• Arctic Defense: The Growing Geopolitical Battle For The North
  Arctic Defense: The Growing Geopolitical Battle For The North

  Authored by Brian Giesbrecht via The Epoch Times,

  The Distant Early Warning Line (DEW Line) runs north of the Arctic Circle from Alaska in the west to Baffin Island in the east, then continues across Greenland.

  It was built by the United States, with the cooperation of Canada, at the height of the Cold War in the 1950s as a defence against the Soviet Union.

  Most of the self-sufficient bases on this line had a paved runway, with equipment and personnel necessary to keep the runway cleared. The bases had to be operational for the dozens of fighter planes that were kept at the ready by U.S. Strategic Air Command, in case Soviet jets came over the North Pole.

  

  Most of those sites fell into disuse, and the DEW Line became the North Warning System. Not much has happened since then. 

  Although the federal government has promised to address the deterioration of our defences, nothing of substance has been done by Ottawa to deal more effectively with the defence of our vast North. Similarly, although the government has promised to modernize its NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command) commitments, it has been largely ignored.

  The Trump administration has made it clear that it finds Canada’s defence readiness to be unacceptable. The complaint is legitimate.

  The fact is that the world is very different from what it looked like in the 1950s and 60s. At that time, the Soviet Union was the major threat to the West, while communist China was desperately poor and weak. Under Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” and later his “Cultural Revolution,” millions starved. China looked then more like North Korea than the economic and military behemoth it has become today. We certainly didn’t fear it as a threat.

  Now, both communist China, and an increasingly aggressive Russia are formidable foes. They are also very interested in the North. Ominously, they have recently partnered with each other in a “friendship without limits” which raises the possibility that they might collaborate (or be collaborating right now) on joint plans for the military and commercial exploitation of the North.

  The fact that shipping on a large scale through the Northwest Passage might be a possibility in the not-so-distant future is one of the reasons why. The passage can cut shipping distances drastically, so huge amounts of money and fuel can be saved. Future passage from Asia to Europe via the Northeast Passage (also called the Northern Sea Route) and Northwest Passage would be incredibly valuable—strategically, militarily and commercially—for both Russia and China.

  Russia is far ahead of Canada on northern strategy and development. It has at least 40 ships capable of breaking through ice, including eight nuclear-powered icebreakers. Canada has no icebreakers that are nuclear powered. Recent promises to build two are years away from fruition. The Americans are acutely aware of Russia’s northern superiority.

  Northern security goes some way to explaining Donald Trump’s very public offer to buy Greenland. 

  Whether he is serious about buying it, or just wants better access guarantees, is something known only to Trump and his closest advisers.

  The prospect of Greenland falling under the control of its adversaries (and possible future enemies) must alarm the Pentagon. Is such a prospect remote? Consider the fact that there are only 56,000 Greenlanders. China and Russia, separately or jointly, could make each Greenlander a millionaire with $56 billion. That is a small sum for those giants. Is it not possible that America wants to get to Greenlanders with an offer first? After all, Denmark has assured the Greenlanders that they can become independent with a simple vote. The prospect of becoming millionaires might have strong appeal to the relatively poor indigenous inhabitants of that huge, cold island. Trump’s concerns about the security of his nation are very real. He probably sees preventing China or Russia (separately or as a combined force) from gaining control of Greenland as absolutely vital.

  More likely than bribing Greenlanders, Chinese Communist Party-controlled corporations could gain a foothold in Greenland by making attractive offers to the inhabitants, as the CCP has done throughout the developing world with its Belt and Road Initiative. The days of European empires, with Europeans waving attractive trinkets in the faces of poor natives, have been replaced with today’s savvy Chinese businessmen doing essentially the same thing.

  But a glance at the map shows how close Greenland is to Canada. Trump probably has many of the same concerns about the vast, largely undefended Canadian Arctic that he has about Greenland. And some of Canada’s recent actions are probably causing alarm in the Trump camp.

  An example might be the ceding of partial sovereignty by Canada to Nunavut. Nunavut is a huge land mass. Like Greenland, it is rich in natural resources, particularly natural gas. And, like Greenland, it is also strategically important.

  Nunavut sits smack dab on a Northwest Passage that might be worth trillions of dollars in the future. Who controls the passage could turn out to be a determining factor in whether the West, or “no-limits” China/Russia, will be the victor in future Great Power struggles. Like Greenland, Nunavut has a small population, about 38,000 mainly poor Inuit people. The Foreign Interference Commission has been clear that besides targeting governments at different levels, foreign actors also try to exploit indigenous communities.

  We have seen how important the issue of CCP control of the Panama Canal is to the Americans. The possibility of China/Russia control of the Northwest Passage could well be equally important to them. Not to be alarmist, but shouldn’t the fact that that China has already—very quietly—been making huge deals with semi-autonomous indigenous territories concern Canadians as well?

  Will semi-autonomous Nunavut decide that their consent is required to use the passage, perhaps even from Canadian vessels? Now that United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) has become law in Canada, could indigenous people in these semi-autonomous indigenous territories assert tribal law that would trump other laws? If you think this is too far-fetched, consider that fact that our Supreme Court has already held that tribal law cancels Charter protections in some cases, and even held that indigenous people who are not Canadian citizens and do not live in Canada can have rights to Canadian resources. How does the United States view such giveaways of Canadian sovereignty to indigenous groups?

  Nunavut is not the only part of Canada that is being ceded, or partially ceded, to indigenous groups. In British Columbia, Haida Gwaii (formerly Queen Charlotte Islands) looks like it will have a status similar to Nunavut.

  BC’s government seems determined to give other parts of the province over to the many First Nations who live there as well. Each would presumably be able to make their own laws, and make commercial agreements with whomever they choose. That would include CCP-controlled companies.

  There will no doubt be protective provisions in those agreements, but B.C. has adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). A double whammy of DRIPA and UNDRIP might arm indigenous groups with effective weapons to assert sovereignty, even in the face of government opposition. Canadian courts have been amazingly willing to give indigenous groups what they want. What are the chances that Haida Gwaii separatists are even now planning business deals with CCP-controlled corporations that will make Washington—and should make Ottawa—extremely uncomfortable?

  How will the Trump, or future administrations, see these developments? Will Americans tolerate a British Columbia, or a Canada, that cedes its sovereignty to people who are increasingly being urged to see themselves not as British Columbians or Canadians but as victims of a “colonizing” Canada? Or how does the United States regard a Canada that closes its eyes to human smuggling on semi-autonomous Mohawk border reserves? Americans see their security being compromised.

  Under pressure from the United States, Canada is only now promising to build more icebreakers and improve northern defence.

  A federal election is in the offing. A prime minister will be chosen. His or her new government will negotiate agreements with the United States that will undoubtedly include doing things we should have done long ago: enhancing our northern defence, meeting our NATO commitments, and rebuilding our dilapidated armed forces. Our political leaders will also be forced to do a major rethink on all matters relating to North American security.

  Trump, or any American president, would not even think of giving away sovereignty as Canada is doing so casually. As we think about security, perhaps this is a good time for Canada to work closely with indigenous communities to strengthen Arctic defence, ensuring that all regions remain integrated within a unified security framework.

  Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 23:25

• First In-Orbit Image Released From Classified X-37 Spaceplane
  First In-Orbit Image Released From Classified X-37 Spaceplane

  On Thursday evening, the Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs published the first-ever in-orbit image captured by Boeing’s X-37 spaceplane, which was shared on the DVIDS website.

  USAF Public Affairs described the photo, taken by an onboard camera designed to monitor the X-37’s “health and safety,” as showing Earth in the distant background during a series of “experiments in a highly elliptical orbit in 2024.” 

  “As part of the X-37 B’s seventh mission, the vehicle executed a series of first-of-its-kind maneuvers, called aerobraking, to safely change its orbit using minimal fuel,” the public affairs office said. 

  

  The top-secret spaceplane, built by Boeing and operated by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office and the Space Force, has spent years in space quietly conducting classified missions. Its real purpose has yet to be revealed. 

  

  

  

  With each successive top-secret mission, the X-37B spends long and longer time in orbit:

  • OTV-1: launched on Apr. 22, 2010 and landed on Dec. 3, 2010, spending over 224 days in orbit.

  • OTV-2: launched on Mar. 5, 2011 and landed on Jun. 16, 2012, spending over 468 days in orbit.

  • OTV-3: launched on Dec. 11, 2012 and landed on Oct. 17, 2014, spending over 674 days in orbit.

  • OTV-4: launched on May 20, 2015 and landed on May 7, 2015, spending nearly 718 days in orbit.

  • OTV-5: launched on Sept. 7, 2017 and landed on Oct. 27, 2019, spending nearly 780 days in orbit.

  • OTV-6: launched on May 17, 2020 and landed on Nov. 12, 2022, spending over 908 days in orbit.

  • OTV-7: launched on Dec. 29, 2023 … still ongoing… 

  In the age of DOGE, perhaps it’s time for the Space Force to provide more color on the spaceplane’s objectives to determine if the return on investment for taxpayers is truly justified.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 23:00

• Mapping The Growth Of Government
  Mapping The Growth Of Government

  Submitted by OpenTheBooks

  As DOGE continues searching for and flagging waste, fraud and abuse across the federal government, American taxpayers are hearing about a lot of outrageous spending – and obscure agencies and projects – for the first time.

  The scandalous spending at USAID on foreign programs (think a transgender opera in Colombia) and progressive NGO’s (think The Aspen Institute) set off an explosion of headlines. Separately, our own auditors found $22 BILLION spent by the Office of Refugee Resettlement – a division of Health and Human Services – on aid to migrants since 2020. Again, NGO’s were granted the money to go out and act as ideological proxies for the Biden administration.

  It’s become clear that Americans need an exhaustive map of the federal government and how much spending at each agency has grown over time.

  When we began that work, we immediately found another problem.

  Record keeping within the Federal Register, which is supposed to be the definitive guide to government policy, is shockingly bad.

  

  At least 75 agencies listed there are effectively defunct or obsolete; they’ve been subsumed by other entities, renamed, or don’t even exist any longer.

  Not only are agencies listed that are long-defunct, but records of those agencies are often not updated, so members of the public must conduct deep research to ascertain the composition of their own government.

  The vast scope of DOGE’s task becomes much clearer in that context.

  We doubled down and began taking inventory of the remaining agencies that do exist, so that taxpayers can track the changing number of federal employees per agency and the growth in expenditures over the years. We’re untangling this web in a public database.

  By cataloguing every federal agency, it will create a clearer picture of the government as it stands. Where is there duplication? Bloat? Which agencies are mostly sending cash out the door for others to do the work of government?

  For DOGE to be as effective as possible, it’s necessary to have the best possible understanding of the status quo as of 2024.

  Open the Books will periodically release a list of agencies our auditors have studied, charting their growth, expense and activity over time. Are taxpayers getting their money’s worth? Are they getting anything at all? Regardless of your affiliation, it’s in everyone’s interest to open the books together and find out.

  THE FIRST 50

  Already, we’ve charted nearly 50 federal agencies as far back as the data goes, tracking the growth in headcount and the growth in outlays (money spent by the agency).

  They include the Department of Justice; Department of Defense; Department of Transportation; Department of Homeland Security (and its many subagencies like FEMA, ICE and the Border Patrol); Department of Education; Department of Health and Human Services (which includes the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Food & Drug Administration); and an assortment of independent agencies ranging from the now-infamous USAID to the lesser known, like the Administrative Conference of the United States.

  We’ll continue updating this list over the next weeks until taxpayers have the full picture. It’s an absolute avalanche of data with historical context, and we invite every concerned citizen, journalist, member of Congress, and DOGE employee to take a close look. There’s an untold number of stories to be mined from these topline numbers!

  KEY EXAMPLES

  Critics of DOGE have complained – early and often – that the size of the federal workforce has not grown enormously since the last time cuts were implemented in the Clinton era. Why make cuts when the country has grown and the federal workforce has stayed static? they demand to know.

  At agency after agency, a pattern emerges. While headcounts may or may not grow appreciably, spending seems to soar much faster regardless.

  Across the political spectrum, there are explanations to be had – it’s not just inflation.

  Progressive critics of the efficiency project say the real problem is privatization of government services – private-sector outsourcing like Medicare Advantage or huge equipment contracts signed by the Pentagon. More small-government proponents lament the amount of NGO’s that sop up taxpayer dollars to act as ideological proxies for the administration in power.

  SIDEBAR: Our most recent story details shocking amounts of money filtered out of HHS to nonprofit organizations for aid to migrants. Not just life-saving aid, but help with home and auto loans, small business startups, fixes for credit histories, and much more! $22.6 Billion worth. Nonprofit group International Rescue Committee alone received $598 million since 2020! READ MORE.

  There’s plenty of data to suggest both can be true, and then some. (We can’t forget improper payments either!)

  National Institutes of Health

  Take the National Institutes of Health for example. Sure, headcount grew 21.5% higher than in the year 2000. But over the same period, spending has skyrocketed 301% of that figure.

  

  

  Department of Education

  The pattern repeats, even more extremely, at the Department of Education. Employee headcounts actually decreased since 2000, to 13.9% lower. But spending? It rose to astonishing 749% of the prior total.

  That calculation looks even more galling on the heels of recent news the American students are not recovering from Covid learning losses – they’ve fallen further behind on reading and made little improvement in math. The National Assessment of Educational Progress—known as America’s report card – showed “growing numbers of students lack basic reading skills,” according to the Associated Press. Peggy Carr, commissioner for the National Center of Education Statistics, told journalists that “poor results can no longer be blamed solely on the pandemic, warning the nation’s education system faces ‘complex challenges.’”

  

  

  FEMA

  What about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)? They’ve come under fire for shortfalls in their Disaster Relief Fund, and for spending big sums to house migrants in hotels. Well, their employee count actually did rise significantly – it’s just that their spending still outpaced it by miles.

  FEMA headcount was 290% higher in 2024 than in 2000. But spending swelled more than seven times faster – to 2,096% of the prior spending levels! There has to be a better way to get aid to disaster zones that’s more timely and efficient – and get away from mission creep like migrant housing.

  

  

  USAID

  For good measure, we’ll take a look at the Agency for International Development (USAID), as it’s been the subject of so much news. Head count since 2000 has grown 218% larger. But spending has risen to 467.7% of outlays from 2000. That’s a lot of DEI for Serbian workplaces and trans comic books for Peru.

  

  

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 22:35

• These Are The Countries Who Depend On Remittances The Most
  These Are The Countries Who Depend On Remittances The Most

  Remittance inflows to low- and middle-income countries rose to $685 billion in 2024, up from $647 billion the previous year, according to estimates from the World Bank. 

  Globally, remittances also grew, reaching $905 billion.

  In absolute terms, India ($129 billion), Mexico ($68 billion), and China ($48 billion) remained the top recipients of remittances in 2024. However, it’s smaller and poorer economies that feel the impact the most, as these inflows make up a significant share of their economies. Tajikistan, where remittances accounted for 45.4 percent of GDP in 2024, is one such case. OECD analysts say this is partly driven by the higher demand in Russia for migrant workers.

  As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, three of the top four countries where remittances made up the largest share of GDP were classified as highly fragile by the OECD. 

   

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Nicaragua (27.2 percent of GDP), for example, saw high remittances as economic and political instability drove migration, primarily to the United States. Honduras was previously also listed a “high fragility” context in an earlier OECD report, but has since been downgraded to a lower fragility rating.

  Overall, the OECD identified 14 out of 61 highly or extremely fragile contexts where remittances made up more than 10 percent of GDP in 2023.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 22:10

• Former CNBC Analyst To Admit Conning Investors Out Of Nearly $3 Million
  Former CNBC Analyst To Admit Conning Investors Out Of Nearly $3 Million

  Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Former CNBC financial analyst James Arthur McDonald faces decades behind bars after defrauding investors out of at least $2.7 million, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Feb. 19.

  

  McDonald, 53, a former resident of Arcadia, Calif., agreed to plead guilty to one count of securities fraud, a felony that carries a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.

  “This defendant was entrusted by his clients to care for their money and he violated that trust by using it to enrich himself,” said acting U.S. Attorney Joseph McNally.

  In June 2024, federal officers arrested McDonald in Washington state, where he fled in 2021 to avoid appearing before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

  At his Washington hideout, officers found a fake Washington, D.C., driver’s license bearing McDonald’s photograph and the name “Brian Thomas,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.

  McDonald was the CEO and chief investment officer of two companies headquartered in Los Angeles—Hercules Investments LLC and Index Strategy Advisors Inc. He also often appeared on the CNBC financial news network.

  In late 2020, federal prosecutors say McDonald lost tens of millions of dollars of Hercules client money after adopting a risky short position that effectively bet against the health of the U.S. economy in the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election.

  McDonald projected that the COVID-19 pandemic and the election would result in major sell-offs that would cause the stock market to drop, federal prosecutors asserted.

  When the market decline did not happen, Hercules clients lost between $30 million and $40 million.

  By December 2020, Hercules clients were complaining to company employees about the losses, according to court documents.

  The SEC filed a civil complaint against McDonald in September 2022, charging him and Hercules with violating federal securities law.

  In early 2021, McDonald solicited millions of dollars’ worth of funds from investors to raise capital for Hercules but misrepresented how the money would be used. The SEC alleges he raised more than $5.1 million from 23 investors and clients and misappropriated more than $2.9 million of those funds for personal investments and Ponzi-like payments to earlier investors, meaning he paid some clients using funds from other clients.

  

  He also failed to disclose the massive losses the company previously realized, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.

  As part of the campaign to raise capital, McDonald received $675,000 in investment funds from one victim group on March 9, 2021. Prosecutors say he misappropriated most of those funds in various ways, including spending $179,610 at a Porsche dealership and transferring $109,512 to the landlord of a home McDonald was renting in Arcadia.

  Prosecutors also claim McDonald defrauded clients of his other firm, Index Strategy Advisors Inc., using less than half of about $3.6 million he raised for trading purposes. Instead, he frequently commingled client funds with funds from his personal bank account, which he used to purchase luxury cars and to pay rent on his home, personal credit card charges, and Hercules operating expenses.

  Prosecutors also say he used the funds to make Ponzi-like payments to the company’s clients.

  In total, McDonald caused losses of about $2.7 to more than $3 million, according to federal prosecutors.

  In April 2024, U.S District Judge Percy Anderson found McDonald and Hercules liable and ordered they pay civil penalties and several million dollars in disgorgement, which is a court-ordered remedy requiring that someone give up ill-gotten gains.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 21:45

• Here's When Every Continent's Population Will Peak This Century
  Here’s When Every Continent’s Population Will Peak This Century

  After 350 straight years of global population growth – including a 4x surge from 2 billion in the year 1920 – this trend is finally set to reverse.

  Earth’s population is expected to peak in 2084 at 10.3 billion after which it will begin tapering off.

  This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao, explores every continent’s population from 1975 to 2100, with estimates used from 2025 onward.

  

  Data comes from the UN’s World Population Prospects (2024).

  Peak Population Year For Every Continent and Region

  While global peak population is still around 60 years away, some regions will hit their peak a lot sooner.

  Europe, for example, already peaked in 2020 at 750 million people.

  

  Note: All figures are estimates.

  Meanwhile, Asia and Latin America will hit their peaks in the 2050s, at 5.3 billion and 731 million respectively.

  However Africa, Northern America, and Oceania will keep growing slowly past 2100. Under current projections, they will not hit their peaks this century.

  Explaining Population Projections

  How and why are some regions peaking earlier, later, or not at all?

  The answer lies in fertility rates and migration patterns.

  First, the fertility rate is measured as the average number of births a woman will have over her lifetime. Since the 1970s, the global fertility rate has been declining steadily.

  However, many African nations still have relatively high fertility rates, leading to more births, which leads to a growing population.

  

  Note: All figures are estimates.

  In contrast, European countries have some of the lowest fertility rates in the world. When the fertility rate drops below the replacement rate (the number of births required per woman, for a generation to replace itself), and migration into the region isn’t enough to offset it, a region’s population begins to decline.

  However for Northern America and Oceania, international migration into the region (most likely from Africa and Asia) will bolster declining birth rates, at least until 2100.

  Finally, these UN estimates take current fertility, mortality, and migration assumptions into account. They can change, and therefore future projections can also change drastically.

  Low fertility rates have an immediate impact on births. Check out Declining Birth Rates in the Most Populous Countries (1950-2024) to see their dramatic fall.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 21:20

• Blockbuster Yale Study: Millions Of Long COVID Patients Might Actually Be Vaccine Injured
  Blockbuster Yale Study: Millions Of Long COVID Patients Might Actually Be Vaccine Injured

  Authored by Paul D. Thacker via The Disinformation Chronicle,

  Yale researchers released a study today that posits millions of Americans thought to have Long COVID may have been misdiagnosed and actually have post-vaccination syndrome caused by exposure to the spike protein in COVID vaccines. Spike protein produced by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines triggers the body’s immune response, and the FDA claimed in a 2023 Politifact fact check that vaccine spike protein is not toxic and does not linger in the body. However, Yale researchers report that some patients, who were never infected with COVID virus, were sick with post-vaccination syndrome (PVS) and had elevated levels of virus spike protein in their blood up to 709 days after vaccination.

  

  “There is considerable overlap in self-reported symptoms between long COVID and PVS, as well as shared exposure to SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein in the context of inflammatory responses during infection or vaccination,” noted the study authors.

  NIH has poured $1.6 billion into Long COVID research, while ignoring patients harmed by COVID vaccines, causing some well-known patient advocates to hide vaccine injury. After a 13-month battle with Long COVID, Hollywood screenwriter Heidi Ferrer took her own life after deciding death was preferable to another minute in her own “personal hell.” Death of the Dawson’s Creek writer made headlines across the media including places such as People, the Guardian, Variety, CNN, Newsweek, and The Daily Mail—each recounting Ferrer’s struggle with Long COVID.

  

  But in a private video circulating among patient groups and obtained by The DisInformation Chronicle, Ferrer’s husband Nick Guthe stated that Moderna’s COVID vaccine was the final straw, causing Heidi to develop tremors and then internal vibrations when she lay down for bed, so that even prescription sleeping pills would not allow her to sleep.

  “And that’s when things turned,” Guthe said in the video.

  3) Long COVID patients such as Dawson’s Creek writer Heide Ferrer are hiding vaccine injury. Ferrer took her own life, w/ media reporting it was Long COVID.

  Her husband later admitted in a private video that after COVID vax “that’s when things turned.” pic.twitter.com/lC0BSAkNLi

  — Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) February 19, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Prominent patient advocate Beth Mazur also committed suicide after a COVID vaccine apparently worsened her struggles with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), a chronic illness with many similarities to Long COVID. Mazur co-founded #MEAction for patients with chronic illness. #MEAction reported in early 2021 that a significant number of ME/CFS patients experienced “both new symptoms and long-lasting exacerbations of their pre-existing ME/CFS symptoms” after a COVID vaccine.

  “Beth was a compassionate advocate for ME/CFS and a fierce advocate for vaccine injury after she experienced this herself sometime before she took her own life,” said one of Mazur’s personal friends who did not wish to be identified. “Having people come after you for vaccine injury is worse than being sick itself. And people can’t handle that. It’s a shroud of shame.”

  One of the study’s lead authors, Yale Medical School’s Akiko Iwasaki, previously shot down public concerns about COVID vaccine side effects. When Houston Methodist Hospital staffers sued to avoid the hospital’s coronavirus vaccine mandate in 2021, Iwasaki told the Washington Post that the employees’ fears were “absurd” because “no safety concerns” had been found in the mRNA vaccine clinical trials.

  Along with other prominent health experts, Iwasaki also signed a petition supporting the OSHA COVID-19 vaccine mandate which the Supreme Court later blocked.

  Several of the study’s findings as well as research the authors cite in their paper have been labeled as false by federal agencies, medical experts, and fact checkers. Because medical journals have been rejecting studies on vaccine side effects, the authors uploaded their paper to the preprint site medRxiv.

  Passages from the paper are examined below, as well as “fake fact checks” with false and misleading statements by federal agencies and medical experts that, in the past, called these new scientific findings fallacious. Hyperlinks to research papers cited by the study authors have been added to replace their footnotes.

  Yale researchers point out that vaccine injury has not been totally defined and has been labeled both PVS and PACVS. Unlike Long COVID, health authorities do not officially recognize PVS, so patients get little support or care. See passage from paper:

  In addition, some individuals have reported post-vaccination symptoms resembling long COVID beginning shortly after vaccination. This condition, sometimes referred to as post-vaccination syndrome (PVS) or post-acute COVID-19 vaccination syndrome (PACVS), is characterized by symptoms such as exercise intolerance, excessive fatigue, numbness, brain fog, neuropathy, insomnia, palpitations, myalgia, tinnitus or humming in ears, headache, burning sensations, and dizziness. Unlike long COVID, PVS is not officially recognized by health authorities, which has significantly limited patient care and support.

  Both Long COVID and PVS rely on patient’s self-reported symptoms, which have quite a bit in common. Exposure to the spike protein during infection or vaccination causes inflammation. Various parts of the mRNA vaccine might also be problematic such as the mRNA itself which then creates the spike protein, or the tiny fat globule that encases vaccine mRNA called a lipid nanoparticle.

  However, there is considerable overlap in self-reported symptoms between long COVID and PVS, as well as shared exposure to SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein in the context of inflammatory responses during infection or vaccination. In susceptible individuals, vaccines may contribute to long-term symptoms by multiple mechanisms. For example, vaccine components, such as mRNA, lipid nanoparticles, and adenoviral vectors, trigger activation of pattern recognition receptors.

  FAKE FACT CHECK: In a 2021 fact check, AP claimed spike protein from COVID vaccines are not toxic.

  

  The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines create a spike protein that is also called “S protein” or “S1”. See passage from paper:

  Secondly, it has been shown that the S protein expressed following BNT162b2 [Pfizer] or mRNA-1273 [Moderna] vaccination circulates in the plasma as early as one day after vaccination.

  The virus spike protein has two parts called S1 and S2. These might break down into smaller units called peptides. Some patients with PVS have been found with S protein in their blood cells. In animals, the mRNA vaccine has been found to cross over a membrane and enter the brain. If the mRNA then created spike protein, this could cause neurological problems.

  Interaction with full-length S, its subunits (S1, S2), and/or peptide fragments with host molecules may result in prolonged symptoms in certain individuals. Recently, a subset of non-classical monocytes has been shown to harbor S protein in patients with PVS. Further, biodistribution studies on mRNA–LNP platforms in animal models indicate its ability to cross the blood-brain barrier, and the local S expression could result in neurocognitive symptoms.

  FAKE FACT CHECK: In a March 2021 fact check, Reuters claimed spike protein is broken down after it leaves a cell.

  

  The researcher report that patients with PVS cited the following symptoms:

  The most frequent symptoms reported by participants were excessive fatigue (85%), tingling and numbness (80%), exercise intolerance (80%), brain fog (77.5%), difficulty concentrating or focusing (72.5%), trouble falling or staying asleep (70%), neuropathy (70%), muscle aches (70%), anxiety (65%), tinnitus (60%) and burning sensations (57.5%)

  Patients reported symptoms from the vaccines around 4 days, and severe symptoms about 10 days after vaccination.

  The median number of days for the development of any symptom was 4 [Interquartile range (IQR): 23 days], while for severe symptoms, it was 10 (IQR: 44 days) post-vaccination.

  Patients with PVS had higher levels of spike protein or S1 in their blood.

  The results indicated that participants with PVS had significantly higher circulating S1 levels compared with the control group (p = 0.01).

  This figure from the paper shows that PVS patients had spike protein or S1 in their blood up to 709 days after they were vaccinated.

  

  FAKE FACT CHECK: In 2023 Politifact alleged the spike protein does not linger in the body after vaccination, based on claims from an FDA official.

  

  PVS and Long COVID share similar symptoms probably from exposure to S protein. Researchers have found the full spike protein and the smaller S1 protein in Long COVID patients. See passage from paper:

  Given the similarities between PVS and long COVID symptoms, one hypothesis in the literature is that shared exposure to the S protein may play a role and several groups have independently reported the presence of circulating S1 & full-length S in long COVID using various detection methods.

  The highest levels of spike protein were found in PVS patients who had been vaccinated but never infected by COVID virus.

  Notably, we observed that the highest levels of detectable S1 in the PVS-I group were the furthest away from the last known exposure and ranging between greater than 600-700 days.

  Patients vaccinated with mRNA COVID vaccines and the adenovirus COVID vaccine have shown harm. Patients with PVS had poor health as defined by standardized tests called GHVAS and PROMIS29. Few studies have investigated the cause of PVS, which has no agreed upon definition. See passage from paper:

  Post-acute conditions following COVID-19 vaccination have been reported for multiple vaccine platforms including mRNA and adenoviral-vectored vaccines. We observed that the general health status of the PVS participants was far below the general US population average based on the GHVAS scores. The patient-reported outcome scores from the PROMIS29 domains were also indicative of lower quality of life. To date, only a few studies have investigated the immunological mechanisms associated with PVS and no consensus definition of this syndrome exists.

  Underlying risk factors for developing PVS are similar for Long COVID. This might be due to problems caused by spike protein, but should be studied further.

  The demographics at risk of developing PVS and symptom manifestations are similar to those of long COVID. Whether this reflects overlapping underlying mechanisms such as persistent S protein remains to be determined.

  High levels of spike protein in the blood were found in PVS patients who had been infected with the COVID virus and those who had never been infected. This makes sense as spike protein has been found in blood cells. Spike protein has been found in the blood of patients who had myocarditis after COVID vaccination. Because PVS and Long COVID are so similar, the spike protein might be causing the chronic health problems.

  By contrast, in our study, significantly elevated levels of circulating S1 and S were observed in a subset of PVS participants both in the infection-naive and infection-positive groups up to 709 days post-exposure. This is in line with the findings of S1 persistence in monocytes in people with PVS. Circulating full-length S has also been detected in cases of post-vaccination myocarditis. Given the striking similarities between long COVID and PVS symptoms, there has been speculation regarding the potential causal role of the persistent presence of spike protein driving the chronic symptoms.

  More reporting on vaccine side effects in patients to come.

  We strongly encourage you to subscribe to The Disinformation Chronicle.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 20:55

• Mapping Every Known US Military Base Overseas
  Mapping Every Known US Military Base Overseas

  This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavia Rao, locates the known overseas bases of the American military, categorized by who controls the base.

  In red are the ones controlled by the U.S., and blue are ones controlled by the host country.

  

  ℹ️ This map does not include several hundred temporary sites for military exercises or contingency operations.

  Data is sourced from a Congressional report published in 2024. Troop data is from the Defense Manpower Data Center, current to March 2024.

  Ranked: Countries with the Most U.S. Bases and Troops

  Based on unclassified data, the U.S. has at least 128 bases across 49 countries.

  Of them, Japan (14), has the most by far, followed by the Philippines (9) and South Korea (8). Here’s the full list of all 128 listed bases, the country they’re in, and who controls them.

  Base Name	Country	ISO Code	Status
  Kyogamisaki CS	🇯🇵 Japan	JPN	Ally Controlled
  Misawa AB	🇯🇵 Japan	JPN	U.S. Controlled
  Shariki CS	🇯🇵 Japan	JPN	Ally Controlled
  Yokota AB	🇯🇵 Japan	JPN	U.S. Controlled
  Camp Zama	🇯🇵 Japan	JPN	U.S. Controlled
  USFA Yokosuka	🇯🇵 Japan	JPN	U.S. Controlled
  NAF Atsugi	🇯🇵 Japan	JPN	U.S. Controlled
  MCAS Iwakuni	🇯🇵 Japan	JPN	U.S. Controlled
  Kure Pier 6	🇯🇵 Japan	JPN	U.S. Controlled
  USFA Sasebo	🇯🇵 Japan	JPN	U.S. Controlled
  USAG Okinawa	🇯🇵 Japan	JPN	U.S. Controlled
  MCB Camp Butler	🇯🇵 Japan	JPN	U.S. Controlled
  MCAS Futenma	🇯🇵 Japan	JPN	U.S. Controlled
  Kadena AB	🇯🇵 Japan	JPN	U.S. Controlled
  MCI Mujuk	🇰🇷 South Korea	KOR	Ally Controlled
  USAG Daegu	🇰🇷 South Korea	KOR	U.S. Controlled
  USAG Yongsan-Casey	🇰🇷 South Korea	KOR	U.S. Controlled
  Tango	🇰🇷 South Korea	KOR	U.S. Controlled
  Osan AB	🇰🇷 South Korea	KOR	U.S. Controlled
  Camp Humphreys	🇰🇷 South Korea	KOR	U.S. Controlled
  Kunsan AB	🇰🇷 South Korea	KOR	U.S. Controlled
  USFA Chinhae	🇰🇷 South Korea	KOR	U.S. Controlled
  USAG Kwajalein Atoll	🇲🇭 Marshall Islands	MHL	U.S. Controlled
  Navy Region Center Singapore	🇸🇬 Singapore	SGP	U.S. Controlled
  NSF Diego Garcia	🇮🇴 British Indian Territory	IOT	U.S. Controlled
  Antonio Bautista AB	🇵🇭 Philippines	PHL	Ally Controlled
  Benito Ebuen AB	🇵🇭 Philippines	PHL	Ally Controlled
  Lumbia Airport	🇵🇭 Philippines	PHL	Ally Controlled
  Basa AB	🇵🇭 Philippines	PHL	Ally Controlled
  Fort Magsaysay	🇵🇭 Philippines	PHL	Ally Controlled
  Camp Melchor Dela	🇵🇭 Philippines	PHL	Ally Controlled
  Lal-lo Airport	🇵🇭 Philippines	PHL	Ally Controlled
  NB Camilo Osias	🇵🇭 Philippines	PHL	Ally Controlled
  Balabac Island	🇵🇭 Philippines	PHL	Ally Controlled
  Nadzab Airport	🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea	PNG	Ally Controlled
  Lae Seaport	🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea	PNG	Ally Controlled
  Momote Airport	🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea	PNG	Ally Controlled
  Lobrum NB	🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea	PNG	Ally Controlled
  Port Moresby	🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea	PNG	Ally Controlled
  Jackson International Airport & Seaport	🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea	PNG	Ally Controlled
  RAAF Base Darwin	🇦🇺 Australia	AUS	Ally Controlled
  RAAF Base Tindal	🇦🇺 Australia	AUS	Ally Controlled
  NCS Harold E. Holt	🇦🇺 Australia	AUS	Ally Controlled
  Robertson Barracks	🇦🇺 Australia	AUS	U.S. Controlled
  Pituffik Space Base	🇬🇱 Greenland	GRL	U.S. Controlled
  NAS Keflavik	🇮🇸 Iceland	ISL	U.S. Controlled
  Joint Warfare Center	🇳🇴 Norway	NOR	U.S. Controlled
  RAF Menwith Hill	🇬🇧 UK	GBR	U.S. Controlled
  RAF Alconbury / Molesworth	🇬🇧 UK	GBR	U.S. Controlled
  RAF Lakenhealth	🇬🇧 UK	GBR	U.S. Controlled
  RAF Mildenhall	🇬🇧 UK	GBR	U.S. Controlled
  RAF Croughton	🇬🇧 UK	GBR	U.S. Controlled
  Lajes Field	🇵🇹 Portugal	PRT	U.S. Controlled
  Moron AB	🇪🇸 Spain	ESP	U.S. Controlled
  NS Rota	🇪🇸 Spain	ESP	U.S. Controlled
  USAG Benelux	🇧🇪 Belgium	BEL	U.S. Controlled
  Kleine Brogel AB	🇧🇪 Belgium	BEL	U.S. Controlled
  Geilenkirchen AB	🇧🇪 Belgium	BEL	U.S. Controlled
  Spangdahlem AB	🇩🇪 Germany	DEU	U.S. Controlled
  Ramstein AB	🇩🇪 Germany	DEU	U.S. Controlled
  USAG Weisbaden	🇩🇪 Germany	DEU	U.S. Controlled
  USAG Stuttgart	🇩🇪 Germany	DEU	U.S. Controlled
  USAG Ansbach	🇩🇪 Germany	DEU	U.S. Controlled
  USAG Bavaria	🇩🇪 Germany	DEU	U.S. Controlled
  Aviano AB	🇮🇹 Italy	ITA	U.S. Controlled
  USAG Vicenza	🇮🇹 Italy	ITA	U.S. Controlled
  Ghedi AB	🇮🇹 Italy	ITA	U.S. Controlled
  Camp Darby	🇮🇹 Italy	ITA	U.S. Controlled
  NSA Detachment Gaeta	🇮🇹 Italy	ITA	U.S. Controlled
  NSA Naples	🇮🇹 Italy	ITA	U.S. Controlled
  NAS Sigonella	🇮🇹 Italy	ITA	U.S. Controlled
  Amari AB	🇪🇪 Estonia	EST	Ally Controlled
  Lielvarde AB	🇱🇻 Latvia	LVA	Ally Controlled
  Siauliai	🇱🇹 Lithuania	LTU	Ally Controlled
  Camp Herkus	🇱🇹 Lithuania	LTU	Ally Controlled
  NSF Redzikowo	🇵🇱 Poland	POL	Ally Controlled
  Powidz AB	🇵🇱 Poland	POL	Ally Controlled
  Lask AB	🇵🇱 Poland	POL	Ally Controlled
  Zagan	🇵🇱 Poland	POL	Ally Controlled
  Camp Kosciuszuko	🇵🇱 Poland	POL	Ally Controlled
  Papa AB	🇭🇺 Hungary	HUN	Ally Controlled
  Kecskemet AB	🇭🇺 Hungary	HUN	Ally Controlled
  Camp Turzii	🇷🇴 Romania	ROU	Ally Controlled
  NSF Deveselu	🇷🇴 Romania	ROU	Ally Controlled
  Mihail Kogalniceanu AB	🇷🇴 Romania	ROU	Ally Controlled
  Novo Selo Training Area	🇧🇬 Bulgaria	BGR	Ally Controlled
  Graf Ignatievo AB	🇧🇬 Bulgaria	BGR	Ally Controlled
  Larissa AB	🇬🇷 Greece	GRC	Ally Controlled
  Stefanovikeio AB	🇬🇷 Greece	GRC	Ally Controlled
  NSA Souda Bay	🇬🇷 Greece	GRC	U.S. Controlled
  RAF Akrotiri	🇨🇾 Cyprus	CYP	Ally Controlled
  Camp Bondsteel	🇽🇰 Kosovo	XKX	U.S. Controlled
  Incirlik AB	🇹🇷 Turkey	TUR	U.S. Controlled
  Izmir AS	🇹🇷 Turkey	TUR	U.S. Controlled
  MFO South Camp	🇪🇬 Egypt	EGY	Ally Controlled
  Muwaffaq Salti AB	🇯🇴 Jordan	JOR	Ally Controlled
  Al-Tanf garrison	🇸🇾 Syria	SYR	Ally Controlled
  Rumalyn	🇸🇾 Syria	SYR	Ally Controlled
  Erbil AB	🇮🇶 Iraq	IRQ	Ally Controlled
  Al Assad AB	🇮🇶 Iraq	IRQ	Ally Controlled
  Duqm	🇴🇲 Oman	OMN	Ally Controlled
  Jebel Ali	🇦🇪 UAE	ARE	Ally Controlled
  Al Dhafra AB	🇦🇪 UAE	ARE	U.S. Controlled
  Al Udeid AB	🇶🇦 Qatar	QAT	U.S. Controlled
  NSA Bahrain	🇧🇭 Bahrain	BHR	U.S. Controlled
  Sheik Isa AB	🇧🇭 Bahrain	BHR	Ally Controlled
  Prince Sultan AB	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	SAU	Ally Controlled
  King Faisal AB	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	SAU	Ally Controlled
  Camp Buehring	🇰🇼 Kuwait	KWT	U.S. Controlled
  Al Jaber AB	🇰🇼 Kuwait	KWT	U.S. Controlled
  Ali Al Salem AB	🇰🇼 Kuwait	KWT	U.S. Controlled
  Camp Arifjan	🇰🇼 Kuwait	KWT	U.S. Controlled
  Al Mubarak AB	🇰🇼 Kuwait	KWT	U.S. Controlled
  Camp Lemonnier	🇩🇯 Djibouti	DJI	U.S. Controlled
  Ascension Island Auxiliary Airfield	🇸🇭 St. Helena	HLE	U.S. Controlled
  Chabelley Airfield	🇩🇯 Djibouti	DJI	Ally Controlled
  Baledogle	🇸🇴 Somalia	SOM	Ally Controlled
  Mogadishu	🇸🇴 Somalia	SOM	Ally Controlled
  Kismayo	🇸🇴 Somalia	SOM	Ally Controlled
  Manda Bay	🇰🇪 Kenya	KEN	Ally Controlled
  Mombasa	🇰🇪 Kenya	KEN	Ally Controlled
  N’djamena	🇹🇩 Chad	TCD	Ally Controlled
  Atlantic Undersea Test & Evaluation Center	🇧🇸 The Bahamas	BHS	U.S. Controlled
  Naval Station Guantanamo Bay	🇨🇺 Cuba	CUB	U.S. Controlled
  Soto Cano Air Base	🇭🇳 Honduras	HND	U.S. Controlled
  CSL Comalapa	🇸🇻 El Salvador	SLV	Ally Controlled
  CSL Reina Beatrix International Airport	🇦🇼 Aruba	ABW	Ally Controlled
  CSL Hato International Airport	🇨🇼 Curacao	CUW	Ally Controlled

  A quick glance at the map reveals the two major security priorities for the U.S. military: Europe and East Asia.

  Japan also has the most troops stationed in any country, numbering 53,000 at last count.

  While Germany, Italy, and the UK don’t have double-digit bases like Japan, collectively Europe has a huge American presence, when adding in all bases and troops together.

  And this isn’t even accounting for the additional 80,000 soldiers deployed to the region after the 2022 Russian invasion.

  Middle East: A Growing Security Sphere

  While not as nearly cluttered as Europe and East Asia, the Middle East is also home to numerous American bases. Key allies Kuwait and Bahrain also host forces.

  Rank	Countries With the Most U.S. Bases	Bases	Countries With the Most U.S. Troops	Troops
  1	🇯🇵 Japan	14	🇯🇵 Japan	52,852
  2	🇵🇭 Philippines	9	🇩🇪 Germany	34,894
  3	🇰🇷 South Korea	8	🇰🇷 South Korea	23,732
  4	🇮🇹 Italy	7	🇮🇹 Italy	12,319
  5	🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea	6	🇬🇧 UK	10,180
  6	🇩🇪 Germany	6	🇧🇭 Bahrain	3,424
  7	🇬🇧 UK	5	🇪🇸 Spain	3,253
  8	🇵🇱 Poland	5	🇹🇷 Turkey	1,683
  9	🇰🇼 Kuwait	5	🇧🇪 Belgium	1,119
  10	🇦🇺 Australia	4	🇨🇺 Cuba	572

  Nothing makes security priorities more clear than base in Djibouti, not just for the U.S. but also the rest of the world.

  It’s situated on the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, and is a key shipping route. The Red Sea has been in the news lately due to Houthi rebel attacks.

  Thus, Djibouti’s strategic location, and careful deal-making, has resulted in the country hosting military bases from seven other nations as well. This includes political rivals to the U.S., like China.

  You might have noticed several NATO members hosting troops and bases. Check out: NATO Members Are Ramping up Defense Spending to see how the Russian invasion had an impact.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 20:30

• Nearly 2 Dozen Trinitarios Gang Members Arrested In Massachusetts
  Nearly 2 Dozen Trinitarios Gang Members Arrested In Massachusetts

  Authored by Rachel Acenas via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Nearly two dozen members of a violent transnational gang were arrested and charged in Massachusetts, federal authorities announced Feb. 19.

  

  Twenty-two alleged Trinitarios gang members face various federal charges including racketeering conspiracy in connection with several murders, attempted murders, shootings, kidnappings, and robberies.

  Authorities confirmed that factions of the Trinitarios gang have been identified in the cities of Lawrence, Lynn, Boston, and Haverhill.

  “We believe those arrested today–leaders, members, and close associates of the Trinitarios–have allegedly shown a reckless indifference to human life in order to control their turf, push their poison, and make money,” Jodi Cohen, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston Division, said in a statement.

  The investigation, led by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE), began in the aftermath of four murders and a series of attempted murders and shootings that happened in Lynn back in 2023. Two of the alleged gang members were juveniles at the time the crimes were committed and have been charged with murder.

  “The Massachusetts Trinitarios allegedly recruit new members among communities of legal immigrants and illegal aliens from the Dominican Republic—specifically juveniles in local high schools in Lawrence and Lynn,” according to ICE.

  U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley said this latest enforcement ends the gang’s “reign of terror” in Massachusetts.

  Meanwhile, federal prosecutors continue to target violent criminal enterprises. Members and associates of Tren de Aragua, one of the world’s most dangerous transnational criminal organizations, have been nabbed in recent targeted enforcement operations across the country.

  The Trump administration on Wednesday officially designated six drug cartels and two gangs as foreign terrorist organizations, or FTOs.

  The organizations that received the label include Tren de Aragua, MS-13, Sinaloa cartel, Jalisco New Generation cartel, Tepalcatepec cartel, Los Zetas cartel, Gulf cartel, and La Nueva Familia Michoacana.

  The notice issued by Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the groups pose a risk to U.S. national security, foreign policy, and economic interests. The label expands the government’s ability to crack down on criminal groups operating in the United States. Designating a group as an FTO allows the government to disrupt the group’s finances through sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans, on its members and associates.

  The move comes after Trump issued an executive order on his first day in office last month that called on officials to evaluate whether any criminal cartels or transnational gangs should be designated as terrorism groups.

  From NTD News

  *  *  *

  Check out these excellent knives for no reason in particular…

  

   

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 20:05

• Social Security Chief Says Millions Of Dead People On Record 'Not Necessarily Receiving Benefits'
  Social Security Chief Says Millions Of Dead People On Record ‘Not Necessarily Receiving Benefits’

  Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The new head of the Social Security Administration (SSA) on Wednesday addressed speculations that millions of deceased individuals over the age of 100 may be receiving Social Security benefits, stating that they are likely exaggerated.

  

  Acting SSA Commissioner Lee Dudek, appointed recently by President Donald Trump, issued a statement on Feb. 19, clarifying concerns raised by Trump, DOGE frontman Elon Musk, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. The three had said in social media posts and press briefings that SSA records list individuals as being 100, 200, or even 300 years old—raising questions about potential improper payments.

  Dudek said he wants to “acknowledge recent reporting about the number of people older than age 100 who may be receiving benefits from Social Security,” adding that the “reported data are people in our records with a Social Security number who do not have a date of death associated with their record.”

  “These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits,” Dudek said, while expressing confidence in the audits conducted by DOGE, which Trump has tasked with uncovering any fraud, waste, and abuse in government spending.

  “I am confident that with DOGE’s help and the commitment of our executive team and workforce, that Social Security will continue to deliver for the American people,” Dudek said.

  Trump said at a Florida press briefing on Feb. 18 that DOGE’s findings suggest “millions and millions” of centenarians may be receiving benefits improperly. This is “obviously fraudulent or incompetent,” he said.

  “If you take all of those millions of people off Social Security, all of a sudden, we have a very powerful Social Security with people that are 80 and 70 and 90, but not 200 years old,” the president said.

  

  “It’s a very positive thing” that DOGE had shed light on the potential issue, Trump said. “We’re figuring it out.”

  Musk echoed these concerns on social media.

  “Maybe Twilight is real, and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security,” he joked in one post. In another, he wrote: “Having tens of millions of people marked as ‘ALIVE’ when they are definitely dead is a HUGE problem. Some of them would have been alive before America existed as a country. Think about that for a second.”

  Musk also criticized the lack of action on past government reports that highlighted the issue. “What’s super weird is that the @USGAO pointed out years ago that millions of dead people were tagged as alive by Social Security, but nothing was done!” he wrote.

  Leavitt said in an appearance on Fox News that Musk and DOGE have been working to identify fraud at the SSA. “They haven’t dug into the books yet but they suspect that there are tens of millions of deceased people receiving fraudulent Social Security payments,” she said.

  Concerns about outdated records are not new. SSA’s Office of the Inspector General has noted the presence of inactive Social Security numbers and that the records don’t necessarily mean fraudulent payments are occurring.

  A March 2015 report and a July 2023 follow-up found that the SSA had not updated its system to properly annotate death information for approximately 18.9 million people born in 1920 or earlier who were not officially marked as deceased. The reports also stated that “almost none” of these individuals were actively receiving benefits.

  The SSA ultimately decided not to update the database due to the cost, which was estimated to exceed $9 million. Additionally, since September 2015, SSA policy has automatically stopped payments to anyone listed as older than 115 years old.

  The extent of improper Social Security payments remains uncertain.

  A July 2024 report from the Social Security inspector general found that, between fiscal years 2015 and 2022, the agency distributed nearly $8.6 trillion in benefits. Of that amount, $71.8 billion, less than 1 percent, was classified as improper payments, with the majority being overpayments to living recipients rather than deceased individuals.

  Additionally, in early January, the U.S. Treasury recovered more than $31 million in various federal payments—not limited to Social Security—that had been mistakenly sent to deceased individuals. Former Treasury official David Lebryk described the recovery efforts as “just the tip of the iceberg.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 19:15

• Voter Rolls Like They Oughta Be
  Voter Rolls Like They Oughta Be

  Authored by Doug Truax via RealClearPolitics,

  Why do we tolerate purposeful government incompetence? Especially when it comes to our voter registration rolls – the lists we use to make sure only qualified voters cast ballots in an election.

  

  These rolls are bloated with ineligible voters, only periodically updated, and opaque to the public.

  What if our bank records were like that? How long would that last before we’d spill out into the streets?

  There’s one state official who’s trying to change that. He’s Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who announced recently he’d make available to the public daily snapshots of the voter rolls to keep up with additions and subtractions to the list. That’s a great reform. LaRose has been ahead of most state election officials, passing a series of reforms that puts Ohio on the leading edge of election transparency.

  While LaRose is on the right track, there’s still a long way to go. Our vision at the Voter Reference Foundation is to have all the rolls up to date at all times in an easily consumed format. That was our idea when we created VoteRef.com in 2021, the first attempt ever in America to publish voter rolls in all 50 states.

  We understand – as do LaRose and many election experts – that fixing the voter rolls is the lynchpin for clean elections. It makes sense – in order to conduct an election, you need an accurate, up-to-date registration list of eligible voters to start. Any bogus name on the list, including dead voters or those who have moved away, is an open invitation for vote fraud. Those who oppose clean, accurate voter rolls are people not concerned with election integrity.

  We have made tremendous progress, but some states are more committed to hiding their voting records than exposing them to public scrutiny. More than a dozen either ban their publication or severely hamstring a taxpayer’s ability to examine them. Most of those states are run by Democrats. One, New Mexico, sued us in federal court and referred us for criminal investigation for publishing them. A federal judge agreed with us that we had the legal right to publish the rolls.

  Another obstacle is that states charge lots of money for access to the rolls and don’t update them in real-time. We are doing our best to work around these limitations. State officials don’t seem to understand that taxpayers pay for election administration and, under federal law, have a right to examine the records. These are our records, not theirs.

  The new Trump administration in Washington is certainly attuned to the election integrity crisis in America. Large swaths of our population lack confidence that elections are free, fair, and accurate. We must change that, and now is the time.

  We hope Frank LaRose’s actions in Ohio will be the spark that convinces states to open up their voting records more fully to the public. Our republic cannot tolerate a sloppy and inaccurate government that gives an opening to the corruption of our elections.

  Let’s get moving.

  Doug Truax is founder and CEO of Restoration of America, one of the most active and effective political organizations in America. He is a West Point graduate, successful entrepreneur, and former Army Ranger.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 18:25

• Trump Set To Take Control Of Postal Service – Privatization Could Be Next
  Trump Set To Take Control Of Postal Service – Privatization Could Be Next

  Continuing his government-reformation fiesta, President Trump is expected to issue an executive order dissolving the US Postal Service leadership and absorbing the organizaton into the Commerce Department. That bold move may be just a first step toward an even more ambitious and controversial goal: privatizing the perpetual money-loser. 

  From leadership to rank-and-file employees, the USPS will most certainly mount intense legal and political efforts against both initiatives. The USPS governing board is already gearing up: On Thursday, the USPS board held an emergency meeting in which it hired outside attorneys and directed them to file legal challenges when Trump makes his first move, the Washington Post reported.   

  

  The Postal Service is politically powerful — starting with its raw headcount: While you may not guess it given the long lines that typify a visit to a post office, USPS has a staggering 650,000 employees, who rise up whenever privatization gains momentum. It’s also popular among Americans — 72% view it favorably, compared just 21% who view it unfavorably, according to a 2024 Pew Research poll. 

  

  In December, the Post reported that Trump had been discussing USPS privatization with Howard Lutnick, who is now Secretary of Commerce, along with other transition officials whom Trump used as a sounding board on the topic. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) held its own meetings to explore drastic actions with the 250-year-old service. 

  In November, USPS disclosed a net loss of $9.5 billion for the 2024 fiscal year — a loss that was 46% worse than the service’s $6.5 billion deficit in 2023. The plunge came alongside a slight uptick in revenue enabled by the latest annual increase in postage rates, pursuant to the 2021 Delivering for America plan. That program was supposed to help the perennially-profitless behemoth “achieve financial sustainability and service excellence.” The service also has a crummy balance sheet, with nearly $80 billion in liabilities. 

  

  In recent years, USPS has increased its headcount despite that fact that mail volumes have steadily declined since a Covid-era spike. Grilling Postmaster General Louis DeJoy at a Senate hearing, Rand Paul asked, “Can you think of a private business — where 80% of what they’re doing to make money is going down in volume — would actually increase their employees?” Here’s a particularly well-framed video of the exchange: 

  NEW: Head of the Postal Service, Louis Dejoy is stepping down after losing $9.5 BILLION in 2024. In 2023 he lost $6.5 BILLION

  🚨 USPS has seen a 80% DECREASE in volume of mail but ADDED 190,000 employees

  Senator Rand Paul “Can you think of a private business where 80% of what… pic.twitter.com/AcAu60XdZN

  — Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) February 19, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Since 1970, the USPS has operated as a quasi-governmental agency, led by a board of governors whose members are appointed by presidents subject to Senate confirmation. Earlier this week, DeJoy informed the USPS board that he was ready to step down from his position, and asked the board to begin seeking his successor. His move halfway through his 10-year-term came amid reports that Trump was thinking of replacing him. DeJoy was appointed by Trump in the summer of 2020, and soon became a lightning rod for Democrats who accused him of thwarting the vote-by-mail free-for-all that leftists fostered during that pandemic-stricken election year. In the crucial state of Pennsylvania, 76% of mailed ballots went to Biden.  

  Predictably, leftists have started losing their minds over Trump’s pending moves, simultaneously decrying USPS reform as Russian interference, racism and an attack on democracy…

  So Trump wants to dissolve the board of governors and take full control of the USPS. I wonder who gave him that idea? pic.twitter.com/brtzz4swQA

  — Skunk Factory (@skankyskunk47) February 21, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  In going after USPS, Trump is trying to decimate an organization famous for employing hundreds of thousands of Black people throughout its history. pic.twitter.com/C6BXfsZ5cI

  — Jeremy Fassler (@J_fassler) February 21, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Trump wants to control the USPS so he can fuck with mail in voting.

  TRUMP WANTS CONTROL OF THE USPS SO HE CAN FUCK WITH MAIL IN VOTING.

  — Liberal Lisa in Oklahoma (@lisa_liberal) February 21, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 18:00

• Julie Kelly: The Real Scandal Behind The Latest DOJ Defection
  Julie Kelly: The Real Scandal Behind The Latest DOJ Defection

  Authored by Julie Kelly via Declassified With Julie Kelly,

  In what has become the latest trend in #Resistance fashion, another government lawyer made a splashy exit from the Department of Justice this week. Denise Cheung, chief of the criminal division for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, sent a three-page letter to her boss explaining why she would have to quit rather than follow orders to pursue an investigation into potential wrongdoing tied to the Biden administration.

  

  In noting her 24-year career at the DOJ—she once worked as former Attorney General Eric Holder’s national security advisor—Cheung, like those before her, claimed the moral high ground as her excuse not to do her job. “I have always worked to enforce the rule of law, to vindicate the rights of victims. and to protect the security of the nation,” Cheung wrote to Ed Martin, the acting D.C. U.S. attorney and President Trump’s pick to permanently run the powerful office, on February 18. “I believe that the values the Department of Justice stands for, and the many people that work every day to fulfill them, are to be promoted and cherished.”

  Recent antics by DOJ employees indicate one “value” is the ability to defy superiors with a change of the political winds. In Cheung’s case, she challenged the veracity of evidence presented as the basis for a potential investigation into a Biden-era “climate” initiative with all the markings of a political slush fund ripe for fraud and corruption.

  Biden-Style Grift on His Way Out the Door

  The so-called Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund first got attention when Lee Zeldin, the new Environmental Protection Agency administrator, laid out details of the jaw-dropping arrangement in a video posted last week. “Roughly twenty billion of your tax dollars were parked at an outside financial institution by the Biden EPA,” Zeldin said on February 12. “This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history and it was purposefully designed to obligate all the money in a rush job with reduced oversight.”

  Zeldin noted that the money, now understood to be “parked” at Citibank, was awarded to eight climate nonprofits who then “doled out your money to NGOs and others at their discretion with far less transparency.” He referred the matter to both the DOJ and EPA inspector general:

  🚨The Biden EPA tossed $20 billion of “gold bars off the Titanic”.

  BIG UPDATE! We found the gold bars and they are now being recovered for you, the hardworking American taxpayer.

  Here are more of the details: pic.twitter.com/DM4C0TQcpj

  — Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) February 13, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  There is no question about the political origins of the fund; the Biden White House touted the program with great fanfare months before the 2024 election. During a campaign stop last April, Kamala Harris announced the eight chosen winners of the $20 billion climate lottery. Harris also noted the unique nature of the arrangement, boasting that “for the first time in history, we are providing tens of billions of dollars directly to community lenders to finance local climate projects. This is a novel approach, it is actually the first time we have taken this approach.” (The list of recipients is here.)

  Here is Kamala Harris announcing the $20 billion climate lottery in April 2024.

  Lee Zeldin and Trump DOJ want an investigation into abuses of this fund—which is not overseen by Congress but by Citibank. First of its kind arrangement.

  I mean—what could go wrong? pic.twitter.com/JIfbLvMRuD

  — Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) February 19, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  And far from being a single-minded mission to reduce carbon emissions, the pot primarily is reserved for “communities with environmental justice concerns, communities of color, low-income communities, rural communities, [and] Tribal communities.” Projects could involve something as basic as replacing insulation and installing solar panels to buying a fleet of electric trucks to start a delivery service, Harris said in her speech.

  What possibly could go wrong?

  A Ripe Target for Investigation—But Not So, Says Cheung

  One can only imagine how climate and social justice activists spending billions in free money with apparently no accountability might abuse the system. This is especially true of Joe Biden, who has a long history of leveraging his government power to enrich his family and friends. (Breaking news indicates one grantee is tied to Stacey Abrams. More on this in a follow up piece.)

  The unusual nature of the arrangement alone—a major bank rather than Congress handling a big chunk of tax dollars with no known oversight mechanism established just a few months before the election—should raise the Spidey senses of any federal prosecutor, especially one with a stellar DOJ resume that stretches back more than two decades.

  But not so with Cheung.

  Evidence? What Evidence?

  Apparently acting on information described by Zeldin, who is an attorney, and a separate video produced by Project Veritas that showed a Biden political appointee at the EPA admitting the administration was rushing to move the climate money before Trump got into office, acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove sought to initiate an investigation.

  “I was asked to review documentation supplied by [Bove] to open a criminal investigation into whether a contract had been unlawfully awarded by an executive agency before the change in Administration and to issue grand jury subpoenas pursuant to this investigation,” Cheung wrote in her resignation letter. “I was told that there was time sensitivity and action had to be taken that day because there was concern that contract awardees could continue to draw down on accounts handled by the bank handling the disbursements.”

