The Financial Times is out with more reporting Friday on why the United States canceled a planned summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest earlier this month. The FT report says Moscow issued sweeping demands on Ukraine, according to sources privy to the conversations, and that ultimately this ‘annoyed’ President Trump, who opted to listen to those admin officials calling for a firmer position in support of Ukraine.

Also, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly told Trump that Moscow was “showing no willingness to negotiate” after he held a phone call with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. Russia has reportedly made clear that a precondition for lasting peace rests on significant territorial concessions in the east.

Trump “was not impressed with their position,” FT quoted one source as saying, who also explained the president remains open to meeting Russian leaders only “when and where he thinks there can be progress.”

However, the ‘demands’ from the Russian side shouldn’t have come as any surprise, given also Russian forces have the initiative on the ground in the east. A “root causes” of the conflict memo laying out Moscow’s position demanded Ukraine give up large parts of its territory, cut its troops and forever abandon plans to join NATO.

President Putin has meanwhile emphasized that the planned Russian-American summit in Budapest was postponed and not canceled.

Russia seems to want to keep dialogue with Washington as positive as possible, and wants to present ‘progress’ in bilateral relations, while downplaying ongoing disagreements.

The reality remains that President Trump is trying to negotiate in favor of the Zelensky government, while Zelensky’s own forces have little to no leverage over the military situation. Russia knows it is in the driver’s seat on the ground, despite Ukraine’s unrelenting cross-border drone attacks on oil refineries. And yet the mainstream media still floats simplistic narratives and mythologies like the following:

Russian foreign ministry allegedly sent a memo to Washington outlining how Putin was still calling for the supposed “root causes” of his invasion to be addressed – even though the West widely believes he invaded Ukraine in a land grab.

President Putin has floated the idea of a “ceasefire for journalists” to allow them to reach the frontlines and report honestly on the situation.

Currently, the Kremlin is charging that Zelensky is seeking to hide the true state of the frontline situation in and around Pokrovsk, per state media:

Ukraine has effectively acknowledged the “catastrophic situation” faced by its troops in a Russian encirclement by banning journalists from reaching them, the Russian Defense Ministry has said.

On Thursday, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgy Tikhy warned media workers against accepting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer of safe passage to the front line in Donbass to report on thousands of Kiev’s troops surrounded by Russian forces. Traveling to the area without permission from Kiev would be “a violation of our legislation” that would have “long-term reputational and legal consequences,” Tikhy said.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement on Friday that Ukraine had banned local and foreign journalists from accessing the “cauldrons” in order to “conceal the real state of affairs on the front line and deceive the international community and the Ukrainian people.”

Looming large over all of this is more nuclear rhetoric and saber-rattling…

He’s referring to Russia. No one will be happier at this news than John Bolton, who killed arms control treaties with Moscow in Trump’s first term and now gets this wish fulfilled in Trump’s second. https://t.co/UiZmJaB64c

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) October 30, 2025

Moscow wants to especially signal to Washington that Ukrainian ground defenses are facing rapid collapse in key strategic locations; however, this is something the Zelensky government has been firmly rejecting. 

Via Remix News,

There are once again efforts to ban the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the Bundestag, with the far-left Social Democrats (SPD) leading the way. However, there is some difficult math facing the proponents of an AfD ban, which makes it unlikely — but not impossible — for the party to be banned.

In order to understand why a ban is unlikely, let us first look at what would actually happen if a ban of the AfD went forward.

The AfD is currently the most popular party in the country, according to multiple polls, scoring between 25 and 27 percent of the vote. This alone makes a ban unthinkable to many, but the German establishment does not especially care what the electorate thinks on a number of key issues, so why not just ban the party?

For starters, and most importantly, a ban of the AfD would radically reshape the German electorate in favor of the left. This would translate into the Christian Democrats (CDU) losing a massive amount of power, and potentially being relegated to the political dustbin. Due to this cold, hard reality, a ban could be suicidal for the CDU.

