You really cannot make this stuff up. Britain does not permit people domiciled in the UK to enter into polygamous marriages, yet buried inside the government’s welfare tables is an allowance for an “additional spouse” in certain polygamous marriages legally contracted overseas. For 2026–27, that additional amount under the relevant Pension Credit rules rose from £119.50 to £125.25 per week. That works out to £6,513 annually for each qualifying additional spouse living in the household.
This is precisely the sort of contradiction that destroys confidence in government. Parliament tells British citizens that one legal standard applies inside Britain, but when government encounters a marriage legally created under the laws of another country, certain parts of the welfare system can recognize additional spouses for benefit calculations. The House of Commons Library has confirmed that polygamous marriages considered valid under UK private international law can, in limited circumstances, involve means-tested benefits covering more than one spouse.
Now, before everyone runs around claiming Britain is spending billions supporting harems, that is simply not true. The Department for Work and Pensions says the latest Housing Benefit data recorded fewer than ten households identified as polygamous marriages formed abroad. Universal Credit does not recognize a polygamous household as one multi-spouse benefit unit either; generally the earliest married couple forms the couple claim while additional adults must claim separately according to their circumstances. Fine. Then why maintain a category for an additional spouse in a polygamous marriage at all?
That is the political issue the bureaucrats never understand. The outrage is not primarily about whether there are eight households, eighty households, or eight thousand households receiving this particular allowance. It is the principle that government has created one set of cultural expectations for the domestic population while accommodating another legal arrangement when imported from abroad.
Britain has spent decades telling people that mass immigration would require integration into British society. Yet integration cannot mean that British society continuously modifies itself to accommodate every institution brought into the country. At some point a nation must decide whether immigrants integrate into the country or the country integrates around the immigrants.
This becomes particularly absurd when Britain is simultaneously debating enormous reductions in welfare spending. Reform UK has proposed cutting the welfare bill by £50 billion annually. Politicians are arguing over disability benefits, long-term unemployment, housing assistance and who should qualify for taxpayer support. Working people are being told that the existing system is financially unsustainable, yet government regulations still contain explicit calculations for additional spouses in qualifying overseas polygamous marriages.
The actual expenditure may be microscopic, but politically the symbolism could hardly be worse. This is how governments lose people. They insist that ordinary taxpayers accept increasingly complicated rules while refusing to recognize how those rules look outside Whitehall. A British worker does not sit down after a ten-hour shift and read the Department for Work and Pensions’ technical explanation of legacy Pension Credit arrangements. He sees that polygamy cannot legally be contracted in Britain and then discovers an official government benefit table containing the words “additional amount for additional spouse” under “polygamous marriage.”
The government will argue that eliminating the provision would not necessarily save money because those additional adults might simply qualify independently. But then this becomes a much larger debate about immigration and welfare eligibility. If someone enters Britain as part of a family structure that British residents themselves cannot legally create, why should British taxpayers be obligated to reproduce through welfare policy the financial consequences of that arrangement?
There is also an enormous difference between recognizing an overseas marriage for limited legal purposes and endorsing polygamy as British social policy. The British welfare state was constructed in a completely different demographic era. It was never designed around unlimited migration from societies with radically different family structures, nor was it intended to adjudicate every cultural practice found around the world.
This is precisely why Reform’s welfare debate is gaining traction. The issue is no longer simply how much money government spends. It is whom the welfare state exists to serve and what obligations should accompany the right to receive from it. A welfare system without boundaries eventually becomes an entitlement to the productive output of everyone who still works and pays taxes.
If Britain does not permit its own citizens to create a polygamous marriage under British law, government should at least be prepared to explain why its welfare tables still calculate payments for additional spouses in qualifying marriages contracted somewhere else.
The amount of money involved today may be trivial, but the principle is certainly not. That is what Westminster never seems to understand until the voters finally revolt.
South Korea has responded to Trump’s decision to reduce joint military exercises by talking about becoming more militarily independent. President Lee Jae Myung wants South Korea to regain wartime operational control of its forces and accelerate its military capabilities. The establishment immediately presents this as though Trump has somehow endangered America by pushing an ally toward self-reliance.
The American taxpayer should never have been expected to finance the defense of wealthy countries indefinitely. South Korea is not some impoverished developing nation incapable of defending itself. It is one of the world’s largest economies, possesses a sophisticated industrial and technological base, and has built a formidable military. If Seoul believes it should have greater control over its own national defense, then by all means it should.
