We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
🇻🇪📝🇺🇸 — Former Venezuelan Chavista intelligence chief Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal sends a letter to President Donald Trump, in which he confesses to two decades of narcoterrorism, espionage, and electoral manipulation under orders from Nicolás Maduro, Diosdado Cabello, and Cuban intelligence:
My name is Hugo Carvajal Barrios. For many years I was a high-ranking official of the Venezuelan regime. I was a three-star division general, fully trusted by both Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, and I held the positions of Director of Military Intelligence and member of the National Assembly. Today I am imprisoned in a U.S. jail because I voluntarily pleaded guilty to the charges against me: narcoterrorism conspiracy.
Today I feel the need to address the American people about the reality of what the Venezuelan regime truly is and why President Trump’s policies are not only correct, but absolutely necessary for the national security of the United States.
1. Narcoterrorism
I was a direct witness to how the government of Hugo Chávez turned into a criminal organization now led by Nicolás Maduro, Diosdado Cabello, and other high-ranking officials of the regime. The purpose of this organization, now known as the Cartel of the Suns, is to use drugs as a weapon against the United States. The drugs that reached your cities through new routes were not accidents of corruption nor simply the work of independent traffickers; they were deliberate policies coordinated by the Venezuelan regime against the United States. This plan was suggested by the Cuban regime to Chávez in the mid-2000s and has been successfully carried out with help from the FARC, the ELN, Cuban operatives, and Hezbollah. The regime provided them with weapons, passports, and impunity so that these terrorist organizations could operate freely from Venezuela against the United States.
[...]
3. Counterintelligence and espionage against the United States
I was present when Russian intelligence arrived in Caracas to propose to Hugo Chávez the intervention of the submarine internet cables that connect most of South America and the Caribbean islands to the United States, with the aim of penetrating U.S. government communications. In 2015 I warned Maduro that allowing Russian intelligence to build and operate a secret listening post on La Orchila island would someday attract U.S. bombs. He ignored me.
For twenty years, the Venezuelan regime has sent spies into your country; many are still there, some disguised as members of the Venezuelan opposition. Cuban intelligence showed me their networks inside your East Coast naval bases. They boasted of having sent thousands of spies for decades, some of whom today are career politicians. U.S. diplomats and CIA officers were paid to help Chávez and Maduro stay in power. These Americans acted as spies for Cuba and Venezuela, and some remain active to this day.
4. Smartmatic and its elections
Smartmatic was born as an electoral tool of the Venezuelan regime, but soon became an instrument to keep the regime in power forever. I know this because I myself placed the head of information technology of the National Electoral Council (CNE) in his position, and he reported directly to me. The Smartmatic system can be altered; this is a fact. This technology was later exported abroad, including to the United States. Regime operatives maintain relationships with election officials and voting machine companies in your country. I am not claiming that all elections are stolen, but I do state with certainty that elections can be manipulated with that software, and that it has been used to do so.
People of the United States, do not misunderstand the threat posed by allowing a narcoterrorist organization to move freely through the Caribbean and all of Latin America, doing everything possible to harm the American people, funding anti-Americanism across the continent, and facilitating the operations of other terrorist organizations and enemies of the United States from within Venezuela and now within your own borders.
Ukrainian forces have begun training and testing exoskeletons for battlefield use. Soldiers from the 147th Separate Artillery Brigade are using them in the Pokrovsk sector for both logistics and frontline operations. The goal is to reduce physical strain, especially when loading heavy artillery shells into howitzers without automatic loaders. Artillery crews can handle up to 1200 kg of ammunition per day, and early tests show that exoskeletons help them work faster and with less fatigue Above all, by improving the conditions for those soldiers on the front lines who handle such heavy loads, plus the stress of work. Seeking to reduce overall fatigue in the troops
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🇮🇷🇮🇱 - 14 wounded in Iranian missile strike in central Israel, according to Israeli media.
🇬🇧🇮🇶 - A drone struck British Castrol oil warehouses in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, causing extensive damage.
🇮🇷🇮🇱 - Iran launched 9 missiles towards Israel this morning alone, with at least 3 of them being cluster missiles.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - Over the past 12 hours, Hezbollah launched counterattacks in Khiam and Qantara, in the Nabatieh direction, southeast Lebanon. Hezbollah recaptured northern Khiam, with fighting ongoing for the south of the town. Hezbollah units also re-entered Qantara; frontline sources reported clashes in the center of the town last night.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - 48 IDF soldiers have been wounded in clashes with Hezbollah over the last 24 hours in southern Lebanon, according to the Israeli Army.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - "The Israeli army is barely catching its breath in southern Lebanon, and its resources are less than in the previous round of fighting," - Haaretz....
🇺🇸 Blue Owl Capital just disclosed that investors tried to pull 40.7% of one fund and 21.9% of another in a single quarter, and both funds gave the same answer, you can only have 5% back, and everyone else waits in line.
This is a bank run, not a normal withdrawal.
Wall Street spent the last decade selling millions of investors on something called semi-liquid private credit, higher yields, steady income and the promise you could get your money back every quarter if you needed it. What they buried in the fine print was what happens when too many people try to leave at the same time.
Analysts who have covered private credit for decades say nothing on this scale has ever been reported before at any major private credit manager.
These funds do not hold stocks you can sell on a Tuesday afternoon, they hold private loans to mid sized companies that cannot be liquidated quickly without destroying the price for every investor still trapped inside.
This product was originally designed for ...
🇺🇸 President Trump wants to switch to war economy in 2027 with massive increase in military spending and massive cuts to healthcare and other domestic agencies
Once a deficit hawk — he said in 2016 that he thought he could balance the budget in five years — Trump ended his first term with $7.8 trillion in added debt. His 2027 proposal is expected to give an update on 10-year deficit projections currently estimated at around $16 trillion.
The GOP's message for the Midterms will be focused on the "need" for a massive defense build up while the Democrats' message will be focused on affordability.
The fiscal 2027 budget will be the first time Trump puts his second-term governing agenda into one comprehensive document — with the numbers to back it up. The budget he released last year lacked detailed line-by-line spending targets and the economic assumptions necessary to project the long-term cost of his proposals.
Investors in US Treasuries will be looking to see if the debt and ...
