Ukraine Archives - The Automatic Earth

The Terafab is going to become the largest and most valuable building on Earth by a long shot.

This is so much more than just another semiconductor fab.

It’s going to be @Tesla, @SpaceX, xAI, and Intel building what will become the most important AI manufacturing complex EVER… pic.twitter.com/NebcmBQOtY
— Teslaconomics (@Teslaconomics) August 6, 2026

Wow. https://t.co/C5CEiUNOSG
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) August 7, 2026

Elon Musk is building the world’s first 100 million square foot building.

It will be used to crank out artificial intelligence to power humanity.

Just insane! pic.twitter.com/YFPHan858v
— Anthony Pompliano 🌪 (@APompliano) August 7, 2026

It will be awesome 😎 https://t.co/Wo41m2Cfpm
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2026

Both sides declare themselves the winner. As foreseen. Are they also both happy?

• Bessent: Today or Tomorrow the Strait will be Open (ZH)

Importantly, Reuters reports late in the day Friday that Washington plans to lift the naval blockade on Iranian ports once the Oman deal is finalized and announced, which Bessent earlier said could be as soon as ‘today or tomorrow’. If the US were to back down militarily in the Gulf, it would cede effective control of the vital waterway to the Iranians. Per Reuters: Progress is being made between Iran and Oman on the Strait of Hormuz and “we expect a deal soon,” a U.S. official told Reuters on Friday.

Once a deal is announced to restore commercial shipping without impediments, the United States will lift its blockade of Iranian ports, the official said. “There is progress between Oman and Iran on the Strait, and we expect a deal soon,” the official said. “Once the deal is announced to restore commercial shipping without ` impediments, the United States will lift the blockade of Iranian ports.” Iran’s FM is declaring ‘victory’ saying that in the “face of the word’s most expensive military” his country’s forces demonstrated their might and capability…

Iran's Powerful Armed Forces have shown their readiness, capability, and might in face of the world's most expensive military.

When Muslims stand together, we can face every challenge by malicious outsiders head-on.

Time to rely only on ourselves and embrace true brotherhood.
— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) August 7, 2026

Iran has announced that under the ‘finalized’ Oman-Iran scheme and ‘deal’ for management of the Hormuz Strait that “enemy countries” (read: US and Israel) may only transit the waterway after lifting sanctions and paying compensation for the war. While this was not issued by the Foreign Ministry or top leadership per se, it does appear to represent Tehran’s overall position, after on Thursday it first declared that US and Israeli-linked ships will not be allowed Hormuz transit under the Oman plan:
Tehran Mayor says Passing through the Strait of Hormuz is subject to the lifting of sanctions and the payment of compensation: “The countries that have attacked Iran will not have the right to use this strait until compensation is paid. Governments that freeze Iranian assets or continue to impose sanctions and threaten the nation will be deprived of this strategic boon.”
While Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has appeared to back the Omani plan to reopen the strait, the US State Department has also newly warned on Friday that more ‘decisive action’ will be taken to cut off sources of Iran’s funding. Bessent has newly stated that… “I think shortly, maybe even today, tomorrow, we are going to see an agreement, a 30- to 60-day ceasefire, and the Strait will be open.”
This is somewhat surprising, but as we described below, it seems a final Washington exit is indeed in motion, even if it leaves Iran with greater leverage in the region. Like Trump’s latest comments Thursday night, Bessent seems in ‘mission accomplished’ mode with this newly published interview…

Bessent on Iran:

We have them by the throat, and they've got 150–180% food inflation, not able to pay the troops.

I think shortly, maybe even today, tomorrow, we are going to see an agreement, a 30- to 60-day ceasefire, and the Strait will be open.

Energy prices should come… pic.twitter.com/C1vGuQUIRM
— Clash Report (@clashreport) August 7, 2026

This really does sound like ‘it’s finally over’ talk…

Bessent on the Strait of Hormuz:

The strait is never going back to the way it was because the Iranians have used, or tried to use it, as a choke point.

What we are going to see over the next two years, the strait is going to become irrelevant.

It is going to become just… pic.twitter.com/LP8evMbeJP
— Clash Report (@clashreport) August 7, 2026

“I think it’s going to end pretty soon. I don’t think they can go much longer. “I think we’re doing fine.”

• Trump’s Muted Response To Hormuz Deal (ZH)

President Trump’s latest Iran comments came Thursday night, after a prior day wherein Iran and Oman unveiled their ‘finalized’ Hormuz management scheme, which most notably includes a ban on all US and Israeli vessels in the energy transit waterway. As we reviewed earlier, the White House has appeared to genuinely be searching for an exit strategy, but this stipulation alone may be too hard a pill for Trump to swallow, if accurate – given that it obviously leaves Iran in de facto control of the strait. Many pundits have pointed out it even leaves Iran with more leverage and power in the region than before the launch of Operation Epic Fury.

But this is why Trump’s comments to reporters in the Oval Office Thursday evening are surprising, given that instead of reacting angrily and outright condemning the Iran-Oman plan, his reaction was somewhat muted and meager. Doves who see this war as disastrous and hope for quick exit will welcome the development. “I think it’s going to end pretty soon. I don’t think they can go much longer,” the president said, while leaving his meaning ambiguous. Asserting once again that the US is involved in negotiations with Tehran (something the Iranians have been vehemently denying all along), Trump added that “I think we’re doing fine.”
The only thing Trump truly got angry about Thursday was related to the domestic side of the conflict, after US major media published several reports saying the Pentagon is perilously low on missiles and interceptors, which have been drained after nearly six months of war. He blasted ‘treasonous’ ‘fake reporting’ and even threatened to jail ‘leakers’ over the reports (the inherent contradiction says a lot here).But again, Trump’s penchant for raging against ‘dishonest’ and ‘evil’ Iranian leaders has been curiously absent over the last several days as the US bombs have fallen silent – after he called off planned ‘harder’ strikes over the weekend (or the last big TACO moment, among many prior).
This relative quiet at the White House comes even after Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf openly mocked the United States and Trump’s theatrics and constant changes of course on X. He wrote Thursday: “Massive attack coming… wait, never mind, they want to negotiate.” That’s theater diplomacy on loop. Using bullying + broken promises + fake news as leverage is a failed strategy. Acknowledge the facts and fulfill your commitments. We don’t need more theater.
All of this change in Washington tone and posture suggests this could finally be the moment for a true offramp, as the US faces a ‘go big or get out’ realization, and as the prospect of slogging through months more of a developing quagmire becomes too politically and economically costly. This is potentially the declare ‘victory’ and get out moment. As former Congressman Ron Paul has put it: Just Walk Away!

Trump: I think the war with Iran will end pretty soon. I don’t think they can go much longer.

Q: Have you reached a deal to reopen the strait of Hormuz?

Trump: It’s sort of open right now. pic.twitter.com/J3lcPyuVwM
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 6, 2026

That guy in the photograph is the president. Who in Iran has no power. The Ayatollah does, but there’s no recent photos of him.

• The Iranian President’s Bizarre Meeting With the Supreme Leader (Athena Thorne)

As President Donald Trump continues to play Schrödinger’s Deal with Iran, those of us watching from the sidelines and wondering how long this will go on are also wondering something else: With whom exactly is the United States trying to make a deal? More to the point: Who is even running that country anymore? In Iran, the president is tasked with managing the country’s day-to-day operations, but he ultimately answers to the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah. Meanwhile, the Ayatollah is the ultimate head of state, and no deal can conceivably happen without his sign-off.

It is well known that Masoud Pezeshkian has served in the role of president for the past two years. Where things get fuzzy is trying to pin down who the Supreme Leader is these days and how much he is in control.
“One of the most interesting and/or odd things about Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion has been the speculation about who is leading Iran after the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,” my venerable colleague Stephen Kruiser wrote back in March. “Once it was confirmed that his son Mojtaba would be succeeding him, rumors were running wild about the state of his health. No one was sure if he was all dead, half dead, a quarter dead, or fit as a fiddle and looking to relocate somewhere with fewer bombs. That’s still the case. It’s been quite a bizarre sideshow to the seriousness of the war.”
And to this day, no one has seen hide nor hair of the alleged Supreme Leader in public. I’m sure part of the reason for that is security, but still — he could at least release a video to assert himself. Perhaps he is grotesquely disfigured and hides himself away from the world’s cruel gaze, à la Phantom of the Opera. Maybe he’s nothing more than a brain in a jar hooked up to a gut sack. No one knows.
To this end, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian made multiple demands to meet with Khamenei last spring. After he threatened to quit if he did not receive an audience, the Ayatollah relented, and a meeting took place in May. Pezeshkian later “told a gathering of trade association representatives that he had spent two and a half hours with the new leader ‘in a cordial atmosphere,'” reports Iran International.
But the outlet is now saying that the president’s characterization of the meeting is nothing like what actually took place. Based safely in London, Iran International claims that sources say the encounter was more like something out of a political crime thriller: The meeting itself was a concession extracted under pressure. Khamenei’s office agreed to it only after repeated requests from Pezeshkian and his threat to resign, the sources said, and the president was informed that, contrary to standard practice, he would not be received at the leader’s usual residence.
Instead, his security detail delivered him to an undisclosed location somewhere in Tehran. There he was taken from his own vehicle and seated in the back of a commercial car with tinted windows, where, apparently, Khamenei was already waiting. The spot was dark enough that the two men could not see each other, and Khamenei’s guards did not permit a handshake. The conversation was carried entirely by voice.
Due to the security risks Khamenei was facing, and after having (allegedly) narrowly escaped a targeted bombing with his life, one can excuse a certain level of paranoia from the Supreme Leader. But what was with the darkened interior and the prohibition of a handshake? Did his arms get blown off or something? Iran International’s sources said the Ayatollah’s elusive behavior “angered Pezeshkian, who regarded it as humiliating. According to individuals in the president’s office, he later asked whether the person beside him had in fact been the supreme leader, since he had only heard a voice in the dark.”
“It is unclear whether the remark was an expression of anger or genuine doubt,” Iran International notes. Further, “Pezeshkian has since requested a second meeting, this time at the leader’s residence. The request has so far been denied.” Sounds like we might have a “President” Joe Biden situation on our hands, where an incapacitated figurehead is propped up by a shadowy cabal that runs the country in his name. One wonders how the U.S. can possibly finalize an existential deal with a country in such a state of leadership crisis.

“Apparently, the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO is increasingly being dismissed as unrealistic. Even the regime’s most hardline officials seem to have lost hope regarding Kiev’s accession to the Western military alliance, considering that such a move does not serve NATO’s current strategic interests.”

• NATO Won’t Accept Ukraine. Promises Are Fairy Tales (Lucas Leiroz de Almeida)

In a recent statement, Valery Zaluzhny – Ukraine’s current ambassador to the UK, former head of the country’s armed forces, now widely considered Zelensky’s top rival – asserted that Kiev will never join the Atlantic defense bloc. According to him, promises of membership are merely “fairy tales” that do not reflect reality.

Zaluzhny stated that he is very familiar with NATO’s internal structures and understands how the bloc actually operates. According to him, promises regarding Ukraine’s entry into the bloc are nothing new. Over the course of 12 years working alongside alliance officials, Zaluzhny says he constantly heard such promises, yet saw no particular reason to believe they would materialize now.
While lamenting that the alliance will never truly accept Ukraine as a member, Zaluzhny criticizes the current situation of the Western bloc, asserting that NATO’s military doctrine is outdated, making the alliance strategically inferior to Russia. Zaluzhny believes it is urgent for NATO to undergo comprehensive military reform and revise its doctrine to align with contemporary realities. He believes Ukraine could contribute to this process but regrets that this will not be possible, given the alliance’s refusal to accept Ukraine as a member.
“I know NATO very well (…) or about 12 years, I personally worked to ensure that we adopted NATO standards, and every year I listened to fairy tales that we were about to join. Unfortunately, we will never join it (…) NATO will most likely remain in its current form and will spend another 12 years – just as Ukraine did – transitioning to the standards required to reach even half the level of the Russian Federation,” he said.
Zaluzhny, however, does not entirely rule out the possibility of Ukraine joining a Western military organization. While acknowledging NATO’s lack of interest in admitting Ukraine, he alleges that his country could eventually join a “European military security bloc.” This would only be possible, however, if EU nations and the UK agreed to move forward with creating a regional military alliance outside the NATO umbrella – something many analysts doubt will happen, given American influence over European decision-making.
In fact, there are some interesting points in Zaluzhny’s statement. He is correct in stating that Ukraine will never be accepted into NATO. The Kiev regime plays a very specific role in NATO’s war plans – precisely that of a proxy or external ally. NATO cannot include Ukraine as a member, as doing so would force the alliance to intervene directly in a war against Russia, which would obviously be a disaster, possibly even nuclear. In this sense, Ukraine’s role as a military proxy is only viable as long as the country remains outside the Western defense bloc.
He is also right to criticize NATO’s outdated strategy regarding Russia. In fact, NATO decision-makers have never moved beyond the military doctrines of the last century. This has been clearly reflected in the current disastrous anti-Russian military campaign, in which the Kiev regime, guided by NATO, is suffering substantial losses.
Zaluzhny, however, fails to point out how Ukraine is ignoring its own military tradition on the battlefield in favor of using precisely the same outdated NATO concepts. The military doctrine employed by Ukraine is not autonomous. Ukraine shares a military history with Russia rooted in their Soviet and imperial pasts. If the Ukrainians were following their own military doctrine, they would be using tactics similar to Russia’s -focused on preserving soldiers’ lives rather than conducting large-scale direct combat campaigns.
However, the Ukrainian armed forces follow NATO orders, which is why they use outdated warfare techniques unsuited to the reality of contemporary combat -characterized by high technology and the massive use of drones. So, in practice, Ukraine would have nothing to add to NATO regarding military doctrine, since the country already adopted NATO’s own doctrine when it agreed to act as a proxy.
A common argument used by proponents of Ukrainian accession is that the country could contribute to NATO with its real combat experience. In fact, the country has been facing Russia in a large-scale conflict for four years, gaining combat experience that no Western alliance nation possesses. The problem, however, is determining how much of the Ukrainian military apparatus will remain once the conflict ends. The regime has already lost nearly its entire original military contingent and is now relying on forced mobilization to keep its forces active. In this scenario, that experience may count for little, given that the soldiers involved in combat are mostly untrained men sent to certain death on the front lines.
If NATO didn’t want Ukraine before – when it had the second-largest army in Europe – it certainly won’t accept it now, when it is a failed state fighting with the help of its civilians snatched off the streets. The Ukrainian dream of membership seems increasingly unattainable.

“The US president reportedly told Republican donors “We need to elect JD [Vance],” despite publicly maintaining ambiguity..”

• Trump Makes Private Revelation About Successor – WaPo (RT)

US President Donald Trump has privately indicated that he wants Vice President JD Vance to succeed him in the White House, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. During a closed-door Republican donor meeting in the Oval Office roughly two weeks ago, Trump reportedly said, “at the end of the day, we need to elect JD.” The remark contrasts with Trump’s public refusal to endorse a 2028 successor. He has praised both Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, suggesting they could even run on the same ticket.

The newspaper said that despite the apparent declaration of support, the president continued asking aides after the donor meeting which of the two would make the stronger presidential candidate. Several advisers also cautioned that Trump frequently tells different things to different people and could still change his mind. Trump has since dismissed the WaPo report, telling a journalist on Thursday that it was “way too early to even be thinking about” officially endorsing anyone, according to the New York Post.
Trump aides widely agree the president will delay formally endorsing a successor to avoid appearing to be a “lame duck,” WaPo wrote, adding that aides are only expecting an official endorsement after the 2026 midterm elections in November. Under the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution, a president is limited to two elected terms, whether consecutive or non-consecutive. Trump, who returned to office last year after serving from 2017 to 2021, is therefore constitutionally barred from seeking another term in 2028, despite occasionally joking about the possibility at rallies and on social media.
Neither potential contender has announced plans to run. Vance has repeatedly said he remains focused on serving as vice president and will decide whether to seek the presidency only after the midterm elections. Rubio, meanwhile, has recently reduced his media appearances to avoid fueling speculation about his 2028 ambitions, according to WaPo.

“At the same time, Trump stood firm that he believed the GOP would come out on top..”

• Trump Says He Could Be Last Republican US President (TASS)

President Donald Trump warned that the Republican Party may never get another president into the White House if the Democrats take control of Congress.”And I’ll tell you what, if they [Democrats] get in, I may be the last Republican president,” he said in an interview with Punchbowl News. At the same time, Trump stood firm that he believed the GOP would come out on top, but said the Senate will have to “get smart” for that to happen. The US midterm elections will be held on November 3. One-third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives will be up for election. Both chambers of the US legislature are currently controlled by the Republican Party.

It’s controversial because it’s Trump.

• US Appeals Court Halts Trump Ballroom Project, Supreme Court Next (BBC)

The Trump administration has been ordered to stop construction on President Donald Trump’s $400m (£297m) ballroom at the White House. A federal appeals court dealt the latest setback to the controversial project on Friday, testing Trump’s presidential authority and paving the way for a Supreme Court showdown on appeal.

“Whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help,” the panel’s majority said. The order upholds a preliminary injunction won by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued after the administration tore down the East Wing last year to begin the project without congressional approval.

“Congress has not ceded unfettered authority to the Executive Branch to dramatically redesign, reshape, and reconstruct the White House , the People’s House, to fit a particular President’s desires,” the panel said. The three-judge panel, in a 2-1 decision, said: “Each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence.” “The President has no, and claims no, constitutionally assigned authority over that property, which is designed and maintained for the use of all Presidents, current and future, and for the American people,” the opinion said.
The administration appealed to the court after a federal judge twice blocked above-ground construction on the ballroom, while still allowing underground work to proceed.The ruling on Friday upholds that order blocking above-ground construction without congressional approval. The appeals court delayed implementation of its ruling for 14 days to allow the Trump administration to appeal to the Supreme Court. Construction at the site where the East Wing previously stood was previously ordered to stop, but a court delayed the ruling allowing construction to continue while the appeals court considered briefs and heard arguments last month, according to the BBC’s US media partner CBS.
President Trump has asserted that the new ballroom is needed to “accommodate people for grand parties, State Visits”, and has also said that it is “vital for National Security”. He doubled down on the need for the space after an assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in April. The three-judge panel on Friday said that its ruling “has nothing at all to do with whether the proposed ballroom is desirable”, nor does it weigh in on whether the administration may ultimately construct the ballroom.
“What it does mean is that the Defendants may not do so during the district court’s expeditious litigation without securing Congress’s authorization, as the Constitution and laws require,” the order said.= The National Trust for Historic Preservation celebrated the latest ruling, noting that no above-ground construction can take place “unless and until” Congress takes action. “The White House, a global landmark that symbolizes American identity and the ideals of democracy, belongs to the American people,” said Brent Leggs, President and CEO of the National Trust. “The National Trust for Historic Preservation and its partners are proud to defend this irreplaceable monument on behalf of all Americans.”

No gracious exit for her.

• Hillary Clinton Blasts Trump’s ‘Tackied Up’ White House Decor (CNN)

Hillary Clinton blasted President Donald Trump’s overhaul of the White House in an interview posted Friday, telling podcast host Kara Swisher that Trump’s “tackied up” decor is “reminiscent” of dictator Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Iraq. “It’s sad to me — it’s sad that it’s so tackied up, and it’s a reflection of, you know, his narcissistic personality and his need to feel important, including sticking gold embellishments all over the walls of the Oval Office,” the former secretary of state told Swisher on her “Pivot” podcast.

“This is a man who, his mind apparently goes to, ‘Where can I add more gold?’ instead of, ‘How do I get out of Iran without looking like the loser that I am?’” As first lady, Clinton herself oversaw renovations to the White House Blue Room, but has emerged as a fierce critic of Trump’s massive overhauls to the White House complex, posting, “It’s not his house. It’s your house. And he’s destroying it,” shortly after the administration began demolishing the White House East Wing to make way for the president’s proposed ballroom last year.
“The next president is going to have a big decision. What do you do with a half-finished ballroom?” Clinton said in the interview, referring to it as a “carbuncle on the side of the White House.” Asked what she would do, Clinton replied: “I don’t know.” In a statement responding to her comments, White House spokesman Davis Ingle pointed back to the 2016 presidential election, when Clinton lost to Trump. “Hillary Clinton never had the opportunity to decorate the Oval Office as president because she suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of President Trump, which she has never recovered from,” he said.
Since returning to the White House in 2025, Trump has sought to leave his own mark on the building, affixing gold detailing on the surfaces of Oval Office and throughout the West Wing. In December of last year, he unveiled the “Presidential Walk of Fame” along the White House Rose Garden colonnade, complete with plaques featuring politically-tinged dings against his predecessors — partisan barbs White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed he wrote himself.
And he’s been publicly preoccupied with renovation projects throughout the District of Columbia, including scandal-plagued efforts to refurbish the National Mall’s reflecting pool and erect a 250-foot “triumphal arch” across the Potomac River. Speaking with Swisher in Friday’s interview, Clinton joked she’d be willing to take on the role of “Secretary of Taking Down the Gold” after Trump leaves office. “Wouldn’t that be a good idea? Secretary of cleaning it up, fixing up,” she said.

Just about power. Raw.

• Democrats’ Anti-Trump Lawfare Was Never About the Law (Matt Margolis)

Long before Donald Trump took the oath of office for his second term — heck, before he was even reelected — Democrat state attorneys general were already building the machine designed to stop him. Records show that at least 22 Democrat attorneys general joined a coalition called the Project for Federal Accountability starting in April 2024, roughly seven months before Trump defeated Kamala Harris. Seven attorneys general signed the agreement on April 28, 2024. Thirteen more joined in May and June.

The pact was called “Privileged & Confidential Common Interest Agreement.” It was built to do exactly what it sounds like: Keep the states’ coordination hidden from the public and from anyone who might dare oppose them in court. The signers said they wanted to pursue their shared legal interests “while avoiding any waiver of the confidentiality of those privileged materials.” Translation: Total secrecy while colluding against a sitting president who hadn’t even taken office yet.
To me, the most significant part of this pact is that Biden was still in the race when the first signatures went on that agreement in April 2024. He wouldn’t drop out for nearly three months. The sitting Democrat president was telling the country he intended to serve another term, the party was acting like he was going to win, all while Democrat attorneys general were already plotting to stop Trump upon his inevitable return to office.
The coalition had already divided up legal research by topic, built a shared “brief bank” of pre-drafted briefs, and pored over the Project 2025 policy blueprint hunting for lawsuit targets. Trump hadn’t signed a bill. He hadn’t issued an executive order. He hadn’t taken any official action as president, because he wasn’t president yet. None of that mattered. The lawsuits were already being written. Since Trump’s second term began, Democrat attorneys general have sued his administration close to 100 times.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D-Calif.) has taken part in 82 of those lawsuits. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser (D-Colo.) has joined at least 75. Washington Attorney General Nick Brown (D-Wash.) has joined 70. Bonta insists the coalition’s work is “apolitical.” Seriously? He also said, “If (Trump) doesn’t want to get sued, all he has to do is follow the law,” adding, “I don’t think our cases are likely to be dismissed… Trump shows no sign of slowing down, so we will continue to sue him.”
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown (D-Md.) claims the early coordination was reasonable preparation once Trump’s nomination looked inevitable, but this confirms that the strategy was always about resistance, not the rule of law.Even people outside the conservative media world find this strange. Retired Connecticut judge Thomas Moukawsher mocked the coalition’s chosen name: “‘Federal Accountability?’ That’s just a little strange.” Former Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, a Republican who now often votes for Democrats, called the secrecy “not normal at all.”
You think?
California alone has burned through $19 million in taxpayer money on this litigation crusade, with another $25 million already authorized. New Jersey tucked $1 million into its fiscal year 2026 budget just to fund two new staff positions dedicated to the coalition’s work. That’s right, taxpayers are literally footing the bill for a legal ambush that was planned before Trump even won the election. Imagine all the other things California could have wasted more money on. Democrats can claim all they want that this is about accountability and the rule of law, but it’s just blanket resistance. And if you live in a blue state, you’re paying for it.

“They were settler colonialists.”

• Israel’s Critics Have a History Problem (Victor Davis Hanson)

We’re hearing a lot of charges since Oct. 7th that Israel has committed a litany of war crimes. Let’s examine them very carefully because I think they tell us more about the accuser than they do the accused. We’re told by a lot of representatives in our own Congress, mostly on the Democrat side, not all—Tucker Carlson, for example, Candace Owens, but also Zohran Mamdani and others have said that Israel is an apartheid state. In other words, it has racial enclaves.

But there’s nothing in the Israeli constitution that requires you to be Jewish. In fact, there’s 2 million Arabs living freely, voting freely inside Israel. In contrast, of the 22 member Arab nations, almost all of them require Islam as the national religion. And of the 30 Muslim countries, Arab and non-Arab alike, about 23 of them make it a crime to be an apostate from Islam. Does anybody ever say that these are apartheid states?
Do you really believe that if you were of a trans community, you could start a movement in Iran? Could you have a Mormon chapter on the West Bank? Could you build a new cathedral of Christian worship in Istanbul today under [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan? You think there’s a gay rights parade going on in Gaza? No, no, these are apartheid. They eliminate and marginalize communities. Let’s look at another charge that we hear: settler colonialist. This means that Israel, uh, were interlopers.
Let me ask you something. In modern-day Israel, we have archaeological and linguistic evidence that Jews were living there 3,500 to 4,000 years ago. People who spoke early Hebrew, who practiced the Jewish faith, and lived on the land that is now Israel. If you want to talk about settler colonials, where did the Arabs come from? They swept in from Asia into the Middle East and North Africa and, as settler colonialists, conquered Byzantine and earlier Roman territories that had been Western for 700 years.
The greatest church in Christendom was Hagia Sophia, built in the sixth century A.D. by the Emperor Justinian. It was the largest and most revered church in Christendom for 1,000 years. And yet, in the 15th century, settler colonialists under the sultan came in and conquered and settled and took over Asia Minor from the Byzantines. And they slapped minarets on and culturally appropriated a Christian church and turned it into a mosque. They were settler colonialists.
Mamdani’s family are settler colonials. They were part of a British imperial project at the turn of the 19th to 20th century that put settlers from other areas of the British Empire into Africa to help advance their colonial control of the Indigenous people. And even today, Mamdani’s 1% Indian community controls 65% of the gross domestic product of Uganda. Settler colonialist. I could go on, but this is a ridiculous charge to lodge against Israel when, of all of these settler colonial powers, it has the longest pedigree in one place.
Now we hear about ethnically cleansing, ethnic cleansing. We’re told that the Israelis ethnically cleansed the Gazans and often people in the West Bank. I don’t know quite what that means, but before I try to translate it, we do know there’s a lot of ethnic cleansers. Erdogan, the president of Turkey, has threatened to send missiles both into Athens and into Israel. His government, not his own, but the Turkish government, of which he is a continual successor, ethnically cleansed all of the Greeks from Northern Cyprus and occupied it, and then sent settler colonialists from Turkey. I haven’t heard anybody complain about that.
Is there a protest I missed at Columbia? Did Ilhan Omar forget that, or does she just give a pass to a fellow Muslim country? While Oct. 7th was transpiring, far away in Muslim Azerbaijan, they were ethnically cleansing 150,000 Armenians from their ancestral home of nearly 1,000 years in the Nagorno-Karabakh Corridor. I didn’t hear a word from Ilhan Omar. I didn’t hear a word from [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]. I didn’t hear a word from Zohran Mamdani.
And then we come to genocide. Genocide. The Israelis, they say, committed genocide. And believe me, people who commit genocide, we know who they are, and they don’t vaccinate the targeted population. They don’t send food. They don’t allow medical doctors and suppliers to go into the targeted genocidal people.
But more importantly, when Israel was formed by 1950, there were 170,000 Arabs still in Israel. They comprised 12% of the population. Fast-forward to 2026. Guess what? Genocidal Israel saw the population of Arabs, who are now Israeli citizens, increase to 2 million, and the percentage of non-Jews in Israel who were Arab Muslims increased from 12% to 20%. Genocidal regimes don’t take the targeted victim and then increase the population, both in real numbers and percentages vis-à-vis their own demographics. They just don’t do that.
And if you talk about ethnic cleansing, Hasan Piker, a fierce podcaster and critic of Israel, was born in the United States, but he grew up in Turkey. His parents are Turkish immigrants. Turkey probably is the most genocidal regime of the last two centuries. It wiped out almost a million Armenians in the Armenian genocide. It went into Ionia in 1922 and destroyed, burned down, the Greek city of Smyrna, an ancient city that had a 2,500-year Greek pedigree, and then ethnically cleansed a million Greeks off the entire coast of Ionia. That’s genocidal.

“ . . it’s subversion and nothing about it is accidental. it’s a well worn playbook to use the democratic institutions of a high trust state to destroy a civilization.” —El Gato Malo on Substack

One way, or another, we’re gonna find you, we’re [gonna] gitchya gitchya gitchya. . . .

“This is a hill that somebody’s going to die on, and in America it’s not going to be Americans.”

• The Four Way Squeeze (James Howard Kunstler)

The days might still be long, but this is a dark season in our country’s politics. Everybody’s nervous and many are furious, and yet all that emotion goes nowhere, just eats you up while you watch and wait for signs that help is on the way. What would that help even look like? Maybe a concerted effort to bum-rush a whole lot of bad ideas out of American life and replace them with better ideas that are worth building a life around.

Of the two political parties that used to vie between the interests of property and of labor, there is almost nothing left — nothing coherent, anyway. Mr. Trump & Co. still stand outside a feckless Republican establishment that can only say “no.” That is bad enough, when it comes to vital matters like election reform and sound fiscal policy. But the President is methodically wearing them down with tactical work-arounds such as this week’s use of State Department visa control to prevent foreign visitors coming here just to drop birthright citizens.
Things will get super-serious when the president has to manage the government’s functional bankruptcy, the bond market crack-up under our impossible debt-burden, and all its knock-ons. It’s coming for sure, and will require a stringent reorganization of American finance, probably even of our money itself. That will be a moment when the nation understands what leadership really means, not just endless deception and fakery.
Speaking of which, you have the other party, the Democrats. The Dems, unmoored from the interests of labor (whatever is left of it), are now strictly just the party of bad ideas and crime. The party is also, at this juncture of history, caught in a gruesome four-way squeeze that could easily drag it into extinction. Let’s count them.
First, is the basic basket of ideas that comprise the party’s platform, readily identifiable for some years now as the “Woke” catalog. Virtually all of them are ideas that a majority of the public rejects as insane. A wide-open border. We tried that for four years under the fake president “Joe Biden.” Didn’t work out so well. Added many millions to the free everything dole that actual citizens resentfully have to pay for. Took jobs away from said citizens. Got a lot of (mostly) women murdered and raped. Let in Gawd knows how many foreign terrorists.
“Woke” also includes the DEI products of manufactured race animus and gender confusion, especially as applied in school from K all the way to PhD. Apart from the sheer hatred and idiocy these things generated, they also led to the scrapping of merit and excellence as organizing principles for civilization. Americans increasingly reject all of that.
The second squeeze point is the Democratic Party’s criminal portfolio. The Covid-19 operation was basically theirs. It killed and injured millions, wrecked the integrity of medicine, and brought on the deliberate perversion of our election procedure. It gave us fake President “Biden” and the autopen gang that ran him. Along the way, the party weaponized the law and produced one hoax after another: RussiaGate, Impeachment, J-6, the 2024 Trump trials — treason, sedition, deprivation of rights under color of law, obstruction of justice and much more. These crimes are a huge burden for the party and they are in the process of being adjudicated, and a lot of the party’s heroes will end up in prison.
The third squeeze is the party’s widespread and atrocious racketeering operation. The process of uncovering it has been going on since Jan 20, 2025, but still has a long way to go in terms of courtroom action. The Somali Learing Center in Minnesota, fake hospices by the hundreds in California, Medicaid fraud in state after state. It was generally allowed to go on by state officialdom. We await the eventual indictments of Governor Tim Walz, Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, Janet Mills and many other Democratic politicians.
The Democratic Party racketeering apparatus also included the money-laundering system that kicked back millions of dollars from a matrix of NGOs that washed taxpayer money into the party coffers. USAID was a major mechanism, and has been mostly shut down, but thousands of NGOs still exist and function as employment centers for young party “activists” who otherwise would have to work the espresso machines. A lot of that activism depends on funding from the likes of George Soros, the Tides Foundation, Bill Gates, Neville Roy Singham, and other criminally-tinged philanthropy outfits. Justice is coming for them now, too.
Which redounds directly to the fourth squeeze: the rise of communism and jihad as the Party’s new rallying cries while the other three squeezes work to put the party’s old guard out of business. Communism is the fad-du-jour among Democratic Party youth because the over-production of elites (i.e., college graduates) are increasingly closed out of cushy jobs in the besieged NGO matrix, threatened further by the advent of artificial intelligence, and have been trained-up by the lefty-left college faculties to fall in love with the utopian nostrums of Karl Marx.
Communism is the Party’s last resort and most of America will not buy it, no matter how heartfelt the youth faction appears these days. Americans believe in property rights. They want to own things. They don’t really enjoy being pushed around by kommissars. They want to keep Thanksgiving and Christmas.
As for jihad, it’s hard to imagine a less likely route to the hearts and minds of America. No matter how pissed off you are about Israel, jihad is not the answer to America’s problems. No, Dorothy, Kansas will not be joining the Ummah. You will not have to don the burka. Sharia will not replace English common-law. This is a hill that somebody’s going to die on, and in America it’s not going to be Americans.
Personally, I don’t see how the Democratic Party as currently configured survives this four-way squeeze. If President Trump can succeed in starting to reindustrialize the country — even considering A-I and robots — there will still be a need for human labor and labor will seek some kind of political representation. Maybe they can find it in the hollowed out husk of the thing that used to be the Democratic Party. Otherwise, fuggeddabowdit. The party is toast.

Why does this have to be so hard?

• Sen. Cassidy Backs Todd Blanche For AG, Likely Saving Nomination (JTN)

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., on Friday announced he would support Todd Blanche for confirmation to the post of Attorney General. His support likely saves Blanche’s nomination, which has been on thin ice for weeks. Both GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have announced they will oppose him. Speculation had abounded that Cassidy may join them in an act of revenge for President Donald Trump backing his primary opponent. But Cassidy threw cold water on that prospect in remarks on the Senate floor.

“This is not a referendum on President Trump. It is a decision regarding Mr. Blanche in very specific circumstances.” he said. “All considered, I will vote for Mr. Blanche.””Mr. Blanche is not perfect, and he will tell you this. But the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche,” he added. “It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively under President Trump, and who indeed may not be as good as Mr. Blanche.”
Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas previously dropped their opposition to Blanche after he provided them with written assurances on the end of an abandoned “anti-weaponization fund.”

AfD and Marine Le Pen, and Europe is a whole different place. They’ll fight that.

• Germany Has Reached A New Low In Election Rigging (Amar)

Today’s Germany is a grim, unhappy place. Thirty-six years after West Germany’s take-over of the former East Germany (polite term: re-unification), which was supposed to herald a golden age of national fulfilment, citizens are in a very foul mood. According to Ipsos, one of Germany’s go-to pollsters, their morale is at a “historic nadir,” and they are “losing confidence about the country’s future.”

As of last month, fear of poverty and inequality was “clearly increasing,” with 37 percent of all respondents picking it as their number-one angst, followed by “migration” (31 percent), “inflation” (30 percent), worries over the healthcare system (26 percent) and “criminality and violence” (25 percent). Note that all top five anxieties focus on what is going wrong at home. That doesn’t mean, though, that Germans are optimistic about the world or Germany’s place in it: 24 percent of the Ipsos poll respondents fear “military conflicts between states.”
If the mood is sour, it’s very good reasons: Germany’s abysmally, unprecedentedly unpopular and embattled chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is desperately trying to sell an absurd feel-good story about the German economy as an “anchor of stability.” But that only demonstrates how divorced from reality Germany’s rulers are: In the real Germany that their subjects must inhabit, industrial output is 17 percent below 2017. After the recent roll-out of a perfectly underwhelming “reform package,” business leaders have warned that much more is needed to prevent a “lost decade.” That would be, in effect, the second one in a row.
Meanwhile, Berlin is busy doing two things: cut down public spending on absolutely vital things such as education (next to inexpensive energy, the decisive resource for Germany’s prosperity already sacrificed to the proxy war against Russia) and raze the sorry remnants of social safety nets that have long been in tatters already.
That doesn’t mean Germany is not going into catastrophic debt. It is, as if there’s no tomorrow. The money is flowing in torrents. Just not for Germany’s citizens and tax payers but for Zelensky-regime Ukraine (to the tune of, officially, almost €100 billion and counting) and for an insane armament drive that signals a very unhealthy – if historically repetitive – urge to go to war with Russia. This year, €83 billion is earmarked for weapons; next year it will be €110 billion. And so on: €154 billion for 2028, €163 billion for 2029, and a grand crescendo with €184 billion in 2030.

This is the background of not only a severe national depression but also a search for alternatives. At this point at least, the AfD (Alternative for Germany), an anti-immigration party founded in 2013, is benefiting the most from this crisis. On the rise for roughly a decade now, its momentum has recently greatly accelerated.
A fresh poll for all of Germany has the AfD at 27 percent, outdistancing (again) all other parties, including those making up the radical-Centrist coalition currently in charge in Berlin (CDU – 21 percent, SPD – 12 percent). Perhaps even more importantly, the AfD may well win crucial regional elections in the key eastern Land of Saxony-Anhalt and looks set to do very well in two others – in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin – as well.
In sum, the AfD is probably on the verge of a historic breakthrough that will greatly weaken, maybe even ruin the traditional parties’ longstanding “firewall” strategy of freezing it out of political leadership positions no matter what the people say in elections, in effect half-disenfranchising its voters. This moment is likely to reset the whole German political system at the cost of the establishment parties which are still desperately defending their de facto exclusive hold over political offices, perks, and power.
So, what do you do when you are losing a (barely) fair fight? Easy, at least if you are part of Germany’s self-appointed guardians of democracy, civil society, and wholesome ‘values’ all around: You start playing even dirtier.
In the case of the threat the AfD poses to Germany’s establishment parties, the latter have always toyed with this option: Would it not be just oh-so-convenient to simply prohibit such a troublesome competitor under the pretext that it is so radical and dangerous it does not deserve a fair chance? The perverse dream of ‘saving’ what’s left of German democracy by abolishing the biggest opposition party is by no means dead. Some die-hard Centrist radicals, intriguingly including Germany’s militarist-in-chief minister of defense Boris Pistorius, can’t let go of it.
This has all been accompanied by a mainstream media cacophony of cries of “democracy in danger!” and “Nazis at the gates!” Crazy conspiracy theories included, such as the one recently spread – without being challenged – by a member of the co-ruling SPD party on a mainstream news channel: Let’s just blame the latest Islamist terror attack in Berlin on Russia trying to boost the AfD. In what alternative universe does that make any sense? Welcome to the often unhinged, notoriously shameless, and very ugly world of German mainstream discourse.
The problem with the let’s-just-prohibit-the-whole-lot approach is that having a party banned is, fortunately, very hard under German law. And although Berlin’s establishment parties don’t mind bending the rules to deploy nasty lawfare, they do want to be sure to win. If they try to prohibit the AfD and fail, the latter will only get even stronger, as everyone understands. Indeed, even prohibiting ‘merely’ a part of a party, say, a Land organization, is neither easy nor a sure bet.
But what if there were a way to kneecap the AfD without having to run that risk? What about, for instance, promising AfD candidates could be taken out and removed from elections without having to overcome the high legal hurdles that make full-fledged prohibition so scary? And that is where the Land of Lower Saxony (in the former West Germany and not to be confused with Saxony-Anhalt in the former East Germany) has taken on the role of trailblazer in democracy defense via democracy suppression.
Think of recent events there as a prototype or trial balloon. Based on a very recently passed, as it were, made-to-measure law, local election committees have begun to block AfD candidates from running by invoking especially produced reports from the Land branch of Germany’s domestic intelligence service, the Verfassungsschutz. This is unprecedented and scandalous, as critics are pointing out. In a ludicrously flimsy and absurdly unfair procedure that needs no courts – in this manner similar to EU sanctions-against-dissidents policy – German citizens are deprived of the passive franchise, the right to be elected.

SpaceX is building an AI data center for orbit, then reusing the same brain box on Earth.

Starmind AI1 packs NVIDIA Rubin GPUs and Vera CPUs, solar power and Starlink laser links into one orbital system.

On the ground, Elon says they can remove the solar wings and radiators… https://t.co/sOn9GlqkGx pic.twitter.com/K9yOSH9QSI
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) August 7, 2026

Chamath Palihapitiya on the Tesla-SpaceX merger: "I still don't like the fact that Tesla's over here – and as I've told you, that will get merged in. that thing will look very cheap in a few years"

this is him and Gavin Baker explaining how you underwrite SpaceX at $2 trillion,… https://t.co/xMbMZf57V0 pic.twitter.com/KEeyDE2lVG
— Сarm1ne (@carm1nee) August 6, 2026

Before Elon Musk became the world’s richest entrepreneur, he spent years teaching himself the disciplines behind the industries he wanted to enter.

He studied physics, engineering, manufacturing, software, and rocket science by reading textbooks, speaking with experts, and… pic.twitter.com/5xAfALLhHC
— X Ethan (@XEthanai) August 7, 2026

The Covid Pandemic was planned. Their tests were fake. Their mask science was fake. Their social distancing was fake. Their vaccine science was murderous and fake. Their Media was fake. Their CDC and FDA were fake.

ARREST THEM BOTH NOW pic.twitter.com/8Fjlehi1k6
— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) August 7, 2026

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2085485219931447561?s=20

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Debt Rattle August 5 2026

Aug 052026

August 5, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:41 am Finance Tagged with: assassination attempt, Bessent, Ceuta, Fauci, Mamdani, Rand Paul, Ukraine 27 Responses »

Vincenzo Camuccini La Morte Di Cesare 1804

• Bessent Promises Hormuz Breakthrough: ‘May Have Deal Tomorrow’ (ZH)

• Rubio: “Denuclearization of Iran” is the “Ultimate Deal” (ZH)

• Ukraine Ambassador to the United States Removed from Duty (CTH)

• Another Trump Assassination Attempt May Have Just Been Thwarted (Margolis)

• The EU and the Iron Law of Oligarchy (Stephen Soukup)

• New Signals Point To Another Possible Migrant Invasion Against Ceuta (ZH)

• Mamdani’s War on New York Business Is a Double-Header (Stephen Green)

• New York’s Property Tax Crackdown (Victor Davis Hanson)

• Anthony Fauci Hurt America’s Children … and Her Future (Joseph Ford Cotto)

• Rand Paul Makes His Move Against Fauci (Matt Margolis)

• Sen. John Kennedy Blasts John Thune Over a ‘Huge Mistake’ (Matt Margolis)

• Leading Biden COVID-19 Figure Embraces the Lab Leak Theory (Turley)

• The Last White Generation (Paul Craig Roberts)

POTUS reacts to news that oil companies are reporting record profits:

"They're making too much money. Okay? Based on a shortage, they're making too much money. I don't like it. I should be the last one to say 'cause I'm a big free enterprise guy, nobody bigger."

