Feb 27

Today’s News 27th February 2025

  • DOGE To Confront The DoD Checkbook
    DOGE To Confront The DoD Checkbook

    Authored by R. Jordan Prescott via RealClearDefense,

    With unprecedented zeal, Special Government Employee Elon Musk and his DOGE team have descended upon multiple agencies to execute its cost cutting agenda. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said DOGE will be welcomed at the department but simply accessing its accounting systems will not provide the visibility needed. The Department of Defense has failed seven consecutive audits, its financial information systems are a disaster, and solutions have been elusive.

    Thou Shalt Be Audited

    In 1990, Congress passed The Chief Financial Officer Act and one provision required every agency to be audited in full. Between 1991 and 2013, DOD only subjected itself to partial audits. In 2014, Congress required DOD to comply in full by 2018.

    Unsurprisingly, DOD failed this first audit. The DOD Inspector General identified 20 material weaknesses, which are shortcomings that, in simple terms, means errors will occur but they won’t be caught or corrected before it is too late.

    For the next seven years, audits never reported less than 25 material weaknesses. The associated “notifications of findings and recommendations” would average almost 2,500 reissued and 850 new NFRs every between 2019 and 2023.

    Big Checkbook, Antiquated Calculators 

    Two major deficiencies have persisted throughout — the Fund Balance with Treasury (the department’s checking account) and Information Technology.

    In the former, the department can’t balance its $800 billion-plus checkbook and lacks the tools to research discrepancies or produce the receipts.

    On the latter, the department simply has too many obsolete systems; in 2021 the DODIG reported the department wouldn’t be retiring 140 legacy systems until 2036.

    In 2017, the department’s Chief Financial Officer began using a data platform called Advana to build the missing universe of transactions so desperately needed to support auditability.

    However, Advana is a data repository, not a tool for validating data; reliability is the responsibility of system owner from which Advana is drawing. Moreover, Advana does not have access to data across the entire department.

    To overcome these challenges, the Deputy Secretary of Defense “decreed” in May 2021 that data sharing would be maximized. More pointedly, Advana would be the “single source of truth” for objective, informed decision-making.

    Beginning with the 2022 audit, the DODIG began recommending the department use Advana to address the aforementioned Fund Balance with Treasury deficiency.

    In May 2023, the Government Accountability Office credited the department with progress but noted its remedial plans still lacked basic details, such as interim dates to track the steps taken to achieve auditability.

    Similarly, the DODIG identified problems with Advana. In October 2024, the DODIG examined whether billions of dollars in Ukraine assistance had been used in accordance with federal law.

    The DODIG tersely reported “DOD did not.”

    The DODIG found the department did not have documentation for $1.1 billion in outlays. More notably, the DODIG identified the amount as Questioned Costs, those transactions that may constitute legal or regulatory violations.

    To date, Congress has appropriated $111 billion in Ukraine assistance

    In 2025, the DOD budget totals $850 billion and the Senate Armed Services Committee Chair is aggressively pursuing a $200 billion increase.

    Even a conservative (e.g. generous) projection of ten percent in questioned costs would mean almost $100 billion in transactions that could be violations of law or regulations.

    Follow the Blockchain … 

    To extract itself from its fiduciary quagmire, DOD should embrace blockchains.

    Blockchains are a secure means of executing and recording transactions without the need for a central authority. Per its protocols, transactions are recorded transparently and permanently; the data is synchronized in real time and shared in full by all stakeholders.

    Inherently immutable, blockchains ensure data integrity, transparency, and above all, auditability.

    To its credit, Congress has encouraged DOD to use the technology. According to a 2018 congressionally-mandated study, adoption would improve cybersecurity, supply chain efficiency, continuity of operations, and, most importantly, auditability.

    An Air Force Institute of Technology publication from 2022 also examined the advantages of employing blockchains.

    First and foremost, the publication acknowledged DOD blockchains could not mirror Bitcoin, which permits anyone to have access and the ability to record transactions. Instead, the sensitivity of data and need to restrict user rights dictated that a DOD blockchain would be a “permissioned private” database, not Bitcoin’s permissionless public variant.

    To demonstrate its effectiveness, the publication summarized its application by Walmart, a common comparison given the company’s size and logistical sophistication.

    In 2020, Walmart launched the “world’s largest blockchain industrial application solution” to date.

    Under its existing system, disputes over Canada-based invoices occurred in approximately 70% of deliveries and required labor-intensive investigations taking six and eight months to resolve. While Walmart found paying the disputed amount easier, it also meant paying a 38 percent overage.

    The contracted provider configured a blockchain within eight months and conducted a two-month pilot. The results were such that Walmart swiftly moved all seventy of its Canadian suppliers on the blockchain by 2022. The blockchain reduced disputes to 1.5% of all deliveries, dispute resolution times shortened, and the company saved millions.

    The provider was DLT Labs, a small Canadian company founded in 2017 – not a major prime charging hundreds of billions.

    The blockchain was a distributed ledger architecture that had been developed by a non-profit launched in 2015 by the Linux Foundation — not a multi-year acquisition program.

    The publication also demonstrated how the Walmart blockchain outperformed current DOD accounting systems in terms of lifecycle costs, transaction throughput, and error rates.

    Lastly, the publication catalogued how blockchains satisfied existing regulatory regimes governing information technologies and would address its audit deficiencies.

    While the confrontation between a trillionaire and a trillion-dollar entity will be epic, the brutal reality is neither will win because defense spending is the quintessential unknown unknown.

    In the thirty-four years since the first required audit, DOD has lived down to the low expectations ascribed to government bureaucracies. Congress is now requiring the department to pass an audit by 2028.

    The department’s financial systems are marred by unreliable data and archaic technologies. Blockchains constitute an elegant solution to these failings and more.

    R. Jordan Prescott is a private contractor working in defense and national security since 2002. He has been published in The National Interest, Small Wars Journal, Modern War Institute, 19fortyfive, and RealClearDefense.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 23:25

  • How Big Is The Space Economy?
    How Big Is The Space Economy?

    The global space economy reached $596 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow to $944 billion by 2033.

    This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, illustrates the size of the space economy as of December 2024, based on data compiled by Novaspace.

    The space economy includes government agencies and companies involved in the production and launch of satellites and spacecraft, data generation, Earth-based infrastructure, R&D programs, and more.

    Over 10,000 Satellites Orbit the Earth

    Space-based applications that are enabled by space, such as weather forecasting, remote sensing, satellite navigation systems, and satellite television, make up the largest portion of the market, representing $308 billion.

    Satellite services are another major component of the space economy, generating $137 billion per year. Currently, over 10,000 satellites orbit the Earth, with SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, controlling half of the market.

    Upward Trajectory

    2024 set spaceflight records for the fourth consecutive year, with 259 launches worldwide—an average of one launch attempt every 34 hours, according to a recent analysis of the global space economy.

    The study, published by The Space Report, also predicts that the pace of launches will continue to rise this year.

    The U.S. dominated the launch cycle in 2024, outpacing China by more than 2-to-1, according to the report. Meanwhile, Russia significantly increased the number of satellites it deployed into Earth orbit, rising from 21 in 2023 to 98 in 2024.

    If you enjoyed this post, check out Visualized: Every Moon in the Solar System on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 23:00

  • Universities: Dysfunctional Incubators Of Socialism
    Universities: Dysfunctional Incubators Of Socialism

    Authored by Thomas DiLorenzo via The Mises Institute,

    Ludwig von Mises called the universities of his day “nurseries of socialism” because of the inevitable socialist bias of all government-funded universities. He also said that there is always a remnant of students, however, that does not buy into the endless drumbeat about the alleged wonders of socialism and the “imperfections” of free-market capitalism. It is this remnant that the Mises Institute devotes so much effort to educating and inspiring in the Misesian/Rothbardian tradition. 

    The vast majority of today’s American universities have become incubators of socialism to a far greater extent than anything Mises experienced. They have produced generations of students who are well versed in all the left-wing platitudes about just about everything even if they lack the most elementary critical thinking skills. (So-called “critical theory,” invented by Marxist law professors, is not about critical thinking but criticizing the critics of socialism and all the institutions of Western civilization). The unique incentive systems in American universities have made this possible.

    Almost all universities are either government funded state universities, or private nonprofit sector universities that receive significant amounts of government subsidies, making them de facto state universities. (Remember: He who takes the king’s shilling becomes the king’s man). As such, they have no real customers in a business sense. Students do not think of themselves as customers in the sense that they are customers of say, Starbucks or a pizza joint. They rarely pay the tuition bills for one thing; mom and dad or the taxpayers do, or the banks that extend to them student loans. Parents may pay the tuition bills but it is the children who receive the primary benefits of higher education, if such benefits even exist. Thus, consumer pressure that leads to consumer sovereignty is very weak.

    There are no stockholders in government or private, nonprofit universities, so neither is there stockholder pressure as with private competitive businesses. On top of that there is supercharged rational ignorance. When we acquire information during the course of our lives it is mostly to get through school, get and keep a job, raise a family, buy houses and cars, etc. Private affairs. We spend relatively little informing ourselves about government policy. Besides, government at all levels is so gargantuan that no human mind could possibly comprehend a tiny fraction of one percent of what governments do. We are rationally ignorant of it for the most part. Universities are the same way, but in addition, many people are intimidated by people with Ph.D. degrees in the same sense they are somewhat worshipful and intimidated by medical doctors. So they don’t question them very often. Rational ignorance is supercharged when it comes to universities and doctors. 

    The boards of directors of universities are primarily composed of yes men and women who rubber stamp the decisions of the administrators for the most part. To oppose them might jeopardize the main reasons they are on the board of trustees in the first place: to improve their social lives, local reputations, and business connections. University boards were easily intimidated into acquiescing in the latest synonym for socialism, “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” with its threats of calling critics racists or sexists. 

    At some universities the university president can fire board members rather than the other way around.

