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The GOP Has Its Own Platner-Esque Nightmare Erupting In Ohio

Democrats spent months navigating the endless Graham Platner scandals in Maine, before credible rape allegations finally forced him out. Republicans got their own Platner-esque scandal of their own this week in Ohio.

Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) posted a 25-minute video to X on Sunday morning to deny a stack of abuse allegations from his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, the daughter of Sen. Bernie Moreno. He's been accused of holding a gun to her head, throwing scalding water at her, and fracturing their 2-year-old daughter's collarbone. Miller says none of it happened the way it's described, and he says a family court fight over custody explains why the story surfaced.

"Let me begin with the most painful accusation of all: I have never abused our daughter," Miller said in the video, adding that the claims "have damaged my reputation, caused enormous pain to my family, and most importantly, it's affected our daughter."

He asked viewers to draw their own conclusions from his ex-wife's behavior after the alleged assaults. "Ask yourself, if I had assaulted her, would she have offered to cook me dinner six days later? Would she have invited me to spend an afternoon at the playground with her and our daughter?" Miller said, insisting there is "no evidence" against him and that no court or child welfare investigation has substantiated the allegations. The boiling water, he said, was a kitchen sink spray mistaken for horseplay.

Special Announcement https://t.co/ouTFVkATZD

— Max Miller (@MaxMillerOH) August 2, 2026

Police confirmed to CNN that prosecutors never filed charges over the daughter's collarbone injury, and that there are no other open investigations involving Miller or Moreno.

Miller has also filed a defamation suit against his ex-wife and her attorney. And the legal conflict cuts both ways: a judge last week ordered both Miller and Moreno - not just one of them - not to "threaten, abuse, annoy or interfere" with each other.

Whatever the merits of that defense, within the hour, Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio posted a statement.

"As he has admitted privately, Max Miller needs serious psychological help," Moreno wrote on X. "He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter." He went further still, writing that "if there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them" and that his former son-in-law "should not serve in the House of Representatives."

He continued, "If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them. He should not serve in the House of Representatives. I believe Max Miller needs to seek professional help to end the clear pattern of abuse he has left in his wake. I believe he should not be free to continue endangering others until he does."

Miller didn't let the statement sit unanswered. He shot back at Moreno in his own post on X, writing that "if my daughter said the same thing to me, I personally wouldn't wait two years before holding him accountable." "You know this isn't true and the only reason you are speaking out now is to hide from your own media circus. This is all political," he added.

@berniemoreno If my daughter said the same thing to me, I personally wouldn’t wait two years before holding him accountable. You know this isn’t true and the only reason you are speaking out now is to hide from your own media circus. This is all political. https://t.co/6GmCGBwe5y

— Max Miller (@MaxMillerOH) August 2, 2026

A sitting Republican senator calling for a sitting Republican congressman to resign is not a dynamic party leadership wanted heading into a midterm cycle crowded with headaches. Moreno described the two years since the divorce as "pure hell" for his wife, his daughter and the rest of the family, which is not the kind of language reserved for a policy dispute.

Miller's Democratic opponent in the 7th District, union ironworker and Brook Park councilman Brian Poindexter, wasted no time exploiting the situation for his campaign. "No one credibly accused of holding a gun to his wife's head and breaking their 2-year-old daughter's collarbone belongs in the halls of power," Poindexter said in a social media post Sunday as part of a fundraising pitch.

Democrats clearly see an opening in a seat that was not on anyone's flip list a month ago.

Emily Moreno's spokesman, Stefan Mychajliw, offered his own assessment of Miller's livestream, and restraint was not the operative word. "It is shameful that Max Miller decided to go on a bizarre and lie-filled rant about his ex-wife to desperately try to save his political career," Mychajliw said in a post on X. "There is a documented trove of evidence that Miller has a history of violent and dangerous behavior and no amount of victim shaming will change that. Miller can lie and spin on X, but he cannot do so under oath in a court of law. We are confident that justice will prevail in court."

Miller, a former adviser in President Trump's first administration, who was previously endorsed by Trump this cycle, has given no indication he intends to step aside. "I'm not dropping out of this race," he said. "And I'll win in November."

The Ohio GOP faces a Wednesday deadline to swap him out if it wants a different name on the November ballot, an option party officials have discussed given the volume of pressure bearing down from inside the family and outside it alike.

Platner cost Democrats a clean shot at Susan Collins in Maine. Miller may cost Republicans a House seat that shouldn't even be competitive.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 17:30

Japan, Bretton Woods 2.0, & The End Of The Carry Era

Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama is set to announce as early as Monday that Tokyo and Washington are coordinating on steps in the foreign exchange market to curb the yen’s weakness, a person familiar with the situation told Bloomberg.

Satsuki Katayama

The content of the announcement is still being worked on but could happen as early as Monday morning, the person said, declining to be identified as the information isn’t public.

Reuters earlier reported Katayama would confirm the joint action, and reinforce the two sides’ commitment to battle what they deem as excessive declines in the yen.

Japanese authorities bought yen and sold dollars during New York trading on Friday, Bloomberg reported earlier, citing one person with knowledge of the matter. At the close of New York trading on Friday, the yen was quoted at 157.40 to the dollar, the strongest since early May.

Just two days earlier, it was flirting around the weakest levels since 1986.

The sharp gains were fueled by a combination of direct purchases of the yen, calls by officials to banks that trade the currency and jawboning from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Katayama.

Bessent’s commitment to shoring up the yen was also shown when Reuters published a photograph of a notepad in front of him at a cabinet meeting in Camp David on Friday.

Under a “To Do” title, it was written “Buy Japanese Yen (JPY) $5-10 bil.”

Japan’s original plan appeared to have been to stick to a “no comment” line while the operation was underway, and offer only subtle hints of US support.

The approach was kept to Thursday and Friday.

But with multiple media reports emerging and Bessent’s to-do list on show, authorities may have decided to change course and make a clear public announcement.

The operation on joint action is “still ongoing,” Reuters said, citing an unidentified government official.

As James Thorne, Chief Market Strategist at Wellington Altus, explained via X, Bessent’s move toward the New York Fed matters because it signals that Treasury understands the long end is being driven by flows, not by the inflation scare Wall Street keeps recycling.

Japan is now central to that story.

If Tokyo must defend the yen, the Ministry of Finance may need to sell U.S. Treasuries, and when the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt becomes a seller, the long end will reprice.

That is why this moment looks bigger than a routine currency episode.

It has the feel of a new Plaza Accord and the opening phase of Bretton Woods 2.0.

Since the 1980s, Japan has sat at the heart of the global yen carry trade, exporting savings, suppressing yields, and helping sustain a financial order built on cheap leverage and central-bank engineering. That order is now breaking down.

The end of QE and the coming end of the yen carry trade mean capital markets, not central banks, will increasingly set rates.

This is also why the inflation narrative is so weak.

Breakevens remain anchored. Credit markets are not pricing a new inflation regime. Wall Street keeps labeling every rise in the long end as “inflation risk,” but that is intellectual laziness.

The real story is Japan, reserve liquidation, and a global adjustment process that has barely been recognized.

Adding to that pressure is Big Tech’s pivot from providing savings to demanding credit.

The same companies that once absorbed duration are now issuing debt to finance AI infrastructure, data centers, chips, and power.

That is another reason the long end is moving.

The upshot, secular forces are tightening credit conditions, and central bankers need to cut policy rates to help facilitate the adjustment.

A global economy hooked on the carry trade cannot go cold turkey.

This unwind requires finesse.

Bessent is starting that process, but central bankers and Wall Street still need to abandon the Keynesian dogma that treats rise in the long end as an inflation scare!

The deeper shift is structural.

America is escaping secular stagnation by running the economy hot through supply-side economics, deregulation, and productive investment.

A Warsh Fed would fit that world, because growth would no longer be treated as a policy mistake.

Japan, meanwhile, may finally be restructuring both its economy and its geopolitical role.

That is why this is not an inflation story. It is the beginning of a new regime.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 16:55

Bill Gates Held A Top Secret 'Q' Clearance For Seven Years - And The DOE Won't Say Why

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates held a top-tier "Q" security clearance at the Department of Energy from 2014 to 2021 - though the DOE didn't grant it. Another federal agency vetted him first, and the letter confirming the clearance doesn't say which one.

The detail comes from a DOE letter entered into the Congressional record by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). The letter emerged as Fauci faced fierce Republican blowback during his Senate hearing last week, where the longtime face of COVID policy pleaded the Fifth more than 100 times.

A "Q" clearance is the Energy Department's highest classification level, the kind normally reserved for people working on nuclear weapons design, national labs, critical energy infrastructure, and highly classified scientific research. Gates kept that clearance for seven years, starting under President Obama and running through the entirety of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One explanation as to why; Gates founded and chairs TerraPower, the advanced nuclear reactor company that has spent years working alongside DOE national laboratories and won Nuclear Regulatory Commission construction approval in March. A nuclear executive holding a nuclear clearance is not, on its own, a scandal.

But the letter doesn't mention TerraPower - or why he had it at all. What it does say is that the clearance was granted reciprocally on June 11, 2014 - meaning it originated at another federal agency, and DOE simply honored it - before terminating on December 6, 2021. The letter does not name the agency that vetted him in the first place.

That's the question sitting in the middle of this document, and nobody in the federal government has answered it. Which agency decided a private citizen needed access to Restricted Data under the Atomic Energy Act, and for what program?

Once a Q clearance expires, getting it back isn't automatic. The government keeps reviewing eligibility, and anyone hoping to restore it usually has to show a real change in circumstances.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 16:20

9/11 Families Don't Want Mamdani Participating In Memorial Ceremony

Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, a coalition of victims' families don’t want New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani anywhere near the ceremony marking the anniversary at Ground Zero. 

A Change.org petition urging Mamdani to stay away from the September 11 memorial has collected more than 66,000 signatures in under three weeks and organizers say the mayor's own history of rhetoric and associations makes his presence at the site an insult to the dead.

“This anniversary is one of remembrance grounded in shared American values: respect for the victims, recognition of the gravity of the attacks, and a clear rejection of the ideologies that contributed to such violence. For many families and community members, participation in these ceremonies carries an implicit expectation that those present uphold and affirm these principles without ambiguity,” the petition reads.