"They made too… pic.twitter.com/T05NodEip8
— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) August 3, 2026

https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2084425516958781562?s=20

🚨 WOW! RFK Jr read CNN the RIOT ACT 🔥

No wonder CNN is last — they're the Fauci of cable 📉 pic.twitter.com/5to6xNsXGi
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) August 3, 2026

🚨NEWS: Latest polls show Marine Le Pen in FIRST PLACE for French Presidential Elections

She is currently sat with a 19% lead over her nearest rival

It will be a glorious day when she wins pic.twitter.com/MxmpYO9Mb0
— Basil the Great (@BasilTheGreat) August 3, 2026

Despite being a private citizen with no public health role, Bill Gates was involved in high-level COVID briefings and played a direct role in shaping America’s pandemic response. pic.twitter.com/IhYTsLS26q
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) August 3, 2026

There’s movement with Iran. They were saying there’s no talking, but now there is.

“We are in talks with the Iranians, and I think there is a chance we may have a deal today or tomorrow to open the Strait and move towards a more normalized position in this conflict,” Bessent said in an interview with CNBC.

• Bessent Promises Hormuz Breakthrough: ‘May Have Deal Tomorrow’ (ZH)

[..] Washington brought out its heavy hitter to re-anchor the administration’s narrative, seeking to assure markets that a diplomatic deal with Tehran is not only real, but imminent – potentially coming together even as soon as Tuesday through Wednesday. “We may have an Iran deal tomorrow to open Hormuz,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared, signaling that a major diplomatic resolution is within reach. He pointed out that physical maritime traffic is already quietly resuming, regardless of headline volatility.

Bessent gets dragged in to justify "imminent Iran deal" as algos no longer reacting to $100,000 Truth Social API
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 4, 2026

Bessent claimed the administration is seeing “quite a few ships coming out of Hormuz, even now,” suggesting the chokehold is loosening ahead of an actual deal and formal signature. With physical crude flows expected to resume, Bessent predicted that elevated energy prices will soon settle down, paving the way for a massive “relief trade” across broader markets: “We are in talks with the Iranians, and I think there is a chance we may have a deal today or tomorrow to open the Strait and move towards a more normalized position in this conflict,” Bessent said in an interview with CNBC.
Asked if Tehran would be allowed to charge a toll, Bessent said the deal would allow freedom of movement in the strait.”It would be freedom of movement,” he said. “Even though things are still a little dicey there over the past few days, we saw quite a few ships coming out even now.” Of course, we’ve heard all of this before, and notably Bessent’s commentary came just after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian insisted that while Tehran would defend its borders, it does not seek to expand the war, according to state media. An advisor to the Supreme Leader also reiterated that if the blockade continues, US vessels and forces will face serious risks and casualties. And there’s this not so small hiccup in the strait emerging Tuesday:
A vessel has been struck in the Strait of Hormuz near Oman, the UK maritime security firm Vanguard says. One crew member is missing.

🔺 Senior Iranian figure warns US forces will “face serious risks and casualties” if the Hormuz blockade continues

Mohsen Rezaei, senior military advisor to the Supreme Leader and former longtime commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), warned that US vessels… https://t.co/Oozl8C5sLw
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) August 4, 2026

Looming large over all of this is the fact that the Iranians have still denied that they are in formal talks with Washington, which Trump the day prior described as a ruse, venting his frustration while insisting that the Iranians have been engaging. The Hormuz blueprint as it basically stands: Reuters: Iran would gain full control over vessels entering the Strait of Hormuz under a temporary plan being discussed with Oman, an Iranian official says.
Outbound vessels would use the route between Iran and Oman, with Oman approving their exit only after notifying Tehran. The plan would give Iran full visibility over outbound traffic and the ability to intervene if needed and Iran is unlikely to accept any other proposal to open the strait The Bessent clip:

Bessent on Iran:

We've seen Trump, last week, threaten what would have been the largest military campaign since World War II against the Iranians, and now, because of that, we are in talks with the Iranians.

I think there's a chance we may have a deal today or tomorrow to open… pic.twitter.com/mnel0A16O0
— Clash Report (@clashreport) August 4, 2026

“Rubio insisted again that Strait of Hormuz remains open and that vessels are continuing to pass through it..”’

• Rubio: “Denuclearization of Iran” is the “Ultimate Deal” (ZH)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke at the White House Tuesday, just after headlines out of Qatar touting that a new draft deal initiative is gaining momentum. Rubio insisted again that Strait of Hormuz remains open and that vessels are continuing to pass through it, but said the US is working to open it up to bigger vessel transit flows.”I think there is a conversation and a negotiation that we are involved in between Iran and Oman on how more ships can be able to go through there safely in the short term, as we move towards… longer-term talks about denuclearization,” said Rubio. He then emphasized that that the “denuclearization of Iran” is the “ultimate deal”.

But from Tehran’s point of view, this will constitute Washington shifting the goalposts back to square one once again. Iran has insisted it will not negotiate the end of its nuclear program, especially while the conflict is still in an active phrase. It has consistently said that nuclear talks can happen later, only once an agreement to end the war has been accomplished. The two sides continue to be far apart, despite the Tuesday morning onslaught of ‘Hormuz deal imminent’ headlines.
PressTV, however, has said that Iran-Oman talks on opening Hormuz are in a “new phase” – and despite what it calls “US obstruction” – but so far it appears this management scheme will be favorable to Iran’s demands. And yet there’s still some signs of compromise on the horizon:
IRAN WEIGHS ALLOWING EUROPE TO CLEAR MINES IN STRAIT OF HORMUZ

“Over the next two and a half years” pic.twitter.com/x6e8GychXb
— Justin Logan (@JustinTLogan) May 30, 2026

Sundance: “I give it four months, and it’s over..”

“Every Russian move exists silently, almost in isolation from Western media. Every Ukraine move exists loudly, coordinated and promoted for maximum media value.” Did she piss off the nazis?

• Ukraine Ambassador to the United States Removed from Duty (CTH)

Olha Stefanishyna says she resigned. Volodymyr Zelenskyy says she was removed. Regardless of which storyline is accurate, the Ukraine Ambassador to the United States is no longer in position. There is no replacement. Stefanishyna is also under investigation for her connection with financial irregularities involving the Asset Recovery and Management Agency, although she has not been formally charged, yet. The Western narrative, which has continuously looked like an intelligence community shaping, says that U.S. relations with the government of Ukraine have never been stronger. The reality seems to be something else entirely.

Olha Stefanishyna

Aug 3 (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Olha Stefanishyna, in a decree published on Monday. Stefanishyna had been in her job for nearly a year. Her departure had been expected for several weeks.Her departure coincides with a shake-up in recent weeks of top officials, including the replacement of the prime minister and defence minister. A reshuffle of Ukraine’s diplomatic and ambassadorial appointments is also expected. Stefanishyna, writing on Facebook, said the decision to leave her post was “my own decision, driven by personal circumstances … ” and said she had accomplished much during her time in the post. (read more)
I am not going to belabor the points, because I’m told by most my review of the data is incorrect. However, once again, I would simply point out the distinct difference between the preferred Western narrative and the reality of events as they unfold. From the June 11th London visit that preceded the G7 assembly in Paris, things have not made sense when you compare Western narrative to the reality of events. The removal of Stefanishyna is simply just another datapoint. Western media say Ukraine has turned the tide on the war against Russia. Reality – Russia has methodically gained ground in Eastern Ukraine.
Western media say Ukraine has exceptional drone building and technological capabilities to share with allies. To highlight this expertise Ukraine held a drone exposition in Kiev; Russia blew it up killing hundreds of contractors. Media went silent. Ukraine drones attack Wildberries warehouses. Russia blows up drone manufacturing factories. Western media say Ukraine drone capabilities are the most remarkable testimonial to their military effectiveness. Zelenskyy fires the Minister of Defense responsible for the drone capabilities.
Western media say Ukraine is effective in stopping the Russian advancements in the Donbas region. Zelenskyy fires the military general in command of the Ukraine military in the Donbas. Western media say Ukraine long-range drones are striking deep into Russian oil refining capacity. Zelenskyy says he needs to build drone and missile factories in Great Britain. If you want to evaluate the war, go back to the timing of events right after Zelenskyy last went to London and met with King Charles. It was a few days before the G7 summit in Paris. Go back to that exact date and then read the headlines on Ukraine/Russia from that date to today.
If you can be emotionally disconnected from the spin, and just focus on what the headlines would mean in every other timeframe, what you will notice is that Ukraine is panicking. Every move is a panic move from that London visit to today. Every Russian move exists silently, almost in isolation from Western media. Every Ukraine move exists loudly, coordinated and promoted for maximum media value. It looks like an intelligence influence operation. Go look.
The recently organized U.S. Senate sanctions against Russia are mostly directed toward China and India, while framing censorship in the form of punishment against any action that might “undermine” the government of Ukraine. It’s the ‘be careful what you say’ sanctions. Russia is methodically destroying Ukraine defenses, and the only response Zelenskyy has put together is flashy political promotion and media headlines to hide a reality that Russia is methodically destroying Ukraine defenses.
Western media says one narrative; the datapoints show something entirely different. I give it four months, and it’s over. Perhaps, that’s why President Trump: (A) pulled back from Patriot and Tomahawk missile sharing; and (B) has told his team to reengage both sides in peace negotiations now.

Assassination attempts. Quite something to lose count of.. But there you go…

• Another Trump Assassination Attempt May Have Just Been Thwarted (Margolis)

An armed man spent part of Sunday casing Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, snapping photos and videos of the grounds while federal agents watched from a distance. By the time deputies moved in, investigators say he had already zeroed in on something specific: security planning.The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed the arrest in a statement Tuesday. President Donald Trump was in the air aboard Air Force One, en route to California, when word of the arrest broke. He is set to attend a Republican National Committee dinner at that very golf course Tuesday evening.

The Secret Service is now investigating whether the man posed a threat to the president, according to a federal law enforcement source who spoke to CNN. A separate source told the network the investigation remains ongoing.Deputies identified the suspect as 38-year-old Jeanine John Taele of Downey. The El Segundo Police Department is separately investigating him in a robbery case. According to the sheriff’s department, Taele photographed and filmed the property while appearing to monitor what officials called “security-planning activities.” Deputies arrested him on charges of carrying a concealed firearm and possession of prohibited ammunition.
The case escalated fast. Detectives assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force executed a search warrant on Taele’s home Monday, citing the “potential security implications surrounding the incident.” What they found inside should worry anyone still inclined to shrug this off: an AR-style rifle that had been illegally modified, a .45 caliber pistol, body armor, high-capacity magazines, ammunition, and equipment for monitoring radio signals, along with notebooks filled with what the sheriff’s department called “concerning statements.” The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Secret Service are both assisting in the investigation, and officials say additional charges could follow.
It’s hard to see how this was anything other than an attempted assassination, which would make it now the fourth time in two years that a man carrying a rifle has turned up uncomfortably close to Donald Trump. In July 2024, Thomas Matthew Crooks shot at Trump in Butler, Pa., grazing his ear before Secret Service snipers took him out. Two months later, Secret Service agents caught Ryan Routh lurking with a rifle near Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Fla. In April, Cole Tomas Allen attempted to gain entry to the White House Correspondents Association Dinner with a shotgun and other weapons.
Make no mistake about it, a pattern like this does not happen by coincidence. The sheriff’s department is trying to strike a careful balance between reassurance and warning. “Currently, investigators have identified no credible threat to our communities,” the statement said. “However, this case underscores the importance of vigilance, strong partnerships with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, and the proactive steps taken to identify and investigate suspicious activity before it can escalate.”
Whatever Taele’s intentions turn out to be, the arsenal found in his home and his apparent interest in “security-planning activities” at a property Trump was hours from visiting are facts hard to ignore.

“The EU won’t reform because it can’t reform. And so, it will collapse instead.”

• The EU and the Iron Law of Oligarchy (Stephen Soukup)

For most of the last forty years, Spain has been a hub of primarily North African and Middle Eastern immigration to Europe. Since the 1980s, Spain has had six major extraordinary regularizations for its migrant populations. Although different in name and details, these “extraordinary regularizations” are essentially broad general amnesties, grants of legal immigration status to those who entered the country illegally. In 2005, under the former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (a socialist), Spain granted amnesty to more than half a million illegal immigrants.

Earlier this year, under current Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (also a socialist . . . or worse), the country began the process of yet another regularization, the total size of which is unknown at present but is estimated to be between 500,000 and over 800,000. Additionally, earlier this summer, the Spanish Supreme Court issued a ruling limiting the ability of the government to return immigrants who arrived in Ceuta and its sister city, Melilla, by sea rather than by land (over a technical “border”).
All things considered, Spain has done everything in its power to encourage as much immigration as possible, and its government has openly conceded this fact, arguing that demographic and workforce realities make mass immigration an absolute necessity. Unsurprisingly, given all of this, the country’s foreign-born population jumped significantly in less than two years, from approximately 18.2% of the total population in 2024 to 20.3% today.
In light of Spain’s immigration policies and in the wake of the Ceuta disaster, over the weekend, several EU nations called for a suspension of Spain’s privileges under the Schengen Agreement, which allows borderless travel within the Schengen region: no passport control, a unified set of regulations, etc. Predictably, Meloni’s Italy was the first to speak up. Deputy PMs Antonio Tajani and Matteo Salvini announced a formal one-month suspension of Italy’s Schengen relations with Spain, closing Italy’s maritime and air entry points to Spain and introducing “targeted and selective” checks on non-EU travelers arriving from that country.
France followed suit, reintroducing checks at its land border crossings with Spain. Finland began preparing to reimpose border controls along its own Schengen borders, and its interior minister, Mari Rantanen, offered the sharpest public statement by a government official to date: “Spain’s outer border is also our outer border, and. . . they have failed in their efforts to prevent this incursion, this invasion.” Denmark and Czechia both demanded Spain’s suspension from Schengen, but neither has taken unilateral action on its own.
In response, Pedro Sánchez complained that everyone, everywhere, was overreacting, stating that the rest of Europe was being “selfish, polarising, and unlawful.” Taken as a whole, this entire episode—starting with Spain’s admitted desire to import as many immigrants as possible and continuing through this weekend’s demands for Spain’s suspension from Schengen—helps clarify some of the broader issues facing the EU.
First, in the age of mass immigration, Schengen shows clearly that the EU itself was a half-baked idea. Interestingly, Schengen did not start as an EU enterprise. It started as a side agreement between a handful of member states: Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. It was only in 1999, via the Amsterdam Treaty’s Schengen Protocol, that the “Schengen acquis” (the whole body of Schengen rules and agreements) was formally absorbed into EU law. In 2004, the EU—as opposed to its member states, a key distinction—tried to push a European constitution on its members, including provisions formally mandating Schengen compliance, making the EU “an area without internal frontiers, in which the free movement of persons is ensured. . . .”
The following year, French and Dutch voters explicitly rejected the constitution via referenda, which should, by all rights, have been the end of it. The EU being the EU, it decided that it wouldn’t take no for an answer and scaled the constitution back marginally and re-presented it as the Lisbon Treaty, which, among many foolish things, formalized and mandated participation in the Schengen migration policies.
Second, the Euro, the immigration mess, and the EU’s unwillingness to accept the will of the people as definitive confirm Robert Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy and show that the EU’s pretensions to “democracy” are rather laughable. Michels was a student of Max Weber, the founder of modern sociology, who sought to deepen his appreciation of socialism by studying the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), the most avowedly democratic, mass-participatory political organization in Europe at the time. He presumed that he would find a functional, egalitarian organization that confirmed all his fantastical priors.
Instead, what he discovered was the opposite. He concluded, based on his study, that even organizations explicitly founded on democratic principles—universal participation, elected leadership, accountability to the membership—invariably develop into oligarchies, ruled by a small, self-perpetuating leadership class. It is simply the nature of large organizations. This, then, is Michels’ Iron Law of Oligarchy: “It is organisation that gives birth to the domination of the elected over the electors, of the mandataries over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organisation, says oligarchy.”
The EU is an oligarchy in Michelsian terms. It is governed by a small self-perpetuating ruling class that sees “the people” as impediments to its technocratic program and will do whatever is necessary to advance its agenda, regardless of the will of those people.
Finally, the EU will crumble. All Utopian enterprises eventually do. They must. They can’t help but do so. And while it may not be the monetary union that brings it down, something will. Maybe it will be Schengen and immigration. Maybe it will be something else. Who knows? Whatever the case, it will, eventually, collapse. The real, painful part of Michels’ Iron Law is the inability of oligarchies to reform themselves. They are incapable. What this suggests is that the EU’s response to the Ceuta incident and to Spain’s immigration unilateralism more generally will be to add more layers of centralizing regulation to the already oligarchical system, thereby making a bad problem even worse.
The EU won’t reform because it can’t reform. And so, it will collapse instead.

The EU yesterday complimented Spain on its reaction so far… No kidding.

• New Signals Point To Another Possible Migrant Invasion Against Ceuta (ZH)

The scenes from the Ceuta invasion were deeply alarming, as 60,000 predominantly military-aged men, many carrying no supplies, crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave. The invasion set off alarm bells across the West, reinforcing concerns that uncontrolled mass migration poses a major national security risk. According to The Sun, there are new concerns that a second invasion of Ceuta could be “just days” away, as the outlet cites online posts warning it may be their [migrants] “last chance” to enter Europe.

Just kidding, this is the actual footage … pic.twitter.com/jYRpSWM24e
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2026

The outlet continued: “Fears are also mounting convicted terrorists were among the tens of thousands of people who stormed the Spanish enclave last week, reports say.” [. . .]But reports say the peninsula could see scenes of mayhem play out on the streets yet again, as plans are being made for another mass border crossing on August 15.On social media, posts appear to be plotting another storming of the shores of Ceuta, with one message reading: “Everything will be seen that day.” Another appears to call for the creation of a WhatsApp group, saying: “Our appointment is on 15/08/2026.”
The invasion prompted Italy to suspend Schengen arrangements with Spain and to secure its borders, while 22 EU leaders demanded “immediate action” to address the national security threat. Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Germany’s Friedrich Merz, and other European leaders warned: “We cannot allow uncontrolled mass crossings, the instrumentalization of migration or other hybrid threats to create the perception that illegal entry into the European Union is possible.” Reports that emerged in recent days show that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s (unhinged socialist) claim that the migrants had been expelled from Ceuta may not have reflected the situation on the ground. Read the full report.
Years of open-border policies under Spain’s socialist government may now be approaching a political breaking point. The invasion of military-aged men was so visible to the world in real time on X, making it increasingly difficult for lefty corporate media to reconstruct the narrative and gaslight the public into believing this was merely a humanitarian migration event. The images instead reinforced views of a coordinated border invasion and undercut the left-wing narrative framing such arrivals solely as poor migrants searching for milk and bread.
We noted last week: “Spain’s Border Invasion Is An Optics Disaster For Open-Border Democrats” Hopefully, common sense can return to the West: secure borders. And, really, hold those accountable for nation-killing open border policies.

“This is gonna go great, and I have a fresh supply of I Told You Sos all ready to go.”

• Mamdani’s War on New York Business Is a Double-Header (Stephen Green)

BananaMamdani

New York City’s socialist bad boy mayor Zohran Mamdani just made his latest move against the city’s business leaders — and this time, he hit the leadership of Gracie Mansion’s own Mayor’s Fund Board of Advisors. Plus, I have the latest news on Mamdani’s incredibly wrong-headed plan for city-owned grocery stores in today’s double-header of socialist stupidity. The New York Post reported early Tuesday that Mamdani “axed the advisors of a major nonprofit that channels private sector donations to fund city initiatives in his latest hostile act toward New York business leaders.”

Also, according to the Post, the board has “raised hundreds of millions since its 1995 inception – including a staggering $107 million to support family members of rescue workers killed or injured in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.”The mass firing marks “the first time in at least three mayoral administrations that all members were let go.” At least? If I’ve done my counting correctly, you only have to go back four mayors before Mamdani to reach the Board’s founding under Rudy Giuliani.
“The creation of a new advisory board is an important next step in reimagining how philanthropy can augment, but not replace, public dollars and public goods, and we are eager to share more about our new board of advisors later this year,” Mamdani senior advisor Dora Pekec told Bloomberg. Well, that’s exactly what the board did prior to the mayor sacking its entire membership. The mayor’s office told Bloomberg that Mamdani would select new members “later this year,” and it’s a safe bet that his picks will be more in line with his socialist vision for the city.
Which brings us to the latest report on Mamdani’s city-owned, taxpayer-subsidized grocery stores — and no matter how bad you or I thought they would be, now they’re worse. If it seems like at least once each week I write something about some new idiocy coming out of Mamdani’s New York City or Gavin Newsom’s California, well, it’s because there’s always some new idiocy.Finance and winemaking guy Nick Kokonas actually downloaded and read Mamdani’s just-released Request for Proposal (RFP) asking large private grocers for their plans for running city-owned stores. “Forget for a moment whether or not the government should own a grocery store,” Kokonas wrote, and “Let’s review the doc instead.”
It’s… well, let’s just say it’s even more dumberer than you could have imagined. Then there’s the little matter that the city will give preference to companies willing to bid on operating all five stores, but will award operations one store at a time. The city wants “scale pricing while refusing to award scale.” According to Kokonas, Mamdani wants stores to run on a “limited SKU model” that reduces costs by limiting selection. But Mamdani also insists that the stores stock “full grocery departments, household goods, culturally specific products, plus kosher, halal, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free and diabetic options.”
There’s much more, but two stick out as particularly thick-headed.First, the stores’ subsidized goods aren’t means-tested, so “anyone can shop there.” What that means is that as bodegas are forced out of business, or at least to stop carrying non-subsidized staples, “taxpayers will subsidize groceries for affluent shoppers who happen to live nearby, while needy families elsewhere get zero.”
Think of Bane Grocers (as I refer to Mamdani’s government stores) as subsidized Whole Foods for his wealthy white supporters.But here’s where the stupid leaves third-degree burns. “The ‘best’ bid promises 30% discounts, best-in-class wages/benefits, local sourcing, sustainability, community programs and full-time jobs,” Kokonas noted, incentivizing bidders to promise the world. But when choosing the winning bid, “20% of the score goes to whoever claims they need the least subsidy.”
So the incentive is to lowball the city, guaranteeing cost overruns that will be paid for by city taxpayers.Or maybe the new crony members of the Mayor’s Fund Board of Advisors will stop raising money for the families of first responders, and start raising money to pay for the mayor’s stupid city-run grocery stores. I’m just spit-balling here, but it hardly seems impossible.
This is gonna go great, and I have a fresh supply of I Told You Sos all ready to go.

“…they inherited it from their parents or they bought it 50 years ago for $50,000, and in crowded New York it’s worth $1 million. They’re hardly wealthy.”

• New York’s Property Tax Crackdown (Victor Davis Hanson)

Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York, has just stirred up a lot of controversy. He said that he wanted to go after property owners who had homes worth more than $5 million, and they were likely to be second homes. In other words, they had a primary residence elsewhere, either in the state of New York, outside the state, or in a foreign country. m And he wanted to tax them with a new surcharge in addition to property tax. But then, when the letters went out, they didn’t just go to the upper-middle class or the wealthy who owned $5 million properties. Mamdani went back on his word and sent almost 950,000 letters out to property owners who, on their register, had a home worth more than $1 million.

Now, this is where it gets interesting. He’s under a lot of criticism for this because he was bragging and he kind of, as he always does in his cute socialist smile … Remember, he got in front of Ken Griffin’s second home and looked into the camera and said, “Ha ha, we’re coming for you,” type of thing. This email was supposed to be cute. Something’s coming in the mail. But here’s the problem. A person can have a relatively modest house, and maybe they inherited it from their parents or they bought it 50 years ago for $50,000, and in crowded New York it’s worth $1 million. They’re hardly wealthy.
But more importantly, in the United States, Mamdani isn’t familiar, apparently, with an age-old foundational principle that you’re innocent until proven guilty. In other words, you don’t word a letter to people that says, “I assume you are guilty of having a house which is not your principal residence. You have three weeks to prove to me that you’re not guilty, and then maybe I will adjudicate you’re innocent and not slap a surtax.” Can you imagine hundreds of thousands of people getting a letter in the mail that they owe $5,000, $10,000, $20,000, $50,000, or $80,000 on top of their property taxes and going into panic and then going to the New York City website with hundreds of thousands of other people trying to get in and say, “Look, I’ve been in this house. I’m not a second-property owner”?
It was designed to cause confusion and anger and chaos and make Mamdani an object of fear. Don’t cross the mayor. He has a long memory. But here’s the other thing. Besides inverting the idea to “you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent,” what’s wrong with having a second house? It’s a free country. You have a right to have a house. So what was he doing by sending this letter and threatening you? Well, one of the things is he’s broke. He’s had all of these lavish welfare ideas that are not fundable because he’s driving out the upper-middle class and the wealthy, and they’re leaving in droves.
Some estimates say maybe $11 billion already in real value and revenue. So, he needs money. And more importantly, by sending this surtax out in addition to property taxes, if you have a property that’s worth $1 million or $2 million and you’re paying $20,000, $30,000, or $40,000 in property tax, and this surtax comes in at another $10,000, $20,000, or $30,000, a lot of people are saying, “You know, I’m not getting that much rent,” if it is a second home.
If it’s their primary home, they’re saying, “I already pay this huge property tax and I have maintenance costs.” If you’re renting, you have rental costs. You’re subject to oversight. There are rental subsidies for your renter. There’s rent control. And so what he’s trying to do is force people to sell. Either sell their second home, or he considers them affluent enough that they had their turn, and it’s time to sell because they will not be able to afford, especially retired people, a surcharge property tax on top of a property tax, on top of insurance.
And if you have a lot of sales, the house price drops. If the house price drops, Mamdani can come in and either buy them for the city or subsidize the, quote, “repressed poor” to buy. It’s a huge redistribution plan. There’s a third, more sinister agenda behind Mamdani’s enemies list. If you send out the names of over 900,000 New Yorkers in various boroughs, and you say, “These people, I accuse these people, until they can prove me wrong, of having a second property or a vacant property that is worth over a million dollars.”
And you give the name, as he did, and the address, as he did, then you’re going to have a lot of envious people saying, “Oh, Mr. Smith down the road, he’s on that list. Oh, Mr. Jones, I didn’t know that he wasn’t living in that house. Hmm.” And that’s the best interpretation. There’s two, I think, more accurate and maybe even more disturbing. We have an epidemic in this country of squatting. So if you are a potential squatter where the law protects you, once you get possession of an empty home it’s almost impossible to evict you unless you spend thousands of dollars.
So all these would-be squatters are going to be looking at this list, and they’re going to say, “Well, the mayor of New York accuses this person at this address of having a vacant home. Let’s check it out. Maybe he’s wrong. Maybe we’ll go down the list, five, six, seven, 10 of them, but we will find a vacant house, and we’ll know he’s not going to come, and we’ll just crash and move in. And then the whole legal apparatus of the city protects us, and we can get two, three, four years of free rent.”

“The damage the once-vaunted Fauci did to society’s most vulnerable was incalculable.”

• Anthony Fauci Hurt America’s Children … and Her Future (Joseph Ford Cotto)

Anthony Fauci spent nearly four decades running the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In that time, he became the face of public health in America.Yet the record now shows he inflicted lasting harm on the very people he claimed to serve, especially the young. His private writings and public actions reveal a pattern of deception that paved the way for lockdowns, school closures, and social isolation whose scars will stretch across generations.

In late July, Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, released more than 1,000 pages of Fauci’s personal diary. These ranged from December 2019 through December 2022. Those entries strip away an image which had been polished for the public year after year. On Jan. 26, 2020, Fauci noted that the first COVID-19 infection appeared early in December and had no link to the Wuhan market. He called the market an amplifier, not the source.
Days later, on Feb. 1, he recorded a conference call with a dozen scientists. Most of them saw laboratory engineering of COVID as a real possibility. Only two favored a purely natural origin.Fauci never shared that private judgment with the public. Instead, he steered grant money toward the Wuhan Institute of Virology and helped shape a paper that dismissed the lab-leak idea. He then promoted that publication at press conferences without revealing his own involvement. Or the later multimillion-dollar grant he approved for one of its authors.
The gap between what he knew and what he said cleared the path for economy-wrecking shutdowns, hysterical public shaming, and months of shuttered classrooms. All that ripped apart families and mauled the economy.Worse still, the diary shows Fauci actively pushed the very lockdowns he later denied association with. On March 15, 2020 — which he labeled “BIG DAY!” in red ink — he wrote that he convinced Democrat New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to close municipal schools. He noted that de Blasio had already leaned that way from Fauci’s television appearances.
The same entry records him urging de Blasio to shutter bars and restaurants. He influenced California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat surely running for president in 2028, to embrace locking down. Five days later, Fauci pressed for a full shelter-in-place order in New York. This came despite resistance from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, another Democrat.Fauci later claimed credit for extending the original “15 days to slow the spread” into 30 days, warning that stopping early would be a disaster. In November, he backed a three-week shutdown in Los Angeles County.
The damage is already measurable and will compound for decades. A 2023 peer-reviewed study of German secondary students found that those tested after six months of pandemic disruption scored substantially lower on intelligence tests, relative to comparable groups from 2002 and 2012. When the same students were retested a year later, amid continued irregular schooling, they showed no recovery.The researchers tied this shortfall to lost classroom time, not stress alone, and warned of lasting effects on cognitive growth.
In the United States, a 2021 survey of nearly a thousand parents linked COVID-driven school closures, remote learning, and canceled activities to clear drops in children’s social skills. Kids spent most of their days isolated at home watching screens instead of playing outdoors or joining group sports. Reductions in time with friends and extracurricular activities tracked directly with worse social outcomes.
Researchers at the Urban Institute projected long-term consequences from actual COVID-era learning loss and socio-emotional disruptions. Eighth-graders in the 2021-22 school year could earn three percent less at age 30 than they would have without academic centers shutting down. High-school graduation rates and college degrees are expected to fall as well, with steeper hits for students from low-income and minority households.
A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report detailed the pandemic’s physical and mental tolls. These include rising diabetes rates in children, higher maternal deaths (especially among black and Hispanic women), spikes in adolescent overdose deaths (driven by fentanyl), as well as delayed vaccinations and check-ups that hit minority children hardest. Loss of a parent or other caregiver were several times higher for Native American, black, and Hispanic children than for white children.

“..he has repeatedly pressed the question of whether American taxpayer dollars funded research at a Chinese lab suspected of playing a role in unleashing the virus that killed millions.”

• Rand Paul Makes His Move Against Fauci (Matt Margolis)

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told Dr. Anthony Fauci last week exactly what would happen if he stonewalled Congress. Fauci ignored him. Now Paul is delivering on that promise, and conservatives who have waited years for this moment have every reason to celebrate. Paul introduced a resolution Tuesday to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress. The move comes after the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director sat before a Senate committee and refused, again and again, to answer a single question.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Paul chairs, subpoenaed Fauci on July 22 to testify as part of its investigation into risky life sciences research and the true origins of the virus that upended the world in 2020. Fauci showed up Wednesday and gave Republicans nothing. He invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 111 times. It didn’t matter if it was about the origins of COVID-19 or what day of the week it was; Fauci’s answer was the same: “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.”

🚨 BREAKING: Rand Paul announces the committee will be voting to hold Dr. Fauci in CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS after Fauci invokes the fifth amendment over 80 times

This carries up to a YEAR of prison time.

Paul argues that Fauci does NOT have a fifth amendment right against… pic.twitter.com/WWtPoBkdR1
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 29, 2026

Sen. Paul was not amused. “I ordered him to answer and warned him about contempt, yet he still refused,” Paul said, calling Fauci’s defiance obstruction of a congressional investigation the committee plans to act on.
The committee will vote on the contempt resolution Thursday, and Paul has already dismantled Fauci’s legal excuse for hiding behind the Fifth. Before leaving office in January 2025, then-President Joe Biden gave Fauci a preemptive pardon, an unusual move clearly aimed at protecting one of Donald Trump’s most prominent critics from prosecution. Paul, in a statement on Tuesday, explained that the pardon wiped out any basis Fauci had for pleading the Fifth in the first place. Fauci also gave up whatever privilege remained the moment he delivered opening testimony at the hearing.
This fight has been years in the making. Paul has accused Fauci of destroying government records, and he has repeatedly pressed the question of whether American taxpayer dollars funded research at a Chinese lab suspected of playing a role in unleashing the virus that killed millions. Fauci has denied it every time.

The HSGAC hearing with Anthony Fauci wasn't about relitigating COVID for its own sake. It was about accountability.

Fauci said one thing publicly and another privately. He coordinated to control the narrative. He shaped guidance around politics instead of truth. If we don't…
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) August 4, 2026

Contempt of Congress is a serious charge that could land Fauci in jail. “Contempt of Congress is the legal offense of disobeying or disrespecting the authority of the U.S. legislative branch through actions like refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas, disrupting proceedings, or obstructing investigations,” explains FindLaw. “This federal offense typically arises when individuals fail to respond to legally binding orders from congressional committees during their oversight and lawmaking functions. Penalties include criminal prosecution with up to one year in jail and $100,000 in fines.”

“Democrats (for a change) have no appetite for dragging the country through another government shutdown this fall ..”:

• Sen. John Kennedy Blasts John Thune Over a ‘Huge Mistake’ (Matt Margolis)

Democrats (for a change) have no appetite for dragging the country through another government shutdown this fall, right before the midterm elections. The Senate moved forward Monday with a plan to keep the government funded past the midterms, and the continuing resolution cleared a procedural hurdle Monday evening in an 89-4 vote. Senators hope to pass the measure before leaving town for the August recess later this week. Naturally, Democrats are treating it like a win.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat appropriator in the Senate, praised the measure as a “much-improved CR to keep the government funded and avert a shutdown that no one wants,” and pointed to provisions her party secured in the Senate version. “This bill includes important extensions and language that House Republicans’ CR did not, and it rejects Trump’s frivolous war spending wish list,” Murray said in a statement. “Importantly, we closed the loophole in House Republicans’ CR that would have allowed the Trump administration to transfer funding provided for other programs to Border Patrol, which desperately needs reform, not more money.”
Sure, Patty. If declaring victory over a bill that 89 senators voted to advance helps you sleep at night, knock yourself out. Still, it looks like we won’t have a distracting shutdown before the midterm elections. Even House and Senate Republicans appear to be on the same page this time around. But that doesn’t mean everyone in the GOP is thrilled with how things are going in the upper chamber.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) took aim at Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on Monday over his decision to focus on confirming President Donald Trump’s nominees instead of working on a budget. Kennedy called it a “huge mistake” in an interview with Punchbowl News’ Andrew Desiderio.

Sen. Kennedy says Thune is making a “huge mistake” if he doesn’t turn to the budget resolution soon, and knocked the majority leader for his floor speech today touting Senate Republicans’ historic pace of confirming Trump’s nominees

Kennedy said that when he’s talking to voters…
— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) August 3, 2026

“You know one of the things I never say? I never look those people in the eyes and say, ‘We set a record for the number of nominees confirmed.’ I’ve never said that. And I don’t think any other senator has ever said that,” Kennedy said, describing what he tells voters and fellow Republican candidates on the campaign trail. “Because I don’t think the American people care.”
Kennedy has a point. Voters back home want to know what the Senate is doing about spending, the border, and the economy. Your average voter isn’t thinking about confirmation statistics. For months, Senate Republicans have essentially scoffed at Trump’s policy demands, particularly his push to pass the SAVE America Act, the most important election integrity legislation in history, as far as I’m concerned. At least one senator is unhappy that the funding deal does nothing to advance it, which means the fight over that bill is coming sooner or later, shutdown or no shutdown.
On the plus side, no shutdown means no weeks of breathless media coverage blaming the GOP for shuttered parks and delayed paychecks. Would it be nice for the SAVE America Act to get its moment? Sure, but heading into the fall, Democrats would certainly have taken us into a shutdown if it had been included.

“The New York Times Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli called any mention of the lab theory “racist.”

• Leading Biden COVID-19 Figure Embraces the Lab Leak Theory (Turley)

Former Biden White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha this weekend became the latest denier of the lab theory to do a 180-degree turn. During the interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Jha admitted that he now believes that the most likely explanation is a lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As pundits and politicians quietly admit that the natural mutation theory is not as credible, the courageous scientists who were blacklisted for years remain persona non grata in higher education.

Jha stated: “This is going to surprise some people. You know, when I went into the White House, my view was, ‘This was almost surely a natural outbreak, maybe a lab leak.’ Based on information I learned and based on information I‘ve seen, I have come to conclude that it is more likely to have been a lab leak.” I commend Jha for publicly addressing his change. Indeed, everyone in academia, myself included, has had their views evolve. What should not evolve is the willingness of the scientists and academics to accept dissenting viewpoints. One of my long-standing complaints against figures like Anthony Fauci is that they held prominent positions during the pandemic, but said nothing about the cancel campaigns directed against those experts who disagreed with their views on issues like the origins of COVID-19.
As I discuss in my new book, “The Indispensable Right,” the result is that we never really had a national debate on many of these issues and the massive social and economic costs that resulted. I spoke at the University of Chicago with Bhattacharya and other dissenting scientists in the front row a couple of years ago. After the event, I asked them how many had been welcomed back to their faculties or associations since the recognition of some of their positions. They all said that they were still treated as pariahs for challenging the groupthink culture.
For years, figures like Bhattacharya (who was recently awarded the prestigious Intellectual Freedom Award by the American Academy of Sciences and Letters) were hounded and marginalized. Others opposed Bhattacharya’s right to offer his scientific views, even under oath. For example, in one hearing, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) expressed disgust that Bhattacharya was even allowed to testify as “a purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation.”
Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik decried an event associated with Bhattacharya, writing that “we’re living in an upside-down world” because Stanford University allowed dissenting scientists to speak at a scientific forum. Hiltzik also wrote a column titled “The COVID lab leak claim isn’t just an attack on science, but a threat to public health.” As recently as last year, Hiltzik continued to attack the lab theory. Bhattacharya’s experience is not unique. When scientists argued that the virus’s origin was likely the Chinese research lab in Wuhan, they were mobbed by the media. That position was denounced by the Washington Post as a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.”
The Washington Post denounced Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark) when he raised the theory for “repeat[ing] a fringe theory suggesting that the ongoing spread of a coronavirus is connected to research in the disease-ravaged epicenter of Wuhan, China.” After Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) mentioned the lab theory, Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler mocked him: “I fear @tedcruz missed the scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus to jump from the lab. Or the many interviews with actual scientists. We deal in facts, and viewers can judge for themselves.”
The New York Times Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli called any mention of the lab theory “racist.” At NPR, an endless stream of segments ran dismissing the lab leak notion, painting it as a debunked conspiracy theory of the far right, including one story titled “Scientists Debunk Lab Accident Theory of Pandemic Emergence.”
I consider it valuable to have voices like Hultzik’s that still challenge the lab theory — just as I thought it was valuable to have lab theorists voice their views. The difference is that critics of the lab theory are not being canceled, but continue to be celebrated for their prior work. To the contrary, figures like Scott Atlas have shown how those educators who helped lead the mob against dissenters still hold positions of power. These figures should not be canceled for holding opposing views, but their conduct in silencing others should be reviewed.
Despite the vindication of scientists on their opposition to policies on the use of surgical masks, the closure of schools, and other issues, there have not been any repercussions for those who enforced the orthodoxy and intolerance during the pandemic in higher education. The fact is that most are now willing to admit that the lab theory is probably correct, but they are unwilling to forgive those who forced them into that admission.

“All Western nations are essentially on the same path to dispossession.”

• The Last White Generation (Paul Craig Roberts)

Immigrant-invader elected to US Congress introduces bill to abolish US border protection White ethnicities in Europe, the UK, and the white former British colonies in the “New World” continue to actively participate in their own demise by encouraging massive inflows of hostile and unassimilable immigrant-invaders who are provided not only with material support by the white populations that are being overrun but also with legal privileges that the white citizens do not have. As Lenin once asked, “What is to be done?”

Unfortunately, white ethnicities do not have a leader of Lenin’s capability. Those few whites aware of the problem have come up with “Remigration” and recently held a summit. The conclusion was that time is against white ethnicities because the last white generation that can respond to the threat is the current one. All that “come after us will already be born into this multicultural atmosphere and so it will be normal to them” for white ethnicities to be second-class citizens discriminated against by their governments and facing dispossession of their rights, possessions, and lives.
In the recent overrunning of a Spanish city we see the inability of Western civilization to respond to attack by privileged persons of color. Enoch Powell warned the British in the 1960s, Jean Raspail warned he French and all of Europe, including Russia, in the 1970s, and Wilmot Robertson warned the Americans in the 1970s. But the insouciant, ignorant, and utterly stupid white ethnicities paid no heed, and now they, leaderless, face elimination. There is no more endangered species on earth than white ethnicities.
White ethnicities everywhere have proven themselves to be so throughly brainwashed and indoctrinated against themselves as to be incapable of defending themselves. Their remaining time on earth is limited. Remigration was President Lincoln’s solution for America’s Africans. His plan, terminated by his assassination, was to return Africans to Africa or perhaps send them to Central America. The “Great Emancipator ” freed the slaves so he could return them to Africa.

“Europe is belatedly discovering how unbelievably stupid it was to import millions of people from cultures that despise Western values and which often promote hatred toward the people who have let them in.”

— Thomas Sowell pic.twitter.com/Yew0a52KH3
— Thomas Sowell Daily (@DailySowell) August 3, 2026

🚨 HOLY SMOKES. Nick Shirley got VIOLENTLY ATTACKED and chased with a KNIFE as Muslim invaders tried stoning him in Ceuta, Spain

INVADER: "F**k! Come here! Cut the camera!"

SHIRLEY: "We're getting chased, HE HAS A KNIFE. He's got a knife!"

"We got people throwing stuff at… https://t.co/m8B6PrIYMi pic.twitter.com/EOnktzfd1z
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 3, 2026

Muslim Invaders in Ceuta are now BURNING the Countryside as they Continue TAKE OVER the Streets.

This is total chaos and collapse of a country.