    When yours truly first arrived at Loyola University Maryland in the early 90s a senior faculty member recalled how Loyola alumnus Tom Clancey, the famous author, was not invited back to the board after he complained too much that the son of a mail man like himself could no longer afford the tuition. 

    So-called peer-reviewed research is not all that it is made out to be. So much university research is government funded, that “peer reviewers” are often very careful not to allow the publication of much literature (if any) that criticizes the state. Try having a career as an environmental scientist who criticizes the EPA, or as an agricultural economist who criticizes the massive interventionism of the Department of Agriculture. Even modern physics is almost entirely devoted to military applications. Economist Larry White published a research article that revealed that almost three fourths of all peer reviewed articles in monetary economics were authored by economists with some connection to the Fed. As Milton Friedman once said, if one wants a career as a monetary economist, it is best not to criticize the major employer in your field. 

    Let’s not forget also that the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci’s theory about “the long march through the institutions” to turn a country communist was first spread in universities, and is still metastasizing there. The extreme left-wing bias among university faculty is proof, moreover, that most faculties are enemies of academic freedom despite all their false claims otherwise. 

    Because of the near absence of customer and stockholder pressures – or even elections as with government – university administrators often behave like dictatorial tyrants who answer to no one. This causes younger conservative or libertarian faculty members to cower in fear that the university administrators might discover that they have politically unacceptable ideas like respect for property rights, the rule of law, or God forbid, free enterprise.

    University faculties are mostly paid like government bureaucrats with rigid pay scales that go by seniority rather than merit. Faculty committees are typically controlled by the least scholarly faculty members due to the fact that to the more productive scholars the opportunity cost of spending endless hours sitting in unproductive committee meetings is too high. It’s the low opportunity cost faculty who make university policy by committee. 

    Ever since the American economy moved from being dominated by sole proprietorships to corporations the Left has complained about the separation of ownership from control. In corporations the stockholders are the owners and management is composed of their agents who are entrusted to earn profits for them. Who, but the taxpayers, are the “owners” of a state-funded university? And what control do they have over what goes on? 

    Universities are incubators of socialism because they are themselves socialist institutions funded by taxpayers with Rube Goldberg style incentive systems. 

    This article is adapted from a talk delivered at Educating for Liberty: Mises Circle in Tampa.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 22:35

  • Zelensky To Visit White House But Minerals Deal Still Up In The Air: 'Framework, Not A Deal'
    Zelensky To Visit White House But Minerals Deal Still Up In The Air: ‘Framework, Not A Deal’

    The Kremlin has pointed out on Wednesday that there appears as yet no actual US-Ukraine mineral deal, even as President Zelensky is expected at the White House Friday to sign a finalized agreement.

    Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow hasn’t been confirmation that anything on this front has been reached. “So far, there are no official statements on this matter. We have only heard that Zelensky seemed to be going to Washington on Friday,” Peskov told reporters.

    Getty Images

    He expressed doubt that anything final and with substance will be signed, saying “There will probably be attempts to make this visit somewhat substantive.”

    Zelensky’s own words strongly suggests he’s headed to Washington even though details have not been agreed to or fully worked out.

    “This is a start, this is a framework agreement,” Zelensky told reporters in his latest remarks. “This deal could be a great success or simply disappear. Whether it’s a big success, I think, depends on our conversation with President Trump. We’ll draw conclusions after.”

    Trump has articulated the minerals deal in a way that has raised fears of deep future US entanglement in Ukraine…

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

    Zelensky wants security guarantees, but that’s not what the draft says, only that the US “supports Ukraine’s efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to establish lasting peace,” without making explicit commitments.

    A Tuesday FT headlines said an agreement had been reached, and soon after Trump touted that Zelensky would be at the White House Friday to ink a final deal on rare earths and mineral access.

    Most international reports agree that though Zelensky’s visit to Washington looks certain, a final singed deal is still anything but certain, and remains up in the air:

    Reports suggested a US request for $500bn (£395bn) in potential revenues from using Ukraine’s natural resources had been dropped. But we also learnt that Ukrainian security guarantees had not made their way into the deal – something Kyiv has been pushing for.

    Twenty-four hours later, little more is known. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenksy has said it’s important that at least a “sentence” about guarantees is included, but US President Donald Trump reiterated his stance that such assurances should be made by Europe, Ukraine’s “next door neighbor”.

    We do, however, know Trump and Zelensky will thrash out the terms of the agreement in a meeting in Washington DC on Friday. Trump said so during his first cabinet meeting – during which he also hinted at a possible Russia-Ukraine ceasefire, suggesting Russian President Vladimir Putin would need to make “concessions” for that to happen.

    Journalist Michael Tracey has said, based on reviewing the draft, that the scope goes far beyond just minerals…

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

    Tracey concluded, “This is sweeping enough that it could easily qualify as a Treaty requiring Senate Ratification but don’t hold your breath for that.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 22:10

  • Why Ending USAID Is Huge, Even If It's A Small Part Of The Budget
    Why Ending USAID Is Huge, Even If It’s A Small Part Of The Budget

    Authored by Peter Jacobsen via the Foundation for Economic Education,

    Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is signaling the end of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The USAID website is currently down, and employees have been locked out of computer systems.

    USAID has a controversial history and has been accused of imperialism by the left and waste and corruption by the right. In a previous article discussing National Security Study Memorandum 200, I highlighted one of these issues: a government document that proposed utilizing USAID (among other levers) to lower the population in developing countries under the guise of providing aid.

    Many defenders of USAID argue that the fiscal concern behind Musk’s offensive is overblown because the agency represents less than 1 percent of the federal budget.

    However, the fact that USAID is a small part of the budget gives us no information on whether or not it should be removed. In fact, it’s likely one of the best places to start slashing government spending. Why?

    1) Bigger Cuts Cost More

    If your goal is to cut down on spending, whether personal or government, larger expenditures are better to cut, everything else held constant. If you cut an item that represents 15 percent of your expenses instead of 5 percent, you’ll be making a bigger impact with—in theory—the same amount of effort. However, some things are more expensive to cut than others.

    For example, personal finance classes often suggest that people can save by cutting back on meals out or buying coffee. Yet for most people, the monthly cost of eating out or getting coffee is a tiny fraction of their overall budget (much like USAID). So why start there?

    You start with that because it is easy to cut those things out of life relative to big-ticket items.

    For most people, expenditures on rent and mortgage payments dwarf coffee spending; however, it’s very difficult to lower spending on housing and transportation! For someone who has very little income to go around, even cheap housing will be expensive relative to his or her whole budget, and transportation is necessary for most jobs.

    In the long run, people may be able to cut housing expenditures by finding roommates or downsizing, but the point is that in the short run, these big-ticket budgets are hard to modify. As such, cutting Starbucks and restaurant meals may be the easiest first step when we are struggling to make ends meet.

    The same goes for the U.S. government. The big-ticket items for the budget (Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security) will be very difficult to address. Since those benefits are so large, modifying them will be expensive, both politically and financially. As such, even if these categories ultimately need to be tackled, this doesn’t imply that the government should be financially irresponsible with small expenditures in the short term.

    In deciding what to cut, it isn’t just the total expenditures that should be considered; so should the difficulty associated with cutting it. Saying USAID is too small to cut is ignoring this important consideration. I put it like this on X:

    “1 [percent] of the budget does not sound like a big cut, until you realize that getting a budget under control usually involves making lots of small cuts since large cuts are often infeasible.”

    Ultimately, to borrow a modern version of a phrase coined by Benjamin Franklin, a penny saved is a penny earned. Small progress is still progress.

    2) 0.7 Percent Is Not 0.7 Percent

    The other problem with the “It’s only 0.7 percent” argument is that this view is too simplistic. In an accounting sense, it’s true that USAID accounts for only 0.7 percent of total spending. However, USAID’s impact on spending is not limited to what the department itself spends. USAID is a part of a network that includes various federal agencies and bureaucrats. These agencies can sometimes act as a team that works to increase overall spending. To understand this dynamic, we need to look at the economics of team production.

    Economists Armen Alchian and Harold Demsetz were the first to highlight the importance of team production in firm decision-making. Team production is based on a pretty simple idea: The sum is greater than the parts.

    Let’s say Patrick and I start a moving company. Imagine I can move 15 things per hour by myself and Patrick can move 20 by himself. However, if we work together, we move 40 things. In other words, working together makes us more productive than each person working individually put together (40>15+20).

    The reason for this is obvious—some objects are better moved by teams. It would take an individual a really long time to move a couch by himself. Working as a team is more than doubly fast.

    Since some of the boxes are essentially being produced by “the team,” it’s hard to account for who’s responsible for them.

    In for-profit business, teams work together to produce revenue. But in government bureaucracies, teams often work together to grow their budgets (see this article for more detail).

    So when the Department of Defense puts together its budget proposal and they use studies conducted by USAID to justify it, who is responsible for the increase? Well, the whole increase will be attributed to the DOD, but clearly USAID is partly responsible.

    In this sense, bureaucracy has the ability to feed on itself, thereby making the impact of a relatively small bureau such as USAID harder to account for.

    3) Establishing a Precedent

    The last reason shutting down USAID is important can be highlighted with the following question: What was the last standing U.S. government department to be shut down permanently?

    Can you think of one? Congratulations if so, because I can’t. The closest thing I can find is departments being renamed (Department of War became Department of Defense) or temporary departments being shuttered (such as the National Recovery Administration). But even in the latter case, much of the department got turned into what is now the Small Business Administration.

    Shutting down USAID would set an important precedent. Our government, and society, needs to build up experience with and infrastructure for shutting down government bureaus. Complaining that USAID should not be a target for cuts because it is small is like complaining that someone is going on a five-minute run in an attempt to train for a marathon.

    Of course a five-minute run doesn’t solve your problem of getting ready for the marathon by itself. That isn’t the point. The point is that the five-minute run gets your body used to running for five minutes. You increase from there.

    For my money, the shutdown of USAID will be an important bellwether, indicating that Trump’s administration has the power to take on the deep state. If he can’t remove USAID, there’s no chance he’ll take on anything bigger.

