Trump likes to play good cop, bad cop.

 TRUMP IS ALL IN ON WAR WITH IRAN

ACCESS TO IRAN OIL DEPENDS ON WINNING

We continually hear that Trump wants a negotiated end to the Iran conflict, this would be true, if Iran would surrender and hand over control of its oil resources. Of course, that would be the easy way, but since that is unlikely, any narrative about Trump seeking every way to avoid war and Bibi Netanyahu pushing for war is just so much theater. They are both all in on resuming this war when it is the deemed appropriate.

The same good cop and bad cop is being played out concerning Ukraine, there is no estrangement with the EU NATO members concerning the Ukraine conflict. When, and if, the oil of the Persian gulf is fully under control of the U.S., the pressure will resume by the U.S. on Russia. 

The goal is to control the world's energy supplies and demand submission and enforce the use of the U.S. dollar in world trade. It is a desperate gamble to maintain the US, and western control of world affairs. While its financial power is waning it is increasingly dependent on military power. The EU countries, in the same boat, are talking about building up their militaries to go to war with Russia by 2030, another desperate gamble.

The West has plans to dramatically increase military spending, even at the expense of domestic infrastructure and other domestic spending. Increasing debt in economies already experiencing massive, unsustainable debt, huge deficits, and a currency declining in buying power by the day. Engaging in wars that cause  the rise in inflation in food and energy to their citizens, all in the hope of being the dominant power in the world, without the sound bases at home for real power. It all appears to be an all or nothing gamble rather than a planned strategy to restore real wealth and political power by example.

Supporting a declining currency by force, rather than sound economic policy is a fools game.  As for the citizens, there will not be any winning, no matter the outcome, they will all pay for the gamble with declining living standards as the best outcome, but the worse outcome will be much more severe.

Sanctions and threats losing effectiveness.

 U.S. POLICY HAS UNITED ITS ADVERSARIES

RESULTS OFTEN COUNTER PRODUCTIVE

The United States now has sanctioned most of Asia with either primary or secondary sanctions. India has been a target, a country that sought neutrality from the global political conflicts, has refused to give up its nation's well being by honoring those sanctions. Sanctions that attempted to cut off Russia's sales of energy to India and raise the cost to India. China has recently forbade its refineries from obeying U.S. sanctions against Iranian and Russian oil. 

While India and China are the biggest countries not obeying sanctions and often costing them with trade with the U.S., they perceive that their countries best interest is to not get involved in these sanction schemes. The one principle for inclusion in the BRICS economic union is not engaging in sanctions on member countries. This represents over 50 % of global trade. 

While countries like Iran, Cuba and Venezuela have been under sanctions for over 50 years the Ukraine war and the attempts to isolate Russia led to sanctions exploding to all over the globe. After 4 years, Russia is still selling oil, even to the EU and Ukraine, while the diminished supply has devastated the economies of Europe. The incentives to buy oil from Russia has increased for India and China and has actually strengthened their relations in other ways.

Sanctions, while damaging those nations it targets, has become increasingly less effective, because nations resist damaging their own economies by enforcing sanctions. 

When santions become ineffective the next step is military action, enforcing embargo's,  capturing ships at sea or damaging nations oil infrastructure, all acts of war. Europe and Russia are now on the brink of war and we can expect either a cessation of these actions or war is inevitable.

While the U.S. has, so far, suffered little by imposing sanctions, we can expect that there are plenty of avenues for even nonmilitary retaliations. One that has been evident in the last few days is the large increase in yields of U.S. debt. This could be by BRICS nations no longer buying U.S. debt plus Gulf countries in need of cash to compensate for their lost oil revenues, caused by the Iran war. The yield on the 10 year is now 4.67% and on the 30 year 5.19% . This will dramatically increase the cost of servicing this debt and will increase the deficit of the U.S. budget. This may only be the first shot in retaliation in the economic warfare that has been underway for years.

Escalation before any peace seems inevitable.