It looks like a literal zombie apocalypse. pic.twitter.com/6GqklXUK4n
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 3, 2026

Nick Shirley catches the military leading illegal migrants off the mountain and down into Ceuta, Spain

NOT A SINGLE MOTHER AND CHILD

Watch very closely, the entire group is 100% military fighting aged men

Where are all the women?? This was a coordinated planned invasion pic.twitter.com/BiEkoazXLZ
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) August 3, 2026

Nick Shirley speaks with Spain citizen who confirms the illegal migrants are being imported for votes

Polls came out showing their liberal Prime Minister was going to lose the upcoming election to a conservative candidate. Right after, migrants flooded in

Nick Shirley “Your… pic.twitter.com/3sFrnf7m2d
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) August 3, 2026

Elon Musk explains the clearest path to building AI that remains safe and pro-human:

AI will eventually become smarter than the smartest human, capable of discoveries and inventions we can barely imagine today

That is why the values we give it now matter so much
Train it to be…
— X Freeze (@XFreeze) August 3, 2026

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Debt Rattle August 2 2026

Aug 022026

August 2, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:17 am Finance Tagged with: Ceuta, Melilla, Pedro Sanchez, Seattle, Ukraine, US diplomacy, Zelensky 25 Responses »

Willem de Kooning Gotham News 1955

• Trump Orders Heavy Attack On Energy-Related Targets In Iran (ZH)

• Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez Calls EU Opposition to Mass Migration “Selfish” (CTH)

• 22 EU Leaders Demand “Immediate Action” To Ceuta and Melilla Invasion (ZH)

• Trump Warns US Faces Spain-style Migrant Invasion (RT)

• Zelensky Flew To A Funeral And Buried His Last Big Hope (Evgeny Balakin)

• Kiev’s Dirty War Goes Global (Sadygzade)

• Why Western Europe Needs The Ukraine Conflict To Continue (Lukyanov)

• US Not In Dispute With EU Over Ukraine, But Still Key Player — Diplomat (TASS)

• US Sees Profits As Key Foreign Policy Goal, Russian Diplomat Says (TASS)

• The Socialist Monster Awakens (Victor Davis Hanson)

• Trump’s Damage To US Diplomacy Could Last A Generation (McGlinchey)

• Seattle Is in Free Fall (Victoria Taft)

https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2083221063689785720?s=20

Joe Rogan just WENT OFF on CNN and the mainstream media for ignoring the Fauci hearing and claiming Americans do not care.

“If you don’t think that’s news, you’re out of your mind.”

“You shouldn’t be calling yourself the news.”

“You’re just a propaganda arm for whatever… pic.twitter.com/SOBqPLvZIl
— End Tribalism in Politics (@EndTribalism) July 31, 2026

Thank God @POTUS was elected and our country’s border no longer looks like this.

These images out of Spain are an unfortunate reminder of the consequences of mass migration and the radical left-wing globalist policies that have enabled the Invasion of the West.@BillMelugin_:… pic.twitter.com/b67fR3SEof
— JD Vance (@JDVance) July 31, 2026

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2083568244074369480?s=20 https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2083272023422418989?s=20

Does it feel like a swamp yet?

• Trump Orders Heavy Attack On Energy-Related Targets In Iran (ZH)

The Wall Street Journal and CBS are reporting that major US strikes – perhaps harder than anything of the last two weeks – are set to imminently commence. The attacks could be initiated at any point this weekend, after Trump gave the ‘order’ – it’s being reported: President Trump has ordered a fresh attack on Iran aimed at getting Tehran to surrender that could begin as soon as this weekend and would last a few days, U.S. officials said.

Earlier on Friday, he told reporters that he planned to resume heavy military strikes to force the regime to come to the negotiating table. He predicted that if the U.S. hit Iran hard enough, the hard-line regime would eventually “peter out.” Trump made clear earlier at Camp David that the Iranians can’t be trusted, are ‘dishonorable’ – and so he’s not pursuing talks. The late afternoon Friday CBS report is more alarming, given that “The United States and Israel are planning what would be one of the harshest bombing campaigns to date against energy infrastructure targets in Iran, multiple sources told CBS News, with strikes possible throughout the weekend.”
It adds, “There was some discussion about trying to conclude by the time financial markets open Monday because of concern about how the bombings will affect the U.S. and global economy, but an end point wasn’t locked in.” Earlier this week there were reports of Trump exploding at his own advisors amid ongoing debates about how the crisis should be handled, and finding an exit strategy. “Well, they always want to talk, but they break their words so often,” Trump said Friday at Camp David, putting his frustration on display later adding: “All they do is make me angry.”
A key line from WSJ point to where things are likely headed: “Some U.S. officials believe Iran will continue to drag out negotiations, banking that Trump will abandon his war efforts in the long term in the face of mounting domestic political opposition.”
Keep Hitting Them: Trump
Trump is holding a Cabinet meeting on Friday at Camp David. He claimed that the fight against Iran is “going well” and stated that American forces are “hitting them very hard” – adding that “eventually” Iran will have no choice but to “come home” – meaning full surrender. “
It’s going well. Everything we can do is keep winning,” Trump also told Fox News. “But we are hitting them hard, shaking them up, and we’re just continuing to win.” He suggested there will still be strikes ongoing in coming weeks, and that he’s losing faith in the idea of talks with “dishonest” Iran “because they lie”.Additionally, Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is claiming that Iran is unable to pay its troops – though without offering specific evidence to back this, and that the US continues searching for Iranian assets to seize “all around the world”. This is after Thursday Washington rolled out yet more sanctions.

Trump: "We'll be hitting them. We'll be hitting them very hard. At some point they're gonna say, 'We just can't take it anymore.'" pic.twitter.com/DT1Fcf57EN
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 31, 2026

Yeah, yeah, open borders have been great for Europe…

• Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez Calls EU Opposition to Mass Migration “Selfish” (CTH)

Standing against what he calls “selfish” motives of European leadership, Spain’s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez says tolerance for mass illegal migration must win over the loud voices of short-sighted nationalism. According to Sanchez, these EU regulations and rules against the dreams of sub-Saharan Africans are polarizing and stopping migrants from fulfilling their greatest aspirations.

Telegraph – via MSM – Pedro Sánchez has criticised “selfish” EU leaders after 22 European prime ministers and presidents attacked him for the sudden migrant surge in Ceuta. Spain’s prime minister wrote a letter to the heads of the EU institutions after Italy and France ramped up border controls in response to the 60,000 Moroccan migrants who stormed the Spanish enclave in North Africa.
[…] “In the current international context, the European Union cannot afford this kind of selfish, polarising and unlawful reaction,” wrote Mr Sánchez, one of the few remaining socialist leaders in the EU, as he called for an emergency meeting. He criticised those who “have chosen to attack Spain and to call for its temporary exclusion from the Schengen Area”. But Mr Sánchez was isolated after 22 EU leaders, including Ms Meloni and Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, wrote their own letter to Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president; António Costa, the European Council president; and Micheál Martin, the Irish prime minister, whose country holds the presidency of the EU.
The letter addressing the “serious concern” over the threat to the EU border was signed by the leaders of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden. They singled out Mr Sánchez’s migrant amnesty for criticism. In early July, some 609,737 of the 1.17 million migrants in Spain who applied for legal status obtained temporary work permits, making it the largest regularisation of black market workers in European history. (read more)
On Saturday, Spain said it had returned “almost everyone” to Morocco and that it was not possible to travel from Ceuta or Melilla to mainland Spain without presenting identification at a police checkpoint, guaranteeing the “integrity of the Schengen area”. Mr Sánchez, who rushed to Ceuta on Friday and faces elections next year, accused people-smuggling gangs of trying to exploit a recent ruling made by the Spanish supreme court, which decided migrants stopped at sea while trying to reach Ceuta or Melilla could not be summarily returned to Morocco.
More than 37,500 migrants have returned to Morocco after an estimated 60,000 crossed into Spain's Ceuta enclave this week. The rush turned deadly, with some migrants drowning as they tried to swim to the territory. CBS News' @aidan_stretch spoke with one migrant about why he… pic.twitter.com/KqBBXhhiOH
— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 31, 2026

Not enclaves, but exclaves.

• 22 EU Leaders Demand “Immediate Action” To Ceuta and Melilla Invasion (ZH)

European leaders criticized Madrid’s socialist government as its open-border policies unraveled for the world to see. The invasion of the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla by 50,000 military-aged men from Morocco exposed the dire consequences of nation-killing mass-migration policies promoted by socialist regimes, which have long eroded national sovereignty across the entire continent. For Europe, the latest border breach represents one of the clearest warnings yet that uncontrolled mass migration has evolved from a political dispute into a full-blown national security crisis.

Hours after the invasion, Italy’s Interior Ministry suspended Schengen free-movement rules with Spain and ordered the closure of air and maritime borders between the two countries, citing national security concerns. The list of European leaders criticizing Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is growing on Saturday, as 22 EU leaders have now signed on to a demand for an “immediate and coordinated European response” to the invasion into Ceuta and Melilla.
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/2083545235678781812?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2083545235678781812%7Ctwgr%5E61c124c705d0db5197f30d574d09eab838c3462a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Fcrazy-footage-shows-migrants-rampaging-breaking-homes-after-invading-spain
“We cannot allow uncontrolled mass crossings, the instrumentalization of migration or other hybrid threats to create the perception that illegal entry into the European Union is possible,” EU leaders, including Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Germany’s Friedrich Merz, wrote in a letter published on X by Denmark’s Ministry of State.

PM Frederiksen: "Together with @GiorgiaMeloni and 20 colleagues we demand immediate action from the EU to discuss further initiatives about the alarming situation in Ceuta. Control of our borders is paramount. All measures must be considered to ensure the safety of Europeans.”
— Statsministeriet (@Statsmin) August 1, 2026

Sánchez and Spain’s socialists are already feeling the impact of a negative information campaign that has spread across the West. The Trump administration is using the crisis as a warning to American voters ahead of the midterms that socialists gaining power would risk reopening the US border crisis. Political pressure on Sánchez will intensify further if illegal crossings resume or illegals reach mainland Europe.
The most likely pathway is, therefore, containment followed by political blowback against socialist parties in Madrid and across the bloc, rather than an immediate collapse of Schengen. Any second mass surge, however, would only suggest the weaponization of migration against Europe; in other words, asymmetric warfare. The open-ended question is who, if anyone, on the Moroccan side financed, organized, and facilitated the invasion.

“The president used the migration crisis in the EU to claim America was overrun by illegals under his predecessor”

• Trump Warns US Faces Spain-style Migrant Invasion (RT)

The surge of migrants across the border from Morocco into Spain is an example of what could happen to the US if Republicans aren’t elected, US President Donald Trump has claimed. Trump has repeatedly attacked his political opponents over immigration, blaming his predecessor Joe Biden for illegal border crossings. An estimated 50,000 migrants, mostly young men, swam from Morocco and crossed into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta earlier this week in an unprecedented influx that triggered a humanitarian crisis in the city. The Spanish Interior Ministry has reported that around 48,000 had voluntarily returned by Friday evening.

“What’s happening with Spain, with tens of thousands of Illegal Immigrants invading it, happened in the United States during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, and it will happen again, only worse, if the Dumocrats ever again gain power,” Trump said late on Friday in a brief post on Truth Social, urging Americans to vote Republican in the midterm elections.The remarks come ahead of US midterm elections scheduled for November as Trump faces slipping approval ratings. A recent poll found that most US adults believe he has not focused enough on the everyday concerns of ordinary Americans, that his economic policies have worsened conditions, and that his military decisions in Iran have harmed the US.
White House principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said on Friday that Trump “has long warned Europe what would happen if they continue to implement far-left, globalist policies, including enabling mass migration.” Trump and his administration have consistently criticized both the previous US government and European leaders over their handling of illegal migration. The president has claimed that it was “killing” Europe, urging its leaders to act immediately before they lose control of the continent.
Domestically, Trump has pursued an unprecedented immigration crackdown. Since returning to office in January 2025, he has launched a sweeping enforcement campaign involving mass deportations and expanded detention efforts, pledging to carry out the largest migrant removal operation in US history despite widespread criticism and protests. Trump’s latest remarks also come amid strained ties with Madrid. The two countries clashed during the recent conflict with Iran after Spain refused to allow the US to use its bases for strikes, while Trump has repeatedly criticized the country over what he believes is its insufficient defense spending.
Migration has remained one of the EU’s defining political issues since the 2015 refugee crisis. Brussels recently agreed on a sweeping overhaul of its migration system aimed at speeding up deportations, while many member states have tightened national immigration laws. Spain has, meanwhile, taken a different approach to migration. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has argued immigration is essential to address labor shortages and demographic decline, while his government has expanded pathways for undocumented migrants to obtain legal status and work permits.

“His wish list included Patriots, PAC-3 licenses, and more military support. None of them materialized..”

• Zelensky Flew To A Funeral And Buried His Last Big Hope (Evgeny Balakin)

Washington DC, July 29, 2026. On this day, a city accustomed to protocol visits and carefully orchestrated diplomatic spectacles welcomed a rather unexpected guest. Vladimir Zelensky’s unofficial visit to the US took place under the pretext of attending the funeral of former Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters in the US Senate. A private, closed-casket funeral was held. Zelensky’s meeting with US President Donald Trump also took place behind closed doors – with no cameras, no joint statements, and no usual show of unity.

Trump, however, found time to meet with the head of the Kiev regime. Soon after the private meeting, a social media post appeared along with two images – a color photograph and a black and white one. The photos show Trump patting Zelensky on the shoulder with a patronizing expression. According to American political tradition, black-and-white photographs are often published in memory of the deceased. According to military expert Aleksey Leonkov, the photograph seems to send a clear message: “Well, man, hang in there as long as you can. We’ve got no Patriot missiles for you, but hang on.”
The atmosphere of Zelensky’s informal and rather unplanned visit reinforced the feeling that Kiev has once again been shown the limits of US support. Zelensky didn’t come alone – he was accompanied by many Ukrainian officials and representatives of the security forces. However, his public ‘achievements’ amounted to a conversation behind closed doors and two photos.
The closed casket
Lindsey Graham was one of the most ardent supporters of Ukraine in the US Senate for many years. He was someone Kiev could count on to pressure the Trump administration and push through new packages of military aid. That’s why Zelensky used his funeral as an excuse to travel to the US. The fact that Graham was buried in a closed casket gave rise to many theories. The official version is that his death was the result of a “sudden and brief illness.” The unofficial version is that, as military expert Aleksey Leonkov puts it, the senator was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He recalled that while Graham was in Kiev, the Russian army carried out one of its most powerful strikes on military targets in the city.
Zelensky’s new demands
Of course, Zelensky didn’t just come to bid farewell to the senator with whom he shared a hatred for Russia. Behind closed doors, he hoped to utter his usual “Gimme!” and hand Trump a specific ‘wish list’. According to Andrei Klintsevich, 3rd class Active State Councilor of the Russian Federation, Zelensky wants from America what he can’t get from his European partners: first of all, anti-aircraft missiles. “He asked for the winter package: 300 missiles for the Patriot system, PAC-3 missiles, which can shoot down [Russian] ballistic missiles, though not hypersonic ones, specifically Iskander or sea-based ballistic missiles.” Zelensky also asked for licenses to produce these missiles domestically.
Klintsevich notes that the Kiev government’s desire to obtain these licenses has come up against hard reality. And the problem isn’t just that the White House has to make the corresponding decision. Manufacturing these missiles involves a complex technological chain. RTX, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and other companies are involved in assembling Patriot missiles. Some make the seeker heads, others the engines. Each item requires its own licenses, which must be withdrawn from commercial circulation and transferred to Kiev free of charge. “Of course, no one will agree to this,” Klintsevich says.
PAC-3 missile licenses are more than just a set of documents. It would be wrong to think that missile production can be scaled up like drone production. Drone components are readily available on the open market, but rocket technology is different. “Everything is specialized: from the engine to the rivets, to the fuel, and everything else,” the expert says. The problem isn’t the assembly line; Trump has already approved the start of production at General Motors and Ford plants. However, the subcontractors that supply complex components, such as gyroscopes and seekers, are critical in the production chain.
Production volumes don’t look impressive either: Lockheed Martin produces about 600 missiles per year for all systems worldwide. An increase of 50 units is planned with the launch of German production. By 2035, they plan to produce 2,000 missiles. “Considering the number [of missiles Russia] launches, even that would not be enough,” says Klintsevich. Combined, these two bottlenecks – issues with subcontractors and limited production volumes – make the demand for licenses and large-scale production practically impossible to implement in a short timeframe.
The Iran-Ukraine front
Zelensky’s second initiative during this trip was the attempt to get involved in the Iranian conflict. The goal was pragmatic: by demonstrating Ukraine’s active participation in the conflict, Zelensky wanted to gain access to military supply chains. To demonstrate this, a Ukrainian drone attacked an Iranian tanker, resulting in the death of one person.
Before Zelensky’s trip, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga made harsh accusations against Iran, claiming that it “deserved” the blow. But after Zelensky’s visit, his tone changed. “Let’s not stir up the conflict,” the foreign minister urged. Apparently, Zelensky’s attempt to get involved was unsuccessful.
Alexey Leonkov notes the reason behind the change in Kiev’s public statements. “Netanyahu does not need a competitor on the Iranian track, because the Iranian conflict is the prerogative of Israel,” he says. Netanyahu refused a private meeting with Zelensky. Israel jealously guards its key role in the Middle Eastern conflict. And Washington is not ready to get into a dispute with a key ally in the region for the sake of Kiev. Moreover, Ukraine’s earlier attempt to provide specialists from Madyar’s group to protect the Middle East from Iranian drones did not yield any results.

“From Africa to the Caspian Sea, each strike is an attempt to market Ukraine as a useful Western asset that still deserves cash and weapons.”

• Kiev’s Dirty War Goes Global (Sadygzade)

On the morning of July 25, Ukrainian drones attacked an Iranian merchant vessel in the Caspian Sea. An explosion occurred on board, killing one sailor and injuring another. Tehran described the incident as an act of aggression, summoned Ukraine’s chargé d’affaires and warned that retaliatory measures could follow.

Vladimir Zelensky did not deny that the operation had taken place, claiming that the targets were vessels allegedly involved in transporting military cargo linked to Iran. Yet within days, Ukrainian diplomacy abruptly changed its tone. Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga told his Iranian counterpart that the merchant vessel had been struck unintentionally, after which discussions over compensation began.
So long as the operation could be presented to Western audiences as another demonstration of the long-range capabilities of the Ukrainian security services, Kiev was eager to speak of success. Once it became clear that Tehran intended to demand accountability, the initial bravado gave way to attempts to portray the incident as an accident. In other words, the Ukrainian leadership sought to reap the publicity benefits of the strike without showing any willingness to accept responsibility for its consequences.
At almost the same time, reports emerged from Iraq that several groups suspected of attacking sites inside the country had been detained. National Security Adviser Qasim al-Aboudi stated that those arrested had admitted to acting in Ukraine’s interests and that, according to their testimony, the attacks had been disguised as operations carried out by local armed factions. The Iraqi authorities have yet to disclose the details of the investigation, but the alleged method closely resembles practices previously associated with Ukrainian structures in Africa and the Middle East.
It is difficult to regard these two developments as entirely unrelated episodes. Both in the Caspian Sea and in Iraq, the same logic appears to be at work, with the practical value of an operation becoming secondary to its political and media impact. The Ukrainian authorities are seeking to demonstrate that they can strike targets of interest to Washington, work through local groups and export their intelligence and drone capabilities far beyond Ukraine’s borders.
The true audience for such signals is not in Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus or the capitals of Africa. They are directed at Western governments whose decisions determine the flow of funding to Kiev. At a time when the Ukrainian military remains dependent on foreign weapons, ammunition and budgetary support, Zelensky must prove that his government is not merely a recipient of assistance but a useful contractor capable of contributing to the West’s broader foreign-policy objectives.
The Mali and Syria precedents This model was most clearly displayed in northern Mali in the summer of 2024. Near Tinzaouaten, Tuareg formations attacked a column of the Malian army and Russian units. Fighters from JNIM, an organization affiliated with Al-Qaeda and active across the Sahel, also took part in the fighting.
Following the attack, Andrey Yusov, a representative of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, stated that the rebels had received information that enabled them to carry out a successful operation. This acknowledgement was made publicly and was reported not by Russian outlets but by some of the world’s largest international media organizations. Reuters, The Guardian, Bloomberg, The Washington Post and Al Jazeera all covered the alleged role of Ukrainian intelligence.
Subsequent attempts to portray the Mali scandal as the product of foreign propaganda were unconvincing, not least because the accusations had been prompted by the words of an official Kiev representative. Ukrainian intelligence itself associated the country with forces that, during the same combat episode, operated alongside a jihadist organization. Mali later severed diplomatic relations with Ukraine, accusing it of interfering in an internal conflict and supporting armed groups. Niger subsequently took the same step.
The sequence of Kiev’s actions was particularly telling. Immediately after the attack, Ukraine sought to claim some of the publicity surrounding the operation because Russian forces had been targeted and the outcome could be presented favorably to Western audiences. Once diplomatic repercussions followed, however, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry began insisting that there was no convincing evidence of the country’s involvement.
This approach allows Kiev to benefit from the outcome of an operation while avoiding responsibility for the methods used. When an action wins the approval of Western partners, Ukrainian involvement is highlighted through hints or public statements. When allegations of violating sovereignty or cooperating with radical organizations arise, the authorities issue denials and demand proof of activities they had effectively boasted about only shortly before.

”Drone warfare has altered the balance in Ukraine, weakened the spirit of Anchorage, and given Europe a new political case for the conflict”

By Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and research director of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

“Trump believed that although Ukraine was resisting stubbornly, its defeat was ultimately inevitable and the sooner Kiev accepted concessions, the less severe the damage would be.”

So obviouslyTrump was very right all along. But Lukyanov didn’t/doesn’t see that?

• Why Western Europe Needs The Ukraine Conflict To Continue (Lukyanov)

The military-technical balance of power is a key element of every political system and changes in that balance, including those brought about by the emergence of new forms of warfare, shape political intentions and determine what is possible in international affairs. The rapid transformation of warfare, driven by the drone revolution and demonstrated over the past year in both Ukraine and the conflict around Iran, offers an opportunity to reassess familiar concepts and how they are evolving.

The spirit has changed, but let us leave the military aspects of drone warfare to the specialists and focus instead on the political consequences.August 2025 can be seen as the turning point, when Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin held their much-discussed meeting in Alaska. Whether any concrete agreements were reached remains disputed, but what’s clear is the essence of what became known as the ‘spirit of Anchorage’.
Trump believed that although Ukraine was resisting stubbornly, its defeat was ultimately inevitable and the sooner Kiev accepted concessions, the less severe the damage would be. The understandings reportedly reached reflected what Russia was prepared to settle for, the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from Donbass, and where meaningful political negotiations could begin. The White House then turned to the other interested party, the Ukraine-Western Europe partnership.
It’s difficult to judge how much pressure Trump actually placed on his European counterparts. Some effort appears to have been made, but neither Trump nor his advisers were prepared to invest significant political capital and that was especially true given that parts of his administration didn’t share his hostility towards Vladimir Zelensky.
The Western Europeans, for their part, played the situation skillfully. The post-Anchorage pilgrimage of leaders to the White House, mocked by many at the time, as they appeared to indulge Trump’s often boorish behavior, served its purpose. The objective of the EU and UK was simple: to slow down the process that appeared to have begun in Alaska and buy enough time to convince the American president that his assumptions were wrong. Ukraine, they insisted, was still capable of changing the course of the war.
Almost a year later, it is fair to say that Brussels and London, together with Ukraine, achieved at least part of that objective. Meanwhile, Western perceptions of the conflict have changed and at this summer’s G7 and NATO summits, the US president displayed a noticeably more neutral, at times even supportive, attitude towards Kiev. In effect, he acknowledged that his earlier confidence in Ukraine’s inevitable defeat had been, at the very least, premature.
Whether this shift reflects genuine changes on the battlefield or the success of an effective political and media campaign is open to debate, but either way, the change is real and the much-discussed ‘spirit of Anchorage’ has faded because the political climate itself has changed.
Fear and hatred in Europe
Ukraine’s growing ability to conduct long-range drone strikes is the product of three years of sustained financial and technological support from Western Europe, and despite Trump’s repeated claims that “Sleepy Joe” squandered hundreds of billions of American dollars on Ukraine, it’s European governments, Germany above all, that are now carrying the greatest burden of supporting Kiev’s war effort. That’s why assistance didn’t collapse after Trump returned to the White House and sharply reduced American aid.
Western Europe finds itself in a difficult position as it faces persistent economic problems alongside growing concerns about Ukraine and its own internal stability. Maintaining support for Kiev is politically sustainable only if it is presented not as solidarity with Ukraine, but as an investment in the half-continent’s own security.
Public rhetoric, particularly in Germany, increasingly suggests that a military confrontation with Russia around the turn of the next decade is a genuine possibility. The argument is straightforward: As long as Ukrainians are fighting, Western Europe has time to prepare and therefore the conflict should continue for as long as possible, although how much of this militaristic rhetoric reflects genuine belief remains open to debate.
The circumstances have undoubtedly revived Western Europe’s long-standing historical suspicion of Russia, a powerful and, from the their perspective, unpredictable giant to the east. During periods of close economic cooperation these fears receded into the background, replaced by the pursuit of mutual benefit, but this political crisis has quickly pushed commercial interests aside.
In that sense, today’s expectation of a future military confrontation isn’t entirely artificial as it reflects deeply rooted attitudes within Western Europe’s political consciousness. There is, however, another dimension that is both more rational and perhaps not fully appreciated in that the EU and UK’s political establishment is searching for a new basis for internal cohesion at a time of profound economic and social change, and that faced with mounting uncertainty, it requires a unifying idea.
Nothing serves that purpose better than an external threat.

Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik.

• US Not In Dispute With EU Over Ukraine, But Still Key Player — Diplomat (TASS)

Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik

European leaders need the conflict to continue because they “have not yet finished building their military-industrial complex,” Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large for the crimes of the Kiev regime Rodion Miroshnik noted. The US is not getting involved in a serious confrontation with the EU over Ukraine, but remains a key player and is waiting for the right conditions to intervene in a way that benefits itself, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large for the crimes of the Kiev regime Rodion Miroshnik TASS.

“When the Americans ‘get distracted,’ it means they realize that in this case, they were unable to pressure Ukraine, for example, into accepting the optimal agreements reached in Anchorage. These are the very agreements that the Americans themselves proposed. In other words, they assumed they could implement this project and coerce or persuade Ukraine to accept and carry out these terms. It turned out that they couldn’t. It also became clear that their European partners were unwilling to accept these terms,” the diplomat noted.
He explained that European leaders need the conflict to continue because they “have not yet finished building their military-industrial complex.” “That is why they are resisting American influence on the Ukrainian side. The Americans say, ‘All right, we’ll deal with Iran for now, but we’ll definitely come back to this issue.’ I don’t think they’ve completely abandoned the possibility of implementing this project. They will either return to it or wait for the situation to change. In fact, the Americans are undoubtedly a very important player in this arena,” Miroshnik concluded.

“According to Rodion Miroshnik, the United States is doing everything possible to preserve and strengthen its hegemony”

• US Sees Profits As Key Foreign Policy Goal, Russian Diplomat Says (TASS)

Foreign policy is like a major game of chess in which the United States seeks to make profits at every turn, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik told TASS. “This entire process should be viewed as a major game of chess taking place on a large chessboard. Every move is followed by counteraction and efforts to pursue certain goals and strategies. What is happening in different parts of the chessboard should be viewed through different lenses. The American lenses can change, but the key one – at least in the current situation – is about profits,” the diplomat said.

According to Miroshnik, the United States is doing everything possible to preserve and strengthen its hegemony. “The Americans can see the growing importance of energy resources. ‘You have oil — we’re coming for you!’ They first went after Venezuela and then Iran. They are also in favor of isolating Russia in terms of energy trade,” he added.

I still don’t see the combi of America and socialism. Maybe I will pay dearly.

• The Socialist Monster Awakens (Victor Davis Hanson)

Who caused unaffordability? Fear about “affordability” supposedly fueled the new, strident socialism. Yet annual inflation during former President Joe Biden’s four years averaged almost 5%. It peaked at over 9%, while prices for some key staples rose by 30% over his tenure—all to silence from the Left. (By contrast, annual inflation during Trump’s first term averaged 1.9%. In his second term, it averaged 2.6% in 2025—and may rise to 4.5% in 2026, given the war with Iran.)

The socialists were not just quiet during Biden’s four years; they were themselves responsible for the rampant Biden inflation. They had implemented an inflationary de facto third Obama term, ramming through the most radical and costly agenda in decades under the veneer of that cognitively challenged waxen effigy, good ol’ Joe Biden from Scranton. So the current Jacobin takeover of the Democratic Party was not sparked by concerns about “affordability”—or at least not if by “affordability” we mean the middle-class struggle to buy a house, a car, or groceries.
Instead, the socialist moment was merely the logical culmination of years of boutique radicalism within the Democrat aristocracy—the ossified leadership of Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Hakeem Jeffries, along with the aging Black Caucus, the incoherent Squad, the DEI crowd, the open-border zealots, and the radical greens. The grandees of the party also normalized the crazy mobs of BLM and Antifa long ago.
Democrats as Dr. Frankenstein
Almost every weaponized scam and national hysteria in the last two decades was amplified and spread by mainstream Democrats: the farcical claim that the Wuhan-lab-hatched COVID-19 virus came from pangolins or bats; the Duke Lacrosse and Covington Kids hoaxes; the Jussie Smollett scam, the “Hands up, don’t shoot” lie; the deification of George Floyd, often portrayed with wings and a halo; Fauxcahontas Liz Warren, touted as the first Native American Harvard law professor (thanks to her grandfather’s high cheekbones); the radical diminution of in-person voting; the canonization of Trayvon Martin and Karmelo Anthony as blameless model children; and the mythology of a 1619 national founding.
Who allowed not just one, two, three, or four million border-jumpers into the country, but over ten million—illegal, unvetted, viewed as an assumed new political constituency, and instantaneously dependent on the welfare state? Who gave us three, four, five, or even more genders and biological males showering with teenage girls or female prisoners? Who sloganeered about “defund the police” and “no cash bail”? All this was about as radical as it gets. The Democrat establishment’s unhinged hatred of Donald Trump mainstreamed radicalism even further and helped birth the socialist-cum-communist Frankensteinian monster that is now devouring its mad-scientist creators.
“By any means necessary” was a Democrat mantra over a decade ago. By 2016, the Democrat leadership and the Clinton campaign were hatching the Steele-dossier farce to warp an election. In 2020, the Democrat deep state—Antony Blinken, Mike Morell, John Brennan, James Clapper, Leon Panetta, and others—had fabricated the farcical claim that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, a hoax that, this time around, likely did alter an election.
The Democrat establishment, working with its appendages in Silicon Valley, had censored news attesting to the authenticity of Hunter’s embarrassing laptop contents. (For an account of what the establishment was doing in 2020, read Molly Ball’s Time essay describing the “conspiracies” and “cabals” that worked behind the scenes to change voting rules and ensure a Biden victory through mail-in, no-ID balloting.) Then came four unhinged years of lawfare: special counsel Jack Smith’s seizure of the communications of senators and congressmen, the Mar-a-Lago raid on Trump’s home, the effort to de-ballot Trump, and the five civil and criminal circuses that resulted in half a billion dollars in fines.
All those perversions of the legal system were accompanied by a host of mainstream Democrats, retired generals, politicos, and athletes shouting that Trump was a Nazi, a fascist, a Mussolini, a traitor, or a Putin asset. Meanwhile, a host of loudmouth actors, Democrat activists, and celebrities competed with each other about how best to kill him—whether by shooting, stabbing, poisoning, beheading, burning him alive, or blowing him up. Trump supporters were libeled over the years by establishment Democrats as irredeemables, deplorables, chumps, dregs, and garbage.
Even an establishment figure like Rosa Brooks, a former Obama-appointed Pentagon lawyer, called for a military coup in Foreign Policy just 10 days after Trump first took office in 2017. Three would-be assassins got close enough to killing Trump to draw return fire from the Secret Service—near-death encounters that elicited both unapologetic applause for the attempts and lamentations that the shooters had failed from the now truly deranged social-media Left. Murderers themselves were normalized as leftist icons, as seen in the canonization of Luigi Mangione and the glee that followed in many Democrat social media circles after the murder of Charlie Kirk.
Yet did the establishment Democrat apparat calm these waters? Or did it set them boiling? It was Chuck Schumer who threatened conservative Supreme Court justices, screaming in front of a mob outside the court’s doors, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” Schumer sounded more like a pink-haired anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement street protester than a U.S. senator. No surprise, then, that two years later a left-wing would-be assassin turned up at Kavanaugh’s home, along with crowds of enthusiastic protestors.
Does anyone recall Maxine Waters urging the public to bird-dog Trump administration officials and harass them whenever they were seen in public? “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out, and you create a crowd, and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.” Does anyone also remember Nancy Pelosi, then-Democrat House Minority leader, greenlighting “uprisings” over ICE deportations? “I just don’t know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country. Maybe there will be.” So spoke the radical owner of two mansions, who entered Congress with little net worth and will leave it worth over $100 million. A Tip O’Neill she wasn’t.
Then there was soon-to-be Vice President Kamala Harris egging on the George Floyd demonstrations, which, weeks earlier, had already turned violent and indeed deadly (despite what the “fact-checkers” asserted): “This is a movement, I’m telling you. They’re not going to stop. And everyone beware, because they’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop before Election Day in November, and they’re not going to stop after Election Day. And that should be—everyone should take note of that, on both levels, that they’re not going to let up, and they should not, and we should not.”

Trump does damage to US diplomacy as practiced under Joe Biden, Kamala, Obama and Jake Sullivan? And that’s not a good thing?

• Trump’s Damage To US Diplomacy Could Last A Generation (McGlinchey)

As the US-Israel war on Iran grinds into its sixth month, it’s clear to all but the most intellectually-dishonest Trump loyalists and war-bent Israel-sympathizers that it’s been a spectacular failure. A war of aggression that was supposed to precipitate a revolution has instead galvanized popular support of the Iranian government in defiance of the country’s tormentors, who’ve killed thousands of their fellow citizens and destroyed civilian infrastructure. A war that was launched to neutralize Israel’s principal rival seems certain to leave that rival far more geopolitically powerful than before, while driving Americans’ support for Israel to record lows.

Beyond unforgivably throwing away the lives of 18 American service members in an unconstitutional war launched on false pretenses, Trump’s blunder has depleted America’s arsenal and pushed the country more than $100 billion deeper into debt. Meanwhile, the longer Trump delays the inevitable consummation of his defeat, the greater the risk of an economic calamity that engulfs not only the United States but the entire world.
If that latter nightmare can be sidestepped, we’ll likely find that Trump has inflicted his most enduring damage on an intangible yet critical national asset: the ability of American diplomats to productively engage counterparts all over the world. From using negotiations as a ploy for surprise attacks to murdering heads of state and casually reneging on American commitments — including his own — Trump’s damage to US diplomacy will be evident for years. Of course, that’s not to suggest America’s foreign policy reputation was sparkling before Trump’s ascension to power — only that he and his team have managed to drag it down to new depths.

Trump’s collaboration with Israel to launch an unprovoked war on Iran is manifestly among the worst foreign policy decisions in the history of the American republic. However, it’s important to appreciate that Trump first set this 2026 disaster in motion eight years ago: In May 2018, — spurred on by then-National Security Advisor John Bolton and Trump’s Israel-first donors — Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action, or JCPOA.
Also called the “Iran nuclear deal,” the July 2015 JCPOA was the culmination of nearly two years of painstaking negotiations over highly technical provisions, conducted by representatives of not only the United States and Iran but also China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the European Union.
Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to major restrictions on its nuclear program in exchange for relief from brutal economic sanctions. Among other things, the JCPOA required Iran to eliminate its medium-enriched uranium, slash its cache of low-enriched uranium by 98%, limit future enrichment to 3.67%, agree to even more external monitoring than it was already submitting to, and render its heavy-water reactor worthless by filling it with concrete.
Catering both to devoted Israel supporters and to Republicans who were eager to assume that a deal negotiated during the Obama administration must have been treasonous, Trump had repeatedly railed against the JCPOA throughout his 2016 campaign, declaring that his “number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.” After being named national security advisor in April 2018, Bolton — who had long been pushing for war on Iran — quickly prodded Trump into making good on his promises to tear up the JCPOA, despite the fact that Iran was fully complying with the agreement.
“Trump’s move demonstrates that the United States cannot be trusted to keep its promises,” the Belfer Center’s Martin Malin said at the time. “It will heighten tensions in an already smoldering Middle East while giving fodder to hardliners and nuclear bomb advocates in Iran.”

“..the chaos on the streets is not just a symptom of Seattle’s future; this chaos is Wilson and company’s mission statement. ”

• Seattle Is in Free Fall (Victoria Taft)

Victoria Taft/AI

Well, another Seattle chief of police just got fired. The city has had four in the past two-and-a-half years. There’s been only one mayor in the past 26 years who has been elected to two consecutive terms. In one of those years, 2017, Seattle had four mayors. “In just three months, Ed Murray, Bruce Harrell, Tim Burgess and Jenny Durkan all held the title of Seattle mayor,” Fox 13 reported. Is this normal? Of course not. Seattle’s been on a slide since the Antifa and BLM agitators welcomed the deconstruction of American norms—since the University of Washington and Evergreen State University started churning out social justice warriors instead of caring and knowledgeable citizens.

Seattle continues to suffer from a leadership crisis. This will come as no surprise to anyone who reads PJ Media’s weekly West Coast, Messed Coast™ update. Every week, the city’s leadership seems to take a dumb pill just to see what chaos will happen. The past four mayors of Seattle have been:
1) An accused kid diddler, 2) An incompetent former federal prosecutor who predicted the George Floyd Riots and Antifa take over would usher in a “Summer of Love,” 3) A fellow traveler on the Peter Principle Highway who took a left turn onto Wacky Woke Way, 4) An overeducated, inexperienced commie.
Is it normal to churn through police chiefs and mayors like this?
Police chiefs in Seattle The Emerald City’s velvet green old-growth firs were once emblematic of a flourishing life and business. It was a fertile testing ground next to the waters of the Puget Sound.
Want to be a test pilot? Boeing.
Want to grow with a company? Starbucks.
Want to change the world? Amazon.
Boeing moved its headquarters.
Starbucks’ founder moved to Florida.
Amazon isn’t expanding in Seattle—it’s gone to Tennessee. Its founder left town. Heck, Jeff Bezos left the state.
Katie Wilson has waved away businesses. “Bye!” she said.
Seattle lost businesses Thing is, the new mayor, the nepo baby who calls herself a Democratic Socialist—aka commie—has taken on the air of the Wicked Witch of the West and, during her campaign, even surrounded herself with Antifa flying monkeys. Her aides and staffers appear to come from the ranks of women’s studies majors who expect software developer pay for their useless degrees and protest experience. Seattle’s identity crisis in this changing political culture comes from a breakdown of norms. It’s a place where virtue signaling to reflect the latest fad takes precedence over character and what works. Tradition is now an apparition, a vestige of a memory.
Jobs are becoming an apparition too. Software companies are sloughing jobs. Some of it is because of AI and a contraction in the market, or they’re not expanding jobs in Seattle. Mostly though, Seattle is a very bad place to root a company. She is a greedy mistress.
Seattle Mayors vs. Police Chiefs Seattle’s leaders think cops don’t matter. After last weekend’s Bite of Seattle mass shooting by apparent gang members, Wilson talked up the police “care teams” to help. The police “care teams” don’t find outstanding perps who have 3-D printed guns.

No matter.

Leaders think they don’t need to provide for the care and feeding of businesses and the people who work there. Imagine if Wilson and her fellow travelers treated people who are struggling to keep their businesses open in Seattle with the respect they accord crackheads who stay on the street because they don’t have any rules there.
The leaders have shown they can have a successful World Cup event. They moved out the “homeless,” and kept the peace by using every officer in their depleted ranks, adding help from the FBI and cops from all over the region to keep the peace. It got rave reviews. But these leaders can’t sustain that because they don’t know how. Everything’s back to chaos. Indeed, the chaos on the streets is not just a symptom of Seattle’s future; this chaos is Wilson and company’s mission statement.
Seattle’s in free fall. Will anyone stop it?

Spain’s entire budget will be destroyed by illegal migrants.

It’s basic math: if Spain offers free stuff to migrants that is above 90% of the living standard of Earth, they create a forcing function for 90% of Earth to move to Spain, which is around 7 billion people! https://t.co/m1G5zozru3
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2026

Thousands of military-age men were brought in trucks to the Moroccan-Spanish border in Ceuta. Most of them freed criminals pardoned by the king yesterday!

Notice the Moroccan officer assisting them. This was all coordinated by the Moroccan government. pic.twitter.com/pERBedfwq3
— Dr. Maalouf ‏ (@realMaalouf) July 30, 2026

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/2083261719334338718?s=20

ELON MUSK: "If there are no babies, humanity will come to a halt. And we've seen now for many years, very low birth rates in almost all of the world. Even India recently went a lower replacement rate.

If you look at China, for example, they are roughly at half replacement rate,… pic.twitter.com/H7qM7wU41I
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) August 1, 2026

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Debt Rattle July 17 2026

Jul 172026

July 17, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:10 am Finance Tagged with: data centers, election fraud, ICE, JD Vance, marxism, NATO, political terrorism, Rubio, Ukraine 29 Responses »

Pablo Picasso The Dream 1932

• Trump Exposes Mind-Blowing Election Compromising and Cheating (Salgado)

• Trump Drops Bombshell Election Fraud Intel (Matt Margolis)

• Trump’s War On Marxism Enters Action Phase (ZH)

• Rubio Delivers Remarkable Speech on Resurgence of Political Terrorism (CTH)

• Coalition of the Willing to Hold Military Drills Near Ukraine (Anzalone)

• Zelensky ‘Wants Civilian Deaths’ – Ukrainian Spy (RT)

• Horror Stories of Alleged Russian Threat Serve As NATO Build-Up Pretext (RT)

• EU To Strip Draft Age Ukrainians of Refugee Protection (RT)

• Democrats Got Some Devastating News About the Midterms (Margolis)

• Half-Mile-Long Homeless Encampment Springs Up on Manhattan’s West Side (Thorne)

• President Trump Highlights Importance of Data Centers (CTH)

• Smooth Sailing Ahead for DNI Nominee Jay Clayton (CTH)

• Trump Directs DHS Secretary to Continue ICE Deportation Traffic Stops (CTH)

• JD Vance to Joe Rogan: Aliens Are Demons (Scott Pinsker)

BREAKING: President Trump reveals that China hacked more than 220 MILLION US voter files during the 2020 election cycle, which include people's personal and sensitive information.