    Furthermore, I see this as a bellwether for the country itself. If the deep state in the United States is so strong that it’s impossible to cut off even an agency established by executive order that makes up only 0.7 percent of the budget, how can we expect to deal with an exploding debt interest problem and an insolvent social security system?

    Many in D.C. scoff when you talk about the national debt. After all, people have been warning about the debt for decades now. However, as one of my friends recently pointed out, countries are never in sovereign debt crises—until they are.

    *  *  *

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

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 21:45

  • EPSTEIN FILES TOMORROW: AG Pam Bondi Announces Thursday Release As 250 Victim Names Redacted
    EPSTEIN FILES TOMORROW: AG Pam Bondi Announces Thursday Release As 250 Victim Names Redacted

    Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Wednesday evening that she’s going to release DOJ files on dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

    “You said last week that you had the Epstein files on your desk. When can we see them?” asked Fox News‘ Jesse Watters.

    “Jesse, there are well over – this will make you sick, 200 victims. Well over… over 250 actually. So we have to make sure that their identity is protected, and their personal information. But other than that, I think tomorrow Jesse – breaking news right now, you’re going to see some Epstein information being released by my office.“

    “What kind? Are we going to see who was on the flights? Are we going to see any evidence from what he recorded – because he had all of his homes wired with recording devices,” Watters asked.

    “What you’re going to see, hopefully tomorrow, is a lot of flight logs, a lot of names, a lot of information… it’s pretty sick what that man did,” Bondi continued.

    Watch:

    Epstein, a financier and convicted sex offender was found dead in a New York jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. While his death was rules a suicide, he was also good friends with the Clintons and several other high-profile figures such as Bill Gates, Britain’s Prince Andrew, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, former Barclays CEO and ‘Disney princess‘ aficionado Jes Staley, Larry Summers, Harvey Weinstein, and former Victoria’s Secret boss Les Wexner.

    Larry Summers (L), Jeffrey Epstein (Center), Bill Gates (R)

    Here are the flight logs which have already been released.

    Media Room?

    Watters’ question about recordings stems from earlier reporting that the deceased sex trafficker’s homes were wired with recording devices.

    In late 2019, Jeffrey Epstein victim Maria Farmer alleged that the deceased pedophile had a “media room” on the first floor where high-profile johns were allegedly recorded having sex with women and children.

    “So if you’re facing the house, there’s a window on the right that’s barred – that’s the room, the ‘media room’ is what he called it,” Farmer said. “And so there was a door that looked like an invisible door with all this limestone and everything and you push it and you go in and I saw all the cameras.”

    Maria said: “What it was – was like old televisions basically, like stacked.“

    “They were monitors inside this cabinet and there were men sitting here and I looked on the cameras and I saw toilet, toilet, bed, bed, toilet, bed.

    “And I was like I’m never going to use the restroom here and I am never going to sleep here.” –The Sun

    The claim was supported in a 2024 lawsuit by two women – Danielle Bensky and Jane Doe 3, who said Epstein employed a sophisticated system involving constant CCTV surveillance within his New York mansion.

    Bondi’s appearance came hours after the DOJ appeared to give Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) the brush-off, telling her in a Wednesday letter that they are “reviewing your requests and look forward to engaging further to accommodate your oversight and legislative needs.”

    On the campaign trail, Donald Trump suggested that he would be open to releasing the Epstein list, while Bondi said in November that anyone named in the documents who are “still fighting to keep their names private, Sean, they have no legal basis to do so unless they’re a child, a victim or a cooperating defendant.”

    Last week Bondi told Fox News that she had the Epstein files “sitting on my desk right now to review.”

    *  *  *

    Last week’s top selling items from ZH Store:

    Use coupon code THANKYOU10 for 10% off

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 21:20

  • US Judge Rules Trump Media, Rumble Can Ignore Brazil's Censorship Orders
    US Judge Rules Trump Media, Rumble Can Ignore Brazil’s Censorship Orders

    Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

    A federal judge in Florida has ruled that video-sharing platform Rumble and Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the parent company of Truth Social, are not required to comply with gag orders issued by a Brazilian Supreme Court justice.

    The orders, issued by Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, had demanded the removal of U.S.-based accounts belonging to a prominent supporter of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, in a case raising concerns over international judicial overreach and free speech rights in the United States.

    In a Feb. 25 ruling, U.S. District Judge Mary Scriven found that Moraes’s orders were unenforceable in the United States because they were not properly served under international law, including the Hague Convention and the U.S.–Brazil Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty.

    “Under well-established law, Plaintiffs are not obligated to comply with the directives and pronouncements, and no one is authorized or obligated to assist in their enforcement against Plaintiffs or their interests here in the United States,” the judge wrote.

    However, the judge denied without prejudice a request for a temporary restraining order filed by Rumble and TMTG, ruling that the case is not ripe for judicial review because no enforcement action had been taken against the two companies in the United States. This means the case could be revived if Brazilian authorities or another entity attempt to enforce the orders.

    The lawsuit, brought by Rumble and TMTG on Feb. 19, accused Moraes of engaging in illegal censorship by issuing gag orders to suppress the U.S. accounts of a “well-known politically outspoken user” of Rumble, referred to in the complaint as “Political Dissident A,” later identified as Allan dos Santos. A supporter of Bolsonaro and a fugitive in Brazil, Santos is under investigation for allegedly spreading false information and hate speech.

    Moraes’s orders required Rumble to suspend Santos’s accounts, block new ones, disclose user data, and appoint a legal representative in Brazil to submit to Brazilian judicial authority. The orders also imposed escalating fines and threatened to shut down Rumble’s operations in Brazil for noncompliance.

    In their lawsuit, Rumble and TMTG argue that Moraes’s actions violated constitutional protections of free speech and contravened other U.S. laws, including Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields platforms from legal liability for user-generated content.

    “The Gag Orders, as issued, censor legitimate political discourse in the United States, undermining fundamental constitutional protections enshrined in the First Amendment,” the plaintiffs said in the complaint. “Justice Moraes’s extraterritorial demands inflict immediate and irreparable harm on Rumble and TMTG by undermining lawful American political discourse, a right central to free speech under U.S. principles.”

    After Rumble and TMTG filed their lawsuit, Moraes issued a demand that Rumble “immediately submit” to his authority or face consequences, according to the complaint. After Rumble failed to comply, Moraes ordered local telecommunications companies to shut it down in Brazil and imposed a daily fine of $8,700 on the U.S.-based company.

    The two companies then filed a motion for a temporary restraining order on Feb. 22, warning that allowing foreign officials to bypass U.S. legal protections could set a dangerous precedent.

    “If this type of end-run around U.S. law is allowed to stand, it will embolden other foreign officials to impose their censorship regimes on American companies without due process, suppress political discourse, and interfere with U.S. business operations without legal justification,” Rumble and TMTG wrote in the motion.

    The Epoch Times reached out to the Brazilian Supreme Court with a request for comment on Scriven’s Feb. 25 ruling but did not receive a response by publication time.

    Moraes has previously clashed with tech companies over censorship, most notably ordering a nationwide ban on tech billionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, for refusing to remove certain accounts accused of spreading misinformation and failing to appoint a legal representative in Brazil. The ban was later lifted after X complied with the orders and paid millions of dollars in fines.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 20:55

  • Russia & US Holding Next Talks In Turkey, Without Europe: Lavrov
    Russia & US Holding Next Talks In Turkey, Without Europe: Lavrov

    Last week’s Riyadh talks between the United States and Russia have led to another round of face-to-face bilateral negotiations, set for Thursday in Istanbul.

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed the meeting while alongside the emir of Qatar in Doha. The oil and gas rick Gulf country remains a close ally of Turkey.

    The Istanbul meeting is expected to focus on restoring diplomatic staff and full relations at each respective embassy. Both sides went through several rounds of expelling the other’s diplomats under the Biden administration, as relations hit a low-point during the Ukraine war, also amid US/EU-led sanctions on Moscow.

    Via Anadolu Agency

    “Such a meeting will take place tomorrow in Istanbul. I think that its results will show how quickly and effectively we can move forward,” Lavrov said Wednesday.

    The Turkish Foreign Ministry has also confirmed it is hosting the high-level talks. “As we have repeatedly stated, Türkiye is ready to provide all kinds of support to peace efforts, including hosting future talks,” a spokesperson said.

    The Feb.18 meeting in Riyadh focused on kickstarting direct talks related to preparing for peace negotiations to settle the Ukraine war, but importantly this took place with either Ukrainian or European representation.

    The meeting in Istanbul will make it clear “how fast and efficiently the sides can move forward,” Lavrov was cited in Russia’s TASS as saying.

    Lavrov in a press conference was asked about reports that the West could permanently seize nearly $300 billion in Russian assets held abroad. “As for our assets, which have been stolen primarily by Europeans, no, you know, there has been no talk about it. But I have no doubts that this issue will not disappear as part of the settlement,” Lavrov responded.

    The top Russian diplomat took the opportunity to blast European leaders for seeking to sabotage peace efforts involving the Trump White House:

    Russia is waiting for Europeans to stop “lying that Russia blocks negotiations.” Europe is advancing a “hopelessly outdated and failed” policy on Ukraine and is pushing Kiev to continue fighting.

    “When the political balance of power regarding Ukraine changes, as was evident in the United Nations vote, Europe immediately tries to undermine this trend, announcing new large military aid packages to Kiev, pushing it to continue fighting, and openly stating, as I think the Danish prime minister did, that peace is worse than war for Ukraine in this situation.”

    Moscow believes that “the best aid from those who sincerely want to help resolve the conflict is to come to realize what caused it.”

    He specifically called out the plans of some to create a European army to be sent to Ukraine. Russia has consistently rejected this as a real option for viable peace.

