Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

An appeals court has removed a block imposed on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) accessing data within various federal departments.

In a 2-1 decision on Aug. 12, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said the judge who issued the block erred in weighing how likely it was that the plaintiffs would succeed in their ongoing lawsuit against the Trump administration.

The decision marked a win for the administration, which has encountered a wave of lawsuits related to DOGE’s activities within the federal government. The agency was set up in February under the temporary direction of tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, whom Trump designated as a special government employee, to identify wasteful spending and inefficiencies within the federal government.

Fourth Circuit Judge Julius Richardson said that in this particular lawsuit, the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed in proving they had standing or that DOGE’s activities violated federal law. He compared DOGE to a consultant tasked with improving the efficiency of a local library.

“Barring the consultant at the library doors and requiring her to specify the precise records she needs to improve the library before she knows what improvements are needed would seem to get the order of operations precisely backward,” he said.

DOGE, also known as the U.S. DOGE Service, was set up by President Donald Trump to modernize “federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” It includes an overarching agency along with DOGE-affiliated employees working within departments like the Treasury Department.

In February, a group of individuals and unions sued the administration, alleging that DOGE was “steamrolling into sensitive government record systems” and compromising the safety and security of Americans’ personal information.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman eventually issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Department of Education, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Treasury Department from disclosing the plaintiffs’ information to any DOGE affiliates, whom she described as individuals tasked with implementing Trump’s executive order.

According to Richardson’s opinion, Boardman’s order effectively paused DOGE activities within the three federal entities, although the appeals court had quickly intervened with a temporary block on that order.

Months later, the Supreme Court weighed in on a similar case and lifted a lower court order blocking DOGE from accessing confidential data at the Social Security Administration. Richardson said that case and the one before him were “exceedingly similar.”

Plaintiffs in both cases alleged violations of the Privacy Act, a federal law that restricts how government agencies can share personal information. One of the exceptions in the law allows disclosure to agency employees who have a need for the particular record in the performance of their duties.

Boardman had said that the administration likely violated this law, stating that the record before her hadn’t shown why their access was necessary.

“Here, the need-to-know exception has been invoked to defend the disclosure of millions of records,” she said, describing DOGE’s access to the Education Department as “seemingly unfettered.”

Richardson disagreed on Aug. 12.

“To insist that the DOGE affiliates explain in advance the exact information they need and why is to demand something just short of clairvoyance,” he said.

“So it does not stretch the imagination to think that an employee tasked with modernizing an agency’s software and IT systems would require administrator-level access to those systems, including any internal databases, especially when conducting the initial survey of the agency’s technological ailments.”

He saw several other flaws with the plaintiffs’ case, including that they likely didn’t have standing to sue the administration.

Judge Robert King dissented from the appeals court’s decision and defended Boardman’s order, stating that she “did exactly what [she] was obliged to do.”

The Supreme Court was relatively brief in its decision on June 6 that lifted a block on DOGE’s access to the Social Security Administration. However, three liberal justices said they would have denied the administration’s request for relief in that case. A dissent from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson echoed Boardman’s claim about DOGE’s reach.

Matthew Vadum contributed to this report. 

French President Emmanuel Macron and First Lady Brigitte Macron have been revealed to have hired a private investigation firm to research conservative commentator Candace Owens, according to a new report from the Financial Times. The investigation comes as the French presidential couple pursues a defamation lawsuit against Owens over repeated allegations across multiple platforms that Brigitte Macron was born male.

The cross-continental probe was conducted by New York-based firm Nardell & Co, which, according to the British business news outlet, attempted to uncover damaging information about Owens by scrutinizing her public statements and political connections. Investigators reportedly looked into whether the popular podcaster had any direct ties to Russian officials or business interests.

While the investigation failed to establish any direct Russian connections, researchers did document Owens’ online interactions with Russian political theorist Alexander Dugin. The report noted that both figures have shared each other’s content on social media platforms various times.

The 218-page lawsuit, filed in Delaware Superior Court last week, includes 22 separate counts against Owens, including defamation, false light invasion of privacy, and defamation by implication. The legal action centers on Owens’ repeated allegations across multiple platforms that Brigitte Macron was born male.

Researchers also documented her connections to other prominent conservative figures, including conservative journalist Tucker Carlson and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.

“When it comes to Brigitte Macron, abusing Emmanuel and then blaming it on Russia is an unfortunate and sinister pattern,” Owens responded to the Financial Times report.

The Macrons’ attorney Tom Clare has characterized the case as straightforward defamation, stating that Owens “both promoted and expanded on” what he called “discredited falsehoods originally presented by a self-proclaimed spiritual medium and so-called investigative journalist.”

