Martin Berger 🛡️🤺

Independent
I like Bitcoin and Dogecoin
I like Vienna, Medellin and Miami
I dont like communists
Freedom first
Fight for rights

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇺🇸🇰🇵 North Korea is warning of an “immediate” response to what it calls increasingly hostile U.S. moves on the Korean Peninsula.

Pyongyang singled out Washington’s planned $125 million sale of AIM-9X air-to-air missiles and related equipment to South Korea, accusing the U.S. of strengthening Seoul’s ability to wage war.

North Korea said it has recognized America’s “permanently hostile” posture and “will respond strictly and immediately to hostile acts."

Source: War Front Witness (Telegram) / Writer: Mhedi

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Free usage limit reset for Grok @Bot users

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇺🇸 They called it a settlement, but it reads like a confession without the word... Meta is paying up to $18bn over claims it tried to keep children hooked.

Then it agreed to do the one thing it spent years avoiding: put a hard stop on the feed.

For 2 hours a day phones go dark at midnight, school-hour notifications are muted, and likes hidden.

Parents have been screaming about this for a decade, and while the money is huge, the curfew is the part that might actually matter.

Source: The Telegraph / Writer: Val

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🚨🇺🇸🇷🇺 The CIA Chief went to Moscow to warn Russia off the Baltics and to stop arming Iran

-Two people familiar say Ratcliffe's primary message was against escalatory action toward Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

-He also pressed Moscow to cut military and economic support for Iran, per a source and a U.K. official

-The British official says he urged Russia to stop sharing weapons and defense technology with Tehran, and advised against overreacting to the new sanctions

-Russia has reportedly shipped material bolstering Iran's drone arsenal and may be helping it target American facilities in the Middle East

-Trump called the trip semi-routine and said he would like to see the Ukraine war end

-His C-17 flew in from Latvia, one of the countries he was there to discuss

Two demands in one four-hour visit.

The last CIA director who flew to Moscow with a warning was Bill Burns in late 2021, telling Putin not to invade Ukraine.

Russia crossed the border three months later anyway...

Source: Politico, The Wall Street Journal / Writer: Daniel

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

Oh, do fuck off. At a conservative estimate, Dolly Parton was 100,000x the person you are.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Congrats Falcon team!

[Megatron @Megatron_ron]

JUST IN: 🇺🇸🇷🇺Reports are circulating that the U.S. embassy in Moscow has taken down all previously flown U.S. flags.

This comes after today’s visit of the CIA director to Moscow

[Megatron @Megatron_ron]

BREAKING: 🇺🇸🇷🇺 CIA Director John Ratcliffe was onboard a US Air Force C-17A Globemaster III that landed today in Moscow

The visit lasted just a few hours

[International Cyber Digest @IntCyberDigest]

‼️ BREAKING: Anthropic is expected to tell investors its total addressable market exceeds $30 TRILLION — topping SpaceX's record $28.5T, per WSJ.

For scale: the 191 tech companies in the S&P 1500 booked $2.4 trillion in revenue last year. Anthropic's Q2 revenue was $11.6 billion.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇨🇦🇺🇲 Canada today announced retaliatory tariffs on $19.94 billion worth of U.S. goods at various percentages depending on the product.

That number matches the cost of new duties imposed by the White House.

It’s a show of financial support for Canadians affected by the worsening trade war.

U.S. goods will be slapped with the new tariffs starting Sept. 8.

There will be 50 percent tariffs on important sectors such as steel and aluminum.

The U.S. imports billions of dollars in raw metals from Canada to support its auto industry.

Prepare to bust out the Schwinn.

Source: Reuters / Writer: Marie

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🚨🇺🇸🇮🇷 BREAKING:

Trump says "all mines have been removed and/or detonated from within the international waters of the Strait of Hormuz."

He also says Iran has been notified that "any ship or boat placing new mines will be immediately and systematically destroyed."

He says the U.S. Space Force is watching every inch of the Strait, along with Pickaxe Mountain, and the 3 other "already destroyed" nuclear sites.

"There is a ZERO tolerance policy on mine placement in full force and effect.

Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

Source: Truth Social / Writer: Michael

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Banger

[Douglas Macgregor @DougAMacgregor]

How about "no new wars!"

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Very few people know that the reason we launched my old Tesla Roadster to orbit Earth and Mars is that the probability of failure was very high and we didn’t want to risk anything valuable

[Levant News @LevantWire]

🔥🇮🇷 MASSIVE DIPLOMATIC MOVE BY IRAN?

Iran is reportedly preparing to join the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement involving Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye.

If confirmed, Tehran joining the emerging regional security framework would be a major diplomatic development. 👏🔥

[Martin Berger 🛡️🤺 @MartinJBerger]

Same in Europe today, but now with illegal immigrants from third world countries 🤬

[Handre @Handre]

Rome handed out free grain to 40,000 citizens in 73 BC. By 46 BC, Julius Caesar found 320,000 people lining up for their monthly ration. That eight-fold expansion happened in under three decades, and it shows you how welfare states actually grow.

No Roman senator stood up and announced a plan to addict a third of the city to government bread. It happened incrementally, through political competition. Each magistrate who wanted votes expanded eligibility. Each expansion normalized the next one. The citizen who once considered the dole shameful eventually expected it, then demanded it, then organized politically to protect it.

This is the core mechanism free market thinkers have identified across every era: once you create a transfer program, you create a constituency for that program. Recipients vote. Administrators build careers. Grain merchants who supply the state develop a stake in keeping the contracts flowing. The political economy locks in.

Caesar, to his credit, actually cut the rolls back to 150,000 through verification audits. It was one of his more economically coherent moves, though the Senate still murdered him. His successors quietly let the numbers climb again.

What did the dole require? Massive grain imports from Sicily, Sardinia, and Egypt, organized through state logistics at state expense, funded by taxation and conquest. When the conquest revenue dried up, the obligation remained. Rome had written a check against future military success, and future military success eventually failed to arrive.

The lesson is not complicated. Distribute a benefit and you distribute dependency. Distribute dependency and you distribute political power to whoever controls the distribution. The grain dole didn't weaken Rome overnight, but it made every subsequent reform politically impossible.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

They faced the same issues in Ancient Rome

[China V @China_V7]

🚨BREAKING:

China’s gold reserves reached 76.08 million ounces(2,366 metric tons), near to bypass the US and dollar dominance globally.

[Jörg Haider @joerg_haider_at]

40 Jahre und die @FPOE_TV ist mit @herbert_kickl stärker als je zuvor 💙

[UFO mania @maniaUFO]

One of the last images captured by the Arecibo Telescope before it was decommissioned.