Walmart has agreed to pay $100 million in a settlement surrounding allegations that it deceived delivery drivers about pay, per a Thursday Federal Trade Commission  press release. The case was brought by the FTC and 11 states against Walmart. The FTC alleges that Walmart, since 2021, made false claims to workers in its Spark delivery network. According to the FTC, the company misled drivers about how much they could make in base pay and tips. “Labor markets cannot function efficiently without truthful and non-misleading information about earnings and other material terms,” stated the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection director, Christopher Mufarrige. Walmart has stated that it will pay drivers affected by the allegedly deceptive conduct.  The post Walmart to Pay $100 Million in Driver Pay Settlement appeared first on The American Conservative.

UK Special Coverage The UK’s New Grooming Gang Scandal Illegal immigration is fueling another wave of crimes against women. UK Special Coverage In borderless Britain, it seems as if barely a day goes by without some monstrosity being committed by a migrant who should never have been in the country in the first place. The world is now familiar with the ongoing scandal of Britain’s predominantly Pakistani rape gangs. Yet what is also unfolding right now is a wave of brutal sexual violence committed by illegal arrivals, often asylum seekers from Afghanistan. Take the case of Afghan national Ahmad Mulakhil, convicted last month for raping a 12-year-old girl in a park in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Alongside one count of rape, 23-year-old Mulakhil was also found guilty of child abduction, two counts of sexual assault, and taking indecent photos of a child. He had already confessed to a charge of oral rape.  Mulakhil arrived in the UK illegally, crossing the English Channel from France in a small boat in July 2025. This being post-borders Britain, he was not detained or punished for this incursion. He was instead offered free accommodation and financial support, initially in Kent on England’s south coast, before he was relocated to Nuneaton, a quiet market town, where he was placed in social housing, at the taxpayers’ expense. Six weeks later, he approached his 12-year-old victim as she was playing on the swings in a park. His identity was confirmed when, after the attack, he went to purchase some cans of Red Bull in a nearby shop, using the preloaded debit card issued to him by the UK Home Office. A few weeks later, just a few miles down the road in Leamington Spa, two Afghan 17-year-olds abducted a 15-year-old from a park, took her to a secluded area, and then raped her. Another Afghan illegal migrant raped a 15-year-old in broad daylight in Falkirk town center in Scotland in 2023. Sadeq Nikzad sought to defend himself by citing language barriers and “cultural differences.” These cases are barely the tip of the iceberg. You can open a newspaper on any day in Britain and expect to read about a gruesome crime committed by a small-boats migrant, more often than not from Afghanistan. In a twisted way, the Falkirk rapist, Sadeq Nikzad, sort of had a point, even if the courts rightly rejected the notion that “cultural differences” were a reasonable defence. It is surely not for nothing that so many high-profile sex attacks in Britain are being committed by Afghans. Although data on the ethnicity and nationality of criminals are notoriously difficult to compile (made deliberately so by authorities beholden to political correctness), research by the Telegraph suggests that Afghan nationals are 20 times more likely to be convicted of a sexual offense than the average person in England and Wales. Afghans have the highest rate of sexual offending of all nationalities in the UK. Should this really be a surprise? Of course, it would be wrong to tar every Afghan with the worst crimes imaginable. Yet it would be equally absurd to assume that Afghans shed their upbringings and cultural assumptions as soon as they arrive in Europe or on Britain’s shores.  According to the Georgetown Institute’s Women, Peace and Security Index, Afghanistan ranks last out of 181 countries on almost every measure of women’s wellbeing, from the threat of partner violence to gender-based political persecution and women’s safety in general. Since the Taliban retook power in 2021, women have been relegated to below second-class status. The Islamic Republic of Iran looks like a feminist utopia by comparison. Women are forbidden from leaving the house without a male relative, and must be fully veiled when they do so. All girls are banned from attending school and one in three is forced into a child marriage. Rape is rampant. and, while men go unpunished, female victims can be prosecuted and punished for “adultery,” including by being stoned to death. To call this misogyny “medieval” is an insult to the actual medievals. Britons who grew up in the 1990s, 2000s or 2010s will remember the “feminist” campaigns to ban the sale of soft pornography on in supermarkets and newsagents. The Sun, once Britain’s bestselling tabloid newspaper, used to feature a bare-breasted woman on “Page Three” every day. “Lads mags”—bawdy magazines for men—would feature topless models, sex