Internment camp being constructed in Utah, the home of Mormons:
Last month, Utah’s homeless services agreed to buy nearly 16 acres of land northwest of Salt Lake City. There, they plan to build a first-of-its-kind facility with 1,300 beds. Officials call it a “services-based homeless campus.” Yet critics fear it will feel like an internment camp, where people live under strict rules and forced work.
Key Dates: 1954: Wackenhut Corporation is founded in Miami as Special Agent Investigators, Inc. by George R. Wackenhut, a former special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), and three other former FBI agents. 1958: George Wackenhut buys out his partners and incorporates the company as The Wackenhut Corporation, moving the company to Coral Gables, Florida. 1962: The acquisition of General Plant Protection Company allows Wackenhut to expand its operations beyond Florida, into California and Hawaii. 1964: Wholly owned subsidiary Wackenhut Services, Inc. (WSI) is formed specifically to handle the company’s government contract business 1966: Wackenhut goes public, listing shares on the American Stock Exchange; company opens its first international office in Venezuela. 1985: Company begins first Job Corps Centers operations. 1987: Wackenhut enters the growing private correctional facilities business, forming Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (WCC) as a wholly owned subsidiary. 1994: WCC goes public, selling approximately 26 percent of its stock, with the remainder under Wackenhut Corp.’s control. 1997: Wackenhut Corporation launches Oasis Outsourcing, a professional employer organization (PEO). 2002: Wackenhut Corporation becomes a subsidiary of Group 4 Falck, a Danish security firm.
And read about the corporation who run ICE from their HQ in Palm Beach, Florida:
Links to History of ICE activities in Venezuela, article by then BBC reporter Greg Palast:
In 2004, Maduro, the future president, was sent by Chavez to meet with me at my office in New York to review the evidence that Wackenhut Corporation (now called GEO, a major operator of ICE detention centers) had planned to assassinate Chavez.
Watch: The Assassination of Hugo Chavez on YouTube
Denmark has adopted increasingly restrictive rules in order to deal with migration over the last few years.
In Denmark, most asylum or refugee statuses are temporary. Residency can be revoked once a country is deemed safe.
In order to achieve settlement, asylum seekers are required to be in full-time employment, and the length of time it takes to acquire those rights has been extended.
Denmark also has tougher rules on family reunification – both the sponsor and their partner are required to be at least 24 years old, which the Danish government says is designed to prevent forced marriages.
The sponsor must also not have claimed welfare for three years and must provide a financial guarantee for their partner. Both must also pass a Danish language test.
In 2018, Denmark introduced what it called a ghetto package, a controversial plan to radically alter some residential areas, including by demolishing social housing. Areas with over 1,000 residents were defined as ghettos if more than 50% were “immigrants and their descendants from non-Western countries”.
In 2021, the left of centre government passed a law that allowed refugees arriving on Danish soil to be moved to asylum centres in a partner country – and subsequently agreed with Rwanda to explore setting up a program, although that has been put on hold.
Sky News, 8th Nov 2025
History of wrongful detention:
After Pearl Harbour:
Japanese American internment, the forced relocation by the U.S. government of thousands of Japanese Americans to detention camps during World War II. That action was the culmination of the federal government’s long history of racist and discriminatory treatment of Asian immigrants and their descendants that had begun with restrictive immigration policies in the late 1800s.
Petition against Inverness barracks becoming migrant centre gets over 1,500 signatures in just hours
The Home Office’s decision to house 300 male asylum seekers in Inverness has went down badly with local people, with public safety and community cohesion fears raised
Perpetuating abject misery for millions is punishing the wrong people.
We must stop this process where we use old, tattered playbooks.
Applying misery to those already miserable is a sociopath’s delight. The sociopath is mentally sick and it is time we prevented such damaged people from gaining power.
Humans evolved with difficulty. It is not easy being human as we possess many flaws, and we recognise the proverb as it so clearly speaks to who we are:
It is clearly a literal fact that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The conversion of that notion into a figurative phrase was established in the language by the 18th century. Thomas Reid’s Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, 1786, included this line:
“In every chain of reasoning, the evidence of the last conclusion can be no greater than that of the weakest link of the chain, whatever may be the strength of the rest.”
If the chain has many weak links, it will break all the sooner.
When our world population sees mass poverty and displacement in the 21st century, there has been a failure of global governance.
If people are homeless for no fault of their own and seek shelter and protection, first we should value each person and follow Maslow’s hierarchy.
There are many causes of homelessness. Examples in British history are when thousands were thrown off the land they had lived and worked on for generations: The Clearances in the north of Scotland, which began in the 18th century after The Enclosures in England, which began in the 12th century:
1750-1780: Agricultural change and ‘Improvement’ in a British context
Although often associated with resistance to change or ‘progress’, the Scottish Highlands had experienced revolutionary change in the eighteenth century. After the convulsions of the Jacobite rising and Culloden (1745-6), a new ethos of agricultural, economic and social ‘Improvement’ spread across the region, led by a handful of prominent improving landowners (Sir John Sinclair of Ulster, for example), professional surveyors and writers. Examples of estate improvement were set by the Forfeited Estates, the 11 estates forfeited and administered by the government as punishment for prominent landowners who had taken up the Jacobite cause. Drainage, enclosure, consolidation of larger farms, the introduction of new stock (sheep over black cattle, principally) and crop rotation became widespread. Essentially, Highland estates were being re-drawn along commercial lines, with increasing rents the target for owners and managers. This process had been in place from the seventeenth century, but the pace of change accelerated after 1746; the scene was set for a grander re-organisation, this time, of the population.
Enclosures in England refer to the process of consolidating common lands into individually owned plots, which began in the 12th century and accelerated between the 15th and 19th centuries. This practice often deprived commoners of their traditional rights to use these lands, leading to significant social unrest and contributing to the Agricultural Revolution. Lumen Learning
There are 380,000 homeless in the UK, and 8,000,000 in Pakistan.
Pakistan’s history dates back to ancient civilizations, including the Indus Valley Civilization around 3300 BC. The modern state was established in 1947 following the partition of British India, aimed at creating a separate homeland for Muslims in the region. Wikipedia BBC
Forced removal of people off their land was well practiced by the British:
I have read many articles from English speaking news outlets, but the only one which fits the situation for me is this one, which I am reposting, from Just Security:
The $550 Billion Shadow Budget: Trump’s Japan Deal and the Disappearing Appropriations Clause
This article is part of Just Security‘s “When Guardrails Erode,” an anti-corruption Series.
In September 2025, Japan agreed to provide $550 billion for U.S. investments that President Trump will personally direct in exchange for a partial rollback of the steep tariffs he had imposed on Japanese goods. The deal, formalized in a memorandum of understanding, operates outside the congressional appropriations process. To grasp the scale of the agreement, this $550 billion slush fund would amount to eight percent of federal spending in FY2024, or more than the GDP of 34 states and all but 26 countries.
Earlier this week, the U.S. and Japan held a signing ceremony touting up to $490 billion in projects under the September deal and framing them as evidence that the program is already delivering results. But Japan’s own announcement tells a different story: the same companies have merely expressed interest in possible projects, no binding contracts have been signed, and the proposals remain under review by the administration. The episode makes clear that the September deal is moving forward, even as the administration offers little transparency about its legal basis and has secured no congressional approval.
Under the agreement, for each project, the United States will establish a new corporate vehicle to receive funds, channel them into U.S. projects, and distribute any returns. In practical terms, the President would control a $550 billion pool of foreign capital through entities his administration creates and manages. That structure circumvents the U.S. Constitution’s Appropriations Clause and the fiscal safeguards Congress designed to enforce it, replacing the ordinary budget process with a system answerable only to the White House.
Overview of the Deal
In April 2025, President Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to declare a national emergency, citing “large and persistent” trade deficits. He then imposed a 10 percent “reciprocal tariff” on imports from major trading partners, including Japan, later raising Japan’s tariff to 25 percent. The escalation prompted negotiations that produced a frameworkagreement in July 2025 and a final memorandum and executive order in September 2025. Under that deal, Japan pledged to invest $550 billion in U.S. industries such as semiconductors, energy, and shipbuilding in exchange for partial tariff relief. The Federal Circuit has since ruled that the President lacked the authority to impose the tariffs under IEEPA, and the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on November 5.
The Japanese-U.S. Memorandum of Understanding gives President Trump near-total discretion over how those funds will be invested. Under the proposed structure, an investment committee chaired by the Commerce Secretary will recommend projects, but the final decisions rest with the President. All investments must be made before the end of his term. Once a project is selected, Japan has 45 business days to decide whether to fund it, with tariff increases or profit penalties if it declines. For each approved investment, the United States will form a special-purpose vehicle (SPV) to receive Japan’s money and manage the project, with the U.S. serving as general partner. Profits will be split evenly between the two countries until a set threshold, then 90–10 in America’s favor. The Department of Commerce will execute and oversee the program’s operations.
