BP’s CEO is setting an ambitious goal to more than double the company’s market value to $200bn within five years, restoring it to pre-Deepwater Horizon levels, according to the Financial Times.

Murray Auchincloss told the Financial Times that BP plans to take advantage of “tremendous” demand for oil and gas after abandoning its push into green energy. “At the end of the decade, it would be nice to be back to where we were before Macondo,” he said, referring to the disastrous oil spill that cost BP $62.5bn in clean-up efforts.

His comments followed BP’s decision to cut annual spending on renewables by 70% and shift its focus back to fossil fuels. The company’s current market value stands at just under £70bn ($89bn).

BP’s latest strategy shift acknowledges that the energy transition is progressing more slowly than anticipated, though the market response has been anything but euphoric.

“Oil and gas demand is going to be around for a long time,” said CEO Murray Auchincloss when asked about BP’s future beyond 2050. He pointed to the rising electricity needs of data centers, making gas a crucial fuel source. “The challenge is how do we decarbonize this stuff as much as you can,” he added, noting BP’s active efforts in carbon capture.

The Financial Times report notes that despite dropping all renewable targets and planning to move its wind and solar businesses off the balance sheet, Auchincloss insists they will remain “very big” parts of BP. He defended the company’s measured approach, stating, “You don’t announce a strategy change until you change it,” arguing that premature announcements would have lacked credibility.

BP has faced criticism for slow execution, particularly after activist investor Elliott took a nearly 5% stake and pushed for more aggressive changes. A source familiar with Elliott’s position said BP’s plans fell short, advocating for major divestments and further cuts to renewables spending. Bloomberg first reported the hedge fund’s dissatisfaction.

Auchincloss declined to comment on any engagement with Elliott but expressed no regrets about his first year as CEO. “Nothing comes top of mind,” he said.

Auchincloss acknowledged that the company will face short-term financial challenges as it rebuilds its oil and gas portfolio after years of downsizing. However, he emphasized that future growth will largely come from the U.S. and the Middle East.

“We’re more American than an awful lot of the American companies are,” he said, highlighting his focus on attracting U.S. investors. Over the coming weeks, BP’s management team plans to engage with more than a third of its shareholders through roadshows. Despite this push, Auchincloss clarified that relocating BP’s listing to the U.S. is “not on the agenda.”

Addressing concerns that BP lags behind rivals like ExxonMobil and Chevron in market value, he defended the company’s assets. “Our size is smaller, but the quality of our assets is exceptionally high,” he said, describing BP’s upstream operations as “world class” and a major competitive advantage. He also pointed out BP’s strong trading operations, something he claimed American companies lack.

Submitted by Vincenzo Lorusso via Donbass Italia, (emphasis ours)

Months ago, a grassroot media campaign was launched in Italy intended to communicate the popular discontent with the pro-war, anti-Russia policy of the supposedly “Italy First” Government of Giorgia Meloni (elected on a platform that soon became indistinguishable from Atlanticist “Super” Mario Draghi). Themed “La Russia non e’ il mio Nemico” (Russia is not my Enemy), the campaign was promoted on billboards all over Italy to underscore the warm relationship between the Italian people and Russia. And to distance the people as much as possible from a government that contrary to its historical roots has taken Russophobia to a near British level of absurdity. The campaign was as much loved by the people as it was hated by the authorities.

But last week, while delivering his acceptance speech for a honorary degree he was being bestowed by Marseille University, Italian President Sergio Mattarella compared the current Russia regime and policies to the Third Reich. And condemned any form of dialogue as a form of appeasement similar to Europe’s concessions to Hitler.

Unsurprisingly, the speech was quickly criticized by Russia’s MFA and its spokesperson Maria Zhakarova who criticized Mattarella’s speech as offensive (as well as, we may add, ignorant of history to a shocking degree). 

More notably, however, was the popular reaction to this statement made by Italy’s most senior political figure and representative of the Italian people.  

A petition was soon launched, condemning the speech…

“As Italian Citizens, fully identifying ourselves with the Italy born of the Partisan Insurrection of 1945 and the values of the Constitutional Fathers, we wish to express our complete Political Solidarity with the Russian government, the expression of that People who shed the most impressive contribution of blood in the Great Patriotic War, (twenty-seven million dead) which defeated and ended the genocidal Nazi-Fascist tyranny.

Our grandfathers and fathers, on other mountains and fields, challenged the enemy with weapons in hand, as did your grandfathers and fathers, paying with torture and death, nipped in the prime of life. We who saw fascism come into being, as opposed to the civilization movement composed of workers, laborers and peasants, who plowed the path for a true Europe of the Peoples, cannot besmirch history with a dystopian and erroneous vision, with unacceptable historical analogies between Russia and the Third Reich.

And even lately we believe that the same struggle for a new Nazism supported and foraged by Atlanticism has continued on the fields of the Donbass, which has as its first goal the destruction of A POLITICAL EUROPE OF PEACE, WORK AND SOLIDARITY, convenient and functional to a great power defended by two oceans but not to our Peoples.

Our Latin forefathers said that to err is human but to persevere is diabolical.

