The challenge obviously presents in the form of Donald Trump, the once and current president battling an increasingly rabid set of opponents. Norm Eisen has been deeply involved in every attempt to undermine and disable Mr. Trump since 2016. He wrote briefs for the Mueller Special Counsel operation; he acted as prosecutor in Trump’s impeachment # 1 (prompted by CIA agent and so-called “whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella, as facilitated by then Rep. Adam Schiff); he assisted ex parte in the House Jan 6 Committee proceedings; he prepared legal arguments for the Fani Willis prosecution of Mr. Trump and 18 co-defendants; and he helped construct the legal framework for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s cases against Mr. Trump. In short, Norm Eisen spent the past decade laboring to brand Donald Trump as a criminal and shove him out of the political arena. His efforts failed.
Norm Eisen founded or is associated with several swamp NGOs active in Trump-hunting operations, including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the States United Democracy Center, the Democracy Defenders Fund, Democracy Defenders Action — all posing as anti-autocracy operations. Eisen and his orgs have filed hundreds of lawsuits against the Trump administration to obstruct any initiative the President advances to stop Democratic Party sanctioned grift, deport illegal aliens ushered in during the “Joe Biden” years, and especially to derail investigations of election fraud. These orgs are well-funded by George Soros’s Open Society NGO and its spinoffs, Arabella Advisors (rebranded as Sunflower Services), the Tides Foundation, that is, the usual suspects.
In the face of all that, plus a dysfunctional Congress and a hostile federal judiciary, the President has struggled to find work-arounds for every piece of the agenda he was elected to carry out. What can be done about it? Even if evidence was produced to show that Norm Eisen acted improperly in the cases brought against the President, it is unlikely that a case brought against Norm Eisen would get any traction in a DC district federal court. He is a longstanding friend of James “Jeb” Boasberg, Chief Judge of the DC District. Norm Eisen was in the same 1991 class at Harvard Law School as Barack Obama, an architect of the Left’s movement to destroy the Republic. *
* Correction: in the early edition I mistakenly stated that James Boasberg was also in that Harvard Law School gang. He was not. He attended Yale Law School
All of this suggests that if Mr. Trump needs to accomplish something critical, such as basic reform of our election procedures, and if any of his executive orders are thwarted by Norm Eisen-backed lawsuits for judicial nullification of executive powers, Mr. Trump will have to declare some kind of extraordinary national emergency. That will be the red-line that Norm Eisen has been seeking for ten years: his chance to brand Mr. Trump as a “tyrant” and commence a new impeachment effort, in theory coinciding with the seating of a Democratic Party majority in both houses of Congress.
[Breitbart] A United Nations committee published a damning decision singling out the Mexican Cartel-related “Enforced Disappearances” problem. The committee called on the UN Secretary General to request action on the matter from the General Assembly.
The Mexican government responded with a rebuke of the decision, claiming that the U.N. is overstepping its authority – a response that follows the Sheinbaum administration’s attempts to diminish and cover up its ongoing problem of cartel impunity.
In their ruling, the U.N. Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) stated that they had “well-founded indications that enforced disappearances in Mexico have been and continue to be committed as crimes against humanity.” The ruling was based on Article 34 of the U.N. Convention, which intends to draw international attention and support instead of “establishing criminal responsibility.”
The term enforced disappearance points to government-sanctioned abductions where the victims are never heard from again. In their ruling, the U.N. pointed to most disappearances being carried out by criminal organizations, but in many of those, there was some level of involvement by government officials or authorities. The committee did not find a federal-level policy to carry out those disappearances, but the involvement of government officials and authorities points to crimes against humanity.
The ruling refers to the widespread infiltration of cartels at various levels of Mexico’s government. These cartels are directly responsible for a large part of the violent crime in Mexico, something that government officials have worked to deny or minimize.
This week, in an apparent response to the U.N. committee’s ruling, Mexico’s Undersecretary of Foreign Relations (SRE) Enrique Ochoa Martinez took to social media to rebuke the report and claim that the U.N. was overstepping its mandate by issuing the document without a legal basis and by improperly expanding the definition of enforced disappearances.
In his statements, Ochoa claimed that Mexico had implemented numerous international measures to work on the issue of missing persons and claimed that the ruling unfairly targeted Mexico.