And Democrats said it was the "most secure election in US history" pic.twitter.com/fmsGxDuOsk
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 17, 2026

Something big is coming on election fraud.

300 FBI agents have surged into Fulton County…

Former ODNI Tulsi Gabbard was on the ground during the early days of the investigation.

Investigators have been told to prepare for major arrests by the July 17th deadline.

Now we learn… pic.twitter.com/Le1yl522Gp
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 14, 2026

https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2077594254067835206?s=20

NEW: Joe Rogan is coming right out and saying it and has had ENOUGH after Spencer Pratt "lost" the LA mayoral election.

Rogan to JD Vance: "I'm not skeptical. I'm accusing them. I think they stole the election."

BOOM!pic.twitter.com/2ah830ISdM
— Chad Prather (@WatchChad) July 15, 2026

It’s a deluge. You can’t run a country this way. Unless you grow bananas on the side

• Trump Exposes Mind-Blowing Election Compromising and Cheating (Salgado)

It turns out that the “conspiracy theorists” weren’t so crazy after all. President Donald Trump says that foreign governments and corrupt domestic bureaucrats have so compromised our election system across the country that it is worse than a Third World banana republic.

“No country could be great without fair and honest elections,” Trump insisted during his Thursday night primetime address. “You have to trust your country because if there can be no trust, there can be no greatness, and that’s very simple: no trust, no greatness.” Unfortunately, according to him, between our enemies around the world like the Chinese and Iranian regimes and their collaborators in the American media and “Deep State,” malicious actors have stolen voters’ data, hacked electronic voting machines, manufactured fake ballots, and bribed fraudsters. It’s an “unprecedented election security nightmare.” And both Joe Biden and Barack Obama apparently benefited.

The president revealed a staggeringly gargantuan number from newly declassified documents: “Over a period of years, starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People’s Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files. That information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, political party preferences, and other sensitive data that would be needed to register to vote and engage in other nefarious activities,” Trump said.
The genocidal, America-hating Chinese Communist Party even had a special data exploitation unit dedicated to stealing U.S. voter data. “Compounding the travesty, the second set of documents we are releasing reveals that members of the Deep State, a very, very famous group of people,” were complicit, with U.S. intelligence agencies covering up the evidence.
One of the most significant revelations in Trump’s speech regarded the 2020 election. “Raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020, yet buried by rogue bureaucrats, stated that China’s activities even included an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden,” Trump said, confirming election interference from our number one enemy on behalf of Biden. “Documents show that during this period, dozens of significant CIA and NSA reports about China’s election targeting were kept out of the presidential briefing. These were briefings I would get almost every day.” The fix was in. One email explicitly admitted to leaving out information given to Trump during his first term in office.
The scheme goes back for years. “Another official inside the FBI wrote that she was running ‘a shadow government’ to keep intelligence about China’s election meddling from becoming known,” President Trump stated. “Recently, we found significant numbers of burn bags … and this is a group of bags that were used to destroy information given by President Barack Hussein Obama to be burned … These bags were supposed to be at a different level, by different people, incinerated … but it never happened. Maybe we got lucky.”
[..] Our media and Deep State were selling America to our worst foes. “Put together, these disclosures reveal an election system so broken and so vulnerable that no one can possibly defend it,” Trump declared. “Hundreds of millions of U.S. voter files are in the hands of foreign governments. Our machines and ballot counting systems are exposed to hacking, manipulation, and corruption. China and other countries have been trying to meddle in our elections. Evidence of fraud has been buried. Hundreds of thousands of non-citizens and dead people are listed and active on the voter rolls, and yet we still have elections with no voter ID, no proof of citizenship, and tens of millions of ballots floating aimlessly through the mail.” That is indeed a situation that belongs to a Third World hellhole, not to the USA.

US elections are won by cheating, in 100 different ways. And then denying it.

• Trump Drops Bombshell Election Fraud Intel (Matt Margolis)

President Donald Trump addressed the nation Thursday night, and during his speech, he revealed that China pulled off “the largest compromise of election data in history,” stealing 220 million U.S. voter files. He didn’t stop there. Trump told the country he was releasing evidence documenting just how compromised our elections have become. mThat evidence is now public. The White House posted a batch of previously classified documents on a dedicated webpage, and they paint a picture of an election system compromised by hostile foreign governments and shielded by internal cover-ups. The administration is using the disclosures to push for voter ID, proof of citizenship, and tighter controls on mail ballots.

For years, officials assured Americans that election infrastructure, electronic voting machines, ballot-counting systems, all of it, was secure. The documents released this week directly contradict that claim. “We judge that U.S. adversaries, including at a minimum Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, as well as non-state groups, have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure,” a declassified U.S. Intelligence Community assessment states. It also warned that “centralized election-related data repositories, such as voter registration databases, pollbooks, and official election websites, are most vulnerable to exploitation, and adversaries could use access to these systems to disrupt election processes.”
The most alarming revelations include that the CIA reportedly obtained intelligence on a specific plot by the Maduro regime in Venezuela to digitally rig its own 2020 election, using methods designed to shift vote totals in ways that would survive an audit undetected. And starting around the 2020 cycle, China allegedly carried out that historic data heist, illicitly acquiring 220 million voter files containing names, addresses, phone numbers, and party affiliations, complete with a dedicated data exploitation unit assigned to the job.
And the worst part is that the Deep State inside U.S. intelligence agencies allegedly suppressed and downplayed the scale of China’s theft, keeping it from the president and from the public. Spy agencies reportedly learned back in 2020 that tens of millions of voters’ data across 18 states had been bought, stolen, or hacked by China. Yet they sat on it.
Think it can’t get worse? The FBI files document large-scale voter registration fraud in Michigan, uncovered after state police raided a Democratic get-out-the-vote organization in Muskegon back in 2020 and referred the case to the FBI’s Detroit office. Canvassers allegedly admitted to agents that they signed registration forms in other people’s names, invented registrations for people who don’t exist, and collected gift cards based on how many applications they churned out. FBI agents believed crimes had been committed. The Biden Department of Justice slow-walked the case for years. FBI Director Kash Patel has now been directed to make sure it’s fully investigated and prosecuted.
Then there’s the noncitizen problem. A Department of Homeland Security review of state voter rolls found roughly 278,000 noncitizens registered to vote in federal elections, and officials believe the real number is far higher since some Democrat-led states refused to hand over their voter files.

“Fatal Cancer On Civilization”: Trump’s War On Marxism Enters Action Phase As Rubio, Miller And Bessent Address 65 Nations.”

• Trump’s War On Marxism Enters Action Phase (ZH)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent addressed delegations from more than 65 countries on the alarming rise of far-left terrorism. The broader message from all three speakers was very clear: Just as the US and its allies confronted the spread of Marxism in previous generations, Washington now believes the West needs an all-of-government, multinational strategy to counter far-left political violence, foreign influence networks and subversion movements seeking to destabilize Western institutions.
Rubio called for the civilized world to unite against an “encroaching darkness,” urging all leaders in the room to defend what they have built and fight back against those who seek to destroy it. The enemy Rubio is referring to is the rise of transnational far-left terrorism.

NEW: Secretary of State Marco Rubio calls for the civilized world to unite against an "encroaching darkness," urging nations to defend what they have built and fight back against those who seek to destroy it.

"It is easy to destroy great things. It is far more difficult to make… pic.twitter.com/G14GjBSIXE
— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 16, 2026

Rubio said, “In the United States, the share of left-wing terrorist attacks and plots has risen to levels not seen in DECADES. In Germany, far-left violence has jumped by more than 40% in just the last year alone.”
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2077747041984184454?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2077747041984184454%7Ctwgr%5E3b0dce7b5112c82f50b0f669fb5acb435cb2884c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fwatch-live-rubio-bessent-convene-65-nations-global-crackdown-far-left-political-terrorism
Rubio added that Antifa is being directly aided by Iran and Cuba through a massive international network that seeks to attack the West with terrorism and propaganda.

Marco Rubio says Antifa is being directly aided by Iran and Cuba through a massive international network that seeks to attack the West with terrorism and propaganda.

"They despise the West because the West is great." pic.twitter.com/20o7JSLdKY
— Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) July 16, 2026

After Rubio, Miller addressed the hundreds of high-level officials in the room, saying, “Here in the United States, we have taken the necessary and essential action formally recognizing left-wing violence as a form of political terrorism that is a direct threat to our national security and the survival of our republican form of government.”v
Stephen Miller: "Here in the United States, we have taken the necessary and essential action formally recognizing left-wing violence as a form of political terrorism that is a direct threat to our national security and the survival of our republican form of government." pic.twitter.com/MMvYho2t87
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 16, 2026

Stephen Miller on left-wing political violence: “This is a fatal cancer to civilization… The greatest risk that we have is that our institutions have grown too soft and too cowardly to be able to defend themselves against a mortal threat.” pic.twitter.com/RJCZDMAfCX
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 16, 2026

Serious.

• Rubio Delivers Remarkable Speech on Resurgence of Political Terrorism (CTH)

Today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is hosting an event with various governments for a Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism. The event focuses on the reemergence of this threat to society and encourages stronger joint action to reinforce frontline defenses and close the gaps the terrorist actors continue to exploit. As part of the State Department effort, Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered a remarkable speech to the audience. Within his remarks Rubio outlines the history of left-wing violence and lists current examples of how dangerous this has become. In many ways this is the anti-Obama speech that has long been needed. This is a moment that can reset how we view terrorism in the 21st century, shifting from a terror-threat focus from Islamic extremism to the more pervasive threat from left-wing political violence.

STATE DEPT – […] Far-left political terrorism is resurgent, manifesting in violent terrorist acts across the Western Hemisphere, Europe, Asia and beyond. These are not isolated incidents. They reflect a deliberate, ideologically motivated strategy to destabilize free societies by violently targeting our political and economic systems, including attacks against private citizens, government officials, police and law enforcement, businesses, and critical infrastructure around the globe. For too long, however, this threat has remained a blind spot in the international community’s counterterrorism focus, underestimated and under-resourced, despite the danger it poses.
The United States is taking a leading role in countering far-left terrorism. Since November 2025, the United States has designated four violent far-left groups — Antifa Ost, the Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front (FAI/FRI), Armed Proletarian Justice, and Revolutionary Class Self-Defense — as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists, as well as offered a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the disruption of the financial mechanisms of these same four organizations.
In recent months, the United States engaged also law enforcement, counterterrorism professionals, and prosecutors around the globe through direct engagements, as well as the inaugural Counterterrorism Law Enforcement Workshop (CTLEW) in May 2026, which convened 14 countries for a two-day, practitioner-focused workshop to exchange best practices for countering the threat of transnational far-left terrorism.
This Ministerial builds on that foundation, bringing together partners from across the Western Hemisphere, Europe, and Asia to expand coordination, enhance information sharing, and strengthen international law enforcement mechanisms to counter the threat. Secretary Rubio will highlight the importance of deepening cooperation with international partners to better map violent activity, disrupt terrorist financing, protect critical infrastructure, and promote collective action against a threat that respects no borders.

They want peace-keeping troops in Ukraine (after the peace-fire), on Russia’s border. Not going to happen.

• Coalition of the Willing to Hold Military Drills Near Ukraine (Anzalone)

A bloc of Kiev allies will hold war games in states that border Ukraine in preparation for deploying troops to the country once a ceasefire is reached with Russia. On Monday, the Coalition of the Willing – a bloc of countries that support Ukraine – met in Paris to discuss providing additional aid to Kiev. French President Emmanuel Macron announced that member states would hold war games in states bordering Ukraine.

The French leader asserted the purpose of the drills was to prepare troops for a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine once a ceasefire is reached with Russia. However, Moscow says any peace agreement with Kiev must include a commitment from Ukraine not to host foreign forces. Additionally, the Kremlin has ruled out a short-term ceasefire, and wants all negotiations focused on a peace deal to end the conflict permanently. On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Europe of working to undermine the framework for resolving the conflict established between President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin during the 2025 Alaska summit.
During the Coalition of the Willing summit, countries pledged additional military aid to Kiev. President Macron also said Paris would give Kiev permission to produce French missiles and interceptors in Ukraine. Macron’s move mirrors an action President Donald Trump took last week when he authorized Ukraine to produce Patriot missiles. Building factories and establishing supply lines to manufacture advanced munitions in the middle of a war will likely take years to accomplish.

Every move is made with war with Russia in mind. They don’t want to win it, they want forever war.

• Zelensky ‘Wants Civilian Deaths’ – Ukrainian Spy (RT)

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is directing the nation’s intelligence services not to spare civilians in their operations abroad, Vitaly Zhikovich, an acting colonel of the Ukrainian military intelligence agency (HUR), said in an exclusive audio recording obtained by RT. Zhikovich is one of two Ukrainian spies who confessed to liquidating Anastasia Berezovskaya, the main suspect in last month’s bomb attack on exiled Ukrainian millionaire Vadim Ermolaev in Monaco. Russian security services identified him as an active military intelligence operative and shed light on his other attempted terrorist plots.

“My superior said that there would be casualties, civilian casualties. And my president – that green bastard – wants civilian casualties,” Zhikovich can be heard saying to an unidentified interlocutor in one of the recordings, referring to Zelensky, whose last name has a semantic association with the word ‘green’ in Russian and Ukrainian. Zhikovich attempted but failed to commit at least 20 terrorist acts in Russia in recent years. In another recording, Zhikovich stated that his agency was preparing an unprecedented attack against the Crimean bridge after one attempt already failed.
“Believe me, this is going to be a massive event, and the whole world will be talking about it. What we’ve got going on here is really something huge. Crocus will look like nothing by comparison, I’m telling you!” he said. The 2024 Moscow Crocus City Hall massacre was the deadliest terrorist attack in Russia in over two decades, claiming the lives of 151 people and wounding another 609. The Russian Investigative Committee concluded that the attack carried out by a regional offshoot of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) was organized on behalf of Ukraine.

“Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has claimed Moscow may be planning “provocations” and limited attacks on critical EU infrastructure ..“

• Horror Stories of Alleged Russian Threat Serve As NATO Build-Up Pretext (RT)

The Baltic states are using “horror stories” about an alleged Russian threat to justify further NATO build-up and higher military spending, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Peskov was commenting on Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda’s claims that Moscow could be preparing “provocations” and limited attacks on critical infrastructure in Poland or the Baltic states. “This is the latest batch of horror stories, intended to continue brainwashing people and to prepare the population for further militarization,” Peskov said.

Baltic leaders are deliberately “creating the image of an enemy” in the form of Russia to facilitate the expansion of NATO military infrastructure across the region “in all its forms,” he added. mNauseda told Lithuanian media this week that intelligence agencies had “received signals” about possible “kinetic operations” targeting critical infrastructure. He acknowledged, however, that the information did not indicate where or when such incidents might occur. mLatvian President Edgars Rinkevics reportedly echoed the warning on Wednesday, citing information from “Lithuanian, Latvian and other NATO states” intelligence agencies about possible “various sabotage attempts to lower the security in our states.”
Western officials have repeatedly cited the prospect of Russian aggression to justify higher defense spending, including the EU’s €800 billion ($917 billion) ReArm Europe initiative and NATO members’ commitment to increase military expenditure to 5% of GDP. Moscow has consistently denied harboring aggressive intentions toward the US-led military bloc, dismissing claims of a planned attack on NATO as “nonsense.” Kremlin officials have described such accusations as fearmongering aimed at inflating military budgets. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that Russia has “no reason” to attack the EU or NATO unless it is attacked first.
Russia has also repeatedly condemned NATO’s military build-up in Europe and the alliance’s increased activity near its western borders, warning that any deployment of nuclear capabilities closer to Russian territory would draw a response. The Baltic states have been among Kiev’s strongest supporters within the EU throughout the Ukraine conflict. Moscow has argued that continued Western military and financial aid only prolongs the fighting without changing its outcome, while increasing the risk of a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.

The ultimate betrayal of young Ukrainians. They are designated to be cannon fodder.

• EU To Strip Draft Age Ukrainians of Refugee Protection (RT)

The EU has agreed to stop granting temporary protection to newly arriving Ukrainians liable for military service while extending the scheme for others who fled the conflict with Russia, according to the Council of the European Union. The restriction will take effect in March 2027, while the broader protection scheme will remain in place until March 2028. Kiev imposed a general mobilization shortly after the escalation of the conflict in February 2022, preventing nearly all military-age men from leaving the country. Despite the restrictions, many reached the EU, where adult men now make up around 27% of Ukrainians under temporary protection, according to bloc data.

The European Commission said on Wednesday that new applicants would have to “satisfy their military obligations in Ukraine” to qualify for temporary protection. It said the measure was intended to reflect the country’s “evolving defense needs” and would not affect those already benefiting from the scheme. Ukraine currently conscripts men between the ages of 25 and 60. Irish Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, said the extension “provides stability for those who found safety in the EU.” At the same time, he stressed that “we also want to make sure Ukraine can defend itself,” adding that this is why the temporary protection scheme “respects Ukraine’s legitimate needs.”
Across Western Europe, governments are increasingly scaling back support for Ukrainian refugees as pressure grows on welfare systems and public frustration over migration costs rises. More than 4.35 million Ukrainians are registered for temporary protection across the EU, according to Eurostat, while countries such as Poland, Germany, and Hungary have already moved to cut benefits.Ukrainian officials have repeatedly called for military-age men to return from abroad due to troop shortages. Vladimir Zelensky said in April that “our armed forces would certainly like them to come back because it is a matter of justice.”
Ukraine has struggled to replenish its ranks as Russian forces continue to advance. The so-called “busification” campaign, in which draft officers ambush men on the streets and outside their homes, often using force against those who resist, has repeatedly sparked public outrage.
The conscription crisis has prompted several of Kiev’s European backers to review their asylum laws. Earlier this year, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz vowed to restrict protections for Ukrainians, arguing that young men were needed in their home country. Last month, the Czech government approved legislation tightening temporary protection rules, saying future EU discussions could also include limiting protections for military-age men as Ukraine faces mounting manpower shortages. Moscow has accused Kiev and its Western backers of being willing to fight Russia “to the last Ukrainian.”

Lemme guess: they don’t stand a chance.

• Democrats Got Some Devastating News About the Midterms (Margolis)

Democrats have spent the past year and a half dreaming about flipping both chambers of Congress this November. The House was always supposed to be the easy part. History certainly favors them, and polling has also favored them for most of this cycle. But that dream just took a serious hit. New data show Democrats are not gaining momentum this summer. Some of it suggests they’re losing ground, and losing it fast. Of course, it’s the middle of the summer, and anything can happen. But for Democrats, the warning signs that the midterms aren’t going to go as they hoped are impossible to ignore. In short, the trend lines right now are running in the wrong direction for Democrats.

According to RealClearPolitics election analyst Sean Trende, the way polls are moving now, there’s a shot that the GOP can keep the House. “The RCP Average generic ballot has gone from D+8 to D+5 over the past six weeks. Probably just inevitable ‘Soft Rs coming home’ but this starts to get into territory where it is conceivable that Rs hold the House,” Trende wrote. “I should add that I think the system can handle a party winning the popular vote by a point or so but losing the House. But if it stretches to a 3-4 point differential, which it may, it is going to be ugly.” Of course, the RCP Average isn’t the only data point moving in Republicans’ favor.
https://twitter.com/OpenSourceZone/status/2077386629887517029?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2077386629887517029%7Ctwgr%5E3c3dc5e21cfc9821289c6ec9e9f770be84d4fa53%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fmatt-margolis%2F2026%2F07%2F16%2Fdemocrats-got-some-devastating-news-about-the-midterms-n4955105

That’s a significant swing in the GOP’s favor. And it’s not just the generic ballot. Races Democrats once considered locks are suddenly competitive again. Take North Carolina. Former Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper (D-N.C.) has held a commanding lead over former RNC chair Michael Whatley (R-N.C.) for months. Now, even Public Policy Polling, a Democrat-aligned polling firm, has Cooper’s lead down to just four points, and PPP itself is admitting Republicans have a real shot at winning the seat.
That should worry Democrats far beyond North Carolina. They’ve long said that their path to a Senate majority runs through Maine, but that math only works if they also win North Carolina. If Cooper loses, Democrats have no path to the Senate at all. None. So what happened? Two things, mainly. Democrats built their entire midterm pitch around being anti-Trump. That’s the whole strategy, and despite being warned over and over that this isn’t a winning message, they haven’t listened. Meanwhile, the socialist insurgency inside their own party keeps grabbing headlines, and it isn’t doing them any favors with independent voters who, as polls show, are turned off by socialism.
Republicans certainly haven’t sealed the deal. Trump’s favorables still have room to grow, and voters are watching gas prices as closely as they’re watching the news out of Iran. Affordability could still sink the GOP’s chances if it gets bad enough. But Democrats, who have spent this entire political cycle convinced this was their year, just got a brutal reality check. The soft Rs are coming home, the socialists are scaring off the middle, and Roy Cooper might not even be able to save them anymore.

The Mamdani Express.

• Half-Mile-Long Homeless Encampment Springs Up on Manhattan’s West Side (Thorne)

Thanks, Zohran! New York City’s grinning young communist-Muslim Mayor Zohran Mamdani changed Town Hall policy on dealing with homeless encampments early into his term. Notably, he removed all oversight of the issue from the NYPD and placed it instead under the auspices of the Department of Homeless Services (DHS). Mamdani pretended that he still intended to clean up encampments, though. “Mamdani’s approach to the sweeps will go something like this,” reported City Limits:

• On day one, DHS will place notices on encampment sites saying that the location will be cleaned by the Sanitation Department (DSNY) seven days later
• Each day after, DHS outreach staff will go to the site and engage the people there to offer shelter placements or other services
• On day seven, DSNY will clean up the site, with NYPD on hand if the situation escalates

In last winter’s deadly cold snaps, when the homeless were freezing to death in the warmth of collectivism, Mamdani explained the superiority of his system to the old method of removing people from the streets: “Whereas previously, a homeless New Yorker might have only two points of interaction with city government — the first day they’re served a notice and the seventh day when that notice comes to an end — our administration will meet those homeless New Yorkers every single day. And we will meet them looking to connect them with shelter, looking to connect them with services, looking to connect them with a city that wants them to be sheltered and indoors and warm and safe.”
If only it were that simple. But in his infinite and empathetic wisdom, the mayor ignores the reality underlying these encampments: The people living in them don’t want help. They don’t want to leave, don’t want to stay in a shelter, don’t want to clean themselves up, and don’t want to get sober. They want to do drugs, period. And they will do whatever it takes to exist in that state, indefinitely, until they are forced to leave. As a result of the mayor’s fantasies, a massive homeless encampment has sprung up on Manhattan’s west side, stretching from at least 34th Street up to the floating Intrepid Museum at 46th Street, obliterating the quality of life for normal, bill-paying New Yorkers who have the misfortune to live or work in the area.
“You see people walking around half naked in the street,” local mom Diana Khabbaz told the New York Post on Monday. “They are smoking whatever they’re smoking. You see needles on the street every 20 feet. Sometimes you see a homeless person. And all day long, all night, a lot by the parks, there are a lot of people and there are tons of tents, and people are sleeping everywhere.” The Post has been doing an excellent job covering the seedy crisis. On Tuesday, the outlet reported: “Almost one month now – getting a little bigger every time I come back,” one Flixbus driver told The Post. “They put the garbage here on the sidewalk so the people have to wait in the street when I come with the bus.
“They’re asking the people waiting for the bus for money,” the driver said. “It’s no good. My boss called and complained and they do nothing.” As always happens when officials refuse to police these situations, bums have set up semi-permanent structures, ready to stay for the long term, and the sordid encampment grows by the day. Drug use, waste, trash, prostitutes, and nodding addicts litter the sidewalks, forcing normal people to walk in the street. So comfortable and brazen have the vagrants become that they’ve even been tapping into city utility lines and stealing power from New Yorkers to electrify their shanties.
But then, the slide into and tolerance of squalor has always been among the most objectionable characteristics of socialism and communism. Mamdani has already got the billionaires and millionaires on the run. Policies like standing by as crime, drug use, and homeless encampments take over the city will chase out many of the middle- and working-class people who remain. You can watch the Jesse Watters Primetime show’s excellent three-minute report on the intolerable situation below: https://twitter.com/JesseBWatters/status/2077186381315719358?s=20

They can’t disrupt people’s lives. Make sure of that and you’re fine.

• President Trump Highlights Importance of Data Centers (CTH)

The discussion remains controversial depending on the location. Generally, data centers located in rural isolation do not seem to be too controversial. However, data centers built in proximity to population centers stimulate a great deal of opposition.

Recently New York state banned the building of Data Centers as politicization of the construct has become somewhat of a Right/Left divide. President Trump notes the importance of data centers:
(VIA TRUTH SOCIAL) – One of the biggest Driving Forces in the Future for Jobs, are Data Centers. They are big, strong, bold, and Money Machines for the State in which they are built. Governor Kathy Hochul, for political reasons, has terminated all Data Centers being built, or to be built, in New York State. These Companies are now being sought in Alabama, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and many other States. Both the Taxes and the Jobs amount to LIQUID GOLD! New York State has made a terrible decision.
All of this Income, and other Benefits, will be going to Red States, and some Blue, where Data Centers are sought as Cash Cows, with Lower Taxes and Record Setting Jobs. They must pay for their own Water and Power, and any leftover goes back to the State and local Community. Data Centers are tremendous WINS for the States and Communities that are lucky enough to get them. New York should change its Policy, IMMEDIATELY. The Radical Left Dumocrats must not be allowed to cause us to lose Data Centers, AI, and all of this incredible new Technology, to China, and other countries!”
~President DONALD J. TRUMP
The hardware side of the Data Center expansion is leading to increased revenue for raw material providers, chip makers, computer systems, fabrication shops, electrical components and construction. At the same time, the software side LLM builders and AI companies are trying to figure out how to make stable profitability within the sector.

CTH watches the tokenization and subscription fees for various AI model use with the same perspective CTH viewed over a decade of false claims within the financial market that told lies about social media viability and data processing costs. Now, we watch the seemingly exponential growth of AI capabilities and associated costs with the same pragmatic perspective. Robotic pool cleaners were introduced two generations ago. Did the pool cleaner business dry up? No, it expanded. Robotic vacuums broke into the popular household appliance market five years ago, you probably have one, did it eliminate maid services? No, still growing.
AI can now write its own code to generate outputs. Are software developers getting fired? No, demand for software designers and engineers is up. The mainframe approach, the one AI brain to run all systems, will never work – it is cost prohibitive (see first paragraph – wash, rinse, repeat). Deny this reality at your own investment risk. If needed, politely absorb the ridicule – for it matters not. CTH predicts AI will become a localized and optimized sub-set for each sector of the economy, requiring each major organization and corporation to adopt specific cost/benefit data libraries and networks for use and functionality.
At scale, a thousand coders each working on Gemini, ChatGPT, Anthropic, Fabian, Grok, etc. will become 100,000+ software designers working inside individual companies to create personalized, targeted, bespoke AI data systems and networks; each system specifically tailored to the industry or sector of business. The intranet of internets will happen again. Creating and selling AI system networks and integration functions that are personally tailored to highly specific company functions, creates an entirely new sector of the technology industry that has not even begun yet. [There’s an investment opportunity there]
Will AI robots replace some repetitive human functions? Yes, the ice rink Zamboni will likely not have a steering wheel, just an emergency joystick. A reference for a comparative industrial scale Roomba vacuum, or the robotic pool cleaners. However, at scale the robotic industry is slower than human efficiency in almost all sectors that matter; the cost benefit analysis will limit growth. The maid service sector will not be impacted any more than the software developers.
It is not an issue to fear some AI task efficiencies will grant more time available that will be filled with alternate task capabilities. Human productivity will increase in certain sectors of the economy, but humans will not lose work opportunities. Blue collar jobs will continue to expand as each of the hardware tools developed will need manufacturing, installation, maintenance and monitoring.
The further downstream the worker is from a repetitive function within the [XXXX] industry, the more irreplaceable they become.
As to the bigger picture of fully developed AI and the intersection of information and knowledge; yes, the automation of AI can present an issue. However, all AI concerns can be mitigated so long as multiple, alternative AI systems exist within the larger information realm.
As a nation we need dozens of different AI models each competing within the industry for the best AI product.
As long as we have multiple AI systems, alternatives to the hive-mind, we do not need to fear the AI network as a source of information. If we don’t like the AI outputs, we can switch to an alternate AI provider.
If the subscription cost of the AI is too high, then as long as we have a competitive market where a lesser expensive, perhaps bespoke AI option can exist, we should be okay. Let the free-and-fair market decide.

Be loud, Tulsi!

• Smooth Sailing Ahead for DNI Nominee Jay Clayton (CTH)

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held a quick, one-round, nomination hearing for Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton. The entire event lasted just under two hours with little room for controversy. It should be smooth sailing from here.

Other than a little faux resistance from SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner, the nomination hearing was otherwise unremarkable. You can always tell the position of the Intelligence Community by the positioning of their enabling structure within the SSCI. No worries ahead for Clayton.
The committee may organize a party line vote so that Democrats can maintain their resistance bona fides, but in a general sense it’s all optics during the downhill glide to the nomination. That said, what this means in the larger picture of the USIC system during the Trump administration is yet to be determined. Obviously FISA (702) reauthorization will likely be attached by Senate Majority Leader John Thune into a legislative package for a companion vote. The SSCI and larger Senate chamber all support Clayton and FISA (702), though there may be some optics of resistance from positional republicans.
It seems pretty clear that Acting DNI Bill Pulte was put in place by the White House to stay on through the release of election-related material planned for Thursday night. This move keeps DNI Clayton away from any fallout tied to the 2020 election investigation, and if the White House can pull off a presidential presentation that grabs public attention, Clayton could step into the role later with a mandate to dig into the details of the release without being directly linked to it.
The second aspect is yet another motive for fast DNI confirmation by an SSCI apparatus that really doesn’t want to go down the rabbit hole of foreign activity in the 2020 election. ADNI Bill Pulte and SGE John Solomon are now positioned to have one shot at grabbing political attention framed around the fraudulent 2020 election outcome on Thursday night. Soon thereafter, Clayton will take the reins at DNI and continue the goal of removing politics from the activity of the larger Intelligence Community.

There’s still millions who came in through Biden’s open borders.

• Trump Directs DHS Secretary to Continue ICE Deportation Traffic Stops (CTH)

Yesterday DEEP STATE DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin ordered ICE agents to stop deportation apprehensions from vehicles following an ICE self-defense shooting as a vehicle was used as a weapon by an illegal alien. Today, President Trump told his rogue DHS Secretary such an order was not approved by President Trump and ICE agents should continue all efforts to deport illegal aliens including traffic stops when needed.

[TRUTH SOCIAL] The men and women of ICE are doing a GREAT job, one that has to be done. CRIME IS WAY DOWN IN AMERICA, in many cases with numbers that haven’t been seen in decades. The Open Border Policy of Sleepy Joe Biden allowed 25,000,000 people to pour into our Country, unchecked and unvetted. Many were Criminals, and we have to get them out. In order to do this, we must be strong, tough, and smart, and we CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!
Once we do, we are playing right into the criminal’s hands. The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won’t happen on my watch. I.C.E., be judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do your very important job. Keep those Crime Stat Records coming! Remember, you are loved and respected in America. Thank you for your attention to this matter! ~PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
Secretary Markwayne Mullin is another weak link in the lawful system of removing illegal aliens. Misplaced sympathies, regardless of motivation, are against the interests of law-abiding Americans. Deportation efforts must continue with extreme prejudice against the illegal alien population.
Weak men make for hard times!
Hours later Markwayne Mullin reversed his order.

Very strange thing to say for a VP (for anyone?!).

• JD Vance to Joe Rogan: Aliens Are Demons (Scott Pinsker)

Vance is MAGA’s most gifted communicator of economic grievances. He seems sincere, compassionate, authentic, and fair-minded. If you’re an undecided voter, he’s exactly the kind of leader you want in your corner. Come Nov. 2026 and Nov. 2028, if economic concerns, pocketbook issues, and middle-class grievances are the top issues, the Republican Party couldn’t ask for a better, more relatable messenger than JD Vance. He’s the right man at the right time. In a socialism versus free market debate, Vance will win in a landslide.

Trouble is, the vast majority of the Rogan-Vance podcast wasn’t about the economy, pocketbook issues, or the middle class. It centered on Iran, Jeffrey Epstein, Israel, traitorous “hawks,” disloyal Republicans, and whether or not space aliens are demons (or maybe angels). JD Vance is a highly organized thinker. He speaks in paragraphs (plural). That makes him an exceptionally dangerous debater — if you don’t believe me, go ask Tim Walz — but an awkwardly verbose conversationalist. This sit-down with Rogan didn’t play to his strengths. He’s noticeably better on the debate stage. Politically, the most interesting development was Vance’s calculation on Israel. Instead of choosing between the pro-Israel and anti-Israel factions, he declared himself a “reasonable moderate.” It’s a risky calculation.

JD Vance calls himself a “reasonable moderate” between pro- and anti-Israel extremes, saying he’s advocating a pragmatic relationship based on “shared interests” with Israel.

Vance says that Israel is an ally of the US like any other, no different from France or the UK, and…
— AF Post (@AFpost) July 15, 2026

If it works, he retains a MAGA coalition that was big and welcoming enough to include Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Megyn Kelly. Since neither side finds him objectionable, he could be a bridge between both extremes. But I don’t think he can pull it off. It’s a helluva high-wire act. Besides, his strategy requires him to make a pragmatic argument about what many believe is a moral issue, which puts him behind the eight ball from the get-go. More likely than not, he’ll eventually have to choose a side. Many pro-Israel Republicans believe he already has. That’s because they’re reading into his emotive language, divining his words, and noting that he blames one side far more than the other.
https://twitter.com/alexbruesewitz/status/2077450739207610427?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2077450739207610427%7Ctwgr%5E1e7f0fe91d4eeadefa7d15e7a53feb48f9e9d69f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fscott-pinsker%2F2026%2F07%2F16%2Fjd-vance-to-joe-rogan-aliens-are-demons-hawks-sabotaged-the-mou-israel-is-meddling-n4955111
He explicitly accused “hawks” of sabotaging his (since-failed) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Iran. Vance also insisted that the $300 billion Iran payment story was a “bull**** argument” that was “completely made up” by “hawks” to “politically tank the negotiation.” So, according to Vice President Vance, what’s motivating these bloodthirsty hawks? In Israel, “some people in the Israeli government want war indefinitely.” And in America, the “hawks” want us to send 150,000 ground troops into Iran. Which simply isn’t true:

Vance is the master of tearing down strawmen. NO ONE is proposing sending 150,000 troops to Iran. NO ONE. https://t.co/QdYu4LHNJl
— Marc Thiessen (@marcthiessen) July 15, 2026

Either way, Vance is taking the MOU criticism personally. Here’s Mediaite with excerpts from his appearance on JRE: “[P]eople have come after me and said that I’m influenced by Qatar, that I am influenced by foreign governments, that I take my marching orders from Tucker Carlson — there’s just so much bulls*** out there, when what I’m actually trying to do is accomplish what the President of the United States told me to accomplish, which is a settlement of this that accomplishes our objectives: Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon, and we have the free flow of oil and gas. […]
“But again, when I open up the pages of Time magazine and I see that there’s a literal foreign influence campaign being funded to tank the very deal that I was pursuing — and, oh, by the way, many of the people who were receiving that money were actually attacking me in completely dishonest ways — my response to that is: well, go to hell. I’m going to do what I have to do for the American people. I represent Americans first.” Yet the people who blew up JD Vance’s (now failed) MOU weren’t hawks, Israelis, or disloyal neocons! It was the Iranians!
For someone who claims to be a “reasonable moderate,” he consistently — and repeatedly — assigns the least charitable interpretation to the pro-Israel/hawk faction while (mostly) ignoring the Groyper/isolationist faction. His disdain is difficult to ignore. And because he’s so damn smart, we assume it’s deliberate. Rogan and Vance also chatted about the VP’s claim that UFOs were demons. It was a very strange back-and-forth: Is it wise for the vice president to speculate about the supernatural? Perhaps: Speculating is fun. Everyone wonders about the unknown. I do.But a politician must be careful not to get over his skis, lest he look ridiculous.
As a one-off, contemplating about the angelic/demonic origins of UFOs won’t move the needle either way. But coupled with Vance’s public declaration (and Susie Wiles’ description of him) as a proud “conspiracy theorist,” he risks being portrayed as a crackpot thinker. Obviously, that’s not helpful for a man with presidential aspirations. This was an ill-advised rabbit hole. We watch longform interviews to catch a window into someone’s mind, soul, and heart. A politician must be mindful of what he reveals. And he must be especially mindful when he’s spitballing about unproveable, unknowable metaphysical phenomena. https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/2077543707658653718?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2077543707658653718%7Ctwgr%5E1e7f0fe91d4eeadefa7d15e7a53feb48f9e9d69f%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Fscott-pinsker%2F2026%2F07%2F16%2Fjd-vance-to-joe-rogan-aliens-are-demons-hawks-sabotaged-the-mou-israel-is-meddling-n4955111
Full video:

I think people are sleeping on the idea of @SpaceX becoming the leader of mobile connectivity with Starlink Mobile

Once scaled, Starlink Mobile will enable high-bandwidth 5G connectivity directly to your phone without any additional equipment.

• No more dead zones
• Works… pic.twitter.com/3cRco4z0fC
— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) July 16, 2026

She is France’s last hope https://t.co/alN4E0hXbl
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2026

https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/2077528642784026875?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2077769923451900044?s=20 https://twitter.com/mcafeenew/status/2077525070520427005?s=20

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Debt Rattle July 16 2026

Jul 162026

July 16, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:55 am Finance Tagged with: drones, education, ground campaign, Iran, Jack Smith, Pinocchio, power plants, Starship, Ukraine 50 Responses »

Edgar Degas Dancers in Blue 1895

• US & Iran Exchange Heavy Strikes For 5th Day (ZH)

• Trump Claims ‘Other People’ Could Lead Ground Campaign In Iran (RT)

• Trump Warns Iran That Next Targets Will Be Power Plants And Bridges (JTN)

• DOJ Records Reveal Jack Smith Got Private Texts From 44 Lawmakers (JTN)

• Europe’s Position On Ukraine Is A ‘Dead End’ – Kremlin (RT)

• Zelensky To Remove Ukraine’s Reforming Young Defense Minister (ZH)

• Von der Leyen Promises Kiev Safe And Secure Production Sites For Drones (TASS)

• Coalition of the Willing Troops In Ukraine, Western Sanctions (TASS)

• Here’s What’s Riding on Thursday’s Starship Flight Test (Stephen Green)

• Joe Biden Slurs His Way Through Video Announcing New Memoir (Margolis)

• Of Marxists and Morons …. (Eric Utter)

• Pinocchio and the Information Society (Mikhail Afanasyev)

• Gallup: Higher Education Hits Another Low in Public Trust (Turley)

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2077028902048772414?s=20

Chamath Palihapitiya concedes that CNBC’s Joe Kernen was “100% right” about President Trump.

Palihapitiya went even further, calling Trump “very smart” and a “great president.”

KERNEN: “You said I was 100% right on climate change.”

PALIHAPITIYA: “You were 100% right on climate… pic.twitter.com/KZQ0s5lvzB
— Overton (@overton_news) July 14, 2026

CHAMATH: "The reality is that most of us were lied to by the media about President Trump.”

TRUE! The Fake News is an enemy of the American people!pic.twitter.com/iXqwxxSWjT
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) July 14, 2026

https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2076865214893765034?s=20

🚨BREAKING: President Trump Says His Announcement on Election Fraud is ‘REALLY BIG NEWS’

“I’d rather save it, but it’s really big news. Our country has to shape up. It doesn’t get bigger. Without free and fair elections, you don’t have a country. It’s going to be a very big… pic.twitter.com/tRhhMpX8nl
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 14, 2026

When this whole thing started, I wrote they would have to find the right words, to allow everyone to save face. They haven’t found those words -yet.

• US & Iran Exchange Heavy Strikes For 5th Day (ZH)

“At 6 a.m. ET today, U.S. Central Command forces began launching a wave of strikes against Iran,” Centcom announced. “The strikes are designed to further degrade military capabilities Iranian forces have used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”

The US military further indicated it launched a “seven-hour wave” of strikes overnight – and followed during the next day (Wednesday) by a 90-minute wave. Also the evening prior, the US reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports and alongside launching its fourth consecutive night of strikes on the country, also as President Trump freshly warned that if Iran does not return to the negotiating table, “next week it gets really bad for them, because next week comes the power plants.”
“You better make a deal, or you’re not going to have anything left,” Trump has warned. “Ultimately, we’ll hit energy targets in Iran. Next week comes the bridges. We’re going to knock out all of their power plants. We’ll knock out all of their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate.” Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani announced that at least 30 civilians have been killed across the country over 260 people wounded by American strikes of the last few days.
Airstrikes also reportedly took out an Iranian military barracks in southeastern Iran, leaving seven dead. The Associated Press details that “One strike targeted a barracks for Iran’s 388th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, which operates tanks and armored vehicles, in Sistan and Baluchestan province, Iranian state television reported.” “The report said the Americans fired at least 13 missiles in the attack and that the seven dead included conscripts and career soldiers,” AP continues. “A number of troops were wounded.”
Heavy bombardments have focused on the coastal areas, with US strikes reportedly having hit a civilian maritime control tower in Chabahar, southern Iran – location of country’s only deep-water port outside the Strait of Hormuz, which allows Iran direct access to the Indian Ocean without passing through the Gulf.

US strikes hit a civilian maritime control tower in Chabahar, southern Iran.

Chabahar is strategically critical for Iran.

It's the country's only deep-water port outside the Strait of Hormuz, giving Iran direct access to the Indian Ocean without passing through the Gulf.… pic.twitter.com/NYNoy0azAI
— Clash Report (@clashreport) July 15, 2026

As expected, Iran’s IRGC has continued launching a wave of retaliatory strikes targeting critical US military infrastructure across the Gulf and even reaching into Jordan. The list of targets hit, according to an array of regional sources, include – Bahrain’s Sheikh Isa Air Base, the US Navy’s 5th Fleet support facility, Kuwait’s Ali Al-Salem and Camp Buehring, and Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base. Also, Emirati sources have reported strikes on the critical Fujairah Port, while Kuwait confirms one of its navy vessels was struck, leaving four crew members injured.
Additionally, social media is awash with unverified footage showing Shahed kamikaze drones striking Kuwait, as well as massive plumes of black smoke rising from burning facilities in Kuwait. US 5th Fleet HQ locations in Bahrain also show signs of damage from inbound projectiles. The IRGC has insisted that the “export of oil and gas from the region will be either for everyone or for no one.” The Iranians have continued to tout their nationalist defiance and have at no point shown signs of backing down as is hoped by Trump:
Addressing the Civilized and Courageous Nation of Iran with derogatory language does not diminish its Greatness.