 ESCALATION BOTH IN IRAN AND UKRAINE

GLOBAL ECONOMY GOING DOWN

Today it looks like escalation of the conflicts in Iran and Ukraine is on the menu. While Iran is taking up most of the news the more dangerous escalation is underway in the Ukraine conflict. Ukrainian drones, supplied by NATO countries, are increasingly targeting Russia and particularly Moscow. There are now also drones being launched by some Baltic countries into Russia and Lithuania is encouraging NATO to attack Kaliningrad the Russian territory in the Baltic. 

Pressure is building inside Russia to send a clear signal by some sort of retaliation to NATO, if the Baltic countries continue on their present path they may be the first to experience this message and it will probably be significant. This will bring about a dilemma in NATO, as they will then need to decide if they want to go to war with Russia for real, with the consequences.

There is no hope of any settlement in the Iran war. The U.S. demands essentially translate to disarmament of Iran which would leave them open to Israeli attacks and the inevitable end of their sovereignty. More attacks on Iran will very likely damage the global oil supply for possibly years, as Iran does have the capability to attack the oil infrastructure of the entire region. This would bring about a global economic crisis.

A negotiated settlement capable of ending this will signify a loss by the U.S., while possibly preserving the global economy, it would damage the political power of the U.S.. 

Wile the EU is searching for a possible negotiator to deal with Russia, a difficult undertaking, as it seems there is a dearth of real diplomats available. 

The same goes for the U.S., which seems beholding to numerous factions, all favoring more war, there are no real diplomatic negotiators on the horizon. The present U.S. negotiators have a poor record and now little respect or credibility with their counterparts both in Iran and Russia.

Trump, Xi, meeting, Polite but no substance.

 U.S. ALREADY AT WAR WITH CHINA

U.S. DESIRES DOMINATION RATHER THAN COEXISTENCE

Last week we watched the much anticipated Trump trip to China. As far as we know it was Trump who requested the meeting. Long gone are the heady days of the Trump 1st term when there was much hope of a respectful and mutual cooperation with China. Whether as Trump has indicated, he blamed China for covid, when in fact the covid research in Wuhan was financed by the U.S. government or Trump has bought into the narrative that China's goal is to rule the world, there is little left for serious discussion. The biggest positive result is that there is still any discussion at all.

It is not clear what the goal really was, was the bringing along the big Tech guys a proposed carrot for China and the blockade of the strait of Hormuz a stick, one can only guess. A real meeting with a major power requires months of pre negotiations on an agenda, this seemed to be little more that photo-op that something was going on.

XI made it clear that he opposed increased arms sales to Taiwan, again it seems the hope is to lure China into some sort of military confrontation in Taiwan, much like Ukraine. While Taiwan is big issue with China, Taiwan already does the majority of their business with China and China understands that time is on their side with negotiations with Taiwan. Short of a U.S. backed declaration of Independence by Taiwan, there is unlikely any military action by China. How long can the U.S. financially maintain its enormous cost of bases and military assistance in the Pacific?

Trump claims that XI wants the strait of Hormuz to be open, it is open to Chinese ships by Iran, but blocked by the U.S.

Trump also claims that XI  does not support fees by Iran, but it was not clear if they are willing to pay if necessary.

It is also claimed that China will not sell arms to Iran, but will they give them away for free or trade them for oil? China has great financial and political interest in Iran remaining a sovereign nation. 

I don't recall any promises from Trump.

The reality is that most of the world understands that the U.S. is in a process of attempting to control the world by gaining control of the oil resources around the world. This was stated clearly by Sergei Lavrov of Russia this weekend. Putin is on his way to China this week, we can expect they will be having serious discussion about just that. Time would have been better spent possibly by XI taking Trump on a tour of their Shipyards and ultra modern manufacturing plants, to better acquaint Trump to the reality of what he hopes to confront.

XI made it clear that the choice is between, partnership, coexistence and mutual prosperity or confrontation, so far, the U.S. policy is confrontation. This is expressed through political and government leaders continual talk of containment, backed up by attempts to sow discord in the Belt and Road and BRICS countries and the massive build up of forces in the Pacific.  

China, so far, has responded to tariff's and attempts at denying resources by adjusting and developing alternatives. It is suspected that they can maneuver around these efforts and that financial and political time is on their side. Confrontation has an erroneous cost. 

Russian attrition strategy coming to an end?