According to court documents, Owens has promoted these claims through social media posts and an eight-part YouTube series titled “Becoming Brigitte,” which the Macrons’ legal team argues has led to significant online harassment of the first lady.

Court filings indicate the Macrons’ representatives made multiple requests for retractions before filing the lawsuit. The presidential couple said in a joint statement that legal action became “the only remaining avenue for remedy” after Owens allegedly continued to promote the claims.

Despite calls for retractions, Owens has stood firm in her position, declaring in a 2024 social media post that she would “stake my entire professional reputation on the fact that Brigitte Macron is in fact a man.”

The U.S. lawsuit follows mixed results for the Macrons in French courts addressing similar allegations. In July, a Paris appeals court overturned lower court convictions against two French women who had made comparable claims about the first lady. The appellate court ruled that defendants Amandine Roy and Natacha Rey had acted in “good faith” despite making false claims, eliminating their financial liability for damages previously awarded to the Macrons.

Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

The number of people killed in the massacres in Syria’s Suwayda Governorate is still yet from being fully documented, as tensions continue to flare and the whole governorate is effectively on lockdown from the government. Talks aimed at addressing concerns about that situation are scheduled for this week in Amman, Jordan.

But while early reports were that a number of representatives of the Druze minority would be present for the talks, that turns out not to be the case, as the Syrian Islamist government has insisted only government representatives could participate, and therefore no Druze will be present.

That’s hugely important since the violence in Suwayda mostly involved massacres of the Druze population, and the Syrian government security forces are accused of participating in at least some of those. The talks are now scheduled to only involve Syria and Jordan’s respective foreign ministers, as well as US envoy Tom Barrack.

Barrack said the talks will affirm their “collective determination to move towards a future in which Syria and all its people can live in peace, security and prosperity.” It’s not at all clear, however, that any concrete efforts will be discussed at these talks.

State Department spokesman Michael Mitchell urged “restraint” in Suwayda, and warning against excessive use of force against protesters. The administration in general, however, seems to be overwhelmingly behind the Syrian government on effectively all issues, and is pushing for the Druze, the Kurdish SDF and others to voluntarily disarm so that the Islamist central government has a monopoly on arms.

The Kurds have rejected those demands, and the Druze seem to be headed in that direction as well, with their religious leaders united against the Syrian government after last month’s massacres.

A new video has drawn more attention to the killings in Suwayda, showing uniformed forces entering a hospital and summarily executing an unarmed man who was identified as a hospital volunteer. They had rounded up hospital staff for questioning and killed the man after he confirmed he was Druze.

Before the video surfaced, state media was accusing Druze forces of carrying out the massacre at the hospital, and while this video only shows a single execution, it’s plainly by government security forces. The government is now promising an investigation into the matter.

That probably won’t lead to much, as myriad promised investigations into the massacre of Alawites in northwest Syria earlier in the spring similarly were just extended until the matter was more or less dropped publicly. Both the anti-Alawite purge and the violence against the Druze led to well over 1,000 deaths, and simmering violence that has continued to rage in both cases.

Bet he constantly dreamed of sitting on this special chair next to a Gulf-owned American diplomat billionaire while he was coordinating suicide bombers to hit US convoys and hiding in caves. An inspiration to us all. pic.twitter.com/mjANpLoPQP

— Lindsey Snell (@LindseySnell) August 6, 2025

Since Trump met with Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in May, the US has been overwhelmingly supportive of their position, and while noting the massacres, there is little sign they intend to pressure them in any real way to resolve the tensions with their religious minorities. The ruling Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) continues to give lip-service to the idea of being a unifying force, despite its historical ties to al-Qaeda and its present involvement in massacres, but that seems to be sufficient for the administration.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy unveiled revised guidance for an electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure federal funding program, removing several diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) requirements, the Department of Transportation (DOT) said in an Aug. 11 statement.

The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program had allocated $5 billion to states for developing an interconnected network of fast chargers across the United States.

NEVI was part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), with the program a key aspect of the Biden administration’s push to make America reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

The program mandates that states submit plans detailing how they intend to use the federal funds.

The Interim Final Guidance issued by Duffy on Monday, and effective immediately, rescinds many DEI policies included in the program.

For instance, a requirement that state plans ensure the deployment and operation of EV charging infrastructure achieve equitable and fair distribution of benefits and services has been removed, DOT said.

Another requirement, according to which projects under NEVI target at least 40 percent of the benefits toward disadvantaged communities, has been rescinded, it added.

States were earlier asked to ensure that NEVI implementation creates opportunities for minority-owned and women-owned small businesses. This has now been revoked.

As Naveen Athrappully details below for The Epoch Times, the update “eliminates requirements for states to address consumer protections, emergency evacuation plans, environmental siting, resilience, and terrain considerations,” said the DOT.