Trump has complained for years that America’s allies expect Washington to carry a disproportionate share of their defense burden. South Korea is no exception. The United States maintains approximately 28,500 troops on the Korean Peninsula, and the two countries have repeatedly fought over how much Seoul should contribute toward the cost. They reached another burden-sharing agreement extending through 2030, but Trump’s fundamental complaint has never changed: why should American taxpayers be expected to defend prosperous foreign nations forever? The same argument applies to NATO, and this is ultimately why NATO will face an existential crisis.
The Europeans have constructed their postwar governments around the assumption that America would provide the ultimate military guarantee. That allowed European politicians to spend enormous sums on welfare states and domestic political projects while neglecting their own military capabilities. Whenever anyone questioned the arrangement, Washington’s foreign-policy establishment insisted that America somehow needed NATO more than Europe needed America.
If NATO disappeared tomorrow, is Canada going to invade the United States? Is Belgium going to attack Washington? Is Poland going to send troops across the Atlantic? The United States possesses its own nuclear deterrent, enormous conventional forces, two vast oceans, tremendous natural resources, and one of the world’s largest economies. Europe requires American military power to balance Russia far more than America requires European military power to defend North America.
South Korea faces the same basic reality in Asia. North Korea threatens Seoul directly. It does not threaten Washington in remotely the same geographical sense. South Korea therefore has a far greater immediate interest in maintaining deterrence on the Korean Peninsula than the American taxpayer does.
This does not mean alliances are worthless. Alliances can serve strategic purposes, improve intelligence cooperation, deter conflict, and prevent adversaries from dominating important regions. But an alliance must benefit both sides. It cannot become a permanent arrangement where one nation provides the ultimate military guarantee while everyone else treats that guarantee as an entitlement.
South Korea refused Trump’s request to support America’s actions against Iran. Trump then publicly complained about that refusal while ordering the Pentagon to reduce joint exercises with Seoul. Trump also argued that the exercises cost “Hundreds of Millions of Dollars” and questioned why America should continue conducting them when Kim Jong Un had been “unthreatening and respectful” toward the United States during his presidency.
South Korea is perfectly entitled to say Iran is not its war. But America is equally entitled to ask why North Korea must therefore remain America’s financial responsibility. You cannot have sovereignty only when it is convenient.
If Seoul wants an independent foreign policy toward Iran, Ukraine, China, and every other geopolitical dispute, then that is precisely what a sovereign country should have. South Korea has been similarly cautious regarding Ukraine. It has condemned Russia, supported sanctions, provided humanitarian and economic assistance, yet resisted becoming directly involved in the war even as North Korea moved closer to Moscow.
President Lee wants wartime operational control transferred back to South Korea, and Seoul is discussing stronger indigenous military capabilities. That should not frighten Americans. American taxpayers should welcome wealthy allies becoming capable of defending themselves.
The foreign-policy establishment has constructed this bizarre doctrine whereby any reduction in American military responsibility is portrayed as American decline. They measure American power by how many countries depend upon Washington. That is not strength. That is liability.
Categories:War
QUESTION: Marty, will you please issue a new bond report? Everything you laid out in the 2020 Bond Report you handed out at the 2020 WEC has been amazing. You wrote:
“The strongest target in the Yearly array is 2023 for a turning point ahead, at least
on a closing basis. It does appear we have a choppy period starting 2021 until
2023 with each target producing the opposite direction for that 3-year period.”
Your 2023 target has been the law, with a Panic Cycle in 2028, and in Moody’s AAA Corporate, you had a Panic Cycle in 2026. Nobody can do long-term like Socrates and actually be correct. I show that chart on the Dax from 1999, projecting the Panic Cycle for 2008 to everyone on the board. I know you are swamped. But now is when we need you. You even projected that the government would bypass the banks and sell debt directly.
RB
REPLY: I will try. I am only one person. That’s what Socrates is for. The problem with being the largest international advisory firm, is that someone is always awake. To do an authoritative report on this subject means I must address it is the major currencies as well. When you plot the bonds in yen, they are not making new recent lows. This is far more complicated for as war rages globally, rates will rise but capital will flee to the USA as it has been doing of late from the Middle East, Europe, and Asia.
The selloff in global bonds is driving up borrowing costs across the board. There is no end in sight before 2028. Bond yields are at 19-year highs, and investors. People are blaming Trump quagmire with the continuing U.S.-Iran conflict. Of course, they assume this will stoke inflation worries. Others are pointing to the flood of tech-company bonds seeking cash. Then there is fear about the lack of clarity from a new Federal Reserve chairman.
