Virginia Archives - The Automatic Earth

BREAKING:

The new Fed Chair just signaled a major shift.
Kevin Warsh says QE is fueling inflation.

The Fed's massive balance sheet is part of the problem.

"The Fed should exit markets outside of crises."

This is not Powell talking.
This is a completely different philosophy.… pic.twitter.com/YIFbnESoAs
— Crypto Tice (@CryptoTice_) May 15, 2026

https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/2055411483526181048?s=20 https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2055645786923282637?s=20

The IRGC can bleed people profoundly before they squeal.

• Tehran Claims US Faces Escalating Economic Fallout From ‘War Of Choice’ (ZH)

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned Saturday that the United States would face mounting economic fallout from its “war of choice” against Iran, as both sides appear settled into a long game of waiting to inflict the most severe economic and political damage on the other. In a post on X, Araghchi said Americans would bear the escalating financial costs of the conflict with Tehran. “Put aside gas price hike and stock market bubble. Real pain begins when U.S. debt and mortgage rates start to jump,” he wrote in English. This isn’t the first time Iranian officials and state media have tried to directly appeal to the American public.

Araghchi also pointed to growing economic strain inside the United States, saying auto loan delinquencies had already climbed to their highest level in more than 30 years. “This was all avoidable,” he added, framing the start of the conflict as Trump’s ‘war of choice’ in the Middle East. Of course, the Pentagon has a big card to play too, as on Saturday US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that four vessels in the Hormuz area were “disabled to ensure compliance.” In an official statement it said that that since the imposition of a naval blockade on Iranian ports, 75 commercial vessels have been redirected and four others disabled to “ensure compliance”. There is no doubt the US naval blockade is putting immense economic pressure on the Iranian government, society, and the energy sectors as crude shit-ins loom, or are in progress…

The internal Iranian regime narrative has shifted markedly in the past 72 hours. Multiple officials have now openly acknowledged Iran’s structural gasoline deficit, war-damaged energy infrastructure, and the urgent need for consumption management.

Fuel shortages and tightened…
— Miad Maleki (@miadmaleki) May 16, 2026

One Saudi-funded source alleges of the tightening hardship situation inside Iran: Fuel shortages and tighter rationing are pushing drivers across Iran into a growing gasoline black market, with citizens describing long lines at gas stations and sharply inflated prices in messages sent to Iran International. The accounts describe growing frustration over restricted access to subsidized gasoline and arbitrary limits imposed by operators, leaving many motorists dependent on costly unofficial sales.
…Iran uses a subsidized fuel quota system controlled through electronic fuel cards. Every private vehicle receives a monthly gasoline allocation at discounted prices, while extra consumption is charged at higher rates. One citizen was cited in the same report as complaining: “One day there’s quota left on your card, the next day it says your quota is finished. They even steal the few drops of gasoline they give people.” The standoff drags on, amid reports the Trump administration is mulling resumption of the bombing campaign:
https://twitter.com/PressTV/status/2055259398931640510?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2055259398931640510%7Ctwgr%5E2be4e3dba3fd169c51e6df528881831460a20f72%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fmarkets%2Ftehran-warns-us-faces-escalating-economic-fallout-war-choice-hardship-mounting-inside-iran
However, US and Gulf media reports about the economic and political crisis inside Iran have often been somewhat exaggerated, in ‘hopes’ of anti-regime sentiment being stirred enough for some kind of new anti-government uprising. But that has yet to come, after months of war launched by the US and Israel. It seems Washington is still pinning its hopes on exactly this.

“Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman joined Saudi Arabia and Qatar in rejecting the UAE plan.”

• Persian Gulf Countries ‘Refused’ UAE Call For Joint Attack On Iran (Cradle)

The UAE tried but failed to persuade neighboring states, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to take part in a coordinated military attack on Iran, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter. UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) spoke by phone with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) and other regional leaders to propose the coordinated attacks, shortly after the US and Israel launched the war on Iran on February 28, the sources said.

During the calls, MbZ argued that the states that formed the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) must act as a bloc to attack Iran alongside the US and Israel. However, his fellow Gulf leaders told him it was “not their war,” according to the report. When Saudi Crown Prince MbS refused to go along with the scheme, already shaky ties between the UAE and Saudi Arabia were further strained. The Saudi refusal also contributed to the Emirates’ decision to leave OPEC and OPEC+, the oil-producing cartel, and deepen its existing ties to Israel.
The UAE ultimately carried out several strikes against Iran without support from other Gulf states in early March and in April. Iran targeted US bases and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia with drones in the first days of the war. Yet the kingdom focused its efforts on promoting Pakistani-mediated negotiations between Washington and Tehran. Qatar considered joining the UAE in an attack after Iranian missile strikes hit Doha’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility, causing extensive damage and major fires, a Gulf official said. However, Doha also ultimately chose to de-escalate and throw its support behind negotiations.
Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman joined Saudi Arabia and Qatar in rejecting the UAE plan. One source said US officials were aware of the UAE effort and that Washington pushed Saudi Arabia and Qatar to join a coordinated military response. On Thursday, the Financial Times (FT) reported that Saudi Arabia had “floated” the possibility of reaching a “non-aggression pact” between Iran and neighboring states modeled on the 1975 Helsinki Accords, which eased tensions during the Cold War in Europe.
The Saudi-proposed pact for the day after the US-Israeli war on Iran ends reportedly has support from several European capitals, which view it as “the best way to avoid future conflict” and have urged Arab states to support it.The British daily cites an unnamed Arab diplomat who says that such a pact would be welcomed “by most Arab and Muslim states, as well as by Iran,” although severe concerns remain about Israel’s continued threats to reignite the war regardless of any deal.
Meanwhile, the two-day meeting of BRICS foreign ministers in New Delhi ended on Friday without a joint statement due to “differing views” on the US-Israeli war against Iran and the current situation in West Asia. The foreign ministers expressed “their respective national positions and shared a range of perspectives,” according to a statement issued by India.
The statement added that one member state had “reservations” about issues related to Gaza, as well as security in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said during the meeting that “Iran is a country that cannot be divided. The era of American dominance is over.” He also singled out the UAE for blocking the ministerial BRICS statement, and pointed out its “own special relationship with Israel.”

Love the photo.

• China Confirms Boeing Deal, Will Cut Select Levies & Expand Agri Trade (ZH)

One day after President Trump left Beijing, following his multi-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, China’s Commerce Ministry released new details about agreements it had reached to purchaseU.S.. planes and farm goods.

CHINA, US REACH ARRANGEMENTS ON BUYING US PLANES
The exact wording “reach arrangements”s in the Bloomberg headline is important because it suggests a framework, a commitment, or a negotiated understanding, not necessarily a finalized purchase contract for Boeing commercial jets. Based on earlier reports, Trump said China agreed to buy 200 Boeing planes, with the total potentially rising to 750 aircraft. The next set of headlines shows that the Trump team and Beijing have reached a partial trade de-escalation package following the summit:
CHINA, US AGREE TO REDUCE LEVIES ON A RANGE OF PRODUCTS
CHINA TO EXPAND BILATERAL TRADE W/ US ON AGR AND OTHER PRODUCTS
CHINA VOWS TO EXPAND BILATERAL AGRI TRADE WITH US
The headlines point to a U.S.-China trade détente that is constructive for American industry, exporters, and U.S. farmers. Now the larger question is what Trump and Xi agreed to behind closed doors regarding Tehran and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. and China Agree To Establish Trade And Investment Boards As Trump-Xi Summit Delivers Modest Wins. U.S. and Chinese leaders agreed to establish a new “Board of Trade” and a parallel “Board of Investment” during President DonaldTrump’ss two-day visit to Beijing – a summit that ended much as it began: with significant pageantry, warm personal rapport between the leaders, and modest, incremental progress on trade. The new boards aim to oversee bilateral purchases, manage trade differences, facilitate deals in non-sensitive sectors (with roughly $30 billion in goods identified), and provide a standing channel to prevent future escalations without constant high-level intervention.
The boards were a pre-summit priority pushed by U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. They build on preparatory talks in South Korea that produced what both sides described as “generally balanced and positive outcomes.” Chinese state media, including Xinhua, highlighted the agreements as part of efforts to expand practical cooperation and maintain stable economic ties.
This development aligns with Xi Jinping’s broader push to reframe the bilateral relationship as one of “constructive strategic stability” – a new guiding vision intended to provide predictability for the next three years and beyond, emphasizing cooperation as the mainstay while allowing for “moderate competition” and “manageable differences.” Xi described it as a positive, sound, constant, and enduring stability that should translate into concrete actions.

“The MAGA wing of the party is the party now. Neither Vance nor Rubio can distance themselves from that if they try.”

• Vance or Rubio in 2028 Have to Be ‘the Bridge to the Future’ (Tim O’Brien)

People have asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio if he plans to run for president in 2028, and his answer has been the same every time. Unequivocally, he endorses Vice President JD Vance, who is assumed to be the likely Republican standard-bearer. At the same time, given the way in which Rubio has been used, while rising to the occasion every time, you cannot ignore him. President Donald Trump has not shied away from praising both Vance and Rubio, but he has been substantially more effusive lately in his comments about Rubio. This has more than a few people in Washington, D.C., chattering.

Vance had the perfect response for now. But he won’t be able to say this a year from now. In addition to performing the duties of his office, Rubio has taken on any number of ad hoc jobs, knocking it out of the park every time. He knows how to demand and get every other country in the world to respect the U.S. once again. He’s seamlessly put an end to the massive grift that was USAID. Any one of his accomplishments is more than most who’ve run the State Department in recent memory, and he’s not done. Vance is in an even more unenviable position if you’re looking ahead to 2028. It’s the vice president’s job not to show up the president, while at the same time, he cannot wield power the way certain cabinet officials can. This makes it harder for Vance to remind Americans that he can be the alpha.
Over the past 250 years, only six vice presidents ran for and won the presidency. And only four won the highest office as an incumbent vice president. They were John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, and George H.W. Bush. Richard Nixon and Joe Biden both eventually were certified as the winners of presidential elections, but not as part of an incumbent administration. When Nixon was the incumbent, he famously ran against John F. Kennedy in 1960 and lost. Biden got pushed aside in 2016 for Hillary Clinton and never got the chance to use his office as a springboard for the presidency. Instead, he was “elected” in 2020 by getting roughly 20 million more votes than any other Democrat candidate before or after. And he did all that by campaigning from his basement, hugging children uncomfortably, and telling stories about “Corn Pop.”
If I were named head of elections, one of the first things I’d do is organize a search party for those missing 20 million voters. Kamala Harris could have used them in 2024. The last incumbent vice president to graduate directly into the Oval Office was Bush. To say that’s not easy to do is an understatement. Playing second-fiddle for four years prior to a run for the highest office in the land can allow voters to forget how strong you are as an independent candidate at the top of a ticket. These are the challenges Vance faces, specifically, but not just Vance. Both he and Rubio will have to be their own men and try to step out from under the long shadow that Trump has cast. Both will have to combat the baggage that the left has continually heaped on Trump and everyone associated with his administration.
Trump created the America First movement. He created and defined Make America Great Again (MAGA). The MAGA wing of the party is the party now. Neither Vance nor Rubio can distance themselves from that if they try. Quite frankly, it would be dumb to try. Contrary to what the legacy media and the left do to frame Trump’s years as “chaos” or a failure, he has been wildly successful, and Americans know it. If Trump can bring the Iran situation under control, get some sort of election integrity guardrails in place, energy prices would come down, inflation would stabilize, and the prospects for a Republican 2028 election victory would be easier to foresee. Who would want to distance themselves from that?
Still, neither Vance nor Rubio can be another Donald J. Trump. They have to carve their own niche, while maintaining some continuity between MAGA and the next Republican administration. Another factor to consider is Trump himself. While he would not want his underlings taking credit for what he did, he also would not want them distancing themselves from MAGA to create their own identity for 2028. That’s a delicate balance. The smartest thing a Vance or a Rubio or even a Vance-Rubio ticket could do in the run-up to 2028 is to map out a comprehensive narrative and progression from MAGA to what’s next. I mean, if you just finished making America great again between 2024 and 2028, you don’t want to use MAGA as your rallying cry now. You need something new and fresh, but you want to stay true to America First.
Former Republican Tennessee governor and U.S. senator Lamar Alexander is coming out with a new autobiography, and he’s making the book tour rounds right now. He recently talked to Politico about the book and his life in politics. To be sure, Alexander represents everything about the Republican establishment that we conservatives are working to get past. He represents a Republican era where the GOP allowed the Democrats to make the rules even when the Republicans won. Kind of like what Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is doing right now.
Still, Politico asked him if he could have beaten incumbent President Bill Clinton had he gotten the GOP’s nomination instead of Bob Dole. Alexander’s answer is debatable on whether he could have beaten Clinton, but he observed something critical that can’t be overlooked when considering what Vance or Rubio would need to do to win in 2028.
He said, “It would have been hard. I thought I could do better than Dole. I said to Dole: ‘Don’t let [Clinton] have the bridge to the future.’ And Clinton took it and won it.” For either Vance or Rubio, that’s the challenge. To be a part of the Trump administration running for the presidency, you still have to come up with your own brand that’s new and different, while respecting the Trump political lineage and embracing the Trump record.
The rationale has to be: “We need more than four years” to accomplish all the things we set out to accomplish. We can’t go backward. Most importantly, they will need to take ownership of the whole “bridge to the future” brand (as a concept, not as a slogan) before any Democrat gets to it. Trump did just that with “Make America Great Again.” Vance or Rubio can do it and needs to do it pretty soon. The Republican nominee in 2028 must be perceived by the electorate as America’s bridge to a brighter future.

I thought about it, and I decided I’m NOT going to complain.

• Attractive Young Women Are Now The New Face Of The ‘Far-Right’ (ZH)

The Telegraph has published a piece so tone-deaf it reads like self-parody. According to the outlet, the “far-right” is no longer the domain of bald men in boots and tattoos. No, it’s now being led by “strikingly telegenic young women” who dare to look good on camera while warning about mass migration, grooming gangs, and cultural replacement. Three foreign activists – Ada Lluch, Valentina Gomez, and Eva Vlaardingerbroek – were banned from entering Britain for a Tommy Robinson rally, and the Telegraph can’t stop gushing over how “pretty” this makes the movement look. The government has banned at least seven foreign voices from attending the rally, including the women highlighted by the Telegraph.

Not so long ago, the stock image of someone from the far-Right was easily summoned: they’d be male, obviously, and very probably bald, and questionable tattoos.

The face of the far-Right, it seems, is changing – and it’s becoming a good deal prettier ⬇️https://t.co/K8xXWHSdgK pic.twitter.com/irtXPyGD9X
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) May 15, 2026

Critics point out the blatant double standard: pro-Palestine marches with openly extremist rhetoric are often tolerated, while a native-focused demonstration drawing tens or hundreds of thousands draws preemptive visa blocks on speakers. Kier Starmer’s government waves in unvetted migrants and certain extremists but draws the line at articulate critics of mass migration. The Telegraph profiles the banned women in breathless detail. Catalan activist Ada Lluch has called out “complete invasion” of western democracies, American influencer Valentina Gomez warned about “rapist Muslims taking over,” and Dutch commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek spoke of “the rape, replacement and murder of our people.”
All three were barred from the UK, along with several other activists. Meanwhile, the government continues to wave in the very people these women are warning about. The Telegraph also warns about attractive home-grown women, including British influencer Saskia Teague. With over 100,000 Instagram followers, she mixes “happy happy happy” selfies with calls for “England for the English,” mass deportations, and an end to shame-free multiculturalism. The Telegraph acts shocked that she also praises her “Anglo-Saxon hair” and rejects the idea she’s being “used” by men.
Of course the usual suspects are wheeled out to clutch pearls. Hope Not Hate researcher Alex MacKinnon calls it a “glamorisation” effort to shed the “violent thug image.” Institute for Strategic Dialogue’s Hannah Rose says looking desirable builds followers and fits the ideology that women should be “aesthetically pleasing.” The implication is that these women can’t possibly believe what they’re saying – they must be grifting or being manipulated. Because in the eyes of the legacy media, no normal young attractive woman could possibly notice what’s happening to her country.
This is the same media that files stories on “far-right” threat while ignoring grooming gang scandals, no-go zones, and skyrocketing violence against women and girls. The Telegraph even admits the shift comes from young people “profoundly disaffected with mainstream parties” and disillusioned with modern life. Yet instead of asking why that disillusionment exists, they obsess over Instagram filters and “zhuzhing” the image. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has today claimed he’s all about “championing peaceful protest” while simultaneously blocking entry to those he dislikes. Starmer declared:
“I’ll always champion peaceful protest. But the Unite the Kingdom march organisers are peddling hatred and division,” then admitting that “We’ve already blocked visas for far-right agitators who want to come here to spew their extremist views.”

“Tina Peters, a 73-year-old woman with cancer, was given a nine year jail sentence in Colorado because she caught the Democrats CHEATING..”

• Colorado Governor Commutes Whistleblower Tina Peters’ Sentence (Salgado)

Colorado 2020 election whistleblower Tina Peters finally received some good news. Peters ended up at the epicenter of national controversy when she reportedly allowed an unauthorized person to access voting equipment in Mesa County in order to expose apparent election irregularities. Gov. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) granted Peters a commutation and parole as of June 1, based on a May 15 press release. Peters is a Gold Star Mother who lost her son, a Navy SEAL, in 2017.

It appears that the commutation might be due to her backing down somewhat from her previous allegations and efforts to expose apparent election fraud in Colorado back in 2020, when she was an election clerk. It is worth noting that a Democrat who tried to forge a thousand ballots in New Jersey received a sweetheart deal, sparing him any prison time, while Peters received almost a decade in prison as her sentence for trying to call attention to voting irregularities.
A statement on X posted on Peters’ account thanked Polis, expressed hopes for the future, and criticized people who had tried to storm the jail in support of her case. It said: I made mistakes, and for those I am sorry. Five years ago I misled the Secretary of State when allowing a person to gain access to county voting equipment. That was wrong. I have learned and grown during my time in prison and going forward I will make sure that my actions always follow the law, and I will avoid the mistakes of the past…
Upon release, I plan to do my best through legal means to support election integrity and based on my own personal experiences to elevate the cause of prison reform to help ensure the detention system is more fair and equitable for people of all ages. My experiences have given me a perspective that plan to share with others to improve Colorado’s corrections system. I am grateful for a second chance and an earlier release, and I look forward to doing good in the world.
Tina Peters https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2055393588754727270?s=20
President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly called for Colorado to let Peters go altogether, reacted to the news on Truth Social with just two words: “FREE TINA!” In March, he strongly condemned the sentence Peters received for challenging the 2020 election. “Tina Peters, a 73-year-old woman with cancer, was given a nine year jail sentence in Colorado because she caught the Democrats CHEATING on the Presidential Election of 2020. FREE TINA!” he insisted.
A couple of days after that, Trump reflected again on the double standard Democrats impose, letting truly dangerous criminals go free while aggressively targeting their political opponents. “For years, Democrats ignored Violent and Vicious Crime of all shapes, sizes, colors, and types. Violent Criminals who should have been locked up were allowed to attack again. Democrats were also far too happy to let in the worst from the worst countries so they could rip off American Taxpayers,” he wrote.
“Democrats only think there is one crime – Not voting for them!” Trump continued. “Instead of protecting Americans and their Tax Dollars, Democrats chose instead to prosecute anyone they can find who wanted Safe and Secure Elections. Democrats have been relentless in their targeting of TINA PETERS, a Patriot who simply wanted to make sure that our Elections were Fair and Honest. Tina is sitting in a Colorado prison for the ‘crime’ of demanding Honest Elections. FREE TINA!”

And now for something completely different.

• A Society Without God Is a Society Without Truth (Josh Hammer)

Next Thursday evening, Jews will celebrate the holiday of Shavuot. This holiday, which occurs seven weeks and one day after Passover (hence the name Shavuot, which literally means “weeks”), commemorates perhaps the most transformative event in all of human history: the revelation of the Word of God to the ancient Israelite nation. It was at Mount Sinai, congregated at the base of the smoking and trembling mountain, that God promised the Israelites they would be a “kingdom of princes and a holy nation” if they accepted and maintained fidelity to His covenant. In unison, before they had even received the Ten Commandments, the Israelites responded, “All that the Lord has spoken we shall do!”

The Divine Revelation at Sinai fundamentally changed the relationship between mankind and truth. Before Sinai, mankind had understood truth as inherently subjective, subject to the ever-changing whims of the volatile gods. Now, after Sinai, there could be no such moral confusion. The one, true God — He who had created the universe and fashioned mankind in His image — had revealed His Will. Moral relativism and idolatry were now out. Moral objectivity and monotheism were now in. For the first time, there was a fixed barometer by which to judge man’s moral conduct, devise laws and political institutions, and live one’s day-to-day life more generally.
Because of the breadth and depth of its impact and lasting influence, the Divine Revelation at Sinai was the logical starting point for what we now call Western civilization. Writing thousands of years later at another inflection point in human history, Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist No. 31: “In disquisitions of every kind, there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasonings must depend.” In the United States specifically, and in Western civilization more generally, it was long obvious what those “primary truths” and “first principles” actually meant: the Word of God Himself. Such a properly anchored and oriented society is uniquely suited to improve mankind’s lot and advance human flourishing.
Crucially, only such a properly anchored society can claim to comprehend the truth — let alone assert that certain truths are “self-evident,” as we recall every Independence Day. Because when God falls by the wayside, truth does as well. Recent events underscore the point.
In a Washington Post op-ed earlier this month, Gregory Conti, a politics professor at perennially top-ranked Princeton University, lamented: “Several years ago, one of my colleagues at Princeton University hosted a lecture on religion and free speech. The talk didn’t seem to be landing with the students. Finally, he realized why: The speaker had made repeated reference to the Ten Commandments, and several students didn’t know what they were.” Conti noted that Princeton students are often smart and driven, but they lack basic religious literacy — even the difference between the Old and New Testaments. In short, many of America’s future leaders do not even recognize the “primary truths” and “first principles” upon which our civilization rests.
There is a clear casualty of this ignorance: our ability to accept reality and the truth. Consider, for example, the shocking inability to do precisely that among far too many members of America’s more avowedly secularist political party, the Democrats. A whopping 42% of Democrats believe the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Butler, Pa., in July 2024 was staged. A similarly galling 34% of Democrats believe the same about the recent attempted assassination of Trump and his Cabinet members at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C. There is, of course, zero evidence to support either belief. One might as well believe in Bigfoot, or that Neil Armstrong’s moon landing was fake.
Nor is this merely a left-leaning sociological phenomenon. There are plenty of Americans who have heterodox or perhaps even nominally right-leaning political views who have also lost touch with basic reality, allowing their brains to be rotted by mass consumption of delusional conspiracies and AI-driven online slop. We call them Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson fans.
There can be nothing good down this road. Only a society that is rooted in, and oriented toward, the eternal and the transcendental can ever hope to cultivate decent, truth-seeking citizens. When a free people loses the ability to discern between truth and fiction, rightness and wrongness, justice and injustice, there can only be only misery, despair and destruction. We’re losing that because, for far too long, we’ve been missing God. There is no better time than the run-up to America’s semiquincentennial — when we will celebrate the assertion of the self-evident truths that birthed the nation — to find Him once again. Frankly, America’s survival for another 250 years depends on it.

“..enforce the law, arrest people who commit crimes, get the crackheads off the streets, and make sure firefighters are funded and ready to do their jobs. Once upon a time, these weren’t partisan issues.

• Everything Is Awesome About This Spencer Pratt Ad (Matt Margolis)

Admittedly, I haven’t been paying much attention to the Los Angeles mayoral race, but a LEGO-animated campaign ad caught my attention, and I just had to write about it. The ad, published this week in support of Spencer Pratt’s 2026 campaign for mayor of Los Angeles, is making the rounds online, and for good reason. It’s a parody of “Everything Is Awesome” from The Lego Movie, set against a LEGO-animated cityscape that tells the dirty truth about the city under Karen Bass’s leadership. It opens with a scene that cuts straight to the truth: a man assaulting a police officer on a city street.

Everything is awful; everything is hell when you’re part of the scene. Karen Bass is awful and burning down our streets. Welcome to Los Angeles, where the criminals have more protections than the cops. Then there’s the drug crisis, which the ad renders in haunting, almost absurd LEGO detail: drug zombies shambling through city streets, needles and feces littering the sidewalks, and not a city official in sight to do anything about it. And Bass herself? The ad shows the incumbent mayor flying over her burning city — laughing.
And if you know anything about Bass, you know that’s not an exaggeration for effect. It’s a pretty accurate metaphor for her tenure. While neighborhoods smoldered during the January 2026 wildfires, Bass was abroad on a “diplomatic” trip. The city she governs has deteriorating public safety, a growing homeless population, and a drug crisis that officials have been dancing around for years. The “root cause” crowd keeps hunting for some undiscovered reason people are living on the streets surrounded by needles, as if the answer isn’t staring them in the face every morning on their commute.
I don’t know much about Pratt, but he lost his own home in the Palisades Fire. He’s not running for mayor as part of a vanity campaign; he is running because he has personally experienced the consequences of Bass’s leadership. While Bass lives in a city-owned mansion insulated from the consequences of her decisions, Pratt lives in a trailer, making the case that those in charge don’t have to deal with the mess they’ve created. The second half of the ad flips the script, painting Pratt as the man who will actually do something to save the city. And the best part is that his platform isn’t complicated: enforce the law, arrest people who commit crimes, get the crackheads off the streets, and make sure firefighters are funded and ready to do their jobs. Once upon a time, these weren’t partisan issues.

This may be the song of the summer. pic.twitter.com/bxdB1eVCsy
— Adam Scheidler (@Scheidsa) May 14, 2026

You don’t need to be a Lego Movie fan to appreciate the video. Does Pratt have a chance? He might. A new Emerson College poll shows Bass at 30% support, with Pratt surging to 22% just weeks before the June 2 primary, up 12 points since March. The top two finishers advance to a November runoff, which means Pratt is very much in this race. Honestly, this is a race worth watching. Karen Bass failed her city, and if she can still get reelected, it will tell you everything about Democrat voters.

“Heavy missiles of this class are specifically designed to launch even under conditions of an incoming nuclear strike on their deployment area.”

• Sarmat: The Missile Meant To Make Any Enemy Think Twice (Kornev)

On May 12, 2026, Russia carried out the second successful launch of its newest heavy liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile, the Sarmat. The launch marked another major milestone in the flight-testing program for Russia’s next-generation strategic missile system. Following the test, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the first regiment equipped with Sarmat ICBMs would officially enter combat duty by the end of 2026.

A ballistic missile of this class is being developed in modern Russia for the first time. The Sarmat is intended to replace the Soviet-era Voevoda missiles, which until now have remained the most powerful ICBMs ever deployed. Thanks to the immense power of its liquid-fuel rocket engines, the Sarmat is expected to carry an unprecedented payload – between 10 and 14 medium-yield thermonuclear warheads, each with an estimated yield of around 700 kilotons, or potentially up to five maneuverable hypersonic glide vehicles similar to those used in the Avangard system.
Conventional ballistic warheads can be deployed together with penetration aids designed to overwhelm missile defense systems. However, maneuverable hypersonic glide vehicles present an entirely different challenge. Modern missile defense systems are effectively incapable of intercepting such weapons, making the Sarmat a uniquely formidable retaliatory strike platform. In 2022, Vladimir Degtyar, CEO of the Makeyev Design Bureau, announced that serial production of the fifth-generation RS-28 Sarmat ICBM had officially begun in Russia. “The missile system has already entered serial production and is fully supplied with the necessary materials and manufacturing equipment,” he stated.
According to Russian officials, the new ICBM will significantly strengthen the country’s strategic deterrent capability for the next 40 to 50 years. The Sarmat is believed to have a range of at least 12,000 kilometers while carrying roughly 10 tons of payload, including its post-boost vehicle and warheads. However, the missile is also reportedly capable of striking targets by approaching from the opposite direction – flying over the South Pole and effectively circling the globe. While such a trajectory would reduce the missile’s payload capacity, it would still allow for multiple nuclear warheads to reach their targets. The missile is also expected to achieve exceptional accuracy, with a probable circular error measured at no more than roughly 150 meters.
Preparations for deploying the first operational Sarmat missiles began back in 2023 at the missile division in Uzhur, located in southern Krasnoyarsk Krai. The process of replacing the aging Voevoda missiles with Sarmat systems is expected to continue for at least four to five years, if not longer. In addition to Uzhur, Sarmat missiles are also expected to be deployed near Dombarovsky in the Orenburg region.
In total, Russia is expected to field at least 50 hardened silo launchers for the Sarmat system, making it the most powerful and lethal component of the country’s nuclear retaliatory forces – a true weapon of retaliation. Heavy missiles of this class are specifically designed to launch even under conditions of an incoming nuclear strike on their deployment area. In theory, dozens of Sarmat missiles could leave their silos while under nuclear attack, carrying a combined total of roughly 500 warheads capable of devastating any potential adversary.
Over the coming years, the Sarmat is expected to complete its full flight-test program and receive multiple payload configurations. One variant will reportedly carry traditional MIRVed ballistic warheads similar to those used on the Voevoda system. Another, more advanced configuration would deploy hypersonic maneuverable glide vehicles developed by NPO Mashinostroyenia. At present, no existing missile defense system is considered capable of reliably intercepting such weapons.
What makes these glide vehicles so difficult to defeat is their flight profile. Unlike traditional ballistic warheads, they travel along a relatively low, flattened trajectory at hypersonic speeds near the edge of the atmosphere while retaining the ability to maneuver both in altitude and direction. As a result, they are detected much later than conventional reentry vehicles and are extraordinarily difficult to intercept due to their unpredictable maneuvering. The Sarmat may be able to carry more than a dozen standard warheads, but likely no more than three to five hypersonic glide vehicles. Nevertheless, such payloads would presumably be reserved for the highest-priority strategic targets – and, according to Russian military doctrine, those targets would be struck with near certainty.