tips, and lewd anecdotes. These relatively harmless, anodyne fixtures of British public life were regularly denounced by the great and the good as “proof” that the UK had a “rape culture.” Yet now a very real “rape culture” has been imported from Afghanistan and is tearing through Britain. It is doing so with the connivance of the state, thanks to its porous borders combined with an overly generous interpretation of who should be deemed a refugee. Meanwhile, establishment feminists are either silent at best or at worst, happily complicit in the erosion of Britain’s borders and indifferent to the now-constant abuse of women and girls this has entailed. Any suggestion that thousands of young, unattached men from the most misogynistic nation on the planet might pose a non-negligible risk to women and girls is dismissed as “divisive,” “racist” and even “fascist.” This is not to malign everyone who arrives from Afghanistan. Not only are there many genuinely deserving of asylum from their tyrannical government (women, for instance, though they are notable for their absence among small-boats arrivals); there are also many Afghans whom the British government specifically has a duty to protect. Following the U.S.-UK withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, many interpreters and others who supported the British war effort were left stranded as the Taliban retook Kabul. Worse, a UK Ministry of Defence data breach led to more than 250 of their names being made public, effectively handing the Taliban a kill list of traitors. Here the case for asylum seems inarguable. Such people were placed in immediate danger of death by the rank incompetence of the British state. And so the British state has a responsibility to protect them. But what also seems inarguable is that the British state’s primary responsibility ought to be to protect its own citizens. Instead, our “compassionate,” “open-hearted” elites are rolling out the red carpet for tens of thousands of mostly male, young, totally unvetted illegal migrants arriving at random on the southern coast. As far as the establishment is concerned, those men are the real victims deserving of the state’s charity. The women and girls that are being on a horrifyingly regular basis are treated as mere collateral damage.  Britain desperately needs a reckoning with the Afghan crime wave—and with the political leaders who have allowed and enabled it. The post The UK’s New Grooming Gang Scandal appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs Why Trump’s Right to Pursue Russia–Ukraine Peace A settlement would stabilize Europe and enable U.S. retrenchment. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) The debate in Washington over Ukraine peace talks has, since negotiations began in earnest after the August 2025 Anchorage summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, largely centered on feasibility concerns: Are the sides dealing in good faith and is there a viable path to a settlement? Lost in all the posturing over optics and narrative control is a clear sense of why the administration has worked around the clock to craft one of the most technically complex, geopolitically ambitious draft peace deals of the post-Cold War period. As the war enters its fifth year, it’s worthwhile, on this inauspicious occasion, to revisit the strategic basis for continued U.S. engagement in this peace process.  Top administration officials have reiterated over the past year that this is “not our war,” a stark departure from the Biden administration’s ideologized narrative of Ukraine as ground zero in a global battle between autocracy and democracy into which every American citizen is ipso facto conscripted. But that’s a rather different proposition from the idea that major U.S. interests are not at stake in this conflict. It is important here to proceed with due nuance.  There is unquestionably a level on which this is an attrition war between two Eastern European countries. Americans would be quite justified in the belief that U.S. interests do not hinge on where exactly the future line of contact between Russia and Ukraine is drawn and the other bilateral terms on which the war ends. But this has never been simply a bilateral conflict on NATO’s eastern outskirts. It is in essence a strategic confrontation between Russia and NATO that is unfolding on Ukrainian soil, and the U.S. is deeply invested in advancing a diplomatic framework not just to end the immediate conflict but to defuse the geopolitical confrontation underpinning it.  Take, by way of illustration, the guideposts that the administration set for itself in the National Security Strategy (NSS) and National Defense Strategy (NDS). The U.S. rightly seeks to retrench from Europe and to devote its scarce resources to other theaters, particularly the Western Hemisphere and Indo-Pacific, but this policy shift will prove difficult or even impossible to execute while the European continent is roiled by its most dangerous and destructive war since 1945. Though direct U.S. aid has been drastically scaled back, American arms and materiel are still flowing to Ukraine through European middlemen via the PURL program. Consequently, money that could have been spent by European states on bolstering European defense capabilities is being diverted to keep Ukraine’s war effort afloat. The Europeanization of European defense requires a credible defense-industrial base, which, in turn, demands significant long-term investments by the EU’s leading member states. But the war and its effects have crippled Europe’s macroeconomic performance in ways that, contrary to what this administration wants, will facilitate its continued dependence on the U.S.  