On the Polish Border
(Brietbart) Polish border guard teams, reinforced by local police and soldiers, stood post at 52 crossing points along the German border and a further 13 with Lithuania in the early hours of Monday morning amid the enactment of temporary border controls. The controls are due to last 30 days, but the Polish government hasn’t ruled out extending them.
The checks come amid a growing disagreement between Berlin and Warsaw stemming from the European Union’s project to maintain open internal borders, allowing the unfettered movement of people, combined with imperfect external border controls, which in combination often enable the free movement of illegal migrants across the continent.
As alleged, Russia and Moscow-allied Belarus have now spent years bussing illegal migrants to Poland’s eastern frontier, telling them if they can break through into the European Union, they will be able to continue unopposed to high-welfare-paying Germany. Poland has significantly strengthened its eastern border. Still, Berlin has been running vehicle checks with Poland and has even engaged in migrant ‘push-backs’, trapping migrants who want to head West in Poland itself.
Starting on Monday, Poland began to reciprocate border checks, at least in part because Germany has attempted to send migrants heading West back to Poland again. (more at the link)
In Iran
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian took advantage of an interview with American media personality Tucker Carlson on July 7 to platform Iran’s demands and misrepresent Iran’s destabilizing activities and role in the Middle East. Pezeshkian leveraged the interview to falsely present Iran as a peaceful force in the Middle East to a Western audience.
Senior Iranian officials have claimed that Iran retains a significant missile stockpile that it can use to attack Israel. Israeli airstrikes on Iran between June 12 and 24 likely degraded Iran’s missile program, however.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck several Houthi targets in Hudaydah Governorate, Yemen. The Israeli strikes follow a Houthi ballistic missile attack targeting Ben Gurion Airport in central Israel on July 5.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for a July 6 complex attack targeting the Liberian-flagged bulk carrier Magic Seas off the coast of Hudaydah, Yemen. The Houthis had not attacked a merchant vessel in the Red Sea since November 2024. This attack highlights that the Houthis remain capable of resuming attacks on ships whenever they want and for reasons they choose.
If Iran has such massive stones, why doesn’t Tehran resume the war with Israel? I’m sure that Israel hasn’t run out of bombs, and IAF can always use the experience of dropping live ordnance on live targets (not that they’re lacking stick time).
Bullet Points:
** Please don’t forget WSF’s Birthday on July 12th.
** Peter Van Buren spotlights an overlooked clause in President Trump’s new “Big Beautiful Bill”: a 1 percent tax on remittances that migrants in the United States wire back home. With outbound transfers now topping $93 billion a year—$56 billion to Mexico alone—the levy could yield about $10 billion in revenue, curb the wage draw that fuels illegal immigration, and disrupt cartel money-laundering networks that exploit small-dollar transfers. Because remittances supply roughly 4.5 percent of Mexico’s GDP, Mexico’s president has denounced the move, prompting Senator Eric Schmitt to propose hiking the fee to 15 percent. Van Buren urges the Justice Department to “follow the money,” tighten oversight of storefront transfer agencies, and wield the new tax as a “big, beautiful financial weapon” in Trump’s broader immigration crackdown.
** It’s National Hot Dog Month! The first Der Wienerschnitzel was opened 64 years ago by John Galardi. This location, which remains operational as of today, was a hot dog stand situated on Pacific Coast Highway, east of Figueroa Street, in the small Los Angeles community of Wilmington, California. I recall eating there. I’ll bet DRJIM has eaten there too.
** (NY Times) Eight members of the OPEC Plus oil producers group said Saturday that they would pump an additional 548,000 barrels a day starting in August, an increase that was higher than some analysts expected and could contribute to lowering prices. The increase, equivalent to roughly half a percent of global production, represents a step up from recent months, when the group announced increases of 411,000 barrels per day. The group, which includes Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and Iraq, stated that it was taking action based on what it termed “a steady global economic outlook and current healthy market fundamentals.”
