[Arnaud Bertrand What's happening in Panama with the "China-owned" ports (which actually aren't China-owned)
I believe they had the contract to manage them
is absolutely extraordinary: after the U.S. failed to have BlackRock buy the ports, they're effectively outright stealing them with the help of Panama's Supreme Court.
I'm not exaggerating: Panama's Supreme Court just ruled that the 29-year old concession of the ports is suddenly "unconstitutional".
Legally speaking, this means the concession was never valid so there's nothing to compensate for. Effectively the ruling says that CK Hutchison - the Hong Kong company that invested $1.8 billion to build the ports into world-class facilities and paid fees to Panama to operate them during 29 years - did all of this illegally, without anyone in Panama noticing for 28 years, until Trump decided he wanted the ports...
[W]hen the concession was originally awarded in 1997, the U.S. government itself investigated it extensively - the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Federal Maritime Commission (at the request of six senators), and the intelligence community all reviewed the process. Their conclusion: there was no discrimination against US companies under US law, and CK Hutchison's presence posed no threat to Canal operations or US interests. The State Department also confirmed that PPC (the subsidiary of CK Hutchison that actually runs the 2 ports) had no significant investment from mainland China, was run out of Featherstone, England with British, New Zealand, and Australian senior management, and a virtually 100% Panamanian workforce.
It's all in a 1999 State Department report:"We have explored concerns that [CK Hutchison] is a front for the government of the People's Republic of China. We have found no information to substantiate that allegation."
So in effect this is the U.S. stealing ports from a company it already investigated and cleared - using a lie it debunked itself 27 years ago.
Arnaud Bertrand is an entrepreneur and commentator on economics and geopolitics. He founded HouseTrip and Me & Qi. I love having a sharper on our side for once. It's so great to be ripping off other countries instead of getting ripped off. When you're on the other side of the table from the master dealmaker and he's holding all the cards, woe to you. And all without dropping a single bomb.
[REGNUM] The assassination of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in Zintan on the evening of February 3, 2026, closes more than a decade of unresolved chapters in Libya's transition period related to the Gaddafi leader.
The attack on him was not carefully planned: a group of armed men burst into his home while he was observing a voluntary Islamic fast and talking on the phone with members of his political team. Saif al-Islam managed to warn them of the intruders' presence and even returned fire with a pistol, but was shot dead before completing the conversation.
This attack, which appears poorly organized and left a chance for survival, stands in stark contrast to previous unsuccessful, albeit well-planned, assassination attempts. It occurred amid a series of alarming signs: increased political maneuvering in Libya, harsher rhetoric from local militias, incidents in the south, and renewed intense diplomatic activity around the country.
All of this raises many questions. Significant is the muted, almost silent, initial reaction of Libya's main political factions, which is rare in local culture.
A PARADOXICAL LEGACY
The death of Saif al-Islam reveals the fundamental paradox of his figure and the true nature of his support.
The so-called "Green" bloc he led, aligned with supporters of the former regime of his father, Muammar Gaddafi, remained one of the most difficult political forces to analyze in Libya. Its uniqueness was multifaceted and stemmed from the biography of the younger Gaddafi himself.
With a brilliant Western education,
…where brilliant apparently means purchased…
Saif al-Islam tried in the 2000s to present himself as the architect of Libyan reforms and a bridge between his father's regime and the outside world.
An important, but often overlooked, part of this strategy was his efforts to reconcile the state with Islamist circles. He established contacts and negotiated with figures such as the influential Islamist ideologist Ali al-Sallabi
…who led an adventurous life in the various centers of radical Islam from the 1990s until Moammar Khadaffy was overthrown in the 2011 Libyan Civil War, when he was commissioned to bring $2 billion in aid for the rebels from Qatar…
and the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood*, seeking to integrate moderate Islamists into the legal political arena and win them over to his father's side.
After 2011, these old connections transformed into channels for dialogue, forming part of the complex network capital that allowed Saif al-Islam to remain alive and influential. This was especially important given the lack of any widespread nostalgia for the Muammar Gaddafi era in Libya—the "green" movement is marginal and fragmented.
But thanks to his long-standing connections, including with the current head of the Government of National Accord (GNA), Abdel Hamid Dbeibah, and his ability to build alliances, Saif al-Islam was able to become more than just a leader of marginal Gaddafi supporters, although his claims to supreme power were always considered illusory.
