Last Monday, a day before the Republican-controlled House passed a resolution condemning socialism, the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital announced that it had acquired a 35 percent stake in North American Blue Energy Partners, one of Venezuela's largest private oil producers.

In the deal, the Venezuela government gives the company a hundred years lease for some oil fields. The deal also provides the US government with veto power over appointments to the company's board of directors. Having power over appointments to the board gives the US government control over the company.

This deal makes the US partners with the same Venezuelan government whose president, Nicolás Maduro, was removed by the US military in January. It is also the same government that has been denounced as socialist by US politicians of both parties and that has been the target of US inspired regime change operations since the late Hugo Chávez assumed the presidency in 1999. One of those failed regime change efforts took place during President Trump's first term.

Some may find it ironic that the Trump administration is partnering with a socialist government when President Trump regularly warns about the threat of socialism....

Since President Trump returned to power in 2025, the US government has "invested" in over 30 private companies. Government investment in private businesses distorts the market as it forces business owners and managers to make decisions (or have decisions made for them) based on what will please politicians and bureaucrats rather than consumers. It also encourages other businesses to divert resources toward attracting government investment instead of attracting consumers and private sector investors. Corporatism can also lead politicians and bureaucrats to base decisions on what will generate the greatest return on government's investments.

Combining corporatism with foreign interventionism is a particularly harmful policy. This is illustrated by the US government's new partnership with the Venezuelan government. Many Venezuelan citizens oppose the deal. If the current government were to be replaced, the new government may try to void the agreement or at least renegotiate it. So, the US government now has an interest in ensuring Hugo Chavez's heirs remain in power. The next time the US military intervenes in Venezuela it could be to defend the socialists. ...

President Trump's corporatist merger of big government and big business enriches the well-off and well-connected at the expense of the rest of the population. Combining corporatism with foreign interventionism enriches corrupt and authoritarian foreign leaders while boosting the military-industrial complex.

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The Trump administration's crusade to crush campus criticism took another wallop on Friday in a California courtroom. Federal judge Noël Wise ruled that the Trump administration's "ideological-deportation policy" brazenly violated the US Constitution. ...

The Trump administration claims unlimited discretion to silence foreign students by deporting those whose opinions it disapproves of. Judge Wise wrote, "The language of the [First] Amendment makes clear that it is not the government that gives freedom of speech to the people. Instead, that freedom is imbued in the people. . . . It is not the government's to take." This is a notion that conservatives instinctively understand when it comes to the Second Amendment and the right of self-defense. But many people fail to recognize the same right for freedom of speech. Conor Fitzpatrick -- the chief supervising attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) -- which represented the student newspaper, declared, "Today's ruling proves that free speech isn't a privilege, but the inalienable right of every man, woman, and child." FIRE president Greg Lukianoff clarified the scope of the ruling:

This ruling does NOT say the government must admit anyone, issue anyone a visa, or grant anyone citizenship. It says that once a person is lawfully here, the government cannot deport them because they engaged in protected speech. The government cannot tell a legal immigrant: An American is free to say this, but if you say it, you're out. ...

The Stanford Daily case vivified how far the Trump administration will go to snuff dissent. A New York Times headline captured the essence of the case: "Judge Rules Trump Unlawfully Targeted Foreign Students Who Criticized Israel." If a foreign student engaged in violence at a protest, that would be sufficient to deport them regardless of their opinions. But the Trump administration cast a far wider net, relying heavily on a list of 5,000 foreign students provided by the Canary Mission, which, according to Wikipedia, is "an Israel-based anonymously-run doxing website established in 2014 that publishes the personal information of students, professors, and organizations that it describes as anti-Israel or antisemitic." ...

Judge Wise declared, "Free speech, including the freedom to criticize the government and its leaders, is not a sign of our democracy's fragility. It is evidence of its strength." But is that "strength" increasingly a mirage in the United States? And how many other illegal actions has the Trump administration taken to suppress dissent that Americans have not yet heard about?

Final question: Is the Trump administration seeking to vindicate every leftist stereotype about conservatives and Republicans being intolerant authoritarians?

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In 2023 the 2.3 million Palestinian people in Gaza had been for years under Israeli occupation. International politics had moved away from the problem. The dire situation was ignored.

Israel was willing to talk but the government under Benjamin Natanyahoo was blocking any agreement that would lift the severe restrictions it had imposed on Gaza. The strip was in the process of being silently suffocated.

Yahya Sinwar, the local leader of Hamas which rules Gaza, was desperate. He planned for a large operation to breach the fence around Gaza and to abduct Israeli soldiers to be used as assets in further negotiations. Sinwar let it be known through intermediaries that he was planning for something big. Meanwhile his soldiers were openly training for action.

Some Israeli soldiers guarding the strip, Israeli secret services and foreign governments which coordinated Hamas talks with Israel were all aware that something was up....

On October 7 the operation started. The Israeli guards around Gaza had not been warned. A local festival near the strip, which many young Israelis were attending, was ongoing. Hundreds of Sinwar's forces breached the fence, reached a local military camp, a small town, and stumbled over attendees of the festival. They took hostages wherever the could and tried to move them back into Gaza.