RINOs trying without Trump endorsement are having a hard time.

• Trump Blasts Lauren Boebert for Campaigning with DeceptiCON Thomas Massie (CTH)

Thomas Massie is cut from the same Republican cloth as his dear friend, Ron DeSantis and his recent advocate Tucker Carlson. Like DeSantis and Carlson, Massie is a master manipulator who uses carefully crafted wedge points to divide the electorate and position himself for maximum benefit. Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert has been campaigning and trying to support Massie as the potential for him to lose a primary race is very real. This puts Boebert on the opposite side of President Trump on a very important matter of principle. Massie has accused President Trump of protecting Jeffrey Epstein’s enablers.

PRESIDENT TRUMP – “Is anyone interested in running against Weak Minded Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District? You remember Lauren moved to the District when it became obvious that she couldn’t win in her original Congressional District (The Third!) — A Carpetbagger, indeed! Boebert is campaigning for the Worst “Republican” Congressman in the History of our Country, Thomas Massie, of the Great Commonwealth of Kentucky, and anybody who can be that dumb deserves a good Primary fight! Even though I long ago endorsed Boebert, if the right person came along, it would be my Honor to withdraw that Endorsement and endorse a good and proper alternative. Just let me know, or announce your Candidacy, and I will be there for you!” ~ President DONALD J. TRUMP

Trump-endorsed competition.

• Incumbent Senator Bill Cassidy Loses His Senate Seat in Primary (CTH)

–Unless something remarkable changes drastically, it looks like incumbent Republican Senator Bill Cassidy has come in third place, which means he has lost his Senate seat in the primary race. The runoff will be between Trump-endorsed Julia Letlow and State Treasurer John Fleming (June 27th).

Senator Bill Cassidy has lost his seat.

Changing maps seems to be Democrats’ only option.

• Supreme Court Delivers Devastating Blow to Democrats Gerrymandering (Margolis)

The Supreme Court rejected Virginia Democrats’ emergency appeal to revive their gerrymandered Virginia congressional map on Friday, delivering a final, fatal blow to their efforts in the state. The justices issued a brief order with no explanation. Still, the outcome was hardly surprising — the federal courts don’t typically wade into rulings made by state courts on state constitutional matters, and that’s exactly what happened here.

Virginia Democrats had passed new congressional maps through the General Assembly and pushed through a ballot referendum to lock those maps in. Voters narrowly approved it in April. But the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that Democrats violated the state constitution’s process for referring amendments to voters, specifically an “intervening-election requirement” that the General Assembly simply ignored. The result? Null and void. “This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote in the majority opinion.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2055421432411123879?s=20

Had the maps survived, they would have been a huge boon for the Democrats in the redistricting wars, giving the party a potential net gain of 4 seats. Democrats lost because they couldn’t be bothered to follow the rules they wrote. The attempt to appeal to the United States Supreme Court was a desperate Hail Mary bound to fail, and even Gov. Abigail Spanberger saw the writing on the wall and revealed she was no longer pushing to gerrymander the state.
None of this happened in a vacuum. Democrats spent years redrawing maps in blue states, systematically eliminating Republican-held districts wherever they could. For a long time, Republicans largely played defense. That changed last year when Texas made its move, redistricting mid-decade and sparking the current national battle. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, auditioning for the 2028 Democratic presidential primaries, decided to respond by getting California to pass its own new map. Democrats tried to do the same in Virginia, but they cut constitutional corners and paid for it.
Overall, the redistricting wars have not gone well for the Democrats, and making matters worse for them, last month, the high court ruled that racial gerrymandering was unconstitutional, clearing the way for red states in the South to eliminate majority-minority districts that had long served as reliable Democratic strongholds. Democrats have now lost on multiple fronts simultaneously, and they’ve spent — I mean, wasted — millions of dollars in the process.

“The Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed what we always knew: you cannot violate the Constitution to change the Constitution..”

• Supreme Court Rejects Attempt To Revive Virginia Congressional Map (ZH)

Hammering the last nail in the coffin of what could have been a significant midterm factor, the US Supreme Court on Friday rejected Virginia Democrats’ request to use a new congressional district map, which was drawn to flip four House seats into Democratic control. As is typical in this kind of “emergency” ruling, the court provided no legal rationale or vote count — however no dissents were noted. The new map was expected to dramatically alter the composition of Virginia’s US House delegation, boosting Democrats from their current slim 6-5 edge to 10-1 domination. For context, in 2024 presidential balloting, Virginia voters were split 52% for Democrat Kamala Harris and 46% for Donald Trump.

On May 8, the Virginia Supreme Court denied a request from Democrats and state officials to lift a lower-court order blocking certification of the April 21 redistricting referendum. Voters approved the Democrat-accommodating map by a 52-to-48 margin, but a Virginia circuit court declared the referendum null and void, saying Democrats had run afoul of state constitutional measures that exist to fend off partisan gerrymandering. After that setback, Democrats sought to salvage their new map with an appeal to the US Supreme Court, which has now failed. Two days earlier, Gov Abigail Spanberger had already waved a white flag of sorts, implying that Virginia’s May 12 deadline for map changes made the emergency request to the US Supreme Court something of a moot point.
“What needs to happen is we need to focus on the task at hand, which is winning races in November,” she said. “I believe, somewhat doggedly, that we will [gain] two to four seats in the House of Representatives. … That is my goal. That is what I know is possible.” However, after the ruling, she opportunistically lashed out at the Supreme Court: Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, criticized the decision, which she said had the effect of nullifying “the votes of more than three million Virginians.” “As Governor, I will make sure voters know when and how to cast their votes this year. Because our votes are how we choose the representation we deserve,” she wrote on X.

The Supreme Court of the United States has now joined the Supreme Court of Virginia in choosing to nullify an election and the votes of more than three million Virginians.

These Virginians made their voices heard — casting their ballots in good faith to push back against a…
— Governor Abigail Spanberger (@GovernorVA) May 16, 2026

The lead respondent, Virginia state Sen. Ryan McDougle, a Republican, who is also legislative commissioner for the Virginia Redistricting Commission hailed the new ruling. “The Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed what we always knew: you cannot violate the Constitution to change the Constitution,” the state lawmaker wrote on X.
The Virginia battle was part of a nationwide saga that started last year, when Texas Republicans redrew their congressional map to gain seats, straying from what had been a fairly (but not thoroughly) universal norm that saw states refrain from redistricting that wasn’t driven by once-a-decade census results. Following the lead of California Democrats who undertook their own maneuvers to offset the Texas map, the Virginia leftists who gained full control of state government in 2025 responded with a constitutional amendment allowing the General Assembly to temporarily redraw congressional districts outside the normal 10-year cycle — specifically to “restore fairness” if other states gerrymandered (bases on the convoluted implication that varied wrongs against the citizenry of multiple states can add up to a national right).
Despite the implosion of the Virginia Democrats’ scheme, and the view that the net result of the redistricting war will flip seats to the GOP column, prediction-market participants lean heavily toward Democrats wresting control of the House from Republicans, who currently have a 217-212 edge over the Democrats. (One representative is an independent and there are five vacant seats owing to deaths and resignations.)

It was mostly a Dem game in the past.

• Republican Lead In Redistricting Race is About To Get Bigger (Ben Whedon)

The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais saw the justices narrow Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and disallow race-based congressional districts. With the dust on redistricting mostly settled, Republicans appear poised for a double-digit swing of House seats in their favor in the 2026 midterms, at least if all goes according to plan. The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais saw the justices narrow Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and disallow race-based congressional districts. The move triggered map redraws across the South and is expected to result in more than a dozen seats moving toward the GOP, at least in time for 2028.

Democratic countermeasures, meanwhile, have hit a judicial brick wall, with the Virginia Supreme Court striking down that state’s ambitious redraw, saving four Republican seats. The U.S. Supreme Court refused Friday to intervene, leaving Democrats out of legal options. The collective shifts are poised to move the needle rightward and put the House in play for November, potentially handing the White House an opportunity to defy historical trends and retain control of Congress. Here’s a look at where the midterm situation stands:

Louisiana
The state’s maps have been the subject of legal scrutiny for years, leading to a challenge that culminated in the recent Supreme Court decision. Gov. Jeff Landry, R-La., has suspended elections in the meantime to allow the legislature to implement a new slate. The state Senate passed a redraw earlier this week with five Republican-leaning districts and one Democratic-leaning seat, though the House has yet to approve it.
South Carolina
Several Republican state senators joined with Democrats to vote down a redistricting plan that would have eliminated the state’s sole Democratic-leaning congressional district, which longtime Rep. Jim Clyburn represents. The measure needed a two-thirds majority to pass. GOP Gov. Henry McMaster subsequently called a special session of the legislature to reconsider the matter. At most, the state lawmakers could add a single Republican-leaning district to the state’s delegation. South Carolina now sends six Republicans and one Democrat to the lower chamber.
Alabama
Lawmakers appear poised to approve a slate of House maps that would eliminate one of the state’s two Democratic-leaning districts. GOP Gov. Kay Ivey called the legislature into special session for the redraw, despite initially indicating that she would not do so. The proposed redraw stopped shy of the clean Republican sweep that activists sought, though a later redraw could result in that outcome. Though Republicans have yet to fully approve the new slate, Ivey has also called special primaries for the districts she expects will be affected.
Mississippi
GOP Gov. Tate Reeves appeared this week to pour cold water on the prospect of the state redrawing its maps in time for the 2026 midterms, saying repeatedly that he expected the legislature to redraw the maps sometime “between now and 2027.” Prior to the Supreme Court ruling in Callais, he had called a special session of the legislature to consider redistricting, but he canceled it this week. Mississippi currently has three Republicans in Congress and one Democrat. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., currently represents a district that includes much of the Mississippi River delta and a large portion of the state’s black population.
Georgia
Gov. Brian Kemp has called a special session of the legislature, though he expects the state will only change its maps in time for 2028 and therefore not impact control of the GOP-controlled House in November. Georgia boasts 14 House seats, five of which are under Democratic control. Depending on the redraw, the state could likely see a swing of two seats toward the GOP in the long term.
Tennessee
State lawmakers successfully passed a new set of maps this month that eliminated the last Democratic-leaning district, which was centered on Memphis. Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen on Friday announced an end to his reelection campaign, citing the redraw and the changes to his district.
Texas
The Texas redraw ostensibly kicked off the redistricting fight and represented the single-largest gain for Republicans, with as many as five seats shifting toward the GOP as a result. With the court challenges to the new map largely settled, the GOP is expected to make those gains in the Lone Star state in November.
Florida
Florida passed a redrawn House map within days of the Callais ruling, shifting its 20-GOP and eight-Democrat-seat lineup to 24 GOP and four Democrats. The state has skewed heavily toward Republicans since President Donald Trump first won the battleground in 2016. It is now regarded as a reliably Red state.
Missouri
The state Supreme Court this month permitted Missouri to use its maps, which include seven Republican districts and one Democratic seat. State lawmakers managed to eliminate a second Democratic seat with the redraw.
North Carolina
North Carolina lawmakers approved a revised set of maps in late 2025 that netted Republicans one seat in their delegation. Democrat Gov. Josh Stein did not have the authority to veto the legislation. In the 1990s, Republicans struck a deal with Democrats that exempted redistricting from the governor’s authority, Politico reported.
Ohio
In October 2025, the state’s redistricting commission approved a redraw in which Republicans gain an edge in 12 districts, while Democrats led in three. Republicans now have 10 seats and are expected to gain up to two in 2026 as a result of the redraw, according to the Ohio Capital Journal.
Virginia
The state Supreme Court struck down a redistricting referendum that would have seen the state shift from six Democrats and five Republicans, to 10 Democrats and one Republican. The court found that the process for advancing the referendum violated the state constitution, without ruling on the maps themselves. Though Democrats appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, opponents of the redraw were confident the Supreme Court would not take the case. Speaking on the “Just the News, No Noise” television show this week, former GOP Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli opined that the justices would speedily knock it down.
“I think the chief justice has really just asked for briefs as a courtesy. This is going nowhere,” he said. “They have no jurisdiction. And I don’t think you will even see. I don’t think you will literally get a word out of a single justice. I think it will just be summarily rejected with no comment or anything else.”He was proven right on Friday evening, when the Supreme Court declined to hear the matter.
Utah
Utah’s maps became the subject of legal scrutiny at the state level, resulting in a court order that created a Democratic-leaning district in the otherwise, reliably Republican state. Though state lawmakers have explored revisions, including a statewide referendum, to their own laws to allow for eliminating the new district, it is likely that Democrats will secure a pickup in November.
California
State Democrats reacted furiously to Texas’s redraw and organized a statewide referendum to change their congressional maps with the aim of countering Texas. The referendum was successful and Democrats are expected to gain a total of five seats from redistricting, representing their single largest gain this cycle.
The bottom line
Republicans have already approved maps accounting for a gain of 14 seats over the 2024 maps. And three states in the South may each add one in the near future. With Democrats gaining six from California and Utah, the GOP appears poised for a net swing of at least eight but as high as 11, which could prove decisive to holding the House.

https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/2055337924527624296?s=20 https://twitter.com/JoshHall2024/status/2055428011638575195?s=20

SNOWDEN SET TO CRUSH COMEY, CLAPPER & BRENNAN! Trump Delivers FULL Pardon & Hero’s Welcome

Breaking from Washington — Edward Snowden is coming home as a HERO!

Under President Trump’s leadership, the legendary NSA whistleblower is finalizing a game-changing clemency deal.… pic.twitter.com/Avsr1Y7wDF
— QThestorm (@17QStorm) May 15, 2026

BREAKING: Our autopsy study, which found that 100% of published myocarditis deaths following COVID-19 vaccination were CAUSED BY THE VACCINE, just WON Wiley’s Top-Viewed Article Award.

An IMMEDIATE FDA Class I Recall of mRNA injections is REQUIRED. https://t.co/wQj5oZ5Ah6 pic.twitter.com/4YwLvPTMm4
— Nicolas Hulscher, MPH (@NicHulscher) May 15, 2026

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

Debt Rattle May 13 2026

May 132026

May 13, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:46 am Finance Tagged with: AOC, biolabs, Blanche, China, CIA, Deep State, DOJ, FBI, Hail Mary, subpoenas, Trump, Ukraine, Virginia, WHO 34 Responses »

Caravaggio The raising of Lazarus 1609

• Trump Ready To Raise “Core of China’s Core Interests” In Xi Summit (ZH)

• Iran Specifies 5 Demands To Restart Peace Talks With US (ZH)

• Trump Considering Resuming Airstrikes As Talks With Iran Stall – Axios (RT)

• Zelensky Chief of Staff Yermak Charged with Corruption, Money Laundering (CTH)

• Tulsi Gabbard Probes 120 Foreign Biolabs Funded by US – 40 in Ukraine (CTH)

• Nearly $22 Billion Secretly Shipped To Ukraine – Austrian Politician (RT)

• John Brennan: Still “Legions” of His Allies at DOJ, FBI and CIA (CTH)

• Here Are The People Accompanying Trump On His China Excursion This Week (JTN)

• Minnesota Democrats Block Ilhan Omar Subpoena (JTN)

• Scott Jennings Nukes the Democrats’ Gerrymander Hail Mary (Margolis)

• Acting AG Blanche Warns Reporters To Expect Subpoenas In Leaks Probe (JTN)

• Virginia Democrats Ask US Supreme Court to Reinstate Congressional Map (Hyde)

• The Language Got a Little Salty on CNN Monday Night (Matt Margolis)

• Socialist Storytime: AOC Spins Anti-Capitalist Fable About the Founders (Turley)

• Media Spreads Hantavirus Hysteria In Attempt To Save Disgraced WHO (ZH)

• Over 500,000 Waiting To Cross Into Europe From Libya – Greek Minister (RT)

https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2053909037545357652?s=20 https://twitter.com/Bubblebathgirl/status/2054023281208918512?s=20

Elon Musk just reduced American crime politics to a single question on Joe Rogan.

And answered it like it was arithmetic.

Musk: “While obviously not everyone who’s a Democrat is a criminal, almost everyone who is a criminal is a Democrat.”

That’s not a partisan attack.

That’s… pic.twitter.com/9vOHqaUGT4
— Dustin (@r0ck3t23) May 12, 2026

https://twitter.com/AlecLace/status/2054011075914342417?s=20

Big party for Trump?

• Trump Ready To Raise “Core of China’s Core Interests” In Xi Summit (ZH)

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to raise the issue of increasingly costly US arms transfers to Taiwan during their bilateral summit at the end of this week, spanning Thursday through Friday. Taiwan of course remains the “core of China’s core interests” – as Beijing has in the recent past characterized the issue. While Trump officials have previewed that it will be focused on trade and investment, the White House too is reportedly placing Taiwan and regional geopolitical hot button issues on the agenda.

“I’m going to have that discussion with President Xi,” Trump told reporters at the White House, specifically on the question of weapons sales. “President Xi would like us not to, and I’ll have that discussion. That’s one of the many things I’ll be talking about.”

Also there’s the looming question of the future of the Iran war and blockaded Strait of Hormuz. Currently there’s a stalemated situation and supposed ceasefire which is barely holding. By many accounts, Trump was hopeful that the Iran ‘excursion’ would be wrapped up by now, but it now seems to be sliding into protracted quagmire – critics point out. The WSJ says that Beijing is feeling confident as it prepares to receive Trump and what’s looking to be a rather large entourage: But behind the scenes, Beijing feels more emboldened, and more insistent on defending areas it regards as vital to its long-term strategic interests.
These include resisting U.S. pressure to relax its grip over global supply chains and fundamentally rebalance trade between the two countries. They also include urging Washington to look the other way as it pressures Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own, and as it projects military power across Asia. “They feel very well about how last year played out,” said Jonathan Czin, a fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution and a former U.S. intelligence officer focused on China. “They showed they could weather the storm and the administration had to climb down from the tariffs and spend most of the past year trying to mollify China.”
As for more implications of the Iran war dragging on as Trump goes to Beijing, CNBC writes: Iran’s ambassador to China Reza Rahmani Fazli in a Tuesday post on X pressed Tehran’s case with Beijing, saying that the relationship between the two is too strong for the U.S. to overcome. The bottom line is that higher energy prices are baked in for the foreseeable future. The price of crude oil makes up about half of the cost of a gallon of gas, according to the Energy Information Administration.
And U.S. elections are less than six months away. The 2026 midterm elections will be a crucial referendum on Trump and the Republican Party as they seek to retain a lock on both chambers in Congress. Trump early Tuesday put out the following message on Truth Social, teasing that the next regime change operations could be unleashed on China’s small island-nation ally in America’s immediate backyard…

For some further big picture analysis on how the Iran gambit has raised the stakes, and made the Beijing summit more unpredictable, the below is some fresh Rabobank commentary outlining related developments to watch:
In a case of curious timing, the US just imposed fresh sanctions on individuals and firms involved in facilitating Iranian oil sales to China, and Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao yesterday released a new 30-year shipbuilding plan. That plan anticipates the acquisition of 11 nuclear-powered Trump class battleships, new underwater drones, and an ongoing review to the Ford class aircraft carrier design to increase lethality and reliability while reducing unit costs and production lead times. The planned expansion of the US fleet and shipbuilding industrial base is undoubtedly a reaction to China’s growing naval strength and substantial advantage in production capacity. The message to Xi is an unsubtle one.
The FT’s Gideon Rachman characterises Trump as arriving at Xi’s court in a state of supplication, having effectively lost the trade war vs China and the shooting war vs Iran. This perhaps overstates the weakness of Trump’s position by ignoring the fact that the US has tightened its grip on global energy supply chains and has shown that is has the power to put its foot on the hosepipe of Chinese energy imports whenever it likes. In the flurry of commentary over China’s bumper trade surplus in April, it seems to have been missed that import volumes for crude oil were down sharply, but values were higher. Yesterday’s April PPI figures for China also underscored the uncomfortable effects that the Iran war is having on the Chinese industrial economy.
Xi will be acutely aware of this, and he will also be aware that the US holds similar power to disrupt Chinese food imports if it was of a mind to do so. Seapower IS power, as the shipbuilding plan should remind us all. In this respect, Trump holds better cards than the FT is giving him credit for. Perhaps it is no coincidence that China bought more soybeans in April than it had done for months.
Some more of Trump’s latest commentary amid his hope for a ‘good’ Xi meeting:

Trump: If you have the right president, I don't think Taiwan invasion will happen. I have a very good relationship with President Xi.

We're 9,500 miles away. He's 67 miles away. But there’s a lot of support for Taiwan from Japan and countries in that area. 2X pic.twitter.com/8ipHIKy4pM
— Tymofiy Mylovanov (@Mylovanov) May 12, 2026

Iran “demands”? They don’t even want to talk about nukes. Perfectly unrealistic.

Even Saudi Arabia was bombing Iran.

• Iran Specifies 5 Demands To Restart Peace Talks With US (ZH)

Iran on Tuesday revealed its demands in a counteroffer to the United States that President Trump shot down on Sunday, which has put the whole conflict and Pakistan-mediated talks in a holding pattern and stalemate, as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively blocked. The demands hinge on war reparations, Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and an end to US sanctions – things which the White House balked at, with war reparations especially being focus of rejection by the US side, and the lack of taking up the nuclear issue, which Iran has insisted is a non-starter and would only be dealt with after the war is settled.

Trump had previously made clear on Truth Social that “I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘Representatives.’ I don’t like it — TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” Al Jazeera correspondent Ali Hashem has listed the following five conditions that it sees as the basis for reentering talks:

1) Ending the war on all fronts, including Lebanon
2) Lifting all sanctions
3) Releasing frozen Iranian assets
4) Compensation for war damages and losses
5) Recognition of Iran’s sovereign rights over the Strait of Hormuz
Again, all this according to Tehran must be agreed to while at the same time Iran is pushing back against nuclear negotiations. In a Monday press briefing Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei had publicly alluded to several of these, including in his words, “Demanding an end to the war, lifting the blockade and piracy, and releasing Iranian assets that have been unjustly frozen in banks due to U.S. pressure.” Also, there was mention of “Safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz and establishing security in the region and Lebanon were other demands of Iran, which are considered a generous and responsible offer for regional security” – before talks could begin in good faith.
Tehran apparently feels it can weather the tightening economic noose its under, given Tanker Trackers on Tuesday said Iran has not successfully exported any crude oil by sea over the past 28 days. To our best knowledge, Iran hasn’t successfully exported* any crude oil by sea over the past 28 days. Some refined products managed to escape because US OFAC did not slap sanctions on those tankers.
In addition, Kharg Island hasn’t loaded any tankers since 2026-05-06 as a result…
— TankerTrackers.com, Inc. (@TankerTrackers) May 12, 2026
Trump, just before his departure to China, remarked to Axios: “Iran will either do the right thing or we will finish the job… we are either gonna make a deal or they will be decimated.”

If/when they go in again, it’ll be for a long haul.

• Trump Considering Resuming Airstrikes As Talks With Iran Stall – Axios (RT)

US President Donald Trump is considering resuming the bombing campaign against Iran as peace talks remain stalled, Axios reported on Monday, citing three US officials familiar with the matter. On Sunday, Trump rejected Iran’s latest terms as “totally unacceptable” and said the ceasefire reached around a month ago was “on massive life support.” According to Axios, Trump was set to meet with his national security team on Monday to discuss next steps, including potentially resuming Project Freedom – an operation aimed at guiding ships through the Strait of Hormuz – as well as restarting airstrikes and hitting the remaining 25% of targets identified by the Pentagon but not yet struck.

The Washington Post, citing a CIA assessment, reported last week that Iran retained about 75% of its pre-war mobile launchers and roughly 70% of its missiles, and could withstand a US naval blockade for at least three to four months. Trump suspended Project Freedom within 24 hours of announcing it last week, following a request from Pakistan, which has acted as a mediator in the conflict. NBC later reported that the president shelved the initiative after Saudi Arabia refused to allow the US to use its bases and airspace to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on Sunday that the US had “no alternative” but to accept Tehran’s terms. “The longer they drag their feet, the more American taxpayers will pay for it,” he wrote on X. Iranian state media described Trump’s demand to shut down the country’s nuclear sites as “a non-starter that Iran has rejected for decades.” According to Press TV, Iran’s conditions include the lifting of sanctions, reparations, and a new framework governing the Strait of Hormuz that would recognize “Iran’s sovereign control over this vital waterway.”

You can accuse everyone in Kiev of corruption. Can’t go wrong.

• Zelensky Chief of Staff Yermak Charged with Corruption, Money Laundering (CTH)

Andrey Yermak is not just some random high-level government official in Ukraine. Andrey Yermak was President Zelenskyy’s right hand, chief of staff, organizer of the functions of Ukrainian government and the guy who controlled the systems that keep all other government officials working on the agenda of the President. If you took Susie Wiles and Marco Rubio’s responsibilities and combined them into one job function, that would be the scale of importance and influence that Andrey Yermak controlled inside the Ukrainian government and the office of President Zelenskyy.

Today, following an explosive criminal corruption charge that surfaced less than 36 hours ago, Andrey Yermak appears in court to face charges of corruption, theft and money laundering. Yermak was under investigation for his role in theft through the energy sector and now stands accused of using construction projects near Kiev as a tool to launder money to himself and other high-level government officials.
There are three facets to this I find very interesting. First, is the timing. Second, is the often-overlooked admission by National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) about them working closely with FBI investigators in Europe and American intelligence units. Third, is the way they caught him: “The anti-corruption bureau shared part of a wiretapped conversation as part of its case and said six more people had been identified as suspects.”
(Via BBC) – “[…] For years he was a close friend of Zelensky, and led Ukraine’s talks with the US until an anti-corruption raid on his flat last November prompted his resignation. Ukraine’s Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office (Sapo) said it was asking the Kyiv court to either place him in preventive detention or give him bail of about $4m (£3m). The head of the National anti-corruption bureau (Nabu) stressed that Zelensky himself was not part of the pre-trial investigation.
Yermak had been the president’s closest adviser throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion, until he became caught up in a broader inquiry by Sapo and Nabu into an alleged $100m (£74m) embezzlement scheme in Ukraine’s nuclear energy sector. As part of Operation Midas, ex-Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov was charged with abuse of office, while businessman Timur Mindich reportedly fled the country after he was flagged as a suspect and ex-Energy Minister Herman Haluschenko was detained while trying to leave. Like Yermak, Mindich was once part of Zelensky’s inner circle and co-owned the president’s former TV studio Kvartal95, before sanctions were imposed on him. Mindich denies wrongdoing.
The latest claims center on an elite housing project called “Dynasty” in a village outside Kyiv where millions in construction funds were allegedly laundered. The anti-corruption bureau shared part of a wiretapped conversation as part of its case and said six more people had been identified as suspects. On November 17, 2025, reports surfaced indicating that Yermak, then head of Zelensky’s office, might have been recorded by NABU. Subsequently, Yermak’s residence was searched on November 28, and by evening, Zelensky had dismissed him from his position.
Since late April, Ukrainian media outlets and parliament members have continued to publish new excerpts from the recordings. These reveal Mindich discussing with Rustem Umerov, the current Secretary of the Security Council and former Defense Minister, details of embezzlement from multimillion-dollar contracts, funding for drone manufacturing through a company affiliated with Mindich, and potential candidates for the Ukrainian ambassadorship to the United States. Keep in mind, Rustem Umerov is the current lead negotiator and point of contact for U.S. peace efforts.
Russia Federation President Vladimir Putin suggested last weekend that the war in Ukraine was “coming to an end.”
Interesting timing.

