Mar 04

Today’s News 4th March 2025

  • "Everything Is Going To Come Out": AG Pam Bondi Says She Received "Truckload" Of Hidden Epstein Documents From SDNY
    “Everything Is Going To Come Out”: AG Pam Bondi Says She Received “Truckload” Of Hidden Epstein Documents From SDNY

    After last week’s botched Epstein files release, many are calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi to be fired over the lame binders given to right-wing influencers and journalists that contained old information.

    On Monday, Bondi appeared on Fox News, where she told host Sean Hannity that she received a truckload of files on Friday morning containing additional Epstein files which were hidden away in the Southern District of New York. 

    “FBI handed over a couple hundred pages of documents, but you know Sean, I gave them a deadline of Friday at 8am to get us everything, and a source had told me where the documents were being kept – southern district of new york (shock), so we got – hopefully all of them, Friday at 8am. Thousands of documents,” said Bondi.

    “I have the FBI going through them … Now that we have Kash here it’s a game changer of course, and Director Patel is going to get us a detailed report as to why the FBI withheld all of those documents.”

    Sean Hannity: “I want to be clear, because I think people are frustrated. You were expecting more, and you didn’t find out – less than 24 hours before the release, you got a whistleblower that confirmed that there were way more documents that they were supposed to turn over, and then you found out just before that.”

    Pam Bondi: “Well sure, you’re looking at these documents going ‘these aren’t all the Epstein files!’ – and we’re going ‘where’s the rest of the stuff?’ and that’s what the FBI had turned over to us. And so a source said, whoa – all this evidence is sitting in the Southern District of New York. So based on that I gave them the deadline – Friday at 8. A truckload of evidence arrived. It’s now in the possession of the FBI. Kash is going to get me – and himself a detailed report as to why all these documents and evidence had been withheld. And, you know, we’re going to go through it – go through it as fast as we can, but go through it very cautiously to protect all the victims of Epstein, because there are a lot of victims.”

    “Now, is that the only thing that would be redacted,” Hannity replied, referring to the names of the victims.

    Pam Bondi: “Yeah, the FBI hasn’t had, obviously, they haven’t looked at the thousands of pages of documents that they just received Friday. Kash has a team going through them – and it’s always about protecting the victim … We believe in transparency, and America has the right to know.”

    The Biden administration sat on these documents. No one did anything with them, and why are they sitting in the Southern District of New York? I want a full report on that. Sadly these people don’t believe in transparency, but I think more than that – I think they don’t believe in honesty,” she continued.

    “Everything is going to come out to the public.”

    Watch (via Collin Rugg):

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    Maybe they can ask Elon Musk and DOGE to scan and redact the documents by the end of the week, vs. stringing us along for what could now take months?

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 23:25

  • Trump Orders Plans Drawn Up For Russia Sanctions Relief
    Trump Orders Plans Drawn Up For Russia Sanctions Relief

    The Trump administration is drawing up plans to drop some sanctions on Russia and Kremlin officials, Reuters reports Monday, offering some fresh details on what this easing of restrictions might look like.

    The White House has over at least the past week teased this possibility to the media, as it engaged in two sessions of bilateral dialogue with Russian representatives in Riyadh and Istanbul, but this is the first known time specific plans have been ordered to be drawn up.

    “The White House has asked the State and Treasury departments to draft a list of sanctions that could be eased for US officials to discuss with Russian representatives in the coming days as part of the administration’s broad talks with Moscow on improving diplomatic and economic relations, the sources said,” according to the report.

    AFP/Getty Images

    “The sanctions offices are now drawing up a proposal for lifting sanctions on select entities and individuals, including some Russian oligarchs, according to the sources,” Reuters continues. And more:

    “So-called options papers are often drafted by officials working on sanctions, but the White House’s specific request for one in recent days underscores Trump and his advisers’ willingness to ease Russian sanctions as part of a potential deal with Moscow.”

    The fresh development of potentially moving forward with the sanctions-easing comes within hours after headlines saying preparations for a summit between Presidents Trump and Putin are being fast-tracked and accelerated. This in the wake of the explosive row with Zelensky, which saw him booted from the White House before a planned lunch was to take place Friday.

    CNN said in the Monday report, “Whether it was orchestrated or not, Moscow – which reacted with glee to the White House slanging match – is now anticipating talks aimed at rebuilding the US-Russia relationship will continue, even accelerate, in the weeks ahead.”

    Washington has hopefully perceived by now that its anti-Russian sanctions have by and large not worked, or backfired. In many ways they have only strengthened Moscow’s relations and trade with leading BRICS nations like China and India, as well as Iran.