As Grigory Lukyanov, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the State University of Humanities and Social Sciences, told Regnum news agency, the assumption that he could realistically run for president in the elections is “somewhat far-fetched and overestimates his potential.”
"More likely, he could have acted as a 'spoiler candidate.'" He could have been voted for by irreconcilable opponents of the entire current political class—opponents of [Abdel Hamid] Dbeibah, [Khalifa] Haftar, [Aguila] Salah Isa, and other key figures who are currently using their administrative influence in the struggle for power. And as a candidate with no initial chance of winning, but capable of taking away some votes, no one needed him. All the main candidates intend to use administrative resources and understand how fragile the balance of power is, so every group of votes has a price," the orientalist noted.
Thus, Saif al-Islam became a figure for whom not so much convinced Gaddafi supporters, but a wide variety of “dissenters” were ready to vote.
His appeal was never solely based on nostalgia for his father. Increasingly, it reflected protest and rejection in both the east and west of the country against the ruling class, which ordinary Libyans perceive as disunited, ineffective, and pursuing its own clannish interests.
On the contrary, Saif al-Islam represented the possibility of a referendum of no confidence in the entire Libyan government.
Support for him was perceived not as an endorsement of the past, but as a gesture of despair about the present, which made him dangerous for any established influence group.
And herein lies the paradox: unable to claim power, Gaddafi Jr. could have turned out to be a "black swan," posing a threat to all genuine contenders. After all, he promised to take their votes and make any election outcome unpredictable. This prevented any behind-the-scenes electoral "deals." And now, after his death, the chances of holding elections in the country are increasing.
At the same time, the Supreme National Electoral Commission's technical statements about its readiness to begin preparations for elections as early as April 2026 sound more like a formality. Fundamental obstacles—the lack of a constitutional basis, consensus on rules, and deep mistrust between Tripoli and Benghazi—have not disappeared.
In a system where maintaining the country's division is safer than attempting to reconcile the parties and resolve conflicts, the very idea of elections that could lead to the emergence of a strong national mandate frightens the ruling groups.
Eliminating a potential "black swan" event reduces the immediate risks for them, but does not change the nature of the game. At the same time, other players are becoming more active, seeking to reformat alliances to fit the new reality, where one unpredictable variable, Saif al-Islam, has disappeared, but the fragility of the system has only increased.
THE STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF THE GREEN GRID
The political future of the "green" movement has become even more uncertain.
As Anton Mardasov, an expert on the Middle East and North Africa, explained to Regnum News Agency, finding a replacement for the Gaddafiites is extremely difficult due to the lack of other influential family members in the country: they live abroad, and it is unlikely that any of them will decide to return to Libya.
On the other hand, today the Greens represent not a formal political movement, but a disparate network integrated into Libya's security structures and tribal communities, present to varying degrees in all three regions of the country. It is internally contradictory, yet highly flexible and capable of adapting to regional conditions.
Much of it – especially in the east and south – was co-opted by Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA), who offered them security and status in exchange for loyalty.
At the same time, other fragments of the movement supported the GNA in Tripoli. A prominent example of this pro-Gaddafi group is Tuareg General Ali Qann, a former high-ranking military officer under Muammar Gaddafi who later headed the Southern Regions Military Council, loyal to Tripoli, and opposed Haftar.
It was this deep and multi-directional rootedness in Libyan society, rather than overt political activism, that constituted the real strength and complexity of Saif al-Islam's entourage.
BETWEEN THE HAFTARS AND DBEIBAH
The removal of Saif al-Islam directly affects the core of the Libyan political system, which is often characterized as a “system built on fragility,” where equilibrium is maintained not so much by consensus as by mutual vulnerability.
For the Haftar family – and particularly for Field Marshal Saddam's son, who was in charge of security and tribal relations – Saif al-Islam was perhaps the greatest uncontrollable threat to their long-term project.
Despite the successful integration of many Gaddafi supporters into the LNA structures, it was Seif al-Islam who remained the only figure whose symbolic capital and origins allowed him to lure away the allegiance of key tribal and regional networks at any time, especially in the south, where Benghazi's influence remained incomplete.
“For a long time, the claim was maintained in Libya that Saif was hiding in the south of Libya—in Haftar’s zone, but populated by tribes that, although they cooperate with the LNA, maintain a distinct opinion about Libya’s future,” Mardasov believes.