What do you use 40 biolabs for? Do we need to pay more attention?

• Tulsi Gabbard Probes 120 Foreign Biolabs Funded by US – 40 in Ukraine (CTH)

According to a report within the New York Post, Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is now investigating 120 foreign biolabs that are funded by the U.S. government – potentially involved in ‘gain of function’ or weaponized virus research. More than 40 of the labs are identified operating in Ukraine. Keep in mind, DNI Gabbard recently took control of the CIA development of Artificial Intelligence systems pulling In-Q-Tel, the CIA-backed venture firm, under management of ODNI. Through a series of what seems like well-coordinated moves by Secretary Rubio, CIA Director Ratcliffe and DNI Gabbard, a significant amount of the CIA’s operations is no longer in the dark network. https://twitter.com/WarClandestine/status/2053944250870489500?s=20

USAID has been dissolved (Rubio/Ratcliffe); the Directorate of Analysis taken out of CIA and into ODNI (Ratcliffe/Gabbard); the President’s Daily Brief now assembled by the ODNI (Ratcliffe/Gabbard); Artificial Intelligence systems, In-Q-Tel under ODNI management (Ratcliffe/Gabbard), and now Intelligence Community (CIA) biolabs being identified, investigated and potentially removed from operation. The biolab issue is a current concern given the discoveries of former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director, Anthony Fauci, lying to congress and the American people about funding gain of function research in Wuhan, China. However, given recent events we might even file this under proactive election integrity measures.
WASHINGTON — Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is investigating more than 120 biological laboratories abroad that were funded by US taxpayer dollars for decades, as part of an effort to end potentially risky experiments with viruses pursuant to President Trump’s executive order on so-called “gain-of-function” research.Gabbard told The Post Monday in a statement that her team is going “to identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain and what ‘research’ is being conducted to end dangerous gain-of-function research that threatens the health and wellbeing of the American people and the world.”
“The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the catastrophic global impact research on dangerous pathogens in biolabs can have,” the spy chief also said. “Yet despite these obvious dangers, politicians, so-called health professionals, like Dr. Fauci, and entities within the Biden administration’s national security team lied to the American people about the existence of these US-funded and supported biolabs and threatened those who attempted to expose the truth.” Under new guidance from Gabbard, the US Intelligence Community will review research at all US-funded biolabs, which would include facilities engaged in gain-of-function experiments that could increase the transmissibility of viruses, as well as work for defensive purposes against dangerous pathogens.
Office of the Director of National Intelligence officials noted that the foreign labs extend into more than 30 countries, and several had received funding in the past through a Department of Defense program that sought to dispose of weapons of mass destruction after the end of the Cold War. More than 40 of the biolabs under review are located in Ukraine — and could “be at risk of compromise” due to Russia’s war, ODNI officials noted. (read more)

“Euroskeptic FPO leader Christian Hafenecker has called on Vienna’s money laundering watchdog to investigate..”

• Nearly $22 Billion Secretly Shipped To Ukraine – Austrian Politician (RT)

A right-wing Austrian politician has demanded that the country’s Finance Ministry explain how nearly $22 billion in cash and gold was shipped to Ukraine from Austria since 2022 without triggering concerns about money laundering or regulatory oversight. In a statement published on Sunday, Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) Secretary General Christian Hafenecker called out what he described as Vienna’s “two-class justice system” for overlooking massive payments to Kiev, while keeping a tight hold on taxpayers’ purse strings.

“We’re not talking about play money here: 1,030 registered cash and gold shipments, around €12 billion ($14 billion) plus $7.75 billion, physically transported over 1,300 kilometers into the war zone,” Hafenecker said. “And the responsible finance minister simply tells me… ‘We know nothing, we’re not investigating anything, we haven’t collected any information.’ That’s not an answer, that’s dereliction of duty,” he added. By comparison, Austrian money laundering rules require a private citizen withdrawing as little as €12,000 from an inherited account to prove the origin of the funds, and any person crossing the EU’s external border with more than €10,000 in cash must declare it, Hafenecker said. “This is a two-class justice system in finance.”
The politician demanded full disclosure on all cash shipments from Austria to Ukraine since the escalation of the conflict, a full audit by the country’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority, and a report by the Austrian Money Laundering Reporting Office in parliament. Earlier this year, the Euroskeptic FPO party demanded that Vienna cut all financial aid to Ukraine, denouncing the country as a corrupt “bottomless pit,” following a wave of high-level embezzlement scandals in Kiev.
Major probes by Ukraine’s Western-backed anti-graft agencies have implicated senior officials in Vladimir Zelensky’s government since last year. Two ministers and the Ukrainian leader’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, stepped down following the massive scandal. Russian President Vladimir Putin has slammed the current leadership in Kiev, calling it a “criminal gang” sitting on “golden potties,” and interested far more in personal enrichment than in the fate of ordinary Ukrainians.

Obama, Clinton, Brennan, Clapper. You can fill a phonebook. “FBI Director Kash Patel has removed about ten percent of the problem in his agency.”

• John Brennan: Still “Legions” of His Allies at DOJ, FBI and CIA (CTH)

Appearing on MSNBC to talk to Lawfare ally Nicole Wallace, wife of New York Times narrative engineer Michael Schmidt – the guy who received leaks from FBI Director James Comey via Daniel Richman, former CIA Director John Brennan notes there are “legions” of operatives still embedded within the DOJ, FBI and CIA who are working against President Donald Trump. This is not a surprise as we have noted the Trump administration continues to take apart the tentacles of Lawfare and Intelligence operatives in Main Justice, various U.S. Attorney offices, FBI Headquarters, FBI field offices and various Intelligence Community silos.

Marco Rubio has been working to clean up the National Security Council as well as the State Department operations, including USAID. Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe have been working on the NSA and CIA collaboratively, and Todd Blanche has been working through the Dept of Justice. FBI Director Kash Patel has removed about ten percent of the problem in his agency.

Unbelievable. Former CIA Director John Brennan just said the quiet part out LOUD, that there are still a "legion" of bureaucrats within the intel and justice communities who are actively sabotaging the executive authority of President Trump:

"There's still a legion of… pic.twitter.com/XhBLzhy7s2
— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) May 11, 2026

The core problem goes back to what we outlined on these pages {GO DEEP} and is not limited to those operatives who remain from the Obama/Biden era. Some of the problems surface as a result of ‘republican’ voices recommending “sleeper cell” staff and sketchy personnel for positions in the administration. [I’ll put an example below] One way to tell if the agency head or leader understands the challenge is by paying attention to how they talk about the agency’s mission objective. Leaders like Marco Rubio and Tulsi Gabbard have openly acknowledged the problem and are actively tackling corruption within their ranks. Even John Ratcliffe has admitted his agency was politically weaponized and has taken steps to address it. There’s still a lot of work ahead, but their actions show visible progress.
People like Pam Bondi and Kash Patel have praised the institutional embeds without drawing attention to the corruption beneath them. Thankfully, Acting AG Todd Blanche seems to be taking a more confrontational approach internally, so maybe Kash Patel will follow suit. This isn’t about style—it’s about results, and there’s an urgent need for action. To give an example of “sketchy” recommendations and predictable outcomes, I would draw attention to the lesser visible appointment of Morgan Ortagus. Do you remember this very weirdly worded announcement, two weeks prior to the inauguration?

I have no idea who “them” is referencing in the announcement.
[…] “I’m not doing this for me, I doing it for them”
There were always three options for “them”: (1) the strong republican support people; or (2) people in the Middle East who would be dealing with her; or (3) Stephen Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Regardless, of who “them” was, it was obvious President Trump was not thrilled by “their” request. Mrs. Morgan Ortagus is a long time Deep State operative with roots in the U.S. intelligence community and USAID {citation}. It was very predictable that she would undermine the goals of President Trump and she only lasted six months in the job. Ortagus was quietly dispatched from her position in June 2025.
CTH predicted Mrs. Ortagus would be a big mistake because she was, quite frankly, one of the “legion” insiders referenced by former CIA Director John Brennan. Ortagus’s entire career profile was/is textbook intelligence operative, likely legacy CIA. Not coincidentally, former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was removed from his position only a month before Ortagus lost hers. On the day he was announced CTH said National Security Advisor Mike Waltz would be the first administration member to get the boot, because in the non-pretending world Waltz was a horrible choice just like Ortagus. Mike Waltz was removed as National Security Advisor in May 2025, Ortagus was removed as Middle East envoy in June.
If the goal was to eliminate the Deep State, President Trump couldn’t take on a deeply corrupt Intelligence Community while also appointing its allies. Their close ties to the Intelligence Community made the failures of both Waltz and Ortagus predictable. That said, behind the veneer of John Brennan’s statement on MSNBC is a guy who realizes the Trump administration has changed the dynamic and the agency systems Brennan is talking about no longer exist; at least they no longer have the same capabilities. The need for control is a reaction to fear, and Brennan’s fear is both visible and very well founded.
The DOJ and FBI operate under the influence of the Intelligence Community, which ultimately holds the reins. The key figures leading the IC have made changes to the institutions that have significantly reduced the impact of bad actors within the DOJ and FBI. The key positions are the National Security Advisor, the Secretary of State, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe are the people to watch, and we can tell by the counsel(s) they have put into place that each of them has clear eyes and a steady hand on those critical institutions. Since mid-year 2025, around the same time Waltz and Ortagus were dispatched, you will note significant changes began surfacing in the National Security Council, the State Dept, the DNI and importantly the CIA. Some of the changes make headlines, many do not; however, each is important and builds on a larger goal of dismantling a highly weaponized and political intelligence apparatus.
Internationally, what we see in the reaction of allied -or oppositional- governments and their intelligence agencies, is in large part a geopolitical reaction to the consequential changes being made by Rubio, Gabbard and Ratcliffe. Each building upon a system that fundamentally changes U.S. policy to be in alignment with President Trump. Each of them should be commended. Domestically, the accountability developments involving James Comey, John Brennan, John Bolton, Michael Atkinson, Eric Ciaramella and others yet to emerge, stem from the transparency brought by the same trio working upstream from Main Justice and the FBI. The combined intelligence apparatus of the U.S. can cut through the chaff and countermeasures of Lawfare operatives, and I feel optimistic watching them in action.
Again, it’s not just the silo heads that are making a positive impact, it is the personnel decisions they are surrounding themselves with. The amount of sunlight now coming over the horizon is toxic to the interests of those who organized shadow operations. As long as Rubio, Ratcliffe and especially Gabbard, keep pushing the truth to the surface; as long as they keep exposing all the corruption that was used to manipulate and weaponize our government; as long as they keep strategizing on ways to declassify evidence former officials buried under false pretenses; then the DOJ, FBI and more importantly We The People, will have information we can use to make decisions.
Ultimately, it is the truth which makes evil enterprise retreat.

Excursion??

His name is not on every list ,but Nvidia’s Jensen Huang is very much part of the group. As Trump himself confirmed.

• Here Are The People Accompanying Trump On His China Excursion This Week (JTN)

President Donald Trump will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in China this week and is taking a notable cohort with him to the Asian powerhouse. Trump arrives in Beijing on Wednesday for a two-day summit, which will include talks about sanctions on Iranian oil and the conflict in the Middle East at large. The group of powerful American CEOs and billionaires include Trump ally Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook, according to CBS News. Here is the rest of the notable American executives expected to go on the two-day excursion:

BlackRock’s Larry Fink
Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman
Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg
Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon
Meta’s Dina Powell McCormick
Micron’s Sanjay Mehrotra
Qualcomm’s Christiano Amon
Illumina’s Jacob Thaysen
Mastercard’s Michael Miebach
Visa’s Ryan McInerney
Cargill’s Brian Sikes
Citi’s Jane Fraser
Cisco’s Chuck Robbins
Coherent’s Jim Anderson
GE Aerospace’s H. Lawrence Culp.
The trip comes after the president postponed the original trip because of the conflict in the Middle East. The summit will take place May 14-15, with the president arriving May 13.

“We have been absolutely ignored by a sitting member of Congress.”

• Minnesota Democrats Block Ilhan Omar Subpoena (JTN)

Minnesota House Republicans want help from U.S. congressional oversight leaders after Democrats on a state committee blocked an effort to subpoena U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar over communications tied to the Feeding Our Future fraud investigation. Rep. Kristin Robbins, R-Maple Grove and chair of the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Oversight Committee, announced Friday she has asked congressional leaders to assist in securing the records.

Robbins sent letters to U.S. Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights. The move comes days after Democrats on the state committee voted against authorizing a subpoena for Omar’s communications connected to the Feeding Our Future investigation. All five Republican committee members supported the motion, while three DFL members opposed it, leaving Republicans just short of the six votes required.
“Minnesota House Democrats chose to protect Rep. Omar rather than support our effort to get the truth,” Robbins said in a statement Friday. “Without at least one Democrat vote in support of the motion to subpoena these communications, we cannot get the two-thirds majority required to compel Rep. Omar produce the documents.” Republicans on the committee have repeatedly sought testimony and records from Omar related to trial exhibits introduced in the federal criminal case U.S. v. Bock. Robbins said Omar’s office has not responded to multiple requests, including an April 22 letter requesting records by May 5. “We have been ghosted,” Robbins said during Tuesday’s hearing. “We have been absolutely ignored by a sitting member of Congress.”
The committee’s Republican members have focused heavily on Omar’s sponsorship of the federal MEALS Act in 2020, legislation they argue loosened oversight requirements in federal child nutrition programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Rep. Omar had some role, whether inadvertent or not,” Robbins said Tuesday. “She passed the MEALS Act in March of 2020, and that took the guardrails off the federal school nutrition program, which created the conditions for Feeding Our Future.”
Federal prosecutors have described the Feeding Our Future case as one of the largest pandemic-era fraud schemes in the country, alleging more than $250 million intended for child nutrition programs was fraudulently claimed through fake meal reimbursements. Robbins said the committee became interested in Omar’s involvement after learning of communications between her office and individuals later convicted in the scheme. She also pointed to a 2020 video in which Omar promoted meal distribution efforts at Safari Restaurant, a Minneapolis site prosecutors later identified as a major participant in the fraud.
Democrats on the committee pushed back against the effort. Rep. Dave Pinto, DFL-St. Paul, questioned the timing of the subpoena. “We know the president and federal administration have got no hesitation going after political enemies and investigating them in all sorts of ways,” Pinto said. “If there’s any sort of wrongdoing by Congresswoman Omar—and if there’s no wrongdoing by Congresswoman Omar – I have no doubt the Trump Administration will do all it can with all the resources it has.” Rep. Isaac Schultz, R-Elmdale Township, argued the subpoena effort was part of a broader push to understand fraud in Minnesota government programs.
“Feeding Our Future is one part of the picture as it relates to what we know is to come in the fraud we’ve seen in Medicaid,” Schultz said. “Now, we have this opportunity to use our tools here in the House of Representatives to issue this subpoena to gain a greater understanding.” Robbins said Friday she hopes action from the congressional oversight committees will help Republicans obtain the records. “I hope the federal oversight committees will be able to help us get the facts about Representative Omar’s involvement in the case,” Robbins said. “If she has nothing to hide, she should testify before our committee and produce the trial exhibits.”

“There is every reason to think the justices will leave this one where it belongs: in Virginia, under Virginia law, after Virginia Democrats tried to rig the map and got caught.”

• Scott Jennings Nukes the Democrats’ Gerrymander Hail Mary (Margolis)

Virginia Democrats lost big time in the redistricting wars and have considered all kinds of ways to respond — including trying to force the retirement of all of the justices on the Virginia Supreme Court. That scheme isn’t likely to happen, but they are hoping to drag the U.S. Supreme Court into this. The whole saga is a perfect example of how a party can overplay its hand and then act stunned when the cards fall flat. The Virginia Supreme Court struck down the Democrats’ map, saying the process violated the state constitution and nullified the referendum vote. That map would have shifted Virginia from a 6-5 split to a 10-1 advantage for Democrats, which is exactly why they wanted it so badly.

And they’re trying to drag the Supreme Court into this? It’s a Hail Mary for sure and not a very good one. Does anyone actually believe that this will succeed, that the Supreme Court will even take the case? It makes no sense. There’s really no jurisdiction for the U.S. Supreme Court to get involved. The only thing this emergency appeal does is make them look more desperate.And Scott Jennings called them out on it. CNN’s The Arena, he mocked the idea that the U.S. Supreme Court would wade into this fight. “There’s a better chance of me sprouting wings and flying out of that window over there than the United States Supreme Court dealing with this in any way, because this is a state Supreme Court ruling on a state constitution.”
He added, “The U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t deal with these kinds of things, number one. Number two, the freakout in Virginia has been so extreme. You even have Democrats over there who are saying they want to effectively, politically decapitate the entire Virginia Supreme Court by putting an age limit of 54 so they can get rid of every existing justice and install people who will promise to rule a certain way on a certain case. “ “You know, they went from, ‘Oh, this is just a temporary map thing’ to ‘Let’s burn down the entire Virginia Supreme Court’ in about two seconds over there in Virginia, which tells you all you need to know about just how power hungry and corrupt the Democrats are in Virginia.”
That is the real story here. This was sold as a temporary map fix and morphed into a power grab so aggressive that even the state’s own courts slammed the brakes. “This is not going to work at the U.S. Supreme Court,” Jennings declared. “And this whole project of maximum warfare by Hakeem Jeffries is completely blown up in their face.”

.@ScottJenningsKY on Democrats going DEFCON-1 since losing their Virginia gerrymander…

“There's a better chance of me sprouting wings and flying out of that window over there than the United States Supreme Court dealing with this in any way, because this is a state Supreme… pic.twitter.com/psPQNUUig1
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 11, 2026

The Supreme Court is set to decide on May 14 whether it will take the emergency appeal. There is every reason to think the justices will leave this one where it belongs: in Virginia, under Virginia law, after Virginia Democrats tried to rig the map and got caught.

“Virginia’s General Assembly adopted a new map in February that would have favored Democrats in 10 of the state’s 11 seats in the US House ..”

• Virginia Democrats Ask US Supreme Court to Reinstate Congressional Map (Hyde)

Virginia Democrats, along with their state Attorney General, have asked the US Supreme Court to override the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision last week that struck down a partisan redistricting plan. ABC News reports Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones wrote in the emergency application filed on Monday that the Virginia Supreme Court was “deeply mistaken” when it invalidated a ballot measure to amend the state constitution that would have netted Democrats as many as four new congressional seats.

The state Supreme Court had ruled last Friday, in a 4–3 decision, that Democrats had violated the state Constitution, by failing to follow proper procedures, while racing to get the measure on the ballot before the midterm elections. According to SCOTUSblog, Virginia’s General Assembly adopted a new map in February that would have favored Democrats in 10 of the state’s 11 seats in the US House—a potential increase of four seats from the current balance between Democrats and Republicans in Virginia.
The new map hinged on obtaining approval for an amendment to the Virginia constitution that would give the state legislature the power to draw a new congressional map outside of the normal cycle following the decennial census. In a referendum held in April, Virginia voters approved that amendment by a margin of three percentage points. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the referendum was not valid because the General Assembly had not followed proper procedures when it put the new amendment on the ballot.
In Monday’s 24-page filing, Jones argued: “The irreparable harm resulting from the Supreme Court of Virginia’s decision is profound and immediate. By forcing the Commonwealth to conduct its congressional elections using districts different from those adopted by the General Assembly pursuant to a constitutional amendment the people just ratified, the Supreme Court of Virginia has deprived voters, candidates, and the Commonwealth of their right to the lawfully enacted congressional districts.” Legal experts told ABC News last week that they believe Democrats have little chance of a successful appeal at the US Supreme Court because the state Supreme Court would be the highest authority dealing with state constitutional issues and no federal issues are at stake.
According to former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, “The Virginia Supreme Court is the final authority on Virginia constitutional questions. This is the end, folks. You will have the same map in 2026 that existed in 2024. That is now unchangeable and immutable.” Politico reports that Chief Justice John Roberts, who oversees emergency appeals arising from Virginia, instructed the Republicans who challenged the Virginia referendum to respond to Jones’ appeal by Thursday at 5 p.m.

“Blanche, on Tuesday, indicated that the DOJ probe would use compulsory authority to bring in witnesses, including from the press.”

• Acting AG Blanche Warns Reporters To Expect Subpoenas In Leaks Probe (JTN)

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Tuesday indicated that the Department of Justice would subpoena reporters as part of its probe into leaks of classified materials. The FBI, this month, opened a probe into Senate Democrats over the possible leak of classified materials related to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation hearings. At issue was the leak of an intercept from the National Security Agency (NSA) concerning Gabbard. More recently, Trump has reportedly complained of rampant leaks related to the ongoing Iran war, The Hill reported.

Blanche, on Tuesday, indicated that the DOJ probe would use compulsory authority to bring in witnesses, including from the press. “Prosecuting leakers who share our nation’s secrets with reporters, in turn risking our national security and the lives of our soldiers, is a priority for this administration,” he said. “Any witness, whether a reporter or otherwise, who has information about these criminals should not be surprised if they receive a subpoena about the illegal leaking of classified material.”
The Trump administration has long maintained a strained relationship with the press, dating back to his first term, which saw pervasive leaks to the media, especially from the Department of Homeland Security over immigration enforcement efforts.

“..the Supreme Court basically supported one vote, one person guaranteed in perpetuity, and the rest is just map wars..”

• The Language Got a Little Salty on CNN Monday Night (Matt Margolis)

If Bakari Sellers thought he could trot out an emotional guilt trip and quietly justify racist gerrymandering on live TV, Kevin O’Leary wasn’t about to let that slide. He didn’t just push back—he pulled the curtain back on the whole performance, forcing a raw, uncomfortable showdown between the U.S. Constitution and Sellers’ political theater. And Sellers let loose with some salty language in the process. The exchange began with host Abby Phillip laying out the stakes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling that racial gerrymandering is unconstitutional. She noted that states may soon try to redraw maps in ways that could leave the minority party with no meaningful representation, which isn’t true, of course.

I could get into all the states that have had conservative representation gerrymandered into oblivion, but I’ll do that another time. O’Leary jumped in with a blunt take, saying the Supreme Court had effectively settled the matter. “I think everybody should take confidence in the fact the Supreme Court basically supported one vote, one person guaranteed in perpetuity, and the rest is just map wars,” he said. “And I think we should get used to it. And I think it’s, as you said, a state-based situation. Add this to the mix. At the end of the day, the state decides at the state level. It’s in the Constitution. Get over it.” That, apparently, set Sellers off.
“The problem with that sentiment is that you were born in 1954,” Sellers shot back, immediately turning the argument into a generational and moral rebuke. O’Leary, never one to miss a chance to needle someone, replied, “Yes,” when Sellers noted his age, then joked, “By the way, I’m a vampire.” Sellers clearly wasn’t in the mood and just pressed on with patronizing O’Leary. According to Sellers, O’Leary had lived through the entire post-Brown era and should understand what that history means. “During your lifetime, we’ve actually had Brown v. Board of Education,” Sellers said. O’Leary interjected, “I remember.” “Yes, Brown v. Board of Education, I don’t know how you remember it. I think you were like two months old.”
The temperature kept rising as Sellers tried to ground his point in personal history. “My mother was born in 1951. She desegregated schools. My father was shot in the Civil Rights Movement,” he said. “Those people—” Before he could finish, Phillip stepped in to let him continue. Sellers accused O’Leary of being “utterly disrespectful.” Then came the line that guaranteed the clip would travel fast. “So, I’m going to finish this comment. So, what I’m telling you is that there are people in this country who fought, died, and bled for the right to vote. Don’t be a d**k, just understand. Just understand.”
O’Leary didn’t care for that and pushed back immediately, insisting he was simply defending the Constitution. “I’m not a d**k. I’m pointing something out to you. The Constitution’s being upheld. You have a problem with that? You have a problem with the Constitution of the United States of America?” he asked.

WILD MELTDOWN: Bakari Sellers YELLS at Mr. Wonderful: “DON’T BE A DICK” on CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip during a heated discussion about the Democrats’ gerrymandering efforts.

Sellers: “There are people in this country who fought, died, and bled for the right to vote. Don’t… pic.twitter.com/Gv5UN44D4O
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) May 12, 2026

Phillip tried to restore order, scolding Sellers, “I just want everybody to reset with a modicum of respect at this table.” But Sellers didn’t care, “I want you to understand that there’s a price that was paid for this right. There is a price that we uphold. And whether or not you value that—” O’Leary cut in again, clearly not caring about Seller’s belittling tone. “Where are you going with this?” Sellers answered by making the point even more directly. “Whether or not you value that or not, there are people who bled, sweat, and died, and were in prison for access to the ballot box.”

No kings, no billionaires!

• Socialist Storytime: AOC Spins Anti-Capitalist Fable About the Founders (Turley)

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is fast becoming the greatest fabulist since Aesop. Recently, Ocasio-Cortez insisted that true billionaires are a capitalist myth since “you can’t earn a billion dollars.” However, her greatest work of fiction may be her insistence that the Framers fought against billionaires and would have joined her and other socialists in seeking to eradicate them today. Bertrand Russell once noted that “there is something feeble and a little contemptible” about those “who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.”

The American left has long peddled such “comfortable myths” as the wealthy “not paying their fair share” of taxes. (The top one percent of income earners pay over 40% of federal taxes, and that percentage goes up to 70% for the top ten percent). However, Ocasio-Cortez has become a liberal Homer for her reputation for spinning collectivist tales. What is impressive is her myth-within-a-myth signature style: “You can’t earn that, right? And so you have to create a myth… you have to create a myth of earning it.” In a discussion at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, Ocasio-Cortez gave her revisionist account of the Founders as, surprise, budding anti-capitalists:
“I want to talk about how this is in the heritage of our country, because America was founded… you look at Thomas Jefferson writing to Madison in revolt of British aristocracy. The American Revolution was against the billionaires of their time. And we are declaring independence from such an extreme marriage of wealth and power and the state that the voices of everyday people did not exist.”In my recent book, “Rage and the Republic,” I discuss the economic philosophy of the Founders in exploring the history and future of this unique Republic.
While Ocasio-Cortez references our 250th anniversary, she ignores that it is also the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Smith’s free-market theory was an instant hit with the founding generation. These men had just created the first major Enlightenment Revolution based on a belief in natural rights that came from God, not governments. Yet, they knew that true individual liberty could not be achieved without economic freedom. Smith’s economic theory was the perfect companion for their political theory.
The combination of American democratic theories and free market theories produced the world’s most successful and oldest democracy in history. In Rage and the Republic, I discuss the threats to this Republic, including from figures like Ocasio-Cortez, in spreading socialist myths. The book calls for a recommitment to what I call a “liberty-enhancing economy.” That is why this particular myth told by Ocasio-Cortez was so jarring. The Founders were great believers in capitalism and the free market. They were not fighting “the billionaires of their time” over their wealth. Many of the Founders were themselves quite wealthy, including banker Robert Morris Jr., who was known as the “Financier of the Revolution.”Adjusting for inflation and current rates, Morris would be a billionaire today.
The Founders believed in unleashing everyone’s ability to become a Morris. They fought against the taking or occupation of property by the government. Aat the very top of their stated purpose for the American Revolution was “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The phrase was virtually ripped from the page of John Locke’s “life, liberty, and property.” Locke believed that there was a natural right to property created by what God left “in common” for humanity. Preceding any government, it was a right that belonged to human beings by divine grant. Hardly a roaring endorsement of socialist ideals or, as Zohran Mamdani put it, the “warmth of collectivism.”
George Mason relied on Locke for his draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which Jefferson relied on heavily. Mason wrote of “the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” bOf course, the property reference was changed to happiness in the Declaration, which reflected the more transcendent values of these Enlightenment devotees. While reduced to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” the original language appeared in the Fifth Amendment and, later in the Fourteenth Amendment, protecting citizens from being “deprived of life, liberty, or property.”
In his 1792 essay “Property,” Madison echoed Lockean values in declaring that good government “secures to every man whatever is his own.” Other early figures, like Chief Justice John Marshall, wrote, “The power to tax is the power to destroy.” The new myth-making on the left is meant to revive what I previously described as “economic factionalism,” seeking political power with this type of “eat-the-rich” rhetoric. It is working (as it has in history). In California, many are pushing a “billionaire’s tax,” while far-left figures like Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are pushing for a federal variation. In states from Washington state to Virginia, Democrats are virtually chasing wealthy taxpayers out of blue states with planned millionaire taxes.
To achieve such radical change, you must first destroy the values upon which this Republic was born, convincing people that their fundamental ties to capitalism are as ephemeral as true billionaires. The greatest irony is that Ocasio-Cortez personifies what the Founders truly wanted to combat. They feared mobocracy and the tyranny of the majority, the arbitrary power that can come from majoritarian abuse. Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, and others are truly not new or particularly interesting additions to the political dialogue. They are the same voices of democratic despotism that Madison and others sought to quell.

