s election to protect him from retaliation.
Hunter told Newsom: “My dad said that he wouldn’t give me a pardon and he was absolutely 100% genuine about it…he said it at a moment in time where he thought that he was going to be the next president of the United States and there would be a Justice Department that would treat me fairly…It would have been like having a gun to my family’s head for the next four years at least, so that’s why he pardoned me. It’s a really incredibly rational decision and a really difficult decision.”

The fraud in the US is staggering.

• 400 Businesses, $6 Billion in Fed Contracts, No Physical Addresses (Salgado)

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Andrew Ferguson exposed yet more horrifying details of the mass taxpayer funding fraud network in the U.S.

Ferguson said on Fox News that there are many tools and laws at hand for the federal government to use in identifying, investigating, and eliminating fraud, but the previous administration wasn’t interested in using them. In fact, the Biden-Harris administration deliberately removed fraud guardrails. Now, the FTC, the General Services Administration (GSA), and other federal entities have found that “400 businesses, with contracts worth $6 billion, originally allocated by the Biden administration, didn’t even file physical addresses at their businesses. That’s a statutory requirement.”
Ferguson emphasized, “You’re not supposed to be able to get any money from the United States government unless you put down a physical mailing address, and they just didn’t do it. And so [we], with the GSA, in conjunction with the [White House] task force, issued letters to these businesses, it says you have 30 days or we’re cutting you off. There’s still $3 billion unpaid on these contracts as of today.” That would be a fair amount of money we would save. “And that’s just a drop in the bucket over at the Justice Department,” Ferguson added.
The DOJ has “gotten indictments and convictions just in the last week worth almost half a billion dollars. We started turning off Medicaid and Medicare dollars to providers that [it has] become clear are fraudulently charging the government with our partners at HHS.”
For too many years, Ferguson declared, “dishonest citizens, and tons and tons of foreigners and foreign governments, have been putting their hands into the pockets of ordinary and honest Americans and taking that money from them, and President Trump is the first president to take this problem seriously, and that’s why the task force is being successful.”
Fox’s Kayleigh McEnany asked Ferguson if a single Democrat governor had shown any initiative in helping to identify fraud. Ferguson answered, “No, in fact, all I’ve heard from Democrat governors until early this week was, ‘The fraud isn’t a problem. This is all a hoax. This is all a distraction.’ Now, of course, it’s clear that they understand the political pain that the empire of fraud, that [Gov.] Gavin Newsom has constructed in California, is gonna cause California Democrats, because this week, he had the attorney general of California and the governor touting all the work they’re doing on fraud, total bull crap.”
In reality, Ferguson stated, “They have been sitting on top of tens of billions of dollars in known fraud for decades, and doing nothing about it, and not just doing nothing about it, they have been facilitating it. Let me give you an example of this. The government sends tens of millions of dollars to the states every year to fund their Medicaid and Medicare fraud fighting units. Hawaii, just since 2021, has gotten millions and millions of dollars from the federal government to fight Medicaid fraud. Do you know how many convictions they’ve gotten since 2020? Zero.”
That’s why the federal government temporarily decertified Hawaii for Medicaid funding. We need to make these fraud-loving Dems feel the financial pain.

Piketty.

• A Villainous Blueprint For Managed Poverty (Veronique de Rugy)

Writer and philosopher Ayn Rand was often accused of inventing cartoonish villains.Rogues like Ellsworth Toohey in “The Fountainhead” would scheme to seize the global economy’s commanding heights in pursuit of a distorted sense of justice.But the people who hold such ideas don’t just appear in cartoons or in Rand’s novels. Enter Thomas Piketty and company. In early June, Piketty – the French economist whose work on inequality has made him something of a rock star even while being serially challenged for methodological errors, data imputations and cherry-picked baselines – and his large team unveiled what can only be described as a villainous plan.

It’s a comprehensive program for global managed decline dressed up in the language of climate justice and equality. The plan is far too ambitious for most nations to accept. But given the influence of Piketty and his circle of economists on U.S. wealth taxes and prominent global policy proposals, we should take its underlying ideas seriously. Piketty’s plan would cap GDP per capita in wealthy countries at roughly $69,000, far less than America’s current $94,430.The plan would also limit annual global economic growth to between 0 percent and 0.5 percent. Monsieur Piketty would allot only 0.115 percent annual growth to the U.S, whose GDP has expanded by more than 3 percent on average since 1930. This would hurt not just the billionaires but every American.
The plan would mandate an international three-day work week and reduce construction activity by 70 percent, manufacturing by 87 percent and even leisure-sector activity by 58 percent. There would be massive and punishing trade actions against noncompliant countries. It envisions a “Global Justice Fund” financed not by taxing carbon but by global wealth and income taxes. This fund would be 20 times the size of current development aid and would be administered by a new international bureaucracy answerable to heaven knows who.
Don’t be fooled by Piketty’s training as an economist. This is not economic thinking. Consider the utter inconsistency of relying on a vast stock of wealth (mostly from the U.S.) for redistribution while suffocating long-term growth to near zero. Much of the value of the assets needed to finance this scheme would be destroyed. It is also disqualifying to claim that sub-Saharan Africa will grow at 4 percent if we crush the economies that provide the capital for its investments and buy its exports. Let’s ask the uncomfortable question: What would it require to enforce Piketty’s plan? About this matter, he is conveniently vague.
Confiscating something on the order of 10 percent of world GDP and redirecting it through a newly created supranational body does not happen by asking nicely. You cannot restructure the global economy at that scale without a coercive apparatus that dwarfs anything in human history. The mechanism must be authoritarian. It would require a world government with the power to tell billions of people which jobs they may and may not hold, what they may build, what they may eat and how many hours they are permitted to work. And to what end?
“Climate change” is an insufficient answer when Piketty’s entire edifice is built on a discredited foundation. The report relies on a baseline from the “RCP8.5” climate scenario that projects Earth warming by as much as 4.8 degrees Celsius by 2100. But last month, the UN’s own climate panel officially retired RCP8.5 (always a high-end estimate) as “implausible.” A more central projection is around 2.7 degrees Celsius. Replies to Piketty’s X feed pointed this out immediately. His response, as far as anyone can tell, has been silence.
That leaves the inequality argument. Worldwide income inequality is nearing a 150-year low, but Piketty insists that radical redistribution of wealth is essential for the Global South. And where have billionaires and wealth been popping up fastest in recent decades? Embarrassingly, data from Piketty’s World Inequality Database confirms that it’s in South and Southeast Asia and East Asia. These are the exact Global South regions that have spent recent decades rescuing hundreds of millions of people from poverty through market-directed economic growth.
A core confusion of the degrowth ideology is its conflation of inequality and poverty, in fact two very different things. Reducing inequality by making everyone poorer is not a victory for the poor. The billions of people still lagging in the global income distribution have one realistic path out: growth. Dynamic, market-driven, property-rights-protected growth is the only proven path to prosperity. It’s also the path to environmental improvement, which costs money.
Degrowth is the ultimate luxury belief. It’s dreamed up by tenured professors in Paris and progressive think-tank pundits in Brussels. These are people who already have high incomes, comfortable apartments, generous health care and pensions and whose ideas would pull up the ladder on billions of poor people. Rand’s villains always insisted they were acting for the greater good. They always had elaborate plans. They always needed just a little more power to make it work. And they thought little about the terrible burdens their plans would impose on ordinary people.

They have condemned their children to bitter fights.,

• The Suicide Of Europe: Historic EU Migration Pact Goes Into Force Today (RMX)

Six years ago, in 2020, French political leader Marine Le Pen described the Migrant Pact, which was then in the planning stages, as the “suicide of Europe.” She said it would bring 60 to 70 million new migrants to Europe, as Remix News reported at the time. Europe is about to find out just how prophetic its critics have been. On June 12, the highly contested EU Migration Pact officially came into force, instantly triggering a sharp political divide across the continent. Brussels is already signaling a hardline approach toward resistance; the bloc’s own EU Migration Commissioner recently admitted that the Union is preparing a “crackdown” on member states that refuse to comply with the new relocation directives.

At the heart of the controversy is the pact’s mandatory migrant quotas, framed by Brussels as “burden-sharing.” In practice, critics argue this distribution system allows nations like Germany and France a convenient mechanism to offload asylum seekers onto Central and Eastern European nations – such as Poland and Hungary – which have historically maintained strict anti-refugee stances.Europe’s anti-immigration politicians are already responding to what they say is a law that will bring disaster to Europe. Le Pen, six years later, is calling for a “constitutional referendum on immigration.”
“Tomorrow, the Migration Pact will enter into force. It will require the States of the European Union to welcome migrants, under penalty of fines. When we come to power, we will propose to the French a constitutional referendum on immigration, the only means to regain control of our migration policy,” she wrote on X. The financial penalties for defiance are severe. Non-compliant governments face fines as high as €21,000 per migrant, potentially costing dissenting nations hundreds of millions of euros. Furthermore, the pact allows for these financial penalties to be adjusted upward in the coming years, which could quickly escalate the cost of non-compliance into billions of euros.
Meanwhile, other establishment European politicians are celebrating the move. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz tried to frame the migration pact as a positive for controlling immigration. “The migration turnaround has been initiated—nationally and at the European level. As of today, the Common European Asylum System applies: better control and order, faster procedures, and a fair distribution of responsibility. The reform must be implemented effectively. This is how our country will benefit,” wrote Merz. Of course, the EU is also trying to sell the pact on social media as well.
The end goal of the EU Migration Pact
Linguistically, the EU’s emphasis on sharing a migration “burden” represents a stark rhetorical departure from the peak of the 2016 refugee crisis. A decade ago, newcomers were widely championed by Brussels as Europe’s future workforce—the doctors, lawyers, and engineers destined to salvage the continent’s aging pension systems. Today, that idealistic language has been replaced by the utilitarian vocabulary of managing a “burden.” Strategically, the pact acts as a political pressure valve. By reducing the immediate concentration of migrants in Western Europe, Brussels hopes to blunt the rapid electoral rise of populist right-wing parties.
Simultaneously, the framework seeks to introduce demographic diversity into Eastern European nations, which EU leadership has long criticized as being overly homogenous and politically conservative. Over the long term, the naturalization and family reunification of these migrants could fundamentally alter the electoral dynamics in these traditionally conservative regions in favor or left-wing and pro-migration parties. However, Central and Eastern European populations remain overwhelmingly opposed to forced relocation. Decades of polling show a deep societal preference for maintaining current demographic structures, setting the stage for protracted constitutional and political gridlock between national capitals and Brussels.
Hungary under new leadership
The EU’s political chess board has also shifted significantly with Hungary’s recent transition of power. Former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, long the most fierce opponent of Brussels’ migration quotas, has been succeeded by Prime Minister Péter Magyar. A report in Euractiv’s newsletter questions “whether some national governments are ready” for the EU Migration Pact, which has “raised questions over whether Brussels will need to crack down on non-compliant capitals.” In an interview, Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner said they are ready to use “sticks” to make countries like Hungary fall into line.
“There are sticks and carrots in the pact. So, you get funding, you get money, only if you apply the pact,” he said. In fact, Euractiv is quite open that Magyar may be more than willing to sell out the public on the issue of migrant quotas. “Péter Magyar, Hungary’s prime minister, once firmly opposed to the EU migration pact, is now keeping his options open. Pressed by the opposition Fidesz to rule out implementation, he sidestepped the question, saying only that ‘there will be no illegal migrants in Hungary’ under a Tisza government,” wrote Euractiv.
This carefully worded distinction leaves the door wide open for the arrival of migrants who are processed “legally” under the parameters of the new EU framework. Unsurprisingly, Commissioner Brunner has lauded the new Hungarian administration’s shift, calling the government “very constructive” and adding, “Our job is to explain the advantages for Hungary and make them visible on a political level.” Certainly, Brunner was smart enough to not frame the new migration pact as the “suicide of Europe” while trying threaten the new Hungarian government. He can be given that much credit.

Elon responded to Warren calling him a “freeloader" in 2021:

“I'm actually paying the most tax that any individual in history has ever paid this year. Ever."

"And she doesn't pay taxes basically at all. Her salary is paid for by the taxpayer, like me. If you could die by irony,… https://t.co/FOY6sZi7Bm pic.twitter.com/OnycwBJblo
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) June 12, 2026

Congratulations @ElonMusk.

Thanks to SpaceX's IPO, he's the first Trillionaire.

He didn't TAKE money from anyone. He CREATED wealth.

He launched satellites that connect even the poorest, most remote parts of the world.

Our world needs more MAKERS like Musk; fewer TAKERS like: pic.twitter.com/wXlTBXPWUV
— John Stossel (@JohnStossel) June 12, 2026

https://twitter.com/GreereMedeea/status/2065467174605513183?s=20

The Turin shroud, brought to life by AI pic.twitter.com/2yPz1xK8zG
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 12, 2026

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

Debt Rattle June 11 2026

Jun 112026

June 11, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:12 am Finance Tagged with: AI, DNI, IPO, Knesset, soccer, sovereign wealth funds, SpaceX, Trump, USMCA 28 Responses »

Andrew Wyeth Clouds and Shadow 1940

• Trump Warns: “We’ll Bomb the Shit Out of Them” if No Deal (ZH)

• Trump Says “US Will Be Attacking Iran Hard Again Today”, Oil Spikes (ZH)

• Trump ‘May Keep Going’ With Strikes As Iran Took ‘Too Long’ With Deal (ZH)

• Don’t Panic About Trump’s Iran Strategy Just Yet (Kurt Schlichter)

• Former MI6 Spy Alastair Crooke: Iran Takes Its Chances With War (RPI)

• The IPO Boom: Where Will the Money Come From? (Michael Lebowitz)

• Massive SpaceX IPO Demand Coming From Gulf Sovereign Wealth Funds (ZH)

• AI Price Wars Begin: OpenAI Considers “Drastic Price Cuts” (ZH)

• Netanyahu Faces Election Chaos as Knesset Moves to Tear Itself Down (Queen)

• President Trump Delivers Shocking Response to Question About USMCA Renewal (CTH)

• Interesting Names Being Floated for Permanent DNI Role (CTH)

• Why America Sucks at Soccer (Rick Moran)

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2064336741784289497?s=20

Barack Obama was using USAID to pretend to send money to a country for “aid” and instead laundering it to the Cayman Islands

He would then use that money to fund and train “Rent-a-Riots” for protests to overthrow governments

Sound familiar?

Mike Benz on Joe Rogan: “A scandal… pic.twitter.com/vFmJo1uX02
— Pascal Najadi (@imPascalNajadi) June 9, 2026

Iran’s Military is a complete and total mess. Much of it, like their Navy and Air Force, doesn’t even exist anymore – They have been completely defeated. Iran is all talk and no action. The Bully of the Middle East is DEAD!!! They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would… pic.twitter.com/qldQQhYZaW
— Commentary Donald J. Trump Truth Social Posts On X (@TrumpTruthOnX) June 10, 2026

Dutch communism starts on January 1st, 2028. pic.twitter.com/PM697NkZmZ
— Wybren van Haga (@WybrenvanHaga) June 10, 2026

I expected a lot of articles, what with the war re-engaging plus the upcoming SpaceX IPO. But…

• Trump Warns: “We’ll Bomb the Shit Out of Them” if No Deal (ZH)

Fox News’ Trey Yingst has issued a new reporting update, quickly on the heels of a fresh Trump-ordered bombing of Iran. He says: “I asked the president what will happen if the Iranians don’t sign an agreement that was put forward by American negotiators. President Trump said, ‘We’ll bomb the shit out of them tomorrow night.'” The president declared “we’ll bomb them to rubble” again tomorrow night if there is no deal by then.

US MILITARY SAYS IT HAS COMPLETED LATEST STRIKES IN IRAN
Tonight’s aggression has prompted Tehran to once again declare the Strait of Hormuz closed to “all types of vessels”. Bombs have not yet fallen directly on the capital, but reportedly outside of it. This could quickly change. Importantly concerning Trump’s latest claims, Iranian leadership is denying that it engaged Trump directly tonight. The highlights from Fox’s Yingst:
The President told me he spoke directly with Iranian officials tonight who asked him to stop bombing.
49 Tomahawk missiles had been fired by the United States at the time we spoke, along with bombing from fighter jets.
Closest target to Tehran was approximately 40 miles outside of the city.
Trump added that the bombing will stop shortly, but that if they don’t sign the agreement, “we’ll bomb the shit out of them.”
President Trump called this “the most violated ceasefire in the history of the world.”
Vice President JD Vance told me the United States is dealing with both moderate and more extreme voices in Iran as part of the negotiation process.

Spoke with President Trump tonight as he oversaw the U.S. military strikes against Iran from the Situation Room.

The President told me he spoke directly with Iranian officials tonight who asked him to stop bombing.