How one local elections tells us about the federal election

What happened in the local mayoral election in Ludwigshafen tells us what the likely outcome of an AfD ban would be for the country at the federal level. In Ludwigshafen, the AfD’s Joachim Paul was leading the polls to become mayor before he was banned from running through backroom bureaucratic channels, a move later confirmed by judges during a number of appeals. The judges all argued Paul would have to challenge the ban after the election. Paul is still filing legal actions against the decision, but the outcome of the appeal could take months or even years.

Regardless of the outcome of Paul’s appeal, the election had some interesting outcomes.

First, the voter participation rate crashed to a record low of just 29.3 percent. In 2017’s mayoral election in Ludwigshafen, the then-SPD candidate Jutta Steinruck won with 60.2 percent participation. That means voter turnout was cut in half from that election.

That is not all. For those who did vote, many of them appear to have submitted “spoiled” ballots. A record-high number of ballots were ruled invalid, at 9.2 percent. Eight years ago, that number was just 2.6 percent. The number of “spoiled ballots” jumped by nearly 400 percent.

If this same outcome occurred at the federal level, including a dramatic crash in the voter participation rate as AfD supporters boycott the election, it would be a disaster for the CDU’s electoral chances.

The way the German system works means that the pool of right-wing voters would shrink dramatically, leaving CDU voters and the left as the only remaining voting pool. However, this remaining, much smaller pool, would then feature a dramatically larger share of left-wing voters consisting of the SPD, the Greens, and the Left Party.

These three parties would be looking at a potential supermajority.

Even with a CDU scoring 30 to 35 percent of the vote, the party could be easily sidelined by this new far-left coalition.

This is what the CDU fears.

To understand this, it is important to understand that the German left does not need to increase the number of votes it receives; it just needs to increase its share of the vote. Let us consider an imaginary scenario where only 35 percent of the population votes in the next German federal election. It would be a disaster for democracy, but it could still be a huge win for the left. If the right drops out of the voting process. Suddenly, the remaining voting pie looks more left-wing, and the left can win a bigger share of this smaller voting pie.

Voilà, the left now have a super majority with just a small fraction of voters coming out to vote.

The trouble for the left is that it still needs the CDU to vote for an AfD ban in the Bundestag, otherwise they would not have the majority needed to pass such a motion. However, the CDU has no incentive to do this.

Death of democracy, rise of the left

On top of this electoral math problem for the CDU, it would not only make the electoral map vastly more favorable to the left, but it could also tear a giant hole in the CDU party itself.

A plurality of voters are against a ban on the AfD. A new Insa poll shows that 43 percent of respondents are against a ban, while 35 percent are in favor. Another 10 percent were indifferent, and 12 percent refused to comment.

However, for CDU voters, the issue was evenly split, with 42 percent supporting a ban, while 41 percent were against it.

Many CDU voters have already switched their voting intentions towards the AfD. A ban could further fuel an exodus towards the AfD party while the ban works its way through the system, all the way to the Constitutional Court, which is the final arbiter of the ban process. That could take well over a year, plenty of time to enact massive damage on the CDU.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz already said that a ban of the AfD “smacks to much of the elimination of political rivals.” CDU voters all heard this statement. For him and his party to backtrack now on this issue would not sit well with many voters, many who are already dissatisfied with the economy and migration.

The Insa poll also shows that while a majority of supporters of left-wing parties back a ban, they are by no means in full agreement. Many Germans, even those on the left, believe a ban on the AfD would be a stake in the heart of democracy.

If a ban goes through, and a national vote is held featuring an abysmal voter participation rate due to mass boycotts, it would likely send the German system into chaos, leaving a massive democratic hole in the country’s landscape. It could even shake the entire foundation of the German state, calling into question the legitimacy of any government that is elected into power with an extremely low voter share and a ban on the most popular party.

What is the most likely scenario?

