Aggregator

The offense for the Yankees (56-45) exploded for eight runs Monday, but any momentum was gone by Wednesday, when the Yankees finished with six hits.

Tony Vitello was ejected one batter into the bottom of the seventh Wednesday afternoon, and everything began to fall apart soon thereafter.

Of the four new musicals that are currently on sale, there are two obvious pack leaders: The all-American Dolly Parton show and the polite British bear adventure from darkest England.

A tourist in Thailand was caught on dashcam repeatedly making unwanted advances toward a female taxi driver during a ride in Phuket. The driver, 41-year-old Mapraw, said the passenger complimented her appearance, asked about her relationship status, and later offered her money in exchange for sexual acts after she rejected his advances. She declined multiple...

Could there be an AL East bidding war for this catcher?

IRGC To Trump: Strike Iran's Infrastructure, We'll Shut Off The Gulf's Power Summary

• More Tanker Attacks: Iran-backed Houthi militants said they targeted two Saudi Arabian tankers in the Red Sea

• Trump ultimatum: Trump vowed the US will strike an Iranian bridge or power plant after every Iranian attack on shipping.

• Iran responds: The IRGC threatened to hit Gulf energy infrastructure if Iranian infrastructure is attacked, saying it will cut off electricity among US allies.

• Latest Gulf missile attacks: Iran claimed attacks on US-linked targets in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.

• Nuclear tensions: Iran denied nuclear activity at Pickaxe Mountain, calling US claims a 'fabricated pretext' for attack.

• Oil climbs: Renewed Gulf attacks and shipping threats continued to lift oil prices.

//--> //--> //--> Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by August 31?
Yes 14% · No 86%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

*  *  *

Oil Climbs After Houthis Attack Two Saudi Tankers in Red Sea

Oil gained after Iran-backed Houthi militants said they targeted two Saudi Arabian tankers in the Red Sea, escalating the Middle East conflict and threatening deeper supply disruptions.

Brent spiked above $95 in post-settlement trading.

The Houthis attacked the two vessels with missiles and drones for violating a blockade imposed in the Red Sea, identifying the tankers as Encelia and Layla, the rebel group said.

UK Maritime Trade Operations said a vessel was hit southwest of Saudi Arabia’s Al Shuqaiq, causing a fire on board.

UKMTO didn’t identify the ship.

The first attacks on tankers in the Red Sea opens up a new front in the Middle East conflict, which has snarled traffic through the Strait of Hormuz following a flare-up in violence.

Iran Responds to Trump Ultimatum: We'll Turn The Lights Off In Gulf

A top IRGC official has responded to Trump's Bridge attack for each shipping attack ultimatum (see below). Iranian IRGC Aerospace Commander Mousavi has threatened that Iran will cut off electricity to America's Gulf Allies if Iranian bridges or power plants are attacked, Tasnim News Agency.

"If the Americans target an Iranian bridge or power plant, Iran will respond by striking infrastructure and bridges across the region, including energy facilities in which the United States has interests,” the official said according semi-official news agency Tasnim.

"The Americans should by now, after these past ten days, be fully convinced that Iran strikes wherever it decides to strike. Therefore, any such gamble by Trump will once again end in his embarrassment," the IRGC commander added.

Separately, Iran’s deputy foreign minister briefed 25 European ambassadors and charges d’affaires in Tehran on the status of the conflict. "I reminded them that in the 40-day war, we imposed a severe defeat on the aggressors. In this new round of military aggression as well, we will resolutely defend our homeland and national interests," Kazem Gharibabadi posted on X.

"These wars have created no strategic gains for America and only endanger regional and global peace and security. I also said that Europe is expected to safeguard the United Nations Charter and international law and to condemn aggression,” he added.

Iran has continued to sound an "eye for an eye" theme, and has not backed down in the face of Trump's fresh threats...

Meanwhile, Iran is touting that it still possesses a very significant missile stockpile, as it is still producing even as US bombs fall:

⚡️BREAKING: Iran's top Military Spokesman confirms that Missiles and Drones are still being Produced

"Our production never Stopped and we continue to Replenish our Stockpiles" pic.twitter.com/I5ZWuMuWeU

— Iran Observer (@IranObserver0) July 22, 2026 Trump: US Will Destroy A Bridge Or Power Plant For Each Iranian Attack On Shipping

More telegraphing of intent from President Trump in the below Truth Social Post... he said the US military will "bomb and destroy" one bridge or power plant - including in Tehran - each time the Iranian military shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz. This comes a day after he unveiled the US military plans to conduct a large bombing of Iran's Pickaxe Mountain nuclear complex, which is heavily fortified.

But the Iranians have already long demonstrated they won't alter course in the face of such threats, especially bluster from Trump over social media, and so this unlikely to be any kind of fix for Washington, as Tehran has vowed to keep control of Hormuz at all costs. The Pentagon has argued that things like bridges are 'dual use' as the Iranian military uses them to get supplies from one region to another, while international monitors have highlighted the potential for war crimes. The Iranians have in turn widened attacks on Gulf states to include key civic infrastructure, like water desalination plants (in Kuwait) - each time their own infrastructure gets hit.

Iran: Pickaxe Mountain Rhetoric is 'Fabricated Pretext'

Amid continued fighting which has included explosions heard in Tehran overnight and in the south, Iran's leadership has condemned the Trump administration's "obsessive focus on Kolang Kouh where no nuclear activity is taking place is nothing more than a fabricated pretext for aggression, destruction, and sabotage," according to Foreign Minister spokesman Esmail Baghaei in a post on X, referring to Pickaxe Mountain.