The narrative of the Atlantic “minculpop” in the unified networks and press, the most impressive war weapon of the collective West, describes the Russian special military operation as a prodigious attack on a sovereign country, forgetting the dramatic aggression suffered for years by the Russian-speaking peoples of the Donbass and the attempt at ethnic cleansing carried out by the Ukrainian coup regime, which has a robust overtly Nazi component at its core.

This is why we believe that the intervention of the government of the Russian Federation was a tragic but legitimate and inevitable reaction to the threat to the borders of the territory of Russia and its Peoples, who a few days ago had to endure tragic episodes of massacres of civilian population in the ‘Kursk area and since 2014 in the Donbass involving children, women and the elderly.

We do not accept this reversal of reality. The comparison with the Munich Conference of 1938 made by President Mattarella is a historical and political error that we stigmatize in the strongest terms.

We are convinced that you are aware of the deep friendship and respect that binds Our Ancient Peoples; we know your unwavering patience and discernment and your respect for almost three thousand years of Our Civilization and Culture that you esteem and respect.

We are not like the Baltic or Scandinavian governments; ours has always tended to be a deep and fruitful relationship, despite the fact that a fascist army invaded your country. We have memories of the generosity of so many women workers and peasants to our grandparents, betrayed and abandoned by a dictatorship with which we settled accounts.

Italy’s role must be to build bridges of civilization, prosperity and brotherhood in A MARE NOSTRUM OF PEACE.

Anyone who follows wrong friendships, through miscalculation or political cowardice, will be destined to pay the price: this we have as a historical example. 

We do not want to retrace known tragedies on our continent, at a time of deep ethical, cultural and political decadence.

We apologize for erroneous statements that we do not share: with facts we will try to redeem Our wounded country.

We ask everyone to sign this appeal by affixing their signature.”

Impressively, and reflecting the increasing impatience of the Italian population with a game that is no longer amusing to its people, the “petition”, or letter of apology, was signed by over 25,000 signatures in a matter of days and the numbers continue to grow. As a peace offering and a sign of respect, bound volumes of all the signatures were delivered to the MFA of the Russian Federation. While the book of comments, too long to print, was delivered to Maria Zhakarova by email.

Ms Zhakarova seemed touched by the outpouring of support for Russia among ordinary Italian people and in a small ceremony with the author promised that the book of signatures will be displayed in the Museum of the Great Patriotic War. 

Zakharova was presented with a petition with Italy’s apology for Mattarella’s statements pic.twitter.com/5QJObYrE0c

— Sprinter Observer (@SprinterObserve) February 22, 2025

Another message that is reaching the embassy of the Russian federation following Mattarella’a words was delivered by Matteo Brandi, head of the Pro Italia Party/movement, a small but rapidly growing political force that may well be an alternative government in waiting in the years ahead:

“I fully share the criticism of the spokeswoman Maria Zakharova to the incautious words of President Mattarella who compared Russia’s special operation in Ukraine to the Nazi aggressions of the past century. The majority of the Italian people are not enemies of Russia, they know that the real reasons for the war in Ukraine are the aggression of NATO and the Nazi-fascists in Kiev, and they remember the enormous sacrifice of 27 million dead made by the Russian and other Soviet peoples to defeat Nazism.” 

Perhaps, the people of some European countries have figured out that their hapless politicians neither represent their views nor their interests and are pushing back in a more direct way.

Will Italy’s attitude change, having backed, yet again, the wrong side? Time will tell, but it is a start……

A grand deal involving Turkey, Syria, and the Kurds is in the works, and on Thursday a historic announcement was made by the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Abdullah Ocalan, speaking from a Turkish prison, has called on the group that he founded to lay down its arms and disband. This is the result of years of running Turkish-PKK battles as well as fragile negotiations. The PKK has long been in an official state of war with the Turkish government, which considers it a terrorist organization.

“Convene your congress and make a decision,” Ocalan said in the statement, read aloud both in Kurdish and in Turkish. “All groups must lay down their arms and the P.K.K. must dissolve itself.”

Turkey’s war against the PKK, as well as the conflict’s extension into Syria and Iraq (the YPG/YPJ), has taken tens of thousands of lives. The crackdown on the PKK was its most intense in the 1990s. More recently and connected with the Syria crisis, Turkish warplanes have bombed Syrian Kurdish enclaves connected with the Rojava project.

“The rare message from Mr. Ocalan raised the possibility that a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people over four decades could finally end,” the NY Times has stated. “It could also echo across borders, given Mr. Ocalan’s profound influence over members of the group in Turkey and Iraq as well as affiliated Kurdish militias in Syria and Iran.”

Ocalan has actually been in prison for a quarter-century at this point, but the influence of his leadership has remained strong, as Kurdish fighters almost worship him. His political doctrine is widely read and quoted.

But even with this huge step of the PKK’s dissolution, the question of implementing details as well as the next steps are highly uncertain. There’s also the question of whether the more hardline Kurdish factions will actually heed the call to lay down arms:

His message was greeted with joy in the Istanbul conference room where Öcalan’s allies gathered to broadcast his call, after displaying a photo of supporters visiting the white-haired septuagenarian. A group of older Kurdish peace activists ululated as the call to lay down arms was read out.

“This is the breaking point of history and it is a positive one,” said Sırrı Süreyya Önder of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) party. “We are here with a compass to find a possible route out of these dark chaotic days.”