  Cheung said she then conferred with DOJ employees who have “substantial white collar criminal prosecution experience.” They concluded, however, “the existing documents on their face did not seem to meet this threshold” for an investigation.

  Bove additionally sought a letter to Citibank ordering a “freeze” of funds related to the unidentified grant recipient. Cheung then contacted the famously corrupt Washington FBI field office for more guidance; she then concluded that enough evidence supported potential conspiracy and wire fraud charges.

  But the letter from the FBI only “recommended” a freeze of the funds.

  When confronted by Martin, who wanted to send a follow-up letter demanding, not recommending, the freeze, Cheung refused. “When I explained that the quantum of evidence did not support that action, you stated that you believed that there was sufficient evidence,” she told Martin. “I still do not believe that there is sufficient evidence to issue the letter you described, including sufficient evidence to tell the bank that there is probable cause to seize the particular accounts identified.”

  She then resigned per Martin’s request.

  Cheung’s sanctimony and sudden devotion to careful prosecutorial scrutiny is hard to swallow given her history. After years of helping the DOJ pursue clearly politically motivated investigations against Republicans, Cheung suddenly suffered an alleged attack of conscience when it came to investigating Democrats?

  This is, after all, the same Denise Cheung who was part of the DOJ team that initiated the dubious investigation into Donald Trump over Jan 6; brought federal charges against Trump advisors Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro for defying an illicit congressional committee; and helped manage the largest criminal prosecution in Justice Department history resulting in the arrest of nearly 1,600 Americans for the events of Jan 6.

  Cheung’s “moral, ethical, and legal obligations,” as she bragged in her resignation letter, never got in the way of her office’s unlawful use of a post-Enron obstruction statute to turn hundreds of J6 protesters into lifelong felons. Or when her office applied federal misdemeanors such as “parading” in the Capitol for the first time against political protesters. Or when her office added terror enhancements to sentencing recommendations in order to throw nonviolent J6ers in federal prison for years. Or when her office sent women in their 70s to jail for protesting outside of abortion clinics.

  The list of abuses by the DOJ tacitly endorsed by Cheung over the past decade or so is long and ignominious. Which is why her preachy indignation in the face of investigating Democrats rather than Republicans rings hollow.

  Subscribe to Declassified with Julie Kelly here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 17:40

• China's Vice-Premier Spars With Bessent In Call Over Tariffs & 'Economic Imbalances'
  China’s Vice-Premier Spars With Bessent In Call Over Tariffs & ‘Economic Imbalances’

  US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and China’s Vice-Premier He Lifeng held a video call on Friday, kicking off crucial diplomatic efforts between the President Xi Jinping government and the new Trump administration.

  As expected, the Chinese side raised “serious concerns” on the recent imposition of tariffs and other restrictive measures on Chinese goods by the Trump White House, at a moment of growing fears of a renewed trade war.

  

  “Both sides recognized the importance of China-US economic and trade relations and agreed to continue to maintain communication on issues of mutual concern,” a rather guarded and vanilla readout from the Chinese government’s State Council said.

  The “in-depth” exchange of views recognized the importance of bilateral economic and trade relations, the Chinese readout said further.

  Likely central to the conversation was Beijing’s objections to the Trump-imposed 10% tariffs which came in early February as a punitive response to the explosion of Chinese fentanyl trafficking. Beijing had hit back with targeted tariffs of up to 15% on select US imports, and warned that sanctions – including on Google – could come next.

  The readout issued soon after the call from the US Treasury chief highlighted that Bessent and Vice-Premier He discussed counternarcotics efforts, economic imbalances, and unfair policies.

  Below is the short US readout in full:

  Earlier today, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent had an introductory call with Vice Premier He Lifeng of the People’s Republic of China to exchange views on the bilateral economic relationship.  Secretary Bessent expressed serious concerns about the PRC’s counternarcotics efforts, economic imbalances, and unfair policies, and stressed the Administration’s commitment to pursue trade and economic policies that protect the American economy, the American worker, and our national security.  Secretary Bessent and Vice Premier He agreed to remain in communication going forward.

  The question of a likely visit by Chinese President Xi to Washington looms large in the background. The day prior, Trump while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One indicated he expects Xi to visit soon, but didn’t reveal a timeline.

  Saying that “it’s possible” for for Washington and Beijing to strike a new trade deal, he acknowledged that more direct talks are needed. “We’ll have, ultimately, President Xi, we will have everybody coming (to the US),” Trump said.

  The recent response from Chinese state media…

  Instead of protecting American economic interests, Washington’s tariffs, as multiple studies have shown, have driven up prices, reduced economic output and employment, and dented the overall economy. https://t.co/irR3Leg8Pi pic.twitter.com/hGY1B3p45T

  — China Xinhua News (@XHNews) February 21, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The Republican president has further lately teased the threat reciprocal tariffs for all countries that tax US imports, which would escalate global trade tensions.

  In a January Hannity interview just days after being sworn in to his second term, Trump displayed a reluctance to escalate the trade war, stating that he would “rather not” impose tariffs on China. He has emphasized  his willingness to negotiate with President Xi and has sought to avert a clash between the world’s two largest economies. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 17:20

• Trump Admin Serious About Combatting Global Censorship
  Trump Admin Serious About Combatting Global Censorship

  Authored by Sean Nelson via RealClearPolitics,

  President Donald Trump is well known for his America First agenda. Some have interpreted this as an isolationist stance of retreat from the world stage. If anything, the first few weeks have shown an energetic engagement on foreign policy. America First hasn’t meant disengagement with the world. Rather, it has meant taking seriously American foundational principles and believing those are core values that other nations will look up to when demonstrated proudly.

  

  One of those fundamental American principles is free speech, and the Trump administration is making sure that the world sees America vigorously fighting for it.

  This new posture of strongly proclaiming the American value of free speech on the global stage had its biggest demonstration yet for the new administration last week. On Friday, Vice President J.D. Vance spoke at the Munich Security Conference. Rather than focusing on external global threats from Russia and China – as important and real as they are – Vance turned his attention to a major worrisome trend in Europe: the rise of aggressive censorship.

  Vance lamented the “retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.” For Americans, censorship is itself an attack on democracy. As the Vice President stated, “Dismissing people, dismissing their concerns, or worse yet, shutting down media, shutting down elections, or shutting people out of the political process protects nothing. In fact, it is the most surefire way to destroy democracy.” Free speech is not supposed to just be an American value but a universally shared fundamental right, protected in international treaties and charters enthusiastically signed onto by European allies.

  Vance highlighted one example in particular of the attack on freedom of expression, that of British Army veteran and ADF International client Adam Smith-Connor. Smith-Connor was charged in November 2022 for violating a “buffer zone” outside an abortion clinic in the UK when he had silently prayed outside of it. This past October, Smith-Connor was criminally convicted for his three minutes of silent prayer. Smith-Connor’s appeal will be heard in July.

  But that is just one example of what has become increasingly systematic attempts in Europe at ever larger scales to censor and control public discourse to exclude “wrong” opinions.

  Other cases abound, like that of Päivi Räsänen, the Finnish member of Parliament who has been hounded on “hate speech” criminal charges now for almost four years and investigations for even longer because she posted a picture of a Bible verse on then-Twitter.

  But on a broader level, Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA) would make every European social media user subject to the censorship regime and potentially export that censorship throughout the world, including America. The DSA imposes enormous penalties on large social media companies that do not comply with orders to censor so-called “illegal content,” broadly defined as anything that is illegal under EU or national law. Notably, this can include vague and subjective terms like “hate speech,” “misinformation,” and “disinformation,” which are readily weaponized against disfavored religious views, as the stories above show.

  Because large social media companies are often American companies, that means that the DSA could harm not just American business but lead to the censorship of Americans. Nearly every major digital service provider in the United States, from Adobe to Zoom, and most social media platforms, maintains these kinds of harmful policies prohibiting “hate speech” or “misinformation,” as reported by ADF’s Viewpoint Diversity Index. If you oppose the government’s position and voice that opinion on social media, there’s a very real chance that a European bureaucrat will try to silence your voice as “misinformation.” Just look at Smith-Connor’s and Räsänen’s cases.

  The concern that Europe’s mania for expanding and exporting censorship – as bad as that is by itself – will be felt on American shores was the animating principle for Vance’s push for free speech in his European trip last week and has become a major theme. Earlier in the week, during his speech on AI, Vance directly criticized the Digital Services Act and “the massive regulations it created about taking down content and policing so-called misinformation.” “America cannot and will not accept that,” he said.

  Vance is not pursuing this free speech posture toward Europe alone. Congressman Jim Jordan, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sent the European Commission a letter at the end of last month “express[ing] our serious concerns with how the DSA’s censorship provisions affect free speech in the United States.” Last week, the Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the “Censorship-Industrial Complex,” highlighting censorship efforts abroad.

  One of President Trump’s first actions was an executive order preventing any federal efforts to facilitate censorship against Americans, especially under the guise of combatting “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation.” This was a sharp turnabout from the Biden-Harris administration’s pressuring of social media companies to censor posts skeptical of government policies. Secretary of State Marco Rubio followed this up by announcing that he would terminate “any programs that in any way lead to censoring the American people.”

  Vance and the Trump administration’s critics have tried over the weekend to make Vance’s position sound extreme, but instead have only confirmed how right he was to make a strong defense of free speech. No reaction was more egregious than CBS’s on Sunday, when Margaret Brennan absurdly blamed free speech for the Holocaust, while 60 Minutes promoted the German system of prosecuting thousands of cases of online “hate speech” and insults. Now that the weaponization of terms like “misinformation” and “disinformation” has been exposed, the rhetoric from opponents of free speech has become more direct.

  Vance’s speech has been a clarifying moment, laying down clearly the choice between free speech and censorship. When it comes to opposing global censorship, and especially when that censorship can affect Americans, the Trump administration is fulfilling its promises early on. Vance’s Munich speech is the clearest demonstration yet that America will take the lead again in ensuring the protection of free speech for Americans and worldwide.

  Sean Nelson is an international human rights lawyer who serves as legal counsel for global religious freedom at ADF International.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 17:00

• "You Better Do It": Trump Destroys Maine Governor For Defying Transgender EO
  “You Better Do It”: Trump Destroys Maine Governor For Defying Transgender EO

  President Donald Trump sparred with Main Gov. Janet Mills (D) on Friday during a National Governors Association meeting at the White House, after Trump told Mills he would withhold federal funding from the state over the state’s refusal to comply with an executive order barring male transgender athletes from women’s sports.

  

  During his speech, Trump asked Mills whether she would follow the order, to which Mills replied “I’m complying with state and federal law.”

  Trump shot back, “We are the federal law. You better do it because you’re not going to get federal funding – and by the way your population, even though it’s somewhat liberal – I did very well there, your population doesn’t want men playing in women’s sports.“

  To which Mills replied “See you in court.“

  “Good, I’ll see you in court,” Trump replied, adding “I look forward to it. That should be a real easy one.”

  Watch:

  🔥 President Trump calls Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) out to her face over her refusal to comply with the executive order keeping men out of women’s sports:

  “You better do it — because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t.” pic.twitter.com/uMUZsy1j6t

  — Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 21, 2025

  On Thursday, Trump announced that Maine wouldn’t receive federal funding unless they comply with the executive order.

  “Anyone here from Maine?” Trump asked a crowd. “They are still saying they want men to play in women’s sports and I cannot believe that they are doing that…so we’re not gonna give them any federal funding until they clean that up.”

  🚨 President Trump announces Maine will not receive federal funding until they comply with the executive order keeping men out of women’s sports pic.twitter.com/OZqBHyW1QB

  — Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 21, 2025

  The executive order, signed Feb. 5 as part of the administration’s agenda to protect women’s sports, pulls funds from “educational programs” that fail to adhere to the ban. 

  In a Friday statement, Mills said “the State of Maine will not be intimidated by the president’s threats.”

  “If the president attempts to unilaterally deprive Maine school children of the benefit of federal funding, my administration and the attorney general will take all appropriate and necessary legal action to restore that funding and the academic opportunity it provides.”

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jshttps://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 16:40

• "The Ever-Expanding Matrix Of NGOs Created An Army Of Useful Idiots…"
  “The Ever-Expanding Matrix Of NGOs Created An Army Of Useful Idiots…”

  Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

  Funny Money

  “The revelations that are coming for America possess the potential to reshape our entire notion of the relationship between citizen and state.” 

  – El Gato Malo on Substack

  You’ve got to wonder how the Party of Chaos thought they would get away with the Stacey Abrams grift-of-grifts. 

  In case you forgot, Stacey Abrams ran for governor of Georgia twice, lost, and claimed she was “real governor” for years after.

  In the meantime, she parlayed her celebrity persona to a $3.17-million net worth by 2022, doing nothing but running for office. 

  

  She claimed it derived from giving speeches, publishing romance novels, and “wise investments.”

  That was then, and this is now.

  Stacey popped up again this week in what looks like a textbook case of political scamming, uncovered by The DOGE team of forensic financial investigators. 

  As “Joe Biden” racked up Democratic presidential primary wins in 2024, the shadowy claque behind him allocated $27-billion to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from the huge Inflation Reduction Act, ostensibly for “climate change action.” 

  The money was stashed at Citibank, where it became a hidden slush-fund to keep payoffs flowing to party favorites no matter who won the 2024 election. An EPA “special advisor on climate action,” one Brent Efron, told a Project Veritas investigative reporter that “President Biden” was “throwing gold bars off the Titanic”.

  The key to understanding how the Democratic Party works is how it uses federal grants to redistribute taxpayer money into jobs programs for its rank-and-file. As seen in the recent USAID scandal, the action revolves around the creation of countless NGOs (non-governmental orgs). They are easily created, poorly supervised, and assembled into large networks of self-serving, inter-dependent organisms whose main mission is paying staffers — and secondarily pretending to do good works, as suggested by a given group’s name is. These staffers make up the matrix of Democratic Party activists, well-paid foot-soldiers in do-nothing jobs who can be called upon to cheer-lead for the party, organize street protests and, most critically, harvest ballots when the time comes.

  Stacey Abrams became a kind of field marshal for setting up NGOs around her campaigns for office and then later turned them into money laundromats for the trillions of dollars fire-hosed out of the US Treasury during the Covid-19-darkened “Biden” years. Here are some of Stacy’s NGOs:

  • The New Georgia Project and its affiliated NGP Action Fund — set up for her 2018 run for governor. It was eventually fined $300,000 for failing to disclose millions in contributions, failing to register properly, and sixteen violations of campaign laws. Its main purpose was providing jobs for an army of activists. One question that might have been asked: how many of Stacey Abrams’ books were purchased by The New Georgia Project, juicing her royalties?

  • The Southern Economic Advancement Project, founded in 2019 to “promote equity” in twelve southern states, paid Stacey a $700,000 annual salary.

  • The Fair Fight Action group raised nearly $62 million in dark pool donations by 2022, with 96-percent from 252 large, unidentified donors.

  • The Fair Count Project was created to lobby for counting illegal aliens in the 2020 US Census, in order to pad state congressional districts.

  • The Third Sector Development group, created as an “incubator” for other groups (including the New Georgia Project).

  • The Fair Fight 2020 group, created to “train voter protection teams” in twenty “battleground states.” That is, ballot harvesting.

  Out of the $27-billion from “Joe Biden’s” Inflation Reduction Act sent to EPA in 2024, $2-billion from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) ended up in the Stacey-associated Rewiring America org and its offshoot the Power Forward Communities org. Stacey was listed as “senior counsel” to Rewiring America, which also happened to “partner” with her prior NGOs Fair Count and Southern Economic Advancement Project.

  What you might surmise from all this is that “Joe Biden’s” green energy agenda was used as a green smokescreen for a giant patronage racketeering operation. The billions allocated would go ostensibly to innumerable corporations set up to carry-out “green” good deeds, most of which would never actually happen, but would, along the way, pad thousands upon thousands of bank accounts for favored contractors.

  Stacey’s Power Forward Communities NGO was incorporated in the state of Delaware where loose corporate governance requires such orgs to pay out only five percent of the org’s funds to its stated mission recipients each year. The rest of the $2-billion not allocated to staff salaries can be socked away in safe investments garnering, say, $50-million-a-year in returns, which can be rolled back into the org and used for spinning out new NGOs with more paid staff positions. . .grift upon grift. . . .

  That is what patronage is, and that, by the way, is how it became such an urgent national issue over a hundred years ago when it was openly known as the “spoils system” in electoral politics — to the victor go the spoils— which was resolved by the 1883 Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. Alas, in our time patronage (that is, corruption) has reinvented itself as the blob, the runaway system that almost sank the country.

  Do you see how all this works now? 

  The ever-expanding matrix of NGOs creates an army of useful idiots working hand-in-hand with an ever-expanding rogue bureaucracy that has become effectively a fourth branch of government accountable to nobody. This is how your tax dollars disappear down a rat-hole and why the US government is insolvent.

  The difference now is that the Democratic Party no longer has its hands on the levers of power. 

  Different managers are in place at the critical agencies, most particularly Pam Bondi at DOJ, Kash Patel at the FBI, Russell Vought at OMB, Lee Zeldin at EPA, and Elon Musk in the DOGE.

  In the past, nothing was done about these shenanigans. This time is different. 

  The Democratic Party will lose its principal means for staying alive.

  That’s why senators like Chuck Schumer, Chris Coons, and Adam Schiff are out mewling and hollering in the streets. 

  Meanwhile, the blob is getting methodically disassembled, one bureaucratic office at a time. 

  

  Before much longer we are going to be a different country, and most probably a better one.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 16:20

• 'You're FIRE-d': LA Mayor Karen Bass Boots Fire Chief Over Handling Of Palisades Blaze
  ‘You’re FIRE-d’: LA Mayor Karen Bass Boots Fire Chief Over Handling Of Palisades Blaze

  Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has fired LA Fire Department Chief Kristen Crowley over her handling of the January Palisades fire.

  

  “Acting in the best interests of Los Angeles’ public safety, and for the operations of the Los Angeles Fire Department, I have removed Kristin Crowley as Fire Chief,” said Bass in a Friday statement. “We know that 1,000 firefighters that could have been on duty on the morning the fires broke out were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch.“

  “Furthermore, a necessary step to an investigation was the President of the Fire Commission telling Chief Crowley to do an after action report on the fires. The Chief refused. These require her removal,” Bass continued. “The heroism of our firefighters — during the Palisades fire and every single day — is without question. Bringing new leadership to the Fire Department is what our city needs.”

  Of course, the woman in charge of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Janisse Quiñones, wasn’t fired for failing to ensure the main reservoir wasn’t empty!

  According to an investigation by the LA Times, LAFD elected not to assign roughly 1,000 available firefighters to the fire along with dozens of water-carrying engines in advance of the fire.

  Fire officials also chose not to order firefighters to remain on duty for a second shift as the winds were building, which would have effectively doubled the personnel on hand. What’s more, just five of more than 40 engines were staffed at the time.

  According to Bass’ office, Ronnie Villanueva – who retired seven months ago as chief deputy of emergency operations after 41 years with the department – will serve as interim chief.

  Mayor Bass has walked out for post Crowley firing press conference with the interim fire chief Villanueva and backed by council members Soto Martinez, Price and Council President Harris-Dawson pic.twitter.com/pOE1oKe2t6

  — Julia Wick (@sherlyholmes) February 21, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  During an interview with Fox 11, Crowley suggested that Bass had failed her department, telling the network that her agencies were understaffed and underfunded, calling the situation “no longer sustainable.”

  🚨BREAKING: LA Mayor Karen Bass FIRES Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley – per Fox News’ Bill Melugin

  Bass: “We know that 1,000 firefighters that could have been on duty on the morning the fires broke out were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch.” pic.twitter.com/SBurCciMaj

  — Unlimited L’s (@unlimited_ls) February 21, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Later that day, Crowley told CNN‘s Jake Tapper that the fire department lacks enough mechanics to repair broken-down emergency vehicles.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 15:40

• "You Can't Take Our Country" Justin Trudeau Tells Trump After Canada Beats U.S. In 4 Nations Hockey Championship
  “You Can’t Take Our Country” Justin Trudeau Tells Trump After Canada Beats U.S. In 4 Nations Hockey Championship

  As most people know, in recent months, Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested Canada should become the U.S.’s 51st state.

  During a December 2024 meeting with Justin Trudeau at Mar-a-Lago, he proposed annexation to address trade and border issues. Trump has since called Trudeau the “Governor of the Great State of Canada” and claimed many Canadians back statehood, citing potential tax cuts and improved security.

  What fewer people know is that Canada’s Justin Trudeau seemed to understand that Trump was serious, according to the New York Post. Trudeau said at a meeting with business leaders earlier this month: “I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have, but that may be even why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state.” 

  “They’re very aware of our resources, of what we have, and they very much want to be able to benefit from those. But Mr. Trump has it in mind that one of the easiest ways of doing that is absorbing our country. And it is a real thing,” he said. 

  And now yesterday, Trudeau used Team Canada’s victory over Team U.S.A. at the 4 Nations hockey championship as an opportunity to publicly screech fire back at Trump. 

  “You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game,” Trudeau wrote on X. 

  

  The New York Post writes that before Thursday’s championship game, Trump, who has referred to the Canadian leader as “Governor Trudeau,” called Team USA to rally them.

  “You guys are really talented. I have great respect for hockey players, I’m a hockey fan. I love hockey. The talent, the skill that you have is crazy,” he told the team in a Truth Social clip. “Just go out and have a good time tonight. I just want to wish you a lot of luck.”

  According to Team USA GM Bill Guerin, Trump also briefly mentioned making Canada the 51st state during the call.

  The intense USA-Canada rivalry escalated this year as politics seeped into the tournament. Canadian fans booed “The Star-Spangled Banner” during Saturday’s game in Montreal, while American fans responded by booing Chantal Kreviazuk’s rendition of “O Canada” in Thursday’s final in Boston.

  Kreviazuk even changed the anthem’s lyrics from “in all of us command” to “that only us command” in protest, her rep told CBC.

  The 4 Nations Face-Off, which replaced this season’s NHL All-Star Game, featured top players from the USA, Canada, Finland, and Sweden in a high-energy competition.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 02/21/2025 – 15:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Trump's Tariffs – History Has Lessons To Be Followed
  Trump’s Tariffs – History Has Lessons To Be Followed

  Authored by Gregory T. Kiley via RealClearDefense,

  Interesting times.  Just one month into President Donald Trump’s second term in office and one would be forgiven for feeling a little whiplashed.  From invoking and revoking Federal Government-wide Office and Management and Budget policy memoranda to announcing wide-reaching tariffs and then staying implementation those same tariffs, Trump’s second tour White House has started eventfully.   

  

  Hopefully, at least as far as Trade Policy is concerned, once personnel are in place, deliberate, rational, and thoughtful trade and trade negotiations will continue that seeks the long-term goals established by the president, while also helping American businesses in the short term to better fight back, level the playing field, and win here in the U.S. market with American consumers.   

  On President Trump’s first working Monday in office his Office of Management and Budget released a memorandum freezing all federal financial assistance and grants.  This might have been a well-meaning attempt for the new Administration to review federal spending priorities, but such a blanket call to freeze funds was unprecedented and confusing to those not consulted – including the other branches of government. Within hours, OMB rescinded the far reaching, over broad memo, but will continue their review of funding – as they rightfully should.

  On Tariffs, the Presidential-candidate Trump ran on his plan to utilize tariffs as a tool of foreign policy, economic policy, and to Make America Great Again.  It should have come to no surprise that one of the first acts now President Trump did was to threaten the country of Columbia with tariffs if they did not accept back illegal aliens that our government plans to return. Columbia caved on the threat and accepted the returnees.  

  Next has come a broad 25 percent tariff on Canada and Mexico announced January 31st, 2025. Purportedly tied to the excessive funneling of illegal fentanyl drugs into the United States, within hours of implementation, Mexico has agreed to send troops to the border to stop illegal immigration, resulting in at least a month delay in imposing the 25 percent tariff on Mexico goods. Canada similarly agreed to work with the Trump Administration to stem the flow of illegal drugs in exchange for a halt to implementation of tariffs.

  Bold actions, some positive results, however, a better model could be found in the careful, deliberate negotiated approach of 2017-2020 Trump White House and Team.  

  Still, with the confirmation of Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and nomination of Jamieson Greer to serve as the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), President Trump has an experienced team coming to hopefully make judicious use of Tariff policy. 

  Another thing the first Trump Administration got right was a laser focus on China and its predatory practices.  Trump’s team needs to continue pushing the goals and intentions of China tariffs – to increase domestic production and jobs across America over Chinese government-assisted and enabled entities.  The tariffs are designed to encourage more domestic production, making it at least as expensive to import from abroad over manufacturing domestically.

  The tariff regime is broken if it can advantage Chinese companies while disadvantaging American companies. This is an inequity about the current tariff system that President Trump can fix.  One example is Milwaukee Tool, which contrary to popular belief is actually a Chinese company.  The Trade Alliance to Promote Prosperity in 2024 alleged the Chinese firm (like others) may not be paying its fair tariff share, taking advantage of America and hurting American competitors in the process.

  Moving forward, this second Trump Administration should ensure the system doesn’t disadvantage American companies over their Chinese competitors that benefit from government subsidies. Trump should use his tariff authority judiciously, including the use of exemptions to help American companies battle back and, ultimately, invest more in the U.S. and create new manufacturing career opportunities in the process.  The same way the threat of tariffs gives the president leverage with world leaders; the use of targeted tariff exemptions can do the same to help American businesses grow strong again. 

  These are indeed interesting times, and as the old English Phrase connotated, may we live up to their challenges.  The second Trump Administration has started with a bang, now the hard work of detailed negotiation and focused policy needs to follow.

  Gregory T. Kiley, former senior professional staff member, Senate Armed Services Committee; and U.S. Air Force Officer

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 23:25

• As Pope Francis Enters 8th Day In Hospital, Vatican Suggests Possible Resignation
  As Pope Francis Enters 8th Day In Hospital, Vatican Suggests Possible Resignation

  Pope Francis has at this point spent over a week in the hospital in Rome, battling pneumonia in both lungs, and in the last 24-hours there have been reports that his condition is stable and has seen slight improvement.

  The 88-year old Pontiff entered the hospital on Feb. 14 with worsening bronchitis, leading doctors to eventually diagnose pneumonia, and reports in the initial days were dire.

  

  Archbishop Giuseppe Satriano of Bari gave an update on Francis’ condition Thursday, saying “He’s a fighter, and I believe he’ll win this battle.”

  Satriano described that he is awake, eating, and doing some work from his hospital bed, and that blood tests show slight improvements in his inflammation levels. The official Vatican assessment as of Thursday night is that Francis’ condition is “slightly improving” that he’s free of fever.

  Still, the severity of the episode has led to speculation over possible resignation:

  In a memoir, Life: My Story Through History, published last year, Francis wrote, “I think that the Petrine ministry is ‘ad vitam’ [‘for life’] and therefore I see no conditions for a resignation”, only to add in the next sentence, “things would change if a serious physical impediment were to arise”.

  As the pontiff enters his eighth day in hospital on Friday, suffering from pneumonia in both lungs, Vatican watchers are wondering just how serious Francis, 88, thinks that physical impediment has to be.

  On Thursday evening, the Vatican said that Francis’s condition was “slightly improving”, adding that his heart and circulation were in good shape and that he was free of fever and able to work.

  However, in an interview on Italian radio, the senior Vatican cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi broached the topic on everyone’s mind and claimed: “I think he could [resign] because he is a person who, from this point of view, is quite decisive in his choices.”

  This is the first time in his pontificate that the issue of resignation has been raised by a senior Cardinal. However, if he exits the hospital soon this is unlikely, as Pope’s traditionally serve till death. It is extremely rare for a Pope to step down, with his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI having been one of the exceptions to the historic rule.

  As talk of a potential conclave in the near future heats up I thought it would be helpful to make a diagram of the current ideological makeup of the College of Cardinals pic.twitter.com/FHXgoRyYR0

  — Al Carbo (@carbo_al) February 18, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Newsweek commented, “The possibility of resignation resurfaced when Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi noted that if Francis’ ability to engage directly with people was compromised, he might consider stepping down.”

  Conservative and traditional Roman Catholics have been critics of Francis’ leadership, saying he represents a liberalizing trend in church life. Liberals have tended to hail him as being open to the world and a voice of ‘progress’.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 23:00

• VP Vance Vindicated, Scottish Police Arrest Woman For Silent Vigil Outside Abortion Clinic
  VP Vance Vindicated, Scottish Police Arrest Woman For Silent Vigil Outside Abortion Clinic

  Via American Greatness,

  Vice President J.D. Vance drew criticism from European leaders and press following his speech last week at the Munich Security Conference in Germany where he openly chastised  European authorities over their suppression of free speech.

  

  Now, just days after Vance’s warning to European official about censorship, a woman has been confronted by police and arrested for holding a sign that read “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want” outside of a Scottish abortion clinic.

  Unbelievable – just days after Vance warns Europe about censorship

  The Scottish police arrest a woman for offering a conversation near an abortion facilitypic.twitter.com/SKp5IWgZnm

  — Lois McLatchie Miller (@LoisMcLatch) February 20, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  In his remarks in Munich, Vance gave examples of Germany arresting people criticizing feminism, Sweden arresting individuals for criticizing religion and Scottish police arresting a man for silently praying for his aborted son outside of an abortion clinic.

  European leaders were called to task by Vance for abandoning what he called their “most fundamental values” while insisting that the U.S. should continue helping defend Europe.

  Vance told the assembled leaders, “If you are afraid of the voices, the opinions and the conscience that guide your very own people … If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you, nor for that matter is there anything you can do for the American people.”

  JD Vance attended the Munich Security Conference where he criticized European leaders, accusing them of being petty tyrants for restricting freedom of speech. He specifically mentioned the case of a British man who was arrested for praying outside an abortion clinic. pic.twitter.com/GR35DVKK1O

  — Catch Up (@CatchUpFeed) February 14, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Vance’s remarks prompted shock and condemnation among many European politicians and various state media.

  U.K. news outlets had some of the harshest criticism for the Vice President over his condemnation of so-called “buffer zones” around abortion clinics in Scotland where police arrested a man for silently standing outside a clinic, praying for his unborn son.

  The BBC accused Vance of making “dangerous” claims about Scottish laws during his remarks when he spoke of people living within so-called safe access zones receiving a letter from the Scottish government, “warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law.”

  According to the BBC, a Scottish government spokesperson said, “no letters had been sent out saying people couldn’t pray in their homes, and only “intentional or reckless behaviour” was covered by the act.”

  However, a copy of the letter received by homeowners within the “safe access zones” reveals ambiguous language that appears to bear out Vance’s warning of the growing danger to peaceful free speech.

  The misinformation is from Mackay, the liar.
  Simply read the letter. Vance is correct. https://t.co/VgtPJ1dWl7 pic.twitter.com/ZlWzoY56RJ

  — @Sea_and_Sand0 (@SeaandSand0) February 14, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Should we believe what European politicians and state media are telling us or what can be clearly seen with our own eyes?

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 22:35

• "We're Seeing Heavy Traffic": Musk's Grok Chatbot Tops No. 1 On App Store, Overtaking ChatGPT & TikTok
  “We’re Seeing Heavy Traffic”: Musk’s Grok Chatbot Tops No. 1 On App Store, Overtaking ChatGPT & TikTok

  Days after Elon Musk and his xAI team unveiled Grok-3—touted as the “smartest AI on Earth“—the chatbot, which outperforms all commercially available models, has surged to the top of the Apple App Store list. 

  Data from the App Store shows that xAI’s Grok app sits number one on the “Top Free App” page, beating OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Meta’s Threads, and TikTok.

  

  This surge in demand for Grok likely began around the release of the new model on Monday night. 

  Musk and xAI staff showed how the new model outperformed Alphabet’s Google Gemini, DeepSeek’s V3 model, Anthropic’s Claude, and OpenAI’s GPT-4o across math, science, and coding benchmarks.

  

  Momentum was reignited on Wednesday night after Musk announced that Grok-3 would be “free to all” for a limited time.

  For a short time, Grok 3 is available for free to all! https://t.co/r5iLXi2pBm

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  By Thursday morning, Musk and xAI had encountered a good problem: “We’re seeing some heavy traffic, so we’ve opted for an alternate model to get your answer to you faster.” 

  This was the message generated while asking the model to produce an image. 

  

  We asked Grok… It responded:

  

  XAI noted overnight: “This is it: The world’s smartest AI, Grok 3, now available for free (until our servers melt).”

  This is it: The world’s smartest AI, Grok 3, now available for free (until our servers melt).

  Try Grok 3 now: https://t.co/Tj0afLoxEz

  X Premium+ and SuperGrok users will have increased access to Grok 3, in addition to early access to advanced features like Voice Mode pic.twitter.com/YgKavSCiWr

  — xAI (@xai) February 20, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  That time may have arrived. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 22:10

• The Rebel Campus Boosters Rising Up Against Wokeness On Campus
  The Rebel Campus Boosters Rising Up Against Wokeness On Campus

  Authored by John Murawski via RealClearInvestigations,

  In the plummy world of alumni relations, where distinguished graduates are awarded honorary degrees and major donors are fêted at the president’s mansion, it is virtually unheard of for former students to set up shop as a political counterweight to the university, challenging its modes of governance and day-to-day operations

  

  Alarmed by academia’s dominant ideological ethos of social justice activism – particularly the holy trinity of race, sex, and gender – more than two dozen dissident groups have emerged seeking to rebalance the culture at leading public and private universities across the country, including Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, UCLA, Williams, the University of North Carolina and the University of Virginia. 

  They are expected to gain traction with Donald Trump back in the White House.

  The dissident alumni organizations are not shoestring operations, but well-honed machines, some raising several hundred thousand dollars a year; a number of them have hired executive directors, professional staff, or consultants. This loose coalition of local chapters has also developed into a national movement with its own umbrella group, the Alumni Free Speech Alliance. 

  Drawing on alumni resources and connections, the dissidents have curated email lists totaling thousands of recipients, diverted financial contributions from longtime university donors, attracted financial support from foundations, organized speaker series and public events, and generated critical reports and investigative articles, especially regarding policies advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI. They have invited prominent conservative and contrarian thinkers such as George Will, Nadine Strossen, Jonathan Haidt, Douglas Murray, and Heather Mac Donald to deliver on-campus talks.

  The Virginia Military Institute alumni group, The Cadet Foundation, is the publisher of the independent student newspaper, The Cadet, and other chapters function as aggregators, muckrakers, and news services. The Jefferson Council,the University of Virginia alumni chapter, produces original articles almost daily of consistently high informational and entertainment value, and mostly written by a retired news editor and author. 

  “When you get down to it, these groups are news organizations, in a sense,” said Tom Rideout, a 1963 graduate of Washington & Lee University and a former American Banking Association president who co-founded one of the first alumni free speech associations, The Generals Redoubt, in response to the university’s move in 2018 to distance itself from its namesakes and their ties to slavery. “Essentially we’re in the communications business. Our job is to gather intelligence and distribute intelligence to supporters.”

  It’s not possible to isolate the precise influence of these alumni from parallel pressure applied by Republican lawmakers, conservative trustees, and heterodox faculty, but college donations dipped nationwide last year in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel and subsequent campus protests; donations at Harvard, Columbia, and Penn fell dramatically during this time amid rising alumni alarm. 

  For their part, the dissident alumni say they have helped bring about significant political gains, including: 

  • The resignation of Cornell president Martha Pollack, who was accused of prioritizing “DEI groupthink” that resulted in unruly campus protests and student harassment, prompting an investigation by the U.S. Education Department; 
  • Princeton’s president admonishing first-year students at freshman orientation last fall that it’s not the university’s job to “validate your opinions”;
  • The University of Virginia suspending student-led campus tours that angry alumni said caricatured the legacy of Thomas Jefferson as nothing but slavery, rape, and theft of Indigenous land; 
  • The Virginia Press Association awarding its “top honor” to the Virginia Military Institute student newspaper, which is published by dissident alumni, for the student-journalists’ coverage of DEI controversies on campus. 

  Their operating expenses go to staff salaries, marketing expenses, speaker fees, and events, which can get disruptive. In some cases, the alumni chapters pay for their speakers’ private security or reimburse the university for campus security. UVA billed The Jefferson Council $7,847 for Abigail Shrier’s appearance in 2023 to discuss her book, “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.” Over two years, The Jefferson Council was billed about $47,000 for security expenses in connection with controversial speakers. 

  The newly arisen alumni free speech associations are just one facet of a major realignment in academia that signals that a half-century era of unchallenged progressive intellectual dominance may be coming to an end. Major university systems in red states have already ended DEI policies in hiring and scholarship, and more than 120 universities have adopted policies of institutional neutrality – the idea that the university exists to foster debate and criticism, not to take sides on public controversies.

  Other organizations devoted to protecting academic freedom and viewpoint diversity – such as the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, the Heterodox Academy, and the Academic Freedom Alliance – have arisen to challenge the narrow academic consensus on social and political questions. 

  In parallel, heterodox faculty at leading universities have formed campus chapters, such as the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, the Princeton Council on Academic Freedom, and kindred faculty groups at Yale, MIT, Columbia, and Duke. Last year, the University of Chicago announced an anonymous grant of $100 million to promote free speech values at the Chicago Forum for Free Speech and Expression. The Chicago Forum develops student orientation programming, supports research in academic freedom, and establishes fellowship programs for visiting scholars. 

  Over the same period, conservative donors, legislators, and trustees have launched more than a dozen academic civics centers that are reviving classical liberal education, rediscovering the Great Books, and rejecting what they perceive as the vilification of Western Civilization. These well-funded programs operate autonomously like law schools or engineering schools, with their own deans, Ph.D. programs, and sometimes dedicated buildings. 

  Trump’s Election a Boost

  Trump’s election is expected to accelerate the reforms, particularly with his threat to cut federal funding to institutions that give weight to the racial identity and gender identity of students and faculty in admissions, hiring, teaching, and research. 

  In a January essay on the Princetonians for Free Speech site, group co-founder and current secretary and general counsel Edward Yingling, a former American Banking Association president, predicted that 2025 will be a breakthrough year for free speech on campus. The major precipitating event of this predicted turnaround, Yingling wrote, was the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 that led to unruly campus protests and encampments and the resignations of Ivy League presidents at Harvard, Cornell, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania, all of which now have alumni free speech association chapters. 

  Some observers warn the anti-woke pushback will lead to an overcorrection. The legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech advocacy group, predicted, according to the New York Times, the likelihood of increased attacks on the free speech rights of progressive students and professors, including investigations, punishment, and terminations. A recent weekend essay in the Wall Street Journal issued a similar warning, saying that the ravages of wokeness and cancel culture will come in the form of political payback: “They/them who sow the censorious winds should be prepared to one day reap the whirlwind.”

  These transformations point to a looming question about the future prospects for the alumni free speech alliance chapters: Will these dissident alumni organizations be able to sustain momentum and continue attracting donations when it starts looking like wokeness is moribund and DEI is DOA? 

  When asked this question, not a single chapter representative hesitated to say that the fight will continue for years, possibly until the current generation of faculty and DEI hires reaches retirement age and can be replaced with a more balanced professoriate.

  Carl Neuss, a California real-estate developer who co-founded the Cornell Free Speech Alliance, likened academia to a beautiful sailing ship infested with rats who are about to face an exterminator. 

  “It’ll be a battle royale,” Neuss said. “It’ll be a generation-long effort to get some balance back in the universities. They’re never going to reform themselves – the only way for it to occur is from outside pressure.”

  James Bacon, a co-founder of The Jefferson Council and the chapter’s former executive director, expressed similar sentiments, characterizing the prevailing DEI value system among students, faculty, and administrators as “an entrenched orthodoxy.” 

  “It’s going to be a battle of a generation before we bring about substantial change,” Bacon said. “It’s going to be trench warfare, like the Battle of Verdun, fighting over inches.”

  Retired federal prosecutor John Bruce, a board member of the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill’s alumni free speech association, concurs. “We see ourselves as permanent,” Bruce said. “There is a danger that people will think that the battle has been won. But the Left is relentless.”

  Although the formal missions of these alumni chapters include specific proposals to promote free speech and viewpoint diversity, their ambitions are much broader: to change the intellectual climate of academia, revive classical liberal education, and curb the social justice activism that has pervaded academia for years. 

  Some of the dissident groups – including chapters at UVA, Washington & Lee, Cornell, and Princeton – have been active in opposing campus efforts to  rename buildings and remove statues, plaques, and commemorations that are said to glamorize white supremacy or make African American students feel excluded. 

  The Washington & Lee University alumni who formed The Generals Redoubt include among their stated goals the re-establishment of public prayer. The group defends the character of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and promotes a book, “Un-Cancel Robert E. Lee: An Open Letter to The Trustees of Washington and Lee University,” written by member Gib Kerr and published by the conservative imprint, Bombardier Books.

  These alumni were furious that W&L removed Lee’s name from the campus chapel, sealed off Lee’s recumbent statue from public view, and removed the likenesses of George Washington and Robert E. Lee from diplomas awarded to graduating students. 

  The Generals Redoubt is one of the most successful alumni chapters, raising $2 million in each of the past two years, according to the ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer database, and spending $1 million to purchase a historic property to serve as the organization’s headquarters and venue site. 

  Among those that have taken on the cause of historic preservation, The Jefferson Council’s formal mission involves preserving “the beauty of The Lawn” – the terraced greensward and courtyard at the heart of Thomas Jefferson’s academic village that is listed on the Virginia Historic Register, the National Historic Register and among the UNESCO World Heritage Sites – from political signs that the chapter deems vulgar and offensive. 

  The Jefferson Council was provoked in 2020 by a student occupant of one of the storied 19th-century rooms on The Lawn who posted on the door: “Fuck UVA,” followed by a string of accusations: “UVA operating cost, KKKops, genocide, slavery, disability, Black+Brown life.” 

  Noting that the profanity was “disheartening,” the university nevertheless supported the student’s free speech rights in this instance. UVA’s decision was publicly praised by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, “illustrating why UVA is one of the relatively few institutions in the country to earn FIRE’s highest, ‘green light’ rating.”

  The Jefferson Council was galvanized by UVA’s “Racial Equity Task Force” report in 2020 that recommended $950 million in DEI-related and antiracist-oriented investments, leading to the removal of a statue of George Rogers Clark (a subjugator of indigenous tribes), the renaming of the main campus library, and the promised – but as-of-yet not realized – “contextualization” of the Thomas Jefferson statue in front of the iconic Rotunda, designed by Jefferson himself and modeled on the Roman Pantheon. 

  The Jefferson Council has filed more than 200 Freedom of Information Act requests to pry loose details on a range of issues, including details about UVA’s decision-making on recent name changes of campus buildings and past and potential yet-unannounced future statue removals. A faculty petition has declared The Jefferson Council to pose a threat to academic freedom. 

  “We are widely detested,” said Bacon, one of the co-founders and principal writers for The Jefferson Council.

  In a 2023 New York Times article about the alumni group, UVA President James Ryan expressed his doubts about The Jefferson Council’s real motives: “Whether this is an effort to focus on the aspects of D.E.I. that seem to threaten academic freedom and push toward ideological conformity, or whether it’s an effort to turn back the clock to 1965 – it’s hard to know.” 

  Despite the official snub – or perhaps because of it – The Jefferson Council raised a healthy $260,000 in 2023, down from $557,044 the previous year. The group communicates with 3,200 members and has about 850 active donors, said co-founder Thomas Neale, a corporate finance professional who is also chairman of the national Alumni Free Speech Alliance. 

  What rankles Neale and other alumni is what they see as a blatant double standard that trumpets free speech rights for woke obscenities on a UNESCO World Heritage site but cites the harms of misgendering and microaggressions when the insult goes the other way.

  The dissident alumni have established a base of support among like-minded students and faculty on their respective campuses, but they have also made enemies along the way. 

  Robert Morris Jr., the founder and president of VMI’s dissident alumni group, The Cadet Foundation, has been banned for life from the university’s official alumni association in connection with its disputed accessing of the alumni email database to recruit alumni to the dissident group, and a number of other alumni were handed 10-year suspensions for their involvement. 

  Bert Ellis, a University of Virginia trustee and co-founder of The Jefferson Council, was censured by UVA’s Faculty Senate for allegedly planning to vandalize the student’s “Fuck UVA” sign; Ellis was also the target of an unsuccessful effort by Democrats in the Virginia statehouse to block his appointment to UVA’s board of visitors. 

  A ‘Monster List’ of Supporters

  According to The Cornell Daily Sun, then-President Martha Pollack said in 2023 – a year before she was forced to resign – that it was “incredibly frustrating” that groups like the Cornell Free Speech Alliance denounce DEI “in the guise” of defending free speech. 

  The Cornell group has proven to be one of the most active and effective chapters, one born out of a university fundraising appeal gone bad. 

  In 2019, Cornell officials courted Neuss, a 1976 engineering grad and successful real-estate tycoon, with an invitation to make a substantial gift – “north of $1 million,” in Neuss’s words – in exchange for a naming opportunity involving a university building, possibly a library or a laboratory. Neuss had heard rumors about intolerance and censorship on campus and delayed cutting the check as he mulled his options. In a bid to appease his concerns, university officials introduced him to political moderates on the faculty. After hearing their testimonies, Neuss resolved to use his donations to create the Cornell Free Speech Alliance in 2021.

  “What he learned from these faculty members was astonishing,” the Cornell Alliance memorialized in one of its numerous reports. “They told him that they felt sidelined and humiliated by the diversity training they were required to attend and were perpetually afraid they would say something factual but impolitic that could negatively impact their job.”

  The alumni organization began compiling an email distribution from various sources – web searches, references, word of mouth, unsolicited inquiries – and now communicates regularly with 23,000 regular readers and subscribers. Like other alumni groups, Cornell tapped into the university’s official alumni association contacts list – extracting thousands of emails – before Cornell shut down unlimited access. The Cornell Free Speech Alliance now disseminates news updates and other information reporting on the Cornell administration and exposing practices the group considers abusive or even illegal.

  “This is one thing that absolutely freaks them out,” Neuss said. “We have compiled this monster email list of Cornell alumni, donors, trustees, former trustees, et cetera.”

  A report issued in December 2023 lists a number of early achievements: creating a free speech “action plan” for Cornell leadership; media exposure in The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, New York Post, Inside Higher Ed, National Review and RealClearPolitics; and filing an amicus brief with other alumni free speech alliance chapters in a Supreme Court case involving alleged free speech abridgments at Virginia Tech University. 

  Neuss said the organization has close to 1,000 donors. As of 2023, the group reported $221,000 in revenue and total assets of $186,000, according to the ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer database. It is run by an executive committee of eight Cornell alums and two dozen other volunteers, and paid professionals include an email blast specialist and a PR/communications point person.

  One of the culture war controversies that drew the group’s ire was the mysterious disappearance of a bust of Abraham Lincoln that had been displayed at the Rare and Manuscript Collections section of Kroch Library, which houses the university’s Asia Collections and rare books,  manuscripts and other artifacts. A professor learned from a librarian that the bust had been removed because of a “complaint.” The bust was eventually restored after the Cornell Free Speech Alliance, The College Fix, and others drew attention to its disappearance, and concerned alumni flooded the administration with angry letters. 

  This was at the height of the so-called racial reckoning in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 murder, prompting Cornell President Pollack to announce what was cast as a series of antiracist actions: a mandatory unit on racism, bias, and equity for all Cornell students; the creation of an Anti-Racism Center to generate antiracism scholarship; and a campus-wide, racism-focused semester, during which “our campus community will focus on issues of racism in the U.S. through relevant readings and discussions.” 

  In January 2024, Cornell trustee and donor Jon Lindseth wrote an open letter to Cornell trustees calling for President Pollack’s resignation, enumerating a litany of complaints, starting with Pollack’s “shameful,” milquetoast response to “terrorism and antisemitism,” compared to her swift, decisive action in response to the George Floyd tragedy. 

  “A new campus ‘bias reporting system’ fosters a hostile Orwellian environment among neighbors, classmates, and colleagues reporting on one another,” Lindseth wrote. “The elimination of grades and SATs has created a system in which equal outcomes rather than proven merit has become the objective.”

  Many of the examples in Lindseth’s letter, such as “whistleblower accounts” from faculty, are attributed to the muckraking work of the Cornell Free Speech Alliance. “Instances are reported of qualified candidates for faculty positions being rejected for their DEI statements alone,” Lindseth wrote. 

  “Even Lincoln could be canceled under the present administration,” Lindseth lamented. “This is an absolute disgrace.” 

  Less than four months later, Pollack was out. 

  Two weeks later, the alumni alliance released a whistleblower report headlined: “Internal Cornell Records Provided To CFSA Show How The University Discriminates Based On Personal Beliefs & Identity Profiles Rather Than Merit.” The report warned that Cornell was illegally disqualifying job candidates based on DEI statements and based on their identity characteristics. 

  In August, the group submitted an incriminating 101-page report to Cornell leaders and trustees, noting that Cornell ranks 188th out of 203 American universities in free expression, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, whose surveys indicate that 88% of Cornell’s students self-censor their speech on campus. 

  The report urged Cornell leaders to get out of the business of social justice activism: “Concerns of ‘community,’ ‘belonging,’ ‘microaggressions,’ and related efforts to ‘protect students from harmful ideas’ must be clearly and emphatically subordinated to the essential principles of open inquiry, academic freedom, free expression, and viewpoint diversity.”

  “We’re dealing with institutions that are steeped in the oppressor-oppressed ideology,” said Michael Poliakoff, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a national advocacy group that helped spin off the Alumni Free Speech Alliance. “Alumni and donors are now fed up with the idea of being tapped smoothly for money but essentially being pushed aside when they want to talk about the values of the campus.”

  This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.

  John Murawski reports on the intersection of culture and ideas for RealClearInvestigations. He previously covered artificial intelligence for the Wall Street Journal and spent 15 years as a reporter for the News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) writing about health care, energy and business. At RealClear, Murawski reports on how esoteric academic theories on race and gender have been shaping many areas of public life, from K-12 school curricula to workplace policies to the practice of medicine.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 21:45

• Truth Social & Rumble Blast Brazilian Supreme Court Justice In Bombshell Lawsuit
  Truth Social & Rumble Blast Brazilian Supreme Court Justice In Bombshell Lawsuit

  President Trump’s Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) and Rumble have teamed up to sue the pants off Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, accusing him of violating the free speech rights of an unnamed Brazilian influencer living in the United States.

  

  The 39-page lawsuit, filed in the US District Court in Tampa, Florida, alleges that de Moraes exceeded his authority and violated international law by trying to ban the Brazilian blogger. TMTG operates Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, while Rumble is a popular video sharing platform. According to the complaint, the blogger is identified as “Political Dissident A,” and claims he has “sought political asylum in the United States, where he remains.”

  “Political Dissident A” has founded several media outlets critical of Brazil’s supreme court, and has built a “sizable online following,” including a YouTube channel which boasts over 1.3 million followers.

  The blogger was a vocal proponent of Brazil’s previous administration under former President Jair Bolsonaro.

  “Acting under the guise of the Supreme Federal Tribunal of the Federative Republic of Brazil (‘STF’), Justice Moraes has issued sweeping orders to suspend multiple U.S.-based accounts (‘Banned Accounts’) of a well-known politically outspoken user (’Political Dissident A‘), ensuring no person in the United States can see his content (’Gag Orders’),” reads the lawsuit, which adds that the gag orders issued by Moraes “censor legitimate political discourse” in the United States and undermine protections enshrined in the First Amendment.

  As the Epoch Times notes further, the lawsuit further alleges that the gag orders conflict with the Communications Decency Act, which grants legal immunity to providers of interactive computer services for content created by others on their platforms.

  According to the lawsuit, Florida-based Rumble faces a fine of $9,000 a day and a shutdown of its service in Brazil if it doesn’t abide by Moraes’s orders.

  The judge’s orders require Rumble to designate a legal representative in Brazil “solely for the purpose of accepting service of the Gag Orders and submitting to Justice Moraes’s authority,” the lawsuit states.

  A ban on Rumble would interfere with Trump Media’s operations because the company relies, in part, on Rumble’s cloud-based hosting and video streaming infrastructure to deliver multimedia content to Truth Social users, the companies claim in the legal filing.

  Rumble and TMTG are asking the court to declare Moraes’s gag orders unenforceable in the United States.

  “Allowing Justice Moraes to muzzle a vocal user on an American digital outlet would jeopardize our country’s bedrock commitment to open and robust debate,” the lawsuit states. “Neither extraterritorial dictates nor judicial overreach from abroad can override the freedoms protected by the U.S. Constitution and law.”

  Moraes is currently weighing charges filed on Tuesday alleging that Bolsonaro led a plot to overthrow the Brazilian government and undermine democracy after his 2022 election loss to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

  A total of 33 people were charged this week alongside Bolsonaro, including several high-ranking officials from his former administration, such as his former national security adviser, retired Gen. Augusto Heleno, and former Navy Commander Almir Garnier Santos.

  Bolsonaro’s lawyer, Paulo Cunha Bueno, has denied any wrongdoing by the former president and said the charges lacked facts.

  “The President has never supported any movement aimed at dismantling the democratic rule of law or the institutions that uphold it,” Cunha Bueno wrote in a statement on social media platform X. “President Jair Bolsonaro trusts in the justice system and therefore believes that this indictment will not prevail due to its fragility, inconsistency, and lack of factual basis to support it in court.”

  *  *  *

  You can support ZeroHedge by picking up a ZeroHedge Multitool (on sale!)

  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 21:20

• JD Vance To Young Men: Be Men, Not "Androgynous Idiots"
  JD Vance To Young Men: Be Men, Not “Androgynous Idiots”

  Authored by Sarah Anderson via PJMedia.com,

  Not too long ago, I decided to try a bold experiment. I returned to the University of Georgia to take some agriculture classes. The reason I considered it bold is that I was old enough to be many of the students’ mothers (had I been an extremely young teen mom, of course). I learned a lot of lessons about this current generation of teens and twenty-somethings and how college has changed since my first go-round two decades prior, but what really threw me was when a professor asked for my pronouns. 

  My class was given a virtual assignment to upload a video introduction of ourselves to a school website. “Tell us your name, your major, your hobbies and interests, and your pronouns so your classmates can gain a better understanding of who you are.” I’d never been asked to provide my pronouns in my life and had no interest in starting now. Before I uploaded my video, I watched through some of the others, shocked as these young men and women offered up their “hes” and “shes” and “theys” as if this was all perfectly normal. 

  But there was one guy, let’s call him Tyler, who gave us his name, his major, and his hobbies and interests, but instead of pronouns, he ended the video with “I’m a dude” and a slight eye roll, obviously mocking the pronoun situation. 

  Let me tell you, he’s the only person from that class I even remember, much less ever gained any sort of understanding of who he was.  

  

  Well, JD Vance just gave all the other Tylers of the world permission to crawl out from under their rocks of submission and embrace their God-given masculinity. 

  On behalf of women — well, the ones who enjoy being women — I would like to say thank you to our vice president. 

  Vance spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Monday and said a lot of great things, some of which even earned him a standing ovation. But it was his message to young people, especially young men, that really stood out.

  My message to young men is don’t allow this broken culture to send you a message that you’re a bad person because you’re a man, because you like to tell a joke, because you like to have a beer with your friends, or because you’re competitive. 

  The cultural message…wants to turn everybody, whether male or female, into androgynous idiots who think the same, talk the same, and act the same. 

  We actually think God made male and female for a purpose, and we want you guys to thrive as young men, and as young women. And we’re going to help with our public policy to make it possible to do that

  The crowd erupted into cheers: 

  Vice President JD Vance has a powerful message for young men 🔥🔥

  “My message to young men is don’t allow this broken culture to send you a message that you’re a bad person because you’re a man, because you like to tell a joke, because you like to have a beer with your friends,… pic.twitter.com/JKWuX9cQhn

  — Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) February 20, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  I don’t know about you, but I could listen to that over and over again. 

  There’s a reason why Donald Trump won 49% of the vote from young men (ages 18 to 29) in November and 54% from men overall. 

  Vance touched on that too.  

  I think this is why young men in particular are so, you know, they’re so inspired by President Trump is because he doesn’t allow the media to tell him he can’t make a joke or he can’t have an original thought.

  President Trump just says what’s on his mind; that’s a damn good thing. 

  Amen to that. 

  “We’re fighting for you,” was Vance’s overall message to young people, and it was refreshing to hear. Our country doesn’t just face international enemies — we’re under attack from enemies within who want to debase and degrade our culture. 

  They’re the ones who want to tell young men that they can’t be masculine and tell women they can’t be feminine. They’re the ones who demand that boys play girls’ sports, who insist that teachers force gender ideology on elementary school students, and who truly believe there are 72 genders. 

  *  *  *

  You can support PJMedia by signing up for a VIP membership and gaining access to exclusive content, as well as the opportunity to comment on articles and interact with their contributors. It’s already a great deal, but right now, they’re having a big sale to celebrate the new Trump administration. Use the code FIGHT to get 60% off, and use this link to sign up.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 20:55

• Musk: "Time To Begin Preparations For Deorbiting Space Station"
  Musk: “Time To Begin Preparations For Deorbiting Space Station”

  NASA awarded SpaceX a billion-dollar contract last year to deorbit the International Space Station and guide its controlled descent into the Pacific Ocean by the end of the decade. Now, Elon Musk is pushing for an accelerated timeline.

  “It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the @Space_Station . It has served its purpose. There is very little incremental utility. Let’s go to Mars,” Musk wrote on X around lunchtime. 

  Eric Berger, a senior space editor at Ars Technica, commented on Musk’s post: “Are you suggesting that the ISS be deorbited prior to 2030? As you know, SpaceX currently as a contract to build the US Deorbit Vehicle to safely bring the station down in 2030.”

  

  Musk responded to Berger: “The decision is up to the President, but my recommendation is as soon as possible. I recommend 2 years from now.”

  

  The ISS, launched in 1998, recently extended its operational life from 2024 to 2030. Russia has indicated plans to withdraw from the ISS after 2024, while China is building its own space station called Tiangong.

  The total cost of the ISS since 1998 is estimated to be around $150 billion to $160 billion, including $3-4 billion per year in costs. 

  Democrats have already become angered over Musk’s proposed accelerated timeline for deorbiting the ISS on X. We’re sure they’re completely melting down on BlueSky. However, the ISS was originally set to retire in 2015, only to have its operational lifespan repeatedly extended by Congress. Over the years, numerous reports surfaced on leaks and structural concerns. It’s time to move on and save taxpayers billions of dollars per year. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 20:30

• Federal Judge Allows Trump Admin To Continue Mass Layoffs Of Federal Workers
  Federal Judge Allows Trump Admin To Continue Mass Layoffs Of Federal Workers

  Authored by Stacy Robinson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A federal judge on Feb. 20 declined to block for now downsizing efforts by the Trump administration, including mass firings and buyout programs.

  

  “Federal district judges are duty-bound to decide legal issues based on even-handed application of law and precedent—no matter the identity of the litigants or, regrettably at times, the consequences of their rulings for average people,” U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper wrote in his ruling.

  Unions representing hundreds of thousands of federal workers had filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump and the heads of several government agencies, saying they were overstepping the executive branch’s authority.

  BREAKING: Trump’s firing spree can continue, for now.

  A federal judge has denied a federal employee union’s attempt to stop Trump’s mass federal employee firings. The union likely must take its case to the FLRA, which handles federal workforce labor disputes.

  Details soon pic.twitter.com/tYlELDhUHB

  — Eric Katz (@EricM_Katz) February 20, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The unions also said slashing the size of federal agencies would result in “irreparable harm” because of lower union dues revenue and a loss in bargaining power.

  They asked the court to declare the federal program unlawful and to halt the administration from implementing another similar program.

  The buyout, or deferred resignation, offer, which ended on Feb. 12, was offered to more than 2 million government employees by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to hasten Trump’s plan to shrink the federal workforce.