The statements mirror an ongoing rhetoric pushed by Mexico’s government, where they claim to have been proactive in addressing violent crime and that they have been addressing the cartel problem. However, the reality is much different, as Breitbart Texas reported. The U.S. government has continuously criticized Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, leading to U.S. President Donald Trump mocking her at times, claiming she is afraid of cartels.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
04/04/2026 06:26 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1761 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
[ZeroHedge] The current shift in the global economic system is frequently described as cyclical; however, the available evidence suggests a structural transition. The defining characteristic of this transition is a change in the system’s optimization function. For approximately three decades, the global economy operated under a model that prioritized efficiency, cost minimization, and capital mobility. That model is now being reoriented toward control, resilience, and strategic autonomy.
No doubt. Were you ever able to give them a reason to want to learn it? I persuaded trailing daughter #2 that honours English was worth doing well — despite thinking most of the things they read were stupid — because it would make her business memos communicate more effectively and would help her glean more from the communications of others, giving her a competitive advantage. But even though she tested 99+ percentile for math, and even though she took the honours math classes with kids two grades ahead, the only real interest she took in mathematics was how she could use numbers later to make more profits for whichever company hired her.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is italics
[ColonelCassad] It's time to stop tolerating those joining the EU.
Of course, Trump and America won't leave NATO. There's no reason, and Congress won't allow it. Trump's rhetoric is pure shock value. Although symbolic actions like reducing the size of the American contingent or refusing to supply something are possible. That's not what's noteworthy here.
Clearly, there are powerful contradictions within the alliance, exacerbated by the Iranian campaign. And European political freaks, especially in Brussels, are seriously considering creating a full-fledged military component within the EU. And this is changing the landscape.
Until now, our rhetoric about EU membership has been reserved and calm, applied to all our neighbors, even Bandera's Ukraine. If you want to join, go ahead. But now everything must change – the EU is no longer an economic union. It could very quickly turn into a full-fledged military alliance, extremely hostile to Russia, in some ways worse than NATO. It will be a disgusting rabble of rabid European parasites. And their goal will be to earn political capital and, of course, cash by whipping up Russophobic hysteria.
What am I getting at? It's time to abandon our tolerant attitude toward our neighbors joining the military-economic European Union. Including country 404. Our President recently did this, quite subtly, hinting to a certain comrade Vovaevich that membership in the EAEU and membership in the European Union are incompatible... (c) Medvedev. EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union) is a refence to the Russian dominated economic block. Nikol Pashinyan is a reference top Nikol Pashinyan, prime minister of Armenia. Indeed, it's about time. It's already 2026, although everything was obvious back in 2014.
[PJMedia] It’s counterintuitive because the stereotype is at least partially true: There really are a lot of Jews in Hollywood. Plenty in the mainstream media, too.
So why does Israel get such uniquely horrible press?
To my knowledge, there haven’t been any recent studies that examine what percentage of media stories about Israel are negative or positive, but I’d bet a Picasso it’s ridiculously, outlandishly negative. And if you want to go double or nothing, I’ll also bet that, in raw numbers, Israel receives BY FAR more negative news stories than any foreign nation in the Western world.
Yet Al Jazeera and a whole lot of others keep insisting that the pro-Israel narrative is unfairly drowning them out — and therefore, it must be further counterbalanced.
(So much so, I actually found a 2025 media study that accused Western outlets of being biased against the Paleostinians, because newspapers printed the word "Israel" more times than the word "Paleostine." For shame!)
Anti-Israel PR is everywhere. From every award show to every social media platform to every college campus, it’s an inescapable part of the cultural zeitgeist — and for the Democratic Party, it’s become a cornerstone belief. If you’re a Zionist, you’re ineligible for your party’s presidential nomination — as Josh Shapiro will likely find out.
Because the Democratic Party has dramatically changed. The Republicans, however, have not.
In 2013, 67% of Republicans sympathized more with the Israelis than the Paleostinians. In 2026, after zillions of Tucker Carlson’s thought-provoking podcasts and all of Candace Owens’ clever arguments, 69% of Republicans sympathized more with the Israelis.
For the GOP, the polls reflected a remarkable degree of ideological consistency.
But the tale of the tape for the Dems told a radically different story: In 2013, 34% of Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... sympathized with Israel; 18% with the Paleostinians. That’s a +16 edge for Israel.
Today, 67% sympathize with the Paleostinians. Just 17% with the Israelis.
Which means, over the last 13 years, the Dems went from being +16 for Israel to +50 for Paleostine.
To understand how catastrophic that is, all you need to know is this: In terms of popularity, Israel now TRAILS Chuck Schumer ...Senator-for-life from New York, renowned for his love of standing in front of cameras and microphones. Schumer has been a professional politician since 1975, when disco was in flower, which is NaN years. Senate minority leader as of 2017... by double digits. (Gasp!)
And Chuck Schumer, of course, is America’s most unpopular politician.