Policymakers must reckon with the reality that the U.S. cannot scale back its military footprint in Europe and renegotiate its longstanding role as the continent’s offshore balancer while NATO remains locked in a spiraling confrontation with Russia. The only way to secure lasting retrenchment—namely, the kind that ensures America will not be sucked back into European military affairs somewhere down the line—is to work toward a new regional security architecture that stabilizes NATO’s eastern flank over the long term. Such an outcome can only come from a framework peace deal that doesn’t just end the bilateral conflict between Russia and Ukraine but also plants the seeds of East–West stability on the continent.  This means embarking on a set of deconfliction measures and confidence-building initiatives that have long been in American interests. Ukraine peace talks provide a uniquely opportune opening to, as stated in the NSS, end the perception and reality of NATO as a “perpetually expanding alliance” by formally agreeing to abstain from enlargement in the post-Soviet sphere in exchange for Russia’s concessions on its regional force posture. The relationship between Russia and Europe will be characterized by deterrence for the foreseeable future, but deterrence without dialogue and pragmatic engagement is a recipe for escalatory spirals. The dialogue initiated by Ukraine peace talks provides a diplomatic point of departure not just on nuclear arms control but on reciprocal limitations to conventional forces on both sides of NATO’s eastern flank, mitigating escalatory risks between Russia and Europe. Though many of these diplomatic linkages are valuable to ending the war on the best possible terms for America and Ukraine, they are also a vehicle for realizing aims that are inherently beneficial to the U.S. Not since the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 has there been a more attractive opportunity to advance a slew of American security and diplomatic interests in one go. Anyone still unconvinced by the significance these talks hold is invited to explore the counterfactual: What if there is no deal? If the war ends with the exhaustion of one or both sides and a Korea-style armistice instead of a settlement that addresses underlying regional tensions, there is a serious likelihood that the conflict will either resume in the medium term or spread to other flashpoints (Belarus or Moldova being the most at-risk) in the post-Soviet sphere. Europe would find itself on the cusp of a new Cold War with fewer rules and safeguards than the last one, China and Russia will continue their consolidation into an anti-Western bloc increasingly capable of challenging American interests across the world, and retrenchment will become an ever-distant dream as the U.S. is forced to divert more resources to containing a hostile Russia. The Ukraine peace process, from the standpoint of American grand strategic interests, is about preventing this kind of future. It’s about advancing a European security architecture that doesn’t just keep the peace between Russia and Ukraine but also lowers the odds of a conflagration anywhere else on NATO’s eastern flank, leaving the U.S. with maximum flexibility to pursue other priorities from a stronger geopolitical position. What’s at stake here is something much larger than an end to the war, painful and tragic as the past four years have been. This is the clearest chance at a course correction in European security since the Russia–Ukraine crisis began in 2014. That is the weight of this moment, and, if we stay the course, the promise of these negotiations. The post Why Trump’s Right to Pursue Russia–Ukraine Peace appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs Cuba and the U.S. Are Bogged Down in History Heavy-handed efforts to coerce change in Cuba are liable to backfire. Image Credit: Benjamin Young Murals of Che Guevara and posters of Fidel Castro proclaiming the Cuban Revolution’s success remain a common sight on the streets of Havana. The Cuban regime’s commitment to anti-colonial internationalism is equally visible, evident for instance in schools named after the Angolan liberation movement and memorials dedicated to Fidel’s anti-apartheid friend, Nelson Mandela. It is a country frozen in its revolutionary past and nostalgic for the Cold War days when the small island nation punched far above its geopolitical weight.   The streets of Cuba reflect this stasis. Havana is eerily barren, and the numbers tell a stark story: Roughly 18 percent of the Cuban population left the island between 2022 and 2023. For most modern countries, this catastrophic demographic change would signal a need for internal reforms. But Cuba is not an ordinary country. It is a frozen republic that is trapped in its own internal contradictions and revolutionary relics.  