Will Republicans Learn Their Lesson from the ‘Disastrous’ Midterms?
By Ron Paul | November 9, 2026
Politicians break campaign promises with hardly any hesitation and usually they get away with it. Americans have come to put up with broken promises for so long, they hardly even seem to notice. Last week, however, voters noticed. They showed the Republican party just how angry they were over President Trump’s decision to attack Iran and how angry they were with Congress for abandoning its Constitutional authority over matters of war and peace.
The results were dramatic. Voters even turned Texas blue, as Democrats took firm control of both the House and Senate.
As President Trump’s promise of a quick war and a quick victory rapidly faded, the costs of the unnecessary and illegal attack thousands of miles away soon began to hit Americans hard. The predictable closure of the Hormuz Strait sent fuel costs through the roof, fanning the fires of inflation which hit everything transported by road, rail, or air.
For months the polls were clear: Americans’ top three concerns were high fuel prices, inflation, and the Iran war. All were related yet Republicans ignored voter concerns. Last Tuesday, voters had the final say.
The peace candidate usually wins, and President Trump promised repeatedly on the campaign trail that not only would he not start wars, but he would end existing conflicts. But we’ve heard it all before. George W. Bush was elected promising a “more humble” foreign policy. After eight years of Bush’s Middle East wars, Obama was elected as the “new” peace candidate. However soon the “Saddam must go” of the Bush era became “Assad must go” and “Gaddafi must go” in the Obama era. Trump was elected after Biden took us to the brink of war with Russia over Ukraine. He promised that this time he would be the real peace candidate. We got war on Iran instead – a war that we did not win and cannot win.
Has the Republican party gotten the message? Have they learned the lesson voters can deliver when they finally have had enough of being lied to?
Neocons are seeing the voter rebuke of Trump as an opportunity to return the Republican party to the Bush era. Yes, prices and inflation are a problem, they argue, but that has nothing to do with the Iran war.
Nobody is buying that.
Vice President Vance laid out clearly why Republicans lost in the midterms: the war, inflation, rejection of America first, and our unhealthy relationship with Israel. Bush-era neocons like Marc Thiessen were furious, accusing Vance of being “disloyal” to the President.
Does Vance really mean what he said, or is it just another example of politicians promising what they think voters want to hear?
It seems a Republican Party that drummed out Thomas Massie over his opposition to the “Big Beautiful Bill,” who warned about the dangers of putting foreign countries before our own, and who demanded an end to all foreign aid is not a Republican Party that Americans are interested in.
The pain will continue until the Party finally rids itself of the neocons and warmongers and returns to its roots as exemplified in the past by the late Sen. Robert Taft and in the present by Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Kent, Tucker Carlson, and many others who genuinely care about peace and liberty.
Wrong, Newswise, Irresponsible Climate Messaging, Not Climate Change Itself, Is Fueling Student Anxiety
By Anthony Watts | ClimateRealism | November 6, 2026
Newswise, cites a University of Utah article “How Anxiety Over Climate Change Affects Students,” to claim that that hundreds of undergraduates feel powerless, frustrated, and anxious about climate change, arguing that universities need more resources to help them cope. The anxiety may be real, but the implication that physical climate change is causing it is false, and unsupported by the study. The study itself points toward a different explanation: generalized anxiety, political ideology, and repeated exposure to alarming climate information in classrooms and online.
University of Utah researchers surveyed 547 students and found that 54 percent frequently or strongly felt powerless about climate change and 55 percent felt frustrated. Yet the researchers explicitly caution that their findings do not establish a causal connection between climate change and anxiety. One author acknowledges the relationship could run in either direction, with people already prone to generalized anxiety potentially being more susceptible to climate anxiety.
That distinction is crucial. A student saying, “I’m terrified of climate change” demonstrates that the student is frightened. It does not demonstrate that the physical climate caused the fear.
In fact, the study itself provides evidence that climate messaging may be the biggest part of the problem. Students with greater exposure to stories about climate change in classrooms and online reported greater climate anxiety. Students holding more liberal political views also tended to report greater anxiety. The researchers found a “strong positive correlation” between exposure to online climate information and climate anxiety.
That should have been the headline.
The survey didn’t examine temperature, sea level, hurricane, flood, drought, or wildfire incidences or trends. It measured what students believe about climate change. Its Climate Anxiety Index asked students about propositions such as “The things I most value will be destroyed,” “The future is frightening,” and “Humanity is doomed.” Those are measurements of beliefs about catastrophe, not measurements of knowledge of real climate information.
There is another revealing number. Only 14.8 percent of respondents listed climate change among their three greatest concerns. The sample was also drawn from three Environmental and Sustainability Studies courses and one communications course, and 63 percent of respondents leaned politically left. The researchers themselves caution against broadly generalizing the results.
Other research points directly toward the media’s role. A 2024 study in the Journal of Health Communication examined climate anxiety and media exposure among college students. Media-exposure variables explained about 33 percent of the variance in climate anxiety, with frequency of media use and attention to climate news significantly predicting greater anxiety.
Students aren’t simply looking out the dormitory window, observing modest long-term warming, and spontaneously descending into despair. What they are being told is what makes them anxious.
After years of headlines warning about a “climate emergency,” an “existential threat,” tipping points, disappearing coastlines, civilization-threatening weather, and only a few years left to “save the planet,” why would anyone be surprised that many young people are frightened?
Climate Realism has documented this problem before, noting that climate anxiety is routinely presented as evidence of how dangerous climate change is without asking whether relentless catastrophic messaging helped create the anxiety. Another Climate Realism analysis discussed the widely cited survey in which 56 percent of young respondents said they believed humanity was doomed.
Humanity is not doomed. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report doesn’t say that. It identifies risks, largely manageable risks, from additional warming, but that is worlds apart from telling students civilization has no future or that having children may be irresponsible.
Another peer-reviewed study makes the point even more sharply. Hannes Zacher and Cort Rudolph examined 2,066 people in a 2023 Climatic Change paper, “Environmental knowledge is inversely associated with climate change anxiety.” They found that greater general environmental knowledge and greater climate-specific knowledge were both associated with less climate anxiety, even after controlling for demographics, personality, and environmental attitudes.
In plain English, the people who knew more of the facts and had a better understanding of science were less anxious about climate change.
That matters because much of the popular conception of the world’s climate future comes from computer projections, including extreme emissions scenarios presented as likely futures. RCP8.5 is the classic example. Climate researchers warned in Nature against treating that very high-emissions pathway as the most likely future. Roger Pielke Jr. and Justin Ritchie likewise documented the misuse of extreme climate scenarios as “business as usual.”
A hypothetical worst case escaped the scientific literature and became, in popular culture, a forecast. Then adults seem surprised when young people believe it.
Watts Up With That has addressed the same issue in; “A Generation of Kids Thinks They Have No Future. Science Just Admitted Why” asked whether adults had frightened young people by presenting extreme projections as their expected future. “Worry About Climate Fearmongering, Not Climate Change” noted that young people already face academic pressure, social media, finances, relationships, and uncertainty about their futures. Adding repeated warnings that Earth itself is becoming uninhabitable hardly improves their mental health.
Meanwhile, real-world indicators don’t suggest a planetary apocalypse. Our World in Data shows that death rates from natural disasters have fallen dramatically during the past century. Better forecasting, infrastructure, communications, agriculture, emergency response, and rising wealth have made humanity far more resilient to environmental hazards.
Students should be taught the difference between observations and projections, plausible scenarios and extreme scenarios, manageable risks and planetary doom. They should also learn about adaptation, technological progress, uncertainty, and human resilience.
Instead of merely creating climate-anxiety support groups and steering frightened students toward climate advocacy or psychiatric care, universities might try something more fundamental: report the state of the climate accurately. Tell them humanity isn’t doomed. Tell them computer models are not observations. Tell them the worst emissions scenario are in fact impossible. Tell them humans are remarkably adaptable. Better yet, buy them a copy of Climate at a Glance and assign it as required reading.
The University of Utah study has identified a real problem, but Newswise has the diagnosis backwards. It does not demonstrate that climate change is psychologically harming students. It shows that students who are generally more anxious, politically predisposed to climate concern, and more frequently exposed to climate information in classrooms and online report greater climate anxiety.
If young people are repeatedly told that their planet is dying, their future is frightening, humanity may be doomed, and having children might be irresponsible, we shouldn’t be astonished when surveys discover that they’re anxious.