A trial balloon?

• Media Spreads Hantavirus Hysteria In Attempt To Save Disgraced WHO (ZH)

The establishment media has been drumming up fear after a recent outbreak of Hantavirus on a cruise liner traveling from Argentina to West Africa. The Guardian has used the opportunity to assert that the US is currently ill equipped to deal with future pandemic threats, largely because of Donald Trump (of course) and the dramatic US exit from the now disgraced World Health Organization. Is Hantavirus a serious danger to the world, or, is it another hyped up virus like Covid being used to trigger public hysteria? And if it is being hyped, who (or WHO) stands to benefit?

For decades the WHO constructed its image as a global angel of benevolence; the primary line of defense against what they said was the inevitable invasion of a population rending plague. However, when the time finally came in the form of a mutated Coronavirus (Covid), they dropped the ball, and evidence suggests they may have done it deliberately.During the initial outbreak in China, the WHO echoed CCP propaganda suggesting that human-to-human contact was unlikely and, knowingly or unknowingly, aided China in hiding details behind the outbreak.
Details surrounding the involvement of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the largest dangerous disease lab in Asia, were actively dismissed (or suppressed). Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus even praised China’s “transparency”. The WHO then set up a joint task force to determine the origins of Covid, only to let the Chinese dominate the investigation and lead it away from the activities at the Level 4 lab in Wuhan. The Chinese wanted to push the theory of animal-to-animal mutation instead of the gain of function research that was ongoing at the lab (partially funded by US interests in the Obama Administration).
Today, evidence overwhelmingly suggests that Covid originated in the Wuhan Lab. In January 2025, the CIA assessed that a lab-related origin is more likely than natural spillover. This determination matched with similar FBI assessments. In 2025, German Intelligence also reported their findings, indicating a 90% likelihood that Covid was engineered and originated at the Wuhan Lab in China. Of course, anyone who made this claim online during the pandemic response was called a dangerous “conspiracy theorist” and was deplatformed (much like Zero Hedge).
The WHO would go on to exaggerate the death rate of the virus, claiming an initial Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of 3.4%. This data was based on studies which ignored mild cases as well as asymptomatic cases, thus artificially pumping up the death rate. Dozens of studies as early as May 2020 showed that the median Infection Fatality Rate (a more accurate number) was only 0.27% (later adjusted to 0.23%). The WHO continued to spread disinformation and hysteria surrounding covid while ignoring the true IFR data. That is to say, all the lockdowns, the mandates, the social media censorship, the arrests, the push for vaccine passports, etc. – all of it was over a virus that 99.8% of the population would easily survive.
The WHO has been exposed as a perpetrator of pandemic disinformation and is no longer trusted by the public. The US under the Trump Administration has exited the organization on these grounds, and as a result the WHO has lost at least 20% of its total funding. It is now facing dire financial conditions. In response, the UN and the establishment media have been running a spin campaign to present the WHO as indispensable. It is therefore not surprising that the WHO and the media are suddenly jumping on the cruise line Hantavirus story as if it is significant, while at the same time arguing that Trump is putting the public at risk by not participating in the WHO’s antics. They need the money badly, and so they’ve decided to remind the public why we should be afraid.
For those who are unaware, Hantavirus is a common virus around the world and in the US. Estimates show around 100,000 cases of the disease occur annually. In 2023, there were 40 cases in the US. The virus is most often contracted when humans are exposed to dried rodent feces and urine, floating as particulates in the air which are then inhaled into the lungs. The spread from human to human is rare and only occurs with the South American strain. Contraction is difficult, with the virus passing from one person to another through “prolonged contact with bodily fluids”. It makes you wonder what kind of pleasure cruise these people were on when the most recent outbreak started? The point is, the story is being inflated from a normal event into a crisis event.
This is probably why the Spanish Government set up an elaborate bus transfer of supposedly highly infectious cruise passengers, only to drop off a psychiatrist with the Ministry of Health down the road without protective gear like he’s going home after school. The bottom line? Hantavirus is all over the world and it’s not a threat to the vast majority of people. The artificial media panic and the opportunism of the WHO may be an effort to test the waters for another fraudulent pandemic scare, but the majority of the propaganda seems to be aimed at restoring the WHO’s reputation and saving it from financial ruin.

The North African nation poses the biggest problem for the bloc in terms of arrivals, Thanos Plevris has said

• Over 500,000 Waiting To Cross Into Europe From Libya – Greek Minister (RT)

The EU might be on the verge of a new migrant crisis, with more than half a million people waiting in Libya alone to cross into Europe, Greek Migration Minister Thanos Plevris has said. The bloc was first inundated by asylum seekers from the Middle East and Northern Africa during the 2015 refugee crisis, when a million migrants entered Europe, straining welfare systems and prompting tens of millions of European voters to turn to far-right political parties. Greece remains one of the bloc’s main entry points, registering 48,771 arrivals in 2025, according to UNHCR data. According to the UN refugee agency, 7,589 migrants and asylum seekers have arrived in the Mediterranean country this year as of May 3, including 5,615 by sea.

Athens has introduced a number of tough policy measures in a bid to stem the flow over the past years, including detention for those denied asylum. Commenting on the situation on Sunday, Plevris said that Greece was “the first country to criminalize illegal residence” and would not allow those denied protection to just roam free. “Those who are not entitled to asylum will be detained,” the minister told a local broadcaster, adding that Athens would “operate within the law but will go to its limits to protect the borders.” He also described the situation in Libya as the biggest problem faced by his country and the EU. According to Plevris, around 550,000 people have gathered there and are now seeking to enter Europe.
In February, Plevris also announced that it was working together with Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Denmark to create “return hubs” for rejected asylum seekers outside of the EU’s borders, with Africa being the preferred destination. Libya became a key transit point for human trafficking and migration to Europe via the Mediterranean following a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 that led to the overthrow and assassination of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi. The EU has struggled to manage the migration crisis since 2015, with Greece, Italy, and Spain receiving the highest number of arrivals across the Mediterranean.

This could soon be the world’s leadership:

Patriots who secure borders, put citizens FIRST, and put their own country above all.

The next 5 years will bring a full world revolution.

The globalist agenda is fast crumbling. pic.twitter.com/91fihWv5UZ
— The British Patriot (@TheBritLad) May 11, 2026

Congratulations, Giga Berlin Team! https://t.co/0bfWV5ilfn
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2026

Professor Jiang states that greek civilisation flourished because it was based on two values, Arete and Eudaimonia, both coming out of Homer's epic poems Iliad and Odyssey. pic.twitter.com/aSyg1OvMRN
— well-meaning (@FreshSummerWind) May 12, 2026

We have a virus ‘scare’ every 6 years – you have to be either a coincidence theorist or a conspiracy theorist.
Which one are you?
In the comments please pic.twitter.com/NEoaNqtini
— Andrew Bridgen (@ABridgen) May 11, 2026

https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/2053784729493602624?s=20

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

Debt Rattle May 9 2026

May 092026

May 9, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:30 am Finance Tagged with: CIA, Iran, NATO, New York Times, Trump, Tucker Carlson, Ukraine, US blockade, Virginia, Von der Leyen, Zelensky 17 Responses »

Albert Bierstadt Storm in the Mountains c1870

• ‘Sporadic Clashes’ In Strait Of Hormuz As US Disables Two Iran Vessels (ZH)

• CIA Believes Iran Can Withstand US Blockade For At Least 3-4 Months (TASS)

• Trump Mediates 3-Day Ceasefire Between Ukraine and Russia On Victory Day (CTH)

• Did Zelensky’s Cronies Scam The Europeans? (RT)

• How Zelensky’s Inner Circle Sought Influence In The US (RT)

• After Every Weapon the Left Used Against Trump, He’s Still Here (Florack)

• There’s Something About Mary… (CTH)

• Marco Rubio Issues a Major Blow to Cuba’s Military Empire (Anderson)

• After Phone Call with Von der Leyen, Trump Delays EU Tariffs (CTH)

• California Death Trip (James Howard Kunstler)

• Virginia Supreme Court Overturns Redistricting Referendum (JTN)

• Former NATO Chief Warns Bloc on Verge of ‘Disintegration’ (JTN)

• The NY Times Interviews Tucker Carlson, and It Gets Worse From There (Spencer)

• Trump Touts Release of UFO files: ‘Have Fun and Enjoy’ (JTN)

• Fetterman: Dems Can’t ‘Simply Be The Opposite’ of ‘Whatever Trump Says’ (JTN)

https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2052395510774788365?s=20 https://twitter.com/warDaniel47/status/2052687070187962714?s=20

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche says he and Donald Trump have the legal authority to go after anyone who broke the law, that includes Democrats who conspired against Trump and Conservatives

Barack Obama recently said "The White House shouldn't be able to direct the attorney… pic.twitter.com/vyP3ZWAC6v
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) May 7, 2026

Victor Davis Hanson just delivered a devastating breakdown explaining Democrats’ desperate strategy to hold power.

Democrat policies are so unpopular they no longer believe they can win voters — so they’re now trying to radically change the system of governance instead.

HANSON:… pic.twitter.com/udkNxX5lfg
— Overton (@overton_news) May 8, 2026

https://twitter.com/Real_RobN/status/2052439232673882171?s=20 https://twitter.com/GOP_is_Gutless/status/2052510392279036256?s=20 https://twitter.com/BoLoudon/status/2052580352045044210?s=20

Obama was a CIA asset put in place to destroy the US.

Occidental College records — SEALED
Columbia College records — SEALED
Columbia Thesis paper — SEALED
Harvard College records — SEALED
Selective Service Registration — SEALED
Medical records — SEALED
Illinois State… pic.twitter.com/5vKxrEhxTC
— conspiracybot (@conspiracyb0t) May 7, 2026

The ceasefire survives to live another day.

• ‘Sporadic Clashes’ In Strait Of Hormuz As US Disables Two Iran Vessels (ZH)

Iran’s Fars reports late morning (US time): Sporadic clashes between Iranian Armed Forces and US vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Amid the fog of war, nothing in the way of details initially emerged. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei has condemned US “aggression and adventurism” but has also confirmed that Tehran is still reviewing the US proposal and is still going to respond soon. Al Jazeera cites state media on emerging deaths from the Iranian side: Mohammad Radmehr, governor of Minab County in southern Iran, says he has received word that rescuers have found the body of one of five sailors reported missing after a US attack on an Iranian vessel overnight in and around the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s Mehr news agency quoted Radmehr as saying that search teams are continuing efforts to find the four remaining missing sailors. Earlier, as we reported, Radmehr said 10 sailors were also injured during the naval confrontation. The Wall Street Journal has details (based on CENTCOM press release) after two Iranian-flagged tankers came under US attack for attempting to breach the US blockade: U.S. military forces carried out airstrikes on Friday, hitting and disabling two empty Iranian-flagged oil tankers attempting to circumvent the American naval blockade against Iranian ports, according to U.S. Central Command
The vessels struck were very large crude carriers attempting to return to an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman, the M/T Sea Star III and M/T Sevda, according to a statement from Centcom. A U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet jet fighter from the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush fired precision munitions into their smokestacks, disabling the tankers, Centcom said. It marks third time the US has attacked commercial vessels for trying to break through to Iranian ports, following a Wednesday incident which saw a US Navy jet destroy rudder of an Iranian tanker under similar circumstances.

Well, well, WaPo.

“According to the Washington Post, these findings have already been communicated to the US administration..”

• CIA Believes Iran Can Withstand US Blockade For At Least 3-4 Months (TASS)

Analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) believe that Iran will be able to withstand the US naval blockade for at least three to four months before it begins to suffer any serious economic difficulties, The Washington Post reported, citing sources. According to the newspaper, these findings have already been communicated to the US administration. “A confidential CIA analysis delivered to administration policymakers this week concludes that Iran can survive the US naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship, four people familiar with the document said,” the article states. The newspaper points out that this finding “appears to raise new questions about President Donald Trump’s optimism on ending the war.”

“If fighting stops, the money supply shrinks. For Zelenskyy this is a big problem.”

• Trump Mediates 3-Day Ceasefire Between Ukraine and Russia On Victory Day (CTH)

May 9, celebrated as Victory Day, is one of the most significant and heartfelt holidays in Russia, symbolizing resilience, unity, and remembrance. This day honors the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War. It is a time when the nation collectively reflects on its history, pays tribute to those who sacrificed their lives, and celebrates the enduring spirit of its people. Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have noticed the same EU/Ukraine chatter that we drew attention to a few days ago, and Moscow has stopped public attendance from tomorrow’s Victory Day celebration in Red Square. The Russian govt told people to stay away from Moscow central and watch the event on livestream. Other precautions have been similarly announced.

Emboldened by European allies, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy began yesterday by ridiculing a ceasefire offer by Russian intermediaries. As Ukraine was a former part of the United Soviet Socialist Republic (until 1991), Putin views both Ukraine and Russia as celebrating the same Victory Day remembrance; a united victory over Nazism. Zelenskyy, born in 1978, rejects that commonality. However, after President Trump stepped into the discussion, a 3-day ceasefire was brokered.
[Via Truth Social] – “I am pleased to announce that there will be a THREE DAY CEASEFIRE (May 9th, 10th, and 11th) in the War between Russia and Ukraine. The Celebration in Russia is for Victory Day but, likewise, in Ukraine, because they were also a big part and factor of World War II. This Ceasefire will include a suspension of all kinetic activity, and also a prison swap of 1,000 prisoners from each Country. This request was made directly by me, and I very much appreciate its agreement by President Vladimir Putin and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Hopefully, it is the beginning of the end of a very long, deadly, and hard fought War. Talks are continuing on ending this Major Conflict, the biggest since World War II, and we are getting closer and closer every day. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” ~ President DONALD J. TRUMP
Due to the psychology of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in combination with his co-dependent enablers in Europe and the U.K., I would caution everyone to review Ukraine’s participation in the ceasefire tenuously. Zelenskyy, leading a non-NATO member state, gains NATO’s protection because France, Germany, Italy, and the U.K. see Russia as a major threat to Europe. If the conflict stops, Zelenskyy has to start paying for his own nation’s government operations again. Currently all of his state and municipal govt expenses are subsidized by Europe and the USA. If fighting stops there will be a movement to stop giving Ukraine subsidies.
Zelenskyy’s government officials have become very wealthy from the money they are able to skim from U.S, U.K and EU support. The taxpayer laundry operation is very lucrative, and Ukraine is well known for its institutional corruption systems. If fighting stops, the money supply shrinks. For Zelenskyy this is a big problem.

Zelensky et al pump part of the dough back to where it came from. Where it funds campaigns for Democrats and various European parties.

“The EU is pumping money into a company that’s secretly run by one of the most corrupt members of Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle..”

• Did Zelensky’s Cronies Scam The Europeans? (RT)

With €90 billion in EU funding set to flow into Ukraine, the case of ‘game changer’ weapons manufacturer Fire Point offers a glimpse into the black hole that swallows Western money and enriches Vladimir Zelensky’s cronies. nDanish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen was elated when he announced last September that Fire Point – a Ukrainian film casting agency that pivoted to making drones and missiles post-2022 – would set up a rocket fuel plant on Danish soil. b “This is helping Ukraine in its fight for security, its own independence and, no less importantly, its ability to live in peace,” he declared, adding that Fire Point would receive a share of a €1.4 billion ($1.64 billion) Danish fund earmarked for the Ukrainian weapons industry.

Fire Point’s rise has been nothing short of meteoric. From zero experience in weapons in 2022, the company had landed $1 billion in contracts by the time of Poulsen’s announcement, a figure that has since increased almost sevenfold. Fire Point’s FP-1 and FP-2 kamikaze drones are Ukraine’s most widely-used attack UAVs, the company received more than half of the Ukrainian Defense Procurement Agency’s annual spend this year, and its flagship product, the FP-5 ‘Flamingo’ cruise missile, has been hailed by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky as “by far the most successful missile in Ukraine’s arsenal.”
Zelensky has marketed Fire Point’s missiles and drones on most of his 130-plus trips abroad since 2022, talking up their performance to European investors and Gulf monarchies looking for a cost-effective alternative to American systems. As it turns out, there’s a reason for his enthusiasm: Zelensky has a personal stake in Fire Point’s success.
Timur Mindich’s get-rich schemes According to surveillance tapes published by Ukrainskaya Pravda in late April, Fire Point is secretly owned by Timur Mindich, a business magnate and associate of Zelensky known as ‘Zelensky’s wallet’. Mindich fled to Israel last November, moments before he was due to be raided by anti-corruption investigators for his alleged role in a $100 million embezzlement scheme at Energoatom, Ukraine’s nuclear power operator.In the recordings, Mindich confirms that he is running Fire Point and tasks Defense Minister Rustem Umerov (who resigned last year over corruption allegations) with handing contracts to the company and lobbying for its interests abroad. Mindich and Umerov also discuss a potential deal with Arab inventors, which would see each Fire Point shareholder cash out around $300 million.
Allegations of corruption at Fire Point are nothing new. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) has been probing the company for links to Mindich since last August, and has examined whether the company inflated the cost of its products and lied about the number of drones supplied to the Defense Ministry. After a government audit found that Fire Point overcharged the ministry by almost €15 million in a no-bid contract for FP-1 drones, and with the tapes confirming collusion between Umerov and Mindich, the ministry’s internal anti-corruption watchdog called on Wednesday for the company’s nationalization and warned that Fire Point may lose its military contracts once Mindich’s involvement is proven in court.
How badly did the Europeans get scammed? Back in September, Poulsen brushed off mounting allegations of graft against Fire Point. “We have no reason to believe that there is a problem,” he said, adding that any business “established in Denmark must comply with Danish rules.” But Denmark is not the only European country pumping money into Mindich’s operation. While the specific figures are classified, Ukrainskaya Pravda reported that Western countries have contributed “significant” sums of money to the company.
Last May, Germany signed a €5 billion deal to pay for “long-range weapons” produced within Ukraine. Signed after a visit by Zelensky to Berlin, the weapons in question are likely Flamingo cruise missiles. In October, the Netherlands’ then-defense minister, Ruben Brekelmans, announced a €90 million aid package for the production of attack drones within Ukraine, on top of an earlier €200 million round of funding for Ukrainian-made missiles and interceptors. Given that the majority of these domestically built weapons are manufactured by Fire Point, the bulk of this funding likely went to Mindich’s company. Norway and Ukraine signed a €1.3 billion deal for Ukrainian-made missiles in April, while Italy is reportedly exploring a similar arrangement. In the private sector, Fire Point has signed cooperation agreements with Spanish defense giant Sener and Germany’s Diehl Defense – both deals signed after meetings between Zelensky and executives from Sener and Diehl.

“Leaked transcripts have exposed how top Ukrainian officials are trading influence for billions and plotting to escape to the US”

• How Zelensky’s Inner Circle Sought Influence In The US (RT)

Ukraine’s most popular format for political content recently seems to be reading aloud invective-laden transcripts of Vladimir Zelensky’s closest political allies scheming about stealing in Russian. The ‘Mindich tapes’ could have serious ramifications for the government, as they purport to implicate Zelensky in unabashed corruption. The root of the escalating graft scandal lies in an investigation that Western-backed Ukrainian law enforcement agencies conducted into Timur Mindich – a business associate of Zelensky, known as his ‘bagman’ or ‘wallet’ in Kiev – who is now a fugitive and is fighting an extradition request from his hideout in Israel.

Investigators from the Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) wiretapped Mindich’s luxury apartment in Kiev – reportedly between April and July 2025, when Zelensky tried to take control of the agency and triggered a wave of mass protest and rebukes from his Western backers. Some of the Mindich tapes served as evidence in their case exposing a $100 million extortion scheme, allegedly masterminded by Zelensky’s bagman, at Ukrainian state-owned atomic energy company Energoatom, and which led to Mindich running to Israel. Since mid-April, the Ukrainian public has been showered with what are purportedly parts of the records, though none have been officially released by the authorities.
Are the Mindich tapes authentic and who released them?
Ukrainian political commentators broadly assume that they are. Zelensky’s office has not claimed that they are fabricated, and there are notable intersections between releases by different sources. The ongoing wave of publications was launched on April 23 by former SAPO prosecutor Stanislav Bronevitsky. Ukrainskaya Pravda journalist Mikhail Tkach was behind a major disclosure on April 28 – which RT reviewed in detail previously – with another installment coming on May 1. Opposition lawmakers Yaroslav Zheleznyak and Aleksey Goncharenko have produced multiple Mindich tape videos – the latter reading them to an empty parliament chamber.
Why are the Mindich tapes being leaked?
The motives behind the disclosures remain unclear. Did the investigators leak them to overcome pressure that Zelensky reportedly subjects them to behind closed doors? Did Mindich and other suspects shoot a proverbial cannon across the bow as a warning to Zelensky that they won’t sink alone? There are some caveats, however. People in the transcript talk informally and omit context. For instance, they refer to acquaintances by their personal names or nicknames. ‘Vova’, often mentioned in the tapes, is believed to be Zelensky himself. Consequently, identification of mentioned individuals falls on the media.
What’s the bottom line?
The transcripts suggest that Zelensky’s inner circle sees indefinite war as a corporate opportunity and exerts improper influence over the government to maximize their profits, counting on their patron to protect them.
What are the most scandalous claims?
Arguably the most salacious of the latest leaks involves Mindich and Zelensky’s then-defense minister – presently the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council – Rustem Umerov discussing what they believe to be US President Donald Trump’s relations with glamorous women, while debating potential candidates to be Ukrainian ambassador in the US.“You know who would be great? Svetka. Trump would go crazy about her,” Umerov said. He and Mindich agreed that the “curly” bombshell would make “everyone there chase her.”
This is apparently a reference to former Energy Minister Svetlana Grinchuk, appointed by her disgraced predecessor and alleged romantic partner, German Galushchenko, who like him, was forced to resign after Mindich was charged with siphoning off $100 million from state energy producer Energoatom. Grinchuk was also deputy energy minister under Galushchenko.Mindich and Umerov debated the pros and cons of several officials who could represent Kiev’s interests in Washington, DC but agreed that Grinchuk had the best chances to get regular face time with “the old man.”
What were Mindich and Umerov plotting?
Mindich and his group were apparently seeking political and financial leverage. For instance, they wanted their man overseeing the nationalized Sense Bank, a potential source of business credit. Umerov, who was facing resignation at the time of the recording, was highly interested in receiving a special diplomatic appointment that would allow him free travel abroad. He was eyeing privileges similar to those enjoyed by ‘Vitya’ – apparently Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff.
Freedom to fly to the US and back would help Umerov – whose family lives in Miami – protect Mindich’s interests, he told the businessman. A conversation between Mindich and Sergey Shefir, a business partner of Zelensky who served as presidential adviser from 2019-2024, offers a glimpse of the cutthroat nature of Ukrainian politics. Apparently, Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, sabotaged a planned appointment of Evgeny Korniychuk as ambassador to Germany over suspicions that the career diplomat served as an anonymous source for a Politico article in which he was criticized. Is Mindich a power broker or a businessman?
Both. Many of the conversations were about the arms industry and Zelensky’s often-touted ‘miracle arms maker’ Fire Point, which the leaked records prove Mindich ran, with Umerov steering defense contacts his way. One person called by his full name in the tapes is a major figure in the US – Google executive Eric Schmidt, known to be tight with the Pentagon and an influential voice on national security policy, including the arming of Ukraine.
Umerov pitched the US billionaire to Mindich as a possible business partner to whom a majority stake in Fire Point could be offered. Schmidt, according to Umerov, has the connections that Fire Point would require to access the lucrative American weapons market and “enter [Silicon] Valley.” Mindich doubted whether US competitors could become partners: “For Americans, we are the f**king worst firm that can break [their plans]. They need to either buy us out or f**k us up. F**king us up is cheaper.”
Do the tapes prove criminality?
Not obviously, but something shady was implied in the discussion of what Mindich and Umerov called Project 23. It may be a weapons manufacturing offshoot. Umerov reminded Mindich that somebody had given instructions not to get German arms giant Rheinmetall involved. The two then discussed discrete funding options for “23” and how the same unnamed person may not agree to the proposal because he is skittish with his significant sums in cash. “He gets money from everywhere. Three from here and five from there. And he has no expenses,” Mindich explained. “He pays what to his driver – $300?”
Umerov gleefully continued: “From the state budget.” MP Zheleznyak, who highlighted this exchange, has argued that Project 23 is what the Mindich group called their ‘obshchak’. The criminal slang term refers to a money pot that all members of a gang are obliged to donate to and which is tapped for their common interests or in case of an emergency. Safekeeping the funds is obviously a role of high responsibility and high risk for any criminal organization. Some media outlets nicknamed Mindich ‘Zelensky’s wallet’ for allegedly playing that role.

“.. Labour will be unable to get a dog catcher elected. I predict the same thing will be happening to the Democrats here in the ‘States, in this year’s midterm.”

• After Every Weapon the Left Used Against Trump, He’s Still Here (Florack)

Brennan handpicked the CIA analysts to compile the ICA and involved only the ODNI, CIA, FBI and NSA, excluding 13 of the then-17 intelligence agencies. He sidelined the National Intelligence Council and forced the inclusion of the discredited Steele dossier despite objections of the authors and senior CIA Russia experts, so as to push a false narrative that Russia secured Trump’s 2016 victory. “This was Obama, Comey, Clapper and Brennan deciding ‘We’re going to screw Trump,’” said Ratcliffe in an exclusive interview. Yeah, I know — big shock. But that was just the beginning.

What followed was the most sustained, coordinated legal and political assault ever launched against a sitting — and former — president in American history. It fits the pattern of the last decade. In short: They threw everything they had at the man. Every weapon within reach. Every arrow in the quiver. And every time, they eventually came up empty-handed and revealing all their desperation and their corruption. Trust me when I tell you, the people have noticed all of this. A Manhattan DA dusted off a years-old bookkeeping dispute that federal prosecutors had previously declined to pursue, repackaged it as a felony, and put a former president on trial. Built on the testimony of a convicted liar, the case ended in a conviction on 34 counts.
Critics called it lawfare. Many legal scholars called it a stretch. The people noticed. Then came the classified documents case in Florida, where a special counsel charged Trump with mishandling materials at Mar-a-Lago — a case ultimately dismissed after the judge found serious prosecutorial overreach. The people noticed. Then came the Georgia case, a sprawling RICO indictment that collapsed under the weight of its own scandal when the DA’s romantic relationship with her hand-picked lead prosecutor came to light. It stalled, stumbled, and became a symbol of the very overreach it embodied — and has since been contradicted by federal investigations.
And then came the federal election obstruction case in D.C., where yet another special counsel attempted to criminalize Trump’s challenges to the 2020 results. After his 2024 victory, it was dropped. The people had noticed and spoke louder than any blue-city grand jury. They also noticed when an investigation into Georgia’s election system revealed that Trump probably had, in fact, won the 2020 election. No small point, though the legacy press has been avoiding it. The people noticed that, too. In New York, the attorney general secured a staggering $450 million civil fraud judgment over property valuations. No victim came forward, no bank claimed a loss. It was later reduced, then overturned on appeal. The people noticed.
A separate civil case brought by E. Jean Carroll produced an $83 million defamation verdict. The pattern was unmistakable: Trump’s enemies wielded the legal system in blue jurisdictions as a political battering ram, and everyone watching knew it. Including the judge overseeing the appeal, who tossed the whole thing out. The people noticed. And when all of that failed, they tried to kill him. Several times. The people saw that, too. And so, we see his voters still support him, and his attackers still can’t fathom why. Or at least, they won’t admit to that understanding. They tried the courts. They tried the ballot. They tried the bullet. He’s still here — and still commanding the loyalty of the voters who put him back in office.
As an aside, the people also watched as the Democrats blew through some $64 million on their illegal Virginia gerrymandering attempt. I suggest that all of that, as it has accumulated, will play large in mid-terms come November. How do I know? Look what happened in the UK this week.The British people have been watching the actions of the Starmer government and have in turn handed Labour a historic loss of some 650 seats. Starmer himself is headed for a No Confidence vote, and Labour will be unable to get a dog catcher elected. I predict the same thing will be happening to the Democrats here in the ‘States, in this year’s midterm.
Thought of the day: If the president could have stopped 9/11 from happening, do you believe he should have done so? Of course you do. So do I. So, can you explain why you have such a problem with the president stopping Iran from obtaining nukes?

A one woman wrecking crew.

• There’s Something About Mary… (CTH)

I have been asked to recap some of my research into cited formats of what I believe to be criminal conduct, with specific statutes against them. This is a recap of one key player who mysteriously seems to avoid scrutiny. If there is one corrupt DC player who has escaped scrutiny for her corrupt endeavors, it would be Mary McCord. More than any other Lawfare operative within Main Justice, Mary McCord sits at the center of every table in the manufacturing of cases against Donald Trump. {GO DEEP} Mary McCord’s husband is Sheldon Snook. At a critical moment he was also the right hand to the legal counsel of Chief Justice John Roberts.