All of this sounds logical, but the overlooked 800 pound gorilla is that with Ukraine pledging Moscow will fall, the Neocons swearing Russia will invade Europe in a matter of weeks, why would anyone in their right mind buy government debt? With war, there is the risk of an outright default as we saw after World War I and II.
I understand this is a critical issue. I refer you to Socrates for now. I will get to it as soon as possible.
Europe apparently believes it can sanction the entire world into submission. Eight countries outside the European Union have now agreed to align themselves with Brussels’ latest sanctions against Belarus: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, and Ukraine. The measures further restrict trade and technology that Brussels claims could contribute to Belarusian military and industrial capabilities. This is being presented as another great demonstration of European unity. What they never discuss is what happens when Europe progressively eliminates its own ability to conduct business with everyone it politically dislikes.
The Europeans have completely lost sight of what made Europe prosperous. It was commerce. Europe traded with everyone. Germany bought energy from Russia and sold machinery to China. Britain became a global financial center because capital from around the world flowed through London. European manufacturers sold automobiles, chemicals, machinery, and luxury goods from Moscow to Beijing and throughout the Middle East. Commerce created interdependence, and interdependence provided at least some restraint against conflict.
Now Brussels has decided that foreign policy consists of creating another sanctions list every few months. Belarus is merely the latest extension of a policy that has become institutionalized. The EU says its sanctions against Minsk are justified by domestic repression, support for Russia in Ukraine and what Brussels describes as hybrid attacks against the European Union. The sanctions now extend across finance, technology, trade, transport, military-related goods and industrial capacity. The latest measures deliberately expand restrictions on products that could strengthen Belarusian industry, not merely weapons themselves.
Once sanctions expand from targeting individuals responsible for a specific policy into deliberately weakening another country’s industrial capacity, you have moved from diplomacy into economic warfare. Politicians then act shocked when the targeted country responds by building deeper economic and military relationships with nations outside the West.
Russia was supposed to collapse under sanctions. Instead, Europe severed its own access to cheap Russian energy, Russia redirected trade toward Asia, China gained enormous leverage as a buyer, India increased its role in global energy markets, and European industry was left paying higher input costs. Now Brussels is preparing yet another massive sanctions package against Russia. Kaja Kallas says the next measures will be the most far-reaching since the war began, potentially adding around 1,600 Russian individuals and entities to a sanctions system that already covers thousands.
How many sanctions packages does it take before someone in Brussels admits that sanctions are not a substitute for diplomacy?
The EU already adopted its 21st sanctions package against Russia in July, targeting another 218 individuals and entities, including 94 Russian banks as well as the Moscow Stock Exchange, crypto operators, oil infrastructure and additional components of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet. More than 100 Russian banks have now been sanctioned, with dozens disconnected from SWIFT. Yet Russia still exists and the war continues.
This obsession is becoming economically self-destructive because the West increasingly treats neutrality as unacceptable. It is no longer sufficient for Europe to sanction another country itself. Brussels wants candidate countries, neighboring states, corporations, banks, shipping companies and governments throughout the world to enforce European foreign policy as well. The European Council has openly called on other countries to align themselves with EU sanctions, particularly candidate countries.
Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina all have European integration ambitions. Brussels is exporting its foreign policy before some of these nations have even entered the Union.
Europe is steadily dividing the world into countries it approves of and countries with which commerce becomes politically suspect. Russia is sanctioned. Belarus is sanctioned. Iran is sanctioned. Various Chinese companies have been targeted under Russia-related restrictions. Trade with other countries is increasingly scrutinized for sanctions circumvention. Brussels has transformed international commerce into a political loyalty test.
China understands what Brussels does not. Trade creates influence. Infrastructure creates influence. Investment creates influence. That is why China has spent decades building commercial relationships throughout Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. The Europeans arrive with regulations, lectures and sanctions while China arrives asking what you want to buy and what you want to sell.
Sanctions weaponize the financial system. Every time Western governments freeze assets, block banks or prohibit transactions, another government somewhere in the world asks whether its own reserves and commercial relationships could eventually be subjected to the same treatment. You do not need China to replace the dollar or euro tomorrow for this process to matter. You merely need governments and corporations gradually building alternatives because they no longer regard Western financial infrastructure as politically neutral.
The same thing happened with Russian energy. Europe believed it could dictate where Russian commodities could be sold because Brussels still thinks Europe controls world commerce as it did during the colonial era. Those days are gone. Asia represents an enormous share of global economic growth. China and India are major commodity consumers. The Middle East has become an increasingly important financial center. Nations throughout the Global South are no longer prepared to structure their entire foreign policy around what Brussels or Washington demands.