The deal gives the administration sweeping control over hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign capital through entities it creates and manages, without congressional authorization or oversight. Yet despite the agreement’s scale and the creation of a wholly new investment framework, the White House’s executive order only referenced the $550 billion investment without explaining how the deal will operate. And while Japan has publicly released the memorandum, the Trump administration has not—another omission.
The administration is already operationalizing the framework. In the October 28 fact sheet, the White House touted nearly $490 billion in what it described as new investments under the September memorandum and held a signing ceremony in Japan with about a dozen companies. The fact sheet groups the proposed funding into categories such as energy infrastructure, artificial-intelligence infrastructure, and critical-minerals manufacturing, naming a mix of U.S. and Japanese firms. Several projects, however, list no participating company at all. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick later posted a video on X explaining the September deal again, confirming that implementation is proceeding as originally agreed upon.
In contrast, Tokyo struck a far more cautious tone. Japan released its own fact sheet listing the same 15 companies (and six more) that had merely expressed interest in potential projects and made no binding commitments. It characterized the dollar figures as rough estimates, and Japan’s finance minister noted that it remains unclear how many of the projects will move forward or how much financing will ultimately be involved. The proposals will still need to undergo review by the Department of Commerce’s investment committee, which recommends projects for presidential approval, and no final decisions have been announced. Two companies issued press releases stating they had signed memoranda of understanding with the Department in support the new agreement, but no binding contracts or enforceable investment commitments have been disclosed.
How the Deal Breaks Federal Fiscal Law
The Japan deal builds a second budget outside the law. By directing foreign money through corporations it creates and controls, the administration has assumed powers that belong to Congress alone. The following sections explain how the arrangement breaches the Constitution’s Appropriations Clause and the fiscal statutes that enforce it: the Miscellaneous Receipts Act, the Anti-Deficiency Act, and the Government Corporation Control Act.
Violating the Appropriations Clause
The Constitution gives Congress alone the power of the purse, prohibiting the executive from spending or directing funds without legislative approval. The Appropriations Clause provides:
“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” That safeguard ensures that Congress—not the president—decides which programs to fund and how much to allocate. Members exercise oversight through hearings, audits, and constituent engagement, ensuring that major development projects reflect both national priorities and local needs. If the Japan deal continues to proceed outside the standard processes, members of Congress will have no voice in how the executive branch funds massive investment projects that could reshape industries and employment in their own states and districts.
By longstanding practice, significant trade agreements are submitted to Congress for approval under procedures established by statute, reflecting its constitutional authority “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.” The Supreme Court has rejected the notion that foreign affairs place the executive beyond Congress’s reach. As the Court explained in Zivotofsky v. Kerry (2015), “the President is not free from the ordinary controls and checks of Congress merely because foreign affairs are at issue.” That principle applies with particular force here: directing and spending money are among Congress’s most fundamental checks, not exceptions to them.
The Japan deal bypasses Congress by excluding it from both consideration of a major trade agreement and control over the hundreds of billions of dollars the agreement directs. Negotiated as a “non-binding” memorandum and executed solely by the executive branch, it proceeds without any statutory or legislative approval, thereby exercising powers that belong to Congress and eroding the safeguards that protect its control of the purse.
Violating the Miscellaneous Receipts Act
The Miscellaneous Receipts Act (MRA) provides that “an official or agent of the Government receiving money for the Government from any source shall deposit the money in the Treasury.” Once deposited, those funds cannot be withdrawn without an appropriation from Congress. Enacted in the 19th century to enforce the Appropriations Clause, the MRA prevents the executive from financing itself through outside sources—foreign, private, or otherwise.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), and the courts have long recognized that agencies cannot evade the MRA simply by structuring a transaction so that no federal official ever handles the money. GAO reads the MRA broadly, emphasizing that what matters is not form but the degree of control the government exercises over the funds. OLC has taken a narrower view, focusing on whether the government retains authority over the funds once a transaction is complete. But the Japan deal violates the MRA under either interpretation.
In defense of the deal, the administration may point to OLC’s 2006 Softwood Lumber opinion, which concluded that the United States did not violate the MRA when it settled trade litigation with Canada. Under that settlement, Canada agreed to provide $450 million to a private foundation that would distribute the funds to pre-designated causes in the United States. OLC reasoned that the funds were never received “for the Government” because the United States retained no control over them once the settlement was executed. The money passed directly from Canada to the foundation, and the United States had no continuing authority to manage or redirect it.
The Japan deal is fundamentally different. Here, the President will personally decide which projects receive funding, direct the flow of Japan’s money through entities the United States forms and governs, and oversee the investments—all after the memorandum’s execution. In Softwood Lumber, the United States never controlled the funds; in this case, they remain under presidential control from start to finish.
The SPV structure does not cure the problem. These SPV entities will be “form[ed],” “managed,” and “governed” by the United States. Once Japan’s funds enter an SPV, they are received by an “agent of the Government” and must be deposited in the Treasury. Even if Japan transferred the money directly to U.S. companies rather than through an SPV, the payments would still violate the MRA because the President is deciding which companies receive them.
The same applies to the investment proceeds. Any returns flowing back through the SPVs are federal receipts that must be deposited in the Treasury. Instead, the memorandum directs that investment returns flow into the SPVs and then to the United States and Japan. The portion flowing to Japan violates the MRA outright; the American share does too if it is retained or spent outside the Treasury.
Violating the Anti-Deficiency Act
The same structure that allows the President to direct foreign funds instead of depositing them in the Treasury also violates the Anti-Deficiency Act (ADA)—one of Congress’s core fiscal safeguards. The Act makes it illegal for federal officials to spend money that Congress has not appropriated. Here, the United States will receive billions of dollars outside the Treasury and use them to make loans, loan guarantees, and investments. Because Congress has appropriated no money for this purpose, every dollar spent will exceed the amounts legally available for expenditure. The source of the funds does not matter; what matters is that they are public funds spent without congressional authorization. That is a direct violation of the Act.
The problem does not end there. Under the memorandum, the United States will also share profits from those investments with Japan. Because the memorandum creates no enforceable rights, any decision to transfer proceeds to Japan will rest entirely with the executive’s discretion. Each time the administration chooses to make such a payment, it will be spending public money that Congress has never approved or appropriated—another ADA violation.
Violating the Government Corporation Control Act
The Japan deal does not just place public money outside the Treasury; it also channels it through new corporate vehicles that Congress never approved. If the MRA is the money problem, the Government Corporation Control Act (GCCA) is the machinery problem.
Congress passed the GCCA in 1945 in response to the growth of government-created corporations performing federal functions with little oversight. The law barred any agency from “establish[ing] or acquir[ing] a corporation to act as an agency” without specific statutory authorization, and it imposed requirements for management, budgeting, and fiscal accountability on those corporations that remained. The goal was simple: restore Congress’s control over the machinery of government. As theGAO and theOLC have long recognized, if the United States needs a corporation, Congress must authorize it.
The Japan memorandum does precisely what the Act forbids: it directs the Department of Commerce to create and manage government-run corporations to invest foreign funds and distribute profits—each one, in substance, a government corporation performing federal functions without congressional authorization. Commerce has no independent statutory authority to create or manage such entities. Even the Trump administration’s own OLC recently reaffirmed, in a separate context, that the department lacks authority to create corporations without explicit congressional authorization.
While the new corporations would still be subject to some cross-cutting laws governing agency operations, they would slip past others, like the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act, which requires agencies to follow federal accounting standards. GAO’s authority to audit them may be contested as well, further weakening oversight. Without those safeguards, tracking the money may become guesswork, with potentially fragmented records and oversight left largely to executive discretion.
Why Companies and Japan Should Worry
A deal that unlawfully bypasses Congress cannot yield lasting promises. A future administration acting lawfully would have no choice but to unwind those arrangements unless Congress ratifies them. That reality creates serious exposure not just for participating companies but for Japan itself—risks far beyond ordinary commercial uncertainty.
Companies that accept investments, loans, or guarantees through the Japan program face significant legal and financial risk. MRA violations require that unauthorized funds be recovered and deposited in the Treasury. Contracts or obligations made without lawful authority—including those that would violate the ADA—are generally unenforceable, and any payments made without statutory authorization must likewise be recovered, even from recipients who acted in good faith. Federal agencies are required to “aggressively” pursue such collections, and a future administration would have no choice but to do so. Agreements could be repudiated, loan guarantees invalidated, and projects frozen midstream.
The fate of the SPVs is especially uncertain: a GCCA violation would potentially require the government to sever its relationship with them—dissolving the entities, allowing them to operate independently as private vehicles without federal control, or seeking explicit congressional authorization. Until that occurs, their legal status, obligations, and ability to distribute funds would remain in doubt.
Japan faces even greater danger. If the program collapses, its investments would likely be among the first casualties: loans could be accelerated, projects defaulted, and repayments suspended as the SPVs and their counterparties unravel. Beyond ordinary credit risk, however, Japan’s exposure is legal. If a future administration or Congress concludes that the program violated fiscal law, the United States would likely need to halt spending and deposit any remaining funds and proceeds in the Treasury. Even a cooperative administration might be unable to repay Japan without new legislation, potentially leaving hundreds of billions of dollars in legal limbo.