When the Carter Page FISA application was originally assembled by the FBI and DOJ, there was initial hesitancy from within the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) about submitting the application, because it did not have enough citations in evidence (the infamous ‘Woods File’). That’s why the Steele Dossier ultimately became important. It was the Steele Dossier that provided the push, the legal cover needed for the DOJ-NSD to submit the application for a Title-1 surveillance warrant against the campaign of Donald J. Trump. When the application was finally assembled for submission to the FISA court, the head of the DOJ-NSD was John Carlin. Carlin quit working for the DOJ-NSD in late September 2016 just before the final application was submitted (October 21,2016). John Carlin was replaced by Deputy Asst. Attorney General, Mary McCord.
When the FISA application was finally submitted (approved by Sally Yates and James Comey), it was Mary McCord who did the actual process of filing the application and gaining the Title-1 surveillance warrant. A few months later, February 2017, with Donald Trump now in office as President, it was Mary McCord who went with Deputy AG Sally Yates to the White House to confront White House legal counsel Don McGahn over the Michael Flynn interview with FBI agents. The surveillance of Flynn’s calls was presumably done under the auspices and legal authority of the FISA application Mary McCord previously was in charge of submitting.
At the time the Carter Page application was filed (October 21, 2016), Mary McCord’s chief legal counsel inside the office was a DOJ-NSD lawyer named Michael Atkinson. In his role as the legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD, it was Atkinson’s job to review and audit all FISA applications submitted from inside the DOJ. Essentially, Atkinson was the DOJ internal compliance officer in charge of making sure all FISA applications were correctly assembled and documented.
When the anonymous CIA whistleblower complaint was filed against President Trump for the issues of the Ukraine call with President Zelensky, the Intelligence Community Inspector General had to change the rules for the complaint to allow an anonymous submission. Prior to this change, all intelligence whistleblowers had to put their name on the complaint. It was this 2019 IGIC who changed the rules. Who was the Intelligence Community Inspector General? Michael Atkinson.

When ICIG Michael Atkinson turned over the newly authorized anonymous whistleblower complaint to the joint House Intelligence and Judiciary Committee (Schiff and Nadler chairs), who did Michael Atkinson give the complaint to? Mary McCord. Yes, after she left main justice, Mary McCord took the job of working for Chairman Jerry Nadler and Chairman Adam Schiff as the chief legal advisor inside the investigation that led to the construction of articles of impeachment. As a consequence, Mary McCord received the newly permitted anonymous whistleblower complaint from her old office colleague Michael Atkinson.

During his investigation of the Carter Page application, Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered an intentional lie inside the Carter Page FISA application (directly related to the ‘Woods File’), which his team eventually tracked to FBI counterintelligence division lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith. Eventually Clinesmith was criminally charged with fabricating evidence (changed wording on an email) in order to intentionally falsify the underlying evidence in the FISA submission. When John Durham took the Clinesmith indictment to court, the judge in the case was James Boasberg.

In addition to being a DC criminal judge, James Boasberg is also a FISA court judge who signed-off on one of the renewals for the FISA application that was submitted using fraudulent evidence fabricated by Kevin Clinesmith. In essence, now the presiding judge over the FISA court, Boasberg was the FISC judge who was tricked by Clinesmith, and now the criminal court judge in charge of determining Clinesmith’s legal outcome. Judge Boasberg eventually sentenced Clinesmith to 6 months probation.
As an outcome of continued FISA application fraud and wrongdoing by the FBI, in their exploitation of searches of the NSA database, Presiding FISC Judge James Boasberg appointed an amici curiae advisor to the court who would monitor the DOJ-NSD submissions and ongoing FBI activities.Who did James Boasberg select as a FISA court amicus? Mary McCord.
Mary McCord submitted the original false FISA application to the court using the demonstrably false Dossier. Mary McCord participated in the framing of Michael Flynn. Mary McCord worked with ICIG Michael Atkinson to create a fraudulent whistleblower complaint against President Trump; and Mary McCord used that manipulated complaint to assemble articles of impeachment on behalf of the joint House Intel and Judiciary Committee. Mary McCord then took up a defensive position inside the FISA court to protect the DOJ and FBI from sunlight upon all the aforementioned corrupt activity.
You can clearly see how Mary McCord would be a person of interest if anyone was going to start digging into corruption internally within the FBI, DOJ or DOJ-NSD.
What happened next….

Marco’s playground. He’ll respect it, it’s where his family is from.

• Marco Rubio Issues a Major Blow to Cuba’s Military Empire (Anderson)

Donald Trump and Marco Rubio aren’t playing around with Cuba anymore, and things are escalating by the day.

Last week, I reported that “signed a new executive order that builds on his January national emergency declaration that Cuba is an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat’ to the United States due its ties to adversaries like Russia, China, and Iran and terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. This EO allows the United States to expand current sanctions and add new restrictions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.” As I said on Friday, it basically allows Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent plenty of leeway to maximize pressure on the crumbling regime and the Castro family.
Well, Rubio isn’t wasting time. On Thursday, May 7, he announced via the State Department that he’s cutting right to the gut of the regime with sanctions on Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), GAESA’s director Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, and Moa Nickel SA (MNSA), a state-owned mining company.
“These sanctions are part of the Trump Administration’s comprehensive campaign to address the pressing national security threats posed by Cuba’s communist regime and hold accountable the regime and those who provide it material or financial support,” Rubio said. “Just 90 miles from the American homeland, the Cuban regime has brought the island to ruin and auctioned off the island as a platform for foreign intelligence, military and terror operations. Additional designations can be expected in the following days and weeks.”
So what exactly do these sanctions do? They freeze any of these entities’ assets in the United States and prohibit any people or companies in the U.S. from doing business with them. However — and this is big — they also threaten foreign people, companies, and financial institutions that do business with GAESA by promising to cut them off from the U.S. banking system and freezing their U.S.-based assets. In case you’re unfamiliar, GAESA functions as a sort of state within a state. Rubio calls it the “Cuban military-controlled umbrella enterprise” that “is the heart of Cuba’s kleptocratic communist system.”
Raúl Castro created it back in the 1990s after the Soviet Union collapsed and Cuba stopped receiving handouts. The goal was to give the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) a hard-currency revenue stream through tourism, imports, retail, and other dollar-generating businesses. Castro’s late son-in-law, Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, ran it for decades, expanding it into what it is today. Lastres is the current executive director, and Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro aka “El Cangrejo” or “The Crab” (and Raúl’s grandson) is informally involved, essentially guarding his family’s interests. He’s the one with whom Rubio has supposedly been talking behind the scenes, but whether that’s true or not has never been confirmed.
Here’s more on GAESA from Rubio’s announcement:
Controlling an estimated 40% or more of the island’s economy, GAESA is involved in various sectors of the Cuban economy and is designed to generate income not for the Cuban people, but only for the benefit of its corrupt elites. While the Cuban people suffer from hunger, disease and chronic under-investment in critical infrastructure such as its power grid, much of the proceeds of GAESA’s activities are funneled away to hidden overseas bank accounts. According to recent public estimates, GAESA’s revenues are likely more than three times the state’s budget, and GAESA likely controls up to $20 billion in illicit assets.
The Trump administration is squeezing the regime harder than any U.S. president ever has, and it looks like it’s only going to go harder in the weeks to come. Make no mistake, the Cuban regime will fall soon. Trump and Rubio are seeing to it.

“Until Independence Day..”

• After Phone Call with Von der Leyen, Trump Delays EU Tariffs (CTH)

There is a certain irony in the timing all things considered. President Trump has given the EU until July 4, 2026, to fulfill the trade agreement previously negotiated (ie. the Turnberry Agreement) or 25% tariffs on EU automobiles will be triggered.

(Via Truth Social) – “I had a great call with The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. We discussed many topics, including that we are completely united that Iran can never have a Nuclear Weapon. We agreed that a regime that kills its own people cannot control a bomb that can kill millions. I’ve been waiting patiently for the EU to fulfill their side of the Historic Trade Deal we agreed in Turnberry, Scotland, the largest Trade Deal, ever! A promise was made that the EU would deliver their side of the Deal and, as per Agreement, cut their Tariffs to ZERO! I agreed to give her until our Country’s 250th Birthday or, unfortunately, their Tariffs would immediately jump to much higher levels. Thank you for your attention to this matter.” ~ President DONALD J. TRUMP
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer recently spoke directly about what was creating this problem. His interview and explanation in detail is below (MUST WATCH):

“History records no pity for parties that choose purity over competence, vengeance over vision, pathology over pragmatism. The long night is not coming. It is here. . . . ” —LHGrey on X

• California Death Trip (James Howard Kunstler)

The Pacific Palisades fire ignited on January 7, 2025, in the very last days of the “Joe Biden” fake presidency. 6,837 total buildings destroyed plus about 1,000 damaged. The Altadena fire across town in Eaton Canyon was arguably worse: 9,418 buildings destroyed. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was in Ghana at the time to attend the inauguration of president John Dramani Mahama, part of a small U.S. presidential delegation sent by the “Biden” administration.

Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, Brian Williams, overseer of the Police and Fire Departments, was on administrative leave at the time due to an alleged bomb threat against City Hall that he reportedly made in September / October 2024. The FBI raided his house that December, and in 2025 he copped a plea deal (guilty) to making threats involving fire and explosives. So, he was out of action during the fires.
There you have the rectified essence of how the Democratic Party operates in America’s biggest state. Is it not astonishing that Karen Bass is running for reelection? How could she possibly be forgiven? A large number of people employed in the movie business got burned out of their homes in the fires, and then city and state regulatory nonsense prevented them from rebuilding — on top of insurance company hocus-pocus that left families financially wrecked. Is it a surprise that the city’s flagship industry is dying now (film production down 32-percent on a five-year average)? What is LA without Hollywood?
And yet the show-biz celebs are still coming out to pimp for Democratic Party politicians. This is the kind of thing that forces you to conclude that an epic madness burns as hotly through the minds of Californians as the fires that ripped through the canyons in 2025. I know from personal experience as a college theater major that actors can be exceptionally stupid, but that can’t wholly account for what we’re seeing.
Wednesday’s primary debates had these villains on florid display. Because LA’s ranked-choice mayoral primary race styles itself “non-partisan,” candidate Spencer Pratt (a registered Republican) was on-hand for the debate. When the subject of LA’s cataclysmic homelessness came up, drug addicts living (if you can call it that) in wretched, filthy encampments all over the public space of the city, Mayor Bass bragged that she’d significantly reduced the problem, which is obviously and mendaciously untrue. LA City Council member Nithya Raman, who labels herself “progressive,” bragged on putting the homeless into shelters (i.e., motel rooms at $100-K per person per year.)
Spencer Pratt attempted to inject a little reality into the discussion about putting the homeless into homes: “No matter how many beds you give these people, they are on super meth, they are on fentanyl. The DEA [Drug Enforcement Agency] statistic says 93-percent of this is a drug addiction problem. These people do not want a bed — they want fentanyl or super meth.” Pratt is currently running third in the polls. In ranked-choice voting, the top two winners in the primary will face off in the November election. Currently Bass is polling in the lead and Nithya Raman is running second. If the numbers stay that way, the winner in November could finish Los Angeles off. Blade Runner, here we come.
But there’s still a chance that Spencer Pratt might place well in the June 2 primary just as Golden Tempo shot from dead last to win the Kentucky Derby last week. The seductions of the Marxist race hustle have worn a little thin, even for Angelenos. Karen Bass looks increasingly ridiculous grinning about her abject failures, which Mr. Pratt lays out relentlessly in plain talk. His reality-testing seems to be getting some minds right, gaining real traction. Nithya Raman has the charisma of a mung bean.
The gubernatorial debate was equally edifying, especially the spectacle of Democratic Candidates Katie Porter’s and billionaire Tom Steyer’s rousing lack of self-awareness. Ms. Porter, renowned for dumping a pot of steaming mashed potatoes over her ex-husband’s head, and for her crotchety way with the (friendly) news media and her own staff, made the astounding statement that “the public servants we have are focused on doing their job, which is not cooperating with the federal immigration authorities.” That’s their job? Hmmmm. Mr. Steyer went further and said he would arrest ICE agents going about their business. You think . . .? (I would think that a Governor Steyer would find himself arrested by the feds for attempting such a stunt.)
The governor’s race is also a rank-choice contest. So, Republican Steve Hilton was on-hand to break the reality-optional spell that shrouded the stage like a poisonous miasma. After several Democrats made a show of deploring the grotesque homeless druggie encampments from Nob Hill to MacArthur Park, Mr. Hilton said “[They] talk as if we’re in some parallel universe where Democrats haven’t been running the state for the last sixteen years.” He shares the lead in the polls in the large field at 18-percent with Xavier Becerra, who was “Joe Biden’s” Secretary of Health and Human Services, meaning, he presided over the vaxx mandates and lockdowns of the Covid operation.

“Dealing Stinging Blow To Democrats”

Redistricting, gerrymandering. Everybody’s favorite new hobby…

• Virginia Supreme Court Overturns Redistricting Referendum (JTN)

The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the state’s redistricting referendum was unconstitutional and struck down the redraw of the state’s House maps. “We hold that the legislative process employed to advance this proposal violated Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia,” they wrote. “This constitutional violation incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy.” The decision is a considerable blow to House Democrats, who had hoped to balance out the redistricting efforts of several Republican-leaning states to improve their odds in the November midterms.

The referendum saw voters narrowly back a plan to temporarily redraw the congressional maps in a manner that would have heavily favored Democrats. While the state currently has six Democrats and five Republicans in the House, the proposed redraw would have likely sent ten Democrats and one Republican to Washington.
With Virginia’s redraw struck down, Republicans appear poised to secure a net gain in partisan-leaning seats through redistricting. Texas, Florida, and Tennessee have already redrawn the maps, while Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina are either expected to do so or exploring their own redraws. The wave of redistricting pushes follows the Supreme Court striking down race-based congressional districts and narrowing its interpretation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

“..we must stand on our own feet and be able to defend our continent ourselves.”

• Former NATO Chief Warns Bloc on Verge of ‘Disintegration’ (JTN)

Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen this week warned that the alliance was on the verge of collapse and urged European members to form an internal security bloc to prepare for the eventual collapse of the transatlantic military bloc. His remarks come amid increasingly prominent comments from Trump administration officials expressing their disappointment with NATO amid frustrations over European allies declining to assist with the Iran war.

“What we are witnessing right now is the disintegration of NATO, and that is dangerous,” Rasmussen told WELT. “President Trump has raised so many doubts about his commitment to Article 5 and to the defense of Europe that there can be only one conclusion for Europeans: we must stand on our own feet and be able to defend our continent ourselves.”
The Trump administration has repeatedly clashed with NATO members, not merely over Iran, but over Ukraine and Washington’s generally more reserved approach to the eastern European conflict than that of its predecessor. The Ukraine war is in its fifth year and shows no signs of an imminent end. The conflict has raised concerns in Europe over their future security situation should Russia triumph.

“Every person has a soul. That’s the Christian view, and not just the Christian view, it’s the Islamic view, too. And it’s my view.”

• The NY Times Interviews Tucker Carlson, and It Gets Worse From There (Spencer)

The fact that the New York Times would interview Tucker Carlson in the first place is an indication of how much the former Fox host has gone off the rails. The Times only interviews people who support its far-left worldview, including its endless vilification of Israel for alleged war crimes in Gaza, and Carlson was ready with the goods. In his interview, which was published Saturday, Carlson adopts the pose of a moral philosopher to attack the Jewish state, and Judaism as well, from a new angle:

I think what we’re seeing is evil. Are you allowed to kill people who’ve committed no crime? No. Super simple. You’re not allowed to do that. Under no moral standard is that allowable. All of a sudden it’s allowable in Gaza, and our leaders are like, Yeah, it’s totally fine. It’s not fine. It’s repugnant to the Christian understanding of the world and the human soul. Every person has a soul. That’s the Christian view, and not just the Christian view, it’s the Islamic view, too. And it’s my view.
So you see, his implication here is that while Christians and Muslims believe that everyone has a soul, those wicked Jews do not, and so they don’t hesitate to kill people who have committed no crime in Gaza. Virtually every aspect of this statement is false, and since Carlson still wields massive influence, all the falsehoods must be exposed.
Carlson includes a kernel of truth in his lies and deflections, and that makes them all the more insidious. Like Christianity, Islam does indeed teach that “every person has a soul.” But the Qur’an also teaches that non-Muslims are “like cattle, no, they are worse.” (7:179) It says that non-Muslims are “the most vile of created beings” (98:6), and calls them “the worst of animals” (8:55).
These aren’t mere words, either. The Qur’an also states: “Muhammad is the apostle of Allah. Those who follow him are ruthless to unbelievers, merciful to one another.” (48:29) Ruthless in what way? The Qur’an tells Muslims to “kill them wherever you find them” (2:191, 4:89, 4:91) and, just in case that wasn’t clear enough, adds “kill the idolators wherever you find them” (9:5). This includes pretty much everyone, for in the Qur’anic view, virtually every non-Muslim is an idolater.
Tucker Carlson is speaking as if Christians and Muslims share a moral high ground over Judaism. Yet it is the Qur’an, and not Judaism, that teaches what Carlson is claiming. There is an idea within Jewish tradition that Jews and non-Jews have different souls, based on the special responsibilities Jews have before God, but this does not involve or lead to the idea that, because of this difference, non-Jews can be killed without scruple or hesitation.
A genuine authority on Judaism, Rabbi Prof. David Golinkin, says that “Jewish law and tradition are thoroughly opposed to the murder of innocent non-Jews,” and provides several references from Jewish sources to establish the principle that “the Murder of Non-Jews is Murder”: “Entziklopedia Talmudit, Vol. 5, cols. 355-358, s.v. Goy; Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur, Torat Hamelekh, Samaria, 2000, pp. 17-27; Rabbi M. M. Kasher, Torah Sheleimah, Vol. 17, pp. 77-78, paragraphs 263-264; Rabbi J. D. Eisenstien, Otzar Yisrael, Vol. 10, New York, 1913, pp. 12-14, s.v.Retzihah.”
Tucker Carlson, however, is far better known than Rabbi Prof. David Golinkin, and knows that millions of people will believe him, thinking that he is giving them the real truth as opposed to what the sinister and shadowy elites want them to believe. Yet what he is actually doing is demonizing Israel, Judaism, and Jews as a whole on false pretenses, while ignoring the reality of Islamic jihad, and presenting a portrait of Islam that is as rosy and unrealistic as his portrayal of Judaism is hateful and inaccurate.
Carlson also takes for granted the idea that Israeli and American authorities are aware that innocent people are being killed in Gaza, and have no problem with that. In reality, Israel took immense care to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza and was successful in doing so, but it has been the victim of a massive and highly effective propaganda campaign.
In his statements about human souls, Tucker Carlson appears to be basing his statements on antisemitic blood libels that claim that Jews secretly teach that non-Jews are subhuman and can and should be killed. There is a religion that teaches such a thing, but it is not Judaism. It is the religion that Tucker claims teaches, along with Christianity and opposed (in his view) to Judaism, that “every person has a soul.”

He takes it all very seriously.

• Trump Touts Release of UFO files: ‘Have Fun and Enjoy’ (JTN)

President Donald Trump on Friday touted his administration’s release of the first batch of files related to unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and urged readers to draw their own conclusions from the data. The existence of aliens and the government’s knowledge of extraterrestrial life have been the subject of speculation for decades, with many conspiracy theories asserting that the government has hidden the evidence permeating popular culture.

“As for my promise to you, the Department of War has released the first tranche of the UFO/UAP files to the Public for their review and study,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “In an effort for Complete and Maximum Transparency, it was my Honor to direct my Administration to identify and provide Government files related to Alien and Extraterrestrial Life, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, and Unidentified Flying Objects.’ “Whereas previous Administrations have failed to be transparent on this subject, with these new Documents and Videos, the people can decide for themselves, ‘WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?’ Have Fun and Enjoy!” he added.

“After a series of votes and statements putting him at odds with his fellow Democrats over the past year, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., says that he has “no plans to leave” the party.”

• Fetterman: Dems Can’t ‘Simply Be The Opposite’ of ‘Whatever Trump Says’ (JTN)

After a series of votes and statements putting him at odds with his fellow Democrats over the past year, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., says that he has “no plans to leave” the party. “Being an independent voice that works with the other side to deliver for Pennsylvanians might put me at odds with the party that I have stayed committed to and have no plans to leave — but I will continue to put the commonwealth and the country first,” Fetterman wrote in a Washington Post op-ed published on Thursday. “Plus, I’d be a terrible Republican who still votes overwhelmingly with Democrats.” The op-ed written by Fetterman titled, “I haven’t changed. Here’s what has,” details his career in elected office and voting record regarding a number of issues over the past year that have garnered pushback from fellow Democrats.

Fetterman wrote that his focus in office remains on “working together to find wins and deliver for my constituents” and says, although he was elected as a Democrat, he’s “proud to serve all Pennsylvanians. “It has become increasingly lonely to serve in that way, but I firmly believe it’s what is needed,” Fetterman wrote. “My party cannot simply be the opposite of whatever President Donald Trump says. The president could come out for ice cream and lazy Sundays, and my party would suddenly hate them. Such pointless pile-ons and attacks are unproductive. The American people want us to work together to find solutions on issues they and our country face.”
Throughout recent appearances, Fetterman has claimed that his party has “TDS,” a shortened reference to “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, a Democrat from Philadelphia who also serves as a vice chair for the Democratic National Committee, called Fetterman “a mess” in a social media post in late April after Fetterman suggested his party had TDS for opposing the Trump administration’s renovation plans for a White House ballroom.
Kenyatta isn’t the only party official to take issue with Fetterman over some stances. In March 2025, Cumberland County Democratic Party Chairman Matt Roan called for Fetterman to resign from office after he supported some of Trump’s cabinet nominees. Earlier this week, the Monroe County Democratic Party called Fetterman a “traitor” and for him to be voted out of office after he didn’t rule out voting for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for a cabinet position. The areas Fetterman specifically highlighted in the op-ed that have garnered the most headlines included immigration policy, government shutdowns, and supporting Israel.
While defending his record on immigration, he highlighted his support for the Laken Riley Act as the lead Democrat, his vote for a bipartisan immigration reform bill in 2024, and his co-sponsorship of legislation to stop the flow of fentanyl. Fetterman said that he “took no pleasure” in voting against his party amid government shutdowns, but believes that “the demand to keep the lights on weighed more heavily than partisan games.” With regard to Israel and the war in Gaza, Fetterman said that he “appreciates” that the Trump administration “acted on the threat Iran and its proxies pose.”
“These once-common views have become increasingly toxic in the Democratic Party, a result of catering to the fringe and agitated parts of our base,” Fetterman wrote. “My values have not changed, and I have always turned to those kinds of ideals that defined being a Democrat,” he continued. “I remain strongly pro-choice, pro-weed, pro-LGBT, pro-SNAP, pro-labor and even pro-rib-eye over bio slop.”Fetterman also underscored his work to deliver federal funding for transportation projects in the state, and a series of bipartisan bills, including one that would allow Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients to use their benefits to buy hot rotisserie chicken, another that intends to protect the mental health of kids, and lastly legislation that helps keep Americans in their homes.
Chatter over the past few months about Fetterman’s commitment to the Democratic Party has increased amid declining poll numbers within the party and a recent Politico article highlighting a Republican effort to get him to switch parties. Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Greg Rothman told the Center Square in April that he wouldn’t rule out the party supporting Fetterman’s bid in 2028 if he switched parties. Gov. Josh Shapiro and U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick have also addressed the chatter in interviews this week.
“I don’t know what Senator Fetterman’s going to do. I know that Pennsylvanians voted for a Democrat to represent them in the U.S. Senate,” Shapiro said to CNN this week. “So, I think he needs to honor that and continue with his service with Pennsylvania and get back to what he was elected to do and reflect the will of the people.” McCormick told NBC10 Philadelphia this week that he has not talked to Fetterman about switching parties, but that he “would welcome him.” “I’ve never talked to him about changing parties, honestly,” McCormick told NBC10’s Lauren Mayk. “I feel blessed to have him as my colleague, we’ve developed a real relationship of trust.”

Only when you drive the Cybertruck do you realize how incredible it is: a bulletproof tank that moves like a million dollar sports car!

Reason for the angular shape is that the thick, ultra-hard stainless steel body panels cannot be stamped like the thin, feeble, paper-strength… https://t.co/mc4YRbe4J4
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 7, 2026

DR. DAVID MARTIN: "The WHO is a criminal racketeering organization founded by EUGENICISTS — running a VACCINE PROFIT MACHINE since 1953."

Not healthcare.
Biological racketeering.
Decades of engineered harm for power and profit.

They’re coming for us again. Will you be ready? pic.twitter.com/RFymj4da3E
— Valerie Anne Smith (@ValerieAnne1970) May 7, 2026

https://twitter.com/NicHulscher/status/2051828632658522283?s=20 https://twitter.com/GreereMedeea/status/2052415721766830209?s=20

In 458 BC, Rome was on the brink of collapse.

An invading army had trapped the Roman consul and his legion in a mountain pass. Panic spread through the city. The Senate did the only thing they could think of:

They sent messengers to find a 60-year-old farmer plowing his field.… pic.twitter.com/qcQkkCBlqI
— Ancient History Hub (@AncientHistorry) May 7, 2026

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

Debt Rattle October 23 2024

Oct 232024

October 23, 2024 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:34 am Finance Tagged with: ActBue, Biden, diktat, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, meltdown, Polymarket, suspicious donations, trade war, Trump, Virginia 87 Responses »

René Magritte After the water, the clouds 1926

• Biden Wants Trump ‘Locked Up’ (RT)

• “This Is War”: Musk Responds To Bombshell “Kill Twitter” Plot (ZH)

• Musk’s Trump Support Follows Wave Of Government Probes Into His Companies (JTN)

• Polymarket Is Singlehandedly Moving The Entire US Bond Market (ZH)

• Biden Admin Under Fire Over Virginia Non-Citizen Voter Removals (Turley)

• Two Weeks Before the Meltdown Begins (Miele)

• Questions Are All “Pre Determined” At Kamala’s FAKE Town Hall (MN)

• Trump-Rogan Interview Set For Friday: Politico (ZH)

• Texas AG Demands FEC Action Over ‘Suspicious Donations’ To Democrats (ZH)

• Ukrainian Troops Increasingly Refusing Orders – El Pais (RT)

• Dumping US Dollar ‘Keeps Politics Out Of Economic Development’ – Putin (RT)

• Dollar’s Diktat Will Prove Its Downfall Once Emerging Powers Unite (Sp.)

• EU Bracing For Trade War With Trump – Politico (RT)

• Sharp Rise In Russia’s Share Of EU LNG Market (RT)

• Harris Denies Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza – Campaign (Antiwar)

• Biblical Cruelty Took Power In Israel: “Mein Kampf In Reverse” (José Goulão)

Both candidates Harris and Trump loose and win the election at the same fime. Schrödinger's election. 🙂 pic.twitter.com/WwK5lUeGfl

— Alex is fine (@Lacertko) October 22, 2024

Elon Musk: “It must reach 69%, as foretold in the prophecy”

Vivek

pic.twitter.com/6ci6EHTDvn

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 23, 2024

High speed

Apparently, Facebook doesn’t want you to know that VP Kamala Harris’s signature $42 billion effort to extend internet service to millions of Americans has connected 0 people to date.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr reveals the shocking details ⬇️ https://t.co/YMOzekq0YQ pic.twitter.com/k1JFeJKfzD

— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) October 21, 2024

Election day
https://twitter.com/i/status/1848572247650537955

Count

Yesterday, the Secretaries of State for Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania each went on mainstream media and said they won’t have Election results on Election Night. Clearly coordinated.