It minimizes the need for states to consider electric grid integration and renewable energy in their plans, simplifies the approval process, and accelerates project deliveries.

The revised guidance for NEVI will ensure that “charging stations are actually built, and federal funding is spent effectively and efficiently,” DOT said.

According to a July 22 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the IIJA had set aside $7.5 billion for NEVI and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program (CFI) combined, to support development of public EV charging infrastructure.

However, as of April 2025, only 384 charging ports had been built nationwide under these initiatives, the report stated.

In its Aug. 11 statement, DOT said that the NEVI program was “established to fund States’ deployment of EV charging infrastructure, but Biden and [Pete] Buttigieg added requirements that were difficult to understand and implement.” Buttigieg was the secretary of transportation under the Biden administration.

“The Biden-Buttigieg Administration wasted time, money, and public trust in implementing the program,” the DOT statement said.

“The updates streamline applications, provide states with more flexibility, and slash red tape.”

DOT said the new guidance was in line with President Donald Trump’s Jan 30 executive order titled “Unleashing American Energy.”

In the order, Trump criticized “burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations” in recent years that have impeded the development of America’s abundant energy and natural resources.

The Transportation Department said the NEVI program is being aligned with “the Trump Administration’s priorities of safety, efficiency, and innovation,” the statement said.

Legality of Funding Cancelation

DOT’s revised guidance for NEVI funding follows the department’s suspension of funds for the program in February, which had faced criticism and legal challenges.

In a Feb. 6 letter sent to state departments of transportation, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)—an agency under DOT—informed them that it was suspending the commitment of NEVI funds.

A May 22 GAO report criticized the decision, arguing that DOT violated regulations in canceling the funding.

“DOT is not authorized to withhold these funds from expenditure, and DOT must continue to carry out the statutory requirements of the program,” the report said.

In May, a coalition of 16 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration over its suspension of NEVI funding.

The lawsuit accused the termination of violating several regulations, including the Administrative Procedure Act and the Separation of Powers Doctrine.

In a June 24 ruling, District Judge Tana Lin of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington granted a preliminary injunction barring DOT from withholding funding.

Lin ruled that DOT “attempted to override the express will of Congress” and overstepped its constitutional authority by withholding funding that was already approved by Congress.

Under the preliminary injunction, DOT was asked to release NEVI funds to 14 states.

In its Aug. 11 statement, DOT said that when Duffy and FHWA launched a review of NEVI earlier this year, 84 percent of the program’s funds were still unobligated, which it said was a “clear signal” of the initiative’s failure.

“If Congress is requiring the federal government to support charging stations, let’s cut the waste and do it right,” Duffy said.

“The Biden-Buttigieg Administration failed to deliver EV chargers despite their promises. Our revised NEVI guidance slashes red tape and makes it easier for states to efficiently build out this infrastructure. While I don’t agree with subsidizing green energy, we will respect Congress’s will and make sure this program uses federal resources efficiently.”

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

President Trump has directed White House staff to relocate the official portraits of former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush out of view to all but those with the highest security clearances.

CNN notes that the portraits are to be moved to the top of the Grand Staircase, a decision that ensures the former Presidents are now “out of view from thousands of visitors who tour the White House each day.”

The area is restricted to members of the first family only, along with Secret Service officials, and a limited number of White House and executive residence staff.

Did you vote for President Trump to move Barack Obama and Bush’s portraits to “a hidden stairwell?” pic.twitter.com/DK5kBZyrdA

— Cash Loren (@CashLorenShow) August 11, 2025

The relocation of the portraits, which were previously displayed prominently in the Grand Foyer near the entrance of the executive mansion, marks a stark departure from White House tradition.

Typically, the two most recent presidential portraits are showcased in this high-traffic area to honor former leaders for state guests and visitors. However, with Trump’s and Joe Biden’s official portraits still in progress, Obama’s and Bush’s portraits had been holding those prominent spots.

“One of the sources added that the portraits of both Bushes are also now in the staircase area,” CNN further noted, indicating that not only Obama’s portrait but also those of former President George W. Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, have been moved to less conspicuous locations.

It’s hardly surprising given the revelations concerning Obama’s effort to frame Trump with fake Russia collusion charges.

Obama’s portrait has been replaced in the Grand Foyer with a painting depicting Trump raising his fist after surviving an assassination attempt in July 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Obama’s WH portrait just got replaced pic.twitter.com/LN3czTqYo3

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) April 11, 2025

The White House’s official X account shared a video of the new artwork, captioning it, “Some new artwork at the White House 👀.”

Some new artwork at the White House 👀 pic.twitter.com/l6u5u7k82T

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 11, 2025

The new painting of Trump, based on photographs by Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci and New York Times photographer Doug Mills, captures a defining moment from his 2024 campaign.

