Sep 182026
 


Thomas Cole Commencement of Empire (Savage state) 1836


Trump Concedes He Must Soon Decide On Iran End Game: ‘Annihilate Them Or Not’ (ZH)
Iran Is Preparing an October Surprise Before the Midterms (Victor Davis Hanson)
How Trump’s Iran Operation Turned Into A Forever War (Harrison Berger)
Trump Working To Spare US The Effects Of Global Oil Crunch (JTN)
Canada and Europe are Coordinating to Manipulate the US Midterm Election (CTH)
Von der Leyen Announces Canada as 1st Associate Member of European Union (CTH)
Canada Welcomes EU Proposal To Become ‘Associate Member’ (BBC)
Where Did Our Happiness Go? Into The Pockets Of Others (Paul Craig Roberts)
Who Represents America? (Paul Craig Roberts)
Gandhi is Out, Mangione is In: Political Violence is in Vogue in America (Turley)
Sen. Paul Introduces Birthright Citizenship Amendment (Turley)
ICC Used As ‘Tool’ To Target Global South – Editor (RT)

 

 

 

 


“Trump tells Axios he’s approaching major crossroads in Iran war..”

Trump Concedes He Must Soon Decide On Iran End Game: ‘Annihilate Them Or Not’ (ZH)

Some key lines of President Trump given to Axios on Thursday…He told the outlet he is at a “critical juncture” regarding the war in Iran, weighing whether to launch massive new attacks or pursue a different path to end the conflict. He has previously indicated his belief that war will continue through the November midterm elections. Trump has newly said: “I have a big decision coming up. Do I want to go in and annihilate them [the Iranian regime] or do I not? It’s a big decision. Anything could happen with me.”


The war is increasingly unpopular among Americans, and Trump’s rhetoric has appeared a bit more honest on this of late. What’s the end game? After six months of conflict, Epic Fury has looked like a bombing campaign in search of a strategy. According to more of Trump’s talk with Axios: Trump declined to say whether he’ll decide on the path forward before or after the midterms.

Trump and Hegseth have ordered the military to maintain its level of forces in the Middle East until the end of the year, to remain ready for a potential return to full-scale combat. The officials say Trump needs to decide soon on the way forward, partly because the US military can’t stay in its current holding pattern much longer. “At some point you have to decide what is the end game”

The situation of global energy transit has over the past week become much more complicated with the Houthis advance across Yemen’s Red Sea coastline, and drone damage to Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline. The US looks to be staying on the sidelines of Yemen fighting, for the time being. New via Al Jazeera:

A senior US official told Al Jazeera: We are focused on ensuring navigation in the Red Sea and allowing our partners to manage security challenges. And yet “partners” like the Saudis and its government in Sanaa are clearly not doing so well.

Read more …

I doubt Iran has much left to surprise us with.

Iran Is Preparing an October Surprise Before the Midterms (Victor Davis Hanson)

We’re about 50 days out from the midterms, and everybody seems to have an October surprise. What’s the situation on the ground in Iran? One of the big surprises is we don’t know because this is the first really major engagement where there are no Western journalists allowed into Iran. There are no U.S. ground troops. There are no embedded reporters. The Mossad maybe has agents on the ground, but they’re not publicizing that fact. And Iranians who sporadically call people in the West on their cell phones are hunted down.


So, a lot of it is subjective conjecture. But I think it’s pretty clear that Iran is planning, as it is now sporadically, but planning an October surprise near the midterms. Their entire strategy has been to delay, negotiate, attack, delay, negotiate, attack. And the purpose was to, A, drive up the price of oil through that uncertainty, especially in hitting ships in the Strait of Hormuz, and B, get closer and closer and closer to the midterms.

They don’t really care about the details or statistics of American congressional operations. They don’t really understand that for the Democrats to cut off all aid to military forces that are fighting the regime, that means money that we give Israel, intelligence that we give the Gulf, but more importantly, our daily expenses from the Pentagon, they’re going to have to have a large veto-proof Congress. I don’t think they’ll get that even if they were to win the midterms. But that’s what Iran is worried about and concerned about, that they want the Democrats to win.

Why the Democrats? They remember in 2009, a million of them went out in the street to overthrow the regime. Barack Obama, newly inaugurated, didn’t do anything. He just kept mute for about 12 days. Why? Because he was going to negotiate with a theocracy about their nuclear program, and he wanted to reboot Iran as part of a rival to democratic Israel and the moderate Gulf regimes. He thought by empowering the Shia Crescent in Iran, in Syria, in Beirut, on the West Bank, and in Gaza, he could have creative tension, and he would be the adjudicator.

But the people don’t really trust the Democrats, and they know they’ve been very critical of this effort to hurt the theocracy. So, Iran and the Democrats have the same goal: create chaos. They have the same goal, and that’s to defeat Donald Trump. The Democrats want the Iranians to create chaos, drag out the war, and therefore drive down public opinion and raise the price of gas. That’s clear. They’ve all but said that. And in turn, the opposition has a what? What would we call it? An October surprise? It is gaming the midterms as well.

Now, what are they thinking? They are thinking that every time the Democrats come into power, they negotiate with this horrendous regime. They don’t trust that the Democrats want it gone. They fear, third, that the Democrats may be in power in the Congress. They fear that Donald Trump is at 40% popularity, and he might have to make concessions to them. So, in their interpretation of the calendar, the clock, the time remaining to the midterms, it might be they feel time is running out given two things.

One, they don’t have any fuel, gasoline, or diesel. We know that much. The gas lines are three to four miles long, and food is scarce, and air conditioning is probably nonexistent. Inflation is rampant, and things are deteriorating at a geometric rate in Iran. And two, they don’t think anybody will come to the rescue except Donald Trump, and Donald Trump right now has control of the Congress. So, in their way of thinking, they may think an October surprise would be to go out in the streets right before the midterms and show that they thank the United States, they support the United States.

There’s another October surprise. We haven’t heard much from the Kurds. The Turks have been very adamant that they did not want us to help the Iranian Kurds because that could spread into the Turkish Kurds, and the same thing is true of the Iraqi Kurds and the Syrian Kurds, etc.

But they have been more active than usual in the last week. If they sense the people of Iran are rising up or are about to go for broke, they may want to as well join them. So they may have an October surprise.

Read more …

It’s been 5 months. With mostly hardly any fighting. Why do you say forever war? Because others do, too? Because it takes longer than you thought/wanted?

Those “four primary objectives in the Iran War” are just your fantasy. There is one primary objective: no nukes for Iran.

The rest are secondary. At best.

How Trump’s Iran Operation Turned Into A Forever War (Harrison Berger)

As the United States has struggled to secure its four primary objectives in the Iran War – achieving regime change, dismantling long-range ballistic missiles, eliminating nuclear enrichment, and halting Tehran’s support for regional proxies – U.S. officials have rolled out a series of tried-and-failed theories for how to achieve those goals.



In the past four weeks, Americans have watched their government attempt to inflict an economic victory against Iran through Operation Economic Outcast, tightening a sanctions regime which for decades has strangled Iran’s economy without resolving the underlying dispute. Now, as that strategy flags, we have seen the Trump administration return to its older strategy of kinetic strikes against Iran. Those strikes, too, have failed to achieve their desired objectives. Facing the prospect of a self-inflicted defeat, the U.S. has now proposed two new paths forward.

The first, reported by the Wall Street Journal last Wednesday, is an option to extend and formalize the current series of on-and-off strikes U.S. officials call this “mowing the lawn,” or a strategy of using periodic bouts of disproportionate force, as Israel did in Gaza prior to launching its full-scale, seemingly endless campaign after the Oct. 7 attacks of 2023. To support that option, the Pentagon has extended troop deployments in the Middle East through 2027.

The second option reportedly considered by the White House is for the U.S. to declare victory and walk away, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that Trump favors the idea. Among the supporters of the second option is Joe Kent, the former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who resigned in protest of the Iran War, and who has argued on X that the U.S. should “reset the terms of the deal” with Iran “by removing our troops & ships from the region.” The argument that the U.S should walk away and “declare victory” is growing increasingly popular even in establishment circles.

But given the historic limitations of sanctions to achieve political outcomes, coupled with Iran’s current demands, that strategy too appears unlikely to re-open the Strait of Hormuz and avert the economic consequences Iran’s leverage over the waterway will have on the global economy.

Political scientists have long doubted whether U.S. economic pressure and sanctions can shape political outcomes, particularly when the targeted state has little reason to believe these measures will be reversed in exchange for good behavior; researchers like David Siegel are quick to acknowledge that they “don’t work,” while U.S. officials like Janet Yellen have conceded the same point, noting that, while sanctions against Iran had caused a “real economic crisis,” they produced political outcomes “much less than we would ideally like.”

As Siegel – who most recently studied the failure of U.S. sanctions on Russia to redirect their state behavior toward U.S. and NATO interests – explains, “target states have strong incentives not to give in and sometimes even benefit from heightened levels of political support at home because they can now credibly blame their economic woes on a foreign imperial power.” Siegel argues that it’s “probably more true today than ever before due to the fact that sanctioned states can turn to China.”

The low likelihood of economic pressure opening up the Strait of Hormuz is depressed even further by the fact that one of Iran’s preconditions for opening the Strait of Hormuz is the removal of sanctions, which would require a vote from Congress, where the proposal would face an uphill battle. But perhaps the main reason walking away and declaring victory would fail to re-open the Strait and mitigate impending economic disaster is because Iran has tied freedom of navigation in the waterway to the U.S. reining in Israel, and the U.S. has long demonstrated it is unwilling to do so.

The June 17 agreement between the U.S. and Iran only required the U.S. force an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, and Washington failed to follow through. Now, subsequent provocations by the U.S. and Israel have led Iran to expand its ceasefire demands to other campaigns: in Iraq, in Yemen, and in Palestine.

Securing a deal to re-open the Strait and end the war is further complicated by the growing view around the world that the “Art of The Deal” author is simply incapable of making deals. Results of a 2025 Politico survey of diplomats from 15 countries show foreign officials describing Trump’s deal-making process as “reactive, with no clear direction,” while Trump has so far failed to resolve a proxy war in Ukraine that he promised to end “within 24 hours” of taking office. The White House has similarly failed to reach a peace deal in Gaza.

Read more …

“A soaring global energy crunch collides with mid-term election season in the U.S., as the White House looks abroad to Venezuela and pressures Ukraine to ease supply pressures.”