Why is it that these key battleground states are the only ones that can’t seem to deliver… pic.twitter.com/oaDH95ROcz

— Patri0tsareinContr0l (@Patri0tContr0l) October 21, 2024

Lara

Lara Trump reveals that before Trump announced he was running for president in 2015, he brought his whole family together and predicted exactly how the media & the deep state would come after them

"They're going to come after us. And it's not just me. It's the whole family."… pic.twitter.com/aDoHltc8av

— George (@BehizyTweets) October 21, 2024

Convicted felon

Every time someone says Trump is a “convicted felon” show them this…….@megynkelly masterfully explains the truth and law. pic.twitter.com/6WLixsikaE

— Spitfire (@DogRightGirl) October 21, 2024

RFK

No matter what state you live in, vote Trump. This may be our last chance to protect our Constitutional rights. America is turning into a one-party state, fast. So far the Supreme Court has restrained the censorship-industrial complex run by the Democrats. But if they win this… pic.twitter.com/mKLLPCLOUn

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) October 22, 2024

https://twitter.com/i/status/1848550176925093961

Dana White

DANA WHITE: “The narrative that has been flipped on Donald Trump is one of the craziest things I have ever seen… From 20 years of experience, Donald Trump is a good person. I would never back a guy who is a racist… or someone who wanted to start WW3.”pic.twitter.com/zmKkoIuqde

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) October 21, 2024

IRS

IRS used AI to spy on American Citizens.
Rep. Harriet Hageman: "What we have learned is that the IRS, in fact, has been using AI to access bank accounts of American citizens without any kind of a search warrant or even without any specific claim that they have committed a crime.… pic.twitter.com/3WLmco37L0

— Camus (@newstart_2024) October 21, 2024

Tulsi

Tulsi Gabbard: “I'm excited about Trump winning because of the people that he's chosen to surround himself with.”

“You've got Bobby Kennedy who is sitting in position and already starting to choose people who recognize how broken our healthcare system is and bringing about the… pic.twitter.com/NpFp56FAuK

— End Tribalism in Politics (@EndTribalism) October 22, 2024

Scripted clickbait. “I know this sounds bizarre. If I had said this five years ago, you’d lock me up, but we’ve got to lock him up..”

• Biden Wants Trump ‘Locked Up’ (RT)

US President Joe Biden has claimed that Republican contender Donald Trump wants presidential immunity and powers to kill his opposition, and therefore should be locked up, as he spoke to a Democratic crowd with the election just half a month away. Biden, who stepped aside earlier this year to allow Vice President Kamala Harris to become the Democratic nominee, made the statement at a campaign office in New Hampshire on Tuesday. “He thinks he has a version of the Supreme Court ruling on immunity that allows him, if necessary, to physically eliminate someone he believes is a threat to him,” he said, referring to former President Trump. “I know this sounds bizarre. If I had said this five years ago, you’d lock me up, but we’ve got to lock him up,” Biden stated, drawing applause from the audience.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1848854784054571349

“Politically lock him up,” he clarified amid the crowd noise, seemingly backtracking on his statement. “Lock him out. That’s what we have to do.” Biden has faced scrutiny in the media over numerous gaffes, often misspeaking at similar events. He stepped aside as his party’s contender earlier this year amid concerns about his mental state following a disastrous televised debate against Trump. Last week, Biden suggested that Trump is running for president again “to stay out of jail,” referencing the Republican’s legal troubles.

Earlier this year, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on 34 charges related to falsifying business documents to cover up hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels. Trump also faces charges related to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots. He denies any wrongdoing and insists that all of his legal troubles are a political witch hunt by his opponents. After Biden endorsed Harris as his party’s nominee, the Democrats initially enjoyed a honeymoon period with voters, rising in the polls. However, recent averages from the RCP polling data aggregator indicate that Trump is leading in all swing states.

“..British advisors from Labour Together rescuing the distressed political damsel that is the Harris/Walz campaign..”

• “This Is War”: Musk Responds To Bombshell “Kill Twitter” Plot (ZH)

Elon Musk has responded to a bombshell report by journalists Paul Thacker and Matt Taibbi which reveals that a the UK’s Center for Countering Digital Hate – which is advising the Kamala Harris campaign, aims to “kill Musk’s Twitter”. [..] The British are coming, to meddle in our elections! In an explosive leak with ramifications for the upcoming U.S. presidential election, internal documents from the Center for Countering Digital Hate—whose founder is British political operative Morgan McSweeney, now advising the Kamala Harris campaign—show the group plans in writing to “kill Musk’s Twitter” while strengthening ties with the Biden/Harris administration and Democrats like Senator Amy Klobuchar, who has introduced multiple bills to regulate online “misinformation.”

[..] The documents obtained by The DisInformation Chronicle and Racket show CCDH’s hyperfocus on Musk — “Kill Musk’s Twitter” is the first item in the template of its monthly agenda notes dating back to the early months of this year. KILL, KILL, KILL: No matter what else the CCDH talks about, “Kill Musk’s Twitter” is its first item of business. The Center for Countering Digital Hate is the anti-disinformation activist ally of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, and a messaging vehicle for Labour’s neoliberal think tank, Labour Together. Both the CCDH and Labour Together were founded by Morgan McSweeney, a Svengali credited with piloting Starmer’s rise to Downing Street, much as Karl Rove is credited with guiding George W. Bush to the White House.

The CCDH documents carry particular importance because McSweeney’s Labour Together political operatives have been teaching election strategy to Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, leading Politico to call Labour and the Democrats “sister parties.” CCDH’s focus on “Kill Musk’s Twitter” also adds to legal questions about the nonprofit’s tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) organization. According to the IRS, CCDH could lose its special tax status if “a substantial part of its activities is attempting to influence legislation.” Yet, CCDH’s third item on its annual priority list is “Trigger EU and UK regulatory action” and the group previously employed the firm Lot Sixteen to lobby congressional offices on “misinformation” in Washington. Both The DisInformation Chronicle and Racket have sent multiple, extensive questions to CCDH’s current CEO Imran Ahmed, another British political operative tied to McSweeney’s Labour Together. [..]

In the last two months, the Washington Post and Politico, among others, have run a series of features about British advisors from Labour Together rescuing the distressed political damsel that is the Harris/Walz campaign. Politico casts McSweeney as the “election mastermind” who first helped Keir Starmer defeat leftist Jeremy Corbyn to become the head of Labour, all the way to Starmer’s “landslide” win over Conservatives to become Prime Minister this past July, implying that McSweeney and his team can perform a similar miracle for Harris.

“Take the red pill..”

• Musk’s Trump Support Follows Wave Of Government Probes Into His Companies (JTN)

As Elon Musk ramps up his $1 million-a-day support for Donald Trump, what appears to be a record of progressive harassment of his many companies may explain how the world’s richest man went all-in for Republicans. Musk’s transformation from a politically unengaged tech billionaire to mega-donor and avid campaigner has earned him the ire of Democrats who have derided “disinformation” on his X platform and suggest he is violating the law in his support for Trump. Undeterred, Musk, touting his most recent effort over the weekend, announced that his Trump-supporting Save America PAC would give away $1 million a day to people who sign an online petition pledging support for the First and Second Amendments. To date, the multibillionaire has reportedly dumped $75 million of his own cash into the political action committee to support Trump’s third bid for the presidency.

He has also joined the candidate on the campaign trail and is holding events in swing state Pennsylvania, becoming a de facto surrogate for the former president. “Take the red pill,” Elon Musk posted to X, alluding to the famous choice in the cult-classic movie “The Matrix” which has now come to represent a choice between the Red (Republican) and Blue (Democratic) political parties. Musk’s evolution into a fervent Trump supporter comes after years increasingly aggressive probes into his four companies by various agencies of the Biden administration for seemingly frivolous and potentially serious concerns alike. It is likely no accident that Musk now wants to see the government reduced in size and scope after burdensome lawsuits and regulatory actions against his companies, previously saying publicly that bureaucracy is “smothering” large projects in the United States.

Most recently, a California body responsible for managing the coastlines blocked a proposal for the Defense Department on behalf of SpaceX for increasing launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base in the state. Musk’s SpaceX has raked in billions from contracts primarily with DOD and NASA. The California Coastal Commission drew scrutiny after its members voiced criticisms of Musk’s political leanings during a meeting about whether to approve more frequent launches by the company in addition to other concerns, like the environment. “We’re dealing with a company, the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race and he’s managed a company in a way … that I find to be very disturbing,” said agency chair Caryl Hart. “The Coastal Commission has one job — take care of the California coast,” Musk shot back on X Tuesday before SpaceX filed a lawsuit against the commission.

“It is illegal for them to make decisions based on what they (mostly wrongly) think are my politics.” “Rarely has a government agency made so clear that it was exceeding its authorized mandate to punish a company for the political views and statements of its largest shareholder and CEO,” SpaceX alleged in the 45-page lawsuit. This is not the first time Musk’s SpaceX has been the target of government action. Last August, the Department of Justice announced a high profile lawsuit against the space exploration company for allegedly discriminating against asylum claimants and refugees in its hiring process. The suit alleged Musk’s company “routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status,” according to the DOJ press release.

“SpaceX was told repeatedly that hiring anyone who was not a permanent resident of the United States would violate international arms trafficking law, which would be a criminal offense,” Musk said in post to X, which he acquired in a $44 billion deal in 2022. “We couldn’t even hire Canadian citizens, despite Canada being part of NORAD! This is yet another case of weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes.” Several months later, a federal judge in Texas blocked the administrative case against the company from proceeding while it challenged the specific internal adjudication process. In a preliminary ruling earlier this year, a Texas judge ruled that the internal DOJ administrative panel process was unconstitutional, though the decision is not binding on the federal government.

“..both Treasuries and the Mexican peso appear to be pricing in a rising probability of Donald Trump winning..”

• Polymarket Is Singlehandedly Moving The Entire US Bond Market (ZH)

Online betting exchange Polymarket has not only taken the attention space by storm, rapidly becoming one of the most downloaded Apple apps… it is also quickly becoming a key driver behind the world’s largest and most liquid bond market. According to Bloomberg’s Masaki Kondo writes, Polymarket has become instrumental in setting at least the near-term price signals not only for the $28 trillion marketable US Treasury markets, but also for FX markets: that’s because both Treasuries and the Mexican peso appear to be pricing in a rising probability of Donald Trump winning the US presidential election, as indicated by Polymarket, while ignoring traditional polls which for the most part still show Kamala in the lead.

As this Bloomberg chart shows, the benchmark 10Y yield has been closely tracking the spread in the perceived odds of a vote victory between Trump and Kamala Harris. This difference has reached almost 30% points, according to data from Polymarket, with Trump seen leading the race, and where competitors such as Kalshi and PredictIt now show the same odds with a notable delay behind Polymarket which has emerged as the undisputed leader in the online betting space. Even such Bloomberg luminaries as John Authers admit Polymarket’s role in setting bond prices: “In the last few months, it’s striking that the 10-year yield has traced the Trump odds according to Polymarket — an offshore market that may be over-influenced by a few large bettors, but which seems to be driving opinion on Wall Street.”

Of course, Polymarket is just the starting signal: the actual driver behind the blowout move in yields, which as we noted earlier have surged by a whopping 50bps since the Fed’s very unironic 50bps rate cut one month ago…is because memory is still be fresh among bond traders that the 10-year yield soared almost 80bps in about a month after Trump’s last victory in November 2016. Granted, one can argue this time may be different, as the jump in yields back then was in part driven by the start of the Federal Reserve’s tightening cycle while the direction of Fed policy is the opposite now, but the kneejerk reaction to a market that is now is now aggressively pricing in a Trump presidency is there.

“Motor Voter Law..”

• Biden Admin Under Fire Over Virginia Non-Citizen Voter Removals (Turley)

Call it the Mark of Kaine. The heated dispute between the Biden Administration and the State of Virginia just took a curious turn after Virginia lawyers released support for the effort to remove alleged noncitizens from the voting rolls ahead of the presidential election. The main witness against the Biden Administration may prove to be Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) who is on the ballot this election. The Biden Administration sued to stop the removal of 6,303 alleged noncitizens from Virginia’s voter rolls before the election, which is expected to be close in the state. It relies on the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), or the “Motor Voter Law,” which bars “systemic” removals for voters from the rolls less than 90 days before an election. Youngkin ordered compliance with existing laws, citing Virginia code 24.2-439, requiring the removal of noncitizens whose names were added under false pretenses. It also cited Virginia Code 24.2-1019, requiring registrars to immediately notify their county or city prosecutor of such situations.

The NVRA has exceptions for removals within what the Justice Department calls the “quiet” period before an election, including the removal of individuals who are “ineligible to vote because of a criminal conviction or mental incapacity, or for “correction of registration records pursuant to this chapter.” However, the state argues as a threshold matter that these are not systemic removals. The state argues that these are individual actions triggered automatically by citizens identifying themselves as noncitizens but then joining the voting rolls. It is a crime for a noncitizen to vote in the election. The state notes that the voter is notified of the problem and allowed to correct any errors to remain on the rolls. If they do not correct the problem, they are removed from the rolls. However, they can still vote on election day with a “provisional” ballot to challenge any removal.

Virginia is not targeting any group and does not know how these voters might vote. It is responding to a notice coming from the Department of Motor Vehicle of a possible ineligibility and potential criminal act if they person actually votes, which is admittedly rare for noncitizens. While the Justice Department insists that some of these individuals are actually citizens, the system allows for those citizens to remain on the rolls by simply correcting the DMV record. I understand concerns over changes close to the election, but there seemed to be a host of options for the Justice Department short of this lawsuit, including working with the state to be sure that this relatively small number of voters are given ample opportunity to correct their records. This weekend, Virginia added a new wrinkle in the litigation. The Virginia law has been on the books since 2006.

The bipartisan legislation was signed into law by then Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. It has been used without any objection for all those years. However, it now appears that Kaine’s administration specifically asked the Justice Department to determine if the law was compliant with federal laws, including an express inquiry about the NVRA. On December 16, 2006, the Justice Department completed its review and found no objections to the Virginia law though it added that it reserves the right to object in the future to any such laws. Gov. Glenn Youngkin further told Fox News that past governors continued to use the law within the 90 days period without a peep of objection from the Justice Department. These facts distinguish the Virginia case from the Alabama case where a court enjoined removal of names of suspected non-citizens.

“..a red, white and blue cap inscribed with “TUSA,” short for “Told U So America!”

• Two Weeks Before the Meltdown Begins (Miele)

I wouldn’t be much of a political pundit if I weren’t willing to share my prediction for what will happen in 15 days when one of the most important presidential elections in history is decided. So here goes: Donald Trump will win, and he will win convincingly. But that doesn’t mean the progressive left won’t have a meltdown. Just as in 2016, when Trump was first elected president, the media will be dismayed, the Democrats will be shocked, and there will be protests in the streets, possibly violent. Congressional Democrats such as Jamie Raskin will try to prevent Trump from being sworn in by declaring him an insurrectionist. Seven so-called battleground states are supposed to decide the election: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona. But even more important will be the experience of the American people, who in large measure have come to regret the election that put Joe Biden in the White House four years ago.

That is the underlying story that the media will never acknowledge. Polling within the last year shows that less than one-third of Republicans believe Biden is the legitimate president, and 36% of all Americans have doubts about the 2020 election. That is only a feeling, not a fact, but feelings decide presidential elections, and the almost gleeful anti-American thrust of Biden’s presidency has given more than 60% of potential voters a feeling that we are on the wrong track as a nation. Five days before the 2020 election, I published a spoof that proved modestly prophetic as a warning about the pitfalls of a Democratic victory. Called “The Short Happy Presidency of Joe Biden,” it predicted that Kamala Harris would invoke the 25th Amendment immediately after Biden’s inauguration in order to seize power in a bureaucratic coup. It didn’t quite happen that way, of course, but 3 1/2 disastrous years later, Kamala along with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi seemingly used the specter of the 25th Amendment to force Biden to end his reelection bid. Life imitating art.

In my pastiche, President Trump had appeared close to sealing his victory in the 2020 election, thanks to late mail-in votes in Pennsylvania. But “in an emergency session, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court convenes and reverses its earlier ruling that late votes could be counted for up to three days. The new ruling asserts that late voting amounts to election interference ‘on account of Trump winning,’ thus handing the state and the Electoral College victory to Biden.” Exaggerated, yes, but prescient in regard to how courts across the country would eventually rule in Biden’s favor on almost every issue, refusing to look at the evidence of fraud or unconstitutional irregularities. Perhaps the most prophetic aspect of my column four years ago was how I depicted the reaction of Trump to losing a disputed election. Just two days after the inauguration of first Biden and then Harris:

“Former President Donald Trump announces that he is running for re-election in 2024 after taking a four-year rest to catch up on his golf and make a few billion dollars. Trump says his new role model will be Grover Cleveland, the only president to serve non-consecutive terms. “If it’s good enough for Grover, it’s good enough for me!” Trump also tries out a new campaign slogan, as he takes a swing at Biden voters with a red, white and blue cap inscribed with “TUSA,” short for “Told U So America!” When you think about it, that really is the underlying message that Trump has been sharing for the past four years. And Americans got the message – because it matched their lived experience. They saw with their own eyes that the wide-open Biden border was being called secure by Biden, Harris, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. They saw that Biden’s Supreme Court nominee couldn’t say for sure what makes a woman a woman, and then they watched as boys began to dominate girls’ sports. They watched prices on the rise and safety in decline.

Worst of all, they stood helpless as the world seemed to be rushing headlong toward World War III, first in Ukraine, then the Middle East, all the while as China has been threatening to cripple the world economy by attacking Taiwan. So, yes, Trump will be elected as the 47th president of the United States, and the liberal talking heads will melt down just as they did in 2016. But what matters most is what happens after the election, and whether the experience of Americans will reflect renewed prosperity, a safer world, and respect for tradition and common sense. Many will try to prevent that, but making America great again should be a unifying goal. “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” And if I am wrong and Kamala Harris becomes the 47th president, I pray that divine providence takes hold of her and guides her to protect, defend, and strengthen these United States and their Constitution. Seems like a long shot, but without Trump, prayer is all we got.

“..hopefully I will be able to ask some questions that will be in your head..”

• Questions Are All “Pre Determined” At Kamala’s FAKE Town Hall (MN)

Kamala Harris held a “town hall” meeting Monday, giving those in attendance a chance to ask questions and testing her mettle when it comes to being put on the spot. Not really. It was all fake and scripted. The reality of the situation was unintentionally exposed by Maria Shriver, the moderator of the event in Royal Oak, Michigan. Shriver had to inform an audience member that they couldn’t actually ask any real questions at Kamala’s town hall because they were all scripted and handed to Harris beforehand. “We have some pre-determined questions and hopefully I will be able to ask some questions that will be in your head,” Shriver told the person. The thing was full of her own supporters and an anchor who was never going to challenge her on anything.

Word Salads By Kamala™ pic.twitter.com/nU4BciywSM

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 22, 2024

Why did it still have to be fake? What does this tell you about her if she were to become president? Even the press conference for the event was fake with Harris’ handler directing pre selected reporters with pre screened questions. The rest of the fake event was just word salads and empty platitudes as usual. It’s so hard to watch without grinding one’s teeth to pulp from cringing. Enough already. To top it all off they sat war obsessed RINO Liz Cheney next to her. Why can’t she do the fake Q&A on her own?

Kamala is so desperate — now taking issue with President Trump being "humorous."

Then she laughs about trying to put President Trump in jail.

She's a sick, sick person. pic.twitter.com/j9EnjkYK44

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 21, 2024

“..the two have had a complicated relationship..”

• Trump-Rogan Interview Set For Friday: Politico (ZH)

Former President Donald Trump is set to record an interview with podcasting king Joe Rogan on Friday at Rogan’s studio in Austin, Texas. According to Politico, Rogan – who has over 14 million followers on Spotify, continues to dominate national podcast ratings. Trump’s appearance is expected to help Trump win young male voters – after appearing on such podcasts as “This Week w/ Theo Vaughn” and “Full Send.” Trump has never appeared on Rogan’s podcast and the two have had a complicated relationship. In August, Trump called out Rogan after the podcaster claimed that politicians on both sides are manipulative except for Robert Kennedy Jr., who at the time was running for president. -Politico

Reactions have been mixed – with some suggesting this is “incredible news,” and others suggesting this might not go well for the former president. Meanwhile, after rumors first emerged of a Trump appearance on Rogan, Reuters reported that Vice President Kamala Harris ‘could’ also sit down for an interview. (lol)

ActBlue.

• Texas AG Demands FEC Action Over ‘Suspicious Donations’ To Democrats (ZH)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says he has evidence that the Democrat fundraising platform ActBlue is interfering in the 2024 US election by allowing straw donors to mask “bad actors” donating to candidates “Our investigation into ActBlue has uncovered facts indicating that bad actors can illegally interfere in American elections by disguising political donations,” Paxton said in a statement on X. “It is imperative that the FEC close off the avenues we have identified by which foreign contributions or contributions in excess of legal limits could be unlawfully funneled to political campaigns, bypassing campaign finance regulations and compromising our electoral system.”

In a Monday press release, Paxton says he sent a Petition for Rulemaking to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) detailing how “suspicious actors appear to be using ActBlue’s political fundraising platform to make a large number of straw political donations.” “Our investigation into ActBlue has uncovered facts indicating that bad actors can illegally interfere in American elections by disguising political donations.” Last December, Paxton launched an investigation into ActBlue. In August, of this year he said that “straw donations” were systematically being made using false identities through untraceable payment methods. “I am calling on the FEC to immediately begin rulemaking to secure our elections from any criminal actors exploiting these vulnerabilities,” said Paxton. As Fox News reports further;

“ActBlue targets small-dollar donations, the Hill first reported, and has been an integral part of the Democratic fundraising structure, collecting an estimated $1.5 billion from about 7 million donors. While that influx of cash was split among nearly 19,000 campaigns, an excessive amount has gone to the highest profile races. In just the first few days of the Harris campaign, for example, donors gave her $200 million through the platform, per ActBlue’s account on the social platform X, the Hill reported. In September, Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) introduced a bill that would require political committees to collect CVVs — the three- or four-digit “card verification value” on the back of a credit card — along with political donations.

Steil, who chairs the Committee on House Administration, sent a letter to top FEC officials urging them to “immediately initiate an emergency rulemaking to require political campaigns to verify the card verification value (‘CVV’) of donors who contribute online using a credit or debit card, and to prohibit political campaigns from accepting online contributions from a gift card or other prepaid credit cards.” The Aug. 5 request came in response to accusations that ActBlue is skirting campaign donation laws that allow for rampant fraud on the site. Paxton’s office has said previously that “secure elections are the cornerstone of our republic.”

“He fought the entire war on the front line, in Robotino, Soledar, Kherson… He was exhausted, he couldn’t take it anymore and the commanders didn’t give him a break. A few days ago he left, just like that..”

• Ukrainian Troops Increasingly Refusing Orders – El Pais (RT)

Ukrainian servicemen are increasingly refusing to follow orders and fleeing their positions, accusing their leadership of assigning them suicide missions, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Monday, citing several Ukrainian officers. The outlet claimed that soldiers from four brigades fighting near the besieged settlement of Kurakhovo in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic have claimed that “the future of the war is bleak for their interests because there are not enough replacements.” “Why are we retreating? Because we have no rotations, we don’t rest, we are demoralized,” one officer told the outlet, adding that there is a growing problem of Ukrainian soldiers fleeing their positions. “I had a friend, we called him England. He fought the entire war on the front line, in Robotino, Soledar, Kherson… He was exhausted, he couldn’t take it anymore and the commanders didn’t give him a break. A few days ago he left, just like that,” the officer said.

A Ukrainian sergeant who goes by Churbanov also told the Spanish outlet that the shortage of soldiers had become the biggest problem facing the Ukrainian military, noting that servicemen often have to spend three months in their positions without rest or rotation. Another serviceman, identified as Alexander, who serves in the Territorial Defense Forces (TRO), also told El Pais that at one point the 116th TRO brigade near Kurakhovo staged a mass rebellion and refused to follow orders. After that, the whole brigade was supposedly transferred to Sumy Region, from where Kiev launched its incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region, according to the officer. A source within Russia’s security services has also confirmed to the TASS news agency that Ukraine’s 116th TRO brigade had indeed been transferred to participate in the Kursk incursion as punishment for its mutiny.

According to a source cited by the outlet, Kiev was trying to “somehow correct the situation in Kursk Region at the expense of the already demoralized Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers.” Alexander also told El Pais that there had been a high-profile case earlier this month where 100 soldiers of the 123rd TRO Brigade abandoned their positions near Ugledar several days before the city was captured by Russian forces. The officer explained that they did this to “announce that without sufficient training and weapons they were being assigned to a suicidal defense,” according to El Pais. Moscow has long characterized the hostilities in Ukraine as a US-initiated proxy war against Russia in which Ukrainian soldiers were being expended as “cannon fodder” with the complicity of their government.

“..helps to keep economic development free from politics as far as possible in the context of today’s world.”

• Dumping US Dollar ‘Keeps Politics Out Of Economic Development’ – Putin (RT)

Boosting trade settlements in national currencies between members of the BRICS group is a strategic necessity, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said, adding that a shift from the US dollar would strengthen financial independence and reduce geopolitical risks. Russia is currently hosting the 16th annual BRICS Summit in the city of Kazan. The group comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, as well as new members Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the UAE, which joined in January. Speaking on Tuesday with the president of the BRICS New Development Bank, Dilma Rousseff, Putin emphasized that the use of local currencies instead of the dollar or euro “helps to keep economic development free from politics as far as possible in the context of today’s world.”

The unprecedented US-led sanctions campaign against Moscow due to the Ukraine conflict has forced Russia and other BRICS members to seek alternative ways to pursue trade. Russia’s leading banks were banned outright from the SWIFT international payment system back in 2022 as part of the restrictions. Last month, Putin said that Russia was already actively switching to the use of national currencies in cross-border trade with its BRICS partners, and that the group’s members were jointly developing a payment and settlement framework to be used in trading. In August, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said that over 95% of mutual settlements between Russia and its biggest trading partner, China, are carried out using the ruble or yuan. Earlier this month, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said New Delhi was looking to secure its interests and find “workarounds” in settlements with global partners, including Russia.

“Other economies have to improve to a point where the relative US domination declines further, and in that case the alternative system will easily emerge.”

• Dollar’s Diktat Will Prove Its Downfall Once Emerging Powers Unite (Sp.)

The annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank kicked off in Washington, DC on Monday, with the gatherings, set to run through Saturday, expected to focus on the global debt crisis and ways to save the US-led international financial order. Here’s what will need to happen for the dollar’s dominance to fade into history. The US accounts for over a third of the skyrocketing $100 trillion in global public debt, with the country’s $35.75 trillion in borrowing (and climbing) gradually putting the economic behemoth in jeopardy as its share of global GDP by PPP sinks to below 15% – its lowest showing since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and down from a historic high of as much as 50% (in nominal terms) in the mid-1940s and the creation of the Bretton Woods System of international exchange.

“Countries are seeking ways and means of conducting trade and business outside the US-dominated financial architecture, because they are fed up with the US dictating terms to multiple countries, especially by preventing countries from doing business with countries under US sanctions,” Chintamani Mahapatra, founder and chairman of the Kalinga Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies, told Sputnik, commenting on the US’s relative decline against the backdrop of this week’s IMF/World Bank Group meetings. There is essentially no other option for many countries at the moment “to conduct business with countries under US sanctions, even if they do not support US sanctions,” Mahapatra stressed, pointing out that the rising Chinese yuan has a way to go before it can “emerge as a credible international currency,” and that US-led institutions like the IMF, World Bank and WTO will be certain to do their best to “ensure that the US and its allies maintain their dominance in the global financial ecosystem.”

“The combined West will try not to allow an alternative system from rising. And the non-West is hardly united. Countries have complex interdependence,” the observer said. “Thus, one cannot write the obituary of the dollar-dominated system at the moment. Other economies have to improve to a point where the relative US domination declines further, and in that case the alternative system will easily emerge.” “The first step should be to attempt to create an alternative financial system for global trade, so that the payment system can be other than the current financial architecture dominated by the United States. However, de-dollarization is not easy. The emerging economies will have to resolve their bilateral political and security differences before seeking to create a de-dollarized order based on non-discrimination, equity and justness,” Mahapatra emphasized.

For now, “the US, and not many other countries, are benefiting a great deal from the current war in Europe and the West Asian region. Thus, expecting other economies to perform better now is not appropriate,” Mahapatra added. As far as the IMF/World Bank agenda’s focus on debt is concerned, the observer stressed that so long as the dollar’s hegemony is maintained, growing debt in the US will create major risks for the global economy. “Although the US, the largest global economy, is facing huge public debt, the US economy is unlikely to suffer much. After all, the US Federal Reserve prints dollars and not any other country. But decline or turbulence in the US economy due to huge and unsustainable debt will have global ramifications and thus countries are trying to avoid shocks as a natural reaction,” Mahapatra said.

“Our allies have taken advantage of us. More so than our enemies..”

“To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is ‘tariffs’..”

• EU Bracing For Trade War With Trump – Politico (RT)

The EU is bracing for a massive trade war with Donald Trump if he wins the US presidential race in November and erects new barriers to commerce with Europe, Politico reported on Monday, citing senior diplomats and EU officials. Concerns are mounting in EU capitals since the former US president has pledged to target the bloc with a slew of new punitive trade measures in a bid to address what he says are serious imbalances in imports and exports, the outlet said. Washington and Brussels have been at odds over the issue since Trump imposed 25% tariffs on imports of European steel and 10% on aluminum in 2018 in his first term as president, arguing EU competition was endangering US national security. The EU retaliated, imposing duties on companies including motorcycles produced by Harley-Davidson Inc. and Levi Strauss & Co jeans.