Germany is already discovering what happens when geopolitics replaces economics. Its industrial model depended on inexpensive energy and enormous foreign markets. Russian energy was sacrificed to sanctions while China has increasingly become a competitor rather than simply a customer. Brussels then piles Net Zero regulations, taxes and bureaucracy on top and wonders why factories close or investment moves elsewhere.
The eight countries joining the Belarus sanctions may appear insignificant in isolation. They are not. They represent the expansion of a geopolitical system in which Brussels increasingly expects countries surrounding the EU to adopt its enemies as their own.
The more the West weaponizes trade, banking, currencies, technology and energy, the greater the incentive becomes for everyone outside the West to build systems that Washington and Brussels cannot control. Europe is therefore helping create the very multipolar world its political establishment fears while simultaneously weakening its own industrial competitiveness in the process.
Categories
I’m sure she is a very nice person. Mrs Graham likely has all the best intents and inclinations. However, unfortunately I have strong reservations that Republicans can hold that South Carolina senate seat if Darline Graham goes into a general election against a Democrat candidate.
The special election debate between Darline Graham and Ralph Norman was tonight hosted by Newsmax. The full debate is below the fold, but here’s a sample that might be awkward to watch.
Mrs. Darline Graham is currently serving in office as the appointed Republican Senator from South Carolina.
Full debate below:
.
According to media reports, after the Canadian trade delegation failed to come to a negotiated settlement on key USMCA terms, Prime Minister Mark Carney called President Trump earlier today to discuss the tariffs that were scheduled to begin tomorrow.
President Trump has announced a pause via Truth Social:
I’m curious to see how this works out. Apparently, there’s something about the Keystone XL Pipeline in a deal.
For the Florida Republican primary for Governor, candidate Byron Donalds easily wins the GOP contest. Donalds will now face Democrat David Jolly in the general election.
Alexander S. Vindman, the legend in his own mind and retired Army lieutenant colonel who operated as a false witness to help the CIA manufacture President Trump’s first impeachment trial, lost to DSA Communist State Representative Angie Nixon for Florida’s Democratic nomination for Senate. Nixon will now face Republican Ashley Moody in the general election.
WYOMING – In Wyoming, Representative Harriet M. Hageman, also running with President Trump’s endorsement, is likely to win the Republican Senate primary to replace Cynthia Lummis, who is retiring.
ALASKA – In the state that likes to play games with their elections, Alaska Senator Dan S. Sullivan, a Republican, faces former Democrat Representative Mary Peltola in one of the most closely watched Senate races of the midterms. A crowd of candidates including another inserted candidate, Dan J. Sullivan, are trying to split the votes with name games. The top four vote-winners will advance in this hot mess of a system.
Many people are interested in the John Solomon release of FBI information regarding former congressman Eric Swalwell and his relationship with a known Chinese operative named Fang Fang, aka Christine Fang. [SOLOMON LINK]
Personally, I’m not that interested in rehashing the Swallwell-Fang Fang storyline. However, there is a lot of mistaken information regarding the story. So, here’s the full background context that will hopefully make sense of the FBI conduct as it relates to the Chinese compromise.
[Fang Fang, aka “Rusty Thumbs”]
♦ The FBI has two basic missions. The #1 primary mission is to protect the interests of Washington DC officials from the outcome of their own conduct. The #2 secondary mission is to protect the American people from known wolves.
♦ The Dept of Justice National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) monitors foreign influence in Washington DC. The DOJ-NSD use the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) as the primary legal tool to monitor the political influence. Former Attorney General Eric Holder, on behalf of President Obama, took this monitoring to new political levels of weaponization.
These two facets come together in the story of California members of congress who are long known to have been the primary conduit of Chinese money into DNC operations at a federal and individual campaign level. The FBI have known about this for a long time, a very long time.
There was a Chinese Spy named Russell Lowe employed by former Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) for several decades. Russell Lowe began working with Dianne Feinstein in the 1970’s. According to reporting by CBS Lowe passed along information gained from Feinstein to the Chinese government. [H/T Rosie Memos]
The story of Russell Lowe inside Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) Vice-Chair Dianne Feinstein’s political life surfaced as an outcome of the Fang-Fang revelations. However, in reality Fang-Fang entered the orbit of Eric Swalwell as a result of Feinstein’s compromise with the Chinese spy ring.
It is said that Feinstein’s staff introduced Fang Fang to Swalwell when the Freshman Congressman first won election in 2012, taking office in 2013.