The left is likely to continue with its full-court press to proceed with a ban on the AfD. It would only benefit them, after all. The CDU is also likely to continue to talk of a ban, demonize the AfD, and try to snipe at the party using all the tools of the state, but is unlikely to actually back a ban. Doing so would be very foolish from a purely strategic point of view.

Of course, that is not a foregone conclusion. There are potential political realities, power struggles, and wild cards that could lead Merz and much of the CDU leadership to reverse course. However, the current risks of such a move outnumber the potential benefits by a clear margin.

Read more here…

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

This could be averted if Poland, which commands NATO’s third-largest army and whose new president recently didn’t rule out talking to Putin if his country’s security depended on it, doesn’t allow itself to be manipulated into partaking in any related provocations or backing up those responsible for them.

Early September’s suspicious Russian drone incident over Poland, Estonia’s subsequent claim that Russian jets violated its maritime airspace, and Scandinavia’s recent Russian drone scare are responsible for NATO considering a three-pronged response along its eastern flank according to the Financial Times. Their sources indicate that this could take the form of arming surveillance drones, streamlining the rules of engagement for fighter pilots, and holding NATO exercises right on the bloc’s border with Russia.

The first two carry self-evident escalation risks since trigger-happy operators or pilots could provoke a serious international security crisis if they shoot at (let alone down) Russian drones or jets. This is especially so if it occurs in international airspace or especially within Russia’s own. As for the last one, Russia’s threat assessment would spike during the duration of those drills since they could be a front for aggression, including hybrid aggression via drones and/or mercenaries.

NATO jamming could also lead to Russian drones veering across the border like this analysis here argues was probably responsible for the earlier-mentioned suspicious incident over Poland. In that scenario, NATO could have the pretext for a (possibly preplanned) escalation against Russia that could easily spiral out of control if cooler heads don’t prevail. The Financial Times noted that “a shift may not be publicly communicated” so a crisis could break out with no advance warning if NATO makes one wrong move.

Communication is key for preventing that, but Poland rejected Russia’s proposal to discuss September’s suspicious drone incident and Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova recently condemned it for annulling the visas of Russian experts ahead of an OSCE meeting in Warsaw. Poland aspires to revive its lost Great Power status, with September being historic in this respect as explained here, which would then revive its centuries-long rivalry with Russia at the possible expense of regional stability.

There are three fronts where Poland could apply one, some, or all three parts of NATO’s reported three-pronged response to the latest Russian scare: Kaliningrad, Belarus, and/or Ukraine. It also commands NATO’s third-largest army and has no plans to slow down its unprecedented militarization so its political-military leadership might feel emboldened to one day test Russia’s red lines. That could lead to a NATO-Russian war, however, if a Russian plane is shot down according to the Russian Ambassador to France.

New Polish President Karol Nawrocki wisely decided not to risk that by declining to impose a no-fly zone over part of Ukraine after September’s incident despite pressure from his Foreign Minister. It later turned out that the government lied about Russian responsibility for the damage inflicted on a home after it was revealed that a NATO missile was to blame. They also hid this fact from him. Deep state forces, possibly soon in collusion with Ukraine, quite clearly want to spark another Polish-Russian War.

Given that Nawrocki recently didn’t rule out talking to Putin if Poland’s security depended on it, he might thus do so in a crisis instead of allowing himself to be misled by deep state forces, particularly the liberal-globalist ruling coalition and their military-intelligence allies who just tried to manipulate him into war. Without the direct involvement of NATO’s third-largest army in any potentially forthcoming crisis, whether provoked by the Polish deep state or the Baltic States, a NATO-Russian war might be averted.

Authored by Mark Penn & Andrew Stein via RealClearPolitics,

Even back to the days of Charles Manson, a violent cult leader, there were pockets of people who cheered and reveled in violence. But all too common today are the groupies who adulate the CEO killer, the social media maven who praises the assassination of Charlie Kirk, or the miscreant who says they wish presidential assassins had been successful.