    Despite positive momentum on peace from this White House, Trump occasionally reverts to hawkish talking points concerning Ukraine:

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    “The approach that is being imposed by the Europeans, first of all France and the British, is aimed… at heating up the conflict further and stopping any attempts to calm it down,” Lavrov said.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 20:30

  • Trump's Anti-DEI Executive Orders
    Trump’s Anti-DEI Executive Orders

    Authored by Peter Berkowitz via RealClearPolitics,

    The accusation that he seeks dictatorial power has dogged Donald Trump since before he was elected president in 2016. Yet President Trump’s salvo of executive orders commencing shortly after he returned to the White House one month ago includes many that impose limits on government. Prominent among them is his Inauguration Day Executive Order, “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.”

    Trump’s Jan. 20 anti-DEI executive order rescinded the pro-DEI Executive Order – “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government” –  that President Joe Biden signed in January 2021 on his first day in the White House. The Trump directive withdraws from the federal government authority Biden granted it to prefer some individuals and disfavor others based on race. On. Jan. 22, Trump went further, issuing an executive order that abolished affirmative action in federal-government contracting. This one revoked President Lyndon Johnson’s landmark 1965 Executive Order 11246, which has been interpreted as mandating racial preferences.

    By terminating federal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and affirmative action initiatives, the Trump administration aims to advance the president’s Second Inaugural Address promise to “end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.” Instead, Trump stated, he would “forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based.”

    On Feb. 12 in “Trump Is on the Wrong Side of History by Design,” New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie decried “the right-wing crusade against ‘diversity, equity and inclusion.’” Bouie acknowledged that “a certain set of well-meaning cultural liberals” along with “people of a more moderate or conservative persuasion” and even some critics of capitalism on “the political left” have respectable if not correct concerns about DEI’s excesses. But the Times columnist attributed thoroughly malign motives to Trump and his backers.

    Coming from the Trump administration, argues Bouie, the terms “colorblind” and “merit-based” serve as dog whistles for racism and white supremacy. The Trump team opposes, Bouie contends, “the mere presence of a woman or nonwhite person or disabled or transgender person in any high-skilled, high-status position” (this will come as surprise to, among others, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Attorney General Pam Bondi, US Ambassador to the United Nations nominee Elise Stefanik, HUD Secretary Scott Turner, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio). For Trump and the political right, the “alternative isn’t some heretofore unknown standard of merit; it is the reintroduction of something like segregation,” charged Bouie. Trump’s “attack on D.E.I. isn’t about increasing merit or fighting wrongful discrimination; it is about reimposing hierarchies of race and gender (among other categories) onto American society.”

    In contrast to Bouie, on Feb. 14 in the Wall Street Journal, Rev. Corey B. Brooks, founder and senior pastor of New Beginnings Church of Chicago and CEO of Project H.O.O.D., welcomed Trump’s determination to terminate government classification of individuals, and intervention in social and political life, based on race. Nevertheless, in “Trump’s Colorblind Message Energizes Black Americans,” Brooks found “bittersweet” Trump’s inaugural-address promise to disregard race and focus on merit. Trumps words were sweet because, Rev. Brooks explained, “I live by them everyday as I minister to my community”; they were bitter because “I can only wonder where our community would be today if we had followed those words since the 1960s.”

    Before then, a “culture of opportunity, self-reliance and meritocracy” enabled African Americans to build better lives despite racism. That changed when “far too many of us were seduced by post-’60s liberalism,” Brooks laments. “We were told by the federal government that bureaucrats would uplift us through social programs, housing, food vouchers, busing, racial preferences and one education plan after another.” Yet his “heart aches to see how a once God-fearing and hard-working people betrayed itself into poverty and, worse, into mental enslavement to the government.”

    To restore his community’s culture of self-reliance, Brooks asks “only one thing from Mr. Trump – to come to my neighborhood and tell the people: ‘You are on your own.’” The president would “be echoing Frederick Douglass, who said after slavery, ‘I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us.’”

    Bouie and Brooks advance fundamental alternatives. The New York Times columnist wishes to perpetuate government and private-sector discrimination to rectify America’s legacy of racial injustice. With decades of experience serving his beleaguered community in inner-city Chicago, the clergyman wants government to recede to give individuals, families, churches, and other voluntary associations the opportunity to organize and manage their lives.

    Brooks’ view has several advantages. It conforms to America’s founding principles, which affirm equal rights under law. It fits with the limits on federal power built into the Constitution. It respects civil society as the domain where individuals take responsibility for themselves and one another. It is consistent with history: As Brooks argues, with the onset of government intervention in the 1960s, Chicago’s vibrant black communities of the 1940s and 1950s gave way to single-parent households, illiteracy, and crime. And it recognizes that government programs that treat people differently based on race promote dependency among the favored, resentment among the disfavored, and wariness among all.

    Can the Trump administration dismantle the race-based programs that have been incorporated into American law? Thomas Powers addresses that question in “Trump and the DEI Counter-Revolution,” published in Quillette in early February. He gives reason to hope that the administration’s effort to rein in government’s power to allocate benefits and burdens based on race can restore respect for individual rights and equality under law.

    Author of “American Multiculturalism and The Anti-Discrimination Regime” and professor and chair of political science at Carthage College, Powers identifies two principal accounts of the sources of DEI’s influence in American politics.

    The first focuses on ideas and culture. It contends that DEI stems from variants on “radical progressive ideology.” These include “cultural Marxism (Christopher Rufo), postmodernism (James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose), or social-justice activism manifested as some strange new Puritanism (Andrew Doyle) or other quasi-religious impulse (John McWhorter).” If these critics are correct, argues Powers, then “the actions of the Trump administration are superficial and doomed to fail unless accompanied by some broader intellectual and cultural movement to change Americans’ hearts and minds.”

    The second view concerning the rise and entrenchment of DEI concentrates on law and public policy. It is “advanced by authors like Richard Epstein, R. Shep Melnick, and Christopher Caldwell” and maintains that “DEI is the consequence of the civil-rights revolution broadly construed and of the contours of anti-discrimination law in its particulars.” If DEI is a creature of law and public policy, argues Powers, then “we have every reason to think that the Trump administration’s actions are going to change the landscape of democratic life for the long haul.”

    Persuaded that DEI arises out of transformations in American law, Powers believes that the Trump administration may well succeed in undoing the diversity, equity, and inclusion regime. But the stakes go well beyond the law because, Powers observes, DEI is bound up with an ideology at war with basic principles of American constitutional government. It “champions the identities of groups, not the rights of individuals; it obliterates the boundary between public and private; it harnesses the state to legislate morality, not to protect liberty; it demands respect and is dissatisfied with mere toleration; and it stirs people up where the liberal tradition tries to calm them down,” he writes. “It has upended our understanding of something as basic to human life as ‘sex’ or ‘gender,’ and in political initiatives like the 1619 Project, would make contempt for modern life a kind of virtue.”

    Nevertheless, Powers argues, DEI is in the main a product of progressives’ radicalization of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The act “banned overt acts of discrimination by government in public gathering spaces (Title II, covering ‘public accommodations’) and in employment decisions like hiring, firing, and promotion (Title VII).” However, progressives reinterpreted the act to authorize government pursuit of equality of result based on group identity. The shift from equality of opportunity at which the Civil Rights Act originally aimed to equality of result pursued by its progressive interpreters – sometimes backed by conservatives – required dramatic expansion of state power. The ambition to achieve equal group representation in positions of prestige and power compelled government to practice affirmative action, redistribute wealth, and police thought and censor speech to root out “hostile environment harassment” in government, the workplace, and higher education.

    Successful legal reform, however, will take the nation only so far in placing civil-rights law on a sound footing. That’s because the two accounts of the sources of DEI that Powers identifies – ideas, and law and public policy – are intimately connected. America’s elite undergraduate institutions and law schools saturate the nation’s future lawyers, judges, and policymakers in progressive ideology.

    To restore respect for individual rights, equality under law, and limited government, substantial reform must be undertaken concurrently in law and public policy and in education.

    Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. From 2019 to 2021, he served as director of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on X @BerkowitzPeter.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 20:05

  • Shocker! Americans Divided Over Federal Mass Job-Cuts
    Shocker! Americans Divided Over Federal Mass Job-Cuts

    It’s been one month since U.S. President Donald Trump entered the White House and a lot has changed. 

    In his first few weeks, the head of state wasted no time before withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement (again), pardoning roughly 1,500 people charged in the January 6 Capitol protests, hitting China with new tariffs, beginning “mass deportations”, reiterating his desire to buy Greenland, and moving to dismantle the United States’ main (so-called) foreign-aid agency, USAID. 

    In terms of domestic policy, Trump has also proceeded to gut the federal workforce with mass firings.

    As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following chart (and likely unsurprising to most), opinions vary greatly across the aisle on the question of which federal departments and agencies should be reduced or eliminated.

    Infographic: Americans Divided on Federal Mass Cuts | Statista 

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    According to a survey conducted by YouGov and the Economist between February 16 and 18, Americans are most at odds over the dismantling of USAID, while they tend to agree over keeping the DoD as it is. 

    Republicans were generally more in favor of cuts, while Democrats had a far greater issue with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk

    Immediately after taking office, Trump announced a 90-day freeze on all U.S. foreign assistance, including for USAID projects, and on January 31, DOGE shuttered the agency’s Washington site. 

    The Trump administration has said it wants to align spending with the “America First” approach and says it is planning on merging the overseas aid agency with the U.S. Department of State.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 19:40

  • 18 Horrifying Statistics About Medical Bills, Medical Debt, & The Healthcare Industry
    18 Horrifying Statistics About Medical Bills, Medical Debt, & The Healthcare Industry

    Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

    Do not read this article if you do not want to get angry.  The “healthcare industry” in the United States has become one gigantic money making scam, and tens of millions of American families now live in great fear of illness and disease.  Why are they so afraid?  It is because a single trip to the hospital can ruin you financially.  Even if you are covered by health insurance, medical debt can still wreck your finances.  In fact, most of the people that go bankrupt due to medical bills actually have health insurance.  Meanwhile, on the other side there are lots of people that are becoming fabulously wealthy from this system.  Our “healthcare industry” has turned large numbers of doctors, lawyers, health insurance company executives and pharmaceutical company executives into multi-millionaires.  