** Find somebody who will fight for you the way Los Angeles Mayor Bass fights for MS-13!
** (Wall Street Journal) President Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he wasn’t responsible for halting weapons shipments to Kiev, signaling U.S. openness to continuing military aid for Ukraine. Trump informed Zelensky in a Friday phone conversation that he had directed a review of Pentagon munitions stockpiles after the U.S. struck Iran’s nuclear sites last month but didn’t order the department to freeze the arms deliveries, according to people briefed on the conversation. The call came shortly after Trump publicly acknowledged he was “very disappointed” and “didn’t make any progress” on a Ukraine peace deal in a separate call Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump urged Putin to end the war during the call, but Putin refused, according to the Kremlin. Trump assured Zelensky that the U.S. will send as much military aid as it can spare, the people said.”
Pungent Feet
The odor of 20,000 feet will no longer be present at the airport. That familiar smell won’t be there anymore, as the Department of Homeland Security has decreed that TSA no longer has to force shoe removal as travelers pass through security. That won’t be very reassuring to many of you. I wonder if I was able to replicate the odors and capture them in a bottle. Could I sell them to airports nationwide to keep that familiar scent in the air? Let’s break down the elements that need to be included in the additive to airport ventilation systems to compensate for the new TSA rules.
- Sour: Produced by bacteria that break down sweat into acidic compounds.
- Cheesy: Caused by the presence of bacteria known as Brevibacteria, which are also responsible for the smell of certain cheeses.
- Sulfuric: Resulted from the release of sulfur compounds by bacteria.
- Vinegary: An indication of an acidic environment, possibly due to a fungal infection.
- Rotten eggs: A sign of bacteria that produce methanethiol, a foul-smelling gas.
I can see the cottage bomb factories in the Middle East going into high gear to build shoe bombs now that the inspection practice has been terminated…just when you thought it was safe to leave your shoes on.
The Tactics of Monetary Policy
What’s happening now aligns squarely with the thesis that Powell is using monetary policy not just to manage inflation, but also as a geopolitical weapon of delay, designed to trap adversaries and force the world to bend to U.S. dollar hegemony.
The recent stalling of a September rate cut isn’t just about economic data; it’s about timing, leverage, and optics.
With tariffs now reimposed or expanded on key supply chain partners like South Africa, Malaysia, and South Korea, Powell gains a politically defensible excuse to wait: “We’re monitoring inflation risks from trade dynamics.” This gives the Fed cover to pause even as domestic data deteriorates, not because they can’t cut, but because strategically, they don’t want to yet.
The broader play here is that the Fed is intentionally creating global asymmetry. While much of the world, from Europe to China to the EM bloc, is easing or preparing to ease, the U.S. is holding rates high, forcing capital inflows into dollar-denominated assets, tightening global liquidity, and weakening the fiscal and monetary positions of geopolitical rivals.
This creates maximum pressure on BRICS-aligned economies, which are already strained by the weight of capital flight, foreign exchange volatility, and rising funding costs. Countries like Brazil, Turkey, and South Africa are in a double bind: they can’t tighten without wrecking growth, and they can’t ease further without risking currency collapse. Powell’s “pause” becomes a global vice grip.
Now, here’s the part few are saying out loud: the Fed could still cut in September, if systemic cracks widen (watch for softening supercore PCE, sticky CPI dropping, stress in Treasury auctions, and swap spreads going negative), Powell will act. But he’s delaying because that delay is useful. It maintains its credibility, avoids signaling a premature dovish turn, and, most importantly, allows other central banks to exhaust their ammunition first. Every day Powell waits, foreign governments burn more capital defending their currencies, drawing down reserves, or backstopping their sovereign debt markets.
If this administration wanted a cut now, it would lift the tariffs and shift the inflation narrative, but that’s not happening. The tariffs are giving Powell the excuse to hold, and that’s the signal. The Fed’s pause is not indecision. It is designed. This is economic warfare wrapped in monetary policy. And unless something truly breaks in funding markets, in labor, or inflation metrics, Powell will keep the world in suspense while the dollar quietly reasserts control.”