In today’s social-media fueled world, every heinous act of violence spawns a great majority of people of condemn it and a smaller counter-reaction of people who cheer it and call for more. Maybe this was always the case, but those who supported such violence could not as easily band together as they can today. Social media allows the violence lovers to find like-minded individuals, legitimizing their response, further encouraging future violence.

Kirk held no elected office. His only weapons were words and open debate. Despite this, nearly one in five Americans shockingly declared in surveys that his assassination was justified, according to a Harvard CAPS Harris poll. The path to such thoughts is clear. The opposition on the left characterized Kirk’s positions as “hate” despite his willingness to debate anyone anywhere. Once his speech was then characterized as violence – the resultant deadly violence became justified.  

Almost 3 in 4 voters (72%) decry today’s polarizing political rhetoric as a cause of contemporary violence, and over 4 in 5 state it is unacceptable for their own political party to use violence to achieve its aims.  

Notably, though, 74% of GOP voters see Democrats’ rhetoric as too extreme, compared to just the 27% who call their own party extreme. The effect is mirrored on the other side of the aisle, with 84% of Democrats calling the GOP too extreme, but a mere 33% saying the same of their own party. This drive of the parties to polarize the electorate rather than convince swing voters is reflected in the current pointless government shutdown. The political coin of the realm these days is in satisfying the base with increasingly incendiary words and actions.

That said, voters from all sides agree on the destructive role of social media, with 64% stating that social media encourages violent behavior.   

A solid 85% agreed that talking heads in the media celebrating Charies Kirk’s death were inappropriate. At the same time, though, voters are strong believers in the First Amendment. Of the same group, 54% stated that Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show should not have been suspended over Kimmel’s comments about Kirk’s death, and 58% even supported his return to late-night television.  

And that’s the thing about the First Amendment – it requires some level of self-restraint and responsibility, or it becomes the amendment that allows society to destroy itself. Or it allows the forces who want to destroy society to masquerade as merely those who would question it. It requires vigilance in allowing political debate but also in finding fair limits.

The Jay Jones scandal is a case in point. He called for the killing of his political opponents and appeared to be quite serious about it. Predictably, he called them Hitler and said that it should be done with two bullets to the head. Despite these inflammatory sentiments, Jones remains committed to his bid for – of all jobs – attorney general of Virginia. It’s difficult for us to understand how someone willing to threaten killing his political opponents remains an appropriate candidate for attorney general.

Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois and others are villainizing the ICE agents in dire language that is an open invitation to violence. On ICE agents, Pritzker claimed “They were going after a few gang members, and instead, they broke windows, they broke down doors, they ransacked the place … They are the ones that are making it a war zone.” ICE agents are being accused essentially of kidnapping people randomly on the street based on racial profiling and “disappearing” them as was done by the Argentine junta, and the result is encouraging violence against federal officials. 

It’s easy to condemn violence, but harder to do something about it. For starters, we need a bipartisan group of lawmakers to come together and stand clearly and unequivocally for bringing down the political temperature. They should agree on a set of basic principles outlining the bounds of attack language, which must include no longer calling opponents “Hitler” and other names that function to justify violence. They should condemn the recent political assassinations and attempted murders unequivocally – without exceptions or thinly veiled justifications. Finally, these lawmakers should call on the remainder of Congress to sign on to these principles as a clear rebuke of political violence and extreme rhetoric.  

Second, they need to draft legislation that makes social media responsible for hosting and spreading calls for violence. Section 230 needs to be rewritten to give social media platforms an explicit obligation to promptly remove content that calls for violence. That won’t cure the problem, but it will put the social media channels on notice that they need to be vigilant about removing at least the most extreme rhetoric within 24 to 48 hours. 

And third, the White House should establish a serious bipartisan, anti-political violence commission to probe the recent rise in political violence more deeply and attempt to explain to Americans how we cannot let our political differences degenerate into chaos. It should explore the violence-based underworlds on both the right and the left.  