Önder hinted at some of the potential problems to come, adding that while Öcalan called for the PKK’s dissolution and to lay down arms, this “requires the recognition of democratic politics”, and legal support for a sustained peace.

The Kurdish-led SDF in Syria is unlikely to immediately heed the call. They are supported by the US occupation in northeast Syria and American special forces advisors.

BREAKING — PKK’s Syrian wing PYD leader Salih Muslim says they agree with Ocalan’s statement

“There would be no need for weapons if we are allowed to work politically. If the reasons for carrying weapons disappear we will lay them down”

pic.twitter.com/gIPM2SsWsp

— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) February 27, 2025

However this does mean the clock is ticking for the US occupation – which Turkey has long wanted to squeeze out. At the same time, the new HTS rulers in Damascus have been making overtures – offering Syria’s Kurds integration into the state and military, if they abandon hopes for a Kurdish autonomous state.

Thus this ‘grand bargain’ will ultimately be another win for Turkey in the region, and the Pentagon will eventually be forced to pull back. But this is also reportedly what Trump has wanted – a US withdrawal done in a way that doesn’t leave a security vacuum.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Observers were shocked on Wednesday after former Romanian presidential front-runner Calin Georgescu was temporarily detained and charged on six counts amidst police raids against some of his closest supporters as he was preparing to file for his candidacy in May’s election redux. The first round last December was annulled on the basis that an unnamed state actor promoted him on TikTok prior to the vote but it was later discovered that this was just another party’s marketing campaign gone wrong.

It was explained here how Georgescu’s election could have ruined the US “deep state’s” escalation plans against Russia while this analysis here added more context after the annulment. The immediate run-up to the latest developments saw Vice President Vance lambast the Romanian government as anti-democratic for what it did last December. 

Wednesday’s events were then followed by Musk retweeting a video of State Department whistleblower Mike Benz describing the “deep state’s” interest in Romania.

Benz drew attention to how Romania agreed to host NATO’s largest airbase in Europe and has played a crucial role in clandestinely transferring Pakistani military equipment to Ukraine. These are important points, as is the “Moldova Highway” that’s mentioned in the two analyses cited above since it completes the last part of the corridor stretching from Greece’s Mediterranean ports to Western Ukraine, but there’s more to what’s happening that just geopolitics. Ideology is arguably just as significant of a factor.

Romania has been under liberal-globalist control for decades after these forces exploited its political dysfunction and endemic corruption to continually install their preferred candidates into power. Georgescu represents the most promising opportunity in years for a populist-nationalist revolution that could finally resolve the aforementioned systemic challenges and thus restore Romania’s sovereignty. His appeals to history, religion, and national interests genuinely resonate with many of his compatriots.

Georgescu can therefore be described as a “Romanian Trump”, but both figures are really just tapping into the populist-nationalist zeitgeist that’s been spreading across the West for years in reaction to the liberal-globalists’ socio-political and economic excesses. He’s his own man, as is Trump, and both simply embody the trend of the times. Like all revolutionaries (or counter-revolutionaries from the perspective of regaining the power that was seized from the people), however, they’re also facing lots of resistance.

It took Trump over eight years before he was able to neutralize the “deep state’s” subversive plots so it’s no surprise that Georgescu, who only just recently began his political career, is having a hard time. Trump was a trailblazer though whereas Georgescu is following in his footsteps so it’s possible that Trump could lend Georgescu a helping hand to greatly speed up the time that it takes for him to neutralize his own “deep state’s” subversive plots. It’s here where the ongoing struggle between the US and EU is relevant.

“Vance’s Munich Speech Vindicated Putin’s Summer 2022 Prediction About Political Change In Europe” and made clear that the US stands on the side of all populist-nationalist movements on the continent. The Romanian “deep state’s” latest attempt to take down Georgescu is essentially a gauntlet thrown at the Trump Administration by its liberal-globalist opponents in Brussels who fully back Bucharest. They want to test whether the US will do anything in response to the EU’s rolling coup in Romania.

What’s unfolding in this Balkan country is nothing less than the opening of another New Cold War front, albeit this time an ideological one between liberal-globalists and populist-nationalists, which also interestingly pits nominal NATO allies against one another as the EU and the US take opposite sides. It’s incumbent on the Trump Administration to do what’s needed to ensure that Georgescu is allowed to run as president in May’s election redux and that the vote is truly free and fair instead of flawed as usual.

To that end, targeted sanctions against Romanian figures, credibly threatening to withdraw its troops from Romania, suspending arms contracts, and extending full political support to populist-nationalist protesters could pressure the authorities into reconsidering the wisdom of doing Brussels’ bidding. At the same time, a comprehensive pressure campaign could also backfire if the German-led EU exploits it as the pretext for deepening its already immense control over Romania, though that could backfire too.

It was explained here in response to the likely next German chancellor’s pledge to “achieve independence” from the US that military, economic, and energy factors make that a lot easier said than done. If provoked, like could soon happen if the German-led EU pushes back against the US’ potentially impending pressure campaign on Romania, then Trump could weaponize each of them in his own such campaign against the EU and Germany that he stands a good chance of winning on both fronts.