"I think this information was spread intentionally—both to disinform and to demonstrate that during the transition of power in the east, the tribes' support for Saif al-Islam could play a role, and how this factor could influence the possibility of holding elections," the expert believes.
In the younger Gaddafi, the Haftars saw a direct competitor who, if allowed to participate in the elections, could deprive them of their monopoly on the votes of the conservative and disillusioned electorate, which would threaten both the LNA project itself and the plans for a transition of power within the family.
At the same time, Lukyanov proposed “considering the situation with Abdel Hamid Dbeibah on an equal basis.”
"Although he and Saif al-Islam were once friends and collaborated at the Investment Agency, and although Dbeibah did much to allow Gaddafi Jr. to participate in the political process after coming to power, their paths ultimately diverged," the orientalist explained. According to him, Dbeibah's pragmatic interests ultimately prevailed, and given his precarious position, Saif al-Islam, as a "spoiler," could have been as dangerous for him as for Haftar.
Therefore, the elimination of a candidate capable of consolidating the protest electorate is beneficial to key players in both the east and west of the country, Anton Mardasov emphasized.
At the same time, as Lukyanov noted, Seif al-Islam “could really be of no use to anyone and at the same time completely unprotected from attempts at liquidation.”
According to the analyst, the direct benefit of his assassination is not that great. For Libyan politicians within the country—whether Haftar in the east or Dbeibah in the west—it merely removes one, far from the most pressing, issue from their agenda.
"It's entirely possible that the game wasn't worth the candle: the political assassination of such a figure would generate more gossip than it would bring real dividends in the form of additional support or resources," the orientalist emphasized.
IMPORTANT CIRCUMSTANCES
What deserves special attention, according to Lukyanov, is the possible “French connection.”
While Saif al-Islam was no longer able to make any significant changes within Libya, in the past, as one of the managers of his father's investment funds, he knew a lot about connections with European politicians and companies, primarily French ones.
Given the high-profile case of Libyan financing of the election campaign of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, "the version of the involvement of French interests deserves consideration. "
However, the death of Saif al-Islam creates new geopolitical realities for Russia as well. His death represents a strategic loss and a narrowing of its room for maneuver.
Moscow has long viewed him as a potential alternative or backup asset, one that would allow it to avoid being tied solely to Haftar. Saif al-Islam, with his unique image and networks, could theoretically become the basis for a more independent political project, friendly to Moscow but not entirely dependent on Benghazi.
Now that option has disappeared, which, according to Mardasov, “increases Moscow’s dependence on Haftar,” depriving the Kremlin of an important lever for diversifying its influence and conducting negotiations.
This makes Russia's position in Libya more vulnerable and less flexible.
"RESURRECTION OF THE GHOST"
According to Mardasov, the role of Seif al-Islam and the threat of a "green" rebellion were often exaggerated, as many former supporters of the regime had already integrated into new structures.
His death, on the one hand, could accelerate this process of disintegration and co-optation, but on the other, it risks transforming his image into a powerful symbol of martyrdom, capable of consolidating a new generation of dissatisfied people based on shared resentment rather than nostalgia.
Thus, if those behind the assassination expected that the physical elimination of Saif al-Islam would finally neutralize the threat he posed and consolidate control over his legacy, they likely made a strategic mistake in underestimating the depth of the rift among his potential supporters.
As Grigory Lukyanov explained, "he had neither a cohort of authoritative politicians behind him willing to use their influence for his projects, nor strong social or political institutions. He also lacked sufficient experience in public administration."
According to the orientalist, this led to him performing poorly during the 2011 crisis. This ultimately led to his capture, and then to the status of exile and hostage in his own country, a situation he remained in for almost the rest of his life. "This, perhaps, is his greatest tragedy," Lukyanov concluded.
Thus, Saif al-Islam became a political ghost even during his lifetime, feared not so much for his actual capabilities as for what his survival symbolized.
His absence from formal politics for many years effectively preserved and strengthened Saif al-Islam's mythical status, shielding him from the inevitable compromises and disappointments that accompany real power. And his death could elevate this image to absolute status, transforming him from a ghost of the past into a banner for those who see no future in the current order.
This legacy will be contested, and it is already fraught with division.
On one side are those Gaddafi supporters who have integrated into Haftar's project and find stability and a strong government a guarantee of their position. For them, Saif al-Islam was more of a hindrance.