In short, Japan could lose its entire investment, and companies could find themselves holding worthless contracts. They are effectively betting that future leaders and Congress will accept as lawful what the Constitution and federal fiscal laws clearly forbid.
A Prototype for Future Deals
Since the deal was first announced, commentatorshave suggested that the Japan deal could serve as a prototype for deals with other countries, and the precedent may already be spreading. South Korea has been negotiating its own version and has reportedly reached an agreement with the United States this week, with President Trump announcing that a deal has been “pretty much finalized.” According to reports, the framework calls for up to $200 billion in cash installments for U.S. projects in exchange for tariff relief, with the Commerce Secretary chairing a joint investment committee and profits split evenly between the countries. Although final terms remain subject to approval by South Korea’s Seoul’s legislature and work remains ongoing, the structure closely tracks the Japanese framework, consistent with South Korea’s finance minister’s September remark that “because we know the outcome of Japan’s negotiations, we can negotiate with the U.S. based on it.” The two arrangements together would give the Trump administration control of roughly $750 billion in foreign capital without a congressional appropriation—approaching the scale of the Defense Department’s entire annual budget.
Restoring Congressional Control
The danger is not just that this arrangement could be abused, but that it could become normal. Congress should fulfill its constitutional responsibilities and protect the power of the purse from unlawful encroachment. Whatever one thinks of the underlying trade dispute, Congress should not set a precedent that future presidents can personally direct hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign-financed spending outside the appropriations process.
Beyond constitutional principle, members of Congress have a practical stake in reclaiming control over where investment flows. Hundreds of billions of dollars in projects could be placed in their states and districts without any input from their congressional representatives. It must act now either to terminate the deal or bring it under lawful control.
For this deal to comply with existing laws, Congress would need to pass a statute authorizing and governing the program’s structure and oversight. A proper framework would establish a clear governance structure for any investment vehicles receiving funds from Japan. It would also require transparent and public criteria for project selection and mandate competitive solicitations. Funding decisions would rest on objective standards, not unfettered executive discretion.
Congress would also have to require that all receipts and returns be deposited in the Treasury and that spending occur only as specifically authorized. This would preserve the profit-sharing terms with Japan while bringing the program into compliance with federal fiscal law.
Congress could also impose rigorous transparency and auditing requirements. Each vehicle should be subject to GAO audit, federal accounting requirements, and annual reporting to the appropriations committees.
Likewise, Congress could strengthen its oversight of future executive actions under the GCCA by requiring agencies to provide advance notice and a legal justification before forming any new government corporation. This safeguard would allow Congress to object before an unauthorized entity comes into existence and prevent similar end-runs around the appropriations process.
At a minimum, Congress should request a GAO opinion on whether the memorandum complies with the MRA, ADA, and GCCA. Although ADA violations have never been criminally prosecuted, a formal GAO finding that the arrangement violates the Act would put administration officials on notice. Congress could also seek information on how the administration plans to select investments and avoid conflicts of interest, or use a House resolution of inquiry to force a public discussion in committee.
***
If Congress allows this arrangement to stand unchallenged, it will erode not only its power of the purse but its constitutional standing. The Framers gave Congress control over public funds to ensure no president could spend money without the consent of the people’s representatives. Whether Congress chooses to unwind the deal or to regulate it, the choice must be its own. What Congress cannot do is look away while the executive builds a government beyond the budget and a presidency beyond the law.
FEATURED IMAGE: Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son and U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands after the signing of memorandums of understanding during a meeting with business leaders at the U.S. Ambassador’s Residence on October 28, 2025 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Scott Levy (Bluesky – LinkedIn – X) served as the General Counsel for the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy in the Biden-Harris Administration.
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World Liberty burns 47M tokens in bid to pump price as slide continues
World Liberty Financial has turned to burning tokens in an attempt to stem a price drawdown its cryptocurrency has seen since it started trading publicly on Monday
Eric and Don Jr., along with their younger brother Barron—yes, Barron Trump is listed as a co-founder of World Liberty Financial—have been selling governance tokens that offer buyers almost nothing beyond limited voting rights on a platform that doesn’t actually exist yet. The promised peer-to-peer lending system remains vaporware. The WLFI token trades at 14 cents, down 65% from its brief September peak
And 2 days ago, this from Reuters:
How Reuters tallied the Trump Organization’s crypto income
October 28, 202510:00 AM GMTUpdated October 28, 2025
Most of U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s business empire is privately held, with few reporting requirements and little transparency, so calculating a reliable estimate of the Trump Organization’s earnings from crypto and other sources for the first half of 2025 required some sleuthing.
The process entailed reviewing the president’s official disclosures, property records, financial records released in court cases, crypto trade information and other publicly available sources. Where the family’s share of revenue from certain ventures could not be determined, Reuters made estimates that were vetted by four finance professors, two certified public accountants and an accounting professor, all of whom have taught courses or advised clients on crypto. They all agreed that Reuters’ approach was sound.
Ultimately, Reuters calculated that the Trump Organization earned $802 million from the family’s crypto ventures during the first half of 2025, overwhelming income from its traditional businesses like real estate, licensing deals and golf clubs, which together generated $62 million during the period.
Reuters shared a summary and an extensive spreadsheet of its calculations with the White House, Trump family members and the Trump Organization, and executives of the crypto businesses and requested comment. None of them responded.
And Shalev points out how Guren Zhou and Justin Sun are helpful in building World Financial.
Dubai this May, Eric Trump sat down with Guren “Bobby” Zhou, a Chinese businessman under investigation in Britain for money laundering. Chinese courts in three separate cases found Zhou and a family member failed to repay loans totaling $2.4 million. Weeks after that Dubai meeting, an entity Zhou is connected to announced a $100 million purchase of World Liberty tokens—sending roughly $75 million to the Trump family under the company’s distribution agreement.
Hong Kong crypto billionaire Justin Sun bought $75 million in tokens after the SEC charged him in 2023 with fraud and selling unregistered securities. The commission paused Sun’s case in February, weeks after he announced his massive token purchase. Last week, Trump pardoned him entirely. Sun’s response on social media: he would “do everything we can to help make America the Capital of Crypto.”
The Financial Times looked into the UK’s ‘Guren “Bobby”Zhou entrepeneurial efforts after seeing the Reuters investigation:
On June 26, an obscure entity called Aqua1 Foundation, which said it was based in the United Arab Emirates, announced it was buying $100 million of cryptocurrency tokens from World Liberty. It was the single largest known purchase of the so-called WLFI tokens at the time. The Chinese businessman who met with Eric Trump in Dubai was Guren “Bobby” Zhou, who has executive roles in multiple businesses and who is under investigation in Britain for money laundering, according to that nation’s National Crime Agency and a document filed in an immigration case at London’s Royal Courts of Justice.
So we also know about the Trump pardon for Justin Sun:
Sun, who was born in China but now a citizen of Saint Kitts and Nevis, is facing civil charges in the United States for fraud and market manipulation, but his SEC lawsuit was paused earlier this year when the Trump administration dropped virtually all of its lawsuits and investigations against alleged crypto violators.
No doubt we will all follow the ups and downs of World Financial.
My Past Lives theme may follow on from the following news which emerged yesterday, thanks to Bloomberg, regarding the investigation into money laundering activities of those in Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal network, prior to the ‘sweetheart deal’ which stopped further investigation:
The following is from another site commenting on the Bloomberg article:
October 31st, 2025
Internal emails, reported by Bloomberg, now show they were also tracing his finances, questioning whether his empire was being used to fund or conceal criminal activity.
The evidence points to a broader, more complex inquiry that reached into Epstein’s six businesses, major banks, and one of his wealthiest clients, Les Wexner.
The investigation, however, stopped short when a plea deal was struck, ending a probe that could have exposed much more.
Many conversations about this administration devolve into arguments about interpretation, intent, or whether things are really as bad as they seem. This is not that conversation.
This is documentation of policies implemented between January 20 and October 29, 2025 that caused measurable harm to Americans’ health, safety, economic security, or civil rights. Not proposals. Not threats. Not speculation about what might happen. Implemented policies with specific dates, dollar amounts, affected populations, and citations to government sources, major news outlets, and peer-reviewed research.
The list includes $1.5 trillion cut from healthcare, 300,000 federal workers terminated, $90 billion in grants and foreign aid cancelled, and 360,000 deaths attributed to foreign aid cuts by July 2025. It documents the systematic elimination of oversight capacity across every federal agency, then the harmful policies implemented after that oversight disappeared, then the destruction of the systems that might have documented the harm.
The Existentialist Republic is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Here are the specific things that happened. Here is what they did.
The value of this document is its completeness and its specificity. Each item can be verified independently. Each source can be checked. The accumulation of facts does the argumentative work. By item 30, you should understand the scale. By item 60, you will understand the pattern. By the end, you understand how much has truly been burned and razed.