49 Tomahawk missiles had been fired by the United States at… pic.twitter.com/s4WnsPTO4d
— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) June 10, 2026

Tasnim is now reporging fresh Iranian counter-attacks on US bases across the Gulf, with multiple explosions being reported at American bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. The IRGC is now claiming to have struck 18 US military targets in two waves.
Bahrain is where a key naval command headquarters is located, and the Iranians are newly claiming a direct targeted strike on the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters. We are once again witnessing the ‘escalation ladder’ ramp up, and negotiations seem in reality nowhere on the horizon. This could be the start of several more days of strikes and counter-attacks to come, as Tehran is not so easily going to come back to the negotiating table, hat in hand. But it seems the White House is still betting on this, though risk and unpredictability are skyrocketing at this stage.
Newly emerged widely circulating video shows an Iranian Cold War-era relic still active:
Iranian F-14 Tomcat fighter jet landing at one of the air bases in Iran.

Video claimed to be from tonight. pic.twitter.com/4ZNTJKa2k7
— Status-6 (War & Military News) (@Archer83Able) June 10, 2026

US Begins strikes on Iran
After multiple previews of the main event, US Central Command said that its forces began launching additional self-defense strikes today at 5:15 p.m. ET against multiple targets in Iran at the Commander in Chief’s direction. “The strikes are in response to Iran’s unwarranted and continued aggression.” Local Iran media reported that explosions had been heard in the Iranian towns of Sirik, Manab, Bandar Abbas and Bushehr, while Al Hadath reported than an explosion was heard in the Al-Saban military camp in Aden, Yemen. Additionally, there are unconfirmed reports that retaliatory Iranian ballistic missile launches are already underway, amidst what appears to be the resumption of a new round of U.S. strikes on Iran.

“There were no immediate reports of casualties in any of the attacks.”

• Trump Says “US Will Be Attacking Iran Hard Again Today”, Oil Spikes (ZH)

Oil surged, jumping by more than a dollar with WTI rising above $91 with Brent touching $94 after President Trump vowed to strike Iran again and slammed the country for delaying talks on an interim peace deal, after renewed attacks overnight put further strain on a fragile two-month truce. “We’re going to be attacking them, attacking them very hard,” Trump told reporters at the White House Wednesday. “We hit them hard yesterday, and we’re going to hit them hard again today.”

Trump declined to say what targets US forces would hit in Iran. The president renewed earlier criticism that Tehran has taken too long to negotiate an end to the conflict. “I’ve been working with Iran for a number of months, and they should sign their deal,” he said. “It was just tap, tap, tap, I don’t know what they’re doing.”

BREAKING: President Trump says he is going to continue bombing Iran "very hard" after it shot down a U.S. helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz.

"We're going to be attacking them and attacking them very hard."

"I've been working with Iran for a number of months, and they should… pic.twitter.com/tlO6S10uyo
— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 10, 2026

Trump said he retaliated against the Islamic Republic for shooting down a US Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has not confirmed shooting down the aircraft and said it was reconsidering whether to persist with negotiations in light of the US attacks. “The diplomatic process doesn’t happen in a vacuum and to advance any diplomatic process you need a minimum space to be able to move forward,” Esmail Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, was cited by the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency as saying. “Wherever necessary, our armed forces will respond to the enemy with authority.”
Trump’s comments came after the two sides once again exchanged strikes, underscoring how high tensions are running and the risk that intermittent indirect talks between Iran and the US may be derailed. The overnight clashes followed a direct confrontation between Iran and Israel earlier this week, but halted after Trump called on both sides to stop. Since almost the start of the conflict, Trump has swung from threats of intensified attacks to touting that a deal is within reach. Even with tensions escalating since last week, he had signaled he wants to contain hostilities and avoid a return to all-out war before the new post.
A White House official said talks are still ongoing and that the US will exert maximum pressure until a deal is reached. Fox News first reported the status of the talks. The semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency reported that a Qatari delegation arrived in Tehran on Wednesday to discuss the diplomatic process to end the war. The US military said it had completed an operation that saw fighter jets strike Iranian air defenses, ground control stations and radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched missiles on four American targets, including shelters housing F-35 fighter jets and a command center for the US military at Al-Azraq Air Base in Jordan, state-run IRIB News said on Wednesday.
Iran also said it fired drones at the main US naval base in the Middle East, located in Bahrain, and struck Ali Al Salem air base in Kuwait. Kuwait’s defense ministry said it had intercepted projectiles early Wednesday, while Jordan said it had intercepted five Iranian missiles. Tehran said it had exercised its “inherent right to legitimate self defense” and warned regional states not to allow the US and Israel to use their territory as a staging post for strikes on the Islamic Republic. There were no immediate reports of casualties in any of the attacks.

It’s all he can do?! Is to shorten the timeframe.

• Trump ‘May Keep Going’ With Strikes As Iran Took ‘Too Long’ With Deal (ZH)

More strikes coming? Trump is certainly strongly hinting at this, and yet an overall strategic vision still remains murky and ill-defined. Once again he in a short 12-hour period went from hyping a deal being a few days away, to now threatening yet more attack waves on Iran, in wake of last night’s: President Trump said Wednesday that he’s close to ordering more strikes on Iran after the country’s attacks targeting American bases in Persian Gulf nations, according to Fox News’ Trey Yingst. Mr. Trump said he “may keep going” with strikes, which he said would target power plants and bridges, because Iranian negotiators are “tapping the United States along,” according to Yingst. He wrote on Truth Social just before these comments that Iran will have to “pay the price” after taking too long to proceed with negotiations.

Trump: Iran Took Too Long To Negotiation, Now Will ‘Pay’
As part of what the United States is calling its latest ‘defensive strikes’ after Iran shot down an Apache helicopter in the Hormuz region, American forces overnight into the early Wednesday hours targeted “air defense, ground control stations, and surveillance radar sites” – the Pentagon said. Iran confirmed that there were indeed fresh attacks around Bandar Abbas and Qeshm Island, but gave no details on the damage, or info on other strikes potentially conducted elsewhere across the Islamic Republic.
“The operation was a proportional response to recent attacks on U.S. forces and international commercial ships transiting regional waters,” US Central Command (CENTCOM) said. Trump is meanwhile again lashing out at Tehran, claiming its military is now a “complete and total mess” – and yet it keeps responding:

Oil reacts, sensing no peaceful off-ramp or de-escalation on the horizon…
Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan Hit Hard by Iranian Overnight Attack
Tehran later claimed attacks in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan as fulfilment of its previously vowed ‘retaliation’ – and given these countries host American forces. This marks merely the second time this week the ceasefire was ignored (or rather, shattered – though the White House is maintaining it’s still on) with major tit-for-tat strikes, as each side asserts that it is acting ‘defensively’.
Iran has been saying it’s going to keep up the pressure on Washington and its Gulf allies through both the ‘battlefield and diplomacy’ – with Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei freshly charging that the US is “undermining” the diplomatic process through “contradictory messages, frequent shifts in its positions and demands, as well as repeated violations of the ceasefire.” He indicated that at this point there’s not even the “minimum level of conducive conditions” that is “required in order to carry out diplomacy effectively.” Bahrain and Kuwait got hit hardest in these newest strikes, with reports saying the US Fifth Fleet base came under fire:

BREAKING: Footage shows a ground-level explosion in Manama, Bahrain from an Iranian missile strike in the direction of the US 5th Fleet HQ minutes ago, with up to 20+ separate explosions now reported across the city. pic.twitter.com/LCHlZBGKra
— The Hormuz Letter (@HormuzLetter) June 10, 2026

“Now, if the IRGC fired rockets in our general direction, I would unleash unholy hell on them. That’s not how Donald Trump operates.”

• Don’t Panic About Trump’s Iran Strategy Just Yet (Kurt Schlichter)

As for military power, we’re holding off on fully exercising it for now. At least, that’s what it looks like to outsiders. I have absolutely no inside information on it, but it’s pretty clear what’s happening. Our forces are watching, rearming, and more importantly, assembling a juicy target list for when the president says, “Go.” One problem with holding back on the “M” is that it makes us look passive to the enemy (and others), even if we’re actually aggressively preparing. The lack of “M,” therefore, can be an “I” issue.

Now, if the IRGC fired rockets in our general direction, I would unleash unholy hell on them. That’s not how Donald Trump operates. We’ve seen before that he is willing to absorb fires that have no substantial effect in order to avoid increasing the military effort, which would be at the expense of the diplomatic, informational, and economic initiatives. In other words, he is choosing to let them shoot rockets at us, which we shoot down, and not retaliate as long as no one gets killed because he doesn’t see it in our interest to go kinetic again right now.
That option is still there, and we have another ace up our sleeve—our loyal friend (the ravings of idiots like Thomas Massie aside), Israel is ready to pummel them when they get uppity. Trump can sit back and look diplomatic, playing the good cop to Netanyahu’s bad cop. At the same time, Trump can make some noises—diplomatic and informational—about Israel not crushing Hezbollah in Lebanon, and then Israel can continue with its righteous work of crushing Hezbollah in Lebanon while Trump gets to shrug, while in the background, you hear the sad trombone. “Don’t blame me—that kooky Bibi is out of control. Oh well!”
Among some of us who generally feel as I do about the need to defeat these creeps, there’s concern that Donald Trump is about to give the mullahs pallets of cash and generally surrender in order to get this whole thing over with. It was not as fast as the Venezuela mission, and now he wants out at any cost. That’s just crazy talk. Some people with whom I often agree are very worried that Donald Trump doesn’t understand that the Iranians are a bunch of liars who will never keep their word.
But here’s the thing—Donald Trump’s not an idiot. He knows they are a bunch of liars who will never keep their word. But he really doesn’t need them to keep their word, because the hypothetical agreement is not the end state he’s after. The end state he’s after is the fall of the Islamic regime via economic strangulation, which will take time. The deal is a deception, a shiny distraction from the real objective.
We keep hearing how Trump doesn’t have time because the midterms are coming and those gas prices have to come down, but it’s the Iranians who better listen to that clock ticking. Trump’s worst-case scenario is that he loses the House. Their worst-case scenario is that they lose their heads, and that’s what Trump’s betting on. Time is on our side, even if too many weak Westerners have forgotten the importance of strategic patience. Life is not MTV; you can’t win if you have the attention span of a gnat on meth. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Tehran won’t fall in one.So, if my analysis is correct—and my bias is that I want it to be correct—then Trump is leveraging all the DIME elements to attain the end state of regime change, but he’s not telling us that.
That’s one of Trump’s things—he never tells people exactly what he’s doing, but his plan is pretty obvious if you don’t panic and take an objective look at what’s happening. He keeps talking about a deal, but it’s ridiculous to think that he’s somehow so eager for any agreement that he would sign his name to something that disgraces him forever. If there’s one thing Donald Trump doesn’t do, it’s let himself be humiliated, and he’s certainly not going to allow himself to be humiliated by this bunch of perverted weirdos. The Iranians think dragging out the negotiations helps them. It does create a pain point for Trump in the midterms, but they’ve got a lot more to lose. He can suck it up. Can they?
Now, I could be wrong about all this. Donald Trump could be eager to sign an awful deal, and that will have him go down in history as a giant joke who allowed these 7th-century pagan fanatics to humiliate him. But does that sound like Trump? When’s the last time he gave in and allowed himself to be humiliated? He doesn’t do that. And the idea that, somehow, he and his advisors don’t see the obvious reality that the mullahs are weasels and they are playing for time is just silly. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am. We are constantly hearing about how Trump is supposed to be throwing in the towel, yet the towel never gets tossed. Where is the terrible deal he has allegedly been right on the verge of signing since April? Nowhere. It doesn’t exist. And yes, the clock is ticking, but for whom?
That’s how I interpret his strategy from the outside. Again, it’s probably not what I would do. I would take this opportunity to blow our enemies all to hell. But there’s more than one way to skin a strategic cat. The idea that Donald Trump is flailing and totally lost could be accurate, but it would be out of character and a departure from his now decade-long history of being in the public eye. More likely, he is stretching this out because every day they get weaker, while he can absorb the pain.
All the critiques of Donald Trump and the Iran War depend on either thinking that Donald Trump is an idiot, which is wishful thinking for his opponents, or residual concern that he’s not going to unequivocally win this war. I get the concern that he might be so eager to close this chapter that he cuts and runs, but you must ask yourself something. When has Donald Trump ever cut and run? Why would Donald Trump ever allow not only his own personal humiliation, and not only the humiliation of his country, but the endangerment of his country from these wounded animals who would happily nuke us the second they finished off Tel Aviv?
You might not agree with Trump’s strategy, but he has one. And he’s the guy who got elected, so he gets to set the strategy. It could very well work. Now, is this wishful thinking? Maybe, but his history gives the president grounds to expect some trust. He has never screwed us, and why would he start now to help an enemy he has been railing against for almost 50 years?
So don’t panic. Chill out. Watch what happens. I’m betting on the United States.

I am not impressed.

• Former MI6 Spy Alastair Crooke: Iran Takes Its Chances With War (RPI)

The US war with Iran has moved beyond its initial phase to an emerging new one — one in which Iran implicitly stakes its chances on the next phase being war. Most likely this will be in abbreviated episodes of limited war, but possessing nevertheless a potential to widen regionally, should the US (and Israel) elect to sharply escalate. The new phase involves risk of course, yet Iran holds the high cards of an ability to impose disproportionately heavier damage upon Gulf infrastructure as retaliation for any hurt inflicted upon it — and the awareness that the West is edging ever closer to dropping off the energy “cliff.”

The three pillars underlying this shift are firstly, confidence that Iran will not (and cannot) be shifted from its hold over Hormuz, and that in consolidating its administrative structures there, the reality of Iran’s hold over Hormuz will increasingly be assimilated by states, and reflected in their coming to terms with Iranian-Omani control. Associated with this core principle is Iran’s implementation of escalated deterrence vis á vis the American naval blockade. Any attempt to intercept or attack Iranian vessels or interfere with the Strait’s administration will be met with increasingly harsher ripostes. Ultimately this policy may lead to Iran imposing increasing levels of damage to US naval vessels – another friction point.
On 3 June, for example, the US fired a hellfire missile at an Iranian oil tanker near the Strait of Hormuz. In response, a US-owned (or partly-owned) ship, The Panaya, was struck with missiles. Additionally Iran launched three waves of cruise missiles at the US air and helicopter base in Kuwait from where the attack had originated. Images have emerged of serious damage at Kuwait international airport too (although the cause of the damage remains disputed). The second underlying principle affecting this shift simply reflects Iranian disdain for Trump’s continuous inflating of demands, exaggerated threats (which palpably fall short of US capacities), together with his continual zigzagging and contemptuous rhetoric towards Iran.
The Iranian leadership has concluded, it seems, that compromise will likely not be forthcoming, and that it is better to cut the “negotiations” rather “than continue the pointless bad-faith negotiations with a deceitful and decrepit American regime,” as the New York Times has termed the Iran “negotiations” — suggesting that the “deal chaos” is not a singular glitch by Trump confined to the Iran issue, but rather is a consistent pattern of dysfunctionality repeating itself across virtually all of Trump’s “peace” initiatives.
Behind Iran’s decision to suspend talks however, likely lies the gradually dawning clarity, seeping out from Israeli and American statements and analysis, that the true objective of the 28 February US-Israeli sneak attack was never regime change per se — aiming to swap out Iranian “hardliners” for a “Delcy Rodrigues”-style more moderate leader; but was intended rather, to bring about Iran’s complete destruction and fracturing — an insight that was bound to shift Iran’s calculus.
This insight has consolidated public support for the Islamic Republic hugely, and at the same time has turned the war into an existential struggle to preserve the ethical values of the Revolution. Seen from this optic, there is little for Iran to discuss with Trump, bar some future modus vivendi — as and when, Washington understands that it is boxed in, and that new realism takes a hold.
The third principle undergirding this new phase of conflict is the one enunciated by Iran from the outset of the Islamabad talks: “Ceasefire for all; or ceasefire for no one.” This was again re-emphasised in Iran’s latest ultimatum to Trump: “If the Israeli threats from last week to flatten the Beirut southern suburb of Dahiyeh had been executed, then Iran would have stricken northern Israel hard with its missiles. ‘It was a ceasefire for all – or no ceasefire.”
Trump chose the ceasefire, and subsequent to his call with Netanyahu, announced that it was in effect. He told Netanyahu to cancel his planned bombing of Dahiyeh in south Beirut. In Israel, a massive wave of anger from all sides of the political spectrum attacked Netanyahu at the very notion of curbing any Israeli attacks in Lebanon. Former PM Naftali Bennett accused Netanyahu of “losing control over Israeli sovereignty.” And former PM Yair Lapid said Israel had been reduced to a “vassal state” after the strikes were called off.

FOMO.