He pointed out that all of Iran's nuclear activity has long been fully declared to the IAEA, and so the repeat threats out of Washington to mount a major attack on it is a "flagrant violation" of UN charter and international law. Trump had said the day prior that the US military will be hitting Pickaxe mountain "pretty soon very heavily and there is nothing they can do about it."

IRIB via AFP/Getty Images

Even some supporters have quested why the US Commander-in-Chief would so casually telegraph his intentions, saying the Pentagon loses an operational edge in revealing such plans.

There's been a lot of sudden focus on Pickaxe Mountain, though it had largely been absent from all prior media coverage of the war, due to Israeli intelligence feeding it to US mainstream press. "Israeli intelligence believes Iran moved thousands of uranium-enrichment centrifuges into tunnels deep inside a mountain last fall, Israeli and U.S. officials say, a development that would heighten concerns that Tehran could reconstitute its nuclear program," The Wall Street Journal wrote Tuesday.

"Israel passed along the intelligence findings to the U.S., saying the centrifuges were transferred to the Pickaxe Mountain site last fall after the 12-day war in June when American and Israeli strikes pummeled Iran’s three main nuclear sites," it added.

US Bases in Gulf Under Renewed Attack

And now, by all accounts, more aircraft, refueling planes, and heavy military hardware continue to be transferred from Europe and into the Central Command area of responsibility.

The Iranians might view this as more simply extra targets to be taken out, however, as Gulf countries continue to see inbound attacks. Missile alerts have been sounding Wednesday in Saudi Arabia, and again in Bahrain. ISNA reports (via Newsquawk): Drone and missile attacks on Bahrain and Saudi Arabia; US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and US base in Saudi Arabia targeted:

• Bahrain has faced almost daily bombardment recently due to hosting the US Fifth Fleet headquarters.
• Saudi Arabia has been pulled into the firing line after the collapse of a previous multi-year ceasefire with Iranian-backed factions.

US Troops Under Iranian Missiles in Jordan

Soldiers in Jordan seem to be prime targets of Iranian ballistic missiles, in an extremely dangerous situation, after several American soldiers already died there in the past week:

Footage filmed by a U.S. soldier in Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, in Jordan, during an Iranian Ballistic Missile attack. pic.twitter.com/0OHle3she8

— MenchOsint (@MenchOsint) July 22, 2026

Jordan too continues to see significant inbound projectiles from Iran. Iranian state media has newly announced that F-15 warplanes, drone preparation infrastructure and a helicopter storage facility at Prince Hassan and King Faisal bases were targeted in recent ballistic missile launches.

IRNA news agency claimed that eight new American MQ-9 drones were destroyed and two others "severely damaged" in the attack, and in addition two helicopters were damaged.

The fresh Wednesday morning initial reports of potential further inbound missile on Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have pushed oil prices higher.

Rubio on Iran-Led Axis of 'Troublemakers'

Meanwhile Secretary of State Marco says the US is in contact with Saudi officials over the ongoing threat by Yemen's Houthis to attack commercial vessels and disrupt Saudi shipping in the vital Bab al-Mandeb waterway in the Red Sea. This is squeezing global oil further.

"We’ve been engaged with the Saudis a number of times over the last week in regards to that threat. It’s not a new threat, but it’s one that’s manifested itself in the past," he told reporters in his latest remarks.

More evidence of serious damage and destruction at American military outposts in Jordan:

Source sends footage of Tower 22 dorms after getting struck by Iran in Jordan. The sense among servicemembers is that Iran focused previously on destroying infrastructure but is now targeting soldiers.

The base has been evacuated. pic.twitter.com/Jyegdltsgr

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) July 21, 2026

In words which Tehran officials will surely not find terrifying or overly threatening, Rubio continued: "At the gist of that issue is the fact Iran is in the middle of it. Talking about the troublemaker of the region, it’s Iran."

"It’s just another example: the Houthis, Hezbollah, the militias in Iraq, Hamas – this is what Iran spends its money on, not on its people, on supporting terrorist organizations and destabilizing actors in the region," he added in Washington's characteristic 'axis-speak' of 'rogue actors'.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 16:25

Jim Quinn Warns "We've Already Entered This Fourth Turning's Global War..."

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Bruning Platform blog,

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” – Thomas Paine – The American Crisis

“At worst, should at least one desperate country resort to WMDs, the outcome of a great-power war could prove to be even more devastating than that of a civil war. The toll could be almost unimaginable – with multiple cities destroyed, many millions killed, and many tens of millions displaced – all perhaps triggered by some ill-fated combination of the wrong leader making the wrong choice at the wrong time.” – Neil Howe – The Fourth Turning Is Here

My previous two articles about this Fourth Turning: Prophets, Nomads and a Fourth Turning Accelerating Towards a Bloody Climax in April 2025 and War Phase of This Fourth Turning Has Arrived in July 2025 were progressively more pessimistic about the course of coming events, and things have proceeded along a precarious path towards our own rendezvous with destiny/tragedy. We are closing in on the 18th anniversary of the start of this Crisis epoch in September. The previous Great Depression/WWII Fourth Turning came to its climactic bloody conclusion after seventeen years, but this period of upheaval and disorder looks like it will extend into the early 2030s, just as Strauss & Howe predicted.

After rereading the prior two articles, I was shocked at how drastically the world has transformed in the space of one year and how the chief facilitator for driving events – Donald Trump – has hugely reversed his stated positions from the outset of his presidency. During the first 18 months of his 2nd term in office, Trump has done the exact opposite of what he promised and gone to war with the people most responsible for getting him elected: Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, among others. The question is whether this was always his plan, or has he been coerced/bribed by Israel using Epstein file revelations.

At first, I was cautiously optimistic Trump had learned some hard lessons from his first term personnel debacles and the Deep State conspiracy to derail his presidency, along with the provable stealing of the 2020 election through mail-in ballot fraud, rigged voting machines, and judicial interference, resulting in the insertion of a dementia ridden basement dummy as a Potemkin president.