While the artist behind the painting remains unconfirmed, it is distinct from Trump’s official White House portrait, which is traditionally unveiled after a president leaves office.

This move is not the first time Trump has altered White House portrait placements. During his previous term, he replaced portraits of former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in the Grand Foyer with those of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt.

The White House, the White House Historical Association, and a representative for Obama were contacted for comment, but only the White House Historical Association responded, directing inquiries back to the White House. An Obama spokesperson declined to comment.

The tradition of presidential portraits, privately funded by the nonprofit White House Historical Association, became formalized in the 1960s under former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Obama himself reflected on the significance of these portraits during his 2022 unveiling, stating, “When future generations walk these halls and look up at these portraits, I hope they get a better honest sense of who Michelle and I were. And I hope they leave with a deeper understanding that if we could make it here, maybe they can, too. They can do remarkable things, too.”

Yeah, nope. Not any more Barry.

While leftists on social media are seething about Trump’s move, others suggested the Obama and Bush portraits were not moved far enough away from view.

Overwhelming majority of voting Americans.

— Carissa (@njoyzgrl81) August 11, 2025

pic.twitter.com/mTQKEEljKh

— Jonas Cord 🇺🇸 (@JonasCord1961) August 10, 2025

pic.twitter.com/FOk7Do7pdE

— Donna Marie (@sabback) August 10, 2025

Looks like they found a much better location for Obama’s portrait 😏 pic.twitter.com/jNoaChxvSJ

— Based Electrician⚡️🇺🇲 (@RyanHugeBrain) April 11, 2025

BREAKING:Pres Trump has relocated the official portrait of former Pres Obama to a bathroom w/in the #WhiteHouse

This shift places official portrait of Barack Obama in a significantly less visible location,stressing the continuous tensions that have remained between #44th & #47th pic.twitter.com/042HnbZwwC

— Sandy (@SD73660) August 10, 2025

You’re crying about Trump yanking the portraits of Obama, George W. Bush, and George H.W. Bush from their so-called “place of honor” and shoving them into a hidden stairwell, acting like he’s desecrated some sacred fucking tradition.

First off, let’s torch your precious…

— LHGrey™️ (@grey4626) August 10, 2025

Looks like President Trump figured out what to do with the Obama portrait 🎯😂 pic.twitter.com/PCqGsx2JUm

— Politi_Rican 🇵🇷 𝕏 🇺🇸 (@TheRicanMemes) August 11, 2025

Found where Trump moved Obama and Bush’s portraits in the White House 🚽 pic.twitter.com/rSnQCzVwGW

— 𝕏erias (@xerias_x) August 11, 2025

I found a place for Obama’s portrait. It got me sick as hell though looking at him. Would u use this toilet 🪠 pic.twitter.com/RIAlyaVZVG

— MAGA LION (@nightster2024) August 11, 2025

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

The 68-square-mile federal district of Washington DC is often excluded from lists of various US cities and their crime rates due to its unusual status.  DC itself has long suffered from high crime and is regularly among the top twenty most crime ridden cities in the US.  In 2023, the city’s homicide rate and overall violent crime rate spiked to highs not seen since 1997 at the height of a gang related murder spree.

Democrats argue that crime has been falling since 2024 and love to cite stats over the past year without taking into account the bigger picture.  Yes, DC murders have fallen by 26% in that time, but that’s after they nearly doubled from 2019 to 2023.  Murder, theft and mass looting continues to pose a threat to the DC area and lets not forget that close neighbor Baltimore is one of the worst cities for crime in the entire nation.  In 2024, Baltimore was named the deadliest city in America, surpassing Memphis and Detroit (both Democrat run cities).

For decades Washington has remained a Democrat run town.  Regardless of any Republican presence in the White House, DC stands as a progressive citadel controlled by deeply leftist bureaucrats.  Since the establishment of the Home Rule Act in 1973, the district has not had a single conservative mayor and the town has suffered greatly under Democratic management.

The capital is notorious for its low prosecution and conviction rates.  DC only prosecutes 33% of total arrests and many criminals easily avoid prison time.  Democrat politicians running most of America’s largest cities have created an environment in which perpetrators have little fear of punishment and convicts are often released back onto the streets to become repeat offenders.    

To be fair, many GOP presidents have dismissed the problems in DC as frequently as Democrat presidents.  Donald Trump is the first to take action since home rule was established.

Trump’s announcement that he will be instituting a federal surge within the capital and taking control of local law enforcement has triggered a furious meltdown among progressive leaders, activists and media pundits.  They claim that this is just the beginning of a larger martial law takeover of cities across the US.