It’s a heightened level of vitriol that North Korea ...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche... , Russia, Iran, China, and violent mostly peaceful, repressive dictatorships never receive. If Kim Pudge Jong-un ...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished... , Vladimir Putin ...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances... , Xi Jinping, Mojtaba Khamenei (cardboard or real), and Bibi Netanyahu all walked by a busy college campus, the first four would be greeted with shoulder shrugs — and Netanyahu pelted with eggs, epithets, and allegations of being a vile, evil war criminal.
But why?
Israel, after all, is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East that guarantees religious freedom to all its citizens, including Jews, Moslems, atheists, and Christians. (Especially Christians, whose numbers have grown fourfold in 75 years, and 84% say they are satisfied with Israeli life.)
In 27 countries, Islam is the official state religion. In 13 other countries, the official state religion is Christianity. For two, it’s Buddhism.
For only one, it’s Judaism — and for liberal activists, that’s one too many.
Furthermore, if you’re an LGBTQ+ activist, Israel is the only country in the Middle East that protects same-sex relationships. In Iran, Iraq, Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... , Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... , Brunei, Kuwait, Syria, Libya, Algeria, Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , the West Bank, Nigeria, Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... , Afghanistan, Pakistain, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Somalia, and Sudan ...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans... , homosexuality is punished with the death penalty So what’s triggered this tsunami of anti-Israel PR? Why does Israel receive such uniquely negative press?
There are multiple reasons.
One: Jewish representation in media/Hollywood doesn’t mean pro-Israel content.
Only 21% of American Jews say religion is "very important" in their lives, and a big majority — 71% — are Democratic or lean Democratic. They’re ethnically Jewish, but that’s the extent of it. For millions of American Jews, party affiliation matters more than ethnic identity, and as the Democratic Party pivoted away from Israel, so did they, because they’re first and foremost loyal, dependable, card-carrying Democrats.
And if your last name sounds Jewish, the best way to virtue-signal your hatred of racism, colonialism, Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... , and "genocide" is to double down on your anti-Zionist rhetoric. (It proves to your colleagues that you’re "one of the good ones.")
Because there’s an increasingly stark partisan divide among U.S. Jews: 85% of Jewish Republicans support Israel in Gaza, compared to just 31% of Jewish Democrats — a 54-point gap.
This divide grows generationally: 68% of American Jews over 65 are "emotionally connected" to Israel, but for those between 18 and 34, it was only 36%. As older Jews die off, replacing them is a younger generation where two out of three lack an emotional connection to the Jewish homeland.
They’re JINOs — Jews in name only — and in their minds, Israel isn’t a safeguard against a second Holocaust, but the primary driver of global antisemitism.
Most American Jews agree with the Democrats: 61% say Israel is guilty of "war crimes" in Gaza, and an astonishing 49% either believe Israel committed genocide, or are unsure if genocide happened. Which places them squarely within today’s Democratic Party, where 72% believe Israel is guilty of genocide, 65% favor anti-Israel sanctions, and 62% would ban Israeli politicians and/or soldiers from entering the U.S.
As the Democratic Party pulled away from Israel, so did American Jews.
I suspect self-preservation is a key catalyst, too. A generation ago, American Jews viewed Israel as a parachute — a cord they pull if/when there’s an emergency — and a safeguard against a second Holocaust. In their minds, the survival of a Jewish homeland kept their children safe.
Not anymore: Instead of keeping them safe, American Jews blame Israel for the spike in antisemitism. Were it not for that "war criminal" Netanyahu and the murderous IDF, pro-Paleostinian activists wouldn’t be harassing Jewish kids on college campuses.
It’s their fault!
And they might be right. As the News Agency that Dare Not be Named reported, "Anti-Defamation League Says Anger at Israel in Now the Driving Force Behind Antisemitism in the US."
So, not only did Jewish representation in media/Hollywood fail to lead to pro-Israel content, it probably made American Zionists complacent, because they assumed Hollywood’s Jews had Israel’s back.
Turns out, they didn’t.
Two: The medium makes the message, and today’s dominant medium — social media — is heavily biased against Israel.
Back in the 1990s, all the good, trendy leftists loved Tibet. Remember that? The Dalai Lama was on par with Nelson Mandela as the ultimate "good guy."
But Zoomers don’t care about Tibet anymore. Not even a little bit!
And there are two main reasons why:
American media no longer distributes pro-Tibet content, because doing so means your parent company/corporation will be barred from the (lucrative) Chinese marketplace.