Perhaps before universities create another climate-anxiety support group, educators and journalists should consider whether the first treatment for climate anxiety ought to be less alarmism, more context, and a much larger dose of reality grounded in real world data, which with regard to extreme weather and human health, is generally positive.
Nima R. Alkhorshid: U.S. Military Bombs Multiple Targets on Iran’s Qeshm Island
Dialogue Works | November 8, 2026
New attack on Iran could devastate ‘Israel’, IOF general warns
Al Mayadeen | November 8, 2026
US President Donald Trump’s second term has exposed a reality starkly at odds with his promises to end crises and “achieve world peace,” as wars continue and economic difficulties deepen, Israeli reserve Major General Yitzhak Brik said.
In an article published by the Israeli newspaper Maariv, Brik noted that the West Asia region remains engulfed in an ongoing war, amid fears that the confrontation could spread to other parts of the world. Meanwhile, the global economy is deteriorating rather than experiencing the prosperity Trump had promised.
Brik argued that the outcome of the US midterm elections, in which Republicans lost control of Congress, reflected the extent of public dissatisfaction with Trump’s policies and declining confidence in his ability to resolve the crises he had pledged to address.
According to Brik, the US president is now facing consequential decisions over the war on Iran, amid sharp divisions within his administration and the absence of a unified strategy for dealing with the evolving confrontation.
US divided over war
Brik further stated that disagreements within the White House revolve around two principal options: escalating military attacks on Iran in an attempt to achieve a decisive outcome through force, or maintaining economic pressure while pursuing an agreement that could bring the war to an end and prevent further escalation.
However, military and political calculations are not the only factors shaping Trump’s decisions, the Israeli general said. He suggested that the US president’s sense of “humiliation” over Iran’s treatment of him could drive him to launch an attack out of a desire for revenge rather than on the basis of strategic assessments.
He warned that a military decision motivated by such considerations could have grave consequences for the entire region, particularly if “Israel” joined any new offensive.
A catastrophe for ‘Israel’
Brik stressed that another aerial assault on Iran, potentially involving “Israel”, could rapidly trigger a full-scale regional war in which “Israel” would find itself at the center.
He acknowledged that the damage “Israel” could sustain in such a confrontation would be “enormous and unbearable,” noting that some of the damage it suffered during previous rounds of fighting had already become irreparable.
Brik called on the “sensible and responsible” figures within the US administration to dissuade Trump from ordering another attack, warning that further escalation could open the door to a confrontation extending far beyond the current war.
He argued that the expectation that airstrikes alone could secure a decisive military victory over Iran rests on unrealistic assumptions. Without a ground intervention, he said, aerial operations cannot topple the Iranian government or prevent Iran from becoming a “nuclear state”.
Citing the outcome of previous attacks, Brik maintained that they had failed to achieve their strategic objectives, producing little more than temporary destruction while strengthening Tehran’s determination to continue developing its capabilities.
What are the costs of war?
In outlining the options available to Washington, Brik argued that addressing Iran’s nuclear program would require one of two principal courses of action, neither of which could produce results without imposing a substantial cost.
The first option would involve a large-scale ground operation inside Iranian territory, directly targeting nuclear facilities with substantial troop deployments, extensive air support, and the use of technological and intelligence capabilities.
Brik believed this option could potentially deliver a decisive military defeat to the Iranian government and neutralize its nuclear facilities. He acknowledged, however, that it would require a massive operation resulting in heavy casualties among US forces.
The second option would involve economically exhausting Iran through stringent sanctions and a prolonged blockade, backed by the full participation of Western countries, with the aim of isolating the Iranian economy from global markets.
He specified that this approach would require preventing Iran from exporting oil, gas, and other products, while restricting the entry of raw materials and weapons through land crossings, thereby subjecting Tehran to sustained economic pressure.
Brik acknowledged that this option had a lower likelihood of success than a ground military campaign and would require prolonged patience, international discipline, and broad Western commitment.
At the same time, Brik rejected reliance on a “middle-ground solution” based on repeating aerial attacks, arguing that such an approach would neither halt Iran’s nuclear program nor achieve a decisive military outcome. Instead, it could drag “Israel” into a regional war in which it would pay a heavy price.
Brik concluded his article by urging decision-makers to abandon their reliance on political promises and displays of air power, warning that military decisions driven by revenge, without adequately assessing their consequences, could aggravate the crisis rather than resolve it.
Nuclear deterrence: The US-Israeli military aggression against Iran made the unthinkable legitimate
By Nahid Poureisa · Press TV · November 8, 2026
From Student Day on 13 Aban in Iran, where crowds chanted calls for Donald Trump’s killing and revenge and carried slogans declaring that “nuclear deterrence is our inalienable right,” to Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin meeting with Mohsen Rezaei and the Republican Party’s historic defeat in the US midterm elections, the war’s spillover effects are reshaping three trajectories simultaneously.
These trajectories include the boundaries of Iran’s nuclear policy, the depth of the Russian-Iranian strategic partnership, and the economic calculus of American domestic politics.
Underlying all three is a dynamic that has been repeatedly reinforced, which is the US-Israeli military aggression lending legitimacy to precisely the outcomes it seeks to prevent.
Erosion of the nuclear taboo: From marginal demand to establishment debate
For decades, Iran’s nuclear policy was constrained by a religious edict issued by the martyred Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, prohibiting the development and use of nuclear weapons.
Today, however, voices from Friday prayer pulpits to street demonstrations are calling on the leadership to abandon its longstanding commitment not to develop nuclear weapons. Millions of Iranians, alongside lawmakers and political figures, are increasingly demanding a decisive and timely shift in the country’s defense and nuclear doctrine.
At the highest political level, the shift is becoming explicit. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary, Major General Mohsen Rezaei, said in a state television interview that the leadership was debating whether to maintain its pre-war nuclear doctrine.
“No new decision has been made yet,” he said. “But, of course, the debate now is whether we want to keep the same doctrine we had before the war.”
Calls for Iran to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), once confined to the political margins, are also becoming increasingly prominent in national media.
In parliament, prominent figures have joined the debate, arguing that if Iran possessed nuclear weapons, its adversaries would not dare attack the country or target its leaders and ordinary citizens, including schoolchildren.
Ebrahim Rezaei, a member of the parliament’s national security and foreign policy commission, in his recent remarks said that even before the war was imposed on Iran, 70 percent of Iranians supported acquiring nuclear weapons as a means of securing deterrence.
The underlying perception is increasingly clear: without the ultimate deterrent, Iran could remain vulnerable to attacks by the United States and Israel at any moment. Trump himself reinforced this perception when he said at a Republican convention in September that if Iran possessed a nuclear weapon, he would be “calling the leader politely.”
The structural consequence is stark. Before the June 2025 strikes, the IAEA estimated Iran possessed 440 kg of uranium enriched to 60% purity, a short step from the 90% needed for weapons-grade, and no other country has enriched to such a level without producing a weapon.
About 42 kg is enough for one weapon if further enriched; Iran’s stockpile is roughly ten times that. Inspectors were withdrawn after the US-Israeli aggression and have had no access to Iran’s four declared enrichment sites since. The IAEA’s September 2026 report says it cannot establish the stockpile’s size or location. Iran stayed short of a bomb and was attacked anyway.
For anti-imperialist constituencies globally, the unprovoked and illegal US-Israeli strikes, particularly those occurring during active nuclear negotiations, constitute a crude negation of the principle that sovereign states have the right to self-defense.
When diplomacy is proven ineffective as bombs fall, nuclear weapons as the “ultimate insurance” acquire renewed legitimacy within anti-imperialist discourse. This is not a simple endorsement of proliferation; it is an acknowledgment of a structural predicament.
In an order where a nuclear power can launch preemptive strikes against a state in the middle of nuclear negotiations, nuclear armament is viewed as a rational survival choice.
Russian-Iranian binding: From strategic partnership to substantive interdependence
The war on Iran has accelerated its eastward shift, with all-weather ally Russia emerging as its primary beneficiary. On November 5, 2026, Rezaei met with Putin at the Kremlin, delivering a message from the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei.
Their discussions focused on the ongoing war, Iran’s seven conditions for beginning negotiations with the United States, a natural gas pipeline from Russia to Iran, and the implementation contract for the Rasht-Astara railway line.
The significance of this agenda goes far beyond the symbolic language of a “strategic partnership.” The gas pipeline would not only help alleviate Iran’s energy shortages but also position the country as a transit corridor for Russian gas to neighboring states, further intertwining the two countries’ energy interests.