    Of course the largest shareholders in our gigantic healthcare corporations are raking in the most cash of all.  The healthcare industry in the United States has become a cesspool of corruption and greed, and this has been the case for so long that we don’t even remember what a legitimate system even looks like anymore.

    Many Americans truly believed that health insurance would protect them if something went terribly wrong with their health.

    But then they discovered that health insurance companies will use their “delay, deny and defend” tactics to weasel out of paying what they owe any what that they possibly can.

    Even if you do have a health insurance company that is relatively honest, and that is fairly rare these days, you are still just one really bad accident or one really bad illness away from bankruptcy unless you are independently wealthy.

    Our healthcare system is designed to rapidly drain money out of us when we are at our most vulnerable.  If you have to call for an ambulance to take you to the hospital, are you thinking about how much your care will cost at that point?

    Of course not.  You are just hoping that you will survive.

    Today, it is so easy to rack up $10,000, $20,000 or even $30,000 in medical debt in the blink of an eye and many hospitals are becoming extremely aggressive about collecting on those medical debts.

    I guarantee that many of you that are reading this article know exactly what I am talking about.

    One trip to the hospital can wipe out years of financial savings.  But why should it cost so much?  In many cases, a doctor only spends a few minutes with you.

    Sadly, you discover the truth when you follow the money.  There are a lot of people that are becoming exceedingly wealthy from this system, and unfortunately that does not include middle class Americans.

    The following are 18 horrifying statistics about medical bills, medical debt and the healthcare industry that will make you so mad you will want to tear your hair out…

    #1 According to the CFPB, approximately 100 million Americans are in medical debt right now.

    #2 Even though the vast majority of the population is covered by health insurance, 62 percent of the two million personal bankruptcies that are filed each year in the United States are caused by medical debt.

    #3 One survey found that U.S. households have piled up more than 220 billion dollars in medical debt.

    #4 A three day stay in the hospital will typically cost you somewhere around $30,000.

    #5 Americans spend more than 200 billion dollars treating cancer each year.

    #6 According to the CDC, heart disease costs this country more than 250 billion dollars each year.

    #7 According to the NIH, diabetes costs this country more than 400 billion dollars each year.

    #8 A 25-year-old mother in Nevada was handed a bill for $700,000 after her baby daughter spent about two months in the neonatal intensive care unit.

    #9 One study found that hospitals overcharge Americans “by as much as 18 times over their costs”.

    #10 78 percent of U.S. adults have avoided hospital visits because they cost so much.

    #11 Hospital profits have risen by more than 400 percent since 1999.

    #12 A study that was conducted a few years ago determined that more than 90 percent of all hospital bills contain errors that can result in “overcharges, unnecessary costs, and insurance claim denials”…

    According to a 2020 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, billing errors affected over 90% of hospital bills. These errors can result in overcharges, unnecessary costs, and insurance claim denials, leading to financial hardship for patients.

    #13 The average family premium for employer-sponsored health insurance in the United States has skyrocketed to $25,572 annually.

    #14 One survey found that 18 percent of all insured adults in the U.S. have had a health insurance claim denied within the past year.

    #15 Since Obamacare became law, the annual profits of the five largest health insurance companies in the United States have gone up by 230 percent.

    #16 In 2023, the six largest health insurance companies in the United States had combined revenues of almost 1.1 trillion dollars.

    #17 In 2023, the CEOs of the five largest health insurance companies in the U.S. brought home approximately 75 million dollars in total compensation.

    #18 There are five giant pharmaceutical companies that each make more than 10 billion dollars in profits each year.

    Our healthcare system should not be based on greed.

    It should be based on helping people and doing what is right for patients.

    Other industrialized nations spend a much smaller portion of their GDP on healthcare, and many of their systems are actually more efficient.

    What is wrong with us?

    Why can’t we get our healthcare system fixed?

    Can anyone answer that question?

    Unfortunately, I don’t think that it is going to be fixed.

    They have made trillions of dollars by keeping us sick and managing our illnesses.

    When trillions of dollars are at stake, any effort to fundamentally fix the system will be met with overwhelming resistance.

    So it appears that we are stuck with our current system for the foreseeable future, and that is very bad news for all of us.

    *  *  *

    Michael’s blockbuster entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 19:15

  • Arkansas Plots Massive Crackdown On China As Fears Grow Over U.S. Land Grab
    Arkansas Plots Massive Crackdown On China As Fears Grow Over U.S. Land Grab

    On Wednesday, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders unveiled a series of bills, collectively referred to as the “Communist China Defense Legislative Package,” designed to curb China’s ability to conduct business within the state. 

    The six proposed bills – some introduced and others still pending – target what the governor describes as “Communist China influence” in Arkansas.

    Among the measures included are provisions to strengthen existing laws by reducing the timeframe for selling prohibited land holdings, banning CCP lobbying, and preventing any Arkansas municipality from having a sister city in China.

    Additionally, any college or university hosting a Confucius Institute would be stripped of state funding, as the governor asserted China often uses such institutes for intelligence purposes.

    Going forward, the state will also halt the use of made-in-China goods for promotional efforts.

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    “President Trump is the first president in my lifetime to take a hard line against Communist China and we are proud to support that work in Arkansas by getting Communist China off our land and out of our state,” Sanders said in a statement. “Once I sign this legislation into law, Chinese Communist Party-linked companies will be banned from owning property near critical infrastructure and lobbying on behalf of Communist China, Russia, and other foreign adversaries will no longer be allowed in the state of Arkansas. My administration is putting America and Arkansas first.”

    The legislation’s lead sponsors are State Sen. Blake Johnson, State Rep. DeAnn Vaught, State Rep. Britt McKenzie, State Rep. Mindy McAlindon, and State Rep. Howard M. Beaty, Jr.

    “Over the past two terms, the State of Arkansas has curbed the influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) within our borders, signaling a unified and bold stance against foreign interference,’ said Rep. Brit McKenzie. “From banning Chinese military drones, to prohibiting land ownership, and now instituting severe penalties and outlawing foreign influence peddling; These restrictions aim to protect Arkansas’s economic and security interests by limiting CCP-backed entities, full stop. I’d like to thank Governor Sarah Sanders for her partnership with the Legislature as these initiatives reflect Arkansas’s commitment to safeguarding our sovereignty and ensuring the well-being of our citizens.”

    The move by Sanders coincides with growing concerns over China’s land grab across the United States.

    Just this week, hedge fund manager Kyle Bass sounded the alarm over the threat, calling it one of the Chinese Communist Party’s “insane battlefield asymmetries.”

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    “We afford them what I call battlefield asymmetries that we should not afford to them,” Bass told Chris Powers on The Fort podcast. “It doesn’t matter who you are in China; you can come to the U.S., you can buy 10,000 acres of farmland in Iowa, you can buy farmland in Texas, or you can buy 100,000 acres of land between our most active airbase and the border, which happened here in Texas. You can’t believe that these things are happening.”

    “When you ask about them buying land, it’s absolutely insane that they can buy land in size over here, and then what they do when you start being more vociferous, or you even start to draft legislation to prevent it – they get like local real estate agents that are Chinese, Chinese Americans, or naturalized Chinese citizens, and they say, ‘You are just a racist; how can you tell a Chinese family in America that’s become Americans they can’t buy a house?’ The Hayman Capital Management continued. “They create false equivalencies and functional racism, and they throw it all at the screen, and they were trying, you know, now they have you on your back feet; it’s just insane what they do.”

    Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has recently said the restriction of Chinese land ownership is a priority for the second Trump administration. “One of the very, very top of the list perhaps is the Chinese purchase of our farmland. A lot of that land is around some of our military outposts,” Rollins said. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 18:50

  • USAID Sent Millions To Ukraine In Secret Slush Funds, Investigators Found
    USAID Sent Millions To Ukraine In Secret Slush Funds, Investigators Found

    Authored by Mark Tapscott via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) officials repeatedly refused to allow investigators working for Senate DOGE Caucus Chairman Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) to examine documents related to U.S. tax dollars allegedly intended to help Ukraine combat the Russian invasion, investigators told The Epoch Times.

    Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) speaks to reporters as she walks to a Senate luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 19, 2024. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

    When the investigators were finally allowed to view the documents, it was “under surveillance in a highly secure room at USAID headquarters” even though “nothing USAID shared was classified,” said the investigators, who asked not to be named.

    During their investigation, the Iowa Republican’s sleuths found millions of dollars of USAID programs “in secret slush funds being used to funnel millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars into Ukraine for questionable purposes unrelated to our own national interests,” they said.

    “[Funds allegedly] intended to alleviate economic distress in the war-torn nation was spent on such frivolous activities as sending Ukrainian models and designers on junkets to New York City, London Fashion Week, Paris Fashion Week, and South by Southwest in Austin, Texas,” they said.

    Among the secret slush funds was one providing $114,000 to fund purchases of “a premium, limited-edition furniture line,” and another $91,000 used to finance “a trade mission for a Scandinavian-style furniture line.”

    Other USAID funding uncovered by the investigators included $148,000 for “a pickle maker,” $255,000 to “a producer of organic tea and coffee,” $104,00o for “an artisanal fruit tea company,” and $89,000 to support “a Ukrainian vineyard.”

    USAID funding also provided $300,000 each to a dog collar manufacturer and a company selling a pet tracking application, $161,000 for “a purveyor of contemporary knitwear,” $126,000 for a “photographer for fashion design publications,” and $84,000 to support “a luxury bridal brand.”

    Ernst first began investigating USAID in November 2023 with a letter to then-USAID Administrator Samantha Power.

    “My support for providing weapons and munitions to Ukrainian fighters as they counter [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is steadfast,” Ernst told Power. “But I am weary of doling out nearly $25 billion in hardworking Americans’ tax dollars for so-called economic aid in Ukraine, including subsidies for overseas businesses such as a ‘luxury contemporary knitwear couture’ in Kyiv.”