• The IPO Boom: Where Will the Money Come From? (Michael Lebowitz)

The media hype surrounding SpaceX’s upcoming mid-June initial public offering (IPO) is immense. The company recently filed its S-1 with the SEC, targeting a valuation of $1.75 trillion and a capital raise of up to $75 billion. Some believe its valuation could rise to $2 trillion after the IPO. In its wake, Anthropic (Claude) and OpenAI (ChatGPT) confidentially submitted IPO registration statements to the SEC. Expectations are that both AI model companies will enter the market within the next 3 to 6 months, with rumored valuations approaching or exceeding $1 trillion each. Stripe, the quickly growing payments company, is rumored to be on the IPO docket as well, with a valuation that could exceed $150 billion. Consequently, the coming IPO boom will have wide-reaching impacts.

The IPO market, which has been stagnant for the last four years, is bubbling with excitement. The headlines surrounding the IPOs are hyperbolic, banker fees are enormous, and social media is teeming with bullish sentiment on how high the new shares may trade after going public. While IPO boom talk is great for clickbait, nobody is asking the most important question. Where will the money come from?
Putting Context To The IPO Boom
To understand the size of the coming IPO boom, some historical context is necessary. Prior to the pandemic, the US IPO market raised approximately $30 billion per year. In late 2020 and throughout 2021, the SPAC boom led to a surge in IPO offerings. Since then, however, as we share below, IPO issuance has been relatively lean.
The 2026 pipeline is shaping up to be the second-largest in at least the last ten years. SpaceX alone is raising up to $75 billion per its SEC filing. Add OpenAI’s expected cash raise of $60 billion, Anthropic at $15 to $20 billion, and Stripe around $10 billion, and the pipeline of known IPOs coming to market is approximately $160-$165 billion. Moreover, the total market valuation of these deals could surpass $4 trillion. Assuming no other deals come onto the market, the four deals would be larger than the last four years’ worth of deals combined.
Dilution vs. Capital Absorption
Some pundits are using the word “dilution” to describe the impact of the IPOs on the market. While not necessarily misused, the term is most often used to describe what happens when a publicly traded company issues new shares in the market, diluting the value of existing shares. Simply, existing shareholders who do not buy new shares see their ownership percentage decline. Given that the expected stock offerings are IPOs rather than add-on offerings by a publicly traded company, the term “dilution” is not appropriate to describe the upcoming offerings. The more accurate term is capital absorption.
Capital absorption is the process by which large new stock offerings pull money out of existing financial markets, as investors sell existing holdings or redirect cash to purchase newly issued shares. While it is true that someone must buy the shares being sold to fund an IPO purchase, that buyer, in most cases, is simply recycling existing market capital rather than introducing new money. Thus, while an IPO is not dilutive to the stock being offered, it is dilutive to the financial markets, as the total investible dollars, in theory, remain unchanged; they just get spread out a little more thinly.
Where Does IPO Capital Come From?
IPO capital comes from three primary sources, each with consequences for existing market participants.
The first is institutional rebalancing. A large asset manager running an equity portfolio that wants meaningful exposure to a new IPO must trim existing positions and potentially use existing cash or raise new funds to create room for the new holding. While selling by any manager is unlikely to create a ripple in the market, because the stocks, bonds, and other assets they sell vary widely, simultaneous selling across thousands of institutional portfolios can have an impact.
The second is retail liquidation. Similarly, individual investors who want to participate in an IPO need cash to do so. Some of that cash may come from savings, but like most institutional accounts, they will raise cash by selling existing equity holdings. Keep in mind that every retail investor who liquidates an S&P 500 index fund to buy SpaceX or another IPO is, de facto, a seller of all of the stocks in the index.
The third source is capital from sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and foreign institutional investors, who are expanding their equity holdings. Often, their funds represent new money entering the financial markets rather than a rotation within them. The participation of these funds might reduce the impact of IPOs on other stocks and financial assets.
The net effect of all three sources is that existing holdings largely fund new ones. At the scale being contemplated in 2026, that rotation is large enough to create a meaningful headwind across financial markets.

BIG money.

• Massive SpaceX IPO Demand Coming From Gulf Sovereign Wealth Funds (ZH)

One week ago, SpaceX kicked off its institutional roadshow, headlined by JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who hosted a nationwide “live interactive discussion” with private wealth clients. The latest signal of investor demand comes from the Gulf, where massive sovereign wealth funds are reportedly seeking allocations in the IPO ahead of its expected Friday debut, according to Bloomberg News. The report says Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Kuwait Investment Authority have each placed orders for the IPO worth $1 billion to $5 billion, while the Qatar Investment Authority is also expected to make a significant commitment.

The report continued: “Entities based in the region are already prominent shareholders in Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite and AI firm, and many are sitting on large paper gains based on the billionaire’s targeted valuation of $1.8 trillion, the people said. It wasn’t immediately clear how much of the planned outlay is intended to prevent dilution of existing stakes after SpaceX’s listing.
The interest from the Gulf is part of a broader rush into the deal from global institutional investors, whose orders have exceeded the number of shares on offer. Some have bid for $10 billion or more of stock, Bloomberg News has reported, though the eventual allocations might be smaller. In a separate report, Reuters says the IPO is three-and-a-half to four times oversubscribed, highlighting massive institutional demand for what is shaping up to be the largest listing on record and a defining moment for the space economy.
Elon Musk has joined several Zoom meetings with potential investors, while SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and CFO Bret Johnsen were expected to meet with roughly 300 institutional investors at a Morgan Stanley lunch in Manhattan. Goldman Sachs was selected as the lead bank for the IPO, alongside Morgan Stanley. JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Citigroup are also among the 23 banks working on the deal, offering a staggering $75 billion by selling about 555.6 million shares. The planned IPO price is about $135 per share. Why SpaceX’s IPO Is drawing record investor demand…

We offered readers a complete deep dive into the mechanics of the SpaceX offering and how to trade the world’s biggest IPO (read the report). SpaceX’s underwriters have shut off investor access to the offering in China and Hong Kong, primarily due to regulatory and compliance concerns. However, there is a concerted effort by unhinged leftist lawmakers (such as Elizabeth Warren) and left-wing pension funds to delay or deny the SpaceX IPO, mainly for political brownie points. They appear to view the sudden new wealth generated for Elon Musk (and his employees and investors) as absolutely horrifying…
NEW: Elizabeth Warren is calling for the SEC to delay the mega SpaceX IPO.

Warren cites concerns about "questionable valuation," governance structure & mandatory arbitration pic.twitter.com/4mQqzTtYRs
— Matt Egan (@MattEganCNN) June 10, 2026

… given that Musk is pro-humanity and seeks to liberate the world’s minds from toxic progressive causes.

Fighting over limited resources.

• AI Price Wars Begin: OpenAI Considers “Drastic Price Cuts” (ZH)

Earlier today, in a report discussing how “AI bills are out of control”, JPMorgan tech guru and TMT salesman, Mark Schilsky wrote that “most of my high level investor discussions focus on one major topic: when will the party end? Put another way, tech investors have made so much money in Semis so quickly that they are looking for potential warning signs that the music is about to stop. Predicting such an end is incredibly difficult. As such, investors are searching for forward-looking indicators that might suggest the AI party is nearing a peak.”

Here, the JPM trader highlighted perhaps the clearest indicator that the music was about to stop: “A slowdown in the growth of the annualized run-rate revenues of the major AI labs. If there is any sort of second derivative ‘kink’ in their growth algorithms, that could portend a future problem for the AI trade.” In response to this, we pointed to just such a “slowdown in the run-rate revenues”, when we showed that the Silicon Data token price index is down for 7 straight days to a level last seen in mid-January, or long before the current agentic craze started. Almost as if it knew something…

Turns out it did: late on Wednesday, with futures surging and Korean stocks erasing a nearly 5% drop and turning green, and euphoria generally back front and center, the WSJ may have burst the AI bubble when it reported that – contrary to conventional wisdom that token prices will magically go to infinity – OpenAI, which has been badly lagging both the revenue and IPO race with Anthropic in recent months – was considering “drastically lowering the prices it charges users” in a panic scramble to regain market share and win back customers from archrival Anthropic.
And so, at a time when there is suddenly a mass realization that token prices had been soared in recent weeks, a wake-up call which JPM lovingly described as follows: “investors have been discussing the possibility that much of the token spend that corporate America is currently incurring is ‘wasted’. Anecdotes from companies like UBER aren’t helping this narrative”, OpenAI is weighing significant cuts to what it charges for tokens. Hilariously, the move would be in anticipation of similar cuts the company expects at Anthropic, which is trying to double how much it charges for its latest model, Fable, which provides at best a very modest modest improvement in performance over Opus 4.8.
In short, we now have a classical deflationary race to the bottom, precisely the opposite of what the profit-strapped industry desperately needs to grow into its gargantuan balance sheets (and massive SPVs); Instead, the AI world is about to get hit with a collapse in both revenues and profit margins, while cash burn goes into full-on incinerator mode. Warning that “business executives have begun to balk at the high prices for AI usage”, the WSJ writes that OpenAI CEO Altman said at a recent event that costs had become “a huge issue.” “I think we’ll have a lot of ways we can help people get more value for less spend,” he said.

“Last week, the Knesset, Israel’s parliamentary body, voted unanimously on the reading of a bill that would dissolve itself. “

• Netanyahu Faces Election Chaos as Knesset Moves to Tear Itself Down (Queen)

Parliamentary governments fascinate me. The idea that a group of legislators can vote, say, “Forget it, let’s tear it all down,” and call a general election at just about any time blows my mind. I listened to a couple of podcasts from The Spectator on Tuesday night that discussed the growing dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Keir Starmer among the rank and file in the Labour Party (and, honestly, across the rest of the country) and how a leadership crisis is brewing among party faithful. It could potentially lead to a call for a general election barely two years after the election that ushered Starmer into No. 10 Downing Street.

Israel could be the latest parliamentary nation to pull the trigger on a general election. Last week, the Knesset, Israel’s parliamentary body, voted unanimously on the reading of a bill that would dissolve itself. The Times of Israel reports: “Following a lengthy Knesset debate, lawmakers early Tuesday voted 106-0 in favor of the first reading of a coalition bill to dissolve the Knesset, potentially triggering early elections. The dissolution bill, which must pass three readings in the plenum to pass into law, had been approved for its first reading in the Knesset House Committee on Monday morning and was immediately referred to the plenum for a vote. No date has been set for the final readings of the bill.
Due to internal coalition disagreements, committee chairman and coalition whip Ofir Katz advanced the bill without specifying an election date, stating that it would be inserted into the legislation only prior to its final two readings. In the meantime, Katz only said that the range of dates will be somewhere between September 8 and October 20.
The potential elections would take place weeks before the already scheduled Oct. 27 general election, which means that this session of the Knesset could dissolve just a few days before a full term. The fractious coalition of parties that put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu back into office has its tensions after a budget bill failed to address the controversial issue of military draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jews.
“Israel’s 25th Knesset had been expected to be one of the few to serve its full four-year term,” explains Joel Braunold of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “But while lawmakers successfully approved a budget in March, Netanyahu’s coalition government failed to pass legislation that would exempt ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students from mandatory military service, prompting key parties to call to disband the 120-seat Knesset. Faced with a possible rebellion, Netanyahu’s Likud Party submitted the dissolution bill in an effort to retain some control.”
Netanyahu is pushing for the latest possible date in the hopes that he can deliver legislative, military, and diplomatic initiatives before the election. All of this matters because his party announced that he will run in a general election. “Prime Minister Netanyahu will run in the upcoming elections,” announced the Likud Party in a statement. “With God’s help, he will win.” The announcement came after President Donald Trump complimented Netanyahu in an interview with ABC News. “If Bibi even wants to continue… I don’t know, he’s had an amazing career,” Trump told ABC’s Jonathan Karl. “Does he want to continue? Because you know, he’s a wartime prime minister.”
“We will very shortly win the war one way or the other, and you know he’s a wartime prime minister,” Trump added. “That’s okay, just like I’m a wartime president.” The prospects for a Netanyahu victory don’t look great.

JUST IN: Bibi Netanyahu has a 33% chance to be the Israeli Prime Minister after the ‘26 election pic.twitter.com/EJBqBUsIfB
— Kalshi Politics (@KalshiPolitics) June 10, 2026

“Regardless of whether the election happens on September 8, October 27, or any date in between, the vote will be critical for the future direction of Israel,” Braunold points out. “How it goes could determine whether Netanyahu cements his legacy in office or potentially in prison. And what happens has the chance of not just shaping the country but the entire region.” Keep an eye on our biggest ally in the Middle East. It might be a bumpy ride for the next few months.

“It is not shocking to us.”

• President Trump Delivers Shocking Response to Question About USMCA Renewal (CTH)

It is not shocking to us. It is not shocking to anyone who has followed this story for the past few years. It is particularly not shocking to you. However, the Canadians are going bananas right now. President Donald Trump responded to a question about the current status of the USMCA trade agreement, or what Canada calls CUSMA. Watch and listen to how President Trump points out that he has no intention of renewing the USMCA. This has been obvious since May of 2025.

I don’t want to say ‘I toldya so’, but….

Interesting?

• Interesting Names Being Floated for Permanent DNI Role (CTH)

According to The Gateway Pundit there are five names being debated for permanent DNI. Qualifying any comment by saying this is entirely speculation, a few have asked me for opinion.Gateway Pundit posits the names: GOP Representative Elise Stefanik, GOP Representative Rick Crawford, current Deputy Director of the CIA Michael Ellis, Vice President JD Vance’s national security adviser Cliff Sims, and former GOP Rep Jason Chaffetz. Names not mentioned in that article include former HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes or former Representative now U.S. Attorney for North Carolina Dan Bishop.

Without being fully transparent about how I am reaching my perspective, here’s my take on these names.I have not seen Michael Ellis in this discussion before. However, he would be a very solid consideration. Ellis is a very straight, non-pretending, deliberate and serious person. With a firm grasp on the problem, Ellis would be a solid option. Current HPSCI Chairman Rick Crawford would also be a solid consideration. As current HPSCI Chairman Crawford has worked with Tulsi Gabbard, and he does have a very firm grasp on the nuances and issues within the current intelligence community.
Dan Bishop’s name has not been mentioned by many, but he would also be an asset in the role. At least he should be interviewed to see if he thoroughly understands the problem and would be willing to confront it. Stefanik might want the job and might be the favorite of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, but I’m not sure Stefanik is strong enough to stand up to the pressure within the overall intelligence apparatus. There’s a general pretending that often comes from DC familiarity as well as willingness to go along with norms and status quo. Stefanik is not a disruptor.
It doesn’t seem like Devin Nunes wants the job, for all of the reasons why a tenured IC person wouldn’t want the job. Jason Chaffetz would be worthless, as he was when Chairman of the House Oversight Committee. I don’t know enough about Cliff Simms to give an opinion.
Ranked: Ellis, Crawford, Bishop.
Concerning: Stefanik, Chaffetz.
Best Route: Give strong weight to Tulsi Gabbard’s recommendation.

“As late as 2014, Ann Coulter was arguing that the growing popularity of soccer reflected the moral decay of the country.”

Highschools push other sports as the money makers. So if you’re athletic, you don’t play soccer. It’s a girls’ sport.

• Why America Sucks at Soccer (Rick Moran)

loomberg published a revealing Morning Consult poll on U.S. interest in the World Cup soccer tournament, which kicks off on Friday. More than half of all U.S. adults say they won’t be watching any of the 104 matches available to stream on Fox One, Fox, F1, and Fox. Just 13% of U.S. adults said they planned to watch any of the matches. Breaking the poll numbers down by generation, Gen Z is the most interested, with 23% “very likely” to watch some of the games. On the other hand, 59% of Boomers are “not likely at all” to watch any of the games.