The transport corridor, meanwhile, would integrate Iran into a regional logistics network less exposed to Western sanctions. At a time when the war is further isolating Iran from the international system, these increasingly binding economic ties carry existential urgency.
Economic blowback and electoral reckoning: Vance’s “cutting losses”
The war’s most direct economic transmission mechanism has been oil prices, which were approaching $120 per barrel on the eve of the midterm elections.
Brent crude had reached a late-October high of nearly $118, while futures jumped to $106.61 on November 3, the day before Americans went to the polls, following fresh US strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island. The OPEC basket price had stood at $115.86 at the end of October.
For American households, fuel costs at these levels kept inflation elevated, squeezed real incomes, and left the Federal Reserve with little room to cut interest rates.
The political consequences of this economic chain became apparent on November 3, 2026. Democrats retook control of both the Senate and the House, securing at least 54 Senate seats and 248 House seats, according to projections.
The result exceeded expectations of a “blue wave,” with some describing it as a “blue tsunami.” Trump himself – as well as his close aides and children – acknowledged that the war against Iran and the resulting rise in gasoline prices had contributed to the defeat.
JD Vance’s response was particularly direct. In a lengthy post on X the morning after the election, he wrote: “The real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone. The reason we lost is the war.” He added: “If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so.”
Drawing on focus-group research, Vance outlined four priorities for Republicans seeking to win back disaffected voters: ending the war, addressing the cost of living and inflation, putting America first, and changing the country’s relationship with the Israeli regime.
Vance’s call to “cut losses” has been widely interpreted as an effort to position himself for a 2028 presidential run. But the broader significance lies elsewhere: a war in West Asia, transmitted through the everyday economic pressure of higher oil prices, became a factor in reshaping the balance of power in the US Congress.
Republican lawmakers are now looking for scapegoats, with War Secretary Pete Hegseth emerging as a target and Marco Rubio reportedly facing pressure to resign.
Trump, for his part, attributed the defeat to the fact that he “wasn’t on the ballot.” Whatever the competing explanations for the result, the election has exposed the domestic political costs of an overseas military campaign that contributed to rising fuel prices and the cost of living.
Trajectories and the unified logic at work
Taken together, these three trajectories reveal a common underlying logic. US-Israeli military aggression undermined the strategic rationale for Iran’s nuclear restraint, turning a weapons program once treated as taboo into an increasingly discussable policy option.
In global anti-imperialist discourse, the strikes also weakened the moral force of non-proliferation norms, lending new weight to the argument that “sovereign states need nuclear weapons to survive.”
Economically, the war’s costs were transmitted through energy prices to populations around the world, including American voters, contributing to an electoral backlash.
Iran deliberately sought to push the costs of aggression back into the domestic politics of American imperialism. The Republican defeat is not the endpoint of this dynamic, but its clearest demonstration that in a deeply interconnected world, the costs of military aggression can eventually reach the aggressor’s own doorstep, often in unexpected ways.
This is the emerging narrative of Iran’s rise as a power shaped by the ashes and blood of war.
U.S. Midterms – a Referendum on Israel and Zionist Power
By Mark Collett | Occidental Observer | November 7, 2026
Trump’s naked pro-Zionist agenda triggered an unprecedented ‘blue wave’ that was characterised by a complete rejection of Israel first neo-conservative foreign policy, changing U.S. politics forever.
In 2024, Donald Trump achieved an electoral miracle. Coming back from an embarrassing defeat in 2020, he won a sweeping victory – winning the presidency in terms of both the electoral college and the popular vote, but also securing Republican majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Effectively, this comprehensive win granted Trump and the Republican Party complete control over the U.S. federal legislative machinery. Holding power over this political trifecta granted Trump a golden opportunity to enact his agenda, something he struggled with during his first term. This incredible victory and the resulting political mandate was largely built around two policies: controlling immigration and ensuring America withdrew its support for the war in Ukraine and did not embroil itself in any other costly foreign conflicts. This policy platform was dubbed ‘America First’, with the overarching narrative being that American politicians needed to focus on domestic issues and the wellbeing of Americans, rather than embroiling the country in foreign entanglements or prioritising the needs of migrants.
The success of Trump’s third campaign for the White House makes the Republican defeat at the 2026 U.S. midterms even more catastrophic, presenting a sweeping structural collapse of the party’s elected power base. The Republicans not only lost their majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but they did so comprehensively, losing a number of historically safe seats along the way. The Democrats did not just win, but to quote President Trump, they won ‘bigly’, striding confidently into Republican heartlands and scoring victories in red states where the idea of a Democrat win was previously unthinkable. While it is true that midterms often see an electoral swing away from the party that is currently in charge of the White House administration, that swing is usually driven by a very specific voting pattern. Usually in a midterm election with a Republican incumbent in the White House, pollsters would expect to see two distinct patterns of voting: Republicans who wished to punish the establishment would stay at home and Democrats wishing to punish the establishment would turn out in greater numbers.
This election however, was different. Democrats who wished to punish Trump did indeed turn out in greater numbers, but interestingly, Republican voters did not stay at home – they went out and voted, but for the Democrats. Usually, Republican voters wishing to punish their own party will simply opt not to vote, thus reducing their party’s tally. However, most of those Republicans won’t actually vote Democrat, because that is a mental step too far, and those voters view that as an endorsement of the ‘other side’ and of policies they fundamentally disagree with. Trump however managed to alter this established pattern; he motivated vast numbers of Republicans to vote Democrat and this is what led to such a monumental swing that altered the balance of power in Congress. What’s more, this is why as the votes were counted Trump watched in horror as the Republicans not only lost swing seats, but also took losses in areas that were viewed as Republican fortresses: Kansas elected a Democrat to the Senate for the first time since 1932, Texas elected a Democrat to the Senate for the first time in nearly four decades and South Carolina flipped to the Democrats for the first time since 1998.
But what fuelled this massive electoral swing is arguably far more interesting than the results themselves. The massive swing that saw millions of Republicans voting Democrat for the first time was primarily fuelled by one issue: Trump’s betrayal of his core anti-war promises and his abandonment of the ideal of America First and the consequent inflation. Trump had embarked on a wholly unnecessary war with Iran at the behest of the state of Israel, and the consequences of that conflict had harmed middle class families all over America. This was not just another unnecessary war, but it was a war that was affecting Americans at home and hitting families where it hurt the most: normal people could no longer afford to fill up their cars with fuel or fill up their shopping cart with groceries. And Trump was not only committed to the war with Iran, but went as far as to make it very clear that he believed the cost to the average American family was not only acceptable, but something that those families should bear for the good of Israel’s wider goals in the Middle East. This was no longer America First, it was Israel First.
Trump was extremely bullish about his commitment to the war, and when asked by reporters whether his slavish support for the Zionist cause was worth the economic hardship that was being experienced by American families as a result of the war, he responded: ‘I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.’ For the man who once championed the phrase “Make America Great Again”, this comment hit Republicans hard. Voters who had rallied around Trump and turned out in record numbers for him in 2024 could now see the truth: Trump was happy to let Americans suffer. And American families were suffering because Trump was ready to further prioritise the needs of a Middle Eastern nation that was already sucking billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers that could have been better spent on services at home. Further to this, Trump brazenly stated that the federal government could no longer afford to pay for programs like Medicare and Medicaid due to military spending on the war with Iran.
But Trump’s slavish support for Israel and his willingness to destroy the living standards of his voter base to send U.S. troops to war with a country that most Americans couldn’t point to on a map did not occur in a vacuum. This rerouting of American tax dollars away from domestic priorities and towards a wholly unpopular war was egged on by Trump’s rapidly changing inner circle. What’s more, those who had been the most enthusiastic supporters of Trump’s America First platform, like Tucker Carlson, were now moving away from him and turning into his greatest critics. At the same time, new faces began appearing around the president and these new cheerleaders were shouting a very different message altogether. Trump found himself surrounded by a cabal of hawkish Zionist Jews including Mark Levin, Laura Loomer and former Trump critic Ben Shapiro. These individuals all egged Trump on, attempting to convince him that his new direction was the correct path and that voters weren’t bothered by the war and that they would support him and his agenda no matter what. These people were exactly the sort of ‘friends’ that any politician could do without, but all of them managed to gain the ear of Trump by playing on his greatest weakness – his ego.