On the other hand, figures like General Ali Kanna, as well as other local leaders and tribal groups in the west and south who maintained independence or oriented themselves toward Tripoli, could see the image of the slain Saif become a powerful unifying symbol of resistance to both Haftar and the government's weakness.
But there's also a new generation of commanders or public figures who have no connection whatsoever to the "green" movement. And they may rally around not a single individual, but rather the idea of martyrdom and a new collective grievance. This creates the risk of more sporadic, localized, and therefore less predictable destabilization, especially in the south and central regions of the country.
In a system in fragile equilibrium, the removal of one, even seemingly peripheral, support can lead to an unexpected rebalancing of the entire structure.
So, while Libya may see a deceptive calm in the coming months and the appearance of one political obstacle being lifted, the long-term consequences of Saif al-Islam's assassination are likely to manifest themselves in new forms of social and political division, making genuine national reconciliation an even less achievable goal.
#1
"I have never welcomed the death of any man; but there are some obituaries I have read with great pleasure."
There's no indication that Saif was any less homicidal and bat-shiat insane than his old man. As far as I'm concerned Libya and by extension the world are a little safer today.
#5
If a Flower runs a muslim state/nation, they might produce some rainbows and positive photo ops, but i doubt it provides the stability the country needs to be prosperous. It follows I dont see how a ME country can operate without a strongman authoritarian in power as Islam understands the sword.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Andrey Bulkin
[REGNUM] Today, the world has entered a new era in nuclear security, as the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the final agreement between Russia and the United States that limited their nuclear arsenals, expired on February 5.
To understand why this document has attracted so much attention, it's important to understand why it was needed, how it worked, and what will change if it is finally abandoned.
WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THE NEW START TREATY?
New START is not a disarmament treaty, but a deterrence treaty. Its main idea was to prevent the world's largest nuclear powers—Russia and the United States—from uncontrolled strategic force buildup and to ensure they understood the capabilities of the other side.
The document established strict quantitative restrictions on deployed nuclear warheads, intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and strategic bombers.
Simply put, the treaty prevented an indefinite increase in the number of nuclear warheads and their carriers, and also created a mechanism for mutual verification.
This reduced the risk of mistrust, errors in threat assessment, and ultimately, accidental conflict.
POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES: RUSSIA, USA, CHINA
Moscow and Washington's approaches to the future of the New START Treaty differ significantly.
The Russian leadership has stated its readiness to continue to comply with the key quantitative restrictions of the treaty for a limited time.
Back in September of last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated : “Russia is ready to continue to adhere to the central quantitative restrictions under the START Treaty for one year after February 5, 2026. ”
However, it was emphasized that such a step would only be possible if the United States followed suit. There has been virtually no official response to Russia's initiatives to maintain the framework of strategic stability. Meanwhile, Moscow maintains that it remains open to dialogue—if genuine political will is demonstrated on the other side.
It's important to note that the New START's termination does not mean Russia will be left in a more vulnerable position. Moscow's initial position boils down to a simple principle: if the treaty is no longer needed by one party, the other is not obligated to maintain its restrictions unilaterally.
Russia has all the necessary capabilities to ensure its own security and strategic deterrence even without the New START.
Moreover, in recent years, the development of Russian strategic weapons has focused on the qualitative modernization of delivery systems and increasing their resilience to any countermeasures. This ensures the maintenance of a balance of power even in the absence of a formal treaty framework.
The Russian Foreign Ministry stated this today : "Under the current circumstances, we proceed from the assumption that the parties to the New START Treaty are no longer bound by any obligations or symmetrical declarations in the context of the treaty, including its central provisions, and are fundamentally free to choose their next steps. At the same time, the Russian Federation intends to act responsibly and prudently, formulating its policy on strategic offensive arms based on a thorough analysis of US military policy and the overall strategic situation."
The American position on the New START Treaty, in turn, appears more assertive. US President Donald Trump previously admitted that the treaty's expiration would not be a disaster, expressing confidence that another agreement could be concluded in its place.
"If it expires, it expires," Trump philosophically remarked to The New York Times in January 2026. "We'll get a better deal," he added, insisting that China, which currently has the world's fastest-growing nuclear arsenal, should also be included in the new treaty.
