Russell Brett

Value Investor/Swing Trader using Fundamental/Technical Analysis w/occasional pithy comments on other matters. Follow me on StockTwits @russellkbrett for stocks

[𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦 @OopsGuess]

The funniest part of JD Vance’s speech is the ending:

“I am angry about the rise of China… but I am most angry that American leadership let it happen.”

Let it happen?

As if China’s rise was an American clerical error.
As if 1.4 billion people industrialized because Washington forgot to lock the door.

China was sanctioned, contained, smeared, tariffed, and technologically strangled.

And still it became the world’s strongest industrial economy.

India had the population.
India had English.
India had earlier access to the WTO.
India had Western approval, “democracy” branding, and decades of geopolitical courtship.

Capital still chose China.
Factories still chose China.
Supply chains still chose China.

Why?

Because civilization is not built by flattering Washington.
It is built by infrastructure, discipline, engineers, workers, logistics, electricity, education, and state capacity.

America’s next ten years are not about competing with China.
That phase is already over.

America is now competing with India for who can disappoint capital less.

China’s real opponent was never America.

China’s real opponent is its own execution, its own discipline, its own ability to keep building without believing Western noise.

Vance is angry because China rose.

But what really humiliates him is this:

America tried to stop it.

And China rose anyway.

[Richard @ricwe123]

That time when an unarmed Iranian ship was invited to take part in an Indian naval exercise alongside the United States.
Its sailors were welcomed on land and paraded before Indian President Modi as a gesture of respect.
Then, at the last moment, the United States suddenly abruptly withdrew from the exercise,only to wait and torpedo the very ship it had just stood beside.

What followed was even more grotesque.
After attacking an unarmed vessel, the US refused to rescue the sailors it had blown into the sea, abandoning them to drown.
The grim work of recovering bodies was left to the Sri Lankan Navy.

This wasn’t warfare,it was treachery of the most disgraceful kind: an ambush carried out under the pretense of diplomacy, followed by a cold refusal to show even the most basic human decency to the dying.
It would represent a collapse of every norm that supposedly governs civilized conduct at sea.

And yet, instead of outrage, much of the American media response has been indifference or rationalization.
The bombing of a girls’ school is brushed aside; talk of carpet-bombing Tehran is floated as if it were just another policy option.
When atrocities are normalized and cruelty is laundered into “strategy,” the line between reporting and complicity begins to disappear......

[Russell Brett @RussellKBrett]

@DavidLevan15 @Megatron_ron They did according to former CIA analyst Larry Johnson: https://t.co/WvkDDL2CGs

[Russell Brett @RussellKBrett]

@ShaykhSulaiman His Polish and Lithuanian forefathers walked there?

[Russell Brett @RussellKBrett]

@EliClifton He gave more to Israel than any president before him and hopefully now realizes that it will never be enough. All of Gaza, West Bank, South Western Syria and all of Southern Lebanon and it’s still not enough. They will just keep taking and taking until you force them to stop.

[Voice of Rabbis @voiceofrabbis]

This kind of rhetoric is a hallmark of Zionist extremism.

Calling for entire populations to suffer because of their nationality is not self-defense—it is collective punishment.

Those are against Jewish values.

Stop speaking in the name of the Jewish people.

We never elected any of them. They do not represent us.

Israel does not represent Jews.

Not in our name.

[Russell Brett @RussellKBrett]

@Parodyjeffx He can go ahead and stay there permanently, then. America existed before the establishment of the Israeli state and will continue to exist with or without it.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇺🇸🇮🇱 The merger between the U.S. and Israel has a third piece almost nobody is talking about. While Section 224 fuses the militaries, Section 622 moves to fuse the intelligence services...

Buried in a 192-page intelligence authorization bill from Sen.Tom Cotton, Section 622 would legally require the president to "expand and enhance intelligence sharing" with Israel across nearly every topic of intelligence interest in the Middle East.

It would prohibit any reduction in that sharing except for a "specific and identifiable national security concern," then force a detailed report to Congress within 15 days justifying it.

Read that mechanism again carefully.

It strips the president of the ability to limit what America tells Israel, then makes any attempt to do so a political fight the Israel lobby can frame as being "against Israel's security."

It welds the intelligence spigot open by law.

Now stack the three pieces moving through Congress at once:

-The Stutzman resolution phases out visible aid.

-Section 224 integrates the militaries.

-Section 622 mandates intelligence sharing.

Each one is less publicly accountable than the last.

Aid is a line item voters can see.

Intelligence liaison happens in the dark, where no price tag ever appears.

The strategy is to move the relationship out of public view precisely as public support collapses.

And the timing is the most scandalous part.

The Pentagon just rated Israel a "critical" espionage threat.

Congress's response to all of it is to legally mandate that America share more secrets with the country its own spy agencies say is robbing it.

Source: Responsible States Craft / Writer: Daniel

[Russell Brett @RussellKBrett]

@21WIRE And not a single one of his announced international trade deals has been codified into law by Congress.

[DNI Tulsi Gabbard @DNIGabbard]

Today, I’m releasing never before seen intelligence revealing new evidence of past US government funding for more than 120 biolabs in over 30 countries, including Ukraine.