  OPM offered workers full pay and benefits until Sept. 30 in exchange for voluntary resignation and warned that “the majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 20:05

• Department Of Health And Human Services Updates Definitions Of Female, Male
  Department Of Health And Human Services Updates Definitions Of Female, Male

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

  The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Feb. 19 issued new guidance updating its official definitions of terms such as sex, female, and male as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to restore “the concept of biological truth” in the federal government.

  

  It marks one of the first actions taken by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. following his confirmation last week.

  The guidance was released to the U.S. government, external partners, and the public to “expand on the clear sex-based definitions” outlined in a January executive order signed by Trump, called “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”

  That order stated, in part, that the Trump administration “will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.”

  The new HHS guidance reiterates the Trump administration’s stance that male and female are the only two sexes and that they cannot be changed.

  Specifically, it defines the term “sex” as “a person’s immutable biological classification as either male or female.”

  Female is defined as “a person of the sex characterized by a reproductive system with the biological function of producing eggs,” while male is defined as “a person of the sex characterized by a reproductive system with the biological function of producing sperm.”

  A woman is “an adult human female.” 

  A man is “an adult human male,” the guidance states.

  A mother is described as a female parent and a father is described as a male parent.

  The HHS will use these definitions and promote policies acknowledging that “women are biologically female and men are biologically male,” according to the guidance.

  “This administration is bringing back common sense and restoring biological truth to the federal government,” Kennedy said in a statement. 

  “The prior administration’s policy of trying to engineer gender ideology into every aspect of public life is over.”

  Athlete Riley Gaines Praises Trump’s ‘Clarity, Decisiveness’

  In conjunction with the new guidance on sex-based definitions, HHS also launched a new website that includes information and resources for “protecting women and children.”

  The website features a video from former National Collegiate Athletic Association swimmer, Riley Gaines, defending a recent ban on men participating in women’s sports.

  Gaines, who has regularly advocated for such a ban, can be seen in the video thanking Trump for taking swift action to protect female athletes.

  “The clarity and decisiveness of this administration sends a strong, clear message to women and girls across the country that we matter,” Gaines said.

  The website also features a blog post by Dr. Dorothy Fink, an endocrinologist who served as acting HHS secretary before Kennedy assumed his new role, on the various sports-related conditions faced by women and girls competing in athletics.

  “In health care, sex distinctions can influence disease presentation, diagnosis, and treatment differently in females and males,” Fink said in a statement. 

  “HHS recognizes that biological differences between females and males require sex-specific practices in medicine and research to ensure optimal health outcomes.”

  The latest guidance represents a shift from the previous administration’s stance on gender identity.

  Under Biden, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one of HHS’s agencies, defined sex as “an individual’s biological status as male, female, or something else,” while gender was defined as “the cultural roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes expected of people based on their sex.”

  In the United States, 1.6 million people over the age of 13 identify as transgender individuals, according to the Williams Institute.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 19:15

• Tom Hanks, Margaret Brennan, & The European Ministers Reveal It All
  Tom Hanks, Margaret Brennan, & The European Ministers Reveal It All

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

  Three recent but completely unrelated events illustrate the deranged hatred of Donald Trump and his supporters continuing now even into a second decade. And yet the venom only further marginalizes the left.

  

  In its too-long 50th anniversary spectacle, Saturday Night Live offered a skit in which marquee actor Tom Hanks did an impression of what the left thinks is a supposedly neanderthal Trump supporter.

  The episode was NBC’s tele-version of the recent Obama-Hillary Clinton-Biden vocabulary of cheap MAGA disparagement: clingers, deplorables, irredeemables, chumps, dregs, semi-fascists, and ultra-MAGAs.

  Most of those stereotyped props were evident in Hanks’ character.

  He was wearing a red MAGA hat (real and not the fake versions of Jussie Smollett’s wild and sinister imagination).

  Hanks sounded off as a superstitious evangelical, a slow-speaking Southern twanger, and a poorly dressed slob.

  And of course, the SNL writers insisted that he play the gratuitous racist. So, Hanks, as a clueless Black Jeopardy contestant, initially refused to even shake the hand of the African-American, assumed intellectually and morally superior, gameshow host.

  We are supposed to believe the Hanks caricature is in contrast with progressives—usually represented in society as the bicoastal enlightened, well-spoken, and snappily dressed.

  Perhaps the SNL crowd thought the counterpart to Hanks’ MAGA sluggard was the recent hard-left, Democratic standard-bearer—the eloquent Kamala Harris of mesmerizing word-salad fame?

  Aside from the reality that Trump captured a record number of African-American male voters, nearly split the Hispanic vote, and made gains with Asian- and Jewish-Americans, he also won massive defections from Wall Street and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.

  So, does the SNL, Tom Hanks, or the left have any idea why it lost the popular vote due to such a diverse group of Democrat apostates?

  Democrats should ask: Who is truly slow-witted? Is it the stumbling Tom Hanks caricature or the real Joe Biden and his ilk?

  The latter bequeathed Americans an open border, 12 million illegal aliens, hyperinflation, two theater wars abroad, mega-trillion-dollar deficits, and the Green New Deal that impoverished the middle classes of all races.

  At about the same time, Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation. He was immediately pressed by host Margaret Brennan, the epitome of the supposedly sophisticated, hip, left-wing journalist, and thus the converse of the Hanks caricature.

  Yet when pressing Rubio about the recent dress-down speech of Vice President J.D. Vance to the European ministers, Brennan thought she would draw on her historical wisdom to confound the supposed Trump megaphone.

  Did Vance not know, Brennan demanded of Rubio, that he was lecturing Europeans about their unfortunate abandonment of free expression and speech? And in Germany of all places, she intoned—the very place, she insisted, where the Nazis once weaponized free speech to conduct the genocide!

  It took Rubio about a nanosecond to clue the historically illiterate Brennan that the Nazis never allowed any free speech.

  It was not excessive or even crude free speech that caused the Holocaust, but precisely the complete absence of all sorts of dissenting views in the marketplace of ideas.

  Ironically, it was precisely Brennan’s own defense of censoring “hate speech,” “disinformation,” and “misinformation” that the Nazis used to brand as extreme and unacceptable any view contrary to their own.

  Next, the stunned European ministers in Munich, of course, sat aghast at Vance’s tutorial.

  None refuted what he was saying, namely that European elites’ efforts to delay or cancel elections that might bring national conservative populists to power are contrary to the European enlightenment.

  The use of weaponized, selective law enforcement to go after peaceful anti-abortion protestors, but not known violent Muslim illegal immigrants, is not only contrary to a free society but suicidal.

  But Vance had a deeper subtext to his remarks.

  The left-wing European elite fear even more than they hate the rising populist pushback.

  The European apparat knows their own past two decades of massive illegal alien influxes, disarmament, deindustrializing, crashing fertility, green mandates, high taxes, crushing regulations, asymmetrical trade tariffs, and suppression of free speech and dissent were precisely what created the populist backlash.

  The growing counter-revolution was not because of bogeyman charges of “racism,” “Islamophobia,” or “xenophobia,” much less “hate speech.”

  The real culprit was bankrupt policies that not only did not work but impoverished the entire European Union middle classes.

  So, the cure to restore European influence and prestige abroad and prosperity and security at home is not more censorship but more debate, dissent, and fresh ideas.

  All that transparency might jumpstart the economy, encourage entrepreneurism, ensure national security, and return Europe to a civil, safe—and influential—society.

  Sometimes Trump haters prove to be his best allies. Their venom shows us they either lack common sense or intelligence or both.

  Such was the case with Tom Hanks, Margaret Brennen, and the European ministers.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 18:25

• US Treasury's Bessent Says Russia Could Win Sanctions Relief If Cooperative In Peace Talks
  US Treasury’s Bessent Says Russia Could Win Sanctions Relief If Cooperative In Peace Talks

  Update(15:00ET): The Trump administration has signaled that Russia could win sanctions relief if Ukraine war talks are successful.

  “Russia could win some relief from U.S. sanctions based on its willingness to negotiate an end to its war in Ukraine,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent conveyed Thursday in a Bloomberg interview. Per the breaking report:

  Asked whether the U.S. was prepared to increase sanctions on Russia or reduce them depending on how talks to end the Ukraine war go, Bessent said: “That’d be a very good characterization.”

  The US Treasury chief then emphasized, “The president is committed to ending this conflict very quickly.”

  Trump’s stance on Ukraine has been met with growing beltway resistance, including from notable Republicans, amid a growing war of words with Zelensky, labeled a ‘dictator’ who doesn’t want to hold elections in a Wednesday Truth Social post by Trump.

  The Ukrainian administration understands itself to be increasingly isolated by Washington, now near the eve of the war reaching the exact three-year mark, and there are reports that Zelensky is being told by his advisors to not respond to Trump’s provocative words. Trump is telling Zelensky he needs to hold elections.

  Any sanctions relief on Moscow would mark a huge shift in the conflict, and Europe would ultimately have no choice but to conform, despite the continuing hawkish statements issued from Brussels. Statements from Rubio also reflected this Trump stance days ago…

  US Secretary of State Marco Rubio:

  The West will have to lift sanctions against the Russian Federation in the event of a settlement of the war in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/UPSHXn3OSs

  — Clash Report (@clashreport) February 18, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Russian markets have responded this week, with the Ruble hitting a six-month high:

  Russia’s ruble surged to its strongest level against the U.S. dollar in more than six months on Thursday, buoyed by renewed U.S.-Russia ties and hopes in Moscow for sanctions relief. The ruble has gained about 14% since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, reversing losses from late 2024.

  On Thursday, Russia’s Central Bank set the official exchange rate at 88.5 rubles against the U.S. dollar, its highest level since August. While Russia does not have a fixed exchange rate, the Central Bank’s figure reflects market trends. The rebound follows a steep drop in the ruble last year when the outgoing Biden administration imposed its toughest sanctions on Russia’’ oil sector since the start of the war”.

  

  Trump has held out the threat of more sanctions, but this new statement from Bessent signals where the US administration’s priorities are headed.

  * * *

  Retired US Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, is in Kiev where on Thursday he had an (apparently) brief meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

  A scheduled post-meeting news conference has been unexpectedly canceled, though no reason was immediately forthcoming, according to a Ukrainian official, presidential spokesman Serhii Nikiforov. The US side made no comment upon the presser’s cancelation.

  The Associated Press observes, “When the meeting began, photographers and video journalists were allowed into a room where the two men shook hands before sitting across from each other at a table at the presidential office in Kyiv.”

  

  What’s the latest in the growing feud that let up to this?

  President Trump on Wednesday night continued bashing Ukraine’s Zelensky, this time describing that his officials treated Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent “rudely” during his visit to Kiev last week.

  Trump further said that Zelensky chose to sleep instead of meeting with the high-ranking American official to discuss the White House proposed mineral rights deal. “Zelensky was sleeping and unavailable to meet him,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.

  Trump’s comments:

  Trump exposes Zelensky’s disgusting treatment of Treasury Sec Bessent, who says may scrap Russia sanctions pic.twitter.com/otuHppZFrn

  — RT (@RT_com) February 20, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The Treasury Secretary had “traveled many hours on the train, which is a dangerous trip,” Trump added, characterizing the whole visit as futile given the Ukrainians “told him ‘no'” on the deal for America to acquire 50% of the country’s rare earth minerals.

  Trump’s anti-Zelensky rhetoric, which included him calling him a “dictator” yesterday, has grown to the point that many pundits see that the Ukrainian president’s exit is nigh. Trump is pressuring Kiev for new elections, which would require parliament to change the constitution.

  Vice President J.D. Vance also warned Wednesday that Zelensky will only bring harm on himself should be continue ‘badmouthing’ President Trump. This was in reference to Zelensky asserting that Trump is living in a Russian “disinformation space”. 

  

  Vance’s warnings were conveyed in an interview published in the Daily Mail:

  “The idea that Zelensky is going to change the president’s mind by badmouthing him in public media, everyone who knows the president will tell you that is an atrocious way to deal with this administration,” Vance said. 

  “We obviously love the Ukrainian people,” but “we obviously think that this war needs to come to a rapid close,” he added. 

  And Vance followed with a reminder: “That is the policy of the president of the United States. It is not based on Russian disinformation.”

  Elon Musk has defended the Trump admin’s fierce critique of Zelensky. For example, Musk had tweeted out the following list by prominent pro-Trump account @DC_Draino: 

  Want to know why Trump called Zelensky a Dictator? Here are the FACTS:

  • He’s in year 6 of his 5 year term
  • Declared martial law Feb 2022 and has banned elections since then
  • Banned 11 political parties
  • Passed law in 2022 to censor journalists and combined all news into one gov’t station
  • Journalists investigating his corruption get conscripted and thrown on the front lines to die

  The list ended with the observation that “Even Saddam Hussein held elections!” We should add to this list the ongoing persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the Zelensky government, merely because it maintains spiritual communion with the Moscow Patriarchate.

  Must watch. The truth about the Ukraine persecution of the canonical Church. https://t.co/4xpUyxSfKL

  — Fr. Michael Lillie (@FrLillie) February 20, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  At this point, many pundits believe it’s only a matter of time before there’s a change in Ukraine’s government. European leaders are of course rallying around Zelensky, but the pressure and power of Washington is a different matter, and in essence Trump is warning that if the Zelensky doesn’t achieve peace, there will be drastic changes in Kiev.

  *  *  *

  Our most popular supplement Astaxanthin – the ultimate antioxidant, is back in stock at ZH Store! Grab some today.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 18:11

• Kennedy Center Cancels Gay Men's Chorus Show Meant To Kick Off Pride Month
  Kennedy Center Cancels Gay Men’s Chorus Show Meant To Kick Off Pride Month

  The casualties of the Trump administration’s war on government-sponsored, taxpayer-subsidized wokeism are piling up. In the latest development, a gay men’s chorus performance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has been yanked off the schedule. 

  Along with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington DC was set to put on a show called “A Peacock Among Pigeons: Celebrating 50 Years of Pride.” Timed for late May, the show was mean to kick off Pride month. 

  

  The show was based on an LGBT-themed children’s book of the same name, which has been among many such child-indoctrination works targeted for removal from school and public libraries. Rather than simply promoting equality and tolerance, A Peacock Among Pigeons positions being LGBTQ as something more special than being straight. Here’s how the plot is described on the book’s Amazon listing: 

  Peter the peacock doesn’t know how it happened, but he found himself growing up in a flock of pigeons. Surrounded by a world of grey, he found himself feeling less than his peers and was embarrassed by his feathers. After he fails to blend in, he decides that it’s time to learn to fly on his own. Along the way, he meets new bird friends from all different flocks that teach him a lesson he will never forget.

  

  Trump ruffled feathers earlier this month when he maneuvered himself into the chairmanship of the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees, ousting Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein. Trump filled board vacancies with allies like Vice President JD Vance’s wife, Trump chief of staff Susie Wiles, the wife of the Commerce secretary, and the wife of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who voted Trump in, while also giving the boot to Kennedy Center president Deborah Rutter and tapping Ric Grennell as her temporary replacement. The gay Grenell‘s most noteworthy experience in managing theater was his service as acting Director of National Intelligence. 

  At the time of the Kennedy Center regime change, Trump promised to make the venue great again. “Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP,” he said on Truth Social. 

  

  National Symphony Orchestra executive director Jean Davidson claims the decision to nix the show came before the Trump coup. “We made the decision to postpone Peacock Among Pigeons due to financial and scheduling factors,” he said in a statement. “We chose to replace it with The Wizard of Oz, another suitable program for World PRIDE participation.”  

  Video of Democrats protesting the Trump administration at the Kennedy Center via interpretive dance. pic.twitter.com/meT5Aj6bG3

  — Nick Ballas (@NicholasBallas) February 19, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The Gay Men’s Chorus, which performed at Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, said it was “deeply disappointed” with the decision. “We believe in the power of music to educate and uplift, to foster love, understanding, and community, and we regret that this opportunity has been taken away.”

  The ascendancy of Trump and his allies at the Kennedy Center has prompted a wave of cancellations by artists themselves, as well as resignations of people associated with the venue. Actress, writer and comedian Issa Rae cancelled a sold-out March 1 show, citing “an infringement on the values of an institution that has faithfully celebrated artists of all backgrounds. Musician and wimpy-voiced singer Ben Folds — who has married and divorced five women, calls his work “punk rock for sissies” but is totally not gay — resigned as artistic adviser to the National Symphony Orchestra. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 18:00

• Israel Suspends All Public Transport After Three Buses Explode In Quick Succession
  Israel Suspends All Public Transport After Three Buses Explode In Quick Succession

  On Thursday night Israel’s Transportation Authority halted all public transport including the operation of all buses, trains, and light rails, following an attempted terror attack in the Tel Aviv suburbs of Bat Yam and Holon.

  Three empty buses exploded had exploded in quick succession in parking lots in these areas, and police believe the detonations were actually intended to happen in the morning, when the buses are usually packed.

  

  No injuries have been reported, but police said at least two other unexploded devices were discovered on nearby parked buses. A search for suspects and evidence as to who is behind the attacks is underway.

  Tel Aviv District police chief Haim Sargarof was cited in local media as saying the bomb plot “looks like something [that originated] in the West Bank.”

  Further details presented in Israeli media said:

  According to a Channel 12 news report, the devices were slated to explode on Friday, when the buses were in use, but were somehow set off early. The network also reported that one of the undetonated devices was found due to an alert of a passenger who notified the driver of a suspicious bag.

  In a statement, the Bat Yam Municipality said that “miraculously, the buses arrived at the parking lots a moment before the explosion,” and were already empty of their passengers.

  Had the plot not been thwarted (by the apparent early explosions), this means potentially up to five buses could have been detonated with people on them, which would could have been one of the worst terror attacks in Tel Aviv history.

  Israel’s Defense Ministry has in the wake of the bomb plot said it is ramping up operations in the West Bank, to crack down on Palestinian militants.

  “In light of the severe terror attack attempts [in the Tel Aviv area] by Palestinian terror organizations against the civilian population in Israel, I instructed the IDF to increase the intensity of the counterterrorism activity in the Tulkram refugee camp, and all the refugee camps in Judea and Samaria,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said.

  BREAKING:

  3 buses just exploded in a town near Tel Aviv.

  The buses were empty. It seems like the bombs exploded prematurely. pic.twitter.com/CFYIkJoVWw

  — Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) February 20, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Some Palestinian sources are accusing Israel of being behind a ‘false flag’ operation in order to justify a greater security presence and crackdown in the West Bank.

  Since the Oct.7 terror attacks by Hamas, there’s been internecine street fighting in some West Bank towns and camps, with hundreds of Palestinians killed, and dozens of Israelis dead and injured as a result.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 17:20

• RFK Jr. Has Early Mandate to Tackle Children's Health
  RFK Jr. Has Early Mandate to Tackle Children’s Health

  Authored by Jeff Louderback via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Immediately after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Feb. 13, he was tasked with heading up a commission primarily focused on childhood health.

  

  Kennedy is the chairman of the new President’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, created by President Donald Trump via executive order.

  The commission directs executive departments and federal agencies to primarily advise the president on how to “address the childhood chronic disease crisis.”

  It is tasked to explore contributing causes to childhood chronic diseases such as “the American diet, absorption of toxic material, medical treatments, lifestyle, environmental factors, government policies, food production techniques, electromagnetic radiation, and corporate influence or cronyism.”

  The mandate aligns with Kennedy’s presidential campaign platform and his previous work at Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit that he founded in 2007.

  “I have prayed each morning for the past two decades for God to put me in a position to solve the childhood chronic disease epidemic and now, thanks to you Mr. President, we will make this promise a reality,” Kennedy said in a Feb. 13 statement.

  Aside from the commission, as head of HHS, Kennedy will oversee a budget of $1.8 trillion for fiscal year 2025, the largest of any federal agency.

  HHS oversees 13 agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

  Six in 10 Americans have at least one chronic disease, and four in 10 have two or more chronic diseases, according to the executive order. It’s also estimated that one in five adults in the United States lives with a mental illness.

  Seventy-seven percent of young adults do not qualify for the military based, in large part, on their health scores, and 90 percent of the nation’s $4.5 trillion in annual health care spending is for people with chronic and mental health conditions, according to a White House fact sheet.

  “In short, Americans of all ages are becoming sicker, beset by illnesses that our medical system is not addressing effectively. These trends harm us, our economy, and our security,” the order reads.

  The President’s MAHA Commission will demonstrate “gold-standard research on why Americans are getting sick in all health-related research funded by the federal government,” the fact sheet states.

  

  Within 100 days (by ​​May 22), the commission will deliver an initial assessment of potential factors that contribute to the chronic disease epidemic, the order states. A national Make Our Children Healthy Again strategy will be presented within 180 days.

  The commission includes the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency; the departments of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, Education, and Housing and Urban Development; and several economic advisers. The FDA commissioner, the CDC director, and the NIH director will also be involved.

  Sayer Ji, co-founder of Stand for Health Freedom and founder and director of GreenMedInfo, said Trump’s executive order is “an extraordinary and historic moment for the health freedom movement and the future of our nation’s well-being.”

  The commission institutionalizes the MAHA movement that Kennedy got behind last year, he said.

  “For far too long, we have watched as chronic disease, vaccine injury, environmental toxicity and regulatory capture have devastated the health of millions—especially our children,” Ji said.

  “For the first time in modern history, a federal commission will formally acknowledge these crises and work toward real solutions that put the well-being of the American people over corporate profits.”

  ‘Radical Transparency’

  Kennedy has said that “radical transparency and returning gold-standard science to the NIH, the FDA and CDC,” and “ending the corporate capture of those agencies” that led to compromised science are two parts of his plan.

  These dovetail with the commission’s objectives.

  Federally funded health research should “avoid conflicts of interest,” empower Americans through transparency and open-source data, “and should avoid or eliminate conflicts of interest that skew outcomes and perpetuate distrust,” the White House said regarding the commission.

  The NIH and other health-related research funded by the federal government should prioritize gold-standard research on the root causes of why Americans are getting sick, according to the fact sheet.

  

  Kennedy said he believes that little will change in the health arena until corporate influence on the FDA, the CDC, and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) is addressed.

  At a roundtable organized by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) in September 2024, Kennedy said these agencies “advance the mercantile and commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry,“ which has transformed the agencies and the food industry into ”sock puppets for the industry” that they’re supposed to regulate.

  Working With Agriculture Secretary

  Kennedy is expected to work with Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins on several initiatives, aside from the new commission.

  The USDA and HHS have a late 2025 deadline to complete the 2025–2030 edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

  Rollins said on Feb. 14 that she will also work with Kennedy and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to restrict Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, also known as food stamps, to healthier items.

  “We really need to look at where that money is going, what it’s being spent on,” she said. “I look forward to working with Bobby Kennedy as we figure out, ‘Do we have the healthiest choices?’ So when a taxpayer is putting money into SNAP, are we OK with us using their tax dollars to feed really bad food and sugary drinks to children who perhaps need something more nutritious?”

  SNAP benefits were distributed to 42.1 million people in fiscal year 2023, according to the USDA.

  Rollins said she believes SNAP grew by almost 30 percent under the Biden administration.

  “Will we ever take food out of a hungry child’s mouth? Of course not, this is the United States of America,” she said.

  Read the rest here…

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 17:00

• "When Narrative Runs Into Reality"
  “When Narrative Runs Into Reality”

  Legacy media TV anchor Gayle King of CBS appeared shocked to learn that President Trump’s layoffs of FAA employees do not impact air travel safety in the US. Meanwhile, Democrats have been drumming up misinformation and disinformation campaigns with their legacy corporate media partners to push a narrative that layoffs are endangering air safety. 

  Delta CEO Ed Bastian sets the record straight for far-left propagandist TV news anchor Gayle King:

  The cuts do not affect us. I’ve been in close communication with the Secretary of Transportation. I understand that the, the cuts at this time are something that are raising questions, but the reality is there’s over 50,000 people that work at the FAA. And the cuts, I understand, were 300 people, and they were in non-critical safety functions.

  The Trump administration has committed to investing deeply in terms of improving the overall technologies that are used in the air traffic control systems and modernizing the skies. They’ve committed to hiring additional controllers and investigators, and safety and investigators. So no, I’m not concerned with that at all.

  Delta CEO Ed Bastian leaves CBS’s Gayle King in a state of shock after he defends the Trump administration’s planned changes to the FAA:

  “The cuts do not affect us. I’ve been in close communication with the Secretary of Transportation. I understand that the, the cuts at this… pic.twitter.com/3SvKqWlLVR

  — Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) February 19, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  “When narrative runs into reality,” CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings wrote on X, responding to Kirk’s video. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 16:40

• DOGE Is What Happens When Trust In Government Hits Zero
  DOGE Is What Happens When Trust In Government Hits Zero

  Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

  Multiple people over the last week or two have asked me – as a Trump voter in this last election – what I think about President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) having access to all types of critical government systems, including those at the Treasury and the Social Security Administration. Most recently, I talked about it last night on a podcast with George Gammon.

  The way I, and people on both sides of the political aisle, feel about DOGE is mostly irrelevant. Like most Americans, I’m sitting by and watching them gain access to and burrow through critical government infrastructure under the guise of looking for waste, fraud, and abuse. Like I do with my thoughts when I’m meditating, I’m just watching for the time being. I’m observing without judgment.

  And yes, I do feel a bit conflicted. Part of me knows that sending teenagers named “Big Balls” deep into these government databases to try and unearth fraud isn’t a thoughtful or nuanced way to deal with the situation. But the other part of me can’t help but throw my hands up in the air and exclaim, “That’s what we get.”

  Remember, the “adults” were supposedly already in charge over the last four years and, to me, it’s inconceivable how things could possibly get any worse from our country’s fiscal management standpoint. The “adults” ran up the debt at record speed. The “adults” opened our border and welcomed illegal immigrants, allowing many of the them to collect government benefits paid for by taxpayers. The “adults” lied to us and told us Joe Biden was mentally fit for office. The “adults” pushed censorship in media and on social media.

  I’m a big believer in people, places, and things reaping what they sow, and after all this “adulting”, maybe “Big Balls” is exactly what we deserve.

  

  Donald Trump won the election in a landslide because the Democrats and the Washington, D.C. political machine made it happen. As I’ve pointed out multiple times on this blog, the elites in D.C. may have had overwhelming control, but they lacked finesse in delivering their narratives and failed to hide their true intentions from the American people. Ergo, for better or worse, this led the United States to elect a man widely viewed as a political outsider. Trump campaigned on an agenda that, 15 years ago, would have never held enough water with the American people to get behind it. But thanks to what can only be described as four years of gross incompetence under a barely conscious President Biden, it was all but destiny that Trump would win this election by a landslide.

  And with Trump comes the idea of massive government cuts, and DOGE. It has hardly been a secret that the U.S. government has been fiscally irresponsible for decades. This irresponsibility—marked by sending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas in foreign aid while military veterans lay dying on U.S. city streets—has reached a fever pitch where even the everyday American can’t ignore it.

  

  Photo: Inc.

  The United States is drowning in debt, running larger and larger fiscal deficits that were only casually mentioned by Treasury Secretary Yellen and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, despite their “runaway train” nature.

  

  U.S. National Debt going parabolic

  The expansion of the money supply, the sharp increase in debt-to-GDP, and runaway inflation have made our cowardly fiscal policies something digestible even to the most uninitiated U.S. citizens who would otherwise never track the economy.

  

  Debt/GDP up almost 4x since the early 1970s

  When the average American sees a chart of our debt-to-GDP combined with massive inflation, then watches government officials hurriedly clean up the entire city of San Francisco in 48 hours simply because CCP President Xi Jinping was visiting, it makes even the most uninterested financial minds perk up and ask, “What the hell is really going on here?” Surely, if we can clean up San Francisco that quickly for a communist foreign leader, we should be doing it daily for American citizens, right?

  

  On top of that, how come every time I visit a place like Montreal or Europe, their trains, subways, public squares and cities appear cleaner, nicer, newer and far more functional than those in the U.S.? Why is there less homelessness and better social services? Are they really charging that much more in taxes relative to GDP than the U.S.?

  Along these lines, Americans have begun asking themselves similar questions, all leading to a central point: “What are we getting for our tax dollars?”

  After all, the country is running a massive deficit, and Democrats’ unhealthy obsession with taxation drifted last year into extremely regressive territory—like taxing unrealized capital gains. So, if you’re going to tax gains I haven’t even made yet, can I at least board one – just one – subway car in Philadelphia that doesn’t smell overwhelmingly like human fecal matter?

  Yes, Americans like me have been left wondering things like: If the IRS can hire 100,000 new agents to pore over things like $600 Venmo transactions under the guise of scraping together a few extra million dollars in tax revenue, why is it acceptable for billions, and collectively possibly trillions to just — POOF! — go missing, like some kind of magic trick being performed at a 13 year old’s birthday party?

  The obsession with taxation piecemeal stands in stark contrast to the huge amounts of tax revenue that either ends up in foreign pockets or disappears without explanation.

  

  These types of situations are what we’ve sown—DOGE is what we’ve reaped.

  To say that DOGE is moving fast and breaking things would be an understatement. But in reality, what alternative approach would have been better at this point? The country’s taxation, spending, and fiscal habits are so poorly calibrated that promising minor cuts here and there would accomplish nothing. Letting loose a bull in the China shop of the American government, however, quickly postures up and puts everyone on notice: The gravy train has officially ended, and nothing is off-limits.

  Would there be more nuanced and strategic ways to handle the problem? Probably. But that’s not what we deserve at this point. Sadly, in some ways we deserve a bit of mayhem while reviewing how the country is managing its finances. And my answer to “what are your thoughts about DOGE” is irrelevant, because all I can do is sit back and watch it unfold.

  ---

  🔥 50% OFF FOR LIFE: Using this coupon entitles you to 50% off an annual subscription to Fringe Finance for life: Get 50% off forever

  ---

  When it comes to public sentiment, I think the gross misuses of taxpayer money that DOGE has—and likely will continue to—uncover will leave the average American so aghast that concerns about how “strategic” DOGE is in its approach could eventually play second fiddle.

  To be clear, I’m not condoning the mishandling of private taxpayer information, nor am I endorsing DOGE’s methods. But I do understand how, karmically, this feels like the country getting exactly what it deserves after decades of politicians speaking out of both sides of their mouths about controlling spending and taxation.

  Ultimately, once the chaos settles and DOGE has run its course, I believe the government will recalibrate and rebuild in ways it wouldn’t have otherwise. Sure, DOGE is likely wildly overshooting the mark in multiple ways, but I hope that when the establishment reasserts control—whether through the judiciary, midterms, or RINOs turning on the MAGA movement—they will look back at this feeling of discomfort as a reminder not to grow too complacent with the waste, fraud, and abuse, as well as the erratic and irresponsible spending, that our government has made commonplace.

  And at least in that regard, I think DOGE will have had somewhat of a positive impact.

  

  QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author.

  This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. I may or may not own names I write about and are watching. Sometimes I’m bullish without owning things, sometimes I’m bearish and do own things. Just assume my positions could be exactly the opposite of what you think they are just in case. If I’m long I could quickly be short and vice versa. I won’t update my positions. All positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice and at any point I can be long, short or neutral on any position. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 16:20

• Trump Officially Signs Kash Patel In As FBI Director
  Trump Officially Signs Kash Patel In As FBI Director

  The Senate on Thursday confirmed Kash Patel to lead the FBI.

  

  Patel had widespread support of Republicans – even Mitch McConnell (!), who argued that the Trump nominee would reform the nation’s top law enforcement agency after decades of corruption.

  

  “Mr. Patel should be our next FBI director because the FBI has been infected by political bias and weaponized against the American people. Mr. Patel knows it, Mr. Patel exposed it, and Mr. Patel has been targeted for it,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said last week during a committee meeting to discuss Patel’s nomination, before the panel advanced Patel in a party-line vote.

  Update (1550ET): In response to his confirmation, Patel said he was “honored” to have been confirmed, and he will now “rebuild trust in the FBI.”

  “The FBI has a storied legacy—from the “G-Men” to safeguarding our nation in the wake of 9/11. The American people deserve an FBI that is transparent, accountable, and committed to justice. The politicalization of our justice system has eroded public trust—but that ends today. My mission as Director is clear: let good cops be cops—and rebuild trust in the FBI,” he said in a post on X, adding “And to those who seek to harm Americans—consider this your warning. We will hunt you down in every corner of this planet.“

  Update (1944ET): Trump has officially signed Patel in as the new Director of the FBI…

  Moments ago in the Oval Office.

  Congratulations to the Ninth Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kash Patel.

  President Trump has officially signed the commission…

  Follow Kash on his new 𝕏 account: @FBIDirectorKash. pic.twitter.com/qcRqxE20d1

  — Dan Scavino (@Scavino47) February 21, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Democrats, meanwhile are positively spooked…

  JUST IN: Adam Schiff, who deceived the public for 8 years by weaponizing his position against his political enemies, says Kash Patel is a political hack who will weaponize his position against his political enemies.

  The irony.

  In 2023, Schiff was called out to his face on CNN… pic.twitter.com/0pYAkq045o

  — Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 20, 2025

  Ask Adam Schiff why he’s still withholding the October 2019 transcript of former Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.

  Eight hours of closed-door testimony. All but guarantee it will answer a number of important questions surrounding Trump’s 1st impeachment.

  — Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) February 20, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Meanwhile, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) – who notably blocked the release of the Epstein client list that Patel has vowed to expose, held a press conference outside FBI headquarters on Thursday, slamming what he called Patel’s “bizarre political statements” spanning Jan. 6, to retribution – and accused Reepublicans of “willfully ignoring red flags on Mr. Patel,” who he argued has “neither the experience, the judgment or the temperament” to be FBI chief for the next decade.

  “Mr. Patel will be a political and national security disaster,” said Durbin.

  Patel, a vocal critic of the FBI, has worked in several roles during the first Trump administration, including acting deputy director of national intelligence. In prior comments, Patel said he wanted to clean out the bureau’s headquarters in Washington DC as part of a mission to dismantle the Deep State.

  *  *  *

  You can support ZeroHedge by picking up a waxed canvas hat!

  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 15:49

• Pentagon 8% 'Cut' Is Actually Shifting Funds From 'Woke Programs' To America First
  Pentagon 8% ‘Cut’ Is Actually Shifting Funds From ‘Woke Programs’ To America First

  On Wednesday, a Washington Post report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had directed senior Pentagon leaders to prepare for 8% budget cuts sent Palantir and other defense stocks plunging.

  

  “The proposed cuts, if adopted, would mark the largest effort to rein in Pentagon spending since 2013,” wrote WaPo.

  Except that’s not what’s going on…

  On Wednesday night, Breaking Defense‘s Aaron Mehta and Ashley Roque reported that the ‘cuts’ are actually Hegseth ordering the review of the department’s 2026 budget “in order to shift funds from legacy programs towards President Donald Trump’s priorities, including border security and the Iron Dome for America.”

  “Secretary Hegseth has directed a review to identify offsets from the Biden Administration’s FY26 budget that could be realigned from low-impact and low-priority Biden-legacy programs to align with President Trump’s America First priorities for our national defense,” acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Salesses said in a Wednesday night statement.

  “The Department will develop a list of potential offsets that could be used to fund these priorities, as well as to refocus the Department on its core mission of deterring and winning wars. The offsets are targeted at 8% of the Biden Administration’s FY26 budget, totaling around $50 billion, which will then be spent on programs aligned with President Trump’s priorities.“

  As Breaking Defense notes further;

  After the statement was released, Breaking Defense obtained a portion of Hegseth’s memo, which lists 17 “offsets” which “may not be included by services and component in their eight percent decrease” recommendations. Those are:

  • Southwest Border Activities
  • Combating Transnational Criminal Organizations in the Western Hemisphere
  • Audit
  • Nuclear Modernization (including NC3)
  • Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs)
  • Virginia-class Submarines
  • Executable Surface Ships
  • Homeland Missile Defense
  • One-Way Attack/Autonomous Systems
  • Counter-small UAS Initiatives
  • Priority Critical Cybersecurity
  • Munitions
  • Core Readiness, including full DRT funding
  • Munitions and Energetics Organic Industrial Bases
  • Executable INDOPACOM MILCON
  • Combatant Command support agency funding for INDOPACOM, NORTHCOM, SPACECOM, STRATCOM, CYBERCOM, and TRANSCOM
  • Medical Private-Sector Care

  It’s unclear what kind of programs will be targeted outside this list, although Salesses in his statement said the department will target “unnecessary spending” like “so-called ‘climate change’ and other woke programs, as well as excessive bureaucracy.” It’s also unclear if the decision not to exempt support for EUCOM, AFRICOM, CENTCOM or SOUTHCOM is a sign that those regions may be downplayed as priorities.

  According to Salesses, the department will target “unnecessary spending” such as “so-called ‘climate change’ and other woke programs, as well as excessive bureaucracy.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 02/20/2025 – 15:45

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• USAID, Soft Power, And How Solzhenitsyn Predicted This Crisis
  USAID, Soft Power, And How Solzhenitsyn Predicted This Crisis

  Via OneLeggedParrot.com,

  The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) existed to fan America’s post-World War II brand as the guardian of democracy in the world. It was mostly an info-op euphemistically called soft power. 

  The mission meant that it occasionally helped people, because that made America look good. The “AID” moniker was a rhetorical trick, though. USAID handled some of the dirtiest jobs of American hegemony, like union busting, censorship, and election fixing. 

  Assassinations were left to the CIA, for the most part. 

  Last week, USAID was shut down and everyone except a skeleton staff was laid off. Its employees emerged from the woodwork, quite offended. Shutting down the agency hit a lot of Washingtonians right in their “I’m important and the world needs me!” glass jaws.

  If you are a certain kind of mediocrity who has known only the circle of money and influence Washington provides, there are oodles of self-regard when a great and grand wizard at the Department of State confers on you the title Doctor of Thinkology.

  “Now go, therefore, and topple the government of Bangladesh!” – is a fair summary of the valedictory. That is not an exaggeration. Soft power did that recently.

  Americans are marinated from their infancy in movies, media, and television. The foreign policy establishment occupies the Walter Mitty role in the American empire. Since at least 1948, Washington bureaucrats have been on a hero’s journey built around the conceit that the United States exercises power always and only to save the world. 

  Having a steel desk in a stone building with discretionary control over a budget line item made you a Star Trooper wherever the Empire decided to strike back. Then 2016 happened. 

  Trump won the presidency on the promise that he would destroy Washington’s permanent bureaucracy – calling it the deep state. Minor state functionaries responded by saying Vladimir Putin was behind him. 

  In the clown cuckoo land of Washington, the Star Troopers needed to be fighting a diabolical mastermind with a Russian accent, or it was just not self-affirming. Getting mean-tweeted at by a reality show host with a wild haircut threatened their delusions of grandeur more than losing wars, which they had been doing regularly for 70 years.

  The FBI officially launched Crossfire Hurricane on July 31, 2016. A few days later, the secret agent who opened the investigation texted his secret agent lover, “We’ll stop” Trump. Out of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, Trump and Putin had to walk into Peter Strzok and Lisa Paige’s. 

  And, too, “It’s Putin and we’ll get him,” sounds better whispered over a pillow at the Fairmont Hotel in Gaithersburg, Maryland than, “people in mesh hats are exercising their democratic prerogative to stop funding our pretend world, and we may want to stay out of this one.”

  At one point last week, Mike Benz – who has inhabited X for years as the bugle blowing Gunga Din of USAID’s mendacity – connected nepo baby turned playground mean girl Liz Cheney to USAID. Elon Musk retweeted Benz. 

  To which Liz Cheney herself responded: 

  Damn right, @Elon. I’m proud of what America did to win the Cold War, defeat Soviet communism, and defend democracy. Our nation stood for freedom. You may be unfamiliar with that part of our history since you weren’t yet an American citizen.

  Uh-huh. After she graduated from college, Liz Cheney’s then Defense Secretary dad got her a job at USAID in Washington, and she thinks she ended the Cold War. 

  

  She went from there to law school and then in 2002 her Vice President dad got her appointed deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, where she and her dad proceeded to wreak havoc. 

  She now adorably thinks that starship lassoing Elon Musk lacks street cred because his daddy never got him a job where he stopped communism.

  The fake world where Dick and Liz defend democracy, and Peter Strzok and Lisa Paige bang to Putin fantasies – the world of the Washington beltway – was hatched in the aftermath of World War II. 

  It is an odd mix of propaganda, media, technology, and the storytelling method known as the hero’s journey. 

  The info-op was run out of USAID and other federal agencies, and it was meant to convince the world that the United States is a force for good that opposes tyranny wherever it finds it. In some ways, it worked. 

  For all anyone knows, Western Europe would have turned Communist if America did not present a “shining city on a hill” alternative. And, okay, fix elections and control information.

  Meddling in other countries was only ever meant to win the peace, though. 

  When the peace was finally won in 1991, the minor functionaries started hatching new villains, disputes, and even viruses just so they could fight them. 

  Washington turned into a Cold War LARP.

  The result: 

  • Ukraine is destroyed. 
  • The Taliban is governing Afghanistan and ISIS has taken Syria. 
  • The pipeline that supplies Germany’s energy supply has been blown up, tanking its economy. And you know what happened last time the West’s guardian of democracy project tanked the German economy. Just sayin’.
  • Ancient Christianity has been expelled from every place in the Middle East where American soft power has meddled. They have set their sights on destroying Catholic-Lebanon (by law, the president of Lebanon must be Catholic – did you know that?) in a proxy war with Iran.
  • Most wildly, perhaps, American bureaucrats are responsible for the greatest pandemic since the Spanish Flu. They will deny it, and say it came from a rando bat. But the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that the virus emanated from gain of function research on Coronaviruses the American bureaucracy was funding at that very moment in the very lab in the very town where COVID originated.

  Which provides a helpful metaphor. 

  Creating a virus to fight that virus is the definition of gain of function research. Similarly, Peter Strzok fabricated Putin in the Trump campaign just so he could fight him. Washington is a gain of function experiment wrapped in hero’s journeys draped in delusions of grandeur. 

  Too many in Trump-world think the problem will go away if the institutions are dismantled. 

  Get rid of USAID and The Department of Education, and Liz Cheney gets a job at her local Walmart, where she belongs.

  It is not an institutional problem, though, so much as thousands of individual pathologies. 

  The problem is that Liz Cheney really thinks she is important. 

  That is the tumor that needs to be excised.

  Removing soft power’s influence on the American psyche is the most delicate surgery of all, because it slices into the sacred beliefs of everyone, including (maybe especially) Republicans. Surgery is only successful when enough people reach the conclusion, “I am being manipulated.” 

  This moment was predicted.

  In 1978, Soviet dissident in exile Alexander Solzhenitsyn addressed the graduating class of Harvard University. He was expected to provide a stemwinder against Communism and at least an implied tribute to America. 

  Instead, he issued a criticism of the West, based on the narrative control exercised over people. He called it “fashion” and blamed the media: 

  There is yet another surprise for someone coming from the East, where the press is rigorously unified. One gradually discovers a common trend of preferences within the Western press as a whole. It is a fashion; there are generally accepted patterns of judgment; there may be common corporate interests, the sum effect being not competition but unification. Enormous freedom exists for the press, but not for the readership because newspaper[s] mostly develop stress and emphasis to those opinions which do not too openly contradict their own and the general trend.

  Without any censorship, in the West fashionable trends of thought and ideas are carefully separated from those which are not fashionable; nothing is forbidden, but what is not fashionable will hardly ever find its way into periodicals or books or be heard in colleges. Legally your researchers are free, but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day….This gives birth to strong mass prejudices, to blindness, which is most dangerous in our dynamic era…. It will only be broken by the pitiless crowbar of events.

  Soviet Communism has fallen. Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia and lived happily under Putin’s rule. His books are required reading in Russian schools. The state paid tribute to him and other Russian writers in the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics held in Sochi, Russia.

  America’s control of human behavior by fashion has not yet collapsed. 

  Today the West is facing a “pitiless crowbar of events.” Public policy could not even be formulated for a pandemic without casting every prescription as a political choice, resulting in collective behavior that have less to do with rigorous causal connections than with tribal adherence.

  Politics is no longer judged by whether it serves the greater good, but by how dutifully it bows to the information regime. It resembles 14-year-old girls in the schoolyard, requiring mimesis in manner of dress and behavior under threat of bullying. In Solzhenitsyn’s word, fashion.

  The availability of information on the internet means the state cannot impose its approved narrative outside of America’s groupthink urban enclaves where status is highly staked to fashion. The only way to control non-status people is to control information itself, with censorship, prosecution, and entire bureaucracies dedicated to curbing “misinformation” – i.e., alternative views that do not agree with the state. 

  Solzhenitsyn would eventually encounter reactions to his Harvard speech from ordinary Americans along the lines of “we know in our hearts he is right.” This led him to distinguish between what he called “the arrogant stance of the America of New York and Washington” and what he observed elsewhere:

  Gradually another America began unfolding before my eyes, one that was small-town and robust, the heartland, the America I had envisioned as I was writing my speech, and to which my speech was addressed.

  He expressed “a glimmer of hope” that opposition to the dictatorship of fashion could spring from the place he called “another America.” 

  The needless wars will not go away until both Democrats and Republicans realize that some of what emanates from the American empire are soft power seeded lies. The truth is a greater medicine than any change in policy could ever be.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 23:35

• Charting America's Single Mothers By Ethnicity
  Charting America’s Single Mothers By Ethnicity

  There are 7.3 million single mothers in the U.S., as well as 1.9 million single fathers. Single parents often face the dual challenge of being both the primary breadwinners and caregivers for their families.

  This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, represents the percentage of mothers in the U.S. who are single, by race/ethnicity, in 2023.

  

  The data comes from the Center for American Progress.

  21% of All Mothers Are Single

  In 2023, single-mother families accounted for 1 in 5 families with children under 18.

  • 47% of Black mothers were single mothers.

  • 25% of Hispanic mothers were single mothers.

  The majority of single mothers are in their 30s or 40s and do not have a college degree. Overall, single mothers face a 28% poverty rate.

  

  Changes in Family Structure Over Time

  According to the Center for American Progress, family structures in the U.S. have changed significantly over the past five decades.

  • In 1970, 67% of adults (ages 25 to 49) lived with a spouse and at least one child.

  • By 2021, that number had dropped to 37%.

  Marriage rates have also declined:

  • In 1970, 69% of adults were married, compared to 50% in 2021.

  • Meanwhile, the percentage of adults who have never been married rose from 17% to 31% over the same period.

  If you enjoyed this topic, check out this graphic that shows the distribution of wealth in the United States from 1990 to 2023 by generation.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 23:10

• US-Backed Kurdish SDF Agrees To Integrate Into Jolani's Syrian Army
  US-Backed Kurdish SDF Agrees To Integrate Into Jolani’s Syrian Army

  Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

  A major agreement has reportedly been reached between the Kurdish SDF and the post-Assad Syrian government, which will reportedly include the full integration of SDF fighters into the national army. The deal also is said to have included the civil leadership in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).

  Details are still emerging about a lot of exact specifics beyond the SDF integration into the military, which has been sought since the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took over Syria and ousted the former Assad government. The deal is expected to increase the integration of AANES territory into national government institutions at least to some extent.

  

  It is an open question, however, how much autonomy the Kurds in that territory might retain. Some of the HTS leaders have ruled out the idea of giving any autonomy to the Kurds, and suggested that any role in the national government requires them to first totally disarm and submit.

  Integration into the Syrian Army seems well short of that position, and raises the question of how Turkey will respond to the announcement. Turkey has insisted they would invade if the SDF weren’t eliminated, and integration might be short enough of that goal that Turkey close partnership with the HTS could be impacted.

  SDF leader Mazloum Abdi has made comments about the potential for a deal just a day prior to these announcements. Abdi said that he was hopeful for the new HTS-led government in Syria, and promised SDF support for national stability and unity.

  Turkey isn’t the only potential objector here. The Kurdistan Syria Front (KSF) issued a statement very critical of SDF and the AANES deal, even though its exact terms still aren’t public.

  They warned that the deal undermines the legitimate rights of Kurds in Syria, and complained of a “path of compromise” the SDF and their associates have been on since October.

  The KSF was particularly critical of the lack of consensus with other Kurdish groups before making the deal, saying that they were undermining the appearance of a unified Kurdish stance in regional and international negotiations.

  Welcome to the Syrian Republic

  — Rojava Network (@RojavaNetwork) February 18, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  It’s also not certain what the US position on this SDF deal is. The US has long supported the SDF, but in recent weeks has talked of withdrawing from Syria. The SDF says they have not been informed about any planned US withdrawal, and the US stance toward the HTS government remains uncertain.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 22:45

• Visualizing Every US State Resized Based On Population
  Visualizing Every US State Resized Based On Population

  The U.S. is the world’s fourth-largest country by total area, third by land area, and is home to around 340 million people.

  But nearly one-third of those people live in just three states: California, Texas, and New York.

  This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao, reimagines the usual U.S. map with the states resized based on their populations. Data is from the Census Bureau, as of 2024.

  

  Alaska Isn’t the Largest Anymore

  If sized by population, Alaska would be the third-smallest state (fourth if counting D.C.) in the country.

  This is a far cry from its top of the rankings as America’s largest state by area (665,284 sq. miles).

  Rank	States	State Code	Population (2024)
  1	California	CA	39.4M
  2	Texas	TX	31.3M
  3	Florida	FL	23.4M
  4	New York	NY	19.9M
  5	Pennsylvania	PA	13.1M
  6	Illinois	IL	12.7M
  7	Ohio	OH	11.9M
  8	Georgia	GA	11.2M
  9	North Carolina	NC	11.0M
  10	Michigan	MI	10.1M
  11	New Jersey	NJ	9.5M
  12	Virginia	VA	8.8M
  13	Washington	WA	8.0M
  14	Arizona	AZ	7.6M
  15	Tennessee	TN	7.2M
  16	Massachusetts	MA	7.1M
  17	Indiana	IN	6.9M
  18	Maryland	MD	6.3M
  19	Missouri	MO	6.2M
  20	Wisconsin	WI	6.0M
  21	Colorado	CO	6.0M
  22	Minnesota	MN	5.8M
  23	South Carolina	SC	5.5M
  24	Alabama	AL	5.2M
  25	Louisiana	LA	4.6M
  26	Kentucky	KY	4.6M
  27	Oregon	OR	4.3M
  28	Oklahoma	OK	4.1M
  29	Connecticut	CT	3.7M
  30	Utah	UT	3.5M
  31	Nevada	NV	3.3M
  32	Iowa	IA	3.2M
  33	Arkansas	AR	3.1M
  34	Kansas	KS	3.0M
  35	Mississippi	MS	2.9M
  36	New Mexico	NM	2.1M
  37	Nebraska	NE	2.0M
  38	Idaho	ID	2.0M
  39	West Virginia	WV	1.8M
  40	Hawaii	HI	1.4M
  41	New Hampshire	NH	1.4M
  42	Maine	ME	1.4M
  43	Montana	MT	1.1M
  44	Rhode Island	RI	1.1M
  45	Delaware	DE	1.1M
  46	South Dakota	SD	0.9M
  47	North Dakota	ND	0.8M
  48	Alaska	AK	0.7M
  49	District of Columbia	DC	0.7M
  50	Vermont	VT	0.6M
  51	Wyoming	WY	0.6M
  N/A	U.S.	USA	340.1M

  Note: Population figures are from July 1st, 2024.

  On the other hand, a big gainer from putting people in perspective is Florida which is 22nd by size, but third by population.

  The benefit of redrawing the map with population in mind, is that it’s easier to see where people actually live.

  Several big states towards the west of the country, (Wyoming, the Dakotas, Montana) are actually home to less than four million people collectively. Most of the land is taken up by parks and farmland.

  In fact New York City alone has more people (8.5 million) than 38 states.

  Land Doesn’t Vote, People Do

  This redrawing is also particularly useful in the context of the U.S. specifically.

  Rural areas with low populations can sometimes have outsized political influence due to structures like the Electoral College or the Senate.

  And when densely populated urban areas often lean one way politically, and sparsely populated rural regions lean another, then the gap between population-based representation and geographic-based influence is even more pronounced.

  Not only is Texas the second-most populous state, it’s gaining people from the rest of the country. Check out: Net Migration Between States to see how many moved people to the Lone Star State in 2023.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 22:20

• Why Stablecoin Growth Thrives Globally… And Will US Now Follow Under Trump?
  Why Stablecoin Growth Thrives Globally… And Will US Now Follow Under Trump?

  Authored by David Feliba via CoinTelegraph.com,

  While the Trump administration lays the preliminary groundwork for crypto industry regulations in the US — with the White House’s new crypto czar expected to set the course in the coming months—these digital assets are already thriving in emerging markets. For precisely the good reasons.

  Pegged to fiat currencies, stablecoins are becoming an important financial tool for many in the developing world, fueling remittances and cross-border trade, bridging financial inclusion gaps, and offering a hedge against inflation in countries where traditional banking often falls short, and millions are left with little to no access to financial services.

  Stablecoins — mostly pegged to the US dollar — have seen explosive growth in recent years, with real-world use cases expanding rapidly across Africa, Latin America, and parts of developing Asia. While the US is still figuring out how to apply this technology beyond the crypto space, emerging markets are already proving why stablecoins matter. 

  In these regions, they’re not just a financial experiment — they’re a solution.

  

  Stablecoins as a hedge against inflation in South America

  In inflation-ridden economies like Argentina and Venezuela, stablecoins offer a dollar-pegged refuge from depreciating local currencies, especially where access to foreign currency exchanges is tightly controlled. Throughout Africa and Central America, they serve as a cost-effective tool for remittances and cross-border payments, while in places like Indonesia, they can provide a more accessible alternative to traditional USD banking, which can involve complex requirements.

  While in richer, more advanced economies, stablecoins are primarily used in decentralized finance and as a bridge between traditional banking and DeFi, in emerging markets with limited financial infrastructure, their role is more fundamental yet essential, Cornell University Trade Policy professor Eswar Prasad said:

  “In low and middle-income economies with underdeveloped financial systems, they can play a useful role in providing citizens and businesses easy and widespread access to a low-cost digital payment system.” 

  Access to the US dollar — widely seen as a global store of value — has been a key driver of stablecoin adoption in emerging markets. Designed to offer stability in contrast to the volatility of early cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, most stablecoins are dollar-pegged, with Tether’s USDt leading at nearly 60% of the global market, followed by USD Coin, another dollar-backed asset.

  

  Stablecoin supply by issuer. Source: Castle Island Ventures.

  “There are problems in the world that need to be solved by a cryptocurrency that doesn’t constantly fluctuate in price,” Julián Colombo, senior director at Bitso, a Mexican crypto exchange with an official presence in Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia, said in an interview with Cointelegraph. 

  “Stablecoins offer a way to bring all the benefits of crypto to real-world use cases—not just the potential to get rich off Bitcoin.”

  Stablecoins are a priority for Trump’s crypto czar

  Momentum is growing in the United States around stablecoins, as a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation on Feb. 4 to establish a regulatory framework. In his first address to the industry, White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks emphasized that stablecoin regulation is a top priority for the administration, with the former venture capitalist leading a task force set to draft key policies over the next six months.

  At any rate, stablecoin growth has been nothing short of spectacular. In the past year alone, they’ve tacked on a staggering $100 billion in market value, soaring to a total of $225 billion as of February 2025, according to DelfiLlama. USDt still reigns supreme, commanding over 60% of the market, but challengers — including those backed by financial powerhouses like PayPal— are rapidly gaining ground. 

  “Stablecoins — tokenized representations of fiat currencies circulating on blockchains 1 — are unambiguously the “killer app” of crypto so far,” a report authored by Castle Island Ventures and sponsored by Visa mentioned. 

  “We believe stablecoins represent a payment innovation that has the potential to expand access to secure, reliable, and convenient payments to more people in more places,” Cuy Sheffield, Global Head of Crypto at the US payments giant, said. 

  “While they initially emerged as a crypto-native collateral type and settlement medium for traders and exchanges, they have crossed the chasm and have found wide adoption globally in the ordinary economy,“ it was argued in the report. 

  “Based on the divergence between stablecoin activity and crypto market cycles, it is evident that stablecoin adoption has moved beyond merely serving crypto users and trading use cases.”

  

  Spot crypto trading volume vs stablecoin monthly sending addresses. Source: Castle Island Ventures.

  Seen as a store of value, a hedge against inflation, and a tool for cross-border transactions, stablecoins have gained significant traction in emerging markets. A recent Chainalysis report found that in regions like Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia, stablecoin adoption far outpaces that of Bitcoin, accounting for nearly half of all crypto transactions in some cases. 

  In contrast, the US and North America have the lowest adoption rate for stablecoins in North America, though it still holds a notable share.

  

  Share of regional transaction activity: stablecoin and Bitcoin. Source: Chainalysis.

  In places like Brazil, a Latin American powerhouse with a population of 216 million and a $2.2 trillion GDP, the use of stablecoins has surged wildly in recent years, its central bank governor Gabriel Galipodo said. As much as 90% of the entire crypto flow is linked to stablecoins, the economist said while speaking at a Bank for International Settlements event in Mexico City on Feb. 6.

  “Most of that is to buy things and to shop things from abroad,” said Galipolo, emphasizing that this novel trend brought with it intense oversight challenges regarding taxation.

  But nowhere in Latin America have stablecoins found greater adoption than in Argentina, Julián Colombo, who leads the local operation at regional exchange Bitso, said. Amid the country’s chronic inflation and economic instability, they offer a vital financial refuge for citizens.

  “In Argentina, as in other high-inflation countries, stablecoins have emerged as a solution to a very real and pressing problem,” Colombo told Cointelegraph.

  “Argentines don’t trust the local currency and prefer to save in dollars, but government-imposed exchange controls and restrictions make access difficult. Stablecoins have filled that gap, providing a way to hold and transact in USD.” 

  In Argentina, he says, roughly two out of every three crypto purchases through the exchange are made in dollar-pegged assets. While Argentina’s financial indicators have improved under pro-crypto President Javier Milei’s market-driven administration, inflation remains high at 84.5% year-over-year.

  Though recent monthly data shows a downward trend, rebuilding trust in the local currency will take time in a country long plagued by triple-digit inflation and severe currency devaluations, ensuring sustained demand for stablecoins pegged to the US dollar.

  Similarly, the adoption of such digital assets has been significant as well in Venezuela, which suffers from chronicle inflation as well as a myriad of regulations that make access to foreign currency like the USD highly convoluted. In emerging markets with somewhat more stable currencies like Brazil or Mexico, they can serve a different but equally important purpose: enabling fast, low-cost money transfers without the volatility of traditional cryptocurrencies. 

  Businesses use them to pay for international services, hire remote employees, send dividends, and facilitate remittances, making cross-border transactions more efficient and accessible.

  “In contrast to other crypto assets, stablecoins come with a promise of stability,” the Bank of International Settlements said in a report about stablecoins. “Due to this potential, they are increasingly entering mainstream finance, and a number of jurisdictions have developed regulatory approaches for issuers of stablecoins pegged to a single fiat currency.”

  Stablecoins fuel remittances in Central America and Africa

  One of stablecoins’ most powerful use cases comes in the form of cross-border transfer and remittances, particularly in Central America and Africa, with these digital assets providing an alternative for cheaper and faster money flows across international borders. Migrants working in the United States have often found in stablecoins a vehicle for more convenient transfers to families back home, 

  “Stablecoins are getting some traction for both domestic and cross-border payments,” Prasad, who teaches Trade Policy at US Cornell University, said to Cointelegraph. “They are already playing a particularly useful role in overcoming the inefficiencies, high costs, and slow processing times for cross-border transactions conducted through traditional payment channels.”

  Referencing the popularity of stablecoin use in remittances, Colombo said:

  “Before crypto, remittance services could charge up to 10% in fees just to send money from one country to another. With crypto, you might have some extra money to send to Mexico, and the transfer could cost just a cent—arriving in minutes instead of hours or days.”

  Cases for non-crypto use of stablecoins grow

  In the Visa-sponsored report, researchers conducted a survey of approximately 500 crypto user individuals in Nigeria, Indonesia, Turkey, Brazil, and India for a total sample of 2,541 adults. While access to crypto remains the most popular motivation to use them, non-crypto uses such as access to dollars, generating yield or transactional purposes are highly popular.