“Concerns have been raised about Mr. Mamdani’s public positions, associations, and responses to rhetoric that many perceive as hostile to these shared values.”

The petition's organizers describe the anniversary as a day to honor the dead and reject the ideology behind the attacks rather than a platform for a sitting mayor.

The petition cites a specific set of grievances.

Mamdani has repeatedly declined to condemn the phrase "globalize the intifada," a slogan widely understood as a call for violence against Jews and Israel. His chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, once represented a pilot convicted in an al-Qaeda tanker-bombing plot. Mamdani has also aligned himself with commentator Hasan Piker, who told his audience in 2019 that America deserved the September 11 attacks. 

Giovanni Galante, the petition's lead organizer, estimates that thousands of the signers are relatives of the 2,977 people killed that morning. His wife, Grace Catherine Galante, was 29 years old and worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor of the North Tower. Cantor Fitzgerald lost roughly 658 employees that day, more than any other firm in the towers. An FDNY captain told the New York Post the anti-Mamdani petition is circulating widely inside firehouses across the city, and former Fire Commissioner Tom Van Essen, who ran the department during and after the attacks, signed it himself, joking about wanting a word with the mayor at the ceremony. The FDNY lost 343 firefighters. 

Charles G. Wolf lost his wife, Katherine, just two weeks into her new job at Marsh & McLennan on September 11. Wolf argues that Mamdani has spent his career alienating the families of the dead through an agenda hostile to the country and friendships with people who minimize what happened that day. Wolf said officials who supported families over the years, including former Gov. George Pataki, are the ones who belong at Ground Zero this year.

Maureen Santora's son, Christopher, was 23 when he died in the South Tower, the youngest firefighter killed that day. His shift with Engine 54 had already ended when the alarm came in, and he went anyway. Santora said Mamdani has never shown support for the September 11 community and called him a divisive figure whose presence would undercut the entire purpose of the gathering.

Monica Iken-Murphy, whose husband Michael Iken died on the 84th floor of the South Tower and who helped lead the effort to build the September 11 Memorial and Museum, framed her objection around Mamdani's years of absence from the community rather than his politics. Officials who supported families from the beginning, she said, naming former mayors Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani, belong at this particular anniversary.

Not every family contacted by reporters backs the petition. Retired NYPD officer Jim Smith, whose wife Moira was one of two female NYPD officers killed that day, declined to sign, saying the day should stay focused on victims rather than politicians of any stripe. Dennis Warchola, whose firefighter brother Michael died two days before his planned retirement, said he turned against Mamdani after learning about his statements on terrorism but stopped short of signing because he does not believe in silencing anyone.

Those dissents were the exception. Reporters reached more than 150 families, and most had signed or planned to, with dozens asking to stay anonymous over retaliation fears.

Mamdani has said he plans to attend anyway.

Galante said many family members plan to turn their backs on Mamdani if he shows up. "They don't want to look at him," he said.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 15:45

Crack Pipes, Get Yer' Crack Pipes! Free Crack Pipes!: California Taxpayers Fund Drug Paraphernalia

Authored by Christopher F. Rufo, Austen Hufford via Christopher Rufo's Substack,

As governor of California, Gavin Newsom has repeatedly supported "harm reduction" policies, which enable drug use in the name of making it "safer." He created the state's Harm Reduction Initiative, which funded "syringe services programs" for "people who inject and smoke fentanyl and/or methamphetamines." His Department of Public Health has endorsed distributing syringes, glass pipes, and "[c]ontainers for mixing injectable drugs" to drug users. Newsom argued earlier this year that harm-reduction tactics "increase the likelihood of people entering substance use treatment."

But do California's harm-reduction programs encourage addicts to enter treatment? We visited the Skid Row Care Campus, a homeless-services site in Los Angeles County, to witness "harm reduction" in action. We discovered that, instead of directing addicts to get clean, the taxpayer-funded program doles out free paraphernalia, enabling addicts to get high - no questions asked.

We arrived at Skid Row in the morning. The campus, bounded by pastel-colored buildings and a metal gate, looked like an apocalyptic wasteland. Homeless people and addicts were splayed across the common areas, with some smoking what seemed to be hard drugs with impunity.

We stepped onto the courtyard connected to the street. No one stopped us, asked for identification, or searched us for weapons or drugs. This is apparently by design, judging by the Skid Row Action Plan and its implementation outline, which, singly or together, inspired the creation of the campus, denounced the "racist and classist war on drugs," and called on local officials to create hubs "free from monitoring by law enforcement" and staffed by people with histories of "substance use and sex work."

We entered campus and found a walk-up counter, where an attendant sat before shelves of drug paraphernalia. Users come to this counter to get free needles and crack pipes, with which they can inject or smoke hard drugs.

"What can I get you?" he asked. "We have oil burners, we have spray shooters, we have socks, we have petroleum jelly."

EXCLUSIVE: California is giving taxpayer-funded meth pipes to the homeless. We went undercover to get one. pic.twitter.com/ZUTmuHIHGr

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@christopherrufo) July 29, 2026

Across several visits, we obtained drug-testing strips, syringes, and crack pipes. One worker told us that while drug use isn't allowed on-site, we "wouldn't be bothered" if we got high just outside - unless we overdosed.

The entire campus takes a "low-touch" approach. In addition to staple items that many homeless shelters offer - food, laundry, some medical care - the site offers services like doggie daycare, meditation on the lawn, and "valet" cart parking. Around midday, we saw homeless people lining up in the cafeteria for Doritos and instant ramen, while around two-dozen sat in reclining chairs to watch the movie 127 Hours.

The Skid Row site launched in 2025. The campus and its services are run by a group of nonprofits committed to harm reduction, including one that laments the "long-standing criminalization of substance use."

For these left-wing groups, the site has become a massive cash cow. The campus is listed as a federally funded health center and reportedly pulls in around $26 million a year in local, state, and federal dollars. One of its service providers, Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, has seen its revenue more than double since 2020, jumping to $27 million last year. Another, Wesley Health Centers (JWCH Institute), has seen revenues more than double to $200 million in five years.

Estela Lopez, executive director of the L.A. Downtown Industrial District, thinks the campus has been a disaster.

"You want a meth pipe? Here you go. You want needles? Here you go," she said, describing the campus' "harm reduction" approach. "Everything that you need in order to get high, stay high, is provided, no questions asked."

Lopez said the site has caused chaos on the nearby street. An LAPD source told us they've totaled 1,200 "radio calls for service" and four murders in the area so far this year. One of the site nonprofits' employees told us that drug dealers were "fighting over the guests."

All of this raises questions about federal funding. Last year, President Trump signed an executive order ordering reviews of federally funded drug paraphernalia distribution sites. The order took a negative view of "so-called 'harm reduction' or 'safe consumption' efforts that only facilitate illegal drug use."

The named nonprofits and the mayor's office did not respond to our requests for comment, and the governor's office did not offer a responsive comment. L.A. County claimed that they adhere "to all local, state, and federal laws," and said the campus "is funded by L.A. Care Health Plan," a public health plan, "and Health Net," an LLC. (In a 2024 press release, Health Net claimed that the two entities' investment in the campus's launch "was the result of California's Housing and Homelessness Incentive Program, which the state launched with the help of matching funds from the American Rescue Plan Act.")

Our trip to Skid Row made one thing unmistakably clear: in California, harm reduction facilitates drug abuse. The state's leaders may think that it's compassionate to let people waste away, smoking hard drugs and prodding themselves with needles. But these behaviors lead only to ruin, and, finally, death.

Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and the author of America's Cultural Revolution. Austen Hufford is a senior investigative reporter at City Journal.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 15:10

Obama-Appointed Judge Defies SCOTUS, Now Faces Impeachment

Authored by Matt Margolis via PJ Media,

An Obama-appointed federal judge just decided the Supreme Court's rulings are more like suggestions, and Republicans in Congress are done pretending she has the authority to make that call.

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs issued an order on Friday blocking the Trump administration from ending Temporary Protected Status for Somali nationals. It was a brazen display of judicial activism, and it took Republicans about a weekend to respond.

🚨 A federal judge has again blocked the Trump administration from ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somalia, issuing a new administrative stay after plaintiffs filed an amended complaint and emergency motion. pic.twitter.com/6l1hYYPqNH

— SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) July 31, 2026

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) announced he will file articles of impeachment against Burroughs on Monday, accusing her of trampling both the Constitution and a Supreme Court ruling that should have ended this fight already.

On Monday I will file Articles of Impeachment against Judge Allison Burroughs for her unconstitutional act of Judicial Activism!!!
Enough is enough, Americans First NOT 3rd world migrants. https://t.co/r50Q8Wor8n

— Rep. Andy Ogles (@RepOgles) August 1, 2026

In a 6-3 decision in June, the justices held that the TPS statute bars federal courts from second-guessing the Department of Homeland Security's calls on designating, extending, or terminating the program. That ruling reversed lower courts and cleared the way for the Trump administration to end TPS protections for Syrian and Haitian nationals while any remaining constitutional claims get sorted out.

Burroughs apparently didn't get the memo, or didn't care.

"SCOTUS made it very clear that lower courts cannot suspend TPS. Yet, an Obama-appointed judge is defying the Court and the Constitution in an attempt to subvert the will of the President," Ogles said in a statement to Just the News. "This judicial activist's obstruction of the people's will must be stopped. Judge Burroughs must be impeached."

Ogles isn't the only one calling this out. "Judge Allison Burroughs just entered yet another order preventing the termination of Somalia TPS," Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival said in a post on X. "There is no serious debate about what is going on in these cases - defiance, obstruction, and delay."

Make no mistake about it, this is a judge manufacturing a legal fiction to override a president she does not like and a Supreme Court that already ruled against her position. She is not interpreting the law. She is rewriting it in real time to get the outcome she wants.

Burroughs flouted the nation's highest court in broad daylight. If there is no consequence for that kind of defiance, every activist judge in the country just learned they can ignore the Supreme Court whenever it is inconvenient. Frankly, the ruling should be flat-out ignored because the Supreme Court has already ruled on this issue.