Trump Working To Spare US The Effects Of Global Oil Crunch (JTN)

President Donald Trump is working furiously to spare the United States from the fuel crisis sweeping the globe, seeking out new sources in Venezuela, ensuring that the U.S. continues to pump oil, and calling for Ukraine to halt its strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure.


So far, the United States appears to be insulated from the worst of the crisis as unrest breaks out in countries that are feeling acute oil shortages stemming primarily from the Iran war. Rising prices in regions as diverse as South Asia and Europe have prompted protests. Governments have responded with price ceilings, rationing, and even scheduled power cuts in poorer countries.

This weekend, for example, in Syria, protesters blocked a highway, blocking traffic and setting fire to tires, just hours after the central government announced it would temporarily raise prices on fuel products by as much as 40%, both Al-Jazeera and The New York Times reported. Similar protests have occurred in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Guatemala, and Portugal.

A missile strike by Iran-backed militias damaged Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea oil pipeline this weekend
The White House and administration officials view high oil prices as temporary, an issue that will resolve itself when the Iran war is finished, as Trump has said. However, no end to the conflict between Washington and Tehran appears likely before the midterm elections. Instead, voters are being confronted with the prospect of rising gas prices as tit-for-tat fighting between the U.S. and Iran continues just as the election season truly kicks off.

A missile strike by Iran-backed militias that damaged Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea oil pipeline this weekend has contributed to the recent oil price uncertainty sweeping the markets. The strike temporarily knocked the East-West pipeline out of commission, preventing Saudi Arabia from using its only reliable way to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and forcing the kingdom to cut oil shipments to Europe.

The current crunch is particularly acute for diesel, which is more expensive than gasoline. The price of diesel, an oil-based fuel often used in commercial vehicles and industrial machinery, set a new record when it surpassed $6 a gallon this weekend. Because of its use in freight and delivery transportation, elevated diesel prices often translate into higher prices for goods.

The pattern prompted the president to call on Ukraine to halt its strikes against Russian oil refineries in a bid to calm global diesel prices, which he blamed on the Russia-Ukraine war, not the conflict in the Middle East.

“Mr. Zelenskyy has to do one thing. He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia,” Trump said during a visit to Ireland. “Let him go after targets, but not diesel fuel because he’s causing a shortage of diesel. This isn’t done by the Middle East; this is done by what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine.”

Recent polls show 49% of voters are most concerned by the cost of living
The pressure is on. Polling throughout the summer has shown that potential voters are primarily concerned with the cost of living and economic conditions ahead of the elections, which will take place in November. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll in June, for example, respondents said the cost of living was the most important factor in deciding whom to vote for in November – at 49%, followed by democratic norms at 22% and immigration at 13%. In that same poll, 14% of respondents overall and 20% of Republican respondents labeled gasoline prices as the issue they most want members of Congress to prioritize.

Americans are also growing weary of how the president is handling the economy. Trump’s net approval on the economy is 33 points underwater, and American approval for the Iran war has also declined to the lowest levels since the conflict began, with only 31% of Americans approving of the war.

To bolster supply, the administration has turned its focus to South America, working to ease sanctions on Caracas and facilitate higher oil exports. According to reports by The Wall Street Journal, easing restrictions on Venezuelan crude could direct hundreds of thousands of additional barrels per day to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries, helping offset supply disruptions from the Middle East.

Read more …

Globalists vs nationalists. Soros vs Trump.

Canada and Europe are Coordinating to Manipulate the US Midterm Election (CTH)

In this outline Promethean Action’s Susan Kokinda summarizes how energy prices are being weaponized to influence the 2026 midterm election. The multinationals, Canada, Europe, NATO and those opposed to America-First sovereignty are waging an economic war against President Trump’s geopolitical and economic reset.


This midweek update argues that the midterm elections are being shaped less by campaign ads than by coordinated economic and political pressure: rising diesel prices tied to Ukrainian strikes on Russian diesel infrastructure, energy pricing set by European exchange traders in London rather than producers, and continued Iran conflict framed as being prolonged to affect the vote.

Kokinda also cites Canada’s trade war and targeted tariffs as politically timed, alongside attacks on U.S. bonds and pressure to raise interest rates, describing “full spectrum economic warfare” against Trump’s agenda. A second front is an accelerated AI panic, beginning with viral warnings from an ex-Anthropic researcher and followed by Anthropic CEO calls for regulation, which Trump and allies call a control-driven “hoax.” The script traces AI-ban lobbying to London-based Control AI, highlights foreign funding networks, and links the push to international oversight and reduced national sovereignty.

Read more …

“Mark Carney just pulled Canada out of the USMCA and there’s no one to blame but himself.”

“Together both Europe and Canada convey a mindset and worldview that organizes fabricated problems to keep control of their populations. It’s a corporatist structure of modern Fascism where instead of govt telling the corporations what to do, the World Economic Forum of multinationals tell the governments what to do.”

Von der Leyen Announces Canada as 1st Associate Member of European Union (CTH)

Pouring effusive and slobbering praise over the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, the anointed “middle power” leader of a shrinking -and increasingly irrelevant- new world order, with grand pontifications EU Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen announced today that Canada is the first “Associate Member” of the European Union.


It’s a major award! As noted by Reuters, “There is currently no such status as associate member set out in the European Union’s treaties, though various versions of an associate-type of membership have been floated in the bloc over the years. Germany suggested Ukraine be an associate member as an interim stage to full accession, though the proposal failed to gain traction as some EU capitals pushed back.

von der Leyen gushed: “Dear Mark, I said we must urgently reimagine our partnerships. So, I would like to work with you on opening the door for Canada to be the first associate member of the EU. We share one ocean, one set of values, one way of seeing the world. And we will now build our shared future as well – thank you for being here.” Mark Carney sat with a big smile, giddy with excitement and barely able to control his visible glee.

DAILY MAIL – […] But the attempt to flatter the former Governor of the Bank of England backfired, with diplomats saying they were never briefed about the proposal and that, in effect, ‘associate membership’ doesn’t even exist. EU diplomats accused Brussels of ‘over-reach’, an accusation often levelled against Eurocrats by UK Brexiteers before Britain left the bloc. One EU diplomat told the Mail: ‘This bombastic announcement is just not right.

‘There will be a summit at the end of October, so logically they will talk about deepening the relations. ‘But no one has ever seen an associate membership and no idea what it means in practice. Canada is a valuable partner for the EU, one of the few currently in the world where we share the values, so it is nothing against Canada. ‘But first and foremost the member states should be the ones to express what kind of relationship the EU wants to have with any third country.’

Another added: ‘She kept this bit of associate membership out of the text until the last moment. She also did not mention it up front to EU member states. ‘It seems like she is a bit too far out in floating this. Everyone is positive about Canada, and wants to strengthen the relationship. ‘But there is a lot of uncertainty about what von der Leyen envisages by coining this label.’

They added that, in reality, the most that can likely be hoped for is a deeper trading relationship rather than ‘associate membership’, which implies Canada taking part in EU programmes that it would be forced to pay into, becoming more politically integrated and potentially even having a say over the bloc’s rules.

But there would be huge barriers to overcome to establish closer ties, as swathes of Canada’s regulations are at present incompatible with EU single market rules, with high taxes on the bloc’s alcohol exports another thorny issue. Under EU law, any granting of membership would have to be approved by the 27 member states, which is another reason they were wrong-footed.” (read more)

We all know what this is. This is simply a joint Canada/Europe response to the geopolitical realignment currently underway by U.S. President Donald Trump. At the core of the CA/EU association is the insufferable leftist mindset. A pontificating pretense that elites and globalists should determine the outcomes and values for the rest of the world.

Together both Europe and Canada convey a mindset and worldview that organizes fabricated problems to keep control of their populations. It’s a corporatist structure of modern Fascism where instead of govt telling the corporations what to do, the World Economic Forum of multinationals tell the governments what to do. It’s a constructed social and economic model where Western bankers are in charge of the proles beneath them.

The pontificating snobbery within the collective outlook, the pretenses and bureaucracy have nothing to do with representative government, as outlined in the unilateral approach by Ursula von der Leyen to create a status that doesn’t even exist, without any consultation with the members she is supposed to represent.

This move today is the personification of elitism and globalism in its last, desperate dying state.For the little schoolboy inside Mark Carney, this is the culmination of a lifetime goal to be important. For the Canadian people, this should be embarrassing; but it’s not. Canada is part of a British Commonwealth, and they proclaim “sovereignty” as their cause celeb against the horrible Trump, while rushing to the arms of the European Commission.

Actually, on second thought, this is perfectly Canadian. Here’s the point that will be missed by 80% of Canadians. The EU trade rules do not align with the USMCA. I don’t mean that in a vague or disingenuous manner. The specific rules, regulations and policies of the European Union are not compatible with the trilateral North American trade agreement between the U.S, Mexico and Canada. It’s not even close.

What most Canadians don’t realize amid all this gleeful back-slapping and pretentious cheer, is that Mark Carney has officially sealed the position of Canada as it relates to the USMCA/CUSMA. nCanada just did exactly what President Trump and U.S. Trade Greer had been organizing and hoping for. Mark Carney just pulled Canada out of the USMCA and there’s no one to blame but himself. We have been waiting for this for a long time. Thank you, Mark Carney.

Read more …

A coalition of the weak is still weak.

Canada Welcomes EU Proposal To Become ‘Associate Member’ (BBC)

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has welcomed the European Union’s ambition for Canada to become its first “associate member”, calling for closer cooperation on defence, critical minerals and energy security. Carney told the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Thursday that Canada and Europe were “stronger together” in the face of “geopolitical rupture”. His comments came a day after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed “opening the door” to Canada’s associate membership, a status that does not currently exist.


US President Donald Trump earlier called the idea “laughable” and threatened “very serious tariffs” on Europe if he considered it a “hostile act”.Canada and the US are locked in an escalating trade dispute, with each side imposing tit-for-tat tariffs after bilateral talks collapsed last month. “Today our societies are being battered by new storms,” Carney said during his address, naming them as climate change, “the erosion of democratic norms” and the “weaponisation of trade”. “Economic integration is now being weaponised, tariffs being used to exert pressure,” he said.