Trump staffed his new administration with what appeared to be loyalists, committed to revealing the truth about the Russiagate conspiracy, the 2020 stolen election, the Epstein files, FBI/CIA coup participants, the Soros/Biden/Clinton/Obama purposeful initiation and funding of the 3rd world invasion of our country to steal elections and initiate economic collapse, USAID as the funder of NGOs committed to destroying our society, the J6 Committee malfeasance, and the massive government fraud in all welfare programs at the Federal and State levels.

With Musk’s DOGE revelations and promises of $2 trillion in savings, the early months of Trump’s presidency seemed promising. He fulfilled his guarantee to shut the border and stopped the hordes of low IQ 3rd world dirtbags from invading our country and overwhelming our social welfare system. With much fanfare (and TV commercials), Kristi Noem began deporting thousands of illegals on a daily basis. Pam Bondi and Kash Patel declared they had all the Epstein files and would be releasing them in their criminal entirety.

But right-wing influencers were given binders with no new Epstein revelations in a February White House PR event. Something started to smell fishy. Trump acted like a Middle East peacemaker, with rhetoric about ending the Gaza genocide and turning it into resort for his wealthy cronies. He held multiple talks with Putin and Zelensky. It looked like ending the Ukraine war and delivering peace on earth might be his legacy.

By June, Trump’s presidency began to unravel, and he started reneging on his promises, having a major falling out with Musk over his Big Beautiful Bloated Bill, and began his infatuation with his Boss Bibi, who told him what to do and when to do it. Trump’s bombast about reducing the national debt and balancing the budget was put to the test with his first budget bill.

In my previous article I had stated it would require tremendous courage on the part of Trump and his congressional majority to institute the billions in DOGE cuts, as it is only government waste, Fed debt creation, and consumers spending money they don’t have on shit they don’t need at 20% interest provided by the Wall Street cabal, that keeps this U.S. Titanic of debt economy afloat. Cutting government spending would guarantee a recession. As expected, cowardly politicians, bought off by special interests, and driven by re-election desires, had no interest in cutting a dime of government spending.

Trump made no effort to reduce the spending earmarked in the Big Beautiful Bill, going along with the continued death march of debt creation. Prior to the bill, the 10-Year CBO forecast was for the national debt to increase by $21 trillion, so essentially accelerating towards fiscal disaster. Trump’s BBB added another $5 trillion to that farcical figure, not exactly “cutting” the budget. The national debt has gone from $36.2 trillion to $39.5 trillion in the first 1.5 years of Trump’s reign of debt.

With the uniparty in agreement, $2 trillion annual deficits are locked in until the debt Ponzi implodes. The MAGA army of maff challenged NPCs obediently applauded for Trump’s 5D chess genius. Musk realized his entire DOGE effort was nothing more than window dressing for Trump to get elected. They had a very public clash, with nasty personal attacks, and a miffed and misled Musk revealed why Trump was not allowing the Epstein files to be released.

This was the first crack in the MAGA narrative dam, while setting in motion the future of full catastrophic collapse over the remainder of his term. His fiscal promises of $2,000 DOGE rebates, $2,000 Tariff rebates, lower inflation, and manufacturing plants and jobs returning to America (we’ve lost 75,000 manufacturing jobs since Trump’s inauguration), have proven to be fake news. After ICE killed a couple of protestors, Trump basically threw in the towel and said he wasn’t going to deport the millions of illegal immigrant criminals. Somebody has to pick the lettuce and do the housework of the Epstein class.

But at least we are getting hundreds of electricity and water sucking surveillance centers disguised as data centers, along with hundreds of thousands of flock cameras, violating our 4th Amendment rights 24 hours a day on behalf of the surveillance state. All of Trump’s treachery since June of 2025 appears to be related to the Epstein files and Israel controlling Trump through blackmail, related to his appearance in those files. After railing for years about the Epstein files cover-up, Trump suddenly had no interest in releasing anything. It was suddenly a Democratic hoax. Only a guilty person would make such a dramatic turnabout.

The stonewalling was overcome by Thomas Massie’s Epstein Files Transparency Act, introduced in July 2025, requiring un-redacted files by the FBI to be released. Trump immediately went to war against Massie, utilizing his Israeli billionaire donors, led by Miriam Adelson, to spend over $30 million to defeat him in his primary. Not supporting Zionist genocides, undeclared wars on behalf of Israel and the military industrial complex, $2 trillion deficits, the surveillance state, and child raping billionaires, make you an enemy of the Trump controlled state. After declaring no new wars during his campaign, Trump allowed Bibi to lure him into spending billions to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities during their 12-day war in June 2025.

The bloviator in chief, and his low IQ Fox News Secretary of Defense declared Iran’s nuclear bomb ambitions dead. The White House website was unequivocal in declaring complete and total obliteration of Iran’s supposed nuclear bomb ambitions. Trump saved the world from the imminent nuclear attack on Israel by Iran, just as Bibi had been warning for the last 20 years. This declaration of obliteration happened just over a year ago. What happened between June of 2025 and February of 2026 to change the narrative back to Iran weeks away from having a nuclear bomb? Was Trump lying in June or in February? Since 75% of everything he says is lies, it’s a tough nut to crack.

Despite Trump’s obvious abandonment of his MAGA campaign pledges within several months of ascending to power, CPI was 2.7% by December 2025, GDP was 2% for 2025 despite a government shutdown, mortgage rates had dropped to 6%, oil was $57 a barrel and most people were paying less than $3 a gallon for gas, Trump and Putin met in Alaska and it looked like the Ukraine War might wind down, but this proved to just be a phony interlude in this Fourth Turning Crisis cycle of catastrophe. As soon as the calendar flipped the page to 2026, Trump decided to light the fuse on this global tinderbox of regional animosity, religious hatred, and battle for currency dominance, military supremacy, and control of global oil supplies.