Impeachment is not an overreaction here. It is the bare minimum response to a judge who thinks she outranks the Constitution.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 14:00

Female Bomber Kills At Least 3, Injures 21, At Upscale Moscow Restaurant

A bomb ripped through a central Moscow upscale restaurant mid-evening on Saturday in what authorities are calling a "brutal terrorist act" - which left three people dead and wounded at least 21.

"Yesterday, a brutal terrorist act was committed in Moscow that claimed human lives. The victims are currently in the city’s hospitals, where they are receiving all necessary care," Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin stated Sunday.

via BBC

The location was at Kudrinkskaya Square outside an Italian restaurant, in one ⁠of Moscow’s seven Stalin-era skyscrapers, police described.

Russia's anti-terrorism ‌committee stated the culprit was an ‌unidentified woman carrying ​an improvised explosive device who tried get into the restaurant before being stopped by a security guard, who was killed in the subsequent blast, along with a customer.

The Guardian notes that the death toll could climb as many victims are being treated at area hospitals:

REN TV cited a source on Sunday as saying that two people who had been taken to hospital had later died of their wounds, bringing the death toll to five, but there was no official confirmation. The channel said six people were in a serious condition.

There's been widespread speculation as to what entity carried out the attack, and who was the intended target. 

"Unverified social media reports suggested that a top Russian military commander had been the intended target but had been unharmed," The Moscow Times writes. "Russian war bloggers, without citing any evidence, were quick to blame Ukraine for the attack. Kyiv did not immediately comment."

The same report adds, "The Kommersant daily suggested that the woman carrying the bomb may not have known about it, and that it had been set off remotely by someone else," and it notes that "The restaurant's website said the venue had been closed on Saturday for a private event."

This terror attack possibly adds, pending the details, to a growing list of high profile assassinations related to the Ukraine war. To review:

—Darya Dugina was killed in a car bombing in 2022 which was likely meant for her father, prominent political thinker and often dubbed "Putin ally" Aleksandr Dugin.

—Gen Igor Kirillov died in December 2024 outside of his residence when a bomb planted in a nearby scooter detonated.

—Gen Yaroslav Moskalik, who served as deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, was killed in a car bomb attack last April. A "homemade" explosive device detonated under his Volkswagen Golf in a residential neighborhood.

And in circumstances somewhat similar to this latest restaurant bombing, in April 2023 a cafe bombing killed prominent pro-Kremlin blogger and war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky. The blast at a St. Petersburg cafe during a close-quarters speaking event wounded some two dozen bystanders, six of them critically.

Russian media have reported details of the attack near Moscow's Balzi Rossi restaurant, where an improvised explosive device detonated yesterday:

▪️ At around 7:50 p.m. Moscow time, a woman attempted to enter the Balzi Rossi restaurant, where a celebration was taking place. A… https://t.co/33lGq0TPgb pic.twitter.com/zC4uCfjtyF

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) August 2, 2026

America's CIA or Britain's MI6 has long been suspected by some pundits of being involved in these targeted killings, or at least assisting in such brazen Ukrainian-linked operations, but ultimately little has been uncovered or proven in terms of a potential Western hidden hand in this ongoing 'dirty war'.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 13:25

Marxist Terror Group Responsible For Colombian Truck Bomb Attack

Summary:

• VBIED Attack Comes Days Before President-Elect Abelardo de la Espriella's Inauguration
• Marxist-Leninist Terror Group Responsible For Truck Bomb Attack
• Twin Car Bombs Rock Colombian City Days Before Trump-Backed "El Tigre" Takes Power

Marxist-Leninist Terror Group Responsible For Truck Bomb Attack 

The Colombian government blamed the far-left, Marxist-Leninist ELN for the truck bombing outside a police headquarters in the border city of Cúcuta, which injured 11 officers and killed a police dog.

The early Saturday morning VBIED attack damaged the building's roof and shattered its windows, according to police chief Gen. William Rincón.

"This was a vile terrorist attack," Rincón told AP News. "We will not rest until we find those who are responsible and have them prosecuted."

COLOMBIA: UN CAMIÓN CON EXPLOSIVOS ESTALLÓ EN CÚCUTA A DÍAS DE LA ASUNCIÓN DE DE LA ESPRIELLA

Un camión cargado con explosivos estalló junto a una estación de Policía en Cúcuta, cerca de la frontera con Venezuela, y dejó al menos 11 heridos y daños en viviendas. El ataque… pic.twitter.com/wcU9bsNoRr

— Clarín (@clarincom) August 1, 2026

The attack comes just days before President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella - a Trump-backed conservative who has pledged to restore law and order and wage war on rebel groups - takes office.

The ELN is believed to have about 6,000 fighters operating across Colombia and neighboring Venezuela.

Its ideology combines:

• Revolutionary socialism and communism
• Cuban-style Guevarism
• Anti-capitalism and anti-American "imperialism"
• Land and resource redistribution

Its activities include:

• Attacks against Colombian security forces and oil infrastructure
• Bombings and assassinations
• Kidnapping and extortion
• Illegal mining
• Cocaine production and trafficking

It is important to note that the Trump administration declared war on far-left groups across the Western Hemisphere.

Twin Car Bombs Rock Colombian City Days Before Trump-Backed "El Tigre" Takes Power

Details remain limited, but initial reports and footage on X suggest that one or more vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs), commonly known as car or truck bombs, detonated near a police station in Cúcuta, Colombia, close to the Venezuelan border.

The apparent VBIED attack occurred just six days before President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella's inauguration, which will transfer power from Gustavo Petro's socialist regime to a right-wing administration expected to align closely with the Trump administration.

Footage:

Desde otros puntos de Cúcuta también fueron captadas las explosiones en contra del comando de la Policía de Norte de Santander.

El atentado estaría dirigido contra la Unidad de Operaciones Especiales Jungla.

Video: cortesía

99.9FM📻 pic.twitter.com/aLmuGXOfAt

— Caracol Radio Cúcuta (@CaracolCucuta) August 1, 2026

Un camión con explosivos estalló el sábado junto a una estación de policía en la ciudad colombiana de Cúcuta, cerca de la frontera con Venezuela, seis días antes de la investidura del presidente electo Abelardo de la Espriella, constataron periodistas de la @AFP.

En la madrugada… pic.twitter.com/ta6ER9lrrZ

— Telemetro Reporta (@TReporta) August 1, 2026

#EnDesarrollo | Al menos una decena de personas heridas, entre uniformados y civiles, deja un violento ataque con exposivos contra el comando de la Policía Norte de Santander, en Cúcuta.

Los hechos ocurrieron en la madrugada de este sábado cuando fueron activadas varias cargas… pic.twitter.com/CjpANSGbVc

— Metropolitano Noticias (@metropolitano_X) August 1, 2026

🔴Un atentado con explosivos se registró en la madrugada de este sábado 1 de agosto en inmediaciones del comando del Departamento de Policía de Norte de Santander, en Cúcuta.

Imágenes en el video 📹

Más detalles aquí ⬇️https://t.co/cJSBEPpC25 pic.twitter.com/E46Y09q18x

— EL TIEMPO (@ELTIEMPO) August 1, 2026

De la Espriella, a conservative lawyer known as "El Tigre," has pledged to intensify operations against guerrillas and drug-trafficking organizations, abandon the socialists' peace negotiations, and pursue deeper military cooperation with the US.

Around 11,000 soldiers and police officers are expected to secure the inauguration through coordinated land, air, and maritime operations. De la Espriella has repeatedly warned of an alleged plot to assassinate him by left-wing groups.

El Tigre's rise to power comes amid a once-in-a-generation shift from nation-killing left-wing regimes across the Americas to right-wing governments closely aligned with the Trump administration. The State Department has pursued this strategy to secure the West, ensure countries align with the US, not China or Russia, and promote open and free markets over broken Marxist ones.

Americas Political Map: Presidential Shift From Left To Right

Country-by-country presidential shift tracker

"For the first time in 15–20 years, the overwhelming majority of the countries in the Western Hemisphere are now led by pro-American leaders and governments since @POTUS was elected president," Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Friday with President Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 13:18

From Influence Peddler To Starving Artist: Hunter Biden Claims Family Is Broke In Defaulting On $17 Million Bill

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Hunter Biden is no Van Gogh. In addition to having both ears, Hunter’s work has generally been panned beyond an enabling media following. However, he claims he is also a starving artist. The problem appears to be that, as predicted years ago, his sales dried up in the influence-peddling market once his father left office.

Now, his lawyers want him to cough up $17 million that he owes them. Hunter says that not only is he broke, but so is his family.

In a deposition in ongoing litigation with the law firm Winston Taylor, Hunter claimed an inability to pay the $17 million he owes his lawyers for representing him in criminal prosecutions, congressional investigations, and civil lawsuits.

Hunter claimed under oath that “I don’t own anything of any value other than — and I don’t know the value of it — my paintings which I painted myself. So that’s it. And I don’t even have any other assets at all, stocks, bonds, anything like that, savings accounts.”

He also added, “My family doesn’t have any money, and it’s not their debt anyway.”

The statement about his family is curious, since Joe and Jill Biden recently received numerous book contracts and were thought to be worth millions. However, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that Joe Biden is struggling with $800,000 in debt and, ironically, increased property taxes in his blue state of Delaware on his $2.7 million home. (Moving to Florida like many fleeing blue state taxes is not a viable option for the Bidens).

Worse yet, no one wants Biden to do speeches and appearances, cutting off a lucrative post-presidency income. Not only is Biden obviously diminished in his ability to give a speech, but many Democrats blame him for the reelection of Trump by clinging to power despite his obvious deteriorating mental and physical condition.

Of course, the former president still rakes in more than $400,000 a year in government pensions.

Yet, in the end, Hunter is correct. It is not their debt unless they signed as guarantors on any debt.

Hunter continues to be the darling of the media with podcasts and interviews, including some who have called for him to run for president. He has lived in mansions and luxurious hotels for much of his life. However, that lifestyle was subsidized by wealthy Democratic donors and friends.

What is impressive is how Hunter could burn through millions accrued from alleged influence peddling and shady deals.

Notably, Fox News reports that the law firm, which is known for representing Democratic figures, has tried to connect Biden with donors to help him cover his legal bills, without success. With his father out of power, no one is willing to bankroll his lifestyle or buy his art.