    In a Feb. 4 letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ernst said, “In a desperate attempt to limit congressional oversight of public information, USAID demonstrated intentional abuse of a system designed to keep our nation’s secret information secure.”

    Rubio replaced Power as acting USAID administrator earlier this month. Most of the agency’s employees are on administrative leave, and a reduction-in-force process is being launched that could eliminate as many as 2,000 positions within the agency.

    Information about Ernst’s investigation was made available to The Epoch Times on the same day that the House DOGE Subcommittee was preparing to convene a hearing focused on how USAID officials dispatched at least $122 million in U.S. tax dollars to multiple organizations operating in the Middle East with documented links to Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda terrorist groups.

    Middle East Forum (MEF) Executive Director Gregg Roman told The Epoch Times on Tuesday that he will testify before the hearing’s panel that “there’s a fox loose in the henhouse of our foreign aid system.” 

    “This problem began under the Obama administration, grew under the Biden administration, and now requires immediate action to halt dangerous mismanagement and a fatal moral confusion,” Roman said. “We’re not just talking about waste, fraud, and abuse, this is a national security problem. Every misdirected dollar destabilizes conflict zones and puts American lives at risk.”

    The terrorist links were confirmed by MEF investigators through U.S. government documents, USAID records, and other publicly available information sources.

    The House DOGE Subcommittee chaired by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is part of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee chaired by Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.). The House DOGE panel, like the Senate DOGE caucus, was formed in response to President Donald Trump’s creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

    DOGE is conducting forensic audits of federal spending at all federal departments and agencies. Among the first agencies to be examined was USAID.

    “What the DOGE team has uncovered with USAID is shocking, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Greene said in a statement announcing Wednesday’s hearing.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 18:25

  • Trump Shares Bizarre AI Video Of Future Gaza: 'No More Tunnels, No More Fear'
    Trump Shares Bizarre AI Video Of Future Gaza: ‘No More Tunnels, No More Fear’

    President Trump shared a wild video showing his vision for the future of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday morning. The AI video, sure to be ultra-controversial, depicts a future “Riviera of the Middle East” after Palestinians are presumably expelled from the Strip. The clip on his Truth Social platform was not accompanied by specific comments but is titled “Gaza 2025, What’s Next?”

    The clip was initially created and appeared on other social media in early February. It kicks off showing people wandering through a decimated Gaza Strip, but then the scene transforms into skyscrapers and a luxury beach resort complete with palm trees and tourists relaxing. The fast-moving images depict a party atmosphere, in stark contrast to years of grinding war between Hamas and Israel.

    Even more bizarre is a later scene with bearded belly dancers on the beach. Sporting green headbands, the dancers appear to be mocking Hamas fighters. Elon Musk also is shown enjoying some hummus, and “Trump” is dancing in a nightclub in a tower with the inscription “Trump Gaza”. Netanyahu is at one point depicted as sipping beverages near a swimming pool with Trump. “Donald Trump will set you free, bringing the life for all to see, no more tunnels, no more fear, Trump’s Gaza is finally here,” a song rings out in the background. “Trump’s Gaza is shining bright, golden future, a brand new life,” the lyrics continue. “Feast and dance; the deed is done. Trump Gaza number one.” Watch the crazy and highly incendiary AI-generated clip below:

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 18:00

  • The #1 Warning Sign Capital Controls Are Coming Soon And 3 Ways To Beat Them
    The #1 Warning Sign Capital Controls Are Coming Soon And 3 Ways To Beat Them

    Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

    Weekends and holidays are the perfect time to catch people off guard…

    Like a street thug committing a mugging, capital controls blindside most people—otherwise, they wouldn’t be effective.

    The government declares a surprise bank holiday and shuts down all the banks—mere hours after denying any such plans.

    Then come the capital controls, preventing citizens from moving their money out of the country.

    Cash-sniffing dogs—less friendly than drug-sniffing ones—suddenly appear at airports and border crossings.

    At that point, your money is like a lobster in a trap. It doesn’t take much imagination to guess what comes next.

    Once a desperate government has your money within reach, it will find a way to take as much of it as possible.

    Don’t be shocked if your local currency suffers a massive devaluation, your bank deposits are suddenly worth a fraction of yesterday’s value, or an emergency tax is imposed.

    Whatever the method or excuse, the outcome is always the same: a wealth transfer from you to the government.

    This familiar pattern has unfolded in countless countries in recent years. No one should be surprised the next time it happens.

    Governments facing financial trouble almost certainly resort to capital controls—a desperate, misguided solution with devastating consequences for ordinary people.

    Just look at the recent history: Argentina, Lebanon, Venezuela, Iceland, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, China, India, South Korea—and many more—have all imposed capital controls.

    The lesson? Capital controls can happen anywhere, anytime.

    Though unthinkable to most Americans, there’s a high chance they’re coming to the US. They’ve happened before—and could happen again soon.

    Remember, in 1933, President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 6102 forced Americans to exchange their gold for US dollars under threat of a 10-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine (over $235,000 in today’s debased confetti).

    The official exchange rate? Unfavorable, of course—amounting to a 41% confiscation of purchasing power.

    The US government then banned private ownership of gold bullion for 42 years—only allowing the plebs to legally own it again in 1975.

    This isn’t speculation. It’s historical precedent. And history shows governments, especially in crisis, reach for capital controls.

    Today, it’s clear the fiat currency system, centered on the US dollar, is crumbling.

    Since Nixon severed the dollar’s last tie to gold in 1971, we’ve endured over 50 years of this experiment. Like spoiled milk left far past its expiration date, the fiat system has long outlived its shelf life.

    Even the people running the system can see it—and they’re openly discussing what comes next.

    That’s why there’s so much talk about resetting the monetary system… and without question, capital controls will be part of it.

    All it takes is a crisis—real or manufactured—or a convenient excuse. Just a stroke of the president’s pen on a new executive order, and it’s done.

    Expect it to happen.

    Why and How Governments Impose Capital Controls

    Capital controls are government-imposed restrictions on how people can use their money—an affront to anyone who values property rights and a free society.

    Here’s how they work…

    Governments may allow people to buy foreign currency (or gold) only at an “official” rate—which they set. Unsurprisingly, it’s always less favorable than the real, free-market rate. The gap between the two is nothing more than a wealth transfer to the government.

    Another common tactic? Hefty taxes on international money transfers or foreign asset purchases.

    Sometimes, governments go further—outright banning ownership of foreign assets or prohibiting any transfer of wealth outside the country.

    No matter the form, capital controls share one goal: trap money within national borders to make it easier for the government to seize.

    Of course, these measures come with a propaganda blitz designed to gaslight the public into believing capital controls are “necessary” to protect the average citizen.

    Expect politicians to spin disingenuous narratives that cast them as saviors rather than aggressors.

    And the mainstream media? They’ll echo these lies, demonizing anyone who dares oppose capital controls as “disloyal” or worse.

    What Happens After Capital Controls

    Capital controls are always a prelude to something worse.

    Once governments trap money inside a country, wealth confiscation is usually just hours away. Anything they don’t steal immediately, they lock in for future grabs.

    That’s why you must act before capital controls are imposed.

    How much time do you have?

    No one can say for sure—but acting well in advance is essential. It’s better to be a year early than a minute late.

    Still, there’s one common warning sign I’ve noticed in every case of looming capital controls: It’s like someone waving a giant red flag…

    A government official denying that capital controls are being considered.

    Whenever a central banker or politician insists something “won’t happen,” you can almost bet it will—and soon.

    In bureaucrat-speak, “No, of course not” usually means “It could happen tomorrow.”

    As the old saying goes:

    “Believe nothing until it has been officially denied.”

    These denials aren’t random—they’re calculated. Politicians and central bankers must catch the public off guard to achieve their goals.

    So when you hear the official denial, take it as your final warning: You likely have only hours left to act.

    Three Ways To Beat Capital Controls

    The solution is simple.

    Move some of your savings outside your home country so it’s not trapped when the government imposes capital controls. You’ll have your wealth safely waiting for you on the other side.

    Here are three practical ways to do that:

    1. Open a foreign bank account.
    Capital controls in your home country are unlikely to affect accounts held abroad. A foreign bank account ensures a portion of your wealth remains outside the reach of local authorities.

    2. Invest in foreign real estate.
    Real estate overseas is a powerful way to store significant capital. Your home government can’t easily seize property in another country—not without drastic measures, like an act of war.

    3. Hold physical gold bullion in a non-bank vault abroad.
    Storing gold in a wealth-friendly foreign jurisdiction—like Singapore, Switzerland, or the Cayman Islands—offers robust protection.

    But here’s a critical warning: Do NOT store gold in a bank’s safe deposit box. Banks are prime targets when governments declare bank holidays or seize private assets. Instead, opt for private, non-bank vaults. Holding physical bullion in your possession or with a trusted vault provider ensures better security. (More details below.)

    Conclusion

    The dollar-based monetary system is unraveling—even the people running it know this.

    They’re already preparing for what’s next with talks of a “reset.” And it’s virtually certain that capital controls will be part of the plan.

    I believe this could unfold sooner than most expect—and when it does, it won’t be pretty.

    We’re likely standing at the edge of a historic financial earthquake—one that could forever alter the US economy and become the biggest economic event of our lifetimes.

    Yet, most people are clueless about what’s coming—and even fewer know how to prepare.

    That’s why legendary investor Doug Casey and I released an urgent video revealing how to best store your gold.

    Inside, we show you the most effective strategies to safeguard your savings from capital controls and looming wealth confiscations.

    Capital controls are coming. Don’t be caught off guard. Click here to watch it now.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 17:40

  • Not A Joke: Jake Tapper Writes Book On 'Cover-Up' Of Biden's Cognitive Decline – After Covering Up Biden's Cognitive Decline
    Not A Joke: Jake Tapper Writes Book On ‘Cover-Up’ Of Biden’s Cognitive Decline – After Covering Up Biden’s Cognitive Decline

    For some reason CNN anchor Jake Tapper thought it would be a good idea to write a book on how the media covered for Joe Biden’s obvious mental decline – after he spent the last election covering for Joe Biden’s mental decline.