The Blue Dress – The Slimy Case of Epstein’s Demise
Via justfactwdaily.com: The Trump administration FBI and DOJ claim that their “exhaustive review of investigative holdings relating to Jeffrey Epstein” did “not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties” and that “no further disclosure” of any evidence in this case is “appropriate or warranted.”
IN FACT, the DOJ sent a letter to a judge in 2019 stating that a search of Epstein’s New York City residence found “compact discs” in “a locked safe” with “hand-written labels” like “Girl pics nude” and “Young [Name] + [Name].”
An FBI agent then testified at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial that the FBI abandoned this evidence, which allowed one of Epstein’s most notorious accomplices to take and potentially scrub it before giving it to the feds.
Those and at least 16 other rigorously documented facts indicate that others were involved in Epstein’s sex crimes, federal prison officials aided and abetted Epstein’s suicide, and federal employees disappeared evidence that could incriminate Epstein’s companions:
1) Maria Farmer, who reported Jeffrey Epstein and his associates to the FBI back in 1996 for molesting children, told CBS News that Epstein’s mansion in New York was loaded with hidden cameras. Describing a surveillance room with a large number of monitors, she said, “I looked at the cameras, and I saw toilet, toilet, bed, bed, toilet, bed.” She then asked Epstein, “What do you do with this?” he replied, “I keep it. I keep everything in my safe.”
2) After the DOJ arrested Epstein in 2019, federal prison officials placed him in a cell with a murderous, hulking ex-cop, which is a death trap for any child molester because violent inmates frequently target them. This chosen cellmate, named Nicholas Tartaglione, was eventually convicted of torturing and strangling a man to death with a zip tie while making his nephew watch. He then took the nephew, another nephew, and a family friend of the man he murdered to a “remote wooded location, forced them to kneel, and executed them with gunshots to the back of the head.”
3) Less than two weeks after Epstein was placed in a cell with Tartaglione, prison guards found Epstein in the middle of the night in a semiconscious state with a rope and “friction marks” around his neck.
4) Despite a court order requiring the prison to preserve video surveillance footage near Epstein’s cell during the strangulation, federal prison officials failed to do so. Also, they lost the backup due to “technical errors.”
5) Federal prison officials took Epstein off “suicide watch” just one day after the strangulation without determining whether Epstein was attacked by his cellmate or tried to commit suicide.
6) One day before Epstein’s death, federal prison officials removed his new cellmate and didn’t replace him. They did this even though a prison psychologist sent an email to over 70 prison staffers stating that Epstein “needs” a cellmate — a standard suicide prevention measure.
7) While describing Jeffrey Epstein as “arguably” one of the “most notorious” federal inmates, the DOJ Inspector General wrote that the U.S. Bureau of Prisons “provided” him with the opportunity to take his own life.” One day before Epstein’s death, a federal court unsealed more than 2,000 pages of lawsuit records that named and implicated wealthy and influential people in Epstein’s child sex crimes, as well as federal officials in covering up the crimes. Among the named people were Palm Beach billionaire Glenn Dubin and his wife Eva Andersson-Dubin, Britain’s Prince Andrew, former president Bill Clinton, former Democratic Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, former DNC Chairman Bill Richardson, artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky, and modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel — who was later arrested in France for sex trafficking and allegedly died of suicide in a high-security prison.
9) One day before Epstein’s death, federal prison officials permitted Epstein to make a completely unmonitored phone call in direct violation of prison policy and under the patently false pretense that he was calling his mother, who had died 15 years earlier.
10) Federal officers placed a hoard of linens in Epstein’s cell, which is commonly prohibited because they can be used to create nooses.
11) Federal officers left Epstein alone in his cell for nearly eight hours on the night he died — even though they were required to check on all inmates in his unit “at least twice per hour” and were only 15 feet from Epstein’s cell.
