Sir Richard Branson says history will remember this time as when the West’s trust in America ‘ended’

Historians will remember the current period of geopolitical turmoil as the moment Western nations lost trust in the U.S., Sir Richard Branson has warned.

The British billionaire behind the Virgin brand gave a furious assessment of the new U.S. administration on LinkedIn, lambasting a rhetorical U-turn from being the West’s peacekeeper to its main antagonist since Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Policymakers in Europe have been scrambling since Trump took office. The president is pushing for Ukraine to agree to a peace deal with Russia, going so far as to temporarily withdraw military support for the country.

Trump has also discussed pulling the U.S. out of the NATO military alliance after complaining for years about European member states failing to reach their targeted spending relative to GDP.

Meanwhile, EU member state Denmark is batting off fresh attempts by Trump to acquire Greenland for the U.S.

The EU has since rallied together to collectively pledge more than $800 billion for defense spending. Germany recently approved a $1.3 trillion spending plan on infrastructure and defense that would see it partially remove its strict debt brake in order to fund its military spending.

In a post that touched on the U.S.’s past roles in World War II and the Cold War, Branson expressed incredulity at the current situation that has seen the U.S. rhetorically split with Europe, with Branson highlighting Trump’s labeling of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “dictator” as a particularly contentious act.

Branson struggled to imagine a precedent for what he called an “about-face of this scale and significance.”

“Imagine President Roosevelt changing his mind halfway through World War II, calling Winston Churchill a dictator and then seeking to befriend Hitler,” he wrote.

“And yet, this is the situation European powers are now faced with—their principal military ally suddenly switching allegiance.

“Historians will look back at this era in global politics as the time when Western nations’ trust in America ended. It’s frustrating (and incredibly sad) to see this great nation let down its allies, not only because it is the greatest threat to global stability seen in decades, but because it will ultimately do irreparable harm to America, its reputation, and its capacity to advance its interests positively in the world.”

Branson also referenced the Budapest Memorandum, a 1993 agreement that led to Ukraine, alongside Belarus and Kazakhstan, giving up its nuclear weapons in return for future protection against Russia. He implied the U.S. risked abandoning its obligations to Ukraine’s safety as a result of that memorandum.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/sir-richard-branson-says-history-104630324.html

IDF cancels discharge leave for some soldiers over manpower shortages: 'We’ve given enough'

Soldiers from Nahal Brigade, exhausted after over a year of wartime service, say burden shouldn't fall on those who have already risked their lives on the front lines and that they were denied leave to which they are entitled under military regulations

Soldiers from the Nahal Brigade, currently deployed in the West Bank, said they were denied leave to which they are entitled under military regulations, while other regular army brigades have resumed granting it. The affected troops had expected to receive their discharge leave, a short break at the end of mandatory service that allows soldiers to rest and transition to civilian life. While technically still enlisted during this period, soldiers on discharge leave can be called back to duty at any time by the military.

“This solution shouldn’t come at the expense of those who’ve already risked their lives for over a year,” said a soldier from Nahal’s 931st Battalion. “Other brigades are sending their soldiers home for a week or two, as they should. Why are we different?”

Since major ground combat in Gaza ended last August and gave way to smaller-scale raids, the IDF has reduced its use of "Code 77" — a wartime directive allowing commanders to postpone discharge leave and extend mandatory service by four months in a reservist framework. Senior officers began easing restrictions on discharge to allow soldiers nearing the end of their service some reprieve. But in the Nahal Brigade, that policy has not been applied.

“At the start of the war, it was understood that regular troops wouldn’t be discharged. They continued with their units as reservists, and the use of Code 77 was minimal,” said a commander in a regular infantry brigade. “But in the last six months, the situation changed. The fighting scaled down, and discharge leave was gradually restored because it gives soldiers some oxygen at the end of a long and intense service.”

Nahal soldiers say their brigade spent more time in combat in Gaza than any other infantry unit, and many of them are now exhausted—both mentally and physically—from over a year of extended, high-intensity service. They argue that the continued denial of their discharge leave violates IDF policy and places an undue burden on a group of soldiers who have already given more than most.