“Financial mechanisms have been used for coercion. Supply chains constitute weak points to be exploited.” He said a Canada-EU alliance would create a “beacon for other democracies”, while stressing the two sides were not seeking to form a new power bloc. “I am not proposing a third bloc in order to become a great-power rival – only with better manners,” he told MEPs. “This is about sovereignty, our ability to live as we wish. We do not seek power to dominate others.” Asked about the proposal on Wednesday, Trump told reporters: “If I think it’s at all a hostile act, I will put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe, on many things.

“If it’s a good intention, that’s fine. If it’s a bad intention, we’ll put very heavy tariffs on Europe, which is a possibility.” Responding to Trump’s comments at a press conference following his address, Carney said: “This alliance is a positive process, that’s my response to the American president.””Canadians are united that nobody is going to tell us what language we speak, no-one is going to dictate our culture, or with whom we can strike agreements internationally,” he added.

Carney said Canada was “not in a position, nor seeking, to become a full member of the European Union”, describing the proposal as a “different framework”. Speaking at the European Parliament on Wednesday, von der Leyen said she wanted Canada to become the EU’s first associate member, with closer cooperation in areas such as manufacturing, technology, defence, energy critical minerals and economic security.

It is unclear exactly what that relationship would look like because the “associate member” status does not currently exist within the EU and could take years to implement. Any new arrangement would require the agreement of all 27 EU member states, with some governments having previously expressed reservations about creating a new form of membership. The EU and Canada already have a free-trade agreement, and cooperate in areas including trade, defence and research.

In his address, Carney said Canada and Europe could strengthen their “strategic autonomy” through “deep co-operation in the full range of strategic capabilities, including critical minerals”. He said Canada could supply liquefied natural gas and hydrogen to support European energy security, while benefiting from Europe’s expertise in clean-energy technologies. He also proposed pooling technological resources and deepening “people to people ties”, including allowing young people to “work, study and live where they want on either side of the Atlantic” through Canada joining the EU’s Erasmus+ programme.

Carney described the proposed relationship as “a unique, positive approach that we will define together”. He added that there would be a debate and a vote in the Canadian parliament on the proposals, but emphasised the two sides were still at the “start of a road”. A Canada-EU summit is due to take place in Montreal at the end of October, where Carney said they would “drill down the details”.

Read more …

House prices are used to control people.

Where Did Our Happiness Go? Into The Pockets Of Others (Paul Craig Roberts)

Remember how happy we would be according to Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum when we owned nothing? Well, that is where we are. Are you happy? They took away memory cards and sold us cloud storage. They took CDs and DVDs and sold us streaming. They took software you once bought as yours and turned it into a monthly subscription. Corporate America figured out the real money wasn’t in selling you something. It was making sure you NEVER actually own it.


According to AI Overview, for Existing Homes, the median sales price for existing single-family homes and condos is $429,100. For New Construction, the U.S. Census Bureau reports the median sales price for new houses sold is $410,700, with the broader average around $502,700. Prices vary depending on whether you look at averages (skewed higher by multi-million dollar homes) or medians (the midpoint where half cost more and half cost less).

To comfortably afford a $400,000 house, you generally need an annual household income between $90,000 and $130,000, depending on your down payment, interest rate, and monthly debts.mIf you pay for the house with a mortgage, the cost of the house with principle, interest, insurance and real estate tax by the time the house is paid for is about triple the purchase price. You will have paid more than $1.2 million for your middle class home.

So Americans cannot afford to buy and they cannot afford to rent. Dear Americans, are you happy? Would you like a real populist government that represented you. Good luck.

Read more …

Paul Craig Roberts seems to feel it’s HIM who represents America.

Who Represents America? (Paul Craig Roberts)

Mail-in voting, along with street corner drop boxes, has proved to be one of the most effective methods of election stealing. There are examples where at the last moment a large number of mail-in votes arrive that suffice to change the outcome.


The Covid lockdown was used to expand mail-in voting. Democrat states such as Connecticut and Delaware made special efforts t o expand mail-in voting. President Trump’s effort to limit mail-in voting to documented citizens is opposed by “voting rights groups,” which are mainly Democrats such as the League of Women Voters, by some election officials who claim mail-in voting increases election integrity, and by the US Supreme Court. The claim is made by Democrats that mail-in ballots are only sent to registered voters.

But we know that lists of registered voters are seldom brought up to date and that states and voting rights groups resist purging the rolls of dead people and people who have moved out of state. We have examples of people being voted in states that they no longer live in. James O’Keefe and others have presented evidence of vote and election fraud due to unverified mail-in ballots. It seems to be clear that whichever party that controls the elections in a state has a reserve of ballots that can be mailed in at the last minute to change the winner. There are examples where the last minute mail-ins are almost all for the Democrat candidate, although it does seem that the Zionist Republicans used this fraud against Israel critic US Rep. Thomas Massie in his recent primary.

Consider the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts’ case against Trump’s effort to ensure that the mail-in ballots actually come from US citizens residing in the states. Trump’s executive order requires the Department of Homeland Security to compile from various federal data bases, including Social Security, a list of US citizens for the US Postal Service with the requirement that the mail-in ballots can only be delivered to those on the voting list. The League of Women Voters argued that the federal data bases are out-of-date and unreliable. But so are the states lists of registered voters. The League of Women Voters does seem to be more concerned about preventing unqualified voting than with election integrity.

The League of Women Voters also argues that President Trump’s effort to restore integrity to US elections is an attempt to seize control of elections from Congress and the states. The League of Women Voters says no constitutional text allows actions by the President to protect election integrity. This is a curious way of putting it if the Constitution actually prohibits Trump from establishing election rules in the interest of election integrity. What exactly is the case that the President cannot act in the interest of election integrity, which requires that only citizens can vote?

The two justices on the Court who have the most integrity and who are the most principled, Thomas and Alito, saw the issue differently from the majority. Justice Alito pointed out that the issue on which the majority ruled against Trump’s executive order was that there was insufficient time to implement Trump’s order before the upcoming midterm federal elections and therefore the order would be disruptive of the election. In other words, the scheduling crunch was cleverly timed by those challenging Trump’s order.

Now, think about this for a moment. If Trump and the Republicans stood to gain from mail-in voting, why would they oppose it? Unless Democrats stand to gain from mail-in voting, why their enormous efforts to prevent President Trump from increasing the integrity of US elections?

Republicans claim that the Democrat political machine in Chicago elected John F. Kennedy president by stealing the election from Richard Nixon. I do not know if this is true. I do know that the Democrats stole the 2020 election from Trump with successful vote fraud in the swing states. The fraud is obvious despite its almost universal media denial. In the five swing states that flipped to Democrat, the states’ election procedures were controlled by Democrats. No Democrat state was flipped to Republican.

I do know that Republicans are more conservative and patriotic than Democrats. It is Republicans, not Democrats, who chant “USA, USA.” It is Democrats who favor voting by illegal aliens and who appoint them police officers and local government officials and act to prevent their deportation. It is obvious that Democrats favor multiculturalism over Americanism as evidenced by Minneapolis broadcasting over public loudspeakers the Muslim call to prayer six times a day. Anything a Democrat can do to stick her finger into America’s eye will be done.

Patriotic Americans, a body of people that I think excludes most Democrats, face a dilemma in the upcoming fall elections. Trump and the Republicans stand for Israel against America’s interest and at Americans’ cost. But the Democrats stand against America. The Democrats favor immigrant-invaders and have opposed all efforts to protect America’s borders and the meaning of US citizenship. The Democrats are the party of multiculturalism that is turning America into a Tower of Babel in which there is no longer a gender difference between male and female. All the weird stuff that infect our society has its home in the Democrat Party.

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Really, a murderer is your hero?

Gandhi is Out, Mangione is In: Political Violence is in Vogue in America (Turley)

Across the country, a chilling shift is occurring. Political violence has become a twisted form of virtue signaling. Mahatma Gandhi is out and Luigi Mangione is in. For an increasing number of young people, nothing signals your values like a willingness to kill others for them. For decades, being nonviolent has been the touchstone for many on the left. Something is changing. On my campus and others around the country, students are rationalizing violence and even idolizing assassins.


A recent Emerson College poll shows that 4 out of 10 voters between the ages of 18-29 (39%) view Mangione’s role in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson as “acceptable” or “somewhat acceptable.” Other polls show a troubling number of liberal voters consider political violence justified, including polls showing 40% of young people embracing political violence in some circumstances.

For college students, the rationalization of the killing of a Charlie Kirk or a Brian Thompson is now a litmus test of your movement bona fides. I have heard exchanges where students identify with accused assassin Tyler Robinson, who wrote, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I took it.”

This week, UC Irvine instructor Matt Goldman came under fire for a posting showing the picture of conservative Nick Shirley with the menacing observation “Someone can do the funniest thing just before the Kirkiversary.” There was a time when political assassination was viewed as anathema, particularly among academics.

To put it simply, violence is in vogue. Hollywood isn’t helping our political violence problem Hollywood is commoditizing political violence. Many conservatives were critical of the movie “One Battle After Another,” with Leonardo DiCaprio, as glorifying domestic terrorism and fueling liberal paranoia.

Other actors seem eager to make their films part of a political rage fest. “Spider-Man” actor Andrew Garfield actually said that he hoped that his new movie, “The Uprising,” would make billionaires scared, declaring that “I hope that if any billionaires watch it, they’re scared s—less.” Garfield wanted to take this film as his own bona fides with the mob, demonizing the rich. He apparently forgot Spider-Man’s motto, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Others are more direct. Lexi Alexander, director of the 2008 Marvel film “Punisher: War Zone,” triggered a firestorm Sept. 1 with an X post featuring Mangione’s face superimposed on Batman’s bat signal. The posting featured a new article’s headline: “Bank of America vice president killed in Times Square stabbing.” The vice president, Erin Piacenti, 32, left a 5-month-old daughter who will now grow up without a mother.

When people noted the obvious that Alexander, who bills herself as a “Palestinian filmmaker,” was seemingly celebrating the death of bank officer Piacenti, who was just back from maternity leave, Alexander accused them of being Israeli propagandists, or “Hasbara bots.”

In a now-deleted post, Alexander dismissed criticism that she knew about the executive being a new mother and said it was enough at the time that she was an executive because “it sounded like another Luigi situation.”

Read more …

Blood or soil.

Sen. Paul Introduces Birthright Citizenship Amendment (Turley)

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Constitution Day event at James Madison University about “Rage and the Republic.” and various constitutional issues. During the event, organized by the James Madison Center on Civic Engagement, one student asked me what I would change about the U.S. Constitution. I said that I would amend the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship, as have other nations who once followed this ill-considered practice. Well, Sen. Rand Paul (R., Kentucky) has wasted no time. He just reintroduced his bill to ban birthright citizenship.