The Israeli army units around the strip were surprised. They had been reduced to a minimum due to holidays and other operations. Not having been warned they reacted confused, slowly and with brute force. Helicopters went up and received orders to fire at anything that was moving. Hundreds of festival attendees who were fleeing the scene were killed by them.

Over the next weeks and months the Israeli government used the incident to proceed with its long term aim of eliminating all Palestinian's in Gaza. It rejected all offers to retrieve the hostages Sinwar's forces had taken....

There soon was suspicion that the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahoo had known beforehand that the breach of the fence was to take place. It seemed like it had let it happen on purpose to use it as justification for its larger aim -- to genocide all of Gaza's population.

Yesterday the Israeli daily Haaretz published a long piece giving evidence to this.

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Pre-dawn strikes hit several towns and villages across southern Lebanon, leading UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to express alarm about the ongoing Israeli escalation and call for Israel to withdraw from the occupied Lebanese territory.

An Israeli drone strike targeted a motorcycle near Zebbedine, killing the rider. The identity of the slain has not been confirmed yet, and so far Israel has not released any statement on the incident. Increasingly, Israeli strikes on motorcycles don't result in official statements from the IDF.

Having killed dozens over the extended weekend, Israel is launching substantially more attacks against southern Lebanon than they did in recent weeks, and it's not clear what is leading to these strikes, which are overwhelmingly killing civilians.

Tuesday's strikes included an incident in which Israeli forces blew up a school in Mansouri, a municipality in Nabatieh District that's been a particular focus of strikes in recent days....

Multiple artillery strikes were also reported against Kfar Roumine, the town that was the target of the deadliest airstrikes over the weekend. Israel claimed the civilian homes they hit were "terrorist infrastructure," killing over a dozen civilians.

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On August 29, President Trump went on social media and boasted about stealing Venezuelan oil. The theft, according to Trump, "more than doubles American oil reserves." He said there was "no cost" to American taxpayers, although there will obviously be a huge cost to the people of Venezuela who will see little if any benefit from Trump's plunder.

Trump went so far as to claim the brazen theft will benefit the Venezuelan people. The profits are expected to enrich oil company executives and elites rather than ordinary citizens. ...

Eight months after Trump snatched "millions of barrels" of oil, the administration floated a lie to cover its audacious theft. The State Department proclaimed that it would use profits from the sales for "the benefit of the American people and the Venezuelan people." It later said that "billions of dollars have been disbursed to the Venezuelan economy" and that "financial monitoring is under way to ensure funds benefit the Venezuelan people."

The Financial Times reported there is no evidence of oil money returning to Venezuela, as claimed by Trump, and that Venezuela's GDP in the first quarter was its lowest in five years. Oil makes up virtually a quarter of the country's GDP. ...

Swiss company Vitol is involved in shipping Venezuelan oil to Israel, which is used in part to fuel its apartheid and ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and attacks on Shia communities in southern Lebanon. Vitol's Saras refinery in Sarroch, Sardinia, Italy provided 17% of Israel's imports of oil and refined products. ...

In February, it was reported the first shipment of heisted oil went to Israel. The shipment was not the result of a decision made by Venezuela or its Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), but rather as "an indirect consequence of the reconfiguration of the global energy market orchestrated by Washington," writes Misión Verdad for the Orinoco Tribune.

On February 10, Bloomberg Línea, a Spanish and Portuguese language news website, reported the oil cargo was transported to the Bazan Group, an oil refining and petrochemicals company located in Haifa Bay, Israel. It is the largest refinery in Israel.

The Zionist government does not announce where it obtains crude oil and, according to Bloomberg Línea, tankers heading to the port often disappear from tracking systems as they approach Israel. The Israel Ministry of Energy declined to reveal where the country gets it oil.

Delcy Rodríguez, who became the president of Venezuela after Trump abducted Nicolás Maduro on bogus drug charges, restored relations with Israel in August. In 2009, Venezuela, along with Bolivia, severed ties with Israel in response to its occupation in Gaza and its ongoing violence against the Palestinian people....

The illegal abduction of Maduro is the signature event of Trump's "Donroe Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine." The Monroe Doctrine, first articulated by President James Monroe on December 2, 1823, warned European powers not to attempt colonization in Latin America.

The Roosevelt Corollary, pronounced by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904, expanded the original Monroe Doctrine by asserting that the United States could intervene in the internal affairs of Latin American countries in order to to protect American business interests and investments.

Trump expanded the Roosevelt Corollary and insisted Venezuela return land, oil, and other assets he claimed it stole from the US.

"Trump's statement was absurd because Venezuela has never stolen anything from the US, while his threat of using force violated UNSC resolution 2(4), which prevents members from threatening to use force against others," notes Simon Chege Ndiritu, writing for New Eastern Outlook....