When I visited Cuba in January 2024, there was little traffic, and the streets were absent of people. Cheap pizza was the mainstay on local restaurant menus. Meat was a luxury. Apart from local herbal remedies, the shelves of a local pharmacy were barren.  Much of the regime’s legitimacy is based on nostalgia. Cuba’s once-proud healthcare system is in tatters. Cuban doctors earn more money driving taxis for tourists. Buildings are in ruins. Garbage overflows onto the streets, leading to an epidemic of mosquito-driven diseases on the island. Even Cuba’s once iconic sugarcane industry is in steep decline.  It is ludicrous to think that this deeply impoverished island nation, with its Soviet-era military equipment and massive fuel shortages, is a real threat to U.S national security. Nonetheless, that is what the Trump administration wants the American public to believe. On January 29, the White House ludicrously called the Cuban government “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to the U.S.  Much like Cuba’s anachronistic condition, U.S policy towards Cuba is trapped in a museum of absurdities and Cold War–style red-baiting. It pretends that the Cuba of today is the same one that hosted Soviet nuclear missile sites in 1962 and almost dragged the world into nuclear armageddon.  Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and chief architect of the Trump administration’s Cuba policy, seems hell-bent on overthrowing the government in Havana. Triumphant after the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, Rubio is intent on putting the final nail in the coffin of the Cuban Revolution.  The Trump administration has implemented a total blockade of foreign oil into Cuba, which has halted public transportation on the island. Farmers cannot get their produce to market. University students cannot attend their classes. The already debilitated country has come to a standstill. But if the goal of this oil blockade is to convince the Cuban people to rise up and overthrow the leadership, it will fail.  While Rubio makes it no mystery that he hopes to bring down the communist regime in Havana, the Trump administration should be careful of what might come next. Although the communists in Havana have long been a nuisance to Washington, Cuba could be worse. It is not Haiti. If the U.S continues to block the import of oil into the island, however, the U.S risks turning Cuba into a Spanish-speaking Haiti only 90 miles off its coast.  Unlike Haiti, Cuba does not have a gang violence problem, drug issues, or a child trafficking problem. While the contemporary condition of Cuba is depressing, it is not a completely failed state. For example, the Cuban government has long taken a hard stance on drugs. In 2024, the U.S State Department stated that Cuba “is not a major consumer, producer, or transshipment point for illicit drugs.” In 2025, Cuba arrested and extradited Chinese fentanyl kingpin, Zhi Dong Zhang, to Mexico and then the U.S to face trial. The unpopular fact is that Cuba has been a vital security partner to the U.S government in combatting regional drug trafficking.  Moreover, unlike Venezuela’s Delcy Rodriguez, there is no immediate replacement for Miguel Díaz-Canel, the former engineer and present-day leader of Cuba. As unsavory as he is, there is no one who can easily step in for him. He is more or less a figurehead for the old guard political elite and military hardliners in the Cuban Communist Party, which really runs the show. Unlike Maduro’s Venezuela, Cuba’s system resembles a collective communist leadership. Replacing the leader at the top will not change the entire direction of the party’s apparatus. Equally importantly, Cubans have already demonstrated a willingness to leave the island. The Trump administration risks further erosion of its already low public approval should images of Cubans adrift on makeshift rafts in the shark-infested Florida Straits find their way onto television screens across America. Will the Trump administration then deport these refugees back to poverty-stricken Cuba?  Instead of further suffocating an already struggling island, the Trump administration should reconsider its Cuba strategy. If Trump truly seeks to be remembered as a president of peace, he should finish what Barack Obama began. Normalizing diplomatic relations and lifting the oil blockade would not reward repression; it would empower the Cuban people. Greater economic engagement would create space for civil society and increase public pressure for meaningful reform. At the same time, it would narrow Havana’s ability to scapegoat the U.S. embargo for its own structural inefficiencies and policy failures. Improved relations would also advance U.S. security interests. Expanded cooperation with Cuban authorities could strengthen maritime interdiction and anti–drug trafficking efforts in the Caribbean, reducing the flow of illicit narcotics, including fentanyl, toward American shores. A strategy rooted in engagement rather than isolation would better serve both the Cuban people and U.S. national interests. Unfortunately, Rubio seems intent on making Cuba into another Haiti.  The post Cuba and the U.S. Are Bogged Down in History appeared first on The American Conservative.