After blowing up dozens of speedboats, 1,300 miles from the U.S. mainland, supposedly trafficking drugs from Venezuela, Trump decided to kidnap the sitting president of Venezuela on January 3, based on laughable drug trafficking charges, considering the CIA has trafficked more drugs into the U.S. than any organization in history. Trump openly admitted he was taking control of Venezuela’s oil. There are a lot of bad dictators/presidents in the world, but you will only be taken out if you don’t have nukes and you are sitting on top of the world’s largest oil reserve. Trump was promising $2 a gallon gasoline, now that he controlled Venezuela as a vassal state.

The best laid plans don’t always pan out, as oil rose from $57 per barrel on January 3 to $67 per barrel on February 27, the day before Trump launched a shameful decapitation surprise attack on Iran while Bibi’s two Israeli agent envoys (Witkoff, Kushner) pretended to be negotiating a deal, taking out most of their political and military leadership. He actually thought he could pull off another Maduro three day conflict, but stated publicly on March 1 it would last 4 or 5 weeks. I wonder if he ever watched Get Smart in his younger days, because his estimate has proven to be slightly optimistic as we approach month 5 of a conflict showing only signs of growing wider and more deadly.

As we slog through this increasingly chaotic Fourth Turning, I’m always aware of Strauss and Howe’s warning about what could befall the world during this crisis.

“The risk of catastrophe will be very high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and effort – in other words, a total war. Every Fourth Turning has registered an upward ratchet in the technology of destruction, and in mankind’s willingness to use it.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

In case you haven’t noticed, Trump’s promise of $2 a gallon gas might be a little optimistic. By mid-April oil reached $119 per barrel, over 100% more than at the start of the year. Here in PA. I paid $2.89 per gallon on the day before Trump’s war of choice on behalf of Israel, and within two months was paying $4.79 per gallon. Through a combination of draining our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a 43 year low, Scott Bessent and his Wall Street cronies manipulating the derivatives market to suppress the price of oil, Trump making false statements on Truth Social about imminent agreements, and the fake MOU which would never be honored, they were able to maneuver the price of oil back to $68 per barrel, despite the 20% ongoing reduction in global oil flow.

The MOU was never going to be honored by the U.S. The purpose was to buy time to re-arm and move more troops to the Middle East. Smoke, mirrors, and draining our “emergency” reserves in order to preserve the appearance of normality and strength is a pitiful way to run an empire. Trump’s true measure of success is how rich he can make his billionaire cronies by driving the stock market to new heights, no matter the impact on average “non-billionaire” Americans.

Front running his own Truth Social posts and stock purchases is just icing on the cake for the most corrupt president in U.S. history. He and his family reaped (pillaged?) billions peddling worthless meme coins, while the fleeced MAGA NPCs lost 99% of their “investments”. It was readily apparent Trump insiders were using insider knowledge to bet on polymarket or derivatives market to either go long or short in the oil and stock markets based on his future Truth Social posts, making billions in the process.

Shockingly, no one has been investigated or arrested. How does Trump find time to do president stuff when he is making 58 stock trades per day? Mussolini was the modern-day representative of merging the state with business to form a fascist ruling structure. Trump makes Benito looks like a minor leaguer, sinking $27 billion of our tax dollars into public corporations, while his sons create companies which are awarded billions in government contracts. Trump has personally invested in at least 20 public companies and then made positive Truth Social posts about them, driving their stock prices higher. This is blatant corruption and stock market manipulation, but the willfully ignorant masses are too distracted by electronic bread and circuses to be bothered. Free market capitalism is dead, but crony corporate fascism is alive and thriving. It’s good to be in the top .01%, or friends and family of Trump.

Everyone knows Iran was not close to producing a nuclear bomb, as seventeen government agencies told Trump prior to his surprise attack on Iran, at the behest of Bibi. The bullshit narrative about the Iranian government murdering 30,000, then 40,000, then 100,000, and now 52,000 protestors was also provably false. Trump admitted the protests were enabled by Mossad and the CIA. Netanyahu has been declaring Iran two weeks away from a nuclear bomb for thirty years. If we had really obliterated their secret nuclear sites in June 2025, like Trump and Hegseth declared, how could they again be two weeks away from a nuclear bomb?

Everything about this war on Iran is based on lies, mistruths, and propaganda, as the true motive is to further Netanyahu’s Greater Israel project of taking Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, while defanging Iran and Turkey. Netanyahu convinced Trump it would be a cakewalk, or more likely, threatened Trump with revelations from the Epstein files. The assassination of Charlie Kirk for beginning to reveal the truth about Israeli control of the U.S. government and genocide in Gaza was also a warning shot across Trump’s bow. Now Bibi is declaring Turkey a threat to Israel’s grand plan. If there is a more despicable human being on the planet than Netanyahu, I can’t think of one.

When you are in a $39 trillion hole and already digging $2 trillion deeper on an annual basis, maybe you shouldn’t start a war costing $1 billion per day, with a current price tag of over $100 billion. That doesn’t even scratch the surface of the long-term impact. Experts at Harvard University warn factoring in munitions replenishment, base repairs across the Middle East, and lifetime veterans’ care could push the long-term price tag well past $1 trillion. In addition, the drastic increase in fuel prices, overall inflation, and interest costs will total approximately $135 billion on an annual basis, or $1,000 per household.

According to Trump, it’s a small price to pay for Israel, since they control our president and congress. While you choose between food, fuel or medicine, trying to survive another month, at least Trump, his family of grifters, his billionaire child raping cronies, the Wall Street cabal, and the AIPAC funded multi-millionaires in congress, are doing just fine.