Playing soccer in the suburbs has been a rite of passage for kids for the last 40 years. But by the time these soccer kids reach high school, most of them have lost interest. Little girls love the women’s national team, which, until recently, was far more popular than the men’s national team. Having dumped much of the political correctness, the U.S. women are once again one of the top teams in the world. They will be one of the World Cup favorites in Brazil next year. The men are better than they used to be, but they are still in the second or third tier of international excellence. This is insane. Billions of dollars go into youth soccer in America, and that might be the problem.
UnHerd:”Landon Donovan — the finest player the country has produced — recently put the blame on American soccer’s youth system. His complaint centers on the win-at-all-costs mentality that seemingly grips the system. Parents and coaches, Donovan argues, “get obsessed with winning just as much as the coaches do because they’ve been told that’s what’s going to get their child to college and professional — and it’s all bulls**t”. In truth, of course, children don’t need to be the next Pelé in kindergarten; they just need to develop a feel for the game that scoreboards can’t reward.
It’s here where the money comes in. Youth sports in America are now a $40 billion industry — and private equity has quietly captured a great deal of it. Firms such as Juggernaut Capital have rolled up hundreds of local clubs into national conglomerates; 3STEP Sports, backed by Juggernaut, controls more than 1,500 events serving more than two million athletes a year. The tactics are the familiar ones of private-equity extraction: junk fees, long contracts, mandatory and expensive travel circuits. What was once an affordable neighborhood activity has been re-engineered into a maximum-extraction machine, with elite youth club soccer now costing many families upwards of $5,000 a year per child.
In Brazil, kids who live on or near garbage dumps play soccer all day, every day. Even in Europe, the game is constantly played by the poorest kids. All of them are hoping to catch lightning in a bottle and get noticed by a scout or youth coach who will take them under their wing and develop their skills. The very best, the very hungriest, and most talented kids are noticed early and brought along in youth programs that the U.S. will never be able to duplicate.
In America, soccer is a game played by suburban kids twice a week and in the occasional tournament. Even the millions of kids who love the game and have dreams of playing in the World Cup are stymied by a youth program that fails them. Every World Cup, enthusiasts proclaim that soccer will take off and become as popular as football and basketball in the United States. They’ve been saying it since 1994, when the last World Cup was played here. It fails to happen not because soccer competes with other sports for attention. It’s something far deeper, rooted in our self-image as a nation.
In 2001, scholars Andrei Markovits and Steven Hellerman published Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism. ”Nativistic Americans, the authors found, prefer individualistic and militaristic games that mirror the country’s political culture,” writes UnHerd’s Duncan Moench. Markovits and Hellerman argued that American soccer developed along totally different lines from the country’s more mainstream sports. Given the tremendous strength of US nativism, early on soccer was seen as dubiously foreign: both in origin and application. (As late as 2014, Ann Coulter was arguing that the growing popularity of soccer reflected the moral decay of the country.)
Yet as that early hipster fandom implies, the opposite ended up happening. Study-abroad trips are expensive, and far from becoming a blue-collar pastime like basketball, American soccer ultimately remained the purview of white suburbanites. Though the US has grown the technical capacity to compete at international soccer, those in charge of running our youth system have optimized the program to extract maximum revenue from bougie parents — hardly conducive to honing talent.
In other words, U.S. kids aren’t poor enough or hungry enough to have that overweening drive to make it as professional soccer players. Plus, the game’s appeal loses its luster when kids start playing football and basketball. “The raw athletic talent is almost certainly lurking out there, in the immigrant neighborhoods and the public parks,” writes Moench. “It’s just that we’ve built a machine to price those kids out.” Changing that culture is not high on the priority list of suburban parents who want their kids to get into a decent college, not chase a soccer dream around the world.

SpaceX will IPO in three days. Who currently own it:

• Elon Musk: 42%
• Founder Fund (Peter Thiel): 10%
• Google Ventures: 7%
• Others: 30% pic.twitter.com/85ruc2soz2
— Investing visuals (@InvestingVisual) June 9, 2026

https://twitter.com/tslaming/status/2064609502398460018?s=20

Here’s the chart for current mass to orbit in the Falcon era vs projected mass to orbit after Starship rapid reusability

It’s the difference between “getting to space” and actually industrializing space

Before Starship, during the Falcon era, mass to orbit grew steadily -… pic.twitter.com/kbWFCKvLNf
— X Freeze (@XFreeze) June 9, 2026

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Debt Rattle June 4 2026

Jun 042026

June 4, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:37 am Finance Tagged with: Alabama, COVID-19, Iran, IRGC, Mamdani, Marco Rubio, SpaceX, Supreme Court, supreme leader, Trump, Ukraiobe 27 Responses »

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• SpaceX Reportedly Targets $135 IPO Price (ZH)

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

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

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

A former World Bank president has sounded the alarm, revealing that the Federal Reserve has lost over a trillion dollars—and counting—turning it into nothing more than a massive hedge fund for the rich and powerful.

He claims the Fed is borrowing money from banks at 5.4%… pic.twitter.com/eMznmUbM1f
— illuminatibot (@iluminatibot) June 2, 2026

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

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

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

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

And yet the Iranians have already for years consistently stated they were never intent on achieving a nuclear bomb. All recent high level US intelligence community assessments have tended to support the claim that Iran was not seeking a nuke before the attacks of June as well as March into April, under Operation Epic Fury. But Trump has also dismissed the intelligence, insisting that Iran was ‘very close’ before the US-Israeli interventions. While Trump is now expressing openness to meeting the Ayatollah – who is said to be in hiding and only having limited, low-tech communications with his officials, for fear of being tracked by the CIA or Mossad – the Supreme Leader himself has not voiced a desire for such a meeting.
Tehran at this moment doesn’t appear in the mood for ‘talking’ – and has lately said it is ready to let its military retaliation and response do the ‘negotiating’. The US President once again made claims about the text of the possible agreement. He claimed that “Iran has agreed not to acquire nuclear weapons.” –Bloomberg This seems another element of confused messaging from the White House, which has many times denounced the Ayatollah and his regime as ‘murderous’ and ‘evil’ and a ‘tyrant’ – and yet now Trump apparently wants to sit down with him for tea time or something.
Trump in the NY Post interview actually addressed the general atmosphere of confusion and contradictions from his administration, and from him personally. “It’s good if they‘re confused, and the Iranians are confused,” Trump stated. He added: “But no, it‘s just the way I am. It changes. I could leave here, I could give you an answer, and then in 20 minutes go into the Oval Office and I’ll realize my answer is now incorrect. Facts change and things change quickly.” In this context, he went on to defend the controversial decision to go to war in the first place, saying it could not have been delayed as Iran was on the brink of having a nuclear weapon.
“I couldn‘t, I know because this is too important. If I did that, they would have had a nuclear weapon. They would have had a nuclear weapon two weeks after the B-2 bomber struck. So if I did that, they would have had a nuclear weapon.” Trump: “He’s missing a lot of different parts.” He again in the interview called it a necessary “excursion” – saying, “They‘re not going to have a nuclear weapon, lots of other good things are going to happen.” From the interview, on the question of boots on the ground in Iran… “You don‘t need boots on the ground right now. We wiped out much of their military with just bombing.
After three days their military was virtually wiped out. And then if you read the New York Times you think they‘re doing fantastically.” Trump elsewhere addressed the controversial Axios report which said Trump ‘steamrolled’ Israeli PM Netanyahu in a phone call. Per Bloomberg, “Trump said he swore at Benjamin Netanyahu in a call this week as the president tried to deescalate fighting in Lebanon and keep peace talks with Iran on track.” “I did,” Trump said, acknowledging he chastised his ally. “I wouldn\t say angry. I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon, ` you know.”

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

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

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

Two Iranian missiles shot at Kuwait fell short or broke apart in-flight, several ballistic missiles aimed at regional targets failed and three missiles heading for Bahrain were intercepted, US Central Command said. Since the conflict began in late February, Iran has repeatedly attacked targets in Bahrain and Kuwait, where US military bases are located. Central Command said US forces also downed Iranian drones targeting civilian shipping in regional waters and carried out strikes on Qeshm Island near the Strait of Hormuz in response to the attempted attacks by Iran.
In a statement carried by the official IRNA news agency, the Revolutionary Guards claimed they had struck the US military installations in response to the strike on Qeshm Island. Give Tehran credit for one thing: it found a way to turn a missile attack into a regional safety demonstration. Kuwait and Bahrain got sirens, nervous families, air defenses, and another reminder that Iran doesn’t only threaten Americans when it lashes out; it threatens every neighbor forced to live near its tantrums. President Donald Trump has kept pressure on Iran while leaving room for talks, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers sanctions relief would require Iran to give up its nuclear activity.
Iran, meanwhile, keeps acting as if leverage means firing expensive hardware into the sky and hoping nobody notices when gravity, air defenses, and American readiness ruin their show. The latest episode followed claims from Iranian sources that Tehran had stopped communicating with mediators about extending a ceasefire. President Trump disputed those claims and said talks continued. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has tried to wrap Tehran’s demands in diplomatic language, but missiles aimed toward Gulf neighbors speak more clearly than any prepared statement. Any regime that pauses diplomacy to launch weapons tells the world which tools it trusts the most.
Iran’s leaders seem trapped in the same old loop; they provoke, threaten, launch, miss, deny, and then announce some grand moral victory to whoever still has the patience to listen. The missiles and drones fail, the bases remain, and the regime still expects applause from its propaganda machine. Somewhere in Tehran, somebody probably stamped the operation a success because the printer still had ink. Behind the noise sits a colder reality; Iran’s economy keeps bleeding. Its people keep paying for the ambition of clerics and commanders who confuse defiance with competence.
It’s been rough for the regime’s people; Iran’s Central Bank put year-over-year inflation at 77.2% in May, with daily and general needs up 113.8% from the year before. One would think that leaders with any semblance of sanity and common sense might want fewer missiles and more bread, but Tehran has never shown much talent for learning from the pain it causes its own people.American restraint also deserves notice. U.S. forces answered direct threats without turning the Gulf into a free-fire zone. They destroyed incoming threats, protected American troops, helped partners, guarded shipping, and hit the control node tied to Iran’s aggression.
Tehran tried to create a spectacle, while Washington created a result. Iran’s latest missile show revealed rage, not genius. The IRGC wanted fear and delivered embarrassment, also wanting leverage, and handed Gulf partners another reason to tighten ranks with the United States. It wanted to prove strength and instead proved that American defenses, allied coordination, and steady nerves still carry weight.Crazy like a fox requires cunning. Iran brought fireworks, failure, and the same old appetite for humiliation. It’s past time for the U.S. to put the regime out of its misery and help the Iranian people.

IRGC tries to lead the conversation.

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

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

Our Armed Forces are conducting self-defense strikes on sites the U.S. is permitted to use to attack civilian shipping and violate the ceasefire.

Any hostile act will be met with an immediate, decisive response. What sanctions and war failed to achieve won't be won with more war pic.twitter.com/CwjULJ6PeI
— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) June 3, 2026

President Donald Trump is still trying to present some bright spots, telling NY Post he believes the situation in the Strait of Hormuz will “resolve itself fairly quickly” and went so far to say he expects to meet with Iran’s supreme leader “at some point.”
Major Attack on Kuwait International Airport: One Dead, 63 Injured
Kuwait International Airport has come under Iranian missile and drone attack on Wednesday, in a significant strike that killed one person and left 63 people injured – according to the country’s health ministry, with several of the victims being seriously wounded. A passenger terminal was directly struck, damaging facilities including diplomatic missions at the airport, Kuwaiti authorities have said. Area hospitals conducted seven major emergency surgeries following the incident, underscoring that it was a mass casualty event.
Kuwaiti defense ministry spokesperson Brig Gen Saud Abdulaziz Al-Atwan described the attack as “criminal Iranian aggression which resulted in significant material damage to the building and injuries.” It confirmed engaging 13 missiles and 17 drones total which were fired from Iran. Civil aviation authorities immediately suspended traffic and transferred arriving flights to separate unaffected airports after “terminal one came under Iranian attacks causing casualties and damage.” The cross-border airport attack came after violent exchanges of fire between the US and Iran, which at first looked like limited one-off incidents, but then became an extended tit-for-tat.
The Overnight Catalyst: US-Iran Exchange Fire in Hormuz
Overnight, the US military deployed a Hellfire missile to disable a tanker attempting to bypass the American blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. Following the intercept, American forces engaged in a wider kinetic exchange, stating they repelled subsequent Iranian reprisal strikes across the region and launched retaliatory attacks against military sites on Iran’s Qeshm Island.
In response, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) claimed it launched a missile and drone barrage targeting the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain – an assertion that Central Command (CENTCOM) has explicitly denied. The IRGC had also sent several missiles on two US bases in Kuwait, which were said to have been intercepted.
GCC Blasts ‘Cowardly Attacks’
Serous damage and chaos at Kuwait International Airport: The Gulf Cooperation Council has in response slammed Iran for their “ongoing aggression” against member states Bahrain and Kuwait, denouncing the “cowardly attacks on civilian objects” which mark a “dangerous and unprecedented escalation.” But Tehran is not backing down and is instead issuing further hardline warnings and threats, per Al Jazeera citing state media:
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says retaliatory strikes “should serve as a lesson” for the United States after it fired a barrage of missiles and drones at Kuwait and Bahrain. While Iran’s foreign ministry is warning that the overnight US assault on Qeshm Island continues a severe breach of the ceasefire, President Trump is saying that “conversations between us have been going on continuously” – in reference to the Iranians.

Kuwait's civil aviation authority confirmed Iranian drones and missiles hit the T1 terminal at Kuwait International Airport. Several people were injured and the building sustained severe damage. Commercial flights have been halted. https://t.co/fbFhjSofIY pic.twitter.com/zOz83Ba6cy
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) June 3, 2026

By Molly Schwartz, cross-asset macro strategist at Rabobank

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

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

Our base case that we see passage through the Strait disrupted for at least three more months still stands as we have yet to see any tangible headlines to suggest an accelerated timeline. The negotiations currently lie in Iran’s hands, as Bloomberg reports Iran’s Mehr news saying that “officials in Tehran are discussing their ‘final text’ to send to the US.” One might be hesitant to truly deem this text as “final” (if it even exists), as it may be more of a “final_v3.doc”, or a “final_FINAL_v6.doc”, or even a “final_FINAL_totallyforrealthistime.doc”.
The most promising resolution right now is that the IRGC remains in power, but enriched uranium is handed over to an executor, like China, though we have yet to see any confirmed updates that this is a feasible solution that Iran would actually agree to at this juncture. The extended 60-day ceasefire is still ongoing, while both the US and Iran are dedicated to keeping the Strait closed and exchanging fire. CENTCOM posted on X today to show off the USS Abraham Lincoln enforcing the US blockade, which has apparently redirected 122 vessels to “ensure compliance.”
Yesterday, Trump slammed Vulcan’s Hammer on the AI industry, signing an executive order, “Promoting Advanced Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Security.” The executive order lauds how the administration has “unleashed tremendous technological growth and economic investment in AI by slashing the bureaucratic constraints that the prior administration placed on America’s AI developers and researchers, and by instead encouraging AI innovation and accelerating responsible AI adoption across government and industry.”
Part of the executive order is intended to support the AI industry, seeking to utilize AI in federal cybersecurity programs, and utilize AI models (potentially Mythos?) to pinpoint vulnerabilities. However, the order also seeks to impose new restrictions, likely in response to the emergency meeting triggered by Mythos a few months ago. This includes lots of classified processes and frameworks to make sure that an evil AI model, the likes of that in a Philip K. Dick novel, doesn’t usurp the American government as the presiding force leading the world’s global hegemon (or more likely, making sure these models can’t be used to hack into sensitive government websites).
The process is referred to as a “voluntary framework” so that AI developers can submit their new models to the government 30 days before release to the public. Though the order also clarifies that “nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize the creation of a mandatory governmental licensing, preclearance, or permitting requirement for the development, publication, release, or distribution of new AI models, including frontier models.”

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

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

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

“Good morning. We’re getting ready to head into the hospital now for Abraham’s surgery,” Gabbard says. “And I just wanted to take a moment to say ‘thank you’ with all of our hearts to all of you who have shared such beautiful messages and prayers and well wishes for Abraham. We’re truly humbled and so grateful to be surrounded by so much aloha from all of you during this tough time. Aloha.”
Here’s the video:
https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/2061788108727705658?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2061788108727705658%7Ctwgr%5E5949055dbcd121e1d76cc6b15d37bb92257dad88%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F02%2Ftulsi-gabbard-gives-us-a-heartfelt-update-on-her-husbands-health-n4953508
While Gabbard hasn’t posted an update since, her father, Mike Gabbard, who is a state senator in Hawaii, did post on X on Tuesday afternoon to let followers know that “Abraham is out of surgery and all went well.” He included a beautiful picture of the couple.
If you’ll recall, back in May, Gabbard announced that she was resigning from her position as DNI to spend more time with her husband who was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. “Unfortunately, I must submit my resignation, effective June 30, 2026,” she said after thanking the president for the opportunity. “My husband, Abraham, has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer. He faces major challenges in the coming weeks and months. At this time, I must step away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle.”
https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/2057876821421527476?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2057876821421527476%7Ctwgr%5E5949055dbcd121e1d76cc6b15d37bb92257dad88%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F02%2Ftulsi-gabbard-gives-us-a-heartfelt-update-on-her-husbands-health-n4953508
Williams, who keeps a fairly low profile, is actually a cinematographer, photographer, and filmmaker, and the two met in 2012 when he did some work for her congressional campaign. Both are avid surfers, and he eventually proposed to her on a surfboard. They were married in April 2015 in Hawaii.
https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1910168836550303992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1910168836550303992%7Ctwgr%5E5949055dbcd121e1d76cc6b15d37bb92257dad88%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F02%2Ftulsi-gabbard-gives-us-a-heartfelt-update-on-her-husbands-health-n4953508
He’s been by her side through her time in Congress, multiple political campaigns, and her time spent in the Donald Trump administration. She calls him her “rock” and best friend.
“Abraham has been my rock throughout our eleven years of marriage — standing steadfast through my deployment to East Africa on a Joint Special Operations mission, multiple political campaigns and now my service in this role,” she wrote in her resignation letter last month. “His strength and love have sustained me through every challenge. I cannot in good conscience ask him to face this fight alone while I continue in this demanding and time-consuming position.”
Personally, I have to add that I’ve been a big Tulsi fan for years — she won me over in 2019 when she owned Kamala Harris during a primary debate when they were both running for president. I hate that we are losing her as a public servant for now, but I am glad she is able to take the time to support her husband as he fights this battle. Both Tulsi and Abraham are in our prayers.