But Trump hadn’t exactly been shy about his subservience to Israel and had been openly vocal about his ties to leading Zionist megadonors. In a 2025 Hanukkah reception at the White House, Trump famously brought Jewish megadonor Miriam Adelson on stage. While introducing her, Trump brazenly stated, ‘Miriam gave my campaign indirectly and directly 250 million. She was number one. When somebody can give you 250 million, I think that we should give her the opportunity to say hello.’ This is the kind of comment that a president would wisely only make in a very private circle of trusted friends; instead, Trump blurted it out on stage in front of a crowd of dignitaries, the press and the media. This statement of course raised a number of eyebrows and led to accusations about the transactional nature of Trump’s relationship with his pro-Israeli donors. During her time on the microphone, Miriam Adelson revealed she had been discussing the legality of a third presidential term with Jewish attorney Alan Dershowitz – this added further weight to the accusations that Trump was merely a tool of a group of very powerful and wealthy Zionist donors.
But while Trump had clearly abandoned domestic concerns over inflation in the costs of living, he had notably focused his time and energy on several domestic electoral races which added fuel to the fire regarding where his loyalties really lay. Earlier in the year, Trump came together with Miriam Adelson and several other Zionist megadonors to ensure that previous spending records were smashed in relation to a Republican primary election. This was of course the fierce battle that ensued over the re-election of Thomas Massie, a prominent anti-Zionist Republican who consistently opposed U.S. military aid to Israel, opposed the war in Iran and had worked tirelessly to ensure the full disclosure of the Epstein files, an issue that had made Trump uncomfortable, leading to him branding Massie as a ‘traitor’. Similarly, Trump also labelled Marjorie Taylor Greene as a ‘traitor’ and a ‘ranting lunatic’ after she condemned the administration’s alignment with pro-Israel lobbying groups and accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of dragging the US into a broader conflict with Iran.
This all painted a very clear picture. Trump was clearly accepting phenomenal sums of money from Jewish Zionists and openly bragging about the size of the donations, even going as far as admitting this money had granted those donors unprecedented access to the White House. These donations clearly looked transactional, and appeared even more so when Trump pivoted away from his anti-war America First pledges in order to take the U.S. into another deeply unpopular and damaging war in the Middle East, which directly affected the living standards of the average American family. But while doing all of this, Trump was focusing domestically not on attacking or unseating ‘woke’ Democrats in order to please his core voter base, but instead was engaged in a ‘night of the long knives’ where he viciously purged anti-Zionist America First Republicans. U.S. presidents have been accused in the past of being pro-Israel, but never before have such accusations been given so much weight by such obvious and shameless words and actions.
This placed Trump in an interesting position heading into the 2026 midterms. Despite the fact he had made good on a number of his domestic pledges regarding border control, travel bans and the U.S. system of processing asylum claims, he had completely pivoted on his anti-war pledges. Not only had Trump failed to bring the war in Ukraine to an end, but he had opened up a new front in Iran, and the Iranian response of asymmetric warfare targeting the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz was causing domestic havoc by means of creating a cost-of-living crisis in America. This all ensured that the stage was set for a perfect storm – midterm elections that would result in one of the greatest examples of a political collapse in post-war history. But while Trump had appeared on the surface to be blissfully ignorant of the coming storm, his surprise announcement on election day would suggest that even he knew what was coming, but more importantly, he knew that his pro-Israeli policies were the root of the problem. At the 11th hour, Trump issued a desperate proclamation as polls opened that he was about to end the annual $3.8 billion military aid package to Israel.
This was clearly not a principled policy change brought about due to a genuine concern for the American electorate and the America First policies that voters had elected Trump to enact; instead, it was a last-minute desperate capitulation aimed at stemming the electoral bloodshed. Trump clearly realised that the Republicans were headed for a humiliating midterm defeat, a fact that would undoubtedly hurt his fragile ego and mar his legacy. However, this election morning announcement most likely worked against him, as it simply served to remind the average voter exactly how much U.S. taxpayers were gifting to Israel as American families struggled to cover the cost of basic groceries. Rather than granting a last-minute reprieve, this policy announcement was likely the final nail in Trump’s coffin. Whereas midterms are often characterised as the electorates’ chance to place a check on executive power, this election would be different – being fought largely over the issue of Zionist power and U.S. subservience to Israel, with even the President himself playing into the narrative. What’s more, post-election, this was publicly acknowledged by Vice President JD Vance.
On November 4th 2026, JD Vance took to X and posted the following:
‘One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was “composition”—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.
So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we’re going to shock the world? “No,” he told me. “We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us.”
Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.
There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.
But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.
Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:
1. End the war
2. Focus on cost of living/inflation
3. Put America First
4. Change our relationship to Israel
Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
In the next few months, there’s going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I’m open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.’
This lengthy admission as to what was at fault was unique. Not only is Vance the Vice President, but his lengthy post goes against what has been the central pillar of Republican foreign policy for more than half a century – the unconditional support of Israel. This was an example of someone at the highest level of political office admitting to the new political reality: there is a massive gulf between the voters who turned out in record numbers in 2024 and voted for America First, and the cabal of Republican Zionists who support the now deeply unpopular neo-conservative policy that has dominated U.S. decision making for decades. Vance’s admission was also unique because he went further and actually dared to blame Trump’s relationship with Israel for the Republicans’ recent electoral failures, going as far as to admit that the ‘blue wave’ was driven by slavish support for a war that is not in the interests of American families, but instead, wholly for the benefit of Zionist power in the Middle East. Had this statement been made by the likes of David Duke, it would have been scoffed at or dismissed, but these were the words of JD Vance.
But Vance was not issuing this statement blindly, swinging wildly and waiting to see what would come back; instead, he was playing to an increasingly large gallery – one which was stacked with powerful and influential pundits and politicians. This was Vance speaking an almost forbidden truth and opening the door to a larger and now-legitimised discussion over Israeli power and Zionist lobbying in America, a discussion which was already entering the mainstream thanks to Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie. But in another blow to Trump, this very discussion is one that he had tried to stifle and silence. This sets up a critical fight for the heart and soul of the Republican Party that will rage between now and the next presidential election. The battle lines are drawn: on one side stands the neo-conservatives and Israel first cheerleaders, on the other stands the America First movement and traditional, isolationist conservatives – with the prize being the reins of America’s oldest political party and control of its future direction.
Interestingly though, the American electorate – while at war over issues such as immigration, DEI and abortion – is increasingly united over the issue of foreign wars, Israeli power and Zionist lobbying. Which raises another issue that cannot be ignored: the role of the Democrat voter in creating the ‘blue wave’. While most of the post-election discussion has focused on the Republicans who ‘switched sides’, it is important to note that the ‘blue wave’ was not simply made up of passive Democrats benefiting from angry Republican votes. The Democrats won because their more radical, anti-war flank completely energised their base. Traditionally, the Republican base would slavishly support Israel, while the Democratic base would be far more likely to oppose interventions in the Middle East and scorn unconditional support for the Zionist state. But the combination of angry Republicans who felt betrayed and highly motivated anti-war Democrats created the perfect storm that powered the ‘blue wave’ and helped to achieve a clean sweep of both the House and the Senate. This was a bi-partisan vote, that achieved huge change, powered by a shared and unifying dislike of neo-conservative foreign policy.
Historically, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other Zionist lobbying groups have played a decisive role in U.S. elections, often deciding the outcome in key battlegrounds and helping to unseat anti-Israel candidates, as was seen when Thomas Massie lost his place on the ballot in Kentucky. However, the blue wave witnessed at the recent midterms was so great, it completely broke AIPAC’s power, rendering them impotent or at least forcing their donors to make donations without any reference to Israel or AIPAC, despite their immense spending power. The primary example of this was seen in the Senate race in Michigan. Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed campaigned transparently against Washington’s subservience to Israel, centring his platform on an anti-war message and a demand that American tax dollars be spent on healthcare and infrastructure at home rather than being used to fund foreign conflicts. Sensing an existential threat, AIPAC and its super PAC, the United Democracy Project (UDP), went entirely on the offensive. They pumped a record-breaking $42 million into the electoral race in order to stop El-Sayed.