Gone are the former swaggering threats that Hunter could make to shake down foreign figures. There was a time when he only needed to pick up a phone and send a text message like the one to a Chinese businessman, openly threatening Joe Biden’s displeasure if money is not sent to them immediately. In the WhatsApp message, Hunter stated:

“I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the Chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

No one is answering now.

Hunter insisted that he is now virtually destitute: “I don’t have any assets. I don’t own a car. I don’t own a phone.”

Even his recent dubious award of $1.7 million in a defamation case was immediately claimed by the law firm, though that award can and should be appealed.

Hunter has written extensively on his struggle with drugs and alcohol. It is a great achievement to have overcome those addictions. Yet, the accounts would be more compelling if he did not unleash a scorched-earth campaign against critics when he was sober. He sued or threatened to sue a wide array of people to try to muscle them into silence. I was one of those threatened with a defamation lawsuit by his friend and sponsor Kevin Morris for writing about their curious relationship.

Hunter gamed the system on his crimes and was ultimately rescued from prison only by his father breaking his repeated public promise not to pardon his son.

Yet, Hunter is likely to live well as a ward of the privileged class. He remains the toast of the town for the left, a type of foul-mouthed prophet who claims to have been liberated by his own excesses. For those of us who have long been critics of his antics, it remains a bit too familiar.

Hunter makes even being broke look like a grift.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 12:50

Gunman Targets Tesla Supercharger And In-N-Out In Twin Falls, Killing Two

Two people are dead and five more are injured after a gunman opened fire at a Tesla charging station and an In-N-Out Burger in Idaho.

WATCH: Video reportedly shows one of the two believed suspects opening fire with what appears to be an AR-style rifle in a parking lot in Twin Falls, Idaho. No word on casualties. pic.twitter.com/eBo3zagILN

— Scope Report (@ScopeReport_) August 1, 2026

Fox News reports;

Multiple people are dead after a shooting at an In-N-Out Burger in Twin Falls, Idaho. Police say the suspected gunman is also dead following what authorities described as a "very chaotic" active shooter scene. Authorities are still working to identify the victims and notify their families before releasing the total number of fatalities. Several others were taken to the hospital with injuries. Investigators have not identified the suspect or released a possible motive.

BREAKING: Multiple people are dead after a shooting at an In-N-Out Burger in Twin Falls, Idaho.

Police say the suspected gunman is also dead following what authorities described as a "very chaotic" active shooter scene.

Authorities are still working to identify the victims and… pic.twitter.com/TU9d0euiKP

— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 2, 2026

Footage shows a civilian used his Second Amendment right to repel the shooter.

🚨 WOW! An absolute PATRIOT put his LIFE on the line and engaged the shooter at a Twin Falls, ID drive-thru

THIS is America 🇺🇸

This man exited his car and returned fire to force an active shooter to retreat, undoubtably saving COUNTLESS lives

A TRUE HERO pic.twitter.com/F1v4vrK1Um

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) August 2, 2026

Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks said the "threat to the community is over" during a press conference at 5:45 p.m. local time. He said the gunman was also killed. 

JUST IN: Police confirm the suspect in the Twin Falls, Idaho, shooting is deceased and the threat is no longer active. pic.twitter.com/YNHYeduxP7

— Scope Report (@ScopeReport_) August 1, 2026

*Developing...

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 12:00

'Defend Israel Or The Homeland': Top US General Issues Stark Warning To Pentagon Brass

Via The Cradle

The highest-ranking US general in Europe informed the Pentagon this week that he does not have enough naval units to protect Israel against potential Iranian missile strikes, according to a report by the Washington Post on Saturday.

General Alexus Grynkewich, the head of US European Command (EUCOM), notified senior Pentagon officials in writing that without another navy destroyer, he will be forced to choose between defending the US "homeland" and defending Israel. Grynkewich's warning comes as US President Donald Trump continues to escalate the war on Iran.

Gen. Alex Grynkewich, source: US Air Force Senior Airman Spencer Perkins

The US Navy has shouldered a significant burden in waging the war, including responsibility for blockading Iranian ports in response to the Islamic Republic's closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

US naval destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean have long been part of Israel's defense strategy. They are equipped with radar systems and missile interceptors capable of countering Iranian ballistic missiles and drones.

EUCOM is responsible for protecting Israel from the Mediterranean and deterring any Russian ground incursion into NATO member states.

The US Navy has five destroyers deploying from Rota, Spain, with a sixth expected later this year. They face maintenance issues due to lengthy missions. The US is also reportedly experiencing a shortage of missile interceptors, which are costly to manufacture and hard to restock.

Pentagon assessments conducted earlier in the war showed that US forces have "shouldered the brunt of defending Israel from Iranian ballistic missiles."

Washington has used more of its defensive weapons, including the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and naval interceptors, to defend Israel from Iranian missile and drone attacks than Israel has used of its own interceptor stocks.

US inventories of Patriot missiles have now fallen below 1,000 and THAAD inventories to about 250, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Israel has not participated in the war on Iran since Washington and Tehran signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) and ceasefire in mid-June. Trump resumed attacks on Iran three weeks ago.

WaPo: "A shortage of Navy destroyers, used to defend against Iranian ballistic missile attacks, will force the head of U.S. European Command to prioritize the U.S. homeland instead officials said."

First the Arab Dome is falling, now US EUCOM says its destroyers wont be able to defend Israel anymore (shortage of SM-3 & SM-6 anti-ballistic missile interceptors) https://t.co/dxN0G5Jasa pic.twitter.com/owfT2hhzty

— MenchOsint (@MenchOsint) August 1, 2026

Last week, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel was content to remain out of the fighting and allow the US and its Gulf allies to fight the war on Tel Aviv's behalf.

"Israel has no interest in joining the campaign - the current situation is the best for us," Smotrich said on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House last week and lobbied Trump to escalate the war by imposing a land blockade on Iran. According to a CBS News report on Friday, Washington and Tel Aviv are planning to significantly escalate the war of aggression by targeting Iran's vital energy infrastructure.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 11:40

Entitled Migrants Complain About Hospitality And Prices After Invading Spanish Territory

One of the most egregious fantasies promoted by liberals over the past several decades is the worshipful image of the desperate and grateful third world asylum seeker.  We see it constantly in movies television and popular media; the narrative of the "huddled masses, yearning to breathe free..."  This narrative has become so ingrained in western culture that it is absolutely world shattering when people find out how entitled and arrogant most migrants really are.

The flood of over 60,000 Muslim migrants from Morocco to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta has dashed a lot of progressive delusions in the past week, with migrants fresh from the beaches already looting businesses, raiding homes, attacking locals and setting fires.  European officials are reluctantly admitting that the invasion is a problem that must be corrected.   

The video evidence on social media is a crushing blow to the multicultural agenda, so much so that Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, complained about the optics of the images coming out of Ceuta on social media. 

The images coming from Ceuta are unacceptable.

We cannot allow anyone to come to our Union without abiding by our rules.

Dangerous crossings must stop immediately. Smuggling networks must be dismantled. And returns must be swift, as our rules allow.

I tasked two Commissioners…

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) July 31, 2026

Spanish officials have attacked the negative response of some European leaders as "selfish" and "prejudiced", stating that the European Union would be harmed by the "polarizing" rhetoric.  

But isn't this migrant horde exactly what European elites have been enabling for the past decade?  Yes, it is, but the Cueta incident is happening too quickly and gaining far too much public attention.  They usually prefer a "frog in a boiling pot" strategy over blatant barbarian pillaging plastered all over international news. 

But it gets much worse for the multicultural cabal, because interviews with these migrants are hitting the mainstream.  What these people have to say about their stay in Ceuta so far is mind blowing.  The entitlement is unprecedented.  Third worlders thought they were marching into a free buffet with easy access to amenities, jobs and westerners bowing at their feet. 

Instead, the illegals were met with closed businesses (for safety), prices they could not afford, no jobs and hostility from other migrants who came to Ceuta legally.  

People being beaten or killed (if the claims are true) is unfortunate, but then again, it seems to have worked.  Large numbers of migrants are reportedly leaving Ceuta on their own because they fear backlash from the locals.  There's an important lesson that could be learned her by populations across the western world:

If governments are not going to do their duty and secure national borders from invaders, then the public still has the power to make those invaders leave simply by making the lives of illegal migrants miserable.  If their experiences in the west are worse than their experiences in their home country, they will go back.

  

Of course, the entitlement of migrants is amplified by progressive leaders in the west.  Foreigners have been regaled with stories from western media about a land of plenty and a life of ease.  All they have to do is make the crossing and the streets will be paved with riches for the taking.  It is clear that the majority of migrants entering Ceuta were under the impression that they would be welcomed with open arms and lavished with subsidies.

Instead, the Spanish military is escorting thousands of them out of the enclave.  Or, at the very least, the military is making a good show of trying to remove the migrants from the area.  Meanwhile, the locals are doing the job that the government should have been doing from the beginning, which is making Ceuta so inhospitable to migrants that they will never want to go back.  

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 11:05

"Nothing Is 100%": CZ Warns Bitcoin Holders After $89 Million Coldcard Wallet Exploit

Update (1030ET): A third wave of thefts against Bitcoin wallets built on flawed Coldcard firmware ran through Saturday morning, lifting observed losses to roughly 1,367 BTC - close to $89 million - drained from 4,585 addresses since Thursday.

As Cyberkendra.com reports, the size is not the interesting part. The third wave is the first one designed to be hard to follow, and that shift tells self-custody holders more about what happens next than any dollar figure does.

Galaxy Research published the wave-three findings early Sunday. Between 12:23 UTC on July 31 and 06:42 UTC on August 1, across blocks 960,396 to 960,471, another 207.73 BTC left 1,912 addresses. That is roughly a tenth of a coin per victim.

Wave one, which opened at 01:10 UTC on July 30 and closed 41 minutes later, took 1,082.65 BTC from 1,195 addresses — nearly a full coin each.

Wave two, on July 31, collected just 76.16 BTC from 1,478 addresses.

Median losses tell the same story more bluntly: 0.270 BTC in wave one, 0.010 in wave two, 0.013 in wave three. The operator is now emptying wallets worth a few thousand dollars apiece and still finding enough of them to spend ten hours sweeping.

Waves one and two were easy to map because the attacker made them easy.

