Distinguished Columbia Univ. Prof. Jeff Sachs on Trump's 35-person cabinet: “Not one of them is trained in technical skills. Not one research PhD, as opposed to China, where half the cabinet is science and technology PhDs. We're led by grifters and fools.”

🚨 JUST IN OVERNIGHT: The US House has DEPARTED DC until after the midterms, but Speaker Johnson says ALL members are on a 48-hour notice to rapidly return to DC if the Senate gets anything done "700 bills are waiting in the Senate. The House has done its job. We're on a 48-hour notice to return as necessary. We're hopeful the Senate can send us bills of substance." "The House has passed 70 bills THIS WEEK ALONE, 900 total this Congress!" 🔥 The House last night passed MULTIPLE major bills, including sanctions against Russia and Iran, along with codifying Donald Trump's national fraud enforcement division within the DOJ @SpeakerJohnson crushed it, also passing the SAVE America Act 4 TIMES The Senate needs to follow suit!

.@POTUS on Canada possibly becoming an associate member of the European Union: "I think it's laughable... Canada has been a terrible trade partner... If I think it's at all an hostile act, I will put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe on many things."

🇳🇪Niger has signed a $1.9 billion deal to build a new oil refinery and petrochemical plant in Dosso, South Western Niger, 130-140km South east of Niamey. The aim is simple: refine more of its own crude at home, import less fuel, and sell some of it to neighbours in the Sahel. The agreement was signed in Niamey on 15 August with Zimar Group and High Tech. The companies are meant to pay for the plant, build it, run it, then hand it to the state. Construction is supposed to take three years. They then operate it for 13 years. The money still has to be raised within 12 months. The planned plant would process 100,000 barrels a day five times bigger than Niger’s only working refinery at Zinder, which handles 20,000. If it gets built, it would be one of the largest refineries in West Africa, behind Nigeria’s Dangote and Ghana’s Sentuo. Niger now produces about 110,000 barrels a day, but refines only a fifth of that. The rest goes out as crude, mostly through the pipeline to Benin, and the country buys fuel back. A plant this size could flip that. Officials also talk about supplying Mali and Burkina Faso. There is a catch. This is a contract, not a finished refinery. The builders still need financing, and some reports say Zimar has little public record of a project this big. A 100,000-barrel plant would also need a lot of Niger’s current crude, most of which is now exported. If the money comes through, Dosso could become a real energy hub. If it doesn’t, the deal stays on paper. Niger is showing what African can achieve once the shackles of imperialism has been successfully broken.

After Canada, which is inexorably moving closer to the EU, Australia announces that it intends to follow the same path. Europe is becoming the center of gravity of the Western world once again. 🇪🇺🇨🇦🇦🇺

At this point I don’t even believe the story that “The Houthis hit the pipeline” The effects of this story all accrue to the US and Trump. Now he can restrict middle distillate exports, support Russia cutting off Europe, etc How do you stop a war that was planned? Deprive the war mongers the tools to wage war What’s France going to do? Nuke someone if we don’t sell them diesel?

The US is considering halting diesel exports. The US is the world's largest diesel exporter... Russia, the 2nd largest, has already halted exports. A US export ban would send global diesel prices even higher and force countries like Japan to dump USTs to fund their domestic needs. In other words, imposing an export ban on diesel would blow up the UST market. There are no easy solutions anymore. We don't own enough hard assets for what's coming.

BREAKING NIUS: Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz will Social Media massiv einschränken und sagt: "Komme mir niemand mit Free Speech!" Man müsse "immer noch in der Lage sein, die Bürger vor falschen Informationen zu schützen." Gegen Männer wie Merz haben wir das Grundrecht der Meinungsfreiheit als Abwehrrecht. Seine Sicht auf die Bürger ist gefährlich und grenzt an einen verfassungsfeindlichen Verdachtsfall.