In support of President Trump‘s Executive Order to end federal funding of dangerous gain of function research around the world, and increase transparency and accountability, ODNI will continue working with partners across the Administration to identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain, and what “research” is being conducted.

https://t.co/pLMD0krc69

[Sony Thăng @nxt888]

The problem was never Trump.

Trump is the readable version of a text that was always there, written in language most people couldn't access.

The problem is the system that produced him, that uses him, that will survive him, and that will next time find someone equally willing to do what he does but competent enough to do it quietly.

The competent version is more dangerous.

The competent version rebuilds the language. Restores the branding. Hires the speechwriters who know how to say "shared values" and "rules-based order" while executing identical policy.

And the people who spent four years appalled by Trump's vulgarity will feel the relief of good grammar and take it for moral improvement.

The empire doesn't need Trump specifically.

It needed what he provided: a stress test. A period of operation without the usual ideological cover, to see what held and what didn't.

What held: the sanctions. The bases. The vetoes. The dollar. The weapons sales. The regime change operations.

What didn't hold: the manners.

And when someone comes along who can restore the manners while keeping everything else, and they will, they always do, the people who thought the problem was the manners will call it a recovery.

The rest of us will know what it actually is.

[Russell Brett @RussellKBrett]

@atrupar Easy for the most protected draft dodger in the world to act tough and boast when he’s not the one risking his life for such a suicidal mission. The Iranians could easily let the US “take” the island only to pick them off once they are enclosed inside the Persian Gulf fish bowl.

[Chris Hedges @ChrisLynnHedges]

Iran's military response to the US and Israel cannot be viewed in a vacuum — its decision to attack Tel Aviv and American military bases in the region was preceded by Israel's egregious war crime of killing negotiators working on behalf of Iran twice as well as the initial launching of hostilities by the Trump administration and Israel. Trump believed he could replicate the Venezuela outcome in Iran. The reality, however, is that Iran holds all the cards in these talks, and it will not give them up.

[Russell Brett @RussellKBrett]

@the_1st_atom @Acyn “because you had stupid presidents before I came along. This country was dead before I was elected. I rebuilt the military. Now we have the most powerful military in the world because of me and the hottest economy. Money is pouring in but the fake polls will never reflect that.”

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

“Self-defense”

[Russell Brett @RussellKBrett]

@Inversor_IBEX The Bloomberg report citing "person familiar with the matter" cited "proceeds will be used to repay debt" (NOT for meeting redemption requests) similar to the $500 million bond offering for $OTF raised on 06/02 in which the proceeds were used to refinance debt maturities. $OWL

[𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦 @OopsGuess]

The New York Times accidentally revealed the moral bankruptcy of capitalism.

China is making breakthroughs in cancer drugs, clinical trials, biotech research, and life-saving medicines.

The first American reaction is not:
“How many patients can this save?”

It is:
“Will this threaten U.S. dominance?”
“Will American biotech lose its edge?”
“Will Big Pharma struggle to keep up?”

That tells you everything.

In a sane world, better cancer drugs would be a human victory.
In Washington’s world, even medicine becomes a battlefield the moment China helps people live.

China’s biotech rise is not just about winning.
It is about responsibility to a massive patient population that cannot wait for American monopolies, American prices, or American permission.

Cancer patients do not care about U.S. dominance.
They care about staying alive.

And that is exactly why China cannot leave this field to America.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🚨🇮🇱🇺🇸 BOMBSHELL: The Pentagon raised Israel's counterintelligence threat level to "critical," the highest possible designation, over concerns Israel is aggressively spying on top U.S. officials.

According to U.S. officials, the Defense Intelligence Agency issued the assessment in recent weeks because Israel is making "a particular effort to surveil top U.S. officials to get information on the Trump administration's internal deliberations and decision-making" on Iran and Lebanon.

Yep, read that again.

America's "closest ally" is now rated a critical counterintelligence threat, the same tier as hostile foreign powers, because it's spying on the President's inner circle to find out whether he'll resume bombing Iran or sign the deal.

The details are stunning.

U.S. officials already use burner phones and avoid speaking in hotel rooms when visiting Israel.

A CSIS expert calls Israeli intelligence "hyper-aggressive" and "exceedingly interested in what we are up to."

Now stack the timeline.

Trump screams at Netanyahu, "you're f***ing crazy."

The Axios leak that enraged Levin.

Netanyahu's letter designing permanent military integration.

Section 224 linking the two countries' military systems and data.

And now the Pentagon formally designating Israel a critical espionage threat, in the same weeks Congress moves to wire Israel directly into America's defense industrial base.

The two stories are happening simultaneously and almost nobody has connected them.

The Pentagon says Israel is spying on America at a critical level.

Congress is responding by giving Israel deeper access to American military systems than ever before.

At what point does Washington admit this relationship is not what Americans were told it is?

Source: NBC

[Russell Brett @RussellKBrett]

@BoringBiz_ $SPCE was bought up after the Blue Origin rocket test explosion. Virgin Galactic remains the only other “space tourism” competitor.

[Russell Brett @RussellKBrett]

@The_Real_Fly Trump’s proverbial “you can’t fire me, I quit” tweet except he’s still President, unfortunately.