The Kerner Commission’s 1968 report painted an image of two Americas – one white and one black – that had a profound impact on the country at the time. And yet today, there are once again two Americas – one red and one blue. We need to make a good faith effort to bridge the gaps in ways that preserve and promote the ballot as the answer, not the bullet.â?¯The test will be whether such a commission could ever agree on one joint and final report. 

President Trump said on Friday that he’s yet to make a final decision on launching a military attack on Venezuela, but President Nicolás Maduro is not waiting around while taking the US leader’s word on it.

Maduro is reportedly urgently reaching out to Russia, China, and Iran for any possible military aid, including defense items which may have already been negotiated or are in the works. The Washington Post says it’s obtained internal documents showing such recent and high-stakes requests.

“Amid a buildup of American forces in the Caribbean, Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro is reaching out to Russia, China and Iran to enhance its worn military capabilities and solicit assistance, requesting defensive radars, aircraft repairs and potentially missiles, according to internal U.S. government documents obtained by The Washington Post,” the publication reports.

“The requests to Moscow were made in the form of a letter meant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and was intended to be delivered during a visit to the Russian capital by a senior aide this month,” WaPo continues.

And separately, Maduro is said to have sent a formal letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping seeking “expanded military cooperation” between the two countries in order to counter “the escalation between the U.S. and Venezuela.”

Maduro in it seeks to expedite Chinese companies’ production of radar detection systems based on prior deals, in cooperation between Caracas and Beijing which has long been an open secret.

“In the missive, Maduro emphasized the seriousness of perceived U.S. aggression in the Caribbean, framing U.S. military action against Venezuela as action against China due to their shared ideology,” the documents state according to the Post.

Transport Minister Ramón Celestino Velásquez is also reported to have sought military equipment from the Islamic Republic of Iran. He conveyed that his country needs—

• “passive detection equipment”
• “GPS scramblers”
• “drones with 1,000 km [600 mile] range”

Meanwhile the growing list of US naval assets that Maduro is facing in the Caribbean region…

As of today, the following U.S. Navy warships are in the Caribbean:

USS Iwo Jima
USS San Antonio
USS Stockdale
USS Jason Dunham
USS Gravely
USS Lake Erie
USS Wichita
USS Gettysburg

There’s also the MV Ocean Trader, a special operations vessel, and the USS Newport News, a…

— Dan Lamothe (@DanLamothe) October 31, 2025

But the reality is that despite obvious cooperation over the years – including Russian, Chinese, and Iranian military assets and personnel showing up at the occasional Venezuela military parade or state ceremony – these countries have their own problems to worry about, and are unlikely to want to poke Donald Trump at this sensitive moment in America’s “own backyard”.

With US sanctions on, and prior examples of interdictions on the high seas, even if Russia or China wanted to quickly assist Maduro as he’s under the US bullseye it could prove logistically impossible.

Brazilian authorities are seizing record amounts of cocaine moving through the Amazon as traffickers exploit expanding commercial river routes for oil and crop exports, according to Bloomberg.

In April, police chief Murilo Sampaio intercepted barges traveling from Peru’s Bretaña oil field, operated by PetroTal Corp. Drug-sniffing dogs detected a hidden compartment: “Everything was fine up until then,” Sampaio said. “But when the dogs came on board, they were able to identify a scent.” More than half a ton of cocaine was recovered and six crew members were arrested.

State data show cocaine seizures in Amazonas have roughly tripled in two years, reaching 15 tons in 2023. Security forces say that represents only a fraction of the narcotics moving east along the Solimões Route — the river network that delivers cocaine from Peru and Colombia to Brazil’s Atlantic ports and onward to Europe and Asia, as well as Brazil’s growing domestic market.

Increasing barge traffic tied to soy and oil exports has given traffickers more cover. Police say at least three major busts since mid-2023 involved barges carrying crude from the Bretaña field. PetroTal and energy trader Novum Energy say they enforce strict compliance and have “zero tolerance” for illegal activity, and authorities have not accused the companies of wrongdoing.