TikTok has become younger American’s go-to source for the news, and for very obvious reasons, Tik Tok has shadow-banned any mention of Tibet (or Taiwan, Tienanmen Square, the Uyghur Moslems, or criticism of the Chinese government). Instead, TikTok is flooded with pro-Paleostinian content, and other social media platforms have been bombarded with bots from Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... and other anti-Israel nations. Qatar alone spends $1.2 billion annually on digital advertisements. Saudi Arabia spends $4.68 billion. It’s created a digital echo-chamber that reinforces anti-Zionism.
Meanwhile,
...back at the alley, Bugs Moroni was holding Slats from behind while his brother Greasy Thumb was pounding his face into paste ... Israel only spent $145 million annually to defend itself and counter this avalanche of negative PR, and that’s just not enough. It's outspent and outgunned.
And it’s already cost Israel an entire generation of young people.
Three: Israel’s optics are blasphemous to liberal eyes.
And I’m not simply referring to anti-Israel propaganda from the Gaza War. Think deeper — and consider how Israel looks to an under-educated Zoomer who’s already consumed oodles of pro-Paleostinian content on TikTok.
Lots of prominent Israelis, including Netanyahu, look an awful lot like white Europeans. They’re living better than the darker-skinned Arabs. And a border wall separates the Paleostinians and Israelis.
Therefore, the Israelis must be racist colonizers that practice apartheid.
Doesn’t matter that there’s never been, in the entire history of history, a free and independent Paleostinian state. Doesn’t matter that Jewish ties to the Holy Land have been genetically, historically, and archeologically proven to extend thousands of years. And it doesn’t matter that if the Paleostinians stopped trying to murder Jews, the border wall wouldn’t be necessary.
Liberals see skin color first, second, and last, which makes Israel de facto guilty — period, end of story.
Along with all of the above, there’s also the Donald Trump ...dictatorial for repealing some (but not all) of the diktats of his predecessor, misogynistic because he likes pretty girls, homophobic because he doesn't think gender bending should be mandatory, truly a man for all seasons... factor. Liberals sincerely believe our current president is "literally Hitler ...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days, sometimes every few hour if it's an election year, as a politician somebody doesn't like... ," and a fascist ...anybody you disagree with, damn them... /dictator/monster, so Netanyahu’s cozy relationship with the Evil Orange Man makes him guilty by association.
Four: The Sunni Moslem world has been waging a multibillion-dollar PR war against Israel for many years.
Tiny Qatar, with only 360,000 to 400,000 citizens, has spent a mind-blowing $62.4 billion funding U.S. colleges and universities. In 2025, it was the largest foreign source of gifts, contracts, and funding for U.S. higher education.
Not so coincidentally, American colleges emerged as Ground Zero for pro-Paleostinian protests.
Saudi Arabia spends even more on Western PR, although precise numbers are difficult to track. From WrestleMania to the World Cup to pro golf to prizefighting, the Saudis have likely launched the most aggressive, far-reaching PR campaign the Western world has ever seen, and its ultimate goal is to capture hearts and minds.
Saudi Arabia even hosted the 2025 Riyadh Comedy Festival, where American comics went from bashing U.S. billionaires to bootlicking Saudi princes, and Dave Chapelle felt perfectly free to trash-talk Israel (of course) — but any mockery of the Saudi royal family or Islam was contractually prohibited.
Comedian Tim Dillon was disinvited from Saudi Arabia after joking (on U.S. soil) about Saudi slavery. Poor guy tried to claim it was all a miscommunication: "I was defending them for having slaves! I literally said, ’Slaves are hard workers and for the most part agreeable.’ But they didn’t like that."
The Sunni royals are also spending lavishly on conservative media. According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the Royal Family of Qatar spent $50 million on Newsmax. And since Trump returned to the White House in 2024, the influence of Sunni money on conservative media has increased fivefold, per the Washington Examiner’s reporting.
Does this explain Tucker Carlson’s love affair with Qatar, his campaign against Israel, or posts such as this from Candace Owens?
No matter how hard the GOP tries to make "radical Islam" happen, the base doesn’t care about it.
We are way more concerned about Israel.
(Maybe, maybe not: Like Tucker and Candace, I’m "just asking questions." I’m sure it’s theoretically possible that the same Qataris and Saudis who spent hundreds of billions to influence U.S. opinion somehow overlooked U.S. influencers.)
Five: Israel is psychologically unprepared to defend its reputation, because the same qualities that made it a regional superpower blinds it to danger.
Born in the ashes of Auschwitz, Israel is a nation that’s defied the odds at every turn. From its War of Independence, where it defended itself from the five Arab nations that sought to strangle the Jewish state in its infancy, to the Six Day War, where it made mincemeat of its adversaries, Israel survives by making the impossible possible.