HHS announced restructuring on March 27, 2025 cutting 20,000 full-time employees from 82,000 to 62,000, including 3,500 FDA jobs, 2,400 CDC jobs, 1,200 NIH jobs, and 300 CMS jobs
CDC eliminated entire divisions in March 2025: all 300 Environmental Health Science and Practice employees, all 150 tobacco and smoking cessation staff, all 50 first-year Epidemic Intelligence Service officers who investigate disease outbreaks, 180 HIV Prevection employees (half the division), and the entire human resources department.
CDC lost 600 additional employees through September 2025 reduction-in-force, decimating the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey that had operated continuously since the 1960s, eliminating critical data on lead exposure, obesity, and chronic disease.
NOAA laid off 880 employees on February 27, 2025, including meteorologists, climate scientists, radar specialists, and Hurricane Hunters crew, degrading weather forecast accuracy during hurricane season.
Interior Department fired more than 2,000 staff in the administration’s first month, including 1,000 National Park Service employees.
State Department fired 1,353 employees on July 11, 2025, including 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers working on counterterrorism, drug trafficking, energy diplomacy, and consular services.
DOJ Civil Rights Division lost 250 attorneys, representing 70 percent of its staff, eliminating federal capacity to investigate voting rights violations, police misconduct, and discrimination cases.
Communications freeze on January 21-22, 2025 prevented CDC from issuing health advisories during bird flu and measles outbreaks.
HHS, FDA, and CDC faced communications restrictions preventing them from warning the public about active health threats in January 2025.
DOGE eliminated or dramatically reduced FOIA staff at CDC, FDA, NIH, Education Department, USAID, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in April 2025.
CNN FOIA request to Office of Personnel Management in April 2025 received response “Good luck with that” because entire FOIA staff had been fired.
Trump fired Hampton Dellinger, head of Office of Special Counsel, on February 7, 2025 without required “for cause” showing while Dellinger was investigating Trump’s mass firing of probationary employees.
Seventeen inspectors general were illegally fired in violation of statutory protections requiring 30-day congressional notice.
90 percent of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau staff (1,500 positions) were targeted for elimination in proposed FY2026 budget.
Education Department staff reduction of 50 percent was proposed in FY2026 budget.
Veterans Affairs targeting 80,000 employee reductions in proposed cuts.
HHS issued 10,000 layoff notices for additional cuts beyond the initial 20,000.
Agriculture Department saw 15,182 employees accept resignation offers.
More than 300,000 federal workers departed across all agencies between January and October 2025.
One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed July 4, 2025 cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid over 10 years, including 15 percent reduction in federal spending.
Congressional Budget Office estimates OBBB Act will cause 10 million Americans to lose health insurance by 2034.
OBBB Act imposes 80-hour monthly work requirements for Medicaid enrollees in 40 expansion states, with research showing coverage loss occurs through paperwork burdens rather than employment status.
OBBB Act triggered $536 billion in automatic Medicare cuts over nine years (fiscal years 2026-2034) under Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act by adding $3.4 trillion to the deficit.
Medicare cuts start at $45 billion in 2026 and grow to $76 billion by 2034, representing 4 percent sequestration of Medicare payments.
OBBB Act allowed enhanced premium subsidies for ACA marketplace plans to expire at end of 2025.
Congressional Budget Office estimates ACA premium increases will average 75 percent after subsidy expiration.
Congressional Budget Office estimates 4.2 million additional people will become uninsured when enhanced ACA premium subsidies expire December 31, 2025, bringing total 2025-2034 coverage losses to 14 million.
CMS finalized rule on June 25, 2025 shortening ACA open enrollment by one month (ending December 15 instead of January 15), ending monthly special enrollment for people below 150 percent of poverty level, requiring advance income verification, and eliminating automatic re-enrollment, affecting 725,000 to 1.8 million people.
OBBB Act rescinded Biden-era rule easing Medicaid enrollment for seniors and people with disabilities for premium assistance, dental, vision, and long-term care.
Congressional Budget Office estimates 1.4 million seniors and people with disabilities will lose Medicaid benefits from rescission.
CBO estimates the Medicaid dual coverage change alone reduces costs by $66 billion over 10 years by eliminating coverage.
OBBB Act phases down Medicaid provider taxes and state-directed payments that states use to fund their share of program costs.
Researchers at Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research concluded more than 300 rural hospitals in Kentucky, Louisiana, California, and Oklahoma could face service reductions or closure.
$50 billion rural hospital fund in OBBB Act was deemed insufficient by researchers to prevent widespread closures.
Executive Order 14182 signed January 24, 2025 revoked Biden orders protecting reproductive healthcare access.
Department of Defense rescinded policy providing travel allowances and leave for servicemembers seeking abortion care off-base.
Veterans Affairs hospitals stopped providing abortions in January 2025.
Reinstated expanded Mexico City Policy and broader foreign aid cuts will cause 47.6 million people globally to lose access to reproductive healthcare, according to Guttmacher Institute projections.
Guttmacher Institute projects foreign aid cuts will result in 17.1 million more unintended pregnancies and 34,000 maternal deaths globally.
Executive order on January 20, 2025 immediately withdrew United States from Paris Agreement for the second time.
Executive order on January 20, 2025 revoked U.S. International Climate Finance Plan.
U.S. joins only Libya, Yemen, and Iran as non-participants in Paris Agreement while being responsible for 20 percent of all CO2 emissions since 1850.
EPA froze then terminated $20 billion in grants for National Clean Investment Fund and Clean Communities Investment Accelerator in February-March 2025.
Climate United Fund became unable to make payroll after EPA grant termination.
Projects for tribal lands, affordable housing, and disadvantaged communities were cancelled after clean energy grant termination.
EPA announced 31 deregulatory actions on March 12, 2025 in what officials called “biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history.”
EPA moved to dismantle Biden rule limiting vehicle pollution on March 12, 2025, eliminating standards that could save drivers up to $6,000 in fuel and maintenance costs over vehicle lifetime.
Vehicle emissions standards rollback eliminates $2.1 trillion in net benefits over 30 years according to NRDC analysis.
EPA announced intention on March 12, 2025 to dismantle Biden rule requiring coal and natural gas plants to cut or capture 90 percent of climate pollution by 2032.
Presidential proclamation on April 8, 2025 exempted 148 electric-generating units at 68+ coal plants from updated mercury limits for two years.
EPA proposed full repeal of mercury standards on June 17, 2025.
Mercury standards could have prevented 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, 2,800 cases of chronic bronchitis, and 130,000 asthma attacks annually according to EPA’s own analysis.
EPA announced intent on March 12, 2025 to reconsider 2009 endangerment finding that defines six climate pollutants as air pollution under Clean Air Act.
EPA formally proposed eliminating endangerment finding on July 29, 2025, which would invalidate legal basis for all federal climate change regulations.
USDA rescinded 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule on June 23, 2025, opening 58 million acres across 39 states to logging and road construction, including 9 million acres of Alaska’s Tongass rainforest, 28 million acres in high wildfire risk areas, and land that provides drinking water for 60 million Americans.
Interior Department finalized plan on October 24, 2025 opening entire 1.5-million-acre coastal plain of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing.
Arctic Refuge plan mandates four lease sales over 10 years on sacred Gwich’in Indigenous lands.
Arctic Refuge drilling threatens Porcupine caribou herd birthing grounds in region experiencing Arctic warming 3-5 times faster than global average.
Interior Department proposed on June 2, 2025 eliminating safeguards for 13 million acres of “special areas” in National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
Transportation Department memo on February 6, 2025 suspended National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program, freezing $5 billion for EV charging stations across all 50 states.
Interior Secretary ordered review in February-June 2025 to potentially reduce Bears Ears National Monument (1.35 million acres) and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (1.87 million acres), with DOJ opinion on June 11, 2025 claiming president can abolish national monuments.
OSHA enforcement effectively suspended when Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission lost quorum; last commissioner’s term expired April 2025 with no contested citations able to be adjudicated.
More than 1 million federal workers lost collective bargaining rights through executive actions in first 100 days.
4 million workers lost expanded overtime eligibility when Trump administration declined to defend Biden overtime rule in court.
Trump administration gutted Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in February 2025, shutting down an agency that had obtained $21 billion in consumer restitution since 2011 and abandoning pending enforcement cases including Capital One’s $2 billion potential recovery.
$5 billion in annual consumer losses resulted from overdraft fee cap repeal in March 2025.
Trump administration imposed tariffs causing $1,300-$2,000 per household in additional costs according to economic analyses.
FDA fired probationary employees on February 15-17, 2025, including staff reviewing food additive safety, medical devices, and tobacco products.
SAVE Act, which passed House 220-208 on April 10, 2025 and remains pending in Senate, would disenfranchise 21.3 million Americans who lack ready access to citizenship documents required to register to vote.
20-23 people died in ICE custody in 2025.
ICE detention facilities held 46,000 people in March 2025, rising to approximately 60,000 by September-October 2025, operating at 50 percent over capacity.