Bloomberg writes that gangs including the Red Command dominate much of the waterway and are expanding into remote communities, bringing violence, poaching and illegal land use. “We’re talking about hundreds of rivers,” said military police lieutenant João Maciel Rosa. “Only between 3% and 5% of the border lands… is policed.”

The surge is emerging as a diplomatic flashpoint. President Trump has made aggressive counternarcotics operations a centerpiece of his Latin America strategy, including military strikes on alleged drug boats and pressure on regional governments. Analysts say Brazil’s rising role in the cocaine trade could become leverage in other disputes, from tariffs to political disagreements. A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. is assisting Brazil “to more effectively detect and interdict these illicit activities along Brazil’s major waterways.”

As Brazil prepares to host the COP30 climate summit near the mouth of the Amazon, officials warn traffickers are embedding deeper into legitimate industries — from shipping and ports to ranching and mining. Expanded patrols and floating river bases have not stopped smugglers, who now use commercial barges, armed speedboats and semi-submersibles to avoid detection.

“It’s not tactically or operationally possible to win the war on drugs,” said analyst Andrés Preciado. “The evidence that we have after five decades is that the state doesn’t win.”

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

Topline: The City of Baltimore gave $62,500 to a nonprofit that employs the mayor’s wife, according to tax filings reviewed by the Baltimore Sun. Six members of City Council have introduced a bill that would make similar payments illegal — which the mayor opposes.

Key facts: The grant was paid in 2023 from the Baltimore Children and Youth Fund to the nonprofit Bmore Empowered, where Hana Scott is the director of operations. She is also Mayor Brandon Scott’s wife. The mayor’s office has a representative on the Youth Fund board who votes on which nonprofits receive grants.

It’s unknown whether Bmore Empowered received city funding in 2024 or 2025 because it did not file a Form 990 tax form. Britt Mittendorf, accounting school chair at Ohio State University, told the Baltimore Sun, “Regular filing of a 990 is essentially the bare minimum in terms of compliance.”

The Baltimore Sun asked the charity if they received more recent public funding, but there was no response. Hana Scott blocked reporters on LinkedIn after they messaged her with questions.

A bill currently in the City Council would place new oversight and transparency rules on the Youth Fund and has support from seven of the 15 council members. Mayor Scott opposes it because he believes it would limit funding to programs managed by his office, according to the Baltimore Sun. A spokesman from the Youth Fund claimed the increased transparency would “jeopardize” its work.

Background: Open the Books has been tracking transparency issues in Baltimore’s nonprofits for years.

Last year, 24 of the 100 nonprofits that received the most taxpayer funds from Baltimore had some issue with their state registration, including some that were legally closed. Nine of them were delinquent with the state, meaning they had not submitted proper paperwork and could not legally solicit donations.

Summary: Baltimore’s donation to Bmore Empowered is not illegal, but even the appearance of a conflict of interest can erode public trust in the management of taxpayer dollars.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

A probe into the Marxist nonprofit Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF), which was initially opened under the Biden-Harris administration, has seen renewed interest from federal prosecutors in President Trump’s second term over allegations that the far-left group defrauded donors.

Breaking- BLM under federal investigation for defrauding donors out of $90 million.
Hope they enjoyed the mansions while they lasted… pic.twitter.com/NeQR10aWId

— GrrrGraphics-Ben Garrison 🤠 Cartoons 🇺🇸 (@GrrrGraphics) October 30, 2025

AP News reports that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, in Los Angeles, is conducting a federal investigation into BLMGNF. Federal agents have issued subpoenas and at least one search warrant in recent weeks targeting the foundation and other affiliated groups.

Here’s more from the report:

It was not clear if the investigation would result in criminal charges, but its mere existence invites fresh scrutiny to a movement that in recent years has faced criticism about its public accounting of donations they have received. 