CNN is in full-blown meltdown mode because President Trump is trying to make Washington DC safe again! pic.twitter.com/7Jrb7bHOox

— Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) August 11, 2025

Because of Washington’s 92% progressive population (and large minority population), the response from locals is unsurprisingly frantic.  Business owners seem optimistic about a potential improvement in enforcement but others are not so enthused.  

DC residents who oppose Trump cleaning up the city react: “He shouldn’t be making those kinds of decisions. That’s more like a dictator. Everybody now is in like a big ol gumbo pot. You know what I’m saying?” pic.twitter.com/LMPfYaxiZG

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) August 11, 2025

The question no Democrat is asking is, what level of crime is acceptable for the nation’s capital?  How many murders, assaults, rapes and looted stores should be tolerated?  They say crime is falling while overlooking the jump in 2023.  They say that Trump’s elimination of home rule in DC is not the answer.  So, what is the answer? 

Trump asserts that DC should be setting an example as one of the safest places in the country; a perfectly logical conclusion considering the US capital has been an embarrassment for many years.  It’s also important to take into consideration that Trump’s presidency, nestled in one of the most hostile areas of the US for conservatives, could be at risk. 

Trump’s actions may be designed to prevent any future French Revolution-like attacks on the White House.  Leftists have been using mob intimidation with impunity since 2020 and the local political leadership of DC is only going to encourage such behavior going forward. 

The Democrat response?  “Trump’s trying to take attention away from the Epstein files…”  In other words, anytime Trump does anything they don’t like they will play the only card they have to play, which is to divert discourse by mentioning Epstein.  Keep in mind, the Democrats had years to release any information they obtained on the Epstein case and they never did.  Now that Trump is in office, suddenly this is the only issue they’re interested in talking about.

MSNBC contributor Eddie Glaude has a TDS MELTDOWN after Trump announced plans to crack down on crime in DC:

“I’m trying to hold my temper… He’s going to undermine the democratic process in the district!”pic.twitter.com/H0xfMTPxF0

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 11, 2025

The bottom line is that Washington DC is a problem area of the country and always has been.  It should be a shining example of national pride, but it’s a disaster instead.  Trump is not wrong that the capital needs to be cleaned up and his solution will probably achieve that result quickly. 

That said, are Democrats right to fear a wider martial law response in other US cities?  Is this simply a test run by Trump to pave the way for similar actions in LA or Chicago?  Is martial law something that conservative voters would largely support?  Or, is this narrative simply fear mongering by leftists who are trying to prevent Trump from successfully restructuring DC while making them look bad in the process?   

It’s unlikely that the majority of Americans, including conservative Americans, would support full scale or long term martial law (Democrats would likely support it, just not under Trump). 

It is, however, fair to point out that the mismanagement and activism of Democrat leaders in US cities has made the country so despondent and angry that the populace might just cheer for a short term federal takeover if it happened.  The political left doesn’t seem to understand the level of rage they have created, or the joy that the public would feel seeing incompetent Democrats thrown out of their offices and removed from local power. 

By Simon Watkins of OilPrice.com

• Trump has doubled tariffs on Indian imports to 50% over New Delhi’s continued purchases of Russian oil.

• The move risks nearly 1% of India’s GDP this year but underscores U.S. determination to coordinate with the EU on sanctions to weaken Russia’s economy and deter its geopolitical ambitions.

• India, alongside China and Turkey, remains a top buyer of Russian oil, and Washington is preparing similar tariff threats.

“India is not only buying massive amounts of Russian Oil, they are then, for much of the Oil purchased, selling it on the Open Market for big profits,” U.S. President Donald Trump posted last week on Truth Social. “They don’t care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine. Because of this, I will be substantially raising the Tariff paid by India to the USA.”

These words directly implicate buyers of Russian oil as accomplices in the murder of tens of thousands of Ukrainian people in the war started by the Kremlin on 24 February 2022, as indeed they have been. Had these words been said in 2008 when Europe continued to buy Russian oil after it attacked Georgia, or in 201,4 when the continent continued to buy Russian oil after it annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region, then the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine might never have happened. They were not said, it did happen, but this time around, the U.S. President is looking to the future in his actions today. His seriousness is further underlined by the fact that India – long seen as a key ally to Washington in the Asia-Pacific region – now faces big tariffs.

So what does this all mean, and what will happen next?

Slightly in advance of the 8 August deadline imposed by Trump on Russia to make a peace deal with Ukraine, the U.S. doubled its tariffs on India to 50% — a rate that will come into effect on 27 August. The U.S. is India’s top export market, constituting 18% of its exports and 2.2% of its gross domestic product (GDP). Many of the country’s major exporting firms had already stated that they could not deal with the 25% tariffs, as they are too high to absorb, and passing them on to customers makes their products uncompetitive. Initial analysts’ estimates are that 50% tariffs could reduce India’s GDP by nearly 1% this year. But the U.S. knows all this, which is one of the reasons why it has chosen to do it, according to a very senior European Union (E.U.) energy security source who spoke exclusively to OilPrice.com on the day of the new Indian tariffs announcement.

