Old Glory Vortex

Trump's own appointees refuse to save him from sexual assault verdict The Supreme Court just gave Donald Trump a $5 million reality check — and they didn't even bother to explain why. On Monday, the justices declined to hear his appeal of the E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse verdict without a single noted dissent. Translation: not one justice thought his case was worth their time. Trump's lawyers had argued that fighting "decades-old, false allegations" was "deeply damaging to the fabric of our Republic" and that a president shouldn't have to be distracted by such things. The Supreme Court's response was basically a collective shrug. Trump took to Truth Social to whine that he was "surprised" by the decision. Surprised that a jury unanimously found him liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room? Surprised that the Access Hollywood tape — where he bragged about grabbing women — was used against him? The man who built a political brand on never apologizing now has to live with a verdict that says he's a sexual abuser and a defamer. Even with 11 Republican-led states and conservative groups backing him, it wasn't enough. The verdict stands. The $5 million stands. Trump calls it a "witch hunt." The Supreme Court says they’ve got better things to do than dealing with his whining. #Trump #scandal #embarassing Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Another court loss for Trump: justices say no to election hight-only counting Trump just lost big at the Supreme Court. In a 5-4 ruling, the justices rejected the RNC's push to ban states from counting mail ballots that arrive after Election Day — dealing a direct blow to the president's years-long crusade against mail voting. The decision stings for two reasons. First, Trump's own Justice Department backed the challenge. Second, the majority opinion was written by Amy Coney Barrett — a Trump appointee — who flatly stated that federal law sets Election Day but says nothing about when ballots must be received. "We cannot add to the words Congress chose," she wrote. The ruling also exposed a Republican rift: Mississippi's GOP secretary of state actually defended his state's law allowing five days of post-Election Day ballot receipt, putting him at odds with his own party. The RNC, backed by the House campaign arm and eight GOP-led states, wanted to kill the practice nationwide. Instead, they got a legal slap from a conservative-majority court. With control of Congress in play this November, the ruling ensures that hundreds of thousands of mail ballots will still be counted. For Trump, it's a defeat that undermines his narrative and proves that even with three appointed justices, the Supreme Court won't always do his bidding. #Trump #midterms #republicans Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

The one issue Democrats and Republicans actually agree on Democrats have unveiled their first major policy blueprint for the 2028 election, and they're going after Big Tech where it hurts — online child safety. Dubbed "Project 2029," the liberal initiative aims to be the progressive answer to the conservative Project 2025. Its opening salvo? A framework called "Kids Over Clicks" that takes direct aim at Section 230 protections, seeking to hold platforms liable for AI-generated content, paid ads, illegal activity, and even stoking stalking or nonconsensual behavior. The proposal doesn't stop there. It calls for banning social media for kids under 16, banning cell phones in schools, pushing for a smartphone-free childhood until age 14, banning surveillance advertising, and severely limiting data collection on children. In short, they want to treat social media like tobacco — and they've got social psychologist Jonathan Haidt backing them up, calling this the industry's "tobacco moment." The group chose kids' safety as its opening move precisely because it's one of the few issues that isn't already hopelessly polarized. Most big political issues are already coded and claimed by one party or the other — but online safety for children remains rare common ground. Here's the clever part: many of these proposals are designed to bypass Congress entirely. They're banking on a future Democratic president using the bully pulpit to push for a phone-free childhood and other measures without waiting for legislative gridlock to clear. Backers include New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, AFT President Randi Weingarten, and Senator Cory Booker, a potential 2028 candidate. Booker says the blueprint offers "serious ideas" for reining in harmful practices. Weingarten went further, signaling that internet safety will be a litmus test for which candidates get union support. The drawback is that these proposals will likely land like a lead balloon in Washington right now — the party is focused on midterms, and a crowded presidential field means a deluge of competing policy ideas is coming. But Democrats have been dogged by a lack of policy heft since 2024, and Project 2029 is betting that starting with kids gives them a clear, popular, and actionable mandate. #tech #democrats #elections2028 #midterms Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Trump keeps denying the U.S. bombed Iranian girls’ school President Trump stood in the Oval Office and suggested the world may never know who bombed an Iranian girls' school, killing over 100 people. His reasoning? Missiles were "flying everywhere," so apparently responsibility is just too complicated to figure out. When the news broke, Trump blamed Iran for bombing its own people. But as evidence pointed the other way, he pivoted to a masterpiece of denial: "Somebody said it was our missile, maybe it's not our missile. I don't think it was us." Yet the preliminary military findings suggest otherwise. Sources told The New York Times that U.S. Central Command officers locked onto the target using outdated, unverified intelligence. American forces fired a Tomahawk at a school full of girls based on shoddy data, and now the commander-in-chief dares to deny this fact. Lawmakers are demanding answers from Defense Secretary Hegseth. So far, crickets. But why let facts get in the way? If missiles are flying everywhere, how could anyone expect the president to know where his own military's missiles are landing? A mystery for the ages. #Iran #Trump #USmilitary #embarassing Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