Both funneled coins through a handful of shared collector addresses into P2WPKH holding wallets (pay-to-witness-public-key-hash — plain single-key SegWit outputs, fully visible on chain).

Wave three abandoned that.

Each victim's coins went to their own destination, and the proceeds now sit in 293 separate P2WSH vaults (pay-to-witness-script-hash, a format that keeps its spending conditions hidden until the first time the coins move). The sweeper also batched an average of 6.37 victims per transaction, where wave one took exactly one at a time, and scanned only the default derivation path instead of testing several branches per seed. Even the fee constant changed — 30 sat/vB in wave one, 50 and 10 in wave two, roughly 200 then exactly 10 in wave three.

That is either the same crew rebuilding after being enumerated in public, or a second crew grinding the same broken key space on its own.

The falling average haul suggests the profitable end of the vulnerable key space is picked over. That is cold comfort. Wave three's median take of 0.013 BTC is the clearest evidence yet that no balance is now small enough to be beneath the scanner's notice — and the sweeping had not stopped three days in.

* * *

As Decrypt.co detailed earlier, Binance founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao is warning crypto owners not to place blind faith in hardware wallets, following an exploit that drained tens of millions of dollars in Bitcoin from Coldcard devices.

In a Saturday post on X, Zhao cautioned that even hardware wallets can carry bugs, and that older wallets with long histories are not immune.

“Nothing is 100%,” he posted.

He suggested holders consider spreading their funds across several wallets as one way to reduce exposure, while acknowledging the approach carries its own trade-offs and that no setup is entirely foolproof.

CZ closed with his familiar refrain urging users to stay informed and keep their funds safe: “Stay SAFU!”

His comments followed the discovery of a flaw in Coldcard devices made by manufacturer Coinkite.

As Decrypt reported, a build error caused seeds on affected units to be drawn from a software fallback rather than the device's hardware random-number generator, leaving the private keys far easier to guess than intended.

The problem traced back to firmware shipped in March 2021, and updating the firmware does not fix a seed already created on a compromised device.

The scope of the theft has grown considerably since the first estimates.

Early reporting pegged losses at roughly 594 BTC, or about $38 million, drained from around 500 wallets.

According to a report from Galaxy Research, which mapped the flow of funds based on a pattern identified by engineers at Jack Dorsey’s Block, the toll is now put at 1,196 addresses drained for about 1,082.65 BTC, or roughly $70.2 million, in a 41-minute window on July 30.

That is nearly double the initial figure.

Galaxy said every sweep paid an identical hardcoded fee and left no change output, a signature it described as consistent with an automated tool spending keys it already held rather than owners moving their own funds.

“The pattern tells us these were all the same attacker — it does not capture the attack itself, which looks the same as if a coin owner chose to move coins,” Galaxy Research said, adding that Bitcoiners should move funds out of single-signature Coldcard addresses and into secure custody.

The victims spanned native SegWit and older address types, pointing to multi-path key scanning.

The stolen Bitcoin was consolidated within minutes into a handful of addresses and, per Galaxy, has not moved since.

Coinkite co-founder Rodolfo Novak said in an X post on Friday that the company takes responsibility for the firmware bug and has shipped emergency hotfixes.

Novak also warned that the update does not protect seeds generated on vulnerable firmware.

He advised users who generated seeds on vulnerable firmware to move their funds to a new seed.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 10:30

Water-System Hacks Hit 7 States This Week, FBI Warns, As Trump Shoots Down Iran Theory

Cyberattacks on municipal water systems were reported in at least seven states this week, according to a joint public service announcement from the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency - and in some cases, the agencies say, the malicious activity actually degraded water operations. The feds declined to name the states.

A water tower in Plymouth, Minnesota, on Thursday after a cyberattack targeted the operating technology at more than 30 water systems across the state. (Ellen Schmidt/AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

The warning lands just days after we reported that a "coordinated cyberattack" struck more than 30 community water systems in Minnesota over July 26-27 - knocking the water plant in tiny Braham offline for a stretch, pushing Plymouth and South St. Paul onto manual operations, and prompting Maple Plain to declare a local state of emergency, according to Just The News.

The playbook, per federal officials, was crude but effective: attackers remotely accessed internet-facing operational technology, changed device IP addresses and passwords, and locked utility operators out of their own monitoring and control systems, NBC News reported. The PSA is now pleading with utilities to do the bare minimum - pull programmable logic controllers off the open internet and put them behind gateways and firewalls, use actual passwords, and restrict which devices are allowed to talk to one another.

(Yes - in the year 2026, a nontrivial share of the machines controlling America's drinking water are still sitting on the public internet, some with absurdly simple passwords.)

CISA followed Thursday with an advisory warning that Iranian-affiliated actors are going after U.S. critical infrastructure, water and wastewater systems included - an update to guidance the agency first pushed out in April, which we flagged in our earlier coverage. Some of the larger water-sector intrusions, the advisory notes, have produced boil-water notices and left plants grinding along in manual mode for extended stretches. CISA's top-line fix is the same one it has been repeating for years: cut direct internet access to control systems.

Except - Washington can't agree on who did it.

Multiple U.S. officials have told ABC News the Minnesota attacks may be linked to Iran, and investigators' preliminary assessment reportedly leans the same way - with the caveat that it could change. Meanwhile President Trump denied it. Speaking to reporters at Camp David on Friday, Trump dismissed the Iran theory - "Iran should be so lucky," he said - and instead pinned the blame on what he called Minnesota's grossly incompetent and corrupt leadership under Gov. Tim Walz, arguing Tehran has bigger problems than the Gopher State's pump stations.

Trump:

They like to say, "Ohh, it's Iran. Iran should be so lucky."

Iran's got bigger problems than worrying about Minnesota. https://t.co/4FnVLLzSmY pic.twitter.com/9HMP4RTcii

— Adam Scott (@chefcascottccc) July 31, 2026

Cybersecurity veteran Morgan Wright, founder of the National Center for Open and Unsolved Cases, told The Hill that Iran is the likely culprit, pointing to the CISA advisory as one tell. The U.S. may dominate on land and at sea, Wright argued, but cyberspace is the one domain where Tehran gets to punch above its weight class. Federal officials, for their part, caution that attribution requires careful technical analysis alongside broader threat intelligence - because otherwise it looks like the same nakedly transparent propaganda we've been fed for decades (duh).

That said - there is precedent as we detailed in our Minnesota coverage, if we're to believe the official stories. In November 2023, the IRGC-linked CyberAv3ngers seized control of a device at the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. In early 2024, the Cyber Army of Russia Reborn claimed attacks on water facilities in the U.S. and Poland, including a breach in Muleshoe, Texas that dumped tens of thousands of gallons of water. In October 2024, American Water - the largest regulated water utility in the country, serving more than 14 million people across 14 states and 18 military installations - shut down computer systems after a cyberattack. Beijing's Volt Typhoon has spent years quietly pre-positioning inside U.S. critical-infrastructure networks, per CISA. And just weeks ago, the Iranian MOIS-linked Handala persona claimed to have compromised California Water Service - which serves roughly 2 million customers - leaking 5 gigabytes of data, then vowed via Tehran's Press TV to keep hitting U.S. industrial control systems.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 09:45

Spain's Immigration Crisis: Ceuta & The Collapse Of Sánchez's Pro-Migration Experiment

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

The new migration crisis in Ceuta is not an isolated episode or a simple border emergency. It is the result of a deeply irresponsible and damaging political and economic model. Sánchez boasts about aggregate growth while destroying cohesion, productivity, net real income per capita, and institutions. Spain is not an example of growth, migrant integration, or cohesion. It is a statistical mirage juiced by population increase and a fiscal time bomb. It has taken a migration crisis for the European Union to wake up.

Illegal immigration is not a stroke of fate or a recipe for growth and for shoring up public finances; it is a strategy of control and demolition of the nation from within, with the aim of creating a dependent, captive underclass, buying votes by altering demographics and shifting onto future generations the enormous cost to the state of a population increase whose net contribution to public accounts is overwhelmingly negative.

Spain was presented by progressives as a model of migrant integration. It was never true, and now it has become a full‑blown crisis. The uncontrolled wave of illegal immigration is the direct result of the socialist government’s policies: mass regularizations, subsidies, and the constant message that illegal migration pays.

For years, Spain has attracted uncontrolled inflows with promises of regularization and public transfers, while Brussels looked the other way because headline GDP grew and the statistics looked “inclusive.” However, the cost is enormous and borne by Spanish workers and taxpayers and, increasingly, by the entire European Union. Its elite tolerated Spain’s destructive policies as long as aggregate GDP was fattened, even in the face of the clear warning sign that GDP per capita was stagnating and pressure on public services and social unrest were rising.

The Sánchez government and its coalition have imposed unprecedented regularization processes, presenting them as a model for Europe and explicitly linking them to GDP increases and the supposed sustainability of the welfare state. This was a major deception. Regularized illegal immigration does not make pensions more sustainable; quite the opposite, because its net contribution to public accounts is unquestionably negative, as all studies on the matter show. Meanwhile, the government inflates aggregate GDP, but GDP per capita, net real wages, productivity, and the real effective employment rate remain stagnant.

The Spanish government has presented itself to the world with an openly pro‑immigration stance, at odds with decisions taken by the European Union itself. However, the Commission and the EU remained silent in the face of the assault on institutions, corruption, and the disaster of migration policy. European institutions bear responsibility because they supported and amplified Sánchez’s destructive, extensive migration policy, presenting it as if it were inclusive. They ignored the evidence that Spain’s numbers are poor once you look beyond headline GDP.

Stagnant GDP per capita: the IMF’s own estimates show that Spain’s GDP per capita will grow by just 1% a year between 2018 and 2027, exactly the same as the euro area average.
Falling net real wages: under Sánchez they have fallen by almost 3%.
Real unemployment: 3.7 million real unemployed, including inactive workers registered with the SEPE and 792,341 inactive permanent‑intermittent workers. The number of effectively unemployed has barely improved since 2019.