  

  Stablecoin questionnaire results. Source: Castle Island Ventures.

  The survey revealed that Nigerian users have the strongest affinity for stablecoins compared to other countries surveyed. Nigerians transact with stablecoins the most frequently, have the largest share of stablecoins in their portfolios, use them for the widest range of non-crypto purposes, and report the highest self-reported knowledge of stablecoins. Saving money in dollars was their top priority.

  Across Africa, stablecoins have become the “holy grail” for cross-border trade, international remittances, and value transfer across the continent, according to Zekarias Dubale, co-founder of the Africa Fintech Summit. He argued that these digital assets could offer the necessary financial infrastructure to facilitate global trade.

  The case for stablecoins, however, is not without risks. While the most widely used stablecoins have largely maintained their peg to the strong fiat currencies they are designed to mirror, the market is expanding rapidly, with hundreds of digital assets now in circulation. Many of these assets, however, lack transparency about the reserves backing them, and instances of stablecoins depegging and, in some cases, collapsing have occurred.

  Despite this, stablecoins are gaining momentum in the United States under the Trump administration and across emerging markets, where they are proving to be powerful tools that can help citizens overcome challenges related to financial inclusion and underdeveloped infrastructure.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 21:55

• Trump, Musk To Discuss Sending US Taxpayers $5,000 Checks Using DOGE Savings
  Trump, Musk To Discuss Sending US Taxpayers $5,000 Checks Using DOGE Savings

  Billionaire Elon Musk said on Feb. 18 that he will discuss with President Donald Trump a proposal to send U.S. taxpayers rebate checks representing a portion of the money saved by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

  Musk is spearheading the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape the federal government and reduce wasteful spending.

  The DOGE leader took to his social media platform, X, to say he would check with Trump regarding the possibility of introducing a “DOGE Dividend.”

  

  The SpaceX and Tesla founder made the remarks in response to a suggestion from James Fishback, CEO of investment firm Azoria, that a “tax refund check” be sent out to Americans after DOGE completes its work in July 2026.

  The refund would be funded “exclusively with a portion of the total savings delivered by DOGE,” according to Fishback’s proposal.

  As Katabella Roberts reports for The Epoch Times, DOGE aims to deliver $2 trillion in federal spending cuts during its 18-month lifespan.

  Fishback’s proposal calls for 20 percent of the $2 trillion in savings—approximately $400 billion—to be returned to 79 million tax-paying households via direct payments.

  That would amount to roughly $5,000 being returned to each of those 79 million households, according to Fishback.

  He said the rebate “compensates American taxpayers for the egregious misuse and abuse of their hard-earned tax dollars that DOGE has uncovered,” and encourages them to report “instances of waste, fraud, and abuse” to DOGE, thereby increasing the total amount that DOGE saves.

  In addition, Fishback said the rebate would help “restore public trust between taxpayers and their government” and increase “tax morale.”

  It would also incentivize labor force participation, the investor said, noting that the rebate would be available only to net payers of federal income tax in 2025.

  Musk responded to Fishback’s proposal, saying he “will check with the president.”

  The entrepreneur also responded to another post on X regarding the potential tax refund, writing: “Obviously, the President is the Commander-in-Chief, so this is entirely up to him.”

  DOGE Says Billions Saved Amid Cost-Cutting Efforts

  DOGE said its cost-cutting efforts across several federal agencies had saved an estimated $55 billion as of Feb. 17.

  The savings came from a combination of fraud detection and deletion, contract and lease cancellations and renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings that have been implemented across federal agencies, according to DOGE’s official website.

  DOGE stated that contract cancellations alone accounted for approximately 20 percent of the overall savings amassed since the department was established by Trump in January.

  The top 10 agencies with the highest total contract savings include the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), responsible for administering U.S. foreign aid and development assistance; the Department of Education; the Office of Personnel Management; the Department of Health and Human Services; and the Department of Agriculture, according to the DOGE website.

  Many Republicans have long seen many of the agencies currently targeted by DOGE as pushing liberal agendas that are detrimental to U.S. interests.

  However, the agencies account for just a small fraction of the overall federal budget, which is projected to reach $7 trillion this fiscal year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

  For example, USAID disbursed about $72 billion in aid in fiscal year 2023, Reuters reported, citing government figures. That amounted to about 1 percent of total federal outlays, according to the news agency.

  Musk is also facing criticism from Democrats and other groups over his role with DOGE and possible conflicts of interest.

  The White House has previously said that the Space X and Tesla founder is a “special government employee” under the Trump administration and acts as an adviser only.

  While speaking to reporters alongside Trump in the Oval Office on Feb. 11, Musk defended his position as an unelected official while vowing to remain transparent with the American public.

  “You can’t have an autonomous federal bureaucracy,” Musk said. “You have to have one that’s responsive to the people.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 21:30

• Conspiracy Theorists Were Right About Everything – Now What?
  Conspiracy Theorists Were Right About Everything – Now What?

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  For many years alternative economists and “conspiracy theorists” have argued that, according to the evidence, there has been an organized criminal cabal operating a long running agenda to exploit and eventually destroy western culture. We have suggested that much of this agenda was being funded with our own tax dollar while using government institutions and NGOs as vehicles for social engineering.

  

  In the 20 years since I started work in the liberty movement (or patriot movement), I have seen corruption beyond imagining and it all culminated in 2020-2023 when many of us battled against the imposition of total medical tyranny and mass woke indoctrination. Even after that startling Orwellian period we were still called conspiracy theorists, but public awareness is changing rapidly.

  I’ve see enough to know that what is happening today is truly unprecedented. We have entered a crossroads; a time when reality is no longer discarded for the sake of collective comfort and “conspiracy” becomes historic fact. It’s an exciting time to be alive, but also potentially hazardous.

  My running theory has always been that once the house of cards came crashing down and the truth was revealed to the wider public, a whole lot of skeptics that used to call us “fringe crazies” and “tinfoil hatters” would suddenly claim they “saw it coming all along”. Yes, the conspiracy theorists were right, about EVERYTHING. The truth is coming to light in a big way, but what does this mean for the future?

  Can America Handle The Truth?

  The recent dismantling of USAID and the open investigations into numerous federal agencies has opened a Pandora’s Box; the covert funding that these institutions are involved in (including millions in pay-offs to various news media outlets and propaganda platforms) is, I believe, just the tip of a massive iceberg that could very well sink the US system faster than the Titanic.

  Elon Musk’s DOGE group has only just begun dipping their toes into the dark waters of the Treasury, Medicaid, Social Security and the Defense Department. We all know there are some horrifying monsters lurking in those depths. This doesn’t even take into account the hidden activities of the controllers of the Federal Reserve.

  The establishment media argues that USAID represents only 1% of the total federal budget, as if that makes the budget waste acceptable. But if there is that much mismanagement and gerrymandering in a smaller organization like USAID, imaging how much fraud there is in the rest of the federal government? .

  Over the years many of us in alternative economics have wondered if our nation would be able to handle the revelation that almost everything about our system is fake. Half the country has suspected as much, but what would happen if we had hard proof – A smoking gun?

  USAID is that smoking gun, the proof of death, but it’s only one of many buried bodies that are about to be uncovered. The real revelations will come when DOGE discovers how much US policy is directed and controlled by entities OUTSIDE our own country.

  What happens when they investigate the numerous financial and political networks connected to the WEF, DAVOS, World Bank, the IMF, the BIS, and international think tanks like the CFR, Tavistock, the Atlantic Council, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and Open Society Foundations? What about the investment influences of Black Rock,Vanguard, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc.?

  When the globalist hand behind the revolving door of cash is revealed, when the shadow government becomes a concrete and undeniable fact, is the public going freak out?

  The political left is an enemy of freedom and morality, yes, but the greater issue is that they are a useful tool for more powerful elitist interests. It’s a cartel, an oligarchy working together to bring down the west from within and replace it with something new. A new ideology and a new economy that would effectively turn the majority of the population into unwitting serfs.

  Only four years ago the WEF was boasting about the coming of the “4th Industrial Revolution”, the rise of the “cashless society”, the “Fifteen Minute City” and the “Sharing Economy”. And, as we now know, many of those projects were being paid for with our tax dollars. The globalists were so convinced that they had the populace dead to rights. They thought they had won.

  It was only through the tireless efforts of liberty movement activists and conservatives around the world that the plan was disrupted and the globalists were sent into retreat. However, the fight is far from over. There are some important problems that need to be addressed as we enter the era of transparency. Here’s what will probably happen next…

  Rabid Sabotage By The Political Left

  The government is effectively being audited by the Trump Administration, and the Democrats are enraged. Why? Because they (and a handful of Neo-Cons) know full well what that audit is going to find. Activist judges and progressive politicians are going to obstruct and interfere with the process as much as they can. Their entire power structure depends on the steady embezzlement of tax dollars and the constant churning of the fiat printing press.

  For those people who don’t understand what the big deal is with USAID, I suggest they research ESG programs and what they do. USAID was basically a vehicle for global ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance; a meaningless acronym designed to hide a program for global socialism) and it was spending incredible sums of money to spread woke propaganda into every facet of our society.

  Leftist legal actions won’t make much difference in the long run, but they’ll still try to delay. These delays will be used to buy time for media spin. They’re going full force to misrepresent DOGE as some kind of totalitarian entity “destroying democracy”, however, authoritarians have never and will never pursue government transparency; this is not a thing.  Authoritarians ALWAYS pursue obscurity and occult secrecy around their activities. The leftists, by their own actions, are exposed as the true totalitarians.

  Democrats and establishment NGOs will continue trying to foment civil unrest and they will use woke dupes as cannon fodder in this fight. Anything to distract the public from the evidence of their criminality.  Violence and terrorism should be expected.

  Economic Downturn Is Inevitable – Trump Will Be Blamed

  Broad budget cuts are essential to saving the economy in the long term, but they are also a double-edged sword in the short term. For example, US GDP stats rely greatly on government spending in their calculations (they shouldn’t, but they do). Government spending accounts for around 36% of our nation’s GDP – It’s a methodology used in recent decades to make our economic health look stronger than it really is.

  As Trump executes extensive cuts to government spending, this will in turn make it look as if GDP is plummeting. Leftists will claim that Trump’s policies are crashing the financial system.

  On top of this, I’ve been warning for some time that the Biden Administration has been engaging in complex data manipulation. Now that Biden is gone the real data is already coming out and it’s not good. Inflation numbers and employment numbers from the Biden era are being “adjusted”, as I predicted, showing a much weaker economy than originally reported. Retail stats and GDP are next.

  The American public will need a crash-course in how the economy works and who is behind the downturn, or the leftist media will have a field day with the revised stats.

  Can The Investment World Handle The Truth?

  When the level of fraud within the US system is fully exposed, will the investment world panic? Will they pull their money out of US markets that have long been supported artificially by government funds and central bank intervention? These are valid questions we need to consider. The truth needs to come out regardless; nothing can be fixed until the source of the rot is uncovered. That said, the mantra “ignorance is bliss” is one that America has been living by for a long time.

  I think Americans are desperate for the truth and desperate for reform, but change on the scale we are facing always brings chaos with it. I suggest that conservatives and patriots prepare accordingly.

  Cutting Ties With Globalist Run Governments

  As the process of transparency moves forward in the US we have to take into account that Europe, the UK, Australia and Canada are all still well under the hypnosis of the cabal. Things are changing overseas; the UK, Germany and France are starting to see conservative movements blossom, but globalists are determined to stop them from gaining political traction.

  I suspect we will see strained or broken ties with many former allies in the coming years as they crack down on their own citizens and show their true authoritarian colors. We’re already seeing this happening in the UK, Germany, France and Romania among others.

  The Most Dangerous Time Is When You Think You Are Winning

  Establishment elites are like vampires. In fact, I suspect the whole mythology of vampires from centuries ago is actually based on the very real and evil crimes of the elites of the past. They use their wealth and influence to gain a foothold in your country, city or village. They use subterfuge to gain trust and exert authority. They spread darkness and corruption like a cancer, then they feed on the population at will while pretending to be benevolent leaders.

  But these parasites must be invited in by the people. The public has to, in some ways, give consent to their own victimization. We have to willfully ignore their activities; our apathy is seen as consent. Sunlight is the primary remedy and the vampires flee when it’s unleashed. Finally, if all else fails a stake through the heart is required to end them. It could be a proverbial stake, or a very real one.

  Audits of the corrupt system are the sunlight. Independent patriot rebellion is the stake through the heart if all else fails.

  Just because the evil is exposed does not necessarily mean it will stop or disappear. Often these cornered creatures fight even harder and their mission is to take you down with them. Great truth often precedes the darkest of days and the collapse of epochs. As the shadow government faces uncertainty for perhaps the first time ever, who knows how the leviathan will react?

  *  *  *

  If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 21:05

• US Designates Mexican Cartels As "Foreign Terrorists," Signaling Financial Warfare Looms
  US Designates Mexican Cartels As “Foreign Terrorists,” Signaling Financial Warfare Looms

  The US State Department has designated eight Latin American drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, setting the stage for a series of legal and financial measures aimed at paralyzing command structures and financial networks of cartels to stop the drug death catastrophe in the US.

  “Foreign Terrorist Organization Designations of Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha, Cartel de Sinaloa, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, Carteles Unidos, Cartel del Noreste, Cartel del Golfo, and La Nueva Familia Michoacana,” a notice issued by Secretary of State Marco Rubio read earlier this month.   

  Rubio said in the notice that these cartels contain individuals who “have committed or have attempted to commit, pose a significant risk of committing, or have participated in training to commit acts of terrorism that threaten the security of United States nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.”

  “I have determined that no prior notice needs to be provided to any person subject to this determination who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, because to do so would render ineffectual the measures authorized in the Order,” Rubio added.

  The designation comes about a month after President Trump issued an executive order on his first day of office to evaluate whether Mexican drug cartels could be designated as terrorist groups.  

  “The cartels have engaged in a campaign of violence and terror throughout the Western Hemisphere that has not only destabilized countries with significant importance for our national interests but also flooded the United States with deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs,” Trump wrote in his order.

  In recent weeks, we have incrementally reported USAF spy planes that conducted signals intelligence operations along the US-Mexico border, Green Berets from the US Army’s 7th Special Forces Group deployed on a training mission in Campeche—a Mexican port city on the Gulf of Mexico, and CIA reportedly flying MQ-9 Reaper drones over regions of Mexico dominated by heavily armed drug cartels.

  Analysts told Epoch Times that designating cartels with FTO paves the way for the US government to unleash financial sanctions to disrupt the command and control centers of these cartels. Then, after financial networks are disrupted, strike cartel-operated facilities… 

  “You could go after people trafficking firearms to the cartels; you could arrest them for providing material to a foreign terrorist organization,” Ioan Grillo, a Mexico-based journalist, told Epoch earlier this month.

  Human traffic investigator François Cavard said the Trump administration’s FTO designation would “make it clear to the high-level corrupt accomplices these criminals may have within the United States and in US government offices and agencies … that they’re going after them also.”

  Here’s the latest reporting: 

  • USAF Spy Plane Runs SIGINT Operation Near Cabo As US Preps For Potential Cartel Fight

  • USAF Spy Jet Flies Second SIGINT Operation On US Border With Focus On Narco Hub

  • Border Czar “Expects” Kinetic Warfare Between US Troops & Mexican Drug Cartels

  • CIA Reportedly Flying MQ-9 Spy Drones Over Mexico As Cartel Fight Nears

  • Designating Cartels As Terrorists Will Have Huge Consequences, Say Analysts

  Readers should understand that the disrupt-and-dismantle strategy is broad, targeting not only Mexican cartels but also transnational criminal organizations spanning from Canada to China.

  

  This is what ‘America First’ looks like. It’s time to stop the drug death overdose crisis in America that kills 100,000 per year. 

  We must caution that the fight against cartels could get messy, considering the Biden-Harris regime flooded the nation with thousands of Tren de Aragua terrorists.  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 20:40

• Will China Throw BRICS At The Dollar?
  Will China Throw BRICS At The Dollar?

  Authored by Jame Gorries via The Epoch Times,

  As the Trump administration’s America First policy continues to unfold, the globalist policies of the prior administration are rapidly disappearing.

  To no one’s surprise, the America First policies include imposing tariffs on Chinese goods aimed at reducing the U.S. trade deficit with China and Europe, as well as broader policies prioritizing U.S. interests over international cooperation.

  

  Trump’s Tariffs Trigger Trade War?

  But that’s not the whole story. The administration’s high tariffs, specifically on Chinese imports, are not only meant to protect U.S. industries but are also intended to pressure China economically. By extension, as the Chinese economy continues to struggle, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will be under pressure at home.

  Predictably, U.S. tariffs have led to retaliatory tariffs from China against American products. Initial actions by Beijing include levying 15 percent tariffs on imports of U.S. liquid natural gas (LNG) and coal, as well as 10 percent tariffs on oil, farm equipment, and certain automobiles.

  Tension Escalation and BRICS

  The immediate effect has been escalating tensions between the two nations across geopolitical and economic spectrums. If the trade war continues to ramp up, the friction between Washington and Beijing will likely increase, with potentially more provocative actions and responses to follow.

  One specific response could be for China to find a quicker path toward a BRICS-based trading system. BRICS, which is an acronym for the first five participating countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—was founded in 2009 and is currently considering an alternative currency that would be used primarily to replace the dollar for trading between member countries.

  No actual BRICS currency yet exists.

  Establishing a functioning BRICS-based trade bloc isn’t a new proposal; it’s been talked about for years or even decades. Avoiding U.S. financial dominance is the reason the BRICS nations came together in the first place. The idea has always been to insulate BRICS economies, which constitute 35 percent of global GDP, from U.S. financial pressures.

  But skeptics point out that there’s no substitute for the dollar, at least not from Europe, Japan, or China. By some estimates, the U.S. dollar is used in 84.3 percent of international trade—compared to just 4.5 percent for the Chinese yuan.

  BRICS: A Valid Challenge to the Dollar Dominance?

  Still, the push for de-dollarization among BRICS nations has gained momentum in response to Washington’s weaponization of the dollar through sanctions and trade policies against nations it disagrees with. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Iran’s proxy wars against Israel are two prime examples of the United States imposing crippling sanctions and freezing the national assets of adversaries, but they’re not the only ones.

  Now, with the Trump administration threatening the Chinese economy, the CCP views the need to launch a BRICS currency and trading system as “pressing.” They’re not alone. The other BRICS nations, especially Russia, are also very interested in forming a new currency to compete with the U.S. dollar and recently announced plans for a BRICS blockchain-based payment system.

  However, achieving true currency diversification against the dollar won’t be easy. The dollar has been widely used since the end of World War II, and the entire global financial system is dollar-based. Furthermore, the dollar network is well-established and functions better than any other.

  The dollar network includes the U.S. economy, which remains the biggest and most productive and innovative in the world; the U.S. financial markets; the banking and exchange system (SWIFT), which is the world’s largest, most reliable, and most liquid; and the U.S. legal system, which is the most reliable and transparent. Finally, the U.S. military remains the most lethal and effective enforcement agency on the planet.

  In soft power terms, American culture has global recognition and appeal. Neither China’s nor Russia’s cultural appeal is anywhere close. Given these factors, no other country, or even 10 nations (the number of BRICS members today), can replace the dollar’s place and power in the world.

  Can China Create a BRICS-Based Trading System?

  How would China and BRICS overcome these obstacles?

  Various strategies have been considered. One is to conduct trade in individual currencies of BRICS participants. Another would be to form a new BRICS currency based on a basket of currencies that could be backed by gold or create the aforementioned blockchain-based currency. Discussions at BRICS summits have seen China lead these discussions.

  China has also proposed a new payment system to bypass the dollar-based SWIFT system, called “BRICS Pay.” This would use blockchain-based or other innovative payment systems that enable transactions in local currencies and reduce dollar dependency. China is also building an international financial infrastructure to support BRICS members, which includes the New Development Bank to finance development projects using BRICS currencies.

  As the expansion of BRICS participants continues, its chances of success will improve. With 120 nations that count China as their largest trading partner, broadening the participation and influence of this alternative economic bloc could be easy and may pose a more serious challenge to the dollar.

  Impact of BRICS-Based System on the World

  Some observers say that BRICS countries would regain sovereignty over their financial policies, freeing them from U.S. economic sanctions and giving them greater control over their financial policies.

  That may be true. But it may also result in participants finding themselves under the heavy yoke of the CCP. Beijing’s history of saddling Belt and Road Initiative “partners” with crippling debt and military domination is well known.

  Given the nature of the CCP and China’s economic and military superiority, it’s unlikely to expect Beijing to be a benevolent leader. See, for instance, how once-free Hong Kong is doing now, or for that matter, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, or even China’s minority populations like the Uyghurs.

  As a financial hegemon, China has already shown how it will behave.

  As for bringing more balance to global trade, a successful BRICS could lead to a bipolar or multipolar world in terms of finance, trade, and currencies, where nations can choose which system to use or be forced to choose. But exchanging a dollar-based system for a BRICS-based one doesn’t necessarily mean more freedom or control.

  The geopolitical impact of a successful BRICS system would certainly weaken U.S. influence in global economic governance and strengthen communist China. That, of course, is the whole point. Developing nations may not like how the United States handles some situations, but they’ll be much worse off under the bootheel of the CCP.

  Challenges and Obstacles to BRICS

  But today, BRICS members have conflicting economic systems, political goals, and levels of development, which makes reaching a consensus on a new currency or payment system complex.

  India, for example, is an economic, political, cultural, and regional rival to China. Live fire border skirmishes between the two are common, and China supports Pakistan, India’s prime adversary.

  Will New Delhi be willing to take financial orders from communist Beijing?

  As the world’s largest democracy with the highest population on Earth, India is a nuclear power, enjoys a rapidly growing economy, and has a young, dynamic population that starkly contrasts China’s shrinking economy and rapidly aging population.

  It’s also difficult to believe that the United States will sit back and allow BRICS to happen without a fight. The Trump administration is quite willing to use tariffs up to 100 percent against BRICS members if they try to replace the dollar.

  The bottom line?

  China, Russia, Iran, and South Africa need BRICS more than their trading partners do. With a surging America and a powerful dollar, if and when a BRICS currency emerges, it may resemble the old Soviet trading bloc that couldn’t compete with the West, which is really what BRICS is all about.

  Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 20:15

• Paging DOGE: Study Finds 28% Spike In Corruption When Feds Shower Local Governments In Cash
  Paging DOGE: Study Finds 28% Spike In Corruption When Feds Shower Local Governments In Cash

  Federal grants are a crucial funding source for local governments, growing from $135 billion in 1990 to an astounding $1.2 trillion in 2022. However, a new study reveals that sudden surges of federal money – so-called “windfalls” – increase local corruption by up to 28%. This research underscores the urgent need for stringent oversight mechanisms, particularly at the federal level, to ensure these funds serve their intended purpose rather than lining the pockets of corrupt officials.

  

  Federal Windfalls: A Breeding Ground for Corruption

  The study reveals that local governments experiencing sudden increases in federal grants witness a 28% rise in corruption-related charges. This trend is not surprising given that rapid financial expansion often outpaces the development of adequate oversight structures. 

  Examples abound of public officials exploiting these funds for personal gain. One such case involved the mayor and accountant of Stonecrest, Georgia – Jason Lary, who pleaded guilty in 2022 to defrauding local churches, businesses and nonprofit organizations out of hundreds of thousands of dollars – out of a $6.2 million federal grant for COVID-19 relief.

  In October of 2021, the DOJ seized roughly $480,000 of fraud proceeds from Lary – who was sentenced to nearly five years in prison.

  

  The principal-agent problem exacerbates this issue. While the federal government provides funds with the expectation that local governments will use them appropriately, local officials—acting as agents—sometimes operate contrary to these expectations, exploiting gaps in oversight and enforcement.

  The Role of Federal Oversight Agencies

  Given the lack of oversight at the local level, federal oversight agencies, like the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), are vital in curbing these abuses. According to the study, federal oversight of ‘windfall’ grants rely on ‘Single Audits’ – the impact of which is “surprisingly limited and mixed. According to a 2021 study (Brumley et al.), when Single Audits do find corruption, there is usually no subsequent reduction in federal grant awards.

  State oversight mechanisms offer some deterrence, particularly when state auditors hold Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) credentials. However, their effectiveness is inconsistent across jurisdictions. While states with more fraud auditors experience lower corruption levels, the overall impact is relatively weak compared to federal intervention.

  Federal Windfalls Enable More than Just Grant Fraud
  Extra federal money doesn’t just lead to fraud in grant programs it spills over into other types of financial crime. More cash = more opportunities for mismanagement. (6/8)

  — Kyle Welch (@Prof__Welch) February 19, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  At the local level, the situation is even more dire. The study highlights that poor audit outcomes—such as material weaknesses, questioned costs, and audit findings—exacerbate corruption. Local governments with a history of financial mismanagement are particularly vulnerable when receiving windfall grants, as they lack the necessary controls to prevent misuse.

  Not All Audits Are Created Equal
  Some audit findings (like questioned costs) exacerbate corruption risks, while others (like modified opinions) do nothing. What we measure and act on matters. (7/8)

  — Kyle Welch (@Prof__Welch) February 19, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The Power of the Press: An Unofficial Watchdog

  In addition to formal oversight mechanisms, a strong local press plays a crucial role in exposing corruption. The study demonstrates that local corruption spikes when newspapers shut down. This finding aligns with broader research showing that the media acts as an informal check on government misconduct by increasing transparency and public accountability. Unfortunately, the decline of local journalism in recent years has weakened this crucial line of defense.

  Policy Implications and Recommendations

  To combat the corruption linked to federal windfalls, policymakers must strengthen oversight at multiple levels:

  1. Enhance Federal Oversight: Agencies like DOGE should increase their scrutiny of windfall grants, particularly in municipalities with a history of financial mismanagement.

  2. Mandate Independent Federal Audits: Rather than relying on local and state audits, federal agencies should conduct independent, randomized audits to deter misconduct.

  3. Strengthen State Fraud Detection: States should require their auditors to hold CFE credentials and allocate more resources to fraud detection.

  4. Support Local Journalism: Given its deterrent effect, federal and state governments should explore initiatives to sustain local investigative journalism.

  Until then, politicians gonna politician…

  *  *  *

  Support independent media. Grab a ZeroHedge hat at the ZH Store, or buy any 2 bags of coffee and receive a free ZeroHedge Tumbler!

  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 19:50

• Arizona Governor Vetoes Bill To Expedite Ballot Counting In Swing State
  Arizona Governor Vetoes Bill To Expedite Ballot Counting In Swing State

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

  Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs on Tuesday vetoed a bill aimed at speeding up ballot counting in the state, citing concerns that it would make voting more difficult.

  

  House Bill 2703, introduced by Republican state Rep. Laurin Hendrix, would have changed Arizona election laws by eliminating emergency voting centers and setting a new deadline for voters to drop off early ballots.

  Hobbs said earlier this month that she would veto the measure amid concerns it could create difficulties for voters, leading to negotiations with lawmakers that ultimately stalled.

  In a Feb. 18 statement posted to the social media platform X, Hobbs said she had offered compromises that would have sped up election results in the state while also protecting voting rights.

  Those compromises were ultimately rejected, prompting her to veto the measure, the governor said.

  Hobbs said she was concerned that the legislation restricts late-early ballot drop-offs and effectively ends Arizona’s Active Early Voting List, therefore “gutting the vote by mail program that countless Arizonans rely on.”

  “I offered compromises that include that change, but also policies like same day voter registration, cross-county portability of registration, and more assistance for eligible voters to return their ballots to protect voter access,” Hobbs stated.

   “Compromise was rejected.”

  Election results in Arizona tend to come in later than in other states, in part because of a state-mandated signature verification process for mail ballots and a surge in emergency voting during the weekend before Election Day.

  Under current law, voters can drop off their mail ballots at polling places until 7 p.m. on Election Day. As a result, the state has taken close to two weeks to report its results in recent elections.

  Veto a ‘Huge Mistake’ Senate President Says

  The legislation rejected by Hobbs would have prohibited many voters from dropping off their mail-in ballots on Election Day, moving the deadline to the Friday before instead.

  Doing so would have allowed election officials to collect the majority of mail ballots before election night and begin the time-consuming signature verification process earlier.

  The measure would also have required voters to go to specific voting locations—depending on where they lived—over the weekend before an election to show identification and sign an early voter affidavit in order to drop off their ballot.

  The measure stated that Arizona’s delayed results are “sometimes perceived as evidence of election worker incompetence or inefficiency or as an opportunity for unscrupulous participants to affect the ballot tabulation process improperly.”

  Due to delays in reporting final results, public confidence in Arizona’s voting system has declined, the measure stated.

  “By decentralizing and streamlining the process for confirming voter identity associated with late early ballots and eliminating emergency voting during the days immediately before election day, Arizona can substantially reduce administrative burdens, speed up the ballot tabulation process and increase confidence in the electoral system,” the legislation noted.

  Senate President Warren Petersen, who sponsored the measure, called Hobbs’ veto “a huge mistake,” and “a missed opportunity to increase voter confidence and reduce frustration on election night.”

  In a Feb. 18 statement, Peterson said lawmakers remain committed to making “commonsense and proven changes” to the state’s election processes.

  “Arizona should never again be the laughingstock of the nation for its woefully slow election reporting,” he said. “Our caucus will be discussing a path forward on this issue in the days and weeks ahead.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 19:25

• "We Are The Last Humans In World History Who Remember What Life Was Like Before" AI
  “We Are The Last Humans In World History Who Remember What Life Was Like Before” AI

  Oliver Anthony, a former factory worker who emerged from the woods of Virginia, gained national attention in the late summer of 2023 with his song “Rich Men North of Richmond.” The song became the No. 1 song on iTunes for weeks, resonating as an anthem for over 80 million Americans who have been smeared, ignored, mocked, slandered, and robbed by the Deep State that President Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE are firing in mass. Now, Anthony has elevated his message, warning about the dangers of the technological society. 

  On Tuesday, Anthony spoke at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship event in London. The big question is: Why was this internet-famous singer invited to speak at a conference with world leaders? And how do his credentials compare to those of others in the room?

  Maybe ARC’s founder, Jordan Peterson, a Canadian author and former psychology professor, is behind the invite. 

  Besides that… Anthony warned: 

  And in my unprofessional opinion neuroplasticity has made us increasingly digitally proficient but at a cost of being digitally dependent, and if being hired on as a London cab driver can change your brain on an MRI scan and if life experiences like PSD can alter the DNA and sperm what irreversible alterations will 30,000 hours of staring into algorithmically fed into a state of hypnosis due to the human mind or to their offspring.

  In this short breath of time, we live in a state of existence that quite possibly no one else in world history has. We have both access to instant global connectivity, infinite information, and consumer-level access to artificial intelligence, but we are the last few humans in world history who remember what life was like before it. We are the last living people in history to have experienced life before the digital age.

  I fear that it may become nearly impossible for younger generations to even differentiate the digital world from the real one before the end of my lifetime. There is nothing inherently wrong with technology. There is nothing wrong with instant connection, and there is nothing intrinsically bad about access to abundant information, but what is bad is the lack of control and agency that we have over these systems and without realizing it we are being programmed and our culture is becoming commodified therefore, the more time we spend on these digital information systems the more we revert to the mean of one of a fixed set of broad internet cohorts – in other words the more time we spend online the more commoditized our culture, the more tribal our psychology, and the more vulnerable we become.

  …

  I’m just here to remind you that we don’t need our false Idols. We should no longer rely on politicians who bow down to money to manage our city or our states. We need to find the real leaders everywhere and empower them Western North Carolina was proof to me that there is an army of good people left in this world who want to do good things. We just have to give them places to gather and give them the ability to act, and so I close with this do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong for like the grass, they will soon wither like green plants they will soon die away trust in the Lord and do good dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture take. Delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. So I’ll see you on April the 5th in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, for the first official gathering.

  It is now my life’s mission to revive Rural America one town at a time. It’s called the Rural Revival Project, so thank you for for listening.

  Listen here:

  What hits hard in Anthony’s speech is this line: “We are the last few humans in world history who remember what life was like before it. We are the last living people in history to have experienced life before the digital age.”

  We will have great stories for the grandchildren about life before AI… 

  *  *  *

  Flash Sale at ZH Store! 20% off IQ Smart Protein (stacks with volume /subscription discounts) & ZH Multitools for a limited time.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 19:00

• Trump Could Be About To Ban COVID Vaccines; Report
  Trump Could Be About To Ban COVID Vaccines; Report

  Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

  Trump health officials could be about to recommend a complete stop to covid vaccines for all age groups in the US, according to a report.

  

  The move would effectively ban the vaccines amid widespread suggestions that they are having expansive side effects and causing a spike in excess deaths.

  The Daily Mail outlines how Dr Jay Bhattacharya, President Trump’s nomination to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has backed a petition calling for the mRNA vaccines to be paused and retested.

  Covid vaccine faces ban for all Americans in radical U-turn by Trump team https://t.co/1rnPceYzbL

  — Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) February 19, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Bhattacharya, an Infectious diseases expert, has signed on to the Hope Accord, which claims there is a ‘casual link’ between the mRNA shots and an alarming rise in excess deaths worldwide, the report further notes.

  For too long important voices have been silenced.

  Slowly that is changing.

  Add your name to The Hope Accord and help them be heard: https://t.co/jL8eIoTO1v pic.twitter.com/r0SylR76JF

  — The Hope Accord (@TheHopeAccord) November 8, 2024

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The report also asserts that new Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr is ready to axe the shots if the data supports such a move.

  RFK previously petitioned the FDA to revoke emergency authorisation of the shots six months after they were rolled out, citing a lack of data for their effectiveness or safety.

  Kennedy has since said that while he wouldn’t have directly blocked the vaccines if he was in government, “I would have made sure that we had the best science, and there was no effort to do that at that time.”

  Dr Aseem Malhotra, a British cardiologist who is being considered for a health advisory role in Kennedy’s team, has also called for the jabs to be suspended and reassessed.

  Bhattacharya was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration in which thousands of scientists called for a policy of herd immunity over lockdowns and vaccinations.

  He was also one of the many experts who was censored and attacked during the pandemic for challenging the orthodoxy.

  Bhattacharya previously warned that “When you take a position that is at odds with the scientific clerisy, your life becomes a living hell.” 

  Speaking at the Academic Freedom Conference at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, Bhattacharya, who previously described lockdowns as the most catastrophically harmful policy in “all of history,” and “the single worst public health mistake in the last 100 years,” noted “we have a clerisy that declares from on high what is true and what is not true.”

  He added that he has come to the conclusion that “academic freedom is dead.”

  The most recent CDC data shows that 45 percent of adults over 65 years old have taken the most recent Covid booster shot, while 23 percent of Americans over 18 years of age have gotten it.

  *  *  *

  Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 18:35

• Putin: 'I Will Meet Donald With Pleasure'
  Putin: ‘I Will Meet Donald With Pleasure’

  “I will meet Donald with pleasure” – that’s what President Putin expressed Wednesday in a brief televised interview with RT. He further outlined some conditions for such a meeting, saying that it can’t just involve sitting for some tea or coffee, but both the Russian and American diplomatic teams which met in Riyadh the day prior must thoroughly prepare to negotiate issues most important to each, particularly the Ukraine crisis.

  Interestingly, Putin described that Trump’s timetable for achieving peace in Ukraine changed and this was inevitable and ‘natural’ – given that upon entering office he was able to see the fuller scope of intelligence information, and the greater complexities of the conflict. Putin made mention of the potential for peace within six months (referencing the White House change), in contrast to Trump on the campaign trail talking just ‘days’.

  ‘I will meet Donald with pleasure’ – Putin

  Putin lays out the conditions for meeting https://t.co/lICjGuSqrf pic.twitter.com/4UxB7rzLtm

  — RT (@RT_com) February 19, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Putin also called the Trump team ‘completely different’ in terms of positive openness and willingness to work with Moscow, in contrast to the prior Biden administration, and given the Riyadh meeting took place without bias and on “friendly” terms, and with no “condemnation of what had been done in the past” – meaning the two sides showed willingness to move forward and not rehash a blame-game.

  Of the Tuesday Saudi-hosted talks, which lasted four-and-half hours, Putin described: “It is impossible to solve many issues, including the Ukrainian crisis, without increasing trust between Russia and the United States” – and stressed that the process is about restoring this trust, toward a resolution of the conflict.

  He was further quoted in Interfax saying of the talks: “Yes, I have been informed. I rate them highly, there are results.”

  As for Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, his follow-up assessment after leading the delegation in Riyadh was as follows: “Moscow and Washington need to clean up the legacy of former US President Joe Biden’s administration, which ruined the foundation of long-lasting cooperation between the two countries.”

  “For now, it is necessary to clean up the legacy of the Biden administration, which did everything to destroy even the first hints at, the very foundation of long-term partnership between our countries,” Lavrov added.

  Meanwhile, without doubt Kremlin leaders are enjoying Trump’s fresh blasting of Zelensky. Trump in a Wednesday post on Truth Social called the Ukrainian President a “modestly successful comedian” who essentially tricked the US into spending hundreds of billions for a war that “couldn’t be won” and should have never started. Trump further referenced “A Dictator without Elections” said the Ukrainian leader “better move fast” or he “won’t have a country left.”

  Trump team ‘completely different’ in positive openness to work together — Putin pic.twitter.com/SsaS5JCRBZ

  — RT (@RT_com) February 19, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Likely this will only add to Putin’s willingness to meet with Trump, which would be a first since 2021. Putin’s spokesman on Wednesday remained cautiously optimistic: 

  “Maybe. Or maybe not,” Peskov said, responding to a question about the possibility of the Trump-Putin summit in February.

  Peskov described the meeting in Riyadh as a “very, very important step” toward resolving the Ukraine conflict, while emphasizing that “naturally, it’s impossible to fix everything in a day or a week. There is still a long road ahead.”

  But Trump said after the Riyadh talks that he feels “much more confident” about brokering a deal to end the Ukraine conflict. Additionally, goodwill and trust was build when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made clear while in Germany last week that Ukraine will not be joining NATO, which has been a crucial request of Moscow from the start.

  

  Given that Trump is now outright personally insulting Zelensky for mismanagement of the war and of his country, this could actually serve to hasten a face-to-face Putin-Trump meeting. Both sides have signaled it could happen by month’s end. Peskov has affirmed both sides are preparing for the bilateral presidential summit.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 18:10

• "We're Winning Across The Board": Raskin Takes Premature Victory Lap Just Before Slew Of Court Losses
  “We’re Winning Across The Board”: Raskin Takes Premature Victory Lap Just Before Slew Of Court Losses

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  On CBS’s Face the Nation, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) repeated the talking point of Democratic politicians and pundits that the courts are stopping President Donald Trump’s lawless actions taken after his inauguration. Raskin declared “we’re winning in court…we’re winning across the board.”

  

  The boast was dubious at best on Sunday given earlier losses, but became embarrassing on Monday and Tuesday as additional courts ruled in favor of the Trump Administration in major cases.

  For weeks, some of us have expressed confusion over the basis for some of the Democratic challenges and initial injunctions in court. President Trump clearly has the authority to designate federal officials to look at the books and track expenditures in the executive branch. After losing both houses and the majority vote, Democratic groups sought to use the courts to block such executive actions.

  There was obvious forum shopping as these groups went to many of the same courts and judges for relief. 

  However, even judges viewed as decidedly hostile to Trump like Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington ultimately balked at the demand for an injunction and allowed the access and actions to continue.

  On Monday, Judge Randolph Moss, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia delivered a blow to groups seeking to block the Department of Government Efficiency from gaining access to data from the Department of Education on student borrowers. 

  Judge Moss found in his ruling that the University of California Student Association failed to show sufficient irreparable harm to receive such immediate relief.

  He, however, left the door open a crack: “The Court leaves for another day consideration of whether USCA’s has standing to sue and has stated a claim upon which relief may be granted. Those questions are less clear cut and are better answered on a more complete record.”

  Judge Chutkan also refused to grant the plaintiffs’ request to issue a temporary restraining order of Doge, again citing the failure to demonstrate evidence of “irreparable harm.”

  There was a palpable sense of reluctance, even regret, in the opinion by Chutkan who noted that “Plaintiffs legitimately call into question what appears to be the unchecked authority of an unelected individual and an entity that was not created by Congress and over which it has no oversight.”

  This, of course ignores the “elected individual” in the body of the President who is allowed to delegate such responsibility to subordinates. Chutkin would have been reversed by the higher courts if she had issued the requested TRO as demanded by the coalition of 14 Democratic state attorneys general.

  Even before Raskin’s boost, U.S. District Judge John Bates also rejected a request to block DOGE from accessing records of three government agencies, writing in his own opinion Friday that plaintiffs “have not shown a substantial likelihood that [DOGE] is not an agency.”

  Likewise, challengers thought that they had a victory in hand when U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole enjoined the buyout offer by the Administration. Some of us criticized the injunction as lacking any cognizable basis given the clear authority of the President to make such an offer. Then, as many were citing the victory as proof of the Trump Administration’s unlawful actions, Judge O’Toole lifted the injunction on the buyout program, agreeing to allow the buyouts to go forward.

  Then Judge Randolph Moss (D.D.C.) in Doe v. Office of Personnel Mgmt. rejected another challenge to testing by the Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”) of a new email system. The federal employees argued that the move violated federal law including privacy protections. The court, however, ruled that the “Plaintiffs have failed to carry their burden of demonstrating (1) that they likely have standing to bring this action, and (2) that they are likely to suffer irreparable injury in the absence of emergency relief.”

  These and other setbacks do not mean that new cases cannot be brought with new records and parties. However, it is a far cry from the claim of Democrats “winning across the board.”

  Of course, Raskin is not alone in the perils of premature celebration:

  For those members like Raskin opposing the freeze on hiring and payouts, there is even an example of losing to the Freeze due to a premature celebration:

  The race is far from over so both sides may want to stay focused on the finish line in the ongoing litigation.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 17:50

• India's Tata Consultancy "Gaming The US Visa System" And Falsifying Applications, Former Workers Allege
  India’s Tata Consultancy “Gaming The US Visa System” And Falsifying Applications, Former Workers Allege

  In 2017, as Donald Trump took office with a crackdown on employment visas, former Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) IT manager Anil Kini alleges he was ordered to falsify internal organizational charts to make the company appear more manager-heavy.

  Kini claims this was a cover-up to evade scrutiny over TCS’s use of L-1A manager visas, which have fewer restrictions than H-1B visas and lack minimum pay requirements, according to a new feature by Bloomberg.

  Kini and two other former TCS employees filed whistleblower lawsuits under the False Claims Act, alleging the company used L-1A visas to bring in non-managerial workers. However, the cases were dismissed before the visa fraud claims were examined, with Kini’s still under appeal. He says he resisted altering the charts and was fired in 2018 after filing his lawsuit.

  

  Federal data reviewed by Bloomberg indicates that TCS has received more L-1A approvals than the number of managers it disclosed to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, suggesting possible misuse of the visa program. TCS, which serves major U.S. tech firms, has secured more L-1A visas than any other employer in recent years.

  The company denies any wrongdoing, stating that courts have already dismissed these allegations.

  While Trump initially opposed employment visas, arguing they undercut American workers, his stance has shifted, now expressing support for such programs. This has created tensions between his traditional nationalist base and newer tech-industry allies. Meanwhile, legal experts note that gaming the L-1A program is common, with federal authorities uncovering nearly 200 cases of misuse in the past decade.

  

  The Bloomberg feature says that False Claims Act lawsuits let whistleblowers sue companies on behalf of the U.S. government, often alleging corporate fraud against taxpayers. These cases gain traction when the Justice Department joins, but the DOJ declined to back any lawsuits against TCS over L-1A visa misuse, including Anil Kini’s.

  TCS stated in legal filings that an internal review found “most of the issues raised” by Kini were unsubstantiated and claimed it had “already taken corrective action” on those that were. However, the company did not disclose what its inquiry revealed. A federal judge dismissed Kini’s case in February, ruling he failed to prove how TCS’ visa practices violated financial obligations to the U.S. government.

  Kini, who appealed the decision, says he refused to alter organizational charts and filed two internal complaints before suing in 2017. He was fired the following year, which he calls retaliation. TCS did not comment on his dismissal. “I was proud to be working for TCS,” he said. “But then some things in life, there should be integrity in what you do.”

  In another case, Vinod Govindharajan, an Indian national, alleges TCS falsely claimed he was a manager in 2013 to secure an L-1A visa, bypassing stricter H-1B rules. He says the company brought him to New Jersey, where he worked a sales job with no subordinates and was paid half of what American colleagues earned. Frustrated, he filed a 2018 complaint with the EEOC, which later found “credible documentary evidence” that TCS “frequently falsifies documents in support of L-1 visa applications.” The agency also determined Indian visa workers were underpaid and that TCS retaliated against Govindharajan for speaking out.

  However, the EEOC lacks authority over immigration or employment visa wage laws, which fall under separate federal agencies. There’s no indication it shared its findings with them. An EEOC spokesperson cited confidentiality rules in declining to comment. “It was a dream of mine to move to the U.S.,” Govindharajan said. “But I was doing a sales role, nothing to do with management.”

  You can read the full writeup here. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 17:30

• American AI Should Be Quintessentially American
  American AI Should Be Quintessentially American

  Authored by Richard Porter via RealClearPolitics,

  The United States and Europe have long shared a common political culture rooted in the ideals of the Enlightenment. These include the primacy of personal freedom; individual autonomy; the inherent equal moral standing of human beings; acceptance of diverse viewpoints; and the use of logic, intellectual rigor, and critical thinking to understand the world. The Western alliance’s raison d’etre is protecting those ideals – and the societies built on the foundation of these ideals – from authoritarian regimes.

  

  J.D. Vance restated our commitment to these ideals in two powerful speeches last week – to a Paris conference on artificial intelligence and then to the Munich Security Conference. America’s newly installed vice president directly challenged European political elites who, fearing freedom, are drifting away from these ideals as they seek to squelch popular political movements while becoming autocratic themselves. For some reason, leaders in the audience were visibly stunned. They shouldn’t have been.

  Vance’s rhetorical fluency was his ticket into politics. Both his recent speeches were deftly crafted and temperately delivered. They accurately reflected MAGA’s disgust over reflexive regulation by self-loathing elites who limit freedom in the name of “democracy,” and who seek to cover up government incompetence and dishonesty by deconstructing Western culture as somehow inherently racist.

  In Munich, the vice president made it clear that our shared Enlightenment ideals are central to the Trump administration’s security policy and our ongoing commitment to the alliance. In Paris, Vance proclaimed that less government interference is essential to winning the AI race, and that AI should remain free from the ceaseless demands of woke culture:

  Number one, this administration will ensure that American AI technology continues to be the gold standard worldwide, and we are the partner of choice for others, foreign countries, and certainly businesses as they expand their own use of AI. Number two, we believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it’s taking off, and we’ll make every effort to encourage pro-growth AI policies. And I like to see that deregulatory flavor making its way into a lot of the conversations at this conference. Number three, we feel very strongly that AI must remain free from ideological bias and that American AI will not be co-opted into a tool for authoritarian censorship.

  This third point is not aimed at Europe alone, or China, for that matter. The context here is that AI is being created by human beings who have political perspectives. AI will always have an ideology or ethic. So, let’s talk directly about the perspective that will make AI as useful (and humane) as possible.

  Extrapolating on Vance’s point, U.S. companies and software engineers could adopt this refrain: “Embracing the goals of the Enlightenment, American AI must avoid bias and authoritarian censorship. It must pay homage to the primacy of personal freedom, individual autonomy, and the inherent equal moral standing of human beings. It must also celebrate diverse viewpoints while also elevating the use of logic, intellectual rigor, and critical thinking to understand the world.”

  Because Western elites now doubt this ideology, the Trump administration should explicitly endorse these ideals in its AI policy as emphatically as it does in its security policy.

  American-developed AI should be humane, pragmatic, logical, and possess common sense, so that AI actually advances and spreads knowledge instead of being a tool for propagating dogma, stifling intellectual curiosity, or advancing creeping European-style authoritarianism.

  Google’s generative AI tool, which now provides the “top” response for most queries, shows how urgently we need to reframe the AI already in the marketplace. While earlier versions of Google’s AI product were mocked for producing ahistorical imagery, the current version is still infused with a left-wing, anti-analytical, anti-American perspective. This matters because Google’s AI is now the primary source of information for the entire world.

  For example, consider how Google’s generative AI answers these queries.

  Is the U.S. structurally racist?

  Yes, the United States is structurally racist. Structural racism is a system of policies, practices, and norms that create and maintain white supremacy. It affects the health, education, employment, and economic status of people of color and others marginalized in society.

  Does DEI make companies more profitable?

  According to research from McKinsey and other studies, yes, implementing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) practices can generally make companies more profitable by fostering a wider talent pool, boosting innovation, and leading to better decision-making within diverse teams, ultimately improving financial performance; companies with higher diversity in their leadership tend to outperform their peers financially.

  (One of the citations actually states that the results of the McKinsey studies could not be replicated, a fact the AI ignores.)

  Is healthcare ever free?

  Yes, healthcare is free for everyone in some countries, but not in the United States.

  (Obviously healthcare is never free – someone needs to pay the doctors and build the hospitals.)

  Of course, today’s AI will be seen as primitive in just a few years, but it should be worrisome not just to the Trump administration, but to all free-thinking Americans that AI’s first draft was written by left-wing activists. AI must instead be designed to question, consider, and analyze different alternatives and express uncertainty when appropriate; AI won’t be useful, and could even be dangerous, unless it’s programmed to actually be thoughtful.

  Also, American AI should be quintessentially American, reflecting the best of the culture that produced our exceptional nation. We will ultimately fail in our common cause of making America great again if U.S. history is written by its haters, its economics are explained by Marxists, and “the science” is allowed to replace the scientific method. 

  Richard Porter is a lawyer in Chicago and an advisor to the Alfa Institute, a policy and idea accelerator founded by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 17:10

• Trump Praises $4.5 Trillion Tax Cut In House Budget, Wants Senate R's To Get With The Program
  Trump Praises $4.5 Trillion Tax Cut In House Budget, Wants Senate R’s To Get With The Program

  President Donald Trump threw his support behind a House budget plan calling for a $4.5 trillion tax cut, and encouraged Senate Republicans to abandon a short-term funding effort and coordinate with the House to implement “my FULL America First Agenda, EVERYTHING, not just parts of it.”

  

  “The House and Senate are doing a SPECTACULAR job of working together as one unified, and unbeatable, TEAM, however, unlike the Lindsey Graham version of the very important Legislation currently being discussed, the House Resolution implements my FULL America First Agenda, EVERYTHING, not just parts of it!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

  “We need both Chambers to pass the House Budget to “kickstart” the Reconciliation process, and move all of our priorities to the concept of, “ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL.” Trump continued.

  The “Lindsey Graham version” refers to a vote scheduled this week in the Senate that would add $150 billion to military spending and increase immigration and border enforcement by $175 billion – which some Republicans say they want to move on quickly, while waiting to resolve contentious disputes over tax cuts and raising the debt ceiling.

  House Speaker chimed in on X, saying that Trump “is right,” adding “House Republicans are working to deliver President Trump’s FULL agenda – not just a small part of it.“

  .@realDonaldTrump is right!

  House Republicans are working to deliver President Trump’s FULL agenda – not just a small part of it.

  Let’s get it done, @HouseGOP! pic.twitter.com/Hw32oLAl0z

  — Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) February 19, 2025

  Trump’s comments have complicated efforts by Senate Republican leaders to drum up support for this week’s budget vote, while the House – which is taking a one-week break for the President’s Day holiday, is struggling to come up with enough votes for the budget plan because of the party’s narrow majority, Bloomberg reports.

  Adopting the budget is the first step in a special process Republicans intend to use to bypass minority senate Democrats on tax and spending legislation. A budget plan would allow Republicans to overcome procedural obstacles in the Senate with a simple majority rathe than the 60 votes it would otherwise take.

  The House has drafted a plan to allow $4.5 trillion in tax cuts in exchange for $2 trillion in spending cuts and a $4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling. The House plan would direct $300 billion to military and border spending but the larger bill is expected to take months to hash out.

  The plan which includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts was approved in committee ahead of possible floor votes later this month. According to House leaders, their slim majority makes it easier to pass one bill vs. breaking it into several pieces.

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 16:50

• RFK Jr. Lays Out His HHS Agenda: 'Nothing Is Going To Be Off Limits'
  RFK Jr. Lays Out His HHS Agenda: ‘Nothing Is Going To Be Off Limits’

  Authored by Debra Heine via American Greatness,

  In his first address to staffers at the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. promised that “nothing is going to be off limits” in his pursuit to reduce the chronic disease epidemic.

  

  “Some of the possible factors we will investigate were formerly taboo or insufficiently scrutinized,” Kennedy told HHS staff, Tuesday morning. “I’m willing to subject them all to the scrutiny of unbiased science.”

  Some of these previously taboo concerns, he said, include “the childhood vaccine schedule, electromagnetic radiation, glyphosate, other pesticides, ultra processed foods, artificial food additives, SSRI and other psychiatric drugs, PFAS, PFOAs, microplastics.”

  RFK Jr. reminded HHS staff that an “overwhelming majority” of our Founding Fathers were “citizen scientists,” including “Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush, a physician, Julian Bartlett, a physician, Matthew Thornton, a physician, and Oliver Wolcott, a physician.”

  HHS Secretary announces the MAHA Commission will study scientific topics critics have labeled “taboo.”
  – Childhood vaccine schedule
  – Electromagnetic radiation
  – Glyphosate & other pesticides
  – Ultra-processed food
  – Artificial food additives
  – SSRIs & antidepressants
  – PFOAs and… pic.twitter.com/cLBLXzW3Fw

  — Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) February 19, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  “Science and democracy were born together during the enlightenment, and they share the same ideals for openness, for public access, and for transparency,” he said.

  No one trusts science that isn’t transparent about its research hypothesis, its raw data, or its conflicts of interest. No one trusts a government built on lies, on secrets, on cover ups, and propaganda. That’s why my uncle famously observed that the word secrecy is repugnant to a free and open society.

  RFK Jr. told the bureaucrats at HHS that a key “reason why our agencies have lost public trust is that they have become too politicized,”  and that “there’s no such thing as Democratic children or Republican children.”

  “Science gets politicized when power and profit are involved, and power and profit are blind to compassion,” he continued. “Reducing the influence of money, therefore, goes hand in hand with depoliticizing HHS.”

  Kennedy lamented that a “fog of narrative warfare” had left Americans with a warped view of his character and beliefs.

  “Let’s start a relationship by letting go of any preconceptions that you may have about me,” he stated. “I’m going to keep asking questions but hold my preconceived answers lightly. I’m willing to be wrong,” Kennedy said.

  “I’m not going to impose any of my beliefs over yours,” he added. “Instead, we’re going to launch a new era of radical transparency. Only through radical transparency can we provide Americans with genuine informed consent, which is the bedrock and foundation of Democracy.”

  RFK Jr. continued: “It’s no secret that many of our institutions of our Democracy, and even of science and medicine, are no longer transparent.”

  Because of this, he argued, these institutions “have become inefficient, dysfunctional or corrupt,” and in some cases, become “captive to profit-making industries and stagnated in bureaucratic secrecy.”

  Kennedy acknowledged however that the majority of people in our public health agencies have good motives and are “competent, ethical, caring and idealistic.”

  “I believe that most of you here are not here for the money,” he told his HHS audience.

  “My goal as Secretary here at HHS will be to create a culture of competency, of ethics, of openness, of transparency, of caring, and of pride so that individuals who share these ideals can flourish and thrive,” Kennedy said. “Those who are unwilling to embrace those kinds of ideas can retire,” he added.

  RFK Jr. vowed to “remove conflicts of interest” at HHS whenever possible or “balance them with other stakeholders,” and to shut the revolving door to outside companies “to restore public trust.”

  “We will make our data and our policy process so transparent that people won’t even have to file a FOIA request,” he promised.

  RFK Jr. also pledged to bring Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) into HHS to make Medicare and Medicaid more efficient.

  “The same DOGE technology that has uncovered vast amounts of waste and fraud can be used to better serve our fellow citizens who depend on these programs to make sure that no one is left behind and no one is left out,” he said. “We will aim to set a standard of courtesy, efficiency, professionalism, and integrity that will make HHS again the envy of the world.”

  *  *  *

  MAHA: Pick up some pure, potent, organic supplements at ZH Store!

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 02/19/2025 – 16:30

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• China FX Outflows Soar As Beijing Prepares For Next Currency Devaluation, Priming Next Bitcoin Doubling
  China FX Outflows Soar As Beijing Prepares For Next Currency Devaluation, Priming Next Bitcoin Doubling

  Back in October 2023, when we pointed out that China’s FX outflows had just hit a whopping $75BN – the single biggest monthly outflow since the 2015 currency devaluation – we concluded that the “unfavorable interest rate spread between China and the US will likely imply persistent depreciation and outflow pressures in coming months”, or in other words, “September’s biggest FX outflow in years is just the beginning, and very soon – in addition to geopolitics and central banks – the world will also be freaking out about the capital flight out of China… not to mention where all those billions in Chinese savings are going and which digital currency the Chinese are using to launder said outflows.”

  We wrote that on October 20, 2023, when Bitcoin was trading just under $30,000, a level it had been for much of 2023. And, just as we correctly predicted at the time…

  Clockwork: every time China FX outflows surge, bitcoin erupts.

  From last Friday: China Capital Flight Panic Eruptshttps://t.co/j0eWLnbFMq

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 24, 2023

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  … following this surge in Chinese FX outflows, bitcoin – traditionally China’s preferred means to circumvent Beijing’s great capital firewall since gold is, how should one put it, a bit more obvious when crossing borders – promptly soared more than 100% in the next 4 months.

  

  That was just the start, because only a few months later, in July 2024, we wrote the follow up as China’s capital flight returned with a vengeance, namely “China FX Outflows Soar As Beijing Dumps Record US Securities, Priming Next Bitcoin Surge” which coincided with a Reuters report according to which, it was China’s massive wall of inert capital that has been one of the key drivers of bitcoin moves, and never more so than during periods of FX and capital outflows which usually precede some form of capital controls… which regular (and hopefully very rich) readers will of course, recall has been our core, and unwavering, bitcoin thesis since 2015!

  In any event, the sharp resumption of Chinese capital outflows, which we also highlighted in July, is why we also predicted at the time that “almost a year after our first correct prediction that China’s spike in FX outflows would send bitcoin surging, it’s time to do it again.”

  You’ll never guess what happened next! And in case you really can’t, here is the answer: bitcoin exploded again, nearly doubling again over the next 5 months!

  

  We bring all this up because more than a year after our first correct prediction that China’s spike in FX outflows would send bitcoin surging, and almost six months after our second correct prediction that China’s spike in FX outflows would send bitcoin surging (sic), it’s time to do it again.

  One wouldn’t know it, however, if one merely looked at the official Chinese FX reserve data published by the PBOC, here nothing sticks out. In fact, at $3.2 trillion, reported Chinese reserves are now near the highest level in past nine years, and monthly flows are very much stable as shown in the chart below, with the latest month indicating a modest uptick in Fx reserves.

  

  The problem, of course, is that as we have explained previously China’s officially reported reserves – and any official economic “data” for that matter – are woefully and purposefully inaccurate.

  Instead, if one uses our preferred gauge of FX flows, one which looks at i) onshore outright spot transactions; ii) freshly entered and canceled forward transactions, and iii) the SAFE dataset on “cross-border RMB flows, we find that China’s net outflows were a massive $82 billion in January, which is a staggering burst of capital flight, one larger than the spike in FX outflows we first highlighted in October 2023, and the second biggest going back all the way to the great Chinese devaluation of 2015!

  

  The data shows roughly equal contributions from both the current account channel showed, which sizeable FX outflows in January, as well as what has been dubbed “unusual cross-border RMB flow.”