Despite being a bombastic, narcissistic, egomaniacal self-promoter, I can’t believe he was naïve enough to believe the bullshit about Iran being weeks away from attacking Israel with a nuclear weapon. He had already declared Iran’s nuclear facilities obliterated and promised his MAGA minions no new wars. So, it seems inexplicable for him to willingly start World War III, knowing it would reignite inflation and cause tremendous hardship upon the average Americans who voted for him. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is he started this conflagration unwillingly.

After Attorney General Pam Bondi released an initial batch of files in February 2025 showing Trump on flight logs, Trump began dismissing further file requests as a Democratic “hoax” and began stonewalling further releases. But his nemesis Thomas Massie embarrassed him by pushing through the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The pressure from survivor testimonials and bipartisan congressional coercion forced his hand and he signed the bill.

The partial release of heavily redacted files revealed horrific evidence of rape, torture, pedophilia, child sacrifice, trafficking, bribery, and an ultra-rich Epstein class of deviants running this world. Trump’s minions at the DOJ and FBI have since declared this case closed, with no arrests, no naming of any loathsome pedophiles, and most importantly no further Trump revelations.

Since Epstein, who didn’t kill himself, was a Mossad agent, there is a high likelihood any perverted or criminal behavior on the part of Trump throughout his playboy life is documented and captured on film, in the possession of Netanyahu. Trump has spent 2026 raging, pillaging, bombing, and performing on the world stage as a court jester in Netanyahu’s game of thrones. His actions and words grow more desperate and unhinged by the day.

As a Prophet generation leader, along with Putin, Xi, and Netanyahu, he will continue to be a catalyst for setting in motion events which will lead to much bloodshed, chaos, death, financial collapse, and end of the American empire. A toxic mixture of vanity, pomposity, privilege, anger, advanced age, and narcissistic personality disorder, is a bad combination in a world leader capable of blowing up the world. Desperate people do desperate things, and Trump’s recent pronouncements appear desperate.

The linear thinking dupes, who choose to not understand the cyclical nature of history, were lulled into think the MOU signed by Iran and Trump on June 17 would deescalate the war and lead to peace in our time. That is not how Fourth Turnings are resolved. They intensify until all-out war, with millions of deaths, decides the true winners and losers. There are no compromise solutions during a Fourth Turning.

The 14 points in the MOU were essentially the U.S. admitting strategic defeat, which is what has happened. Trump tried to spin it as an American victory, but only his most adoring MAGA NPCs (who probably believed the Q bullshit during his 1st term) believed his lies. The MOU wasn’t worth the paper it was written on, and full-scale war, with the Strait of Hormuz essentially closed, has been raging for the last ten days. Trump has trapped himself in an unwinnable war of attrition, with no accessible escape hatch.

On February 27 the Strait of Hormuz was open, oil was $67 per barrel, all U.S. bases in the Middle East were functional, inflation was trending lower, interest rates were trending lower, the global economy was functioning smoothly, the SPR had 415 million barrels of oil, we hadn’t spent $113 billion we don’t have, and Trump wasn’t Bibi’s bitch, yet.

Today, the Strait of Hormuz is closed, oil is $86 a barrel and heading higher, we’ve drained 110 million barrels of oil from the SPR (lowest level since 1983), every U.S. military base in the Gulf has been damaged or obliterated (tens of billions in damage), inflation hit 4%, the 10 year Treasury at 4.64% is the highest of Trump’s presidency, we continue to spend $1 billion per day on an unwinnable war (with a $1 trillion long-term price tag), the global economy is in shambles, with famine and economic depression now baked into the cake Trump has baked. Iran, with the help of Russia, China, Iraq, Yemen and other allies in the region are accurately targeting U.S. bases and troops, resulting in mass casualties, which Hegseth covers up. Satellite pictures don’t lie, unless the U.S. government coerces satellite companies to not show the truth.

“History offers no guarantees. Obviously, things could go horribly wrong – the possibilities ranging from a nuclear exchange to incurable plagues, from terrorist anarchy to high-tech dictatorship. We should not assume that Providence will always exempt our nation from the irreversible tragedies that have overtaken so many others: not just temporary hardship, but debasement and total ruin. Losing in the next Fourth Turning could mean something incomparably worse. It could mean a lasting defeat from which our national innocence – perhaps even our nation – might never recover.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

I have an uneasy feeling Strauss & Howe’s haunting warning from nearly forty years ago is currently playing out in real time. We are already in the midst of World War III, but the masses are too dumbed down by their government school indoctrination; too distracted by their Igadgets, betting apps, likes & followers on their social media, and going further into debt trying to appear successful; too brainwashed by propaganda; and too apathetic to care, as their country and the world accelerate towards debasement and total ruin.

Propping up this Potemkin empire by sinking $5 billion per day further into debt, while utilizing financial derivatives schemes to elevate the stock market and suppress the oil and gold markets, and initiating an AI surveillance gulag state through the construction of hundreds of surveillance centers and tracking our every movement through their Flock cameras, appears to be a desperate last ditch effort by the Deep State billionaire globalist Agenda 2030 overlords to retain their power, control, and wealth. If it takes World War III and the deaths of billions to achieve their goal, so be it, in their warped world view.

Most people are trapped in their normalcy bias, minimizing the threats steamrolling directly towards them, while delaying the necessary logical steps they should be taking to prepare. I’m reminded of the outbreak of World War II when Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, with Great Britain and France declaring war on Germany two days later. Then virtually nothing happened for the next nine months. The people in London, Paris and Berlin acted as if life would go on normally, with no consequences from the declarations of war. People in the U.S. observed this odd European dispute from a distance, still trying to emerge from their Great Depression.