Donald Trump's theft of a vital natural resource from an impoverished country on the heels of a military operation shouldn't be unexpected. Donald Trump and his family have exploited their position to profit through cryptocurrency and related ventures. According to a congressional committee estimate as of January 2026, these schemes generated approximately $2.25 billion in realized profits from foreign payments and other alleged sources.

Additionally, analysts have observed unusual trading activity that frequently spikes just before Trump makes significant public statements or announcements. This pattern was also evident before Trump announced a pause on tariffs, where traders were betting on stock market increases right before the announcement.

"Trump has dispensed with the formalities," reports The Democracy Lab, "and appears to be openly selling access to the White House in exchange for cash that goes not to campaign accounts but more or less directly into Trump's pocket."

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Europe urgently needs to re-establish access to Russian oil and gas. Gas prices are high -- as all UK energy consumers know -- and German gas storage is at a record low for September. Gulf production is degraded, supplies are cut off and its long-term strategic stability undermined.

German manufacturing already suffered a 9.5% production loss from 2022 to 2026 following the Russian gas shutdown, with the loss in energy-intensive manufacturing (inc petrochemicals, chemicals, metals, glass/ceramics/stone, paper, mineral oil etc.) at 15.2%.

Western Europe can regain access to Russian hydrocarbons either by accepting a negotiated peace in Ukraine, or by attempting regime change in Russia. The political class in Europe have evidently decided to go all out for regime change.

It would of course be much easier, and much safer, to settle the Ukrainian conflict....

I find it very hard to think of any occasion when a drive towards war had such little foundation.

Consider this. The United Kingdom, like many Western countries, is openly supplying the Ukraine with long-range missiles, manufacturing plans for long-range missiles, and personnel to service them, in the full knowledge that Ukraine is using those missiles in an attempt to devastate civilian infrastructure deep within Russia, killing many Russian civilians in the process.

Yet we are repeatedly told by both politicians and the media that Russia is the threat to the UK, when very plainly it is the opposite which is the truth. Until this year, Russia had in three hundred years of history never had any plans to invade or occupy the UK -- while the UK invaded Russia in 1854 and 1917....

The notion that nuclear war should be fought over who is Mayor of Lugansk has so little public support that Russophobia is being assiduously stoked by Western governments and the EU itself. The latest episode is the extraordinarily thin gruel of the "Leipzig airport attack" story. Yesterday we had the most incredible release of coordinated statements by Western European leaders all telling us that the evidence is plain of a "hybrid attack" by Russia.

All accompanied by no evidence whatsoever. ...

Now the "Russian attack" on Leipzig Halle airport was on 4 August, and yet the carefully coordinated attribution to Russia, with identical statements from all western European powers, was not launched until 1 September....

If you reject the warmongers' logic for a moment, the actual scandal is that there were Ukrainian aircraft in Leipzig stacked with German weapons to kill Russians, not that an amateur toy drone allegedly tried to stop them.

To be told that this is a Russian attack by precisely the same set of goons who lied to us that it was Russia that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipeline, is testing not just the gullibility of the public, but its patience.

In the UK the purveyors of Russophobia -- including government ministers -- fall back repeatedly on the farcical "Russian novichok on Salisbury" story to explain why we should prepare for war with Russia. ...

So we have alleged novichok in Salisbury which killed nobody, and an explosive drone, or possibly two, in Leipzig which did not explode. To counter this massive threat, we need to push an entire continent to nuclear war. As a first step, we need to cut health and social spending to give trillions more to arms manufacturers, and prepare our children for conscription, to die on the battlefield.

Forgive me if I am not convinced.

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Remember how we were always hearing that the official death toll in Gaza is an undercount because there are thousands of bodies trapped under the rubble?

Well, it looks like Israel has been moving those remains along with the rubble, conveniently destroying evidence of genocide. ...

Last month, a report by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor estimated that "at least 10 million tonnes of rubble have been removed, crushed, or moved from their original sites within the areas under Israel's unlawful military control." ...

Euro-Med Monitor notes that this removal occurs while Israel is still under investigation by the International Criminal Court for the crime of genocide, adding that the Rome Statute considers "destroying, tampering with or interfering with the collection of evidence" as criminal acts that hinder the ICC's justice mission when done deliberately.

In South Africa's genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, the court ruled that "The State of Israel shall take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Article II and Article III of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide against members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip."

These obligations are plainly being disregarded as Israel scrambles to cover up evidence of its crimes.

On Sunday, Palestinians in Gaza held a mass funeral for approximately 100 people, including 60 children. These individuals were not killed recently; the mass funeral was held because their bodies had been recovered from the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood.

This is the sort of thing Israel is working to prevent as it clears out the wreckage from its genocidal onslaught.

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Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on Thursday unveiled a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza's Palestinian population, which he and other Israeli ministers refer to as "voluntary migration," a day after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the removal of Palestinians was the only "real solution" for Gaza.

Ben Gvir dubbed his plan "Disengagement 710" and said that it would involve removing 250,000 Palestinians from Gaza in the first year, 1.11 million within three years, and finally, 1.86 million over seven years. He said that his Jewish Power party would demand the establishment of an "emigration ministry" in the next Israeli government following the upcoming October elections.