. . . 

One of the people said the investigation had been initiated during the Biden administration but is getting renewed attention during the Trump administration. A second person confirmed that allegations were examined in the Biden administration.

The foundation said it took in over $90 million in donations, following the 2020 murder of George Floyd…

Critics of the nonprofit foundation, and of the BLM movement broadly, accused organizers of not being transparent about how it was spending the donations. That criticism grew louder after BLM foundation leaders in 2022 confirmed they used donations to purchase a $6 million Los Angeles-area property that includes a home with six bedrooms and bathrooms.

BREAKING: The DOJ is now investigating BLM leaders for defrauding donors out of tens of millions of dollars during the 2020 riots.

They have already issued multiple subpoenas and executed at least one search warrant.

BLM co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors went on a million-dollar… pic.twitter.com/Rplo5YZ99M

— George (@BehizyTweets) October 30, 2025

Recall that left-wing BLM rioters seized on George Floyd’s death to unleash riots and chaos nationwide in 2020. The Marxist group later scrubbed from its website a section declaring its goal to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure,” in other words, the very family framework that underpins Western civilization.

“We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable,” BLM’s website formerly read.

BLM’s early beginnings are very questionable.  

According to Washington Examiner reporter Mike Gonzalez, BLM’s origins may trace back two decades to Venezuela, where a foreign influence operation was developed and later exported to the U.S. to sow domestic chaos. Wild claims, but this type of statecraft is nothing new. 

Federal scrutiny of BLMGNF comes as the White House has declared war on radical left nonprofits that conspire against the U.S. and sow chaos on city streets. 

Dark-money NGO networks, including the Arabella Network, Soros Network, Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation, Tides Foundation, Rockefeller Network, Singham Network, and many others have been hitting the headlines, including a report from investigative researchers Peter Schweizer and Seamus Bruner of the Government Accountability Institute that say these groups are funding permanent protest industrial complex and the engine behind color revolution-style operations against President Trump and MAGA.  

Rapper Lil Yachty says Black Lives Matter was a scam during a cooking show with Quenlin Blackwell.

Blackwell: “How much have you spent on charitable causes this year… BLM?”

Yachty: “BLM is a scam… BLM was literally a scam. They had bought mansions.”

Fact check:… pic.twitter.com/q6bosUkGOz

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 11, 2025

Back to BLMGNF, AP did not specify who the “donors” are…

Authored by Jude Clemente via RealClearEnergy,

The International Energy Agency (IEA) defines energy security as “The uninterrupted availability of energy sources at an affordable price.” In that context, no other energy sources in the world can stand against the combination of American coal and natural gas. And coming soon, utilities expect Small Modular Reactors starting as soon as 2030. 

Congressman Troy Balderson (R-OH) recently introduced “The Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Security Act” to ensure U.S. energy dominance and protect baseload generation with coal, natural gas, and nuclear. His ARC bill guarantees America’s most important dispatchable electricity sources remain central to the mix – a requirement to provide affordable and reliable energy for American families and businesses, all becoming more essential as the AI and data center build-out is set to explode, in a world where China is deploying domestic, low-cost coal to accomplish the exact same national security imperative. No wonder why President Trump is prioritizing dispatchable power: the data centers driving our digital economy demand constant flows of electricity, namely without interruption to prevent data loss, service disruption, and equipment damage. 

Baseload power plants serve on an around-the-clock basis, producing electricity at a consistent rate and thereby maximizing efficiency and minimizing costs. Coal and natural gas are classic baseload fuels characterized by abundance, availability, accessibility and established production, distribution and utilization systems. For example, dispatchable generation from coal and gas can be adjusted by system operators to match supply with electricity needs. Wind and solar, on the other hand, as defined by Rep. Balderson, have “intermittent availability” and are weather dependent sources whose production is contigent on the availability of the resource – the wind and the sun. The physical reality is that the U.S. Department of Energy has long defined wind and solar as, naturally, “non-dispatchable.” Moreover, there is solid evidence that once these renewables reach a certain proportion of the grid, reliability is at risk – e.g. the April 2025 widespread power outages in Spain and Portugal.