Zero fiscal consolidation: the net debt of the public administrations under the Excessive Deficit Procedure has risen to a record 1.6 trillion, while the total liabilities of the public sector have increased by more than half a trillion to 2.2 trillion. Debt‑to‑GDP and the deficit only appear to improve because the denominator is being doped with immigration and inflation above the euro area average.
An unsustainable Social Security system: Sánchez has multiplied Social Security’s debt, and the system needs a bailout every year from a state that is already in deficit. Immigration is not going to reduce that enormous hole; it increases it, as its net contribution is mostly negative.

All the data on the Spanish economy show weakness, statistical illusions, and severe imbalances, but the European Union and the Commission preferred to remain silent, buy the official propaganda, and cling to a doped aggregate GDP. The same thing they did with Greece between 2004 and 2007.

The official narrative highlights headline GDP contributions and demographic arguments while remaining silent about the stagnation of GDP per capita, productivity, net real wages, and the fiscal and institutional strain of absorbing huge irregular inflows through emergency regularizations instead of orderly, skills‑based migration. The EU allowed it because Sánchez sold it as a model when the time bomb was already obvious.

The Spanish government’s strategy is clear: to create a gigantic underclass dependent on public subsidies and captive as a future electorate. The massive inflow of illegal immigrants is the consequence of years of mass regularization policies, subsidy announcements, basic income plans, and a sustained pull factor.

Ceuta is facing its worst migration crisis in years, with thousands of irregular entries in barely a week and reception facilities completely overwhelmed. Centers for adults and minors are overflowing, local authorities speak openly of a humanitarian and social emergency, and the daily pressure on the border shows just how far the state has lost its capacity for anticipation and deterrence. This is not just a migration crisis. It is also a crisis of authority, planning, and institutional credibility.

To understand what Sánchez calls “the rocket,” today in Ceuta “GDP goes up,” but people in Ceuta are poorer and worse off.

More migration pressure, overwhelmed public services, greater dependence on public money, more debt, and higher future taxes, while Sánchez boasts about the figures and abandons the border.

The government uses the 0.7% quarterly and 2.7% year‑on‑year GDP growth in the second quarter of 2026 as if it were proof of strength, but aggregate growth is not prosperity. Spain is not growing; it is swelling and getting deeper into debt. The government relies on demographic expansion, artificially propped‑up domestic demand, rising public spending, and jobs in low‑productivity sectors.

Spain is growing in volume and getting poorer in quality. Aggregate GDP increases, but the net real income of its citizens deteriorates. The economy is doped with population and spending while efficiency, competitiveness, and per-capita well-being worsen.

On top of this comes inflation. The flash estimate for July, at 3.5%, once again puts Spain above the euro area average, which had eased to around 2.8%. This gap is not irrelevant. It means loss of competitiveness, more pressure on costs, further erosion of purchasing power, and greater difficulty in turning growth into real prosperity. Spain not only grows with low productivity but also with relatively high inflation. It is the worst combination for selling a supposed durable economic success.

The Spanish economy shows no structural leap in productivity, no decisive improvement in productive investment, and no solid convergence in GDP per capita with the most advanced economies of the euro area, where it remains 8 points below the average of a European Union that itself is not doing well, according to Eurostat.

The Ceuta crisis is a symbol of the complete failure of this model. A massive, irregular inflow of people generates, in the short term, a higher volume of measured activity because it triggers emergency spending, more budget mobilization, and more administrative needs. Statistically, that “pushes up GDP.” However, socially and economically the balance is devastating: it makes citizens poorer, worsens security, increases pressure on housing, healthcare, and education, and the cost is borne by taxpayers who already shoulder high debt, rising taxes, and a loss of net real purchasing power.

This is what “sanchismo” calls success: the numbers grow, and reality deteriorates.

Spain is not suffering border chaos by accident. It is the consequence of Sánchez’s mass regularizations and years of pull‑factor policies, a message to the world that entering illegally pays off.

It is not a mistake; it is a power strategy. Sánchez seeks to create a captive underclass, dependent on subsidies and papers, that will vote for him in the future and shift the social consequences and the bill onto taxpayers. While the government sinks under corruption scandals and loses social support, it tries to cling to power by dismantling Spain and its institutions and importing the future voters it is losing today.

Sánchez is not governing Spain; he is dismantling it in an attempt to cling to power. That is the big lie of Sánchez’s “rocket,” bloating up instead of truly growing.

It seemed Elon Musk was on to Sánchez early on. After the prime minister defended his amnesty plan in April, Musk wrote on X, "Dirty Sánchez is guilty of high treason."

Dirty Sánchez is guilty of high treason

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2026

Sánchez responded cheekily at the time, "Mars can wait. Humanity can't." 

Mars can wait. Humanity can’t. https://t.co/Oc4qAYtd3f

— Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon) January 29, 2026

Call that humanity?

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 09:20

UK High Court Moves To Ban Display Of English And British Flags

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

A Liberal Democrat council has secured a High Court injunction that effectively bans the unauthorised display of the St George's Cross and Union Flag on lampposts and public highways across an entire English county.

What began as a grassroots campaign to raise the colours of the nation has been declared a threat to community safety, with the full force of the courts now deployed against it.

Oxfordshire County Council, run by the Liberal Democrats, won its landmark case after months of legal action against the Raise the Colours campaign.

High Court approves injunction to BAN Britons hanging Union and St George's flags on lampposts. https://t.co/jWvRfTdcjK

— GB News (@GBNEWS) August 1, 2026

Justice Dexter Dias granted the order prohibiting unidentified persons from attaching England or Union flags to highway infrastructure or painting flag imagery on roads. Breach carries the risk of imprisonment, unlimited fines, or asset seizure.

Council leader Tim Bearder celebrated the outcome, stating "This is a welcome judgement. We're very pleased with the result," adding "This sets a legal precedent and will hopefully deter people in not just Oxfordshire but around the country from partaking in this criminal activity."

He described those involved as "very challenging people, not patriots."

The council claims the flags created highway safety risks, trespass, and obstruction. It spent roughly £80,000 removing them and a further £40,000 on legal fees, costs it now intends to recover.

Staff tasked with taking the flags down reportedly faced hostility, to the point that some were instructed to wear face coverings and check their vehicles for tracking devices after one worker's home address was published.

The judge noted that maintenance teams had been "working in fear" and that people directed by the council had been obstructed "to the extent that at times they have simply given up on the removal." He concluded there was "little prospect absent an injunction that it will stop."

The new order does not prevent flags on private property, and the council insists it flies both the Union Flag and St George's Cross at County Hall.

This is the same Oxfordshire authority that earlier issued formal stop notices branding the widespread installation of national flags an "act of intimidation and division."

The pattern is now familiar. English councils have repeatedly treated the national flag as a problem to be managed rather than a symbol to be celebrated. FOI requests previously revealed at least £70,000 spent removing Union Jacks and St George's Crosses from lampposts, with some local politicians openly calling the expenditure "money well spent" to combat supposed far-right agitation.

In Essex, staff were offered emotional support if they felt "discomforted" by the mere sight of the national flag in their communities.

A leaked government social cohesion strategy went further still, describing how the "extreme right has tried to turn symbols of pride into tools of hate," framing the Union Flag itself as a potential instrument of exclusion and intimidation.

The phenomenon has a name: vexillophobia - the irrational fear of the flag. Britain has reached the point where flying the St George's Cross is treated as a form of aggression while other political symbols face no such institutional hostility.

During the recent World Cup, English people were warned not to fly flags, the reasoning being that it could intimidate migrants and non-English people.

The selective nature of the discomfort is hard to miss. When rows of Pride flags lined streets in such density that even a prominent television presenter described them as "oppressive," the institutional response was silence or defence. National colours, by contrast, trigger injunctions, safety briefings, and high court orders.

Raise the Colours began as a simple act of public expression - covering Britain in its own flags. In Oxfordshire it has now been met with the full machinery of the state.

The High Court has drawn a line: the English flag may be flown on private property, but the public highway is a neutral zone where the nation's colours are treated as a potential hazard.

The precedent is set. Other councils are watching. The message to ordinary people who simply want to see their country's flag in public spaces is clear. In 2026 Britain, that desire is something the authorities feel compelled to police.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 08:10

A Brain That Can Swap Bodies: Google DeepMind Aims To Be The 'Android' Of Robotics

Google DeepMind unveiled Gemini Robotics 2 on Wednesday, a suite of three AI models that gives humanoid and other robots whole-body control, sharper manipulation, and the ability to work together. The system can run locally on the robot itself and adapt to an entirely new machine body with a few hours of training data. DeepMind is pitching it as the "intelligence layer" for robots - the foundational operating system that every hardware maker builds on.

Rather than a single monolithic system, the company released three models across three access tiers:

• Gemini Robotics 2: A vision-language-action model that turns what a robot sees and is told into motor commands. It can drive a full humanoid from feet to fingertips, as well as standard two-armed systems.
• Gemini Robotics ER 2: An embodied-reasoning model that plans multi-step jobs over several minutes, recovers from failures, and lets multiple robots split a workflow between them.
• Gemini Robotics On-Device 2: A lightweight version that runs directly on the hardware, for industrial settings where cloud connectivity is unreliable or unavailable.

DeepMind demonstrated a single model checkpoint controlling three physically distinct robots: an Apptronik Apollo 2 fitted with two different sets of hands, and a separate two-armed rig with a gripper. One model ran hardware it was never designed for.

Unlike its 2025 system, which handled only a robot's upper body, this version controls movement from the torso down through the legs, letting a humanoid walk, crouch, bend, and reach at once. In one demonstration, an Apollo 2 walked to a watering can and placed it on a lower shelf.

Success has been hit-or-miss, wit robots hitting roughly 68% accuracy picking objects from a table and 76% from a shelf, but only 46% from the floor. Multi-finger dexterity is still an unsolved problem, and simple grippers continue to outperform elaborate robotic hands. Movement needs to be faster and more reliable. This is a research release with a waitlist; nobody is putting it to work on a warehouse floor next quarter.

DeepMind says Gemini ER 2 its safest robotics model yet, based on benchmarks for adhering to safety constraints and avoiding humans, and it included an evaluation of whether a robot will refuse an unsafe instruction and defer to a human for help. The vision-language-action and on-device models are gated to more than 100 trusted testers and a handful of early partners; the reasoning model is in a more open preview.