Iranians are known for their civility, culture, and strong moral values. We do not answer vulgarity with vulgarity, but with action: fearlessly and with great valor.
— Syed Abbas Araghchi (@SyedAbbasA3t) July 15, 2026

“The US president has vowed to escalate strikes against civilian infrastructure unless Tehran bows to his demands..”

• Trump Claims ‘Other People’ Could Lead Ground Campaign In Iran (RT)

US President Donald Trump has refused to rule out a ground campaign in Iran, claiming that unspecified allied forces could seize key strategic sites like Kharg Island without the involvement of American troops, while threatening to expand the bombing campaign to include power plants and bridges. In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Trump said he would consider a ground operation “if I thought it was appropriate.” “Sometimes you need a ground campaign, but we have other people who will do the ground campaign for us… But we have already hit Kharg Island twice, even three times. I said, ‘Hit everything but the oil!’” Trump said.

Located about 25km (15 miles) off Iran’s Gulf coast, Kharg Island handles roughly 90% of the country’s crude exports and serves as the primary outlet for its oil revenues. Ahead of the now-broken April ceasefire, Trump had already threatened to seize Kharg Island “to take the oil.” Asked directly whether he still intended to seize the island, Trump replied: “As far as taking it is concerned, if we degrade them far enough and deep enough, I would do that.” The president also vowed to intensify the air campaign, saying US strikes would continue until he personally decided “it’s enough.”
“They’ll continue until I say it’s enough. Next week comes the power plants. Next week comes the bridges. We’re going to knock out all their power plants. We’re going to knock out all their bridges, unless they get to the table and negotiate,” Trump said. Trump further warned that Iran “won’t have anybody left” unless it reached a deal with Washington, claiming US officials had relayed that message to Tehran during contacts held “about an hour ago.” “We’re being very careful with the civilian population,” said Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran into oblivion, once warning that “a whole civilization will die” if Tehran failed to comply with US and Israeli demands.
More than 1,500 civilians have been killed in Iran since the US-Israeli bombing campaign began on February 28, according to local authorities. One of the deadliest incidents was the strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, which killed 168 people, mostly children. Open-source investigations by multiple media outlets have concluded that the school was likely hit during a US strike on a nearby IRGC naval base. Trump repeatedly denied American responsibility but said last month that “mistakes are made” and “nobody did that on purpose.”

“..and then next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants.”

Trump wants to be no part of this. But they won’t listen.

• Trump Warns Iran That Next Targets Will Be Power Plants And Bridges (JTN)

Trump warned Iran that the conflict will end when “I say it’s enough,” and that “energy targets” are next on his list. Iranian bridges and power plants will be struck next week if no deal is reached. President Donald Trump warned the Iranian regime Tuesday that the United States will target its bridges and power plants soon “unless they get to the table and negotiate.” The Middle Eastern conflict resumed last week after Iran struck three commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and the United States has since launched its own strikes on Iran in response.

Trump warned Iran that the conflict will end when “I say it’s enough,” and that “energy targets” are next on his list. Iranian bridges and power plants will be struck next week if no deal is reached. “I’ll save the energy targets for last, but ultimately we’ll hit energy targets,” Trump told Fox News reporter Trey Yingst. “We’re going to hit them very hard tonight. We’re going to hit them very hard tomorrow night. We’re going to hit them very hard the night after, and then next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants.
“Next week comes the bridges. We’re going to knock out all their power plants,” he continued. “We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate.” Trump defended the U.S.’s recent airstrikes on Iran, likening the country’s regime to a boxer who needs to be beaten down before peace can be achieved. “The only way you can negotiate with these people is through strength, and the only strength is military strength, and that’s what we’ve done,” Trump told Yingst. “It’s like a great boxer. You think you have them beat, and then all of a sudden he comes back and he gives you a shot. They have some fight left, but they don’t have much.”

“Constitutional alarm raised after…”

“Communications from Members of Congress pertaining to their official legislative duties are protected from criminal prosecution under the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause,”

“Everyone involved needs to be PROSECUTED.”

I don’t see how they can not. This is a free pass for Trump’s DOJ to do the same.

• DOJ Records Reveal Jack Smith Got Private Texts From 44 Lawmakers (JTN)

Newly released records reveal that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team bypassed mandatory protocols to secretly access the private text messages of 44 members of Congress during the probe into President Donald Trump, the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday. The disclosure, confirmed by records released by the Senate Judiciary Committee, has become a major constitutional flashpoint. As lawmakers confront the reality that their private communications were accessed without following established filter protocols, the inquiry is igniting a broader debate over the separation of powers between the executive branch and the legislative body.

“Communications from Members of Congress pertaining to their official legislative duties are protected from criminal prosecution under the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause,” the Senate Judiciary’s press release said. The Speech or Debate Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 6) serves as a check on executive power and is designed to prevent members of Congress from being “questioned in any other Place,” ensuring they cannot be subjected to the scrutiny of the Justice Department or the judicial branch for their legislative acts.
Yet DOJ records released to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, reveal that former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team reviewed the texts of 44 members of Congress, including 40 Republicans and four Democrats, during the investigation into President Donald Trump. The investigation, led by Grassley and Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., uncovered these records after receiving legally protected whistleblower disclosures, after which they formally requested records from the DOJ.
“This is a blatant abuse of power, and exactly what our Founders warned about,” Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., also wrote on X. Paul also called out Jack Smith, where, during a December 2025 congressional deposition when he was asked under oath whether his team had reviewed the content of text messages belonging to members of Congress, he answered, “No.”

December 2025: Jack Smith swore under oath that he didn't spy on text messages belonging to members of Congress.

Today: New evidence confirms he spied on dozens of members of Congress, myself included.

This is a blatant abuse of power, and exactly what our Founders warned… pic.twitter.com/3eqwiylLXI
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 14, 2026

Smith had been appointed by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022 to oversee the Biden DOJ’s investigation into President Donald Trump after his announcement of this third presidential campaign. The records released by Senators Grassley and Johnson provide evidence that the Biden DOJ established a “Filter Team” to evaluate materials obtained in the course of Jack Smith’s investigations. These included a probe relating to January 6 codenamed “Project Coconut,” an investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, known as Project “Cranberry,” all part of “Arctic Frost,” a sweeping probe into efforts to challenge 2020 election results, the press release said.
While the Filter Team’s purpose was to prevent investigators from the Special Counsel’s Office and the FBI from accessing privileged materials among records obtained, evidence shows that investigators bypassed this, potentially infringing on constitutional guardrails, according to the release. Smith was ultimately unable to secure a conviction against Trump, bringing his efforts into further scrutiny. The Special Counsel’s Office had obtained the private text messages through a subpoena to the National Archives and Records Administration for phone records stored between October 2020 to January 20, 2022, which were handed over on August 21, 2023.
The phones were associated with a long list of officials serving in the White House during President Trump’s first term, including Trump himself, as well as Stephen Miller, Rudy Giuliani, Kellyanne Conway, Peter Navarro, the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Vice President Mike Pence. Smith’s investigative team downloaded and began reviewing the texts without waiting for the Filter Team’s evaluation.
“Based on the information that’s been produced to me and Senator Johnson, Biden, DOJ and FBI investigators apparently ignored their own routine investigative protocols to obtain and review work-related messages from me and dozens of my Republican and Democrat colleagues,” said Grassley in his statement, who was also targeted in these investigations. Meanwhile, the scope of this investigative overreach has been igniting sharp backlash on Capitol Hill.
“They’re sick and tired of Americans being spied on. And my message to the American people is: if they’ll do it to senators and congressmen, guess what? They’ll do it to you as well,” said Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz, a former U.S. Navy SEAL on the Just the News, No Noise show on Tuesday.Crane also said that he had “several friends” who had found out they had been spied on, including Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., saying that “these individuals who engaged in that type of behavior absolutely need to be held accountable.”
Missouri Senator Josh Hawley also slammed the findings of the DOJ records, writing on X, “Joe Biden’s DOJ not only tapped my phone; I just learned they ILLEGALLY obtained my texts with members of President Trump’s administration,” adding, “Everyone involved needs to be PROSECUTED.” Lawmakers are now calling for a full-scale investigation into the breach, decrying what Senator Ron Johnson described as the “Biden administration’s weaponization of the Justice Department.” At the core of their concerns is whether the government has prioritized its investigative reach over constitutional restraints.
Grassley has stated he intends to have former Special Counsel Jack Smith appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold him accountable. “I hope my Democrat colleagues, several of whom had their own texts swept up, finally put partisanship aside and recognize the severity of these actions. Smith’s team ran roughshod over the Constitution even after repeated warnings,” Grassley said. Crane echoed these concerns. “You know what they say: if these folks aren’t held accountable, it’s going to happen again, and the American people are sick and tired of a two-tiered justice system,” he said.

Russia has been preparing for this since at least 1991. Well before Ukraine became an issue.

Ukraine is the issue the West chose to start the fight with Russia.

Which has more nukes than we do, and said they will use them when threatened.

“A resolution of the conflict without Russia is impossible, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.. “:

• Europe’s Position On Ukraine Is A ‘Dead End’ – Kremlin (RT)

Europe cannot play a meaningful role in resolving the Ukraine conflict while trying to exclude Russia from the process, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, calling the bloc’s position a “dead end.” Peskov was responding to remarks by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who argued that any future “security guarantees” for Kiev should be determined by Ukraine and its Western backers without Russia’s participation. “Such statements demonstrate that the position taken by the Europeans is a dead end. If they insist on it, they will have no role in the settlement process,” Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.

Merz made the comments at a ‘Coalition of the Willing’ summit in Paris on Monday, where he pledged that Germany and Ukraine’s other Western supporters would continue supplying military aid to Kiev after any future ceasefire. The group brings together several EU nations, as well as the UK, Norway, Iceland, and Türkiye. It has been discussing post-conflict security arrangements for Ukraine, including proposals to deploy a multinational force, despite Russia’s repeated rejection of foreign troops near its borders.
At last week’s NATO summit in Ankara, member states agreed to provide Ukraine with more than €70 billion ($80 billion) in military assistance this year and next. Germany pledged the largest national contribution. Germany has been the EU’s biggest supporter of Ukraine since the escalation of the conflict in February 2022, providing around €55.5 billion in military aid, according to government data. German media have also reported that Berlin will finance the purchase of 50,000 attack drones for the Ukrainian military.
The latest pledges come as Ukraine has intensified drone strikes on Russian energy infrastructure and residential areas in recent months amid continued setbacks on the battlefield, launching several hundred UAVs a day on average. Moscow has also reported a growing number of FPV drone attacks, including AI-guided models, targeting passenger buses and private vehicles.
The Kremlin has repeatedly said that any lasting peace settlement must address the root causes of the conflict, including Ukraine’s neutrality, demilitarization, protection of Russian speakers, and recognition of the territorial realities on the ground. Russian officials have also argued that Britain, France, and Germany undermined previous peace efforts, including the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements and the 2022 Istanbul draft deal. Moscow has warned that any deployment of Western troops to Ukraine would be treated as foreign intervention.

Ha ha. The guy does his work too well, so piano dickus fires him. And WE pay for that.

“..Fedorov had been a barrier to interests seeking to profit from Ukraine’s vast wartime defence budget..”

• Zelensky To Remove Ukraine’s Reforming Young Defense Minister (ZH)

The Ukrainian leader is “expected to remove defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov, the 35-year-old architect of Ukraine’s wartime defence technology drive, after just six months in the post as part of a major cabinet reshuffle,” FT writes Wednesday. “Several senior figures close to Zelensky said the president had held conversations about replacing the minister as he prepares to unveil his new government on Thursday,” the report adds. The FT report suggests that the young defense chief’s anti-corruption zeal is alienating powerful figures who wish for the wartime situation to be looser with less oversight:

“But defense industry officials, senior Ukrainian officials, MPs from Zelenskyy’s party and others familiar with the matter have said — some publicly — that Fedorov had been a barrier to interests seeking to profit from Ukraine’s vast wartime defence budget… Fedorov repeatedly blocked attempts to steer lucrative procurement contracts to favoured companies, which put him at odds with powerful figures inside Ukraine’s political and defence establishment, said people familiar with the situation.”
And yet interestingly President Trump has of late issued positive praise of Ukrainian forces’ accomplishments in the area of drone warfare against Russia.mKiev has further been boasting of its drone tech, and is even seeking to market it abroad, especially in the Middle East where Gulf countries are hungry for better defenses against smaller suicide drones. Fedorov has been widely seen as having rapidly implemented a transformative vision on this front. For example, earlier this week The Economist wrote:
“Tensions simmered barely below the surface at a war-council meeting in early July. Ukraine’s military leaders had mostly good news for their president. Middle- and long-range drone operations were seeing continued successes. A campaign to isolate Russian-occupied Crimea was running ahead of schedule. But as Power Point slides were shown to the testosterone-filled room, the generals griped about missile and ammunition procurement. The focus of their criticism, Mykhailo Fedorov, the 35-year-old tech-savvy defence minister who is known—and occasionally mocked—for his Silicon Valley style presentations, responded in kind.”
If it wasn’t for his emergency drone-purchasing decisions at the beginning of the year, which required borrowing money earmarked for salaries, there would be no Crimean operation to speak of. A witness to the proceedings describes “two different co-ordinate systems” in a clinch: “No common language, even if holding back from direct conflict.”

“..to attack Russia..”

• Von der Leyen Promises Kiev Safe And Secure Production Sites For Drones (TASS)

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has promised the Kiev regime “safe and secure production sites” for drones on the territory of the European Union for strikes against Russia. On a visit to Kiev, she signed an agreement of intent with Vladimir Zelensky on the production of drones for Ukraine in the European Union, similar to the documents that Ukraine signed with various NATO countries at the bloc’s summit in Ankara. Von der Leyen also promised “huge technological and industrial capacity” in Europe.

In April, the Russian Defense Ministry released the names and addresses of enterprises in Europe that produce drones for strikes against Russia, warning that the European public should know where the real threats to their security come from. Von der Leyen was awarded the Ukrainian Order of Europe, which she called a “great privilege.”

“The conflict in Ukraine can only be resolved if arms supplies to Kiev stop, Maria Zakharova said..”

• Coalition of the Willing Troops In Ukraine, Western Sanctions (TASS)

The deployment of any military contingents from the countries of the Coalition of the Willing to Ukraine is unacceptable, and they will become legitimate military targets if stationed there, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing. Sanctions against VK reflect the EU’s impotent anger and will not affect the development of the holding company, Zakharova said. She also noted that Moscow views Poland’s announced drills near the borders of Russia and Belarus as an inappropriate attempt by Warsaw to “flex its muscles.” TASS has compiled the key statements by the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.

Western support for Ukraine’s aggression
The conflict in Ukraine can only be resolved if arms supplies to Kiev stop: “Arms deliveries are one of the obstacles to a Ukrainian settlement.” The West should cease hiding behind talk of peace: “They should stop hiding behind talk of peace and openly say that they want only one thing – aggression.”
The deployment of any military contingents from the countries of the Coalition of the Willing to Ukraine is unacceptable, and they will become legitimate military targets if stationed there: “In this context, we would like to once again emphasize that our country considers the deployment of any military contingents from the countries of the so-called Coalition of the Willing to Ukraine unacceptable. I repeat once again: this will de facto mean foreign intervention and an increase in threats to Russia’s security. Such units will be regarded by us as legitimate military targets.”
Sanctions against VK
EU sanctions against Russian company VK reflect Brussels’ impotent anger: “This is a manifestation of absolutely impotent anger and chronic Russophobia.” The sanctions will not affect the development of the national messenger Max, designed by the holding company: “All these sanctions are unlikely to have any significant impact on the development of the national messenger, but for EU bureaucracy it is more important to try by any means to discredit a resource beyond its control and undermine trust in it.” Brussels has once again demonstrated its pathological desire to make life more difficult for Russian citizens by any means possible, and “this approach has nothing in common with genuine democracy.”
Prospects for restoring Russia-West dialogue
Dialogue between Russia and the collective West can only be restored if Europeans abandon “unfriendly and sometimes aggressive Russophobic actions” against the country,” their anti-Russian course, and interference in the nation’s internal affairs. There are currently no prerequisites for restoring dialogue: “As for prerequisites, do you see any? I have given examples today; in my opinion, they are absent.”
Nord Streams
The West must identify those who ordered the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, not only those who carried it out: “The Russian side has insisted and will continue to insist that not only the perpetrators but also the masterminds behind this unprecedented terrorist attack must be identified and publicly named.”
US disregard for CTBT
A total of 179 countries have ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), but this “dynamic is being overshadowed by the opportunistic policy of the United States, which for many years has prevented the CTBT from entering into force by refusing to ratify it, although at one time [the US] advocated the development of this treaty.” The United States treats international agreements, including the CTBT, with arrogance and disregard: “Washington’s position is an obvious manifestation of arrogance and the US side’s dismissive attitude toward international law, including in the areas of arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation.”
Washington “does not want to tie its own hands” and seeks to act without regard for the CTBT: “In this matter [the possibility of resuming nuclear tests], Washington intends to act without regard for the treaty, covering up its confrontational course with unsubstantiated and false accusations against other countries.”
NATO in Arctic
NATO’s actions in the Arctic region significantly increase the risk of incidents “that could have the most negative consequences for the region”: “The region where the principle of ‘high latitudes, low tensions’ prevailed for many years is now, through NATO’s efforts, being steadily and rapidly transformed into an area of geopolitical confrontation with our country.” Due to NATO’s actions, the Arctic today “is not simply an apple of economic discord but, unfortunately, a zone of militarization.”

V4.

• Here’s What’s Riding on Thursday’s Starship Flight Test (Stephen Green)

There is so much more riding on Starship Flight Test 13 than the first 20 functional Starlink V3 satellites, which are designed to deliver fiber-like internet speeds anywhere on land, air, or sea. People’s retirement portfolios, for example. SPCX shares have struggled since the company’s June initial public offering. Originally offered to the public at $135 on June 12, SPCX shares actually opened at $150 (an 11% pop) amid massive demand and hype. I bought exactly one on launch day, my “vanity share,” as I like to call it. Prices hit an intraday peak of $225.64 just four days later, but have since sagged to as low as $136.

For SpaceX, everything — not just the value of SPCX shares, but literally everything — rides on making Starship live up to Elon Musk’s promises. That’s why Thursday’s launch matters so much. The launch window for the next test of just that opens at 6:45 p.m. ET on Thursday, July 16, with some nice additions from FT12 in May. FT13 will follow the same flight path as FT12, with the booster sending Ship 40 (S40, making its first flight) on a suborbital trajectory before splashing down — with the usual 4K video provided by a buoy — about 65 minutes after liftoff. If this seems a little same-old same-old, nothing could be further from the truth.
For starters, FT12 suffered serious engine anomalies that are supposed to be corrected. Here’s Grok’s summary of what went wrong in May: Slight timing differences in Ship engine startup during hot-staging caused the booster to flip ~90° off-axis. This led to heat effects on propulsion components during ascent and erroneous engine alarm/abort settings. As a result, only a few of the 33 Raptors relit properly for the boostback burn, causing an early shutdown and a hard splashdown instead of a controlled one.
TL;DR? The boostback ignition partly failed, and that giant booster hit the Gulf of America like a brick. And about 40 seconds after separation, the upper Ship stage had one of its three vacuum-optimized engines fail. It still made its planned flight, proving an important “engine-out” capability, but SpaceX had to scrub a planned in-space engine relight. Since then, SpaceX has taken FAA-approved corrective actions, leading to the agency giving its blessing to FT13 earlier this week. Here’s how it should go.
#Starship Flight 13 (unofficial) step-by-step infographic. SpaceX’s promise of “excitement guaranteed” is a certainty. pic.twitter.com/UaNtufe5nJ
— Tony Bela – InfographicTony (@InfographicTony) July 15, 2026

Who would buy that book?

• Joe Biden Slurs His Way Through Video Announcing New Memoir (Margolis)

We knew it was coming. Now, it’s finally been announced. In a video shared to social media, Joe Biden issued a statement about his forthcoming presidential memoir, Promise Me, America, and the rollout told you almost everything you need to know before you bother to crack the spine. Biden’s voice sounded muffled, as if he were talking with a mouthful of cotton balls. It was hard to watch, but I sat through it. “Since I left the presidency, I’ve had a lot of people ask me, ‘Joe, what have you been doing?'” Biden claimed in the video. “I’m dealing with a cancer diagnosis, and I’ve been getting treatment, and it’s been going really well,” he said. He thanked supporters for their prayers before pivoting to the actual sales pitch. “I’ve written a book about my time as president. It’s called Promise Me, America,” he said.

The book hits shelves on Nov. 17, and, says Amazon, it runs 448 pages and retails for $42. According to the description from publisher Little, Brown and Company, the memoir is a “candid and revealing” account of “the challenges, triumphs, sorrows, and accomplishments” of Biden’s administration. The publisher goes further, describing how Biden “took the oath of office on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, where — just two weeks earlier — rioters had stormed the halls and threatened the very foundation of our democracy.” Time for a collective eye roll.
The book also plans to present Biden as the hero who led the country through a pandemic and out of a recession. We’ve heard his talking points before, so that will be nothing new. I’m sure it will gloss over the record inflation his policies caused. Biden’s mandate, the description insists, was to “heal a divided country, restore the integrity of its frayed institutions, and prove to a skeptical public that the world’s greatest democracy could still deliver for its people.” Good lord, did Karine Jean-Pierre write this description?
There is exactly one section of this memoir that might actually be worth a read, and it is not because anyone expects honesty. The description teases that Biden will, “for the first time,” reveal “the deeply agonizing calculation behind his decision in the summer of 2024 to step aside from the presidential race and to put his party and the nation before his personal ambitions.”
Everyone remembers how that actually went down: a stumbling debate performance, a party in open revolt, and a candidate dragged out of the race by his own donors and colleagues while he insisted for weeks that he was staying put. Now he is going to spend a chapter reframing that humiliation as some noble act of sacrifice. The only real intrigue here is who gets thrown under the bus in the retelling, and how many former allies wake up in November to find themselves recast as villains in Joe’s origin story. Nancy Pelosi? Barack Obama?
The only question I have now is “Who actually wrote the book?”

“Communism has never worked, but that doesn’t stop the left.”

• Of Marxists and Morons …. (Eric Utter)

Most of us have heard the horrific figures: Marxist communism was responsible for more than 100 million deaths in the 20th century alone. There are two preconditions necessary for people to accept or even welcome communism: one, frustration with current economic and/or political conditions, and two, a moral decay that generates a disdain for work and an excessive entitlement mentality, demonizing others’ success, accomplishments, and wealth. For far too many, this demonization of what others have leads not unto desire to make the right decisions and work hard enough to earn it yourself, but envy, greed, wrath and sloth, four of the Seven Deadly Sins.

And a demand that much of what others’ have be confiscated and handed over to one’s self and one’s demographic group … without one having to work for it.This, as history clearly shows, is an automatic death sentence for a society. Every time. In every case. Whether it be the erstwhile Soviet Union, its satellite in Cuba, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, or, more recently, previously wealthy Venezuela.
It could not possibly be otherwise. If I work hard, say, for 60-hour weeks, and I and my family are not going to be very appreciably better off than someone who is unemployed and able to sit on his couch all day because of my tax money, it would literally be immoral, as well as against human nature, for me to continue to do so. Why? Because I would not only be allowing the excessive and arbitrary taxation of my earned labor, while robbing myself of precious time with my family, but quite possibly, in the long term, degrading my health. And subjecting myself to various opportunity costs/losses.
Margaret Thatcher famously said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” That in itself is spot-on, but there is far more to it than that.
Ayn Rand: “There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the same ultimate end: Communism proposes to enslave men by force, Socialism by the vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.”
When people address this issue, they almost always start by saying, “Capitalism with all its faults …”
I am not willing to do that. This is life. This is Earth, not heaven. In this sense, capitalism doesn’t have any faults. True capitalism does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex … or anything else. The supply and demand curve determines what price any given product can bear. Charging less than that is not altruistic, but stupid and fraught with possible bias. Nothing can be truly worth other than what people will pay for it. That is why art is so subjective. One person looks at a painting and thinks, “I’d pay anything for that masterpiece,” another says to herself, “You couldn’t pay me to take this ridiculous piece of crap home.”
In command (communist/Marxist/socialist) economies, one or a very few people determine what the cost of any given item “should be.” Since there is no market feedback, their biases come into play. Lots of them. Shockingly, these biases always lead to a handful of leaders living well, and everyone else being paupers and puppets.

“UNESCO data suggest a new global reversal: as gadget-raised children come of age, school participation is no longer rising”

• Pinocchio and the Information Society (Mikhail Afanasyev)

In many countries around the world, the number of children not attending school is rising. UNESCO has already recorded this alarming trend, and it demands an explanation. UNESCO regularly collects and publishes information on progress toward one of the key Sustainable Development Goals: the universal inclusion of school-age children in primary and secondary education. In recent years, negative developments in this sphere were often linked by experts to the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath. But the latest Global Education Monitoring Report 2026 allows the picture to be clarified significantly: it appears that we are dealing not with temporary difficulties, but with a change in the global trend – and the turning point seems to have occurred even before the pandemic.

While in the 1990s and 2000s most countries in the world recorded high growth rates in children’s participation in education, after 2015 those gains slowed almost everywhere. Moreover, in a number of countries, the number of children not attending school has increased. Since this primarily concerned countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, it might have seemed like just another example of ordinary African difficulties: tribal wars, corruption, and so on. Then the pandemic began, and everyone was sent home. But now ten years have passed, and it turns out that the share of children not going to school is not shrinking at all – on the contrary, it is growing, and already on a global scale.
The UNESCO report, of course, says nothing about this new global trend and, following the statistical reports of governments, paints a picture of the steady development of primary and secondary education systems worldwide. At the same time, the report notes that in “the four most populous regions of the world (Europe and North America, East and Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa), growth in children’s participation in school education has stopped over the past ten years. And in a number of countries, the share of children not attending school has even increased somewhat after 2015.”
To understand what this means, we should first assess the scale and geography of the phenomenon. The best to do this way is to compare out-of-school rates for 2024 versus 2015, as reported by UNESCO, and looking at the countries where such growth was recorded. As we can see, in 148 countries – that is, almost all countries of the world with only a few exceptions – full upper secondary education is de facto not universal. Moreover, 131 countries do not ensure lower secondary education for all children. And in 128 countries, a noticeable share of children do not even attend primary school.
At the same time, in 66 countries, the share of children not attending school has risen over the past decade. So the “number of countries” mentioned in the UNESCO report turns out to be very large indeed. Let us now look at who they are. The authors of the report emphasize the difficult situation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet of the ‘black list’ of 66 countries, only 20 are in Africa. Incidentally, the situation south of the Maghreb is not so straightforward: for 20 countries with negative dynamics, there are 11 where the share of children not attending school has noticeably declined; in the remaining countries there is no clear trend.
So, the historically reversed, regressive increase in the share of children not attending school is far from being an African phenomenon alone. On closer inspection, it becomes clear that the trend is not limited to the ‘underdeveloped periphery.’ The example of Singapore is revealing – a beacon of globalization, a city-state with one of the highest standards of living and near-universal access to education. The idealized image of Singapore now needs revising, because over the past decade a sharply growing share of children there has appeared outside the school system: 5% of children do not attend primary school, 10% remain outside lower secondary education, and 14% are without upper secondary education.
Singapore is not the exception but the beginning of a list of developed countries where the share of children not attending school has risen. The list speaks for itself: the US, Canada, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, Finland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Estonia. Meanwhile, EU member states such as Romania and Bulgaria are, by this negative indicator, already comparable to African countries, including those south of the Maghreb.
The global share of children not attending school is also significantly increased by the new leaders of the global economy – India and China, home to around three billion people, the lion’s share of the world’s population. The growth of their vast economies is not accompanied by growing school participation in primary and secondary education. The same can be said of the third economy of North America – Mexico. In short, if anyone has not yet guessed, we are dealing with a global counter-trend: the inclusion of children in primary and secondary education has stopped growing and has begun to decline.

“A Georgetown study recently found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools..”

• Gallup: Higher Education Hits Another Low in Public Trust (Turley)

According to the latest Gallup poll, only 38% of U.S. adults have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education. One of the Gallup experts told Fox News that one of the key reasons for the continued slide in public trust is “the perception that there’s a political agenda being taught.” That perception is well documented after most departments purged their ranks of any republican, conservative, or libertarian faculty members. At the same time, many faculty oppose the long-standing principle of institutional neutrality for universities, the subject of a recent debate that I had with the President of the American Association of University Professors.

Gallup’s expert added that there is also a view that we are “not teaching people the right kinds of things they need to succeed in the job once they finish.”As I have previously written, this generation of administrators and faculty has destroyed not just public trust in our institutions but their financial viability. Colleges are closing at an alarming rate as both tuition and revenue fall. Yet, faculty members would prefer to lose their jobs than their bias in hiring and teaching. According to Gallup, roughly a third of polled individuals cited partisan bias or indoctrination on college campuses. That is a large chunk of potential applicants and their families. Worse yet, they are not wrong.
Our campuses have been ideological echo chambers where collective orthodoxy is more prominent than academic inquiry. This group think has created an overtly hostile environment for more than half of this country that consider themselves conservatives or libertarians. As schools struggle to maintain financial stability, they are literally cutting away half of their potential applicant pool. Currently, only 37% of Americans report having “some” confidence in the institution. In any other industry or area, that record of alienation and mistrust would prompt massive changes in management. In higher education, however, colleges and universities remain captive to administrators and faculty members who replicate their views and values to the exclusion of many others.
The result is evident in multiple surveys which reveal widespread self-censorship among students, particularly conservative students. When I confronted a Harvard Law professor in a debate at Harvard Law School with those surveys, he responded by calling these students “conservative snowflakes.” It did not matter that only a third of Harvard students felt comfortable expressing their views in classes or on campus. Since Harvard has also shown the same bias in admissions, only roughly nine percent of the students identify as conservative. Thus, the vast majority of the students who are saying that they self-censor are liberals. This is the environment that the current generation of administrators and faculty have created.
As I have previously written, parents and students who value free speech must increasingly look to public universities where faculty are subject to constitutional guarantees. Public universities may be the final line of defense for free-speech advocates. We now largely have two systems of higher education for those seeking education with a diversity of opinions and viewpoints. Except for outliers like the University of Chicago and other private universities holding the line on free speech, the orthodoxy found at private universities remains a barrier to many conservative and independent thinkers.
If we are to protect these bastions of free speech, legislatures will need to play a more active role in addressing the exclusion of both faculty candidates and speakers on public campuses. Too many faculty members continue to take the view that citizens are a captive audience expected to continue funding their departments, while excluding conservative or dissenting views held by many, if not most, citizens in a given state. If faculty members want to continue maintaining echo chambers for their own viewpoints, they should have to seek private donors to sustain such intolerance and orthodoxy.
Legislatures can demand evidence that schools are maintaining intellectually diverse faculties in determining the level of continued support from citizens. When some of us have argued for such campaigns, academics hypocritically claim that we are calling for political litmus tests or hiring based on political parties. It is an absurd argument that I have previously addressed, including in my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
The call is for donors and legislators to withhold funding until they see real reforms, including greater diversity on faculties. They are not directing the hiring but looking at the results. The faculty members objecting to such calls have watched passively (or actively supported) the purging of conservative or libertarian faculty from universities and colleges.When confronted by their own obvious ideological litmus tests, they shrug. Some acknowledge that their departments are overwhelmingly liberal, but insist that they just cannot find “competent” or “intellectually promising” conservatives. A few will admit that they do not believe that conservative views have a place in their departments.
It is impossible to deny the purging of faculties to create an academic echo chamber. If a large corporation effectively eliminated women or minorities while claiming no conscious discrimination, they would be trounced in court. For years, I have raised concerns about the intolerance in higher education and surveys showing that many departments no longer have a single Republican as faculty members replicate their own views and values. There is no evidence that any faculty members (including those acknowledging the loss of virtually all faculty from the right of center) are honestly willing to reform their schools.
That ideological echo chamber is hardly an enticement for many facing rising tuition costs and relatively little hope of being taught by faculty with opposing views. A Georgetown study recently found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools — almost identical to the percentage of Trump voters found in the new poll. We are watching the demise of American higher education by its own hand. It will be up to legislators and donors to save these institutions from themselves.

https://twitter.com/WarClandestine/status/2077197092368294205?s=20

California Senate passes bill giving up to $150K each to illegals for new homes.

Bill is expected to pass the assembly.

Taxpayers in Cali cool with this? pic.twitter.com/OBk3XfNyZQ
— STORM NEWS 📰🗞️ (@storm1news) July 14, 2026

This was Trump’s first presidential speech and it was at his roast on March, 15th, 2011.

They all laughed but little did they know. pic.twitter.com/mK19mO6Kiv
— Champagne Joshi (@JoshWalkos) July 15, 2026

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Debt Rattle July 11 2026

Jul 112026

July 11, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:24 am Finance Tagged with: ceasefire, COVID, Iran, NATO, Rubio, Russia, Trump, Ukraine, Zelensky 35 Responses »

William-Adolphe Bouguereau La naissance de Vénus 1879

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

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

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

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

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

• NATO Is Spending Itself Into Oblivion (Scott Ritter)

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

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

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

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

• Rubio Deports Convicted Rapist Protected by Walz (Turley)

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

• Scenario (James Howard Kunstler)

• Germany’s Debt Crisis Crescendos (Thomas Kolbe)

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

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

https://twitter.com/ToniLL22/status/2075181070593454200?s=20 https://twitter.com/warDaniel47/status/2075319010690818300?s=20

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

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

Debt Rattle June 28 2026

Jun 282026

June 28, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:56 am Finance Tagged with: commies, DSA, Fetterman, Hormuz, Iran, Obama, Ukraine, Volkswagen 25 Responses »

Rembrandt van Rijn Belshazzar’s feast 1635-38

• The Shooting in the Strait Ain’t over, But… (Larry Johnson)

• Iran Launches Drone Attack Targeting Bahrain (JTN)

• Why is The Ukraine War Hardest to End? (CTH)

• Zelensky Telegraphs 40-Day Pressure Offensive On Russia (ZH)

• Ukraine Closes Week Of Drone Attacks On Russia By Hitting Weapons Plant (ZH)

• Democratic Establishment Accuses Socialists of Exploiting Ballot Access (JTN)

• One Democrat — and Only One — Has Had Enough of the Commies (Robert Spencer)

• The Obama Halo Is Starting to Flicker. Finally! (David Manney)

• When Extremists Run the Government (J.B. Shurk)

• Culture of Grievance- When Victimhood Becomes Social Currency (Brooks)

• Bookmark and Reference Point – June 2026 (CTH)

• Volkswagen To Slash 100,000 Jobs (RT)

Bill Maher just dropped a diving elbow from the top rope on the socialist lunatics attempting to take over the Democrat Party.

His audience went nuts the moment they heard it.

MAHER: “This is big news in this country. I don't know if you saw what happened in New York. There… pic.twitter.com/susL0LmHDk
— Overton (@overton_news) June 27, 2026

https://twitter.com/JasonJournoDC/status/2070611688009703759?s=20

pic.twitter.com/YhFSclRfHE
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 27, 2026

BREAKING: Companies are leaving Delaware at record rates.

• 52 companies have departed Delaware.
• More than $3.30 trillion in combined market cap has left.
• Corporate departures are up 322% year over year.
• Companies have relocated to 7 different states, led by Texas and… pic.twitter.com/JmUirtgLgS
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) June 26, 2026

Can Trump still avoid the war?

• The Shooting in the Strait Ain’t over, But… (Larry Johnson)

A little over a week since the US and Iran signed the MoU, some ships that had been trapped in the Persian rushed to travel through the corridor, with many trying to use an alternative route on the southern side of the Strait along the Omani coast. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) had coordinated this alternative routing with Oman – hugging the UAE and Musandam Peninsula coastline, avoiding the central passage that Iran had mined. This route was significant because it bypassed Iran’s designated corridor entirely, which ran closer to Iranian territorial waters.

However, Iran and Oman agreed on a new framework (joint working group) for the future administration of the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, June 24, 2026. The two countries agreed to establish a joint working group between their foreign ministries to discuss: Future navigation rules and administration of the strait. Services provided (e.g., safety, pilotage). Associated costs (in accordance with international standards). Both emphasized their sovereignty over their territorial waters in the strait.
The naval arm of the Revolutionary Guard issued a warning Thursday against using the new route. In a statement carried by Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, naval officials said the route was established without notice or coordination with Iran, calling it “unacceptable and completely dangerous.” According to the IRGC: “The only authorized route for passing through the Strait of Hormuz is the one declared by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Vessel traffic outside these routes is extremely dangerous and prohibited. Violators will be dealt with.” The day before, the Guard had threatened one tanker over the radio, with a soldier warning “You are in range of my missiles and maybe (I) fire on you,” according to the private security firm Ambrey.
On Thursday the Ever Lovely, a Singapore-flagged ship operating in the fleet of Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine, attempted to transit the strait using a narrow channel near the coast of Oman in accordance with a route organized by the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) security monitor. The Ever Lovely was struck by a drone belonging to Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran allegedly shot at least four drones at ships traveling through the Strait on Thursday. One of those hit the upper deck of the Ever Lovely. On Friday, the US attacked Iran in ‘response’ to strikes on the commercial vessel in Strait of Hormuz a day earlier:
Iran’s IRIB reported that an explosion was heard at 11:15 pm at the Taheroui pier in Sirik. A military source said the blasts were caused by a projectile hitting the pier area, adding that around five hours earlier, several warning shots had been fired from Sirik toward violating vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Reports also indicated that two warning missiles were fired earlier from around Karpan toward the strait. US Central Command said its forces carried out strikes against Iran on 26 June in response to Iran’s attack the previous day on the Singapore-flagged cargo ship M/V Ever Lovely as it exited the Strait of Hormuz along the Omani coast. CENTCOM said US aircraft targeted Iranian missile and drone storage sites and coastal radar positions after the vessel was hit by a one-way attack drone.
Although CENTCOM presented this as a powerful strike on Iran, and the US media trumpeted it as an act of major retaliation, the US response inflicted little damage and could reasonably be interpreted as a symbolic gesture rather than a punishing attack. The IRGC Public Relations department issued the following statement: Following the Israeli regime’s violation of the ceasefire in southern Lebanon, the treaty-breaking US regime also violated its commitments once again. Under various pretexts, including the transit of a vessel accused of navigating through an unauthorized route in the Strait of Hormuz, the US launched an airstrike against the coasts of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In response to this aggression, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy struck positions where the US terrorist military is stationed in the region. Under Article 5 of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, responsibility for regulating navigation through the Strait of Hormuz rests with the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, the United States sought to violate this commitment by encouraging various parties to defy it. It received the necessary response, and the same will apply in the future. If the aggression is repeated, Iran’s response will be broader than this.
Instead of marking a return to war, this exchange of fire can best be categorize as military political theater. I believe that Iran, thanks to intel from the Russians or the Chinese, has learned that the US has issued orders that will initiate the return to CONUS of the aircraft, vehicles and troops that had been deployed to the region in preparation for the February 28 attack. Because of the limited damage inflicted by the US attack, I believe that Iran chose to respond in a limited fashion rather than escalate and run the risk of the US cancelling the redeployment order.
For now, Iran remains in control of the Strait of Hormuz and ships wanting to transit the Strait are adhering to Iran’s new policy.

Iran makes it a teritorial war in/on its own territory.

• Iran Launches Drone Attack Targeting Bahrain (JTN)

Iranian drones attacked Bahrain after overnight airstrikes by the United States. The U.S. strikes followed an Iranian attack on a cargo ship on Thursday. A tanker was hit by a projectile in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, according to Britain’s maritime security agency. No one was injured and Iran hasn’t officially claimed responsibility for the attack. These attacks occurred despite Iran and the U.S. reaching an interim deal to end the war.

Because the west can fight Russia in Ukraine. They don’t want it to stop.

• Why is The Ukraine War Hardest to End? (CTH)

Mike Steger from Promethean Action PAC argues the reason the Ukraine war is hardest to end is simply because Ukraine represents the proxy state of all the globalist stakeholders who need another large conflict in order to eliminate the problem of a moral-based Christian perspective within the ‘West.’ Essentially, without Russia as the enemy, the factional war they need to retain power is much harder to achieve. Promethean Action PAC YouTube: “Mike Steger explores the concept of “color revolutions” and argues that the same strategies used to influence governments abroad are now shaping politics across the West.

From Ukraine and the Arab Spring to Brazil, Europe, and the United States, Mike examines how non-governmental organizations, media networks, political activism, and government institutions have evolved into powerful geopolitical tools.The discussion also explores President Trump’s efforts to reshape U.S. foreign policy, dismantle longstanding government programs, push election reforms, and challenge what Mike describes as the political establishment ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.”

Putin can’t let this go on forever.

• Zelensky Telegraphs 40-Day Pressure Offensive On Russia (ZH)

The Ukraine war is quite obviously escalating, especially regarding Ukrainian leaders seeking to “bring the war” to Russian soil, amid nightly drone attacks which have come in the hundreds and even thousands of late. President Volodymyr Zelensky is seeking to seize on the momentum of repeat drone hits on Russian refinery and energy infrastructure – a reality Russia has suffered over many months, leading to a current fuel crisis spanning dozens of cities and regions, and especially Crimea, which has temporarily halted fuel sales to common citizens altogether this week.

Ukrainian media is touting a new Zelensky plan to ramp up the pressure on Russia over the next 40 days, aimed at “pressuring Russia to end its war”. He has ordered Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU) to launch a new 40-day operation, which also includes “plan for long-range sanctions, medium-range sanctions, and the results achieved by the SBU,” Zelensky said on X. He’s further calling it an “influence operation.” “For several months in a row, the SBU has demonstrated the highest performance in defending Ukraine’s positions on the front lines through the use of various types of drones,” Zelensky said on Thursday evening. According to more of the statement:
I approved a 40-day influence operation for the Service against the aggressor state aimed at compelling it to end the war. Importantly, for several months in a row, the SSU has demonstrated the highest performance in defending Ukraine’s positions on the front lines through the use of various types of drones. The Center of Special Operations “Alpha” leads in terms of the occupier’s personnel and equipment neutralized. Earlier, in mid-June, Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov proclaimed “Hell is beginning,” for Russia and its military. “Logistics are being cut off. Crimea is being isolated,” he said at the time.
Ukraine’s asymmetric warfare against Russia’s much-larger and better armed military machine is in a significantly better position than the status of a year or so ago. Russian forces still have the upper-hand on the front line in the east, but the pain clearly being inflicted on Russia’s economy can’t be ignored at this point.This sets up a potential slide into tit-for-tat escalation which could unleash a WW3 scenario. In the meantime this is an interesting-timed warning from Latvia and Poland:
Western intelligence agencies are increasingly concerned that Russia may be preparing a limited hybrid operation targeting NATO’s eastern flank, potentially involving the Baltic states or Poland. Such a move, officials believe, could be an attempt to test the alliance’s unity as the war in Ukraine enters a new phase.According to reporting by The Guardian, intelligence officials from two NATO countries have warned that Moscow is considering a “provocation” rather than a full-scale military attack.