But the pro-Israel lobbyists went far further than just providing huge sums of money. In a stunning escalation of the establishment’s panic, El-Sayed’s pro-Israel primary opponent, Haley Stevens, crossed party lines just days before the election to endorse the Republican candidate, Mike Rogers. Yet AIPAC’s record spending and the other dirty tricks they employed all failed to influence the outcome and El-Sayed easily overcame the pro-Israeli opposition. El-Sayed went on to mock AIPAC during his victory speech, stating: ‘To AIPAC, who spent $42 million against us: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to beat you twice.’ The midterms were not just a referendum on Zionist power and Israeli control of America; they were not simply a ‘blue wave’, but they were an indicator that pro-Israel super PACs are starting to lose their formerly vice-like grip over U.S. elections. This provides proof that when angry Republicans and energised Democrats vote together over a shared issue of concern relating to Israeli influence, AIPAC loses its position as kingmaker. But the breaking of the Israel lobby’s power in Michigan was not an isolated anomaly, but instead part of a nationwide phenomenon that saw voters reject candidates backed by Zionist money.
Ultimately, the results of the U.S. midterms point to the fact that despite differences over domestic policy, there is a growing consensus among both Democrats and Republicans that whichever way America chooses to go, it should do so under its own direction, rather than that of the Israeli state. What’s more, this consensus is so great that even record super PAC spending cannot overcome it. But interestingly, for this mass awakening, the new voter consensus and the rejection of the Israel First agenda, there is only one man to thank: Donald Trump. Trump’s naked, brazen and often shameless support for Israel has woken up millions of normal Americans to the stranglehold that the state of Israel and Zionist lobbyists have over U.S. politics. In many ways, Trump has lifted the curtain on this pressing issue – whether that is by design or by accident, through his often brash and bumbling behaviour is another matter – but the effects remain the same nonetheless. Trump was so obviously slavish to those he served, that he inadvertently alerted the entire nation to an issue that had, for most voters, flown under the radar for decades.
As a result, political discussion centered on Israel’s power that was once confined to less frequented corners of the internet, banned from YouTube and other mainstream social media platforms, is now being openly espoused by the U.S. Vice President, Tucker Carlson and numerous other notable public figures. Ideas that were once branded as ‘dangerous’ conspiracy theories about Jewish lobbyists, Israeli influence and Zionist power are now becoming more mainstream and are actually influencing voting patterns and helping to decide major elections. As such, Donald Trump, through his total lack of restraint, has become at the very least an accelerationist president who has brought a once taboo topic under the spotlight. What’s more, it is often true that people are moved primarily by economic factors – when the populace starts to feel the financial pinch, they react at the ballot, venting their anger by changing their voting habits. And for the first time since the Second World War, American voters are joining up the dots and connecting their financial woes to Zionist power and the American establishment’s support for Israel, firmly placing pro-Israel foreign policy in direct contradiction with the good of the American people.
The fundamental paradox of the second Trump administration is that a president who swept to power on the promise of ‘America First’ ultimately chose to uphold the values of the old neoconservative consensus. By abandoning his populist mandate in order to wage a catastrophic, proxy conflict on behalf of Israel, Trump did not merely commit a strategic foreign policy error; he shattered the economic security of the very middle-class families who were the electoral backbone of his political resurrection. The resulting ‘blue wave’ that characterised the 2026 midterms was not a routine swing of the electoral pendulum, but a unified, bi-partisan rejection of Zionist power and neo-conservative policy. However, through his shameless behaviour and total lack of restraint, Trump performed an unintended civic service: he permanently lifted the curtain on the mechanics of the Israel lobby, forcing a historic convergence of angry populist Republicans and energised anti-war Democrats. The ultimate irony of the 2026 ‘blue wave’ is that Donald Trump did indeed fundamentally alter American politics forever – not by successfully executing an ‘America First’ agenda, but by proving to millions of voters that true domestic sovereignty can only be reclaimed by decisively rejecting the politicians, lobbyists and megadonors who wish to put ‘Israel First’.
Jared Kushner’s Diplomacy for Hire
By Philip Giraldi | Unz Review | November 7, 2026
Many observers of the highly dysfunctional President Donald J Trump administration have noted how a major contributing factor for the foreign policy disasters might well derive from the appointment of two real estate billionaires personally linked to the president as its top negotiators. That Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner had no diplomatic experience right from the beginning the presumption should have been a given that they would be managed and consistently out-maneuvered by their counterparts from other countries. That Kushner possessed unique access to Trump and might be inclined to give him bad advice in return for business “favors” also should have been reckoned by Congress and the national media.
In fact, there have been a lot of good reasons to be most particularly suspicious of son-in-law Jared Kushner given his history of shady business dealings. Indeed, any concerns have proven to be valid with one only needing to cite the complete failure of the two presidential special emissaries judging by their involvement in the so-called peace negotiations relating to the conflicts in Russia-Ukraine and in the Middle East. In both cases, the situation seen from a perspective of US actual interests, has deteriorated in spite of clear evidence that other parties to the negotiations were seeking a solution. Kushner, an unashamed Israel Firster, like his partner in crime Witkoff, did everything he could to protect war criminal Israel and those Arab states considered to be friends and was ineffective in dealing with the Russians, who rightly do not trust him. Kushner’s family is meanwhile extremely close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who used to stay at the Kushner family home in New Jersey some years ago when he was in the US. The Kushner family foundation has also been funding Israeli settlements on the Palestinian West Bank, which is illegal, all of which makes Jared a ridiculous choice as US designated negotiator.
Kushner is, of course, married to Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who converted to Judaism which is how he was able to step up into his White House designated position. He also was and is a business partner of the president and his family. Reckoned altogether, it has meant that Jared Kushner has been able to exploit his status with the White House to take steps to enrich the Trump family as well as himself and his own family through both connivance and manipulation of his interlocutors in the foreign policy world, most particularly in the Gulf States.
To cite only one example of how politics, Israeli interests and the profit motive all come together one only has to review Kushner’s glowing account of the splendor of a future redeveloped Riviera style resort, quite likely to be named after Trump and featuring a gilded statue of the president, constructed on the rubble remains of old Gaza that will cover or otherwise dispose of tens of thousands of Palestinian bodies. It is a developer’s dream that is too disgusting to contemplate and is the mark of the man, unfortunately. Kushner’s participation in Trump’s phony Board of Peace has been little more than a cover story giving Netanyahu license to kill coming from America’s president, a man also owned by Israel, who believes that the only real thing that matters is ignoring his responsibilities as president and manipulating his position to make money, lots of it!
Jared Kushner has apparently inherited genes that make him acquisitive beyond all reason. His father Charles is currently serving as Trump appointee US Ambassador in France, where he speaks no French and is constantly complaining about antisemitism in the country. He was previously convicted and served nearly two years in prison more than a decade ago in a felony tax fraud case that grew into a bizarre tale involving sex tapes including the hiring of a prostitute. Kushner had hired the woman to seduce his brother-in-law who was testifying against him over the fraud charges, arranging to record a sexual encounter between the two and send the tape to his sister to force the relative to back off. Charles subsequently received a full pardon from Trump after contributing heavily to the Trump presidential campaign and was subsequently given the ambassadorial post.
Real estate mogul Jared followed in his father’s footsteps to include possible involvement in the aftermath of the 2018 murder and dismemberment of US resident Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul by Saudi agents when he reportedly became the White House’s most ardent defender of the Saudi monarchy in exchange for an offshore substantial dollar bank account arranged by Riyadh. As a result the murder of an American resident by the Saudis was never seriously challenged.
And Jared has also been in the news lately over a not-altogether-legal scheme involving the Rothschild banking dynasty that was coordinated with corrupt local officials to acquire an island offshore of Albania to develop into an Adriatic Sea luxury resort. Local people were revolted by the development itself and the corruption involved and turned out in their tens of thousands to protest, forcing the government to back down on the deal.
Corruption might be Jared’s middle name! Beyond the development projects erected over both environment devastation and a mountain of dead bodies, the tragedy of Jared Kushner is his destruction of his slice of US foreign policy out of deference to Trump and his own family interests, which also meant making billions of sometimes insider trading generated dollars as part of the process. A new book by Matthew Cole on his perfidy has just appeared entitled “Princes and Thieves.” There have also number of articles on it and related issues, one of which by Charles P Pierce in Esquire magazine bore the possibly appropriate title “Jared Kushner Is the Worst Thing to Ever Happen to This Country, Maybe the World” subtitled “A new book reveals the extent of his shady dealings in the Middle East.”