Altogether, what just happened in Romania places the country at the center of the intra-Western ideological dimension of the New Cold War, which will determine the future of Europe. Liberal-globalists will either entrench their power in full defiance of Trump, possibly at enormous costs to their countries, or they’ll be democratically deposed by populist-nationalists who share the same worldview as his team. This struggle is historic and the consequences of its outcome will reverberate for decades.

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

During his recent campaign for president, Donald Trump repeatedly stated that he had a secret plan for settling the war in Ukraine. 

He suggested that he would be able to resolve the conflict within a day of so of taking office. That obviously was political hyperbole because the war is still going on. Trump and people in his administration are now talking to Russian president Vladimir Putin and Russian officials in an effort to find a way to end the war and possibly even normalize relations between the United States and Russia.

There is one great big obstacle, however, to bringing an end to the Ukraine-Russia conflict. That obstacle is NATO, the old Cold War dinosaur that should have gone out of existence with the end of the Cold War, just like the Warsaw Pact did.

Instead, NATO not only remained in existence, it also ultimately became the root cause of the war between Ukraine and Russia.

It’s that critically important point that is lost on the U.S. mainstream media. For them, the war began at the moment that Russia invaded Ukraine. Nothing that preceded that invasion matters to the mainstream media. What came before the invasion is simply considered irrelevant.

But it’s not irrelevant, especially because it might well prove to be an insurmountable obstacle to a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia.

With the surprise end of the Cold War, the U.S. national-security establishment — i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — lost its big official enemy — Russia (or, to be more exact, the Soviet Union), which meant the end of the big Cold War racket that had kept the national-security branch in high cotton in terms of power and taxpayer-funded largess.

The Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA were panicky. At first, they announced that they were willing to participate in the “war on drugs.” They then converted their old partner and ally Saddam Hussein into an official enemy, who they used to scare the American people for some 11 years. Then, their interventionist and deadly foreign policy in the Middle East brought about the 9/11 retaliatory strikes and they were off to the races again, with the “war on terrorism” replacing the Cold War’s “war on communism.”

But they never lost sight of the possibility of reconverting Russia into a renewed official enemy, as part of a new Cold War, especially given that the anti-Russia Cold War sentiment was so deeply embedded within the American people. That’s when they began using NATO to expand eastward toward Russia’s border by absorbing former members of the Warsaw Pact.

An important thing to note about this was that U.S. officials had promised Russia that NATO would not expand. It would stay, they repeatedly stated, right where it was.

It was a lie. Instead, NATO was used to expand eastward, which enabled NATO’s missiles, tanks, weapons, troops, and planes to get ever closer to Russia’s border. It’s worth mentioning that NATO includes Germany, the nation that wreaked untold death and destruction on Russia in the two world wars.

Why would U.S. officials do that? To get their official enemy — and big cash cow — back. They were not ready to let go of Russia as America’s official enemy. And they knew — as an absolute certainty — what Russia’s reaction would be to having U.S. and German missiles, forces, tanks, planes, and armaments getting ever closer to Russia’s borders. They knew that Russia would react negatively — very negatively. And the reason they knew that was because they knew that that is precisely how they would react if Russia began doing the same thing in Cuba.

Moreover, Russia repeatedly told them what would happen if they threatened to absorb Ukraine into NATO. Russia would invade to prevent that from happening. Thus, not surprisingly, NATO threatened to absorb Ukraine, knowing full-well that that would provoke Russia into invading.

Thus, when Russia did invade, U.S. and European officials and the U.S. mainstream press cried, “Aggression! Aggression!” And they were right from a legal standpoint. Russia had no legal right to invade Ukraine, and Ukraine had the legal right to join NATO. But what U.S. officials, European officials, and the U.S. mainstream press steadfastly avoided confronting — and still avoid confronting — is that, as a practical matter, U.S. officials had broken their promise to Russia not to expand NATO eastward and that, as a practical matter, that was the reason for the Ukraine-Russia war.

Why is all that pre-invasion history important insofar as a peace treaty is concerned? Because if one takes the official U.S.-European narrative seriously — that Russia invaded Ukraine because it is an aggressor nation that is hell-bent on conquering the world — then how do they arrive at a satisfactory resolution of the war, given that the real reason that Russia invaded Ukraine was to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO?

Thus, how does Trump guarantee Russia that Ukraine won’t ever join NATO? Sure, he can give his word. He can even put it into writing. But everyone knows that the U.S. government does not keep its word, and everyone knows that the U.S. government lies. Indeed, everyone knows that the U.S. promised Russia that NATO would not move eastward, and it did anyway.

Moreover, even if Russia believes Trump and takes him at his word, Trump could die from a heart attack tomorrow. Moreover, four years from now, America will presumably have a new president. What then? What assurance does Russia have that a new president won’t suddenly announce that NATO is absorbing Ukraine.

Therefore, the best assurance that Russia could be given would be the total dismantling of NATO. 

With no NATO, there is no threat of NATO’s suddenly absorbing Ukraine. Moreover, no more NATO means no more former Warsaw Pact members as members of NATO. 

But what are the chances that Trump will bring an end to this Cold War dinosaur? Very slim, unfortunately, which will make it very difficult to arrive at a lasting peace in Ukraine.