7.5 million students with disabilities lost federal oversight protections when Education Department civil rights enforcement was gutted.
Day one executive order on January 20, 2025 reinstated Schedule F, stripping civil service protections from estimated 50,000 federal employees.
Schedule F makes tens of thousands of career federal employees “at-will” and fireable for political reasons, eliminating merit-based hiring system in place since 1883 Pendleton Act.
Day one executive order on January 20, 2025 rescinded Biden’s ethics requirements including ban on accepting gifts from lobbyists, ban on working on issues appointees lobbied on in prior two years, and two-year ban on lobbying after leaving government; Trump has not issued replacement ethics pledge.
At least 8 Trump nominees would have been banned or limited under previous ethics rules.
On April 4, 2025, President Trump fired NSA Director Gen. Timothy Haugh and Deputy Director Wendy Noble without advance notice to military leadership, disrupting leadership of both National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command during what former NSA officials called an “alarming” situation exposing the country to “new risk.”
CIA eliminated 1,200 positions (5.5% of its 22,000 workforce) on May 2, 2025, during critical hiring surge intended to expand collection capabilities against China, Russia, Iran, and terrorist groups.
NSA announced cuts of thousands of positions including approximately 2,000 civilian roles on May 2, 2025, with former NSA cybersecurity director warning the cuts “will destroy a pipeline of top talent.”
On July 20, 2025, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard ordered all intelligence related to Russia-Ukraine peace talks compartmentalized as “NOFORN” (no foreign dissemination), cutting America’s closest intelligence partners out of information sharing that had operated seamlessly for decades, leading Western officials to conclude of the Five Eyes alliance: “I don’t think that’s reliable anymore.”
On January 20, 2025, Trump signed executive order granting immediate interim Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information clearances to select White House personnel without FBI background investigations, giving highest-level clearances to individuals who “never had access to classified information before,” with former clearance officials calling the decision “unprecedented,” “dangerous,” and “stupid.”
In March 2025, U.S. Coast Guard Counterintelligence Service and Naval Criminal Investigative Service distributed intelligence assessments warning with “high confidence” that China, Russia, and other countries were actively recruiting fired and at-risk U.S. government employees with security clearances through LinkedIn, TikTok, Reddit, and fake company profiles.
Defense Department implemented workforce reductions targeting 50,000-60,000 civilian positions who perform mission-critical tasks spanning logistics, equipment maintenance, aircraft repair, and information security, with more than 20,000 employees placed on administrative leave by March 18.
Beginning in January 2025, approximately 16,000 healthcare providers on the East Coast were not paid for months due to TRICARE contractor transition issues, leading providers to drop patients, reduce hours, and consider clinic closures, with one 16-year service member considering early separation because his son’s autism therapy provider threatened to terminate services.
On October 29, 2025, the U.S. Army announced the 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division would return from Romania with no replacement, reducing U.S. troops in Romania by 700 (from 1,700 to 1,000), marking the first announced drawdown from NATO’s eastern flank.
In March 2025, the U.S. notified NATO allies it would not participate in military exercises in Europe beyond those already scheduled for 2025, forcing NATO countries to plan future exercises without the alliance’s largest military.
In summer 2025, Trump declined to approve more than $400 million in military aid to Taiwan including munitions and autonomous drones during negotiations for a trade deal with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Trump administration’s FY2026 budget proposal eliminated all funding for the Baltic Security Initiative, which had provided over $1 billion to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania between 2021-2025 for training, exercises, equipment transfers, and cyber defense.
FBI reassigned 2,840 special agents (20% of approximately 13,800 agents) to immigration enforcement beginning in February 2025, abandoning 764 domestic terrorism cases investigating violent child predators as public corruption, complex fraud, and malign foreign influence investigations were deprioritized.
Justice Department’s FY2026 budget proposed eliminating 1,500 FBI positions and cutting $545 million from FBI operations, with 5,800 total FBI employees slated for downsizing (approximately 15% of the 37,000-person workforce).
FY2026 budget proposal cut ATF’s workforce 29% from 5,136 positions to 3,671 employees (reduction of 1,465 positions), with DOJ analysis concluding the cuts would result in “40% reduction in ability to regulate firearms and explosives industries” and threatening crime gun tracing capacity that only ATF possesses.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency lost approximately 1,000 employees (one-third of workforce) through voluntary buyouts, early retirement, and layoffs between January and October 2025, with entire 95-person Stakeholder Engagement Division eliminated in mid-October, ending support for all 16 critical infrastructure sectors.
CISA eliminated its Election Security Program in March 2025, cutting 14 positions and $39.6 million in funding, leaving thousands of state and local governments without federal election security support.
On September 29, 2025, Justice Department eliminated all 56 positions at the Community Relations Service, closing the office created by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and known as “America’s Peacemaker” that deployed after high-profile killings to prevent racial tensions from escalating.
SEC reduced total staffing by 15% between February and May 2025, from 5,000 employees and 2,000 contractors to 4,200 employees and 1,700 contractors, with enforcement actions dropping 47% from 127 in February-July 2024 to just 67 in February-July 2025.
FDIC announced plans on April 21 to eliminate 1,250 positions (20% reduction), with Office of Inspector General warning it “may be difficult for the FDIC to complete statutorily required examinations by the end of the year” with fewer examiners.
On February 17, 2025, FAA fired approximately 400 employees including 132 Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, eliminating maintenance mechanics at 18 air traffic control facilities and 26 aviation safety assistants who each typically support 10 safety inspectors, while only 2 of 313 airports met FAA staffing targets with 3,833 controller shortfall.
Between February and October 2025, FEMA lost 2,450 employees (9.5% of total workforce), including approximately 1,000 permanent employees (20% of permanent workforce) who accepted voluntary buyouts in April 2025, losing one-third of its permanent workforce during active hurricane season.
On April 4, 2025, FEMA canceled the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, eliminating $750 million planned for FY2025 and stopping funding for previously approved hazard mitigation projects including tornado safe rooms, flood control, and wildfire prevention.
On July 4-5, 2025, catastrophic flash flooding in Central Texas killed approximately 120 people with 160+ missing as FEMA response failures directly attributable to workforce cuts and new bureaucratic requirements prevented deployment of urban search and rescue teams for more than 72 hours after flooding began.
Between July 6-10, 2025, approximately 55,000 calls came in from Texas flood survivors but only 15,000 were answered (27% answer rate versus normal 99.9%) because FEMA’s disaster call center staffing contract funding lapsed on July 5, the day after flooding began, with Acting Administrator Richardson not requesting approval to restore funding until July 10.
Kash Patel ordered firing of FBI agents who worked on Trump investigations in August 2025; Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll, Assistant Director in Charge Steven Jensen, and Special Agent in Charge Spencer Evans were fired August 6-8, 2025.TheExistentialistRepublic.com
Patel told Driscoll “all FBI employees who they identified who had worked on the cases against President Trump would be removed from their jobs.”
In March 2025, NSF terminated approximately 1,040 grants worth $739 million for research projects already underway, followed by termination of 344 additional grants on May 2, paralyzing research labs and forcing students to lose funding.
On October 2, 2025, Department of Energy terminated 223 energy projects totaling $7.6 billion in funding, with 33 universities losing $620 million in research funding, forcing research positions to be eliminated and university labs to lay off staff.
NASA lost approximately 3,870 employees (19% reduction) through two waves of deferred resignation programs closing July 25, 2025, reducing workforce from 17,391 to approximately 14,000, with Goddard Space Flight Center projecting 18% federal staff losses over two years.
NOAA lost approximately 11% of total staff in early 2025, with National Weather Service specifically losing 600 employees (17% of headcount), while Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research was cut $100 million (14% reduction) and climate research specifically cut from $219 million to $165 million (25% cut).
Executive order froze all foreign aid on January 20, 2025; by February 26, 2025, 92 percent of USAID programs (9,800+ grants) were terminated, eliminating $60 billion in foreign aid assistance, with study in The Lancet projecting 8-19 million preventable deaths (including 4.5 million children) by 2030 if USAID cuts are permanent, and 360,000 deaths attributed to foreign aid funding cuts by July 2025.
Between January 20 and October 29, 2025, these documented policies eliminated $1.5 trillion in healthcare funding, terminated employment for more than 300,000 federal workers, froze or canceled more than $90 billion in grants and foreign aid, stripped civil service protections from 50,000 employees, and eliminated oversight capacity across every major federal agency. By July 2025, 360,000 people had died from foreign aid cuts. At least 120 people died in a single preventable disaster when FEMA could not answer calls or deploy rescue teams because its workforce had been gutted and bureaucratic approval requirements prevented response. Intelligence partnerships with America’s closest allies suffered their worst degradation in 80 years. The FBI abandoned 764 investigations into violent child predators to chase immigration cases. Federal air traffic control operates with a 3,833 controller shortfall while safety specialists who supported them were fired. The nation’s ability to examine banks, investigate financial crimes, trace crime guns, respond to cyberattacks, monitor elections, mediate civil rights conflicts, forecast weather, research climate change, develop new energy technologies, and conduct scientific research was materially degraded in ways that will take decades to rebuild.