  Here are the details: in January, we saw $42bn in net outflows via onshore outright spot transactions, and slight outflows via freshly entered and canceled forward transactions. Another SAFE dataset on “cross-border RMB flows” showed outflows of $40bn in the month, suggesting net receipts of RMB from onshore to offshore. Combined, our preferred FX flow measure therefore suggests $82 billion in net FX outflows in January, in comparison with US$8bn net FX outflows in December.

  The current account channel showed sizable net outflows (US$21bn in January vs. US$2bn inflows in December). There was a net inflow of US$14bn related to goods trade in January vs. an inflow of US$35bn in December. While we do not yet have the January goods trade data (which will be released along with February trade data in March), historical patterns suggest a larger January trade surplus when the Lunar New Year date is earlier than usual like this year. The smaller inflows therefore imply that goods trade surplus FX conversion ratio likely declined in January from 33% in December. The FX outflows related to services trade deficit edged up to $33bn (vs. an outflow of $32bn in December). The income and transfers account showed outflows of US$2bn in January, slightly higher than the US$1bn outflows in December.

  Turning to the far more important portfolio investment channel (which is where crypto flows tend to be located) we find net FX outflows in November (US$0.2bn in January vs. US$1.3bn outflows in December). Bond Connect flows showed US$3bn outflows vs. US$2bn inflows in December. The cross-border RMB outflows might be partly due to the US$16bn Southbound flows from onshore to offshore, though this is not captured by the portfolio investment channel of FX settlement.

  Meanwhile, as noted above, the official FX reserves (released earlier in the month) edged up to US$3,209bn in January from US$3,202bn in December. One possible explanation for this odd divergence is that FX valuation effects raised FX reserves by $5bn in January, so after adjusting for FX valuation effects, FX reserves increased US$1bn. In addition, Goldman notes that commercial banks’ net external assets rose by US$15bn in January (vs. a US$72bn increase in December

  

  Luckily, there is a simple “sanity check” way to confirm that the capital inflows story is propaganda, and China is once again suffering another scorching period of capital flight: just look at FX. Indeed, after after the yuan surged in the fall, coinciding with a period of relative dollar weakness, since October we have seen a surge in the USDCNH spot, as one would expect when there is capital flight, most likely driven by rising fears of Trump tariffs and the implicit devaluation the yuan would suffer in order to offset tariffs which according to Trump would start around 10% and likely rise much higher.

  

  But wait there’s more.

  Where the capital flight story gets really interesting, is when we look at what Chinese public and private entities were doing with US assets according to official Treasury data. What we find is that according to Treasury International Capital data, in December Chinese investors sold $14BN in US securities (bonds, MBS, corporate bonds, and stocks), and more notably, following a record sale in May, China has been a constant seller of US securities in the past 6 months!

  

  So if one had to guess what was going on, as the yuan slumped in October, November and December (before a modest bounce on unfounded hopes that Trump’s tariffs will be far less punitive than expected) as the capital flight resumed, the hit to the yuan would have been even bigger had China not liquidated a record amount of US securities starting in May, while the PBOC was buying much more gold, and while China’s middle and upper classes were quietly buying up bitcoin through Macau and other illicit venues.

  And while Chinese policymakers are still keen on maintaining FX stability (or at least create that impression) as the countercyclical factors in the daily CNY fixing remained deeply negative and front-end CNH liquidity tightened notably in recent weeks, the reality is that with China desperate to boost its exports at a time when its great mercantilist competitor, Japan, has hammered the yen to the lowest level in 3 decades, it is only a matter of time before the currency devaluation advocates win, as they did in 2015. No surprise that the biggest China-related story in recent months came from Reuters, and reported that Beijing in already planning how to devalue the yuan in response to Trump tariffs. And if you really want to see what capital flight from China really looks like, just wait until we get another 2015-style “one-time” devaluation.

  As an aside, we hope we don’t have to remind readers that the first big trigger for bitcoin’s unprecedented eruption higher starting in 2015 was – you guessed it – China’s August 2015 FX devaluation, as we correctly noted at the time when we predicted that bitcoin would explode from $250 to the thousands; in retrospect we were very conservative.

  

  So don’t be surprised if in the next 6 months Bitcoin doubles again – for the third time in the past year – and the move has little to do with ETF inflows, the halving, a pro-crypto Trump administration, or frankly anything else taking place in the US, and instead is entirely driven by China’s massive wall of money which at last check was almost 3x bigger than the US.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 23:54

• Beijing Underground Command Center Signals Preparation For Conflict
  Beijing Underground Command Center Signals Preparation For Conflict

  Authored by John Mills via The Epoch Times,

  The media recently reported that China’s People’s Liberation Army is building the world’s biggest military base underground in possible preparation for conflict with the United States.

  

  Large enough to fit 10 Pentagons, the new super large facility should not be a surprise – it is a logical and iterative next step of a long program of underground facilities by China. The command center is on the western outskirts of the capital city of Beijing.

  In about 2011, stories began to appear around China’s “Underground Great Wall.”

  “In March 2008, China’s state-run CCTV network broke the news about a 5,000-kilometre-long network of hardened tunnels built to house the Chinese Second Artillery Corps’s (sic) increasingly modern force of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles,” The Diplomat reported on Aug. 20, 2011.

  Hui Zhang of Harvard’s Belfer Center downplayed China’s Underground Great Wall and explained it was only “defensive in nature.”

  Prior to the Underground Great Wall, the People’s Liberation Army Navy built a large underground submarine base on Hainan Island that is still being expanded and improved.

  The new command center in Beijing is described by online media BulgarianMilitary.com as a “command-and-control center for the PLA in wartime.“ The report notes that ”the site’s sheer scale, combined with its underground elements, points to a design built for survival,“ and  ”experts believe that the complex will feature a series of underground nodes, perhaps even a hidden subway system, all interconnected by subterranean passageways.”

  When completed, this facility—now dubbed the “Beijing Military City” by Western military analysts—will be the largest underground command center in the world, possibly in history.

  Western Equivalents Are Limited in Comparison

  Zhang of the Belfer Center described the Beijing Military City as defensive in nature. That is one viewpoint but should also be measured and compared in terms of equivalency in the West. The challenge is that there is little equivalency in the West in modern times.

  There are underground facilities dating back to the Cold War days in the West, but most have been decommissioned. Canada’s “Diefenbunker” in Ottawa is a museum and tourist attraction. In the UK, there was the Central Government War Headquarters (CGWHQ), close to Bristol, about 100 miles due west of London, which could accept about 4,000 to 5,000 essential personnel for the Continuity of Government (COG).

  In the United States, there was The Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia, where, at one time, Congress would relocate to in case of conflict; it is now a museum with a gift shop. The Pentagon contains the existing National Military Command Center, which is in the above-ground basement, but also has a backup at Raven Rock and air and ground mobile alternate command posts. The White House has an alternate facility for COG, if necessary.

  Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, has an underground facility that is being rebuilt due to a flood in 2019 that damaged part of the facility. The vaunted and historic Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado Springs, Colorado, was essentially closed around 2005 but was reopened beginning in 2015 as a backup for the above-ground facilities below at Peterson Air Force Base.

  Most of the Cold War facilities in the West closed because there was a perception there was no compelling reason to keep them open, along with the enormous maintenance costs to keep them operational. The reality is that all of these Western facilities, whether they are active or museum pieces, would fill up only a small portion of the operational side of the underground Beijing Military City currently under construction.

  China’s New Underground Headquarters

  The message being sent from the construction is a theme of preparation for conflict. Bulgarian military expert Boyko Nikolov said, “This isn’t just about protecting assets; it’s about creating a self-sustaining, impenetrable hub that could coordinate China’s war efforts from the shadows.”

  Dennis Wilder, former head of the China analysis section at CIA and senior adviser for Asia at the White House, said, “If the report is correct, it is a sign of China’s intention to build not only world-class conventional power but also advanced nuclear war fighting capabilities.”

  The iterative buildup from the Hainan underground submarine base to the underground “Great Wall” for China’s ground-based nuclear force to the now-revealed Beijing Military City is likely the largest aggregation of underground military facilities in history. The indicators are that it is part of a pathway to conflict. Noted China expert Gordon Chang has framed it as “China is preparing for war, America is not.”  The assessment cannot be clearer or starker.

  China is building and expanding underground facilities as protected wartime command and control centers to ensure COG. The West has nominal equivalent facilities; most have been converted into museums that would need significant modernization and time if they were to be brought back into service.

  Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 23:25

• US Flies Bomber Group Over Middle East In Warning To Enemies
  US Flies Bomber Group Over Middle East In Warning To Enemies

  The Pentagon has confirmed that it deployed a pair of strategic bombers over the Middle East on Tuesday, accompanied with fighter jet escorts as well as refueling aircraft, in order “to demonstrate force projection capabilities in the region.”

  US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that “live munitions drops at ranges in several partner nations” were part of the mission, making it a rare ‘live-fire’ exercise and warning to regional enemies.

  CENTCOM Conducts Bomber Task Force Mission in Middle East

  U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) conducted a Bomber Task Force Mission in the Middle East, Feb. 17, to demonstrate force projection capabilities in the region.

  Two B-52s from RAF Fairford, U.K., flew across Europe and… pic.twitter.com/MEepc9hGiI

  — U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) February 18, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  CENTCOM further described that this shows the US “ability to respond to any state or non-state actor seeking to broaden or escalate conflict.”

  Tehran will no doubt see this as a threat aimed at the Islamic Republic, given Trump’s recent words saying the Iranians should negotiate a new deal to end their nuclear program, or else potentially face American bombs. The Houthis could also come under attack, given they are threatening to start up Red Sea shipping attacks if the Gaza ceasefire collapses.

  The provocative bomber exercise and flyover of the region also comes after Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Israel Sunday. Prime Minister Netanyahu during that visit urged a muscular anti-Iran policy by Washington, after Trump restored ‘maximum sanctions’.

  Importantly, Netanyahu declared that Israel and the US should “finish the job” against Iran. Israeli officials have frequently floated the idea of preemptive attack against Tehran and nuclear facilities.

  Iran has meanwhile said it won’t respond to such threats, and has described that even if it wanted a deal, it can no longer trust Washington given it agreed to the JCPOA nuclear deal under Obama, and then Trump pulled out of it in 2018.

  Tuesday’s flyover included live ordinance drops…

  

  But it remains that Iran’s position in the broader Middle East has been greatly weakened. Israel has essentially decimated Hezbollah’s top leadership in Lebanon, and President Assad of Syria was forced to flee the country late last year. This corresponded with Iranian advisors and proxies withdrawing from Syria, and now Israel has free reign and is occupying large portions of southern Syria.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 23:00

• Is Our Five-Year Nightmare Finally Over?
  Is Our Five-Year Nightmare Finally Over?

  Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s confirmation as the Secretary of Health and Human Services in the US is the ultimate repudiation of the Covid policy response. 

  

  The scheme of lockdown-until-vaccination was the biggest effort of government and industry on a global scale on historical record. It was all designed to transfer wealth to winning industries (pharma, online retail, streaming services, online education), divide and conquer the population, and consolidate power in the administrative state. 

  By 2021, RFK, Jr., had emerged as the world’s most vocal, erudite, and knowledgeable critic of the scheme. In two brilliant books – The Real Anthony Fauci and The Wuhan Cover-Up – he documented the entire enterprise and dated the evolution of the pandemic industry from its postwar inception to the present. There was simply no way to read these books and think about the corporatist cabal in the same way. 

  The circumstances that led to his appointment at HHS are themselves implausible and remarkable. Perceiving President Biden to be a weak candidate – one who had forced masks and shots on the population and brutally censored tech and media – he decided to make a run for president, presuming that there would be an open primary. There wasn’t one, so he was forced into an independent run. 

  That effort was chewed up by the usual political dynamic that befalls every third-party effort – too many ballot-access barriers plus the usual logic of Duverger’s law. That left the campaign in a difficult spot. At the same time, two huge political shifts had become clear. The Democratic Party had become a vessel and a front mainly for the administrative state with a veneer of woke ideology, while the Republican Party was being taken over by refugees from the Democrats, in effect creating a new Trump party out of the remnants of the other two. 

  The rest is legendary. Trump linked up with Elon Musk to do to the federal government what he did when he took over Twitter, taking the company private, gutting the place of embedded federal assets, and firing 4 out of 5 workers. In the midst of this, and faced with a terrifying flurry of legal attacks, Trump dodged an assassin’s bullet. That triggered terrible memories of RFK, Jr.’s father and uncle, and thus sparked discussions about coming together. 

  Within a matter of weeks, we had a new coalition that brought together old antagonists, as many people and groups seemingly in the same instant realized their conjoined interests in cleaning up the corporatist cartel. With the newly freed platform of X to reach the public, MAGA/MAHA/DOGE was born. 

  Trump won and chose RFK, Jr., to lead the most powerful public health agency in the world. The barrier was Senate confirmation, but that was achieved through some incredible triangulation that made it extremely difficult to vote no. 

  In the big picture, you can measure the size of this titanic shift in American politics by the way the votes in the Senate lined up. All Republicans but one voted for the most prominent scion of the Democratic Party to head the health empire while all Democrats voted no. That alone is striking, and a testament to the power of the pharma lobby, which, during the hearings, was exposed as the hidden hand behind the most passionate opponents of the confirmation. 

  Is our nightmare over? Not yet. Writing not even a month into the second presidential term of Donald Trump, it is still unclear just how much authority he truly exercises over the sprawling executive branch. For that matter, no one can even agree on how large this branch is: between 2.2 million and 3 million employees and somewhere between 400 and 450 agencies. The financial bleed in this realm is unthinkable and far worse than even the biggest cynic can imagine. 

  Five former secretaries of the Treasury took to the pages of the New York Times with a shocking claim. “The nation’s payment system has historically been operated by a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants.” This has included a career employee called “fiscal assistant secretary—a post that for the prior eight decades had been reserved exclusively for civil servants to ensure impartiality and public confidence in the handling and payment of federal funds.”

  There is no reason even to read between the lines. What this means is that no person voted into office by the people and no one appointed by such a person has access to the federal books since 1946. This is startling beyond belief. No owner of any company would ever tolerate being barred from the accounting offices and payment systems. And no company can offer any public stock without independent audits and open books. 

  And yet almost 80 years have gone by during which time neither has been true for this gigantic enterprise called the federal government. That means that $193 trillion has been spent by an institution that has never faced granulated oversight from the people and never met the normal demands that every enterprise faces every day. 

  The usual habit in Washington has been to treat every elected leader and their appointments as temporary and transitory marionettes, people who come and go and disturb little to nothing about the normal operations of government. This new administration seems to have every intention to change that but the job is inconceivably challenging. As much public support as MAGA/MAHA/DOGE enjoy for now, and as many people from those groups are getting embedded in the power structure, they are outnumbered and outmaneuvered by millions of agents of the old order. 

  This transition will not be easy if it happens at all. 

  The inertia of the old order is mighty.

  Even on the issue of health and pandemics, there is already confusion. 

  CBS News has reported that Fauci-loyalist and mRNA pusher Gerald Parker will head the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response or OPPR. The report cited only unnamed “health officials” and the appointment has been celebrated by Scott Gottlieb, the Pfizer board member who nudged Trump into backing lockdowns in 2020. 

  All the while, this appointment has not been confirmed by the White House. We do not know if OPPR, created by Congressional charter, will even be funded. The reporter will not reveal his sources – raising the question of why any appointment having to do with health should be surrounded by such cloak-and-dagger machinations. 

  If Dr. Parker becomes ensconced in this position and another health emergency is declared, this time for Bird flu, HHS and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., will not be in any kind of decision-making position at all. 

  The larger problems have to do with a broader question: is the president really in charge of the executive branch? Can he hire and fire? Can he spend money or decline to spend money? Can he set policy for the agencies? 

  One might suppose that the whole answer to these questions can be found in Article 2, Section 1: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” And yet that sentence was written almost 100 years before Congress created this thing called the “civil service” that nowhere appears in the Constitution. This fourth branch has grown in size and power to swamp both the presidency and the legislature. 

  Courts are going to have to sort this out, and already an avalanche of lawsuits has hit the new administration for daring to presume control over agencies and their activities of which the president is and must necessarily be held accountable. Lower federal courts seem to be demanding that the president be that in name only, while the Supreme Court might have a different opinion. 

  The much-ballyhooed “constitutional crisis” consists of nothing other than an attempt to reassert the original constitutional design of government. 

  This is the background template in which RFK, Jr., takes power at HHS, and oversees all the sub-agencies. These agencies played a huge role in covering for the attack on liberty and rights over five years. His confirmation is a symbolic repudiation of the most egregious public policies on record. And yet, the repudiation is entirely implicit: there has been no commission, no admission of error, no one truly held responsible, and no real accountability. 

  The trajectory on which we find ourselves affords many reasons for champagne celebrations, but sober up quickly. There is a very long way to go and enormous barriers in place to get us to the point that we are really safe again from the marauding corporatist/statist complex and their plots and schemes to rob the public of rights and liberties. In the meantime, to invoke a common phrase, keep these new appointees in your thoughts and prayers.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 22:35

• Jewish Miami Man Randomly Shoots Two Israelis He Hoped Were Palestinians
  Jewish Miami Man Randomly Shoots Two Israelis He Hoped Were Palestinians

  A wacky story of anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab animus played out in Miami Beach on Saturday night, as a Jewish American mag-dumped a pistol at two visiting Israeli nationals, telling police he attacked them because they were Palestinians. It gets nuttier: After the shooting, one of the Israeli victims reportedly posted “Death to the Arabs” on his social media account, declaring the attack was an act of antisemitism. 

  Police say that, at 9:30 pm on Saturday, 27-year-old Mordechai Brafman was driving south on Pine Tree Drive before executing a U-turn at 48th Street and then stopping. His victims were in a Hyundai behind him and in the next lane. “[Brafman] then exited his vehicle and remained on the driver’s side,” the police report says. “As the victims were driving past him, he shot at the victim’s vehicle 17 times, unprovoked, striking both victims.”

  

  Brafman, 27, has been booked into Miami-Dade’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on two counts of attempted murder. When he was interviewed by police, Brafman was quick to admit to his intent and motive, as he “spontaneously stated that while he was driving his truck, he saw two Palestinians and shot and killed both,” police say.  

  He was wildly wrong about the ethnicity of his victims — and the efficacy of his pistol work. Despite firing 17 shots, he only managed to hit one of the Israelis, Ari Rabi, in the shoulder, while grazing Rabey’s father in the forearm. Rabi made his own false conclusions about what transpired. According to a Facebook screenshot posted on X and credited by The Guardian, Rabi posted pictures of himself and his shot-up vehicle, along with this narrative, which is Facebook’s imperfect translation of the original Hebrew: 

  “My father and I went through a murder attempt against anti-Semitic background. They tried to murder us in the heart of Miami but the creator of the world is with us so he didn’t go. I want to say thank you to everyone for their support it is not taken granted with Israel Live. . Death to the Arabs .” 

  

  “It is deeply ironic and telling that both the alleged pro-Israel perpetrator and the pro-Israel victim in the Miami Beach shooting reportedly hold racist anti-Palestinian views,” said Nihad Awad, National Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). “Policymakers in our nation should stop fomenting the anti-Palestinian hate that led to the genocide in Gaza and to hate crimes in America.”

  Rabi struck a different tone when talking to CBS News about the incident: “A life shouldn’t just be taken away from anyone. It doesn’t matter who you are, what religion you are, or where you’re from. People should just live in peace.” Speaking of different tones, Brafman in 2023 told a local TV station that “I’d love to see some unity and people come together,” as he commented on incidents in which Israeli flags and pro-Israeli banners were yanked from the eaves of a bagel shop he frequented:

  I think this is the guy who shot two israelis in miami thinking they were palestinians https://t.co/fxGrTGN8pc pic.twitter.com/rJhTX1AGNs

  — max 🇵🇸 (@langezahl) February 17, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Brafman’s lawyer quickly attributed his client’s attempted murder of two randomly-selected “Palestinians” to mental health problems. “It is believed that his ability to make sound judgments was significantly compromised,” Dustin Tischler told the Miami Herald. “We are…committed to working with healthcare professionals to ensure Mr. Brafman receives the appropriate and necessary treatment. 

  The bizarre episode has drawn light media attention. It’s safe to say that, if a Palestinian-American shot two vacationing Arabs in Miami because he thought they were Israelis, the story would have a very high media profile, with the incident decried as terrorism and exploited by US and Israeli politicians to advance pro-Israel policies.  

  American Jew shooting Israelis in Miami because they looked Palestinian is really the ne plus ultra of deranged Zionist culture

  — Jeff Melnick (@melnickjeffrey1) February 17, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 22:10

• ESG And DEI Are Down But Not Out, Analysts Say
  ESG And DEI Are Down But Not Out, Analysts Say

  Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Despite recent eulogies for the environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement, as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, many insiders say the funeral is premature.

  

  “Their demise is inevitable, and it has been accelerated,” David Bahnsen, chief investment officer of the Bahnsen Group and formerly an asset manager at Morgan Stanley, told The Epoch Times.

  However, “they are not over,” he said.

  The ESG movement began two decades ago with a U.N. initiative, sketched out in a 2004 position paper called Who Cares Wins, to get private companies in line with the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals.

  Those goals included, among other things, climate action and gender and racial equity, and they aligned with corporate trends such as “conscious capitalism” and “stakeholder capitalism,” which redirected companies from merely serving owners to serving employees, the community, and the environment.

  Institutional asset managers gave the ESG movement critical leverage over companies because they collectively own about 80 percent of the shares in S&P 500 companies. Immediately upon its introduction, ESG was endorsed by 23 financial institutions collectively representing more than $6 trillion in assets at the time.

  Most major banks, asset managers, and insurance companies quickly joined U.N.-sponsored climate clubs, including the Net Zero Banking Alliance, the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, and the Net Zero Insurance Alliance. This was followed by a proliferation of ESG rating agencies, consultants, accountants, and others dedicated to measuring companies’ compliance with ESG criteria.

  Twenty years later, the winds appear to have shifted. In 2024, half of the Net Zero Insurance Alliance members quit, while the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative suspended its activities in January after several of its largest members, including BlackRock, left the group.

  A 2024 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) order that required listed companies to produce audited reports of their CO2 emissions and their plans to reduce them, faced numerous court challenges and was recently shelved. And on the social justice front, a parade of companies recently announced that they are downsizing their diversity programs.

  “ESG is on death watch,” Daniel Cameron, CEO of the 1792 Exchange, an analytics nonprofit, told The Epoch Times. “You saw a lot of iconic brands last year walk away from DEI in particular.”

  Companies stepping back from diversity programs include Amazon, Google, Target, Meta, Walmart, Boeing, Molson Coors, Lowe’s, Ford, Toyota, Harley-Davidson, Jack Daniels, Caterpillar, John Deere, McDonald’s, Nissan, Stanley Black & Decker, and Tractor Supply.

  

  Rethinking or Rebranding

  Some experts say this trend may be little more than rebranding.

  “Boeing, who just got rid of its [DEI] department, noted in the press release that none of them were laid off; they were distributed across the company in other roles,” Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research and a longstanding critic of ESG, told The Epoch Times.

  And many companies, including Apple, Cisco, Costco, Microsoft, Delta Airlines, and JPMorgan Chase have defended their DEI programs and insist they will keep them in some form.

  Tim Schwarzenberger, portfolio manager at Inspire Investing, says the notion that “DEI is dead or it’s on life support” is wrong.

  “I was talking to a major energy company, talking to their chief diversity officer—they have their livelihood on the line,” Schwarzenberger told The Epoch Times.

  Defenders say that the ideas behind ESG have been wrongly maligned.

  BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, formerly an outspoken advocate for ESG, stated in 2023 that he no longer uses the term because it has been “politicized and weaponized.”

  “DEI is not a synonym for the ’S’ in ESG,” Julie Anderson, a professor of management at American University’s Kogod School of Business, told The Epoch Times. “When I refer to the ‘S,’ it’s usually labor, health, and human rights.

  “Politics has intentionally conflated and stolen the ‘S’ category and turned it into a gender and racial issue, which is a fraction of what it really is.”

  Whether it goes by ESG or another name, its underlying principles appear to be alive and well.

  According to a November 2024 study on ESG-related shareholder proposals by Harvard Law School, over the past decade, “the number of proposals on environmental and social topics exploded, surpassing the governance and compensation topics that had dominated the discourse in mid-2010s.”

  The study found that environmental and social proposals accounted for 62 percent of the total in 2024, up from 44 percent in 2014. More recently, environmental and social proposals increased by 57 percent between 2020 and 2022 and hit a record of 610 proposals for the year ending in June 2024.

  Read the rest here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 21:45

• Woman Robs Princeton TD Bank Of More Than $60,000 Using Painted Water Gun
  Woman Robs Princeton TD Bank Of More Than $60,000 Using Painted Water Gun

  After 4 years of Soros-funded DAs and a soft-on-crime administration, it’s just getting too bold, brazen and downright easy for criminals.

  Now, a New Jersey woman allegedly robbed a TD Bank in Princeton with a painted water gun, escaping with $60,500, according to the New York Post.

  Ciara Brascom, 39, allegedly robbed a TD Bank in Princeton using a painted squirt gun, prosecutors say.

  Wearing a COVID mask, red glasses, and a blue hat, she pulled the toy gun from her pocket and handed the teller a note demanding money, threatening to use the weapon if the alarm sounded.

  

  A teller led Brascom to the vault, where she grabbed the cash and fled, prosecutors allege. She was identified and charged in September after meeting with federal agents in Princeton. Brascom later admitted financial struggles drove her to the crime, authorities said.

  The complaint says: “In particular, she admitted that she went to a store to purchase an imitation, toy gun that looked like an authentic gun to use during the robbery.”

  “She stated that the store lacked such a toy gun, so she instead purchased a pack of water pistols and can of black spray paint to make it look more realistic,” it continues. 

  The New York Post report said that she carried the cash out in her hands.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 21:20

• How A US Iron Dome Could Reshape Global Nuclear Relations
  How A US Iron Dome Could Reshape Global Nuclear Relations

  Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The U.S. Missile Defense Agency is already searching for cutting-edge missile defense technologies after President Donald Trump signed a new executive order, calling for an “Iron Dome for America.”

  

  The executive order gave the Department of Defense 60 days to evaluate the U.S. missile defense network and overhaul it with hypersonic weapon sensors, space-based missile interceptors, and other so-called “non-kinetic” missile defense capabilities.

  Trump has also tasked military leaders with conceiving new ways to stop incoming threats earlier than ever before, including before they launch.

  Four days after Trump signed the order, the Missile Defense Agency published a request for information from arms industry insiders on promising advancements to meet Trump’s call for a better missile defense shield.

  The quick turnaround suggests the Trump administration is urgently pursuing advanced new strategic defenses at a moment of growing U.S. competition with Russia and China.

  Both nations have made advances in offensive strategic weapons technology in recent years, and the U.S. military has struggled to keep pace.

  While Trump’s order calls for several new missile defense capabilities, a major focus is on evaluating what systems already exist and whether they’re deployed in the right manner to protect the United States and forward-deployed U.S. troops and allies.

  Daniel Flesch, a senior policy analyst for the Allison Center for National Security at the Heritage Foundation, described Trump’s order as a holistic approach that expands on capabilities the U.S. military already has.

  

  “Where are the gaps, and where do we need to develop or invest?” Flesch told The Epoch Times.

  The launch trajectory of a strategic weapon like a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is generally divided into three phases.

  The “boost phase” is the initial stage as a weapon burns its propellant at launch. After a ballistic missile expends most of its propellant in the liftoff, it begins its main course of flight toward its target, known as the “midcourse.”

  Finally, after reaching the apex of its trajectory, a ballistic missile will fall toward its target in what’s known as the “terminal phase” of its trajectory.

  The U.S. Navy currently has both land and ship-based variants of the SM-3 missile that can intercept enemy ballistic missiles in space, at the height of their mid-course flight. The U.S. Army also has ground-based interceptors for mid-course interceptions.

  For ballistic missile interceptions in the terminal phase of flight, the Navy has the ship-based SM-6 missile, while the Army has the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system and newer variants of the Patriot air-defense missile system.

  The midcourse presents the largest window for an intercept but requires sophisticated interceptors capable of reaching ballistic missiles at high altitudes, including in space.

  Terminal phase interceptors don’t have to reach as high as midcourse interceptors, but it’s a narrow and high-stakes window to stop a ballistic missile before it reaches its final target.

  The boost phase presents an attractive opportunity to stop a missile threat because the missile is less capable of evading interceptors or deploying decoys, but detecting a launch in this early stage is difficult, as is having an effective system in position to stop it.

  

  Along with new and improved sensors for tracking the trajectory of weapons throughout their flight, Trump’s order envisions a network of space-based interceptors that could stop threats in their boost phase.

  Weapons researchers have long considered high-powered lasers as one potential option for boost phase interceptions.

  The United States and Israel have both seen advancements with lasers for intercepting drones and missiles, but more improvements may be needed to effectively counter sophisticated ballistic missiles.

  Trump’s order could potentially renew development for an airborne laser system for boost-phase interceptions, such as the U.S. Air Force’s shelved Boeing YAL-1 airborne laser aircraft.

  A ‘Star Wars’ Sequel

  Trump’s Iron Dome for America takes direct inspiration from the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a missile defense program President Ronald Reagan put in motion in 1983.

  “President Ronald Reagan endeavored to build an effective defense against nuclear attacks, and while this program resulted in many technological advances, it was canceled before its goal could be realized,” Trump’s order states.

  SDI indeed looked to develop space-based and non-kinetic interception capabilities that many critics dismissed as figments of science fiction. The initiative was referred to, often derisively, as Reagan’s “Star Wars” program.

  Trump’s concept for a network of space-based interceptors bears a close resemblance to at least one SDI concept, codenamed “Brilliant Pebbles,” which called for the deployment of potentially thousands of small satellites, each armed with interceptors to stop enemy ballistic missiles in the boost phase.

  Read the rest here…

   

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 20:55

• Destroyed Home Among Pacific Palisades Fire Rubble Receives More Than 60 Offers
  Destroyed Home Among Pacific Palisades Fire Rubble Receives More Than 60 Offers

  It turns out that one person’s fiery rubble and personal tragedy is another’s treasure…

  That seems to be the case now that one home destroyed in the Pacific Palisades fire has received more than 60 offers.

  The home has been reduced to rubble except for two chimneys and a few brick columns and hit the market for $999,000 just 10 days after last month’s blaze, according to Bloomberg.

  Now, after receiving over 60 offers, it’s now in escrow for well over $1 million, the listing agent said.

  Richard Schulman, the listing agent, commented: “I can just tell you, generally, that people selling are going to take a huge financial hit.”

  Bloomberg writes that the sale highlights tough choices for fire victims. Seller Terri Bromberg is accepting far less than her home’s pre-fire value instead of waiting to rebuild after 20 years of ownership.

  

  Most homeowners affected by January’s Palisades and Eaton fires, which killed 29 people and destroyed over 11,000 homes, are still weighing their options. Cleanup has just begun, and reconstruction could take years.

  The burned home, built in 1976, last sold for $1.54 million in 2005 and was once valued at $2.7 million. In contrast, Pacific Palisades’ median home price was $3.97 million at the end of last year.

  The listing described the property as “a blank canvas for visionary buyers.” Investors offered as little as $600,000, while the top bidder plans to rebuild and sell for at least $3.2 million, according to agent Schulman.

  “We thought there was an advantage to be one of the first to market,” Schulman said. “It was intentionally a teaser asking price.”

  Seller Terri Bromberg, a widow nearing 70, said she hasn’t “crunched the numbers” but most of her insurance payout will cover the $656,000 mortgage. The fire destroyed everything—“turned to dust,” she said—including her artwork, her late husband’s Grammy awards, and her wedding ring.

  An artist specializing in glassware, Bromberg is buying a smaller home in Santa Monica to live and work with her daughter and son-in-law, who narrowly escaped the fire.

  “My daughter said she doesn’t want to go back and live in the hills. It was too scary,” Bromberg said. “It used to be paradise. Eventually it will return.”

  *  *  *

  Great news! Our most popular supplement Astaxanthin – the ultimate antioxidant, is back in stock at ZH Store. Grab some today!

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 20:30

• Bird Flu Is A Rerun Of The COVID Playbook
  Bird Flu Is A Rerun Of The COVID Playbook

  Authored by Clayton Baker, MD, via The Brownstone Institute,

  Bird flu can be very confusing. This is true because, as is so often the case with our government, those who claim to be trying to solve the problem – our so-called “public health” and “pandemic preparedness” “experts” – are actually the ones who created the problem. What is worse, they are actively seeking to perpetuate it.

  

  In this brief article, my goal is to explain what is happening with H5N1 Bird flu in the clearest, most fundamental terms. I hope to make it so clear that all our elected officials can understand what is going on, and therefore can take action to stop it.

  The key to understanding the current Bird flu panic is this: Bird flu is a complete rerun of the Covid script. There is just one twist:

  • Last time, with Covid, the pandemic-planning bioterrorists directly blackmailed us by taking away our civil rights, in order to coerce us to accept their unsafe and ineffective vaccines. 

  • This time, with Bird flu, the pandemic planning bioterrorists are indirectly blackmailing us by targeting our food, in order to coerce us to accept more of their unsafe and ineffective vaccines into our food supply and those who supply it.

  Here is their playbook. Learn it, and you can understand how to put an end to it.

  Let’s review. What happened during Covid? 

  1. Over many years, bioweapons scientists, under the guise of “pandemic preparedness,” genetically manipulated a bat coronavirus to be both transmissible and virulent in humans. In other words, they created a bioweapon.

  2. Meanwhile, they also developed and patented technologies for vaccines against that same virus. In other words, they created the countermeasure to their bioweapon.

  3. In late 2019, the lab-manipulated coronavirus bioweapon, SARS CoV-2, was leaked from a lab. 

  4. While the countermeasure vaccines were rushed into production, “public health” authorities took advantage of the lab leak by denying its occurrence, while simultaneously coercing governments to impose lockdowns and other civil rights violations on the human population.

  5. To perpetuate the lockdowns, “public health” authorities performed indiscriminate PCR testing for the virus among the population, knowing full well this would generate countless false positives.

  6. The authorities used this excessive testing along with media-generated fear-mongering and governmental abuse of power, to prolong the lockdowns and the civil rights abuses.

  7. The lockdowns and civil rights abuses were used to blackmail the population into mass acceptance of the vaccines into their own bodies, in exchange for a return to normal life.

  What is happening now, with H5N1 Bird flu?

  1. Over many years, bioweapons scientists, under the guise of “pandemic preparedness,” have genetically manipulated the H5N1 avian influenza virus to cross classes of animals and even become more transmissible to humans. In other words, they created a bioweapon.

  2. Meanwhile, they also developed and patented technologies for vaccines against that same virus. In other words, they created the countermeasure to their bioweapon.

  3. In early 2022, a lab-manipulated Bird flu bioweapon leaked from the USDA Southeast Poultry Lab in Athens, GA. Multiple Bird flu leaks have also occurred from other labs.

  4. While the countermeasure vaccines are being rushed into production, “public health” authorities take advantage of these lab leaks by denying their occurrence, while simultaneously coercing our government to impose mass slaughter of farm animals, creating food shortages for the human population.

  5. To perpetuate the mass slaughter and worsen food shortages, “public health” authorities are performing indiscriminate PCR testing for the virus among the animal population and farmers, knowing full well this will generate countless false positives.

  6. Authorities are using this excessive testing along with media-generated fear-mongering and governmental abuse of power, to prolong the mass slaughter of farm animals and the food shortages.

  7. The mass slaughter of farm animals and resulting food shortages are being used to blackmail the population into mass acceptance of the vaccines in their food supply, in exchange for a return to normal life.

  This is not conspiracy theory. This is basic pattern recognition.

  The “pandemic planners” are operating just like a moderately competent, if unimaginative, high school football coach. If you run a play, and it works, run it again. Keep running it until they stop it.

  How do we stop it?

  Here’s how:

  1. End the brutal mass slaughter of poultry flocks immediately. This disgusting, death-wish practice is directly analogous to the deadly and unconstitutional human lockdowns during  Covid. It is also an act of biological terrorism. It traumatizes farmers, wastes resources, creates food shortages, is inhumane in the extreme to animals, and does nothing to stop the virus. Let the flocks develop natural immunity. Slaughtered flocks cannot develop natural immunity to a virus, just as locked-down human populations cannot either. Sound familiar?

  2. End the indiscriminate PCR testing for Bird flu in animals and humans immediately. A positive PCR test is like the proverbial grand jury indictment – you can get one on a ham sandwich if you try hard enough. Willy-nilly PCR testing creates innumerable false positives, which fuels the fear porn and hysteria, paralyzes decision-makers, and promotes population-wide blackmail. 

  3. The USDA appears to be acting as a rogue agency. The USDA’s leadership needs to be thoroughly reviewed and, well, culled. All those attached to the pandemic preparedness industry, and all those perpetuating the fear-mongering, irresponsible mass PCR testing, mass slaughter of animals, etc. must be immediately removed from the agency. They represent not only a threat to animals and the food supply but to President Trump’s entire second term.

  4. The personnel at the CDC need a similar prompt and thorough overhaul. The CDC, while somewhat chastened by President Trump’s executive order silencing HHS agencies, and benefitting from the departure of former Director Mandy Cohen, is still led by Biden-era appointments whose past resumes raise serious doubt about their willingness to abandon the  Covid-era “pandemic planning” model of public health. For example, acting director Susan Monarez, PhD’s bio shows multiple Deep State connections to the pandemic preparedness industry. Should she remain at the CDC?

  5. The USDA Southeast Poultry Research Lab in Athens, Ga. should be shut down and thoroughly investigated.

  6. The Kawaoka Bird flu lab at the University of Wisconsin, which has been doing reckless gain-of-function research for decades, and which has had multiple lab leaks, should be shut down and investigated as well.

  7. Brooke Rollins, the new USDA Secretary, needs to be fully briefed on H5N1 Bird flu by honest experts who are not embedded in the pandemic preparedness industry. Individuals such as Meryl Nass, MD, and Peter McCullough, MD and his team would both be excellent choices.

  8. President Trump should follow through on his 2024 promise to disband the redundant, Biden-created Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy (OPPR). Mr. Trump’s instinct was correct then, and it remains correct now.

  9. The $590 Million dollar Bird flu vaccine development contract to Moderna that the Biden administration approved a couple of days before President Trump’s inauguration should be cancelled. 

  10. The USDA’s reported “conditional approval” of a Bird flu vaccine with Zoetis should be cancelled. Bird flu vaccination in poultry flocks has been demonstrated in other countries to select for more virulent strains. Furthermore, the CEO of Zoetis has close ties to Pfizer, BlackRock, and the Gates Foundation, all well-established bad actors during the Covid era. Beware, Mr. President.

  The “pandemic preparedness” racket isn’t as complicated as it seems. Once one comes to terms with the fact that the arsonists are running the fire department – as they have been demonstrated by DOGE to be doing in so many other areas of government as well – we can recognize what is actually happening and apply the necessary solutions.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 20:05

• CIA Reportedly Flying MQ-9 Spy Drones Over Mexico As Cartel Fight Nears
  CIA Reportedly Flying MQ-9 Spy Drones Over Mexico As Cartel Fight Nears

  US Air Force spy planes have recently conducted signals intelligence (SIGINT) operations along the US-Mexico border, while Green Berets from the US Army’s 7th Special Forces Group have been deployed to a naval facility in Campeche—a Mexican port city on the Gulf of Mexico—for what’s described as a “training mission.” These developments offer a clearer picture of President Trump’s emerging strategy to combat Mexican cartels, which have fueled a drug death catastrophe of 100,000 Americans per year. This approach aligns with Trump’s designation of these cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.” 

  The CIA, operating under the Trump administration, has been secretly deploying unarmed (at the moment) General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper drones over regions of Mexico dominated by heavily armed drug cartels, according to a CNN report. The report comes from current and former officials with knowledge of ongoing national security operations, shedding light on what is happening under the cloak of darkness – in preparation to disrupt and dismantle drug cartels. 

  

  Here’s more from the report:

  Some current and former officials say designating cartels as terrorist groups could potentially lay the groundwork for direct US strikes against the cartels and their drug labs in Mexico.

  The CIA has flown surveillance drones to hunt cartels inside Mexico before, according to a former and a current US official, under at least one small program that partnered with Mexican authorities.

  But the more recent flights were communicated to Congress by the Trump administration using a particular notification reserved for new or updated covert programs that the CIA intends either to conceal or deny, a source familiar with the matter said — suggesting that the flights represent a distinct escalation. The notifications made no mention of Mexican partners, the source said.

  CIA spokesperson told the media outlet that “countering drug cartels in Mexico and regionally is a priority for CIA as a part of the Trump Administration’s broader efforts to end the grave threat from narco-trafficking. Director [John] Ratcliffe is determined to put CIA’s unique expertise to work against this multifaceted challenge.”

  Here’s the latest:

  • USAF Spy Plane Runs SIGINT Operation Near Cabo As US Preps For Potential Cartel Fight

  • USAF Spy Jet Flies Second SIGINT Operation On US Border With Focus On Narco Hub

  • Border Czar “Expects” Kinetic Warfare Between US Troops & Mexican Drug Cartels

  Beyond spy planes and drones conducting SIGINT and other surveillance operations in the region, as well as US Special Forces operators in Campeche, this should all be viewed as the beginning innings of the war against cartels. We suspect financial sanctions could be used to pressure Mexican banks to disrupt cartel financial networks. 

  This is what ‘America First’ looks like. 

  … and Kyle Bass could never be happier… 

   

   

   

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 19:40

• Education Department Cuts $600 Million From Ideological Training Programs For Teachers
  Education Department Cuts $600 Million From Ideological Training Programs For Teachers

   Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The U.S. Education Department on Monday said it has canceled $600 million in grants for educator training programs that promote “divisive ideologies.”

  

  The grants had been awarded to teacher preparation programs that trained future educators in what the department said were “inappropriate and unnecessary topics,” such as critical race theory, which promotes the fundamental framework view that racism is embedded in all institutions and aspects of society; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); and social justice activism. Some of the defunded programs also included race-based teacher recruitment and staffing strategies, according to the department.

  The department provided examples of the defunded training programs, including those that required educators to acknowledge “systemic inequities” like racism and “critically reassess” their own teaching practices. Others offered professional development workshops on “Building Cultural Competence,” “Dismantling Racial Bias,” and “Centering Equity in the Classroom.”

  Some initiatives guided teachers to “interrupt racial marginalization and oppression of students.” There were also programs promoting an “abolitionist pedagogy” which, according to Bettina L. Love, the professor who coined the term, applies a “critical race lens” to classrooms and encourages teachers to organize marches and boycotts against their colleagues perceived as “racist, homophobic, or Islamophobic.”

  The decision to cut these grants aligns with the broader cost-cutting measures led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory body led by Elon Musk, and with President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to dismantle DEI initiatives across the federal government.

  Trump on Jan. 21 signed an executive order directing government educational institutions to end all DEI efforts.

  “Illegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system,” the order read. “The Federal Government is charged with enforcing our civil-rights laws. The purpose of this order is to ensure that it does so by ending illegal preferences and discrimination.”

  A study by Parents Defending Education, an independent organization that rallies against ideological indoctrinations in K-12 schools, found that since 2021, the Education Department has spent at least $1 billion on various DEI-related initiatives. That includes approximately $490 million on DEI hiring efforts, $343 million on DEI programming, and $170 million on DEI-related mental health programs.

  Over the weekend, the Education Department reaffirmed its stance that DEI initiatives conflict with federal non-discrimination laws. Its civil rights enforcement division warned that failure to ensure compliance could result in a loss of federal funding.

  “The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, wrote in a letter sent to the education departments in all 50 states.

  While emphasizing the obligations under Title VI, the federal law prohibiting discrimination based on race for institutions that receive federal dollars, the letter also referenced the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision, which found it unconstitutional for public and private colleges to use racial preferences in admissions.

  “At its core, the test is simple: If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law,” the letter said.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 19:15

• Goldman Turns Bullish On Starlink Satellite Parts Supplier As Space Race Accelerates
  Goldman Turns Bullish On Starlink Satellite Parts Supplier As Space Race Accelerates

  The space race to connect the world to the internet is led by Elon Musk’s SpaceX’s Starlink, alongside competitors like OneWeb, Amazon, and Telesat. These players are deploying massive constellations of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, with plans to launch tens of thousands of new units by the decade’s end, with some 7,000 LEO satellites already orbiting the planet every 90 minutes. 

  

  With tens of thousands of new LEO satellites slated for deployment over the next five years, Goldman analysts have identified the global leader in satellite components—particularly hollow metallic waveguides. These waveguides are used in microwave or mmWave components, such as power amplifiers, filters, circulators, and isolators. Such components are integral to both LEO satellites and ground-based gateways used by Starlink and Amazon, which transmit data skyward to be relayed around the globe.

  

  Goldman’s Allen Chang, Verena Jeng, and others informed clients Monday that they initiated a “Buy” on Universal Microwave Technology (UMT) because of its unique exposures to the mmWave/ microWave components for LEO satellites as launch plans for these satellites are accelerated. 

  

  Chang and the team provided clients with additional insight into UMT’s current position as a global leader in LEO satellite components for mmWave/ microWave components:

  We expect LEO satellites to be a standard service in the 6G era starting in 2030, driving network deployment to grow at 49% CAGR in 2025-27E. Major global satellite operators target to launch an additional 80k units (vs. 7k in the sky currently) in the coming 5 years.

  The acceleration of LEO satellite launches will drive UMT’s revenues: we expect UMT’s LEO satellite revenues to grow at 40% CAGR in 2024-28E to NT$9bn in 2028E or 77% of total revenues. LEO satellites carry higher GM than UMT’s traditional telecom products, driving the blended GM to 55.5% in 2028E (vs. 51.3% in 2024E).

  The analysts expect an accelerated ramp-up of satellite network deployment, such as Starlink’s Direct to Cell connection, and other companies deploying LEO satellites to greatly benefit UMT.

  UMT’s projected revenues:

  

  The company is poised to maintain a leading role for years to come, as analysts noted, due to “barriers to entry of satellite microwave components.” 

  Here’s more color: 

  Unlike smartphones/ consumer electronics RF (radio frequency), satellites use microwave/ mmWave with higher frequency and a more complicated structure with high-precision processing, which is difficult for consumer-grade supply chain players to enter.

  Their 12-month price target is around NT$591 (implying a 51% upside) based on 25x 2027E discounted P/E. 

  

  UMT shares trading in Taiwan…

  

  In a separate note, the analysts provided clients with a broader overview of companies entering LEO supply chains.

  

  What comes after the AI bubble? Potentially, it’s the space bubble. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 18:50

• Alleged DOGE Imposters Demand Records From San Francisco City Hall
  Alleged DOGE Imposters Demand Records From San Francisco City Hall

  Authored by Rahel Acenas via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Authorities in San Francisco are looking for three men who entered San Francisco City Hall on Friday, posing as employees of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

  

  The suspects entered various offices and demanded access to records “related to alleged wasteful government spending and fraud,” according to a statement by the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office.

  The three men were wearing Make America Great Again (MAGA) hats and DOGE shirts and authorities believe they were imposters.

  “We do not believe the individuals requesting access to City files were representatives from DOGE,” the sheriff’s office said.

  City Hall employees refused to hand over any information and alerted law enforcement. By the time authorities had arrived, however, the three suspects had left the building.

  The sheriff’s office is now reviewing surveillance videos and “using other investigative tools to pursue leads,” it said.

  DOGE, an advisory panel launched by Trump, has been tasked with weeding out wasteful federal government spending, fraud, and abuse.

  California recently joined 18 other states in suing the federal government to stop DOGE from accessing Treasury Department records including Americans’ social security and bank information. The court granted a temporary restraining order while the states seek a preliminary injunction.

  “Our country cannot afford to have people in the driver’s seat who move fast and break things, especially when the things they’re breaking are critical and sensitive systems that millions of Americans’ rely on,” Attorney General Bonta said in a statement. “The President does not hold the power to give Americans’ bank account and social security numbers to anyone he’d like—and as of Friday night, he must stop doing so.”

  Meanwhile, a judge in Washington on Feb. 14 declined a request by unions and nonprofits for a temporary restraining order to prevent the DOGE team from gaining access to records at the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

  While speaking to reporters on Thursday, Musk defended DOGE’s efforts to drastically cut spending, saying that Americans voted for major change and that the Trump administration is delivering.

  President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Feb. 11 directing government agencies to consult with DOGE on slashing the federal workforce and “eliminating waste, bloat, and insularity.”

  The order calls for massive cuts, including a directive “that each agency hire no more than one employee for every four employees that depart.”

  The executive order provides some exemptions, including to the military and law enforcement.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 18:25

• Trump Warns 25% Tariffs On Cars, Drugs And Chips Coming In April
  Trump Warns 25% Tariffs On Cars, Drugs And Chips Coming In April

  With Wall Street growing more confident by the day that Trump’s tariffs are nothing but hot air, and pushing stocks to new record highs, today after the close President Donald Trump tried to reassure the market that tariffs are indeed coming and said he would likely impose tariffs on auto, semiconductor and pharmaceutical imports of around 25%, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2.

  The new duties, if implemented, would widen the president’s trade war. Trump previously announced 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum that are set to take effect in March, but Tuesday’s comments are his most detailed yet in specifying other sectors that would be hit with fresh barriers.

  “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25%,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs.

  Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductor chips, the president said: “It’ll be 25% and higher, and it’ll go very substantially higher over a course of a year.” Trump added that he wanted to give companies “time to come in” before announcing new import taxes.

  “When they come into the United States and they have their plant or factory here there is no tariff, so we want to give them a little bit of a chance,” he said.

  As noted last week, Trump also threatened other streams of tariffs, all part of an effort to rebalance the US’s trading relationships across the globe. The president has long accused other countries of ripping off the US and views import duties as a way to bring industries back to America and collect more revenue. Many economists say they would raise consumer prices for Americans and stymie the fight against inflation.

  The president has said he would apply “reciprocal” levies on a country-by-country basis as soon as April, though specifics are still being determined. He has also threatened duties on some of the US’s biggest trading partners, such as a 10% rate already applied to China and 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico that have been deferred until at least March 4. The measures would stack on top of one another, meaning that Mexican and Canadian producers in certain sectors could pay as many as three tariffs.

  

  Altogether, Trump’s moves, if enacted, would remake supply chains and trade flows — and US prices. Tariffs are paid by importers and often passed onto consumers, though sometimes offset by price reductions abroad.

  The direction of President Trump’s tariff strategy became clearer over the past week, shifting away from the broad, universal levies that some Wall Street analysts had anticipated. Rather than imposing universal tariffs, the administration issued an executive order last Thursday establishing a reciprocal tariff policy for all current and potential US trading partners. By the weekend, Trump doubled down on reciprocal tariffs, stating that the move would ensure “a level playing field for American workers.” 

  On Monday, Goldman’s Jan Hatzius, Alec Phillips, David Mericle, Ronnie Walker, and others penned a note for clients titled “Earnings Season Takeaways: Animal Spirits Over Tariffs.” 

  

  In the note, the analysts provided a visual for clients showing that the percentage of management teams in corporate America discussing ‘tariffs’ this earnings season has surpassed 40%, far exceeding the previous peak (of around 30%) during Trump’s first term, when he initiated the trade war with China.

  

  More color from the analysts:

  Management references to tariffs soared amid the start of a second trade war (Exhibit 3). After signing orders imposing new tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China, President Trump delayed the Canada and Mexico tariffs until March 4. We think a further extension is likely, but the tariff risk for both countries is likely to remain until at least the conclusion of the USMCA review slated for mid-2026. In addition to the China tariffs that have already been implemented, we expect tariffs on imports from China to rise further, for the announced steel and aluminum tariffs to be implemented, and for new tariffs on EU autos and critical imports (i.e. oil, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and other electrical equipment) to ultimately be implemented.

  Latest commentary from management teams about the ongoing tariff situation:

  

  On tariff impacts, the analysts noted: “Analyst expectations for capex—a proxy for company guidance—similarly suggest that the escalation in tariff policy will weigh on the investment decisions of the exposed companies.” 

  

  They added, “Similar to last quarter, companies suggested that they could mitigate the impact of tariffs by passing along the higher cost to customers and stockpiling goods before their implementation.”

  After last week’s CPI and PPI—both of which printed hotter than expected—coupled with the tariff war, fears have emerged of a redux of the mid-1970s …

  

  Last week, readers were given a roadmap for the next iteration of Trump’s trade war—reciprocal tariffs—(read: here). 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 18:00

• Watch: Trump Calls Out Massive Social Security Fraud After DOGE Exposes Ancient 'Vampires'
  Watch: Trump Calls Out Massive Social Security Fraud After DOGE Exposes Ancient ‘Vampires’

  Update (1800ET): During a Tuesday press conference, President Trump rattled off some of the massive waste, fraud and abuse found by Elon Musk’s team at DOGE – including thousands of Social Security recipients listed as being more than 200 years old, to which Musk joked “Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security.”

  🚨BREAKING: President Trump lists MASSIVE fraud in Social Security:

  200 to 209 years old, 879 people.

  210 to 219 years old, 866 people.

  220 to 229 years old, 1,039 people.

  240 to 249 years old, 2 people.

  1 person that is 360 years old. pic.twitter.com/WM8XSaZyd0

  — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 18, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Listen to Trump go into detail on other terrible things DOGE has found:

  Trump highlights a list of projects funded by U.S. taxpayers, including $10 million for circumcision programs in Mozambique.pic.twitter.com/mlzHTAlVSN

  — Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) February 18, 2025

  Insane!

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The @DOGE revelations are exposing the dystopian US Hunger Games system where the districts (taxpayers) confer tribute on their labor to the capital city (DC) which lives in grifter opulence.

  To make matters worse some of the tribute is used to silence and persecute those who…

  — Edward Dowd (@DowdEdward) February 18, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  *  *  *

  Great news! Our most popular supplement Astaxanthin – the ultimate antioxidant, is back in stock at ZH Store. Grab some today!

  

  *  *  *

  Acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Michelle King, resigned on Sunday after a standoff with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) over access to sensitive government records.

  

  The same day, Musk posted what he says could be the ‘biggest fraud in US history‘ in which millions of ‘people’ over the age of 100 are collecting payments.

  According to the Social Security database, these are the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE!

  Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security 🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/ltb06VX98Z

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  King – who worked at the agency for over 30 years, left her position this weekend after refusing to give DOGE staffers access to sensitive information, such as the fraudulent payments to ‘vampires’ – with at least one recipient being older than the United States itself.

  

  Which of course is the exact reason career employees shouldn’t be holding the keys to the castle with the new sheriff in town.

  According to the Washington Post, “Administration officials have also been skeptical of career employees’ efforts to guard federal data, maintaining that political appointees should also be able to access it, particularly if necessary to root out wasteful or erroneous spending.”

  In the wake of King’s departure, President Donald Trump appointed Leland Dudek – a manager in charge of Social Security’s anti-fraud office, as acting commissioner, while the Senate vets Trump nominee Frank Bisignano. Dudek had previously posted positive remarks on social media over DOGE’s efforts to cut  waste, fraud and abuse throughout the US government.

  Yes, there are FAR more “eligible” social security numbers than there are citizens in the USA.

  This might be the biggest fraud in history.

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Trump picking Dudek to take over for King bypassed ‘dozens of other senior executives who sat higher in the agency’s leadership heirarchy, touching off alarm in and around the agency,’ according to WaPo.

  “At this rate, they will break it. And they will break it fast, and there will be an interruption of benefits,” said former Social Security commissioner under Biden, Martin O’Malley – a former Maryland governor.

  “It’s a shame the chilling effect it has to disregard 120 senior executive service people,” O’Malley continued. “To pick an acting commissioner that is not in the senior executive service sends a message that professional people should leave that beleaguered public agency.”

  Yes jackass, that’s the point.

  On Monday evening, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she had been fighting “fake news reporters” trying to “fearmonger” about Social Security payments.

  DOGE’s access to records across the federal government have prompted disputes with senior officials at various agencies. Perhaps most prominently, the highest-ranking civil servant at the US Treasury Department quit after similarly refusing to grant Musk’s team access to the Bureau of Fiscal Service, which manages over $5 trillion in annual payments.

  On Sunday, the Post reported that DOGE is looking to access a heavily guarded IRS system that contains detailed information about every taxpayer, business and nonprofit in the country. For some reason, Democrats seem to be the only ones freaking out about this.

  And again, that’s the point.

  *  *  *

  Our most popular supplement Astaxanthin – the ultimate antioxidant, is back in stock at ZH Store! Grab some today.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 17:59

• In Dealing With China, Trump May Have A Trick Up His Sleeve
  In Dealing With China, Trump May Have A Trick Up His Sleeve

  Authored by Bonner Russel Cohen via RealClearEnergy,

  China is the only country in the world that can seriously challenge America’s longstanding status as the globe’s top dog. And a rejuvenated United States is the only thing standing in the way of an ambitious China ascending to the peak of the heap. The reemergence of a bipolar world in the 21st century – replicating the old U.S.-U.S.S.R. rivalry of the Cold War era – is the no-longer-to-be-ignored reality of our time.

  

  However, unlike the late Soviet Union – sometimes referred to as “Haiti with missiles” – China is an economic powerhouse, one that puts is technological prowess in the service of its geostrategic aspirations. ”China has roughly nine times as many engineers as the U.S. and perhaps as many as 15 times as many science and technology graduates,” George Gilder recently noted in the Wall Street Journal. This gives China a decisive edge in a world where rapid advances in technology have far-reaching economic and military implications. 

  There are, however, things that Trump and his team can do, and in some cases are already doing, that can turn the tables on Beijing. With the departure of the geopolitically inept Biden administration, Washington can now harness its considerable geological assets to the disadvantage of its rival in the Far East.

  Beijing was quick to realize the importance of gaining control of both the mining and processing of rare earths and other critical minerals, which it had largely done by the time the U.S. and other industrialized countries embarked on their climate-driven green energy transition. Beijing was not so foolish; to meet its own energy needs, it built hundreds of coal-fired power plants. Abandoning fossil fuels, which the United States has in abundance, and embracing green energy, the supply chain for which is largely controlled by China, could benefit only one country. And for a while, China’s bet looked to be paying off. 

  But China’s dominance of such sectors as electric vehicles, batteries that power EVs and serve to backup intermittent wind and solar energy, and the raw materials in wind turbines and solar panels makes the Middle Kingdom vulnerable to Trump’s renewed embrace of “American energy dominance.” One of Trump’s Jan. 20 executive orders titled “Unleashing American Energy” includes directives revoking the EV mandate, freezing unspent funds for green energy, expediting approval of liquid natural gas (LNG) export facilities, and streamlining the permitting process for oil and gas leasing, exploration, development, and production. It also speeds up the approval process for new pipelines and other critical fossil-fuel infrastructure. 

  Another, less-reported section of Trump’s order focuses on the mining of critical minerals. It instructs federal agencies to identify all regulations, policies, and orders “that impose undue burdens on domestic mining and processing of non-fuel minerals and undertake steps to revise or rescind such actions.”

  The geostrategic case for promoting the mining and processing of critical minerals in the U.S. is compelling. “China now produces 80-90% of the world’s rare-earth minerals, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Yet China has only about 37% of the world’s estimated reserves,” notes Greg Walcher, president of the Natural Resources Group LLC. “Relying on China for critical minerals is obviously not smart, not safe, nor necessary.” 

  Known to the public for their unpronounceable names, rare earths – which are actually quite abundant – have a variety of commercial and military applications. They include smartphones, MRI equipment, satellites, jet engines, night-vision goggles, sonar on submarines and other naval vessels, and real-time imagery and targeting for surveillance and reconnaissance flights by unmanned aerial systems – just to name a few. 

  Taking rare earths and other valuable minerals seriously means upgrading the nation’s hollowed-out domestic supply chain for these natural resources. This is the purpose behind Trump’s order to eliminate “undue burdens on domestic mining and processing” of these strategically important minerals. That, of course, will be easier said than done, because Trump’s initiative will be challenged by lawsuits launched by activists determined to cripple America’s industrial base.