The book makes the claim that Jared Kushner conducted something like diplomacy for profit without regard for actual American interests, behavior that might be regarded as treasonous by many. Also considering that Jared was privy to intelligence secrets through his White House access, one might reasonably argue that he shared such information with his “investors” from the Persian Gulf and Israel, meaning that he was engaged in espionage. A major revelation is how he and several United Arab Emirate leaders conspired during Trump’s first term in office to establish a $2 billion in slush funds as part of a plan to influence US foreign policy in the region. Kushner’s ties to Gulf money have also drawn scrutiny more recently. After leaving the White House in 2020, his private equity firm, Affinity Partners, received a $2 billion investment from a Saudi sovereign wealth fund led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a deal that has drawn scrutiny from ethics watchdogs. Affinity has also invested in an Israeli weapons manufacturer, making one question his sincerity in “negotiating” to bring a peace settlement with the Palestinians.
Jared Kushner certainly knew then and knows now that any efforts made by him to shape US policy that came from a foreign government that had provided him with money would make him an agent of a foreign power and require his registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938. The act requires citizens who lobby in that fashion to declare themselves and the country they are working for to the Justice Department. Once registered, the individual or group would be required to observe complete transparency over the sources of its income and it political contacts with foreign officials. It is presumed that Kushner might be investigated and charged by the new Congress that will be installed as a consequence of the recent election regarding any number of crimes but even if it does happen in the next two years he will likely be pardoned by Trump.
What does Jared Kushner have to say about his behavior? Inevitably, he has denied the claims made in the Cole book, though he has refused to be interviewed on the subject. His lawyer has promised lawsuits however and has already filed one against Vanity Fair, which published an article by Cole on the subject. The book’s claims are in fact supported by descriptions of the access of Cole’s often anonymous sources in his notes, citing, for example, “a confidential source with direct knowledge” and “author interview with source who attended the meeting.” What is already known confirms that Kushner’s key relationship initially, beyond that with Israel, was with the UAE’s president, Mohammed bin Zayed (widely known as MBZ). It developed after the first election of Donald Trump in 2016, with Kushner being identified as the key player supported by the substantial secret bank account to be able to influence the new president on Middle Eastern policy. Per Cole, four senior officials from Trump’s first term, including two national security advisers, stated to him that they knew of no presidential approval for Kushner to have access to any foreign government’s bank accounts which means the UAE relationship was secret right from the beginning.
A highly respectable source that has been plausibly identified by Pierce in his article relating to the Kushner-UAE relationship is, perhaps surprisingly, Dutch government intelligence. “Sometime in late 2017, the Netherlands Defense Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) made a startling discovery: A General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU) operative, a dark web hacker specializing in stolen bank data, was traveling to the UK for an espionage mission. When the Russian national arrived in England, the Dutch informed him that he had two options: he could work for them against the GRU, or the British would arrest him. Once in UK government custody, the operative would be charged with espionage. If convicted, he would spend years in a British prison. The Russian chose to change his employer. Later that year, the Russian operative gave the Dutch spies access to one of the GRU’s most sensitive assets. Located in Rostov, Russia, the GRU’s hacking and cyber team operated a remote server on which they stored some of their bounty. During their search through these secret files, the Dutch found something astonishing: screenshots of Jared Kushner’s iPhone. As they monitored Kushner’s phone, they discovered he used it to log in to a UAE bank account. By the time the Dutch spies had visibility into the phone, the account had received hundreds of millions of dollars from a bank in Azerbaijan. Their initial assessment was that the bank account was affiliated with the government there.”
The connivance between MBZ and Kushner in what was to follow, whatever its provenance, would represent what must surely be the worst case ever of US foreign policy being managed clandestinely without any regard for the Constitution, the established federal government bureaucracy, nor both the president and Secretary of State, neither of whom were aware of the relationship. In this case, Cole demonstrates how Kushner worked with the UAE to determine US policy across the Middle East and, in return, he was given full access to “slush fund” bank accounts set up for that purpose. Beyond the UAE, it is believed that Kushner used the money to cultivate relationships and come to secret agreements with Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Some of the money was apparently also used to establish friendly regimes in Egypt, Yemen, Qatar and Libya. One major objective was to support the rise of Mohammed bin Salman as crown prince of Saudi Arabia and, ultimately, the normalization of relations between Israel and many of the Muslim powers, the so-called Abraham Accords.
As it turned out, the UAE’s expectations were borne out by what followed. Trump did indeed make Kushner his senior adviser with a broadly conceived brief that included the pursuit of a final settlement in the Middle East that would benefit both Israel and the UAE. Kushner benefited from the development in that he was able to operate without any oversight while having access both to top secret information and the ear of the president, all of which was financed by what was in practice unlimited dollar accounts coming from the Saudis and the Emirates.
And one should not ignore what was in it for Israel. Israel-firster Kushner, for his part, gained the support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as his arrangement with MBZ produced results for Jewish State in terms of the Gulf States often noted failure to align with the Palestinians as Israel moved to takeover both Gaza and the West Bank. Kushner was also able to manipulate Trump, a relatively easy task as both he and the president were already largely dominated by Netanyahu. Interestingly, Kushner and his family as well as several Trumps, including the president, were also getting rich as a side benefit while allowing US foreign policy to be largely influenced and even controlled by several foreign powers.
Russia backs Tehran’s conditions in talks with US, Iran’s envoy says
Al Mayadeen | November 7, 2026
Moscow understands and supports Tehran’s firm position on negotiations with the United States, Iranian Ambassador to Russia Kazem Jalali said on Saturday, stressing that dialogue alone cannot advance diplomacy without the fulfillment of Iran’s strategic conditions.
Speaking about a three-hour meeting between Iranian Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohsen Rezaei and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Jalali said the discussions addressed strategic cooperation between Tehran and Moscow, as well as Iran’s position on Washington’s failure to honor its commitments.
Jalali explained that Rezaei conveyed to Putin that direct negotiations with Washington would serve no purpose without guarantees, adding that the fundamental condition for any diplomatic initiative is the full and unconditional acceptance of Iran’s seven conditions by the US.
According to Jalali, Rezaei stressed that “negotiations will not be the basis for ending the war, and experience has proven that Washington uses the dialogue process to commit aggression.”
Iran and Russia discuss strategic and military cooperation
Jalali also said Russia supports Tehran’s position that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) treats Iran with “discriminatory and irregular conduct.”
He further confirmed that military cooperation between Iran and Russia remains ongoing, pointing to consultations at the highest levels on deepening military and defense ties between the two countries.
Meanwhile, a senior Iranian political and security source told Al Mayadeen on Thursday that Tehran sees no point in taking any step to advance diplomacy before Iran’s seven conditions are fully and simultaneously implemented.
The source also dismissed reports claiming that Rezaei had presented a new political initiative to Putin, saying they are “pure fabrication.”
Rezaei also revealed that discussions with Putin covered a proposed pipeline project to transport Russian gas to Iran, which he said would meet Tehran’s domestic needs while allowing it to resell part of the supply.
He further said Putin condemned attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, said that the war on Iran is unjust, and pledged to help bring it to an end. “President Putin said that he would do everything possible to help end the war,” Rezaei stated.
An Iranian source told Al Mayadeen that Tehran would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until its seven conditions were met, adding that the decision was not open to negotiation. The source said the talks between Rezaei and Putin focused on efforts to end the US war on Iran.
Separately, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi highlighted the depth of bilateral ties, saying, “Never in the history of cooperation between Iran and Russia have we been this close.” He also praised his talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Tehran, which covered various areas of cooperation between the two countries.
The Endgame: When the CIA Proxy War Runs Out of Ukrainians!
By Seth Ferris – New Eastern Outlook – November 7, 2026
From Napoleon’s march on Moscow to Hitler’s catastrophic invasion of the Soviet Union, strategic arrogance, political miscalculation and the underestimation of Russia’s capacity to absorb punishment have repeatedly produced consequences far removed from the expectations of those who started the wars.
As battlefield realities shift and diplomatic negotiations expose growing divisions in Washington and Europe, the Ukraine conflict is approaching a strategic reckoning. Trump talks peace, Moscow holds its ground, Kyiv faces mounting manpower and political pressures, and the U.S. intelligence establishment appears to be pursuing a far more confrontational agenda.
I think it’s no secret the Ukraine war is a CIA war. I doubt Trump can do anything himself anyway. I’ve wondered for a while if the anti-Russia pro-war EU isn’t also being manipulated by the CIA. When they run out of Ukrainians, they need another source of cannon fodder.
All the while Trump talks peace as the CIA fuels the war in Ukraine, as the title of a recent commentary explains so well. The central problem is not Trump or Putin. It is an intelligence apparatus that appears to have an agenda of its own. The war continues not simply because of political disagreements between Washington and Moscow, but because elements of the U.S. national security establishment have institutional interests that run counter to ending it.