I have previously written about the possible need for such an amendment after the decision in Trump v. Barbara. With that decision, the matter now rests not with the court but with the country. We have never truly had a national debate over the practice. The basis and future of birthright citizenship have remained matters almost exclusively for the courts. Most countries in the world reject this controversial policy. Our closest allies in Europe reject birthright citizenship and follow the common practice of “jus sanguinis,” or right of blood. We are part of a smaller number of countries following “jus soli,” or right of soil.

Various countries that once followed the practice later amended their constitutions or laws to get rid of it. That is what would need to be done with a 28th amendment. It is time that we have a civil and substantive debate over birthright citizenship in the United States. Given that the states are Democratic-controlled, it is unlikely that an amendment would pass; as noted, we have never been given this decision at the national level. Even with the 14th Amendment’s ratification in 1868, there were differing views on the meaning of the critical line:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Both sides have good-faith arguments, but the time for that debate is long overdue.

Here is the language of the amendment:

JOINT RESOLUTION
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to protect United States citizenship.

That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:

“article —
“Section 1. For purposes of the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States, a person may be considered to be ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States’ only in accordance with section 2.

“Section 2. A person born in the United States may only be considered ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States’ if the person is born in the United States of parents, one of whom is—

“(1) a citizen or national of the United States;

“(2) an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States whose residence is in the United States; or

“(3) an alien with lawful status under the immigration laws performing active service in the Armed Forces.

“Section 3. Congress shall have the power to carry out this article through appropriate legislation.”

Read more …

The ICC is a tool.

“Western countries have turned the Hague-based court against their “opponents,” Khonya Mathonsi has told RT “

ICC Used As ‘Tool’ To Target Global South – Editor (RT)

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has served as a “tool” for Western countries to target leaders in the Global South who challenge them, political commentator and Behind the News Network editor Khonya Mathonsi has told RT.


Mathonsi was commenting on Wednesday’s ICC hearing for former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte in The Hague, the 81-year-old’s first public appearance in more than a year. Duterte faces charges of crimes against humanity over killings linked to his anti-drug campaign.

He said the court disproportionately pursued figures from Africa and Asia while largely leaving Western countries untouched. “The ICC was mostly [formed] to silence their opponents,” he said, adding that “it was used as a tool” against people viewed as anti-Western, particularly in the Global South.

Duterte was arrested at Manila airport in March 2025 and transferred to ICC custody in the Netherlands. He has defended his anti-drug campaign, saying he only ordered police to kill in self-defense. His lawyers have challenged the ICC’s jurisdiction, citing the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute. The court maintains that it can prosecute alleged crimes committed while the country was still a member.

On Wednesday, the ICC said Duterte “shall continue to be detained,” citing an increased risk that he could flee or interfere with witnesses and court proceedings. Mathonsi said Duterte had criticized the US and other Western governments and sought to run the Philippines without following their wishes. “This is his punishment,” he said, accusing the West of using financial pressure and sanctions against those who challenge it.

“The real issue here is that the West don’t see themselves standing in front of the judges,” he said, adding that there is “zero accountability” for Western countries. He said Global South countries should consider establishing an alternative body to uphold international law, suggesting that such an institution could be developed within or alongside BRICS.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/LunarOptimus/status/2100260473245429918?s=20

 

 

 

 

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Home Forums Debt Rattle September 18 2026

Viewing 26 posts - 1 through 26 (of 26 total)
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  • #250087

    Thomas Cole Commencement of Empire (Savage state) 1836 • Trump Concedes He Must Soon Decide On Iran End Game: ‘Annihilate Them Or Not’ (ZH) • Iran Is
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle September 18 2026]

    #250098
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Alastair Crooke: Iran & Yemen’s Strikes DEVASTATE Trump, Eilat SHUT – US Oil UNDER SIEGE

    #250100
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    The one problem with Trump’s latest ‘vapour’ bomb stunt for Iran…
    Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

    Trump has a plan – oh yes he does – for a new strike on Iran. That is, of course, if the Iranians don’t get wind of it and go ahead with theirs. Oops.

    In recent days, a number of mainstream media outlets in the U.S. have revealed that Trump has signed off a massive arms deal with Israel, sparking fears that the U.S. president has lost all contact with reality as he prepares for a third round to the so-called Iran War.

    According to a number of reports, the Trump administration is preparing to sell Israel a $2.8bn package of 907kg (2,000-pound) bombs, the largest single sale of the munition in recent years, according to reports by The Washington Post and other agencies.

    The deal, considered to be a first of its kind ever, is funded through Foreign Military Financing – a mechanism in which Washington provides the money Israel then uses to buy U.S. weapons – and is believed to be 40,000 bombs: 20,000 MK-84 general-purpose bombs and 20,000 BLU-117s, a thermally coated variant of the MK-84 designed for safer naval storage, along with I-2000 Penetrator warheads built to strike hardened, underground structures.

    The news has apparently alarmed a number of pundits who follow the Middle East and are sceptical about Trump rescuing himself from further humiliation as he heads towards the midterms with his own ratings at a record low.

    “How big is this shipment?” Tucker Carlson wrote on X in a lengthy post. “It amounts to 40,000 tons of bombs. For perspective, the largest American air raid of World War Two was the Eighth Air Force’s attack on Berlin in March of 1945. Combined, the 2,023 Allied aircraft involved dropped about 3,000 tons of bombs. That’s 7.5 percent of what Trump is sending to Israel.”

    Although not a military expert, Carlson said that these bombs would kill many innocent civilians.

    “An American-made Mark 84 has a destruction radius of half a mile,” Carlson said. “It releases a thermal wave the temperature of the surface of the sun. Within 100 feet of the explosion, rock melts and human flesh turns to vapour. The bomb collapses apartment buildings and leaves craters thirty-five feet deep. Until the war with Iran, the U.S. military generally avoided using the Mark 84 in urban areas. It kills too many civilians.”

    Trump’s plan, according to Washington insiders, is to go ahead with a massive bombing campaign of Iran immediately after the midterm elections, where he is expected to at least lose one of the two parliamentary houses in the U.S. political system, weakening his ability to go ahead with mercurial foreign policy forays. His thinking is that such a huge amount of destruction will make a difference in what so far experts are calling the ‘Iran War’, which all agree he has spectacularly lost – with gasoline prices in most U.S. states now well over $4 USD and a domestic economy in the doldrums, all due to the U.S. attacks on February 28th spectacularly backfiring.

    Yet there are at least two worrying issues about the plan. The first one is pretty obvious. The lack of surprise about the attack should, of course, be a major worry for military planners in the Pentagon, who are concerned that the ‘all or nothing’ last-resort tactic now that Trump is looking at – sending in ground forces at the same time as the big attack – is going to result in hundreds and possibly thousands of Americans dying, if such a plan goes ahead. If the secret is no longer a secret – and perhaps we should assume it was leaked, as too many Americans are worried about Trump’s sanity and don’t want to be part of his insane ideas about going to war with Iran – then Tehran must be planning not only to stop those missiles getting off the ground, but to do much, much more harm to U.S. forces and Israel before the midterms. There is a growing group of pundits in D.C. and in Beirut who believe that Iran is planning a major strike on Israel and U.S. forces just before the midterms kick off, having maximum impact on Trump at the polls. Tehran’s goal, they say, is that Trump loses both houses, which would mean an inevitable impeachment process having immediate effect.

    The other issue which D.C. insiders are fretting over is the low number of interceptors which are in the region, and the response from those who support Trump. The response goes something along the lines of: “Well, sure we’re low on them, but we wouldn’t need them in the first place if we don’t go in hard and take out Iran’s ability to launch their own missiles in the first place.” And so the assumption is clear. In Trump’s latest hare-brained idea, he believes that these ‘super bombs’ that the U.S. have will strike so hard at Iran’s military infrastructure, but even its electricity grid, that it will neutralise its army and its strike capability.

    There can only be one conclusion that can be drawn by this latest thinking, which is that Israel has struck again and hit the jackpot the second time around, and convinced Trump that this ‘massive attack’ strike is a winner. It is possible they have also convinced him that Iran is in the process of making a nuclear bomb – something that they can present with no evidence whatsoever, as the only single institution which could verify this, the IAEA, cannot of course enter Iran now. One has to wonder about the mindset of GCC countries’ elites, given that in recent days Trump refused to bomb the Houthis on behalf of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince’s pleas to his old friend, Donald. We are at the stage now that regional experts are speculating that such regional leaders are hoping for a massive U.S. defeat so the air can be cleared and a new regional world order can begin, while the Saudis rebuild their economy, which is in shatters and has reached a point of desperation where its leaders are looking at emergency IMF loans just to pay government salaries.

    Saudi’s daily oil export via its own pipeline which crosses the peninsula from east to west pumped out 7 million barrels a day when operating, which represents 44 percent of the country’s GDP. With that gone, GCC leaders are realising that the future has to be without the U.S., which was always a massive liability and has cost them dearly. We underestimated the Houthis, yes. But we also underestimated how juvenile and immature Trump is, and how far he can go to nurture his own insecurities and foibles.

    He has pushed the Iranians to their limits, and the rumours are that they see no point whatsoever wasting any time talking deals with someone so dishonest and duplicitous, and are considering one fatal blow. This could be Israel and its entire military infrastructure, or it could be a U.S. carrier. Such a move redefines the word ‘game changer’ and would certainly wake up the American people that Trump is destroying their empire at a speed no one thought possible. It will be their Suez moment.

    The one problem with Trump’s latest ‘vapour’ bomb stunt for Iran…

    #250101
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Can the World Return The United States to The American System?
    Dennis SpeedSep 17, 2026
    Can the World Return The United States to The American System?
    Chief Advisor to the Presidency of Brazil Celso Amorim meets with Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi in Beijing, Sep. 16. Credit: PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs
    To grasp what is actually going on in this fast-changing and dangerous strategic situation, in which clear heads are attempting to not only avoid thermonuclear war, but to do that through advancing fundamental economic development through a new security and development architecture, as discussed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her Ten Principles, it is necessary to “think outside of the ideological box.” As Brazilian elder statesman and Special Advisor to President Lula, Celso Amorim, said in a recent interview, “We need to work hard, we must not give up, and sometimes we need to turn a blind eye—or perhaps even hold our noses—to continue the integration process with countries that today think in a way that is totally different from ours.”

