International
WHO IS RUNNING THE COUNTRY?

News release from Seymour Hersh
Biden’s decline has been known to friends and insiders for months
Readers of this column know that President Joe Biden’s drift into blankness has been ongoing for months, as he and his foreign policy aides have been urging a ceasefire that will not happen in Gaza while continuing to supply the weapons that make a ceasefire less likely. There’s a similar paradox in Ukraine, where Biden has been financing a war that cannot be won and refusing to participate in negotiations that could end the slaughter.
The reality behind all of this, as I’ve been told for months, is that the president is simply no longer there, in terms of understanding the contradictions of the policies he and his foreign policy advisers have been carrying out. America should not have a president who does not know what he has signed off on. People in power have to be responsible for what they do, and last night showed America and the world that we have a president who clearly is not in that position today.
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The real disgrace is not only Biden’s, but those of the men and women around him who have kept him more and more under wraps. He is a captive, and as he rapidly diminished over the past six months. I have been hearing for months about the increasing isolation of the president, from his one-time pals in the Senate, who find that he is unable to return their calls. Another old family friend, whose help has been sought by Biden on key issues since his days as vice president, told me of a plaintive call from the president many months ago. Biden said the White House was in chaos and he needed his friend’s help. The friend said he begged off and then told me, with a laugh: “I would rather have a root canal procedure every day than go to work there.” A long retired Senate colleague was invited by Biden to join him on a foreign trip, and the two played cards and shared a drink or two on the Air Force One flight going out. The senator was barred by Biden’s staff from joining the return flight home.
I have been told the increasing isolation of the president on foreign policy issues has been in part the doing of Tom Donilon, whose younger brother, Michael, a key pollster and adviser in Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign and in the current re-election effort, was part of the team that spent much of the week briefing Biden for last night’s debate. Tom Donilon, who is 69, was President Biden’s national security adviser from 2010 to 2013 and sought unsuccessfully to be named as Biden’s director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He remains very much an insider.
Given Biden’s obvious decline in recent months, it is impossible for an outsider to understand why the White House agreed to any debates with Donald Trump before the election, let alone committing to the earliest presidential debate, the first of two, in modern history. One thought, I was told, was that if Biden performed well, as he had in his State of the Union speech in March, the issue of his mental capacity would be tabled. A poor performance would give the Biden campaign time to do a better prep job for the scheduled second debate.
There also was pressure from the major Democratic fundraisers, many of them in New York City, for the campaign to do something to counter the perception of the president’s obvious growing impairment, as reported and filmed by major media. I have been told that at least one foreign leader, after a closed meeting with Biden, told others that the president’s decline was so visible that it was hard to understand how, as it was put to me, “he could go through the rigors” of a re-election campaign. Such warnings were ignored.
What now? One of Washington political savants told me today that the Democratic Party is now facing “a national security crisis.” The nation is backing two devastating wars with a president who clearly is not up to it, he said, and it might be time to start drafting a resignation speech that would match or outdo the one given in March of 1968 by President Lyndon Johnson after his narrow victory over Senator Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary.
“They’re trapped,” he said of the senior advisers in the White House who hoped that Biden would somehow do well enough in last night’s debates to carry on, with the much-needed support of the more skeptical financial supporters in New York City.
Not everyone I talked to today agreed that it is time to force a Biden resignation and hope for the best at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August—to dump the ticket and seek new candidates. “My humble opinion,” one longtime contributor to the Democratic Party told me, “is to let the dust settle. Must examine the realistic options before some quick reaction creates an internal Democratic Party split with far-reaching consequences beyond 2024. Accept reality . . . 2024 is likely beyond recovery at this point. Too steep a hill to climb. Plan and execute a long-term plan to counter Mr. Orange and build a moderate platform for the recovery . . . and let Biden wander off to the Jersey Pine Barrens.”
A differing view was expressed by another political guru. “This is the age of social media—TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X—and a political campaign can go very far very fast.”
Whatever happens, we have a president—now fully unveiled—who just may not be responsible for what he does in the coming campaign, not to mention his actions in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Whatever happened to the 25th Amendment that authorizes the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to declare the president incompetent? What is going on in the Biden White House?
Seymour Hersh is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
International
FREE MARINE LE PEN!’: Trump defends French populist against ‘lawfare’ charges