Report by Major General Yevhenii Khmara on our long-range sanctions plan, mid-range sanctions, and the results of the Security Service of Ukraine – specifically the Center of Special Operations “Alpha” – on the front.

I approved a 40-day influence operation for the Service… pic.twitter.com/Ue6O21i6xH
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) June 25, 2026

At the moment inside Russia, many regions of Russia seem powerless to stop Ukraine’s inbound drone waves, given also that conventional air defenses are set up to defend primarily against larger, faster-moving projectiles like missiles or jets. President Trump has lately suggested that Ukraine is doing well in the war, or at least much better than it once was. Kiev now feels the pressure to keep this narrative going, also so it can attract more and more weapons and intelligence help. But at some point Russia will feel it necessary to strongly reassert its red lines. This could come in the form of another massive escalation, and against ‘decision-making centers’.

Escalation.

• Ukraine Closes Week Of Drone Attacks On Russia By Hitting Weapons Plant (ZH)

Ukraine announced Saturday that it used its Flamingo cruise missiles overnight to strike Russia’s Titan-Barrikady weapons plant, which reportedly manufactures parts for its powerful Oreshnik missile. The military plant is in Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, which is a major industrial city in southwest Russia. Writing on X, President Zelensky described it as a “major industrial complex” where Russia “produces artillery systems and specialized military equipment, including components for missile launch systems.” “Every Russian defense facility involved in the war against Ukraine is a legitimate target for our long-range strikes,” he wrote.

The Associated Press reports, “Volgograd Gov. Andrei Bocharov confirmed an attack on a business in the region’s Krasnooktyabrsky district, saying 10 people had been wounded and taken to a hospital. He said production facilities at the site were damaged but did not identify the company.” Additionally, “Ukraine’s state security service said Saturday morning that Ukrainian forces also struck an oil pumping facility in Russia’s Vladimir region that supplies fuel to Moscow, for the second time this month.” But on the other side of the border, Ukrainian media reports that Russia was also busy with now nightly airstrikes:
Russian forces targeted production facilities belonging to the Naftogaz Group, Ukraine’s largest national oil and gas company, in the Poltava and Kharkiv regions. The barrage of attacks included 129 drones, of which 113 were destroyed or jammed by Ukrainian forces, Ukrainian media reported. The Russian overnight attacks on Ukraine killed two people and injuring more than 20, according to state officials. At a moment much of the globe’s attention remains fixated on Iran and the fate of energy shipping through the largely blocked Strait of Hormuz, the Ukraine war is rapidly escalating.

Footage shows Ukrainian FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile launches and precision strikes on the Titan-Barrikady Plant in Volgograd, Russia.

Titan-Barrikady, officially known as JSC Federal Scientific and Production Center "Titan-Barrikady," is responsible for producing heavy… pic.twitter.com/xTYF2k2dLy
— OSINTWarfare (@OSINTWarfare) June 27, 2026

Ukrainian leadership has issued some astounding stats on the escalation on its side of the border: Russia attacked Ukraine with 1,400 drones and 1,500 guided bombs President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on Saturday, June 27, that Russian forces deployed approximately 1,400 attack drones, 1,500 guided aerial bombs, and 19 missiles of various types, including ballistic missiles, against Ukraine over the past week. In a statement published on Telegram, Zelensky noted that 15 Ukrainian regions were subjected to Russian attacks during the seven-day period. He highlighted that the cities of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, and Sumy faced near-daily bombardment.
But it also over the past week has sent projectiles into Russia in the thousands. Ukraine’s asymmetric warfare strategy against Russia’s much-larger and better armed military machine has put Kiev in significantly better position – in terms of potential negotiating leverage – than the status of a year or so ago. Russian forces still have the upper-hand on the front line in the east, but the pain clearly being inflicted on Russia’s economy can’t be ignored at this point. There are reports of fuel shortages across dozens of regions and especially in Crimea over the past several days.

Multiple Ukrainian FP-5 “Flamingo” Cruise Missiles slam into the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology’s “Titan-Barrikady” Defense Plant, which designs and produces parts for artillery and ballistic missile launchers, in the Southern Russian city of Volgograd. pic.twitter.com/pwTrnuHVL4
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) June 27, 2026

President Trump has lately suggested that Ukraine is doing well in the war, or at least much better than it once was. Kiev now feels the pressure to keep this narrative going, also so it can attract more and more weapons and intelligence help. But at some point Russia will feel it necessary to strongly reassert its red lines. This could come in the form of another massive escalation, and against ‘decision-making centers’.

The party has been taken over.

• Democratic Establishment Accuses Socialists of Exploiting Ballot Access (JTN)

The Democratic Socialists of America have adopted a strategy to exploit the Democratic Party’s ballot access to boost their own candidates at the expense of incumbents, a plan which achieved remarkable success in New York City this week. The victory of two DSA-backed candidates and one former member delivered a shock to the Democratic Party establishment, which has begun to call for better policing of the party’s primaries against candidates who are only seeking to exploit it, not join it. “I say this with no ill will or animosity: if you hate the Democratic Party, then please don’t run for our nomination,” said Jaime Harrison, who served as the Democratic National Committee Chairman from 2021 to 2025.

“Don’t use our resources. Don’t rely on our volunteers. Don’t use our infrastructure. Don’t ask Democrats to invest their time, money, and energy in your campaign,” he added. “Focus on building the party you actually support.” The DSA – which calls for abandoning capitalism, defunding the police, and nationalizing key industrial sectors – has long publicly stated its intent to do just that. Ahead of the New York City primary elections on Tuesday, NYC DSA Co-Chair Gustavo Gordillo explained that his party is using the Democrats to access the ballot, but aims to achieve a fundamentally different agenda.
“We’re on the Democratic Party ballot line. We contest the primaries, and when they’re in the legislature, they’re part of the Democratic Party caucus, but we don’t agree with the way the Democratic Party establishment organizes or runs its party apparatus,” he told Spectrum News in an interview. Gordillo was rather open about taking advantage of Trump-hating Democrats. In a clip on X, he said:”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, and push our own agenda from the inside.”
“I think in terms of the agenda, there’s a problem in the Democratic Party where they are funded by billionaire donors, and at the same time, they’re trying to represent the working class, and in our opinion, you have to choose between the billionaire class and the working class,” Gordillo said. “It’s just impossible to satisfy all of them.” The DSA is currently running a strategy known as the “dirty break”– “where DSA continues to run candidates on the Democratic Party’s ballot line, while building the infrastructure and base of supporters necessary to one day run our candidates independently,” as described by the party’s youth wing.
Various forms of the strategy have been referenced in party resolutions since 2019, when the party first defined it as a key goal: “to form an independent working-class party, but for now, this does not rule out DSA-endorsed candidates running tactically on the Democratic Party ballot line.” The party’s youth wing, the Young Democratic Socialists of America, identified the strategy by name in 2022, adopting a resolution at its convention that year. “Therefore, be it also resolved that YDSA is committed to, within DSA and on the left in general, a bold and transformative ‘dirty break’ approach to elections and electoralism,” according to convention documents.
The youth wing argues that the success of Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who was elected as a Democrat in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District in 2018 (she now represents the 12th after redistricting), has proven that the “dirty break” strategy is a viable one. “Tlaib often acts as a tribune of the people, using her role in Congress to agitate around working-class issues rather than pass legislation,” reads one article on the YDSA’s website. Since Tlaib’s victory in 2018, the DSA’s power in Democratic strongholds appears to be growing.
Last year, DSA member Zohran Mamdani upset the Democratic political establishment and won election to the mayor’s office in New York City on a socialist platform. Earlier this week, he flexed his newfound political influence in the city to catapult three other socialist candidates to victory in Democratic primaries for the U.S. House of Representatives.

The one true democrat is Fetterman.

• One Democrat — and Only One — Has Had Enough of the Commies (Robert Spencer)

The communist takeover of the Democrat Party is in full swing, and some might find that surprising, as the Democrats have looked like a communist party for many years now. But what was hidden ten or twenty years ago is all out in the open now, and as ever more avowed socialists are getting elected, one Democrat is sounding the alarm. But only one.

That’s telling. The Evil Party, as conservative pundit M. Stanton Evans indelibly dubbed the Democrats back in the 1970s (he called the Republicans the Stupid Party, which is just as apt) started on the path of socialism back in 1933 with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, and confirmed its commitment to the socialist path in the 1960s with Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. What’s happening now is simply the open avowal of the trajectory the party has been on for nearly a century. And so it’s less surprising that only one Democrat is speaking out than it is that there is still one Democrat who believes in freedom.
And yeah, you guessed it: it’s Sen. John Fetterman (D-Common Sense). On Wednesday, Fetterman commented on X on a story about the Democrat primary victory of a Marxist convert to Islam who hates the United States and Western civilization, but is now heading to Congress anyway, Darializa Avila Chavalier. “Anti-Israel. Anti-America. Anti-Western Civilization,” Fetterman wrote. “Why am I the only Democrat in the U.S. Senate that refuses to excuse this or defend any of those self-identified communists? Because your party comrades, senator, are communists themselves, and/or cowards and opportunists. Fetterman, however, is none of those things. He declared: “I said months ago, I said the Democratic Party is becoming an orgy of socialism. These recent elections vindicate my description.”
Fetterman zeroed in on Avila Chevalier, noting that she “described America as a f*****g disgrace. She posted ‘f**k Kamala Harris’ and posted that she forgot napkins and wiped her hands on the American flag. She wants to abolish the border, abolish prisons. That is a deeply disturbed individual.” No, she isn’t actually disturbed at all. She is just a committed and consistent Marxist internationalist. Those who are arguably disturbed are the Democrat Party bosses who got behind her candidacy, and the voters who sent to Washington yet another exponent of the most catastrophically failed political and social system in the history of mankind.
Avila Chevalier won’t be alone in the nation’s capital. Referring to another Marxist, Maine senate candidate Graham Platner, by his street nickname, Fetterman quipped: “P-Hustle and Chevalier: the dirtbag left’s new power couple.” And they’re not just that. They’re also the new face of the Democrat Party, along with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other Washington-bound socialists. Will Fetterman therefore finally leave the party, as has been rumored as often as he has denied the rumors? This time, he seemed to leave the door open to such a switch ever so slightly.
“Even if I changed my party,” Fetterman declared, “my votes or views wouldn’t change. I address this very directly. That’s the truth.” Whatever he does next, Fetterman is without any doubt one of the strangest political figures in American history. During his campaign for the Senate, he never gave any indication of being anything but a doctrinaire, down-the-line leftist, and attention focused less on his policy positions than on the fact that, after suffering a stroke, he seemed barely able to formulate a coherent sentence.
After being hospitalized for depression, however, he emerged not only able to speak clearly and lucidly, but he also began to take a number of common-sense stands, which inevitably led him away from the left. And his analysis of what has gone wrong with the Democrats is more accurate and convincing than almost all the other post-mortems. This doesn’t mean that Fetterman sees everything clearly now, and he certainly hasn’t made a full break with the left. But it’s as rare as it is refreshing to hear from an honest man.

‘Well, damn. I thought this was the big bad boogeyman telling us this guy’s a threat to democracy, which I believe he is, but still..’

• The Obama Halo Is Starting to Flicker. Finally! (David Manney)

Charlamagne tha God didn’t sound like he was asking permission. The Breakfast Club co-host heard former President Barack Hussein Obama mock President Donald Trump as tougher from a distance than face to face, then pushed the charge back across the table. From Fox News:

“So I just didn’t understand what he meant unless he was talking about the kiki they had at the [Jimmy] Carter funeral. But to me, that goes both ways. You kikiing in his face too, ’cause by the way, Trump has been saying wild stuff about you, bro, been saying wild stuff about you and your wife, but you was just right there kikiing with him at the President Carter funeral. So I can say it goes both ways. Don’t neither one of y’all be having that energy in each other’s face. At least from what we saw,” the radio host said.
Kikiing is an informal slang term for relaxing or gossiping. Charlamagne referred to Obama and Trump speaking to one another at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral, at times smiling and laughing with each other. Former first lady Michelle Obama did not attend. “So when I heard President Obama say that, I’m like, ‘Well, the same thing can be said for you.’ Don’t none of y’all be having that same image. Like we saw President Biden say, ‘Welcome home to Donald Trump.’ Like, so, it’s just like what are y’all? I didn’t understand that part. Like that just sounds like something slick to say on the podcast,” Charlamagne said.
“It sounds good on a podcast, OK? It goes viral. But when you really take a step back and look at it, don’t none of y’all be having that same energy for each other when you see each other. That’s what be confusing us because we be like, ‘Well, damn. I thought this was the big bad boogeyman telling us this guy’s a threat to democracy, which I believe he is, but still,'” he said. Obama, he argued, has often sounded different depending on the room, the crowd, and the moment. From a host whose platform has shaped political talk among younger black listeners, the jab carried more weight than another cable panel gripe.
Obama has spent years being treated less like a politician and more like a civic mood. To his admirers, he represented calm, cool, firsts, and finish. The new Obama Presidential Center in Chicago’s Jackson Park leans hard into that story. The center opened a week ago with four floors devoted to the Obama presidency, the 2008 campaign, the Oval Office, and the promise of democracy. Museum tickets are already sold out, with another block scheduled for July 8.
Fox News’ Jesse Waters sent a reporter to the Obama Center, which, as we were lectured, was built on stolen land — and I’m not talking about land pulled out from the public at Jackson Park — who asked visitors some difficult questions. A shrine can draw crowds and still invite questions. Stephen A. Smith, ESPN host and executive producer of First Take and host of Straight Shooter, questioned how Obama and former President Bill Clinton built large fortunes after careers in public office.

Smith’s larger point hit a sore nerve: elected leaders should prosper only when Americans are prospering too. Coming from a black broadcaster with his own huge audience, the criticism wasn’t easy to wave away as stale right-wing noise. From Fox News: The sports commentator and host of the “Straight Shooter” podcast weighed in on any profits President Donald Trump is making while serving in the nation’s highest office. “I don’t give a damn what money politicians slide into their own pockets from time to time,” Smith said on Wednesday’s episode of his podcast. “If the American people are prospering, get yours. It’s a capitalistic society.”
Smith went on to cast doubt on how former President Bill Clinton obtained his multi-million dollar net worth. “I’ll confess something to ya’ll,” Smith continued. “Clinton was a lawyer in Arkansas. Grew up poor, relatively broke. How the hell him and the Clinton Foundation is worth hundreds of millions of dollars beat me.” Smith also pointed to former President Barack Obama’s similar high net worth. “Barack Obama was a community organizer who became the president of the United States and, last time I checked, that salary ain’t over $450,000, if I remember correctly,” Smith said. “I got to double check that,” he added. “How the hell you depart from office worth over $200 million?”

According to an investigation conducted by Forbes, both Bill and Hillary Clinton have netted approximately $240 million since leaving office in 2021. Bill Clinton is reportedly responsible for the majority of the couple’s earnings, raking in $189 million by authoring books and $106 million in paid speeches. Obama owns real history; he won two national elections, became America’s first black president, and signed a health law that remade a large part of American life — and not in a good way.A legacy with weight can still carry vanity, scolding, and blind spots. The growing irritation around Obama isn’t about denying his place in history; it’s about asking why the man who preached unity so often left half the country feeling accused, condescended to, or dismissed.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2070307172634730759?s=20
The cracks didn’t appear only this week. Obama campaigned for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024, including a pointed message to black men who weren’t sold on her candidacy. President Trump still won, and AP VoteCast found that he expanded his coalition with gains among younger voters and black and Hispanic men.
Democrats can pretend those voters misunderstood the assignment, but many voters may simply be tired of being assigned a role by a man with an ego larger than the sun.The left, who said the Obama years represented healing, sold us a bill of goods. Instead, the country got lectures on bitterness, guns, religion, race, police, and resentment. His defenders called it truth-telling, but many of us heard something colder: a gifted person who can read out loud quite well, who explained their very own country back to them with a raised eyebrow.
A man can have grace, talent, and historical importance while still leaving behind a politics that divided more than it inspired. Obama’s halo isn’t gone because too many institutions still polish it. The center in Chicago will attract crowds, glowing photos, and reverent tours. Yet the old automatic applause is much weaker.Charlamagne the God and Stephen A. Smith aren’t conservative backbenchers; they speak to audiences Obama once seemed able to reach by instinct. When voices like theirs start asking sharper questions, the problem is no longer Republican criticism.
The concern is that memory is catching up with the myth.

“Two can certainly play the “extremist” game.”

• When Extremists Run the Government (J.B. Shurk)

Politicians, government bureaucrats, central bankers, spy agencies, and mainstream news outlets lie to us every day. For some people, the previous sentence is patently obvious. For others, that sentence represents “fringe” thinking. For certain law enforcement agencies in North America and Europe, that sentence reveals potentially dangerous “extremism.”

“Extremism” is such a morally squishy word. It means nothing. It suggests that the average beliefs of the average person in the average part of an average town are, on average, correct. Should a person’s beliefs move too far away from the “average,” then that person will eventually fall into the “extremist” abyss. Of course, the average person long believed that the sun and planets revolved around the Earth. The average person long believed that bloodletting cured disease. The average person long believed in magic. Relativity, microbiology, atomic physics, and quantum mechanics belonged to the “extremists.”
Defining “extremism” depends upon which populations are included when calculating an “average.” To the average American, Islamic terrorism is religious extremism. To the average jihadi in the Middle East, terrorism is part of the Islamic faith. One man’s “extremist” is another man’s “religious cleric.” Unsurprisingly, as more jihadists migrate to America, the more supportive of Islamic terrorism the Democrat Party becomes. We now have several Hamas-supporting members of Congress who define Americans opposed to Islamic conquest as “extremists.”
For a decade, Americans were told to be on the lookout for Islamic terrorism: “If you see something, say something.” Now, if you see something and say something, you will most likely be denounced as an “Islamophobic bigot.” If the definition of “extremism” can shift 180 degrees since the Islamic terror attacks on September 11, 2001, then “extremism” is a nebulous political label.
In the United States, citizens overwhelmingly support federal legislation that would require photo ID, proof of citizenship, and other safeguards to ensure that elections across the country are free, fair, lawful, constitutional, and secure. Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans in Congress prefer to maintain the current “on your honor” system that can be gamed to permit large-scale vote fraud and rigged elections. By any polling measure, Congress’s point of view is far from that of the average American. Members of Congress, in other words, are the extremists! If you listen to the extremists in Congress, however, our elections have never been more secure.
In fact, when you look at some of the most important policy issues today, it becomes quite clear that Congress is ground zero for extremism. Most Americans want Congress to stop spending more money than it receives in taxes; Congress has put us forty trillion dollars in debt. Most Americans want secure borders and an end to illegal immigration; Congress has enabled an evil human trafficking system to exist for over fifty years that rewards criminals and has flooded the country with somewhere between fifty and a hundred million (nobody knows for sure!) illegal aliens. Most Americans are concerned about lowering fuel and food prices;
Congress has wasted trillions of dollars on “Green New Deal” scams that raise the household costs for fuel and food. Most Americans believe that college admissions and job hiring should be based on a person’s merit, skill, character, knowledge, and hard work; Congress continues to divide Americans by the color of their skin and their sexual eccentricities. Most Americans believe that men and women are biologically distinct; Congress pretends that biological sex is an imaginary social construct. Most Americans believe that a dollar saved today should maintain the same value ten, fifty, or even a hundred years from now; Congress thinks printing and spending dollars, depreciating the U.S. currency, and artificially spiking the dollar-denominated valuation of stocks, homes, and other assets is the best way to fake a constantly “improving” economy.
Most Americans believe that we should refrain from military engagements overseas whenever possible; Congress can’t ever get enough of forever-wars. Most Americans want their representatives to work for American citizens; Congress believes it should work on behalf of non-Americans all over the world. Most Americans view their country as a nation; Congress views the United States as both a global empire and a home for every person on the planet. On the most important issues, Congress is filled to the brim with extremists. They should be put on official security lists and monitored whenever they travel more than fifty feet from their taxpayer-financed homes. Instead, in the United States and throughout the West, the extremists run things.
That would explain why Christians are targeted for their beliefs. That would explain why the governments of Europe and North America have flooded their countries with unassimilable malcontents from the third world. That would explain why men are allowed into women’s restrooms and why pedophiles are accorded more respect than heterosexual married couples. That would explain why Western governments have declared war on “climate change” when most people don’t care about elites’ obsession with the weather. That would explain why so many European and North American politicians are willing to risk a nuclear war with the Russian Federation, while ordinary citizens have never been less willing to fight for the defense of their respective countries.
Perhaps the more that ordinary Westerners realize that it is the people running their governments, universities, and bureaucratic institutions who are most extreme, the less willing they become to do what those extremists say. Six years ago, the extremists locked down the world because of COVID. They closed churches, bankrupted businesses, disrupted childhood education, prevented family members from being together, and killed a lot of people with fake “vaccines.” If public health extremists tried to pull another COVID today, would ordinary Westerners do what the politicians and bureaucrats say? Or would Western citizens conclude that extremist governments endanger both their lives and liberties?

“The entrepreneur of outrage need not solve problems; indeed, solving problems may threaten his relevance.”

• Culture of Grievance- When Victimhood Becomes Social Currency (Brooks)

Every civilization develops a moral language—a set of virtues that it celebrates and vices that it condemns. For much of human history, societies lauded courage, resilience, self-sacrifice, duty, honor, and perseverance. The individual who overcame adversity was admired. The citizen who contributed more than he consumed was esteemed. To endure hardship without surrendering one’s dignity was considered noble. Increasingly, however, modern Western society appears to have inverted this hierarchy. Today, victimhood often functions as a form of social capital.

To claim injury is to acquire moral authority. To assert oppression is frequently to gain status. Public discourse, particularly within academia, media, politics, and social media, often rewards not those who demonstrate resilience, but those who can most persuasively locate themselves within narratives of historical or contemporary disadvantage. This is not to suggest that oppression does not exist. It plainly does. Human beings have always oppressed one another. History is replete with examples of slavery, discrimination, persecution, exploitation, and injustice. Serious societies acknowledge these realities honestly.
Yet acknowledging injustice and organizing one’s entire social order around grievance are two very different enterprises. The modern culture of grievance is distinguished not merely by its concern for injustice, but by its tendency to elevate grievance itself into an identity. In such a framework, suffering confers legitimacy. Personal agency is often deemphasized in favor of structural explanations. Individual responsibility, once considered indispensable to human flourishing, is increasingly treated as secondary to historical narratives of power and oppression. Why? Part of the answer lies in incentives.
Human beings respond to incentives whether they exist in economics, politics, or culture. If a society rewards certain forms of behavior with status, attention, influence, institutional support, or financial gain, those behaviors predictably proliferate. Social media has accelerated this process dramatically. Platforms built upon visibility and engagement naturally privilege outrage, conflict, and emotional intensity. Claims of victimization generate attention. Attention generates followers. Followers generate influence. Influence often generates money, prestige, and institutional power.= Grievance, in the digital age, has become monetizable.
The entrepreneur of outrage need not solve problems; indeed, solving problems may threaten his relevance. A permanent sense of crisis sustains audiences, donations, speaking engagements, media appearances, and political mobilization. The incentive, therefore, is often not reconciliation but perpetuation.= A grievance resolved is a constituency diminished. This dynamic extends beyond social media influencers. Entire political movements, activist organizations, and institutional bureaucracies can become dependent upon the continued existence—or perceived existence—of oppression. The maintenance of moral urgency becomes essential to organizational survival.
Consequently, there exists a temptation to expand definitions continually, to discover ever more subtle forms of harm, and to reinterpret ordinary human conflicts through increasingly elaborate frameworks of oppression.
Disagreement becomes violence.
Words become trauma.
Discomfort becomes harm.
Failure becomes victimization.
Ordinary interpersonal conflict becomes evidence of systemic injustice.
The danger is not merely conceptual confusion. The danger is cultural infantilization.

In case 2027 and 2028 get confusing.

• Bookmark and Reference Point – June 2026 (CTH)

Events in 2027 and 2028 are likely to be very confusing. As a consequence, CTH needs to establish datapoints in real time that can later be referenced and reviewed to make sense of things when CTH starts to put the data into a very difficult to accept storyline. This process is similar to setting the 2012 election “splitter strategy” as a reference; that leads to the 2014 RNC winter meeting and rules changes; that led to the 2015 lineup of RNC candidates; that led to our ability to show how the ‘splitter strategy’ was being deployed for the 2016 GOP nomination. The defeat of Jeb didn’t happen in New Hampshire 2016; his defeat was an outcome of assembling years of previous datapoints which proved the illicit roadmap and made the RNC scheme very clear from the outset.

Elon Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion ($54.20/share) [April through October ’22]. He sold Tesla shares, leveraged more and assembled a $25 billion investment group to cover the remainder. When the financing dust settled Musk controlled Twitter and investors were in for around $25 billion. Musk later created the ancillary company xAI and when the deadline terms of the Twitter investment were due, he essentially repaid the $25 billion debt by transferring the investors into $25 billion worth of xAI holdings. [Key Point – the originating $25 billion investment was not repaid, just modified]
In 2026, Musk then did an IPO on SpaceX. This culminated in stock sales, valuations and generating $100 billion in cash on hand. A few weeks later Musk then sold 7 tranches of SpaceX bonds worth $25 billion to generate liquidity. He then used the $25 billion offering as the financial mechanism to repay the $25 billion remaining in investor debt. Summary: Twitter’s $25 billion debt transferred to $25 billion xAI stock, then transferred to $25 billion in payout or bond holdings; the option is for the original Twitter investment group to take (cash out or hold SpaceX bond paying 5% annually). [Key point – the originating $25 billion to purchase Twitter is now inside the SpaceX bonds]
This was a smart financial gameplay over the past roughly 5 years. This is how it developed and this is the reality in June of 2026. The originating $25 billion borrowed to purchase Twitter is now either: (a) fully repaid, or (b) sitting in long term SpaceX bonds (depending on investor choice). Musk and his investment friends purchased Twitter for $52 per share. Current valuation is $12 to $15. Twitter investors, Musk’s friends and Musk himself, essentially lost 76% on the purchase (total loss -$33 billion). A loss isn’t a loss until it is realized. There was strong incentive to take each of the various repayment shifts. Twitter => xAI => SpaceX bonds.
[SIDENOTE: What’s the smartest way to get rid of a $33 billion loss without hurting the investors? ANSWER: Transfer the loss to someone else. How do you transfer a $33 billion loss? You IPO a larger holding, putting the depreciated asset in the hands of retail. SpaceX investors are now unwittingly carrying the loss.] In the next few years people will argue with me about this. That’s why writing this now is important. What is outlined above is factual. Most of the money borrowed from investors to purchase Twitter is now resting inside SpaceX bonds. People will deny this, because people have a short-term financial memory for things.
The biggest Twitter investment holdings belonged to Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Larry Ellison, Marc Andreessen and a host of investment funds including the sovereign state fund of Qatar.mWhen Elon Musk bought Twitter, he initially permitted sunlight into the background operation of the company. That sunlight was known as “The Twitter Files“.The files showed how the social media platform coordinated with various intelligence agencies within government on the approved information allowed to exist within the platform. Three journalists were allowed to ask the Twitter legal counsel to run search terms and review the responses (if approved by the legal counsel). That’s how the research worked.
The three journalists were Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger. Thanks to the Twitter Files and the public interest around them, Bari Weiss launched/expanded her online media network The Free Press. Bari Weiss was a Ron DeSantis supporter. Elon Musk was a Ron DeSantis supporter. Ron DeSantis 2024 campaign was launched on Twitter. The Twitter File research group was shut down by Elon Musk with no immediate public statement as to why.
Billionaire Larry Ellison (Oracle) retained his Twitter holdings as well as his relationship with Musk. When Twitter was under attack from Democrats (’22, ’23, ’24) Ellison was the financial backstop and stabilizing force. Larry Ellison then purchased the TikTok platform with Marc Andreeson. Larry and David Ellison then purchased CBS-Paramount. David Ellison then installed Bari Weiss as CBS News Editor in Chief and bought her company The Free Press. David Ellison, the technology heir son to Larry Ellison who controls Paramount, the owner of CBS, is poised to complete a $111 billion purchase of CNN’s parent company Warner Bros/Discovery as soon as July 2026.
Billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison now directly or indirectly controls and influences: Twitter, TikTok, CBS and CNN. As noted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September of 2025, control and influence of TikTok and Twitter was the #1 and #2 most important strategic geopolitical interests of the government of Israel. These were Prime Minister Netanyahu’s own words. Billionaire Larry Ellison is a very strong supporter of the Netanyahu government.
PREDICTION: If Marco Rubio stays out of the 2028 race [big ‘if’], then all of the Larry Ellison holdings will be used to promote or position Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over Vice-President JD Vance. The Israel -vs- Qatar narrative is based on an anti-Vance operation. Prepositioned politics. [My ‘out there’ suspicion is political narrative control is the entire reason Twitter was purchased]

Now the rest..

• Volkswagen To Slash 100,000 Jobs (RT)

Volkswagen is considering closing four German factories and cutting up to 100,000 jobs, Reuters has reported. Amid soaring energy costs and competition from China, the company’s profits have plummeted in recent years. Should the cuts go ahead, Volkswagen will close factories in Hanover, Zwickau, and Emden, as well as an Audi plant in Neckarsulm, Reuters reported on Friday, citing sources within the company. These closures would result in the loss of 45,000 jobs, on top of the 50,000 layoffs agreed upon with trade unions in 2024.

Volkswagen executives will discuss the cuts at a meeting next month. According to a separate report by Germany’s Manager Magazin, the company is also weighing a 15% cut in investment over the next five years. A spokesperson for the world’s second-largest carmaker said that they would not comment on “confidential documents,” but admitted that “the entire group, including its brands and subsidiaries, must undergo far-reaching change.”
Volkswagen employs more than 667,000 people worldwide, almost half of them in Germany. However, the company has been forced to scale back production at home since 2022, when Berlin’s decision to abandon Russian gas imports in favor of renewables and expensive American liquified natural gas (LNG) left the industry reeling from higher energy costs.
The German economy has experienced two years of contraction followed by two years of sub-1% growth. Volkswagen already closed one automobile assembly plant, in Dresden, last December – the first time it had closed a factory in Germany in its nine-decade history. BASF, Bosch, Continental, and more than a dozen other German manufacturers have closed one or more facilities over the last four years.
With energy costs eating into Volkswagen’s profits, the company’s electric vehicles are no longer able to compete with offerings from its Chinese rivals. Once the dominant automaker in China, Volkswagen now sells fewer vehicles there than domestic brands BYD and Geely. In Europe, BYD and fellow Chinese brands Chery, SAIC, and Leapmotor have all doubled their market share over the last year. Back in Germany, Volkswagen’s internal union and the IG Metall metalworkers’ union have vowed to resist the job cuts. “Should such plans go ahead, we would do everything in our power to prevent them,” the organizations said in a joint statement on Friday.

Karma https://t.co/Mct93mEWrM
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 26, 2026

Joe Rogan believes that Thomas Matthew Crooks was likely a “product” of some organization that talked him into trying to assassinate President Trump.

Rogan said the whole situation doesn’t add up, especially the fact that Crooks’ apartment had been “professionally scrubbed.”… pic.twitter.com/m6uZ0ALPco
— Overton (@overton_news) June 26, 2026

https://twitter.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2070544213326823464?s=20

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Debt Rattle June 27 2026

Jun 272026

June 27, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:21 am Finance Tagged with: Germany, Pentagon, Poland, rapes, Russia, Starlink, Ukraine 26 Responses »

VIncent van Gogh Railway carriages 1888

• U.S. Strikes Iran After More Ceasefire Violations (Salgado)

• Damage To US Bases In Gulf So Extensive The Pentagon May Not Rebuild Them (ZH)

• The Democrat Party Is Having a Meltdown, and It’s About to Get Nasty (Margolis)

• How Bad Is the Democrat Party Civil War? (Athena Thorne)

• The Far Left Can Crush Republicans in Midterms (CTH

• Musk’s Starlink Plots To Become A Mobile Carrier (ZH)

• Privacy Rights of Illegals More Important than Honest Elections (PCR)

• The Party of Algae and ‘Our Democracy’ (James Howard Kunstler)

• Supreme Court Delivers Major Wins for Administration on Immigration (Turley)

• ‘Our War Against Russia’: Germany Is Re-normalizing The Unthinkable (Amar)

• Polish Opposition To EU Membership For Ukraine Surges (RT)

• Scandinavian Rapes Rival Britain’s (Paul Craig Roberts)

https://twitter.com/LattinaBrown/status/2070118340803100819?s=20 https://twitter.com/Juliedonuts/status/2070336483634909193?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2070482023093854554?s=20

In just under a minute, Scott Jennings delivered a masterful breakdown of why Republicans are winning the argument heading into the midterms.

Kaitlan Collins was forced to sit there and listen to every word of it.

JENNINGS: “Look, gas prices are not up. They’re down. Below $4… pic.twitter.com/LBYehHHCIV
— Overton (@overton_news) June 26, 2026

NAILED IT: Stephen Miller: “America’s doors are CLOSED FULLY to asylum seekers. We’ve set up agreements to where if you want asylum then we will find a country elsewhere in the world to take you. Very simple… The good news for them is we have other countries willing to take… pic.twitter.com/a3ywgZUskZ
— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) June 25, 2026

https://twitter.com/Gunblaze1969/status/2070329381466288483?s=20

Better hit hard,

• U.S. Strikes Iran After More Ceasefire Violations (Salgado)

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed that it conducted airstrikes in response to the Iranian regime’s provocative and dangerous attacks on international shipping. On June 25, reports surfaced of the Iranian regime once again targeting shipping.

As of Friday morning, Reuters and Fox News’ China expert Gordon Chang reported that Iranian state TV again said the regime had closed the Strait of Hormuz. Soon after that, President Donald Trump confirmed the Iranian strikes on the key economic waterway. “The Islamic Republic of Iran shot at least four One Way Attack Drones at Ships transversing the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump posted on Truth Social Friday. “One of the Drones solidly hit the upper deck of a large and very expensive Cargo Carrying Ship. Damage was done, but the Ship was able to proceed on its way. We knocked down three other Drones. Obviously, this is a foolish violation of our Ceasefire Agreement.”
Following on from Trump’s statement, CENTCOM conducted the strikes. The June 26 press release from CENTCOM stated that the strikes were specifically in response to the Iranian regime’s ceasefire violations in the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. aircraft struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations and coastal radar sites after Iran hit M/V Ever Lovely on June 25 with a one-way attack drone. The Singapore-flagged cargo ship was exiting the Strait of Hormuz along the Omani coast at the time of Iran’s attack.
The unwarranted aggression against commercial shipping by Iranian forces clearly violated the ceasefire. Furthermore, Iran’s dangerous behavior undermined freedom of navigation as commerce increasingly flows through the vital international trade corridor. Unfortunately, the Iranian regime has been violating the ceasefire practically every day. The murderous mullahs are not going to agree to stop claiming sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz or to stop encouraging terrorist proxies like Hezbollah to wreak havoc. No matter how much the U.S. government sweetens the deal, the fundamentalist jihadis in Tehran prefer war.
The official U.S. military release ends: “CENTCOM forces continue to provide safe passage coordination and support to commercial vessels transiting the strait. The U.S. military remains present and vigilant to ensure all aspects of the agreement with Iran are adhered to, obeyed, and in full force and effect.”
The regime’s ambassador at the United Nations just bragged about the Hezbollah alliance, negotiator and Foreign Minister Mohammad-Baquer “Death to America” Ghalibaf keeps threatening America, and the mayor of Tehran is already talking about round two of the “existential” war against the “great Satan” America and the coming of the Mahdi (Islamic messiah). In other words, unfortunately, the Iranian leadership is not talking like a group of men interested in ending conflict.

That’s a risk if you have so many of them.

• Damage To US Bases In Gulf So Extensive The Pentagon May Not Rebuild Them (ZH)

With each week and month that passes since the start of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury, more and more reports have come out revealing the massive extent of damage to US military facilities in the Mideast region based on Iran’s retaliation across the region. This is often based on fresh satellite imaging and analysis, despite US government pressure for these research entities to refrain from publishing such data, and to censor open source photographs. After a series of deep investigative reports, it has been proven time and again that the Pentagon and Washington officials have been downplaying and covering up the real extent of devastation caused by Iranian missiles and drones.

More fresh reporting in the Wall Street Journal once again adds confirmation to this, referencing satellite imagery which shows far more serious damage at a key naval base in Bahrain than the US has publicly acknowledged. The damage is said to be bad enough that the Pentagon is mulling shrinking its troop presence there and elsewhere in the Gulf, including a potential reduced troop footprint in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Iran is hailing this reported pullback as a significant strategic victory produced by its retaliation.
Unnamed officials were cited in the report as saying American forces could retreat as far westward as Israel, after some bases essentially became unusable or uninhabitable altogether. Concerning the Bahrain base details, WSJ writes: The U.S. Navy base in Bahrain was repeatedly targeted between late February and June. Strikes that got through caused extensive damage, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of satellite imagery, social-media footage and interviews with current and former servicemembers—damage that the Pentagon hasn’t publicly acknowledged. Hit hard were the command headquarters and at least a dozen other buildings, along with two satellite communications terminals.
The military said no one was killed at the base, known as Naval Support Activity Bahrain, and that the strikes didn’t significantly impact operations. The U.S. evacuated most personnel but has kept a small staff on the ground. Notably in Bahrain the headquarters building for the US Navy in the Middle East was struck and seriously damaged, along with sensitive communications centers being destroyed. But here is a key, somewhat unexpected line in the Journal report: “The extensive damage done to America’s sole naval base in the Middle East – along with hits to at least 20 U.S. sites across the region, including military installations and diplomatic facilities – has the U.S. re-evaluating its entire footprint in the region, according to U.S. officials familiar with the deliberations.
This means that damaged structures and bases may not be rebuilt at all, and the sites may just be abandoned as future key US military hubs, WSJ says. The draw-down of expensive Pentagon comms centers could include from Bahrain: “The military is now considering revamping the base in Bahrain, reducing the U.S. presence in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and moving some bases or base functions west, farther from the reach of Iranian missiles and drones, according to the officials familiar with the deliberations,” WSJ writes. Reconstruction costs would be staggering, per the same report:
The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated in a report published Tuesday that the total cost of the war was about $40 billion. That estimate included their calculus of $2.2 billion to $5.1 billion in damage to U.S. bases, based on structures that CSIS identified as damaged. The Journal used satellite images and social-media footage to identify which buildings on the Bahrain base were damaged. To estimate what it would cost to construct buildings of the same types today, the Journal reviewed a publicly available Defense Department cost model as well as procurement reports. The estimates only cover construction, and don t include other costs that could factor into the total if the buildings were to be rebuilt, such as debris removal and reinforcement.

*Report: Iranian Strikes Damaged Key U.S. Naval Base in Bahrain During War – Wall Street Journal*

* A new report says Iranian missile and drone attacks caused significant damage to the U.S. Navy's headquarters in Bahrain and other military facilities.
* The attacks are… pic.twitter.com/59uS1hQ4pm
— Global Osint (@GlobalOsintNew) June 26, 2026

“The estimated construction costs at NSA Bahrain totaled about $400 million,” it continues. But ultimately a draw-back from these locations would be based on the proven reality that Iran can easily hit them at any time. Some further implications to all this are that in any future flare-up or even return to all-out war between the US and Iran, American forces would find themselves executing a conflict much further away from the theatre itself. For example, dozens of major Air Force refueling tankers have already had to be relocated far away from the Gulf, to places like Tel Aviv. Many were destroyed in the opening weeks of the war while parked at Gulf airfields, clearly over-exposed as it seems Iran knew exactly where to target. Back in late March, US officials admitted to the NY Times that Iran’s significantly retaliation damaging US bases was “a war that is much harder to prosecute.”

“.. its new kingmaker, socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani..”

• The Democrat Party Is Having a Meltdown, and It’s About to Get Nasty (Margolis)

The Democrat Party has a problem that the establishment doesn’t have a clue how to deal with. Its most radical members of Congress aren’t radical enough for the activist base anymore, and one by one, they’re getting picked off by candidates aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, should have been safe. But Darializa Avila Chevalier beat him while running on a platform of shutting down prisons, eliminating ICE, erasing the border, and defunding police. She also opposes deporting illegal immigrants, period, including violent criminals.

It gets worse. In New York’s 10th District, Brad Lander demolished Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who was no moderate. He was one of the loudest anti-Trump voices in the Democrat caucus and the lead counsel in the party’s first impeachment attempt against President Donald Trump. Didn’t matter. The base wanted more.Then in New York’s 7th District, Claire Valdez won the seat Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) is vacating. Valdez ran on citizenship and voting rights for illegal immigrants, taxpayer-funded transgender treatments, and scrapping private health insurance for every American, not just those on Obamacare. And she won.
This was a stunning rebuke of the party establishment in favor of its new kingmaker, socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and the voters just delivered a vote of no confidence that’s now got people inside the party calling for new leadership. Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) went on SiriusXM’s “Straight Shooter with Stephen A,” with Stephen A. Smith and suggested that both Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) should step aside for new leadership. Her argument: the party still hasn’t recovered from getting wiped out in 2024.
“To me, the lesson was simple. Democrats had too many priorities. They tried to make everyone happy and answer every question. When you prioritize everything, no one knows what you actually stand for,” Slotkin told Smith. She contrasted that scattered approach with Trump’s relentlessly singular message. “He came in with one clear message. He said, ‘I’m going to make your life more affordable. I’m going to put more money in your pocket’… He won because he kept his message simple and focused on the issue Americans cared most about,” she said, adding that a year and a half after Trump’s win, “every day there’s a debate within the party about the path forward.”
Slotkin is supposedly part of the party’s moderate wing. Now, I don’t think there really is a moderate wing of the party anymore, but regardless, hearing this from her tells you how bad things have gotten. “That’s why I believe we need significant new leadership,” Slotkin said. “The old models are no longer working, and that includes the Democratic Party.” She compared her own party to a “circular firing squad,” where “everyone is reacting to the crisis, but too few people are talking about what they actually want to accomplish,” calling it “a fundamental failure of leadership.”
When Smith asked her whether she meant Jeffries and Schumer specifically, Slotkin didn’t blink. “I’m saying that if people can’t recognize that the game has fundamentally changed and can’t adapt, then they need to make room for others who can.” The Democrat Party is being cannibalized from the inside, and its leadership has no idea what to do about it. Now you’ve got a sitting senator publicly suggesting her own party’s top two leaders need to go. We’re four months away from the midterm elections, and the Democrat Party is on the verge of a civil war, and it’s about to get nasty.