The United States has previously stated that future agreements should include not only Russia but also other nuclear powers, primarily China. In Western rhetoric, this argument is increasingly used to explain why extending the New START Treaty in its current form has supposedly lost its purpose.
However, this approach appears questionable. China has never been a party to the treaty, and its nuclear potential, despite its rapid growth, remains incomparable in scale and structure to the arsenals of Russia and the United States: while China's nuclear warheads number in the hundreds, those of Russia and the United States are in the thousands.
Moreover, Moscow and Beijing are not bound by a military alliance and do not coordinate their nuclear forces. Meanwhile, discussions about the need to include China in the treaty often leave out the United Kingdom and France—nuclear powers that are US NATO allies and are effectively integrated into the West's unified military-political planning system.
In this context, appealing exclusively to China appears to be nothing more than a disingenuous act designed to cover up the unwillingness to extend the treaty.
Beijing, for its part, views US initiatives to involve China in Russian-American nuclear arms reduction talks as unfounded and unfair. The Chinese Embassy in Washington explained to TASS that, at the current stage, the demand for China to join such talks is unreasonable precisely because the scale of China's nuclear arsenal is incomparable to that of the US or Russia.
"China maintains its nuclear forces at the minimum level necessary for national security and does not intend to enter into an arms race with any country," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian, commenting on the expiration of the New START.
Recent high-level Russian-Chinese contacts provided additional context for assessing the parties' positions. The day before, Vladimir Putin held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, during which they emphasized that, amid growing global instability, cooperation between Moscow and Beijing plays a role in fostering global stability.
The Russian side declared its readiness for further close coordination with China on key international and regional issues, both bilaterally and at multilateral forums, including the UN, BRICS, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
At the same time, the emphasis was placed on political and diplomatic coordination, which fits in with the previously stated position: Russia and China do not form a military or nuclear alliance, but they do jointly advocate for a more predictable and stable system of international security, including against the backdrop of the crisis in treaty mechanisms in the sphere of strategic weapons.
POLITICAL AND MILITARY CONSEQUENCES
Of course, New START never covered all nuclear weapons in the world. It was a bilateral treaty. Nevertheless, it served as the foundation of the entire architecture of strategic stability, setting the upper limit for acceptable nuclear confrontation.
From an international perspective, the end of the New START Treaty means the disappearance of the last mechanism of control over the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States.
With the number of states seeking nuclear weapons growing, the demise of such a treaty sends a particularly dangerous signal. If the major nuclear powers demonstrate a rejection of restrictions, it undermines the very idea of strategic arms control as an instrument of international security.
For countries that are already on the threshold of joining the nuclear club or are considering such a possibility, this could become an additional argument in favor of their own nuclear choice.
Today, there are already regions of chronic instability in the world where nuclear weapons play a role as a source of constant risk: the confrontation between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, tensions surrounding the Iranian nuclear program, and the uncertain nuclear status of Israel.
Against this backdrop, the disappearance of New START looks like a dangerous precedent that weakens international norms and makes the global security system more fragile.
Moreover, from a military perspective, the absence of New START opens the way to a new round of the strategic arms race. This doesn't necessarily mean the immediate construction of thousands of new missiles, but it does create the conditions and opportunities for increasing the number of nuclear warheads and their delivery vehicles, as well as for the development of new strategic weapons and their delivery systems.
Clearly, contract termination also increases the burden on early warning systems and increases the risk of erroneous decisions in a crisis. The fewer restrictions and rules, the greater the likelihood that a technical failure or misinterpretation of the other party's actions will lead to catastrophic consequences.
Therefore, although New START didn't solve all the problems, it served an important function: it kept nuclear rivalry within certain limits. Its possible termination makes the world less stable in terms of nuclear security.
At a time when trust between major powers is low, the disappearance of such safety nets is alarming.
The future of strategic stability now depends largely on whether new forms of dialogue can be found—or whether the world will return to the logic of unlimited nuclear rivalry, and the era of nuclear arsenal limitations that lasted more than half a century will finally become a thing of the past.
Pretty bar graphs at the link for you visual thinkers.
[Breitbart] More than half of immigrant-headed households are on one or more forms of taxpayer-funded welfare, far surpassing the welfare use of native-born American households, newly released analysis from the Center for Immigration Studies revealed.
