FreeFrench

Nobody is telling you how FUCKED the NATO situation actually is right now. Nobody is talking about what happens when $838,000,000,000 in defense spending walks out the door. Here's what nobody is telling you: → The US provides ALL strategic airlift for NATO — Europe cannot move its armies long distance → The US runs the intelligence sharing networks NATO's command structure depends on → 10 to 20 American nuclear bombs are stored at Büchel Air Base in Germany right now → Naval Station Rota in Spain houses the ONLY Aegis missile defense destroyers in Europe → Ramstein Air Base is the headquarters for US Air Forces across Europe AND Africa A friend of mine who spent 20 years in defense policy told me last week: "If the US pulls out, NATO doesn't decline — it ceases to exist as a functional military alliance within 18 months." That's when I knew this wasn't posturing. THE MATH: $838,000,000,000 — US defense spending (60.2% of NATO total) $574,000,000,000 — Europe + Canada combined (39.8%) 65,000 — permanently stationed US troops 37 — American military bases across Europe 1,860,000 — European soldiers who lose their command backbone This isn't a disagreement. This is a divorce. And the kids don't get custody of the nukes. The real crisis hasn't even started yet. the update i'm working on tonight is going to change how you see all of this.. make sure you're following.

We saw it play out in real time yesterday. We were told Iran had begged for a ceasefire, agreed to relinquish its enriched Uranium and opened the Strait. None of it was true. Which again creates a situation where Iran now has more credibility in its statements than the US.

Surgery 🧵

There is something that doesn’t sit right when the Director of Public Prosecutions "sought consent from Attorney-General Michelle Rowland" to arrest Ben Robert Smith - when that very same Attorney-General was recently busted rorting her travel allowance, but face no penalty other than having to repay the money.

Labor will tell Australians that more renewables will make power cheaper. But there is a basic problem in this... Solar and wind are intermittent. They do not run on demand, so the grid needs backup generation, storage, and far more transmission to hold the whole system together. That means paying for an entire second layer of infrastructure to stabilise what the first layer cannot do on its own. International evidence shows higher renewable penetration rate is correlated with higher electricity costs. This should surprise no one, as it is the predictable result of low load factors, dispersed generation, storage needs, and major network expansion. The scale of that buildout is immense. Chris Bowen’s target involves adding 10,000 kilometres to the national transmission network by 2030, with costs running into the tens of billions. In New South Wales alone, the 365km HumeLink project is already being badly delayed, with its cost estimate blowing out to almost $5 billion, while Snowy 2.0 has risen from an original estimate of $2 billion to well over $12 billion. All these costs inevitably find their way to the average person, either through increased taxes or the costs being handed down to the consumer. Modelling done last year by Moody estimated retail electricity costs could rise by 20 to 35 per cent in real terms over the next decade, even using conservative renewable investment assumptions. Similarly, Infrastructure Victoria modelling projected wholesale prices around $120 per megawatt-hour in 2030 if Victoria hits its renewable targets, more than double the current price level in 2025. In light of all this, how does Labor's push for 82% renewables by 2030 make any sense? The answer is it doesn't. If Labor really wanted to reduce electricity prices, they would unshackle Australia from our Net Zero and renewable targets, and put electricity affordability and reliability front and centre of their energy policy. Until then, we can continue to expect high energy prices.