Feb 18

Today’s News 18th February 2025

  • 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.”

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    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:

    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.”

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    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.

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    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.

    The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Feb. 10, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

    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).

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    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.

    Holy hell, she is out there.

    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.

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    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.“

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    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 …”

    Let’s see if Fetterman gets another tap on the shoulder.

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    Special Offer: Buy 2 bags of ZH Coffee and get 5% off plus a free vacuum insulated ZH Tumbler (white) from ZH Store!

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    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.

    PLA J-20 jets, illustrative: Wiki Commons

    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.”

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    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.”

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    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.

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    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 … 

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    Footage: 

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     *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.

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    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. 

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    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.

    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.

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    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.

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    She wants to speak to the ICE manager right away.

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    Later she got all over local news with another neighbourhood Karen complaining about the agents trying to do their job.

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    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.

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

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    It is illegal to interfere with the duties and operations of ICE officers. Expect to see this reflected with arrests if this continues. 

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    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

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