The figures, based on the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) in 2024, show that 53 percent of immigrant-headed households — including those headed by naturalized citizens, legal immigrants, and illegal aliens — are on at least one welfare program.
Compare that to 37 percent of American-headed households on welfare. That's not a good thing.
When naturalized citizens are taken out of the picture, the data shows that almost 6-in-10 households headed by legal immigrants and illegal aliens are on at least one form of welfare — including 45 percent on Medicaid, 42 percent on food stamps, 20 percent on cash assistance, and 4 percent on housing assistance.
About 61 percent of illegal alien-headed households, alone, receive welfare, including 44 percent on Medicaid, 44 percent on food stamps, 21 percent on cash assistance, and two percent on housing assistance.
Even among legal immigrants, welfare use exceeds that of native-born Americans.
A little more than half of households headed by legal immigrants are on welfare, including 38 percent on Medicaid, 32 percent on food stamps, 21 percent on cash assistance, and six percent on housing assistance.
Center for Immigration Studies researchers Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler wrote that the federal government’s efforts to prevent illegal aliens from receiving welfare have been wholly ineffective.
Just about everything President Trump is trying to do must run a gauntlet of judicial interference, which takes time. Or that process can be short-circuited by Congress passing a law to do what the executive order failed to achieve.
“All of this means that the current family-based legal immigration system, and widespread toleration of illegal immigration, is very unlikely to shore up public coffers, even though immigrants have relatively high rates of work,” Camarota and Zeigler wrote:
If we wish to avoid high use of welfare by the foreign-born in the future, then moving to a system that selects immigrants based on their education or skills makes it much more likely they will earn higher incomes and not need welfare. Since more than one-fifth of all immigrant households using at least one welfare program are headed by an illegal immigrant, enforcing immigration laws and reducing the size of the illegal immigrant population would also be helpful in lowering future immigrant welfare use. [Emphasis added]
The data comes as President Donald Trump’s State Department recently halted immigration from 75 countries with the highest rates of welfare use among their respective nationals living in the U.S.
“The pause impacts dozens of countries – including Somalia, Haiti, Iran, and Eritrea – whose immigrants often become public charges on the United States upon arrival,” a State Department spokesperson said. “We are working to ensure the generosity of the American people will no longer be abused. The Trump Administration will always put America First.”
#1
Which means, the Democracts are protesting, rioting,and shutting down services to needy CITIZENS. All so they can illegaly spend & funnel $$$$$ on illegals, their pockets, and their ANTI-USA efforts.
#2
Dewine is saying the Haitians are vital to Ohio’s economy. I think it’s the same scam as Minnesota. Ohio is getting a bunch of Fed money to host immigrant communities. Who suffers the most? The dogs and the cats.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/06/2026 6:17 Comments ||
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#3
QUESTION OF THE DAY!
If a US Citizen were to renounce their citizenship, and then Illegally sneak back in to the USA and milk the system, would they be better off? 🤔
#4
^^^ yes, Haitians aren't even useful to their own country.
Posted by: chris ||
02/06/2026 7:17 Comments ||
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#5
About 61 percent of illegal alien-headed households, alone, receive welfare, including 44 percent on Medicaid, 44 percent on food stamps, 21 percent on cash assistance, and two percent on housing assistance.
The figures for those working 'FOR CASH' was evidently unavailable.
#6
I work for cash, couldn't get shit if I kissed my own ass. Of course I'm white, so that may be the problem. I wouldn't give a goddamn if every one of them including their crotch goblins starved to death.
Posted by: chris ||
02/06/2026 7:55 Comments ||
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#7
the data shows that almost 6-in-10 households ... are on at least one form of welfare
I didn't realize I was supporting poss two other families.
Where is that income tax deduction?
Can I setup deductible college funds for them?
Are all of the family dependents or just the children?
What about medical expenses, HSAs for when they get shot?
#9
The fact that nearly 40% of all households receive some sort of welfare is also very very bad.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
02/06/2026 11:11 Comments ||
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#10
The 37% number is stunning, but without knowing what this article calls "welfare" needs description, explanation. Is SS called welfare? Is VA disability called welfare? How broad is that BRUSH?
My old political economy professor, Thomas Schelling (1979) always* started and ended a lecture with the question Who Pays?