“India is known as a key ally of the U.S. globally, and especially in Asia Pacific, and the thinking is that if he [Trump] is willing to do that to India, then he would be willing to do that to anyone else, and this is absolutely the case – he [Trump] is deadly serious on squeezing Russia’s economy from here,” he said. “The message should not be lost on European countries who might be thinking of easing up on the sanctions being rolled out on Russia from now to December 2027 [when the intention is to end all imports of Russian oil and gas],” he added.

Indeed, a closely co-ordinated ramping up of sanctions against Moscow by the U.S. and E.U. is seen by both sides as key to preventing Russian President Vladimir Putin from realising his dream of reconstituting the full scope of the U.S.S.R.’s previous European empire, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order. “Trump believes that the continuation of European purchases of Russian oil and gas after the annexation of Crimea, especially in 2014, was key to the Russian action in Ukraine in 2022, as underlined in his comments on the Nordstream gas pipelines [from Russia to the heart of Europe],” he highlighted.

In this context, India has a multi-layered strategic importance to the U.S. The most notable of these is the objective of positioning it as the regional counterweight to China’s economic, political, and military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, as analysed in full in my latest book on the new global oil market order. Washington’s efforts in this regard intensified following the 15 June 2020 clash between Chinese and Indian troops in the disputed territory of the Galwan Valley in the Himalayas, as the U.S. believed this marked a new push back strategy from India against China’s policy of seeking to increase its economic and military alliances through its multi-generational power-grab project, the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI). The U.S. further believed that this push back might also be echoed in India’s economic desire to finally make substantive progress on its ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy as an alternative to China’s BRI programme. However, for this to work, India would need access to secure energy sources over the long term, as – like China – it has few oil and gas sources of its own. Indeed, given the potential economic growth projections for India, the International Energy Agency forecast that the Asian sub-continental power would constitute the biggest share of global energy demand growth at 25% in the coming two decades. In fact, the IEA predicted India would overtake the European Union as the world’s third-biggest energy consumer by 2030. It was at this point – in Trump’s first term as president – that the plan was hatched to link this plan to use India to challenge China as Asia’s major power in parallel with a corollary objective to use the UAE to promote further relationship normalisation deals (‘Abraham Accords’) between Israel and key Arab states in the Middle East. This remains a second key reason why India is so important to Washington.

Nevertheless, India – along with China and Turkey – is still one of the biggest buyers of Russia’s energy exports three years into Moscow’s war in Ukraine. According to industry figures, last month saw it receive 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil from Russia, while China imported around 1 million bpd and Turkey about 500,000 bpd. Over the entirety of 2024, China was the largest buyer of Russian oil, at about 2.2 million bpd, followed by India on 1.76 million bpd, and Turkey on 0.3 million bpd. The U.S. has already warned China that ongoing imports of Russian oil could lead to huge tariffs being imposed on the country, according to the E.U. source. “During the talks [end-July U.S.-China trade talks in Stockholm], [U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott] Bessent told his opposite number [Vice Premier He Lifeng] that legislation [‘Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025’] is being drawn up in Congress authorising the imposition of up to 500% tariffs on countries that buy sanctioned Russian oil,” he exclusively told OilPrice.com last week. In reality, the Act goes wider to encompass any country that “knowingly sells, supplies, transfers, or purchases oil, uranium, petroleum products, or petrochemical products that originated in the Russian Federation”. It currently has 84 listed co-sponsors in the U.S. Senate alone, according to the U.S. Congress website, and the Speaker of the House has also indicated his chamber’s support to pass the bill.

The U.S. has also suggested to China that it may treat Beijing’s assistance to Russia in much the same manner as it has started to treat the same for Iran. This was seen in the very recent U.S. State Department announcement on Iran-related sanctions that it would impose sanctions on 20 entities it believes are engaged in trading Iranian oil and petrochemical products, including China’s Zhoushan Jinrun Petroleum Transfer Co., an oil terminal in the greater Zhoushan port area. Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson said of these China sanctions that:

“The Iranian regime continues to fuel conflict in the Middle East to fund its destabilizing activities, [and] Today, the United States is taking action to stem the flow of revenue that the regime uses to support terrorism abroad, as well as to oppress its own people.”