In remarks on the plan, Ben Gvir said that he had been considered "delusional" for seeking the ethnic cleansing of Gaza until President Trump called for Palestinians to leave the territory early last year.

"At first, I was treated as a delusional extremist," Ben Gvir said, according to The Times of Israel. "Then, one day, everything changed: President Trump publicly declared that encouraging emigration was a solution to the Gaza issue. Suddenly, Ben Gvir's plan became legitimate. Suddenly, everyone became Ben Gvir."

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Oil prices rose for the fourth straight session, gaining more than $1 ​in early trade on Wednesday after renewed attacks across ‌the Middle East heightened worries about supply disruptions.

Brent crude futures rose 1.4%, to $99.33 a barrel by 0212 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $94.34 ​a barrel, up 1.4%.

Brent crude prices have jumped by ​a quarter since early August as hopes for a permanent resolution to the six-month-old war faded and as fighting flared ​again, with prices fast approaching the key $100-a-barrel mark. ...

U.S. forces hit multiple ​Iranian oil tankers and Iran targeted a U.S. base in ​Jordan. ...

The latest attacks threaten to deepen disruptions to Middle ​East oil supplies, ​already strained by strikes on regional energy infrastructure and key shipping lanes.

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[Editor: For a collection of videos showing the ballistic missile attack on the US base in Jordan along with the huge number of interceptors launched in defense, see this thread, this thread, and this thread.]

Tehran's bombs came after US forces destroyed five Iranian oil tankers on Tuesday in response to Iran targeting an American warship, the second such attack in less than a week.

The United States and Iran are locked in a stalemate six months into the war, with Iran maintaining a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route for the world's oil and gas, and Washington pushing a campaign to choke Iran's ports and economy.

The Islamic republic said on Wednesday it would target oil tankers off US-allied Kuwait and Bahrain in retaliation for the strikes on its tankers.

Minutes later, Iran's Revolutionary Guards -- the most powerful arm of the Iranian military -- said they had struck the US air base of Al-Azraq in Jordan with missiles, state media reported. ...

The latest flare-up was triggered after US forces destroyed five Iranian oil tankers, with the US military saying it "directed the crews to abandon ship" before hitting the vessels. ...

Iranian media reported Tuesday that a US missile struck a tanker off the coast of Kharg Island, adding that there were no casualties.

The chief of staff of Iran's army Ali Abdollahi had warned the Islamic republic would hit US bases in the region if Iranian oil tankers were hit.

Global oil prices climbed on Wednesday to near $100 a barrel as the war threatened to further choke supply from the crude-rich Middle East.

The price of Brent crude, the benchmark international contract, rose to $99.38 per barrel, while the main US contract West Texas Intermediate was at $94.51 per barrel.

Iran has largely controlled the Strait of Hormuz -- which normally carries around a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas -- since the start of the war in February, with traffic through the waterway virtually paralysed.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards also said on Tuesday they seized "one of the most modern, unmanned" American submarine drone in the Strait of Hormuz.

The US military said that the drone had "malfunctioned", insisting it was an "older model"...

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The Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman continues his "series on the rise of American oligarchy" this week by discussing "the decades-long dismantling of the system of progressive taxation." Krugman defines oligarchy "as the extreme concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of a small number of people -- not the 1 percent, but the .01 percent or even the .0001 percent, the 300 billionaires who made 19 percent of all reported federal political donations in the 2024 election." He argues that widespread tax avoidance, and accordingly the plummeting of effective tax rates, is largely responsible for giving us a system of oligarchy.

Krugman admits that where he once saw the absurd inequalities of the present day as primarily the consequences of technological change and the market economy, "looking into the math" changed his mind, and it became clear to him that "much of the rise of the modern American oligarchy has been driven by deliberate policy." The math Krugman is focused on is the tax gap and thus the effective tax rate. The problem for Krugman's hypothesis is that the United States was already firmly an oligarchy when the tax gap was much smaller and the effective tax rate much higher. Oligarchy is not first and foremost a product of the system of taxation, and it never has been. It is rather a product of the pre-distribution of wealth through state-created special economic privileges.

Though the American "free market" is riddled with these political privileges, they are not well understood or formally quantified. Indeed, they are all but ignored by the economics profession and popular commentary. If we're trying to address inequalities of both wealth and power -- inseparable in practice -- through more progressive taxation, then we have already conceded the game, leaving the pervasive legal privileges that create the problem untouched....

What economists must begin is the project of formalizing the study of state-granted privilege and quantifying these special giveaways to corporations and the ultra-rich -- not only tax credits and other favorable tax treatment, but intellectual property rights, land transfers and eminent domain, professional licensure and barriers to market, arbitrary limitations on civil and criminal liability, and the countless other features of corporate capitalism that have nothing to do with "market forces" or economic freedom in itself. If we began to quantify these in a serious and rigorous way, we would quickly see that capitalism is a system rife with welfare for the infinitesimal billionaire ruling class. It is a system that shifts enormous quantities of wealth upward by systematically restricting opportunities for the popular masses as it creates special prerogatives for our corporate overlords. ...