From LifeSiteNews
‘The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech, and censor their Political Opponent,’ Donald Trump on Truth Social.
U.S. President Donald Trump defended French populist Marine Le Pen as a fellow victim of “lawfare” after the popular opposition leader was barred from the 2027 French national election due to embezzlement charges.
“The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech, and censor their Political Opponent, this time going so far as to put that Opponent in prison,” Trump wrote Thursday night on Truth Social.
As of Sunday, Le Pen, head of the National Rally (RN) party, was leading polls to win the presidential election, being 11 to 17 points ahead of the party of the globalist President Emmanuel Macron.
On Monday, Le Pen was hit with a five-year ban on running for elected office and sentenced to four years of prison on charges of “misuse of EU funds,” although two years were suspended and the remaining two would be served through house arrest.
Le Pen and her co-defendants were specifically accused of illegally using European Parliament funds for party employees who “seldom (or never) dealt with affairs in Brussels or Strasbourg,” of which the court held Le Pen personally responsible for €474,000.
Her prison sentence has been paused as her lawyer appeals the ruling, but the ban on her running for office nevertheless remains in force, despite the fact that legal penalties are typically delayed during the appeals process, according to Politico.
In his Truth Social post, Trump accused French leftists of using a “minor charge” against Le Pen as a pretext to block her from office.
“Just before what would be a Big Victory, they get her on a minor charge that she probably knew nothing about – Sounds like a ‘bookkeeping’ error to me,” wrote Trump.
“It is all so bad for France, and the Great French People, no matter what side they are on. FREE MARINE LE PEN!” he concluded.
Conservatives across Europe have rallied to Le Pen’s defense following Monday’s ruling, similarly slamming the decision as a pretext to exclude her from politics.
“I am Marine!” wrote Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on X Monday, in a cry of solidarity with his fellow anti-globalist.
“This is nuts,” remarked former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis on X. “Lawfare is wrong whomever it targets. And it is stupid to boot. France’s neofascists will only benefit from this, just as the MAGA lot did. A panicking illiberal establishment across the West is diving headlong into a totalitarian pit.”
“I am shocked by the incredible tough verdict against Marine Le Pen,” chimed in Geert Wilders, leader of a Dutch populist party that won a national election in 2023. “I support and believe in her for the full 100% and I trust she will win the appeal and become President of France.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has called the ruling a “violation of democratic norms,” and Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage denounced Le Pen’s “cancellation” as based on “a very trumped-up charge.”
“In this country we have nine county council elections on 1 May that won’t happen, and may not happen for years,” said Farage, according to the BBC. “And in France, they cancelled a candidate. A candidate that would, without doubt, have won the next French presidential election. And you know what, if looks to me like a very trumped-up charge.”
“They will not succeed in silencing the voice of the French people,” said Santiago Abascal, head of the pro-family, right-wing Vox party in Spain.
Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini urged Le Pen to keep fighting, calling her verdict a “bad film” akin to political shut-outs occuring in other countries like Romania.
“We will not be intimidated, we will not stop: full speed ahead my friend,” said Salvini.
Energy
Trump Takes More Action To Get Government Out Of LNG’s Way

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By David Blackmon
The Trump administration moved this week to eliminate another Biden-era artificial roadblock to energy infrastructure development which is both unneeded and counterproductive to U.S. energy security.
In April 2023, Biden’s Department of Energy, under the hyper-politicized leadership of Secretary Jennifer Granholm, implemented a new policy requiring LNG projects to begin exports within seven years of receiving federal approval. Granholm somewhat hilariously claimed the policy was aimed at ensuring timely development and aligning with climate goals by preventing indefinite delays in energy projects that could impact emissions targets.
This claim was rendered incredibly specious just 8 months later, when Granholm aligned with then-President Joe Biden’s “pause” in permitting for new LNG projects due to absurd fears such exports might actually create higher emissions than coal-fired power plants. The draft study that served as the basis for the pause was thoroughly debunked within a few months, yet Granholm and the White House steadfastly maintained their ruse for a full year until Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20 and reversed Biden’s order.
Certainly, any company involved in the development of a major LNG export project wants to proceed to first cargoes as expeditiously as possible. After all, the sooner a project starts generating revenues, the more rapid the payout becomes, and the higher the returns on investments. That’s the whole goal of entering this high-growth industry. Just as obviously, unforeseen delays in the development process can lead to big cost overruns that are the bane of any major infrastructure project.
On the other hand, these are highly complex, capital-intensive projects that are subject to all sorts of delay factors. As developers experienced in recent years, disruptions in supply chains caused by factors related to the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in major delays and cost overruns in projects in every facet of the economy.
Developers in the LNG industry have argued that this arbitrary timeline was too restrictive, citing these and other factors that can extend beyond seven years. Trump, responding to these concerns and his campaign promises to bolster American energy dominance, moved swiftly to eliminate this requirement. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that the U.S. was set to rescind this policy, freeing LNG projects from the rigid timeline and potentially accelerating their completion.
This policy reversal could signal a broader approach to infrastructure under Trump. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, enacted in 2021, allocated $1.2 trillion to rebuild roads, bridges, broadband and other critical systems, with funds intended to be awarded over five years, though some projects naturally extend beyond that due to construction timelines. The seven-year LNG deadline was a specific energy-related constraint, but Trump’s administration has shown a willingness to pause or redirect Biden-era infrastructure funding more generally. For instance, Trump’s Jan.20 executive order, “Unleashing American Energy,” directed agencies to halt disbursements under the IIJA and IRA pending a 90-day review, raising questions about whether similar time-bound restrictions across infrastructure sectors might also be loosened or eliminated.
Critics argue that scrapping deadlines risks stalling projects indefinitely, undermining the urgency Biden sought to instill in modernizing U.S. infrastructure. Supporters argue that developers already have every profit-motivated incentive to proceed as rapidly as possible and see the elimination of this restriction as a pragmatic adjustment, allowing flexibility for states and private entities to navigate permitting, labor shortages and supply chain issues—challenges that have persisted into 2025.
For example, the $294 billion in unawarded IIJA funds, including $87.2 billion in competitive grants, now fall under Trump’s purview, and his more energy-focused administration could prioritize projects aligned with his energy and economic goals over Biden’s climate and DEI-focused initiatives.
Ultimately, Trump’s decision to end the seven-year LNG deadline exemplifies his intent to reshape infrastructure policy by prioritizing speed, flexibility and industry needs. Whether this extends formally to all U.S. infrastructure projects remains unclear, but seems likely given the Trump White House’s stated objectives and priorities.
This move also clearly aligns with the overall Trump philosophy of getting the government out of the way, allowing the markets to work and freeing the business community to restore American Energy Dominance in the most expeditious way possible.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
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