The Bigger Bet

Alphabet, Nvidia, and a wave of Chinese tech firms are all racing to own the "physical AI" stack rather than any single robot - the same bet that made mobile operating systems so valuable. If humanoid machines ever become as common as laptops, whoever supplies the universal brain that transfers cleanly from one body to the next will own a toll booth on the entire industry.

As for DeepMind - so far it hasn't kicked any Chinese kids in the head, so that's a start. 

A Unitree G1 humanoid robot just roundhouse kicked a child in China’s Xinjiang region, sparking urgent conversations about public safety.

The robot, which was executing a pre-programmed, 360-degree spinning roundhouse kick, delivered enough force to double the child over.

While…

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 9, 2026

 

Tyler Durden Sun, 08/02/2026 - 07:35

McGlinchey: Trump's Damage To US Diplomacy Could Last A Generation

By Brian McGlinchey via Stark Realities

As the US-Israel war on Iran grinds into its sixth month, it’s clear to all but the most intellectually-dishonest Trump loyalists and war-bent Israel-sympathizers that it’s been a spectacular failure.

A war of aggression that was supposed to precipitate a revolution has instead galvanized popular support of the Iranian government in defiance of the country’s tormentors, who’ve killed thousands of their fellow citizens and destroyed civilian infrastructure. A war that was launched to neutralize Israel’s principal rival seems certain to leave that rival far more geopolitically powerful than before, while driving Americans’ support for Israel to record lows.

Beyond unforgivably throwing away the lives of 18 American service members in an unconstitutional war launched on false pretenses, Trump’s blunder has depleted America’s arsenal and pushed the country more than $100 billion deeper into debt. Meanwhile, the longer Trump delays the inevitable consummation of his defeat, the greater the risk of an economic calamity that engulfs not only the United States but the entire world.

If that latter nightmare can be sidestepped, we’ll likely find that Trump has inflicted his most enduring damage on an intangible yet critical national asset: the ability of American diplomats to productively engage counterparts all over the world. From using negotiations as a ploy for surprise attacks to murdering heads of state and casually reneging on American commitments — including his own — Trump’s damage to US diplomacy will be evident for years. Of course, that’s not to suggest America’s foreign policy reputation was sparkling before Trump’s ascension to power — only that he and his team have managed to drag it down to new depths.

Trump’s collaboration with Israel to launch an unprovoked war on Iran is manifestly among the worst foreign policy decisions in the history of the American republic. However, it’s important to appreciate that Trump first set this 2026 disaster in motion eight years ago: In May 2018, — spurred on by then-National Security Advisor John Bolton and Trump’s Israel-first donors — Trump withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action, or JCPOA.

Also called the “Iran nuclear deal,” the July 2015 JCPOA was the culmination of nearly two years of painstaking negotiations over highly technical provisions, conducted by representatives of not only the United States and Iran but also China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the European Union.

Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to major restrictions on its nuclear program in exchange for relief from brutal economic sanctions. Among other things, the JCPOA required Iran to eliminate its medium-enriched uranium, slash its cache of low-enriched uranium by 98%, limit future enrichment to 3.67%, agree to even more external monitoring than it was already submitting to, and render its heavy-water reactor worthless by filling it with concrete.

Trump presents a memorandum reimposing sanctions on Iran after he withdrew from the nuclear deal at John Bolton's urging (Evan Vucci/AP)

Catering both to devoted Israel supporters and to Republicans who were eager to assume that a deal negotiated during the Obama administration must have been treasonous, Trump had repeatedly railed against the JCPOA throughout his 2016 campaign, declaring that his “number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.” After being named national security advisor in April 2018, Bolton — who had long been pushing for war on Iran — quickly prodded Trump into making good on his promises to tear up the JCPOA, despite the fact that Iran was fully complying with the agreement.

“Trump’s move demonstrates that the United States cannot be trusted to keep its promises,” the Belfer Center’s Martin Malin said at the time. “It will heighten tensions in an already smoldering Middle East while giving fodder to hardliners and nuclear bomb advocates in Iran.”

After Trump’s withdrawal and the reinstatement of waived sanctions, Iran waited a year, but then began straying from its own commitments -- using elevated uranium enrichment as a lever to push for a new agreement and relief from suffocating sanctions.

Having long denied it was developing a nuclear weapon -- a claim repeatedly deemed truthful by the US intelligence community -- Iran returned to the negotiating table during Trump’s second term, once again ready to part with the uranium it had enriched to higher levels. Indeed, less than 48 hours before the United States and Israel attacked on Feb. 28, Iran offered concessions that included dilution of its 60%-enriched uranium, a multi-year pause on new enrichment, subsequent enrichment capped at 20%, and expanded IAEA oversight. UK national security advisor Jonathan Powell was reportedly surprised by the strength of the Iranian offer, seeing it as reason to hope war would be averted. His and others’ hopes were about to be dashed.

There are many facets of the Trump administration’s assault on diplomacy, but none more vulgar than using ongoing negotiations as a means of unleashing a surprise attack on a negotiating partner — an attack that includes the killing of that partner’s head of state.

That’s exactly what the Trump administration did to Iran in February. Having held a third round of talks in Geneva on Feb. 26, the two countries were set for what was described as technical-level discussions the following week. Instead, teaming up with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump launched a massive war on Iran. In addition to killing more than 100 elementary-age schoolgirls and many other civilians and military conscripts, the opening attack killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, his daughter, son-in-law and 14-month-old granddaughter.

Rubio further diminished US credibility by attempting to characterize the surprise attack as somehow defensive. “We knew there was going to be Israeli action” which would “precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio said. Observers were quick to note that, regardless of Israel’s status as a sovereign state, its dependency on Washington means Trump held de facto veto power over an Israeli strike, which makes the rest of Rubio’s rationale hollow.

Marco Rubio: "We went proactively in a defensive way" pic.twitter.com/i3XMjV0C9e

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 2, 2026

February wasn’t the first time that insincere Trump administration diplomacy set up Iran for a surprise attack. In June 2025, the administration had completed five rounds of negotiations with Iran and scheduled a sixth for June 15. On June 13, Israel attacked Iran. It was no surprise to Trump, who boasted that Israel informed him in advance. On June 22, Trump joined the 12-Day war via Operation Midnight Hammer, bombing Iranian nuclear facilities.

Beyond their fundamental immorality, these surprise attacks amid negotiations undermine long-term US interests by fostering distrust in everyone who witnessed such blatant American treachery. Following the start of all-out war on Feb 28, Washburn University law professor Ali Khan wrote about the consequences of turning negotiations into a “calculated ruse”:

“The breach of good faith signals worldwide that it is pointless to make any deal with someone who would do the opposite after creating an expectation or reliance for the other party. Iran or any other state would be highly reluctant to trust the Trump administration again in future negotiations.”

Note, one shouldn’t assume the world’s distrust will be so tightly associated with Trump that it will vanish when he leaves office. In Marco Rubio and JD Vance, his administration holds at least two potential successors to the Oval Office, to say nothing of senators, representatives and governors who’ve cheered on Trump’s misconduct and would be prone to emulating it. And don’t think for a moment that Democrats are immune to following unhealthy presidential precedents, whatever their commentary may be when those precedents are set by a Republican.

With his 2018 withdrawal from the JCPOA, Trump reneged on a deal made by another president, but Trump has repeatedly reneged on his own commitments too.

That’s the case with the June 17, 2026 Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Iran, which Trump signed at the Palace of Versailles. Primarily brokered by Pakistan with help from several Middle Eastern states, the MOU has been described as an agreement to make an agreement. It comprises 14 points setting conditions for an immediate ceasefire and 60 days of negotiations for a lasting peace.

Trump quickly fell short of full compliance. “When you look at what’s happening from the Iranian point of view…the Iranians believe that the United States has not lived up to its part of the bargain,” University of Chicago international relations scholar John Mearsheimer said in July.

There are several elements where Iran reasonably accused Trump of noncompliance, but we’ll examine three, starting with the most significant one of all. Point 5 covers what has replaced uranium as the core focus of the conflict — Iran’s selective blocking of traffic through the economically vital Strait of Hormuz:

5: “Upon the signing of this MOU, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge, for 60 days only, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa.….[and] conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz...”

This point was widely understood to mean Iran would lift its blockade but still oversee and direct all traffic. When it exerted control of shipping traffic in March, Iran replaced the pre-war route that went down the center of the strait with one that guides traffic along Iran’s coast. However, after the MOU was signed, the Trump administration started instructing ships to use a different route, which passes through the territorial waters of Oman.

“We violated [the MOU] by setting up a southern corridor,” retired US Army Colonel Daniel Davis declared on his Deep Dive geopolitics podcast. “There’s nothing in the MOU that we signed that authorizes a southern corridor or America to enter into it and decide on our own how that’s going to be done. It’s just not there.” Davis, who returned from Afghanistan and blew the whistle in 2012 on civilian and military officials’ misleading of the public on how that war was progressing, suggested the US move in the strait was a deliberate provocation.

Deliberate or not, it was provocative indeed. After issuing radio warnings to ships attempting to use the southern route, Iran fired disabling shots at them. Trump then restarted his bombing of Iran, which prompted Iranian retaliation against American forces and the countries that host them. The two countries then began a long series of “tit for tat” strikes that continued into this week.

Then there’s Point 10 of the MOU, in which the Trump administration promised to issue sanctions waivers that would allow for unfettered Iranian exports of oil and petroleum. Trump revoked the waivers on July 7, pointing to Iran’s attacks on ships that didn’t submit to Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz… control that, again, the United States seemingly agreed to under Point 5.

Numerically reflecting its high importance to Iran, Point 1 of the MOU required the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts in Lebanon.” It focused not so much on Iran and the United States but more so “their allies” — the Iranian-allied Hezbollah militia and the US-allied State of Israel. However, Israel continued its operations, including a level of comprehensive destruction of civilian infrastructure in Southern Lebanon that mirrors what the Israeli Defense Forces did to Gaza. One can make the argument that the United States wasn’t in a position to impose MOU terms on Israel, but if that’s truly the case, Trump shouldn’t have signed an MOU by which he essentially certified that he would.

Doubling down, the Trump administration even took action to legitimize the IDF’s presence in Lebanon. “[The MOU] said we had to get the Israelis out of Lebanon. We made no effort to do that,” said former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman. “In fact, we turned around and Marco Rubio went and…brokered an agreement between the Lebanese government and Israel that they will jointly go after Hezbollah. So what is this? At a minimum, it’s not very smart.”

