BB—Trump tells his oligarch vassals that if they appreciate and value this system that the US maintains and guarantees through a system of violently imposed sanctions, assassinations, wars, regime change operations, genocides, a global military network that includes 800+ foreign military bases, and the greatest propaganda apparatus the world has ever seen, then they need to start paying more tribute, it is as simple as that.  And really, Trump is correct.  America’s vassal oligarchs that have set themselves up as the legitimate government of all the capitalist states, truly have no alternative but to increase tribute to the Don. After all, no other country is remotely prepared to replace the US Don and the only other alternative to that is socialism and an end to the entire oligarch system. This is the threat that China poses.

CH—Our country, as we once knew it, no longer exists. It was methodically destroyed by neoliberal con artists. The institutions and legal protections that once shielded us from tyranny no longer function. Those who champion an open society are orphans, smeared as traitors, excoriated as the “radical left.” I mourn what we have lost. I mourn what we are about to lose. This social isolation will soon be physical isolation. We will be criminalized or driven into exile.

DW—The conversation highlights the United States’ desperate attempt to preserve the petrodollar system by controlling oil trade routes, notably the Strait of Hormuz. However, the regional reality reveals declining U.S. influence, with Gulf states seeking closer ties with China and Russia. The speakers propose a transformative, albeit imaginative, vision where China and Russia guarantee security in the Gulf, establish a Palestinian state, and shift control over key strategic assets away from Western powers.

TC—Donald Trump’s Freedom 250 State Fair gets trolled worldwide after his National Mall celebration turns into a global punchline and a sweltering empty tent disaster. I have a laugh joining in with the latest viral clips, mockery, and photos calling out the crumbling Trump Arch, Ferris wheel power cuts, missing crowds, no AC, RFK Jr.’s pull-ups, the $100K cover charges, and more.

PM—As we all know by now, Trump’s war on China has made China great again. Despite incessant bald-faced media lies smearing China, even the blind can see the nation’s unstoppable and accelerated rise under Trump’s attacks.

Everyone, except for the hopelessly delusional and excerebrose moron (who, unfortunately, continues to exist in small though significant numbers), knows what a shameless, lying scammer Trump is. His strident attack on communism may end up making communism great again.

PAUL EDWARDS—On this symbolically touted anniversary of our Independence, we are asked by our current rulers to celebrate the nation that their falsity, cynicism and villainy has destroyed.  We who recognize death when we see it, cannot comply.  But we can mourn.

All life ends in the individual and persists in the mass, in nations as in people, and in both a life is judged on what it verifiably did in its brief mortal span.  The function of a wake, and its chief purpose, is to laud the best in the deceased as consistently as possible without denying established fact, and to assuage, to some degree, the grief that is the inevitable result of the loss.