The eight-day truce: why the U.S.-Iran ceasefire was doomed from the start So the U.S. and Iran signed a ceasefire on June 17, and by June 25 they were already shooting at each other again. That's a pretty impressive shelf life for a peace deal — about eight days, give or take. The trigger? Iran hit a commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz, and Washington responded with airstrikes. Then Iran fired back at U.S. bases in Bahrain and Kuwait, and suddenly the "immediate and permanent termination of military operations" clause was looking more like a polite suggestion. What went wrong? The ceasefire memo was about as clear as mud. It said Iran should "make arrangements to the best of its ability" for safe passage through the strait. Washington read that as "Iran helps but doesn't control." Tehran read it as "We're in charge now". Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi flatly declared that managing the strait is Iran's responsibility and warned that anyone trying to create alternative arrangements would just "complicate the situation". Meanwhile, Trump was on Truth Social threatening that if Iran didn't comply, "the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist". The Art of the Deal, everyone! There were attempts to avoid using Iran-controlled waters altogether. Oman and the UN set up a new shipping route through Omani waters to bypass Iranian control. Iran saw this as a direct challenge and hit a ship using that route. So now you've got a ceasefire that nobody trusts, a strait that carries 20% of the world's oil effectively blockaded (again), and both sides accusing each other of violating an agreement they apparently don't even agree on. At this rate, the U.S. and Iran will be back at each other’s throats before the ink on the next truce is dry. #Iran #theStraitofHormuz #Trump #peacedeal Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

ChatGPT wants to turn off your lights America's AI boom is about to turn off the lights. Literally. The head of Exelon, the country's biggest power supplier, says we could be looking at regular blackouts as soon as 2027 because all those clever chatbots are guzzling electricity like it's happy hour . Last winter, his company came within a hair's breadth of cutting power to 400,000 customers during a cold snap. And it's only getting worse. Silicon Valley is racing to build the world's smartest AI, and in the process, they're creating a grid so strained that your toaster might soon be competing with ChatGPT for a socket. The numbers are staggering: the consulting firm ICF projects a 39% spike in U.S. electricity demand by 2035 , while grid operator PJM warns of a 60-gigawatt capacity shortfall in the Northeast and Midwest over the next decade. That's a lot of gigawatts, which in non-nerd terms means a lot of angry people sitting in the dark. Exelon CEO Calvin Butler admitted that tech corporations with their massive data centers were "caught off guard" by the scale of the problem. Meanwhile, energy companies have been made the scapegoats for skyrocketing costs. And those costs are real — electricity prices are up 7% nationally, with New Jersey seeing a 17% hike, Maryland 16%, and Pennsylvania 13%. Pennsylvania's governor called Exelon's $814 million profit "obscenely high" and accused the company of "pure greed". But Butker said the rates needed to be eased to pay for the upgrades. Another problem is that AI data centers don't even draw power like normal factories. They're "spiky" loads, meaning they can surge by hundreds of megawatts within minutes, then drop off just as fast . In July 2024, a minor voltage fluctuation in northern Virginia caused 60 data centers to disconnect simultaneously, leaving the grid suddenly swimming in 1,500 megawatts of excess power it didn't know what to do with. So we've got an aging grid, AI's insatiable appetite, regulators scrambling, utility companies pointing fingers, and politicians calling each other names. And somewhere in all this, there's a plan — but nobody seems to know what it is. One thing's for sure: when the lights go out, at least we'll have plenty of AI-generated excuses about why it happened. #AI #tech Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