    Therefore, let us posit a proposition that will challenge the ideological box. It will probably appear at first glance to be wrong, if not downright preposterous. We contend, however, that unless one grasps this, it is impossible to actually make sense of what is happening, and therefore, what to actually do about it. Leaders in Russia and in China, as well as selective persons in other parts of the world, understand what we propose here, but the vast majority of analysts refuse to grasp it.

    We propose that the two choices—the two systems before the world today, are, as they have been for the past 250 years, the “British system” and the “American System.” We do not refer here to geographic or geopolitical entities. We refer to the choice between colonialism and sovereignty; between economic slavery and economic development; between supremacy doctrines, military, financial, ethnic/racial and otherwise, and justice and mutual respect for all people. Too clearly, everything manifested today in United States foreign policy, everything exemplified by its leadership, and everything supported by its instruments of power—including what we see in Gaza—seems to support the former, not the latter. So, does the United States, can the United States, have anything to do with the “American System” to which we refer? If the answer is, “No,” and remains “No,” thermonuclear war is essentially inevitable.

    The British System is today represented by the Bank of England’s Mark Carney, who from his latest, lower-rung position as Canadian Prime Minister, is now doing his best imitation of earlier British agents, like the Bank of England’s Montagu Norman, to continue the financial hegemony of the City Of London. Carney, personally at a loss for eloquence, to obscure the banality of his own thinking has sought the aid of authors Vaclav Havel and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in recent speeches at Davos and Strassburg. Though he may initially “sound good,” if one listens more carefully, his actual intent is seen, or at least sensed, to be different than claimed. For example, at Davos in June, Carney said, “I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order…”

    The question is, what kind of order? Carney is still advocating, and implementing, the “financial regime change” he proposed in 2019, in Jackson Hole, Wyoming—a form of regime change that can only be achieved through war against Russia and China. That means the implementation of a 21st century version of the financial policies that Hitler’s campaign manager and co-founder of the Bank for International Settlements, Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, pioneered in the 1930s. Schacht’s work with Montagu Norman’s Bank of England to co-found that Bank is the precursor to Carney’s actual deployment, for which the Canadian Prime Ministry is actually a cover for the credulous. Carney refers to his scheme as the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank. Humans refer to it simply as “the NATO bank” This “financial policy” will lead to thermonuclear war in the short term, though what is called “strategic miscalculation.”

    As for the American System, you can find it in America—but you have to look to the fight being waged by the BRICS, SCO and the Global South. Celso Amorim, the Special Advisor to the President of Brazil, after the BRICS Summit (which President Lula was unable to attend due to the upcoming October 4 Presidential elections in Brazil), in subsequent meetings and discussion with India and Brazil, proposed a collaborative diplomacy. Nations that make up the BRICS-Plus group, and particularly its founding members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, would demonstrate, through their collaboration, how an international harmony of interests can overcome the desire to shrink the world back into inter-imperialist “spheres of influence” such as discussed by post-colonial Neanderthals like Britain’s David Starkey, who speak about a “return to the world of (Lord) Palmerston.”

    The China Daily reports that “(Amorin) called for closer communication and coordination between the two countries on multilateral platforms, including BRICS, to jointly contribute to world peace and development.” And in New Delhi, Amorin emphasized for the integration of South America, in order to act, especially with respect to policies of economic development, in a unified way, to “maintain strategic autonomy” in a post-unipolar world.

    Brazil’s call for South American integration, and the international diplomacy it and other countries carried out, at the recent conferences of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and the BRICS summit, are the anti-colonial policies that once upon a time the United States represented. China’s call for the Four Global Initiatives—the global governance, development, civilization, and security initiatives, are also congruent with this outlook. As for the United States?

    The American System, even today, does exist in the United States as well—but its proponents are not in control of its branches of government. When Congressman Thomas Massie attempted to force a vote on a resolution calling for the impeachment of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth for violating the Constitution of the United States yesterday, September 17, House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson instead dismissed the House for seven weeks—until after the November election. Former Congressman and Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich had on Wednesday written concerning Massie’s action: “Tomorrow, Thursday, September 17th, is Constitution Day in the United States, when we remember the signing of the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia, in 1787, “to secure the blessings of liberty….” That day America put the official stamp of freedom on the Declaration of Independence. The signing and ratification the following year, finalized America’s extraordinary transition from a dependent colony ruled by the British, to an independent, self-governing Republic.

    “It is appropriate on this day, the 239th anniversary of our Constitution, that Members of the House of Representatives can stand and vote to validate their constitutional oath and to impress upon the self-proclaimed Secretary of War that his days of waging preemptive, aggressive war are over. The current Secretary’s practice of extrajudicial killings, of playing policeman, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner will be at an end, if the House votes to Impeach.”

    No such vote was allowed. The Congress was dismissed. The American System was dismissed by the Epstein class. And the wars go on, in the name of the American people. The Independent candidacies of LaRouche Presidential candidate Diane Sare, and Congressional candidate Jose Vega, in solidarity with the actions of the Global South and its drive to end colonialism and imperialism, represent the seed-crystal through which the American System can yet be returned to the corridors of power in the United States.
    https://eir.news/2026/09/news/can-the-world-return-the-united-states-to-the-american-system/

    #250102
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Richard Wolff & Michael Hudson: US Passes Russia-Iran Sanctions—Black Sea & Hormuz Blockades Tighten

    #250103
    tboc
    Participant

    ” There is one primary objective: no nukes for Iran.”
    Better to silent and thought a fool………

    “President Donald Trump is working furiously to spare the United States from the fuel crisis sweeping the globe,….”
    Pigeon game board.

    “House prices are used to control people.”
    Extremely naive view. House prices are more social engineering and class warfare. The entire edifice rests on the Rockefeller model of have and have not.
    How difficult is it to understand the largest group of prostitutes in the US is residential real estate brokers and agents? Seemingly impossible. Ahhh, but they drive nice cars, the visible badge of success.
    Grow low canabinoid hemp, pull fibers from the stalk, braid the fibers into rope, hang yourself.

    The greater the disruption of global commerce the fewer dollars in profit to be returned to the US through the purchase of Treasuries.
    https://www.usdebtclock.org/
    my canine pal Buddy can to the math – no trade no tariff
    A thumb nail estimate places the global adult population at 75% of the base. Add child labor to the calculation. What number of robots would be necessary to replace the global labor pool?
    At the current rate of demand destruction that poplulation of robots will not exist.
    Pie in the sky, ego centric delusion. If a frog had wings it wouldn’t bust it’s ass every time it jumps.

    The theme of Lord Jim is competely abandoned in today’s avant garde.
    The wickedness of western leaders has descended into banality.

    Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride
    Are you sure you want to enter the room the door to which is unlocked and opened by the keys above?

    #250104
    zerosum
    Participant

    Unrest breaks out in countries that are feeling acute oil shortages.

    Rising prices in regions as diverse as South Asia and Europe have prompted protests. Governments have responded with price ceilings, rationing, and even scheduled power cuts in poorer countries.

    This weekend, for example, in Syria, protesters blocked a highway, blocking traffic and setting fire to tires, just hours after the central government announced it would temporarily raise prices on fuel products by as much as 40%, both Al-Jazeera and The New York Times reported.
    Similar protests have occurred in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Guatemala, and Portugal.
    ———–
    More info from copilot

    **Takeaway:** Fuel‑price spikes above **$100/bbl** are triggering **sustained, multi‑country unrest**, with protests emerging in Syria, Guatemala, the Philippines, Portugal, and others. The common pattern: **sharp price hikes → transport disruptions → road blockages → demands for subsidies → political pressure on governments**. [CBC](htt ps://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gas-price-protests-worldwide-9.7346031) [KRDO](htt ps://krdo.com/news/national-world/cnn-world/2026/09/15/skyrocketing-fuel-prices-spark-protests-around-the-globe/)

    ### 🌍 Where unrest is breaking out — and why it’s accelerating
    Across multiple continents, governments are raising fuel prices sharply due to global supply disruptions, refinery outages, and war‑related shipping risks. These increases are hitting households, transport workers, and small businesses hardest, producing a cascade of protests.

    #### 🔥 Syria — largest protests since Assad’s fall
    – Diesel prices raised **~40%**; gasoline **~25%**.
    – Protesters blocked highways (Hasaka–Deir ez‑Zor, Aleppo–Turkey route), burned tires, and stopped tanker trucks.
    – Anger is shifting from economic grievances to political demands, including calls to remove the energy minister.
    [CBC](htt ps://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gas-price-protests-worldwide-9.7346031) [KRDO](htt ps://krdo.com/news/national-world/cnn-world/2026/09/15/skyrocketing-fuel-prices-spark-protests-around-the-globe/)

    #### 🇬🇹 Guatemala — transport blockades & Indigenous marches
    – At least **40 demonstrations across 27 cities**.
    – Truckers, taxi drivers, and Indigenous groups blocked roads, set fires, and demanded subsidies.
    – Drought‑related economic stress (El Niño) is compounding fuel‑price anger.
    [CBC](htt ps://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gas-price-protests-worldwide-9.7346031)

    #### 🇵🇭 Philippines — strikes & shutdowns
    – Transport workers staged strikes demanding subsidies and removal of fuel taxes.
    – Bus, ride‑share, and fishing sectors are heavily affected; some fishermen cannot afford fuel to operate.
    [Gulf News](htt ps://gulfnews.com/world/asia/oil-above-100-fuel-anger-erupts-from-asia-to-europe-and-latin-america-1.500676604)

    #### 🇵🇹 Portugal — business‑led protests
    – Local business leaders and workers marched to the prime minister’s residence.
    – Demonstrations tied to rising fuel costs and broader cost‑of‑living pressures.
    [KRDO](htt ps://krdo.com/news/national-world/cnn-world/2026/09/15/skyrocketing-fuel-prices-spark-protests-around-the-globe/)

    ### ⚡ Why this is happening now
    Across all regions, the same structural drivers appear:

    – **Oil above $100/bbl** due to Middle East conflict and attacks on tankers.
    – **Diesel shortages** worsened by refinery bottlenecks and war‑related disruptions.
    – **Shipping risks** in the Bab al‑Mandab Strait and Gulf region.
    – **Governments forced into unpopular measures**: price hikes, rationing, austerity, and power cuts.
    [CBC](htt ps://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gas-price-protests-worldwide-9.7346031) [Gulf News](htt ps://gulfnews.com/world/asia/oil-above-100-fuel-anger-erupts-from-asia-to-europe-and-latin-america-1.500676604)

    ### 🧭 What governments are doing
    Responses vary by country but follow a predictable pattern:

    – **Price ceilings** (South Asia, parts of Europe).
    – **Rationing** (Indonesia’s odd/even fuel‑purchase rules).
    – **Scheduled blackouts** in poorer countries.
    – **Austerity campaigns** (Pakistan cutting government fuel allocations by 50%).
    [KESQ](htt ps://kesq.com/news/national-world/cnn-world/2026/09/17/skyrocketing-fuel-prices-spark-protests-around-the-globe/) [Gulf News](htt ps://gulfnews.com/world/asia/oil-above-100-fuel-anger-erupts-from-asia-to-europe-and-latin-america-1.500676604)

    These measures often **reduce supply further**, creating feedback loops that intensify unrest.