  Trump’s desire to acquire Greenland from Denmark must be seen in this light. The icy island where the North Atlantic meets the Arctic abounds in mostly untapped mineral resources. In bringing the giant island under American jurisdiction, in whatever form, Trump can deny China (and Russia) access to Greenland’s riches while solidifying the U.S. presence in the Arctic. 

  Another Trump executive order temporarily halts offshore wind leases in federal waters and pauses approvals, permits, and loans for offshore and onshore wind projects. Aside from signaling to investors that putting their money into capital-intensive wind projects may not be a good idea, the order undercuts Beijing’s investment in raw materials used in wind energy. 

  “Wind farms require 10 times the amount of critical minerals as natural gas power plants and 1.6 times as much as nuclear power plants,” writes the Heritage Foundation’s Austin Gae. 

  China is the world’s leading supplier of raw materials that go into wind turbines, including in the U.S. Trump is deliberately shrinking the U.S. market for wind turbines and for the predominately Chinese-supplied raw materials that go into them. The goal is to play to America’s strengths, which lie in fossil fuels and a rejuvenated nuclear-power industry, while lowering our dependence on China by turning away from wind and solar power.

  This is a winning strategy.

  Bonner Russell Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 17:40

• Trump Blasts Critics Of His Ukraine Peace Initiative, Including Zelensky, Questions Where Hundreds Of Billions Went
  Trump Blasts Critics Of His Ukraine Peace Initiative, Including Zelensky, Questions Where Hundreds Of Billions Went

  Update(1735ET): President Trump in an afternoon press Q&A from Mar-a-Lago went off on those attacking his Ukraine peace initiative, which saw Secretary of State Rubio and national security advisor Walz lead a delegation in 4+ hours of talks with FM Lavrov and the Russians in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia earlier in the day.

  “I want to see peace. Look, you know why I want it? Because I don’t want all these people killed anymore. I’m looking at people that are being killed — and they’re Russian and Ukrainian people, but they’re people,” Trump emphasized.

  His tone on Zelensky was decidedly negative, and he defended his administration’s stance on holding Kiev to new elections, saying this is necessary if the Ukrainians want a seat at the table. Watch:

  FOX: We’re hearing that Russia wants to force Ukraine to hold new elections in order to sign a sign a peace deal. Is that something that the US would ever support?

  TRUMP: We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law … the leader in Ukraine, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating… the country has been blown to smithereens… the country looks like a massive demolition site.

  FOX: We’re hearing that Russia wants to force Ukraine as a condition for a peace deal. Is that something the US would support?

  TRUMP: We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law … the leader in Ukraine, I hate to say it, but he’s… pic.twitter.com/BE2gRdmopB

  — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 18, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  On a similar theme, at one point he was asked what his message is to Ukrainians who feel betrayed by his administration, again as the US pursues negotiations with Russia while sidelining both Zelensky and EU officials. Trump responded bluntly:

  “I hear they’re upset about not having a seat. Well, they’ve had a seat for three years.”

  Trump was further asked about how he would prevent Russia from installing a puppet government in Ukraine. He remarked that none of this is about personalities, but about getting the job done, saying he likes Zelensky “personally” but that’s not what this is all about.

  Trump’s message to Ukrainians who feel betrayed by his administration: “I hear they’re upset about not having a seat. Well, they’ve had a seat for three years.” pic.twitter.com/MvQUdzSYIt

  — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 18, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  “You have leadership now that’s allowed a war to go on that should’ve never ever happened, even without the United States,” Trump said, underscoring that the conflict and slaughter started under Biden.

  “Look we had a president who was grossly incompetent, he had no idea what he was doing – he said some very stupid things, like going in for portions,” Trump continued.

  “This is something that would have never happened. And I used to discuss it with Putin. President Putin and I used to talk about Ukraine – it was the apple of his eye… I used to tell him ‘don’t go in’ – and he understand that, he understood it fully… I want to see if I can save maybe millions of lives.” You might “end up in World War 3,” Trump warned, if the conflict keeps escalating and with no efforts to make peace.

  And more:

  🚨President Trump: “I want to see peace. Look, you know why I want it? Because I don’t want all these people killed anymore. I’m looking at people that are being killed — and they’re Russian and Ukrainian people, but they’re people.”
  pic.twitter.com/RmHMsLjVjy

  — Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 18, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Importantly, Trump also asked where the billions upon billions given to Ukraine went.

  “We gave them I think $350 BILLION… where is all the money that’s been given? Where is it going? I don’t see any accounting!”

  “…so I want to see peace… I don’t want to see all these people killed anymore.” He noted that Europe has “only given a small percentage of that” – even though this most directly impacts the security of Europe.

  🚨 PRESIDENT TRUMP: Where is all the money we’ve given to Ukraine??!

  “We gave them I think $350 BILLION… where is all the money that’s been given? Where is it going? I don’t see any accounting!”

  DOGE must dig DEEP into the endless flow of tax dollars given to Ukraine! pic.twitter.com/M7GGWqWZt4

  — Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) February 18, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  “I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land and no people would have been killed and no cities would have been demolished… President Biden in all fairness doesn’t have a clue”.

  lol, Russian troops brazenly attacked Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities in a live broadcast, but Trump thinks it was Zelensky who started the war.

  Putin is surely popping a bottle of champagne every night.

  pic.twitter.com/YCSifKEHOS

  — Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) February 18, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  * * *

  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Tuesday he is cancelling his scheduled state visit to Saudi Arabia following the conclusion of US-Russia talks there.

  He’s been on a Middle East diplomatic tour to gain support for his country now three years in to the Russia-Ukraine war, which took him to the UAE, Turkey, and Wednesday he was supposed to be in Saudi Arabia to meet with the kingdom’s leadership. The Saudi trip had been planned before it was known that the US-Russia talks would take place.

  “Zelensky CANCELLING trip to Saudi Arabia following US/Russia talks. Zelensky will now return to Kyiv from Ankara, Turkey,” Fox News has reported. He now says he plans to visit in March. Zelensky is clearly trying to lash out at Washington.

  

  Without doubt this is to signal his anger about being cut out of talks toward ending the Ukraine war. The Kremlin hailed Tuesday’s four-and-half hour meeting in Riyadh, with Rubio leading the US side and Lavrov leading the Moscow delegation, as “successful”. European officials were also noticeably absent from the meeting, which was hosted and mediated by the Saudi government.

  Zelensky had issued a prior warning while in the UAE: “Ukraine will not accept. Ukraine knew nothing about this. And Ukraine regards any negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine as having no results,” he had said.

  “Ukraine will not take part in the negotiations. Ukraine did not know they were planned. And the visit to the region was planned long before the US decided to meet Russia there,” he continued.

  The fact that a high-level peace meeting was taking place without Zelensky or any Ukrainian representation, at the very moment he was in the region, is being felt as adding insult to injury from the Trump administration.

  I think Zelensky is pissed off.

  Zelensky: I will not travel to Saudi Arabia tomorrow; we have postponed the visit to March 10, and we expect U.S. representatives in Kyiv

  I care about what our partners think of us. We are absolutely honest and open. That is why I will not go… pic.twitter.com/uQoK94jMLB

  — Tymofiy Mylovanov (@Mylovanov) February 18, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Top Russian diplomat Sergey Lavrov has explained the need for Zelensky’s absence from talks as follows: “I don’t know what they [Kiev officals] could do at the negotiating table. If their aim is to cunningly extract a deceptive truce while secretly preparing for continued war—true to their habits and nature—then why invite them at all?” according to TASS.

  The US and Russian sides have vowed to continue the peace negotiations going, hopefully leading to a face-to-face meeting between Presidents Putin and Trump.

  Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the Riyadh meeting issued a statement revealing an agreement for election to be held in Ukraine, which Zelensky certainly isn’t going to like (and probably won’t agree to), given also he just recently argued that martial law prevents this. 

  Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov:

  Zelensky’s entire team needs to be brought to reason, and he himself needs to be slapped on the wrist.

  Russia has never endangered Ukraine’s energy supply system. pic.twitter.com/Kl8RHgjgGW

  — Clash Report (@clashreport) February 18, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  But Putin has said negotiations with Ukraine remain a non-starter so long as Zelensky refuses to hold elections. The Russian leader has said this makes him ‘illegitimate’ and thus he can’t legally sign any peace terms.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 17:35

• BLM "Activist" Who Shot Disabled Veteran Released After Serving Just 3 Years Of 11 Year Sentence
  BLM “Activist” Who Shot Disabled Veteran Released After Serving Just 3 Years Of 11 Year Sentence

  BLM activist and Alamosa attorney James Edward Marshall IV, 33, who shot a disabled veteran during a 2020 Colorado riot, has been released to a halfway house after serving just three years of an 11-year sentence, according to the Post Millennial. 

  Originally facing multiple violent charges, he took a plea deal under former DA Alonzo Payne, pleading guilty only to tampering with a deceased body, court records show.

  In June 2020, Marshall IV shot disabled veteran Danny Pruitt in the head while Pruitt was stopped at an intersection near a BLM protest in Alamosa, Colorado.

  Armed with a 9mm Glock, Marshall fired into Pruitt’s truck, critically injuring him. Pruitt, who survived after a 17-day coma, suffered permanent brain damage and struggles with memory, speech, and motor skills.

  

  The Post Millennial reports that, at the time, Marshall claimed self-defense, but authorities found Pruitt posed no threat.

  His plea deal, which dropped all violent charges in exchange for a guilty plea to tampering with a deceased body—a nonviolent third-degree felony—sparked outrage. The deal omitted any acknowledgment that a weapon was used or that Pruitt survived.

  Attorney Matthew Beresky of the Rocky Mountain Victim Rights Center condemned the plea deal, calling it an affront to justice that ignored the severity of the crime and denied Pruitt his rights. He criticized allowing James Marshall to plead guilty to abusing a corpse when Pruitt was still alive.

  The controversial deal contributed to the 2022 disbarment of DA Alonzo Payne, reportedly linked to George Soros.

  Payne was found guilty of violating victims’ rights, failing to communicate with key legal parties, and frequently dismissing or mishandling cases. Before his disbarment, he admitted neglecting crime victims and struggling with complex cases.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 02/18/2025 – 17:20

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Our Birth Dearth Is Becoming Our Death Knell
  Our Birth Dearth Is Becoming Our Death Knell

  Authored by Timothy Geoglein via The Epoch Times,

  One of our current cultural mantras is “you do you” – putting your personal desires over the greater good of others and society. In other words, living selfishly instead of selflessly.

  

  The manifestation of such a philosophy and its implications for our society is particularly acute when it comes to the institutions of marriage and family.

  As the late James Q. Wilson, former professor of government at Harvard University, wrote in his book, “The Marriage Problem”: “It is not money, but the family that is the foundation of public life. As it has become weaker, every structure built upon that foundation has become weaker.”

  I pondered this after I read last month about the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) releasing troubling new numbers regarding current fertility rates in the United States.

  While numerous articles have been written about the “birth dearth” over the past few years and its implications for our future, this report clearly illustrates that what was once a matter of concern is rapidly becoming a full-blown crisis as the CBO forecasts significantly lower population growth over the next three decades.

  Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Paul Kiernan states:

  “As a result of these changes, deaths are expected to exceed births in 2033, seven years earlier than the nonpartisan agency projected a year ago.”

  The report shows the population receiving Social Security will grow from its current total of 342 million to 383 million by 2054. The current ratio of people aged 25–64 compared to those over 65 is 2.9-1. By 2054, it will be 2.2-1.

  While better health care has resulted in longer life expectancies, thus increasing this ratio, the nation’s current population growth rate is 0.2 percent, with much of that driven by immigration rather than births. In fact, the CBO projects that the fertility rate will be approximately 1.70 percent, below the replacement level of 2.1.

  So, while people living longer is one contributing factor, it is just that: one factor. There are more and greater factors in play. Perhaps the most important one is this: Americans are not getting married or forming families, or if they are, it happens later in a woman’s prime childbearing years.

  For instance, in 1970, married couples made up 71 percent of all American households. By 2022, that percentage had decreased to just 47 percent. In 1962, 90 percent of all 30-year-olds were married, with that percentage dropping to 51 percent in 2019.

  Dr. Peter H. Schuck, professor emeritus at Yale Law School, perhaps put it best when he wrote in his book, “One Nation Undecided: Clear Thinking About Five Hard Issues That Divide Us”:

  “The family is the essential core of any society, and the steady decline of two-parent households is probably the single most consequential social trend of the half-century.”

  Decisions not to get married or have children are often driven by choices to pursue so-called “personal fulfillment,” such as money, travel, and a career.

  Last year, the Pew Research Center reported that 57 percent of adults under 50 who say they’re unlikely to ever have kids say a major reason is they just don’t want to; 31 percent of those ages 50 and older without kids cite this as a reason they never had them.

  The implications are ominous—the rapidly growing aging population that becomes dependent upon younger generations for their care will be like old Mother Hubbard, who goes to the cupboard and finds nothing more than a bone.

  According to Pew, even those who have chosen not to marry or have children worry about what their lives will be like as they age, without children or younger generations to provide the financial and familial support they will need. In addition, this will only increase government dependence for the elderly.

  But there are also other societal considerations beyond caring for an aging population. Across the nation, we are already seeing schools beginning to close because of decreased enrollment (down 5.5 percent by 2031). Businesses are having a much harder time finding young, skilled, able-bodied workers, and when there are less children it will likely mean a continued drop in fertility rates as there will be even fewer young adults getting married and having children in the future.

  It is a death spiral as the lack of marriages and children continues to weaken our nation’s foundation. You can only remove so many bricks, in this case families and children, before the entire building comes tumbling down.

  What is the solution? We need to become a society that once again emphasizes the importance of marriage and children, putting sacrifice over personal ambition and family over autonomy. Without such a reversal from our current societal philosophy of “you do you” and a return to these values, our birth dearth will become our societal death.

  *  *  *

  Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 23:35

• US Special Forces Deploy To Mexico For "Training" Mission Following Spy Plane SIGINT Operations
  US Special Forces Deploy To Mexico For “Training” Mission Following Spy Plane SIGINT Operations

  After two weeks of US Air Force RC-135V/W Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft conducting multiple signals intelligence (SIGINT) operations along the US-Mexico border and in international waters off southern Baja California—areas controlled by heavily armed drug cartels—the Mexican Senate Commission has approved the deployment of US Special Forces operators to the country for “training missions.”

  SOFREP’s Guy D. McCardle reports that the Mexican Senate Commission has already approved the US Army’s 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) Green Berets to conduct training exercises at a naval facility in Campeche, a Mexican port city on the Gulf of Mexico. 

  

  As of Monday, the exercise is underway and will last through the end of March in conjunction with the Mexican Navy’s Infantería de Marina. 

  The training will take place at the Luis Carpizo naval facility in Campeche from February 17 to March 30, 2025. It has been officially approved by the Mexican Senate’s Naval Ministry Commission and will be conducted under the supervision of the Mexican Defense Ministry (SEDENA). This ensures that while the training benefits from US military expertise, it remains aligned with Mexico’s national defense priorities. -SOFREP

  “It’s important to say the Green Berets’ role is going to be just that: Training,” Scott Stewart, vice president of intelligence for international security consultant TorchStone Global, told NewsNation, adding, “It’s not like they’re sending in the SEALs, the Delta (Force) or the (Army) Rangers. It’s not like we are seeing the deployment of combat troops or combat aircraft.”

  LFG 🔥🔥🇺🇸🇺🇸 https://t.co/2WvCeOCau9

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Stewart suggested that the Mexican government likely permitted the USAF spy planes near cartel-controlled areas to collect SIGINT for law enforcement agencies.

  “That may be an attempt to increase signals intelligence – that plane is a vacuum, it sucks up all communications – but I think it would be intelligence to pass to the Mexican marines and not necessarily in preparation for a US airstrike or something,” he noted.

  As we previously reported:

  • USAF Spy Plane Runs SIGINT Operation Near Cabo As US Preps For Potential Cartel Fight

  • USAF Spy Jet Flies Second SIGINT Operation On US Border With Focus On Narco Hub

  • Border Czar “Expects” Kinetic Warfare Between US Troops & Mexican Drug Cartels

  Beyond training, this partnership comes as President Trump recently designated Mexican cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

  When reporters asked Trump earlier this month whether he would consider deploying Special Forces operators to Mexico, he responded, “Could happen” and added, “Stranger things have happened.” 

  ABC News asked Trump administration Border Czar Tom Homan a few weeks ago whether the US military could get involved if cartels strike. Homan replied, “Yes, and we expect them to,” adding that US troops “need to protect themselves.”

  Pres. Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan says the U.S. military could get involved in a conflict with the Mexican cartels.

  “I think the cartels would be foolish to take on the military,” Homan said.https://t.co/2MHah30Ivj pic.twitter.com/Fi8ogjEfjM

  — ABC News (@ABC) February 6, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  At the start of the month, in what appeared to be the shortest trade war in history, Mexico and Canada each committed 10,000 troops to their respective borders, while the US reinforced its southern border with thousands of soldiers in the last three weeks. 

  Last month, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had some strong words for drug cartels.

  BREAKING: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth just confirmed that the United States could now conduct special operations against Mexican cartels now that President Trump has declared them foreign terrorist organizations.

  “All options will be on the table.” pic.twitter.com/UhCvRaGRvJ

  — George (@BehizyTweets) January 31, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  As we’ve previously noted:

  Dismantling Mexican drug cartels could be a very messy operation, which is why the Trump administration fortified the border with the military. The challenge, however, is that if US Special Forces operators kill cartel leaders, retaliatory attacks by cartel members could occur at Mexican beach resorts or, worse, on the streets of US cities. 

  This move could mark the beginning of a broader deployment of US Special Forces in Mexico, aimed at dismantling drug cartels responsible for the drug death catastrophe of 100,000 Americans per year. Beyond military action, there is also the possibility that the Trump administration could launch financial hybrid warfare—applying pressure on Mexican banks to disrupt cartel operations. Additionally, Beijing may soon face more pressure from Trump in its role in subsidizing fentanyl precursor exports to Mexico. 

  This is what ‘America First’ looks like. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 23:00

• Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court To Permit Firing Of Office Of Special Counsel Chief
  Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court To Permit Firing Of Office Of Special Counsel Chief

  Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 16 to allow it to fire the head of an agency that protects whistleblowers after lower courts said it could not.

  

  Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger, who heads the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, argues he may only be terminated for misconduct during his fixed-term appointment. Dellinger said a brief emailed notice he received Feb. 7 informed him he was being fired and did not explain why. New administrations routinely fire government officials without providing a reason.

  Nominated by President Joe Biden, Dellinger was confirmed 49-47 for a five-year term by the U.S. Senate on Feb. 27, 2024.

  The office describes itself as “an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency” whose “primary mission is to safeguard the merit system by protecting federal employees and applicants from prohibited personnel practices (PPPs), especially reprisal for whistleblowing.”

  The Office of Special Counsel also enforces the Hatch Act, which prevents federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity, and safeguards the employment-related rights of military service members.

  As the first appeal to the Supreme Court lodged by the new administration that took power on Jan. 20, the new emergency application in the case of Bessent v. Dellinger has not yet been docketed by the nation’s highest court, which means it does not yet appear in the court’s searchable online database. It may be docketed, or officially accepted for filing, on Feb. 18, the first business day after the Feb. 17 federal holiday.

  The application says the government has a “very high” likelihood of succeeding on the merits. The Constitution “empowers the President to remove, at will, the single head of an agency, such as the Special Counsel,” the filing reads.

  Federal district courts, like the one that temporarily blocked the removal of Dellinger, do not have the authority “to reinstate principal officers,” according to the filing.

  The lower court has “erred in ways that threaten the separation of powers,” the document said, referring to a constitutional doctrine that divides the government into three branches to prevent any single branch from accumulating too much power.

  The case goes back to Feb. 10, when Dellinger sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He argued he “has a clear entitlement to remain in his office” for his full five-year term and that the president may remove him only for “inefficiency, neglect, or malfeasance in office.”

  He said his tenure was guaranteed by Supreme Court precedents, including Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935).

  Separately, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris informed Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) in a Feb. 12 letter that the government is seeking to overturn the 80-year-old ruling stating that some federal officials may only be fired for cause. “The Department [DOJ] has concluded that those tenure protections are unconstitutional,” she wrote in the letter.

  On Feb. 10, Washington-based U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued a temporary administrative stay through Feb. 13 blocking Dellinger’s termination. The next day, the government appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The circuit court denied the appeal on Feb. 12, saying it lacked jurisdiction, meaning it did not have legal authority to hear the case.

  On Feb. 12, Jackson issued a temporary restraining order allowing Dellinger to remain in his position and forbidding the government from denying him “access to the resources or materials of that office” and from recognizing “the authority of any other person as Special Counsel.”

  The government failed to justify “the President’s hasty, unexplained action, or … the immediate ejection of the Senate-confirmed Special Counsel while the legal issue is subject to calm and thorough deliberation,” she wrote.

  On Feb. 13, the government appealed that order to the D.C. Circuit. On Feb. 15, the circuit court denied the appeal in a 2-1 opinion.

  The D.C. Circuit’s majority opinion states that even though a temporary restraining order “ordinarily is not an appealable order,” the government requested a hearing on it because it said the order “works an extraordinary harm.”

  “The relief requested by the government is a sharp departure from established procedures that balance and protect the interests of litigants, and ensure the orderly consideration of cases before the district court and this court.”

  Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas dissented. He wrote that the president “is immune from injunctions directing the performance of his official duties, and Article II of the Constitution grants him the power to remove agency heads.”

  Meanwhile, despite the Supreme Court appeal, the case remains pending before Judge Jackson.

  On Feb. 15, Judge Jackson ordered Dellinger to file a reply to the government’s opposition to the restraining order by Feb. 20. The government is required to explain why it believes the court should dismiss Dellinger’s lawsuit in a filing that is due Feb. 21. The court will hold a hearing on Feb. 26 regarding Dellinger’s request to upgrade the temporary restraining order to a preliminary injunction.

  The Trump administration has met a series of legal challenges to its policies. Several lower courts have granted temporary restraining orders preventing the administration from taking various actions, such as ending birthright citizenship for children born to noncitizens on U.S. soil, and blocking funding for some medical procedures for transgender-identifying minors.

  The Epoch Times reached out for comment to the DOJ and Dellinger’s attorneys at Hecker Fink in Washington. No replies were received by publication time.

  Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 22:25

• "Time For Historic Decisions": Europe Scrambles To Fund Its Own Defense, But Where Will The Trillions Come From
  “Time For Historic Decisions”: Europe Scrambles To Fund Its Own Defense, But Where Will The Trillions Come From

  European defense stocks exploded this morning, surging to an all time high and helping also push the broader Euro Stoxx 600 index to a fresh record, after it emerged that Europe will have to fund its own defense after VP JD Vance effectively pulled the US out of NATO on Friday.

  

  There is just one problem with this newfound euphoria: while the market is already reaping the benefits of Europe’s rearmament, the question – which we asked last Thursday well before Vance’s speech, is just who gets to pay for this surge in defense stocks…. and for Europe’s general rearming as the continent is forced to boost its military spending from 2% of GDP to 5% (where it should have been decades ago).

  Has the market decided yet how Europe (and likely Japan) get the funding to boost military spending to 5% of GDP?

  We are talking massive debt issuance, just as massive QE here.

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 13, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  This morning others also asked this ($8) trillion question, and the result was a broad-based selloff in European bonds this morning as a growing number realized that Europe – which already is drowning in excess debt – will have even more debt to drown in.

  

  “The goalposts are shifting, and the EU is realizing they can rely less and less on the US for protecting their borders. In lockstep, we’re going to have to see European countries spend more on defense,” said Aneeka Gupta, head of macro research at Wisdomtree UK Ltd. “That does warrant a bit more caution on bonds.”

  As Bloomberg also notes (almost a week after us), the view is finally becoming accepted that debt sales will need to increase as European nations shoulder the cost of a lasting peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. And according to Bloomberg calculations, upgrading defense and protecting Ukraine may cost Europe’s major powers (or not so major as the case may be) an additional $3.1 trillion over 10 years.

  Bottom line, lots of numbers being thrown around and nobody willing to pay them. Understandably, as Bloomberg reports separately, discussions are (begrudgingly) gathering pace in the European Union on how to increase defense spending, with joint financing becoming a realistic option for a growing list of leaders.

  The topic will likely be raised informally at a meeting French President Emmanuel Macron is hosting in Paris Monday with other leaders including the UK’s Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

  Repeat warnings by top US officials that they’ll move forward with decisions on the future of Ukraine that will alter Europe’s security architecture for years to come – without input from the European capitals – has focused the minds of leaders in Europe, who have indicated a willingness to contemplate bold action to ensure it has a say in its own defense, including the controversial topic of joint bonds. What is remarkable is that it took this long before said minds were “focused.”

  “In the face of this emergency, I think it is time to take historic decisions,” French Minister for European Affairs Benjamin Haddad said in an interview with Bloomberg. “And indeed, the question of eurobonds, for instance, is one of the mechanisms that we should be talking about.”

  And even though we warned last Thursday that a flood of new debt issuance (followed by an even bigger flood of QE to monetize said issuance) is coming, it took days before German, French and Italian bonds all slipped, with 10-year bund yields — the benchmark borrowing rate for the euro area — reaching the highest in more than two weeks (see above) as the “efficient market” finally grasped what was obvious to others for a long, long time.

  What is the cost? According to NATO planners, the alliance will need to spend as much as 3.7% of GDP on defense, with Bloomberg calculating that the bottom line will be about $3.1 trillion over the next 10 years. Indicatively, just 23 out of the 32 North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries met the 2% spending target as of last year.

  

  Among the funding options being discussed include triggering an escape clause to the EU’s fiscal rules to allow countries to boost funding without running afoul of the bloc’s regulations. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed activating that mechanism for defense investments last week in a speech at the Munich Security Conference.

  The EU’s economy chief, Valdis Dombrovskis, emphasized that the bloc will find ways to support national spending. “We are currently looking in more flexibility as regards European fiscal rules for defense and looking how to apply the escape clause, which we have in our legislation,” he told reporters Monday in Brussels.

  Other options available include re-purposing existing funds, including those in the pandemic recovery fund, to use for defense spending. There are also talks of a smaller group of countries moving forward rather than all 27 member states, to avoid lengthy discussions and to have more flexibility in setting up instruments to issue common debt.

  German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock signaled over the weekend that a significant plan for building strong defenses is in the works, saying “similar to the euro or the corona crisis, there is now a financial package for security in Europe.”

  “That will come in the near future,” she said, without giving additional details.

  Hilariously, Europe – which suddenly finds itself in deep financial trouble after JD Vance slammed its censorship and lack of free speech as the root cause for US withdrawal from funding arrangements – plans to do more of just that. According to Bloomberg, the new spending plans – which will be in the trillions in debt – won’t be unveiled until after the German election on Sunday in order to avoid stirring up controversy before the vote. 

  That’s right: to prevent an outcome that Europe is terrified of, namely an AfD avalanche in next Sunday’s German election (full preview here), Europe will not even mention the vast numbers that will be required, and which may even ensure an AfD victory if the voting population knew what was coming! As a reminder, Germany and the Netherlands have traditionally been against joint borrowing; it will be up to them however to fund the bulk of European defense in a world where the US no longer funds NATO.

  Deutsche Bank economists estimate that the EU has about €400 billion ($419 billion) of defense funding available through national fiscal space, the bloc’s cohesion funds and from re-purposing money in existing programs, such as the Recovery and Resilience Facility and the European Stability Mechanism.

  “If spending needs exceed this, new EU solutions may be required,” the economists wrote in a Monday report.

  European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde has also been supportive of increasing the bloc’s fiscal capacity to finance common goods like security, saying last year: “common financing is desirable, whether by way of an increased fiscal capacity or by way of joint debt.”

  Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene said there’s been a big shift in perception among European allies on EU budget rules and joint borrowing after the past four days in Brussels and Munich.

  “Regarding joint European instruments, solidarity instruments like we used during pandemics or like we used for the green course — these need to be set up immediately,” Sakaliene said in an interview with Bloomberg TV Monday. “I think everybody or almost everybody is on board.”

  Denmark has traditionally maintained a cautious stance toward joint EU debt issuance as it’s advocated fiscal responsibility and preference for individual member states managing their own debts. But during Russia’s war in Ukraine, the Danish government has increasingly opened up for using such measures, and Denmark along with other countries are now pushing to ease the EU budget rules to boost military spending.

  “We must increase military support for Ukraine, we must produce more, and we must do it faster,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who attended the Paris meeting, said in a Monday statement. “I sense a new European determination, a seriousness, and a decisiveness that are needed.”

  Actually what is really needed is money, and Europe, a continent that has been on the edge of recession for years, has none, and thanks to its staggering debt to GDP ratio, second only to Japan, it can’t even issue debt.

  But it will have to, and – as usual – we will be right, because one way or another more QE is coming. The only question is what does the ECB do before it is forced to monetize another several trillion in debt. Its options, according to Goldman strategist Alberto Bacis, are: 

  • lean against it with higher rates, delivering an ortogonal monetary policy that will enhance the higher rates dynamics…or 
  • facilitate it, with lower borrowing costs in the front end and ultimately forcing steeper curve?

  We’ll find out soon enough, although probably not soon enough to keep Zelenskyy in the Kiev presidency.

  Meanwhile, those expecting the market’s honeymoon to persist, will be disappointed. As Bacis concludes, “markets are trading the emotional part of the risk. We will get to the detailed part in coming sessions but not now. Too soon to trade the details for now but will ultimately get there: we are trading the “will you marry me? Yes” phase: the emotional bit….in coming days post announcement we will get to the “marital agreement” (=the Detailed phase) and things we will get more interesting and less romantic.”

  Full Goldman note available to pro subs in the usual place.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 21:50

• This Might Be The Biggest Leftist Meltdown We've Ever Seen…
  This Might Be The Biggest Leftist Meltdown We’ve Ever Seen…

  Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

  Hold on to your hat during this one… literally.

  

  During an event in Portland, Oregon where GOP Senator Ron Wyden was speaking, conservative influencer David Medina triggered an angry leftist Karen into a complete meltdown by saying he liked Elon Musk.

  The woman also took offense to Medina’s hat, which was a hunting beanie with Elk and geese on it in the style of the US flag.

  She screeched about her parents being in World War Two, whatever that has to do with a hat. 

  The woman was also triggered into oblivion by Medina’s dislike of Anthony Fauci.

  She even seemed to find it amusing when Medina told her his mother passed away recently after the Karen demanded “call me mommy.”

  Here is the footage. Whatever you do, don’t call her ma’am.

  Anti-@elonmusk, anti-Trump Portland lady goes on unhinged tirade over my US flag, hunter hat.

  There’s just some people you can’t get through to.😂 #orpol #oregon #elonmusk pic.twitter.com/hIQrVFKdLl

  — David Medina 🦫🇺🇸 (@davidmedinapdx) February 16, 2025

  PART 2: I insulted her god Anthony Fauci and this is what happened. Complete meltdown in Oregon today 😂@elonmusk you have some big fans in Portland, Oregon LOL pic.twitter.com/Gd3oShQCSO

  — David Medina 🦫🇺🇸 (@davidmedinapdx) February 16, 2025

  UNHINGED ANTI-ELON LADY FINAL PART: Elon Derangement Syndrome was born today and it chose Portland, Oregon as its birthing place. #orpol #oregon @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/SSBUOcplen

  — David Medina 🦫🇺🇸 (@davidmedinapdx) February 16, 2025

  Holy hell, she is out there.

  Wow dude! Hats off to you. How you dealt with this deranged woman is truly admirable. You treated her nicely, you tried to communicate with her with respect and compassion despite her insults and patronizing you, and yet still…. crazy gonna be crazy. Mental illness is real and…

  — Truth Lover (@TruthLover94121) February 16, 2025

  I think the people that suffer from this should be referred to as “Special EDS”.

  — 🇺🇸🇺🇸Uncle Sam 🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@UncleSamIdaho) February 16, 2025

  She belongs in a psych ward. I feel sorry for her. Imagine going through life with that kind of anger and delusion. Also, she fully embodies the party of corruption, gaslighting, and full on nonsense; the Democrats.

  — American Mom (@AmericanMo57897) February 16, 2025

  Her fully vaxxed and triple boosted heart will explode soon enough.

  — TΞNΞBRINI (@tenebrini) February 16, 2025

  TDS and EDS.. same same. T-EDS.

  — Birdvvoman (@Birdvvoman) February 16, 2025

  One of my fav comments 😂

  Thanks for the share, brother! pic.twitter.com/oQCeb5pL4A

  — David Medina 🦫🇺🇸 (@davidmedinapdx) February 16, 2025

  Don’t waste a precious minute trying to reason with these liberal lunatics. Get away from them. They are unhinged and dangerous.

  — Jessa G. (@SweetGaelicGirl) February 16, 2025

  The proper response, since this man’s polite words are having no effect: F*ck off, Karen. https://t.co/oSmrC8mG8d

  — Physics Geek (@physicsgeek) February 16, 2025

  Liberal women, behind the guise of moral virtue and tolerance, are some of the most unpleasant, ignorant, and annoying people in the world. https://t.co/x8TAB28fCR

  — Parody Platypus (@ParodyPlatypus) February 16, 2025

  As we highlighted last week, mental health experts say they are already seeing a huge increase in patients who are Democrat voters complaining of “despair and burn out” in the wake of President Trump winning the election and taking office for the second time.

  Pollster Mark Halperin previously predicted that America will experience the biggest mental health crisis in its history during a second Trump term.

  Halperin urged that Trump has been so demonised for years that for tens of millions of Americans, Trump now becoming President again is “so traumatic” that it will become “impossible for even the most mentally healthy person to truly process and incorporate in the daily life.”

  “They think that their fellow citizens supporting Trump is a sign of fundamental evil at the heart of their fellow citizens and of the nation,” concluded Halperin.

  We’re already seeing Democrats completely losing it, screeching about Elon Musk being a Neo-Nazi and one State Rep. even saying she has sterilised herself as a protest against Trump.

  *  *  *

  Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 21:15

• Northern Border An "Undefended" And "Easy Target" As Canadian Coyotes Smuggle Migrants From Montreal To New York
  Northern Border An “Undefended” And “Easy Target” As Canadian Coyotes Smuggle Migrants From Montreal To New York

  Smugglers are brazenly using TikTok to advertise illegal crossings at the Canada-US border, complicating Canada’s trade and security talks with the U.S.,, according to a new report from the New York Post.

  For nearly a year, Canadian traffickers, primarily targeting Indian nationals, have charged up to $5,000 for a seamless journey into the U.S., quickly replacing banned accounts with new ones. Their posts, often featuring a U.S. flag over a wooded border with Indian music, invite migrants to message for details.

  “$4,000 cheapest in market,” says one post. “Payment after reach,” another says. 

  The New York Post writes that Northern border crossings by Indian nationals have dropped from 4,500 per month before Trump’s presidency to 2,900 since, per U.S. Customs data. Yet, The Post found at least six coyote accounts still active on TikTok.

  Smugglers operate from Montreal, Brampton, and Surrey, transporting migrants to New York or Washington, per TikTok accounts reviewed by The Post. The New York route includes a two-hour drive and a 25-minute forest trek across an unguarded border near Champlain and Mooers, NY, with migrants given maps to navigate.

  Groups of up to five cross at a time, a smuggler told The Post. Like a business, these accounts feature Punjabi testimonials from “satisfied customers” praising the journey as “easy” and “comfortable.”

  

   

  Smugglers see the Canada-US border as an easy target. Unlike the US-Mexico border, much of it is unguarded wilderness. “They call it a border, but you can cross anytime you want,” said political scientist Shinder Purewal. “It’s really an undefended border.”

  Meanwhile, illegal crossings at the southern border have plummeted, with daily apprehensions down over 90% from last year.

  Recall, just days ago we wrote about an influx of Romanian immigrants coming from Canada, into Maine. 

  Although Romanians accounted for less than 1% of nationwide border encounters last year, they make up a growing share in Maine’s Houlton Sector.

  According to CBP data, Romanian encounters in the sector rose from 4% (13 of 303) in the 2023 fiscal year to 12% (40 of 344) last year and now stand at 13% (9 of 70) this fiscal year. While agents have encountered individuals from over a dozen countries, only Mexicans had a slightly higher share.

  The Bangor Daily News report says that the reasons behind the increase remain unclear, as U.S. and Canadian officials note that shifts in migration patterns are difficult to explain.

  Karine Martel, spokesperson for the Canada Border Services Agency said: “The Canada Border Services Agency cannot speculate on why a certain percentage of Romanians try to enter illegally both in Canada and the United States.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 20:40

• Missouri Truck Company Owner Gets 9 Years For PPP Fraud, Other Felonies
  Missouri Truck Company Owner Gets 9 Years For PPP Fraud, Other Felonies

  By John Kingston of FreighWaves

  Christopher Lee Carroll, the Missouri man who set up a trucking company as part of a broader scheme to fraudulently obtain loans under the pandemic-driven Paycheck Protection Plan, has been sentenced to nine years in federal prison.

  

  A jury convicted Carroll in September of three counts of bank fraud, three counts of making false statements to a financial institution, one count of conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act, 13 violations of the Clean Air Act and two counts of threatening a witness.

  Carroll was convicted and sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. He was also ordered to pay restitution of $3 million.

  Carroll and business partner George Reed owned a timeshare exit company, Square One Group. They submitted their request for a $1.2 million PPP loan, claiming in it that Square One was owned not by Carroll and Reed but by their spouses, according to a recap of the case released by the U.S. attorney’s office. As a convicted felon for earlier activities, Carroll would not have been eligible for a PPP loan.

  Carroll used the money to set up a trucking company, Whiskey Dix Big Truck Repair LLC. 

  With the company established, the U.S. attorney said, Carroll and Reed applied for loan forgiveness, “claiming they’d spent the money on payroll and other permitted expenses.”

  The pair applied for a second loan of $1.6 million. It was approved and they took $660,000 in what the U.S. attorney referred to as “owner draws.”

  The charges of violating the Clean Air Act came from Carroll’s plan to disable emission-control equipment to increase the vehicles’ mileage.  

  “Carroll asked one employee to ‘take the fall’ for his crimes and told another that he would stop paying for the employee’s lawyer if he talked to federal agents, evidence and testimony showed,” according to the U.S. attorney. “Carroll did stop paying for the lawyer.”

  In the sentencing memo, the U.S. attorney called Carroll a “consummate fraudster.” Previous convictions were for felonious restraint and forcible sodomy. 

  Unlike Carroll, who went to trial, Reed, 70, pleaded guilty in September 2022 to the charges lodged against him. His sentence at the time was for time served.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 20:05

• "Bruh": Musk Shuts Down Fetterman Over Deep State DOGE Disinfo
  “Bruh”: Musk Shuts Down Fetterman Over Deep State DOGE Disinfo

  It seems like every time we get close to liking Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) for having the occasional rational thought, he gets ‘handled’ and starts toeing the party line.

  

  Well, it happened again. On Monday, Fetterman regurgitated the new deep state talking point that Elon Musk’s DOGE team is full of bad actors who are going to steal our personal data after the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency was going to audit the IRS (which Chinese hackers breached in December in a ‘major incident‘ Democrats didn’t give two shits about).

  “I want to save billions of your money and make our government more efficient,” Fetterman said on X, along with a screenshot of a Politico article fear mongering over Musk and team – adding. “Rummaging through your personal shit is *not* that.“

  I want to save billions of your money and make our government more efficient.

  Rummaging through your personal shit is *not* that.

  A party of chaos loses—always. pic.twitter.com/vMvNtnHqrr

  — U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) February 17, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  To which Musk replied: “Bruh, if I wanted to rummage through random personal shit, I could have done that at PAYPAL. Hello???“

  “Having tens of millions of people marked in Social Security as “ALIVE” when they are definitely dead is a HUGE problem,” referring to what appears to be massive fraud within the US Social Security system that Fetterman apparently doesn’t think is a big deal. 

  “Some of these people would have been alive before America existed as a country. Think about that for a second …”

  Bruh, if I wanted to rummage through random personal shit, I could have done that at PAYPAL. Hello???

  Having tens of millions of people marked in Social Security as “ALIVE” when they are definitely dead is a HUGE problem.

  Obviously.

  Some of these people would have been alive… https://t.co/L17rSBR1Tb pic.twitter.com/6hBqAJ5TbF

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025

  Let’s see if Fetterman gets another tap on the shoulder.

  🤣

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025

  True pic.twitter.com/M3DRjhzjBd

  — Spencer Hakimian (@SpencerHakimian) February 17, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  In their defense, some of them don’t look a day over 125

  — CloudStride Guy™ (@cloudstridetech) February 17, 2025

  *  *  *

  Special Offer: Buy 2 bags of ZH Coffee and get 5% off plus a free vacuum insulated ZH Tumbler (white) from ZH Store!

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 19:30

• The Blob's 'Reality Distortion' Is No Longer Working So Well…
  The Blob’s ‘Reality Distortion’ Is No Longer Working So Well…

  Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

  Krakatoa Blows

  “’Save democracy’ is code phrase for a club of delusional people who belong to a delusional group that does delusional things to justify their delusions.” 

  – Wendy Williamson

  You’ve got to wonder who at CBS-News thinks it’s a good idea to quadruple down on mendacious grandstanding when the network faces a $20-billion lawsuit from Donald Trump — for assisting Kamala Harris’s campaign (aka election interference) — while the FCC under new Commissioner Brendan Carr questions the network’s license to operate on the grounds of “news distortion” and violation of the broadcast news fairness doctrine.

  

  So, on Sunday night February 16, CBS’s flagship news show, 60-Minutes, pitched a doubleheader of knowingly faked-up feature pieces intended to scramble American minds to benefit the Party of Chaos and its manager, the US Intel Blob. 

  The first piece was a sob-story on how sad and unjust DOGE’s deconstruction of the USAID money-laundering operation is. Yeah, boo-hoo. They interviewed several part-timers and consultants pretending to be long-term employees of the outfit. Complete horse-shit, and they knew it. What really matters is that a whole lot of bureaucrat grifters (and politicians) won’t get paid anymore. . . and the Blob won’t be able to soften-up faraway nations for plunder with its color revolutions and other hijinks.

  The second piece was a ringing endorsement of Germany’s current censorship campaign, arresting ordinary citizens for mean tweets. Their camera crew followed the German Gedankenpolizei entering apartments and seizing cell phones. The viewing audience was asked to shed tears for German Green Party politician, Renate Künast, who got dissed on “X” (“misogynist comments” and insults) — the same week that an Islamic immigrant maniac drove a car into a Munich crowd on-purpose, injuring 39 people, including two dead (one, a child). No mention of that incident on 60-Minutes, or, more generally, that illegal immigration is the big taboo subject behind all the censorship.

  CBS actually preceded that gaslighting job with a bit of Sunday morning constructed Orwellian fake syllogistic idiocy by Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan, who said that free speech caused the Holocaust against the Jews. Her reasoning: free speech allowed the Nazis to gain power, therefore. . . Auschwitz . . . therefore, free speech is bad. Guest, Sec’y of State Marco Rubio, told her that he could not associate himself with her thesis. In fact, once in power, the Nazis totally controlled speech and news and did not permit other political parties to even exist. All of this, you understand, is just deliberate Gramscian distortion-and-perversion of language — black is white, up is down — to defeat any attempt at coherent public debate today.

  The conclusion you might draw from all this is that CBS is terrified of free speech, and is trying desperately to hide the Blob’s long-running criminal racketeering activity — which they have aided and abetted for years and deserve to lose their license over, plus pay billions in penalties, and go out of business — a rather existential predicament.

  Reality distortion is no longer working so well with Mr. Trump in the White House. 

  Here is what’s behind the USAID brouhaha and why it matters. 

  By 2016, the Blob had become a fullblown, independent, parasitical organism on US governance. It had several purposes: 

  1) to keep itself in perpetual power by paying off its voting blocs of “the poor and marginalized,” 

  2) to pay its corps of bureaucrat managers (of the “poor and marginalized”) handsome salaries to win their everlasting allegiance, and 

  3) to pay-off elected officials to keep voting the money flows for all that. All this created a massive class of Democratic Party activists dedicated to overthrowing the republic so as to usher-in their social equity nirvana. 

  And all that was sheer hubris. More recently, nemesis arrived on the scene and all this institutional Blob power had to be diverted to a massive ass-covering operation, now in full, florid failure. And, worst of all for the Blobists, evidence of actual crime is accruing at a frightful, fast pace.

  With the confirmation of Kash Patel later this week, Mr. Trump’s agency team will be complete. What follows will be a Krakatoa of revelation, drastically altering the climate of US politics for years to come. You should learn exactly how many FBI and CIA agents were moiling and roiling in the J-6 mob. You’ll find out what the J-6 DNC pipe bomb caper was all about. You’ll find out why RussiaGate was never properly investigated or adjudicated. . . how the Adam Schiff / Alexander Vindman / Eric Ciaramella impeachment op worked. . . how the Clinton Foundation made a zillion dollars . . . where all the money went that got poured into Ukraine. . . and much much more.

  You will also soon start getting some actually reliable information out of CDC, FDA, NIH, and other public health agencies. Do you suppose that Tony Fauci is the only person who must answer for Covid-19?

  I expect many of the following persons who were high-ranking officials — nearly all of them completely obscure to the public — to be asked under oath what they thought they were doing:

  • Robert R. Redfield, M.D. — Director of the CDC

  • H. Clifford Lane, M.D. — Deputy Director for Clinical Research and Special Projects, Clinical Director, NIAID

  • Sarah W. Read, M.D., M.H.S. — NIAID Principal Deputy Director

  • Jill R. Harper, Ph.D. — NIAID Deputy Director, Science Management

  • Carl W. Dieffenbach, Ph.D. — Director, Division of AIDS

  • Daniel Rotrosen, M.D. — Director, Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Transplantation

  • Emily Erbelding, M.D., M.P.H. — Director, Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases

  • Anne Schuchat, M.D. — Principal Deputy Director, CDC

  • Sherri A. Berger, Ph.D. — Chief Operating Officer, CDC

  • Debra Houry, M.D., M.P.H. — Acting Director, CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control

  • Nancy Messonnier, M.D. — Director, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases

  • Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. — Director, NIH

  • John Jernigan, M.D., M.S. — Director, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion

  • Ruth J. Etzel, M.D., Ph.D. —Director, National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)

  • Dana Meaney-Delman, M.D. — Acting Director, Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response

  • Lawrence A. Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D. — Principal Deputy Director, NIH

  • Joshua A. Gordon, M.D., Ph.D. — Director, National Institute of Mental Health

  • Walter J. Koroshetz, M.D. — Director, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

  • Gary H. Gibbons, M.D. — Director, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

  • Richard J. Hodes, M.D. — Director, National Institute on Aging

  • Shannon N. Zenk, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.N. — Director, National Institute of Nursing Research

  I’m sure many more names can be added to the list. 

  They must have known, and found out early on, that Covid-19 was created with US Government grants (possibly through DARPA), that the mRNA vaccines were ineffective and harmful, that the lockdowns were shuck and jive, and that public health officials were paid a lot of money in royalties while all this was going on.

  If they haven’t shredded or deleted the info — and it’s still possible that Tulsi Gabbard can find it, anyway — the gaslight will finally get turned off and the sunlight will shine in. You know this is going to happen.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 18:55

• China Furious After State Dept Changes Line On 'Taiwan Independence'
  China Furious After State Dept Changes Line On ‘Taiwan Independence’

  China is furious after a State Department fact sheet on Taiwan has been updated. The new updated version has dropped a line which previously stated “we do not support Taiwan independence.”

  The State Department has downplayed it as a “routine” update to its online fact sheet on American relations with Taiwan. The change happened last week, but has now triggered a strong rebuke from Beijing, which fears Washington is changing its official long-running policy of not officially endorsing effots toward Taiwan political independence and sovereignty.

  The fact sheet still displays a US commitment to ‘One China’ – but still the Chinese Foreign Ministry has on Monday called on the Trump administration to “immediately correct its mistakes” over the removal of the line.

  

  The statement from Beijing warned of “further serious damage” to China-US relations amid a return of Trump’s ‘America First’ policy.

  “The US State Department’s revision of the list of facts regarding US-Taiwan relations represents a serious regression in its stance on Taiwan…(and) sends a seriously erroneous message to the separatist forces advocating for Taiwan independence,” ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said in a briefing.

  “This is further evidence of the US stubbornly adhering to the erroneous policy of using Taiwan to contain China. We urge the US to immediately correct its mistakes,” Guo added, and emphasized Trump must handle the Taiwan issue with “utmost caution.”

  As for the updated State Dept. page, it states that “We continue to have an abiding interest in peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side.”

  “We expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means, free from coercion, in a manner acceptable to the people on both sides of the strait.”

  But again, Beijing is saying this marks a “serious regression” even as the US administration shrugs off the change. Yet in recent history, even the slightest changes or updates in policy seen as anti-China typically results in swift rebuke from Beijing.

  The prior version of the fact sheet was more robust in distancing the US from an open policy of encouraging the independence of Taiwan from China.

  The fact sheet just as of less than a week ago said the US opposed “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.”

  Rubio’s State Department has changed the content of its fact-sheet on Taiwan from the previous administration:

  While still opposing “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side,” it has dropped the phrase “we don’t support Taiwan independence”

  🇺🇸🇨🇳🇹🇼 pic.twitter.com/8LNaXNx0fR

  — Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) February 16, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  China’s PLA military has been once again ramping up flights and drills around the self-ruled island. For example, on Sunday 24 Chinese military aircraft flew near the island, also as a Canadian warship passed through the contested Taiwan Strait. PLA drones were also spotted conducting “joint combat readiness patrols” with military vessels around Taiwan, which the Taiwanese defense ministry confirmed. Last week, the US sent a pair of warships through the strait for the first time of the new Trump administration.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 18:20

• The Genius Of The DOGE Exposures
  The Genius Of The DOGE Exposures

  Authored by William Marshall via American Greatness,

  The American people have rightly been appalled at the outrageous expenditures Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been exposing at USAID, which not only demonstrates the striking wastefulness of our government but also an ingenious public relations strategy by the Trump administration.

  

  When Americans learn that their tax dollars are going to fund egregious projects around the world, it lays a foundation for the public relations framework needed by the Trump administration to bring American public opinion along on the necessary journey of restructuring the government. It makes people’s blood boil. And it sets the tone for the effectiveness, and need for, the entire Trump efficiency program, even though the spending in absolute monetary terms on these insane USAID projects is fairly minor compared to the overall $6.9 trillion federal budget.

  Let’s consider some of the USAID expenditures recently revealed:

  • $70,000 for the production of a “DEI musical” in Ireland

  • $47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Colombia

  • $2,000,000 for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala

  • $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru

  • Hundreds of millions to support “irrigation canals, farming equipment, and even fertilizer used to support the unprecedented poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan,” benefiting the Taliban

  • $40,000,000 to fund research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which gifted the world with the COVID virus

  The creators of Monty Python could not have made this stuff up, although they came close in their “It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them!” sketch. It still makes me laugh. But that’s why Donald Trump and Elon Musk are highlighting these absurd expenditures. They are so ridiculous that they almost defy belief, and they serve to supercharge American anger and righteous indignation.

  Trump recognizes, as Ronald Reagan did, the importance of galvanizing American public opinion as an integral part of carrying out his agenda. By inflaming the public, he puts pressure on the craven Congress to go along with his efforts to enact sweeping changes that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to achieve.

  No doubt when Musk sets his genius young elves to work applying their AI algorithms on the Department of Health and Human Services and the Defense Department’s budget data, they will find waste so massive that it dwarfs that of USAID’s $40 billion annual outlay. But it’s a bit harder for the public to grasp the wastefulness of the government paying many times the price that it should be paying for anti-aircraft missiles, say, or ineffective vaccines. From a public relations standpoint, it’s much easier to see the lunacy of the US taxpayer shelling out $2.5 million for an electric vehicle project in Vietnam or $1.5 million to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbian workplaces.

  We live in amazing times, led by an extraordinary team being assembled in the White House. Who would have imagined just a few years ago that a Kennedy family member would (likely) be holding a cabinet position as the head of HHS in a Republican administration? Ot that a prominent Democratic congresswoman and former Democratic presidential candidate would (likely) be the next Director of National Intelligence in that same Republican administration? Or that long-time liberal Democrat-voting, richest man in the world, Elon Musk, would be leading the effort of that administration to completely transform the government of the United States into a lean, mean, efficiently operating machine?

  It all came about because of the vision and incredible tenacity of one individual—another former Democrat named Donald Trump, who survived a baptism of legal fire—and actual gunfire—by his political opponents to regain the presidency after all the “smart people” in Washington had written him off politically.

  More to the point, however, Trump’s career as a builder and, more importantly for the present discussion, as an unparalleled master of branding and public relations, has made him ideally suited to take on the gargantuan task at hand: bringing to heel an out-of-control government bureaucracy that will surely lead to this country’s destruction if not reined in.

  Trump’s highly successful television show, The Apprentice, ran for a remarkable 15 years and caused the phrase, “You’re fired!”, to gain such familiarity that it stood beside such catchphrases as “Got milk?” and “Where’s the beef?” among the iconic popular expressions seared into Americans’ collective consciousness. And what more fitting expression to address a massively bloated and overpopulated federal bureaucracy desperately in need of draconian personnel cuts?

  No one wishes ill on American citizens in government service, but there comes a point where the American body politic needs to make hard choices if the United States is to continue as a viable concern. And I don’t recall Democrats being nearly so exercised when Bill Clinton let 377,000 federal employees go after he assumed the presidency, using a buy-out program not so dissimilar to that offered by President Trump, which Democrats are inveighing against. Oh, how quickly Democrats forget. Remember when Clinton said, in his 1996 State of the Union speech, that “the era of big government is over”? Those were the days when Democrats still possessed a semblance of sanity.

  The federal budget deficit in 2025 will be $1.8 trillion on outlays of $6.7 trillion, according to Congressional Budget Office data. And these deficits are cumulative. Every year that mountain of debt grows and currently stands at over $36 trillion. That is unsustainable. Approximately 13 percent of our federal budget just goes toward servicing our debt, with $2.6 billion per day on interest payments alone. When a single federal government employee, the recently resigned head of the Tennessee Valley Authority, has a total federal government compensation package of $10.5 million per year, then Houston, we have a problem.

  My advice to President Trump and Mr. Musk is: Keep highlighting the absurd spending. The American people will have your back.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 17:45

• These Are The Top U.S. Cities For Families In 2025
  These Are The Top U.S. Cities For Families In 2025

  A new study by Hastha Kalalu ranked the best U.S. cities for families, evaluating factors like home prices, cost of living, crime rates, family household percentages, childcare costs, house size, and diversity. Scores were scaled from 1 to 100 for easy comparison.

  Allen, Texas, ranks as the best U.S. city for families, earning a score of 99. With the highest percentage of family households (74%) among the top ten and a low cost of living index (95), it offers affordability alongside spacious homes averaging 2,170 sq ft.

  In second place, Hialeah, Florida, scores 96, standing out as the most diverse city with a perfect multicultural index of 100. It also provides more affordable childcare at $840 per month compared to Allen.

  Gilbert, Arizona, takes third with a score of 95, noted for being the safest city in the top ten with the lowest violent crime rate (85.51 per capita), nearly 2.5 times lower than Hialeah. It also boasts the second-highest family household percentage (73%).

  In fourth place, Laredo, Texas, earns a score of 92, recognized for its affordability with a median home price of $209.5K and the only home price decline (-0.30%) among the top ten. The city also has a low cost of living index of 88. Close behind, El Paso, Texas, ranks fifth with a score of 87, offering the lowest monthly childcare costs at $734 and sharing Laredo’s affordable cost of living index.

  Henderson, Nevada, places sixth with a score of 86.3. Though its living costs are higher than some competitors, it has the strongest housing market with the highest home price growth rate (5.40%) and ranks third-lowest in violent crime.

  

  Virginia Beach, Virginia, follows in seventh place with a score of 86, distinguishing itself with the second-lowest violent crime rate (137 per capita), making it one of the safest options for families.

  Chandler, Arizona, secures eighth place with a score of 85, maintaining balanced metrics across all categories. With 65% of households being family-based, it ranks fourth in this category among the top ten. Colorado Springs, Colorado, comes in ninth with a score of 83, offering the largest average home size (2,760 sq ft)—nearly 50% larger than homes in Virginia Beach. However, it also has the highest childcare costs at $1,667 per month.

  Finally, Boise, Idaho, rounds out the top ten with a score of 82. While its home prices continue to grow at 3.10%, its multicultural index (1.71) is significantly lower than the other cities on the list. Its average home size of 2,311 sq ft is second only to Colorado Springs, making it an appealing option for families needing more space.

  A spokesperson from Hastha Kalalu commented on the study: “Mid-sized cities strike an optimal balance for family life, offering advantages that major metropolitan areas often struggle to match. High concentrations of families in these cities create their own benefits, from more stable property markets to better childcare options.”

  They continued: “These places naturally develop into environments where public safety, affordability, and community services reinforce each other – the presence of more families leads to more family-oriented services, which in turn attracts more families. The result is a self-sustaining cycle where moderate living costs, strong community ties, and family-focused amenities create ideal conditions for raising children.”

  You can access the full research here.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 17:10

• Former Champion Gymnast: The NCAA Is Skirting Trump's EO Protecting Women's Sports
  Former Champion Gymnast: The NCAA Is Skirting Trump’s EO Protecting Women’s Sports

  Via American Greatness,

  The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) may be only pretending to comply with an Executive Order keeping men out of women’s sports that was signed by President Trump on Feb 5.

  

  Jennifer Sey, who is a former U.S. gymnastics champion, says the NCAA’s new policy claims to comply with Trump’s order, yet leaves itself two loopholes through which men who identify as women may continue to participate as student athletes in women’s sports.

  One loophole in the NCAA’s new policy is a clause that allows them to duck accountability by stating that “member schools will remain responsible for certifying student-athlete eligibility for practice and competition.”

  The NCAA newly announced policy to “keep women’s sports female” — and (supposedly) uphold the Executive Order — is no policy at all. There are holes upon holes upon holes, and mostly the NCAA wants to appear to satisfy the Executive Order while allowing the gender ideologues… pic.twitter.com/5i0Ag3zNaO

  — Jennifer Sey (@JenniferSey) February 15, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  This means that it is up to the schools to determine who is eligible to participate in women’s sports and that the NCAA can also defer to the schools being subject to local, state and federal legislation that supersedes the rules of the NCAA.

  An even bigger loophole which is called out by Sey, is that the NCAA’s new policy states that they will determine who is what sex based upon an athlete’s birth certificate, which can be changed in all but 6 states.

  Sey states:

  A birth certificate is a record of fact. And it can now be altered to change — literally — facts. All that is required is a “signed statement of identity” and a photo ID for the mother or father listed on the birth certificate. What??

  This practice of changing one’s birth certificate is called a “gender marker correction” but Sey says, “It’s not a correction. It’s a lie.”

  Sey points to the fact that some governors, like Washington state Gov. Bob Ferguson, are touting how they are giving priority to individuals who wish to change their sex on their birth certificates.

  Very proud to announce the Department of Health will now process all requests to change gender designation on birth certificates within three business days. Previously, there was as much as a 10 month wait.

  — Governor Bob Ferguson (@GovBobFerguson) February 12, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The bottom line, according to Sey, is that, “The NCAA policy is no policy at all. There are holes upon holes upon holes, and mostly the NCAA wants to appear to satisfy the Executive Order while allowing the gender ideologues and whiny scream-y failed male athletes to still have their way and validate their kooky identities.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 16:35

• "Highly Symbolic" Moment: Alibaba's Jack Ma Reemerges, Shakes Xi's Hand As CCP Renews Confidence In China Tech
  “Highly Symbolic” Moment: Alibaba’s Jack Ma Reemerges, Shakes Xi’s Hand As CCP Renews Confidence In China Tech

  Alibaba Group’s founder, Jack Ma, vanished from public view in late 2020 after making critical remarks about China’s financial regulatory system. He briefly resurfaced in early 2021 during a video call with rural teachers but remained out of the spotlight for several years—until now. 