12) Federal officers falsified records to show that they had checked on Epstein, a violation of federal law punishable by up to five years in prison.
13) Federal prosecutors “dismissed all charges pending against” the two officers who falsified the records and “declined” to prosecute others who “falsely certified inmate count slips and round sheets on the day before and the day of Epstein’s death.”
14) Federal prison officials failed to record footage from 9 of the 11 surveillance cameras around Epstein’s cell on the night of his death, including one that showed Epstein’s cell tier and cell door.
15) To this day, the federal government hasn’t revealed the names of the people who were written beside the “young” females on Epstein’s CDs.
16) The FBI and DOJ state that “Epstein harmed over one thousand victims” but provide no explanation of how he could have done all that with only one accomplice who has been prosecuted for these crimes (Ghislaine Maxwell).
All of these facts accord with the contention that others were complicit in the death and child sex crimes of Epstein and have not been held accountable.”
Thoughts on the Big Beautiful Bill – now passed into law
One aspect of the BBB passing: watching the impotent rage and pointless theatrics of the leftists, inside and outside of Congress. Hakeem Jeffries’ marathon speech was probably the most Democrat thing to happen that week. It didn’t even rise to the level of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It was essentially empty talking points and hypocrisy, signifying nothing at all.
The word coming out of Democrat circles was that Jeffries hadn’t let the other Dems know he was going to blather on for so long, so the smarter Dems were not happy. But that just provided a bonus: watching Marcy Kaptur (D-Who Cares?) falling asleep behind him.
The Dems had to get her out of there, so they replaced her with – I swear I’m not making this up – a male who thinks he’s a female, Tim/Sara McBride (D-‘oh!). Thus, the lefties created a visual tableau that perfectly illustrated the bankruptcy of their party: an old woman put to sleep by their pointlessly droning leadership, followed by the walking embodiment of their gender lunacy.
Excellent optics, geniuses! If that little psychodrama doesn’t make it into a GOP ad for the mid-terms, we’re leaving money on the table.
Other Democrats continued to take the path most traveled, and unfortunately for them, it was strewn with rakes, which they kept jumping on with both feet. Because they have not learned the lesson of the boy who cried wolf. (Or as Tim McBride calls it, “the boy who’s a girl who cried wolf.”) They could not just say that this is a bad bill or point to its flaws. They had to insist that it was the cruelest and most evil bill they’d ever seen. AOC fought back tears and said that this “was one of the saddest days in modern American history.” Many warned that “millions will die because of this bill.” Can’t they anticipate this backfiring in a year or two, when nobody has died and the world didn’t end?
Speaking of not aging well, how about everybody’s favorite Nosferatu with scoliosis, Chuck Schumer, and his brilliant idea to scuttle the BBB? He insisted that the entire bill be read on the floor of the Senate, giving an impassioned speech about how it’s a crime against humanity to vote on a bill that no one has even been able to read. Cut to Imhotep Pelosi, rising from her tomb and marching slowly out from beneath her pyramid, trailing burial wrappings to Schumer’s senate office, where she broke the canopic jar containing her heart over his liver-spotted old head, while yelling at him about how he set her up. “Don’t you know that the most famous thing I ever said was telling the Senate that they’d have to pass the [Obamacare] bill so that you can find out what’s in it?”
Identify the Aircraft
1
Two photos – it’s the black aircraft in the photo (top)
The referenced aircraft was designed to fly at an altitude of 500–1,000 feet (150–300 m) for 3,000 miles (4,800 km) on 100 pounds (45 kg) of fuel. For navigation, a video camera in the nose relayed ground imagery back to a control station where an operator would compare it with satellite imagery. The “bird” was flown into a net on return to base, where images could then be recovered from the primary 35mm film camera. The number built and deployed remains classified.
2
2 built
3
Photo taken in the Gulf of America
4
Artist’s rendering
20-30 built
End
Identify the Aircraft:
1. McDonnell Douglas Aquiline hanging below IAI Hunter
2. Northrop Grumman Firebird
3. Northrop Grumman Bat
4. Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel
Excellent!