Unlikely inspiration... The post How John Deacon gave a Queen classic a punk feel: “He played it on a Stratocaster” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

John 5 Though John 5 (John William Lowery) has released over a dozen solo albums he is best known for playing guitar for others… David Lee Roth, Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie… and most recently Mötley Crüe. After kicking around L.A., John 5 submitted a demo tape to David Lee Roth’s management. That did the trick. His stint with the ex-Van Halen vocalist was followed by an extended run with Marilyn Manson, who renamed Lowery John 5 – a stage name he kept after joining Rob Zombie. .John 5’s first solo instrumental album was ‘04’s “Vertigo.” That was followed by Zombie’s ‘06 album “Educated Horses,” with John 5 co-writing eight out of eleven tracks with Zombie. He was also the guitarist on the next three Zombie albums – “Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor,” (’13) , The Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser,” (’16) and “The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy” (’21). Later in ‘21, John 5 released “Sinner” containing the lead single “Que Pasa,” with vocals by Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine. The album also contained contributions from Butcher Babies’ Carla Harvey and former KISS drummer Peter Criss. John is an avid KISS memorabilia collector and even has a KISS museum. Que Pasa As Mötley Crüe was gearing up for a pandemic-delayed stadium tour with Def Leppard, Crüe guitarist Mick Mars retired as a touring member due to ongoing health issues (according to a ’22 statement released by Mars’ publicist). The next day, Mötley Crüe confirmed that John 5 would take Mars’ place as their new touring guitarist for “The Stadium Tour.”  The following year, he was confirmed as a permanent member of the band. With “The Stadium Tour” of North America and Europe completed John 5 released the instrumental “A Hollywood Story,” “(It’s) is a look back on my career and how lucky I am to have had the experiences that I’ve had” noted the guitarist, “When you’re a little kid, in your room, dreaming of your future, I never could’ve dreamt of what has happened to me in real life.” A Hollywood Story Later in ’24, Mötley Crüe dropped the “Cancelled” EP. It marked the band’s first release with John 5, The three-song effort featured the title track, “Dogs Of War,” a Top 5 Rock Radio hit, and a cover of the Beastie Boys’ “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!),” which quickly became a concert favorite. All tracks featured John 5’s guitar mastery and shredding skills. Dogs Of War’ Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx jokingly described the song as ” a powerful cross between Country and Hip Hop.” Fight For Your Right ### The post John 5 appeared first on RockinTown.

from Liberty and Finance: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Greg Hunter, USA Watchdog: Dr. Jerome Corsi has been coming on USAWatchdog for more than a year to talk about the stunning amount of voter and election fraud he and his group are still uncovering.  Dr. Corsi has a Harvard PhD in Political Science, and he has written 30 books (six became best-sellers).  Dr. […]

from Judicial Watch: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

India caught Jane Street manipulating its markets and kicked them out. China caught accounts abusing its paper silver markets, and immediately closed the accounts. Congratulations, America, you have the most obviously corrupt ""markets"" on the face of the planet. Worse than… pic.twitter.com/GVUO6Co3hk — Chris Martenson (@chrismartenson) February 26, 2026