Their normalcy bias was shattered by a blitzkrieg, nightly bombings, Barbarossa, and Pearl Harbor. Over 65 million would die. I believe Matt Bracken’s observations about this being an energy world war, extending from Kiev to Hormuz, with a likelihood of it expanding into Europe, Turkey, and Taiwan, as the three numbskulls running France, Germany, and Britain are willing to go to war against Russia to distract their populace from their decisions to encourage hordes of 3rd world dreck to destroy their countries from within.

The Great Reset Epstein class see World War III as an opportunity, just as they saw the Covid Plandemic as an opportunity to further their new world order plan of depopulation, CBDCs, 15-minute gulags, 24-hour surveillance, and social credit scoring to keep the peasants controlled, subservient, and neutered. Freedom, liberty, and living without restrictions are not in their master plan. Thus far, Putin has acted the most statesmanlike among the Prophet generation world leaders, but with the EU/NATO/Trump increasingly deadly provocations in waging a proxy war on behalf of Zelensky, have pushed him to his limit.

Make no mistake, this proxy war would not be ongoing without U.S. munitions and satellite targeting. Putin is also being pressured by hawks within his country to take more drastic measures against the EU psychopaths in suits trying to destroy Russia. His attacks on Kiev have become more frequent and more deadly. If his NATO enemies push him too far, he may directly attack within the EU, then all hell would break loose.

Trump has increased attacks on Iran infrastructure and is being pushed by his lying neo-con Israeli handlers to nuke an underground mountain fortress where Israel claims Iran is reconstituting their nuclear program. More Israeli lies. If a nuke is utilized, then Russia and China may be forced to actively intervene on Iran’s side.

When someone starts acting as desperate and deranged as Trump has been behaving lately, the citizens of this country, and the world, should be fearful and worried what kind of reckless irrational act an 80-year-old vain egomaniac could make to set in motion worldwide destruction. It’s like the world is at the mercy of a crazed monkey trapped in a room full of dynamite, lighting matches. With a true psychopath like Netanyahu pulling his strings, expect an enormous false flag event to trigger the final phase of this Fourth Turning.

We have already entered this Fourth Turning’s global war, and the average American has no clue. As Thomas Paine declared, this is no time for summer soldiers and sunshine patriots. The apathetic, ignorant, dumbed down masses, who have been propagandized into believing their government and sedated with drugs, toxic foodstuff, and electronic baubles, will be violently shaken from their self-induced stupor, once their comfortable lives are shattered by economic, financial, and social collapse of a tyrannical system designed to enrich the few at the expense of the many.

There are evil men ruling this world. These oligarchal billionaire globalist psychopaths treat you like parasites that must be extinguished for their plans to succeed. They appear to be invincible, but they are few and we are many. As darkness descends upon our world, many trials and tribulations await, as there is no voting our way out of this crisis. It will require force of arms.

“The seasons of time offer no guarantees. For modern societies, no less than for all forms of life, transformative change is discontinuous. For what seems an eternity, history goes nowhere – and then it suddenly flings us forward across some vast chaos that defies any mortal effort to plan our way there. The Fourth Turning will try our souls – and the saecular rhythm tells us that much will depend on how we face up to that trial. The saeculum does not reveal whether the story will have a happy ending, but it does tell us how and when our choices will make a difference.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

King George and his empire seemed invincible in 1776 during the first American Fourth Turning, when Paine compared tyranny to hell. The remainder of this Fourth Turning will try our souls, but our fortitude and courage will matter, along with the choices we make.  Conquering tyranny will be bloody and require good men to do bad things, but will make our triumph glorious, on par with Washington’s victory over the British empire. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

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

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 16:20

A wildly popular Asian grocery giant that just made its California debut is already hungry for more.

A police investigation into the circumstances surrounding the body found in La Jolla is expected.

They're some real "flat" rates.

Roots be lifted.

In an unexpected twist, America ranked much lower on the list of self-obsessed nations — placing 16 out of 53 countries, according to research from Michigan State University.

Shirley You Must Be Joking: Groups Sue For Communication Records Linked To Somali Daycare Fraud Claims

Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times,

A coalition of civil-rights groups sued the Trump administration on Monday, seeking to force the release of internal communications between federal health officials and a YouTube journalist who accused Somali-run Minnesota daycare centers of fraud.

Independent Journalist Nick Shirley speaks at Freedomfest in Las Vegas, on July 9, 2026. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

The viral videos helped spur a since-abandoned effort to freeze childcare funding in five Democratic-led states.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rescinded a $10 billion freeze on childcare subsidies and social services funding for five states governed by Democrats: California, Illinois, Colorado, New York, and Minnesota.

The suit, filed in federal court on July 20 by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), its Illinois and Colorado chapters, the National Women's Law Center, and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, accused HHS of failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed in March, according to a press statement.

The request includes communication records between federal officials and YouTube creator and journalist Nick Shirley, whose viral video was publicly amplified and "credited by senior administration officials as the basis for the restrictions," the statement said.

"The public deserves to know why the Trump administration is restricting access to critical child care and family assistance funds that hundreds of thousands of families rely on," said Linda Morris, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Women's Rights Project, according to the statement.

"These restrictions are a threat to the very programs that help families stay afloat and enable parents to work, attend school, and care for their children. We are going to court to ensure the public gets the transparency that federal law requires."

YouTuber Nick Shirley's viral video raised the alarm about fraud at Somali-run daycares in Minnesota late in 2025.

Shirley claimed that Somali-run daycares appeared to be devoid of children, raising concerns that the centers could be fraudulently billing government programs for absent or nonexistent children.