Idealism is in its soul.
Israel believes the truth will be enough — and that the good, decent people of the world will reject the blood libel of genocide.
After all, it’s a stupid, baseless allegation: As urban warfare expert John Spencer noted, the IDF "has implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any other nation in history," and is the "gold standard" for preserving civilian lives. The idea that Israelis are bloodthirsty barbarians mowing down innocent Paleostinian children is absurd.
If anything, trying to avoid civilian casualties has led to higher numbers of IDF deaths.
Furthermore, the Gaza "genocide" is the only one in memory where the birthrate was higher than the deathrate, which beckons a very obvious question: How can it be a "genocide" when the Paleostinian population in Gaza was still growing?
Because of their history, faith, and covenant with God, the Israelis are convinced the truth will prevail. This isn’t the first time their enemies have lied about them — and it won’t be the last. If anything, it’s been a historic constant. Hitler, Haman, and the Roman Empire did it, too.
Yet today, Israel still stands — not because God is on its side, but because it’s on the side of God.
But as a PR pro, I fear the Israelis are wrong: Sometimes, the truth isn’t enough. Sometimes, the good guys don’t win. Sometimes, you need to change your tactics.
And if Israel doesn’t fight just as intelligently, passionately, and relentlessly in the PR war as it does on the battlefield, I fear it’ll cost the Jewish state dearly.
#2
Moral relativism asserts that what is considered morally right or wrong depends on the context in which it occurs, rather than being universally fixed. It challenges the notion of universal moral principles, suggesting that ethical norms are shaped by cultural, historical, or personal factors. This perspective emphasizes understanding moral beliefs within their specific social or cultural framework rather than judging them by external standards.
[ZH] Most people don’t think about what the “cloud” actually is. It’s a physical building full of servers storing everything from your medical records to your social media. Every Google search, every ChatGPT query, every hospital pulling up your health history routes through a data center. Right now, those buildings have about as much aerial protection as your local Costco.
In March 2026, Iranian Shahed drones struck three AWS data centers in the UAE and Bahrain. Multiple availability zones went down simultaneously, taking core services like EC2, S3, and Lambda offline, cascading outages to banks, payment platforms, and ride-hailing apps across the region. It was the first confirmed kinetic attack on a hyperscale data center run by a U.S. company. Shortly after, Iranian state media published a list of “Enemy Technology Infrastructure,” including Microsoft, Google, and Oracle facilities, painting targets on every major cloud provider in contested regions.
Yes, the cloud is distributed. Workloads can fail over. But data still lives somewhere physical, and partial corruption or destruction can be devastating in ways a temporary outage doesn’t capture. Medical records, financial transactions, and AI training datasets are worth hundreds of millions. When those are gone, they’re gone.
Global data center capex is approaching $1 trillion in 2026. The top four hyperscalers are collectively spending nearly $600 billion on infrastructure this year. That’s the physical backbone of modern life, sitting behind chain-link fences, with no ability to stop a drone costing between $30,000 and $80,000.
These facilities were never built to survive military threats. Security was designed around physical intrusion and cyberattacks, not one-way attack drones that cost a fraction of what they destroy.
Decentralization helps at the margins, but hundreds of billions of dollars poured into existing mega facilities can’t be shifted overnight. The real answer is layered detection and intercept: radar, RF sensors, EO/IR tracking, and kinetic or electronic defeat systems working together around these sites.
The military may eventually provide coverage for the most critical nodes, but they’ll prioritize their own assets first. And human life should come before server racks. That’s exactly why data centers need to be more proactive about protecting their own infrastructure rather than waiting for someone else to do it. Sentradel is already marketing counter-drone solutions to data center operators; it's likely to become more important over the next year as these kamikaze drones continue to improve rapidly in AI, speed, and payload.
[Hot Air] Well, who would have guessed that France would wave the white flag and cut a deal with our enemy?
Not me! Up until now, France has been a staunch ally, right?!
First, we learned that France joined Russia and China to veto a UAE-proposed resolution to create a coalition to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, because of course they did. And now we are getting reports that Iran has cut some sort of deal with Iran to guarantee safe passage for their ships through the Strait.
Earlier today, a French cargo ship was the first Western craft to brave the passage of the Strait of Hormuz.
In addition, an empty LNG ship changed course to make passage through the Strait, hugging the coast of Oman. Iran has indicated that it is working with Oman to lower tensions, and this is likely related to that. It could also be an attempt to evade Iranian threats, though.
#8
De Gaulle also said: "You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination."