Interesting is that Northrup Grumman owns Scaled Composites. Burt Rutan was a modern marvel.
Nosferatu Schumer and Imhotep Pelosi is sheer genius. I laughed, sadly.
Iconic, multi-generational, inspired American leadership – personified.
X2…a perfect reference, as those two are the walking dead. Continuing in The Mummy motif, let’s hope when they finally are put out to pasture the Book of Raising the Evil Dead is tossed into the hellfires so those two stay “sequestered” in their eternal slumber.
The Crypt Keeper in Congress. Cackling.
Equating Schumer with Nosferatu is repetition and promulgation of a known and VERY well-documented anti-Semitic trope equating vampires with Jews. It’s pretty much a Hate Crime that’s even more offensive than calling, say, Representative Hank Johnson (D for “duh”) a “retarded silverback”.
On the other hand, calling a corrupt Italian woman by the name of an Egyptian male is stunning, brave and TRANS-gressive. Well done!
A 1% tax on remittances? US citizens pay higher taxes than that. Why not hit the remittances with at least a 10% tax?
Wouldn’t that be a bigger boost to the budget?
Given that “I” don’t remit money overseas, it’s a tax I can support. Taxes are like sins. Everyone’s favorites are different.
I agree with you. I thought it was 3.5% but then I saw that the BBB whittled it down to 1%
Yet here’s an article written the day before President Trump signed the BBB.
https://www.visaverge.com/visa/effective-date-and-transition-rules-for-remittance-tax-in-one-big-beautiful-bill/
Either way, it’s got Scheinbaum augering herself into the ceiling and I love it!
Agree to a higher tax…but…small moves, can’t eat the elephant all at once, otherwise the remit-tax never gets a foothold. At least now they – because it’s government and rarely does a tax get smaller – can adjust up on the percentage. Social Security was only supposed to be 1%, now it’s seriously higher and taxed on repayment because the thieves can’t help themselves when given a cookie jar without a locked lid.
Yes, it puts the tax in place and it makes a tax increase much easier to slide into place if Mexico (run by cartels) don’t play ball in our ongoing war with China.
How many linens are in a hoard? Were the unprosecuted prison guards in a union? Were they members of a protected class? If a pedophile records his sex acts with their victims isn’t that child pornography which can’t be made public? What’s federal law around not re-traumatizing victims of sex crimes? Does proximity to a criminal make 9ne a criminal too?
As I understand it, the guards are members of an inner city racial demographic who were also members of a labor union.
So the linens were supplied by USAID/SEIU. Now it all fits.
Yes. The plot thickens.
Fitted sheets never do fold up right….
Re: et al, Epstein being somehow the current front and center outrage to the impatient: Read this comment elsewhere that encapsulates the theater WTP have witnessed for decades, having reached a crescendo level, some even in Republican…and dare I say…MAGA adherents: “It is very important to maintain the Theater of The Outrageous. To keep US patriots fixated on ephemera while the Managed Decline of The West continues.”
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I remind myself as I listen to such “quick to toss out the baby with the bathwater”…or worse, “split the baby”, that NOTHING we are being told is truth, it is intentionally designed to obfuscate and keep WTP on our heels. If Americans knew the current level of graft, cheatery, and outright thievery going on in the background by those who work for us, there might be an uprising in the populace, assuming enough of the general public have the backbone and wherewithal to do so. I am not a violent person, but the subversives working hard to destroy this great nation have got to go, and their “corpses burned and salted”.
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In the meantime I will continue to trust our duly-elected ‘Righteously Ordained by God’ President…the man is not wrong and has proven his mettle in only 6 months because he has a “development plan, with contingencies”…need to see it play out.
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Too bad I’m not heading back to the Chicago suburbs with MrsPaulM, could honor National Hotdog month with a Portillo’s special. Good fare. Maybe I’ll pick up some Nathan’s dogs to honor the sentiment.