Not his first clown rodeo…

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

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

Wednesday was more of that — this isn’t even a hearing, Rubio said — but the “questioning” went beyond foreign policy, whether it was the lady criticizing the secretary’s shoes or the guy playing video upon video of Donald Trump’s so-called “cognitive decline.” I’ve never seen anything like it. Again, I’m just going to have to let the video clips speak for themselves because I don’t even know how to explain it anymore than saying “Congress is a clown show.”
Where to even start? Here’s Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.) getting mad that Rubio didn’t mention Ukraine in his opening remarks and talking to the secretary like he’s a toddler. For what it’s worth, Keating was one of the first to speak, and I guess this set the tone for the entire “circus.” This is only a short clip, but there was a lot of yelling.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2062191973604204700?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2062191973604204700%7Ctwgr%5E546fb9583372a698ed9c56b512c81b898bcb8bcf%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F03%2Frubio-enters-the-clown-show-aka-congress-and-you-just-have-to-see-this-n4953535
Next, I’ll go with the most ludicrous of interactions: Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) spending his entire five minutes playing videos of Trump “sleeping” during his “North Korea-style” Cabinet meetings and proof of his “cognitive decline,” and Rubio’s rightfully incredulous response. The secretary joked that Lieu fancies himself a medical expert and went on to explain how the president has more energy than people much younger than him and how he calls him at all hours of the night. Pop your popcorn. This one’s good:
https://twitter.com/OffThePress1/status/2062206241951105050?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2062206241951105050%7Ctwgr%5E546fb9583372a698ed9c56b512c81b898bcb8bcf%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F03%2Frubio-enters-the-clown-show-aka-congress-and-you-just-have-to-see-this-n4953535
Then there was Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) who felt the need to use her time talking about who won the 2020 election and… Rubio’s shoes. Seriously.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2062198413140136178?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2062198413140136178%7Ctwgr%5E546fb9583372a698ed9c56b512c81b898bcb8bcf%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F03%2Frubio-enters-the-clown-show-aka-congress-and-you-just-have-to-see-this-n4953535
One congresswoman said her bit, which included calling Rubio the “overlord” of Venezuela, and then she simply got up and left before he could respond. Here’s his response:

SECRETARY RUBIO: "Why is she leaving? I'm going to answer her questions. Oh, I got it. Well, thank you for coming." pic.twitter.com/ayG1qc3EYs
— Department of State (@StateDept) June 3, 2026

As I’m writing this, Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Penn.) is calling Rubio a “comedy show” because he’s trying to answer her questions. This is giving me a headache — I can only imagine how the secretary feels. I’d share some of the actual substance that was discussed, but, well, there wasn’t much. With few exceptions, the only time Rubio actually got to answer any questions was when the Republican members of the House allowed him some of their time to do so. It was pretty shameful.
The hearing is actually still going on, and there’s another one on Wednesday afternoon — I’ll take one for the team and watch that too and bring you any noteworthy sound bites — but I think this gives you an idea of how things have gone. I’ll end on a fun note. Rubio continued his run of using rap lyrics during his public appearances. Today, it was a line from Kanye West’s “Stronger.”

SECRETARY RUBIO: "It's complex. This has been going on since O.J. had Isotoners." pic.twitter.com/uhMk1RYyfs
— Department of State (@StateDept) June 3, 2026

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

Much more coming.,.

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

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

Honestly, it’s almost boring at this point — I believe Rubio thinks so too. After finishing his opening remarks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he ended with, “So anyways, I look forward to your questions. At least that’s what it says here. I’m not sure if I really look forward to your questions. I look forward to probably half your questions.” A couple of things I noted: The Democrats must have gotten together and decided they’d all coordinate when talking about Iran. Nearly every single one referred to it as “Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran.” (You can’t see me, but I’m rolling my eyes.)
I also noted that these Democrats love to talk about how many people have allegedly died due to the end of USAID and the restructuring of how we handle humanitarian aid around the world — for what it’s worth, their numbers are false — but they seem to turn a blind eye to the people who die at the hands of the regimes in countries like Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba, as well as at the hands of narco-terrorists, cartels, and criminal groups around the globe, and get mad that the United States is intervening to stop this. You can’t have it both ways, but I digress. Let’s get to a few highlights from the hearings.
The biggest smackdown of the day was when Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) decided to accuse Rubio of partying the night away while JD Vance was working on negotiations with Iran. She kept talking about him being at some “party” with President Trump. Rubio asked her what party she was referring to, but she couldn’t quite come up with an answer and continued with her accusations, asserting that while he was at this party, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff — two people who were never confirmed for this by the U.S. Congress, she says — were doing his job. The secretary did not take that sitting down.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about! I know your staff wrote up this cute statement for TikTok, but it’s not true. And it’s not real. That’s not what happened,” Rubio said. He explained that he was not at a party; he was on the phone constantly with all parties involved and “co-located with the president in the midst of a high stakes negotiation so that I could immediately inform him about events occurring halfway around the world.”
For what it’s worth, I believe she’s referring to the UFC fight in Miami. Trump made an appearance, and Rubio was there with some of his children, but it was widely reported that the secretary spent most of the night on the phone and keeping the president updated on what was going on in the Middle East. Here’s the video. This exchange is a must-watch:
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2061849591780135052?s=20
I’m not going to get too deep into everything the Congress critters talked about, but I do want to highlight a few more important exchanges, like this one in which Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) made up a bunch of stuff about Iran that was giving me Kamala Harris word salad vibes.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2061841598649180172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2061841598649180172%7Ctwgr%5E4be138b21dd4974e9e0dfe8e5ca1c9c6589b0409%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F02%2Fmarco-rubio-went-to-capitol-hill-today-and-the-smackdown-was-brutal-n4953499
And then there was Sen. Chris “Margaritas in El Salvador” Van Hollen, who seemed oddly nervous during the entire thing — possibly because he remembers how Rubio owned him last time they did this. If you’ll recall, he told Rubio he regretted voting for him, and Rubio replied, “Your regret voting for me confirms I’m doing a good job.” Van Hollen started out by saying that Trump’s entire foreign policy was a “dumpster fire” and then went on to spew a bunch of leftists lies about, well, pretty much everything. Anyway, here are a couple of their exchanges for your viewing pleasure.
https://twitter.com/StephenGardnerX/status/2061850629187031273?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2061850629187031273%7Ctwgr%5E4be138b21dd4974e9e0dfe8e5ca1c9c6589b0409%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fsarah-anderson%2F2026%2F06%2F02%2Fmarco-rubio-went-to-capitol-hill-today-and-the-smackdown-was-brutal-n4953499
Something else Rubio tried to hammer home to these people during these hearings is that the State Department is doing what’s in the United States’ best interests. It’s all common sense, but as we know, many Democrats lack that. I’ll leave you with a few of those videos.

Sec. Rubio with the perfect response after Democrat Sen. Van Hollen says:

"There is no evidence that Cuba is engaged in state-sponsored terrorism. Did you find new evidence?" pic.twitter.com/Ex1OSzOfXP
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) June 2, 2026

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

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

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

The families of all the senate committee members exist inside the think tanks, NGOs, political orgs, PACs and lobbyist companies for various foreign governments. Just like Q-Anon advocate Mike Flynn recently taking a job that pays him $100,000/month to lobby for the Republic of Srpska (aka ‘Serb Republic’, for advice, counsel and introductions), so too all the family members of the senate leverage their DC connections to foreign governments for personal gain.
Thus, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is now being questioned by the very Senators he has defunded. Yes, Michael Flynn signed an agreement within the Trump administration not to lobby for foreign governments; but that was only a paper promise. That’s one of the reasons why it is more than a little silly for people to mention Flynn’s name as a potential DNI nomination.

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

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

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

The reality is that judicial activists are mad because the map is likely to favor Republicans once it is drawn constitutionally and not based on voters’ skin color. Democrats have spent decades convincing many black Americans that Republicans are racist (when the opposite is more true), and now Dems are seeing that effort backfire in more than one state. This is a purely partisan fight. SCOTUS cited Callais in its Allen v. Milligan ruling, as that was the original decision this year clarifying how to comply with the Voting Rights Act.
Below are excerpts from the majority ruling:
After Callais, we vacated District Court injunctions that prevented the State of Alabama from using a congressional map that it enacted in 2023. See Allen v. Caster, 608 U. S. ___ (2026). The District Court had held that the State’s map violated §2 because it had only one district in which black voters were a majority and did not include an additional ‘[b]lack-opportunity’ district… Two weeks after we vacated its injunction, the District Court entered another injunction on largely the same grounds…
The District Court also failed to follow our instruction in Callais that the mere fact that voters of different races vote for different parties is not relevant to proving racially polarized voting patterns… The State has also made a strong showing of irreparable harm and that the equities and public interest favor it. We have repeatedly cautioned that lower federal courts should not ‘alter the election rules on the eve of an election.’ So this was all a waste of taxpayer money again to make the Supreme Court reiterate what it already ruled.
To be honest, if Republicans would simply comply with the law instead of bowing to every idiotic, anti-law ruling from activist judges, it would save vast amounts of time and money. The reason judges have been issuing outrageous rulings thick and fast recently is that they know Republicans will even ignore the Constitution itself to comply with the court rulings. The GOP keeps assuring Americans they have to act thus or they’ll “set a bad precent” for Democrats, but after two centuries of Democrats violating every law and court ruling they wish, that’s not a convincing argument.
In Alabama’s case, the Supreme Court had already ruled for the new map — so why on earth would the contrary decision of a District Court matter? Fortunately, the Supreme Court rightly intervened again, but we can’t be sure the activist District Court won’t try again and waste more time and money.

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

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

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

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

One sign that some New Yorkers are aware of what Mamdani is really all about was an unsigned editorial in the New York Post on Monday. The Post Editorial Board wrote that Mamdani’s “‘Block by Block’ plan to build 200,000 subsidized apartments entails a lot of handwaving, magical thinking and reliance on ‘responsible stewards’ . . who have been failing to manage the real-estate portfolios they already have.” Mamdani promises that “if ‘community land trusts, nonprofits or even the tenants themselves’ control the city’s housing stock, these miracle-workers will ‘expand New Yorkers’ access to safe, stable, and affordable homes.’”
However, the Post points out that “programs that do all this are so old and tired that Mamdani’s Gen Z policy experts appear never to have heard of them, maybe because the experiments had already failed when they were building fantasy housing projects out of Legos.”
Indeed. If socialists learned from experience, there would be no more socialists. There is system on the planet that has been tried so many times and failed just as many times, and yet constantly gains new young adherents who don’t know how bad socialist regimes really have been, or would care if they did know, because in their youthful arrogance, they’re sure they’re going to do right this time what their elders kept doing wrong. Mamdani is going to be the world’s first socialist to build a society. Sure, and he is also going to sprout wings and fly to Mars.
Mamdani announced, of course, that he planned to seize rental properties from landlords who have not maintained them properly — in the judgment of none other than Mamdani and his cronies. He then intends to hand over ownership of those properties to “community land trusts” and “non-profits.”
Oh yeah, that’ll fix everything. As foredoomed as this idea is as any sort of real solution to New York’s housing problems, it has long been high on Mamdani’s to-do list. Intifada on the Hudson: The Selling of Zohran Mamdani shows how he has made socialized housing schemes a centerpiece of his program ever since he entered politics. “People often ask,” Mamdani wrote on Dec. 3, 2020, “what socialists mean when we say we want to ‘decommodify’ housing. Basically, we want to move away from a situation where most people access housing by purchasing it on the market & toward a situation where the state guarantees high-quality housing to all.”
One of Mamdani’s leading critics, New York City Council member Vickie Paladino, explains what’s really going on here: “The properties will then be turned over to nonprofits. This is no small detail. This is in fact the whole point. The idea here is to build up Zohran’s DSA-connected nonprofits with a multibillion-dollar portfolio of hard assets — New York City real estate. This portfolio could theoretically reach into the hundreds of billions or even the trillions, depending on how aggressive they get. Now these highly political nonprofits would become the new land barons of New York, complete with all the political clout, leverage, and reach that goes along with it. It would be a true nightmare scenario.”
Mamdani’s housing scheme would thus be a great leap forward for securing socialist control of New York City for the indefinite future. Also, once his Marxist comrades control New York City’s housing market, who will actually get the housing? Not political undesirables, i.e., patriots. Instead, the lucky recipients will be Muslim migrants, including an unknowable number of criminals and jihadis, and others who will help the leftist/Islamic alliance stay in power.
It will all work wonderfully — until, that is, Mamdani and his friends run out of other people’s money. The Post points out that “Community Development Corporations, non-profit groups that own and manage ‘deeply affordable’ apartments, have been around for decades, and are barely managing to keep themselves afloat as it is. CDCs operate more than 200,000 subsidized city housing units, and face the same problems as private landlords: rising costs (especially insurance), unsustainable debt, deferred maintenance and nonpaying tenants. Turns out that removing the ‘profit’ line from a balance sheet by getting rid of private ownership doesn’t repeal the laws of math when costs run higher than income.”
It isn’t going to be any different this time around. New Yorkers who have already caught on to Mamdani can only hope that enough of their fellow city residents will catch on to tbe truth about this smooth socialist before he does too much damage.

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

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

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

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

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

The problem is that nothing visible is happening on the Belarusian side of the border. There’s no mobilization and no unusual concentration of Belarusian forces and no redeployment of Russian units. The only recent event that could be stretched into a military signal was last week’s Russian-Belarusian nuclear exercise. But even that took place in the Osipovichi district, in the center of Belarus, and was more about strategic deterrence than any ground operation against Ukraine. The more obvious question is why Lukashenko would want to join the military operation at all. Such a move would be wholly out of character for him and would run against the geopolitical role he has tried to carve out for Belarus.
Lukashenko has always sought to preserve room for maneuver and he kept doing so after 2020, when he became de facto persona non grata in the West, and even after the conflict escalated in 2022. In the Ukrainian crisis, Belarus has remained largely a passive observer and that arrangement has suited Moscow. For Russia, he’s a valuable diplomatic asset, not a military one. Of course, a repeat of the February 2022 thrust towards Kiev may sound tempting in theory. But with all due respect to Belarus, its army is not suited to the role of battering ram, especially in conditions of modern warfare dominated by drones and constant surveillance. Could the reverse be true? Perhaps Zelensky is preparing to strike Belarus first, overthrow Lukashenko and open a second front against Russia.
His pointed invitation to the fugitive opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya gives this theory a certain surface logic, but the military reality makes it deeply implausible. The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ last major offensive operation was the incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region. To mount it, Kiev gathered around 30,000 troops, weakening its positions in Donbass and losing large areas there as a result. Even then, the operation failed to produce a decisive strategic outcome. A serious attack on Belarus would require far more resources. Since then, Ukraine’s army has weakened further and its present ceiling is local counter-attacks in Donbass, so it’s in no position to open a major new front.
Nor would it make strategic sense. Any escalation with Belarus would risk creating another 1,000-kilometer front stretching across Ukraine’s northern flank, with direct threats to Kiev. However odious the Kiev regime may be, it can’t fail to understand this. That’s why the current escalation around the ‘Belarusian question’ should be understood politically, not militarily.
The timing is telling. Zelensky began to raise the alarm just as relations between Minsk and Washington showed signs of thawing. In March, the US eased sanctions on Belarus and Washington spoke of reopening its embassy. There was even talk of a possible Lukashenko visit to America and a meeting with Donald Trump. For Kiev, this is dangerous because Zelensky may fear that the eloquent Belarusian leader could charm Trump and persuade him to increase pressure on Ukraine to bring the conflict to an end. Lukashenko might also secure further sanctions relief, potentially turning Belarus into a hub for the transit of American goods to Russia.
From Kiev’s point of view, that scenario must be prevented. Hence the effort to present Minsk as an imminent threat, because if Belarus can be cast once again as Russia’s military accomplice rather than as a possible diplomatic channel, any US-Belarusian rapprochement becomes far harder to sustain.
Domestic politics may also be driving Zelensky’s rhetoric. Since late April, the noose of a corruption scandal has been tightening around his circle and the latest revelations from the ‘Mindich tapes’ have led to formal charges against Zelensky’s closest aide, Andrey Yermak. For the first time, the name ‘Vova’ has appeared in case materials, alongside the mysterious ‘R1’, the anonymous owner of one of the mansions in the ‘Dynasty’ housing cooperative, where, by a happy coincidence, Zelensky’s closest friends had planned to live. I
n such conditions, inflating a new military threat is politically useful as it allows Zelensky to tell Ukrainians that the gravest crisis is still ahead, and that he remains the horse that cannot be changed midstream. But the old ‘Russian card’ is wearing thin in the fifth year of hostilities. Ukrainians are tired, mobilized society is fraying, and endless emergency politics no longer works as it once did. So now Kiev is reaching for the ‘Belarus card’. Will it work? Probably not. At most, it may buy Zelensky a little time, a little fear, and a little more room to maneuver, but as a strategy, it’s thin gruel. Or to put it more appropriately, it is worthy only of a carrot, and a dry one at that.