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

    Except…

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

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    In 2021, former Obama White House physician Ronny Jackson said that the reason Biden had been avoiding cognitive exams is that he would have “failed miserably,” and that his team “didn’t do it because they know, if they do it, you don’t ask questions that you don’t want the answers to.”

    In 2020 Biden was asked whether he would submit to a cognitive test, sending him into a rage: “C’mon man. That’s like saying, ‘You — before you got on this program you took a test where you’re taking cocaine or not, what do you think? Huh? Are you a junkie?” he replied.

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 17:20

  • The Party Is Over
    The Party Is Over

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

    The Trump administration, pushed by the Department of Government Efficiency and deployed by the Office of Personnel Management, has sent another email to all federal employees with a normal request to present five tasks accomplished in the last week. 

    It’s an easy task. It takes 5 minutes. In the service industry, this is entirely normal, even routine. Taking inventory of the workforce is standard for any new management in the private sector. 

    Oddly, absolute mania broke out among the pundit class. Government unions are preparing lawsuits. The panic and frenzy is palpable. As it turns out, no new president has ever done anything like this before, no Democrat who believes in good government and no Republican who supposedly distrusts bureaucracy. 

    Something dramatic has hit Washington. It’s about more than Trump. 

    The party now in control of the US executive branch is a third party built out of the corpses of two existing parties. It goes by the name Republican but this is nearly a historical accident. The GOP was a vessel that was least protected against invasion and occupation. It has now been nearly taken over by outsiders who had little or no influence within the party a decade ago. 

    Nearly all the top people now in power – including Trump of course but also Musk, Gabbard, Kennedy, Lutnick, and so many more, to say nothing of the voters themselves – are refugees from the Democratic Party. Coalitions have dramatically changed. Voting blocs have migrated. And policy debates and priorities are nothing like they have been in any period since the end of the Great War. 

    The occupiers left a Democratic Party that was and is busy consuming itself with Rousseauian frenzies on issues about which most people do not care or are otherwise completely opposed. The legacy establishment of the Republican Party, however, never welcomed them in. They were hated and resisted at every step. 

    The Kennedy Migration 

    To understand the remarkable speed and trajectory of this creation of a third party within the structure of two, consider that it was not even two years ago when Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was first contemplating running for president as a Democrat.

    The conditions were unique. He had gained an enormous following for his courage during Covid, standing up against the lockdowns, speaking out against the censorship and rights violations, and then decrying the imposition of shots that achieved nothing for public health. 

    In 2023, President Biden was unpopular and not even credible as the chief executive, much less as a candidate for a second term. The thinking in the Kennedy camp at the time was that a run by Kennedy for the Democratic nomination would force an open primary and he could lead the party back to its roots, away from woke totalitarianism toward the political values of his father and uncle. 

    In theory, all of this seemed plausible. His first rallies were crowded events, and the money poured in. Volunteers were signing up to work for the campaign. The first ads that appeared were nostalgic of a lost time, an America before the shattering of civic culture that came with the assassination of his uncle in 1963. The framing and even music of his campaign reflected such themes. 

    If anyone could fix the Democrats, it was surely Kennedy with a lifetime of activism and experience in litigation against corporate capture of agencies, plus a recent campaign for human rights and free speech. The presumption here was that the Democrats had some base of support that still supported such values. And maybe that was right but his intentions ran headlong into the machinery of party leadership. 

    His intention was to challenge Trump for the presidency, and the basis of the challenge was rather obvious. It was, after all, under Trump’s watch that the lockdowns began and the legal apparatus that led to the dangerous shots was deployed. It was Trump who kicked off the economic crisis with wave after wave of stimulus payments plus monetary expansion. As an empirical matter, he had presided over the worst invasion of rights of any president in history. 

    That’s where matters stood only two years ago. When it became obvious that there would be no open primary, Kennedy was tempted by the lure of an independent run. The most immediate problem of gaining ballot access hit hard. The system, after all, is set up for two parties only and they want no competition unless such an effort works as a spoiler. That was not obvious with Kennedy – he drew equally from both sides – so everyone with power wanted him excluded. 

    The other problem traces to the undeniable logic of winner-take-all elections. Under Duverger’s law, such contests tend to default to two choices only. This logic applies not just to politics but to all systems of voting. If you offer guests at a party the chance to vote on dinner, but the majority will prevail over the minority, everyone will immediately shift from voting for what they like toward voting against the food they hate the most. 

    For some reason, this pattern of strategic voting is hardly mentioned in polite company but it is a reality in US politics. Voters select against the candidate they fear the most and for the person they believe can win to forestall the worst possible outcome. In the Kennedy case, then, it meant that no matter how much people loved him, they would end up supporting either Biden or Trump regardless. 

    It so happened that over the summer, this logic was pressing itself heavily on the Kennedy campaign even as Trump faced astonishing levels of deep-state lawfare plus an assassination attempt, which conjured up deep family trauma in Kennedy. This provoked some discussions between the two that resulted in a historic realignment in politics. 

    During these discussions, Trump was frank about what happened during the Covid period. He had been lied to by his bureaucracy, the experts who had been assigned to him to say that this virus was a bioweapon with possible cure in the form of a new vaccine. With great reluctance and only for a limited time did he approve what everyone, including family members and conservative pundits, was telling him to do. 

    As for Warp Speed, Trump had always considered it to be an aggressive push for a solution. International and domestic sources named Hydroxychloroquine as a workable therapeutic, and so he ordered it for mass distribution. 

    It was essentially inconceivable in those days that the deeper bureaucracy would not only remove it and other repurposed drugs from distribution but even generate fake studies warning against them, all in an effort to push the new pharmaceutical product. Trump was surely astonished to see these events unfold in a manner that he could not control. 

    In that connection, both Trump and RFK, Jr. agreed on the dangers to American health from a variety of sources, including that emanating from the overuse of pharmaceuticals. Trump learned from Kennedy’s expertise on this matter, and they experienced a meeting of minds. And not only on this but on the evils of captured agencies, censorship, and deep state manipulation of public culture in general. 

    They would never agree on issues of oil and gas, of course, but on that topic too Kennedy had been moved by the Covid years to reconsider the supposed science behind climate change, especially that which recommended more human suffering as a means of solving a supposed existential threat. 

    We may never know the fullness of what took place over those two days but the discussions changed history, bringing together two mighty forces in American culture that had long been separated by party label and tribal identity: bourgeois nationalism vs. the haut bourgeois crunchy liberalism of the Whole Foods set. As it turned out, they had a common enemy. 

    Now Kennedy is the new head of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration, which is now undertaking the largest attempt at routing the DC establishment since Andrew Jackson. His goal is to turn around the whole ship of state, industry, and science, away from fakery and industrial corruption emanating from a single focus on infectious disease toward a new focus on chronic disease with science-based and natural solutions. That is a herculean task. 

    The Musk Migration 

    Elon Musk is the third force within this leadership triumvirate of the new party. Before 2020, he was a politically conventional investor and entrepreneur. Mostly he associated with the default party of the elites, the Democrats. Then lockdowns came. He was the only major corporate leader in the US and probably anywhere in the industrialized world who publicly stood up in protest. He said he would sooner sleep on the floor of his factory than close it. He refused vaccine mandates in all his companies. He pulled Tesla out of California and moved it to Texas. He moved all his corporate registrations out of Delaware. 

    By 2023, he was a changed man, newly aware of the threat of Leviathan, and did a deep dive into anti-statist literature. He faced his own family battles over woke ideology, and this made his intellectual transformation complete. He entered the political season with a new consciousness. Whereas he once regarded the bureaucracy as annoyingly necessary, he increasingly viewed it as the source of unchecked tyranny. 

    At one level, the meetup of Trump and Musk – like the meetup of Trump and Kennedy – was completely implausible. Musk regarded his greatest achievement as a businessman as having made the most mighty contribution to clean energy yet, having broken up the automotive monopoly and mass-produced the first commercially viable electric car. Trump, on the other hand, had sworn to smash electric car subsidies and called for deregulation of oil and gas. To link up with Trump meant having to put at risk even the tax break for consumers of EVs. 

    But he was ready for that simply because, like Kennedy, he became convinced that Western civilization itself was at risk from a woke Leviathan that had shown its teeth in the most brutal way during the Covid years. His reason for purchasing Twitter for $44 billion was to bust up the censorship cartel that was constructed to enforce lockdowns and promote the vaccine. Once having taken over, he discovered the extent of government control, uprooted it, and unleashed free speech on the US. 

    Here again, Musk shared this concern with Kennedy and Trump. All three linked up on the crucial issues: the desperate need to curb and crush the power and reach of the administrative state. This is an issue that crosses left and right, Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative, and all other traditional categories. 

    The Gabbard Migration 

    In this connection, there was also the national security angle in which decades of neoconservative “forever wars” had bred resentment and failure abroad, thus bringing over the articulate Tulsi Gabbard from the Democrats to Trump’s side, together with other influencers like Pete Hegseth who saw traditional military concerns having given way to woke ideology that Musk despised and Kennedy found to be deeply corrupting of traditional liberal concerns. 

    Their interests dovetailed with the revolt against globalism generally, which had taken the form of endless unwinnable wars, unchecked spigots of foreign aid, taxpayer pillaging in the form of subsidies to international syndicates of NGOs and agencies, plus the cruel deployment of immigration as a tool of electoral manipulation. It was the immigration point that triggered the populist push for the new nationalism that gathered in new refugees from the antiwar sectors of the left and right. 

    Donald Trump himself has undergone his own migration. An industrial mercantilist from his earliest public statements, he gradually absorbed a de facto anti-statism once his ill-fated first term was subverted from within and then he faced unprecedented lawfare and even assassination attempts to stop his second term. When he told the Libertarian Party that this lawfare made him a libertarian in spirit, he was being truthful. Once it became personal, the new head of state effectively turned against the state and all its works. 