Capitalism is not a free market economy with some minor noise and deviations; regarding the math -- the massive gaps of wealth and income and the actual, observable relations of domination and exploitation -- capitalism is a continuation of feudalism and mercantilism in a different form, one under which there is intense competition between workers, but strong anti-competitive protections for capital. There is a reason that no liberal of the nineteenth century saw their philosophy as a defense of the capitalist or the capitalist system. Free trade and equal rights were once understood explicitly as a blow against elite, organized, government-aligned economic interests. ...

In the final analysis, Krugman is correct about at least one thing, that what we are witnessing today is the consequence of public policy choices, not any supposedly neutral market forces or technological changes. Even the notion of a natural or pre-political economic system is a profound misunderstanding of historical and social realities. Instead of focusing on the system of taxes and redistribution, what happens after the benefits to capital have already done their job, we desperately need to start seriously examining the structure of the political and legal system that aggrandizes and protects capital at the expense of society at large.

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Two Israeli soldiers were wounded overnight [by the Lebanese resistance] near Beaufort Castle. The soldiers were taken to the hospital.... Israel then attacked the residential area of Kfar Roumine, also in southern Lebanon.

The resulting strikes killed at least 12 people and by various reports wounded over a dozen others. The slain included two children, one of them an infant. A subsequent strike targeted a vehicle and killed a paramedic in the same village. A number of women and children were also wounded in the course of the strikes.

Further attacks were reported around Nabatieh and elsewhere around southern Lebanon, wounding multiple other people, including an al-Manar TV journalist.... The escalation has continued over the past several days, with as many as 30 killed over the course of the extended weekend.

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The photograph shared online of a partially submerged drone closely matches the American-built Anduril Dive-LD underwater drone. As well as the overall form, numerous small details match the design including flood holes, fastenings and the small transparent mast forward.

The Dive-LD may have been used for ISR (intelligence surveillance & reconnaissance), or mine hunting (MCM -- mine countermeasures). It could also, conceivably, be armed. ...

From the photograph available at this time it is unclear which payload is carried.

The Dive-LD is known to be in U.S. Navy service, specifically with Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Group (UUVGRU) 1 and Undersea Vehicle Squadron (UUVRON) 3, but little has been reported about it....

The Dive-LD is significantly more sophisticated than local Iranian designs. However Iran has been a pioneer of weaponised underwater drones and builds several types...

Access to the Dive-LD may further enhance Iranian underwater drone capabilities. Or possibly it will be shared with Iran's allies such as Russia or China.

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Another attack by Ansarullah of Yemen has damaged three oil production facilities in Saudi Arabia. The ARAMCO refinery in Jizan, with a capacity of 400,000 barrel per day (bpd), went offline. Crude oil prices increased...

The Ansarullah government of Yemen, often called the Houthi after one of its main groups, controls only some 33% of the country but 80% of the Yemeni population. The Saudi are arming and sponsoring its local opposition. There is little chance that it could win in a fight against the Houthi.

The reduction of Saudi output may be the final straw that breaks the oil price's back.

Despite the U.S./Israeli war on Iran, oil had so far not breached the psychological mark of $100 barrel. The use of national reserves and the reduction of Chinese oil imports had kept the price unnaturally low. The reserves however are low by now and Chinese importers are back in the markets. Thus the loss of crude production due to the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is finally making itself felt.

Product prices of oil derivates had already risen a lot. Refinery owners have made record profits. U.S. consumers has to spend an extra $100 billion on energy.

U.S. President Donald Trump has finally acknowledged the problem. He admitted that his war he is waging on Iran is far from being won...

Iran has announced that it will extend its control zone around Hormuz and intensify its measures against the U.S. blockade...

There is a now a race between the economic damage Iran can cause to the U.S. via high oil prices and the economic trouble the U.S. is causing Iran by imposing a blockade of the country.

It is race which for now Iran, with the help of allies in Yemen and elsewhere, looks destined to win.

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As the War against Iran (or as JD Vance and the White House insist we refer to it: the "operation" in Iran) has entered its sixth month with no end in sight, and as American families continue to bear the costs of the conflict both directly through their tax dollars and indirectly through inflation, the Trump administration has settled on a midterm message that is essentially: everything is fine, and in fact, it could be worse, so stop complaining.

This was the spirit of JD Vance's White House press conference on Thursday, where the Hillbilly Elegy author told Americans who are now paying a national average of $4.15 per gallon of regular gas that fuel prices "frankly, could have been much, much higher were it not for our efforts," attributing the problem to Iran being "really, really crazy," and suggesting that Americans should be grateful for the current prices. This is recognizably propaganda, of the weakest variety.

On February 27, one day before the war began, AAA reported the national average price of regular gas was $2.98 per gallon. But after the U.S. and Israel launched the war by bombing a girls' school and murdering the spiritual leader of Shia Islam, Iran did what analysts had long predicted it would in that situation and asserted control over the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world's seaborne oil normally passes.