Authored by Peter Burns & Isaac Six via RealClearPolitics,

For decades, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been a pillar of global humanitarian assistance, channeling billions of dollars into development projects worldwide. But behind its noble mission of alleviating suffering and fostering stability lies a deeply flawed system – one riddled with pet political programs, excessive overhead, and a rejection of meaningful oversight. Now, as USAID faces drastic budget cuts and program suspensions, the consequences of these longstanding failures are being felt not just by contractors and implementers but by the very people the agency was meant to serve.

While some may view these reductions as an unfortunate casualty of shifting political priorities, they are, in many ways, the predictable outcome of an institution that has operated with a sense of entitlement for far too long. USAID’s unchecked hubris, its tendency to fund projects of questionable value, and its failure to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being spent advancing their interest have all contributed to the current crisis. If the United States is to maintain its leadership in international development, a fundamental reckoning with USAID’s practices is long overdue. 

A System Transformed To Serve Itself

Despite its important mission and the efforts of well-intentioned staff, USAID had become notorious for inefficiencies and bloated bureaucracies. A significant portion of its $58.4 billion budget never reached those in need, instead getting caught in a web of administrative costs and layers of subcontractors.

Take, for example, Chemonics International, one of USAID’s largest implementing partners. While its contracts are often worth billions, much of that money never reaches the ground. Instead, it is eaten up by overhead costs and an expansive bureaucracy that has grown wealthy off U.S. foreign aid. For example, when the first Trump administration announced hundreds of millions in aid money to help rebuild religious minority communities devastated by ISIS genocide, hopes were high, but between Chemonics and years of USAID bureaucratic entanglement, little of the money was ever seen or felt by the communities for which it was meant. 

At the heart of this problem is the way USAID structures its funding. Rather than directly administering aid, the agency too often relied on large implementing partners that, in turn, subcontracted work to other organizations. Each layer takes its share of the funding, leaving only a fraction of the original budget for actual aid delivery. This model has created an ecosystem in which a handful of firms secure massive contracts while local organizations – often better positioned to execute aid programs effectively – are historically sidelined.

Worse yet, USAID has a history of funding projects that, at best, have limited impact and, at worst, appear to be completely partisan nonsense. Taxpayer dollars have gone to fund a transgender-themed opera in Columbia, a DEI-themed musical event in Ireland, and an LGBTQ+ promoting comic book in Peru. In an era of growing global crisis, such spending choices raise serious questions about the agency’s priorities and how grant awards are being vetted. The plethora of absurd programs suggests more than a simple oversight within a massive bureaucracy. 

Wealthy Contractors, Struggling Recipients

For those who have worked within USAID’s ecosystem, the disconnect between the agency’s stated mission and its actual operations is glaring. Many of its largest contractors have thrived financially even as the populations they were meant to assist saw limited benefit. A handful of development firms have built entire business ecosystems off USAID funding, securing contract after contract while delivering lackluster results.

Meanwhile, the human cost of these inefficiencies cannot be overstated. As USAID-funded programs are halted or downsized, jobs are being lost – not just in Washington, D.C., but across the developing world. Local employees who relied on USAID-funded jobs to support their families now find themselves without work, caught in the fallout of an aid system that prioritized contract value over sustainable impact. 

The Path Forward

The current funding review comes at a pivotal moment. Recognizing the risks of an abrupt pullback, the administration has granted a waiver for existing life-saving humanitarian assistance programs, allowing them to continue while broader budgetary decisions are made. 

For U.S. international aid to regain the American people’s trust and truly advance U.S. national interest abroad, systemic changes must be made. [ZH: or just let it die] The process needs greater oversight in allocating funds and a renewed focus on delivering aid efficiently. This means reducing the reliance on massive contracts that siphon money away from recipients and instead empowering local organizations that can execute projects. On the ground, U.S. expertise and local faith communities that have existing trust and accountability can be used to balance the challenges of moving away from large international aid implementors. The idea of bringing foreign assistance back into the Department of State makes a lot of sense and reflects the structure many governments are moving toward, such as the UK’s restructuring in 2020. 

There is no question that foreign aid remains a critical tool of U.S. diplomacy and global leadership. Reforms of this nature are painful and disruptive, much like a first trip back to the gym after the holidays, but the results can be worth the burn. This moment of reckoning presents an opportunity to rebuild a system that truly works – one that prioritizes U.S. interest, effectiveness, and the people it was meant to help. Anything less would be a disservice to American taxpayers and the millions who rely on U.S. aid for survival.

Peter Burns is executive director of the International Religious Freedom Summit and previously served at the U.S. Department of State. 

Isaac Six is the co-founder and CEO of The Six Group, an organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom around the world, and has worked for nearly 14 years in Washington, D.C., on international religious freedom issues.

A study by Slot.Day ranked the ten highest-paid world leaders, comparing their salaries against their respective nations’ GDP per capita to standardize comparisons across economies.

Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong tops the list as the world’s highest-paid leader, earning $1.6 million annually—nearly 1.5 times the country’s GDP per capita of $84.7K, according to Slot.Day.

Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, John Lee Ka-chiu, ranks second with a $695K salary, more than 1.1 times Hong Kong’s GDP per capita but less than half of Wong’s earnings. Switzerland’s President, Viola Amherd, follows in third place, earning $572K, which is less than half of the country’s GDP per capita of $99.9K.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ranks fourth with a $413K salary, equating to 53% of the nation’s GDP per capita. U.S. President Donald Trump takes the fifth spot with a $400K salary—only 40% of the U.S. GDP per capita of $81.6K, the lowest ratio among the top 10.

The study by Slot.Day study revealed that in sixth place, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen earns $364K, about 50% of the EU’s GDP per capita. Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer ranks seventh with a $317K salary, or 47% of Austria’s GDP per capita.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon ranks eighth, earning $311K, or 53% of the country’s GDP per capita—the same ratio as his Australian counterpart. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is ninth with a $301.4K salary, reflecting a salary-to-GDP ratio of 47.06%.

Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz rounds out the top ten with a $293.7K salary, maintaining the European norm at 46% of GDP per capita.

A spokesperson for Slot.Day said: “The vast differences in world leader salaries show how nations prioritize executive compensation in relation to economic output. While some leaders earn well above their country’s GDP per capita, others operate within stricter public service norms.”

They continued: “The uniformity of European salary ratios around 47% suggests a structured approach to governance pay, contrasting sharply with regions where leadership compensation far exceeds national averages. These disparities reflect broader political philosophies—whether leadership is seen as a high-value executive role or a duty bound by fiscal restraint.”

The entire dataset from the report can be found here. 

Submitted by Jim Bovard

High inflation spurred Donald Trump’s defeat of Kamala Harris last November. The economy was the top issue for most voters, and inflation was the top economic issue. As Biden’s partner in economic crime, Harris could not escape the blame for the torpedoing of the dollar’s value in recent years.

Inflation occurs when the government prints excessive currency, resulting in more money chasing the same amount of goods and services. Nobel Laureate economist Friedrich Hayek wrote, “Inflation is never an unavoidable natural disaster; it is always the result of the weakness or ignorance of those in charge of monetary policy.” As economist Per Bylund observed, “Inflation is money losing its purchasing power.” Government is the premier profiteer of inflation, providing politicians with “free” money to spend while systematically defaulting on any debts government promised to pay.

Biden inflation lies begin

In July 2021, Biden declared, “There’s nobody suggesting there’s unchecked inflation on the way — no serious economist.” Actually,  there were plenty of dire warnings. In December 2021, Biden scoffed at inflation as a “bump in the road.” But that “bump” became a hole in the gas tank for tens of millions of Americans who drive to work as fuel prices set one record after another. Biden claimed inflation is a problem everywhere, but National Public Radio reported that “between 2019 and 2021, the United States saw one of the biggest inflation rate increases in the world, behind only Brazil and Turkey.” Rep. Lance Gooden (R–Texas) noted, “Joe Biden promised $2,000 stimulus checks but gave Americans $5,000 per year inflation instead.”

Biden spawned the highest rate of food inflation since the Nixon administration, but he scoffed when a CNN interviewer recently asked him about the 30 percent rise in grocery prices. Biden ridiculously declared of consumers, “They have the money to spend!” Exiled whistleblower Edward Snowden quipped that the White House was trying to defuse anger by “telling people no, no, a shopping cart full of groceries has always cost $36,000.”

Biden’s pro-inflation policies divided Americans between those who work for a living and those who vote for a living. In  2021, Biden boasted, “Even after accounting for inflation … our families have more money in their pockets than they did before the pandemic.” Putting more unearned dollars in people’s pockets was a windfall for politicians, but it worsened economic disruptions. Besides, it was scant consolation to have more dollars that purchase less and less each month.

Experts kindly offered plenty of financial remedies to hard-pressed Americans. For Thanksgiving 2021, the Federal Reserve recommended that people rely on soybean-based dinners instead of turkey — saving 76 cents a serving. Georgia Democratic Party leader Stacey Abrams touted abortion as a cure for inflation: “Having children is why you’re worried about your price for gas, it’s why you’re concerned about how much food costs. For women, this is not a reductive issue.” Professor Teresa Ghilarducci, in a Washington Post op-ed, recommended that families with an income less than $289,000 per year “adjust” to inflation by eating lentils instead of meat, ditching their car and taking public transit, and maybe letting their pets die. In October 2022, Biden implied that soaring food prices wouldn’t be a real problem if Americans bought no-name, store-brand Raisin Bran instead of Kellogg’s.

Biden’s media whores

Pro-Biden media outlets painted inflation as practically a divine blessing that Biden is bestowing on Americans. MSNBC tweeted, “Why the inflation we’re seeing now is a good thing,” while The Intercept went whole-hog on soaring milk prices: “Inflation is Good for You.”  The Washington Post editorial board rushed to absolve Biden: “The main reason inflation is at its highest level since 1982” is because “people continue to spend a lot of time at home” and demand more goods. MSNBC anchor Joy Reid claimed in November 2022 that inflation was a word that Republicans “taught people…. Most people would have never used that word ever in their lives are using it now because they’ve been taught it.” The same month, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen blamed inflation on citizens frustrated by lockdowns who “suddenly started splurging on goods.” Most pundits dismissed or disdained people who complained about how the 20+ percent inflation of the Biden era harmed their families. Author Tom Woods noted that leftists “are now mocking people who are concerned about price inflation by using the expression ‘burger too expensive.’”