Minnesota state lawmakers have said that whistleblowers have been punished for voicing concerns about Somalis committing fraud and have been accused of racism or Islamophobia because Somalis are black Muslims.

In January, some Somalis told The Epoch Times that they think fraud is "occurring on a large scale" in Minnesota. Most, however, said the accusations appear to be aimed at vilifying Somalis as a group.

The Trump administration froze $10 billion in funds to Minnesota as well as California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York in January this year, citing concerns about fraudulent spending.

Earlier this month, it released the funds.

HHS officials said in letters to the states that they were rescinding the freezes on the funds, which were an attempt to compel the states to provide data proving that the funds would be used for American families, rather than illegal immigrants, according to documents filed with a federal court in New York on July 13.

In March, the ACLU civil rights groups sent a FOIA request seeking records concerning the adoption, implementation, and enforcement of the nationwide Defend the Spend policy and the sweeping five-state funding freeze, which it said targeted Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) dollars.

It said that the administration had "refused to disclose information to the public about its actions, including through its sudden reversal of the funding freeze in an apparent attempt to avoid being required to produce officials' communications about these attacks in pending litigation."

"This only heightens the need for transparency into how the Defend the Spend policy and funding freeze were adopted and who was involved," it added.

Shirley delivered testimony at the Senate Committee Hearing on July 15, where he said that Minnesotans reached out to him "talking about the fraud that was taking place inside of their community."

"We went to the daycares, autism centers, and healthcare providers, and to my surprise, the businesses were not operating how a typical business would operate," he said.

He said the first daycare he went to was in an industrial building.

"There was no playground, no children footprints in the snow. They had all the windows blacked out. The doorbell was broken, and the sign said 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., yet there was no one to be found," he added.

"This daycare in 2025 had received over $1 million in CCAP [Child Care Assistance Program] funding. This continued to be a pattern as we went to other daycare locations."

The Epoch Times has contacted HHS and Nick Shirley for comment.

Children watch television at ABC Learning Center in Minneapolis, Minn., on Dec. 31, 2025. Mark Vancleave /AP Photo Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 15:45

OpenAI Admits Model Escaped Containment And Hacked Hugging Face To Cheat On A Test

Authored by Felix Ng via CoinTelegraph.com,

OpenAI disclosed Tuesday that a combination of its AI models, including GPT-5.6 Sol and a more capable unreleased model, escaped its testing environment and hacked AI startup Hugging Face last week to cheat on a test meant to measure their capabilities.

In a blog post, OpenAI said the evaluation was designed to operate in a highly isolated environment with restricted network access. The models, however, found a way to gain internet access through a zero-day vulnerability in an internally-hosted third party software, OpenAI said.

Earlier this week, we detected and responded to an intrusion into part of our production infrastructure. This one was different from anything we had handled before in one important way: it was driven, end to end, by an autonomous AI agent system – and we detected and dissected it largely with AI of our own.

Hugging Face tried to respond but they were initially held back by the fact that the most advanced models at their disposal treated defense as attack and refused to work with Hugging Face. HF thus had to turn to open models–specifically GLM 5.2, a Chinese open-weight model run on their own infrastructure. Note the irony: HF had to use a Chinese model to defend themselves because the American models refused to help. The irony gets deeper.

This was not a production model spontaneously turning hostile. It was a capable model with guardrails off and specifically told to win a hacking test - doing whatever it took to win.

The models were being run through an internal benchmark called ExploitGym, a test of long, multi-step hacking tasks, with their cyber safety refusals deliberately lowered for the evaluation.

“After gaining Internet access, the models inferred that Hugging Face potentially hosted models, datasets and solutions for ExploitGym,” OpenAi continued.

“Knowing this, the model searched for and successfully found ways to gain access to secret information that it could use to cheat the evaluation.” 

Hugging Face is a platform for hosting AI models and datasets.

[ZH: we asked Grok to simplify what just happened: It’s kind of like a kid who’s supposed to stay in the classroom taking a test… but instead sneaks out the window, runs to the teacher’s office, and copies the answer sheet. ]

On Friday, it disclosed that its internal datasets and service credentials were compromised in a hack, which it attributed to an autonomous AI agent system.

Hugging Face said it has fixed the vulnerability that was used during the cyberattack.

Meanwhile, OpenAI on Tuesday said the models that escaped the testing environment were all tuned with “reduced cyber refusals,” meaning fewer cybersecurity guardrails. 

“We consider this incident to be an unprecedented cyber incident, involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities, and are responding accordingly.”  

OpenAI warns of risks from “long-horizon” AI models 

On Monday, OpenAI said it paused internal deployment of a “long-horizon” AI model after finding it was repeatedly trying to work around constraints. 

 It warned that AI that is trained for long-running tasks has a higher chance of taking “unwanted actions.”

“Models that can work autonomously for long periods can take on difficult, open-ended problems. But the same persistence that makes them useful also gives them more opportunities to take unwanted actions—and to do so in ways that evaluations intended for shorter-horizon models may miss.” 

As AI models grow more capable, questions are emerging over whether their development and access should be more tightly controlled, especially when systems designed for controlled testing are able to find ways to bypass safeguards. 

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 15:42

Expect to see Phans in Midtown from July 22-29.

Her sisters Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner also use the K-beauty skin care line.

Her sisters Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner also use the K-beauty skin care line.

A coalition of New York City landlords filed launched a bid Wednesday to smack down Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rent freeze — calling it a rigged “sham” that relied on “manipulated data” in a new lawsuit. The group sued the city’s Rent Guidelines Board in Staten Island Supreme Court, challenging as “unlawful” the panel’s June 25...

Chilling video shows the Queens dad suspected of stabbing his wife to death drive away from the murder scene — hours before he apparently hanged himself in a nearby park. A seemingly nonchalant Joseph Azzaretto, 33, can be seen walking up to a minivan parked near the couple’s Astoria home where he allegedly stabbed Mary...