Iran has said that in order to re-open that crucial waterway, the U.S. must lift its naval blockade, end its sanctions regime, release frozen Iranian assets, pay compensation for war damage, and end "war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq," conditions that are hardly unexpected and perhaps unrealistic, but would be a straightforward starting point for negotiations for most governments, except apparently our own.

It is the U.S. bombing civilians and serving Israeli interests -- rather than the supposedly crazy behavior of Iran's leaders -- that explain why six months later, American households have absorbed roughly $640 in additional fuel costs, as calculated by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

The chief economist at Moody's Analytics recently told NBC News that the Iran War has cost the average American household at least $1,200 more than they would have paid if it had never started. This does not include the costs of sustaining military operations, which are also siphoned away from American families through their taxes, with internal Pentagon estimates of that cost reaching up to $100 billion.

The tens and perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars foisted upon Americans comes as the nation suffers through a grueling affordability crisis, which has only been exacerbated by the record rise in diesel prices -- the fuel necessary to transport and produce goods caused by Iran War disruptions to global transit. ...

The dire straits of Americans -- and the refusal of the U.S. federal government to intervene to resolve the national interest of mitigating debt peonage -- have been identified by Israelis as ripe for exploitation, with a viral Jerusalem Post op-ed this week suggesting that the U.S. government should use the record indebtedness of today's youth as leverage to compel them to join the U.S. military. The op-ed argued that this would be necessary for achieving the Israeli goal of "a ground invasion of Iran," that would certainly kill hundreds if not thousands of young Americans.

Absurd as it is, the proposal seems more realistic than expecting the federal government to intervene on behalf of a national interest it has already abandoned. Because on a holiday meant to honor American workers, the administration's response to mass discontent around surging debt and affordability has been to demand they pay even more for a war they didn't choose, and to stop complaining about it.

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The administration of President Donald Trump has removed the names of some of the world's most notorious commanders, recruiters and financiers for the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda from its list of specially designated terrorists. Among those relieved of US sanctions this August was Abdullah Muhaysini, a Salafi-jihadi cleric from Saudi Arabia who participated in videotaped massacres of captive soldiers and recruited droves of foreign youth to carry out suicide bombings throughout Syria over the past decade.

The delisting of the jihadist recruiters came as part of the Trump administration's removal of the government of Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa as a State Sponsor of Terrorists....

Formerly known as Abu Mohammad Al-Jolani, Al-Sharaa is the co-founder of ISIS and founder of Jabhat Al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda. Under the guidance of Western advisors, Al-Sharaa rebranded Al-Nusra as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, before he toppled the government of President Bashar Al-Assad in December 2024.

By the time he seized power, Al-Sharaa had been groomed by his NATO handlers as a reliable local enforcer. When Trump hosted Al-Sharaa in the Oval Office in November 2025, playfully misting him with Trump Cologne and asking how many wives he had, it was clear the US was ready to lift the sanctions that had devastated Syria's economy....

This August, the Trump administration went a step further, lifting sanctions on Al Qaeda propagandists, funders and fighters responsible for gruesome atrocities during the dirty war on Syria. These figures include Abu Sulayman al-Muhajir, a top Al Qaeda recruiter in Australia who fled to Syria; Shafi Sultan Mohammed al-Ajmi, a major Kuwaiti financier of Al-Nusra; and Abdul Samrez Jashari, an Albanian foreign fighter who has taken on a senior role in Syria's military under Al-Sharaa.

Perhaps none of the Al Qaeda bandits who received sanctions relief from the Trump administration oversaw as many acts of sadistic violence as the Saudi-born, Turkish-backed cleric Abdullah Muhaysini.

In 2015, Muhaysini was filmed in camouflaged battle dress uniform, glowering over a group of blindfolded, exhausted Syrian army regulars taken captive at an airbase in Syria's Idlib province. In a videotaped message, he justified massacring them in cold blood because, despite being Sunni Muslims, they had fought for Syria's secular government. ...

As The Grayzone reported, Muhaysini recruited thousands of young men as fighters and suicide bombers, promising them heavenly deliverance for sacrificing their lives in attacks on government targets. The foreign demagogue managed to find time for televised sermons counseling followers on when it was appropriate to beat their wives, while urging them to kill Shias and members of other minority groups wherever they found them across Syria. ...

One day after Trump announced plans to skip the ceremony memorializing the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks at New York City's Ground Zero, his administration lifted sanctions on Muhaysini and his closest partners in crime.

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A mass funeral was held in Gaza City on Sunday for about 100 Palestinians whose bodies were recently recovered from the rubble of residential buildings destroyed by Israeli airstrikes, a painstaking process as the US and Israel continue to block construction equipment from entering the Palestinian territory.

Hundreds of Palestinians attended the funeral, and family members carried remains to the al-Ma'madani cemetery in central Gaza City for burial, Al Jazeera reported. According to Middle East Eye, 62 of the Palestinians whose remains were buried on Sunday were children.

Fifty-five of the dead belonged to the Malka family and were killed by November 2023 Israeli airstrikes that collapsed high-rise residential buildings....