NPR ran a tear-jerking piece headlined: “The Movement To Stick Inflation Blame On Biden.” After disparaging the “I did that!” stickers of Biden’s face being attached to gas pumps and other places, NPR lamented, “It’s not just vandals, pranksters, and TikTokers trying to stick inflation blame on Biden.” After admitting that real wages for workers fell 2.4 percent last year, NPR consoles, “It’s A Crummy Time To Be A World Leader.”

But inflation was much worse than Biden or the media admitted. Beginning in the 1980s, the formula for calculating inflation was revised dozens of times, almost always with a downward bias. The Consumer Price Index is skewed because it does not attempt to compare the price of the same basket of goods over time. Instead, federal officials concocted a gauge they claim measures a “constant level of satisfaction.” But who in hell made bureaucrats the supreme judges of happiness?

In addition to that bureaucratic fairy dust, the inflation formula was changed to severely underweight rises in housing prices, instead relying on “the new concept of homeowners’ equivalent rent, where the government would estimate how much it would cost to own your own house,” John Williams, the founder of Shadow Stats, observed. The average monthly mortgage payment on a median-priced home has doubled since Biden took office.

Larry Summers, Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary, observed that if the feds used the same inflation gauges during Biden’s administration that were used in the 1970s, Biden’s peak inflation would have been 18 percent, twice as high as the reported number and the highest inflation rate in U.S. history. Understating inflation permitted the Biden administration to deny much of the financial damage it inflicted.

Biden portrayed himself as inflation’s biggest victim. “Inflation is the bane of our existence,” Biden lamented to a talk show host in June 2022. Unfortunately, he was referring to inflation’s effect on his approval ratings, not the plight of average Americans struggling to pay for gas and groceries. When Peter Doocy of Fox News asked about the impact of inflation in January, Biden called him “a stupid son of a bitch.” The Biden administration presumed that giving more handouts to government dependents would ease the pain of self-reliant middle class families — perhaps by osmosis.

Economic hocus pocus

Biden’s policies were based the “Magic Bean School of Political Economy.” His policymakers favor Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) — the notion that government spending almost never has an adverse effect on the economy. MMT advocates believe there is practically no problem that cannot supposedly be solved by bigger gushers of free government money. A Washington Post headline captured the administration’s presumptions: “Biden’s big bet: That he can remake economy with no bad side effects” such as “less incentive to work.” But as USA Today reported, “Many people have permanently stopped working, depressing labor force participation” by millions of people. Labor force participation has fallen sharply since 2019.

MMT champions are adamant that the flood of new money is irrelevant to rising price levels. In a March 2022 speech to Democratic members of Congress, Biden raged at being blamed for inflation: “I’m sick of this stuff!… We have to talk about it because the American people think the reason for inflation is the government spending more money. Simply. Not. True.”

Biden sought to deflate the political peril by demagoguing against corporations for raising prices. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden found a new culprit: “Make no mistake, inflation is largely the fault of Putin.” But inflation was already at 7 percent before the invasion of Ukraine. Biden began denouncing the “Putin Price Hikes,” but polls showed that few Americans  swallowed that assertion. In June 2022, the Washington Post reported that Biden was blaming his White House aides for his problem with inflation: he “complained to aides that they were not doing a good job explaining the causes of inflation and what the administration is doing about it.”

In the final weeks of the 2022 midterm congressional campaign, Biden boasted of the impact of inflation — at least on voters pocketing federal checks. He told senior citizens in Florida, “On my watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting an increase in their Social Security checks.” In reality, Social Security benefits have increased every year since 2016. The White House tweeted: “Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership.” Even CNN derided that comment, since Social Security benefits are linked to inflation by law. Actually, the benefit boost was the largest in 40 years.

According to Biden, “shrinkflation” — adjusting for inflation by selling smaller products for the same price — is a worse crime than anything his administration inflicted on the American people. Biden condemned corporations for “charging folks more and more for less and less.” In his 2024 Super Bowl ad denouncing shrinkflation, Biden declared, “The American public is tired of being played for suckers.” Politico reported, “The White House has been aggressively testing out the [shrinkflation] messaging on the airwaves and in internal polling ahead” of Biden’s State of the Union speech. But unlike governments that force people to pay more taxes for worse services, corporations cannot conscript their victims. Biden’s attempt to persuade Americans they were being crucified on a cross made of shrinking candy bars failed.

Biden sought to “fix” inflation the same way he “solved” other debacles: with brazen lies that presumed his listeners are either idiots or NPR junkies. As voters focused more on the losses of their purchasing power, Biden repeatedly declared in early 2024 that the inflation rate was 9 percent at the time he took office  — almost six times the actual rate. Biden’s credibility deteriorated even faster than the value of the U.S. dollar.