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/04/2026 12:30 Comments ||
Top||
#9
I always love how a European has to show their pretentious ass. Wasn't it Europeans who started WW1 and killed millions ? Seems like y'all are being invaded AGAIN and can't do shit about it and keep electing POS politician who have given damn near you entire continent up to POS muslims? Shut your stupid ass up.
Posted by: chris ||
04/04/2026 13:37 Comments ||
Top||
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/04/2026 13:55 Comments ||
Top||
#12
I will just say this: My son who served in Afghanistan, is a very well behaved man. That's why I won't quote what he said when Trump claimed that allied troops in Afghanistan "stayed a little back, a little off the front lines".
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/04/2026 14:01 Comments ||
Top||
#13
I think it's fair to say Europeans are governed by bureaucrats not elected by the people, while Americans are governed by bureaucrats that are supposed to be elected by the people.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/04/2026 14:04 Comments ||
Top||
#14
The Europeans don't seem to have a clear idea of who their friends are or who their enemies are.
They allow their country to be overrun by Muslims, who they have been fighting off and on for centuries. They do not contest the invasion. In fact, they welcome the invaders with welfare and turn a blind eye when the invaders rape their daughters.
Then they start a totally unnecessary war against Russia from whom they were getting cheap oil and natural gas to fuel their economies.
Then they refuse to help Americans to keep Iran from nuking them. I guess they'd rather buy oil from the Mad Mullahs than Putin.
Yes, I understand that they have interests but I don't think they understand what their interests are.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/04/2026 14:12 Comments ||
Top||
#15
"Then they start a totally unnecessary war against Russia..."
Huh?
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/04/2026 14:34 Comments ||
Top||
#17
That's right. Europeans started it. They knew damn good and well that NATO expansion into Ukraine meant war with Russia and yet they continue to insist on it.
Oh, I know. Joe Biden and Baraq Obama were in on it too. But they are no longer calling the shots in America. We have Orange Man Bad now. Europeans still have the same idiots committing slow suicide.
Go ahead and tell me it was Putin who invaded Ukraine. What was he supposed to do? Sit and wait until NATO moved? Let NATO have Crimea and Donbas? Let them deploy nuclear weapons on Russia's border?
Ever hear the expression that a good offense is the best defense? Well, the Russians don't have a good offense. They're doing the best they can but don't try telling me that next on their list is Poland. And, if you send European boys to Ukraine, don't come crying to me when they come home in body bags. Don't ask me to pay for it and don't ask for American boys to join the fun.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/04/2026 15:11 Comments ||
Top||
#18
De Gaulle also said: "You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination."
Of course De Gaulle was correct when he said that. We freely admit it. But over and over again in the Twentieth Century, Americans saved his bacon.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/04/2026 15:17 Comments ||
Top||
#19
Don't count on us riding to the rescue again when Europeans are committing stupidities beyond imagination of their own.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/04/2026 15:18 Comments ||
Top||
#20
If you're going to parrot RT now, there's no point in debate.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/04/2026 15:35 Comments ||
Top||
#22
I never read RT so I do not understand your comment. I read Rantburg which often features Regnum articles but most of them are so long and wordy that I have a tough time getting through them all. I understand that Russian media is highly propagandized but then, so is American media. Maybe if you read both sides of the story you find the truth somewhere in the middle. I try anyway.
I try to follow current events. I remember clearly in the summer of 2022 how US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken insisted that NATO would expand into Ukraine despite Putin's warnings that such expansion would be an existential threat to Russia. I understood that to mean war and I din't think Ukraine was worth the risk. I believe that NATO has gone far enough to the East. I thought Blinken was a fool and I knew that Biden was. I really hate the idea of following fools into war.
I read your comments, EC, with an open mind. But I haven't read any of them yet to convince me that I'm wrong.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/04/2026 16:01 Comments ||
Top||
#23
Sure. The lunatic who loves to drop nukes on London and Berlin every Thursday.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/04/2026 16:01 Comments ||
Top||
#24
"I remember clearly in the summer of 2022 how US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken insisted that NATO would expand into Ukraine despite Putin's warnings that such expansion would be an existential threat to Russia."
In summer 2022 Russia had already invaded Ukraine and committed the atrocities of Bucha.
Germany and France had already made it clear in 2008 that Ukraine wasn't to join NATO. In eaely 2022 Ukraine wasn't any closer ro NATO than it was back then. Rather Putin wanted NATO to abandon all Eastern European countries.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/04/2026 16:09 Comments ||
Top||
#25
What is there to debate about? Truth hurts don't it? You're all just a bunch of loud mouth know it all's.