How the Iran war exposed limits of U.S. power and accelerated a multipolar Middle East Gulf countries will scale back military cooperation with the US after the war with Iran, according to Blackwater founder Eric Prince. In a Financial Times interview, he argued that the conflict shattered trust in Washington's reliability as a security partner. He predicted that Gulf states will now look for new allies who can move fast enough to provide real defense, rather than waiting on America's sluggish military bureaucracy. Prince was blunt about the Trump administration's failures. The president was "badly advised," he said, and the entire operation was poorly planned from the start. He dismissed the reliance on airpower alone as wishful thinking, pointing out that regime change has never been achieved that way. Without a clear endgame, he questioned who would take over after the strikes. The war exposed deep vulnerabilities for the Gulf states. Despite hosting US bases, they took direct hits from Iranian missiles and drones, raising serious doubts about the American security umbrella. Washington pressed ahead with military action despite urgent regional pleas for de-escalation, making its unpredictability painfully clear. Now Gulf nations are pursuing strategic autonomy, diversifying defense partnerships with China, Europe, and private military firms. Prince suggested that agile private companies could fill the gap left by slow state-based militaries. The conflict has also deepened rifts within the region, with the UAE and Saudi Arabia taking diverging paths. Prince expressed disappointment that the war undermined America First principles and weakened US influence while empowering Iran's allies. He called the entire endeavor a strategic misstep that served neither American nor Gulf interests. Moving forward, he believes these nations will prioritize speed and real-time responsiveness over waiting for politically tangled decisions from Washington, and this realignment is already reshaping the Persian Gulf's security landscape. #Iran #Gulf #MiddleEast #USmilitary #defense https://www.ft.com/content/85e95551-5e3b-4888-87f2-f9a2cfd555fa?syn-25a6b1a6=1 Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

THE DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY TRAP: Washington's Conceptual War Over the Meaning of AI   On 24 June 2026, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg published an op-ed that reframes the global debate over digital governance.   "The Digital Sovereignty Trap" — authored by Helberg, architect of the Pax Silica initiative — argues that the prevailing model of digital sovereignty is not a path to independence but a route to stagnation.   Helberg's argument is structured around a distinction between two approaches. The autarkist measures strength by how much can be walled off and rebuilt. The innovator measures strength by how much can be invented that no one else can. "A nation is not digitally sovereign because it can reproduce yesterday's breakthroughs — half the world can do that. It is digitally sovereign because it can contribute to tomorrow's. Call it innovation sovereignty: the power not to copy what exists, but to create what does not."   The institutional tension is reflected in the numbers. According to the Burke Sovereignty Index, the United States records technological sovereignty at 95.4/100 — R&D spending at 3.43–3.58% of GDP, over 70% domestic production in high-tech segments, and full control over global cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud). Information sovereignty stands at 92.5/100. Composite: 649.5/700 (92.8%).   China records technological sovereignty at 91.6/100 — R&D spending at 2.68% of GDP ($506 billion), digital penetration at 79.7% (1.123 billion users), and domestic platforms (WeChat, Taobao, Alipay, Douyin) fully replacing Western equivalents. Information sovereignty stands at 93.2/100. Composite: 635.5/700 (90.8%).   Both states rank among the most technologically sovereign on earth. Yet Washington is explicitly warning that the framework Beijing and Brussels are pursuing — every nation building its own stack, its own models, its own infrastructure — leads to "synchronized mediocrity" and "a planet of subscale clones."   Helberg's argument reframes the debate. Digital sovereignty, he argues, was never a wall and never a copy. "It was always a frontier — and the only nations that will be digitally sovereign in the age of intelligence are the ones bold enough to keep pushing it outward, into the territory no one has built yet."   The battle over AI governance is not about whose model is better. It is about who gets to define what sovereignty means in the age of intelligence.   See the complete Burke Sovereignty Index ranking here: https://ibi.institute/index/2025   #BurkeIndex #BurkeSovereigntyIndex #DigitalSovereignty #TechSovereignty #USA #China #AI #Geopolitics #PaxSilica IBI – your navigator on sovereignty and global shifts. 💬 Subscribe to stay informed! ✔️