    ### 📌 The emerging global pattern
    Across all cases, protests begin with **fuel affordability**, then evolve into:

    1. **Transport paralysis** (blocked roads, stranded tankers).
    2. **Economic shutdowns** (fishing fleets grounded, taxi strikes).
    3. **Political escalation** (calls for ministerial resignations, marches on government buildings).

    This is consistent with historical fuel‑price unrest: once diesel becomes unaffordable, **entire economies seize up**, and political pressure spikes rapidly.


    More info from Claude

    Here’s an expanded version with additional detail and newer developments beyond what’s in your document.

    ## New countries and developments (added detail)

    **Indonesia** — Shortages have hit Makassar (South Sulawesi) especially hard: residents have reported shortages of gasoline and cooking gas alongside rolling blackouts, with drivers pushing motorcycles after running out of fuel or abandoning them in long lines at filling stations. Taxi drivers protested the rationing system, and a student demonstration in Yogyakarta against rising prices was broken up. The odd/even rationing system at gas stations in Makassar is set to run through September 20.

    **France** — This is a significant addition not in your original notes: fishermen blocked an oil depot in the port of Fos-sur-Mer on September 15 to protest rising fuel prices, citing rising costs, increased fuel prices, growing constraints, insufficient income, and a lack of visibility placing some professionals in an untenable situation, in a letter addressed to the French prime minister.

    **Ireland** — Diesel prices rose about 28% and petrol about 25% between the start of the war and the onset of protests there, with fuel taxes already accounting for roughly 57% of petrol and 48% of diesel prices even before the spike.

    **Syria** — Additional detail: the blockade wasn’t purely economic. The truck blockade near Tal Tamr is tied closely to a plan to bring formerly autonomous Kurdish institutions under central control, showing fuel anger intertwining with a separate political dispute. An ACLED Syria analyst noted that demands are shifting toward reversing decisions and removing officials, including the energy minister — economic grievances turning into grievances against the government.

    **United States** — Not in your notes at all, and notable: while the US has avoided street protests seen elsewhere, fuel prices are becoming a significant political problem for President Trump and Republicans ahead of the November 3 midterms. A NYT/Siena poll from September 8–13 found a sharp drop in economic sentiment even among Republicans — from 72% saying the economy was better than a year earlier in January to just 29% by September — alongside widespread dissatisfaction with Trump’s handling of cost of living and the Iran war.

    ## Root cause, clarified
    Your document attributes this broadly to “global supply disruptions,” but the actual trigger is more specific: the 2026 Iran war fuel crisis stems from the war between Iran and the U.S.-Israel coalition and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which over 20% of world oil trade passes, plus attacks on energy infrastructure in Iran and several Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

    Price trajectory has been volatile, not a steady climb: Brent crude surged to roughly $118 in late March 2026, fell to around $70 by July 1, rebounded above $100 by late July, fluctuated between $87–$97 through August, then surged again to $109 in early September as renewed attacks on shipping and energy infrastructure reversed earlier gains. Before the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, oil was $60–$70/barrel — diesel specifically has risen about 60% since late February, worsened by both refining bottlenecks and the separate Russia-Ukraine war.

    Red Sea component of the crisis

    The Red Sea/Bab al-Mandab situation is a second chokepoint crisis layered on top of the Strait of Hormuz closure, and it’s arguably more directly tied to how Saudi Arabia has been trying to route around Hormuz.

    Why the Red Sea matters right now: With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed to most traffic, Saudi Arabia shifted much of its oil exports to the Red Sea route via Yanbu, its main Red Sea port, where millions of barrels a day are normally loaded — it’s become the main route out for Saudi oil tankers avoiding the Strait of Hormuz. That made the Red Sea a new target.
    Al Jazeera

    The Houthi blockade: In July, the Houthis declared a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia and began launching attacks on Saudi-linked vessels specifically, as part of what they call support for Iran. Attacks since then have hit multiple tankers:
    Bloomberg

    Two Saudi oil tankers struck on July 23
    The tanker “Amzan” struck by a ballistic missile off Yanbu in August, with Saudi shipping company Bahri confirming the vessel was hit (crew safe)
    A merchant ship (the Tihamah) attacked off Yemen’s southern coast, reportedly killing several seafarers
    A tanker struck by an unidentified projectile 63 nautical miles west of Yanbu, causing a deck fire

    Traffic impact: Shipping data shows real disruption but not a full shutdown — commodity vessel transits through Bab al-Mandab have fluctuated day to day (28 on one Friday, down to 18 the following Sunday in one snapshot), and while tanker and bulk traffic continues moving through the strait, mainstream container shipping remains far more cautious, with much of the container market still diverting around the Cape of Good Hope, though some services have begun returning to Suez on a limited basis.
    AGBI

    Compounding effect on the crisis: This matters directly for your document’s shortage narrative because it closes off Saudi Arabia’s main workaround. With Hormuz blockaded by Iran and the Red Sea route now “operationally hazardous,” Saudi crude has fewer safe paths to global markets — which helps explain why diesel and gasoline prices have stayed elevated even as headlines have focused mostly on Hormuz and Iran directly. This is a genuinely dangerous, evolving situation, so I’d treat specific figures (vessel counts, casualty numbers) as a snapshot rather than current as of today.
    ————

    #250105
    zerosum
    Participant

    Ukraine and World Affairs (includes Iran/ME): Weekly Update
    18th September 2026
    Dr. Rob Campbell

    https://robcampbell.substack.com/p/ukraine-and-world-affairs-includes-9c9
    ————–

    Edging towards the abyss…
    News and updates from the Outlaw US Empire, Russia, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

    Ismaele
    Sep 17, 2026

    https://geopolitiq.substack.com/p/edging-towards-the-abyss
    ———–


    TUSK BOMBSHELL: Ukraine Losing 27,000 Troops EVERY MONTH💥 ELECTION DAY IN RUSSIA🗳️ MS 2026.09.18

    ———–

    #250106
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    The American System was dismissed by the Epstein class. And the wars go on, in the name of the American people.

    https://eir.news/2026/09/news/can-the-world-return-the-united-states-to-the-american-system/

    #250107
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    The wickedness of western leaders has descended into banality.

    Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride

    #250108
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    About to go live

    #250116
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    My genius daughter just informed me (and after giving it serious thought I find myself unable to disagree) that the Universe is God’s memory.

    #250117
    D Benton Smith
    Participant

    You may have wondered about this genius daughter I’ve quoted a few times down through the years. She’s absolutely a real person, and my daughter, but I don’t advertise her much because her genius is much too precious. The waiting list to get to know her wraps several times around the block. She is one of those extremely rare persons who effortlessly and without fanfare of any kind whatsoever simply cares about every person she ever meets.

    #250118
    zerosum
    Participant

    September 18, 2026
    A Most Severe Diesel Crunch Will Soon Hit Europe
    There is a lack of diesel in the global markets. It is the most important fuel as it is used most land transport services, all agricultural machinery and lots of independent power sources.

    The reasons for the lack of fuel are obvious:

    For more than a year the U.S. has provided targeting data to Ukraine to damage or destroy Russian refineries:

    Ukraine hit Russian energy sites with US help (archived) – FT, Oct 2 2025

    The US has for months been helping Ukraine mount long-range strikes on Russian energy facilities, in what officials say is a co-ordinated effort to weaken Vladimir Putin’s economy and force him to the negotiating table.

    American intelligence shared with Kyiv has enabled strikes on important Russian energy assets including oil refineries far beyond the frontline, according to multiple Ukrainian and US officials familiar with the campaign.

    The previously unreported support has intensified since midsummer and has been crucial in helping Ukraine carry out attacks that Joe Biden’s White House discouraged. Kyiv’s strikes have driven up energy prices in Russia and prompted Moscow to cut diesel exports and import fuel.

    Russia’s prohibition of diesel export continues to this day.

    Another obvious reason is the U.S-Israeli war on Iran launched in February of this year. Iran responded by blocking the Strait of Hormuz through which, in normal times, 20% of the global crude oil and oil product supplies flow. Several refineries in the Persian Gulf are unable to export the diesel they make.

    A third reason is the reignition of the Saudi war on Yemen. Ansar Allah, the ruling government of Yemen, has responded to Saudi air strikes with missiles against Saudi refineries. Additional drone strikes have disabled the Saudi East-West pipeline which will soon cause the still functioning Saudi refineries on its west coast to run out of stock.

    The situation for Saudi Arabia is so bad that its main export company for crude and oil products is now searching for imports:

    Aramco Hunts for Fuel Supply in the Mediterranean After Attacks (archived) – Bloomberg, Sep 17 2026

    Oil giant Saudi Aramco has been looking to secure thousands of tons of diesel in the Mediterranean after a series of attacks on its energy facilities over the past few weeks.

    Aramco has been bidding for diesel cargoes in a pricing window operated by Platts, a unit of S&P Global, over several weeks, according to brokers monitoring the activity. Traders active in the market said Aramco has also been looking for gasoline in Europe too.

    The Saudis have warned European trading partners that they will unable to fulfill their current contracts:

    Saudi Aramco has informed at least two oil refining customers in Europe that they will receive no crude oil next month following an attack on the kingdom’s main pipeline to the Red Sea, according to a report from Bloomberg News, citing people familiar with the matter.

    European customers typically receive Saudi Arabian crude through term contracts that provide steady monthly supply. These deliveries will not occur next month, the people said. The decision affects all European buyers, they added.