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

• SpaceX Reportedly Targets $135 IPO Price (ZH)

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

Sources said the IPO is “structured as an all-primary offering,” which means the proceeds will go to SpaceX rather than existing shareholders. Musk will reportedly be subject to a 366-day lock-up period. At a $1.75 trillion valuation and projected 2025 booking revenue of $18.67 billion, SpaceX would trade at roughly 94 times trailing sales. The company also reported a $4.94 billion net loss in 2025, compared with a prior-year profit, with Starlink internet as the major profit engine.
Beyond Reuters’ reporting, there was a separate report from Morningstar analysts stating that SpaceX’s valuation should be less than half of the $1.75 trillion figure, and closer to $780 billion. Morningstar equity analyst Nicolas Owens wrote in a note that his team “doesn’t see Grok as one of the leading AI labs today,” adding: “We think the company has been significantly overvalued and investors will have opportunities to buy the stock at more attractive levels after the IPO.” Polymarket odds for “SpaceX IPO closing market cap above ___ ?” currently stand at 89% for a market cap above $1.8 trillion.

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

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

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

Here’s the thing: Supreme Court justices rarely telegraph a retirement months in advance. When a justice decides to step down, the announcement tends to arrive quietly and suddenly, usually in late spring or early summer as the Court’s term winds down. Denials at this point aren’t proof. Here’s what might tell you considerably more: Conservative appellate judges across the country are behaving as though a vacancy is imminent.
A growing number of federal appeals court judges are issuing high-profile opinions that legal observers describe openly as auditions for the Supreme Court. The tactics are calculated and unmistakable. Some judges are using sharp language, adopting rhetoric designed to catch President Trump’s attention. Others are recording video dissents, a media-savvy move that ensures their opinions travel well beyond the courthouse and into conservative legal circles, including the White House orbit.
Legal scholars watching this pattern say the strategy is deliberate. According to them, these judges understand that Trump values a combative style and public loyalty, and they are writing to reflect those priorities, in hopes of getting noticed by Trump and those advising him before the next vacancy materializes. If an announcement happens, it will be near the close of the current SCOTUS term, which concludes in roughly one month. Inside conservative legal circles, the working assumption is that Trump would move quickly. He reshaped the federal judiciary at a historic rate during his first term and shows no sign of slowing down.
The judges who are positioning themselves for that moment know the terrain. Their opinions zero in on subjects that resonate with Trump’s base, like immigration and cultural disputes, where the federal courts have become a central battleground. Every emphasis in these rulings carries intent. Conservative legal organizations that helped vet Trump’s earlier nominees are tracking this body of work and refining informal shortlists for the next opening. None of this means that a vacancy will happen, but it sure seems like judges are expecting it. Perhaps they know more than we do? It’s very possible.
And, should a vacancy take place this year, there’s very little that Democrats can do to stop it. The elimination of the judicial filibuster removed any real pressure on a Trump nominee to appeal to senators across the aisle. Republican presidents can now prioritize ideological conviction over bipartisan palatability, and judges angling for a nomination understand that calculus perfectly. As for the midterms, while it seems likely that Republicans will hold the Senate, it’s still very much a coin flip at this point. Hopefully, Trump will get the opportunity to secure at least one more seat on the Supreme Court while he still can.
Losing Alito or Thomas will be difficult, but securing a conservative majority for another generation is critical. I have no idea what will happen, but when a growing cohort of conservative judges is crafting opinions designed to get attention, it tells me they sense something is in the air. I’m starting to think that Trump’s next Supreme Court pick may come sooner than most people expect, because the competition for that spot is already well underway.

Anyone seen Fauci lately?

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

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

How many victims were there? Using U.N. population data, I have calculated that the pandemic years were associated with 20.5 million excess deaths. However, the total “growth loss” was a staggering 32 million people, as fewer babies were born than projected. This makes the pandemic comparable to World War I, which incurred a cost of 15 to 22 million deaths. But while historians have meticulously documented every bullet and bayonet of the Great War, the origin of the pandemic still remains a mystery.
First, we were fed a narrative about the novel coronavirus having a natural origin. For good reasons, many suspected that this was a limited hangout. Then came the second story: catastrophic incompetence—careless Chinese scientists allowed the virus to escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the rest is history. Unlike the narrative of a natural origin, there was some circumstantial evidence supporting the incompetence hypothesis, and many accepted it and moved on.
In my new book, The New September 11th: Solving the COVID-19 Pandemic, I present evidence that the virus was indeed made in a lab, but it did not leak by accident. Instead, suppressed genomic and epidemiological evidence strongly suggests that the virus was released on different continents within months of one another.
What is some of that evidence? In the book, I rigorously analyze all the data and systematically dismantle the false narratives, misdirections, and cover-ups by both Beijing and Washington. To provide the full context in an article is impossible, which is why I wrote the book. However, I will now explain the most important evidence in simple terms and in as few words as possible.
In late December 2019, molecular biologists identified and sequenced the coronavirus for the first time in Wuhan. The strain was young—meaning that it had only circulated for a few weeks [1]. Whether a lab leak or a spillover event at the wet market gave rise to the virus, they are both single-point origin hypotheses: the idea that the virus emerged in one location before spreading across the globe [..]
If the single-point origin holds water, every variant found across the globe is a direct descendant of the original parental strain in Wuhan. But this is not the case. Independent research groups from Italy, Brazil, Morocco, Angola, France, and others have conducted their own investigations into archived biological samples, identifying old strains of the virus long before it had even emerged in Wuhan. This is evidence of multiple viral introductions, a scenario that I have named the Parallel Release in Multiple Environments (P.R.I.M.E.) hypothesis. Here is a brief summary of one of the studies:
While the pandemic was well underway, researchers at the University of Milan began a retrospective search for the virus within their archives [2]. They were prompted by previous studies that had identified the virus before the official timeline and a mysterious increase in a rash now recognized as a COVID-19 symptom. Knowing that pre-pandemic research is a highly controversial matter, the researchers took extreme precautions to avoid cross-contamination and false positives. They, for instance, used 183 control samples (which never turned positive) and performed every stage of the study in physically separate laboratories in a facility that was free from the coronavirus.
Shockingly, multiple pre-pandemic samples were positive for RNA and/or antibodies. The earliest case dated back to September 12, 2019—an eight-month-old boy from Milan whose urine and serum samples were positive for the spike protein and two types of antibodies. This is long before the virus emerged in Wuhan. The researchers also sequenced the genetic material and confirmed that nine of their patients had indeed been infected with the novel coronavirus in 2019. Most shockingly, the strains were old, not young as they were in Wuhan months later. A technique called molecular clock analysis showed that the virus present in Italy had been circulating since mid-summer 2019.

JENSEN HUANG WAS ASKED WHO IS USING AI BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD

His answer wasn't OpenAI. It wasn't Google. It wasn't even Nvidia itself.

Here's what he said on CNBC:

"Nobody uses AI better than Meta."

He explained that Meta went from a classical recommender… pic.twitter.com/kdkG9ptxOU
— WOLF (@WOLF_Financial) June 2, 2026

Did you know that official police policy requires them to be racist against Whites? It is deeply wrong and must change NOW. pic.twitter.com/ekLbHsRV1r
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 2, 2026

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

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

Debt Rattle June 3 2026

Jun 032026

June 3, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:42 am Finance Tagged with: fake news, Interventionism, Iran, Israel, Jill Biden, Lebanon, Letitia James, Mamdani, truce, Trump, Türkiye 33 Responses »

Samuel Melton Fisher Asleep 1902

• Iran Ends Negotiations With US, Doubling Down on Terrorism (Salgado)

• Iran Denies Progress Despite Hasty Lebanon Truce (ZH)

• Trump: It’s ‘Fake News’ That Iran & US Stopped Speaking Days Ago (ZH)

• Trump Pulls Back Before the Fund Becomes the Story (David Manney)

• This Crisis Could Make or Break Türkiye (Sadygzade)

• This Is The Dangerous Myth Holding America Hostage (Bordachev)

• Europe Has “Serious, Really Serious Problems” If US Cuts Oil Exports (ZH)

• Interventionism Undermined Growth In The UK & Canada (Lacalle)

• Iran Decides to Take Matters in Hand (Paul Craig Roberts)

• The Israelization of the United States Military Is Proceeding (Philip Giraldi)

• Letitia James Sues Trump Admin Over $1 Billion Deal To Stop Offshore Wind (JTN)

• A “View from the East Wing”: Jill Biden’s Fantasy Book Tour (Turley)

• So, That’s Why Jill Biden’s Book Is Coming Out Now (Matt Vespa)

• Mamdani Announces Possible Transfer of Housing to Tenants (Turley)

https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2061872222638105083?s=20

It’s over https://t.co/W4CiGhg9tM
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 2, 2026

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2061841598649180172?s=20

I am appointing the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Chairman of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, William J. Pulte, to serve as Acting Director of National Intelligence. William has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America, the safety and soundness… pic.twitter.com/ZXClUwvgtm
— Commentary Donald J Trump Truth Social Posts On X (@TrumpTruthOnX) June 2, 2026

https://twitter.com/DRPOOLQ17/status/2061800780248600683?s=20

Iran can be in 2 different quantum states at once.

• Iran Ends Negotiations With US, Doubling Down on Terrorism (Salgado)

The genocidal Islamic regime of Iran has finally cut off negotiations with the United States, in a move that President Donald Trump indicated he did not anticipate, but which he says he is prepared to address as necessary.

The reported sudden end of the farce that the Iranian regime was willing to make peace came just after the regime fired on American troops in Kuwait on Sunday evening. On Monday morning, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi brazenly accused the United States and Israel of ceasefire violations, primarily because Israel is reacting in self-defense to Hezbollah strikes. But the reality is that the Iranian regime and its terrorist proxy Hezbollah have not stopped violating the ceasefire ever since it was announced. Araghchi’s statement appears to have been a little more than a justification for cutting off negotiations, and he evidently assumes that leftist Western politicians and media will repeat his lies without fact-checking.
The president had seemed, as usual, optimistic about the progress of negotiations on Sunday evening. “Iran really wants to make a deal, and it will be a good one for the U.S.A. and those that are with us,” Trump insisted on TruthSocial, blaming both Democrats and members of his own party for giving him too much advice. “Just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end – It always does!” Trump added. It is not completely clear what he meant by that, as the Iranian regime and all fundamentalist Islamic jihad dictatorships with which America has dealt have always violated every deal or simply refused deals altogether. In any case, Trump told NBC News on Monday that Iranian officials had not informed him about the cutoff of negotiations, but he wasn’t too worried either way.

I think we’ve been talking too much if you want to know the truth. I think going silent would be very good, and that could be for a long time, Trump said during an NBC News interview. “It doesn’t mean we’re going to go and start dropping bombs all over there. We’ll just go silent. We’ll keep the blockade”. He added, “I think I can wait as long as they want. They’re losing a fortune.”
It is not clear how long such a stalemate can continue, driving up gas prices, before it is too problematic for Republicans going into the midterms. Swiftly destroying the rest of Iran’s top leadership might not be the choice the American government wants to take, but it is likely the only effective one. The Iranian mullahs will never make peace with the “great Satan,” America, much as we want peace.
The Iranian regime fired on U.S. targets again on Sunday. On June 1, U.S. Central Command posted, Last night at 11 p.m. ET, U.S. forces successfully intercepted two Iranian ballistic missiles targeting American forces based in Kuwait. These missiles were immediately defeated and no American personnel were harmed. U.S. Central Command remains vigilant and will continue to protect our forces from Iranian aggression while supporting the ongoing ceasefire.

Wasting away time. That way you can’t lose.

• Iran Denies Progress Despite Hasty Lebanon Truce (ZH)

State media has belatedly responded to Trump’s Monday claim that talks between the US and Iran are back on. Trump has even said Tuesday that he expects an agreement for an extended ceasefire to take place “over the next week” – along with the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

“An informed source says that the exchange of messages between Iran and the US has been stopped for at least a few days for what is called the initial memorandum of understanding between Tehran and Washington,” Fars reports. So this is Iran in effect saying ‘not so fast’ – as it seeks to ‘hold the cards’ and maintain some leverage. Trump has not indicated a willingness to resume bombing the Islamic Republic, but his patience has seemed to be wearing thin over the last several days, as the White House is boxed in to only choosing among several ‘bad options’ in the wake of launching a war of choice 95 days ago.
Oil spikes on the negative news from Tehran, extends: And more confirmation via newswires: “An Iranian source says there is currently no message exchange with the U.S., contradicting claims of ongoing progress. The source reports talks on an initial understanding have stalled for several days. It also noted Iran’s last communication with Washington concerned Lebanon and drew international attention, despite President Trump stating negotiations are advancing rapidly.
Latest on the Lebanon front: “American sources for AI Hadath: Proposal for a 60-day plan during which Israel withdraws gradually from southern Lebanon”: AI Hadath reports.n”Negotiations propose the deployment of the Lebanese army and UNIFIL in southern Lebanon after Israel’s withdrawal.” “Lebanon seeks to resolve Hezbollah’s weapons file politically, but after Israel’s complete withdrawal.”
Lebanon Fighting Persists Amid Nominal Ceasefire
Various regional and international reports have documented serious ongoing fighting in Lebanon, despite President Trump the day prior having declared that the shooting will cease and that Hezbollah and Israel were forging a limited ceasefire. Trump had said of both sides that “they agreed that all shooting will stop” – after Iran announcing it had suspended peace talks with the US over Israeli military action in Lebanon.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did affirm he would adhere to the agreement, and reports say that planned new airstrikes on Beirut were called off, but he also warned the attacks on the capital would go ahead “if Hezbollah does not stop attacking our cities and civilians” – and that forces in the south would continue operating.
BBC has freshly written that “While the ceasefire appears to be largely holding, there was further violence overnight.” The same report details: Hezbollah said its fighters had targeted Israeli tanks in the southern Lebanese towns of Haddatha and Bayada with missiles and shells. The Israeli military said it had intercepted two projectiles that had been fired from Lebanon in the early hours of Tuesday. No injuries have been reported.Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported Israeli strikes on several southern areas and said a “very violent” explosion from a large-scale demolition rocked the town of Debbine.
Tuesday has witnessed some ongoing attacks on south Lebanon, as well as Hezbollah drone attacks on Israeli troop positions, wounding some. According to some of the latest from Al Jazeera: Israeli forces have carried out multiple air raids on the city of Nabatieh, one of the largest in southern Lebanon, our colleagues on the ground report. The city, a strategic hub for Hezbollah, has been encircled by Israeli forces in recent days as troops continue pushing north.
Israeli attacks were also reported across the wider Nabatieh district as Israel deepens its occupation of surrounding areas. Drones hit the towns of Kafr Sir and Aabba, while a strike targeted the road leading to Houmine al-Fawqa. The outskirts of Yahmour al-Shaqif were also hit.
There’s also been a lot of explosions in the southern city of Tyre, with Israeli jets active in the airspace above on Tuesday. And rescuers have recovered six bodies from another town, with Lebanese civil defense agency having said in a statement: “Since yesterday evening and continuing until this morning … personnel have been carrying out search and rescue operations in a residential building that was targeted in the town of Marwaniyah – Sidon district.”

Iran talks about one inch at a time with many miles to go.

• Trump: It’s ‘Fake News’ That Iran & US Stopped Speaking Days Ago (ZH)

President Trump in a fresh Truth Social post has again insisted that Washington and Tehran are talking again. “The conversations between us have been going on continuously… where they lead, one never knows, but as I told Iran, ‘It’s time, one way or another, for you to make a Deal.'”

Throughout the morning Secretary of State Marco Rubio was fielding questions on Capitol Hill. He too insisted that talks are ongoing, despite a Tuesday Iranian denial. He claimed the regime is ‘fragmented’ and because of this, back-and-forth messaging is extremely slow-going. “Iranian people would make a deal tomorrow if it were up to them,” Rubio said. “The Supreme Leader and the IRGC are a bit more immune to pressures.”
He also generally acknowledged that Iran has effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz, and then said this justified the US naval blockade of Iranian ports in turn. There was also this interesting exchange when he echoed Trump’s line that the war is actually ‘over’ at this point…Hawks like Ted Cruz want to know of any other regime change tactics going on…

Marco Rubio:

I'm not aware of any program to arm civilians in Iran to overthrow their government.