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bkp6s005pkl

>>22862478

You have provided zero proof or sauce

Take your shilling elsewhere rabbi

>>22862809

Yay cheering for the DS

>>22862840

>Daily Telegraph

=

GCHQ

Good job dumbass

WHAT HE DID IN ORDERING PLANES BACK, SETTING A CONTEMPT TRAP, AND UNNECESSARILY BURDENING TOP DOJ OFFICIALS TO TRY TO UNDERMINE TRUMP’S FOREIGN POLICY — IF BOASBERG IS REVERSED, IT SHOULD RESULT IN IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS. @julie_kelly2 reports.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1903199281223286834

Pentagon Inspector General Launches Investigation into Pete Hegseth’s Use of Signal

https://media.defense.gov/2025/Apr/03/2003681607/-1/-1/1/EVALUATION%20OF%20THE%20SECRETARY%20OF%20DEFENSE'S%20REPORTED%20USE%20OF%20A%20COMMERCIALLY%20AVAILABLE%20MESSAGE%20APPLICATION%20FOR%20OFFICER%20BUSINESS%20(PROJECT%20NO.%20D2025-DEV0PC-0095.000).PDF

ICE Whistleblower: I Detained Hundreds of Illegals with Active Voting Cards, They Bragged to Me about Controlling US Elections

The intrepid Michigan House Republicans are attempting the nation’s first honest investigation of voter fraud in state and federal elections. The Elections Committee Chair, Rep. Rachelle Smit (R), is uncovering a great deal of new information as it relates to ongoing voter fraud in American elections.

The public has been repeatedly told that elections are the ‘safest and most secure’ ones possible. Democrats often champion isolated incidents of voter fraud as ‘proof the system works’ because the fraud is being caught.

The political right claims that those caught are the tip of the iceberg. The political left claims such cases are isolated incidents, needles in the proverbial election haystack.

But now an Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or “ICE,” whistleblower has come forward, an agent with decades of experience in state and federal law enforcement, to say that he has arrested hundreds of illegal immigrants and they regularly bragged to him that they are voting in state and federal elections.

And, he says, he saw the voting cards they were using to vote, which were being issued by Michigan’s far-left Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

This whistleblower has been courageous to put this all in a signed and sworn document provided to Rep. Rachelle Smit and her nine-member House Election Integrity Committee. Smit has been planning investigations into a variety of lingering claims of systemic voter fraud from the 2020 election.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/04/ice-whistleblower-i-detained-hundreds-illegals-active-voting/

The central banks facilitate the payments for this filth

END THE FED

Microsoft Scales Back AI Data Center Projects In US, Australia, UK

TD Cowen analyst Michael Elias has explained to clients through multiple notes over the last month that Microsoft has scaled back on data center projects in the U.S. and Europe. This development is unsurprising, as readers have been aware of the emerging risks posed by the cheaper and more efficient Chinese DeepSeek (as noted on Jan. 27), prompting us to question whether AI data capacity will be achieved sooner than initially anticipated.

Another worrying sign for the AI bubble—or rather, a continuation of Elias' reporting on Microsoft scaling back data center projects—comes from Bloomberg, which provides additional color on MSFT supposedly halting data center construction sites in Indonesia, the UK, Australia, Illinois, North Dakota, and Wisconsin.

Here's more from the report, citing people familiar with talks (list courtesy of Bloomberg):

Microsoft recently withdrew from negotiations to lease space between London and Cambridge in the UK at a site being marketed for its ability to host advanced Nvidia chips, according to people familiar with the talks, who requested anonymity to discuss a private matter.

The company has also halted negotiations for data center space at a site near Chicago, according to a person familiar with the talks.

In some cases, Microsoft is delaying construction. For example, it has paused work on parts of a data center campus it owns about an hour outside of Jakarta, according to people familiar with the situation.

Microsoft also has put on hold some planned expansion at a site in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, part of a complex visited by then-President Joe Biden, according to another person.

In London, Microsoft was negotiating to lease space at Ada Infrastructure's 210-megawatt Docklands data center but has held off on committing to the project, according to people familiar with the matter.

Elias first raised concerns about Microsoft scaling back on AI computing capacity in a note on Feb. 24, in which he stated that Microsoft was terminating AI data center leases. This was followed by a separate note last week, in which the analyst reported that Microsoft had walked away from data center projects in the U.S. and Europe, amounting to a capacity of approximately 2 gigawatts of electricity.

"We continue to believe the lease cancellations and deferrals of capacity points to data center oversupply relative to its current demand forecast," Elias said last week.

News of the cheaper Chinese DeepSeek—a response to OpenAI's ChatGPT—in late January, which is allegedly 40–50 times more efficient than other large language models, had Goldman's Rich Privorotsky at the time proposing a new theme that spelled bad news for the AI bubble: "If you can do more with less, it naturally raises the question of whether so much capacity is necessary."

The whole "do more with less" theme produced by DeepSeek sparked a debate that AI peak demand capacity could be reached much sooner than Goldman's forecast of late 2026.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/microsoft-scales-back-ai-data-center-projects-us-australia-uk