Brennan Center for Justice. (2025). SAVE Act would undermine voter registration for all Americans. New York University School of Law. https://www.brennancenter.org/
Campaign Legal Center. (2025). Analysis of Trump nominees under ethics rules. https://campaignlegal.org/
Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. (2025, June). Analysis of rural hospitals at risk. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. https://www.shepscenter.unc.edu/
Center for American Progress. (2025). Analysis of Medicaid cuts and federal worker collective bargaining. https://www.americanprogress.org/
Congressional Budget Office. (2025). Estimates of coverage losses and Medicare cuts under PAYGO. https://www.cbo.gov/
National Resources Defense Council. (2025). Analysis of vehicle pollution standards rollback impacts. https://www.nrdc.org/
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. (2025). ICE contractual capacity and overcrowding analysis. Syracuse University. https://trac.syr.edu/
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2025). Agency restructuring announcements and health impact analyses. https://www.cdc.gov/
U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (2025, June 20). Marketplace integrity and affordability final rule. https://www.cms.gov/
U.S. Congressional Budget Office. (2025). Letter to Senator Whitehouse on Medicare sequestration under PAYGO Act. https://www.cbo.gov/
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service. (2025, April 24). Withdrawal of Salmonella Framework. Federal Register. https://www.fsis.usda.gov/
U.S. Department of Energy. (2025, October 2). Termination notices for 223 energy projects. https://www.energy.gov/
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2025, March 27). Announcement of workforce restructuring. https://www.hhs.gov/
U.S. Department of State. (2025, August 29). Press release on Impoundment Control Act rescissions. https://www.state.gov/
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2025, March 12). Announcement of 31 deregulatory actions. https://www.epa.gov/
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2025, June 17). Proposed repeal of Mercury and Air Toxics Standards amendments. Federal Register. https://www.epa.gov/
U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2025). Workforce reassignments and budget proposals. https://www.fbi.gov/
U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. (2025). Workforce reductions and disaster response documentation. https://www.fema.gov/
U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2025, September 12). Review of rescission special message (Report B-337805). https://www.gao.gov/
U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (2025). Workforce reduction programs and office closures. https://www.nasa.gov/
U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (2025). Workforce reduction information and climate research funding. https://www.noaa.gov/
U.S. National Science Foundation. (2025). Grant termination notices and construction funding cancellations. https://www.nsf.gov/
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (2025). Enforcement action statistics and workforce reductions. https://www.sec.gov/
Urban Institute. (2025). Analysis of Medicaid work requirements and coverage impacts. https://www.urban.org/
Executive Order 14155. 90 Fed. Reg. (January 20, 2025). Withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization. https://www.federalregister.gov/
Executive Order 14162. 90 Fed. Reg. (January 20, 2025). Putting America first in international environmental agreements. https://www.federalregister.gov/
Executive Order 14169. 90 Fed. Reg. 8619 (January 30, 2025). Reevaluating and realigning United States foreign aid. https://www.federalregister.gov/
As a frightening storm Melissa pounds Jamaica and moves agonisingly slowly toward poverty stricken Cuba, we know we are all responsible for the cause of these increasingly more common nightmare scenarios:
Why Hurricane Melissa is one of the strongest Atlantic storms ever
The monster hurricane pummelling Jamaica is powered by abnormal sea surface temperatures in the Caribbean, which were made at least 500 times more likely by global warming
Figure 1: Top: Daily sea surface temperatures averaged for the global ocean between 1991-2020 using ESA’s Climate Change Initiative (gray shades), and between 2021-2025 (colored shades). Bottom: Jan to Jun 2025 Mean SST Anomaly relative to a 30-year climatology (1993-2022), calculated using daily data from Mercator Ocean International’s GLO12 analysis for 2024 and from GLORYS12 reanalysis for the climatological mean.
Weakening Gulf Stream System Could Unleash Global Chaos
By Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)September 13, 2025
The AMOC, Earth’s ocean “conveyor belt,” may collapse after 2100 under high-emission scenarios, according to new simulations. Triggered by failing deep convection in the North Atlantic, the breakdown would lock in feedback loops that lead to extreme European winters and global weather disruption.
As of June 30, 2025, Amazon employs approximately 1,546,000 people. This number reflects a slight decrease from the previous year, indicating ongoing adjustments in their workforce. stockanalysis.com GeekWire
It will now employ 30,000 less:
Exclusive: Amazon targets as many as 30,000 corporate job cuts, sources say
Historical automation of the automotive industry hit employment dramatically:
The automation of car plants in the U.S. began in earnest in the early 1960s, with the introduction of the first industrial robot system, Unimate, at a General Motors assembly line in 1961. This marked the start of significant advancements in robotics and automation within the automotive industry. junair-spraybooths.co.uk automate.org
See also:
A short history of jobs and automation
Sep 3, 2020
Robotics and automation have come to play in a part in many aspects of modern life. Image: REUTERS/Christian Charisius
One-third of all jobs could be at risk of automation in the next decade.
People with low educational attainment are most at risk.
Previous waves of mechanization have caused difficulty and anxiety too.
Technology could create millions more jobs than it displaces.
Millions of people across the globe have lost their jobs to the COVID-19 crisis. In major economies like the US, some of those jobs have already been recovered, although “there is a long road ahead,” as Bank of America economist Michelle Meyer told The New York Times.
But for many people, the job they used to do might not be coming back. And increasingly, as employers battle with the challenges of the pandemic, this could be due to automation.
Summary: AI is transforming the workforce, eliminating various jobs while creating new ones. Jobs in customer service, programming and writing are at risk, but AI is also spurring demand for roles like machine learning engineers and AI specialists. Experts suggest upskilling for the evolving job market.
Back in 2023, journalists were warned of the AI threat to their jobs:
AI and journalism: What’s next?
Expert David Caswell on why generative AI may transform the news ecosystem and how journalists and news companies should adapt
Illustration generated by the Midjourney 5.2 text-to-image model, using the prompt “An abstract image representing the uncertain future of digital journalism in the age of artificial intelligence.”
In Ronen Bergman’s book Rise and Kill First, we find many mentions of Ehud Barak. We can start in 1986 working in the West Bank operations:
Back in 1986, Major General Ehud Barak, then the head of the IDF Central Command, together with the head of the operations department of the General Staff, Major General Meir Dagan, set up a highly secretive unit, Duvdevan (Hebrew for “Cherry”), to combat terrorists in the West Bank. The unit was now put into action. Its fighters were Mistaravim who would work undercover, generally posing as Arabs, deep inside Palestinian territory, and hit the people on the wanted list. The nucleus of Duvdevan comprised graduates of elite IDF units, particularly the naval commandos. The Cherry troops exhibited exceptional operational capabilities, thanks to the long and grueling training they underwent, which included special instruction to become familiar with the Arab territories, dress, and disguise techniques. They were uniquely capable of blending in when they were in crowded and hostile Palestinian environments, even in small villages where strangers attracted immediate attention. It was Cherry that had posed as an ABC crew and abducted Nizar Dakdouk in Salfit.
In 1991:
The upgrades to the drones were part of a larger technological push in the IDF, which in the late 1980s invested significant resources to acquire and develop precision ordnance—“smart bombs” that could hit their targets more accurately, making them more effective and less likely to inflict collateral damage. This process was accelerated when technology buff Ehud Barak, who wanted to build “a small, smart army,” became chief of staff in 1991, in effect shaping the Israeli war machine for the coming decades. Under his direction, the IAF’s Apache attack helicopters were equipped with laser-guided Hellfire missiles.
And here in 1992:
In the end, it was decided to strike at Saddam at the only place outside of prohibitively well-guarded Baghdad where everyone could be sure that he himself, and not one of his doubles, would be: his family’s plot in the cemetery at Tikrit, for the funeral of someone very close to him. That someone would be his uncle, Khairallah Tulfah, the man who had raised him, who was very ill. The Israelis closely followed the treatment Tulfah was receiving in Jordan and waited for news of his death. But he kept clinging to life, so an alternative plan was decided upon. Instead of Tulfah, the Mossad would eliminate Barzan al-Tikriti, the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations. Sayeret Matkal commandos would be flown to Tikrit in helicopters that would land some distance away and then proceed to the cemetery in jeeps that looked exactly like the ones the Iraqi army used but were in fact equipped with a special system that turned the roof of the car upside down and pulled out guided missiles. When Saddam came to attend the funeral, they would launch the missiles and kill him. If this plan succeeded, many of those involved believed, chief of staff Ehud Barak would go into politics and become a candidate with a good chance of becoming prime minister. This would be only natural for a man who was marked for greatness from the time he was a young lieutenant. At the huge Tze’elim training camp, in Israel’s Negev Desert, Sayeret Matkal built a model of the Hussein family’s cemetery and practiced the operation. When they were ready, on November 5, 1992, the IDF’s top brass came to watch a dress rehearsal. The hit team with the missiles took up positions, with members of the unit’s intelligence and administrative staffs playing Saddam and his entourage.