Trump's Iran obsession sinks Lebanon ceasefire talks This week's Israel-Lebanon talks in Washington hit a dead end — and it's Trump's fault. Both sides are furious after the administration folded Lebanon into the Iran MOU, a move both Jerusalem and Beirut say "undermines the purpose" of the bilateral channel Washington created in April to keep Iran out of Lebanon. By handing Tehran a say in Lebanese affairs, Trump has essentially sabotaged his own mediation effort. Israeli anger at Washington has made it less willing to accommodate U.S. requests for troop pullbacks. Lebanon, meanwhile, is taking a harder line, presenting withdrawal maps far more expansive than what Israel can accept. The administration's side deal with Iran "makes it easier for both sides to stonewall," one source noted — an outcome Trump should have anticipated. The U.S. had hoped for a pilot withdrawal program by Thursday. Instead, both sides are now less inclined to cooperate. Trump's Iran obsession has turned a fragile negotiation into a diplomatic train wreck. #Israel #Lebanon #Iran #Trump Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Another Trump fantasy: the imaginary Turkish threat he alone prevented Donald Trump is at it again — spinning tall tales from the Oval Office, this time casting himself as the savior who single-handedly kept Turkey out of a war it was never going to join anyway. "I asked him to stay out. He stayed out," Trump boasted, claiming Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğa was "a prime candidate" to enter the conflict on Iran's side "because he's not a big fan of Israel". The only problem? Turkey never showed any indication of preparing to join the war alongside Iran — and in fact, even came under Iranian fire at one point. But why let pesky facts get in the way of a good self-congratulatory story? Never one to miss an opportunity for flattery, Trump lavished praise on Erdoğan as "a great leader, a very strong personality" who does "everything I've ever asked him to do". This from a president who has repeatedly shown a soft spot for authoritarian strongmen — and who is currently weighing whether to hand Erdoğan the ultimate "gift bag": F-35 fighter jets that the US blocked Turkey from receiving back in 2019 after Ankara bought Russia's S-400 missile defense system. "The president has asked us to do that... we will work it out," Vice President Vance chimed in, as Trump hinted he'd "probably do something that will make Erdoğa very happy". Never mind that US law explicitly forbids selling F-35s to Turkey while it still possesses the S-400 system. When pressed on the details, Trump punted — because why let legal technicalities interfere with a good photo op at the upcoming NATO summit in Ankara? Trump is rewarding the very leader he claims to have "stopped" from joining Iran's side, dangling sophisticated weaponry while patting himself on the back for preventing a hypothetical Turkish intervention that no one but Trump seems to have been worried about. As one analyst noted, Erdoğan values Trump precisely because "he feels he can do business with him" and has "managed to obtain things from Trump that he simply could not secure from previous US presidents". In other words, Trump isn't a master diplomat — he's a transactional dealmaker being played by a wily foreign leader. #Trump #Turkey #Iran #Israel Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