    The Saudis are rushing to circumvent the three pumping stations on its East-West pipelines that have been destroyed. But the lack of pumping capacity will lessen the pressure in the pipelines. The throughput will thus be throttled for the several month it will take to rebuild the pumping stations. Even then there is guarantee that the Yemenis will not just repeat their successful attacks.

    The only country that is currently producing its own oil, refines it to diesel, and exports it into the global market is the U.S. of A. This year the U.S. has exported up to 1.5 million barrel of ‘distilled fuel oil’ (i.e. diesel) per month.

    That is however likely to soon come to an end.

    At the same time U.S. refineries are running 24/7 at their highest possible capacity the diesel price within the U.S. has nearly doubled:

    “Consumers should plan on higher prices for longer,” said Patrick De Haan, a petroleum expert at GasBuddy, which tracks U.S. fuel prices.

    De Haan said diesel could hit $6.60 a gallon as early as this weekend. A handful of states have already exceeded that benchmark, including California, where diesel costs an average of $8.35 a gallon, according to AAA.

    In addition to consumer goods, elevated diesel prices could also increase Americans’ utility bills, Kloza said. Northeast residents in particular could also be in for an expensive winter, given that around 4 million households rely on heating oil, made from diesel, to keep their homes warm, he said.

    “They’re looking at prices in the $6 range,” he said. “If you use 1,000 gallons in a winter, that’s $6,000.”

    Eight weeks before the mid term election higher fuel prices are a political issue.

    Due to the short time frame that Trump administration has little abilities to influence the prices except by blocking diesel exports.

    This would decouple U.S. fuel prices from global demand. There is political support for such a move:

    Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Tuesday he was “open” to the discussion about an export ban, ..

    The White House did not rule out an oil export ban in a statement to Axios.

    Congress could pass legislation to enact restrictions. Additionally, the president has emergency powers to enforce export bans, according to the Congressional Research Service.

    Crude oil exports were once heavily restricted — though not completely banned — for decades before Congress lifted the limits in 2015, per the Energy Information Administration.

    Following an export ban prices in the U.S. would sink while they increasing significantly elsewhere.

    Europe would be screwed. Without crude from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States its refineries will soon run dry. The U.S., as one of the few current net producers, will soon stop or limit diesel exports to Europe. This while the EU has sanctioned itself out of imports from Russia. It is even urging Ukraine to destroy more Russian fuel supplies. It additionally has taken measures to hinder and limit Russian seaborne exports.

    Diesel prices in Europe are already at record heights. Some fuel stations have breached the €3 per liter mark ($11,40/gl). Inflation caused by high fuel prices will soon be out of control. There will be protests and social unrest.

    Europe could of course solve the problem by immediately lifting the sanctions against Russia and by pushing Ukraine to stop its U.S. directed campaign against Russian refineries.

    That however would require European politicians with their people’s interests at heart.

    It has been quite a while since any such people have been around …

    Posted by b on September 18, 2026

    A Most Severe Diesel Crunch Will Soon Hit Europe

    #250120
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Tribute paying, exploitable plan that the U.S. wants to impose on the world

    #250121
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Chas Freeman: US Alliances Are Falling Apart — Israel’s Suicide Mission

    #250123
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Col. Larry Wilkerson: Italy ADMITS AnsarAllah Destroyed Its F-2000A Typhoon at Saudi Airbase

    #250125
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    Fraud

    #250126
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    The World Is Being Rewired | War, Programmable Money & Bitcoin | Simon Dixon Hard Talk LIVE

    #250127
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    They are asset stripping the west

    #250128
    zerosum
    Participant


    How high can it go

    https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/midwest-braces-diesel-crisis-after-exxons-joliet-refinery-suffers-disruption
    Midwest Braces For Diesel Crisis After Exxon’s Joliet Refinery Suffers Disruption

    by Tyler Durden
    Friday, Sep 18, 2026 – 12:55 PM
    A major refinery in the US Midwest went offline this week after a power outage, adding to global refining disruptions as US diesel prices reach record highs.

    #250133
    zerosum
    Participant

    Trump says he’s banning CNN, MSNOW and Politico from Oval Office and Briefing Room

    Free Press Question:
    A free press is any media outlet that:

    Operates independently of the government (no state ownership or control).
    Has the legal right to publish without prior restraint (First Amendment).
    Is not required to align with government messaging.
    Can criticize, investigate, or oppose government actions without fear of reprisal.

    He can ban someone from his Office (Oval Office)
    he can ban someone from the Briefing Room

    He can ban for security, conduct, credentialing, space, or procedural reasons.

    #250134
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Okay we’re nearing the Sept 22nd. Anything on the radar yet?

    Britain’s Speech Police: How The State Learned To Fear Its People
    With 62,000 people arrested for speech crimes in five years, the UK can no longer claim to be a free society, says Paul Birch. The state has learned to fear its people and will no longer tolerate them speaking freely.”

    Recent interview with Veterans in UK: “You have no idea the kind of fear the common people have here”.

    Did Orwell neglect to add anything, anything at all, that you were not warned to prevent this? I ask why this is my problem. We fought here, where were you? Oh right: we’re evil because we FOUGHT that evil since Orwell, they’re Morally Good because they did nothing and caved.

    “How Trump’s Iran Operation Turned Into a Forever War

    6 Months is now forever. Who knew? I’ve been alive forever. I’m immortal, actually.

    Meanwhile, the US being in the Middle East since 1926 is NOT forever. That’s normal and necessary. Those 20 Presidents who did that are fine. …In other news, History started only yesterday. It had to, since Fukuyama said History ended in the 90s.

    “Bill Gates Calls For Globalist Crackdown On AI

    Well if BILL GATES wants it! …Then No. Now I don’t want it. I did before, but not now.

    Judge Napolitano, When War Comes Home: A Constitutional Warning”

    Astonishingly disingenuine article, again, tantamount or equal to lying.

    “A government that refuses to admit defeat and a president who, having failed abroad, seeks muscular victories elsewhere.

    What the what? What defeat? Iran is occupying the White House? The Straits are closed and only Iran can use them? No, there have been no strikes on America at all, the Straits are open to hundreds of ships, and only IRAN can’t use them. I mean, I can’t even extend the usual, point of view good faith here. What the everloving hell are you talking about? Are you possessed? Have you taken leave of your senses, man?

    “The American people were told that force would achieve clear objectives. Iran would be compelled to surrender. Somehow, American security would be enhanced. The region would become more stable.”

    The American people were NOT told that. That was one of the problems. Admitting this might enhance your case, but in a fury of lies, you wanted to just add it. Iran was NOT said to be compelled to surrender. What would that even mean? And why I bothered to write: “Somehow Security would be enhanced.” The “Somehow” is IRAN WOULD NOT HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS. You can even say they never had them and it makes a stronger case. BUT HE SPECIFICALLY SAID ONLY THIS. So what he DID say, he didn’t, and what he didn’t say, He did. IF this were true – which is his allegation – WOULD the Middle East be more stable without nuclear weapons than with them? YES!!! And you can double this since THEY ALREADY HAVE THEM, and ISRAEL has promised on a bonfire of Torahs that they will nuke Iran the second they even SUSPECT they have a nuclear weapon. That’s not a maybe, that’s a promise, unless you think Israel is so peace-loving they’d-never-attack-their-neighbors n’ stuff.

    If there’s only one thing in the last 200 Dayz-in-a-Row, it’s non-stop this: the “Somehow”.

    What in the holy, Jesus Christ n’ stuff. Someone get Judge into a home with some pudding.

    “War is a contest of wills, societies, culture and endurance.”

    Nobody said it wasn’t. That also was never said among his far-too-few actual points. It was the ERASING NUCLEAR WEAPONS thingie. No one needs to surrender or not a single man even change. But not have that. They like to say “Societies and cultures” because they act like the U.S. doesn’t have one. And eg Burlingame does this. Nobody gives a s—t what China did in the Ming Era: they’re all dead. All their talent and lessons are dead. Those people are Dead. It’s only who is in operation NOW that matters. VERY OFTEN a “new” culture beats the everloving s—t out of all the old ones, like Khan did, and the Vikings. New Europe beat the hell out of a whole planet made of old ones. Also in similarity to evolution, all humans are the same age. What human is “Older” than another, and how would this “Older” wisdom be transmitted except again and again to encrust and burden them and hold them down? That’s saying our 80 year old Congress is better than a 30 year old one. 1) That’s not better, it’s worse. 2) Okay I accept your terms: then IRAN is the far, far, far younger culture, in effect since 1979, while ours is 1779. No? Then how is it different that we’re the absolute perfect outgrowth and continuation of ANGLO culture, and EUROPEAN culture, since the Bronze Age? Which is it? I can’t with these people.

    No, Iran and China – who popped up yesterday, (1979, 1939) are OLD cultures, while ours which goes back to King John and the Greek Democracies is the NEW one.

    Continuing his shocking level of lies by omission, that he absolutely, certainly knows, knew and discussed only a day ago: “Who gave the president the authority to begin this war? The Constitution did not.”

    CONGRESS! Congress Did! Like I agree with you, it can’t be done without a CONGRESSIONAL declaration of war. But CONGRESS created, specifically passed a law, saying THE PRESIDENT HAS THIS POWER. 30, 60, 90 days whatever. YOU know that. TODAY we are having some deadlines, and the new House resolution on it. THE NEWS. TODAY. CONGRESS gave him that power. You’re a Judge, suddenly with selective vision and hearing if it causes the U.S. be Evil and Lose, cease to exist.

    Anything, anything, anything Fox News can think of, make up, lie, or fabricate to be against the American People.

    Well that’s London, MI6, and Murdoch for ya! I always trust every intel agency and every oligarch when they tell me to put my head in a blender and hit the switch. Why would they lead me wrong?

    ALSO posted on RonPaul.

    Man, I’m so glad these guys are being exposed for the disingenuine shills they are. Like Massie IF THIS WERE BAD. IF you believed this. Then there is a good faith time, place, and process to do it. Lying with every breath in every argument is not one of them. WTH. Not attacking Iran in the easiest case in the world to make: You’re blowing it.

    “An American-made Mark 84 has a destruction radius of half a mile. It releases a thermal wave the temperature of the surface of the sun. Within 100 feet of the explosion, rock melts and human flesh turns to vapor.

    This is ALL BOMBS, except smaller, or they wouldn’t be bombs, you dip. They would be “campfires.” Did you know bombs kill people? First I’ve heard. Also one large bomb kills more than a million smaller bombs…said no one ever. Why say/phrase it that way? A: EMOTION. Hijack your amygdala. ‘Cause logic they got none.