Critically, Trump’s behavior bolsters the credibility of hardliners in the Iranian government who’ve repeatedly argued that the United States cannot be trusted and shouldn’t be negotiated with. Moderates prevailed over skeptical hardliners when Iran opted to sign the JCPOA, again when it twice attempted to seek sanctions relief and avert war via negotiations only to be subjected to surprise attacks, and again with the June 17 signing of the MOU.

Trump's actions have undercut the credibility of moderate Iranian leaders like President Pezeshkian, who ran on a platform favoring engagement with the West

“The hardliners said ‘don’t sign it, you can’t trust the Americans’,” Mearsheimer recently told Chris Hedges. “But the moderates prevailed, and then the hardliners proved to be correct, so they’re now in the driver’s seat, as best we can tell…and those hardliners will push forward a tougher deal for Trump to swallow” whenever the next version of an MOU is pursued.

It’s not only adversaries of the US government that have been subjected to Trump’s sudden reversals on terms he himself agreed to. Just ask Saudi Arabia.

On July 22, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz ​bin Salman signed an agreement by which the kingdom would be able to build nuclear reactors and enrich uranium with US technology. Both governments published official announcements, and it was seen as a triumph for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The very next morning, Trump blindsided the Saudis and his own subordinates, using a social media post to retroactively add a huge requirement — there would be no nuclear deal unless Saudi Arabia joined the Abraham Accords, which entails recognition of Israel as a legitimate state, and the establishment of official diplomatic relations.

Such a move would run counter to Saudi Arabia’s long-running insistence that recognition of Israel is unthinkable without a firm plan for Palestinian statehood. Further, Trump’s demand for a Saudi embrace of Israel comes at a time when Muslims within the kingdom and throughout the region are outraged by Israel’s destruction of Gaza and southern Lebanon, making such a move perilous for the Saudi royals. Contrary to the agreement his energy secretary had signed, Trump also suddenly declared there would be no enrichment of nuclear material inside Saudi Arabia.

“You strike a deal, you sign it, you announce it, you brag about it, and within 24 hours you’re changing the terms in a fundamental way,” observed the Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi on Deep Dive. “If that’s what you do to Saudi Arabia — a country that the United States has a very close relationship with…on top of that, the Trump family has very close business ties with — then what are you going to do with Iran? What is the shelf life of any American commitment under Trump to the Iranians in any agreement?”

Or to anyone else, for that matter. “We’ve convinced the entire world that we don’t know what we’re doing, and we can’t be trusted, and we don’t keep our word, and we don’t even stay consistent from one day to the next,” former ambassador Freeman recently told Davis. “So how can you deal with us? That’s the question everybody has out there.”

As Alastair Crooke sees it, US diplomacy may never be the same. Summing up the effects of Trump’s multi-front assault on trust in America, the former British intelligence agent, diplomat and founder of the Beirut-based Conflicts Forum told Glenn Diesen, “The American ability to negotiate in the old-fashioned diplomatic idea, I think, is gone. I mean, we’re in a new era.”

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Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/01/2026 - 23:20

New Jersey Offers Taxpayer-Funded Legal Services To Noncitizens Improperly Registered To Vote

This week, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill revealed that more than 6,600 noncitizens ended up on its voter rolls, with nearly 400 of them casting ballots between June 2023 and June 2024.

Despite saying the situation is unacceptable and claiming that she is being proactive to fix it, her administration has also begun steering the same noncitizens toward taxpayer-funded legal help.

Sherrill promptly blamed the software vendor, IDEMIA, for the problem.

"Let me be clear: this entire situation is unacceptable," Sherrill said Tuesday. "It's unacceptable that the vendor released software with such a glaring error, it's unacceptable that the MVC took a year to get this issue fixed and it's unacceptable that no one in the previous administration brought this to light, demanded accountability or took action when it happened years ago."

However, they dispute her characterization and have offered a different characterization of who was responsible.

"IDEMIA works with the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, and has for more than 40 years, to support the process through which eligible individuals may indicate their interest in registering to vote when applying for or renewing a driver's license or state-issued identification card," the company said in a statement. According to IDEMIA, New Jersey's own Division of Elections, the body charged with validating and adjudicating every registration IDEMIA passed along, is ultimately responsible.

MVC is even switching to a new vendor. Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security reported that roughly 250,000 noncitizens were registered to vote across four states - California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada. New Jersey accounted for 35,152 of those registrations, more than five times the 6,600 figure Sherrill's administration has acknowledged. The gap suggests the state has disclosed only a portion of the problem, and it raises the question of how the smaller number became the official one. Note that DHS has not publicly detailed its methodology for the higher figure, and fact-checkers have treated the larger claims with caution.

New Jersey's website now tells noncitizens who were improperly registered to vote to contact the Division of Elections or their county's Commissioner of Registration to have their names removed.

"A recently discovered error in a vendor's software revealed that approximately 6,600 people were improperly registered to vote between June 2023 and June 2024 after completing a transaction at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission," the page states. "These individuals indicated they were not United States citizens, and they did not attest to being eligible to vote during this transaction. But the software erroneously transmitted these individuals for voter registration processing regardless."

The same page points them, along with other affected residents, to legal resources through the Office of New Americans. Among those resources is pro bono legal representation through New Jersey's Detention and Deportation Defense Initiative, a state-funded program that provides defense against deportation proceedings.

That means New Jersey taxpayers are funding legal defense, through a deportation-focused program, for noncitizens who were registered to vote and, in hundreds of cases, actually voted. Federal law prohibits all noncitizens - whether unauthorized or lawfully present (such as green-card holders or temporary visa holders) - from voting in federal elections. The available public information confirms these individuals indicated they were noncitizens; it does not break down how many of the 6,600 (or of those who voted) lacked legal authorization to reside in the United States.

The Sherrill administration also indicated this week that it will not turn over the names of the noncitizens who were registered to vote to the Trump administration, citing privacy concerns.

Sherrill's account leaves the state with a tidy narrative: a defective vendor, a fix already underway, and a governor who inherited the mess. The DHS figures complicate that narrative considerably, and the state's own disclosures have not yet accounted for the difference between 6,600 and 35,152. Until they do, the full scope of noncitizen registration in New Jersey remains an open question.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/01/2026 - 22:45

CCP Bans Sale Of Retired Military Equipment, Citing Security Risks

Authored by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times,

The Chinese regime's military and public security authorities have jointly issued an order banning the sale, assembly, and marketing of retired military equipment, citing "security risks to military secrets."

Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers take part in military training at Pamir Mountains in Kashgar, northwestern China's Xinjiang region, on Jan. 4, 2021. STR/AFP via Getty Images

The Notice on Prohibiting Sales Activities Involving Retired or Scrapped Military Equipment was issued on July 28 by the Chinese regime's six central governmental departments, including the top defense command and decision-making body of the Chinese military - Central Military Commission's Logistics Support Department, Equipment Development Department, and Political and Legal Affairs Commission, along with the Ministry of Public Security, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.

The notice acknowledges that, in recent years, some vendors have openly sold - both online and offline - retired or scrapped military equipment containing sensitive information, resulting in "adverse effects" and creating "security risks." It also said one of the purposes of the ban is "to uphold the positive image of the people's military."

The notice stipulates that no entity or individual may sell retired or scrapped military equipment. Such equipment - as defined by the military - encompasses various types of hardware, ammunition, devices, related components, and materials that have been officially retired from service and designated for disposal as scrap.

The notice also prohibits any unit or individual from using dismantled parts of decommissioned equipment to produce, modify, and re-assemble them, and then sell them as imitations of military equipment that the public might believe was real. Commercial marketing and promotion of decommissioned and scrapped equipment and related imitations are also prohibited.

The official notice did not disclose the types, quantities, or sources of decommissioned equipment currently on the market, nor did it state whether any military information had been leaked.

Li Yuansong, a Chinese military equipment and memorabilia collector, told The Epoch Times that Chinese military-issued gear has long been collected by enthusiasts.

"Much of the Chinese weaponry is derived from technology dating back to the former Soviet era [1922-91]. While a small number of firearms produced after the 'Reform and Opening-up' incorporated Western technology, the majority remain updated versions of Soviet-based hardware," he said. "The craftsmanship is crude and hardly advanced. If Western weapons experts were to dismantle and analyze them, they would likely laugh about them.

"The real fear isn't so much about leaking secrets, but rather that foreigners might discover just how backward China's conventional weaponry actually is," Li said of the new ban.

Li Xiangyang, a Chinese military scholar who used a pseudonym out of fear of reprisal, told The Epoch Times that in recent years, individuals have been reselling military equipment online.

"Some components bear serial numbers, model designations, and signs of use. In the eyes of the authorities, these could reveal information regarding production batches, maintenance standards, and quality," Li said.

"Regulations dictate that many decommissioned items must be destroyed, with metal materials collected and melted down. This notice is primarily aimed at enforcing the Anti-Espionage Law, as the authorities do not want foreign entities to gain insight into the Chinese regime's military-industrial technology."

Su Pei, a China-based military scholar who used a pseudonym out of fear of reprisal, told The Epoch Times that the mention of upholding "the positive image of the people's military" in the ban notice shows that the Chinese regime is concerned about more than just so-called secret leaks, but also about hiding the backwardness of the Chinese weaponry.

"It also worries that individuals within the military might sell used military equipment through underground channels - goods that could ultimately be resold to foreign adversaries. Such incidents have already occurred in coastal regions," he said.

The notice does not prohibit the trading of all decommissioned and scrapped equipment. Exceptions are made for dual-use dismantled parts included in the public sales catalog of the China Rongtong Asset Management Group, as well as other equipment authorized for sale by the military. The China Rongtong Group is a ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) centrally managed commercial state-owned sole proprietorship company, according to public information.

Su noted that the Chinese military has long operated in a "black box" environment, lacking external oversight regarding equipment procurement, decommissioning, and asset disposal, which leads to corruption.

People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers take meteorological observation training in Jinan, Shandong Province of China, on May 29, 2016. Getty Images Tyler Durden Sat, 08/01/2026 - 22:10