While Trump calls Zelensky “more difficult to deal with” than Putin and urges Ukrainians to elect new leadership, his CIA is reportedly pursuing operations against Russia more aggressively than under Biden. The contradiction is striking: the CIA is helping Ukraine target Russian oil refineries even as Trump pursues deals to sell Russian diesel.
Meanwhile, his intelligence chief travels to Moscow to tell the Russians they cannot win, while reports suggest intelligence analysts are reluctant to tell the president what they actually think. This is not a coherent peace strategy. It is a government sending contradictory signals, with an intelligence agency seemingly operating according to its own rules and priorities.
Lack of Good Intentions
In reviewing the Ukraine playbook, whereby the Minsk accords were never intended to be honored by the west or their Ukrainian proxies, but were merely, in the words of the former German chancellor, Angela Merkel, to buy time for Ukraine to rearm and retake the Donbas by force. The rest is history that CIA concocted plan was destroyed by the Russian SMO starting in February 2022.
But still most of Europe, NATO were center stage to the mayhem that followed. They were like Hitler’s Willing Executors in having planned such a course of action. But now they cannot face facts, i.e., the situation on the ground, now that Russia is nearing a final push in reaching its strategic objectives. Turning away from Russia to the EU and US ruin has been brought upon Ukraine, and like a desperate gambler, Zelensky may now be betting the whole house in trying to recoup his losses and survive politically and physically.
It Is Time to End the War.
Even now, some of the more liberal news publications, including The Nation, are calling for an end to the war. Yet even in doing so, they wrap their arguments in a thick layer of political subterfuge. Rather than confront the underlying failures of Western policy toward Russia and Ukraine, they continue trying to shift responsibility onto Trump and Putin, portraying them as though they were somehow on the same team.
The article goes on to explain the failure of the proposed peace initiative largely through the prism of American domestic politics, while recycling the familiar and increasingly questionable narrative that Putin is somehow on his last legs. This is a convenient political storyline, but it is not a substitute for an honest assessment of the military balance, Russia’s strategic position, or the realities unfolding on the battlefield.
The central question is no longer who can win the propaganda war or which political faction can claim the moral high ground. It is how many more lives must be sacrificed before Washington and its European partners acknowledge that prolonging this conflict is not the same thing as winning it.
What Comes Next?
We shall have to wait and see what will happen—if anything. It is ironic that the pundits of war and peace are in denial in tandem with Ukrainian denials, one only has to check out the site of the Institute for the Study of War, which as of October 31, 2026 gives a narrow perspective of Russian offensives alongside claimed Ukrainian counterattacks and some localized advances.
History may ultimately judge the Ukraine conflict not simply by who prevailed on the battlefield, but by whether the governments that helped shape the confrontation ever seriously considered the political, economic and human fallout of a shooting war that diplomacy should have prevented—if that had been the desire.
Ukraine may now be confronting its own version of that historical reckoning.
The Minsk revelations, particularly Merkel’s acknowledgment that the agreements gave Ukraine time to strengthen its military, raise a fundamental question: was diplomacy ever intended to produce a lasting political settlement, or had it become an instrument of strategic postponement? If the CIA and other Western intelligence and security institutions were instrumental in shaping a longer-term strategy to weaken Russia through Ukraine, the battlefield has exposed the extraordinary risks of that calculation.
The extent of direct CIA operational control remains a question that will merit academic research as history is written. It is clear that Washington’s extensive intelligence sharing, military and its financial support prolonged the fighting Ukraine far beyond the point of diminishing returns.
And what of Europe?
Having committed its political credibility, economic resources and security architecture to this confrontation, European leaders now face an uncomfortable dilemma. How does one acknowledge strategic failure without admitting that years of policy, enormous financial commitments and Ukrainian lives may have been sacrificed to assumptions that proved disastrously wrong?
There is an even more disturbing question: if Ukraine can no longer sustain the human cost of the conflict, will European governments seek to expand their own military commitments rather than reconsider the strategy that brought them here?
Meanwhile, Zelensky faces a particularly consequential choice. Continuing the war carries mounting military, demographic and economic costs; negotiating carries enormous political risks. Yet prolonging a conflict simply to avoid confronting an unfavourable negotiating position could leave Ukraine with even less leverage and fewer options.
A government cannot indefinitely gamble the future of its country in the hope that the next Western weapons package, intelligence assessment or political promise will reverse the strategic and tactical reality on the ground.
And perhaps this is the most uncomfortable question of all: when the supply of Ukrainian soldiers, public patience and Western political goodwill begins to run out, who will be expected to pay the next installment of this war?
If this conflict began as an attempt to contain Russia, it has become a test of the strategic judgment of the very governments that embraced that objective. The ultimate irony may be that, in seeking to weaken Moscow, the West has helped produce a militarized, devastated Ukraine, a more dangerous European security environment and a confrontation that has exposed the limits of Western power.
Who Decides the Endgame?
The endgame may not be determined by Washington’s rhetoric or Brussels’ declarations, but by what is happening on the ground—and what Russia is prepared to accept at the negotiating table.
The historical verdict will not be determined by press conferences in Washington, Brussels or Kyiv. It will be written by the territorial realities and the people left to live with the consequences.
A proxy war can be prolonged by outside powers, financed by taxpayers and fought by another country’s population. But it cannot be made winnable simply by refusing to acknowledge that the original strategy has failed.
Seth Ferris, investigative journalist and political scientist, expert on Middle Eastern affairs
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Revive Iran’s MOU Deal or Face a Forever War /John Mearsheimer
Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – November 6, 2026
Would President Vance really ditch Israel?
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | November 6, 2026
Never hesitate to state the obvious: Everyone with eyes to see is recognizing that the US midterm elections have been sensational. The Democrats have achieved a stupendous – “historic” according to the Financial Times – triumph; the Republicans have suffered a crushing, Stalingrad-scale rout.
Let’s focus on the rout: This is the moment when, on the same day, a New York Times front page main headline promises to explain the GOP’s “historic collapse” while Tucker Carlson starts his show with a wry “well, that was a disaster” (adding that he really means “disaster,” as in the sinking of the Lusitania, not rain at a wedding party).
You may suspect both America’s paper of liberal Centrism and the former Fox host turned MAGA dissident of bias or, at least, Schadenfreude. Yet bias is simply irrelevant in this case, where, for once, the facts really do speak for themselves: The great, enormous, humungous GOP midterm catastrophe is quantifiably worse than the 2006 drubbing the party received for George W. Bush’s Iraq War insanity or the “shellacking” – in his own words – voters administered to Barack Obama and his Democrats in 2010. As the staid Economist has summed up the Republican fiasco, this is “not a normal midterm swing against a sitting president, but the biggest wave-election since the aftermath of Watergate more than 50 years ago.”
What is even clearer than that the Republicans have been devastated is that one man in particular has taken a stunning hit: US President Donald Trump. He may insist that he was not on the ballot as much as he likes. No one is fooled. Of course, he was, if not officially – as no president ever is during midterms – then all the more in reality. This was, the Wall Street Journal has noted correctly, “one of the most decisive repudiations of a president in modern history.”
The causes of this “blue tsunami” will keep commentators and, later, historians busy. Here, let’s just note two things: They go beyond the key issues of “affordability,” a typical US euphemism for mass impoverishment and the “Iran War,” in effect another euphemism, standing for a US defeat much worse than Vietnam, incurred for no real reason other than to please genocidal Israel. In particular, the spike in gasoline prices resulting, most of all, directly from this perfectly avoidable war and defeat has delivered a gut punch to Trump’s party.
But also recall that US voters, as we know from polls, are angry as well about such things as the tariff wars that made their lives more expensive even before the Iran War, the blatant rapacity of the Trump clan and their cronies, and the shooting of US citizens in brutal ICE crackdowns.
Not to speak of bulldozing part of the White House in a quixotic quest for the biggest, blingest ballroom of them all. Most of all, perhaps, there is a deep background noise of resentment at a president who seems to make a point out of displaying how little he cares. About his countrymen and about his own promises of no more wars and putting America first, and not Israel.
And now? That is, of course, the most important and most urgent question of this moment. Rumors are swirling: The (political) heads of Secretary of War (On Behalf of Israel) Pete Hegseth and Trump’s chief of staff and single most important adviser Susie Wiles are said to be on the chopping block, for instance.