Trump went even further however, and threatened to impose tariffs on EU car exports. Although the threatened duties never took effect, Brussels “was shocked” by Trump’s willingness to overhaul supply chains. “Last time we didn’t believe how far Trump would actually go,” one of the diplomats told Politico. “This time we’ve had time to prepare. Europe has changed a lot, and we will be ready to act.” Trump has previously said that as president, he may also introduce counter-measures against EU digital services taxes that implicitly target US technology leaders. “Our allies have taken advantage of us. More so than our enemies,” Trump said last week in an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait. “Our allies are the European Union. We have a trade deficit of $300 billion with the European Union.”

The EU is preparing a coordinated impact assessment of a potential Trump victory with the European Commission overseeing the process, and is determined to retaliate and “hit back hard,” one diplomat told Politico. According a second diplomat, the bloc is confident it can “win this trade war.” The EU should aggressively retaliate given that Trump uses trade and tariffs as a negotiating tactic to force countries to act in the interest of the US, the report said. At his rallies, Trump has vowed to impose a 10% baseline duty on imports from other countries. “To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is ‘tariffs’,” he said. “It’s my favorite word.” He also took aim at German car producers last week, pledging to slap high levies on imported cars. According to Trump, such duties targeting EU industry would force producers in the bloc to move their factories to the US, boosting its long-term global manufacturing position.

”There is no growth in Germany, there is growth in other countries, and the tax situation is not particularly good either..”

• Sharp Rise In Russia’s Share Of EU LNG Market (RT)

The share of Russian liquified natural gas (LNG) in the EU market has reached 20% this year, the bloc’s energy watchdog reported in a quarterly review released on Tuesday. In 2023, the share of Russian-sourced tanker-movable fuel was 14%, according to statistics cited by the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER). The shift came as supplies from Qatar, Nigeria, and minor suppliers declined. The US remains the biggest source of LNG, accounting for 45% of EU imports. The total flow as well as the EU’s share in the global LNG market have both shrunk this year. The bloc now accounts for 18% of all imports, down from 24% last year, the ACER report estimated. Roughly a third of all EU gas imports come in the form of LNG, with the rest being delivered via pipelines, according to the report.

Russian pipeline supplies grew from 7.9 billion cubic meters in Q3 of 2023 to 8.6 billion cubic meters this year. Commenting on the findings, Bloomberg said it highlighted challenges in implementing the EU’s policy of reducing reliance on Russian supplies. This summer, Brussels banned investment in LNG projects in Russia and targeted the transshipment of Russian gas by third nations with a port access ban. Qatar, a major natural gas producer, has been diverting shipments to Asian markets, in part due to the worsening security situation in the route through the Red Sea, Bloomberg said, explaining why its presence in the EU market has declined. The Yemeni-based Houthi rebels have been targeting commercial ships which they believe to be linked to Israel, in a campaign to pressure West Jerusalem to end its military action in Gaza.

The EU declared the intention wean itself off Russian supplies in its economy, particularly in the energy sector, following the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. Supplies of expensive US fuel have replaced much of the cheap pipeline gas that was previously delivered by Russia. The change contributed to a drop in the competitiveness of Western Europe, which was highlighted last week by an executive from German industrial giant Siemens. Speaking at a public hearing of the Bundestag’s Financial Committee, Christian Kaeser, the company’s head of global taxation, said it no longer invests at home due to the poor business climate. ”There is no growth in Germany, there is growth in other countries, and the tax situation is not particularly good either,” he stated.

“..each one of them “treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis.”

• Harris Denies Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza – Campaign (Antiwar)

Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign has clarified that she does not believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza after an incident at a rally suggested that she did. At a campaign event at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a protester interrupted Harris and said she invested “billions of dollars in genocide” and pressed her about the massive child casualties in Gaza, repeatedly describing the Israeli onslaught as a genocide. Addressing the students, Harris said, “What he’s talking about, it’s real. That’s not the subject that I came to discuss today, but it’s real, and I respect his voice.”

A spokesperson for Harris’s campaign said Sunday that the comments made by the protester “don’t reflect the position of the Biden-Harris administration or the vice president’s stance.” The spokesperson added that Harris “didn’t agree with defining the war as a genocide, and she has not expressed such a stance in the past, as this is not her position.” The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ruled that its “plausible” Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza. There have been massive civilian casualties in the onslaught, and Israeli forces have purposely targeted children.

A group of 99 American healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza said in an open letter to Harris and President Biden that each one of them “treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis.” The American healthcare workers also estimated that over 118,000 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza, or about 5% of the population. Despite the mass slaughter, the Biden administration maintains Israel is not committing genocide since that would mean US officials are supporting genocide. Harris also angered pro-Palestine groups over the weekend when discussing the situation in Gaza by labeling the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel the “most tragic” part of the conflict.

This is good. And long.

• Biblical Cruelty Took Power In Israel: “Mein Kampf In Reverse” (José Goulão)

The founding fallacy of Zionism has survived many decades since the establishment of the State while the continued colonization of Arab territories was developing, an illegal process only possible thanks to the tolerance and complicity of the UN, the United States and the countries involved in European integration: first in the territories allocated to the Arab population through the sharing agreement approved in 1948 by the United Nations; from 1967 and the so-called Six-Day War, in the Palestinian regions of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem occupied at that time, allowing the installation of settlements in vast areas stolen by the Zionist regime from the original population. They are now home to almost 700,000 fanatical fundamentalist Jews from all over the world, the overwhelming majority without any ethnic roots in Palestine.

This brutal and massive demographic violence, always with the character of ethnic cleansing, as it was written, mortally wounded the fallacy of secular Zionism. Real, fascist, fiercely racist and segregationist Zionism, which has the expulsion of all Palestinians on the horizon, has taken power over the most recent decades and intends to remain there eternally “by the will of God”, respected and fulfilled through “prophets ” self-taught and terrorists who consider themselves mandated by him to guarantee their vigilante role on Earth by applying the terrifying mythology of the Old Testament to the letter. Netanyahu is just another leader in this process of transforming the character of the State, even though the role of head of government played almost exclusively over the last 30 years has given him a natural prominence, although overestimated in relation to his real weight in the fundamentalist environment.

He inherited the mission from his father, Benzion Netanyahu, in turn personal secretary and one of the main ideological disciples of Volodymir Jabotinsky, the Ukrainian who was a collaborator of Mussolini and in 1925 had caused the great schism between the secular Zionism opportunistically proclaimed at birth and that designated “ revisionist Zionism” founded by him. This variant of extremist colonialism under “Hebrew” cover inspires the political-religious fanaticism that prevails in the current government and aims to create a theocracy – the primacy of the “Law of God”. Maintaining, of course, the mission of defending Western civilization in the Middle East. It is no small matter that this fanatical tendency has enormous representation within the World Jewish Congress and is supported without practical restrictions by the United States regime and the non-democratic bodies that define European Union policies.

Ehud Barak, one of the most experienced Israeli politicians, prime minister of a government at the beginning of the century that practiced a savage repression of the so-called Second Palestinian Intifada and was the last head of the Labor Party as an influential political organization, has a relevant opinion about the ongoing events. “Under the cover of war,” he says, “a governmental and constitutional coup is taking place without a shot being fired; If the coup is not stopped it will turn Israel into a dictatorship within weeks – Netanyahu and his government are murdering democracy.” The path proposed by the now “centrist” leader is to “close the country through large-scale civil disobedience 24 hours a day, seven days a week”.

A much more incisive and advanced opinion, and also alarming, comes from General Moshe Yalon, former Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces and former Minister of Defense: “An angry, eschatological cult is laying down the law in Tel Aviv, the headquarters of the genocidal and colonial construction of the settler community; This process is completed with a huge vigilante militia, or interconnected militias of hundreds of thousands of colonists armed to the teeth, uncontrollable and prepared for anything, even attacking the military and the State.” A “former Mossad director” quoted by the newspaper “Haaretz” even questions the future of the so-called “Jewish State” saying that if it takes the form of “a racist and violent State it will not be able to survive; and it’s probably already too late.”

When following the globalist media network, it will be said that the current Israeli government is made up only of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, and the Minister of Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, these two benevolently considered as “ far-right” when, in practice, they are nothing more than Nazi terrorists. Smotrich is a settler head of the National Religious Party who denies the existence of the Palestinian people, “composed of sub-humans”. On his record he has several accusations of terrorist attacks, including against Zionist authorities.

Itamar Ben-Gvir is the son of an Iraqi Kurdish Jew who was part of the terrorist group Irgun, a founding branch of the Israeli army born in the ranks of Mussolini and historically led by former prime minister Menahem Begin. He heads the Otzmar Yehdiut organization, equally “extreme right” and heir to the banned Kach movement of the fascist icon Meir Kahane, an American terrorist born in New York, where he committed several attacks for which he was sentenced to one year in prison, which he served in a hotel. He then settled in Israel to fight for the expulsion of all Palestinians from Palestine, was arrested at least 60 times for terrorist attacks and was elected a member of the Knesset (Parliament).

Bike lock
https://twitter.com/i/status/1848688384392171691

Baby dog

Friends! As you know, Baby Dog has his Funny Routines and Funny Ways. Like when he comes in from his Walk, he has to rub himself all over the furniture and also lick various parts of himself! Trouble is, he’s not used to doing it with an AUDIENCE who are questioning his every… pic.twitter.com/k2Wud7YQup

— Malcolm & Baby Dog (@Malcolm_theCat) October 22, 2024

Kiss
https://twitter.com/i/status/1848765037688557721

Pineapple
https://twitter.com/i/status/1848612938208215460

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

Debt Rattle December 30 2023

Dec 302023

December 30, 2023 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:20 am Finance Tagged with: Bud Light, deindustrialization, forecast, mootness, peace, Putin, Red Sea, Trump, Virginia, Yemen 38 Responses »

Edward Hopper Two on the Aisle 1927

• Putin ‘Tried Everything Possible’ To Make Peace – Ukrainian Diplomat (RT)

• Is Talk of Peace in Ukraine a Washington ‘Deception’? (Sp.)

• Beginning of the End of Ukraine Conflict Chance for Diplomacy, Negotiation (Sp.)

• Ukraine ‘Thinks Like a Warmonger’ – Russian Foreign Ministry (Sp.)

• EU States Knowingly ‘De-Industrializing’ – Gazprom (RT)

• Russia Warns West On ‘Boomerang Effect’ Of Confiscating Assets (RT)

• The Middle East on Fire (Sonja van den Ende)

• US Allies Get Cold Feet on Red Sea Armada and Who Could Blame Them? (SCF)

• Yemen Is Blocking US Hegemony In West Asia (Cradle)

• Is Colorado Counting on a Mootness Escape Clause? (Turley)

• Democrats Facing Election Wipeout Resort to Desperate Actions (PCR)

• Judge Dismisses Attempt By Virginia Activists To Keep Trump Off Ballot (JTN)

• Bud Light Sales Still Down 28% as Consumers Continue Boycott (Turley)

• Do You Dare Even Look? – Forecast 2024 (Kunstler)

Tucker Carlson: This will be a very different country in December of 2024. It feels that way, it feels like we are on the brink, they've taken the mask off, they're not hiding who they are anymore. They are not trying to convince you anymore, they're not pretending it's for your… pic.twitter.com/O9qKUILkqy

— Camus (@newstart_2024) December 28, 2023

The Biden administration is importing millions of third world immigrants to live here illegally, and at same time telling them that white people are the source of their problems. How’s that going to work out in the end? pic.twitter.com/mSbXjyML7C

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) December 28, 2023

Since August, there are officially more ILLEGAL MIGRANTS arriving each month than there are children being born to American mothers. And these are just the official encounters — we don’t know how many avoided detection.

Palestine UN
https://twitter.com/i/status/1740908444838952986

DC Draino:
This is insane corruption
FTX snowplowed millions of dollars into Democrat campaign accounts
DOJ separated campaign finance charges from his fraud trial
Now after being convicted for fraud, they’re dropping the 2nd trial for campaign finance crimes
Would’ve implicated too many Dems and RINOs
I know our gov’t is corrupt but sometimes things like this surprise even me

SBF case generated too much publicity to be ignored.

DOJ severed the campaign finance violations, which implicated Democrats, from the first trial.

They declined to move forward with the second trial.

No bribes will be made public.

Mop up operation complete. pic.twitter.com/askb98TbLI

— Cernovich (@Cernovich) December 30, 2023

Grayzone Israel

What is wrong with Israelis?@MaxBlumenthal takes a searing look at the societal sickness that exploded into the open after October 7, as Israelis of all walks of life took to social media to mock the suffering of Palestinians, flaunted war crimes and clamored for genocide pic.twitter.com/TgVs1G4HgH

— The Grayzone (@TheGrayzoneNews) December 28, 2023

Milei

How import tariffs weaken the economy and your wallet.#milei #argentina #economy #tariffs #imports #entrepreneurs #wages #openeconomy #freetrade pic.twitter.com/zuoUWNMRo2

— Milei Explains (@Milei_Explains) November 26, 2023

Tomorrow

Judge Nap Schaffer

South Africa has triggered the Genocide Convention and instituted proceedings against #Israel before the ICJ over #Palestine

“..Russia’s stated goals of demilitarization and “de-Nazification” of Ukraine would have been addressed under the pre-approved treaty. “Options remain to either achieve them through an agreement or by force,” Putin stressed.

• Putin ‘Tried Everything Possible’ To Make Peace – Ukrainian Diplomat (RT)

Russian President Vladimir Putin personally sought a peace agreement with Ukraine in April 2022, according to Ambassador Aleksandr Chaly, a distinguished member of the Ukrainian delegation. Chaly expressed this perspective during an event at the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP) in early December, where he dissected the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The ex-deputy foreign minister is an associate fellow at the Swiss government-funded foundation. His remarks drew media attention after a video of the event was released on YouTube last week. Chaly analyzed the roots of the ongoing conflict, which he described as “hard competition” for Ukraine that the US and the EU have with Russia, as well as Kiev’s intention to join the EU and NATO. He stressed that “Russian aggression” was not inevitable since the parties had sufficient tools to resolve their differences.

The diplomat called Putin’s decision to launch the special military operation against Ukraine in February 2022 “a crime” and “a mistake” and claimed that the Russian leader had been misled by “his own propaganda and his intelligence services.” Approximately a week into hostilities, Chaly believes Putin recognized the unrealistic nature of his expectations and actively pursued a negotiated resolution. He based his analysis on his personal involvement in the peace talks, which were first hosted by Minsk and culminated in Istanbul in late March with a draft truce approved by both sides. “Putin … tried to do everything possible to conclude [the] agreement with Ukraine,” the diplomat told the audience. The text made concessions to Kiev, compared to Russia’s initial position, and it was Putin’s “personal decision” to accept it, he claimed. We’ve managed to find a very real compromise. Putin really wanted to reach some peaceful agreement with Ukraine.

Chaly mused that “for some reason,” the Istanbul communique did not transform into an actual treaty. The Ukrainian delegation’s leader, MP David Arakhamia, said in late November that then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson advised Ukrainians to “just continue fighting” during his visit to Kiev after the conclusion of the talks. Remarks made by senior Russian officials, including Putin, partially back Chaly’s account. The president said during his year-end press conference this month that Russia’s stated goals of demilitarization and “de-Nazification” of Ukraine would have been addressed under the pre-approved treaty. “Options remain to either achieve them through an agreement or by force,” Putin stressed.

“..a kind of a rolling offensive right now that at some point in my opinion would cause the Ukrainian army to crack and maybe the Ukrainian state to crumble.”

• Is Talk of Peace in Ukraine a Washington ‘Deception’? (Sp.)

Analysis has emerged recently suggesting the conflict in Ukraine could be drawing to a close, presenting the opportunity for diplomacy. But former US diplomat Jim Jatras says Russia should be on guard against premature declarations that peace is at hand, warning that talk of negotiations could be a ruse by Washington to buy time for Kiev. The former senior foreign policy adviser to Senate Republicans made the claim Friday on Sputnik’s Political Misfits program. “If I were in the Russians’ shoes, that’s [negotiation] the last thing I would do,” said Jatras. “I would basically go forward with their military advantage and impose a settlement on Ukraine through military diktat.” “I think that these articles [that] are being floated – notably the one in the New York Times that the Russians are desperate for some kind of agreement – are designed… to trick the Russians into a kind of a phony deal like ‘Minsk 2’,” added the analyst.

“Where they get all sorts of promises [and] they forgo their military advantage in order to fall for another deception where they can put Ukraine on hold for a while while the United States and our allies focus on other things like Gaza or the Chinese or something like that.” The so-called Minsk accords were the culmination of internationally-mediated negotiations after Ukraine’s Euromaidan coup in 2014. The agreements were ostensibly designed to resolve tensions between Ukraine and Russia and respond to the demands of separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region. Although Ukrainian President Voloydymyr Zelensky ran on implementing the accords, he abandoned the effort once elected, under pressure from fascist and nationalist forces in the country.

It was later revealed that former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, at the instruction of the United States, urged Ukraine to reject the agreement to increase the chance of military conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Former French President Francois Hollande confirmed the negotiations were merely a stalling tactic to allow Ukraine to strengthen its military, an account which was recently verified by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. Jatras said recent Western discussion of renewed negotiation may also be insincere. “If you look at the latest posts on X from Dmitri Medvedev, he’s making it pretty clear that they’re not going to fall for that,” said the ex-diplomat. “Does that mean that’s true or not? I don’t know.”

“I think that’s part of what I described earlier as part of a deception,” he added, “part of an attempt by people in Washington to look reasonable, to get Russians engaged in the talks, get them to to slow down what seems to be a kind of a rolling offensive right now that at some point in my opinion would cause the Ukrainian army to crack and maybe the Ukrainian state to crumble.” Host John Kiriakou noted Russia’s missile attack on Ukraine Thursday night, in which the country fired some 120 rockets at Ukrainian cities and also utilized exploding drones. Kiriakou speculated the attack could be designed to allow Russia to negotiate from “a position of strength” in any upcoming peace talks. But Jatras insisted he doesn’t believe Washington is “genuine” about the idea, even as Republicans in Congress say they will not approve another round of military aid to Ukraine.

“..Finland, in its entire history, never enjoyed greater peace, prosperity, or democracy than during the period of ‘Finlandization’.”

• Beginning of the End of Ukraine Conflict Chance for Diplomacy, Negotiation (Sp.)

A wind down of fighting in Ukraine could provide the opportunity for compromise, ‘Finlandization’, and maybe even a role for China, according to investigative journalist Daniel Lazare. Lazare made the claim on the Sputnik’s Political Misfits Thursday in a wide-ranging discussion that also touched on US drug and immigration policy. Host John Kirakou noted that “Republicans have been remarkably unified in their opposition to more military aid to Ukraine, and Democrats have been unsuccessful in tying that aid to aid to Israel.” “Are we seeing the beginning of the end of this conflict?” asked Kiriakou. “I think so,” responded Lazare, noting that Russia has a population some three times as large as Ukraine’s and enjoys a significant advantage in access to resources. “They are just grinding the Ukraine down and without massive outside assistance its fate is really fixed.”

But Lazare blamed the United States for the outbreak of the conflict and warned America could still stand in the way of peace. “The US pushed the Ukraine into an extreme position of rejecting any kind of compromise whatsoever even though a compromise really made sense. Because it’s clear that the population in the eastern Ukraine and the Crimea just have lost faith in the Kiev government, which was taken over by extreme nationalists.” “This seems to me to be a case of just a completely ill thought out policy that sort of just flowed from years of neocon arrogance,” claimed Lazare. US President Barack Obama’s foreign policy circle was dominated by neoconservatives like Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland during Ukraine’s so-called Euromaidan coup in 2014. Western governments cheered on anti-government protests at that time even though polling showed most Ukrainians disagreed with the demands of protesters at Kiev’s Maidan Square.

After neo-Nazi groups forced elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to flee the country, leaked audio emerged of Nuland discussing the United States’ attempts to shape the interim government. Nuland boasted of sending $5 billion to promote so-called “democracy building programs” in Ukraine – code for activity designed to promote US interests in foreign governments. The term “color revolution” has been coined to describe US regime change efforts spurred by the funding of opposition forces, especially in Russia’s sphere of influence. US interference helped “tear the country in two,” according to Lazare, and made “outright war more or less inevitable.” “And now the US is facing the consequences. Or rather Zelensky is facing the consequences while the US kind of walks away,” the analyst stressed. Lazare noted “the US will not find it easy to back off” from its support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but he proposed a future wherein peace could be brought to Ukraine if the country agrees to demilitarize.

“What Russia is looking for is ‘Finlandization’,” said Lazare, using the term for Finland’s foreign policy position throughout the Cold War that saw the country adopt a neutral stance towards the Soviet Union. “’Finlandization’ is a dirty word. But bear in mind that Finland, in its entire history, never enjoyed greater peace, prosperity, or democracy than during the period of ‘Finlandization’.” “I actually visited Finland in 1972 during the period of ‘Finlandization’ and it was a glorious society,” said Lazare. “I mean prosperous, egalitarian, socialistic… That was the Russian posture for good reason. It could’ve been worse. I mean, Russia could have demanded the ‘Mexicanization’ of the Ukraine, which would mean inclined to get into poverty and crime. But Russia didn’t do that. And so the deal they offered this border country was really pretty good. It would have been satisfactory [in Ukraine] to a wide range of interests. But the US blocked it.”

“”Kiev still thinks like a warmonger and intends to continue the conflict ‘until the victorious end,’ which obviously means ‘war to the last Ukrainian..”

• Ukraine ‘Thinks Like a Warmonger’ – Russian Foreign Ministry (Sp.)

Moscow sees no political will for peace either in Kiev or in the West, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin told Sputnik. The official reiterated that “a comprehensive, sustainable, and fair settlement of the Ukraine conflict depends to a large extent on the elimination of its root causes.” “The West should stop pumping arms into the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and Kiev should stop fighting and withdraw its troops from Russian territory,” Galuzin stressed. According to the top diplomat, “Ukraine’s neutral, non-aligned, and nuclear-free status should be confirmed and its demilitarization and denazification should be carried out. New territorial realities should be recognized, and the rights of Russian-speaking citizens and national minorities living in this country should be ensured.”

“Unfortunately, today we see no political will for peace either in Kiev or in the West,” the deputy foreign minister said, recalling Zelensky’s decree banning negotiations with Russia “The Kiev regime rejects peace mediation initiatives presented by various countries over the past months,” the official emphasized. Meanwhile, he noted that “the so-called ‘peace formula’ proposed by the Ukrainian president last November and presented by him and his Western partners as almost a final settlement plan in fact has nothing to do with peace, but is a set of ultimatums to Russia justifying the continuation of hostilities.””Kiev still thinks like a warmonger and intends to continue the conflict ‘until the victorious end,’ which obviously means ‘war to the last Ukrainian,'” Galuzin said.

“Washington and its NATO subordinates eagerly support Kiev on this, satisfying the growing military appetites of Volodymyr Zelensky’s regime. All of this only delays the conflict settlement,” he added. The top diplomat stressed that Russia has never refused to negotiate with Ukraine and has always advocated for a political solution to the conflict. “But so far we’ve had no other choice but to carry out the special military operation until the full implementation of all the set goals,” the Russian deputy foreign minister concluded.

“..the policy of eliminating one of the most environmentally friendly energy sources is forcing “some EU member states to de-industrialize.”

• EU States Knowingly ‘De-Industrializing’ – Gazprom (RT)

The EU is intentionally destroying demand for natural gas, Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller stated at a company meeting to discuss the year’s preliminary results. “We are well aware of the situation in Europe, where they have taken an unprecedented step,” the chief executive said. “There, for the first time in history demand for natural gas, a primary energy source, is being artificially destroyed.” He insisted that the policy of eliminating one of the most environmentally friendly energy sources is forcing “some EU member states to de-industrialize.” Global demand for gas, however, is expected to increase by 43% in the next 25 years, Miller noted, adding that the energy giant is ready, as it has been developing cooperation with nations that are interested in reliable energy supplies.

He pointed out that Gazprom has been working with Asia for a long time. “The volume of gas supplies to China in 2023 will be over 22.5 billion cubic meters, exceeding the contractual obligations by 500 million cubic meters,” Miller stated, adding that Gazprom plans to deliver as much as 38 billion cubic meters of natural gas to East Asian nation. Gazprom supplies natural gas under a long-term contract sealed with the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). The Power of Siberia pipeline is part of a $400 billion, 30-year agreement between Gazprom and the CNPC clinched in 2014. Russia’s gas exports to China are projected to reach 100 billion cubic meters annually, taking into account a transit pipeline through Mongolia. Russian gas exports to the EU have dwindled due to Ukraine-related sanctions and the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines last year, previously Russia’s key gas route to the region. However, Gazprom has successfully redirected its energy trade towards Asia, with China emerging as its largest importer.

“..Moscow has a list of US, European, and other assets that would be seized if the G7 nations decided to confiscate the $300 billion in frozen reserves belonging to the Russian state.”

• Russia Warns West On ‘Boomerang Effect’ Of Confiscating Assets (RT)

Russia will retaliate in kind to the potential confiscation of its assets by Western countries, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Friday.Russian authorities have assessed the unpredictability of the opposing side, as well as their tendency to violate international and other laws, Peskov stated, adding that, for now, confiscation of foreign assets in Russia can only be considered in theoretical terms.“When they [Western powers] started piling unprecedented economic sanctions on us, they did not think about the boomerang effect at all, but now it is obvious,” Peskov said, adding that a number of sanctions supporters are now wondering whether they did the right thing. According to the official, Moscow has a list of US, European, and other assets that would be seized if the G7 nations decided to confiscate the $300 billion in frozen reserves belonging to the Russian state.

“Of course, we analyzed possible retaliatory steps in advance. And we will do everything so that they best suit our interests. But in general, no theory can be legal; it can only be pseudo-legal,” Peskov explained. He emphasized that taking any step of the kind by the West would amount to “theft,” violate international law, and undermine reserve currencies, the global financial system, and the world economy. “This is fraught with serious consequences,” the Kremlin spokesman warned, adding that it would undermine other countries’ confidence in the US and the EU as economic guarantors. Earlier this month, the Financial Times reported that Washington had proposed that working groups from the G7 explore ways to confiscate $300 billion in frozen Russian assets on February 24, 2024, the second anniversary of the start of hostilities in Ukraine.

“..they are silent and again they support the side of murderers and madmen. They never learn and this among others is also part of the downfall of so-called Western civilization.”

• The Middle East on Fire (Sonja van den Ende)

A few weeks after the attack of October 7, I was in Lebanon and felt the coming war, but most Lebanese (including Syrians and others) do not want war. I have spent a few hours with Hezbollah and Amal fighters and everyone assured me that it is actually war already and Hassan Nasrallah’s speech in November in front of the Blue Mosque confirmed this. The war in Syria that started in 2011, according to the Western version, a revolution over the dissatisfaction of President Assad’s government. But the real version is of course that it was a coup d’etat by the U.S. and its client states NATO/EU. A proxy war as they call it. The West supported Islamic radical groups such as Al-Qaeda and later ISIS (Daesh). This war was the West’s first loss since Vietnam (thanks to the help of Russia) and has seen so much death and barbarism that the genie was out of the bottle and has caused large parts of the Middle East to want to fight the West with everything they have.

If the genie was already out of the bottle in the Syrian war, this latest murder on Sardar Sayyed Reza Mousavi is the last straw that further stimulates the resistance against Israel. The murders committed in recent years against senior Iranian generals and scientists from the Israeli Mossad in collaboration with the U.S. and its Western client states have also not been forgotten. In particular, the assassination of Haj Qassem Soleimani has not been forgotten and Sardar Sayyed Reza Mousavi was Soleimani’s most loyal and closest associate. After the most extremist government that Israel has ever known since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 took office, the occupation, hatred and violence have escalated even more, a situation that is no longer tenable for the Palestinian population and it simply had to escalate.

But the war is not only in Gaza, heavy fighting is also reported from Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and the rest of the West Bank. In other words, all of Palestine is in revolt and as the military leader of Hamas recently explained. What was to be expected is that the West will continue to support Israel, after all the U.S. is the stronghold of AIPAC, the Israeli lobby that influences all political leaders (with money and bribery) and who in turn buys, or rather buys, the political leaders of Europe said dictation, because for many Europe has still been occupied by the U.S. since 1945. “Senior Hamas leader Osama Hamdan masterfully explains the reasons for the operation, lays out military and political strategies, and discusses the terms of the resistance. It’s about the liberation of Palestine and beyond, the Axis of Resistance is now involved as well, he said during an interview”.