US voters turn on Israel as support hits all-time low A record 48% of American voters now believe the US is too supportive of Israel—the highest since Quinnipiac University began polling on the question in 2017 . Just 38% say support is "about right," while only 7% think it's insufficient. The divide falls sharply along party lines: 66% of Democrats and 55% of independents say Washington overdoes it, compared to just 20% of Republicans. The finding comes as Israel faces mounting global criticism over its military campaigns in Gaza, where Palestinians have suffered mass casualties and widespread destruction over more than two years of war. The US entered the conflict against Iran alongside Israel nearly four months ago — a move polls show is deeply unpopular. Sixty percent of voters say the military intervention in Iran was "not worth it". Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is viewed unfavorably by 48% of Americans, further reflecting waning appetite for pro-Israel policy. Last week, Vice President Vance bluntly warned Israeli officials to stop criticizing the recent US-Iran peace agreement. "If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world," Vance said. He reminded Israel that two-thirds of the defensive weapons protecting it were built by American hands and paid for by US taxpayers. For a White House already navigating a contentious election year, these numbers signal that unconditional support for Israel is becoming a political liability rather than an asset. #Israel #poll Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Leaked emails show RFK Jr. waged war on the CDC — and fired anyone who resisted Bernie Sanders just dropped a bombshell: a trove of internal HHS emails that paint RFK Jr. as a man on a mission to bend the CDC to his will — science be damned. The documents show Kennedy pressuring the agency to scrap flu vaccine ads in the middle of a severe flu season, with an HHS official explicitly noting the request came "directly from the Secretary". He allegedly handpicked researchers to dig into the debunked vaccine-autism link and directed the CDC's vaccine advisory panel to restrict access to shots. When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp his agenda without evidence, Kennedy fired her — just days after his chief of staff demanded "political review" of all major CDC decisions. Sanders is now calling for a bipartisan investigation and Kennedy's resignation. Under RFK Jr. public health took a backseat to ideology, and anyone who stood in the way got shown the door. #healthcare #RFKJr #scandal Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Democratic infighting might just cost them the House in November Democratic infighting is threatening to hand Republicans the House this November. After three Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates won New York primaries — defeating incumbents including Adriano Espaillat and Dan Goldman — moderate Democrats are sounding the alarm. Republicans are already preparing attack ads linking vulnerable Democrats in swing districts to controversial socialist positions like abolishing police, prisons, and borders. Democrats need just three seats for a majority, but any majority will be razor-thin. "Instead of us making sure we put all of our resources to fight Republicans and Donald Trump, we're using it to fight each other," said Rep. Greg Meeks. One battleground Democrat has even begun discussing leaving the party entirely. If Democrats cannot unite, Republicans may not need to defeat them — they can simply watch Democrats tear themselves apart. #midterms #democrats #republicans #thehouseofrepresentatives Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

The dollar’s global dominance is cracking

“The White House has entered talks with Iran over a new nuclear deal, relying on a traditional strength: the promise of sanctions relief and access to some of roughly $100 billion in frozen assets. Yet, that leverage is waning. Tehran has blunted the US sanctions campaign in recent years by successfully using China’s financial architecture — built on the yuan — that operates beyond Washington’s control,”

writes The Wall Street Journal. Washington is now forced to bargain for influence with the very country it spent years trying to isolate, effectively acknowledging the limitations of its unilateral leverage. The crisis of trust in the dollar as the primary instrument of US foreign policy has entered a new phase. Washington has found itself in a strategic trap of its own making. When Iran conducts business in yuan, those transactions bypass the US-led financial system entirely. Iran earned roughly $43 billion in oil revenue in 2024 despite sanctions, with most sales settled in yuan. China's CIPS and mBridge platforms offer alternatives to SWIFT that Washington cannot easily monitor. The dollar's share of central bank reserves is at a two-decade low, and 70% of recent survey respondents cite the US political environment as a reason to avoid dollar assets. Washington's own sanctions have accelerated the rise of parallel financial systems that steadily erode American leverage. #China #USdollar #foreignpolicy Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