*mostly always. He was great. The tough bastard made it to 95 yo. I was blessed to hear him, learn from him. He and Edward Purcell were my most enlightening professors. I miss them.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/06/2026 17:18 Comments ||
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#11
I forgot to include Norm Ramsey. Brilliant, cutting. He made you question everything. I was blessed.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/06/2026 17:32 Comments ||
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#12
@9 it depends where they live. The cost of living in some states is way too high to afford on low paying service jobs (food stores, gas stations, big box stores) and the like.
#14
My old political economy professor, Thomas Schelling (1979) always* started and ended a lecture with the question Who Pays?
I bet that was interesting!
This is the second time in a fortnight the name Thomas Schelling has popped up on my radar. The previous instance was a Great Courses lecture on Game Theory where his name came up as the author of "The Strategy of Conflict". Apparently, the Universe is reminding me that I need to read it.
Klippenstein is a TDS sufferer who wants da gummint to leave poor antifa alone! A mole leaked a DHS report to him and this is his version of it. It's actually a pretty good job of journalism if you ignore the political slant (just like most journalists)
This story is the first in a three part series on the government’s war on American "terrorism."
Twenty-nine year old Chandler Patey has been regularly protesting outside his local ICE facility in South Portland for months, offering up his apartment to fellow protesters to use the bathroom or wash off pepper spray, according to local news.
That phrase appears in an internal report produced by DHS, the largest law enforcement agency in the country. As they see it, Patey—a young man accused of no crime and who looks like a random protester plucked off the streets of Minneapolis—is a domestic terrorist.
…or at the very least a fellow traveller.
In Patey’s apartment, Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Jesse Waters saw something sinister: an "Antifa safe house," as they called it in multiple segments.
Precisely correct. Any claim to the contrary is disingenuous.
This kind of idiocy is hardly unprecedented by the standards of cable news, of course; but the federal government is buying into the hysteria, too. Documents leaked to me show Patey and countless other American protesters have been branded as domestic terrorists.
A decade or more overdue, but we’ll take it.
As a result, their private information is now being collected and stored in a DHS intelligence system shown below.
The government’s elevation of an ordinary citizen like Patey to terrorist mastermind is the result of a subtle bureaucratic process revealed in this and other DHS documents I’ve obtained. They show that since almost the beginning of the Trump administration, DHS has been desperate to pull together evidence—no matter how thin—of an epidemic of left-wing domestic terrorism.
Reporters like Andy Ngo have been collecting this information for years, and they are happy to share with the feds, since often the local police are not permitted to act on it. Especially since until Trump 47 the federal Deep State management would not let them accept the information either.
"This is my very normal apartment, and it has been referred to by right wing social media grifters as the ’Antifa safe house,’" Patey told The Oregonian. "But I just let people use my sink and use my bathroom."
All of this follows President Trump’s designation of Antifa as a "domestic terrorist organization" (and his related NSPM-7 directive). Senior DHS officials have described to me the bureaucratic nightmare of having to find a legal way to implement the patently outrageous directives of an elected president whom they feel they can’t just ignore.
The federal bureaucracy is riddled with Deep State Progressives who view Antifa as romantic rebels in the 1968 mold, seeing them as freedom fighters holding the line against against the eeeeevil MAGA fascists. Of course they’re frustrated at what the Trumo interlopers are trying to force them to do.
#1
This is the genius of Trump 47. This time he hired people who know how to navigate the bureaucracy and can box them in with their own rules. Designating antifa a domestic terrorist organization and getting the right paperwork done was brilliant. Same as when DHS designated parents who didn't want gay men in dresses grooming their kids as domestic terrorist threats because they attended school board meetings. Biden was an empty suit, completely run by the deep state, which was why he was chosen in the first place.
#2
Senior DHS officials have described to me the bureaucratic nightmare of having to find a legal way to implement the patently outrageous directives of an elected president whom they feel they can’t just ignore.
This is what Trump did in his first term, tried to do things without the right paperwork and they just ignored him.
[Jewish Review] One of the most exciting books of Jewish interest to be published in 2008 is Brotherhood of Warriors by Aaron Cohen, written with the assistance of professional author Douglas Century. It is the riveting story of a young American Jew who makes his way into one of Israel’s most elite undercover military units.
Brotherhood of Warriors is roughly divided into four parts. Part One tells Aaron Cohen’s story up to the time that he enlisted in the Israeli army. Part Two, the longest section of the book, is the account of his training. Part Three tells of his operational time spent in the West Bank fighting Palestinian terrorism. Part Four brings us up to date on Cohen’s life after the army.