Posted by: chris ||
04/04/2026 16:25 Comments ||
Top||
#26
My $0.02:
We promised to protect Ukraine when they gave up their Soviet nukes, amirite? Putin is a Soviet-empire-rebuilding dictator who wanted Donbas, Crimea, and as much as he could grab and dominate including Kiev. Ukraine was also a shithole of corruption and theft. Nobody's innocent here
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/04/2026 17:16 Comments ||
Top||
Posted by: chris ||
04/04/2026 21:16 Comments ||
Top||
#32
European conservatives come from a different place than American conservatives, and not just literally. ;-) There is some agreement on how things should be, but also very strong disagreements. I figure it’s good for both sides to be reminded there are others ways to see the world that are equally thoughtful.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Andrey Bulkin
[REGNUM] Since the Middle East conflict entered its latest hot phase, when the US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 provoked a massive response from Tehran, the information space has become one of the battlefields. Both sides, of course, are paying particular attention to the other's military losses.
Apparently, the American command's calculation was simple: Israel and its regional allies would bear the brunt of the ground operation, while the US would limit itself to air and naval strikes. But Iran disrupted this plan by launching powerful and effective strikes against American bases. Fighting through proxy forces was not an option; instead, they were forced to count their losses.
Fifteen killed so far, according to the internet — including six in the March 1 drone strike in Kuwait. Such low casualties is highly unusual, especially when compared to the vast numbers killed in Russia’s meat grinder approach of pushing waves of bodies to soak up bullets, hoping the enemy will run out of bullets before Russia runs out of soldiers to absorb them.
Yet official Washington is portraying cautious optimism, while Tehran paints a picture of a crushing attack on the American military machine, claiming that the Pentagon is hiding hundreds of dead and wounded because it is afraid of shocking its own population.
ANTI-CRISIS
According to data released by US Central Command spokesman Captain Tim Hawkins, as of March 31, the total number of American service members wounded in the war with Iran was 348.
The Pentagon emphasizes that 315 of them—just over 90 percent—have already returned to duty. Six remain seriously wounded. It's worth clarifying that the US Army's classification of such cases refers to conditions in which death is possible or inevitable.
According to official figures, 13 service members were killed in Iranian strikes. Another American soldier died in the Middle East, but it was reportedly from causes unrelated to the fighting.
Among the dead were six officers, including a major of the signal corps, a major and four captains of the Air Force, as well as one warrant officer (roughly equivalent to a Russian ensign, but with serious reservations) and six sergeants of varying degrees of seniority.
All of the aforementioned Air Force officers died in the crash of a KC-135 Stratotanker tanker, and almost all of the remaining casualties were victims of the Iranian strike on the Kuwait base on March 1. It then became clear to everyone—including the Americans—that there would be no easy way out.
Whether 13 or 15, the number is much too small to demand contemplating surrender.
This was confirmed on March 8, when an American sergeant died from wounds received during a shelling of an American base in Saudi Arabia.
The death of a major in the US National Guard's 42nd Infantry Division's signal corps, who died of unspecified causes in Kuwait on March 6, remains the most mysterious. Officially, the division is not involved in the events in Iran, and no other US military casualties have been reported that day.
As for injuries, their nature is primarily related to enemy drone strikes. Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Kaine previously stated that the majority of injuries sustained by US service members were the result of Iranian drone strikes.
APOCALYPSE NOW
From the very beginning of the war, Iranian official sources have been reporting American losses that are an order of magnitude higher than the Pentagon's figures.
How on earth would Iran know?
Even if these figures are inflated to some extent to suit Iran's narrative, they cannot help but impress Americans, who for the most part frankly don't understand what their young men are doing in the Middle East. Just as these young men themselves, risking their lives thousands of kilometers from their homeland, don't understand it.
Some, no doubt, of both sets. Others, not so much.
Tehran's first major statement came on March 1: the Fars news agency, citing the press service of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported that the US Army had lost 560 people killed and wounded as a result of Iran's retaliatory strikes.
On March 7, Lieutenant Colonel Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesman for the Iranian Armed Forces' Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, made a statement in which he provided specific figures for individual facilities.
According to him, 21 people were killed and many more were wounded at the US Navy's 5th Fleet base. Around 200 service members were killed or wounded at the US Al Dhafra base in the United Arab Emirates. Furthermore, the Iranian side claims that numerous soldiers and commanders were also out of action at other facilities, but these losses are simply being concealed.
Since then, such reports have been coming from Iran regularly. For example, on March 29, Zolfaghari reported successful strikes on shelters in the UAE housing over 500 US troops.
On March 30, the IRGC announced the destruction of a hidden US military command center in Bahrain, killing more than 200 troops, including a large number of officers.