Policymakers ignored the devastation they inflicted. When asked during a January 2022 news conference about how “inflation affects different groups of Americans,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said he wasn’t “aware of … inflation literally falling more on different socioeconomic groups…. The point is some people are just really prone to suffer more.” Inflation sounded like a problem that therapists must solve. In reality, lower-income households spend a far higher percent of their income on food, gas, and heating their homes — three categories where prices have soared. A survey by Lending Club in early 2022 found that “61 percent of the U.S. population lived paycheck to paycheck, up seven percentage points since the first report in June 2021, including 77 percent of consumers earning less than $50,000.” In October 2022, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported that most American workers had suffered the harshest fall in wages in 25 years, including a “median decline in real wages” of more than 8.5 percent.

Biden’s attempt to portray himself as an innocent bystander to the destruction of value of the U.S. dollar was a disastrous flop. The president suffered political “death by a thousand price hikes,” as consumers blamed Biden each time they hit the gas pump or grocery store.

When Kamala Harris signaled that she would likely continue Biden’s policies across the board, voters recognized that she had learned nothing from Biden’s debacles. The Harris campaign believed that perpetually championing the right to abortion would guarantee them more than enough votes from women. But it turned out that “women buy milk and eggs more often than they get abortions.”

A century ago, Americans clearly recognized the moral implications of inflation. Vice President Calvin Coolidge bluntly declared in 1922: “Inflation is repudiation.” But it remains to be seen whether the inflationary torrent of recent years will awaken Americans to the folly of trusting Washington to not sabotage their personal independence or the nation’s prosperity.

Authored by Mike McDaniel via American Thinker,

Imagine you’re an operative for a government law enforcement agency gone Stasi. Your power over the lives of others is near-absolute. You can destroy anyone who even thinks of opposing you or your political masters. You no longer expose yourself to the dangers of pursuing real criminals, spies and terrorists. Soccer moms and Catholics are easy targets. You’re covered. You can violate the law and Constitution at will and violating the rights of Americans is your daily stock in trade. 

So pervasive is the corruption in your agency, it is daily routine to document it. You feel no need to hide evidence of lawlessness, even the commission of crimes, because that’s the status quo. Any vestiges of conscience, decency, accountability have long been wiped from your mind and your agency’s collective conscience and data banks. You’re invincible, and every additional violation of the Constitution, every violation of your oath, ensures there is no way to undo “our democracy” to which you’ve sold your soul.

And then, the unthinkable happens. Joe Biden exposes his dementia, and his handler’s lies and manipulations, on national TV. Even the Democrat/socialist/communist (D/s/c) media can’t cover for him anymore. It is suddenly possible free speech might be restored. Still, you’re sure the dam will hold. The mighty walls of deceit and intimidation you’ve built can’t fall.

And then, Kamala Harris, who has never won a primary, is anointed and God help you, she’s allowed to speak in public. Donald Trump is elected, Elon Musk and Big Balls are appointed and allowed to run rampant in previously untouchable files, and the walls come a tumblin’ down.

There’s only one thing left to do before you’re fired, your security clearance is revoked and you’re locked out of all access to your previous tools of blackmail, extortion and power: destroy the evidence!

Journalist Michael Shellenberger has exposed so much corruption over the past several years, we’ve learned that when he drops a bomb on Twitter, it’s usually worth paying attention to and it is usually HUGE. 

From the scandal of the Twitter files to the lies and falsified research at WPATH regarding ‘gender-affirming care’ to, most recently, the fraud he documented at USAID, when Shellenberger announces something, we tend to listen.

His latest nuke dropped on Twitter involves the FBI. This news is early in development and he has only written very briefly about it so far, but it sure sounds like he — and a noted FBI whistleblower — have some interesting and incriminating things to say to Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and newly named Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino. 

Shellenberger was prompted to post the tweet amid a conversation between Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and conservative pundit Charlie Kirk involving corruption at the CIA and other intelligence agencies … and whatever sick things are going on at the NSA right now.

The whistleblower Shellenberger mentioned in his tweet is former FBI agent Garrett O’Boyle, who previously testified before Congress about the weaponization of the FBI under the Biden administration and the retribution the agency took on him and others for exposing its actions, despite whistleblower protection laws. 

Elon Musk was surely already aware of this, and with Kash Patel, is dealing with it. His one word comment speaks volumes:

I don’t presume to know computers on the level of Musk’s whiz kids, but I suspect this is right:

I share Shellenberger’s sentiment:

Generally speaking, anyone who destroys evidence of a crime becomes, at the least, an accessory after the fact to that crime even if they didn’t actively participate in it. With such people, there is always the possibility of conspiracy charges, and depending on the nature of the crimes, treason. The FBI is a primary agency charged with defending national security, and our enemies offer many temptations for those willing to betray America beyond the perks and power of being an American Stasi.

Cutting the infection out of the federal government was always going to be a herculean task. We’re discovering, day by day, just how daunting it is and only massive arrests and prosecutions of every one of those who have betrayed America can have any hope of deterring future offenses.

If people like O’Boyle, all the other whistleblowers and Shellenberger aren’t eventually lauded as genuine heroes, we’ll know the Swamp has not really been reformed. God help us if it isn’t.

Crushing “our democracy” and restoring our representative, constitutional republic depend upon it.

On a different subject, if you are not already a subscriber, you may not know that we’ve implemented something new: A weekly newsletter with unique content from our editors for subscribers only. These essays alone are worth the cost of the subscription. 

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.