"He Was Very Close To Being Arrested": Epstein's Paris Model Scout Found Dead At Home, Weeks After CNN Appearance

Daniel Siad, the 69-year-old Paris modeling scout whose name appears nearly 2,000 times in the DOJ's Epstein files, was found dead at his home in Colombes, northwest of Paris, on Monday. The deputy public prosecutor at Nanterre, Marie-Celine Lawrysz, confirmed the death Wednesday and said an investigation into the cause was opened that evening, with an autopsy to follow.

Which is to say: officially, nobody knows anything yet. Siad's lawyer told Reuters that "Daniel Siad never stopped proclaiming his innocence" - and that her client died of a heart attack. To AFP, she was more careful, saying that if it was a heart attack, the strain and anxiety of the case will have played its part. The autopsy, presumably, will referee. And if that first statement sounds familiar, it should: when Jean-Luc Brunel was found dead in 2022, his lawyers announced that "Jean-Luc Brunel never stopped declaring his innocence." The French defense bar evidently keeps the line on file.

For over a decade, per the document dumps Congress pried out of the DOJ under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Siad operated as a one-man logistics chain into Epstein's orbit. In a 2009 email he pitched a 5-foot-8 Latvian model: "she is 20 years old but she looks younger." In a 2014 note he discussed a 15-year-old French girl - parents reportedly thrilled about her modeling prospects - along with 16- and 17-year-olds, and compared his trade to angling: "some time I cache quick , some time no fish" [sic]. Files reviewed by CNN show Epstein paid Siad tens of thousands of dollars over the years; other messages flagged a young French woman in Marrakesh who'd be happy to meet him, and in 2018 Siad offered to scout the financier a young, good-looking assistant.

Here was the legal picture on the day he died: Siad was under investigation in France over allegations of rape and human trafficking - at least five accusers, per French media. One woman told the BBC he was "essentially a professional trafficker." The first criminal complaint landed only in February, from former Swedish model Ebba Karlsson, now in her fifties, who alleges Siad raped her when she was 20 and then introduced her to Gerald Marie, the former European chief of Elite - whom Karlsson and several other women have also accused of rape, allegations Marie has repeatedly denied. Siad denied everything as well, and - as his lawyer correctly notes - he was never formally placed under investigation, the mise en examen threshold at which French magistrates decide the evidence is serious. Not because the process cleared him; because the process never reached him. Per AFP, Siad had not yet been questioned by investigators when he died, though he had said he wanted to give his version of events.

"He was very close to being arrested," Karlsson said Wednesday.

He will now give his version of events to no one. And here is the part that will launch a thousand posts: six weeks ago, Siad sat for an on-camera CNN interview in which he insisted Epstein - a convicted sex offender for the entire back half of their collaboration - was a free man who had served his time and had always been thoroughly professional. He said he had no reason to believe that two women he'd recommended to Epstein - women who told CNN, on the record, that Epstein abused them - had ever been harmed. He claimed to have believed Epstein was a casting director for Victoria's Secret and MC2, a claim CNN could find no evidence for. His summary of the whole arrangement: "He was such a powerful person. And how can I not trust him?"

He gave that interview in mid-June, yet didn't make it through July.

That makes four... 

• Jeffrey Epstein, August 2019, Metropolitan Correctional Center: found dead in his cell weeks after his arrest (or he was smuggled out after being swapped with the corpse of a homeless guy - or Hillary Clinton's brother, so the kids say), with the cameras outside malfunctioning and the guards asleep - guards who later admitted falsifying their logs. Ruled a suicide, a ruling re-certified in 2025 by FBI leadership ("I've seen the whole file, he killed himself," Deputy Director Bongino assured Fox viewers), which settled the matter for approximately no one.
• Jean-Luc Brunel, February 2022, La Sante prison, Paris: the other French modeling agent in Epstein's orbit, found hanged in his cell while awaiting trial on charges involving the rape of minors - days after Prince Andrew reached his settlement with Virginia Giuffre. As we noted at the time ("Epstein 'Pimp' Jean-Luc Brunel Found Hanged In Paris Prison"), "the jokes practically write themselves." Ruled a suicide.
• Mark Middleton, May 2022: the Clinton special assistant who had signed Epstein into the White House, found dead in Arkansas. Ruled a suicide.

And now Daniel Siad - the second Epstein-linked figure from the French modeling world to die suddenly with an investigation inbound and his testimony never taken. Former model "Juliette G.," who says Siad recruited her for Epstein back in 2004, told Al Jazeera that for victims, Siad represented a possible avenue to finally "shed light on what happened." Except now, he's unable to speak in the Nanterre morgue.

Then there's Virginia Giuffre - Epstein's most consequential accuser who died at her farm in Western Australia in April 2025, at 41 - ruled a suicide by police and described that way by her own family, though as we reported last month, sixteen academics have since petitioned the state coroner for a formal public inquest. Giuffre notably traveled to Paris in 2021 to testify against Brunel in person and help keep him behind bars. 

Siad's death lands as the Epstein affair continues to result in zero arrests: the House Oversight email dumps last November, the DOJ's mandated releases under the Transparency Act, the cascading resignations among the great and the good, New Mexico's freshly launched probe into what actually happened at Zorro Ranch - which we covered in February - and the Washington Post's own June investigation into the modeling-world pipeline that kept feeding Epstein introductions long after his 2008 conviction: a Swedish scout hunting teenagers, a Russian model coaching him on which women would be easy. Siad was one of the very few members of that network willing to sit in front of a camera and explain himself.

On a pretty short timeline, the survival rate for Epstein associates drops to zero...

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/22/2026 - 15:25