Aaron Cohen’s life story is a classic tale of a mixed-up young man who finds himself by joining the army, except this young man is Jewish and the army is the IDF. He was born to Canadian Jewish parents in Montreal. His parents separated soon thereafter and Cohen spent his childhood moving around with his mother from one city to another as she pursued her career in screenwriting. She remarried in Los Angeles to a man who was much more interested in his career in Hollywood than in his stepson and young Aaron found himself rich, unhappy and confused. What set him on his way in life were two years in his mid-teens spent at a military-style boarding school in Ontario. Cohen came into his own under the strict discipline and formulated his plan to join up to the Israeli army as soon as he could.
Moving to Israel after high school, Cohen spent some time hardening himself in the company of former Special Forces operatives working in the fish ponds on Kibbutz Hazorea. The story from this point on is of a young man with extraordinary self-discipline and resolve who passes one test after another and makes it all the way to a fighting position in the elite undercover Duvdevan unit operating in Judea and Samaria.
The longest section of Brotherhood of Warriors is the description of Cohen’s army training. He successfully deals with the unbelievably hard physical and mental challenges designed to winnow out all but the very toughest and strongest of men, compounded in his case by his rudimentary Hebrew skills and outsider status. His descriptions of what he went through are riveting. In one memorable episode, Cohen completes a 120 kilometre hike from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem carrying a fifty pound pack and the thirty pound platoon radio. By the end of it he is so exhausted that, as he is later told by a military doctor, he had come within an hour or two of dying.
Part Three describes some of the missions that Cohen took part in with Duvdevan. He is shot at and shoots others and at this point can be accurately described as a "killing machine". Cohen tells the reader not just what he did, which is fascinating, but how he was affected as a person. The constant danger and pressure changed him and his comrades, cutting them off from other people and turning them inwards. We are told that because of this, no one is allowed to continue in these roles for longer than eight to ten months, after which they are moved out of operations and into behind-the-scenes positions.
[Townhall] When your enemy is down, that's a really good time to kick him in the head. And right now, the Iranian mullahs are down. Israel took out their air and cyber defense systems. We took out their nuke program. Their economy is collapsing thanks to President Trump's sanctions; there are no more pallets of cash coming with a nice note from Ben Rhodes. The Persian people are rising up. All our forces are finally in place. It's time to kick them in the head.
Let's take these bastards out of the picture for good – and hopefully, as you read this, that's what is happening. We can't let this opportunity slip away. If the ayatollahs wiggle out of this, they will be stronger, and we will be weaker, and we will regret it. If Donald Trump ends Jimmy Carter's 47-year forever war, he goes down in history as the one guy who could.
Yes, I know the objection to forever wars. I've had some personal involvement with American Middle East policy, so I'm not asking anybody to do anything I wasn't willing to do. Keep in mind that, but for Donald Trump's victory over ISIS and his neutering of the Venezuelan communists in about an hour, America has not unequivocally won a war since I was a 20-something platoon leader in Desert Storm. Trump is the guy who can bring the forever wars to an end.
There are two ways not to have forever wars. Option One is to never stand up for yourself. If you don't fight back when the people who want to literally murder all of you attack, you are not going to have a war. You are also not going to have a future, because, after they kill all your friends, they will get around to killing you, too.
The other way to finish a forever war is to win the damn thing. That's the Trump way – just ask Maduro. And Option Two is what we need to exercise in Iran now that we've got a giant fleet in Iran's neighborhood and all the chess pieces are on the board.
Posted by: NoMoreBS ||
02/06/2026 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[1783 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
A bunch of bad things are financially gunned in Iran. Giving them pallets of cash was a horrible idea. Taking out the mullahs is highly desirable outcome. Achieving that outcome without shutting Hormuz like happened to the the Red Sea is key.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/06/2026 6:23 Comments ||
Top||
#2
QFT: The other way to finish a forever war is to win the damn thing.
We have been in a regional proxy war my entire life. 30 plus years of Friday Prayers and Death to America.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Jewish Review] One of the most exciting books of Jewish interest to be published in 2008 is Brotherhood of Warriors by Aaron Cohen, written with the assistance of professional author Douglas Century. It is the riveting story of a young American Jew who makes his way into one of Israel’s most elite undercover military units.