Then
The SLA troops were also dissatisfied, feeling like cannon fodder, restrained from fighting back. Aql al-Hashem, the deputy commander of the militia, had for years pleaded with Israel to at least target Hezbollah officers. These calls didn’t fall on deaf ears. On January 1, 1995, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak succeeded Ehud Barak as chief of staff. Determined to escape the shadow of his predecessor, he decided to change the policy in Lebanon. From now on, it would be a war, and Hezbollah would be treated as a full-fledged enemy. He needed resources: personnel who could gather intelligence and special-operations squads skilled in sabotage and assassination.
And
As for then–chief of staff Ehud Barak, he admitted the facts, but not the error. “The question,” he said, “is how did things look at the time of the act? We had identified Mussawi as a threat, and we thought it was right to strike at him. This was correct thinking for that moment. It was very difficult to foresee then that he would be replaced by Nasrallah, who seemed less significant then and less influential, and that he would become a leader with such great power. It was also difficult to know that Mughniyeh would come to be his number two, who turned out to be super-talented at operations.” By 1995, he remained alive, and he was now only one of Israel’s antagonists.
Further
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU DID NOT wait for the final results of the elections. On May 17, 1999, shortly after the TV exit polls began indicating a clear victory for the Labor Party and its leader, Ehud Barak, Netanyahu announced his retirement from political life. Netanyahu had been elected because of Hamas suicide bombings, but his years as prime minister had been marked by a series of political scandals, coalition crises, security debacles like the Mashal affair, and a diplomatic dead end with the Palestinians. Barak was perceived by the electorate as Netanyahu’s exact opposite—the IDF’s most decorated soldier, a disciple of and successor to Yitzhak Rabin who had promised to get the army out of Lebanon and to bring peace. In his victory speech, Barak said that it was “the dawn of a new day” as he stood before hundreds of thousands of supporters in Tel Aviv’s central plaza, now called Rabin Square, after the prime minister who’d been assassinated there four years earlier. “Peace is a common interest, and it bears within it enormous benefits for both peoples,” Barak told the Knesset a few months later, declaring, “True peace with Syria and the Palestinians is the peak of the realization of the Zionist vision.” With his tremendous energy, decisiveness, and sense of purpose, Barak set about implementing his policies. Once the master of special ops, he was imbued with self-confidence, and sure that he could plan diplomatic maneuvers the same way he had planned targeted killing operations behind enemy lines—with strict attention to detail, careful planning to anticipate all possible contingencies, and aggressive action when necessary. But it turned out that although these methods worked well on a small scale, they did not always work with complex international processes. And Barak seldom listened to the advice of his aides. Under America’s aegis, Israel engaged in negotiations with Syria. Acting as Barak’s emissary, President Clinton met with President Hafez al-Assad in Geneva on March 26, 2000. Clinton told Assad that Barak was willing to withdraw from the entire Golan Heights, except for some very minor border adjustments, in exchange for peace, though Clinton’s language was somewhat less enthusiastic and alluring than might have been expected. Assad, who came to the meeting suffering from a variety of ailments, including incipient dementia and exhaustion, was more obdurate than ever about getting every inch back. The encounter blew up only a few minutes after the two presidents had finished initial formalities and begun discussing the substance of the dispute. Barak had to keep his promise and pull out of Lebanon, but without any agreement with either Syria or Lebanon. In order to prevent Hezbollah from exploiting the retreat to kill a large number of IDF troops, however, it had to be carried out overnight and kept a complete surprise. Shortly before the pullout, AMAN managed to locate Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s military chief and number one on Israel’s wanted list, as he conducted tours of inspection along the confrontation lines in southern Lebanon to see whether Barak was about to keep his promise and pull out, and to prepare his militia for the day after. They planned to have him assassinated. But Barak, who came to the northern border and met with top military officials there on May 22 for an urgent consultation, ordered them only “to continue intelligence surveillance of the object M,” and not to strike him, in effect liquidating the entire project. Barak’s first priority was to make sure the retreat was carried out without any casualties, and he feared that assassinating Mughniyeh would provoke Hezbollah into bombarding Israeli communities or launching major attacks against Israeli targets abroad, which would require an Israeli response and make a quiet, surprise retreat all but impossible. Barak was right, at least in the short term. The day after the meeting at the northern border, he ordered the immediate withdrawal of the IDF from Lebanon. The entire withdrawal was carried out without any casualties. But Nasrallah celebrated the withdrawal as a complete victory for his side, depicting the Israelis as cowardly and fearful, running away from Mughniyeh’s army. “Israel is feebler than a spider’s web,” he crowed. “A spirit of defeatism is prevalent in Israeli society … the Jews are a lot of financiers and not a people capable of sacrifice.” In retrospect, the end of the Israeli occupation in Lebanon came at the worst possible moment for Barak. He saw that he couldn’t reach a deal with the Syrians, so he decided to speed up the handling of the Palestinian situation. But there were many Palestinians who saw the retreat from Lebanon as proof that guerrilla tactics and terrorism could defeat the strongest military and intelligence forces in the Middle East, and they began contemplating the possibility of applying these methods to their own arena. Clinton invited Barak and Arafat to Camp David in July 2000, in order to hold marathon negotiations and, hopefully, reach a peace agreement. “I knew that such an agreement had to include a Palestinian state and a compromise in Jerusalem,” Barak said, “and I was ready for that. I was sure I would be able to persuade the public in Israel that it was to our advantage, that there was no other option.” Arafat, for his part, did not want to come, and he agreed only after Clinton promised him that he would not be blamed if the talks failed. During this time, Israeli intelligence indicated that ferment among the Palestinians had reached new heights. The Palestinian Authority was reported to be making preparations for an armed confrontation with Israel in order to pressure it into making far-reaching concessions. “We were not preparing, and we did not intend to start, a confrontation with Israel, but ‘hope is by nature an expensive commodity,’” said Jibril Rajoub, quoting Thucydides. Barak told his associates, “We’re on a giant ship that’s about to collide with an iceberg, and we will manage to divert it only if we succeed at Camp David.” The atmosphere at the meetings was festive. Barak was ready for concessions that left the American participants “open-mouthed and overjoyed,” including a major compromise that would have given the Palestinians parts of East Jerusalem and international rule over the Temple Mount, the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. No Israeli leader had ever agreed to give away so much, or to make compromises on matters that until then had been considered taboo. But Barak hadn’t done enough in advance to prepare the ground for the meeting; he hadn’t tried to get the broader Arab world to press Arafat to compromise on Palestinian principles like the right of return of refugees. He also behaved in a manner that was perceived as bossy and conducted the negotiations with Arafat via emissaries, even though his cabin was no more than a few hundred yards away. Arafat refused to sign, perhaps because he thought he would get better terms from Israel if he held out, or perhaps because he simply didn’t see any Arab leader ever backing a compromise with the great enemy. Clinton blew up in anger. He ended the summit and broke his promise to Arafat not to blame him for the failure. “If Clinton had adopted Carter’s strategy and knocked their heads together until they agreed to a compromise, history would have been different,” said Itamar Rabinovich, one of Israel’s top Middle East scholars and diplomats. In the ensuing two months, attempts were made to bridge the gaps. But by now the tension and suspicion between the two sides had passed the point of no return. “We were living with the feeling that we were breathing gunpowder,” said one of Barak’s close associates. And wherever there is gunpowder, there’ll be a pyromaniac to set it alight. This time the pyromaniac was Ariel Sharon.
Ehud Barak was working toward a 2 state solution with President Clinton whilst he was Prime Minister. They must have talked and met many times before the summit meeting:
The 2000 Camp David Summit was a summit meeting at Camp David between United States president Bill Clinton, Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat. The summit took place between 11 and 25 July 2000 and was an effort to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Wikipedia
Barak was visiting Jeffrey Epstein after the Epstein sweetheart deal:
The “sweetheart deal” refers to a controversial non-prosecution agreement negotiated in 2008 by then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, which allowed Jeffrey Epstein to serve only 13 months in jail for serious sex crimes, effectively shutting down a federal investigation into his activities. This deal has faced significant criticism for being lenient and for not consulting Epstein’s victims. Axios PBS
Since 2013:
Epstein’s diary reveals 36 meetings with former Israeli PM Ehud Barak
Newly revealed documents from the Wall Street Journal show that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein at least 36 times between 2013 and 2017.
Did he visit Little St James Island in 2002, or was another PM the mystery rapist? We do not know the answer to this yet……he was a former Prime Minister by then.
Jeffrey Epstein’s Survivor Was Raped By “Well-Known Prime Minister”: Memoir
According to the memoir, Virginia Giuffre met the “Prime Minister” on Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands in 2002, when she was 18.