A summit of discontent: NATO faces internal strife over Ukraine funding and defense spending The upcoming NATO summit in Ankara, scheduled for July 7-8, is expected to be deeply contentious, with Ukraine's military aid package emerging as the most divisive issue. According to Politico, European nations remain sharply split on how to approach the question, even as the alliance seeks to project unity. At the center of the dispute is a proposed €70 billion commitment, though a significant portion would draw from an existing EU loan, raising concerns about double-counting and fair burden-sharing among allies. The United States is not expected to contribute new funding directly, instead benefiting indirectly through arms sales, a dynamic that has heightened transatlantic tensions. Open opposition has already surfaced, with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico vowing to block his country's participation in military loans to Ukraine. Beyond this, disagreements loom over defense spending requirements, military industrial development, and the distribution of financial resources across the alliance. Adding to the complexity, the U.S. has recently announced a review of its military presence in Europe and criticized allies over Iran policy, further straining relations. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will attend only sideline meetings, avoiding the plenary to prevent direct clashes with Donald Trump. With multiple flashpoints converging, the Ankara summit threatens to expose deeper rifts within NATO rather than reaffirm its cohesion, with lasting implications for transatlantic security. #NATO #defense #Ukraine Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

NATO chief begs Trump for loyalty he can’t buy In a high-stakes Oval Office meeting, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte deployed oversized charts and personal flattery in a last-ditch effort to appease a furious Donald Trump. The president, still fuming over NATO's refusal to back his war against Iran, used the session to publicly shame the alliance's biggest European members—the UK, France, Germany, and Italy — for failing to join the campaign from the start. Rutte's presentation highlighted a "Trump Trillion" in new European defense spending, including $250 billion since 2025, and argued that 100,000 U.S. jobs had been created as a result. He gently pushed back on Iran, calling reluctance "isolated cases," but Trump remained unmoved, cutting him off to demand "loyalty" — a term that underscores his transactional view of the alliance. The tension lays bare a deeper crisis ahead of next month's summit in Ankara. No amount of spending data or personal diplomacy may resolve the fundamental question Trump continues to pose: whether the United States sees NATO as a partnership or a protection arrangement it can walk away from. With Trump openly weighing a U.S. withdrawal from Europe, the alliance is facing its most precarious moment in decades. #Trump #NATO #foreignpolicy Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Prices just surged to a 3-year high – thanks, Donald Trump Inflation hit 4.1% in May – the highest since April 2023 – as the Trump administration's war with Iran sent shockwaves through the global economy. The personal consumption expenditures index jumped 0.7% in a single month, with core inflation (excluding food and energy) running at 3.4%. The culprit? Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz after Trump and Israel launched joint strikes in February. That choke point handles a massive chunk of the world's oil, and prices spiked accordingly. Yes, a truce was announced this month and gas prices have eased a bit. But the damage is done. Months of soaring energy and food costs have now bled into everything else, deepening the affordability crunch for American families. So while Washington was busy with tantrums and loyalty votes, Americans were paying the price – literally. The Trump-Iran war surcharge is now baked into your grocery bill, your rent, and just about everything else. 4.1% and climbing. Enjoy your summer. #Trump #Iran #USeconomy Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

