[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Hillary Clinton tried to troll Donald Trump's 'Dear Leader parade' but was hit back for comparing the president's celebration of the military to the nationwide liberal-led 'No Kings' protests.
Despite several drops of rain falling as he and first lady Melania Trump arrived at Saturday's 250th anniversary for the U.S. Army, Washington, D.C.'s skies stayed clear enough for flyovers, parachute jumps and a grand fireworks display.
Trump's former presidential rival couldn't help but try to compare the parade - which sparked fiery debates over attendance - to crowded 'No Kings Day' rallies held in left-leaning cities.
'Compare and contrast scenes from yesterday in America. On the one hand, Trump’s low-energy Dear Leader parade (that cost you $45 million). On the other, millions of people across the country gathering peacefully to say: Here, we have no kings,' she captioned photos from the DC parade and a Los Angeles protest.
While the post received agreements from the ex-secretary of state's fellow liberals, she was walloped again by much of social media, especially when she once again turned off the ability to reply to her tweet.
'Hillary Clinton hates the troops, bigtime,' wrote Eric Daughtery.
Travis Parsley went a step further: 'Hillary Clinton hates everything about America!'
One commenter asked: 'Do you think Hillary hates our military?'
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] The annual Bilderberg Meeting is underway in Sweden, providing a private forum for discussion at a time when President Donald Trump has upended security and economic ties between the US and Europe.
The high-level networking event was formed in 1954 to foster dialogue between the US and Europe.
Media outlets are not invited to attend, and delegates rarely speak about what is discussed, triggering numerous conspiracy theories about their aims.
NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Christopher Donahue, Commander of the US Army Europe and Africa are among those on this year's delegate list, published by the organizers just ahead of the meeting.
Others include Palantir boss Alex Karp; Gundbert Scherf, co-founder of German drone and AI company Helsing; and Spotify chief executive Daniel Ek.
Heads of the CIA and MI6 have been among its members, while Henry Kissinger was a regular alongside the likes of Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and then-Prince Charles.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson will give a speech 'on Sweden's and the EU's competitiveness and Sweden's support for Ukraine,' his spokesperson said.
Transatlantic relations top the agenda, with Ukraine, critical raw materials and AI also on the list, according to the organizers who also publish the names of the participants.
Other than that, information is scarce. The organizers say the secrecy is to allow participants to be able to speak freely in an environment of trust.
'There is no desired outcome, there is no closing statement, there are no resolutions proposed or votes taken, and the meeting does not support any political party or viewpoint,' the official website says.
The Daily Mail infiltrated the 2018 meeting, the first time an undercover journalist ever managed to do so, gaining insights about the meeting's inner workings.
How much impact groups like Bilderberg actually have is hard to judge, according to Christina Garsten, professor at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, who studies transnational think tanks.
They aim to shape the broad political and corporate agenda. But if they are seen as having too much influence, they can be accused of being anti-democratic.
'It's there that conspiracy theories can flower,' she said.
She dismissed the belief held by some that groups like Bilderberg make up a shadowy world government. 'I think it's very much exaggerated,' she said.
Sunday is the last of four days of talks that were likely dominated by geopolitical concerns, including discussing Israel and Iran's missile strikes on each other in real time.
Bilderberg insider Nadia Schadlow, a former deputy US national security adviser, hinted 'the growing collusion among revisionist powers' would be a big focus of the talks.
'An authoritarian axis is rapidly coalescing around China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, disrupting the belief that an international community has taken shape in the aftermath of the cold war,' she said, ahead of the meeting.
Other topics of discussion made public include 'geopolitics of energy and critical minerals' and 'defense innovation and resilience'.
The numerous big tech bosses at the meeting will likely steer solutions towards their technology, such as the increased use of AI-controlled attack drones.
Former Google boss Eric Schmidt, a longtime Bilderberg board member, recently warned that a super-intelligent AI would be created within five years - and he was worried a hostile nation would be first.
'China is at parity or pulling ahead of the US in a variety of technologies, notably at the AI frontier,' he said.
'The geopolitical stakes, especially in the race with China, are enormous.'
Schmidt feared the creation of such AI would give that nation 'the keys to control the entire world' with unprecedented military dominance.
This year's Bilderberg is the first since a major shift in its leadership with former NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg chairing its 'steering committee'.
Stoltenberg's tenure at NATO was dominated by the Russia-Ukraine conflict and he proudly claimed to have overseen 'the largest reinforcement of our collective defense in a generation.'
Many of his Bilderberg colleagues have benefited from this increased defense spending. Among them is Trump insider Peter Thiel, boss of AI giant Palantir, whose technology has been used by Ukraine in the fight against Putin.
Stoltenberg will co-chair the steering committee alongside Canadian-American economist, philanthropist, Marie-Josée Kravis who sits on the board of Publicis, one of the world's largest PR and communications companies.
Kravis is married to the billionaire Henry Kravis, founder of legendary investment firm KKR.
This cabal of the global, largely liberal, elite — with strong ties to the EU — meets every year amid a cloak of secrecy, but Stoltenberg's appointment as co-chair also reflects the group's strategic realignment amid rising geopolitical tensions.
Having overseen NATO's largest defense reinforcement in a generation, Stoltenberg is no stranger to Bilderberg, participating in meetings since 2002.
His tenure as NATO chief was dominated by the Russia-Ukraine conflict and increasing NATO expansion, making him a natural choice to steer Bilderberg's discussions on transatlantic defense.
Meanwhile, Thiel's growing influence at Bilderberg also signals a convergence of tech innovation and military strategy.
His robotics company, Anduril, and Palantir have both capitalized on the global arms race, reflecting the group's longstanding ties to defense and intelligence.
Thiel's ideological alignment with Trump and his tech-driven contributions to defense provide a modern reflection of Bilderberg's founding ethos - melding elite influence with geopolitical strategy.
Stoltenberg's leadership, coupled with Thiel's outsized influence, points to a Bilderberg Group increasingly intertwined with military innovation and political strategy.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