And since the Hamas atrocities occured on October 7th 2023, his reaction was:
Former Israeli Prime Minister: Israel’s Endgame in Gaza Should be a Palestinian State
14 minute read
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak speaks during a rally to protest the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul plan, in Tel Aviv on June 24, 2023Jack Guez—AFP via Getty Images
Is someone wanting to link him to the abhorrent rape of Virginia Guiffre to protect another Prime Minister, and/ or to ruin his reputation as he has disagreed with the Netanyahu’s government?
More mystery…….or does the timeline seem to fit the opportunities for his presence at the time the crime was committed?
CAIRO (AP) — Under Gaza’s ceasefire deal, Israel freed dozens of doctors, nurses, paramedics and other medical personnel seized during raids on hospitals. But more than 100 remain in Israeli prisons, including Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya, a hospital director who became the face of the struggle to keep treating patients under Israeli siege and bombardment.
Despite widespread calls for his release, Abu Safiya was not among the hundreds of Palestinian detainees and prisoners freed Monday in exchange for 20 hostages held by Hamas. Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, has been imprisoned without charge by Israel for nearly 10 months.
Health Workers Watch, which documents detentions from Gaza, said 55 medical workers — including 31 doctors and nurses — were on lists of detainees from Gaza being freed Monday, though it could not immediately be confirmed all were released. The group said at least 115 medical workers remain in custody, as well as the remains of four who died while in Israeli prisons, where rights groups and witnesses have reported frequent abuse.
West Bank Palestinians continue to be attacked, often fatally, by gangs of roaming aggressive Israeli settlers. The land generations of Palestinians call home is being stolen and built on by settlers:
Attacks by Israeli army, illegal settlers injure 36 in occupied West Bank
Journalists among the dozens of Palestinians wounded amid escalation in Israeli violence during olive harvest season.
Palestinians stand next to a burned vehicle after illegal Israeli settlers attacked olive pickers in the village of Beita, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank [Raneen Sawafta/Reuters]
By Farah Najjar and News Agencies Published On 10 Oct 202510 Oct 2025
At least 36 people, including journalists, were injured in attacks by Israeli military forces and illegal settlers in towns near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. In a statement on Friday, the ministry said two people were wounded by live fire, while many others were injured as a result of beatings and physical assaults.
Protections for Palestinians in the West Bank must surely be a priority, not an after thought.
The biggest impediment to peace between Israelis and Palestinians has little to do with Gaza
While the IDF regularly kills children in the West Bank, any kind of stabilization will be impossible
The mother of 10-year-old Mohammed Bahjat Al-Hallaq sits surrounded by relatives in the family home in the village of Al-Rihiyah, south of Hebron, on Oct. 16, after her son was killed by the Israeli army, according to local sources. Photo by Mosab Shawer/Middle East Images via AFP/Getty Images
The Gaza war may finally be over, and the idea of a Palestinian state has returned to the center of global discourse. But before it can become a reality, Palestinians will need to carry less suspicion and hatred toward Israel — which means Israel must give them fewer reasons to cultivate those reactions.
An investigation from last week by my former colleagues at The Associated Press helps show how distant we are from that outcome — not just in Gaza, but also in the West Bank.
The investigation found that, according to United Nations data that Israel does not dispute, live Israeli fire has killed at least 18 children under the age of 15 in the West Bank this year. It killed 29 children in 2023, and 23 in 2024.
Some were killed during Israeli military raids in crowded neighborhoods, others by sniper fire in calm areas. The army told the AP that its open-fire regulations prohibit deliberate targeting and that it had launched some investigations. But it did not say whether anyone had been punished. The families of the deceased children report receiving little information from the army about the circumstances of their deaths, or any consequences meted out in reaction to them.
UN rights office sounds alarm over ‘skyrocketing’ Israeli settler violence during olive harvest
Israeli settler violence and access restrictions prevented many olive farmers from harvesting their land. Two weeks into the start of the 2025 harvest, we have already seen severe attacks by armed settlers against Palestinians men, women, children, and foreign solidarity activists… Direct land destruction is escalating… New Israeli checkpoints and iron gates separated farmers from their farms, sometimes keeping farmers away until their crops failed.” – Ajith Sunghay, Head of @OHCHR_Palestine
Scott Borgerson’s net worth is estimated to be around $20 million to $25 million as of 2025, primarily derived from his role as the co-founder and former CEO of CargoMetrics, a Boston-based data analytics company focused on maritime trade and shipping. Founded in 2010, CargoMetrics was valued at approximately $100 million in 2020, reflecting its innovative approach to leveraging big data for global shipping insights. Borgerson’s wealth was bolstered by his leadership in securing high-profile investors, including Google’s Eric Schmidt and billionaire hedge-fund manager Paul Tudor Jones, connections reportedly facilitated through Maxwell’s elite social network. His financial portfolio also includes significant real estate holdings, such as a $2.4 million oceanfront mansion in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, and a $1 million property in Bradford, New Hampshire, purchased in 2019 under a shell company, where Maxwell was later arrested.
Borgerson’s financial dealings with Maxwell further complicate his net worth. In 2016, Maxwell reportedly transferred the majority of her estimated $20.2 million fortune into a trust controlled by Borgerson, a move that surfaced during her 2020 bail application. This trust, combined with their joint assets, was cited in a $22.5 million bail package, including $8 million in property and $500,000 in cash, underscoring their intertwined finances. Borgerson stepped down as CEO of CargoMetrics in October 2020, citing the need to avoid distracting from the company’s mission amid Maxwell’s legal troubles. While his current professional endeavors are less publicized, his strategic investments and past leadership suggest a sustained financial foundation, though his association with Maxwell has likely impacted his business prospects.
EXCLUSIVE: Ghislaine Maxwell’s husband finds new girlfriend as shamed wife spends Christmas in jail
Ghislaine Maxwell’s husband Scott Borgerson, 47, is dating Kris McGinn, a 50-year-old journalist from Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts – his relationship with the sex trafficker ended in jail
Ghislaine Maxwell’s mysterious hubby Scott Borgerson, once seduced by her power, now MIA
By
Kerry J. Byrne
Published Dec. 11, 2021
Updated Dec. 13, 2021, 9:53 a.m. ET
………….
Now Scott Borgerson, who secretly married Maxwell in 2016, has left her to face the glare of international incrimination alone — while he jaunts around his exclusive coastal New England town in sports cars, often in the company of an attractive new female friend.
Scott Borgerson is the Chief Executive of CargoMetrics and has participated in discussions alongside Senator Lisa Murkowski, particularly on topics related to the Arctic and national security. Their collaborations often focus on the strategic and environmental challenges facing the Arctic region. institutenorth.org Council on Foreign Relations
And Lisa Murkowski voted:
lease of Epstein files
Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan joined 49 other Republicans in blocking a vote aimed at forcing the Department of Justice to release its files on child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Tara Palmeri has spoken to survivor, Alaskan Marijke Chartouni:
Part one of the series zeroes in on Epstein survivor and Alaskan Marijke Chartouni, who has turned her attention to Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the deciding vote on September 10 to block the release of the Epstein files. Chartouni uncovered Murkowski’s longstanding ties to Ghislaine Maxwell’s husband, Scott Borgerson, and the many occasions Murkowski appeared on stage with Maxwell at ocean-advocacy conferences. They were appearances that, intentionally or not, helped launder Maxwell’s name even as she was publicly linked to Epstein.
And this is another event in the news of a past lives possible link to Epstein and survivors:
BNY Mellon sued over alleged financial ties to Jeffrey Epstein
By Reuters
October 15, 20258:03 PM GMT+1Updated October 15, 2025
NEW YORK, Oct 15 (Reuters) – A woman who says she was abused by the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein sued Bank of New York Mellon (BK.N), opens new tab on Wednesday, alleging the bank processed $378 million in payments to victims of his sex trafficking.
The Mellon name is current as Timothy Mellon has donated 130 million dollars to Trump’s Pentagon, toward the 2 billion per month cost of paying troops whilst the government is shutdown:
Reclusive Billionaire Mellon Gave $130M to Pay Troops
And Virginia Guiffre’s book, No ones Girl has sold out, one reader on Substack discussed the following:
Giuffre stated that in 2002, when she was about 18 years old, Jeffrey Epstein flew her out to Little St. James (known later as “Epstein’s Island”), where hundreds of underaged girls would be trafficked in and out from all over the world for Epstein and his friends. On this occasion, however, he brought in a “well-known Prime Minister,” who “raped [Virginia] more savagely than anyone had before.” The man choked her until she passed out, then let go until she came to, over and over again. “He wanted violence,” she remembered, and laughed at her when she pleaded with him to stop, taking “pleasure in seeing [her] in fear for [her] life.” She says she came away bleeding from her mouth, and everywhere below, front and back, and for days struggled to breathe and swallow. When she begged Epstein never to see the man again, he said coldly, “You’ll get that sometimes.”
Virginia Giuffre in 1999 or 2000, as printed in her book
Do not forget Virginia, she symbolises wronged young women the world over.
An article about tge ‘common thread of abuse’:
From grooming gangs to Virginia Giuffre, this is the common thread in abuse
borderslynn 
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