    “Why change the name of any relationships/partnership to Associate Member”?

    A literal question: Because the EU can only take members “From Europe” on their legal charter. First time they ever followed the law, I know, but they’ll just “De facto” it like Ukr and NATO membership. Associate TO the Manager is also far lowers status, so Canada can be raped BUT ALSO have no voting rights, nor indeed any rights at all.

    You really stuck it to Trump! Good job!

    Diesen – Meirsheimer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHESasY6O10

    44:44, Meirsheimer agrees with me on everything! Trump totally had a plan, Witkoff got it settled, met at Anchorage, war over. Every single part under contention with me and this view vindicated.

    Hey John, what’s your takeaway that Trump-Putin negotiated and signed a solid peace plan, virtually overnight, first act in office. Man that sounds amazing! A: The war is Trump’s fault. Huh? What? You JUST said, last sentence…

    John: “Yeah, Trump didn’t invade Europe, conquer them, and drink wine from the skulls of every European” he “Failed in Diplomacy” to “Make Them”, Europe, unconditionally surrender. Uhhh, John? Not to be indelicate, but What the F—k? HOW exactly was Trump supposed to do that? Europe will instantly economically collapse. And as I said, we KNOW this happened, because that’s why he called them all in the office, read every midget leader the riot act, stuck their heads in a bucket, kicked them in the pants, then told them to shake it off because he had to call real leaders like Putin right now.

    Doesn’t matter. John has the same unbreakable psychotic delusion that the power of the United States is entirely, lavishly, fully Infinite, and “We just say so” and whoops! It happens.

    At the 1h mark – and this is a first, so record and post on your wall – Diesen was actually caught musing that the Europeans have some responsibility for, you know, s—t in Europe. He doesn’t say so, but it’s the first time his meta-assumptions imply that’s clearly the case. Wow. So in other news, hell has frozen over. But John to the rescue! He leaps into the breach like the Three Musketeers, “NO, Glenn! Although Trump moved heaven and earth to get a peace plan, nothing in the Ukraine story happened when he was in office, and everything happening since 2016 is entirely European, IT’S ALL TRUMP’S FAULT“. ‘Cause: Reasons. He shoulda dun better. Europe in fact bears no responsibility for NOT responding to Trump’s ‘diplomacy’, Trump bears all responsibility for being the ONLY nation HAVING that diplomacy.

    Whew, saved!

    Other than that, general article that winds in and out as usual from avoiding any Europe, confounding all American actions and leaders as identical (Trump = Biden) and using “The West” and “NATO” to create as much confusion as possible.

    4 Charged With Fraud Involving Millions Of Taxpayer Dollars For Homelessness Aid

    Remember that one CIA guy had $40M in gold bars no one found missing? So – Just Four – guys, MILLIONS of dollars. Given that percentage, how many millions you think are out there? And Why were they – or a hundred thousand children, or what like 2,000 terrorists, or Learing centers, all go unnoticed by the Biden Administration? Kash was up justifying himself to Congress, which was blacked out, so he must have done well. What was it, captured enough Fentanyl to kill one BILLION people? One go. PLUS murder dropping like 75%.

    Wow, it’s like if you look for criminals you can find them. It’s like if you lock or deport them from here, they don’t commit crimes. Who knew?

    Except every culture in the history of the universe.

    “Flock Camera Ping Jails Innocent Woman For 13 Days

    If we don’t pave every inch of farmland, where will we store all this erroneous data that is imprisoning the wrong people?

    “one of Iran’s preconditions for opening the Strait of Hormuz is the removal of sanctions, which would require a vote from Congress, where the proposal would face an uphill battle.”

    There are so many lies I can’t see them all in one place. So Congress just voted for Trump to end the war, doing nothing, but also to KEEP the sanctions on Iran that didn’t work and the article says never do. What sense does that make? “We’ll approve any strategy but a working one!” — Congress. So trust Congress, I guess. WHO benefits from a simmering conflict that’s never resolved for 10 or 49 years? Lloyd’s. Raytheon. Offshore Banking. Does that match who buys Congress every year? Why yes it does!

    And the article also says Bessant must put on sanctions and have them all work and collapse Iran by Friday. What the f—k? Crickey! That escalated quickly. “We didn’t win WWII by March, 1941, so we give up” – FDR, Ike, General Patton. What the literal h—l do these guys smoke every morning? And you think I’m hyperbolic when I say their sense of reality is formed by episodes of “Friends”.

    “• Canada and Europe are Coordinating to Manipulate the US Midterm Election (CTH)

    This is okay now, especially among allies because Trump. So I understand we can send a Billion dollars to throw the Canadian election now, and send $1T in combined social media to flip Britain? That’s all okay now, right?

    “‘She kept this bit of associate membership out of the text until the last moment. She also did not mention it up front to EU member states”

    Review: Carney said he didn’t know this, denied days before. But her sure doesn’t look surprised here, does he? By contrast, existing member states were all f—ked by the announcement, as Ursula just sprung it on them as a done deal, and they’re all protesting.

    He’s right about it being unsufferable elitism of oligarchic fascism.

    Speaking of, Have to post before I forget. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwGSKr0tw2M Painfully intricate, boring, stupid…however relevant discussion of how Mussolini never said “Merger of Corporation and State” as I myself often quoted. That’s because this quote was directed to a specific article, and referred, but not in it taken at the same time with the same meaning, so: good enough. (this was where my checking the quote stopped.) No. Apparently that ITSELF is a fabrication from the post war 1960s by – Who Else? — Gramsci – who as a Communist would lie about literally anything. Strap in and take it as you will. “Fascism” is still a merger of…Everything! INCLUDING corporation and state, and I’m looking for the more timely quote on how SOCIAL MEDIA is a key element, not only as another thing that must be en-Fascia’d, but which is the only means to creating the internal social pressure and compliance to willingly murder everyone, as seen during Covid. Okay, that’s off my slate.

    Are governments that give billions to Nazis, have the world’s top eugenics program, and applaud open SS members in Parliament also fascist under Bonito’s definition? I guess we’ll never know.

    “Alastair Crooke: Iran & Yemen’s Strikes DEVASTATE Trump, Eilat SHUT – US Oil UNDER SIEGE”

    …Who didn’t notice a thing… But Crooke is going to keep waving his arms, because Iran can’t, and he’s their soldier. They talk about us fighting for Israel…when they all are proud as punch to fight for Islamic Mullahs instead.

    “Trump has signed off a massive arms deal with Israel, sparking fears that the U.S. president has lost all contact with reality”

    Sending conventional bombs to a war zone. Clearly that’s crazy. What will they think of next? Salsa at a taco stand?

    “ The lack of surprise about the attack should, of course, be a major worry for military planners in the Pentagon”

    Uhhh, no: if you know, he WANTS you to know. It’s a signal, (or dgaf, why should he?)

    “then Tehran must be planning not only to stop those missiles getting off the ground, but to do much, much more harm to U.S. forces and Israel before the midterms.”

    They an PLAN this all they want, just as they TARGET our operations. But they lack the CAPACITY to do so. So when are they planning this Harm? We’re 200 days in, would you please stop teasing me and get started?

    Dude, I can’t even. Skimming, this point was made identically – with no response from Iran, and now the straits are open to hundreds and hundreds of ships – for like 150 days now. Are you waiting for 1,150 days of being wrong before backing up?

    “We propose that the two choices—the two systems before the world today, are, as they have been for the past 250 years, the “British system” and the “American System.”

    He should be more careful, there are far more than two systems but yes, these happen to be the two in question in this location and at this minute.

    “Carney said, “I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order…”

    So it was him! Memory was correct. And meta-assumption: WHY would anyone be powerless? Or a nation state especially? Huh? His meta is that Canada has never once acted, ever, on anything, but that need not be the case. Oh wait: I guess I agree with him in this national assessment. But every day of MY life has been trying to convince Canadians to stand up and don’t be in the shadow of the U.S. (They won’t. Why??)

    ““President Donald Trump is working furiously to spare the United States from the fuel crisis sweeping the globe,….”

    No he’s not at all. Duh. He could stop exports and change it overnight. He’s doing this FOR YOU, while you kick and scream and call him names. I mean, I would have shut off Europe and Greece would be starving Mad Max now, while Spain already is.

    However, they (Team “Burn It All” from the Left) have plans: They’re going to run a trucker’s strike to stop all fuel delivery for the midterms. ‘Cause no one will be mad at them or the Unions, or the Left then.

    “My genius daughter just informed me (and after giving it serious thought I find myself unable to disagree) that the Universe is God’s memory.”

    I agree as well. The Ether is the high-tension information field Tesla and Maxwell worked from.

    “For more than a year the U.S. has provided targeting data to Ukraine to damage or destroy Russian refineries:
    The US has for months been helping Ukraine mount long-range strikes on Russian energy facilities,

    Yes this matched Trump negotiating Russian peace, immediately (above) a year ago, and negotiating NOT hitting self-same refineries only this week perfectly. No conflict at all. Jesus Christ. Who even ARE these people? Besides, EUROPE MADE RUSSIAN FUEL ILLEGAL. Look, if you want to smash Trump and fuel, it’s easy: mention the Iran war. WHY MAKE THINGS UP? Because you were breathing just then? We must have a New Moon (of Alabama), his brains went dark.

    “Can Air Defense stop Iran’s Hypersonics?”
    No, but Iran clearly doesn’t have a single one, so that works great too. They can throw donkeys at us.

    #250135
    Michael Reid
    Participant

    #250136
    zerosum
    Participant

    BREAKING: Pakistan has ordered nationwide “lockdown-like” fuel rationing and austerity measures with immediate effect due to the fuel and gas crisis causing historically low supply, per a Cabinet Division notification.

    1. Shops, markets, malls and bazaars to close at 9 PM nationwide

    2. Fuel for all government vehicles cut by 50% for three months

    3. Complete ban on purchasing vehicles of all types

    4. All official foreign travel banned for three months

    5. Non-salary spending cut 5% for the full fiscal year

    6. All government-funded seminars, trainings and conferences prohibited

    7. No official dinners except for visiting foreign delegations

    8. A single dish only at all marriage functions

    Pakistan is a net fuel importer that buys most of its diesel and gasoline from Gulf refineries, and it refused Saudi Arabia’s request to join the fight against the Houthis under the Mecca Pact last weekend.

    #250138
    Michael Reid
    Participant

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