👍
Why does a hot dog at a ball park taste better than the same brand that you cook at home?
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One of the mysteries of life.
It’s true. It’s like asking were the “other sock” in the wash went. Or where all of my missing pocket combs ended up. The dog and coke at the ballpark always taste better.
It’s the grease…always the grease… :-)
aka….”Natural Flavorings”…..
Considering the Epstein black hole that no light is allowed to escape…
It does make me wonder if the truths were allowed to be seen, would it in fact destroy our world as we know it?
If it could do that, I for one would vote for destruction over corruption. If we can’t go forward without bathing in such Evil, then I propose we start over from scratch.
““We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the pillar industry of this country.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
MSG Grumpy
Exactly, MSG. Rip the Band-Aid® off and let the air and light in. Light is the last thing that the Bonesmen want shining on them.
X2
i suspect trump wants to let the ep list out but realized there were more gop’s on it than dems, thereby losing his majority. i think most of the big ta-do about it is bot generated from the other side to sow division and most of us magas are too unhip to realize it…..did you notice the cbp attacks? several coordinated attacks from various groups with no prior affiliation? comms, body armor, ar’s. verrry intervesting (in my best german accent), lol…..dam cloudseeders ginned up the worst storm here in a long bit. blew out my transformer, hvac, net system, dehumidifier, who knows what else. my neighbor got it even worse. thanks mr. theil. can i send the bill to palantir?
Heard a theory that suggested some of the world leaders are on the list, the same ones he’s trying to work out tariff deals, so is keeping it low key right now to allow them to make the deal without recrimination. Thinking his righteous indignation during the staff meeting two days ago when asked about it points to this as a potential. Also, some people may be on the list that never did the bad deeds but were doing proper business. Gotta allow it to run the full course by those in the know.
WSF Birthday. No longer observed; best forgotten. Don’t count the days; make the days count.
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Epstein files. Whatever they contain won’t hurt Trump personally. What will hurt is continued stonewalling. This is a rally point across the political spectrum, and will only get amplified. It won’t go away, IMO.
Bondi is probably tidying up her resume, and Bongino is either disgusted, or complicit. It doesn’t look good for either, and regardless of facts, they lost credibility.
👍
Is Germany trying to help the Muslim invasion of Europe? It sure looks like it…
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Der Wienerschnitzel still has the best chili dog!
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“Trump assured Zelensky that the U.S. will send as much military aid as it can spare, the people said.”” Something is going to happen… 1. Ukraine makes peace with Russia and loses what it’s lost, but the killing stops… 2. Ukraine keeps fighting and losing until it’s gone, but the wholesale killing stops… 3. The world steps in & WW3 get’s rolling…. no guesses after that… 4. I’m out of guesses but I realize that the actual answer can be something I’ve never imagined.
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Band-aids, velcro, xerox, kleenex and vice-grip are all trademarked names of products. Names that work great as words too!
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“Epstein files. Whatever they contain won’t hurt Trump personally. What will hurt is continued stonewalling”. The truth has to be so bad that this continued stonewalling is the lesser of the evils.
Used to listen to Carlson.
Not even interested in this one.
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So you disagree with Trump that Powell is an idiot?
I don’t think Powell is an idiot. I think that Powell wants one thing and Pres. Trump is interested in his populism agenda. They’re working from differing viewpoints, thus the article in the blog.
Makes sense.
Putin – question brought up on another site. If the rogue IC community is keeping up the war and Trump isn’t getting them under control, how much will Putin be willing to listen to Trump?
The formerly rogue IC community (Swamp agenda). I don’t think that Ratcliff (DCI currently) is a swamp monster. He’s recrafting CIA.
An Augean Stables scenario?
Where is Hercules when you need him?
Oh, yeah, Der Weinerschnitzel! Pretty sure I’ve eaten at the Wilmington place. Long time ago, though. SLW and I went to the Long Beach one numerous times. Their chili dogs are pretty good!
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As far as Monetary Policy goes…I still think we should have stayed on the gold standard.
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