And in early April, the commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, Majid Mousavi, reported on the strike on a base in Saudi Arabia, indicating that more than 200 American service members were wounded and killed.
Therefore, if Iranian data is to be believed, the number of American soldiers killed and wounded has long since exceeded a thousand. Iran's main argument is that the United States is deliberately understating its own losses to prevent the growth of anti-war sentiment within the country (although it continues to grow).
Tehran believes the actual figures are so high that their disclosure would provoke a political crisis in Washington: fatigue from protracted conflicts on the other side of the world is a significant factor in the country's "star-spangled" domestic politics.
Americans still remember how they were deceived with weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
That’s what the propagandists claim, anyway.
That war cost the US nearly 5,000 lives. Ordinary citizens also haven't forgotten how their army's deployment in Afghanistan ended.
All together curse the names of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the Biden Politburo actually making decisions throughout President Biden rside
Fighting the war through proxy forces back then didn't work either.
GRAY ZONE
It is impossible to establish the exact number of US casualties in the first month of the war with Iran, and there are several fundamental reasons for this, which are rooted not in the current conflict, but in long-standing practices of warfare and its media coverage developed by the US, Israel, and Iran.
First of all, both sides are waging an extremely aggressive information war. For the US and its allies, it's critical to maintain the image of an invincible military force, one that doesn't suffer losses (which, however, they've clearly failed to do). For Iran, it's important to demonstrate that, despite the serious damage it's suffered, its strikes are hitting their target and inflicting unacceptable losses on the enemy.
However, it's not just propaganda. The United States has historically been particularly secretive when it comes to casualties in its special forces. After all, the Delta Force, which recently made its presence felt with the capture of Nicolás Maduro, the Navy SEALs, and the Green Berets are the elite of the American armed forces, typically deployed in the early days of any conflict to carry out the most difficult and dangerous missions.
This informational defense mechanism has been tested for decades: relying on a bloodless victory, but ultimately still sending its soldiers to their deaths for dubious economic and geopolitical benefits under the banner of “exporting democracy” has always been completely natural for any American administration.
Elite units sometimes suffer disproportionately high losses in the initial phase, but information about them is either classified until the end of the operation, or even longer, or is categorized as non-combat-related losses: a helicopter crash during an exercise, a weapon malfunction during testing, or a heart attack—we've already seen all of this in the case of Western military personnel killed in Ukraine.
A similar situation is observed in the United States' main ally in the region, Israel, whose manpower the White House initially relied on to a large extent, until they realized that they could not do without their own active participation.
In the Jewish state, there is strict military censorship, which allows into the public sphere only that information that is deemed acceptable by the army command, the leadership of the intelligence services, and the government.
Official data on Israeli military casualties in Lebanon and during operations against Iran are carefully filtered. Information on losses of elite units such as Sayeret Matkal, Shaldag, and others, if published at all, is released with a significant delay and often in anonymized form.
With Israel a party to the conflict, its censorship works in tandem with American restrictions, creating a vast "gray zone" in the information space, which could cause the coalition's actual loss figures to differ dramatically from the official ones.
Some indirect evidence that casts doubt on the completeness of American statistics has already become publicly known.
For example, as early as early March, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the primary US military hospital in Europe, located near Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, began preparing to receive a large number of wounded, forcing the temporary closure of its maternity ward. And after the massive Iranian strikes, according to monitoring resources, US Air Force medical flights from the Middle East to Ramstein Air Force Base began to increase their frequency.
It's unlikely such a massive effort would have been necessary on such an urgent basis if the expected casualty count had been limited to three hundred. Consequently, the initial expectation that someone else would bear the brunt of the casualties proved futile.
Iran is likely exaggerating the scale of American losses, portraying successful localized strikes on bases as the destruction of entire fleets and the death of hundreds of servicemen. However, there is no reason to fully trust American statistics, which are prone to being tweaked to suit domestic political expediency.
The US believed that fear of its power would force Iran to absorb the initial blows and avoid risking a full-scale response, as it had last time. But they miscalculated. Tehran not only responded, but also demonstrated its ability to strike where the Americans were vulnerable. Now, soldiers and officers are bearing the consequences of shortsightedness and miscalculations by politicians.
Therefore, when the truth—or at least a significant portion of it—finally breaks through the information blockade, American society risks being shocked. The war, presented as yet another demonstration of US power, resulted in senseless losses for the country. However, this is far from the first time.
And there is every reason to believe that the Americans will not forget either the understated figures or the frivolous attitude towards the lives of military personnel.
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.
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
[Hot Air] Well, who would have guessed that France would wave the white flag and cut a deal with our enemy?