    These are all circuitous paths but they reached the point of having huge influence over the public mind in the wake of the Covid years that discredited existing elites and prepared the way for a completely new way of going about government and public life. Given the meme culture of our time, this new party went by various names, first MAGA and then MAHA and then DOGE (in homage to the meme coin that started as a joke and then became real). 

    MAGA/MAHA/DOGE is not exactly the catchiest name for the new ruling party but it is far more accurate than Republican, much less Democrat. It is a new party formed out of the discredited shells of the two existing parties that lost public trust over decades of misrule culminating in an ill-fated attempt to master the exigencies of the microbial kingdom. 

    In a Kuhnian sense, the collapse of the orthodox paradigm (rule by administrative agencies informed by captured science) was complete by 2023, preparing the way for the pre-paradigmatic coalition of these fascinating characters, backed by popular movements that are mirrored in many lands, and generally sailing under the flag of populism. And here is the crucial fact: these leaders have their reach, influence, and power because the causes they represent have come of age with a population completely fed up with misrule by experts. 

    These are new and highly promising times, as the old undergoes a merciful dismantling and something entirely new takes its place. We find the roots of the ideology of the administrative state in the works of Woodrow Wilson, and it takes only a few minutes of reading his deluded fantasies of how science and compulsion would forge a better world to see that it was only a matter of time before the whole experiment was in tatters. 

    It took more than a century but that day is finally here. The paradigm has shifted. For all the messiness and frenzy – including the chaos, confusion, and betrayals – our times at least present opportunity to reassert a foundational principle of the Enlightenment; namely that the people themselves should have some fluid and influential role in shaping the workings of the regime under which they are forced to live. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 17:00

  • Nvidia Blows Away Expectations As It Sells "Billions" Of Blackwell Chips, Stock Goes Nowhere
    Nvidia Blows Away Expectations As It Sells “Billions” Of Blackwell Chips, Stock Goes Nowhere

    As we previewed earlier, while expectations were still lofty, investor euphoria going into Nvidia’s fourth quarter results was far more subdued than in 2023 and 2024 (with positioning a modest 7 out of 10) according to Goldman. Not only that, but the bank warned that investors were positioned bearish into the result, suggesting that the company would not need to beat by a whole lot to trigger a stock or gamma squeeze.

    As Bloomberg notes, for Nvidia over the past two years consensus numbers have mattered less than they generally do because the company has regularly beaten average Wall Street estimates by more than 20%. Anything less than a blowout has been considered disappointing. Case in point: The highest estimate for first-quarter revenue is for more than $47 billion. Still sentiment is much more cautious than just a quarter or two prior: Nvidia shares are in an interesting place ahead of its earnings report. It’s the first time since 2022 that shares have declined since the company’s latest report, and the options-implied move of 9.9% in either direction is the biggest anticipated swing in roughly the same time frame. What’s more, shares are down year-to-date — like most stocks in the Magnificent Seven — and have not yet recouped all of the losses from the January rout set off by DeepSeek.

    Still, Nvidia is almost certain to meet fiscal 4Q revenue guidance and raise 1Q’s outlook amid a significant ramp up in its Blackwell GPUs, having overcome supply-chain delays and concern about hyperscaler demand in the wake of DeepSeek, according to a note by Kunjan Sobhani, a Bloomberg Intelligence technology analyst. 

    “Increased capital spending guidance from Meta, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and Google aids our confidence in near-term sales,” Sobhani said adding that “fundamentally the print and guidance should again be solid and most likely beat” analysts’ estimates. Key point of interest will be on whether 1H is likely to show strong growth or a pocket of slowdown between the Hopper and Blackwell transition.”

    One number to keep an eye out for is the percentage of revenue that Nvidia gets from a small group of customers –- so-called hyperscalers – which includes Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet Inc.’s Google. Last quarter, they accounted for more than half of of Nvidia’s data-center revenue, up from 45% in the prior period. Investors want that number to go down, to show that the use of AI is spreading across the economy.

    With all that in mind, here is what Nvidia just reported for Q4:

    • Adjusted EPS 89c, beating estimate 84c
       
    • Revenue $39.33 billion, +78% y/y, beating estimates $38.25 billion
      • Data center revenue $35.6 billion, +93% y/y, beating estimates $34.09 billion
      • Compute revenue $32.56 billion vs. $15.07 billion y/y, beating estimates $30.41 billion
      • Networking revenue $3.02 billion, -9.2% y/y, missing estimate $3.51 billion
      • Gaming revenue $2.5 billion, -14% y/y, missing estimate $3.02 billion
      • Professional Visualization revenue $511 million, +10% y/y, beating estimate $507.6 million
      • Automotive revenue $570 million vs. $281 million y/y, beating estimate $460.7 million

    • Adjusted operating income $25.52 billion, +73% y/y, beating estimate $24.69 billion
      • R&D expenses $3.71 billion, +51% y/y, below estimate $3.75 billion
      • Adjusted operating expenses $3.38 billion, +53% y/y, below the estimate $3.4 billion
         
    • Adjusted gross margin 73.5% vs. 76.7% y/y, in line with estimate 73.5%
    • Free cash flow $15.52 billion, +38% y/y

    But the most important data point in the release, the guidance, came in sold as Nvidia sees Q1 Revenue of $43.0BN (plus or minus 2%), above the Wall Street consensus of $42.3BN but just light of the upside whisper number. As shown below, the revenue growth is clearly moderating.

    One concerning point is that networking isn’t growing in lockstep with the rest of the business.

    “Networking revenue was $3.0 billion, down 9% from a year ago and down 3% sequentially,” the company said in its CFO commentary. This hiccup is being caused by a transition to new products, Nvidia said.

     company’s gross margin. The forecast calls for a further narrowing, something that analysts had expressed concern about.

    Another potenial weakness is the company’s non-adjusted gross margin. The forecast calls for a further narrowing, something that analysts had expressed concern about.

    Nvidia has said that’s just the price of getting new products to market and they’ll widen again. For the current quarter, the company is predicting non-GAAP gross margin of 71%, about a point shy of consensus.

    But it wasn’t just the numbers that mattered: just as important was the qualitative description of ongoing events, where the company said it “delivered $11.0 billion of Blackwell architecture revenue in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, the fastest product ramp in our company’s history.” Nvidia said that Blackwell sales were led by “large cloud service providers which represented approximately 50% of our Data Center revenue. Data Center compute revenue was $32.6 billion, up 116% from a year ago and up 18% sequentially, driven by demand for our Blackwell computing platform and sequential growth from our H200 offering.”

    Nvidia also said that it had “successfully ramped up the massive-scale production of Blackwell AI supercomputers, achieving billions of dollars in sales in its first quarter. AI is advancing at light speed as agentic AI and physical AI set the stage for the next wave of AI to revolutionize the largest industries.”

    The CFO commentary is full of details about getting the new chip range, Blackwell, to market successfully. That was a concern before the report, specifically that the added complexity might cause delays, and that there could be a “pause” as customers stopped ordering the old gear while they waited for the new to appear in significant volumes.

    In short: number were blowout – perhaps a tad less blowout then recent quarter – but still impressive especially as the company transitions to an avalanche of Blackwell orders.

    Remarkably, despite the (somewhat) blowout number with straddles pricing in a 10% move after hours, the stock has gone… nowhere.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 16:42

  • Not Happening (Anytime Soon): Federal Government Can't Comply With Judge's Order To Unfreeze Funds
    Not Happening (Anytime Soon): Federal Government Can’t Comply With Judge’s Order To Unfreeze Funds

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Federal officials told a U.S. judge on Feb. 25 that they could not comply with his order requiring the release of frozen foreign aid within two days.

    The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) headquarters in Washington on Feb. 3, 2025. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

    U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali’s order, which gave a deadline of Feb. 26 at 11:59 p.m. ET, would mean paying at least $1.5 billion across some 2,000 outstanding and newly created requests for payment to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the official serving as deputy administrator for the agency said in a court filing.

    It would also require paying at least $400 million to resolve outstanding payment requests to the State Department, Pete Marocco, the official, said.

    “These payments cannot be accomplished in the time allotted by the Court and would instead take multiple weeks,” he wrote.

    Earlier on Tuesday, Ali, in a hearing with government lawyers and attorneys representing the groups that sued over the freeze, was told that the groups had not yet been paid despite his multiple previous orders, including one on Feb. 13, mandating that the Trump administration unfreeze the foreign assistance.

    “I’m not sure why I can’t get a straight answer from you on this: Are you aware of an unfreezing of the disbursement of funds for those contracts and agreements that were frozen before Feb. 13,” the Washington-based judge asked Indraneel Sur, the lawyer for the government, during the hearing. “Are you aware of steps taken to actually release those funds?”

    “I’m not in a position to answer that,” Sur said.

    It’s the second time a judge has found the Trump administration did not follow a court order. U.S. District Court Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island also found this month that the administration had not fully unfrozen federal grants and loans within the United States after he blocked sweeping plans for a pause on trillions of dollars in government spending.

    In the Washington case, plaintiffs recently filed an emergency motion to enforce the judge’s temporary restraining order, saying they’re still owed millions of dollars and that their contracts terminated under Trump’s foreign assistance pause remain terminated.

    Ali granted the emergency motion during Tuesday’s hearing and ordered the government to comply by Thursday.

    Marocco’s declaration came with a motion from the government asking the judge to stay his order as a federal appeals court considers overturning it.

    “Defendants are likely to succeed on appeal from the Court’s order for several reasons,” government lawyers said in the filing. “To start, it is not possible for Defendants to comply,” they said, pointing to Marocco’s declaration.

    The government has appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    *  *  *

    Flash Sale: 25% Off IQ Biologix Fortified Protein!

    Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. Seriously. Just tell us you hated it and we’ll give you a refund.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/26/2025 – 16:26

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