For the first time, the world can see genocide being committed “live” on TV and social media. The West is silent for the second time in history, that is to say the politicians and media bought by the politicians and Zionist lobby. During the Holocaust of the Jews most Europeans were silent and now during the genocide of the Palestinians and previously the rest of the Middle East they are silent and again they support the side of murderers and madmen. They never learn and this among others is also part of the downfall of so-called Western civilization.

“Going into the presidential election in less than 10 months with his poll numbers below the water line, Biden can’t afford any further fiasco.”

• US Allies Get Cold Feet on Red Sea Armada and Who Could Blame Them? (SCF)

The United States-led naval coalition announced on December 20 for deployment to the Red Sea purportedly to protect international commercial shipping has quickly run into troubled political waters. European allies France, Spain and Italy are curbing their involvement. Australia has given it a miss. And so far, no major Arab countries have signaled their participation, apart from the tiny Gulf island nation of Bahrain which hosts the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet. The 10-nation flotilla was heralded with much fanfare by Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin with the stated objective of defending freedom of navigation through the Red Sea critical for cargo vessels and fuel tankers. That move followed numerous attacks on ships by Yemeni forces who said they would block the passage of Israeli-linked vessels as an act of solidarity with Palestinians suffering genocidal violence in Gaza.

Yemeni militants known as Ansar Allah (Houthis) in conjunction with Yemen’s armed forces say their embargo imposed on the Red Sea will continue until a ceasefire is called in Gaza and humanitarian aid is permitted entry to more than two million starving people. The decision by Washington to respond by further militarizing the Bab el-Mandeb Strait – the 30-kilometer-wide chokepoint largely controlled by the Yemenis – is a reckless escalation in what has now turned out to be a region-wide conflict. Yemen is an ally of Iran which has seen its other allies in the region attacked by the U.S. and Israel. The assassination of a top Iranian commander this week in an Israeli air strike on the Syrian capital Damascus is fueling an international conflagration. This danger could be easily averted if Washington abided by the democratic will of the vast majority of nations at the UN which has urged for an immediate ceasefire to the 80-day aggression by Israel on Gaza since October 7.

Washington has pointedly rejected several draft resolutions at the UN Security Council demanding a cessation of hostilities – the death toll of which has reached nearly 30,000 mainly women and children, according to the respected Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. Deploying an armada to the Red Sea is almost an absurd and unnecessary complication. If the U.S. and Israel were to comply with basic international, humanitarian law, the interdiction on shipping would not be incurred. After all, Russian and Iranian oil and gas tankers are reportedly navigating unhindered through the Bab el-Mandeb en route to the Suez Canal further north in Egypt. So, the Yemenis appear to be honoring their word that only ships associated with Israel are being targeted. Nevertheless, other global cargo and tanker companies have opted to avoid the vital shipping lane, electing instead to route their vessels around Africa. That alternative route adds several days and significant transport costs.

The Red Sea accounts for the passage of 12 percent of global shipping. Already, the transits are down by one-third in volume. That will inevitably rebound badly on Europe’s hard-pressed economies from supply chain shortages and consumer price inflation. All this would dramatically deteriorate if the U.S.-led armada starts firing on Yemen. That will mean the naval coalition would been seen by the Yemenis (and other Arab nations) – if it is not clear already – as being deployed in support of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. The Yemenis have defiantly warned that they are prepared to launch anti-ship ballistic missiles and a suspected arsenal of thousands of drones to sink U.S. and other warships. An interesting article by former CIA analyst Larry Johnson – now a respected independent commentator – contends that the U.S. Navy is not fit for purpose to take on the Yemeni threat. Western destroyers may fire million-dollar-missiles at $20,000 drones, but already the mathematics of that equation indicate the Yemenis have won.

If U.S. and European warships start to sink in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden all bets are off. We are then talking about a political crisis that compares with the Suez Emergency in 1956. That debacle ended in shame for the colonial powers Britain and France. Indeed, the 1956 Suez Crisis is cited as a watershed for the demise of these European powers and their pretensions of global power. Hence, the European members of the U.S.-led flotilla – dubbed Operation Prosperity Guardian – which tries a tad too much to sound justified – are peeling away from the misguided venture. If Washington decides to go it alone – which it probably won’t because of structural problems in its modern fleet, as Larry Johnson explains – then the political wrath for Biden among U.S. voters will be withering. Going into the presidential election in less than 10 months with his poll numbers below the water line, Biden can’t afford any further fiasco.

Yemen surprised both Israel and US.

• Yemen Is Blocking US Hegemony In West Asia (Cradle)

Given the renewed focus on Yemen’s de facto government led by Ansarallah and its armed forces, it is time to move beyond the simplistic and dismissive characterization of the Houthis as merely a ‘rebel’ group or a non-state actor. Since the start of the war by the Saudi-led coalition against Ansarallah in 2015, the Yemeni resistance movement has transformed into a formidable military force that has not only humbled Saudi Arabia but is also now challenging Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza as well as the superior firepower and resources of the US Navy in the world’s most important waterway. In response to Israel unleashing unprecedented violence on Gaza, killing over 20,000 people, predominantly women and children, Yemen’s Ansarallah-led armed forces announced on 14 November their intent to target any Israeli-linked ship passing through the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait in the Red Sea.

This crucial waterway serves as the gateway to the Suez Canal, through which approximately 10 percent of global trade and 8.8 million barrels of oil travel each day. On 9 December, Ansarallah announced it would expand its operations further to target any ship in the Red Sea on its way to Israel, regardless of its nationality. “If Gaza does not receive the food and medicine it needs, all ships in the Red Sea bound for Israeli ports, regardless of their nationality, will become a target for our armed forces,” an Ansarallah Armed Forces spokesperson said in a statement. To date, Ansarallah has successfully targeted nine ships using drones and missiles, and managed to seize one Israeli-affiliated ship in the Red Sea, according to their official statements. These operations have prompted the largest international shipping companies, including CMA CGM and MSC, and oil giants BP and Evergreen, to re-route their Europe bound ships around the horn of Africa, adding 13,000km and significant fuel costs to the journey.

Delays, transit times, and insurance fees for commercial shipping have skyrocketed, threatening to spark inflation worldwide. This is especially worrisome for Israel, which is already contending with the economic repercussions of its longest and deadliest conflict with the Palestinian resistance in history. Additionally, Ansarallah has launched multiple missile and drone attacks on Israel’s southern port city of Eilat, decreasing its commercial shipping traffic by 85 percent. The disruption in the Red Sea directly undermines a key element of the White House’s 2022 National Security Strategy, which unequivocally states that the US will not permit any nation “to jeopardize freedom of navigation through the Middle East’s waterways, including the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab.”

“..It is hard to portray yourself as the defender of democracy by preventing citizens from voting for the current frontrunner for the presidency..”

• Is Colorado Counting on a Mootness Escape Clause? (Turley)

The office of Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswald issued a statement that, since the appeal was filed with the Supreme Court, Trump’s name will remain on the ballot “unless the U.S. Supreme Court declines to take the case or otherwise affirms the Colorado Supreme Court ruling.” That clause or provision from the opinion may offer a welcomed escape option for both the Supreme Court and the state. mThe timing question could have an interesting impact on the case. It could avoid a review by the Supreme Court by effectively mooting the case if the Supreme Court simply lets the clock run past January 5, 2024. The question is whether the Court would see a need to review the matter if no change would occur to the ballot itself. The Colorado Secretary of State issued a press release that stated in part:

“The Colorado Republican Party has appealed the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision in Anderson v. Griswold to the U.S. Supreme Court. With the appeal filed, Donald Trump will be included as a candidate on Colorado’s 2024 Presidential Primary Ballot when certification occurs on Jan. 5, 2024, unless the U.S. Supreme Court declines to take the case or otherwise affirms the Colorado Supreme Court ruling.” The Supreme Court should still take the case and reject the Colorado decision. This issue will only repeat itself in the general election and challengers are seeking additional judges or courts to embrace this dangerous theory. Currently, Colorado is an outlier. However, the Secretary of State in Maine has been as outspoken as Griswald on what she views as an “insurrection” on January 6th.

It is clear why challengers saw Democrat Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows as the most likely to endorse their theory. Bellows has already declared that “The Jan 6 insurrection was an unlawful attempt to overthrow the results of a free and fair election… The insurrectionists failed, and democracy prevailed.” A year after the riot, Bellows was still denoucing what she called “the violent insurrection.” Colorado may prefer to wait for states like Maine to join the cause rather than leave the state as the outlier. Moreover, it is clear to many of us that Colorado will lose before the Supreme Court if push comes to shove. This would remove the shove if the Court simply allows for review to continue beyond the certification on January 5th.

While the four Colorado justices have been lionized by pundits and the media, the optics could take a bad turn if liberal justices joined conservatives in setting aside this decision. Even on an all Democratically-appointed court, the majority was only able to eek out a 4-3 decision with three justices rejecting this novel theory. It is hard to portray yourself as the defender of democracy by preventing citizens from voting for the current frontrunner for the presidency. It is even more difficult when various states, including Democratic jurists and justices, reject this radical effort.The Secretary of State could have sought to lift the limitation on a pending review as barring removal. There was no effort to get the justices to reconsider that part of the ruling. Yet, Griswald could have argued that, once Trump is found to be an insurrectionalist under the Fourteenth Amendment, her office should not be compelled to include his name.

After all, the office is not an intermediate court and it has a ruling that Trump is disqualified as a matter of law. It appears, however, that Griswald accepts this condition that Trump will remain on the ballot unless the Court declines review (which seems unlikely) or affirms the Colorado Supreme Court (which seems even more unlikely). The question is whether Griswald herself will seek to have the matter declared as moot after January 5th. She can argue that, while the same objections could be raised for the balloting for the general election, it is pure conjecture that Trump will win the primary despite every poll showing an overwhelming lead. She could then avoid a likely reversal but arguing that there is no change on the balloting and thus no injury to the Colorado GOP.

“..why not simply point out that the Colorado supreme court’s ruling is total nonsense as Trump has not been convicted of insurrection?”

• Democrats Facing Election Wipeout Resort to Desperate Actions (PCR)

Civil rights groups are suing under US law in behalf of immigrant-invaders who are not US citizens and have no protection of US civil right laws. The issue is a Texas state law that permits Texas authorities to arrest and deport illegal immigrants. The claim is that illegal immigrant-invaders are protected from Texas law by federal civil rights law, a nonsense claim that destroys the concept of citizenship. Remember the “Covid pandemic” when New York was restricting entry of US citizens into New York? How is it that New York can control the entry of US citizens into New York by such measures as imposing a two week quarantine on arrivals, but Texas can’t control the entry of non-US citizens into Texas? Under the 10th Amendment, Texas has the power to control entry just as northern states such as New Jersey, Connecticut, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois passed laws designed to prevent free blacks from entering the states to settle.

Those who prefer federal over state power claim that the 10th Amendment is a dead-letter Amendment overturned by the federal government’s assumption of powers not granted to it by the Constitution. A more accurate way to describe this is to say that the federal government’s assumption of powers granted to the states is unconstitutional and must be overturned by the Supreme Court. The only constitutional way an Amendment can be overturned is by repeal. What has happened is a coup against the US Constitution by the federal government. The 10th Amendment has not been repealed. It is still a part of the Constitution. It is simply ignored as all other Amendments increasingly are.

Counts will decide the issue between Texas and the US Department of Justice (sic) on the basis of whether state or federal government has the power to control immigration. As the record shows, northern states prohibited black immigration from the South. Were free blacks considered in the North to be US citizens? The answer seems to be partly but not wholly. The knee-jerk response of almost every jurist is that the 10th Amendment is no longer part of the Constitution. The ruling is expected to go against Texas. But the question remains why the federal government insists on its unique responsibility for immigration laws that it refuses to enforce.The greater threat is the claim of some immigrant-invader advocates that the illegal non-citizens have the right under US civil rights laws to residency in the US.

The effort by Democrats in Colorado (and other states) to prevent Donald Trump from being on the ballot in the 2024 election shows a total absence of legal comprehension on the part of the non-diverse 100% Democrat Colorado state supreme court. One wonders where they get these “judges.” The legally illiterate Democrat judges ruled that Colorado could ban Trump from being on the ballot in Colorado in 2024 for the reason that he engaged in insurrection against the United States. The legally illiterate Colorado secretary of state said that “Donald Trump engaged in insurrection and was disqualified under the Constitution from the Colorado Ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court got it right.”Maine’s secretary of state Shenna Bellows has taken it upon herself alone to remove Trump from the ballot for insurrection.

Think about what this means. Trump has not been convicted of insurrection. Every member of the Colorado entirely Democrat supreme court and Colorado’s and Maine’s Democrat secretaries of state assumes that assertion alone is proof of guilt. Clearly, Democrat Colorado and Maine are not states whose officials and judges understand law or are capable of serving justice. Neither do the Colorado Republicans understand. In their appeal to the US Supreme Court for a ruling on the Colorado state court decision, the Republicans argue that the President is not an officer of the US under the meaning of the provision in the 14th Amendment, that only Congress has the power to apply the insurrection provision, and that Colorado’s ruling, if allowed to stand, would violate the people’s ability to select candidates in primaries. Little doubt this is correct, but why not simply point out that the Colorado supreme court’s ruling is total nonsense as Trump has not been convicted of insurrection?

The persecutions of Trump are not legitimate. They are weaponizations of law designed to keep power in the hands of the ruling establishment. That these persecutions are not denounced by bar associations, law schools, politicians, media and the American people indicates that the weaponization of law is generally accepted as a legitimate tool in the struggle for power. The Democrats who falsely accused Trump of election interference are now interfering themselves. With the public alerted, the Democrats are unable to steal a third election in a row, and have resorted to the desperate attempt to claim authority they do not have to prevent Trump from running for president. Democrats have proven that they are tyrants. The acceptance by the American establishment of the obvious use of weaponized law associated with Joseph Stalin indicates that the rule of law is dead in the United States. As time passes, Americans will understand that they are prisoners, and not a free people.

“President Trump remains undefeated in 14th Amendment ballot challenges in federal courts..”

• Judge Dismisses Attempt By Virginia Activists To Keep Trump Off Ballot (JTN)

A federal judge Friday dismissed a motion by two Virginia activists to keep former President Donald Trump off the ballot in the Old Dominion. Roy Perry-Bey and Carlos Howard, said in a statement announcing their complaint that, Trump’s “overt election interference undermine or deprive [sic] them of their right to participate equally in secure, free and fair elections, due to Trump’s filing his statement of candidacy to participate in the 2024 Presidential Primary election.” Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia granted Trump his request to dismiss the plaintiff’s case.

“President Trump remains undefeated in 14th Amendment ballot challenges in federal courts with today’s ruling in the Eastern District of Virginia,” said Steven Cheung, Trump campaign spokesperson, in statement. Calling the suits “bad-faith, politically motivated attempts to steal the 2024 election by disqualifying” Trump from the ballot, Cheung pointed to dismissals in the federal courts of West Virginia, New Hampshire, Florida, Arizona, and Rhode Island, as well as state courts in Michigan and Minnesota. “President Trump has pulled significantly ahead in the polls and is poised to defeat failed president Crooked Joe Biden, or whomever the desperate Democrats put forth in 2024,” Cheung said.

“..Alissa Heinerscheid, vice president of marketing for Bud Light, sought to dismantle Bud Light’s “fratty reputation.” She succeeded.”

• Bud Light Sales Still Down 28% as Consumers Continue Boycott (Turley)

Beer analysts are saying that Bud Light is still struggling with the boycott that has reduced its sale by a whopping 28% over the four weeks leading up to Dec. 9 — and heading to the all-important New Year’s sale period. The tragic irony for the company is that Alissa Heinerscheid, vice president of marketing for Bud Light, sought to dismantle Bud Light’s “fratty reputation.” She succeeded. It is now the symbol of woke companies for many and consumers seem to be treating the company as a vehicle to express their opposition to the social and political campaigns of companies from Disney to Nike. Notably, U.S. beer shipments dropped by more than 5% over the first nine months of 2023, reflecting a trend among younger voters away from alcohol.

However, Bud Light appears to be off the charts as consumers continue to send a message by buying other brands. The timing is critical. According to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a quarter of the $49-billion-a-year distilled spirits industry’s profits come between Thanksgiving and the New Year. The continued struggle of Bud Light during this period could magnify the losses and the message in the market. The message appears to be getting through. Corporate executives have long yielded to demands for greater political and social agendas despite indicators that these campaigns were driving away business.

That is changing as shareholders object to subsidizing campaigns unconnected to products. Most recently, Disney appeared to acknowledge that its own campaigns were undermining sales and alienating consumers. It is the invisible hand of Adam Smith at work. However, this is more of a backhand for Bud Light, which has tried to distance itself from the earlier campaign. The problem is that many consumers now view the company as a symbol of this struggle between companies and the public. Some are seeking to “hoist the wretch” to warn other companies. It seems that Bud Light is now that wretch.

Long forecast from Jim.

• Do You Dare Even Look? – Forecast 2024 (Kunstler)

It’s absurd to imagine that “Joe Biden” can actually run. The current charade, with the Biden / Harris email campaign and few other trappings, is just a game of pretend. The focus just now, even on some blob-captive news sites, is on his unmistakable mental decline. Come January of ’24, though, Mr. Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, will unload hard evidence of bribery and treason against the phantom of the White House, and that will really be the end of him. Let him pardon himself and his whole family five minutes before he signs his resignation and be gone. The USA has never endured such a perfect wretch at that level of politics, not even Aaron Burr was this bad. “Joe Biden” was elected in a massive fraud, and he proceeded to just about wreck the country.

The massive exertions of the Intel blob managed to induce a psychotic spell on half the country, mostly to evade prosecution for their own misdeeds, but millions of victims of that psy-op are about to snap out of it. The Democratic Party might not survive the dreadful unmasking of its seditious machinations. By November, the “Joe Biden” regime may even try to involve us in another foreign war as the last desperate distraction. Aside from the demons in the State Department and the Raytheon /Lockheed Martin nexus, the whole country has no appetite left for war, and probably little ability to prosecute one.

As a last gasp, the Party of Chaos may attempt to insert Hillary Clinton back into the picture. They have nothing and no one else; a hail Mary on the theory that they can rev up every angry “Karen” in the land, and their nose-ring daughters, and simply make the election about the oppression of women, leading with abortion. It won’t work. The party will also have to answer for the weaponization of law, the humiliating defeat of the ill-conceived Ukraine project, the millions-fold invasion of illegal aliens, the shattered economy, and the after-effects of the evil vaccine program. If the blob manages to remove Mr. Trump Kagan-style, and the traitorous Republicans run their donor’s favorite, Nikki Haley, I’d look to Bobby Kennedy winning that three-way race not unlike Abe Lincoln winning the fractious election of 1860.

I doubt that even the enmities of 1861 – 1865 between one group of Americans and another were as vicious as they are now. “Joe Biden” was right about one thing: this is a battle over the soul of the nation. The catch is, he and the party behind him are a gang of lost souls who sold out their country and their culture, and took something precious from all of us that will be very hard to get back. We will be wildly lucky if blood does not spill over it.

Love it
https://twitter.com/i/status/1740418345965658117

Architects

Architects of nature. pic.twitter.com/Xl7WCT0Zzl

— Figen (@TheFigen_) December 29, 2023

Reindeer

Reindeer Cyclones are a phenomenon where a herd of anxious reindeer forms a swirling mass, making it difficult to single out individual animals.

The fawns remain protected at the centre of this circular stampede.
pic.twitter.com/6HM1G6Eaj5

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) December 29, 2023

India is the only country in the world that has both lions and tigers. Not only this: India is the only country in the world where all these animals can be found together in the wild. Why? Because India’s varied climate zones support about 65,000 animal species, including bears, elephants, pythons, river dolphins, and rhinos, and 12,000 types of flowering plants.

Octopus

An incredible instance of an octopus disguising itself as the head of a bigger marine creaturepic.twitter.com/QpGyF7URqG

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) December 29, 2023

Wild yak

The wild yak (Bos mutus) is a large, wild bovine native to the Himalayas and is among the largest extant bovid species.

Adults stand about 1.6 to 2.05 meters (5.2 to 6.7 ft) tall at the shoulder, and weigh 500–1,200 kg (1,100–2,600 lbs).pic.twitter.com/uqacXZeeDP

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) December 29, 2023

FEAR

Forget everything and run,
OR
Face everything and rise!pic.twitter.com/vY8xcC0toM

— Figen (@TheFigen_) December 29, 2023

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

Pulp Fiction Media

Sep 102019

September 10, 2019 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 1:43 pm Finance, Primers Tagged with: BBC, Brennan, CIA, Clapper, exfiltration, extraction, Pulp Fiction, Putin, RT, spy, Trump, Virginia 11 Responses »

Pablo Picasso Composition “Peasants” 1906

It’s undoubtedly better to leave some stories alone, and this may be one of them. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov perhaps put it best when he called it “pulp fiction” (and what’s more American than that?). But this one is so exemplary of how the news is cooked up for you these days, let’s have a go anyway.

What makes this story so ideal for its purpose is that it involves intelligence and state secrets, so the news outlet that runs it doesn’t have to prove a thing; it can simply say it’s not authorized to divulge what it doesn’t write, while hinting it does know. Plus, it can use any number of covert sources.

But in the process, a damning picture can still be painted. And if that picture involves Donald Trump, and it’s CNN that’s painting it, well, we know what it’s going to look like. Here’s how it started at CNN yesterday (with some additions from today):

US Extracted Top Spy From Inside Russia In 2017

In a previously undisclosed secret mission in 2017, the United States successfully extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government, multiple Trump administration officials with direct knowledge told CNN. A person directly involved in the discussions said that the removal of the Russian was driven, in part, by concerns that President Donald Trump and his administration repeatedly mishandled classified intelligence and could contribute to exposing the covert source as a spy.

The decision to carry out the extraction occurred soon after a May 2017 meeting in the Oval Office in which Trump discussed highly classified intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and then-Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. The intelligence, concerning ISIS in Syria, had been provided by Israel. The disclosure to the Russians by the President, though not about the Russian spy specifically, prompted intelligence officials to renew earlier discussions about the potential risk of exposure, according to the source directly involved in the matter.

At the time, then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo told other senior Trump administration officials that too much information was coming out regarding the covert source, known as an asset.[..]

Asked for comment, Brittany Bramell, the CIA director of public affairs, told CNN: “CNN’s narrative that the Central Intelligence Agency makes life-or-death decisions based on anything other than objective analysis and sound collection is simply false. Misguided speculation that the President’s handling of our nation’s most sensitive intelligence—which he has access to each and every day—drove an alleged exfiltration operation is inaccurate.”

[..] White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said, “CNN’s reporting is not only incorrect, it has the potential to put lives in danger.”

The removal happened at a time of wide concern in the intelligence community about mishandling of intelligence by Trump and his administration. Those concerns were described to CNN by five sources who served in the Trump administration, intelligence agencies and Congress. Those concerns continued to grow in the period after Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Kislyak and Lavrov. Weeks after the decision to extract the spy, in July 2017, Trump met privately with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Hamburg and took the unusual step of confiscating the interpreter’s notes.

Afterward, intelligence officials again expressed concern that the President may have improperly discussed classified intelligence with Russia, according to an intelligence source with knowledge of the intelligence community’s response to the Trump-Putin meeting. Knowledge of the Russian covert source’s existence was highly restricted within the US government and intelligence agencies. According to one source, there was “no equal alternative” inside the Russian government, providing both insight and information on Putin.

Pretty bad, right? Well, we’re not done just yet. Here’s the BBC adding its two cents:

US Extracted High-Level Spy From Inside Russia In 2017, Reports Say

Russian media named the spy as former presidential administration official Oleg Smolenkov. The Kommersant newspaper said Mr Smolenkov went on holiday with his family to Montenegro in 2017 and disappeared, before a man with the same name and a woman with the same name as Mr Smolenkov’s wife purchased a house in the US state of Virginia, near Washington DC. Russian reports said Mr Smolenkov had worked for Yury Ushakov, a senior aide to President Putin.

Asked by the BBC on Tuesday about the reports, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Mr Smolenkov had worked for the presidential administration but denied that he had held a high-level position, adding that he had been sacked. Mr Peskov described the US media coverage of the reported extraction as “pulp fiction”.

There was no suggestion on Tuesday that President Trump directly compromised the source in Russia, and reports said that widespread media speculation about US intelligence conclusions had contributed to the decision to extract the source. Last year, Russian operatives travelled to England and used a nerve agent in an assassination attempt against a former Russian military intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, who had spied for the British.

Isn’t it just lovely how they manage to throw in Skripal there at the end? Took a bit of stretching, but the BBC is plenty flexible.

Okay, so this alleged spy is extracted (or “exfiltrated”) by US intelligence, and then buys a home in Virginia. But not only that, he buys it under his own name. Presumably so that if Putin wants to find the man who divulged all those secrets for 10 years+, he can just Google him. Here’s NBC:

Possible Russian Spy For CIA Now Living In Washington Area

A former senior Russian official is living in the Washington area under U.S. government protection, current and former government officials tell NBC News. NBC News is withholding the man’s name and other key details at the request of U.S. officials, who say reporting the information could endanger his life. Yet the former Russian government official, who had a job with access to secrets, was living openly under his true name.

An NBC News correspondent went to the man’s house in the Washington area and rang the doorbell. Five minutes later, two young men in an SUV came racing up the street and parked immediately adjacent to the correspondent’s car. The men, who identified themselves only as friends of the Russian, asked the correspondent what he was doing there.

[..] The [New York] Times said the source was “the American government’s best insight into the thinking of and orders” from Putin, and was key to the CIA’s assessment that Putin favored Donald Trump’s candidacy and personally ordered the hacking of the Democratic National Committee.

The Times previously reported that the source was considered so sensitive that then-CIA Director John Brennan had declined to refer to the person in the top secret Presidential Daily Brief during the final months of the Obama administration. Brennan sent reports from the source to the president and a small group of top national security aides in a separate, white envelope to assure its security, the Times reported.

[..] NBC News has not confirmed that the Russian living near the nation’s capital fed the CIA information about Russian election interference. But for reasons that NBC News is withholding, he fits the profile of someone who may have had access to information about Putin’s activities and who would have been recruitable by American intelligence officials.

Two former FBI officials told NBC News they believe he is the source referred to in the CNN and New York Times report. The Russian will likely be moved from the place he is currently living in the interest of keeping him safe, current and former officials said.

He will be moved in the interest of keeping him safe. That is just brilliant. What, you think Putin will be upset at no longer being able to Google his whereabouts?

To remain fair, let’s give RT some space, too, shall we?

Was Key CIA Spy ‘Extracted’ From Moscow Over #Russiagate Fears?

Media outlets in Russia immediately began speculating as to the identity of the alleged mole, quickly settling on Oleg Smolenkov, state advisor of the third class who had worked at the Russian embassy in Washington before 2010. Smolenkov took his wife and three children on vacation to Montenegro on July 14, 2017, whereupon they vanished without a trace. The police have been investigating their disappearance as possible murder.

[..] Russian Senator Franz Klintsevich, deputy head of the Defense and Security Committee, dismissed CNN’s story as “fake” and “carrying out orders for another attempt to discredit Trump,” according to TASS. Most of the US mainstream media outlets spent the past three years promoting the notorious ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy theory on behalf of the Democrats, and have refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing even though special counsel Robert Mueller failed to find anything to incriminate the president after a two-year investigation.

Moreover, CNN and MSNBC have hired a number of former intelligence officials, whose fingerprints have been all over ‘Russiagate,’ as anti-Trump pundits.

John Brennan, James Clapper, here’s looking at you. There was no need today to read much further in order to find out that the secret info Trump is accused of divulging to “the Russians” had already been published first by no other than…CNN on March 31 2017. There was no secret. Other than perhaps, says Aaron Maté, that Israel was the source. But trust us, Putin would have known that.

After the Mueller report fiasco, one would think the media who don’t like Trump would be more careful with their reporting, and before reporting it. But they just keep at it.

In the process, as quoted above, through their false reporting and false claims, it’s they who are endangering lives, not Donald Trump:

Brittany Bramell, the CIA director of public affairs, told CNN: “CNN’s narrative that the Central Intelligence Agency makes life-or-death decisions based on anything other than objective analysis and sound collection is simply false. Misguided speculation that the President’s handling of our nation’s most sensitive intelligence—which he has access to each and every day—drove an alleged exfiltration operation is inaccurate.” [..]

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said, “CNN’s reporting is not only incorrect, it has the potential to put lives in danger.”

It’s not just the White House, the CIA itself says it too.

Asking for a friend: You think the country’s still capable of having a normal conversation?