Who was Dianne Feinstein’s lead staff? Dan Jones.
Dan Jones left the SSCI prior to the 2016 election and went to work pushing the Trump-Russia narrative through his media contacts.
Dianne Feinstein abdicated her Vice-Chair position on the SSCI after the 2016 election, to Mark Warner.
Dan Jones took over funding Fusion-GPS and Chris Steele in 2017 at the same time Senator Mark Warner took over as SSCI vice-chairman. Dan Jones and Mark Warner coordinated the efforts outside and inside government on the same objective. The Senate Intel Committee was part of the Trump-Russia collusion effort.
As a result of their alignment and common purpose the SSCI didn’t investigate the origin of the Trump-Russia narrative; and instead positioned themselves as a shield to block any investigative inquiry into what took place. {GO DEEP}
♦ Combined with House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Chairman Adam Schiff also being from California and also having some of the same compromises with proclivity as well as Chinese operatives, that’s likely why Fang Fang would be interested in young Swalwell while Schiff guided him into the HPSCI.
The FBI had been monitoring the Chinese operation for a long time. The FBI knew the network, knew the political targets and were monitoring all of it for decades. That’s why the FBI were interested in flipping Fang Fang to be a confidential human source (CHS). Remember, the #1 mission is to protect -not impede- the DC politicians. So, the FBI was monitoring Fang Fang as she engaged with Swalwell.
This part is critical to understand.
The FBI were managing the compromise, not eliminating it.
The FBI were not interested in capturing Fang Fang in the traditional sense of a CHS; rather the FBI would protect Swalwell by wrapping her up in a blanket the same way the FBI wrapped up Chris Steele’s primary sub-source, Igor Danchenko.
Fang Fang as a CHS would protect Swalwell, as Danchenko as a CHS protected Mueller’s operation; that was the purpose.
However, as soon as Jack Smith, yes (that same Jack Smith) from the DOJ Public Integrity Section (PIN) could identify a way that Swalwell could reasonably be classified as a victim in the system, then the FBI shifted from recruiting Fang Fang to investigating her. When the FBI notified Fang Fang of her status (under targeted investigation) she fled back to China. The FBI notifying Fang Fang was specifically intended to generate that response. [It’s a repeat of the Awan brother’s operation.]
You might notice that all of these operations circle around the Senate and House “intelligence committees,” that is not a coincidence. The higher value targets for China, Shiff, Feinstein, Swalwell etc, operate inside the DC intelligence oversight.
While operating as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Swallwell was Robin to Schiff’s Batman. The two were inseparable. Shiff and Swalwell both from California, both extremely corrupt and partisan, both operating together to leak from the HPSCI and frame narratives against Donald Trump.
Eric Swalwell would leak shaped intelligence information to CNN’s Manu Raju in the same manner that Mark Meadows would leak information to John Solomon.
Shiff/Swalwell would attack Trump; Meadows would defend Trump.
This was the process throughout 2017 and 2018. Swalwell was the House manager for the second impeachment effort.
As John Solomon puts it: “In a 2015 interview with the FBI, then-Congressman Swalwell told agents that he first met Fang in 2012, during his first congressional campaign. He admitted to the agents that he had “physical relations with Fang” on multiple occasions, according to the FBI summary. In a subsequent interview in 2016, Swalwell detailed one incident where Fang showed up at his door, after which Swalwell said they “hooked up,” according to the interview summary.
In that second interview, Swalwell confirmed that Fang did refer interns to both his campaign and congressional offices. He noted that he and his staff treated Fang’s referrals as coming from the Asian Pacific Islander American Public Associations (APAPA), an important constituent group in his district.
“FANG was unique when it came to interns, because SWALWELL saw FANG as connected to the Asian Pacific Islander American Public Associations (APAPA) and [redacted],” the 2016 interview summary reads.
“SWALWELL viewed anyone that FANG put forward for an internship as coming from APAPA,” it adds. “A significant portion of SWALWELL’s constituents are Chinese American and diversity is important.” (read more)
After Kevin McCarthy became Speaker of the House in January 2023, he announced that he would remove Eric Swalwell from the House Intelligence committee, saying, “If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn’t have Swalwell on any committee.”
Many cheered the McCarthy announcement. However, what most people missed was that Swalwell was term-limited on the HPSCI and Swalwell’s membership expired in January 2023. McCarthy was just doing what McCarthy did.
Throughout the process the FBI were not mitigating or eliminating the Chinese spy compromise, the FBI were managing it.
They still are.
Top men.
Wash – Rinse – Repeat.
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