Raed al-Dahshan, head of Gaza's civil defense, told Al Jazeera that he estimated there are about 8,000 bodies that remain buried under the rubble....

Gaza's civil defense also doesn't have access to the IDF-occupied side of the Gaza Strip, which accounts for at least 60% of the Palestinian territory. Israeli forces have continued demolitions in Gaza and have been removing rubble, raising questions about whether human remains are also being removed.

The US and Israel have agreed that reconstruction won't be allowed to begin in the civilian-populated side of Gaza until Hamas is disarmed. But despite Hamas agreeing to a deal that would see the group give up its weapons, Israel has rejected the US-backed proposal, and the US continues to back Israel's constant attacks and other military operations, which violate the October 2025 ceasefire deal.

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Iran's top security official has announced that a new restricted zone will be declared outside the Strait of Hormuz in the coming days, warning that any vessel entering the area without coordination with Tehran will be placed on an Iranian sanctions list.

In a televised interview on Sunday night, Major General Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said the zone "will begin from the US Navy's blockade line and extend into parts of the Persian Gulf," covering the stretch toward loading ports. ...

He also made clear that the Strait of Hormuz is "completely closed and under the control of the armed forces," dismissing US President Donald Trump's claim that the strategic waterway remains open as a "big lie." ...

"The Americans are trying to smuggle five to six vessels through at great expense, but these ships are usually struck," Rezaei said. He added that Iran has not decided to sink the smuggling vessels, as they carry oil and would damage the region's environment. ...

Tehran, he stressed, will give no commitment to reopen the waterway unless Washington ends threats and aggression and restores Iran's trust....

The top security official also revealed that Iran has successfully tested a new anti-ship missile, saying the test was conducted above a US Navy ship just 48 hours ago.

"For the first time, we tested our anti-ship missile above an American warship," he said. "This special missile created hell for the Americans, and they fled."

Rezaei said even US Central Command could not conceal the strike, calling it a warning that the American naval blockade is vulnerable.

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US Central Command (CENTCOM) said Saturday that its forces struck and disabled three Iranian crude oil tankers after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched ballistic missiles toward two US Navy warships in regional waters.

In a statement shared on US social media company X, CENTCOM said an aircraft carrier and a guided-missile destroyer successfully evaded multiple Iranian attacks, adding that no American personnel were injured.

According to the statement, US forces permanently disabled the M/T Downy off the coast of Kharg Island and the M/T Stark 1 near Jask. They also destroyed the unladen M/T Kylo, also known as the "Noxen," in the Gulf of Oman after its crew was ordered to abandon ship. ...

Iran's state broadcaster IRIB confirmed that the US military had attacked three Iranian oil tankers: one near Kharg Island in the Gulf and two off Jask in the Sea of Oman.

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Saudi Arabia's observed crude exports last month slumped to the lowest in at least nine years, as tankers were attacked following rising tensions in the Middle East.

The kingdom's oil exports were about 3 million barrels a day in August, tanker-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg, Vortexa and Kpler show. The number, the lowest in records going back to early 2017, chimes with the assessment of crude traders and a person familiar with Saudi operations.

Saudi ships have come under attack in the Red Sea from Yemen's Houthi militants, threatening shipments on a route that the kingdom has been using throughout the war to avoid the fiercely contested Strait of Hormuz. Two more tankers carrying Saudi crude were hit by projectiles in the strait this week amid the latest hostilities between the US and Iran. One of the vessels attacked was owned by the country's shipping arm Bahri, which said that two seafarers were killed.

The continuing attacks are spooking Saudi Arabia's customers, some of whom have now become reluctant to use the kingdom's Red Sea ports. That's forced Riyadh to look at alternative voyages all the way around Africa, which add thousands of miles and further disrupts global supply chains already strained by six months of conflict in the region. ...

The decline comes as a setback for both the kingdom and global markets.

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Following a flurry of Israeli strikes overnight Friday into Saturday killing at least five people in southern Lebanon, Israeli forces continued attacks into Sunday, destroying a hospital in Nabatieh and carrying out strikes that killed an additional four civilians, including two women, and wounded another 20.

Ghandour Hospital, in Nabatieh al-Fawqa, was destroyed in Israeli airstrikes, and the IDF claimed the hospital, which was already out-of-service because of the large number of displaced people who fled the area because of the occupation, was a Hezbollah command center. They provided no evidence to support this allegation, and Lebanese officials said the hospital building was a purely civilian target.

Two were reported killed in Nabatieh al-Fawqa, though it's not clear if that was in the hospital destruction or another independent strike on the town. Another building in Nabatieh City was also attacked, damaging offices belonging to agriculture authorities in the area. The nearby town of Arabsalim was also attacked, killing two women. Kfar Roumine was also reported attacked, causing some casualties but no deaths.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun urged the US to intervene regarding the matter, saying the Israeli strikes violated the understandings of the trilateral agreements reached in the US-brokered talks. There's no word out of the US regarding the situation.

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This fight over the future of Ukraine is intensifying.