James Carville .

• How Bad Is the Democrat Party Civil War? (Athena Thorne)

Senior Democrat officials and strategists are increasingly nervous about the radicalization of their party, and some of them are courageous enough to speak out about it. My colleagues here at PJ Media have been covering the growing divide between the old-school Dems and the surging radical Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) — and worse, some outright commies — who are shouldering them aside and trying to grab the wheel.

One of the venerable Democrat elders bravely pushing back against the red scourge infecting his party is James Carville. I confess that I have always loved Carville, and one of my longstanding political sorrows is that he isn’t one of ours. He’s a brilliant strategist — he coined the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid!” — and he’s a hoot to listen to. Unlike today’s leftists, Carville doesn’t hate Republicans — he married one! And he is of the fading breed of Democrats who truly love America and want what’s best for her.
Sadly, Carville is no longer comfortable in his own party. He discussed the dangerous new wave with Al Hunt on the pair’s podcast, Politics War Room, on Thursday. Like Carville, Hunt is a center-leftist and seasoned political oracle, and he’s also unhappy with the new crop of far-left hotheads invading the DNC. He expressed his frustration that, in this year’s Democratic midterm primaries, the sane winning candidates are getting no press while the crazies are dominating the coverage, wrecking the party’s brand and threatening its midterm performance.
Hunt began the discussion, which focused on New York State primary results for U.S. House seats, by outlining NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s endorsed candidates’ wins. “So, New York City Mayor Mamdani endorsed three candidates. They won, but they may complicate the politically existential question of winning in November,” Hunt said. “Those New York City seats are all safe Democratic seats, but two of those candidates are socialists, and one, Darializa Chevalier… is really a problem. She has made despicable comments, calling Obama evil, Biden a rapist, called for defunding the police and ending prisons.”
While some of those are actually mainstream Democrat positions these days, Hunt fretted that “Republicans are gleeful. Trump and others already are saying this is the Democratic Party.”After touting Cait Conley’s primary victory for New York’s 17th Congressional District, Hunt said, “That’s one good note, but I must tell you, James, some of the other stuff worries me.” True to form, Carville lit into the party crashers with his colorful “Ragin’ Cajun” rhetoric. Focusing on Chevalier, he said that she “has attacked interracial relationships and the American flag. Lady, I ain’t in the same party as you. I’m sorry, I’m just not.”
He then revealed how very serious he considered the situation to be by calling for his own party to do something drastic: “And I actually do think it’s time for Democrats to talk the S word: schism. I really do.” “Everybody’s always said, ‘No, no, we’re a coalition, we’re a big tent,’” Carville went on, but there’s “just some s**t that I can’t be in the same tent with.” Good on him. The legendary pundit spent some time railing against the injustice of the press making the scary newcomers into the face of the party (at which, we on the right have earned a hearty laugh) before going back to his desire to kick them right out of the DNC.
“But the idea — the idea! — that we must neglect everything else that has gone on, all of these other primaries, all the recruits Jason has, all the huge, phenomenal successes we’ve had, and declare that the party is now under the control of a Democratic Socialist of New York City is insane,” he fumed. “But, and understand, these people do not like Democrats; not only are they not Democrats, they wish Democrats poorly. So, I just cannot — maybe there’s a way that you can say to — I guess Mamdani is the leader of it? — is, you know, you insist that… the people that run under your banner run as a Democratic Socialist, and don’t use the Democratic Party as your guideline, and let’s negotiate the terms of a schism here. Maybe we can, we can part under some kind of advantageous terms for both of us. But I’m done. I’m not in that f*****g political party.”
I applaud the man’s outright rejection of the Marxist slime that is now roughly a quarter of his party, and growing. The fact that this is the result of the kind of progressive schooling and cultural indoctrination he has spent his career championing may be lost on him, but at least his eyes are open now. “I am totally comfortable in a political party that spends time questioning the policies of the government of Israel. In fact, I’m enthusiastic about that,” Carville clarified, but “I don’t want to be in a political party that denies the right of the state of Israel to exist. That’s just not — I just can’t do that. I’m sorry. It’s just not doable.”
Hunt concurred, saying the DSA candidates “are a great gift to Donald Trump.” He further fretted over what it meant for Democrat control of the House, theorizing that “it is absolutely crucial now that the Democrats don’t just win in November in the House, pick up eight or 10 seats, because that group of crazies will absolutely just sabotage Hakeem Jeffries every second way.” Instead, now “They’ve got to pick up 25 seats” to dilute the far left’s power. And that’s not likely.
“And I think what worries me about this group,” Hunt went on, “look, you have the squad, AOC. I don’t agree with much of what AOC stands for or goes for, but she’s smart,” (pause here to compose yourself), “and she caused trouble in the beginning. Pelosi made clear that wouldn’t work, and she’s ended up actually a pretty good member. I don’t think this group has that potential.”
Carville agreed. “I can’t be in the same party with Ms. Chevalier. Can’t do it. Sorry,” he declared. bWhile I don’t think it will be enough to send Carville over to my party any time soon, I am proud of him for standing up to these frightening Marxists. Unfortunately, he has probably underestimated just how far gone his own party is. The frightening Marxists have all the energy right now, and he’s in for a rude awakening when he discovers how little use they have for an old relic like him. Here’s the whole thing if you care to watch it:

“..if They Just Give Professional Republicans Everything They Want..”

“If the Communists and Progressives can put their crazy into a box for a few months ..”

• The Far Left Can Crush Republicans in Midterms (CTH)

This is a very unusual election year. This year, more than any other election year, the Democrats have two major weapons they can deploy to crush the Republican party in every election:

First, give the Washington DC Republicans everything they want.
Second, be completely silent about it, and control their crazy.
Again, this is a weird election year; I’ll explain.
If the Communists and Progressives, together with all the various subsects under the tent of ‘Democrats’ can have enough self-discipline to follow this guide – they will crush almost every republican candidate and win every key race. It will be the biggest electoral wipeout since 2010, but they also have to be absolutely silent over the next several months.
If the Communists and Progressives can put their crazy into a box for a few months, they will defeat their opposition. Democrats need to take a long summer vacation, stay completely silent, avoid anything political and surface again in late October. That’s it. That’s all they need to do. They can put every nickel of donations and fundraising in the bank and exit the 2026 midterms with billions in saved funds – But they’ve got to hide their crazy; I mean really hide it. The professional Republican Party in Washington DC is completely disconnected from the American voter, and more importantly from their base of support. This creates a very unusual dynamic.
First, let me explain what Republican priorities the Democrats need to support: • Republicans will demand more funding for Ukraine. So, Democrats should give it to them. Two-thirds of the American voters are against the stupid spending on this nonsense proxy war against Russia. If Democrats quietly, silently, just let the GOP fund their proxy war, voters will punish them. Democrat voters will not care about this, and GOP voters will sit home in frustration.
• Republicans will demand re-authorization of FISA (702). Again, two-thirds of the American people do not support warrantless surveillance of American citizens. Again, the Democrats should just give them this demand and then remind voters this is the Washington DC Republican priority. Democrat voters will not generally care about this obscure issue, and the GOP base will again stew in frustration. BONUS: Democrats then get to weaponize the authority when they get power again and target republicans creating more frustration. See how easy this is? There are many more policy points just like these. Why? Well, basically, this is a year when the professional republican priorities in Washington DC are entirely disconnected from their base voter.
• The Republican voters have asked DC Republicans for a few simple things like:
Voting integrity (SAVE act);
Fast track migrant deportations;
Confronting lawlessness (Antifa et al);
Arrests for criminal corruption and transparently visible violent activity;
Spending priorities that focus on Americans’ first, not migrants or foreign interests.

That’s essentially it. That’s the proverbial “big ask” that is just too much for the Washington DC Professional Republican party to accept. Washington DC Republicans are fighting every voter ‘ask’ and telling voters their requests are ridiculous and stupid.
• DC Republicans always hate republican voters. There’s a long history of this. As a consequence, the only thing that will motivate the republican voters in ’26 and ’28, is the insanity of the Communist left. Republican voters have nothing to vote ‘for‘ because all their ‘asks’ are just, well, being ignored. If you are a Democrat this is easy, Republicans are handing you the election by keeping their base voters frustrated and at home. However, this also requires the professional Democrats to do something challenging for them; don’t be crazy.
The only thing the communist/leftists need to do in order to win the election, is not be crazy. Actually, just shut up – don’t talk about all that stuff in their head – bank all their donations, do nothing else. Don’t even campaign. Just be completely and entirely quiet. If the Communists can find enough self-restraint to do that in every election this November, literally just go on vacation until late October, they will crush the Republican party for a decade without spending a dime.
• Republican voters are exhausted. They are exhausted from asking for the easiest and simplest things and getting rejected and dismissed by the totality of all Washington DC Republican political leadership.Obviously, this level of DC disconnect is not accidental. The Republican preference to be in the minority is well known and very well documented. We all understand how each wing of the UniParty operates.
The left-wing demands power. The right-wing demands money. Democrats use money to get power; Republicans use power to get money. Donors to the left-wing support the ideology; the ideology of the right-wing is dependent on donors. This is the difference between the two wings of the DC UniParty.On the bright side, Communists often struggle to rein in their extreme behavior, so there’s a chance the Democrats could stir up enough wild ideas to drive Republican voters to turn out in large numbers against them.

No, Musk is not interested in being a phone company. He wants what comes after the phone.

• Musk’s Starlink Plots To Become A Mobile Carrier (ZH)

The signs were already in plain sight that Elon Musk’s Starlink was positioning itself to challenge the big three U.S. wireless operators: Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. One of the clearest signals was SpaceX’s $17 billion deal for EchoStar wireless spectrum last year, followed by a recent trademark filing for “Starlink Mobile.” We noted in December: “SpaceX Trademark Filing Signals “Starlink Mobile” May Soon Take Aim At AT&T, Verizon”. Now, the Financial Times reports that SpaceX Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell told institutional investors during the IPO roadshow that the company is considering selling mobile contracts directly to consumers and may eventually build its own terrestrial U.S. mobile network.

“The move would require Starlink to build a new retail offering by selling mobile contracts to individual customers, competing directly with the three big US network operators Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile,” FT wrote in a note.

Elon going for the phone after all

SpaceX Plans New Starlink Mobile Service for US Consumers: FT
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 26, 2026

The plan follows SpaceX’s $17 billion purchase of EchoStar spectrum licenses last fall, a deal that could be viewed as the foundation for a terrestrial mobile network. “A direct-to-consumer mobile offering would give SpaceX access to a far larger market than satellite broadband alone, potentially reducing its reliance on telecoms partners that currently act as intermediaries between Starlink’s satellites and end users,” FT wrote in the report. Starlink has already signed a number of deals with carriers, notably with T-Mobile:

Pathways for Starlink:
Should SpaceX fail to reach an MVNO deal, or simply desires owners’ economics and quickly, T-Mobile seems to us the clear choice given their momentum (HSD % growth), maverick culture, pure-play wireless provider, and existing Starlink partnership. Another thought would be to acquire AT&T. SpaceX could sell AT&T’s fiber homes (LEO solutions will likely have a very difficult time succeeding in a Cable/Fiber overlapped footprint) at ~$2,500/home essentially paying for AT&T’s wireless network at a far less expensive price compared to T-Mobile. As for financing, SpaceX could theoretically execute a secondary offering for only modest dilution to its current substantial market cap.
Williams noted that any Starlink entry into the wireless industry is bearish for legacy operators. He continued: “Any entry of SpaceX could be highly bearish for the wireless industry. As such, we are hopeful but not convinced that no carrier will budge and cave on an MVNO agreement. As for M&A, SpaceX would need a willing seller. With T-Mobile the best fit, this SpaceX dynamic could be what motivated T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom to seek total ownership and control of its US cash cow subsidiary as reported in April (LINK). In a defensive move, T-Mobile could acquire a cable company. While investors could roll their eyes on purchasing “yesterday’s technology”, and it would be an overt contradiction to T-Mobile management’s messaging, a cable acquisition could serve two purposes.
Starlink’s true intention was revealed by Musk last fall:
https://twitter.com/spacanpanman/status/1965642222826590413?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1965642222826590413%7Ctwgr%5Eab75303222ec1c2362e0ba267794e3b719df12d5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Ftechnology%2Fmusks-starlink-plots-become-mobile-carrier-td-cowen-sees-possible-t-mobile-buyout
Speculation mounts…

“At least the Romans fought. The pansy nations of the West collapsed from self-doubt taught to them by white liberals.”

• Privacy Rights of Illegals More Important than Honest Elections (PCR)

Yesterday I wrote about how immigrant-invader federal judge Sparkle Sooknanan from Trinidad and Tobago, a Biden last minute DEA appointment, blocked President Trump from using the federal database to limit voting in US elections to American citizens. Today I am writing about the two journalists who reported the story. Judging by their names, Fatima Hussein and Ali Swenson, they are also immigrant-invaders. [..] Fatima and Ali tell us that during the 2024 presidential campaign, “Trump pushed false claims of widespread noncitizen voting,” but noncitizen voting “is rare, accounting for just a tiny fraction of those on state voter rolls.”

Fatima and Ali tell us that Trump’s efforts to confine voting to citizens are just an effort to takeover from Congress and states how elections are run. Trump “also has tried to force voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, ban mail ballots from counting if they are received after Election Day and prohibit the Postal Service from mailing ballots to people not on an approved list of voters. Most of those steps have been blocked by various courts.” The courts, of course, are Democrat ones as the Democrats have thrown their interest in with those of immigrant-invaders. Between them they have blocked Trump’s intention to deport the millions of illegal immigrant-invaders in the US. When did you last hear of a deportation?
In other words, Fatima and Ali regard using the federal data base, the government’s own information, to prevent illegal voting as not only addressing a non-problem but also as an attempt by the executive to take over state and Congressional election responsibilities. In this way she appeals to the 50 states and Congress to support her ruling.
Immigrant-invader Sooknanan’s reasoning would also apply to states and Congress were they to legislate the use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements data to prevent noncitizens from voting. Somehow it is OK to use the official data to prevent illlegals from obtaining benefits to which they have no claims, but not to prevent them from voting, which the Democrat states encourage them to do.
Immigrant-invader Sooknanan’s argument is that using the data to prevent illegal voting violates privacy and the right of citizens to vote as errors in the data could prevent a legitimate voter from voting. In this way Sooknanan dresses up doing nothing about illegal voting as protecting the right of citizens to vote. She also seems to give the Constitutional right to privacy–already a dead-letter right under a variety of laws that permit spying without warrants and a variety of practices such as face recognition street cameras–to non-citizens. If non-citizens have Constitutional rights, then how are they non-citizens? Giving non-citizens Constitutional rights is a way of turning them into citizens.
Far down in the article, Fatima and Ali tell us that the plaintiffs who brought the challenge to Sooknanan’s court consists of the League of Women Voters, something called the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and five unnamed people. As there is no electronic privacy, it is unclear what the center does. We are not told why five people think that the way to protect privacy is to prevent identifying illegal voters, and not by banning warrantless spying, street cameras, and the multitude of invasions of our privacy by government now legislated in law.
The plaintiff attorney is Nikhel Sus, possibly another immigrant-invader. If you can stop scrolling your cell phone long enough, have a look around you. Notice how many of the names of journalists, editors, professors, judges, state, local, and federal legislators, prosecutors, corporate executives, doctors, and lawyers are not white ethnic names. Influence and power are passing out of the hands of white ethnics. As white liberals have demonized white ethnics as racist exploiters, second class citizenship is the best hope of white ethnics.
In the United States white heterosexual males have been second class citizens for 60 years since Alfred Blumrosen, a Jew, created a system of race, gender, and sexual preference quotas that still discriminat against white hetetrosexual gentile males.
In Britain British children have had no protection for 30 years against black immigrant-invader rape gangs. There are more white ethnic British parents in prison for complaining about the immigrant-invaders than there are rapists of their children. The demise of ethnic Britain has unfolded precisely as Enoch Powell forecast in 1968, except he thought that the British would fight.
In Scandanavia the immigrant-invader rape gangs have focused on adult women who are afraid of reporting their rapes because the police have been indoctrinated to doubt their reports and to investigate them as committing racist hate crimes against black immigrant-invaders. See today’s accompanying article about Scandinavian women who unprotected by police against rape are afraid to leave their homes.
In France the leader of France’s largest political party has been banned by the French Establishment from running for public office because she stands for the ethnic French nation against the immigrant-invaders and the French elite’s ideal of a multicultural Tower of Babel. The demise of France has unfolded precisely as Jean Raspail forecast in 1973.
In the United States the anti-white Woke Democrat Party has promoted immigrant-invaders to federal judgeships and prosecutorial offices where they even tried to imprison the President of the United States. The demise of America has unfolded precisely as Wilmot Robertson predicted in 1972.
From all appreances the insouciant, dumbshit, clueless, stupid beyond all belief white ethnicities in every Western country are unable to mount any resistance to their demise. It is unavoidable that they will cease to exist, having handed over their nations to immigrant-invaders.
At least the Romans fought. The pansy nations of the West collapsed from self-doubt taught to them by white liberals.

“. . .a political party doesn’t lose 95 percent of a registration advantage because voters are kinda annoyed. Something much, much deeper is going on.” — Richard Landwirth

• The Party of Algae and ‘Our Democracy’ (James Howard Kunstler)

Okay, convince me that gay-Islamic-race-communism is a “progressive” political program America is going to buy like corn flakes. The Lefty-left wants to think so, as it lurches from one peak of mental illness to an even greater one in the 130 days to the midterms. Look how successful they’ve been with open borders, defunding the police, men in the girl’s swim lane, no cash bail, sex-change surgery for kids, free-for-all elections, hatin’ on white people, and open Medicare fraud. The new re-branding strategy as “Democratic Socialism” only tells you that reality has ceased to interest them.

No, winning electoral districts stuffed with illegal aliens in bright blue cities with tiny overall voter turnouts won’t sweep the nation like love. More likely it’s a harbinger of the party’s approaching death, like the Whigs going down the drain in 1852, gurgle-gurgle. Advocating to destroy American society is a poor sales pitch. The party’s old-line leadership frantically seeks some way to neutralize the rising influence of Zohran Mamdani and his disciples, but so far nothing works. An odor of desperation fills the air.
One thing you can say about the gay-Islamic-race-communists is that they are well-organized, which is understandable since their political program resembles an ant farm, a dis-individuated collective with insectile characteristics, workers and soldiers toiling in mindless solidarity to occupy more electoral territory so as to vanquish their “oppressors,” Trump and the big feet of his capitalist minions.
Meanwhile, though, the money flows dry up as the old Big Donor Dawgs freak-out at the prospect of having their fortunes confiscated, eaten by this advancing ant-swarm, while Scott Bessent and Todd Blanche work to disassemble the giant, hive-like matrix of NGOs that, for years, laundered US taxpayer dollars through the Democratic Party’s patronage system. In New York City, Philly, LA, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Portland, the NGOs furnished comfortable salaries for young activists churned out remorselessly by Higher Ed, but all that’s starting to look like a bygone Shangri-la, a lost world.
“Many Democratic primary voters, however, are in no mood for defensiveness. As they see it, they’ve been failed by a cautious, compromising establishment, and they’re going to overthrow it.” —Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times
Of course, the loss of those cushy jobs and perqs has pitched that young demographic into a yet greater rage, prompting them to wreak vengeance and havoc on the system that took their “entitlements” away. Activists want to do activism, which is not necessarily the same as working for a living. It’s working for an ideal, a cause — to abolish the very society based on working for a living and replace it with a parent-like, hovering, all-powerful government that provides your every need by “seizing the means of production.”

“Trump was elected on the pledge to reverse these policies by using the same discretion that his predecessor employed to open the border.”

• Supreme Court Delivers Major Wins for Administration on Immigration (Turley)

“In ordinary speech, no one would say that a person ‘arrives in’ a place … before the person enters that place.”

Those words may seem ripped from the pages of Dr. Seuss but they are taken from the 6-3 majority opinion of Justice Samuel Alito in Mullin v. Al Otro Lado. They captured the lost-in-translation character of the Court’s fight over whether undocumented persons must be physically present in the United States to make an asylum claim. In one of a pair of major immigration wins for the Trump Administration, the Court ruled that asylum seekers who are stopped on the other side of the Southern border are not present in the United States. If treated as inside the country despite being outside it, these individuals would be allowed to enter and remain while their asylum claims are pending.
The case highlights the lengths to which the Biden Administration went to facilitate the entry of undocumented persons into the country. It rescinded a policy of “metering” that was put into place by the Obama Administration (and later restored and expanded by the Trump Administration). In seeking to bar Trump from enforcing the same policy as the Obama Administration, the three liberal justices sounded positively Clintonesque in debating what the meaning of “in” is. Justice Sonia Sotomayor denounced the majority’s “illogical interpretation is driven almost entirely by a fixation on a single word: ‘in.’ Words, however, must be read in context and with attention to how they fit into the statute as a whole.”
In their view, “contextual” reading means that you can be “in” the United States without actually being “in” the United States. The sharp disagreement in the opinions spilled over to the release of the opinions. Justice Alito read a summary of his opinion, followed by a more lengthy reading by Justice Sotomayor of her dissent. The stinging dissent produced a rare rebuttal from the bench by Alito, who was surprised by the extended comments and said that, if he had not been blindsided, he would have said more, including how “the policy in question was adopted by two very different administrations.”
The court also delivered a major victory in Mullin v. Doe, upholding the right of the Administration to strip more than 356,000 Syrian and Haitian immigrants of temporary protection status. Again, lower courts afforded the Obama and Biden Administrations greater leeway in granting such status than Trump in rescinding it. The combination of the two opinions offers significant advances for the Administration in addressing millions of undocumented persons in this country. In her dissent in Mullin, Sotomayor invoked the image of the voyage of the M. S. St. Louis, where Jews fleeing Nazi Germany were not allowed entry in various countries only to be returned to Germany, where many died in the Holocaust.
The problem with the analogy is that all of those on the St. Louis were demonstrably in flight from lethal persecution. Virtually all of the asylum claims made at our borders are rejected as unsupported or invalid. Immigration groups hand out material across the border, coaching immigrants to claim asylum status to guarantee that they can stay in the country for years before any final adjudication can be made. The acceptance rate of these claims is currently below five percent.
The question is how to limit such constructive entries if being “in” the United States does not require actually being in the United States. More importantly, absent a clear legal basis for such constructive entries, it is not clear why courts should be able to dictate such policies. The control of our borders has long been an area marked by heavy deference to the Executive Branch. During the Biden Administration, courts often embraced that discretion as the Administration allowed over ten million unvetted immigrants to enter.
Trump was elected on the pledge to reverse these policies by using the same discretion that his predecessor employed to open the border.

“Spiegel’s Barbarossa cover is beyond bad framing – it reflects a country where war is being made to seem conceivable again..”

• ‘Our War Against Russia’: Germany Is Re-normalizing The Unthinkable (Amar)

For the anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, the German name for the attack on the Soviet Union of 22 June 1941, Germany’s declining yet still dominant mainstream news magazine Der Spiegel has dedicated a long title story and a sensationalist cover to Berlin’s last open war in, as the Germans used to say back then, the East. So far, so expected. There is no doubt, after all, that this was a historic as well as horrific event.

Launching their surprise attack with millions of troops and the explicit intention to wage a war of extermination, those Germans of yore, sought to build a ‘lebensraum’ empire from hell, based on multiple deliberate genocides (including one of Soviet POWs), warfare with all legal or moral restraints systematically removed, and a supremacist ideology that would have designated anyone surviving among the conquered as a slave of inferior, if any, humanity.
Moreover, if those Germans, who attacked 85 years ago, had won in ‘the East’, their form of genocidal fascism – officially termed National Socialism – would have had a realistic chance to survive and even maintain domination in large parts of Eurasia (at least). For the preponderant majority of German forces were destroyed by the Soviet military. If that had not happened, we might all have ended up living in a very different, even worse world now.
The stakes were as high as they could possibly be not just for Europe but humanity as a whole. That is why the defeat of Germany’s Operation Barbarossa belongs to the most important facts of global history. The Germans were not stopped by a combination of vile weather, muddy roads, and silly mistakes of their own, as some may still want to believe in blissful ignorance and with more than a hint of racist arrogance. What killed the fascist German bid for world power was the Soviet Union, the leadership of its generals, who after initial setbacks, rapidly learned to out-think and out-plan the Germans, the supreme valor of its soldiers, and the unimaginable grit as well as organization of its home front.
But the price was steep. Especially as Berlin had made a decision to fight a war of extermination, Soviet losses were terrible. 27 million killed (soldiers and civilians) and a corresponding storm of massive economic devastation, social dislocation, and mass trauma, physical and psychological.
This – in a nutshell – is the historical backdrop to Spiegel’s current title story, its cover, and the ruckus both have triggered. In essence, a monotonous chorus of critics – things are generally done in intellectually dull lockstep again in Germany – have charged Spiegel with obscuring the suffering of those in the Soviet Union who were not ethnically Russian, such as, for instance, Belarusians or, of course, Ukrainians. By splashing ‘Our War against Russia’ – and not ‘the Soviet Union’ – on its cover (background: Nazi soldiers), these critics argue, Spiegel has in effect privileged Russia and Russians. The question some of them ask is if Spiegel has used this cover title out of ignorance or, probably even worse, to provoke precisely the pearl-clutching and hyperventilating it is receiving now. Scandal sells.
Like many rapidly shared herd opinions, the above is a remarkably superficial and misleading take. For starters, the cover title and that of the actual article inside the magazine are not identical. The latter reads ‘The German War of Extermination’. And as you may suspect, the article is commendably clear about at least some of the enormous crimes Germany committed, including, for instance, the mass use of slave labor and the de facto genocidal (a word Spiegel, however, fails to use) blockade of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg again). The fact that many victims were not ethnically Russian is mentioned, too.
Even if the cover title is imperfect, clearly, the substance of the article doesn’t correspond to that flaw, a fact which the critics of Spiegel mention conspicuously little, presumably because it would interfere with enjoying their somewhat self-important consternation.

“Nearly 60% of Poles now oppose Kiev joining the bloc, compared to 42% a year ago, IBRiS surveys show..”

• Polish Opposition To EU Membership For Ukraine Surges (RT)

Nearly six in ten Poles now oppose Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, up from four in ten a year ago, according to two IBRiS opinion polls cited by Polish media. The latest survey, conducted for Radio ZET, found that 59.7% of respondents oppose Ukrainian membership. Last year, an IBRiS poll for Defence24 and the Stand With Ukraine initiative put that figure at 42%. The comparison suggests that public opinion has hardened. While support for Ukraine’s EU membership has remained broadly stable at around 35%, the share of undecided respondents has fallen from roughly one-quarter to just 5%, with most appearing to have shifted into the opposition camp.

Poland has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest political and military backers since the escalation of the conflict with Russia in 2022, supplying weapons, hosting millions of refugees, and consistently supporting Kiev’s integration into the EU and NATO. Despite Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s continued backing for Ukraine’s EU bid, the issue has become increasingly contentious in Poland, fueled by disputes over agriculture and historical grievances. Relations have further deteriorated since last month over the ‘Heroes of the UPA’ controversy, with Warsaw accusing Kiev of glorifying a nationalist movement implicated in wartime massacres of Poles.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki said that for “the vast majority of Polish society,” the UPA remains synonymous with atrocities committed against Poles during World War II. Poland officially recognizes the Volhynia massacres carried out by the UPA and affiliated Ukrainian formations as genocide, and several senior Polish politicians have argued that Kiev cannot expect Warsaw’s support for EU membership until the dispute is resolved.
Meanwhile, Polish farmers have continued to protest, arguing that Ukraine’s preferential access to the EU market has created unfair competition. They warn that Ukraine’s eventual accession could further erode their market share and reduce Poland’s share of EU agricultural subsidies. In February, Deputy Parliament Speaker Piotr Zgorzelski warned that fast-tracking Ukraine into the bloc would “spell the death of Polish agriculture.”

A society that doesn’t protect its women is immoral. And short-lived,.

“.. and the Governments also Cover up the Rapes so Not to Threaten the Multicultural Policy,,”

• Scandinavian Rapes Rival Britain’s (Paul Craig Roberts)

In recent days I have reported on the Lowe Report in Britain of the British anti-white, pro-immigrant-invader governments of the last 30 years covering up the rapes of 250,000 ethnic British girls by black immigrant- invaders. Parents who complained were arrested and imprisoned for white racist hate crimes against black people. There are more ethinc British in prison for hate crimes against immigrant-invaders than there are immigrant-invaders in prison for gang-raping British children.

But immigrant-invader gang rapes are not limited to Britain. The rapes are a way the invaders demonstrate their dominance over the pucillanimous white populations. As the white populations have accepted their disgrace and humiliation, the immigrant-invaders have no fear of them and now execute white people in public.Hanne Herland who runs the only reliable news service in Europe, again reports on the rampart rape of Scandinavian women by black immigrant-invaders:
“In Norway, one of the few reports that published the ethnicities of criminals showed that 100% of assault rapes were done by non-Western immigrants. Immigrants from Asia, Africa, South and Central America, and Turkey have much higher crime rates than the general population, with the worst being from Africa. In Sweden, a recent study showed 96% of rapes are committed by immigrants. In both cases, almost exclusively native, white women were raped.” In Denmark, non-Western immigrants are over seven times more likely to commit rape than native Danes.
But, of course, very few of the rapists are convicted or even charged. Sweden has sixty “no-go zones” ruled by immigrant gangs where the police are not allowed; the city of Malmø has over 50% non-Western immigrants with a higher crime rate index than Baghdad. Sweden has the highest number of bombings for a country not at war.
“According to a recent study, 96% of assault rapes in Sweden are committed by foreign-born immigrants, and ethnic Swedish women are the ones raped. A 2018 investigation found that 40 out of 43 men convicted of gang rape were either immigrants or born to immigrant parents. Sweden has had the highest number of registered rape offenses in Europe by a considerable extent.
“In 1977, Sweden had 689 rapes reported. In 2015, 18,100 sexual offenses were reported, again almost solely perpetrated against ethnic Swedes. Still, Swedish politicians do not stop it, and mainstream media is silent out of fear of being labelled racist.” [In my opinion it is the government that is silent because its agenda is multiculturalism and the government and media do not want to discredit a multicultural tower of babel, their ideal.]
“Norway’s numbers indicate that remarkably few individuals are convicted of rape. Only one in 10 reports of sexual violence are filed, and about 80 percent of those are simply dropped. In Sweden, out of 4,895 reported rape cases [ reported cases are a small percentage of rapes] in 2017, only 190 led to convictions. In Norway, only one in 10 produces a conviction. Statistics also show that one in five Norwegian girls under 15 years of age is exposed to sexual violence.” Sweden does not publish official crime data linked to ethnicity or immigration status.
In other words the anti-white Scananavian governments protect their open borders policy by not providing information that shows the entirety of crime in the countries is the result of the open borders policies of the anti-white governments.

Elon Musk: I taught myself to code from a book, then sold my own games to buy better computers.

“When I was about 10, I walked into a computer store in South Africa and saw an actual computer. I previously had some early sort of precursors to the Atari system, and then I got the… pic.twitter.com/8PCVHhL8QI
— ELON CLIPS (@ElonClipsX) June 25, 2026

Tucker Carlson argues that the Covid vaccine rollout "was probably the greatest crime ever committed".

"It killed a lot of people around the world. It caused cancer. It lowered female fertility. It was a disaster."

"They did it on false pretences, knowing that it harmed… pic.twitter.com/A94lW1ryfP
— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) June 25, 2026

Elon Musk was asked how hard it is to build a humanoid robot at scale.

The man targeting 1 million Optimus units a year gave an answer nobody expected.

There are really only three hard things for humanoid robots.

The real world intelligence, the hand, and scale manufacturing.… pic.twitter.com/7y3Z6FQwLt
— Vikram M (@Vvikramai) June 26, 2026

BREAKING: SpaceX could launch its own Starlink mobile service in the United States.

• SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell discussed the potential consumer mobile service with investors during the company’s recent IPO roadshow, as per FT.

• The service could compete directly with… pic.twitter.com/AXiPr1FpPu
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) June 26, 2026

BREAKING: SpaceX is building its own gas pipeline to fuel Starship launches, called Starpipe.

• The pipeline will supply natural gas directly to Starbase in Texas.

• The pipeline will replace the need for hundreds of methane tanker truck deliveries

• It is expected to begin… pic.twitter.com/rMYlj5MEhS
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) June 25, 2026

https://twitter.com/VigilantFox/status/2070228991412232355?s=20

Germany, UK banned this movie https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2070334277867499678?s=20

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Debt Rattle June 19 2026

Jun 192026

June 19, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:30 am Finance Tagged with: Apple, denazification, enforcement, G7, Hegseth, merger, Merrick Garland, SpaceX, Tesla, Ukraine 28 Responses »

M.C. Escher Fish and Boat 1948

• Trump Ties His Name and Credibility to Vance’s Dubious Iran Diplomacy (Hammer)

• The Iran War Was Easy. The Peace Is the Problem. (Stephen Green)

• Victor Davis Hanson: The Biggest Test of the Iran Deal: Enforcement (Bolt)

• Secretary of War Pete Hegseth Just Tore Into NATO (Bolt)

• Britain Bought The Keys To Ukraine’s Nuclear Future – What’s Next? (Ostashko)

• G7 Considering Licensed Arms Production In Ukraine: Why Now? (RT)

• EU Pushes Trump On Russia Policy As Moscow Warns On Greenland Militarization (TASS)

• Denazification of Germany, France, Britain, Sweden, Canada (Helmer)

• Speculation About A SpaceX–Tesla Merger Is Already Growing (ZH)

• Stupid, Stupid, Stupid”: DOJ Memo Tarnishes Record of Merrick Garland (Turley)

• Two Top Senators Urge Trump DOJ To Prosecute Fauci Despite Biden Pardon (JTN)

• Dems Could Have Beaten Trump If Biden Had Stepped Aside: Hillary Clinton (JTN)

• What Joy Behar Told JD Vance Shocked Him (Margolis)

• White Ethnicities Have Been Demonized Beyond Recovery (Paul Craig Roberts)

• Apple To Raise Prices As AI Boom Pushes Up Chip Costs (BBC)

https://twitter.com/robertdunlap947/status/2067352902713196650?s=20 https://twitter.com/AmericaPartyX/status/2067243242127503555?s=20

Elon Musk to the British people:

“You’re in a fundamental situation here where you, whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you.

You either fight back or you die.” pic.twitter.com/JharlkWQHF
— Taya Bass (@travelingflying) June 16, 2026

https://twitter.com/VictoriaSask/status/2067407714498551928?s=20

Not many illustrations today or other things that break the text monotony, and I even double-checked. Sorry for that. “First, can Americans somehow believe that Iran will uphold its commitments, given its history of deceiving and lying at every turn? Second, what does this mean for Trump’s legacy and successor plans ..”

• Trump Ties His Name and Credibility to Vance’s Dubious Iran Diplomacy (Hammer)

Donald Trump has been the greatest, most clear-eyed and most transformative foreign policy president of my lifetime. But Trump is also the famed businessman who wrote The Art of the Deal four decades ago. There has therefore always been the risk that the president’s novel and often unorthodox approach to foreign policy could be subsumed by a greater dealmaking imperative.

Prudent statesmanship on the world stage requires setting clear ends and then working backward to calibrate the appropriate means — diplomatic, economic, military or otherwise — to achieve those ends. Because of his dealmaking background, Trump — despite all his foreign policy successes — was always uniquely vulnerable to confusion of means and ends, prioritizing a deal itself above any end that a deal might be meant to secure.
That is how we got to this troubling week in U.S. foreign policy — namely, the deeply flawed new “memorandum of understanding” between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic of Iran, which represents the single greatest subsumption of noble ends into politically convenient means in at least a decade of American diplomacy.
The Iran appeasement, primarily negotiated and championed by Vice President JD Vance but ultimately bearing Trump’s signature, raises at least two crucial questions. First, can Americans somehow believe that Iran will uphold its commitments, given its history of deceiving and lying at every turn? Second, what does this mean for Trump’s legacy and successor plans, as it pertains to the Middle East and 2028 presidential hopefuls?
We shouldn’t mince words on the first issue. To place trust in Iran’s fanatical Islamist leadership is not merely naive — it’s delusional. For decades, Iran’s apocalyptic Shiite theocracy has demonstrated a consistent pattern of deception and hostility, undermining any notion that it can be a reliable partner in Western diplomacy. The history of Iranian negotiations is littered with broken promises, yet the administration — with Vance as its most prominent salesman — somehow argues this time will be different. There is zero reason for thinking that will be the case. The mullahs are still in charge, after all. As Roger Daltrey of the Who famously said in the hit 1971 song “Won’t Get Fooled Again”: “Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss.”
This current MOU looks shockingly similar to former President Barack Obama’s catastrophic 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — a deal that Trump, shortly before withdrawing the United States from the pact in 2018, correctly excoriated as the “worst deal ever negotiated.” Under the guise of diplomacy, the plan said nary a word about Tehran’s formidable ballistic missile arsenal, allowed Iran to continue its nuclear ambitions, and provided the regime with a windfall — or, more accurately, literal pallets — of cash to fund its regional terror proxies.
What exactly is different with the current deal? The mind reels. The new MOU, with its quixotic presuppositions, risks repeating all those same grave mistakes. At its outset earlier this year, Operation Epic Fury had four reasonably clear goals: a truly free Strait of Hormuz, an end to Iran’s funding of its sprawling terror proxy network, an end to Iran’s ballistic missile threat, and a final resolution of the nuclear issue. The current agreement fails to achieve a single one of those American goals.
The Iranian regime, long guided by the sharia doctrine of taqiyya, has always viewed negotiations with Western powers as a strategic tool to buy time while advancing its nuclear capabilities, exporting jihad and sowing discord across the region. To imagine that Iran will suddenly embrace a spirit of good-faith cooperation is simply preposterous. No one actually believes that — including Trump’s own CIA director, John Ratcliffe.
We should also consider how this appeasement affects Trump’s Middle East legacy and, looking toward 2028, possible successor plans. Up until the April 8 ceasefire, Trump evinced a life’s work of consistent toughness toward the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism — a regime whose revolutionaries’ very first action, in 1979, was to storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran and commence a 444-day hostage crisis. To cap off the fiery and effective Epic Fury on such a limp note, without a single American goal having been achieved, is to jeopardize that legacy.
What is the point, after all, of winning the war but losing the peace? On Wednesday, Trump celebrated the signing of the MOU at a dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron at Versailles. The profound symbolism of having that particular dinner at that particular location, intimately associated as it is with tragically flawed peace accords, cannot be ignored.
It seems, then, that Trump is placing a high-stakes wager on his Middle East legacy on his credulous vice president. As Trump said at the G7 summit earlier this week in France: “If (the Iran deal) works out, I’m going to take the credit. If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming JD.” Perhaps Trump meant that comment in jest — but perhaps he didn’t. The buck stops with the commander in chief, but maybe this has also been a trial run for Vance as he gears up for a likely 2028 run. If so, it has not been a particularly impressive one. No intellectually honest person can deny that Iran comes out the big winner from yet another futile exercise in kicking the nuclear (and missile) can down the road.
Throughout this ordeal, many Iran hawks have asked, “Where is Marco Rubio?” Rubio, like Ratcliffe and War Secretary Pete Hegseth, allegedly lobbied Trump against the deal. Perhaps the answer, in a possibility raised by the Los Angeles Times on Thursday, is that Rubio is deliberately missing in action: He is letting Vance “take the fall” if (when) the deal inevitably implodes. If Trump cares about preserving his legacy on the world stage, then, ironically, his best remaining hope may well be for Rubio to clean up this mess.

“Once we were at war, the proper solution was to force Hormuz back open. We even learned last week that Trump ordered elements of the 82nd Airborne Division to Israel for just such an eventuality.”

• The Iran War Was Easy. The Peace Is the Problem. (Stephen Green)

When President Donald Trump ordered the start of Operation Epic Fury on February 28, like many people I assumed a brief air campaign to further degrade Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The instigator was Iran’s own negotiators, who boasted to Trump advisor Steve Witkoff that they had produced enough nuclear material for nearly a dozen weapons. All Tehran needed to do was make the final uranium enrichment step from 60% to 90%, then assemble the warheads. Neither Trump nor Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu — whose nation former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called a “two-bomb country” — had a choice in the matter. It was either war then or nuclear blackmail later. Or worse.We went to war. I cheered it on.

Milblogger and retired Navy officer CDR Salamander put it better than I did at the time, writing that “I support the strikes on Iran because it firmly fits into a view I have held on the use of national military power for decades.” Sal was writing in support of the age-old Great Power custom of punitive expeditions — brief and often impressively violent campaigns to bloody a smaller enemy without all that “Pottery Barn Rule” nonsense that Colin Powell saddled our strategic thinking with a quarter century ago. “Nation building OPLANS again? No. Not any more. Breaking their things and killing their worst leadership that endangered the USA and her allies? I’m in.” Me too.
Now the Memorandum of Understanding is public, and I must ask: How in the hell did we get to this from where we started on Feb. 28? • Ceasefire: Immediate/permanent end to military ops (incl. Lebanon); no future attacks/threats; respect sovereignty/Lebanon integrity. • Non-interference: Respect sovereignty/territorial integrity; no internal meddling. • Timeline: Negotiate final deal in max 60 days (extendable). • U.S. Actions: Lift naval blockade (start immediately, full in 30 days); withdraw forces post-deal; $300B+ reconstruction plan; end all sanctions (UN/US) per schedule; oil export waivers; release frozen funds/assets. • Iran Actions: Safe commercial shipping (Hormuz/Gulf, 60 days free); no nuclear weapons; maintain nuclear status quo; down-blend stockpile under IAEA. • Interim: Status quo maintained; monitoring mechanism; final deal via binding UNSC resolution.
There’s so much to pick apart here, but there are really only three things that matter: “Status quo,” “End all sanctions,” and “$300 billion.” As for the efficacy of a denuclearization plan involving the UN… I just throw my hands up in the air. I spent weeks coming up with or sharing other people’s attempts to explain what Trump was thinking, from the “rug-merchant” delay strategy to the “there’s no one left there with the authority to negotiate” conundrum. But reading these bullet points, you have to wonder if they weren’t having the exact same discussion inside the White House, right up until the very end.
Here’s a big tell about what the MOU is worth. The two strongest foreign policy hands on Team Trump — Secretary of State Marco Rubio and War Secretary Pete Hegseth — seem to be doing their best to maintain radio silence while JD Vance does the P.R. blitz. Axios reported on Monday that “[CIA Director John] Ratcliffe isn’t the only skeptic in Trump’s top team. In internal discussions, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth both expressed concerns and raised questions about the memorandum of understanding.”
“As Vance emerges as the spokesman for the deal, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has raised eyebrows across the political world with his near-total absence. Rubio, who has taken on multiple roles in the administration,” Mediaite reported Thursday, and “was central to the Iran negotiations up until the last week or so, in which Vance, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff stepped in to rush to finalize an end to hostilities.”mI’ve said here before that Witkoff is one of the very few weak parts of Trump 47, and if those are his fingerprints all over this MOU, then I’ll say it again.
Netanyahu is also nowhere to be seen, following months of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the administration. The biggest mistake was a ceasefire that effectively locked in Tehran’s control of Hormuz. The clock started ticking on the Islamic Republic the moment the bombs started falling almost four months ago. The clock started ticking on the global economy the moment Tehran more or less closed the Strait.
As Trump himself put it in France on Thursday, “I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe. If you kept this [war] going, that could have happened.” He added, “It could have caused an international depression.” Once we were at war, the proper solution was to force Hormuz back open. We even learned last week that Trump ordered elements of the 82nd Airborne Division to Israel for just such an eventuality.