 PREPARES TO STRIKE UKRAINE SUPPLIERS 

INTERNAL PRESSURE FORCING CHANGE IN STRATEGY

It is now becoming evident that the rumors concerning a change of strategy by Russia in the Ukraine conflict is underway. Yesterday, Ukraine was hit by over 1600 aerial attacks that stretched all across the country, hitting military and logistics targets. 

The pressure to bring this conflict to a close has been going on for years, It was in full display when former head of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin marched on Moscow in June  2023 to force a change to a more intense effort. With the recent coordinated attacks on Russian oil infrastructure, more intense threats of war by NATO members and even drone attacks originating from some NATO member territory, it does appear that this change of strategy is now underway. The Latvian government is collapsing as a result of its allowing Ukrainian drones to target Russia from its soil.

While an increase in the intensity of the attacks on Ukraine seems to be underway,  that is not all, it is also being voiced by many in position of influence inside the government that it can be expected that those NATO countries that are supplying long range missiles to strike Russia will be soon targeted with conventional weapons if they do not cease. It is expected that their military manufacturing will be the target. The proposals also are considering the use of limited nuclear weapons if conventional weapons do not bring about an end to the supplies of long range missiles to Ukraine.

In recent months some NATO members have escalated both their support and their rhetoric, proposing attacking and blocking Russian oil shipments and threats to block their northern nports, all declarations of war. It seems we are about to see if these NATO members are really ready for war with Russia.

Gabbard confirms U.S. funded 120 biolabs.

 PROMISES TO RELEASE LOCATIONS

40 BIOLABS LOCATED IN UKRAINE

Tulsi Gabbard has confirmed that there is an ongoing investigation into the U.S. funding of over 120 biolabs in other countries, including over $1 billion to the Wuhan lab on Covid gain of function research. Most of these labs did research in some sort of gain of function with numerous deadly diseases.

She has also admitted to possibly 40 labs in Ukraine that was originally labeled by the western press as Russian disinformation.

It seems the funding was provided by National Institute of Health and the Department of Defense.

There are indications that new labs have been set up in Africa.

Originally the U.S. denied that they funded any such research, but more evidence has been gathered to support that they did support such research.

The big question has always been, WHY, what is the purpose, and what use is planned for the results of this research. 

Does your federal representative represent you?

 I FEAR THEY ALL REPRESENT WASHINGTON

REFORMS NEED TO BE DEMANDED BY CITIZENS

With primaries coming up in the next few weeks and midterm elections coming in 6 months, many question if there will ever be any difference, no matter who is elected.  We hear all the campaign slogans, the diatribe against their opponent, but in reality very little changes. The biggest reason that little changes is that once elected, these representatives spend most of their time in Washington, only coming home for occasion fundraisers or photo ops. It is almost inevitable that they are soon overwhelmed by the culture of Washington, no matter their good intentions, when first running for office.

Their party and their Washington donors have much more power over them than any power in their district. That power translates into campaign money, and media image building. If there is no reform concerning our representatives there will not be any change and they will in effect just be representatives of Washington to you, rather than the other way around.

Making changes will require a steadfast demand for simple changes by you, the voters. Voters need to focus more on the overall well being of the country rather than some hope of benefits or financial incentives of bringing home the bacon. After decades of this incentive, the bacon is getting slimmer, and the debt and loss of representation is getting greater.  

Just a few simple demand by voters would be a start.

1. Limit campaign donations to only money from citizens of their district. Eliminate money from outside the district, even from  national parties. Do not vote for any representative who accepts money from foreign lobbies of any kind. We should also demand daily disclosure of  contributions on their website. 

Personally I have been a super voter for near 50 years, I fully expect that I may no longer be able to find a candidate to vote for, under these conditions, we have to start somewhere.

2. Representatives must maintain an office in their district that they occupy, not in Washington. No more wining and dining with special interests 300 days a year and only coming home for the campaign season. They can conduct business right from their office and I suspect they could even do their voting from this office. It would remove a lot of the power of parties and lobbyists. They need to represent the people of their district, that is what this job is supposed to be about. If they need to depend on the support in all ways from the citizens, they will better represent those citizens.

While there are most likely many more reforms needed, this would be a major start to really restoring our system of government as it was intended.