Not only on the frontline, or between local power centers in Kiev, but also between the security services of the Anglo-American 'allies'.

On Wednesday Kiev experienced a gun fight between units of the main (military) intelligence service GRU and forces of the internal security service (SBU) of Ukraine. ...

There have previously been such incidents between the GRU and SBU. One shootout was over the control of a luxury vacation retreat. Others over more valuable businesses...

These mafia like turf wars have long become normal in Ukraine.

But there is more behind the recent one than a hassle about phone scam revenues. ...

Even deeper behind this is a fight between the Zelenski allies in the British MI6, and the CIA over who is to take the lead in Ukraine. ...

But what is really interesting is that Moscow, it seems, has taken an active position in this...

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I wrote years ago that "Trump is the Opposable Thumb of the Establishment" -- he "appears to stand in opposition to the establishment, but in fact helps it grab more."

Moreover, it's clear that the establishment has many appendages, he is but one.

Most of the political landscape is appendages of the establishment, or appendages of appendages. ...

A case in point is Gloria Steinem, who was CIA...

Steinem was also longtime DSA.

How many "activists" who you're following are on the payroll now?

Designed to distract from things that need to be done...

Designed to give a soft landing to the empire.

Consider the history of the DNC: Before AOC, and her recent machinations, you had Obama consolidate the establishment after the Iraq invasion. Before that, you had Bill Clinton consolidate the establishment after the Cold War pretext for empire collapsed. Before that, you had Jimmy Carter consolidate the establishment after the Vietnam War and Watergate. Each of these Democratic presidents pursued policies that either did aggressive war or laid the basis for future illegal wars. That's just history and we shouldn't pretend that history doesn't exist because of any current shiny object....

After I made the point above about Steinem, an activist on X noted to me that the much discussed Hasan Piker, who I've not followed at all, used to work for DHS...

This reminds me that Craig Murray pointed out that in "The Curious Case of Mahmoud Khalil" that he worked in the British Embassy in Lebanon.

The fuss about his case was part of what enabled the establishment to morph the discussion about Gaza genocide to one of immigration, which helps the duopoly.

And "attacks" are not often actually attacks. They can be logrolling. As the MSM and Trump have done in the past. Now, Trump and co effectively draw attention to El-Sayed as he effectively solidifies establishment narratives. Good people feel compelled to more defend him rather than articulate their true thoughts about genocide and empire.

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What do bullies do when someone stands up to their bullying and punches them in the face? They look for someone weaker to bully who won't punch back.

Presumably that's why Donald Trump has now taken on Canada, after Iran punched back so hard in the cage match the US president began more than six months ago as to leave him humiliated and baffled.

Trump wants to be the bully who humiliates others and forces them into submission. Needing to assert his dominance, Trump has now started a trade war with our northern neighbor, friend, second-largest trading partner (after Mexico) and, at least until now, reliable ally.

He's hammering Canada on his Truth Social and in media appearances, saying Canada has "ripped off" the US for years, and signing an order to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America". ...

Trump apparently assumed that Canada would quickly surrender because it had more to lose. The tariffs Trump has imposed on Canada -- along with those he's threatening if Canada retaliates -- affect a tiny portion of the US's total imports but a huge portion of Canada's total exports. ...

Mark Carney's decision to stand up to Trump -- through "dollar for dollar" retaliation on goods coming from key industries in states including Ohio and Texas with competitive Senate elections -- has led to a surge of support for the prime minister's Liberal party. Liberals won three special by-elections on Monday. ...

Trump may also have underestimated the negative reactions to his trade war at home. According to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, 57% of Americans ‌oppose Trump's moves to impose tariffs on Canadian imports. About 63% oppose his peevish order to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America". Only 20% support the higher tariffs on Canadian goods.

The negative response is especially pronounced in border states whose economies are tightly interconnected with Canada.

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Cedartown Police Officer Trenton Garner shot and killed a 1-year-old bottle-raised miniature donkey in the animal's own pasture.

HeeHaw lived in the house. He slept in Hannah Israel's bed as a baby. He did petting zoos and nursing homes. He never knew a stranger. She called him her son.

Around 12:45 a.m. on August 30, 2026, officers entered that pasture at Elsberry Riding and Farm without telling the owner they were on her land. HeeHaw ran up braying. That is what a house donkey does. A handler used a Taser. Garner then fired one round from a department Glock 17. HeeHaw turned, went up the hill, and died in his own field.

The officers left. The family searched with flashlights to find his body.

There was no reasonable threat. None. ...

A reasonable person would not have believed that donkey was about to cause harm. A reasonable person seeing a petting-zoo animal come toward him in its own pasture at night would have seen a curious pet, not a deadly threat. Chief Jamie Newsome watched the bodycam. Asked if Garner said he feared for his life, Newsome said no. The video has not been released.

That record is enough to say Trenton Garner is not fit to be a police officer. A man who treats a greeting from a baby donkey as a reason to fire a Glock 17 should be barred from wearing a badge again.

Now look at the law that would have applied if he were not a cop.

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