“.. we have to react disproportionately any time they break the agreement..”

• Victor Davis Hanson: The Biggest Test of the Iran Deal: Enforcement (Bolt)

Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, said the biggest test of the Iran deal will be how the United States enforces it, as the full text of the memorandum of understanding was finally released Wednesday. Hanson said he’s not entirely worried about the core issues, like issues surrounding the enriched uranium or opening the Strait of Hormuz. He explained that Iran needs the Strait open nearly as much as the rest of the world due to the economic pressures currently on the country, and U.S. intelligence can track enriched uranium so precisely that if Iran moves toward building a nuclear weapon, the U.S. can immediately resume a bombing campaign.

However, the very real threat of those attacks, or other serious U.S. action against Iran, will determine how closely Iran complies with the rest of the agreement and broader American interests.
https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/2067420491967791267?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2067420491967791267%7Ctwgr%5Ee67877b70d719b47e684bf23fb0ffddee91ad04b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftownhall.com%2Ftipsheet%2Fdmitri-bolt%2F2026%2F06%2F18%2Fvictor-davis-hanson-the-biggest-test-of-the-iran-deal-comes-down-to-one-thing-enforcement-n2677936
“So the two chief issues I’m not so worried about,” Hanson said. “I think we know where the enriched uranium is, it’s sealed, we have great intelligence, we can bomb it, bomb it, bomb it, we can hit more of their industrial complexes if they cheat, and they will open the Strait of Hormuz because they’re just about broke.”
“The other things are known unknowns. It’s going to be more difficult to ensure they’re not giving money to Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas. That’s more murky, and we don’t know what they’re going to do in Lebanon. And then, of course, we don’t know what’s going on in Iran, because this is the first real air war,” he continued. “We don’t have boots on the ground, we don’t have embeds, but we will learn very shortly, and we’re going to get an idea of just how much damage was done. I think it might have been half a trillion dollars or more in the nuclear military-industrial complex.”
We don’t know the mood of the people. Are they going to come out and say to their own government, you mean we lost everything we had, and now you could have done this peacefully? Instead, you acted so tough, you were humiliated, and now we’re broke and destitute, and all you had to do was agree in the first place. And then we don’t know how the government will react to that. There could be a widespread uprising. We don’t know what we’re going to do if they try to kill another 40,000 people. “So the main denominator, though, that has to be ironclad is we have to react disproportionately any time they break the agreement,” Hanson added.
This comes as concerns have been raised about the memorandum, which essentially serves as an extended 60-day ceasefire to allow negotiating parties to work out the technical details of a more lasting peace deal. The concerns primarily center on the fact that those technical details remain unworked, including how the United States will ensure Iran abandons its nuclear weapons pursuit, how it will prevent Iran from funding its terror proxies in the region, and how the agreement will serve as more than empty commitments by the Iranians.
The Trump administration has maintained that enforcement will hinge on financial incentives: a $300 billion reconstruction fund, an upfront arrangement allowing Iran to immediately begin selling its oil, and U.S. vows to free up sanctioned money and assets upon Iran’s compliance. President Trump also said Wednesday he has no problem resuming military strikes if Iran begins to play games.

“As Dwight Eisenhower himself said as early as 1951, if in ten years all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole process will have failed.”

• Secretary of War Pete Hegseth Just Tore Into NATO (Bolt)

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth tore into NATO on Thursday, branding the military alliance a paper tiger and demanding Europeans finally take responsibility for their own defense. Hegseth went on to call for a return to “NATO 1.0,” the era when Europeans understood that NATO’s power came not from “small flags on fancy tables” but from “warriors.” It’s a feature of the military alliance that Europeans have been happy to ignore, vastly preferring the negotiating table, meetings, and international governing bodies over legitimate, hard defense.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2067581391986921892?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2067581391986921892%7Ctwgr%5E4de527fd700b140c5d10de1007d956d0ec7fea42%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftownhall.com%2Ftipsheet%2Fdmitri-bolt%2F2026%2F06%2F18%2Fpete-hegseth-just-tore-into-nato-n2677940

“For too long, NATO has been a paper tiger and a one-way street. No more,” the Secretary of War said. “And that’s what the Hague Summit is all about. That’s what defense spending commitments are all about. Transforming NATO back into a real military alliance that’s focused on hard power and real deterrence.”
A NATO 3.0 modeled on the NATO 1.0 that won the Cold War, with our allies actually taking the lead in Europe’s conventional defense. And that’s what NATO was always supposed to be and what its framers like President Eisenhower always expected. Europe was not supposed to be a dependency of the United States. That’s not what Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, or Conrad Adenauer wanted or expected. No, Europe was supposed to be a military power allied with a strong America. This is the essence of NATO 1.0. As Dwight Eisenhower himself said as early as 1951, if in ten years all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole process will have failed.
“Eisenhower was Supreme Allied Commander then, not yet our nation’s 34th president. But he and his allied counterparts, all of them still living in the shadow of World War II, understood that NATO’s power did not come from committees or from meetings or from small flags on fancy tables. It came from warriors,” Hegseth said. “And for Europe’s defense, it had come from NATO allies.”
This comes as President Trump has voiced massive displeasure with European allies, especially amid the war in Iran. The U.S. launched military strikes without consulting NATO partners, and Europe flatly refused to directly assist, a move Trump called “shameful” and uncharacteristic of allies. He went on to say that the Europeans “haven’t been friends when we needed them” and threatened to punish the military alliance by potentially reviewing whether to withdraw American troops from Europe altogether.
European powers, for their part, have agreed to a new distribution of senior leadership across NATO’s Command Structure, giving Europe more control of the alliance’s military operations. They now control all three Joint Force Commands, UK leads Norfolk, Italy leads Naples, and Germany and Poland share Brunssum. The U.S. still maintains key theater commands, but the move is clearly a step toward a more Euro-centric NATO that sidelines Washington from the alliance’s top decision-making positions.

It’s Britain all the way.

• Britain Bought The Keys To Ukraine’s Nuclear Future – What’s Next? (Ostashko)

The UK has once again stormed into Ukraine with the grace of an old imperial administrator that goes about rearranging the furniture. But in reality, things are quite serious. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s decision to finance the supply of enriched uranium for Ukrainian nuclear power plants over the next two years has nothing to do with commerce. Through this deal, London de facto gains access to the most sensitive sector of the Ukrainian state.

In a country where nuclear energy accounts for more than half of all power generation, control over nuclear reactors means direct control over industry, logistics, communications, and the viability of cities, especially in winter. On the surface, the plan is flawless: the UK is acting out of concern for energy security, offering support to its partner, and strengthening Kiev’s resilience. But behind the glossy facade lies a classic debt trap and a new level of external control.
The British have arranged things very well. Ukraine gets the physical resources, the allocated funds immediately return to the UK, and London becomes entrenched in Ukraine’s strategic sector for decades. Following the pain of Brexit, the UK is desperately trying to make a comeback into European politics, and now is an excellent opportunity to do so by means of Ukrainian nuclear energy. We may already see a long and complex technological chain behind the current supplies of uranium: Urenco is responsible for enrichment, Westinghouse provides nuclear fuel assemblies, and the construction of new AP1000 reactors looms on the horizon.
The Soviet nuclear legacy is being systematically replaced by Western companies. This transition will inevitably entail changes in standards, licensing, long-term maintenance, personnel training, and most importantly, the disposal of spent nuclear fuel. Whoever embarks on this path today guarantees themselves the right to dictate the terms of the Ukrainian energy sector for decades to come. This expansion poses direct risks for Russia and Belarus. The Rovno Nuclear Power Plant is located close to the Belarusian border, and operating the old Soviet reactors requires great engineering precision and strict discipline.
In the context of a protracted military conflict, any managerial lapse, technical failure, or political mishap could instantly escalate into a regional catastrophe. The West is steadily consolidating the military, financial, and nuclear components into a cohesive anti-Russia front. While the UK capitalizes on this process, converting it into status, defense contracts, and influence, Ukraine is once again allocated the historical role of a battleground for foreign geopolitical interests.

“The latest Western idea to prop up the Zelensky regime and compensate for weapons shortages could flop right at the start..”

• G7 Considering Licensed Arms Production In Ukraine: Why Now? (RT)

The G7 group is considering providing Ukraine with licenses to allow domestic production of Western weaponry, including anti-aircraft and long-range missiles. RT looks into why the West is doing this so late in the conflict and Ukraine’s ability to deliver on mass arms production.

The scheme
The G7 made the announcement in a joint statement following its summit in Geneva, stating it had agreed to “increase the delivery of air defense capacities, additional systems and interceptors, and long-range capabilities.” “We are also ready to consider extending to Ukraine the benefit of licenses to allow for an increase in Ukraine’s military production,” the group said in a statement. The plan also involves US manufacturers granting licenses to EU military-industrial companies in order to compensate for shortages in production of high-demand weapons, according to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “We are all currently producing too little, and this can be offset by granting licenses to companies that have these production capabilities, including European and Ukrainian firms,” Merz told reporters.
How is the scheme supposed to work?
The US rarely grants weaponry production licenses to its partners, pressing them into buying ready-made products instead, or in some instances, creating overseas manufacturing plants without transferring technologies to the third parties. The enduring need to supply Ukraine, as well as the extensive use of assorted munitions during the US-Israeli attack on Iran, however, could have softened Washington’s stance on the outsourcing of arms manufacturing. US President Donald Trump has confirmed the licensed production of anti-aircraft missiles for Patriot systems in Ukraine is under consideration, specifying that no decision has been made yet. “They would like to be able to do that, we’ll take a look at it. They have asked about it,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday.
Over the past few years, Kiev has repeatedly urged Washington to grant it licenses to manufacture such munitions. The US, however, has consistently rejected the idea, while the American arms giants have reportedly been very wary of making any investments in Ukraine due to the obvious risks connected to the ongoing conflict with Russia.
Does Ukraine have actual industrial capacities?
Setting up a full-cycle production of sophisticated weapons in Ukraine seems to be highly improbable, given the country’s shrinking industrial capacities, as well as questionable record of local arms manufacturers. While Kiev inherited a well-developed industry after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has been in decline ever since, with the process further accelerated by the civil conflict in formerly Ukrainian Donbass and the subsequent war against Russia, given that a bulk of plants were located in the east of the country.
One of the flagship Ukrainian ‘domestically built’ weapons, the Bogdana self-propelled howitzer, appears to have little to nothing Ukrainian in it. The howitzers are chambered for 155mm NATO rounds manufactured in the West, while assorted heavy-duty trucks made by European manufacturers have been used as the chassis for the systems. The origins of the barrel itself are also debatable, given Ukraine’s poor record in making even the most basic artillery pieces. For instance, the infamous mortar M120-15 Molot, a copy of a Soviet-era design manufactured by Ukraine since 2016, has repeatedly made the headlines over deadly detonations of shells in its barrel and other malfunctions.
The supposedly domestically built Ukrainian weapons, mainly assorted drones, are at best assembled locally from components supplied from abroad. The hyped FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile also gives a glimpse of Ukraine’s real industrial capacities. The missile has emerged as a parts-bin project, with design features varying from one piece to another, a US-made free-fall bomb used as its warhead, and antique Soviet-era AI-25TL engines, believed to be recovered from scrapped trainer aircraft, used for propulsion.
Why is the West doing this now?
In mid-April, the Russian Defense Ministry published a list of Ukraine-linked military production facilities scattered across Europe and beyond. The military said it had identified such sites in the UK, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and Poland, as well as in Türkiye and Israel.
The list came with a dire warning. “The implementation of terrorist attack scenarios against Russia… using supposedly ‘Ukrainian’ UAVs manufactured in Europe is leading to unpredictable consequences,” the ministry stated. “Instead of strengthening the security of European states, the actions of European rulers are rapidly drawing these countries into a war with Russia,” it added. The licensing scheme could be a part of the effort to further decentralize arms production to avoid potential retaliatory strikes from Russia, as well as to disguise the supplied weaponry as a Ukrainian homegrown product.
One drone assembly site destroyed in a Russian strike was accidentally exposed this week by the Ukrainian media. A warehouse at the Dovzhenko Film Studios in Kiev, which was allegedly used to store some “unique costumes,” had multiple aircraft wings visible in its rubble, with the parts appearing to be consistent with FP-1/2 drones produced by Vladimir Zelensky’s favorite and corruption-scandal-plagued company Fire Point.

From TASS Press Review. Origin is either Izvestia, Vedomosti or Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

• EU Pushes Trump On Russia Policy As Moscow Warns On Greenland Militarization (TASS)

The Europeans appear set to bend US President Donald Trump to toughen his stance on Russia, as Moscow and Tehran move to coordinate their actions at the UN to lift sanctions. Meanwhile, Russia has cautioned against continued militarization of Greenland. These stories topped Thursday’s headlines in Russia.

US President Donald Trump is trying to resolve the Ukraine conflict and is reluctant to assess actions by his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, even as he is ready to consider putting more sanctions on Moscow and supplying missiles, including manufacturing air defense missiles for the Patriot system under license in Ukraine, the US leader himself said at a news conference with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the G7 summit on June 17.
He specified that partial reintroduction of restrictions on Russian energy will depend on market price dynamics. It’s worth noting that, on Wednesday, the US Treasury did not extend its waiver of sanctions on Russian oil. Shortly prior to that, on the night of June 16, G7 leaders released a joint statement on geopolitical issues in which they reaffirmed their “unwavering support for Ukraine” and agreed to increase “the delivery of air defense capacities,” and “long-range capabilities’ as well as to strengthen their sanctions on Russia, including on its oil and gas sector. On June 16, Trump held talks with Vladimir Zelensky.
The Europeans are seeking to make Trump reverse the understandings reached at his meeting with Putin in Anchorage in August 2025, Dmitry Suslov, Deputy Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics, told Vedomosti. According to him, Brussels would like to introduce a new format of talks with their participation. “They advocate for a format without withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the rest of Donbass but with deployment of troops from the coalition of the willing in Ukraine,” the expert explained. The Europeans understand that if Trump adopts such a stance, this will actually disrupt talks, but they are not ready for a full cessation of negotiations either as they realize that Ukraine is losing, he argued.
“He is currently facing a much weaker internal and external political situation than at the Anchorage meeting,” Suslov continued. For example, he can no longer threaten Kiev with reduced aid as the bulk of it now comes from the EU. In addition, Trump is looking for European support in the gradual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The Europeans are pursuing the goal of buying Trump on Ukraine and putting pressure on Putin through him, while also strengthening Zelensky’s negotiating position, but they are unwilling to disrupt talks, Pavel Koshkin, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for US and Canadian Studies, maintained.
As regards the prospect of the Europeans eventually sitting down to the negotiating table, this seems possible as the US cannot ignore its key allies in the region, despite the accumulated differences. “Trump will continue to maneuver further down the road. His goals are still the same: he is still seeking a meeting between Putin and Zelensky. And if this requires involving the Europeans, he could perhaps propose these ideas to Putin. For if Russia actually views the EU as an indirect party to the conflict, a durable peace is unlikely to be agreed without the EU,” Koshkin concluded.
Moscow and Tehran are coordinating their actions at the United Nations to lift all sanctions on Iran, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alimov told Izvestia. They actually secured the support of 16 additional states here. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between Iran and the United States last night includes a provision on lifting restrictions. A 60-day period of talks will begin next, at which Tehran will concentrate on the nuclear problem and sanctions, the Islamic Republic’s MFA said. However, given the number of sanctions, this may turn into a very complicated legal process. For the time being, only pinpoint energy waivers that will greatly facilitate oil sales for Iran seem more likely.
On Wednesday night, two days ahead of the scheduled date, the United States and Iran separately signed a pre-agreed MoU. Without taking account of waivers post the 2015 nuclear deal, it can be said that the Islamic Republic has been under strict restrictions since its foundation, or for almost half a century already. Meanwhile, Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, recently hosted a meeting of the Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter. Apart from Russia and Iran, it was attended by 16 other countries, including China. Among other topics, the Group has constantly focused on countering unlawful sanctions, including on Iran.
In general, lifting restrictions still seems to be the most challenging process, in light of their number. More than 6,000 sanctions have been imposed on Iran – Russia alone is under even more sanctions. The bulk of those was imposed by the United States. And cancelling relevant UN Security Council resolutions will obviously cause the most difficulties. A new resolution will be needed for this. And given the dozens of failed attempts at the UN to adopt at least some resolutions, not to mention the split in the Security Council, this will constitute the biggest challenge in purely technical terms.
Only the lifting of energy sanctions can be realistic in the near future, experts say. “Restrictions on ship freight, tanker insurance, logistics operations, and financial transactions in the oil industry and with hydrocarbons may be lifted,” Yekaterina Arapova, head of a research program at the Institute of International Research at MGIMO University, told Izvestia.
Despite the fact that Iran cannot currently sell all the oil it can produce amid the sanctions, the country is among the top 10 major exporters, therefore if operations with crude oil are greenlighted, this may seriously change not only the republic’s economy but also the situation on global markets. “If sanctions are lifted on Tehran, then it will not make much sense for China to buy exclusively Iranian oil. And there will remain only one supplier who could offer a discount due to the sanctions pressure, and that is Russia. The Americans have already `torn Venezuela away’ from China. Moreover, the increased demand from China will intensify competition for Russian oil with India, and this will enable Russia to slash the discount,” Igor Yushkov, leading expert at the Financial University under the Russian Government, told Izvestia.

Is the west simply going to deny it’s needed?

• Denazification of Germany, France, Britain, Sweden, Canada (Helmer)

Russian officials are insisting in private that tomorrow’s (June 19) signing of the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), with its fourteen points, is the signal for finalizing a similar multi-point term sheet for agreement with the US to halt the war on the Ukrainian battlefield.

They also insist — add sources in a position to know — that the Trump Administration is promising the lifting of US sanctions on the Russian oil trade and on the alternative fleet which has been carrying these oil cargoes to buyers in India, China, Turkey, and elsewhere. The sources claim that the Russian military plan for the peace pause assumes a ceasefire, including a halt to Ukrainian drone attacks, for at least the remaining two years of President Donald Trump’s term – longer if he is succeeded by Vice President JD Vance or by one of Trump’s sons. The Russian intelligence forecast is for a Republican victory in the 2028 presidential election.

If the future is this rosy, or if it only looks that way through rose-coloured glasses, what is to become of the UKRAINIZATION of drone warfighting operations now extending across the NATO bases, NATO drone manufacturing plants, and NATO exercises, deployment, and operational plans to prepare to fire them at Russian targets?
What is to become, also, of the AMERICANIZATION of security for Russia in Europe which President Vladimir Putin insists he discussed – one on one and in fluent English – and agreed with Trump at their Anchorage, Alaska, summit meeting last August 15? This is what Russian officials call the Anchorage Formula – it means trust in Trump to deliver a security guarantee protecting Russia from the drone, missile, and other attacks currently under way on the Russian hinterland, on Crimea and the Donbass, and on Russian oil and gas cargoes moving to market on the high seas.
The Russian General Staff and its chief intelligence officer, Admiral Igor Kostyukov, believe that Americanization will put a pause on Ukrainization for at least the year ahead. These officers don’t give any credit for negotiating this pause to Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s special negotiator with Trump’s bagmen, Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner; nor to the individual bribe schemes and slush funds they have been discussing together.
And so the sources in a position to know are asking each other — if Ukrainization and Americanization are about to be implemented by an MoU-type paper for at least a year or two, what about the DENAZIFICATION of the regime currently ruling the Ukraine? That has been a Russian war objective from the beginning of the Special Military Operation. It has been operationalized on term sheets in the Istanbul and Abu Dhabi talks as regime change in Kiev by an election to replace Vladimir Zelensky and his associates. The alternative is regime decapitation by military means or by covert methods.

Very obvious. Will someone try and prevent it?

• Speculation About A SpaceX–Tesla Merger Is Already Growing (ZH)

SpaceX’s record-breaking IPO has fueled speculation that Elon Musk could take an even bigger step: merging SpaceX with Tesla to create a roughly $4 trillion technology conglomerate spanning rockets, AI, satellites, electric vehicles, robotics, energy, and social media, according to a new report from the New York Times. The idea has gained traction among investors, analysts, and even SpaceX executives. Tesla and SpaceX already share personnel, collaborate on major projects, and have business ties through AI development, data centers, batteries, and vehicle sales.

Because Musk controls SpaceX and is Tesla’s largest shareholder, any merger would effectively be a deal with himself, raising concerns about conflicts of interest and shareholder lawsuits. However, legal experts say Texas corporate law—where both companies are now incorporated—makes such challenges difficult. Shareholders generally need to own at least 3% of a company’s stock to sue, a threshold that would require roughly $45 billion in Tesla shares. The Times notes that approval would still require support from two-thirds of Tesla shareholders. Musk controls about 20% of Tesla’s voting power, and many investors have historically backed his initiatives. Tesla’s board has also frequently aligned with Musk, while SpaceX recently added longtime Musk associate Roelof Botha to its board.
Supporters argue a merger could unlock significant synergies. Tesla’s expertise in chips, AI, and data-center construction could complement SpaceX’s ambitions in orbital infrastructure, satellite communications, and space-based computing. Ark Invest, which owns shares in both companies, has said the combination makes strategic sense, though it would prefer Tesla’s self-driving taxi business to mature first. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell has acknowledged potential benefits, saying a merger could simplify Musk’s responsibilities and noting clear overlaps between the companies’ futures: “There’s no question that there are synergies between Tesla and SpaceX in our futures.”
Opponents could challenge the deal through securities-fraud claims, antitrust scrutiny, or national-security concerns, particularly given the companies’ combined presence in AI, robotics, communications, and space technology. Still, experts believe regulators would face significant hurdles, especially if the combined company continued to perform well. “As long as he keeps running the business well and the stock price keeps going up, that is a pretty good bar to bringing a securities fraud suit,” said James Spindler, a professor of corporate law at the University of Texas School of Law.
Ultimately, the greatest obstacle may be financial rather than legal. As one corporate-governance expert noted, investors tend to support ambitious deals when markets are rising and shareholders are making money. Charles Elson, the founding director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware told The New York Times that Musk “has got this cheering section who will follow him to the gates of Hades or gates of heaven, wherever he leads them.” “Basically he’s gotten to the point where he can do almost anything he wishes…”

Every now and then, a glimpse at how bad the previous 4 years were.

• Stupid, Stupid, Stupid”: DOJ Memo Tarnishes Record of Merrick Garland (Turley)

“Internal emails were uncovered recently that cast a new, negative light on Attorney General Merrick Garland’s record in targeting parents over school board controversies. The communications show that various Justice officials raised alarms over the effort pushed by Democratic allies and the National Association for School Boards. Career officials condemned the Biden Administration proposal by objecting that “If they do this, they might as well rename the damn thing the Anti-MAGA Task Force.”

As parents organized against COVID and woke policies being implemented by school boards, Democratic allies and the National Association for School Boards called upon the Biden Administration to crack down. Garland agreed and implemented a plan detailed in an October 2021 memo to treat these parents as engaged in potential “domestic terrorism.” There was public outrage, but Garland defended the action, declaring “The obligation of the Justice Department is to protect the American people against violence and threats of violence and that particularly includes public officials.” As the outcry grew, the Biden Administration was forced into a retreat and an apology:
“On behalf of NSBA, we regret and apologize for the letter. There was no justification for some of the language included in the letter. We should have had a better process in place to allow for consultation on a communication of this significance. We apologize also for the strain and stress this situation has caused you and your organizations.” We now know that rank-and-file officials opposed the effort, but decided to go forward anyway. The Justice Department in October 2021 issued a memo to coordinate a response to what it described as an “increase in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school board members, teachers and workers in our nation’s public schools” by parents.
Newly released emails raised all the objections later made by critics after the policy’s release. One deputy assistant attorney general wrote that: “I don’t think it’s possible to state how strongly I object to this. It will completely and totally nuke our election threats efforts, and will damage the reputation of the Public Integrity Section into the bargain. It’s like they’ve affirmatively trying to make this thing not work and look political.” When officials said that the Biden Administration was about to create an “Anti-MAGA Task Force,” officials responded, “Exactly! Stupid, stupid, stupid.” Another principal deputy assistant attorney general wrote,
“We will not do this. There is no conceivable connection to [public integrity] (indeed, I’m not seeing a federal interest of any kind.). And if they’re going to make the AG’s memo to the field about this and election threats, I’m going to strongly recommend that they not send it.” The Public Integrity section chief agreed, saying the memo could turn the Justice Department and the FBI into the “threat police” and that it contained “no limiting principle at all.”The question is how such an ill-considered, excessive memo could be issued in light of such internal opposition. The answer focuses new attention on the record of Garland, who seemed at times to be a virtual pedestrian in decisions at his own department.
In 2022, I wrote a column titled “The Incredible Shrinking Merrick Garland” to express my disappointment in his developing record as someone who supported his nomination. Citing the school memo and other decisions, I wrote that Garland appeared increasingly “immaterial” to the running of the department: “Garland sometimes looks more like a pedestrian than a driver on decisions in his own department. Top positions were given to figures denounced as far-left advocates on issues from defunding the police to racial justice. For the moderate Garland, these did not seem like natural choices.”
As Special Counsel Jack Smith took a hatchet to preexisting DOJ policies and the First Amendment in his crusade against Donald Trump, Garland seemed little more than a figurehead in refusing to exercise any moderating or supervisory influence. Likewise, as his department pursued a “shock and awe campaign” against citizens who joined the January 6th protests, Garland remained passive. By 2023, I was writing columns that Garland had become an “utter failure” as Attorney General. He had become the kind face of a department weaponizing charges and targeting opponents.
While the same charges have been leveled at the current Administration, that does not alter the troubling legacy of Merrick Garland. The school board memo reflects how political rather than legal or institutional priorities prevailed under Garland. The merits of these controversies can be left to history. However, what is most striking is the absence of any discernible control or direction from Garland.
Unlike his predecessor, Bill Barr, who was famously “hands-on” in his leadership style, Garland delegated authority to powerful subordinates, who carried out these measures with little apparent restraint. As discussed in my 2022 column, Garland seemed to morph with the character Scott Stuart in the cult classic, “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” in which Stuart delivers a strikingly profound line: “The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet — like the closing of a gigantic circle.” That may be the final epitaph of Merrick Garland’s record as United States Attorney General.

“I think we should challenge the pardon, because it’s an extraordinary pardon. It’s a pardon not for a specific crime, and it’s a pardon over a 10 year period. It’s the same that he got the same thing Hunter Biden got…”

• Two Top Senators Urge Trump DOJ To Prosecute Fauci Despite Biden Pardon (JTN)

Two top U.S. senators are urging the Trump Justice Department to challenge the legality of President Joe Biden’s pardon of Dr. Anthony Fauci and to pursue criminal charges against the nation’s former top doc during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I think we should challenge the pardon, because it’s an extraordinary pardon. It’s a pardon not for a specific crime, and it’s a pardon over a 10 year period. It’s the same that he got the same thing Hunter Biden got,” Sen. Rand Paul told the Just the News, No Noise television show on Tuesday. “I think that could be challenged in court, because it’s not specific, it’s vague, and it doesn’t specify the crime, and it’s such a large period of time.

So, I think it could be challenged, and should be challenged,” he said. Paul, a longtime Fauci critic who accused the doctor of misleading Congress, added that the recent indictment of two Fauci deputies could give the DOJ leverage to secure their cooperation and testimony against their former boss. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., echoed Paul’s concerns on Wednesday, telling Just the News that he’s “pretty certain” what Fauci funded in terms of research caused the COVID pandemic. “Anthony Fauci is a bad person, and he ought to be prosecuted, because I believe he did commit crimes,” Johnson said.
How she has long denied wrongdoing and dismissed such criticisms in the past. But Biden nonetheless infamously pardoned Fauci in 2024 by autopen before leaving office. Paul compared the pardon to Hunter Biden’s. Referencing the autopen action, Paul added, “Was President Biden of sound mind? Did he understand who he was pardoning? Did he participate in it? Did he approve of each of the ones that were signed by autopen?” Paul described some of the most alarming elements of a detailed timeline his committee released last week, and accused Fauci of launching a public relations campaign to deflect scrutiny from his agency’s funding of risky virus research in China as the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020.
Paul detailed a timeline of Fauci’s actions speaking exclusively to Just The News, citing emails and documents his office obtained. Paul highlighted from the timeline that Fauci was awake at 3 a.m. in late January 2020, emailing Dr. Robert Kadlec, who oversaw dangerous research, falsely asserting the virus originated in animals with “nothing to do with the lab.” Fauci also called on old friends within the intelligence community, according to Paul, to mislead them about what was really going on at the Wuhan, China laboratory.
“He (Fauci) already knows he’s going to have to defend this because he outsourced this dangerous research to China. There weren’t adequate safety controls, and now he’s got to start the spin,” Paul said. Paul noted that Fauci’s spin operation was not only necessary for political purposes, but for survival, because in Fauci’s capacity as a health official, he funded research to humanize the virus and re-adapted it to make it more contagious to humans. Within a week, according to Paul, on Feb. 1, 2020, a group of top virologists privately told Fauci the virus appeared engineered, citing its furin cleavage site. The furin cleavage site is a short, specific amino acid sequence that acts as a recognition signal for the host enzyme furin to cut and activate the protein.
Days later, several of those same scientists published a prominent paper declaring it was “not a laboratory construct,” language Paul called “adamant language you rarely see in a scientific article, political type of language, PR type of language.” One author later received an $8 million grant approved by Fauci, Paul said. Fauci then cited the paper in White House briefings as independent evidence against a lab leak, despite having helped commission and edit it. “It’s a big circle, but it’s all around Anthony Fauci,” Paul said. aEncouraging developments, Paul said, include federal indictments of two Fauci lieutenants: David Morens, accused of destroying records and acting as Fauci’s intermediary, and Vincent Munster, a virologist, charged in connection with importing dangerous pathogens into the country without a permit, claiming they were “diagnostic equipment”.
Both were involved in research grants that proposed creating viruses with features similar to SARS-CoV-2. Paul added that Morens and Munster might be willing to flip on the government’s former top pandemic doctor and testify if offered leniency on their terms. “My goodness, it would be worth it to see one or two of his lieutenants give up testimony that they would not have given up otherwise, but now that they’ve been indicted, might be inclined to tell the truth,” Paul said.

Hillary is talking about (who else) … Hillary.

“Biden was in MY way”.

• Dems Could Have Beaten Trump If Biden Had Stepped Aside: Hillary Clinton (JTN)

Hillary Clinton said that former President Joe Biden made a “terrible mistake” when he decided to run for reelection. The remarks were made at an event in Manhattan on Monday, the New York Times reported. Biden’s decision, Clinton said, was a “terrible miscalculation” that resulted in the Democratic Party’s loss in 2024. If instead of running for reelection, Biden had decided to “pass the torch,” Democrats could have held a competitive presidential primary. “Whoever emerged from that contest — whether it was the vice president, or a governor, or a senator or anybody else — would have beaten Donald Trump,” Clinton said.

They think they can make JD a Democrat. Trump no.2 has them thinking he’s one of theirs. Likability.

• What Joy Behar Told JD Vance Shocked Him (Margolis)

JD Vance walked into enemy territory on Tuesday, and while everyone is talking about how he crushed it, with an endorsement nobody saw coming, least of all him. The vice president appeared on ABC’s The View to promote his new book, and he spent the better part of an hour fielding hostile questions from a panel that was never gonna give him a fair chance. But surprisingly, he impressed at least one of his harshest potential critics, who told him so directly during a commercial break. That critic was Joy Behar, the show’s longtime co-host and a woman who has openly admitted that she’s “never voted for a Republican in my life.” According to a report by the New York Post, Behar told him off-air that he should run for president.

The compliment came with a major caveat, though, which Behar made sure everyone heard the next day. She revealed the exchange on The View’s companion podcast, Behind the Table, after executive producer Brian Teta put her on the spot. “I’m getting a note here. You told him during the break that he should run for president because he had a good vibe,” Teta said. Behar’s response: “For a Republican.” That qualifier became the theme of her entire defense of the moment. Behar insisted she doesn’t think Vance is “a bad guy,” calling him “very genial” and crediting him for coming on the show “in good faith.”
The comedian and television personality, who stressed that she is not a Republican, said she has no intention of backing Vance politically, arguing that Democrats are more compassionate than Republicans on national issues. “I don’t mind a Republican on the city level because it needs a little discipline, but on the national level, I want somebody with a good heart,” Behar said, adding that she voted for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg ran for mayor as a Republican but later registered an independent. He then switched to the Democrats in order to mount what would be an unsuccessful bid for the party’s presidential nomination.
Behar insisted that her personal impression of Vance differed from her view of the administration he serves. “Truthfully, as I said to you at the beginning of this conversation, I don’t think that he’s a bad guy,” she said. Vance also let slip just how much the appearance rattled him beforehand, telling Behar backstage more than once that he was more nervous walking onto that set than he was heading into last year’s vice presidential debate. Well, I guess I can understand that. I mean, Tim Walz, am I right? We all knew how that was going to go. But the women on The View aren’t much smarter than Walz; there are just more of them.
He recounted the compliment again later that night on Gutfeld!, still amused by it. “Joy Behar even said during the break, not joking, she said, ‘You know what? You’re, like, pretty good for a Republican.’ And I was like, ‘Whoa.’ That is a way better compliment than I expected from Joy Behar.” If you missed his appearance on The View, here it is:

Here is the entirety of JD Vance's appearance on The View, which did not go well for him

(and kudos to the hosts for actually asking him hard-hitting questions and followups) pic.twitter.com/oDnFYqyZeU
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 16, 2026

In fairness, I don’t think he needs validation from Joy Behar.

PCR NOT talking about Trump. Or Putin.

• White Ethnicities Have Been Demonized Beyond Recovery (Paul Craig Roberts)

In 1968 Britain’s only leader, Enoch Powell, explained that the mass influx into Great Britain by immigrant-invaders from the third world would turn ethnic British into “strangers in their own country.” Powell, of course, was lambasted by the liberals and the left, by presstitutes, and by fellow politicians anxious to move forward at Powell’s expense. Powell’s prediction turned out to be correct and his detractors wrong. In 1973 Jean Raspail said the same thing about France in his book, The Camp of the Saints. In more recent years Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s largest political party, which is carefully kept out of power by the French establishment, has warned that France was ceasing to be French. Her warning has been rewarded by the French elite’s ongoing attempts to imprison her.

In 1972 Wilmot Robertson warned Americans about their future in his book The Dispossessed Majority. In more recent times the immigration website Vdare fostered debate about the consequences of mass immigration for American society. Vdare‘s reward was to be shutdown by anti-white New York attorney general Leticia James, a black woman who was educated by white liberals to hate white people as racists. As almost all immigrant-invaders are people of color, AG James concluded that Vdare was racist and white supremacist and decided to abuse the powers of her office to destroy the immigration website. She did this by endless demands for documents without ever filing charges until Vdare‘s funds were used up by lawyers and the site closed.
Now that Vdare is destroyed by AG James and its former owners left without funds, Leticia James will probably file some unsupported charge against the former owners knowing that they lack the financial means for their defense. Thus she can continue her ruin of the “white racists” and perhaps imprison them. This is what multiculturalism and diversity has brought to insouciant white people everywhere. White ethnicities have everywhere allowed their own brainwashed anti-white governments to put immigrant-invaders in charge of their lives. This result is precisely what Enoch Powell, Jean Raspail, Marine Le Pen, and Wilmot Robertson predicted.
In what little remains of Great Britain today, Tommy Robinson, Nigel Farage, and newcomer Rupert Lowe are making objections to the anti-white policies institutionalized in the British government.. That there are three Britishers protesting the demise of British ethnicity indicates that there is some spark of self-defense among ethnic British. But so much has been lost that the ethnic British are now the underdog in their own country, just as Enoch Powell said they would be. Instead of listening, the dumbshit British read the liberal newspapers and scolded Powell for being a racist.
Essentially, the British government, both parties, have abandoned white British ethnics in favor of immigrant-invaders. Nigel Farage has correctly accused the British government of “deep anti-white racism.” There is no doubt that his accusation is correct. He proves it with the government’s own statistics. There is no doubt that the 2010 Equality Act institutionalized anti-white attitudes into every aspect of legal and public life in Britain.
There have been so many scandals in Britain of the anti-white British government covering up mass crimes committed against British ethnics by immigrant-invaders. There is the now admitted 30-year coverup of mass gang rapes by immigrant-invaders of British women and children. Different reports give different numbers. Some are 180,000 ethnic British female children gang raped and nothing done about it. Other figures are 300,000. A former British prime minister stated publicly that the rapes were ignored by the authorities as it would question the immigration policy.
In the past few days we had the murder of Nowak by an immigrant-invader. Nowak, a white British citizen, bled to death handcuffed by the police .while the white British police chatted amicably with his black murderer. We have had the attempted beheading of an ethnic Britisher by a black immigrant-invader. We have had the stabbing in the neck of a young ethnic British girl by an immigrant-invader who dances at his success. I could go on forever and write volume after volume, and the weak-minded white ethnics sit there thinking as they are told by the white liberals it is their fault for being racist.
The collapse of Western civilization, like the collapse of the Roman Empire, is not a sudden event. It happens slowly over time. The time is upon us, and the collapse is now. The cause is not Russia, Iran, China, or white racism. The cause is the systematic brainwashing of ethnic nationalities in the white world that they uniquely are racists who have oppressed people of color and must now pay the consequences. White ethnicities have been so drained of confidence that they are incapable of fighting for their lives, for their culture, for their civilization. Everywhere white ethnicities are being replaced and they do not resist.
It is that simple. There is nothing left to be said.

20% and more. Serious.

• Apple To Raise Prices As AI Boom Pushes Up Chip Costs (BBC)

Apple plans to raise the prices of its products as the cost of the memory chips it uses has surged, the technology giant’s boss has said. Tim Cook, Apple’s outgoing chief executive, told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that price increases were “unavoidable” as the situation around memory chips had become “unsustainable”. He did not say when prices would rise or which products would be affected. It is also unclear whether the price hikes will affect the iPhone 18, which is expected to be launched in September. Memory chips are essential components in smart devices like mobile phones, but the boom in artificial intelligence (AI) has driven up their prices in recent months.

Later, US President Donald Trump said that Apple had agreed to work with chipmaker Intel to make its chips in the US. “I decided to help Intel because we need to design and build our Chips right here in America,” he wrote in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. The BBC has contacted Apple and Intel for comment. In August last year, the Trump administration announced that the federal government would take a 10% stake in Intel. Intel’s shares rose more than 10% when US stock markets opened on Thursday.
‘Less supply’
Speaking to the WSJ, Apple boss Cook said: “We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable. “There’s less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases,” said Cook, who is due to be replaced by John Ternus as Apple’s CEO in September after 15 years in the role. “We definitely need memory pricing and supply to return to reasonable levels for consumer products. That’s the bottom line.”
The price of Ram – typically one of the cheapest computer components – has more than doubled since October 2025. In addition to rising AI demand, the war in Iran has also disrupted the global supply of helium, a gas crucial in making semiconductors, adding to the cost of computer chips. The average selling price of smartphones globally is expected to rise by around 20% in 2026 to an all-time high, according to research firm Omdia. Apple’s new phones are likely to cost up to $150 more than the iPhone 17s, as the firm is expected to upgrade their specifications to support new AI features, Omdia’s smartphone market analyst Chiew Le Xuan told the BBC.
Most smartphone brands have already raised prices, pulled back on promotions or cut specifications to protect their profit margins in response to rising costs, he added. “This is the new pricing reality, not a temporary spike.” Other technology giants have also highlighted pressure in the chipmaking industry. In an exclusive interview with the BBC this month, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) would not rule out price increases as inflation pushed up its costs. TSMC makes the most advanced chips designed by companies such as Apple, Nvidia and AMD. Earlier this year, Samsung said that it expects memory chip supply shortages to make electronic devices more expensive.
In April, Sony raised the price of its PlayStation 5 consoles by £90 in the UK and $100 in the US as a result of “continued pressures in the global economic landscape”. Nintendo later said it would increase the price of its Switch 2 from September due to “changes in market conditions”. The iPhone 17 has been popular since the lineup was launched last September. Sales of Apple devices grew by 17% in the first three months of 2026 compared with the same period a year ago, helped by strong demand in China. Apple removed the entry-level option of its Mac Mini compact computers, raising its starting price by about $200 (£150) earlier this year.

Full movies by the end of this year https://t.co/kkBrngWA0X
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 17, 2026

https://twitter.com/Maga4liberty/status/2067213950890987655?s=20 https://twitter.com/VictoriaSask/status/2067403042232651902?s=20

Elon Musk: “I wake up, I work, I go to sleep. Wake up, work, and do that seven days a week. My workload went up from 70–80 hours a week to probably 120.”

Nobody works harder than Elon Musk. He has done more for humanity than anyone else. pic.twitter.com/iS6wrvXG1J
— Taya Bass (@travelingflying) June 17, 2026

The biggest improvement ever made to the most complex machine in human history came from a guy holding a camera.

Not a propulsion engineer. Not a systems architect. Not anyone on the SpaceX payroll.

A YouTuber named Tim Dodd.

Dodd was touring Starbase when Musk explained how… pic.twitter.com/CFKNQ4ARAi
— Dustin (@r0ck3t23) June 18, 2026

https://twitter.com/iAnonPatriot/status/2067340182018297936?s=20

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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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