Zhoushan Jinrun was highlighted by the State Department for: “…knowingly engaging in a significant transaction for the purchase, acquisition, sale, transport, or marketing of petroleum or petroleum products from Iran”. The port is the fourth of China’s to be sanctioned by Washington in recent weeks, following similar actions against Huaying Huizhou Daya Bay Petrochemical Terminal Storage in March, Guangsha Zhoushan in April, and Dongying Port in May.

“More is to come,” the very senior U.S. legal source told OilPrice.com at the time of the sanctions announcement and could include a dramatically increased list of blacklisted Chinese officials, businesses, banks, financial houses, ports, ships, and supportive infrastructure to the facilitation of Russian oil imports.

For about the third day in a row Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has let it be known that his government will not recognize whatever comes as a result of the Trump-Putin summit set for Alaska this Friday.

“Ukraine will not recognize the decision taken at the Russia-US summit in Alaska without its participation,” Vladimir Zelensky said. This comes after he already said over the weekend any decisions would be ‘stillborn’ upon arrival.

“It is impossible to talk about Ukraine without Ukraine, and no one will recognize that,” he said in fresh Tuesday statements given at a forum. “That’s why this conversation may be important for their [Russia-US] bilateral track, but they cannot decide anything on Ukraine without us. I hope the US president understands that and takes into account,” he said.

A big focuse will indeed be bilateral US-Russia relations, and it appears that for now Russia is more interested that aspect – perhaps knowing full well that the fight will go on as Kiev is unlikely to make significant compromise.

TASS has cited Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov who confirmed that Washington and Moscow are already working on a second face-to-face summit between Trump and Putin, to take place on Russian soil:

According to him, the leaders will focus on discussing options for achieving a long-term peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian conflict. The Kremlin expects the next meeting between Putin and Trump to take place on Russian territory, Ushakov added.

Clearly, even if no firm decisions are reached in Alaska, Putin is in the driver’s seat – and he gains in reputation and on the level of optics just by having the Alaska meeting.

President Trump would not have put the meeting together unless it was evident, at least to national security officials behind the scenes, that Ukraine has no cards to play and is losing on the battlefield.

Trump has since acknolwedged this is a “feel-out meeting” but he’s also once again turned his criticism toward Zelensky:

“I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelensky was saying, ‘I have to get constitutional approval’” to relinquish territory, Mr. Trump told reporters.

“He’s got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap?”

There are unconfirmed reports that Kiev could entertain a ‘freeze’ where Russian troops stay in the four eastern territories but without full political ceding and recognition of territory. At this point Putin has less incentive to agree to that, seeing in it a recipe to just restart future war.

Trump: I get along with Zelenslyy but, you know, I disagree with what he has done. Very very severely disagree. This is a war that shouldn’t have happened. pic.twitter.com/l3lKS38BGR

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 11, 2025

Moscow has made it clear that it won’t settle for anything less than a permanent peace solution, which would at the very least involve Ukraine agreeing to never join NATO, and to give up the ‘annexed territories’ including Crimea, on a permanent basis which formally recognizes sovereignty.

In a stark reminder that AI chatbots are really just glorified search engines, and whoever controls the queries controls the narrative, moments ago the WSJ reported that AI startup Perplexity offered to purchase Google’s Chrome browser for $34.5 billion as it scrambles to remain relevant in an ever larger field of AI electricity-sucking chatbots and as it seeks to challenge Google’s web-search dominance.

Amusingly, Perplexity’s offer is significantly more than its own valuation, which is estimated at $18 billion. The company told The Wall Street Journal that several investors including large venture-capital funds had agreed to back the transaction in full. Estimates of Chrome’s enterprise value vary widely but recent ones have ranged from $20 billion to $50 billion.

As reported previously, US District Judge Amit Mehta is weighing whether to force Google to sell the browser as a means of weakening Google’s stranglehold on web search. Mehta last year ruled that Google illegally monopolized the search market and is expected to rule this month on how to restore competition.

According to the WSJ, the Perplexity offer could be an attempt to signal to the judge that there is an interested buyer, should he force a sale. In a letter to Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google parent Alphabet,  Perplexity said its offer to buy Chrome is “designed to satisfy an antitrust remedy in highest public interest by placing Chrome with a capable, independent operator.”

The offer may well be moot: Google hasn’t indicated a willingness to sell Chrome, and in testimony this year, Pichai told the judge that forcing the company to sell it or share data with rivals would harm Google’s business, deter it from investing in new technology and potentially create security risks. Chrome has roughly 3.5 billion users worldwide and accounts for more than 60% of the global browser market.

Needless to say, AI engines getting an existing search engine rail is the holy grail for most of them. 

Founded in 2022, San Francisco-based Perplexity recently released its own web browser, called Comet, to some of its users. Judging by today’s offer, not many are using it. 