I mean, there may be other countries doing it, or other groups doing it, but certainly not the U.S. government. pic.twitter.com/tYVeSbWVqE
— Clash Report (@clashreport) June 2, 2026

A potential new nuclear framework regarding Iran was also a central topic to Tuesday’s Congressional testimony:

Marco Rubio:

Iran would be like North Korea, but worse, if they got nuclear weapons.

They would destroy the State of Israel, and you wouldn't be able to do anything about it because they have a nuclear weapon. pic.twitter.com/5TDGPNBY1W
— Clash Report (@clashreport) June 2, 2026

Big if true, there is still too much smoke and noise:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that Iran has agreed to discuss previously off-limits aspects of its nuclear program, raising hopes that ongoing negotiations could pave the way for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a broader diplomatic breakthrough. Speaking at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the State Department’s budget request, Rubio said: “We are in talks… There is the prospect before us, which could happen today, it could happen tomorrow, it could happen next week, that for the first time, certainly in my memory, they have agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear program.”
He said the U.S. hopes such negotiations could lead to a broader understanding that would include the reopening of the strategic waterway. “We’re hopeful that something like that could happen, in which the straits would reopen, we would enter into a period of negotiations on very specific topics, delineated negotiations, in the hope of reaching an outcome that’s acceptable to us and something they would be able to do as well,” he said. The above was spoken with a few too many caveats… “which could happen today, it could happen tomorrow, it could happen next week…”
Rubio in the hot seat over Iran war:
.@SecRubio shuts down @SenBooker: "No one's 'begging' for anything here. The Iranians might be begging — because their economy is losing hundreds of millions of dollars a day."

"I don't know where you're getting this perception that Iran is stronger. Iran has no navy left.… pic.twitter.com/XHVerZeo8D
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) June 2, 2026

“Pulling back from a politically vulnerable fund doesn’t mean retreating from the fight. It keeps the focus where it belongs.”

• Trump Pulls Back Before the Fund Becomes the Story (David Manney)

Axios is reporting that President Donald Trump’s administration appears ready to drop the proposed $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund, and the move may prove smart. The concern behind the fund remains real: Federal power did get used as a political weapon, and Americans deserve answers, names, records, hearings, firings, and prosecutions where evidence supports them. From Just the News. The Trump administration is reportedly planning to cancel plans to create a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” amid bipartisan backlash, Axios reported, citing “two senior administration officials.”

The Department of Justice announced the fund as part of a settlement to President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns by contractor Charles Littlejohn, who pleaded guilty. Originally intended as a fund to allow the victims of alleged political weaponization by the Biden DOJ, the fund drew backlash from Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike over concerns it could be used to enrich Trump allies. Yet even a well-intended remedy can become a political trap when critics get to define it before victims ever get heard.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the fund on May 19 and described it as a process for people harmed by lawfare and government weaponization. The Department of Justice said the settlement would create a path for claims tied to political targeting. The purpose makes sense. People crushed by selective prosecution, federal pressure, or political intimidation shouldn’t have to absorb the damage quietly while the officials who caused it retire with pensions and book deals. The trouble came from the structure, not the principle.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema temporarily blocked the fund on May 29 after a challenger argued the program lacked legal authority and could allow poorly supervised payouts. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams also reopened Trump’s IRS case to examine the settlement behind it. bThose moves didn’t prove the fund was wrong; they did prove the plan had become vulnerable, and vulnerability in Washington has a way of swallowing the original purpose.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and other Republicans questioned the fund’s broad reach. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) asked Blanche for more transparency. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) attacked the fund as corrupt and promised a fight. Schumer’s outrage was predictable, but Republican caution deserved attention because it showed how easily the fund could shift the debate away from weaponized government and toward the mechanics of compensation. From the Associated Press.
Senate Republicans who are returning to Washington on Monday say they won’t have the votes to pass the Homeland Security spending bill until the White House works with them to place parameters on a new $1.776 billion settlement fund designed to compensate Trump’s allies. But Trump has shown little interest in doing so, even after a judge temporarily halted any payouts.It’s unclear how they will settle the dispute.
The Trump administration is “going to have to come up with some suggestions and ideas,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said before the Senate left town on May 21. Thune, of South Dakota, said that the settlement money — some of which could potentially go to Trump supporters who beat police and attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — “just makes everything way harder than it should be.”
The impasse over the “anti-weaponization” fund could be an inflection point as Republicans try to keep their majority in this year’s elections and advance their agenda. Trump’s campaign year push to defeat GOP lawmakers who he sees as disloyal, including some of Thune’s most reliable Republican votes in the narrow 53-47 Senate, has only added to the tension. Trump has a stronger lane available: investigate the abuses, release the records, put officials under oath, let inspectors general dig, let prosecutors bring cases where the facts meet the law, and fire federal employees who misused power.
FBI Director Kash Patel can keep weaponizing concerns near the center of bureau reform, and Blanche can pursue accountability without giving opponents a clean opening to call the whole effort a payout scheme. Trump’s opponents want the argument to move away from FBI abuse, IRS misconduct, selective prosecution, and federal retaliation. A $1.776 billion fund makes that easier for them; when every hearing could become a fight over “payouts,” every victim could get buried under questions about eligibility, favored allies, and who approved the checks. Trump doesn’t need to carry extra weight into a fight he can win with documents, witnesses, sworn testimony, and the record left behind from the Biden years.
Victims of weaponized government deserve justice, and a future compensation process may still deserve consideration if Congress builds it with clear limits, public oversight, and narrow rules. For now, the better path runs through exposure and accountability; Congress can hold hearings, agencies can release files, prosecutors can pursue charges, and judges can review misconduct. The Trump administration has many lawful ways to prove that federal power punished enemies and protected friends. Pulling back from a politically vulnerable fund doesn’t mean retreating from the fight. It keeps the focus where it belongs.

Erdogan simply arrests his opponents.

• This Crisis Could Make or Break Türkiye (Sadygzade)

Türkiye’s domestic political landscape has entered a phase in which judicial decisions, intra-party struggles and strategic calculations by the authorities are becoming increasingly intertwined.

The arrest of Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul from the center-left opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), in 2025 and the subsequent court decision to remove Ozgur Ozel from the leadership of the CHP and transfer control of the party back to its previous leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu represent two connected episodes within a broader political process. They suggest that the Turkish political system is preparing for a period of heightened uncertainty, in which future elections will be seen not merely as a routine electoral procedure, but as a contest over whether the system which has been shaped over the past two decades will be preserved or revised.
A rival in Istanbul
Imamoglu was detained on March 19, 2025 on charges of corruption and abuse of office, and was later arrested. The timing was especially significant, since the CHP was preparing to name its candidate for a future presidential race, and Imamoglu was widely viewed as the most likely figure to be nominated. By that moment, his political weight had already moved far beyond municipal politics. After his victory in Istanbul, he had become one of the most recognizable figures in the opposition and a potential national rival to Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Istanbul has always been exceptionally important in Turkish politics, being the country’s economic center, a symbol of political legitimacy and the place where Erdogan’s own national career first took shape. The rise of Imamoglu therefore meant the emergence of an opposition figure capable of weaponizing urban discontent, the demand for economic normalization and expectations of institutional renewal. His arrest moved political competition from the sphere of electoral rivalry into the sphere of legal and administrative control.
Destabilizing the opposition
The current court decision regarding Ozgur Ozel should be seen as a continuation of the same strategy. The judicial removal of Ozel from the leadership of the CHP (over alleged issues regarding the legitimacy of the party congress and procedural violations) and the transfer of control to Kemal Kilicdaroglu effectively sets the country’s main opposition force back to its previous configuration.
Ozel took over the CHP after Kilicdaroglu’s defeat in the 2023 presidential election and became a symbol of the party’s attempt at renewal. Under his leadership, the party achieved major gains in the 2024 municipal elections, demonstrating that the opposition could not only criticize the government, but also expand its electoral base. The return of Kilicdaroglu objectively alters the balance inside the opposition, damaging its ability to preserve mobilization before the next electoral cycle.
Preserving decades of work
A restrained analysis of this situation requires attention not only to the interests of the authorities, but also to the bigger picture of a state operating in a complex external and internal environment. Judging by its recent steps, the Turkish leadership is seeking to preserve control over a political direction it considers strategically important. Over the past two decades, Türkiye has significantly transformed its position in the international system. It has become a more autonomous regional actor, strengthened its defense industry, expanded its military presence in neighboring regions and used foreign policy more actively as an instrument of national positioning.
For the current leadership, a change of power would mean the risk of revising the entire trajectory built under Erdogan. This includes the presidential system, foreign policy autonomy, the defense industry, policy in the Eastern Mediterranean, and relations with Russia, the West, the Middle East and the Caucasus. The authorities therefore seek to minimize the possibility of a sharp political turn at a time when the regional environment is becoming increasingly unstable.

“Washington’s global supremacy has become its own tar pit”.

• This Is The Dangerous Myth Holding America Hostage (Bordachev)

The United States is caught in a trap of its own making. It wants to preserve its unique position in world politics, while at the same time freeing itself from the growing burden that this position imposes. Yet Washington hasn’t found any way to do so except by insisting, ever more loudly, on its own superiority so the result is that America clings more tightly to the very role it should have consciously begun to abandon long ago.

There’s an old story from ‘Uncle Remus’s Tales’, the famous collection by the American writer Joel Chandler Harris, in which Br’er Fox sets a black doll made of tar and turpentine by the roadside to trap Br’er Rabbit. The rabbit greets the doll, mistakes its silence for rudeness, grows angry and strikes it. His paw sticks so he strikes again, and the other paw sticks and the more furiously he fights, the more completely he is trapped. This is increasingly what American policy looks like in its struggle to preserve hegemony. The US has become stuck to its own global role. It wants to escape the costs of maintaining that role, but every attempt to do so only entangles it further. In trying to defend the “tar baby” of global primacy, Washington is forced into ventures that are costly militarily and for its reputation.
The latest example is the unprovoked attack by the US and Israel on Iran. Washington would clearly prefer not to be dragged into a wider Middle Eastern crisis, yet it has once again acted in a way that makes such entanglement more likely. It wants the privileges of hegemony without the liabilities, but the two cannot be separated. In its struggle with this tar-covered scarecrow, the US damages not only its obvious rivals, Russia and China, but the wider international order. At the center of that order stands the UN system and the institutions built after the Second World War. These structures have long served Western interests, but they also provided a degree of predictability. Now they are being undermined by the very power that once claimed to defend them.
Russia, China and many other states view this process with mixed feelings. None has an interest in a sudden collapse of American power, still less in the collapse of the American state itself because for a century, the United States has been a central factor in global development and the great diplomatic game. Its abrupt disappearance would create not freedom, but rather chaos. At the same time, it’s obvious that America’s struggle to preserve hegemony is weakening it but this process can’t simply be reversed. The United States is trying to reformat its global presence because it no longer has the resources to sustain the model of engagement that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century.
Its economic model shows little sign of being capable of the transformation needed to restore the “golden years” of global leadership. Appeals to modern technology, however loudly advertised, look more like temporary devices to avoid deeper change than a serious renewal of American power. Russia, China and many others therefore watch America’s internal difficulties with a certain satisfaction. They expect that the gradual weakening of the US position will eventually make it possible to speak with Washington on more equal terms and to formalize a fairer world order.

“When you’re out of something, it’s it. That’s it. It’s over… it’s instantaneous.”

• Europe Has “Serious, Really Serious Problems” If US Cuts Oil Exports (ZH)

Last night, the Abaxx Markets’ Jeff Currie and Veriten’s Arjun Murti joined Real Vision’s Ash Bennington for a ZeroHedge Debate on what the oil market is getting wrong. Surprise surprise… the EU is not looking good. But the U.S. may be in trouble too. Currie doubled down on his reserves-to-run-dry-by-July call. They each gave their outlook on structural supply constraints that existed before the Hormuz debacle, whether the latest ‘ceasefire’ can be trusted, and where the price is headed and how quickly it’s headed there. Despite signs of relief in the Mid-East, many signs still read bullish oil (and thus bearish cost of living).

Currie’s July 4th Doomer Call
Currie on his recent warning that global oil inventories could run into serious shortages as early as July: “There’s a misnomer that the eight billion barrels of oil that you see in storage around the world is all usable,” he said, noting that fuel is not homogenous (jet, diesel, gasoline, etc.) and that 8 billion is not actually that much… “Every single energy analyst says sometime in that July, August is when you get into pretty serious problems.”
The current calm in prices, Currie said, reflects seasonal demand weakness rather than a genuine easing of supply constraints. “Why you haven’t seen this? We’re in the seasonal low of demand,” he explained. “April and May it goes down like this, and then June it just goes straight up five million barrels a day.” Murti agreed that shortages are likely to emerge region by region and product by product… where one country runs out of jet fuel, another gasoline. He added that developing Asia appears particularly vulnerable while Europe remains heavily exposed after years of energy underinvestment.
Asked how long it takes for shortages to be felt once inventories are exhausted: “When you’re out of something, it’s it. That’s it. It’s over… it’s instantaneous.”

pic.twitter.com/DNrstsJMDL
— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) June 2, 2026

Turns out Exxon agrees with Jeff…

Exxon is saying that oil prices will rise to $150 to $160 in coming weeks pic.twitter.com/xI2PRsuhH7
— Josh Young (@JoshYoung) May 31, 2026

Which Countries Will Feel The Most Pain?
According to Murti: China looks good, rest of Asia… not so much. EU not great. America too complacent but likely OK. “Europe might be able to avoid shortage by the fact that they’re still rich enough to outbid those less fortunate Asian countries for the cargoes that you have… blase attitude on the part of Americans, American investors, even American politicians, about how serious of an issue this is… we’re not going to face shortages like the 70s, but go tell that to the people of you know Malaysia and Pakistan.”
According to Currie: Asia will be fine thanks to China “taking care of its neighbors” but Europe is screwed. “Europe is the one that’s the most exposed, and the only reason they don’t have problems is that the United States is exporting everything they have to Europe right now…” And while China has been building up inventory, “Europe, on the other hand, didn’t invest in any brown. They got serious problems, really serious, problems when the Americans don’t export to them.”

”Bureaucrats always believe that interventionism did not work because there was not enough of it.”

• Interventionism Undermined Growth In The UK & Canada (Lacalle)

Governments are terrible at picking winners and even worse at choosing losers. Net zero and interventionist “Keynesian” policies in Canada and the UK have proven that government intervention has created a worse outcome than anyone would have expected. The result is higher costs, distorted incentives, and weakened productivity growth, with increased dependency on fossil fuels to attend to peak demand, exactly what Austrian economists predicted. What has been sold as a recipe for prosperity and “green growth” has in practice eroded affordability while failing to deliver stronger, sustainable expansion.

It is not surprising to see that the world’s examples of green interventionism, the UK and Canada, have become economic failures. Years ago, some argued that these policies needed time to prove their success. Now, it is not even debatable that the stagnation and recession in the UK and Canada are self-inflicted. Net zero in Canada and the UK is not a single policy but an entire regime of targets, regulations, limits, subsidies, and new bureaucratic requirements. The Canadian federal plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 combines rising carbon taxes, prescriptive regulations, technology mandates, and public investment schemes intended to steer capital away from fossil fuels and into politically selected “green” projects.
In the UK, the government’s “Net Zero Growth Plan” is also built on regulatory limits, spending commitments, and industrial policy designed to phase out conventional energy and reshape entire sectors through top-down planning. This is a classic example of interventionism. The state attempts to override market price signals and entrepreneurial judgment to engineer a politically preferred energy and industrial structure and achieves the opposite of what it wants to deliver.
Rather than relying on decentralized knowledge, competition, technology, and creative destruction, dispersed among millions of consumers and firms, net zero regimes assume that politicians and regulators know exactly which technologies should win, what the “right” energy mix ought to be, and how fast the transition should occur. In an open market, prices and profits coordinate production across time, and entrepreneurs interpret prices as signals about real scarcities and consumer preferences. However, net-zero policies deliberately tamper with these signals.
Carbon taxes, subsidies, and regulatory mandates change relative prices not because underlying preferences or scarcities changed but because policymakers decided that certain activities should be penalized and others subsidized. All this is justified by a completely ideological and unreliable assumption of externality costs, where governments present themselves as the ones that know precisely what those alleged externality costs are and try to push a pricing signal imposed through ideology, creating enormous distortions that, ultimately, end benefiting the “old” and “loser” industries.
Governments are not worried about the failure of these policies. Bureaucrats always believe that interventionism did not work because there was not enough of it. Therefore, they impose additional burdens and regulations while portraying themselves as the solution to the inflation and stagnation problems they have caused.
In both Canada and the UK, this has pushed vast amounts of capital into projects that are unprofitable and can only subsist due to policy support rather than genuine market demand. “Green industrial strategies” crowd out investment in other sectors, especially in traditional energy and manufacturing, even when those sectors still deliver higher value at lower cost to consumers. Austrian theory predicts that politicized credit and subsidies will generate malinvestment: projects that look viable under distorted interest rates and prices but which fail to cover their costs once the policy support is withdrawn or the fiscal burden becomes unsustainable.
Canadian long-run productivity growth has fallen from annual rates above 3% in the postwar decades to less than 1% since 2000, despite repeated waves of policy activism and “pro-productivity” rhetoric. Chronic underinvestment in business capital and weak technological progress as key drivers of this decline, suggesting that the policy mix has not created an environment for genuine, bottom-up innovation. The more that investment decisions depend on regulatory favor and subsidy access, the less they depend on entrepreneurial assessment of consumer wants and long-term profitability.
Net zero has also harmed affordability in exactly the way Austrian economists would expect when governments interfere with relative prices. Carbon pricing, renewable mandates, and restrictions on fossil-fuel projects increase energy costs directly by making reliable sources of power more expensive or scarce. These higher input costs then cascade through the economy to transport, food, housing, and manufactured goods, eroding real wages and living standards. [..] .