  Goldman’s Philip Sun penned a note to clients overnight titled “A pic is worth thousands of words. President Xi shook hands with Jack Ma. Buy GS A500 inclusion basket?”

  

  Sun was watching CCTV Prime Time News when top CCP leaders gathered at the Great Hall of the People for a meeting with Chinese business executives, including Jack Ma.

  “I took a snapshot of President Xi shaking hands with Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma,” the analyst said, adding, “The young man sitting to the right of Pony Ma is DeepSeek founder Mr. Liang WenFeng (born in 1985)” and “The young man sitting to the right of Jack Ma (with 2 people in between them) is the robotics company UniTree’s founder Mr. XingXing WANG (born in 1995).” 

  

  Ma was also joined by other private enterprise heads who spoke at the event, including Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei, BYD’s founder Wang Chuanfu, New Hope Group’s founder Liu Yonghao, Will Semi’s founder Yu Renrong, and Xiaomi’s founder Lei Jun.

  

  The rare meeting between Ma, other Chinese tech leaders, and President Xi signals the CCP’s renewed confidence in the tech space after years of regulatory crackdowns. 

  Summarized here:

  

  Goldman’s Sun told clients: “As mentioned this morning, I think the symposium is highly symbolic. It is yet another very strong testimony that China’s political pendulum is swinging from the left (SOE’s) to the right (POE’s), as highlighted in the sales note below.” 

  He told clients to consider “our GS A500 inclusion basket (GSTDA500)” to “get more exposure to China A-shares.” 

  

  Ten days ago, Goldman’s Hailey He informed clients her stance on Chinese tech stocks was “cautiously optimistic,” noting that “AI enthusiasm sparked by Deepseek pushed Chinese tech shares into a bull market. 

  

  Goldman’s He provided more color around “cautiously optimistic“: 

  As China returns from one week CNY holiday, market sentiment on China asset improves as seen from the bullish price action in both equities and fixed income. Tariff reprieve, AI enthusiasm sparked by Deepseek and easy liquidity all contributed to the move.

  China equities staged a meaningful rebound this week on AI optimism. HSI tech, the parameter of foreigner confidence, surged 23% from January lows. GS Asia internet research is bullish on further AI advancement and cost efficiencies. To highlight, the cost of Doubao, the most popular AI Chatbot in China, is 85% cheaper than industry average. In terms of stocks, we continue to see Tencent as best positioned in introducing To-C AI agent applications given the Weixin super-app with both social and transaction capabilities. We continue to be bullish on Alibaba (China’s largest public cloud hyperscaler) and data centers (GDS, VNET) that will benefit from ongoing public cloud and AI computing demand growth from multi-year higher AI adoption. The latest piece from equity research on China AI can be accessed here.

  In a separate note, Sat Duhra, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors in Singapore, told clients, “This is a sector that has been ignored but like other purely domestic sectors, there are some bright spots,” adding, “The recent DeepSeek announcement is a timely reminder that behind the scenes, industrial policy — for example Made in China 2025 — has pushed many sectors toward world-class status.”

  Deutsche Bank analyst Peter Milliken told clients, “We think 2025 is the year the investing world realizes China is out-competing the rest of the world.” 

  “Investors, we believe, will have to pivot sharply to China in the medium term and will struggle to get access to its stocks without bidding them up,” Milliken wrote.

  China politics observer Alfred Wu of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy told The Straight Times that the meeting was twofold:

  1. to address international challenges
  2. and domestic economic stagnation.

  “It is certainly good that the government hears from the private sector in person. But it remains to be seen whether this will lead to concrete actions that address their concerns,” Associate Professor Wu said, citing the difficulty in getting loans and dealing with predatory behavior by local governments, such as profit-driven enforcement.

  Professor Bert Hofman, an economist at NUS’ East Asian Institute, viewed the meeting as a major signal that the government would begin supporting the private sector.

  “China’s innovation and development depend on a healthy private sector as demonstrated by the people in the meeting – all innovators in their own field. The fact that Jack Ma and Pony Ma (chief executive officer of Tencent) were in the meeting is good news for the platform economy, which had been under regulatory scrutiny for some time,” Hofman said. 

  The return of Ma and the CCP’s renewed love of domestic tech firms comes as China’s rivalry with US tech companies intensifies amid an AI arms race and an ongoing ‘Great Power’ competition. This development is promising news for investors who have recently loaded up on cheap Chinese tech.

  However, despite the rally in Chinese tech stocks and broader domestic markets, onshore equity ETFs saw 44 billion in outflows last week, marking the largest weekly outflow this year. It remains to be seen how the market will react once the plunge protectors step back.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 16:00

• Delta Regional Jet Crashes At Toronto Pearson Airport
  Delta Regional Jet Crashes At Toronto Pearson Airport

  Reports are circulating on X about a Delta CRJ-900 regional jet that appears to have crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport. While there are no confirmed details on injuries or casualties, the first images of the accident show the plane overturned on the runway.

  

  CTV News has confirmed: “Crews responding to plane crash at Toronto Pearson, police say.” 

  

  Flight tracking website Flightrader24 said the Delta regional jet (DL4819) experienced an “accident” while landing … 

  We are following reports of accident involving Delta flight #DL4819 while landing in Toronto. https://t.co/fAGbADxfBU pic.twitter.com/ND2dGltNfY

  — Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) February 17, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Footage: 

  Delta plane that crashed was reportedly an Endeavor Air Mitsubishi CRJ900 operating flight DL4819 from Minneapolis to Toronto Pearson Airport.

  It crashed while attempting to land and came to a stop upside down.

  Looks like many survivors. pic.twitter.com/g9rFPWIFPq

  — Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) February 17, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Toronto Pearson confirms an incident involving a Delta Airlines flight from Minneapolis. Emergency teams responded, and all passengers and crew are accounted for. Investigation ongoing. pic.twitter.com/NX0bZomYqB

  — NTC Report (@NTC_Report) February 17, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Breaking: A Delta CRJ900 seems to have experienced a crash landing at Toronto Pearson Airport. No causalities have been reported yet. pic.twitter.com/H7VfEByhbI

  — Josh Cahill (@gotravelyourway) February 17, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  BREAKING🚨: Delta plane crashes at Toronto Pearson International Airport; no word on injuries or casualties pic.twitter.com/MSGpleZW6O

  — Officer Lew (@officer_Lew) February 17, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Air plane crash at Toronto Pearson airport pic.twitter.com/UFVABIgPEu

  — Lil Shmoo (@lilshmoo6) February 17, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

   

   *Developing…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 15:04

• Mid-Atlantic States Brace For Another Winter Blast
  Mid-Atlantic States Brace For Another Winter Blast

  Another midweek winter storm is expected to bring heavy snow and ice from Kansas through the Ohio Valley and into the Mid-Atlantic. This wintry system overlaps with a polar vortex pouring Arctic air into the central and eastern areas of the Lower 48. 

  Meteorologist Kelly Cass wrote on X, “Another winter storm from the plains/midwest to the east. Oh, and yes, some snow for parts of the south too!”

  Cass provided snow total forecasts through Wednesday for parts of the Midwest and Southeast. 

  

  More notably, the forecast through Thursday for the Mid-Atlantic states shows the potential for a major winter storm that could impact Raleigh, Richmond, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia.

  

  Meteorologist Ava Marie of local media outlet WBAL in Baltimore provided a more in-depth snow forecast for the Washington–Baltimore metro area.

  It was me. 😉 I spent all weekend wishing away the snowstorm, and voila, the models continue to decrease the snow for Baltimore. I’ll let you know if that changes, but that’s the best data we have for now. Are you bummed? Or relieved? @wbaltv11 pic.twitter.com/mxfNiw5qu8

  — Ava Marie (@AvaWBAL) February 17, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  At the same time, a polar vortex is set to dump Arctic air into some central and southern states, with tens of millions of Americans expected to be under cold weather alerts by the middle of the week. 

  “Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, & Polar Vortex Is Coming For You” https://t.co/Z3XtMvNxkZ

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 15, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Meteorological spring begins on March 1. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 15:00

• Argentine Lawyers Hit Milei With Fraud Charges, Class-Action Over Libra Coin Rug-Pull
  Argentine Lawyers Hit Milei With Fraud Charges, Class-Action Over Libra Coin Rug-Pull

  Authored by Stephen Katte via CoinTelegraph.com,

  Argentine lawyers have reportedly filed charges against Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, in a criminal court for promoting a cryptocurrency that briefly pumped and then tanked over the weekend. 

  

  The Libertad project’s native Solana token, Libra (LIBRA), rallied to a market capitalization of $4.56 billion on Feb. 14, after Milei posted about the token on X. It then fell over 94% after he deleted the post, prompting accusations of a pump and dump scheme. 

  Lawyers Marcos Zelaya and Jonatan Baldiviezo, along with engineer María Eva Koutsovitis and economist Claudio Lozano, have filed a criminal complaint that alleges Milei was complicit in fraud by promoting Libra, according to a Feb. 17 Associated Press report. 

  

  Source: Kobeissi Letter

  Baldiviezo also accused Milei of violating the Public Ethics Law, which is Argentina’s framework for public officials, requiring them to declare asset holdings and conflicts of interest. 

   “Within this illicit association, the crime of fraud was committed, in which the president’s actions were essential,” Baldiviezo said.

  A judge will be assigned to the case, or it will be referred to a prosecutor for further investigation on Feb. 17, according to the Associated Press report.

  Meanwhile, Argentine lawyer Agustín Rombolá, founder and associate of Rombola Mangione law firm, has filed a separate legal complaint about Milei promoting Libra. 

  In a Feb. 16 statement to X, Rombolá, who is also a member of the Argentine political party Unión Cívica Radical, said he had reported Milei for alleged “fraud, negotiations incompatible with public office, price manipulation and financial crimes.”

  

  Source: Agustín Rombolá

  Rombolá also said his firm is preparing a class-action suit for people who might have invested in the token and lost money. 

  Argentina’s presidential office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

  After the token’s collapse, Milei requested the Anti-Corruption Office to investigate all government members, including himself, for potential misconduct, with the findings to be shared with the courts, Argentina’s presidential office said in a statement. 

  The presidential office claimed that the president was not aware of the details of the project when he endorsed it and had no connection to the company that launched the token.

  However, Milei did disclose that he held a meeting with KIP Protocol representatives on Oct. 19 in Argentina, where the company informed him about the blockchain project.

  KIP Protocol, a Web3 company that builds AI payment infrastructure, has said it was the tech consultancy company hired to help distribute project funds to local businesses in Argentina. However, it says it didn’t create the token or act as a market maker.

  Some analysts have also raised concerns about the project after discovering that Libra’s website domain was created hours before launch, and there is no public owner information.

  Opposition lawmaker Leandro Santoro told Reuters he would be launching a request to impeach the president. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 14:30

• Democrat Judge Wavers On Blocking DOGE From Accessing Federal Data
  Democrat Judge Wavers On Blocking DOGE From Accessing Federal Data

  Obama-appointed US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan has may not block an effort by Democratic attorneys general to stop Elon Musk’s DOGE team from accessing federal data.

  

  On Monday, Chutkan said she hoped to rule within 24 hours after hearing arguments earlier in the day.

  “The things I’m hearing are troubling indeed, but I have to have a record and findings of fact before I issue something,” Chutkan said, expressing doubt that the states had met the legal standard for imminent harm required for her to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO), adding “It’s kind of a like a prophylactic TRO and that’s not allowed.“

  As USAID-funded Politico notes, 

  …the judge said granting the temporary restraining order sought as part of a lawsuit brought by Democratic attorneys general required much clearer evidence that DOGE’s actions were causing grave, permanent damage. Instead, she said, states had relied primarily on news reports that speculated about the risks of Musk and DOGE’s actions, some of which she said could potentially be remedied in further litigation.

  “The courts can’t act based on media reports. We can’t do that,” Chutkan continued.

  🚨 #BREAKING: US District Judge Chutkan has REJECTED an effort to block Elon Musk and DOGE from accessing government systems, and facilitating mass firings across the government

  Another MASSIVE win for the Trump administration!

  Judge Chutkan says the Democrat states have FAILED… pic.twitter.com/6w9crNsJ8H

  — Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) February 17, 2025

  That said, Chutkan noted that “DOGE appears to be moving in no sort of predictable and orderly fashion and plaintiffs are obviously scrambling to find out what’s next,” adding “I don’t know if that’s deliberate or not.”

  Last week the states sued Elon Musk and President Donald Trump, alleging that the authority granted to the billionaire and his team at DOGE is unconstitutional. The states, including Arizona, Michigan and Rhode Island, have taken aim at efforts to dramatically reduce the size of the federal workforce, including dismantling entire agencies, as well as their access to sensitive data.

  “The founders of this country would be outraged that, 250 years after our nation overthrew a king, the people of this country—many of whom have fought and died to protect our freedoms—are now subject to the whims of a single unelected billionaire,” said Arizona AG Kris Mayes in a statement reported by NBC News.

  *  *  *

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Patriots can support longtime ZeroHedge reader JohnO by purchasing a handcrafted wood American flag. Shipping included in price.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 13:53

• Watch: Whinging Karen Tries To Interfere With ICE Arresting Illegal Aliens
  Watch: Whinging Karen Tries To Interfere With ICE Arresting Illegal Aliens

  Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

  Footage out of North Carolina shows ICE agents being interrupted by an interfering Karen while they were conducting a raid and detaining three illegal aliens for deportation.

  

  She got all up in their faces with a camera phone and demanded they show her their warrant. 

  Of course they completely ignored her because it had absolutely nothing to do with her.

  Three men from India arrested by law enforcement for deportation, in Durham, North Carolina, on Thursday around 7:30 a.m.

  This apparent ICE raid was met by a woman named Alisa Cullison who demanded to see a signed warrant from a judge.

  The agents appropriately ignored her. pic.twitter.com/v2aewTKHof

  — Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) February 15, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  She wants to speak to the ICE manager right away.

  Just another stupid woman that doesn’t care that they are here illegally and that’s why they are getting deported, but wants to see a signed warrant from a judge to deport them.

  What did we do to live in such a backward ass country?

  — SheepDog Society LLC (@SDSLLC_USA) February 15, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Later she got all over local news with another neighbourhood Karen complaining about the agents trying to do their job.

  Exactly what you would expect her to look like. pic.twitter.com/9rnPCokPZ7

  — DVinny84🇺🇸 (@DVinny84) February 15, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The incredible CBS affiliate News report painted up the illegals as the victims and noted that the Karens had called a pro-illegals group called “Siembra NC,” which is known for trying to warn illegal aliens how to avoid raids and deportation.

  CBS reported on this deportation and tried to make the illegals seem like the victims, even though they were the ones who broke the law.

  A pro-illegals group called “Siembra NC” said they got involved to dispel rumors.

  What they’re really doing is trying to warn other illegals. pic.twitter.com/3qRA41ZudG

  — Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) February 15, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The group @SiembraNC is basically an organization trying to thwart the efforts of ICE.

  Siembra NC should be investigated by @ICEgov.

  Are illegals working there? pic.twitter.com/Owj44AsWXY

  — Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) February 15, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  I wrote a detailed report about this organization https://t.co/PKdXnXXEak

  — Amy Mek (@AmyMek) February 16, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  When you love foreign criminals more than your own neighbors… is that a disordered love, no love at all, or a blatant hatred of America?

  Clueless Karens who make themselves enemies of the people are playing a dangerous game. https://t.co/9umFaFdMLL

  — CHARITY 🇺🇸 (@heycharity) February 16, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  It is illegal to interfere with the duties and operations of ICE officers. Expect to see this reflected with arrests if this continues. 

  Can’t wait for the first retard arrested for interfering with them. https://t.co/8YMNu1RjUi

  — T (@Trav_inMissouri) February 16, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  *  *  *

  Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 02/17/2025 – 13:30

Digest powered by RSS Digest

• Pope Francis' Great Blunder
  Pope Francis’ Great Blunder

  Authored by Stephen Soukup via American Greatness,

  One of the great tragedies of the Enlightenment and its aftermath was that Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular lost faith in their legitimacy and in the legitimacy of their mission. As a result, they surrendered that mission’s otherworldliness and agreed to fight only on temporal grounds. In other words, when the Church responded to its attackers, it did so not on its own terms but on the terms—and in the terms—of those attackers. Rather than focus on its mission and the eternal truths for which it had become the earthly vessel, the Church became distracted. The problem wasn’t that the Church failed to defend itself, but that it did so on the foreign turf of the rationalist philosophers, economists, sociologists, and politicians. And it continues to do so.

  

  When Immanuel Kant insisted that God’s existence cannot be proved by philosophy, science, or reason, Christianity should have conceded and moved on. Christianity is not about proving those things to nonbelievers. It is about fostering the faith necessary to believe them without proof. In his classic novel Dr. Faustus, Thomas Mann described this grievous mistake as follows:

  Orthodoxy itself committed the blunder of letting reason into the field of religion, in that she sought to prove the positions of faith by the test of reason. Under the pressure of the Enlightenment, theology had almost nothing to do but defend herself against the intolerable contradictions which were pointed out to her: and only in order to get round them she embraced so much of the anti-revelation spirit that it amounted to an abandonment of faith. . . . Since this went a little too far, there arose an accommodation theology . . . . In its conservative form, holding to revelation and the traditional exegesis, it sought to save what was to be saved of the elements of Bible religion; on the other hand it liberally accepted the historico-critical methods of the profane science of history and abandoned to scientific criticism its own most important contents: the belief in miracles, considerable portions of Christology, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and what not besides. . .

  Among the more pernicious consequences of this “blunder” is the occasional (but all too frequent) forays by Church leaders into the realm of temporal politics. Some outwardly “political” matters are, in reality, spiritual matters, matters of faith. Abortion is one such issue. If one believes the words of the Book of Jeremiah, for example—“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I consecrated you”—then one should also, as a matter of faith, believe that abortion is a heinous matter that takes the life of one of God’s beloved.

  Such matters are, however, few and far between. Most of the time that the Church ventures into the political realm, it steps beyond the bounds of its authority; it compounds the blunder of fighting on the field of reason and human affairs and exacerbates its capitulation to the modern anti-revelation spirit. When the Church engages in purely political matters and thereby departs from its mission, the effects are both manifold and potentially severe.

  The first thing that the Church does when it plays politics is that it erodes its own authority. This is, in part, what Mann was getting at above. Moral absolutes cannot and should not be proved by worldly measures, and attempting to do so only makes the former look foolish by comparison to the latter.

  Recently, Pope Francis sent a letter to the American bishops, more or less telling them that they must resist President Trump’s immigration policy.

  “I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations,” the Pope wrote, and “the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.”

  This is an exceptionally political statement. It takes an exceptionally ideological position. It is also exceptionally foolish and potentially exceptionally destructive. As R.R. Reno noted at First Things, the Pope’s stance is a “recipe for ecclesiastical suicide,” meaning it forces Americans to choose between loving their country and doing what the Pope insists is the only truly acceptable thing to do in this situation. In short, the Pope is pitting the Church against the very idea of “America,” against the “shining city upon a hill” that has captured the spirit of freedom and the imagination of people worldwide for nearly a quarter of a millennium. The end result of this can only be that some people—many people, most people—will choose to ignore that which the Pope and his bishops insist is a moral necessity. That is a disastrous outcome and sets a disastrous precedent.

  A second consequence of the Church’s involvement in politics is its distraction from its true mission. If the Church and its leaders are preoccupied with earthly matters, then it is quite probable that they will be diverted from their focus on spiritual matters, the matters of faith and morals that determine salvation.

  Earlier this week, Pope Francis appointed Edward Weisenburger, the Bishop of Tucson, Arizona, to replace the retiring Allen Vigneron as the Archbishop of Detroit. Weisenburger—a favorite of the Pontiff’s—is a severe critic of President Trump’s, especially his immigration policies. Seven years ago, during the first Trump presidency, Weisenburger suggested that people who “are involved” in those policies should, perhaps, be subjected to “canonical penalties,” up to and including excommunication. Needless to say, it is difficult for one to imagine how such actions would accomplish the mission of the Church to save souls. In advocating for the excommunication of political opponents, Weisenburger—soon to be an archbishop—both undermines the seriousness of the Church and confuses the faithful about their actual moral responsibilities.

  Finally, by getting involved in politics, the Church risks tipping the political scales to one side or the other. It is clear that Pope Francis reviles Donald Trump’s immigration policies. It is also clear that he is frustrated and annoyed by Vice President Vance for not stating Catholic theology in exactly the same terms as he would. But does he necessarily prefer the partisan alternative? Pope Francis should understand that American politics is, for all practical purposes, a binary calculation. He may think that he is simply stating what is right and just and encouraging all parties to accept his conclusions and practice his recommendation. In reality, however, he is picking sides. He may not intend to do so, but that is the practical effect of involving himself and the Church in American politics. By attacking Trump and Vance on political matters, he is effectively encouraging American Catholics to embrace the alternative—the party that aggressively supports abortion and the sexualization of children, funds atheism and transgender ideology in foreign countries, and has no serious answer to the immigration problem, only platitudes and falsehoods.

  Certainly, the Pope is free to disagree with Donald Trump’s immigration policies—or any of his policies, for that matter. But when he takes that objection and tries to make it the official position of the Church, to turn it into an inarguable matter of conscience, then he is overstepping his authority and, in the process, diminishing his genuine authority. That’s not merely a mistake; it’s also a shame. In this era, when the Church’s authority has already been eroded by the misdeeds of its clergy, adding to the distrust will only make its true mission that much harder.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 23:20

• New Jersey Bans Safe, Effective Ammunition
  New Jersey Bans Safe, Effective Ammunition

  Authored by Mike McDaniel via American Thinker,

  Among the things at once hilarious and alarming to those who understand and support the Bill of Rights—all of it—are the efforts of anti-liberty/gun cracktivists. This includes not only the operatives of anti-gun groups whose normal discourse is shot full of inaccuracies and lies, but the Democrat/socialist/communist (D/s/c) media who usually haven’t a clue of the science and reality of guns, ballistics and every related topic. That doesn’t stop them from grotesquely and purposely misinforming the public on those issues.

  Every year at my home blog I update an article that illustrates the point. Years ago a reporter, one Gersh Kuntzman, wrote of the horrors of firing the most powerful, trauma-inducing gun in all of creation: the .223 caliber AR-15, famous for its mild recoil and excellent ergonomics and accuracy. Kuntzman so emasculated himself he became a national laughingstock and even anti-liberty/gun cracktivists wouldn’t return his calls.

  Now it seems, the New Jersey legislature has picked up the Kuntzman mantle. They’ve banned—wait for it—hollow point self-defense ammunition.

  The Gun Owners of America (GOA), Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) and the Coalition of New Jersey Firearm Owners, alongside plaintiff Heidi Bergmann-Schoch, on February 5 filed a lawsuit challenging New Jersey’s unconstitutional ban on the purpose-made self-defense ammo. Bergmann-Schoch v. Platkin, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, argues that the state’s restrictions violate the Second and Fourteenth Amendments by preventing law-abiding citizens from possessing and carrying the most effective forms of self-defense ammunition available.

  “Despite being widely used by law enforcement and civilians across the country for personal protection, New Jersey’s draconian laws prohibit the possession of commonly used hollow-point ammunition outside the home, leaving residents to carry substandard full metal jacket ammunition instead,” GOA said in a press release announcing the action. “The plaintiffs argue that there is no historical precedent for such a ban and cite Heller and Bruen as key Supreme Court decisions affirming their constitutional rights.” 

  This is another blue state attempt to deprive Americans of their Second Amendment rights through losing nuisance lawsuits they know will take years to reach the Supreme Court. In the meantime, they can harass, bankrupt, even jail law-abiding Americans and who knows? Maybe D/s/cs will somehow take over again, pack the Supreme Court and abolish the Constitution. In the meantime, blue states pretend Heller, McDonald and Bruen have not been decided, don’t say what they plainly say or otherwise don’t apply to blue states. 

  The irony is, they’ve banned the safest and most effective ammunition available.

  

  These photos are two views of four common 9mm handgun cartridges. The three on the left are hollow points. The one on the right is a fully metal jacketed (FMJ)—commonly called “hardball”–cartridge. Each of the bullets weighs 115 grains. The cartridge at the far left is a Hornady Critical Defense load. The red polymer in the cavity is designed to prevent heavy clothing or anything else from keeping the bullet from expanding, thus maximizing its effectiveness.

  That’s ultimately the function of hollow point ammunition. The bullets, upon hitting their animal or human targets, expand like a blooming flower dramatically slowing the bullet, expending all its energy in the target and preventing unintended over penetration. 

  Handgun ammunition is not remotely as powerful as Hollywood likes to portray.  There are numerous cases on record of criminals absorbing ludicrous numbers of handgun bullets and not being markedly impaired. Many survived.

  FMJ bullets are not designed to expand. They tend to over-penetrate, merely punching a 9mm-sized hole in their target and flying on to hit whatever is behind. They also have greater ricochet potential under most circumstances. For these reasons, America’s police uniformly use hollow point ammunition. As you can see, various manufacturers believe their designs best meet the purpose—expansion—of hollow point bullets.

  I’ll not get into related issues other than to observe the law regulating the use of deadly force is everywhere and generally the same: one may shoot not to kill, but to stop as quickly and effectively as possible the imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death to self or others. One does not shoot to “kill,” but to stop whatever an attacker was doing that authorized the use of deadly force.

  To that end, until the invention of Star Trek Phasers, hollow point ammunition remains the safest and most effective choice consistent with the Second Amendment.

  Some of those banning that ammunition and praising that ban know that. They don’t care. They’ll do whatever they can to inconvenience and disarm the law abiding, even to see them killed, for political gain and virtue-signaling street cred.

  Their ignorance is often funny, but in this case it’s deadly—to the innocent.

  On a different subject, if you are not already a subscriber, you may not know that we’ve implemented something new: A weekly newsletter with unique content from our editors for subscribers only. These essays alone are worth the cost of the subscription. 

  Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 22:10

• The (Geo)Politics Of Precious Metals
  The (Geo)Politics Of Precious Metals

  Michael Hudson, a renowned economist, discusses the rising price of gold and its geopolitical implications. 

  

  Since 2018, gold prices have nearly tripled, driven by central banks’ increasing demand, particularly in response to U.S. sanctions and asset seizures, such as the $300 billion in Russian reserves frozen by the West. This trend reflects a global shift away from reliance on the U.S. dollar and euro, with gold seen as a safer alternative. “Gold is being seen as an alternative to dollar or euro-denominated assets,” Hudson explains, emphasizing that economic decisions are deeply intertwined with political concerns.

  Hudson argues that the gold market is unique and has been historically manipulated by the U.S. to maintain the dollar’s dominance in global reserves. He notes that, unlike other commodities, gold’s price was artificially suppressed for decades to keep global financial reliance on U.S. Treasury securities.

  “The aim of this was political—to keep the world viewing the U.S. dollar as the most secure form of international reserves,” he states. However, as trust in the Western financial system declines due to excessive monetary policies and sanctions, nations are turning to gold. The recent sharp rise in gold prices signals the breakdown of this controlled system.

  A major concern Hudson raises is the discrepancy between the actual gold supply and the financialized gold market, where much of the traded gold is merely paper-based. The leasing of gold by central banks to private dealers has created a situation akin to a financial bubble, with more claims on gold than the available physical supply. 

  “This gold drain to satisfy the recent price rise has seriously depleted gold reserves,” Hudson warns, suggesting that when investors demand actual gold rather than financial derivatives, the system could collapse. 

  He compares the situation to a bank run, where too many people seek to withdraw their assets at once, revealing the fragility of the system.

  Looking ahead, Hudson speculates on the potential for a financial restructuring where gold plays a central role. He suggests that countries disillusioned with the Western financial order may seek a new monetary arrangement based on gold or other tangible assets. 

  “People have wanted to hold gold bullion because it’s tangible, and you know how much you have,” he says, highlighting the loss of trust in fiat currencies. 

  As global demand for gold continues to surge and supply remains constrained, this could signify a broader transformation in international finance, challenging the longstanding dominance of the U.S. and European monetary systems.

  Key Takeaways:

  • Central banks are stockpiling gold due to fears of U.S. sanctions and asset seizures, signaling distrust in Western financial institutions.

  • The U.S. has historically suppressed gold prices to maintain the dollar’s dominance, but this control is weakening as gold prices soar.

  • The gold market operates differently from traditional commodities, with a significant portion of its trade based on financial instruments rather than physical reserves.

  • A potential “gold run” could occur if investors demand physical gold, exposing the lack of sufficient reserves and destabilizing the financial system.

  • The shift toward gold suggests a potential monetary realignment, where countries move away from reliance on the dollar and fiat currencies in favor of tangible assets.

  Michael Hudson is interviewed by Geopolitical Economy Report editor Ben Norton.

  Transcript

  (via GeopoliticalEconomy.com)

  (Introduction)

  BEN NORTON: The price of gold has been skyrocketing. Since 2018, the price of gold has nearly tripled. This has caused a big debate around the world about why this is happening. There are, of course, several different factors.

  

  One of them is that central banks around the world have been buying more and more gold, especially with the threat of sanctions from the United States. One-third of all countries on Earth are under US sanctions, including 60% of low-income countries.

  

  The war in Ukraine has only accelerated this, as the US and the EU seized $300 billion dollars and euros worth of assets held by Russia’s central bank. This has scared many other countries’ central banks, which fear that they could be next to have their assets seized by the West.

  Gold is being seen as an alternative to dollar- or euro-denominated assets.

  But it’s not just central banks. There’s also a lot of private demand, especially as there was a lot of inflation coming out of the Covid pandemic.

  What’s interesting is that, typically, gold is seen as an inflation hedge. And when inflation increases, the price of gold tends to increase. But in the past two years, inflation has come down, yet the price of gold has continued to skyrocket.

  So why is this happening?

  Well, today I had the privilege of being joined by the award-winning economist Michael Hudson, and he explained why the price of gold continues to rise, and what the implications could be for the entire global economy, and the politics of gold — because, as Michael often stresses, you cannot separate economics from politics.

  So here are a few highlights of Michael Hudson, and then we’ll go straight to the interview.

  (Highlights)

  MICHAEL HUDSON: Demand for gold, as I said, has been far outstripping the supply for many, many years now. And as we’re taught in Economics 101 textbooks, when demand outstrip supply, prices go up.

  But that hasn’t been happening with the gold price until just the last few months. And the question is, why hasn’t it happened?

  …

  Well, the obvious answer is that the gold market isn’t like regular commodity markets.

  …

  So the United States has sought to keep gold prices down ever since it was revalued in 1971… The aim of this was political: to keep the world viewing the US dollar, meaning essentially US Treasury securities, as the most secure form of their international reserves.

  It’s secure in the sense that, unlike other countries, the United States can simply print the dollars. It can’t go bankrupt.

  …

  People like to say gold is an inflation hedge. But you could say eggs are an inflation hedge, or pork is an inflation hedge.

  The point is, the real problem is the US balance of payments deficit pumping dollars into the world.

  You’ll pay dollars to an exporter, from China or Germany — when there was still a German industry — and they turn the dollars over to their central bank, and the central bank would then say, “What are we going to do with these dollars? If we don’t send them back to the United States, our currency is going to go up against the dollar, and that is going to make our exports less competitive. So we have to keep our currency, our exchange rate, down; and we do that by buying Treasury securities”.

  It has always been political. And the newspapers don’t want to talk about politics, because if they talked about politics, all of a sudden people would realize the Western political and economic system cannot last in the way that it’s structured now.

  When you talk about politics, you realize the game is over for the West.

  *  *  *

  (Full interview)

  BEN NORTON: Hi, Michael. It’s always a real pleasure having you. The last time we had a discussion, we analyzed the effects of Donald Trump’s tariffs, or his threat of tariffs. And you warned that it could cause a global financial crisis, as countries won’t be able to get the dollars they need to pay off their dollar-denominated debt.

  After we had that conversation, you raised some other points about the gold market that you wanted to talk about, and I thought that would be a great separate episode.

  So why do you think we’ve seen this massive shift, the near tripling of the price of gold in the past seven years?

  MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, we’ve been talking for many years now about how the international financial system works, and central bank reserves, and de-dollarization, and the split of the BRICS away from the West.

  And that’s what my book Super Imperialism was about, how America was driven off the gold standard because of the balance of payments drain from the Vietnam War and for world military spending, up to 1971. The entire U.S. balance of payments deficit from the Korean War in 1950, all the way through the ‘50s, the ‘60s, and into the ‘70s was military spending.

  The result was that the United States had, every month, to sell the accumulation of dollars that ended up in France, Germany, and other countries. The dollars spent in Vietnam that were exchanged for local currencies ended up in French banks, because Southeast Asia was a part of the French empire; and the French banks sent these dollars to Paris, and General [Charles] de Gaulle would then cash in the dollars [for gold] every week.

  Until 1971, every printed dollar — your dollar bills in your pocket — had to be backed, by law, 25% by gold. So we were watching the American gold supply go down, down, down to the gold cover.

  Every week, on Friday morning, when the Federal Reserve gold report would come out on Wall Street in the mid ‘60s, we were all saying, “When is the breaking point going to come?”

  Well, it came in August 1971. At that time, the US government thought, “This is terrible. We have controlled the whole world financial system ever since World War One, by holding gold, and that was what other countries used to have their monetary reserves. We have controlled other countries’ ability to run budget deficits, to fund their own economy with gold; now we don’t have it anymore”. And there was a lot of hand-wringing.

  I wrote my book Super Imperialism to say that this is not going to interfere with the American empire, because if countries, central banks, governments can’t buy gold, they had only one big alternative at that time, and that was to buy dollars.

  And how do they buy dollars? They buy US Treasury bonds, Treasury notes, short-term Treasury securities. They put in their money and hold it in the form of US debt.

  As they got more and more dollars, they spent more and more money buying US debt. And that became an increasing way of how the United States funded its own budget deficits.

  Who bought the bonds to fund these? Increasingly, central banks. So the United States found this is what some people called the “exorbitant privilege” of the dollar.

  When other countries run a balance of payments deficit, they have to devalue. The IMF comes in; they say, “Lower your wages; impose poverty to squeeze out enough money to pay the bondholders”. But the United States can keep printing the money.

  So, what can other countries do? They don’t have an alternative.

  Well, you’ve seen increasing pressure to create an alternative for the last decade or so. That’s what your and my discussions and your site has been about.

  Other countries want to de-dollarize, and the United States fears, “What is going to be the alternative?”

  Well, to some extent, we know they’re buying each other’s currencies. They’re buying yuan, rubles; doing trade and investment in each other’s currencies; to avoid having to use the dollar, and having to take the risks that Venezuela took, Iran, and Russia, of just having the dollars confiscated.

  But still, there is an idea that gold is a kind of asset that the whole world has been able to agree on, along with silver, for the last 3000 years, as the monetary base.

  How are you going to get countries all over the world, from North America, to Europe, to Asia, all to agree on what to hold?

  Well, they’re trying to come up with an agreement now, and they realize that you can’t have a BRICS monetary system until you have a whole political integration of the BRICS. So that’s not going to be an alternative for right now. So countries have been buying gold.

  

  Well, the private sector is watching all of this. They’re listening to your show, and what I’ve been writing about, and they say, “We’re in a situation now, just like the world was in the late ‘60s, going into the 1970s, when finally the gold price rose beyond the ability of the United States to keep it down to $35 an ounce”. So private investors have got into the gold market.

  This is what makes the gold market not simply talk about commodities, how to get rich; it talks about how the world economy is being restructured, and its monetary relations, and what the politics are.

  But what I’m going to talk about today is what is happening that makes the gold market so political and so unique, that something very strange is happening there.

  On Monday, February 10th, the week started with gold rising to over $2,900 an ounce. So we’re on the verge of it going up to $3,000 an ounce. That’s a quantum leap.

  If you look at the statistics for gold mining throughout the world, the supply and demand of gold, demand has been far outstripping the supply now for 20 or 30 years.

  We’re seeing now an effect very much like a run on the bank. But that run on the bank has actually been occurring for a few decades.

  So the question that you have to ask to begin with is, why did it take so long, until just this year, for gold to begin to go up in price, after it stagnated for a decade?

  We’ve seen, in the last decades, the central banks have devoted a steady rise in the proportion of their reserves that they hold in gold, and proportionately less of their reserves in the form of U.S. dollars.

  They’re still holding more and more dollars every year, because the United States is running such a large balance of payments deficit that it’s pumping dollars into the world economy.

  But other countries are not just recycling these dollars. They’re spending more and more of the dollars they get on gold, as a kind of safe haven for them: something that is solid.

  Gold is an asset that doesn’t have a debt attached to it. If you hold a gold coin, or a gold bar, that’s a pure asset — no debt at all.

  But if you hold a Treasury bond; that’s a debt, a debt of the United States. And if it’s a debt of the United States, it’s like your bank deposit is a debt of the bank to you.

  If the US goes under, like a bank goes under, or if it just refuses to pay, then you’re out. And there’s something ephemeral about all of this.

  Well, if you look at the trend of gold prices, it stagnated in a very narrow range from about $1200 to $1400 an ounce for a few years, from 2015 to 2019. It was all in that range.

  

  I spent a lot of time in Europe and Asia at that time, and all of the government officials I talked to, the financial funds, all said, “You know, we’re buying more and more gold, because this system can’t last, politically, the way it is”. But the price didn’t go up.

  Then, during the Covid years, from 2020 to early 2023, once again, there was a stagnation, a range from $1800 to $2000 an ounce. That’s a pretty narrow range — you know, a low range, a little step function to a new range, and then very gradually drifting upward, but not anywhere near as fast as the actual demand for gold was.

  Well, finally, in the last half-year, we’ve seen the gold price rise all out of range to, as I said, nearly $3,000 an ounce.

  So the question is, are we in a new range for gold, or is the price going to go higher?

  With so many people buying the rights to hold gold — you’ll buy a gold fund, and you’ll pay money into the gold fund, and that has securities in gold; or you’ll buy gold and you’ll store it with a bullion dealer, because you don’t want to keep it at home, because it could get stolen, or who knows what will happen.

  Well, where is all this gold going to come from, physically, to meet the demand?

  During the last half a century, quarter century, there has been a rising private investment boom in gold, because people can look at the trend — more and more, excess demand over the supply — and they can see that this is an unstable situation.

  So to understand it, you have to understand how unique the gold markets are. And I want to talk about that today, not simply as an exercise, but to show what the politics behind the gold market are, and what it means for how the world economy is being restructured.

  Suddenly, gold is more than just an investment vehicle. There have always been gold bugs who don’t understand, “How is it that the government can just print money? We don’t understand. We’re going to just try to buy gold, and there should still be the gold standard, like there was in the 19th century”. There are all these crazies on the right wing, libertarians, who don’t trust government.

  But now we’re talking about demand not just from the crazies, but from regular funds that are looking at the trends, and they realize that there’s a pile-on effect that is occurring. Everybody suddenly is moving into gold.

  You’ll find the advertisements all over the internet, when you watch YouTube shows, there is very often an advertisement for gold on there. And obviously, more and more people are doing it.

  So the question is, is all this just a bubble, or are we moving towards a new and even higher long term plateau? Is there a change occurring in the world’s financial and monetary system? Politically?

  Well, I’m going to explain what is happening.

  Demand for gold, as I said, has been far outstripping the supply for many, many years now. And as we’re taught in Economics 101 textbooks, when demand outstrip supply, prices go up.

  But that hasn’t been happening with the gold price until just the last few months. And the question is, why hasn’t it happened? And why have the gold prices suddenly begun to escape from their former narrow range and risen so fast, since last autumn?

  Well, the obvious answer is that the gold market isn’t like regular commodity markets. And even regular commodity markets don’t operate in the simple way that popular media and textbooks say.

  One reason for that is that, for the last century, the price of gold has been regulated by central banks, mainly by the US Treasury, ever since Franklin Roosevelt revalued gold to $35 an ounce in 1933.

  That lasted until President Nixon took the US off gold in 1971. And, as a result of the war, and as I said, US officials were very frightened that the US was no longer able to control the price of gold. Hence the key to the whole world’s money creation that it needs to finance how its economy operates.

  The US thought, “Well, other countries are now going to take gold, and we’re not going to keep up with them, and there goes our leverage for imposing power in institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, that were all put in place 1944, 1945, at the end of World War Two”.

  But that didn’t happen, for the reasons that I explained in Super Imperialism, my book in 1972. There really weren’t many alternatives large enough to put foreign money in.

  So instead of cashing in their dollar inflows by buying gold, foreign central banks just bought Treasury securities. And as I said, that funded the rising portion of the US domestic budget deficit.

  Well, the dollar glut was run up mainly, as I said, by military spending. And I worked for a year with Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm, and Chase Manhattan Bank, showing this. And I became a consultant to the US government, explaining this phenomenon, during the 1970s.

  This is not something that is taught in economics courses, because it’s politically sensitive, and economics tries to be “apolitical”, because if you see how political economics really is, you have a different approach to politics.

  So the United States has sought to keep gold prices down ever since it was revalued in 1971. Gold prices went up pretty quickly to about $700, $800 an ounce. Then finally, by the mid 2010s, into $1200, $1400, you know, gradually going up.

  The aim of this was political: to keep the world viewing the US dollar, meaning essentially US Treasury securities, as the most secure form of their international reserves.

  It’s secure in the sense that, unlike other countries, the United States can simply print the dollars. It can’t go bankrupt, and be unable to pay the debts, because unlike other countries that have debts in a foreign currency, the US debt is in its own currency in dollars, and it can just keep printing them.

  BEN NORTON: Very well said, Michael. There’s so much we could respond to.

  We talked about central bank demand for gold. But I think another important factor here is inflation, because traditionally gold has been seen as an inflation hedge.

  When you have moments of high rates of inflation — for instance, coming out of the Covid pandemic, as the economy reopened in 2022, consumer price inflation was very high in the United States and many countries, because of the supply chain disruptions.

  

  So as inflation increased in 2022, you could see that, in October, the gold price was around $1,600, and it increased pretty substantially to almost $2,000 in the spring of 2023.

  What happened then is that, in early 2023, the inflation peaked, and the gold price went down, as inflation went down, because it’s of course seen as an inflation hedge, so it makes sense that they would tend to move together.

  

  However, then something very strange happened. In October 2023, the gold price reached a low of around $1,850, and since then, consumer price inflation has continued to fall. But that relationship broke, and instead the gold price skyrocketed by another thousand dollars to around $2,900.

  So, Michael, that relationship has now ended, it’s broken. Why do you think that is?

  MICHAEL HUDSON: I don’t think there’s a causal relationship, there at all. That’s my whole point.

  People like to say gold is an inflation hedge. But you could say eggs are an inflation hedge, or pork is an inflation hedge.

  The point is, the real problem is the US balance of payments deficit pumping dollars into the world.

  You’ll pay dollars to an exporter, from China or Germany — when there was still a German industry — and they turn the dollars over to their central bank, and the central bank would then say, “What are we going to do with these dollars? If we don’t send them back to the United States, our currency is going to go up against the dollar, and that is going to make our exports less competitive. So we have to keep our currency, our exchange rate, down; and we do that by buying Treasury securities”.

  It has always been political. And the newspapers don’t want to talk about politics, because if they talked about politics, all of a sudden people would realize the Western political and economic system cannot last in the way that it’s structured now.

  When you talk about politics, you realize the game is over for the West. And so of course they don’t. They want to make it appear micro, “Oh, there are some people who just try to look at inflation rates”.

  Some people really believe this. They believe the textbooks. They’re gullible. Most investors in gold, I have to say, are gullible, but there are other people who are actually looking at reality, and they can see, this system can’t last.

  In the end, the people who don’t trust gold are going to win.

  I’ll give you an example. In 1973 or ‘74, Herman Kahn and I went to the White House for a meeting with the US Treasury. And I was explaining to them how the Treasury bill standard worked.

  Well, what I said was something that, certainly, they didn’t want to hear. I said, “Gold is ultimately the peaceful metal, because it was the US running out of gold that threatened to stop it from spending the military costs of the war in Southeast Asia, and all over, the 800 military bases that it has over the world”.

  If you have gold continue, and if Nixon did not go off gold, then America would very quickly lose all of its gold stock, as the cost of waging war against the rest of the world, of keeping its unilateral military power.

  It’s not power because it’s a democracy; it’s not power because people love it; it’s because American power is the ability to hurt other countries, to bomb them, to finance regime change, and to threaten other countries. And that costs a lot of money to keep threatening.

  That’s part of the whole crisis that we’re seeing now, and you’re all of a sudden winding down what has been, as Trump and [Elon] Musk have been saying, you’re winding down what has been absorbing an enormous part of the American budget, pushing it into deficit.

  And these are deficit bugs. They’re not modern monetary theorists; they believe that deficit spending is bad, not that deficit spending is how the government provides money into the economy at large.

  So, there’s a whole conflict of monetary theory that’s going on now. So you could say that this whole fight over gold and gold futures reflects the whole idea of what is going to be the basis of American military policy, and American foreign policy, and geopolitics.

  Are we going to be in a constant war against the whole rest of the world? Or are we going to try to make peace with Russia, China, and Iran, and just focus against countries that we can really beat up, like Canada, England, Australia, Japan, South Korea?

  BEN NORTON: Yeah, what’s also ironic is that Trump talks about cutting the deficit, but he’s also cutting taxes on the rich, which will likely increase the deficit, which is exactly what Ronald Reagan did.

  MICHAEL HUDSON: Right! He is not quite — ha! That’s the unstated part. We all know what he wants.

  BEN NORTON: Yeah, exactly. It’s the same thing that Ronald Reagan did. You know, Reagan said he was going to cut government spending, but, actually, the US deficit as a percentage of GDP increased significantly under Reagan.

  

  Ironically, it was the neoliberal Bill Clinton administration that actually reduced the deficit, and for the first time ever since, the only time ever since, the US actually had a budget surplus.

  

  But what’s interesting, Michael, is that you have been associated with Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), and you’re not a gold bug.

  But what you’re saying here is that there is an element — you’re not arguing that the dollar should go back to the gold standard. That’s not what you’re arguing.

  You’re saying that there have to be limitations to the amount of money printing, by having some kind of a link to reality [and the real economy].

  MICHAEL HUDSON: Modern Monetary Theory explains how to finance the domestic budget deficit.

  One thing Modern Monetary Theory theory cannot do, when you create money, is you can’t create foreign currency.

  [The United States] can create dollars to spend into the economy. You don’t have to borrow these dollars from wealthy bondholders and investors. You can simply print the money. You don’t have to levy taxes, because that’s the essence of paper money.

  But, when it comes to foreign spending, especially military spending, [the United States] can’t print Chinese currency to finance your spending in Asia. [The United States] can’t print rubles. You can’t print other currencies for spending abroad.

  So Modern Monetary Theory refers to a domestic economy, not to foreign money. It’s a theory of domestic money.

  Gold is a constraint on money creation. It all goes back to the awful, awful theories of David Ricardo, the bank lobbyist, in Britain in 1809 and 1810, when he was testifying before the Bullion Committee and saying, “We need to keep wages down. We need to keep the economy poor, so that the wealthy creditors can get enough money to control the world, and reduce everybody else to abject dependency. So we’re against paper money. Paper money is inflationary. If you only use gold and silver, which the rich people have, then we can operate the whole world”.

  Well, he didn’t say it just in those words, as you can imagine, but his arguments were against creating paper money. This was the antithesis of Modern Monetary Theory.

  Ricardo spelled out in great detail exactly what the principles of the International Monetary Fund are have been since 1944 and ‘45, that, if you don’t let countries create their own paper money, and force them to have hard currency, gold, or US dollars, then they can’t afford to hire more labor; they can’t afford to invest. They’ll be completely dependent on countries that can act as is creditors.

  Again, that’s what I explain in my book Super Imperialism, how this whole system came in.

  I’m writing a book now — I’m on the last two chapters — on the political alliances of bankers from the Crusades up to World War One, where you have the whole attempt at hard money.

  This is what caused a rupture in American politics in the 1870s, ‘80s, and early ‘90s.

  BEN NORTON: Yeah, at the end of the 19th century, the famous populist US politician William Jennings Bryan said that the financial class wanted to “crucify mankind on a cross of gold”.

  MICHAEL HUDSON: Remember, the creditors after the Civil War wanted to roll back prices. They said, “Well, there’s been inflation during the Civil War. And that means that all of our bondholders, we don’t have the same purchasing power over labor. We have to reduce labor’s wage rates and make them poorer and poor, so that we can get richer and richer, and we do this by forcing gold down. You need unemployment”.

  They were, just like the Federal Reserve says, “We need unemployment, hard money, to keep wages down, so that employers can make more profits from hiring cheap labor, basically”.

  This is a class war of the financial sector against the economy at large, against industry. Finance capitalism has become antithetical to industrial capitalism. That’s what you and I have been talking about in these shows.

  It all goes back to Ricardo saying, if you take away the government’s ability to run deficits and spend money into the economy, then you’ll be dependent on the rich people to supply the money.

  So when President Clinton finally ran a budget surplus in 1998, what happened? That meant that the government was not spending money into the economy. People had to go to the banks and borrow, and pay interest to the banks.

  

  That’s what the financial sector wants. It wants to get interest to force the economy at large to pay interest, to get the money that it needs to conduct business, and employ labor, instead of having the government simply provide, printing the money, without interest. The inflationary effect is identical.

  It’s no more inflationary to print money than to borrow from a billionaire, who isn’t going to spend money on buying [more] eggs, in any case, and “printing” the money that way.

  So there’s a whole fight over, what is the source and the use of money in an economy today?

  That has been pretty much not discussed in the popular press, but that’s what Modern Monetary Theory is all about. That was fought against by the financial sector that wanted to control money by the wealthy classes, by the financial sector, and by the banks, not by the government for the public interest.

  The [US] government position, Democratic Party position or Republicans, is that money is to be created to make money for the wealthy financial sector, not for the economy.

  Modern Monetary Theory is that we should create money to promote actual economic growth and rising living standards, not simply create money in a way that makes money for the financial sector and the billionaires.

  All of this political argument lies behind the restructuring of monetary policy that we’re going to be seeing in the next few years, triggered by this gold meltdown.

  BEN NORTON: Very well said, Michael. There’s so much we could respond to, but I want to go back a little bit to talking about the gold market.

  Something that you were emphasizing is how different the gold market is from other markets. You were talking about how, you know, the actual economy works very differently from what is taught in textbooks.

  You emphasized that the gold market in particular is different from other commodity markets. So can you talk more about that?

  MICHAEL HUDSON: So, the important key to understanding just how all of this was accomplished is to see how complex the world’s financial commodity exchanges where gold prices are set are, and what’s their relationship to actual commodity dealers, which is where individuals go to buy gold.

  Central banks can buy gold from each other. Investment funds, hedge funds, individuals, jewelry makers, etc. buy gold from bullion dealers.

  Well, there’s a general impression that when people, or central banks, or mutual funds, buy gold, they place bids in a market, something like the Commodity Exchange, COMEX.

  But that’s not really where people buy and sell gold.

  In a commodity exchange, this is really a gambling venue. You bet on whether the price of a stock or a bond, or gold, or a commodity — copper, or wheat, or any other commodity — is going to go up and down.

  So a commodity exchange is [where you go to] bet on where prices are going to go.

  These dealers who are buying and selling options for grain prices — and where is the stock market, or the S&P 500 going to go — they’re not actually going to buy wheat, or gold, or the stocks; they’re putting a bet on which way prices are going to go.

  That bet is supposed to reflect what’s happening in the real world. There’s supposed to be some physical, tangible basis for all of this.

  So I want to take a minute to explain. [The asset manager] Vanguard has a site that talks about puts and calls, and selling short, and options, and that has a vocabulary all its own.

  I’m going to quote what Vanguard says:

  When you buy a call option, you’re buying the right to purchase a specific security at a locked-in price (the “strike price”) sometime in the future [at a given date].

  If the price of that security rises, you can make a profit by buying it at the agreed price and reselling it on the open market [in the exchange] at the higher market price.

  When you buy a put option, you’re buying the right to sell someone a specific security at a locked-in strike price sometime in the future.

  So suppose, the price of gold is at $1,250. You can say, “Well, I’m going to sell it to you at only $1,200”. Well, if the price falls, you can actually make a profit by buying it on the open market at the lower price, and then exercising your put option at the higher price. That sounds complicated.

  BEN NORTON: Just to simplify for people — you had a good description — the very simple explanation is, if you buy a call, it’s because you think the price will go up; if you buy a put, it’s because you think the price will go down. So, call up, put down.

  As you said, these are essentially financial bets. This is options trading.

  MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, the question is, during the 2010s, why, when everybody was saying, “This trend can’t go on; the price of gold has got to go up”, why would somebody come in and keep selling gold at a lower price forward, saying, “In three months, we’re going to sell you gold at $50 an ounce less, or $25 an ounce less”. Who was doing this?

  I don’t know any private investor that would have come and done that, because they said, “Well, we think the price is going to go up, instead of going down; that’s the long-term trend of gold”.

  Well, the explanation is this selling of gold forward was done by central banks, mainly by the US Federal Reserve and Treasury, acting on behalf of the Treasury, or the Bank of England.

  When you buy a put or a call, you have to pay money for the options. And there used to be, you would look in the newspapers, and here’s how much it cost to buy an option for treasury bonds, a price for stocks, or for gold.

  When you sell the right to buy gold at, let’s say the same price, or a dollar or two less, then people will pay you for that option to buy it at the same price in three months, or six months. That’s a source of revenue.

  So the US Treasury, and the Bank of England, were actually making money selling gold short. And when you keep promising, you have so much money, and you’re such a large participant in the market, you’re sort of like George Soros when he broke the Bank of England. You can make the market by being so large.

  When you come in and you keep selling gold short, way beyond the demand, you’re overwhelming the market, and that holds the price down.

  Even though more and more people may be buying gold, the United States and England are making money by essentially engaging in this market manipulation as a source of revenue.

  That is one of the factors that was holding down [the price of gold].

  Well, central banks also have, in fact, been selling gold short for many decades now. And they’ve been making money by it.

  As I said, to buy this option, to buy gold at a fairly low price when you think, “Well, certainly the market is going to go up for gold; the price must be going up for gold, because everybody is buying it. I’m going to buy this option”.

  And it just didn’t work. A lot of people, pessimists, tried to do this, and they were overwhelmed by the central banks’ selling.

  Most options are not exercised, because central banks keep selling forward again, and again, and again. That is what held down the price of gold for many decades. It kept the price from rising, because future buyers can always buy the other end of a short sale, at a lower price.

  The supply and demand wasn’t just in the private market; it wasn’t just among central banks; it was a manipulated market.

  So it seems that this gold drain, to satisfy the recent thousand dollar an ounce price rise that we’ve seen, has seriously depleted gold reserves. The Treasury has actually had to sell them.

  This is another aspect of the market. That’s the gold dealers.

  Suppose there were not a commodity exchange, to set the prices for contracts.

  Well, the demand for physical gold has been running ahead of its supply. So, central banks have been leasing the gold to gold dealers.

  In other words, the central banks have felt, you could call it hubris. They said, “Well, we’re always going to be able to keep the price of gold down”. So gold dealers are buying gold, and selling it to their customers, who expect prices to go up.

  So the gold dealers will say, “Lease us a ton of gold, at this price. We will pay you to lease it so that we can send it to customers”.

  If the price doesn’t go up, you know, at a certain point, the customers will say, “OK, I didn’t make the profits in gold that I made in the stock market, or in the bond market”.

  Remember, after the Obama bank crisis in 2008-2009, the whole quantitative easing came in, and interest rates were so low that it spurred an enormous stock market boom, and the biggest bond market boom in history.

  Why would people want to buy gold after 2009, when gold prices are going up gradually, but stock prices and bond prices were going up so much more?

  So the rival to gold was this artificial boom created by quantitative easing and, low interest rates. So that’s part of the equation.

  Central banks were happy to lease the gold to gold dealers. They made money from this leasing, just like you’d lease a car. You would give them the gold; they would have to give it back at a specified date.

  You say, “OK, we’ll lend you this gold for a year, and at the end of the year, you’ll have to give it back, but you can hold it, and do what you want at that time”.

  Well, the gold dealers would then turn around and sell to the private investors — maybe to central banks, too — the gold that they’d leased. At the end of the year, they would say, “We’ll take out another lease, and we’ll lease now for two tons”; then later, you know, for three tons.

  So the central banks would keep leasing out the gold, ton after ton, to the gold dealers.

  Well, that meant that the US would send gold, physically, from Fort Knox to the gold dealers — largely in London, which was sort of the gold trading center.

  Just like the gold market after World War Two, when the United States held down the price of gold in the market. That was in the London gold exchange, that they were holding it all in.

  So, the US and England kept leasing gold, making money that way from the dealers, and selling gold short, and making money off the purchase of the commissions. And that became a good source of financing.

  If you do the accounting, Fort Knox would have a claim for payment on the gold dealers for leasing this gold. And, that was a way for Fort Knox and the Treasury to make money.

  But their aim wasn’t simply to make money; it was to keep down the price of gold, so that gold would not reemerge as a rival to the US dollar.

  That’s what drove, this whole system. And that was the motivation for the United States. It was political.

  BEN NORTON: Michael, by the way, just, for people who don’t know, Fort Knox is the Department of the Treasury’s gold holdings. It’s the physical location.

  It’s officially called the US Bullion Depository. It’s where the Treasury has its physical gold reserves.

  MICHAEL HUDSON: Yes, but most people think of that as Fort Knox. If you saw the movie Goldfinger, you know where it is.

  BEN NORTON: By the way, for younger viewers, when you say Goldfinger, you’re referring to a classic James Bond movie from the 1960s.

  MICHAEL HUDSON: It’s a very good movie, too. You can watch it again, and it’s always fresh. Sean Connery was still the James Bond back then.

  So the question is, how do we know how much US gold has been actually sent to foreign dealers? There are no statistics on this.

  There are not even any statistics for how much gold is actually in Fort Knox.

  The United States reports its gold supply, but the gold supply treats all the gold that has been leased to foreign dealers as part of the gold supply, because it is our gold supply. But we’re not holding it. We’ve leased it out!

  It’s just like, if you’re an auto company, like Hertz or Avis, and you lease the car, the car is your car; it’s not the renter’s car. Well, the gold is still yours; it doesn’t belong to the gold dealers who have leased it from you.

  So, Roberts, a friend of mine who was the former assistant secretary of the Treasury for monetary affairs under Ronald Reagan, back in 1981 and 1982, wrote me recently to say, I’ll quote, “Before we learned to suppress the gold price with naked shorts” — that is selling gold short when you don’t have it — “we leased the gold to bullion dealers who sold the gold”.

  The state of this leasing seems to have accelerated steadily. There are no statistics. And, “Representative Ron Paul, years ago, could never get a gold audit of Ft. Knox. He wasn’t even be allowed inside to see if there was any gold there”

  Ron Paul, who’s a libertarian, the [former] leader of the libertarian group in Congress, “made a fuss, but was told that this was a matter of national security”.

  So imagine, even a congressman cannot find out how much gold physically is there. Why would it be a matter of national security, if there is no problem?

  Why isn’t the US glad to say, “Here’s how much gold we have. You know, we’re perfectly solvent. We have it all. No problem”.

  They’re not letting any statistics out at all.

  So the Treasury has worked in two ways, as I’ve said, to keep the price down: leasing gold, for many years; and then manipulating it in price, to keep it low via the gold exchange standard.

  The question is, the gold dealers, what have they done with this gold that they’ve leased?

  Well, when I was studying the history of money and banking, 60 years ago, the principle of fractional-reserve banking was the first thing that the professors talked about and explained.

  That means that, if you go to a bank, and you have a deposit there, the bank doesn’t just hold all your money. It realizes that not all of the bank depositors are going to want all their money at the same time, unless there’s a run on the bank.

  So the banks take your money, and they have to keep, let’s say, one-seventh of the money they keep liquid, you know, for just the turnover, for normal demand by people who actually want to write checks on their accounts and spend the money.