Perplexity told Pichai that, as part of the proposed acquisition, it would maintain and support Chromium, the open-source project that supports Chrome and other browsers. It also said that it would continue placing Google as the default search engine within Chrome, though users could change settings.

The Justice Department filed the antitrust case against Google in 2020. In addition to forcing a sale of Chrome, the judge is considering limiting Google’s ability to pay to be the default search engine on devices and browsers and requiring it to share data with rivals, among other things. In weighing potential remedies earlier this year, Mehta questioned how much new AI chatbots might be whittling away at the traditional search business, of which Google has 90% market share.

Google has proposed a narrower set of remedies that would modify its exclusive agreements with Apple, as well as Mozilla and Android, to allow for more competition. It has said it will appeal the judge’s ruling.

Analysts say the judge is unlikely to force the company to sell Chrome, though he gave little indication of which way he was leaning. During closing arguments earlier this year, he asked whether doing so would be “a little cleaner and a little bit more elegant” than other remedies aimed at improving search competition.

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

On August 11, 2025, President Donald Trump did something that no other president in modern memory has dared to do: he effectively took over Washington, D.C.’s policing operations.

In a sweeping declaration of a public safety emergency, he deployed about 800 National Guard troops, assigned 120 FBI agents to night patrols, and put the D.C. Metropolitan Police under the direct control of Attorney General Pam Bondi.

The mission? To clean up the capital—its rising crime rates and, yes, the sprawling homeless encampments that have been swallowing sidewalks and city parks.

The reaction from some corners was immediate outrage—how dare the president flex federal muscle in the nation’s capital? But for those of us who have actually visited D.C. anytime recently, it’s hard not to think: finally.

For too long, the capital of the United States—the city that houses the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court—has looked less like the shining beacon of democracy and more like a live-action hellscape from a horror movie. Tourists and school trips meandering through downtown D.C. to learn about the history of our great nation are confronted with makeshift shantytowns, hypodermic needles and smells worse than J.B. Pritzker’s bathroom the morning after a long night at Big Ed’s Bar-B-Que.

For Democrats — who seem just fine with this nightmare — it’s been like inviting guests over for dinner, letting someone pitch a dung-filled tent in the middle of your dining room—and then acting offended when guests ask: is this really where we’re going to eat?

Now, let’s be realistic. Federalizing the police isn’t going to magically fix the tangled mess of causes behind homelessness. No one’s pretending it will. But in politics—as in hosting dinner parties—appearances matter. And in Washington, D.C., the entire city is the stage. When world leaders, diplomats, and tourists step off the plane, they’re not just visiting a city; they’re seeing America’s face.

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And if that face is covered in human feces a block from the White House, guess what—they’re not going to be thinking “land of the free,” they’re going to be thinking “third-world cosplay”.

I’ve been to plenty of European capitals—Paris, Vienna, etc.—and they all had something in common: they were mostly immaculate. Even cities with homelessness managed to keep their central government and tourist districts pristine. Plazas were relatively clean, parks were manicured, and the trash was taken out before it could audition for a permanent role as Hunter Biden’s latest piece of conceptual art.

Meanwhile, our capital has apparently decided that the streets around our most important buildings should double as open-air living rooms. We wouldn’t tolerate this outside Buckingham Palace or the Élysée Palace—so why is it fine outside the White House? Is our new national motto “We tried nothing, and we’re all out of ideas”?

And this is where Trump’s move makes perfect sense. Sometimes, you can’t wait for the “perfect” long-term plan to magically appear out of a think-tank PowerPoint deck. Sometimes, you have to make the place look presentable right now. Remember — like we did for Chinese President Xi Jinping when he came to San Francisco?

And frankly, it’s jaw-dropping that President Biden didn’t seem to have enough pride—or even basic situational awareness—to do anything visible to try and clean up D.C.

This is the same ostrich routine we’ve seen on the border: if you just bury your head in the sand and hum loudly enough, maybe people won’t notice the absolute chaos which begs people to assume gross incompetence, if not an outright goal of singlehandedly destroying the country and its image.

There’s nothing shallow about caring how your country looks. It’s not “cosmetic,” it’s called “national pride.” When visitors—whether foreign dignitaries or American schoolkids—arrive in Washington, what they see should tell them we are a capable, functioning nation that respects itself.

Right now, what they see too often screams “we’ve given up.” And nothing broadcasts “we’ve lost control” like a tent city and drug-addled homeless within selfie range of the White House.

So yes—bravo, Trump. You’ve reminded people that presentation is part of patriotism.

In Washington, appearances aren’t just about looking good for the cameras; they’re about signaling competence, pride, and respect. If that means a show of force to restore order, so be it.

Because sometimes the fastest way to fix a broken system is to start by sweeping the front porch—especially when the front porch happens to be the front porch of America.

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