There’s no shortagee of Americans who see iran winning.

• Iran Decides to Take Matters in Hand (Paul Craig Roberts)

As I finished writing the article below, Iran decided to take matters out of the hands of Trump and Netanyahu. The decision was a consequence of Netanyahu’s order to the American-provided Israeli Air Force to commence the bombing of civilian residential areas of Beirut, Lebanon, and warning the residents to flee their soon to be ruined homes. The Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon has again been halted by the Hezbollah militia, the third time the Israeli Army has been stopped by a mere militia.

Frustrated at Israel’s impotence on the ground, Netanyahu decided to take it out on citizens in Lebanon’s capital further north distant from the battlefield where the Hezbollah militia stopped the Israeli attack. Thanks to Washington, Israel makes up for its inability to perform on the ground with its American Air Force, which its opponents of choice do not have.When defeated on the ground, Israel bombs civilians. The only thing the IDF is good for is murdering women and children.
The Iranians told Netanyahu that Iran’s Armed Forces will not tolerate any more Israeli barbarism in Lebanon and Israel had best evacuate its own cities. Netanyahu quickly backed down on his planned bombing of civilian housing in Beirut suburbs. Trump, who emerges each day as ever more a pathological liar tried to cover up the Iranian defeat of Washington and Israel by claiming to have convinced Hezbollah to stop embarrassing Israel by stopping their advance in southern Lebanon. There is zero chance that Hezbollah will cede southern Lebanon to Israel.
Now that the stupid Israelis assassinated all of the Western influenced Iranians, and they are out of the picture, Persia is re-emerging. Iran, not Israel or the US, is the regional power in the Middle East. Iran withstood a joint US-Israeli attack and forced the two defeated enemies to ask for a cease fire. It was a mistake for Iran to grant one. But the Iranians have recognized their mistake and have recovered from it.
Destruction awaits Israel if the Satanic Zionists pursue the war, and destruction will be the fate of the corrupt Persian Gulf States that sold out Islam to Israel. American prestige in the Middle East is at its end. Iran prevailed alone, without any help from the pusillanimous leaders of Russia and China, “leaders” afraid of their own shadow.
Despite the earth-shaking development of Iran’s ultimatum to Israel and by implication to Trump, I am leaving the article as I wrote it, because it shows the extent to which the two-bit-punk United States is dishonored by the total subservience to Israel of the Tump regime, the US Congress, Israeli-owned presstitutes, Christian Zionists, and cowards afraid of the Israel Lobby.

Israel Has Blocked Trump’s Exit from the War with Iran – Paul Craig Roberts
Israeli Security Minister Ben-Gvir declared that Israel ‘Will Not Allow’ Trump to Make a Peace Deal With Iran, because the Zionist agenda “is an endless and wide regional war” to achieve Greater Israel. Ben-Gvir was good to his word. He escalated Israel’s violation of the US-Iranian ceasefire by bombing Lebanese civilians and, thereby, forced Iran to pull out of the talks. Iran’s state media reported:
“Given the continuation of the Zionist regime’s crimes in Lebanon, and considering that Lebanon was among the preconditions of the ceasefire, which has now been violated on all fronts … the Iranian negotiating team is suspending talks.” Trump, being the Israeli puppet that he is, actually provided the weapons Israel used to violate the agreement, thereby forcing Iran out of the ceasefire. Instead of being angry with Netanyahu, Trump said he is happy the peace talks are over. Washington, Trump says, will wait out the Iranians. Trump overlooks the possibility that the Iranians will finish off US presence in the Middle East.
Clearly, Israel is running America’s policy in the Middle East while they are integrating the US military into Israel’s and eliminating Israeli critics in the US Congress. There are no Israeli critics in the Trump regime. Only total subservience to Israel.

And PCR has found a kindred spirit:

“We now know why Israel had Trump remove Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie from Congress.”

• The Israelization of the United States Military Is Proceeding (Philip Giraldi)

Congress is considering passing a bill that will give Americans serving in the Israeli army US government provided full benefits like education, jobs and medical care just as if they had been serving in the United States military. Indeed, the legislation currently working its way through Congress would, for the first time in American history, treat service in a foreign army both legally and in practice as equivalent to service in the US armed forces — but only where that foreign army is Israeli. House Resolution 8445, sponsored by Republican Congressmen Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania and Max Miller of Ohio, would amend existing legislation so that Americans who enlist in the Israel Defense Force (IDF) are treated “in the same manner as service in the uniformed services” of the US.
Not surprisingly, many of the “Americans” involved are also dual national Israeli citizens. If the changes come into effect the result will be to considerably and uniquely narrow the gap between Israel and the US in terms of rights and benefits but with benefits going only in one direction, i.e. to serve Israeli interests and with the US taxpayer paying the bill!“In addition to that, the most recent US government gift to Israel sponsored by the United States House of Representatives, a misnomer as the House is actually the Knesset West, is the national Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2027 released on May 13th. Section 224 of the House version of the Act entitled “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative” integrates “US-Israeli military research and development, co-production of weapons systems, licensing agreements, AI, directed energy, data integration, and missile defense.”
It creates the framework for “bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and seemingly every manner of US-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation.” The result is to completely connect the functionality of the US military with that of the Israeli military. The implementation of the agreement would arguably do more to irreversibly link the US military to the Israeli military than the $200 billion in military assistance Israel has received from the United States since its founding in 1948. “Critics note how Section 224 would combine the US and Israeli defense sectors in many areas particularly vital to the battlefields of the future, including autonomous systems and cyberwarfare.
It would also greatly increase Israeli influence over the US beyond what it already has through the Israel Lobby and its dominance of the mainstream media. It would enable Israel to expand or start new co-production facilities like it already has in a number of states, giving the Israeli government additional leverage through providing jobs in the US, thereby securing friends in Congress whose districts are affected. The result could well be a White House backed by Congress that is even more prone to go to war based on the Eretz “Greater” Israel fantasies of people like Netanyahu and his insane Security Chief Itamar Ben-Gvir.
“A persistently pro-Zionist Congress has accomplished this shift in the relationship quietly, almost secretly. Though it has been done clearly channeling through the White House and Netanyahu’s leadership, it has been obtained without the knowledge and consent of the American people to whom the US government is allegedly responsible. And, of course, all the integration expenses will be borne by the US taxpayer. Interestingly, of course, it should also be noted that the integration of the US military with that of Israel comes at a time when the American public is expressing unprecedented levels of distrust in and dislike of the Israeli government. That is perhaps no coincidence as Netanyahu seeks to create unbreakable legal and administrative ties between the two countries though with little in the way of obligations on the part of Israel.”
We now know why Israel had Trump remove Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie from Congress. Their opposition would have made the American public aware of the takeover of America by Israel.

“Climate goals”.

• Letitia James Sues Trump Admin Over $1 Billion Deal To Stop Offshore Wind (JTN)

New York Attorney General Letitia James is leading a coalition of blue states in a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its $1 billion deal to end an offshore wind project. The Interior Department announced in March that it would pay nearly $1 billion to the French energy-and-petroleum company TotalEnergies to shift its investments in offshore wind to oil and gas infrastructure. Additionally, the company will invest in the development of offshore oil and shale gas production.

In exchange for the investments, the federal government agreed to terminate offshore wind leases off the coasts of North Carolina and New York and reimburse the company for the loss of those leases, which are worth approximately $928.3 million. James’ lawsuit argues that the deal will harm the plaintiff states’ economies, their energy grids and the states’ climate goals, the Associated Press reported. The complaint was filed in District Court for the District of Columbia and names Trump administration officials, including Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
The lawsuit asks the federal judge to vacate the lease cancellation and settlement agreement with TotalEnergies’ subsidiary, Attentive Energy. State attorneys general from Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Jersey are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

“..Biden famously declared at the time that her husband was brilliant in the debate, and denied he was showing signs of mental decline.”

• A “View from the East Wing”: Jill Biden’s Fantasy Book Tour (Turley)

Jill Biden’s book is not even out yet — and she’s already trying to get it displayed on both the fiction and the non-fiction shelves. From her husband’s mental decline to the pardoning of her son, the former first lady has moved from the historical to the fanciful. Thomas Jefferson once wrote that “honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom” — but if her promotional interviews are any measure, that chapter appears to be entirely missing from “View from the East Wing: A Memoir.” Last week Biden faced a torrent of criticism, including from Democrats like her former spokesperson, over her claim to CBS News that she thought her husband’s debate meltdown meant he might have been suffering a stroke.

The interviewer didn’t mention the fact that Biden famously declared at the time that her husband was brilliant in the debate, and denied he was showing signs of mental decline. Now, Jill Biden is rewriting the history of one of the most infamous lies Joe Biden ever spun. While running for office, Biden and his staff repeatedly insisted that he would never pardon son Hunter Biden under any circumstances. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre became indignant and mocked reporters who continued to ask about a pardon after the then-president had repeatedly promised not to do so. Now Jill is saying the pardon was the obvious and right thing to do.
After all, she insisted, “Then the Justice Department changed. And I think that the process was not fair to Hunter.” “When Trump was elected,” she added, “we knew that he would target Hunter.” Just one problem: It was her husband’s Justice Department, and two different panels of jurors, who convicted Hunter. Indeed, even juries in the Bidens’ home state of Delaware and the heavily Democratic state of California declared him guilty. The only pending matter was his sentencing before the same judges that President Biden assured us would be allowed to resolve the cases. Indeed, even after those convictions, the Biden administration declared that the president would not break his promise and pardon his son.
Presidents have long waited until the final days of their terms to grant controversial or self-serving pardons — like Bill Clinton’s pardon of his own brother. However, none but Joe Biden had made the denial of such a pardon an issue in his presidential campaign, and none had repeatedly denied any possibility of it. Yet Jill Biden’s new claim shows the Bidens view the public as chumps and dupes who will blindly accept anything that the establishment gives them. “I truly supported it,” she now insists, because “we just could not let our son go to jail on a charge that no one would go, I mean, no one has ever gone to jail for.”That is also demonstrably untrue.

The family wants/needs money.

• So, That’s Why Jill Biden’s Book Is Coming Out Now (Matt Vespa)

Former First Lady Jill Biden is creating issues for Democrats with her book about her time in the White House. No one wants to hear it, as the couple has yet to accept responsibility for their part in their party’s crushing defeat by Donald Trump in 2024. The most loyal Biden allies at the White House aren’t happy with this work; some even call it a web of lies.

Like the Biden White House, this book tour hasn’t shed much light on the inner workings of this failed presidency. It’s still a guarded effort, with Jill avoiding tough issues like her husband’s declining health, which was obvious toward the end of his disastrous run at 1600. She isn’t open about what happened on debate night or her husband’s mental decline, though there’s an interesting detail about how Kamala Harris influenced Joe’s decision on an endorsement when he dropped out. So, why did she write this book?
First, it’s tradition—a book of some sort was going to happen. But former MSNBC analyst Mark Halperin noted the most obvious reason: they need money. Hunter Biden isn’t doing his government access stuff anymore after that got exposed, so this family, which has numerous members and hordes of grandchildren, needs to keep raking in the dough: And when it comes time to plug the book, Jill really wasn’t enthusiastic about it, so they know this thing is a grenade.

Feels like East Germany 1955.

• Mamdani Announces Possible Transfer of Housing to Tenants (Turley)

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised in his inaugural address to introduce New Yorkers to “the warmth of collectivism.” It now appears landlords will likely to be the first to feel the heat. This week, Mamdani revealed an effort to transfer properties to tenants and non-profit groups. Mamdani announced that “through our new citywide campaign, Fix the City, we will focus on the worst landlords in New York City.” For landlords, it has been clear that the fix was in for some time. Mamdani faced criticism for his appointment of Cea Weaver as the new director of the Office to Protect Tenants.

She previously called for efforts to “impoverish the white middle-class” and called homeownership “racist” while demanding the seizure of private property. Videos of Weaver echoed thread-worn socialist mantras that are the signature of the Mamdani Administration. “I think the reality is, that for centuries we’ve really treated property as an individualized good and not a collective good,” she said. “And transitioning to treating it as a collective good and towards a model of shared equity will require that we think about it differently and it will mean that families — especially white families, but some POC families who are homeowners as well — are going to have a different relationship to property than the one that we currently have.”
Weaver famously tweeted out her beliefs about private property, which are apparently widely shared in the Mamdani administration: “Private property, including and kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of White supremacy masquerading as ‘wealth building’ public policy.” Other socialists on the national level have pursued the same policies to target landlords. In pushing national legislation, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) joined fellow Democrats in calling for the passage of the HELP Act to “crack down” on some evictions and bar the use of evictions on credit reports. Pressley has declared that “evictions are an act of policy violence.” Mamdani insists that he will be targeting “the worst landlords in New York City.”
Yet, who constitutes the “worst landlords” could prove a relative notion to the ardent socialist. Mamdani proposes to transfer their properties to “responsible stewards,” including tenants and nonprofits. In his 112-page report, Mamdani is again pushing to unleash his “Block by Block agenda for expanded rent controls, promising not to exempt landlords from Rent Guidelines Board limits. He and his allies have previously heralded Cuba and South Africa as models for policy changes. Mamdani faces a considerable challenge in fulfilling his pledge to build 200,000 new affordable homes, with an additional 200,000 stabilized units over the next decade. There is reportedly only a 1.4 percent rental vacancy rate, with 100,000 New Yorkers sleeping in shelters each night.
Rent controls have generally been a disaster, reducing landlords’ ability to make improvements to their properties. They cannot recoup those investments due to rental limits as costs, particularly insurance, skyrocket. The result is a type of planned failure. As landlords postpone improvements, they are often cited by the city in housing hearings. When those findings and fines increase, the landlords risk being declared “negligent” and subject to a transfer due to unpaid citations. There is no argument that the worst landlords warrant the loss of their properties. But transferring such properties to tenants or non-profit groups is a new and costly form of subsidy.
Ordinarily, delinquent properties can be sold on the free market to pay off outstanding debts. That allows neglected properties to be put to the most profitable use, which in turn generates more taxes and jobs for the city. If these properties go to non-profits or tenants, that can further reduce the city’s tax revenues. More importantly, neither tenants nor nonprofit organizations have a proven track record of maintaining properties without substantial city subsidies. It is a mirage created by activists, hiding the true cost to taxpayers. Mamdani continues to pursue policies that will suppress, not surge, new construction. His administration is requiring construction companies to pay a minimum of $40 per hour for city-funded affordable housing, which will further discourage investors.
He announced a $22 billion subsidy for housing costs, with 25 percent going to the New York City Housing Authority. These increased costs will likely grow as fixed budgetary items for the city. Although it is economically dubious, it is politically dynamite. Much of Mamdani’s support comes from young people who have no memory of or experience with the failures of socialist policies in the twentieth century. He simply promises things like free buses or city-run grocery stores as if they can be supported by free money without addressing their true costs.
His grocery stores show the same economic sleight of hand. The city is planning to spend $30 million to create the first store — four times what such stores normally cost. On top of that cost, it was discovered that the city had already appropriated $25 million for the improvement of the site. That is $55 million for a site that will not go on the market for the highest bidders, but rather be operated by the city at a loss.

https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/2061862911568421263?s=20

Yes https://t.co/a571kBNNH8
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2026

The execution across Elon Musk’s companies right now is operating at an unprecedented scale

• SpaceX — The largest IPO in history expected around June 12
• xAI — Grok V9 (1.5T parameters) launching mid-month to push the frontier
• Tesla — Unsupervised FSD Robotaxis actively… pic.twitter.com/wPAYPawXJb
— X Freeze (@XFreeze) June 2, 2026

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/2061815682786808185?s=20

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