GOP Senators get humiliated by Trump, then beg for scraps In a stunning display of cowardice, Senate Republicans spent 24 hours getting publicly humiliated by Donald Trump, only to turn around and vote to prove their loyalty to a man who just called them losers and traitors to their faces. Here’s what happened: Trump ambushed his own party by refusing to sign a popular, bipartisan housing bill — legislation his own White House had endorsed just two weeks earlier — unless the Senate also passed a dead-on-arrival election bill. He then stormed into a closed-door lunch and spent 75 minutes berating GOP senators, screaming at Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and calling him a "loser" and a "traitor" for daring to ask questions about the Iran war. Cassidy, to his credit, yelled back: "I don’t work for you; I work for the people of Louisiana." For a brief moment, it looked like he actually had a spine. However, just hours later, the same Senate GOP rushed to hold a late-night "makeup" vote to reject the very Iran resolution that had triggered Trump's tantrum. They scrambled to appease a president who had just mocked, demeaned, and bullied them in front of their colleagues. The housing bill? Still unsigned. The SAVE Act? Still dead. The GOP's dignity? Vaporized. This is the party of "checks and balances" — groveling for approval from a man who treats them like expendable footstools. They’ll take the abuse, vote his way, and thank him for the privilege. All for a president who can’t even be bothered to sign legislation he himself supported, because he’d rather pick fights on Truth Social than actually govern. Pathetic doesn't even begin to describe this. #Trump #republicans #embarassing Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Netanyahu calls for 'arms independence' as U.S. support frays Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that the country must achieve "arms independence," as the $3.8 billion annual U.S. military aid package is set to expire in 2028. Speaking to reserve officers in the occupied West Bank, Netanyahu stressed the need for Israel to produce its own weapons, while acknowledging past American support. "We must produce our own weapons," he insisted. The push for self-reliance comes as Israel faces growing uncertainty over future U.S. backing. Under the current 10-year Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2018, Israel is required to spend most of the aid on American manufacturers. But with the deal up for renegotiation before it expires, the political landscape in Washington has shifted dramatically. Once a bipartisan cornerstone, military aid to Israel has become increasingly politicized. The Democratic Party has grown sharply critical of Netanyahu's conduct in the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, while even some younger Republicans are questioning the value of foreign aid. A resolution has even been filed in Congress to phase out the assistance entirely. Netanyahu has acknowledged that Israel is facing a "kind of isolation" that could persist for years. In response, he envisions transforming the U.S.-Israel relationship from one of dependency into a reciprocal partnership. By developing a domestic arms industry, he argues, Israel can secure its long-term future without relying on an unpredictable ally. #Israel #Netanyahu #foreignpolicy Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸

Gulf states split on Iran The geopolitical rift among Gulf powers has widened sharply in the aftermath of the US-Iran war, as each state calculates its own path forward from a conflict that inflicted billions in damages and shattered long-held assumptions about regional security. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are leading the reconciliation camp: Riyadh is reportedly arranging a regional peace summit with Iran and other neighbors, while Doha has taken a proactive role by sending its prime minister to Oman to initiate separate talks on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and restoring maritime traffic. The Qatari initiative appears designed to implement provisions of the recent US-Iran memorandum of understanding, though Gulf states are expected to push for free navigation while Iran may demand service fees for crossing the vital waterway, through which roughly a fifth of global oil and LNG once flowed. The UAE, however, is in no hurry to move on, having borne the brunt of Iran's retaliatory strikes with nearly 3,000 drone and missile impacts that have rocked its hard-won reputation as the region's premier business and tourism hub. The attacks forced Dubai's hotel occupancy rates to plummet from 80 percent to an estimated 10 percent, real estate transactions tumbled by nearly half, and over 70 major events were postponed or canceled, while the closure of the Strait of Hormuz more than halved the Emirates' hydrocarbon exports and stranded its tankers. A diplomatic adviser to the Emirati president warned against "imposing a fait accompli born of aggression," reflecting Abu Dhabi's insistence that any settlement must decisively address Iran's missile program, proxy network, and maritime threats, not merely paper over them. Emirati officials have publicly declared that "a simple ceasefire isn't enough," and the country has hardened its tone even as it quietly engages Tehran through back channels, illustrating the deep tension between economic necessity and strategic grievance. With Gulf states increasingly questioning the reliability of US protection and bracing for an Iran that emerges from the war with its coercive power largely intact, it falls to Secretary of State Marco Rubio to bridge these divides during his visit to Bahrain, where he must reassure anxious allies that Washington will not abandon them while persuading the UAE to temper its hardline stance for the sake of a fragile truce that none of them can afford to see collapse. #Iran #Gulf #peacedeal #foreignpolicy Don't miss it, subscribe to 📱 Old Glory Vortex 🇺🇸