In an electricity system, “capacity value” refers to the estimated contribution of an energy resource to the system’s ability to meet peak demand and maintain reliability. Essentially, can installed capacity be counted on during times of peak demand? How much of a plant’s capacity is available when the system needs it most? Rolling and Orr have demonstrated how system planners recognize the capacity value limitations of wind and solar. As our largest power market serving 65 million Americans, PJM Planners, for example, assign an expected capacity value to coal at 80% and gas at about 75% through 2035. In sharp contrast, PJM sees the value of onshore wind declining from 41% in 2027 to only 19% in 2035 and solar never even reaching 10% in the next decade.

What this ultimately means is that wind and solar are more often “unavailable” than “available” to deploy and thus simply not possible to be the foundation for a PJM forecasting that from 2025 to 2045 winter peak power demand will soar by nearly 65%, with summer peak rising 50%. Our “greenest” state is California, having done all that it can to “get off fossil fuels” with renewables for decades, yet gas still generated nearly 60% of the state’s power on some days in September. Clearly more “supplemental” than “alternative,” PJM explains the intermittency problem and limited outlook for renewables: 

“The ratings for the two wind classes decrease significantly due to… winter historical performance patterns” … The ratings for the two solar classes remain stable at low values during the entire period.”  

Serving 45 million Americans, MISO is the electric grid operator for the central U.S., ensuring power flows reliably and affordably across 15 states and Manitoba. MISO system planners present a similar warning relating to the capacity value of wind and solar vis-a vis coal and natural gas: “dispatchable thermal resources, such as natural gas and coal, are forecast to provide a much larger fraction of the region’s total needed accredited capacity compared to wind and solar, which have significantly lower accreditation values due to their weather dependent nature.” 

Consider, for example, the 2025 Polar Vortex which pushed the U.S. power grid to unprecedented levels of demand. In response, grid operators relied heavily on dispatchable generation from coal and natural gas to ensure system reliability and stabilize supply. Wind and solar were challenged due to “unfavorable weather conditions.” On the peak day, wind and solar were only able to generate 3% and 0.2% of the incremental electricity needed. In contrast, coal and gas provided 66% of electricity during the Vortex. With climate change making our weather even less predictable, heavy reliance on weather dependent resources pose obvious problems. We continue to see the really bad consequences of retiring too much coal, too quickly, all as our power needs are starting to rise again. Experts at Power the Future warn of “a looming electricity affordability crisis,” and it is exactly why Rep. Balderson has also called for “Restoring American Coal Dominance.”

In terms of affordability, Rolling and Orr analyzed the cost of power from existing thermal power plants in the MISO region and found the cost of coal per Megawatt Hour as $37.45 and natural gas as $38.14. In comparison, the cost of New Wind is $46.30 and solar is $71.21. They note that these numbers should hardly be surprising. The existing coal and gas plants are more affordable because they have already paid off most of their initial capital costs, and utilities no longer earn much in the way of a rate of return on these depreciated assets. Thus, existing coal and gas plants are typically the most reliable and least expensive plants in the power system.  

Troy Balderson has proposed legislation which would provide American consumers with the affordable and reliable energy necessary for the nation to meet its electrification aspirations – especially in regard to data centers. As a reminder, electrification (i.e., much more electricity demand) itself is cited by green groups as critical to reducing emissions and fighting climate change. Flat really since 2008, annual U.S. electricity needs are set to rise by more than 50% over the next decade, to well over 6,000 terrawatt hours. While wind and solar surely offer good value in certain locations and at certain times, our required backbone for booming power needs remains obvious: dispatchable power from coal and gas provides consistent energy supply, supports grid stability, and enhances energy security. 

Jude Clemente is the Editor at RealClearEnergy.