In this volatile dog-eats-panicked-dog world, one man seems to have made up his mind rapidly. Vice President J. D. Vance, former vehement Trump critic, then devoted Trump convert, has had another moment of revelation and rebirth. With the battle scarcely over and lost, he has addressed the public via X to, in essence, put as much distance between himself and his losing boss as he possibly can while, perhaps, keeping his job.
In a long post, Vance has outlined his theory of why the GOP was crushed. Unusually rich in detail about polling, turnout, and voter movements from one camp (the GOP) into the other (the Democrats), the gist of the post is one clear if implicit message: It’s Trump who is to blame.
Because that’s what you are saying when you say, as Vance does, that the key issue that lost the election was the war against Iran. If you add, as Vance also does, that voters wanted not only an end to that war but also a “focus on cost of living/inflation,” putting America truly first, and a “change of our relationship to Israel,” the point gets only clearer. The Wall Street Journal is right: This was a “stunning repudiation” of Trump.
For while Trump is by no means the only one to blame for the perverse American dependency on and support of a hyper-aggressive and genocidal midget state (that would be virtually the whole US establishment), he has made himself the single most prominent epitome of this national syndrome. And that makes him the single most convenient fall guy, too.
There’s no reason to pity Trump for being stabbed in the back by his very own Brutus. It was always clear that Vance is, to put it mildly, highly flexible in his positions and values as well as unscrupulous. His burning ambition is, if anything, even more obvious: Hire a Vance, don’t complain when he’ll kick and stab you when you’re down.
The Iranian leadership has made no secret of being highly unimpressed by Vance’s latest self-update. “Losing gambler energy, can’t walk away from the table. Boss is prepping the next war phase while America teeters on an Israel-First cliff. Skip the TED talk. Why not say this to your boss?” That was the response of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran’s parliament.
Tehran has every reason to be harsh as well as skeptical. But for the rest of us, it makes sense not to dismiss Vance’s sally so quickly. His motives are certain to be selfish. The fact that he was launched by one of America’s most devious and power-hungry oligarchs, Antichrist-obsessive Peter Thiel, makes his CV even less appealing. But we still have to ask what he may have in mind with his “break” with Trump.
Clearly, Vance is positioning himself for a potential run for the presidency. But what would be his agenda if he ran and won? Skeptics see a massive psyop: Vance will only pretend to offer MAGA cleansed of Trumpian contaminations, in other words, to really put America and Americans first, and cut Israel loose. In reality, they predict, his aim is to betray his potential voters no less than Trump has. Trust neither Vance nor his friend and MAGA rebel Tucker Carlson, the skeptics warn, because they will, in the end, sell out to Zionism and give you the same old, same old again.
There is no compelling reason to rule out such a scenario. Yet there is no reason to find it inevitable either. It is equally possible that Vance – out of opportunism, not because of the conscience he does not have – could really stand for a great right-wing turn away from Israel. Not because Israel is genocidal and all-purpose criminal, but because being tied to it is becoming far too politically costly.
This possibility should not be dismissed out of hand. For two reasons: First, being Israel’s tool in the Middle East has really produced catastrophe for the US and its establishment. And second, until now – or perhaps recently – supporting Israel come-what-may has been a vile bipartisan consensus. To break it down entirely will require great changes both among Democrats and Republicans.
US politics is exceptionally dark and often outright evil. But the geopolitics and the domestic calculus of the long decades of America’s “Israel First” obsession could shift even in that world of darkness. For Israel’s victims, the Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, Yemenis, Iranians, and many others, it won’t matter why exactly the US will finally stop propping up their tormenters. A realistic commitment to their liberation must focus first of all on getting the US out of the Middle East. Under what regime at home it will make that retreat may matter. Or not.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.
LAPD Pilot Will Track Vehicles In San Fernando Valley
The safeguards are department policy, which means the department can also change them.
By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | November 5, 2026
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) will go ahead with its plan to install Axon license plate readers on city streetlights in the west San Fernando Valley.
The Los Angeles City Council voted on October 27 to try to stop the move, but the vote fell one short of the ten needed to veto the Police Commission’s September 22 decision. The Los Angeles Times writes that the pilot, which will cover parts of Council District 3, such as Encino, Woodland Hills, and Tarzana, is now expected to launch “in the near future.”
The cameras are attached to the top of streetlights and draw power from them. According to the LAPD’s own slides, the system captures a vehicle and its plate image “along with the date, time, location, and certain vehicle characteristics” – and it does this for every car, not just those suspected of any crime.
“Never has the city had so much information on our residents where we can see what they’re doing and where they’re at,” Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez said, adding that before the new project is rolled out, the city should first conduct an independent audit of how data collected so far has been used, and put in place more stringent rules on the use of license plate readers.
“We should take the time to make sure that we have thorough, thoughtful protections laid out before we install our cameras,” Soto-Martinez said.
Another councilor, Eunisses Hernandez, noted that the promise of oversight and accountability had been made before, but that the policies to back it up were still lacking.
“We were told that there will be oversight and that there will be accountability,” she said, warning that the pilot would “expand the surveillance infrastructure that could put those same families at risk.”
Instead of addressing these issues, the LAPD has produced new guidelines for the use of license plate readers.
The guidelines, issued on October 16 by Chief Jim McDonnell, include cutting the time data stays searchable from two years to 90 days, and limiting the number of officers who can access it to 4,000, who will first have to get approval from their supervisor, undergo online training, and pass a test.
The purpose of using the data is also to be limited to criminal investigations, missing persons, and other “serious public safety matters,” while searches based solely on First Amendment activity will not be allowed.
Cmdr. Randy Goddard explained that the system generates an alert, and that “under department policy it is not probable cause.”
The new rules also suspend direct access to the data for outside agencies, but the LAPD will continue to share it with them on a case-by-case basis, providing the request is made on the agency’s letterhead. The list of those who will continue to have access includes the police in Torrance and Glendale, as well as the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
No new agreements will be made during the pilot, said Chief Information Officer Dean Gialamas, who described the guidelines as “a considerably more restrictive and accountable operating model.” He also said that “many of these safeguards are already being implemented.”
The LAPD also promises that no fixed cameras will be installed within 200 feet of clinics whose main purpose is reproductive or gender-affirming care.
Councilmember Soto-Martinez is not convinced, and specifically criticized the large number of officers who will have access to the data, saying, “I don’t like that there’s 4,000 people without an analysis whether they deserve to keep having (access to ALPR data) or not.”
The guidelines are not a law, but rules written by the department, which means they can also be rewritten by the department.
While the retention of data has been cut to 90 days, this is still more than ten times the default period that Flock, the previous vendor, now recommends.
The company recently said, “We are updating our recommendation and default to a 7-day retention,” and a federal judge in Oklahoma has described license plate readers as “a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance” that lets police “indiscriminately and passively catalog your whereabouts over an extended period of time.”
The judge made the statement in a ruling in a case that involved only a month’s worth of data, while the LAPD plans to keep it for three times that.
In July, the Police Commission suspended the LAPD’s use of Flock after the department’s own inspector general found that officers had improperly investigated 161 people whose vehicles were wrongly flagged as stolen.
The bigger picture is that in September the Police Commission approved a 10-year, $235 million contract with Axon that includes more than 1,600 patrol-car cameras equipped with plate readers. Axon CEO Rick Smith told investors that agencies want to “convert from existing license plate readers to us.”
Hamid Khan of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition said, “It’s not about just one license plate reader; it’s part of a much bigger system.”
It’s a system the city seems to be committed to, having dropped one vendor over privacy concerns only to sign up with another. And the fact that the council could not muster the necessary 10 votes to stop the latest plan means that the safeguards will be those promised by the police department itself – in other words, the fox will be in charge of the henhouse.
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Book Review
Book review: Boiling Point, How America Brought War to Ukraine
By Tim Kirby | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 14, 2026
Did Vladimir Putin just wake up one day on the wrong side of the bed and decide to invade Ukraine in February of 2022 or is there a lot more to this single decision that has been reshaping the 21st century geopolitical landscape?
Obviously, from the way that I just posed the question you can see that I am on the side that views the causes for the war in Ukraine to be very deep, long-term, historical and consciously nefarious, and most importantly, not from within the halls of the Kremlin. So it was a pleasure to take a look at the book “Boiling Point, How America Brought War to Ukraine” by author Stephen Kinzer, who like myself, also believes that the real reasons behind military conflicts around the world are not what CNN and the BBC have been telling you. The main thesis of this book was stated clearly by its creator; the war “may have been illegal, but it was definitely not unprovoked.” … continue
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