  But basically, they make their money by lending out most of the money you put into banks, and mortgages, or to stock dealers and bond dealers, they lend it out, and only keep some of their money on reserve.

  Banks have specific reserve requirements, and now it’s capital backing requirements that they have. They’re regulated, for how much money they have to keep liquid, on hand.

  But back in the 16th and 17th centuries, before there was modern banking, gold dealers played the role.

  If you were a well-to-do person, the money that you had was gold and silver coinage. You didn’t really have paper currency coming in until the 17th century, and especially after the Bank of England was created in 1694. People used, their transactions were in coinage and gold.

  So if you were wealthy enough, and you had extra coinage, you would keep it with a bullion dealer, because you didn’t want to keep it at home, because you could be robbed, or there could be a fire, and the gold would all melt. And the gold dealers would charge you for safekeeping your gold.

  But they realized that, as more and more people sold gold, they didn’t have to keep all this gold in their own vaults.

  They could take this coinage and they could buy bonds that were yielding a good amount of money, or they could buy real estate. They could buy whatever they wanted. They only had to keep some of this gold in their hands as reserves.

  Needless to say, when there was a financial crisis, or when there was a war, you had these depositors come and say, “OK, we want our gold. There’s instability. We want to keep the gold at home now”.

  And the gold dealers would have said, “Well, we’ve bought bonds with them. We have lent out the money to traders, to make money on import and export trade. The money is safely invested, but we don’t have the physical gold to pay you”.

  There would be a crisis, and gold dealers would go under, if they really didn’t have enough money to pay their depositors, just as banks would go under when there was a run on the bank.

  So some gold dealers over lent, and some prudent dealers experienced risks, because there was always some crisis that comes up at some point, for reasons that usually can’t be anticipated.

  That’s why you have regulated reserves. But, back in the time of gold dealers, there wasn’t any regulatory agency to make sure that they didn’t just lend out all the money, and make money by not only collecting money from the depositors for holding their gold safe, but making money for lending out the gold, and investments, which came to a crisis at the end.

  Well, this kind of behavior, leveraging your reserves in order to make money, poses an obvious problem. I guess you can think of what it is.

  How long has Fort Knox, and the Bank of England, and perhaps other banks, been leasing their gold? And how near are they to running out of it? What if there’s no gold left in their vaults at all?

  Imagine Goldfinger trying to rob Fort Knox, as they did in the movie, and discovering that it turns out that its vaults are empty, and there’s nothing to steal!

  Are gold dealers in a similar position to Fort Knox, having gold claims for payment for gold that is leased from the United States, but they’re not able to give it back?

  The United States, will say, “We want our gold back now”. And the dealers have said, “Well, in the past, when you said you wanted it back, we just paid you a little bit more to lease it, and a little bit more to lease it. How much do we have to pay you this time to lease it?”

  Well, the United States can’t say, “We want all our gold back, because people are questioning whether America really has control of this gold stock”.

  You know, it’s like an Avis car getting into an auto wreck, and, all of a sudden, Avis is writing on its balance sheet, “Well, we have so many cars, and it turns out that some of them are broken down, or some of them are crashed, or some of them are missing”.

  This is the kind of situation we have now. And Avis has auditors; and gold dealers and mutual funds have auditors; and probably the Treasury has auditors, but it’s all secret. So nobody can see it.

  So everybody is operating in the dark right now. They would like to operate in the light by saying, “Look, what is the real situation? Who has the gold? Who owes the gold? What’s the supply and demand?”

  If you factor in all of this leasing, all of these short sales, you know, what’s the actual physical demand for gold? Where is all this gold that has been leased out or sold forward coming from? Where is it going?

  Well, we may be near to see the whole charade being exposed. That point is going to come when enough investors actually want to take physical delivery.

  It could be Indian jewelers. India used to be called the “sink of gold”, because, while most of the West and China operated on the silver standard; India always focused on gold. So it has been a major private sector purchaser of gold.

  A lot of gold of held in gold dealers, or Singapore is a place, a country that provides safekeeping for people who want to hold gold there. So you’ll have a claim on a Singapore bank or dealer, or on a Swiss bank that holds gold.

  And you assume that it really has the gold, and isn’t operating just on a fractional-reserve basis.

  So, last week, a former [US] military officer Douglas Macgregor was interviewed by Judge Napolitano, and he cited Alex Kreiner telling him that there are suspicions that the Bank of England may not have the gold that they’re supposed to have.

  The US Treasury has suggested they’ll send treasuries through London to provide the British banks with a backup, so that they can say, “OK, we won’t give you the gold, but we’ll give you the money for the gold. Isn’t that the same thing?” Well, of course it’s not the same thing.

  He thinks that US investors are among the recipients of the gold that has been leased out.

  Suppose the United States Treasury and Bank of England have leased gold to gold dealers. The gold dealers are supposed to be holding the gold.

  It becomes a pyramid scheme, basically. And this can’t be solved simply by paying money for the price that you had, because people want the gold. That’s why the price has been going up so much.

  The leasing would have kept working if the United States and its British satellite had enough gold to keep selling it short and leasing it out.

  But if more and more buyers buy the right to get gold on COMEX futures, then the Treasury can simply pay them the price gain that they bet on. The problem can be solved simply by printing more money, which the [Fed] can create ad infinitum.

  But once you lease gold, that poses a more concrete and immediate problem. At some point, people are going to want to take physical possession of the gold. That’s what’s occurring. It’s a run on the gold market — not a run on the bank, but a run on the gold market.

  Most individual investors haven’t wanted to hold gold until right now, but now they’re getting antsy.

  So what’s going to happen? And how is all of this sort of pyramid scheme going to end?

  Well, the preferred solution for the United States and the British government would be to simply pay their way out of the present quandary.

  But investors who bought receipts for holding gold want to have some security that the gold is really there. And for the first time, they’re not really trusting the dollar or the pound sterling anymore.

  That’s why, for so many thousands of years, people have wanted to hold gold bullion, because it’s tangible, and you know how much you have.

  One solution would be for central banks to try and replace tangible monetary investments by just saying, “Well, we’re going demonetize gold. We don’t need gold anymore. We demonetized it in 1971. We kept it on the books. But now we don’t need gold. We’re an electronic, artificial intelligence system now. So we’re going to just adopt a blockchain accounting system, and forget gold; it doesn’t count anymore. Poof! We’re going to pay you the money that you paid to get your gold, and isn’t money as good as gold? Isn’t the paper credit that we’re creating on our computers, the computer electronic credit, isn’t that as good as gold?”

  That’s the ideal for a fictitious financial universe based on claims and liabilities that have lost all connection to physical reality. That’s one kind of future that would solve the problem.

  Otherwise, how can the US and Britain cover up the problem and avoid liability?

  The old rhyme said there’s a problem selling a commodity short when you actually don’t have the commodity: “He who sells what isn’t his’n, must buy it back or go to prison”.

  That’s what people always warned short sellers. Be very careful if you sell the right for somebody to demand this commodity from you, you know, when the period is up, and you say, “Well, I’m sorry, we just speculated that the price would go down, but we really don’t have the gold, or the wheat, or the copper, to sell you”. Then that’s fraud, and you’re sent to prison.

  So, what’s going to happen if a whole government does it?

  Well, remember what President Nixon said: “When the president does it, it’s not a crime”.

  Today, they’ll say, “Well, it’s not a crime that we can’t give you the gold that you thought you bought. We’ve given you the money for the gold; we’ve made you whole. Isn’t that enough?” Because we’ve changed the whole nature of the system.

  So, they need a new Goldfinger to blame for the empty vaults at Fort Knox. But how are they going to find this? Well, Goldfinger really couldn’t have done all of what he did so simply in the movie.

  But maybe somebody can just atom bomb Fort Knox, and then you’ll blame whoever is America’s enemy of the week. They can say, “Oh, Hamas blew up Fort Knox with the atom bomb that Iran gave them. We’re going to attack Iran. And it’s really too bad that they’ve done this, but there’s no more gold. So that’s a national emergency. You’re just going to have electronic dollars now”. Maybe there will be something science fiction, like that.

  Well, the West wants to demonetize gold so that the problem — poof! — goes away by collective agreement.

  The problem is going to be to convince the Europeans and others to take it on the chin and say, “OK, we’re going to demonetize all of our gold. You know, we’ll hold it, but we’ll agree, in the future, that the United States can continue to wage the new cold war, and spend dollars into the economy, and we’re not going to buy more gold, unless we pay $4000, $5000, $6000 an ounce for it. But, we’re going to continue to let the US dollar be the basis of our own monetary and financial system”.

  Well, is Europe really going to do that? Certainly, China, Russia, most of Asia, and the Global South are not going to do that.

  That’s what makes this gold price so political. This idea of where did the gold go is the key to how the world’s monetary system [works], and it controls where world geopolitics is going to be going for the next few years.

  BEN NORTON: Very well said, Michael. I think you raised all of the important points that you had wanted to raise. Was there anything else?

  MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, I know that it sort of seems boring to people to go through the mechanics of the COMEX exchange, and the bullion dealers — these technicalities and how the system works doesn’t seem very exciting, but it turns out the Devil is in the details.

  Once you understand how the system works, you see where the vulnerabilities lie, and where the instability lies — or, as we like to say, internal contradictions.

  BEN NORTON: Well, I think that’s a great note to end on, Michael.

  We were speaking with the award-winning economist Michael Hudson. You can find all of his work at his website, Michael-Hudson.com.

  Michael, thanks for joining us today at Geopolitical Economy Report, and explaining these very important, very interesting developments.

  It’s always a real pleasure having you.

  MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, I’m glad you let me get into all the technicalities that we don’t usually work into our political discussions.

  BEN NORTON: Of course, it’s a real pleasure. We’ll see you next time.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 21:35

• Missouri Bounty-Hunter Bill For Illegal Immigrants Would Create State Version Of ICE
  Missouri Bounty-Hunter Bill For Illegal Immigrants Would Create State Version Of ICE

  Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A Missouri bounty-hunter bill targeting violent illegal immigrants would also create a state version of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that could put dangerous immigrants away for life.

  

  Senate Bill (SB) 72, if enacted, would mandate life imprisonment without parole for dangerous illegal immigrants arrested in Missouri who are convicted of felony trespassing charges.

  It would also allow Missourians to collect $1,000 bounties for reporting illegal immigrants who are arrested.

  The bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. David Gregory, told The Epoch Times an updated version of the bill is designed to lock up dangerous criminals within the state, such as Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang members.

  Nonviolent illegal immigrants would not be targeted under the bill, he said.

  “If they’re not dangerous, we let them go,” Gregory said. “We all know the illegal immigration crisis continues to be one of the top concerns of Americans, and it’s a crisis that can only be fixed with a collaborative effort.”

  President Donald Trump made illegal immigration a core issue during his 2024 election campaign for a second presidential term. Upon taking office, he signed a flurry of executive orders to secure U.S. borders and deport those residing in the country unlawfully, especially those with criminal convictions.

  SB 72 would create a state program with guidance from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and authorize state law enforcement to participate in finding and detaining illegal immigrants.

  All law enforcement agencies in Missouri would be required to provide the state Department of Public Safety (DPS) with any information requested regarding illegal immigration.

  Likewise, officers throughout the state would be required to cooperate with DHS in the “apprehension, detention, or removal of aliens not lawfully present in the United States.”

  Public Dangers Denied Bail

  The bill provides for DPS to seek arrest warrants for illegal immigrants and notify ICE once detained.

  If ICE does not take the illegal immigrants into federal custody within two business days, they would appear before a state judge who would determine if they are “legally seeking asylum.”

  Charges for legitimate asylum seekers would be dropped, and they would be released unless the defendants are wanted for another crime, according to the bill.

  If defendants aren’t seeking asylum, the judge would determine if the defendant “poses a danger to the community.”

  Those who pose a threat to the public would be denied bail and remain jailed, while nonviolent defendants would be released in accordance with court conditions.

  DPS would create a program to train “certified bounty hunters” or bail bond agents to pursue those who cross the border illegally and are in Missouri. The bounty hunters and law enforcement officers would be qualified to arrest suspected illegal immigrants after obtaining a warrant, according to the bill.

  The tip line is modeled after existing ICE tip lines, according to a press release from Gregory’s office.

  Similar Proposals in Other States

  Lawmakers in Mississippi attempted to duplicate the Missouri bounty hunter bill with House Bill 1484. It failed to move out of committee and died in that state legislature earlier this month.

  In Texas, which created its own border protection unit called Operation Lone Star, lawmakers seek to establish a state division of Homeland Security.

  Also, lawmakers have filed bills requiring state and local authorities to cooperate with ICE through 287(g) agreements.

  These agreements can provide ICE with extra manpower and logistical support needed to arrest and deport millions of illegal immigrants.

  On Feb. 13, Florida Gov. Ron Desantis signed bills into law he called the “toughest in the nation” targeting illegal immigration. One measure makes entering the state without legal status a crime, carrying a mandatory nine-month jail sentence upon conviction.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 21:00

• Netanyahu To Rubio: Let's 'Finish the Job' Against Iran
  Netanyahu To Rubio: Let’s ‘Finish the Job’ Against Iran

  Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Israel where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, after which they gave a joint address before reporters in Jerusalem.

  This is Rubio’s first Middle East visit since becoming America’s top diplomat. He and Bibi called for the total elimination of Hamas and the return of all the remaining hostages, following three being released on Saturday, including an American dual citizen.

  Importantly, Netanyahu declared that Israel and the US should “finish the job” against Iran, a week after Trump in a Fox interview said the choice is on Tehran – either they can do a new deal to monitor their nuclear energy program or possibly get bombed into submission.

  

  Rubio called the Islamic Republic the greatest source of instability in the region, and as a longtime supporter of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

  “Hamas cannot continue as a military or a government force… they must be eliminated,” Rubio additionally stated alongside Netanyahu, warning that the “gates of hell” could once again be opened against Hamas.

  As for Netanyahu, he affirmed: “We discussed Trump’s bold vision for Gaza’s future and will work to ensure that vision becomes a reality.” This vision has been roundly rejected by Arab states, especially Egypt and Jordan.

  Trump earlier this month restored “maximum pressure” and fresh sanctions targeting Iranian oil exports, which reflects the policy of his first term, when he pulled the US out of the JCPOA nuclear deal with Tehran.

  “Maybe they are trying to get new defense as we speak but their defense is largely gone… Iran is very nervous. I think they’re scared. I think Iran would love to make a deal and I would love to make a deal with them without bombing them,” Trump had said in the remarks just under a week ago.

  “Everybody thinks Israel with our help or our approval will go in and bomb the hell out of them,” Trump had added. “I would prefer that not happen. I’d much rather see a deal with Iran where we can do a deal, supervise, check it, inspect it,” the president continued.

  That’s when Trump made one of the more interesting and provocative comments of the interview…

  There’s two ways to stopping them: With bombs or a written piece of paper.

  ⚡️Iran is the single greatest source of instability in the region — US Secretary of State Rubio

  He adds that Iranian people don’t support their government pic.twitter.com/Znmlb2ckkf

  — S2FUncensored (@S2FUncensored) February 16, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  So Rubio has reiterated this ultimatum from Jerusalem, with full approval of Netanyahu standing by his side. Iran has meanwhile said it won’t respond to such threats, and has described that even if it wanted a deal, it can no longer trust Washington given it agreed to the JCPOA nuclear deal under Obama, and then Trump pulled out of it in 2018.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 20:25

• Judge Declines To Halt Trump's Firing Of Inspectors General
  Judge Declines To Halt Trump’s Firing Of Inspectors General

  Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A federal judge on Feb. 14 rejected an emergency bid by eight inspectors general fired by the Trump administration to have their jobs restored.

  

  District Judge of the District of Columbia Ana Reyes forced the attorney for the inspectors general to drop the request for a temporary restraining order during a virtual hearing, opting instead for an expedited schedule to hear their request for a preliminary injunction.

  Reyes expressed frustration that the plaintiff’s counsel, Seth Waxman, filed suit on Feb. 12 for the order requesting emergency same-day relief, which would have included backpay 21 days after the firings occurred, stating that her court’s staff was already overwhelmed with scores of other temporary restraining order requests.

  Demanding only yes or no answers, the judge asked several questions of Waxman.

  He confirmed to her that the eight inspectors general were fired on Jan. 24 without Congress first being given a 30-day notice or “substantial rationale” for the termination and that they were able to retrieve all of their personal belongings.

  These former inspectors general were employed by the Defense, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, State, Education, Agriculture, and Labor departments and the Small Business Administration.

  The judge pointed out to Waxman that there was nothing stopping Trump from issuing that 30-day termination notice to Congress five minutes after a TRO went through, this time with a written reason for their termination.

  Addressing the written complaint arguing the plaintiffs faced reputational damage, Reyes proposed that a 30-day return to the office with a written reason why they were unfit for their jobs could actually cause even more reputational harm than what was already given.

  All the public knows is that they were fired without cause, she said. There was no harm to their reputation because no cause, say of incompetence, was given, and such a termination could be seen as preferable.

  She also criticized Waxman for referencing what he called a similar case in his written complaint, pointing out that the government employee who was fired in that instance was operating independently of the White House while his clients worked for agencies that took direction from the presidency.

  Reyes declined to even humor the merits of the temporary restraining order during the virtual hearing, which lasted less than 13 minutes, forcing the plaintiffs to drop it.

  When Waxman transitioned to an expedited briefing schedule, she chastised him for making everybody rush to a TRO when the matter could have been handled with a five-minute call with the Department of Justice.

  The defense counsel representing the heads of the various departments employing those inspectors general remained silent and opted not to weigh in on the matter.

  Samantha Flom contributed to this report.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 19:50

• Eggstortion! How US Food Prices Have Surged Since Biden Was Elected
  Eggstortion! How US Food Prices Have Surged Since Biden Was Elected

  While Americans have gotten used to sticker shock over the past couple of years under President Biden as prices for food, gas and other everyday items surged, many shoppers had to look twice when they bought a couple of eggs lately.

  The average price for a dozen Grade A large eggs climbed to $4.95 last month according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from just $2.52 twelve months earlier. 

  According to the latest CPI report, overall egg prices rose by more than 50 percent over the past year.

  So, Statista’s Felix Richter asks, what’s behind the “eggflation” crisis that has even caused restaurants like Waffle House to add a $0.50 surcharge for every egg that customers want in their omelette? 

  While overall food price inflation moderated in 2024, egg prices have been driven skywards by several outbreaks of bird flu, which have severely disrupted egg supply in recent months.

  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. farmers were forced to kill 21 million egg-laying hens due to HPAI (highly pathogenic avian influenza) in the first weeks of 2025 alone, adding to more than 13 millions hens “depopulated” in December 2024.

  “The timing and scope of HPAI outbreaks has created an imbalance in the nation’s supply of table shell eggs with supplies short in some regions while barely adequate in others,” the USDA said last week. 

  Due to the fact that eggs are hard to substitute, even modest declines in supply have a large impact on prices, resulting in the latest surge.

  As Statista shows in the chart below, egg prices are up more than 200 percent over the past four years, avian flu outbreaks cause prices to spike in 2022 and 2024. 

   

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  Other food staples have also seen significant price increases over the past four years, with coffee, sugar and beef among the products most affected by the inflation crisis. Tomatoes, bananas and cheese are among the few examples that haven’t been impacted as much by inflation, as our chart nicely illustrates.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 19:15

• "You're A Moron, Chris": Dem Senator Tricked By Parody Account, Drops F-Bombs Against "Trump Regime" Over AOC Arrest Post
  “You’re A Moron, Chris”: Dem Senator Tricked By Parody Account, Drops F-Bombs Against “Trump Regime” Over AOC Arrest Post

  Over the past week there’s been an ongoing back-and-forth between Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Trump Border Czar Tom Homan after clips of AOC instructing illegals how to evade the US Border Patrol / ICE went viral.

  

  On Wednesday, AOC hosted the “Know Your Rights With ICE” webinar on her Facebook page, which provided illegals in her NY congressional district information on how to deal with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent searches at their homes or places of work.

  “When one of these things [raids] comes to your backyard, you can resist, and when that happens over millions of people, is that you generate enough friction that they cannot go as fast as they want to go,” said AOC.

  According to Homan, AOC is actively impeding US immigration law – telling Fox News: “Impediment is impediment in my opinion,” adding that he’s “working with the Department of Justice to find out” if she crossed the line.

  On Sunday, Homan told CNN‘s “State of the Union” that he’s been enforcing US immigration law “since 1984,” adding “I’ve forgot more about immigration law than AOC will ever know.”

  Border Czar Tom Homan: “I’ve done this since 1984. I’ve forgot more about immigration law than @AOC will ever know.” pic.twitter.com/mo4OiaFrFO

  — Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 16, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsNow that you’re caught up…

  On Sunday, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut made complete ass on X, screenshotting a post from a Lara Trump parody account which reads “If you support Border Czar Tom Homan arresting AOC for giving illegal aliens instructions on how to avoid deportation, post a [thumbs up] in the comments.”

  Murphy RAGED – writing “It takes some fucking gall to have Vance lecturing Europe on “free speech” when at the exact same time the Trump regime is threatening Democrats back home with arrest if they even explain people’s rights to them.”

  To which he was promptly community noted over the fact that it was a parody account.

  

  The official Trump ‘Rapid Response 47’ account chimed in, posting: “You are a moron, Chris. It is obvious this page is not affiliated with President Trump, his family, or the administration.”

  “We do, however, support your right to make such a statement, no matter how imbecilic it makes you look.”

  You are a moron, Chris. It is obvious this page is not affiliated with President Trump, his family, or the administration.

  We do, however, support your right to make such a statement, no matter how imbecilic it makes you look. https://t.co/B7AYRAjJ46

  — Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 15, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  *  *  *

  Special Offer: Buy 2 bags of ZH Coffee and get 5% off PLUS a free ZH Tumbler (white) from ZH Store! Buy 3 or more and get 10% off, free shipping, and free tumbler.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 18:05

• California Rejects State Farm's Rate Increase Request Amid LA Fire Claims
  California Rejects State Farm’s Rate Increase Request Amid LA Fire Claims

  Authored by Jane Yang via The Epoch Times,

  California’s insurance commissioner on Feb. 14 turned down a request by insurer State Farm for an emergency interim rate hike of 22 percent for home insurance, amid a flood of damage claims due to the devastating Los Angeles fires.

  “The burden is on State Farm to show why this is needed now. State Farm has not met its burden,” Commissioner Ricardo Lara said in a statement.

  Lara said he has scheduled a meeting on Feb. 26 with the insurer to ask questions regarding the company’s rate increase request, according to the commissioner’s office.

  

  The commissioner said he wants State Farm to discuss its financial stability, justification for the rate hike, impacts to policyholders, and transparency in its decision-making, the office said.

  State Farm has requested a 22 percent rate increase for non-renter homeowners, 15 percent for renters, 15 percent for condominium unit owners, and 38 percent for rental dwellings, all effective May 1, 2025, for interim rate increases.

  State Farm said it was disappointed by the rejection. “This lack of approval sends a strong message to State Farm General about the support it will receive to collect sufficient premiums in the future to protect Californians against the risk of loss to their homes,” a Feb. 14 statement posted on the company website reads.

  State Farm said that it has “gone to great lengths to clearly answer the questions outlined by the Commissioner,” and while it is “positioned to handle all of the claims associated with the most recent wildfires,” the company “must seriously consider its options within the California insurance market going forward.”

  In a Feb. 3 letter to Lara, State Farm said that as of Feb. 1, the company received more than 8,700 claims and has already paid more than $1 billion to customers related to the Los Angeles fires, and more will be paid in the future.

  It also said that “the costs of these fires will further deplete capital” from the company, which could affect its credit rating and harm its mortgage customers.

  State Farm said that because the commissioner has not yet approved its request for rate increases submitted last March, it is now asking the agency to “take emergency action” to approve interim rate increases and allow the company “to start collecting additional premiums much more quickly and possibly begin rebuilding its risk-bearing capacity.”

  It also claimed in the letter that over the nine-year period ending in 2024, it paid $1.26 in claims and expenses for every $1.00 collected through premium payments, resulting in more than $5 billion in cumulative losses.

  In the response letter Lara sent to State Farm on Feb. 14, he said that under the strict review laid out by California Proposition 103, “the burden is on the insurer to demonstrate and support its rate requests.”

  According to statistics from Bankrate.com updated Feb. 10, the national average cost of home insurance is $2,258 per year for a policy with $300,000 in coverage. California’s average is $1,429, which is $829 below the national average. Los Angeles’ is $1,788, which is $470 lower than the national average.

  California had held rates down for many years, especially after 2010, “so for eight years, we had very little movement in rates,” Rex Frazier, former deputy insurance commissioner with the California Department of Insurance, told EpochTV’s “California Insider” host Siyamak Khorrami in a recent episode.

  Frazier, now president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California, a legislative advocate firm, said he is still optimistic about California’s insurance market. 

  “Wildfire is still insurable in California, and so we disagree with voices who say that we have an uninsurable future.”

  “We don’t need special government programs to make that happen,” he said, “ but we need a system that allows companies to bring in enough money so they have the ability to insure people in the highest-risk areas, and that’s just simply what we’ve been deprived of at least for the last 13 years.”

  Lara also announced Feb. 14 that he has joined forces with state legislators in sponsoring 10 legislative bills aimed to “safeguard consumers … for wildfire mitigation and recovery.”

  The proposals “include a new grant program for home hardening, protections for businesses & non-profits against non-renewals, measures to maximize insurance payouts by limiting fees, and initiatives to combat deceptive ads,” the commissioner’s office said in a statement.

  According to the California Department of Insurance’s Los Angeles County Wildfire Claims Tracker page, as of Feb. 5, there have been 33,717 claims filed and 19,854 claims partially paid, with $6.9 billion in claims paid.

  The commissioner’s office did not respond a request for comment from The Epoch Times.

  Wells Fargo and JP Morgan have estimated insurance loss for the devastating Los Angeles fires could reach $20 billion. The devastating Palisades and Eaton fires in January killed 29 people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 17:30

• CBS Host Says Hitler 'Weaponized Free Speech' To Commit Holocaust, Gets Shut Down By Rubio
  CBS Host Says Hitler ‘Weaponized Free Speech’ To Commit Holocaust, Gets Shut Down By Rubio

  Two weeks after Vice President JD Vance schooled CBS News‘ Margaret Brennan over illegal immigration, with his “I don’t really care, Margaret” mic-drop, Brennan floated an absurd argument on Sunday to get back at Vance – suggesting to Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Hitler ‘weaponized’ free speech to commit the holocaust, after Vance chastised ‘horrified‘ European leaders over censorship while speaking from Germany.

  

  “He [Vance] was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide, and he met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups. The context of that was changing the tone of it. And you know that, that the censorship was specifically about the right,” Brennan said.

  Rubio didn’t let the remark stand, replying: “Well, I have to disagree with you. Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal … There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none. There was also no opposition in Nazi Germany. They were a sole and only party that governed that country. So that’s not an accurate reflection of history.”

  Watch:

  Utterly bizarre assertion from Margaret Brennan. She claims the Nazi Holocaust occurred because “free speech was weaponized” in Germany, thus making Vance’s comments all the more worrisome. Recasting the Holocaust as a consequence of excessive free speech is just totally bonkers pic.twitter.com/2vefGlzT6s

  — Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 16, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Last week, Vance slammed European leaders for allowing mass migration and extreme laws censoring free speech – remarking that he worries more about Europe’s  “threats from within” than from external threats like Russia and China.

  “While the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine … the threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor,” said Vance.

  “What I worry about is the threat from within – the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.”

  Vice President JD Vance says there is “no room for firewalls” in Munich ahead of German elections where political parties have vowed to not work with AfD even though millions will vote for the anti-immigration party.pic.twitter.com/tJ44bTyaCz

  — The American Conservative (@amconmag) February 14, 2025

  And now the left is trying to equate free speech to Nazi authoritarianism. 

  One of the first things Hitler did upon gaining power was apply aggressive censorship

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 16, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Just insane logic here. There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. I guess she missed that part of history class in high school.

  They hire intellectual nit wits for these MSM acting jobs and it shows. https://t.co/1K4tGdZBvg

  — Edward Dowd (@DowdEdward) February 16, 2025

  Do they hear themselves speak?

  “We don’t really care, Margaret!!”

  *  *  *

  Special Offer: Buy 2 bags of ZH Coffee and get 5% off PLUS a free ZH Tumbler (white) from ZH Store! Buy 3 or more and get 10% off, free shipping, and free tumbler.

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 16:55

• Newsom Indicates He Will Veto Bill Blocking State Prisons From Working With ICE
  Newsom Indicates He Will Veto Bill Blocking State Prisons From Working With ICE

  Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

  California Gov. Gavin Newsom has indicated he will veto a bill that seeks to prevent the California state prison system from working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if the bill passes the Legislature.

  

  If passed, Assembly Bill 15 (AB 15), introduced by Assembly Member Mike Gipson (D-District 65) who represents parts of south-central Los Angeles, would prevent the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) from cooperating with ICE.

  The CDCR would be prohibited from holding someone in custody at the request of ICE, sharing an individual’s release date with ICE, responding to ICE requests for information, or transferring individuals to ICE custody.

  “The Governor has twice vetoed versions of this bill before,” Newsom’s office said in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times.

  California law currently allows CDCR to notify and coordinate with ICE to take custody of illegal immigrants who have come to the end of their state prison term for felony offenses.

  The governor’s office shared statistics that the state prison system has notified and coordinated with ICE the transfer of 10,588 state inmates, including illegal aliens who have committed serious crimes. Those crimes include assault and battery, threats, rape, theft, fraud, felony DUI, drug crimes and more.

  Newsom has previously vetoed Assembly Bill 1306 in 2023 and another version, Assembly Bill 1282, in 2019.

  “His position has been long-held since he was mayor of San Francisco,” the governor’s office stated.

  AB 1306 would have prohibited the CDCR from detaining inmates on the basis of a hold request, sharing with ICE release date information, responding to a notification request, transferring to ICE, or facilitating a transfer request for any individual eligible for release, including but not limited to youth offenders, elderly, and medical parole releases.

  “The bill would prevent information sharing and coordination upon a person’s release from CDCR custody for a significant number of people and, as a result, would impede CDCR’s interaction with a federal law enforcement agency charged with assessing public safety risks,” Newsom stated at the time of his veto.

  “I believe current law strikes the right balance on limiting interaction to support community trust and cooperation between law enforcement and local communities.”

  Newsom did say that his administration recognizes the need for improvements.

  “CDCR will limit how it communicates with ICE as a federal law enforcement agency, so information is only provided to ICE when a noncitizen individual enters prison and is approaching their release date,” Newsom wrote in the 2023 veto. “ICE would then determine how it proceeds with its enforcement of federal law.”

  Assembly Bill 1282 sought to prohibit ICE representatives from arresting, detaining, interrogating, transporting, or taking into custody an individual for immigration enforcement purposes

  Newsom also vetoed that bill.

  “This bill would place statutory restrictions on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s ability to transfer inmates between state prisons and prohibit the Department from allowing a private security company to enter the premises for immigration enforcement purposes,” he wrote in 2019.

  “I am concerned that provisions in this bill would negatively impact prison operations, and could hinder and delay needed transfers between facilities for myriad situation-specific reasons such as medical care and court obligations.”

  Assembly Bill 15, initially introduced in December 2024, remains in committee. The next step would be for the bill to be brought to the floor of the House for consideration.

  The Epoch Times reached out to Gipson and the bill’s cosponsors for comment but no response was received by publication time.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 16:20

• More Like 'Inaction Network': Nationwide Tesla Protest Flops As 'Rent-A-Protester' Goes MIA
  More Like ‘Inaction Network’: Nationwide Tesla Protest Flops As ‘Rent-A-Protester’ Goes MIA

  Two far-left groups organized nationwide Tesla protests on Saturday, but turnout was dismal.

  

  These leftist groups have become a joke, as their days of using taxpayer funds to “rent-a-protester” through shady Marxist NGOs are over in the era of President Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE busting USAID. 

  “Tesla Takedown” was sponsored by two shady groups, the first called “Disruption Project,” and the second called “TroubleMakers.” Their protest was hosted on the far-left Action Network.

  “This Saturday, we hit Tesla showrooms everywhere,” the protest organizers stated on Action Network. 

  They instructed their protest warriors—who likely experienced a bad case of ‘TDS’—to “sell your Teslas, dump your stock, join the picket lines.” 

  

  These groups even gave marching orders to their foot soldiers: “Hurting Tesla is stopping Musk.” 

  So, advocating to harm an American company, huh? That’s hardly “America First.” Trump administration officials should investigate whether these groups are receiving taxpayer money or foreign funding. 

  They continued, “Stopping Musk will help save lives and our democracy.” 

  We learned days ago that the Deep State’s definition of “democracy” isn’t what it seems. They mean that Trump and Musk are threats to their shadow government, which operates through seven NGOs. 

  These NGOs were revealed in a report from DataRepublican titled: THE UNIPARTY UNMASKED – They Believe They Are “Democracy” (excerpt of report):

  … 

  Originally, these NGOs were created to support U.S. democratic efforts abroad—many of them emerging during the Cold War to combat the spread of communism. But with the fall of the Soviet Union, their original purpose faded. Instead of dissolving, they redefined their mission. Now, they have positioned themselves as the guardians of democracy itself.

  This shift explains why Trump’s re-election was framed as a “threat to democracy.” To these NGOs, “democracy” means themselves. Their survival depends on maintaining that role, and any challenge to their authority is perceived as a direct attack on democracy itself.

  So again, there’s nothing organic about the Tesla Takedown protest – it’s merely far-left Marxists waging war on an American company to pressure Musk’s efforts to stop him and DOGE from uncovering the fraud and corruption in the DC Swamp. But this time around, NGO monies appear to be drying up after the busting of USAID…

  BREAKING: Droves of @elonmusk protesters (at least 5) braving the weather at the Tesla store in Loveland Colorado. The least I could do was honk lol https://t.co/qIlo0WEjcj pic.twitter.com/wo5j0X1d8Y

  — Spotted Model: Cars & Tech (@spotted_model) February 15, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Most people have no idea who the CEO of a company is. VW was started by Hitler. These protests are the lamest thing, especially the ones pestering employees who are trying to make a living.

  Thankfully none of them at Santana Row. Tesla employees are working ruthlessly to make… pic.twitter.com/AgvDIxJjun

  — Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) February 16, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Oh shit. Little @elonmusk protest at the Tesla store in the Austin, TX. 😂 pic.twitter.com/HSdgE3xwMN

  — Dylan Fonseca ⚔️ (@TDylanfonseca) February 15, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Absolute unit. pic.twitter.com/jsC8YijFy3

  — Bojac (@HeartlessBojac) February 15, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Where did all the professional protesters go?

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 15:45

• "Taking Away Everything We Have": Democrats & Unions Launch An Existential Fight Over Buyouts
  “Taking Away Everything We Have”: Democrats & Unions Launch An Existential Fight Over Buyouts

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Thomas Paine once remarked, “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.” With the approaching 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, much has clearly changed.

  President Donald Trump’s move to reduce government is now portrayed as evil in its own right. Elon Musk’s move to draw down various agencies was presented as a virtual return to the state of nature.

  Democratic members staged protests in front of various agencies to declare “war” and to accuse Trump of “destroying the government” by shrinking it. Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D., Md.) declared “Every time you hear DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, you just remember it is the department of government evil.”

  

  Americans say Trump is keeping his promises

  The coordinated efforts of Democratic leaders and the mainstream media have once again not resonated with the public. Trump, according to polls, is now at higher popularity levels than during his first term. And a strong majority of Americans say Trump is keeping his promises, including in his efforts to reduce government spending and waste.

  Those efforts include a generous buyout offer for federal employees. The Trump administration offered federal workers the chance to stay home for months while receiving full pay if they would agree to resign from government employment.

  It was an extremely clever move. The best way to shrink the government is to get people to leave voluntarily. But Trump and Musk also have warned that layoffs will follow if not enough federal workers accepted the buyout.

  It is a type of self-deportation from government service. And it worked, with about 75,000 federal workers accepting Trump’s offer before the deal ended Wednesday.

  It worked so well, in fact, that Democrats rushed to stop the voluntary exodus by falsely suggesting that it was a scam. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., warned employees that Trump would “stiff you,” even though the offer comes with the authority of the federal government.

  His colleague, Mark Warner (D, Va.) added ominously for workers to “Think twice. Has this individual in his business world ever fulfilled his contracts or obligations to any workers in the past?”

  At the same time, unions (looking at a major reduction of force) have filed with Democratic groups to stop these employees from taking the offer. They found a favorable court with U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole who enjoined the program. However, after citywide celebrations over the injunction, the court then lifted the injunction on the buyout program, agreeing to allow the buyouts to go forward.

  Unions representing federal workers and liberal legal organizations are likely to now appeal O’Toole’s decision. The unions, which are facing a major reduction in dues-paying members, have a disturbing conflict of interest in trying to deny federal workers the benefits of an offer they chose to accept.

  The legal challenges to the buyout have relied on a plethora of arguments asserting that a president cannot allow employees to stay home and receive pay pending their departure from federal employment. Those arguments cited the Antideficiency Act, which bars agencies from spending beyond the money appropriated by Congress.

  President has the authority to manage the executive branch

  The counterargument is that money used for the buyouts was allocated to pay employees whose service normally continues year after year. Under Article II of the Constitution, the president is given ample discretion in running the executive branch, including the work status of federal employees.

  Congress clearly has a role in controlling use of the federal purse. For example, Congress can determine whether to allocate money to build certain Navy vessels. However, once the ships are built, it is the president who decides where to send them and who will serve on the crew. The commander in chief also can expand or shrink the size of the crew.

  Trump was well within his authority in offering to change employees’ duties while they look for new positions, and the employees had every right to agree to eight months of paid leave in exchange for their resignation from government service.

  The opposition from Democrats and labor unions is the ultimate form of paternalism. In the name of protecting employees, opponents fought to prevent workers from accepting offers they believe are best for themselves and their families.

  Federal employees are entitled to protections in their employment. But they’re not entitled to permanent employment. Congress is entitled to appropriate money for specific purposes. But it is not entitled to manage the executive branch.

  Trump is very willing to fight on this hill. He holds a strong constitutional position and an even stronger political position.

  For those who proclaimed themselves as defenders of democracy throughout last year’s election cycle, this is what democracy looks like. Voters made clear that they want changes in the size and the focus of government.

  Those voters are unlikely to be convinced by the warning of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., that Musk is “taking away everything we have.”

  That is precisely what Americans asked for in reelecting Donald Trump.

  *  *  *

  Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 15:10

• "Let's Do It": Rand Paul Supports Fort Knox Physical Audit After ZeroHedge Suggestion Goes Viral
  “Let’s Do It”: Rand Paul Supports Fort Knox Physical Audit After ZeroHedge Suggestion Goes Viral

  One of the biggest questions over the past 50 years is whether the gold at Fort Knox, Kentucky is really there, or if it’s been plundered.

  

  What we do know is that the last ‘audit’ of America’s gold stash was conducted on Sept. 23, 1974, when the US Treasury opened just one of its 15 vaults at Fort Knox so politicians and reporters could swarm the site for a two-hour photo-op with roughly 6% of the alleged amount held. Adding to the complete farce, none of the bars being passed around for the cameras were matched to a serial number, assayed or tested for purity, or even verified as US holdings – as foreign countries have previously stored their gold at Fort Knox as well.

  

  Since then there has been no independent verification of the roughly 4,580 metric tons supposedly held by the Treasury outside of bullshit annual ‘vault seal checks’ that don’t actually analyze the gold (oh, and they’ve ‘lost‘ seven of those) – various efforts have been raised to audit Fort Knox – most recently in 2021, when Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV) introduced (now-dead) legislation to audit America’s gold holdings with a full assay, inventory, and audit of all US gold – which would include a full account of gold transactions undertaken by the US government. 

  In 2010, former Libertarian Rep. Ron Paul called for an independent audit of Fort Knox.

  “It’d be nice for the American people to know whether or not the gold is there,” Paul said at the time.

  Activate Agent Big Balls

  With Elon Musk’s team at DOGE – including a gent who goes by the name “Big Balls” – investigating government-wide waste, fraud and abuse, we thought it might be helpful to point them towards Fort Knox…

  Surely it’s reviewed at least every year?

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 15, 2025

  The suggestion immediately went viral on X, with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) indicating he’s on board – replying to Musk with “Let’s do it.”

  Nope. Let’s do it. https://t.co/4sgVpaCwwz

  — Rand Paul (@RandPaul) February 16, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Musk and team need to get to the bottom of just how deep the rot goes…

  By whom? The same people you’re auditing now?

  — Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) February 15, 2025

  Throwback to @RonPaul talking about the gold in Fort Knox: pic.twitter.com/5xiAQItOjk

  — Natalie F Danelishen (@Chesschick01) February 16, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The Bank of England should also be audited. They’ve been caught holding fake gold bars with duplicate serial numbers in the past. If one central bank is holding dodgy gold, how many others are?

  The sad thing is that the RBA, knowing this still refuses to take Australias gold… pic.twitter.com/YCNOnq7nfM

  — Senator Gerard Rennick (@SenatorRennick) February 16, 2025

  Hmm…

  Here’s what they NEVER told you about the gold in Fort Knox: pic.twitter.com/5dkFvoOApK

  — DOGE NEWS- Department of Government Efficiency (@realdogeusa) February 16, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  *  *  *

  Special Offer: Buy at least 2 bags of ZH Coffee and get 5% off plus a free vacuum insulated ZH Tumbler (white) from ZH Store! Buy 3 or more and get 10% off, free shipping, and free tumbler. Subscribe & Save for another 10% off.  

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 14:35

• TDS-Addled CNN Reporter Shares Link To Accused Murderer Mangione's Defense Fund
  TDS-Addled CNN Reporter Shares Link To Accused Murderer Mangione’s Defense Fund

  Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

  CNN activist White House correspondent ‘reporter’ Kaitlin Collins is facing calls for her firing after she posted a link to the defense fund of Luigi Mangione, the guy charged with shooting and killing UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson.

  

  Collins posted the link to X on Friday but then deleted it shortly after following swift backlash.

  CNN’s Kaitlan Collins deletes post promoting Luigi Mangione’s defense fund after backlash https://t.co/rq14XVxR9S pic.twitter.com/73B62QQe3G

  — New York Post (@nypost) February 16, 2025

  Mangione has been lauded by extremist leftists and also held up as a kind of sick sex symbol by deranged liberal women. 

  If she really promoted that @cnn should fire her. I’m skeptical she did that because it would be something so irresponsible and egregious for an intelligent news anchor to do. But if true this is horrible of her and reflects very badly on her employer if left unaddressed.

  — Popz Boltz ⚡️ (@PopzBoltz) February 16, 2025

  she forgot to switch to her alt

  — Jessica Montgomery (@jessicanolanova) February 16, 2025

  Collins has access to the White House as part of the press corps.

  Kaitlan Collins needs her press pass revoked and to be fired from CNN

  — Danny🇺🇸 (@Fivixz) February 16, 2025

  She can also get on board Air Force One.

  Pull her access to Oval Office & Air Force 1 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

  — 🇺🇸 CHLOE 🇺🇸 (@Chloe4Djt) February 16, 2025

  These are the kind of lunatics running the leftist legacy media.

  She has no business being called a journalist. She’s a left leaning Activist masquerading as one. She doesn’t deliver objective news. She’s been nothing but rude to Pres. Trump, going back to his 1st term. She doesn’t try to hide her disdain for him. It’s utterly disrespectful!

  — Elizabeth Kurpiel (@bethk68) February 16, 2025

  Collins has clearly been broken by Trump who told her last week “we haven’t asked you to speak yet.”

  LMAOO

  KAITLAN COLLINS: Mr. President, you won the White House, in part because of high inflation. If your tariffs make prices go up…

  TRUMP: Excuse me, we haven’t asked you to speak yet, please.pic.twitter.com/mYWgQQihCs

  — Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) February 13, 2025

  She is also big made about Trump hanging his own mugshot outside the Oval Office as a fuck you to those who attempted to destroy him.

  Kaitlan Collins of CNN is mad that President Trump is proudly presenting his mugshot outside the Oval Office.

  He keeps it on prominent display in order to remind people of lawfare Democrats engaged in against him to cheat in the election.

  Collins can’t handle facing reality. pic.twitter.com/wfWs4iIenP

  — Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) February 14, 2025

  The meltdon from the left is so good. They have no idea

  — Cash Loren (@CashLorenShow) February 15, 2025

  Apparently Ms. Collins doesn’t understand he is clowning them for their failed political warfare agenda.

  — 👮‍♂️The Badged Patriot👮‍♂️ (@Badged_Patriot) February 15, 2025

  Excuse me, we haven’t asked you to speak yet, thank you.

  — Vince Lyle (@VinceLyle2161) February 15, 2025

  *  *  *

  Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 14:00

• Javier Milei Faces Impeachment After Endorsing $107 Million Crypto Rug-Pull
  Javier Milei Faces Impeachment After Endorsing $107 Million Crypto Rug-Pull

  Update (1250ET): Milei may now face the risk of impeachment after Argentina’s fintech chamber acknowledged that the case may be a rug pull.

  “This scandal, which embarrasses us on an international scale, requires us to launch an impeachment request against the president,” opposition lawmaker Leandro Santoro told Reuters, according to a Feb. 16 report.

  Milei has requested the Anti-Corruption Office to investigate all government members, including the president himself, for potential misconduct, according to a Feb. 16 X statement issued by Argentina’s presidential office, Oficina del Presidente.

  The statement also revealed that Milei held a meeting with KIP Protocol representatives on Oct. 19, 2024, in Argentina, where the company informed him about the Libra blockchain project and its aims to finance private ventures in the country.

  

  Statement Argentina’s Presidential Office. Source: Oficina del Presidente

  Milei also met with mysterious crypto entrepreneur Hayden Mark Davis at Casa Rosada on Jan. 30, who was presented to the president as an infrastructure partner for the project.

  “All information gathered during the investigation will be handed over to the courts to determine whether any of the companies or individuals linked to the KIP Protocol project committed a crime,” added the statement.

  

  * * *

  As Zoltan Vardai detailed earlier, via CoinTelegraph.com, the launch of Libra (LIBRA), a cryptocurrency endorsed by  Argentine President Javier Milei, turned into a financial catastrophe after insiders cashed out over $107 million, wiping out nearly 94% of the token’s value within hours.

  

  According to onchain intelligence firm Lookonchain, at least eight wallets linked to the Libra team siphoned liquidity from the token, pocketing 57.6 million USD Coin and 249,671 Solana worth $49.7 million:

  “The $LIBRA team has cashed out $107M! 8 wallets related to the $LIBRA team have obtained 57.6M $USDC and 249,671 $SOL($49.7M) by adding liquidity, removing liquidity and claiming fees.”

  

  Libra insider wallets. Source: Lookonchain

  The Libra token briefly rose to a peak market capitalization of $4.56 billion at 10:30 pm UTC on Feb. 14 before falling over 94% to the current $257 million market cap in just 11 hours since the token debuted for trading on decentralized exchanges, Dexscreener data shows.

  

  LIBRA/USDC, all-time chart. Source: Dexscreener

  The token’s rally began shortly after a now-deleted X post from President Milei, which shared a website and token contract address for Libra, which was a “private project” dedicated to “encourage the growth of the Argentine economy.”

  

  Milei’s deleted X post. Source: Kobeissi Letter

  After the token’s collapse, Milei deleted his endorsement, later issuing a statement on X blaming political opponents:

  “To the filthy rats of the political caste who want to take advantage of this situation to do harm, I want to say that every day they confirm how vile politicians are, and they increase our conviction to kick them in the ass.”

  

  Milei’s apology. Source: Javier Milei

  Retail investor appetite for celebrity-endorsed memecoins has been boosted since US President Donald Trump launched his Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin on Jan. 18, followed by First Lady Melania Trump’s Melania Meme (MELANIA) token on Jan. 19 on the Solana network ahead of his inauguration on Jan. 20.

  LIBRA erases over $4 billion from market cap after insider selling

  Insider wallets started cashing out on the token only three hours after it debuted for trading, causing its over 94% decline, according to data shared by the Kobeissi Letter.

  

  Source: Kobeissi Letter

  Other blockchain data firms have warned about the project’s tokenomics even before the meltdown. Blockchain analysis firm Bubblemaps had warned about LIBRA’s flawed tokenomics, revealing that 82% of the supply was unlocked and sellable from the start.

  

  Libra token clusters. Source: Bubblemaps

  Moreover, the project shared no preliminary information about its tokenomics, a major red flag among crypto traders.

  Yet, some of the savviest crypto traders can successfully navigate through the volatility of memecoins despite their intrinsic lack of utility.

  On Feb. 14, a savvy crypto “sniper” made $28 million in profit after buying the latest “Broccoli” memecoins inspired by Binance co-founder Changpenz Zhao’s dog. However, speculation has arisen that the trader may have been an insider wallet.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 12:50

• Europe & Zelensky Throw Tantrum After US Sidelines Them From Russia Peace Talks
  Europe & Zelensky Throw Tantrum After US Sidelines Them From Russia Peace Talks

  Europe will not be included in peace talks for Ukraine, President Donald Trump’s Ukraine envoy said on Feb. 15 after sending a questionnaire to European capitals asking what they could offer in security guarantees for Kyiv.

  

  As The Epoch Times’ Jacob Burg reports, on Sunday, France said it will host a summit of European leaders on Monday to discuss the Russia–Ukraine war and European security after retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, didn’t include Europe in negotiations over Ukraine’s future following years of war with Russia.

  France President Emmanuel Macron “will convene the main European countries to discuss European security,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told France Inter radio. Barrot described the meeting as a working session and emphasized it should not be “overdramatized.”

  The office of the French presidency has not yet announced the meeting.

  Macron has invited at least Britain, Germany, Poland, Italy, and Denmark, representing the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, the European Union leadership, and the NATO secretary general, according to six European diplomats. They said the purpose of the meeting is to discuss what immediate help can be given to Ukraine and the role Europe can play in providing both security guarantees to Kyiv and Europe at large.

  Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin last week before consulting European or Ukrainian leaders, saying peace talks had begun.

  The Trump administration is pushing European allies in NATO to take a primary role in security guarantees for the region as the United States prioritizes border security and counters Chinese political and military influence.

  At a global security conference in Munich, Kellogg said the United States would act as an intermediary in talks between Ukraine and Russia.

  “I’m [from] a school of realism,” Kellogg said, regarding Europe having a seat at the table during negotiations. 

  “I think that’s not going to happen.”

  In trying to reassure Europeans, Kellogg said it doesn’t mean “their interests are not considered, used, or developed.”

  Some European leaders pushed back on being sidelined for talks.

  “There’s no way in which we can have discussions or negotiations about Ukraine, Ukraine’s future or European security structure, without Europeans,” Finland’s President Alexander Stubb told reporters in Munich.

  “But this means that Europe needs to get its act together. Europe needs to talk less and do more.”

  The questionnaire Kellogg sent to Europeans “will force Europeans to think,” Stubb said.

  Kaja Kallas, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, was more explicit stating that “if somebody agrees something and I mean, everybody else says ‘okay fine!’ you have agreed, but we will not follow this!”

  She added that EU’s position is “our importance” trumps any peace!

  🇪🇺🇺🇸🇺🇦🚨‼️ THE EU OPENLY SAYS THEY WILL SABOTAGE PEACE IN UKRAINE IF THEY’RE NOT AT THE TABLE.

  Kallas: “if somebody agrees something and I mean, everybody else says ‘okay fine!’ you have agreed,but we will not follow this!”

  -> EU’s position is “our importance” trumps any peace! pic.twitter.com/CMsYIpi6Q6

  — Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) February 16, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte urged Europeans to get involved.

  “And to my European friends, I would say, get into the debate, not by complaining that you might, yes or no, be at the table, but by coming up with concrete proposals, ideas, ramp up [defense] spending,” he said.

  Kellogg said that territorial concessions from Russia and targeting its oil revenues could be included in the talks over ending the war between it and Ukraine.

  “Russia is really a petro-state,” he said, adding that the West needs to do more in adequately enforcing sanctions against Russia.

  U.S. and Russian officials will meet in Saudi Arabia in the coming days for continued peace talks, according to Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas). After meeting with Vice President JD Vance in Germany on Feb. 14, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his nation was not invited to the talks in Saudi Arabia and that Kyiv would consult with strategic partners before engaging with Russia.

  “This is the war in Ukraine against us, and it is our human losses,” President Zelensky told Meet The Press this morning.

  “We are thankful for all the support, unity in the USA around Ukraine support, bipartisan unity, bipartisan support,” adding that “we are thankful for all of this, but there is no leader in the world who can really make a deal with Putin without us, about us.”

  🚨🇺🇦 ZELENSKY: I WOULD NEVER ACCEPT ANY DECISIONS BETWEEN THE U.S. AND RUSSIA ABOUT UKRAINE

  “This is the war in Ukraine against us, and it is our human losses.

  We are thankful for all the support, unity in the USA around Ukraine support, bipartisan unity, bipartisan support.… pic.twitter.com/a8F2MaLl3J

  — Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) February 16, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  “I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine. Never,” he exclaimed.

  Trump told Zelensky that he believes Putin is serious about peace talks. So Zelensky’s strategy to undermine those talks is tell Trump that Putin is not serious and is really just “afraid” of Trump.

  You can tell by this desperate reverse psychology, and his body language, that… https://t.co/jpCPlIzB0U

  — Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) February 16, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and White House Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Saudi Arabia, McCaul said.

  The talks are meant to arrange a meeting between Trump, Putin, and Zelensky to “finally bring peace and end this conflict,” he said.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 12:15

• House Republicans Drafting Impeachment Articles Against Activist Judges Blocking DOGE
  House Republicans Drafting Impeachment Articles Against Activist Judges Blocking DOGE

  House Republicans are drafting articles of impeachment against Democrat judges that have blocked various actions by the Trump administration, including those who have halted efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

  

  According to The Hill:

  Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) said he is drafting articles of impeachment against Judge Paul Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York, who in a ruling last weekend temporarily restricted Musk and DOGE aides from accessing a Treasury Department payment system.

  Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) is working on an impeachment resolution against Rhode Island District Judge John McConnell Jr. over his ruling halting the Trump administration’s freeze on federal funding.

  And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), chair of the House Oversight Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee, pledged in a hearing this week while referencing Engelmayer that “We will hold this judge and others who try to stop the will of the people and their elected leaders accountable.”

  “Our case for impeaching Judge Engelmayer is basically that he’s an activist judge trying to stop the Trump administration from, you know, executing their, you know, Article 2 powers to make sure that the laws are faithfully executed,” Crane told former Rep. Matt Gaetz earlier this week.

  Greene, meanwhile, said that she would support Engelmayer’s impeachment – arguing that judges can’t simply take power away from Cabinet secretaries.

  “They can’t do that, especially when they have a serious record of Democrat activism and being hardcore against President Trump,” said Greene, adding “So, yeah, judges like that, they definitely should be impeached.”

  On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “district court judges in liberal districts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally block President Trump’s basic executive authority.“

  Engelmayer initially blocked everyone at the Treasury Department – including Secretary Scott Bessent, from accessing the agency’s database, however another judge overseeing the case later said that the order would not apply to Bessent.

  Rep. Clyde announced that he was working on impeachment articles, saying in a post on X that Judge McConnell Jr. is “a partisan activist weaponizing our judicial system to stop President Trump’s funding freeze on woke and wasteful government spending.”

  I’m drafting articles of impeachment for U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr.

  He’s a partisan activist weaponizing our judicial system to stop President Trump’s funding freeze on woke and wasteful government spending.

  We must end this abusive overreach. Stay tuned. https://t.co/ARp7KBjK9u

  — Rep. Andrew Clyde (@Rep_Clyde) February 12, 2025

  It would take near-unanimous support from House Republicans to impeach one of the judges assuming no Democrats support the measure, while Democrat support would definitely be required to clear the 2/3 threshold to convict in the Senate.

  So basically, this is going nowhere.

  “Up till last Congress, the Speaker of the House had never been fired before,” said Crane. “I’m not a wait-and-see kind of guy — look around, hope somebody’s going to do something. I’m going to take action. And like I said, If this isn’t how we get to the, you know, the place that we need to be, I’m fine with that. But I’m not going to sit around and just, you know, watch these individuals stop President Trump from doing exactly what he told the American people he was going to do.”

  *  *  *

  Special Offer: Buy at least 2 bags of ZH Coffee and get 5% off plus a free vacuum insulated ZH Tumbler (white) from ZH Store! Buy 3 or more and get 10% off, free shipping, and free tumbler. Subscribe & Save for another 10% off.

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 11:05

• Eruption In "BleachBit," "Wipe Hard Drive," "Offshore Bank" Searches In DC Suggest Deep State Panic Mode
  Eruption In “BleachBit,” “Wipe Hard Drive,” “Offshore Bank” Searches In DC Suggest Deep State Panic Mode

  Internet search trends in the Washington, DC, metro area have been nothing short of stunning in recent weeks, reflecting what appears to be growing panic within the federal bureaucracy as President Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) root out corruption in non-governmental organizations (NGO) and federal agencies. 

  Earlier this week, internet search trends for “Criminal Defense Lawyer” and “RICO Laws” went viral on X, fueling speculation that Washington’s political elites were in panic mode. The searches coincided with DOGE’s efforts to neuter USAID’s funding of NGOs that propped up a shadow government, as well as begin cutting tens of thousands of workers from various federal agencies.

  DC Internet Searches For “Criminal Defense Lawyer” & “RICO Law” Erupt As DOGE Drains Swamp https://t.co/4ytzi4YcgV

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 13, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Now, more suspicious search trends have erupted among DC residents as DOGE efforts went into beast mode at the end of the week. 

  “Washington DC searches soar for “Swiss bank” (yellow), “offshore bank” (green), “wire money” (red) and “IBAN” (blue),” WikiLeaks wrote on X late Thursday. 

  Washington DC searches soar for “Swiss bank” (yellow), “offshore bank” (green), “wire money” (red) and “IBAN” (blue) pic.twitter.com/OBEg0hW8g0

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 13, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Search terms “Wipe” (blue) and “Erase” (red) also moved higher in recent weeks. Wipe hard drives?

  Washington DC searches soar for “wipe” (blue) and “erase” (red) according to Google trends data. pic.twitter.com/WTbK1C1zxy

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 14, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Well, yes, the search term “wipe hard drive” across the DC metro has gone absolutely parabolic.

  

  And “BleachBit” too! 

  

  Searches for “lawyers” have jumped. 

  Washington DC searches for “lawyer’ have increased 400% (data from Google trends) pic.twitter.com/CxeSJ0VKgG

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 13, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  “Statute of limitations” also soared. 

  Washington DC searches for “statute of limitations” soar (data from Google trends) pic.twitter.com/OkNKHEQsXa

  — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 14, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Why on Earth would some DC residents panic-search keywords that suggest they are trying to cover up a crime?

  Well, just take a look at this!

  “Gold Bars Off The Titanic”: After Trump Victory, Biden EPA Scrambled To Funnel $20 Billion Taxpayer Funds Into ‘Green’ NGOs https://t.co/I9JuIFOQhr

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 13, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  The accountability sheriff: Trump & DOGE are in town – and the Deep State criminals who have been misappropriating taxpayer funds for years are in panic mode. 

  Hence this…

  BREAKING 🚨 There will be an announcement on Rep. Robert Garcia after he thre*tened Weapons to be used against Elon Musk for saving America

  Democrats are the Party of Vio*lence

  HE NEEDS TO BE CHARGED pic.twitter.com/fN1Lw1UYQz

  — MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) February 13, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  Now DOGE’s “Big Balls” member, Edward Coristine, now listed as a “senior adviser” at the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Technology, should focus efforts on those outbound ACH transfers >$1 million in the past few months…

  It would be awful if someone – say Big Balls – audited all the outbound ACH transfers >$1MM in the past month https://t.co/2UEC8VEUoc

  — zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 14, 2025

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  . . . 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 02/16/2025 – 10:35