    Despite the prior Trump campaign rhetoric of a speedy negotiation track which will reach a permanent truce soon after he enters office, Trump’s team has since acknowledge that talks are likely to take much longer. A face-to-face Trump-Putin meeting could possibly be just days away, or within a couple of weeks.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 22:10

  • Head Of NY FBI Office Forced To Resign Amid Epstein File Controversy
    Head Of NY FBI Office Forced To Resign Amid Epstein File Controversy

    Days after Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed that FBI agents out of the New York Field Office withheld thousands of documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein case – after an utterly botched rollout of the “Epstein Files,” the head of the NY Field Office, James Dennehy, was ‘forced to resign’ – and says he wasn’t given any explanation for the decision from Washington.

    New York’s FBI chief James Dennehy resigned against his will on Monday. Bloomberg via Getty Images

    “Late Friday, I was informed that I needed to put my retirement papers in today, which I just did. I was not given a reason for this decision,” wrote Dennehy, a US Marine Corps veteran, in a missive obtained by the NY Post. According to Dennehy, who apologized for the abruptness of his resignation (firing). Dennehy had also told staffers to “dig in” after officials who investigated the Jan. 6 riots at the US capitol were forced out of their roles. 

    “Today, we find ourselves in the middle of a battle of our own, as good people are being walked out of the FBI and others are being targeted because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and FBI policy,” read that email.

    Epstein Files

    Following the lame Thursday rollout of the so-called Epstein files which contained nothing new of import, Bondi asked the FBI to release all the withheld files by Friday morning without omissions – asking Director Kash Patel to also investigate why thousands of Epstein documents were withheld by the agency.

    “Late yesterday, l learned from a source that the FBI Field Office in New York was in possession of thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein,” Bondi wrote in the letter. “Despite my repeated requests, the FBI never disclosed the existence of the files.“

    Bondi then wrote to Patel: “You will deliver to me a comprehensive report of your findings and proposed personnel action within 14 days.”

    Patel, in response, wrote on X that the FBI was “entering a new era—one that will be defined by integrity, accountability, and the unwavering pursuit of justice,” adding “There will be no cover-ups, no missing documents, and no stone left unturned.”

    The disappointing release drew response from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), who leads a House Republican task force on government transparency.

    “I nor the task force were given or reviewed the Epstein documents being released today,” Luna posted on X in response to the lame Thursday Epstein files release. “This is not what we or the American people asked for and a complete disappointment.”

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 21:45

  • America Using Domestic Food Supplies As Statecraft Tool Faces Pressures
    America Using Domestic Food Supplies As Statecraft Tool Faces Pressures

    Tariff D-Day arrives tomorrow, with President Trump set to impose tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China. The timing comes as US imports of agricultural goods hit record levels, far outpacing exports. The new levies risk driving up imported food costs, which could heavily weigh on consumer sentiment and pressure cash-strapped households. 

    The US Department of Agriculture warned in its trade outlook report last week that the nation’s agricultural trade deficit could hit a record high this year, forecasted at around $49 billion. Meanwhile, the US continues to lose market share in key agricultural markets worldwide. In other words, exports are declining while record volumes of food are being imported into the country.

    “It’s a stark turnaround for a nation that once used its abundant food supplies as a tool of statecraft, with the US now facing a future of persistent agricultural trade deficits,” Bloomberg wrote in a report. 

    The inflection point for the ag trade deficit began in 2019 but exploded under the Biden-Harris regime and will continue in Trump’s second term. 

    Trump’s next round of tariffs is set to take effect on Tuesday, imposing 25% levies on all imports from Canada and Mexico (and 10% on China). This move could further strain cash-strapped consumers, with prices of everything from avocados to coffee to cocoa to sugar, beef, orange juice, eggs, and all other imported ag goods from those countries set to move higher. 

    At the same time, China’s state-backed Global Times warned that tomorrow’s next round of tariffs could prompt Beijing to impose countermeasures on US ag exports. If enacted, the US would continue to lose out on one of the largest ag markets. 

    Bloomberg noted that the only other annual deficits besides 2019, 2020, 2023, and 2024 occurred several years before 1960. 

    America’s ability to maintain the world’s top ag exporter spot appears to be waning, which may only suggest that its ability to use food as a tool of statecraft also wanes in a world that is fracturing into a multi-polar state. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 21:20

  • FBI Informant Made Nearly $666K Posing As Terrorist
    FBI Informant Made Nearly $666K Posing As Terrorist

    Authored by Ken Silva via HeadlineUSA,

    Newly unsealed court records reveal that a confidential informant made $665,638.63 over roughly the last eight years working for the FBI—with one of his recent assignments being to pose as an Iraqi terrorist.

    The FBI is being politically weaponized. / PHOTO: AP

    “[Confidential Human Source 1] has been working with the FBI since approximately 2014. CHS1 has no prior arrests/convictions or negative reporting. CHS1 is working with the FBI based on patriotism as well as monetary benefits,” the FBI disclosed in an Oct. 2022 criminal complaint that was just unsealed last Thursday.

    “CHS1 has done extensive work for the FBI beyond this case, and the CHS1’s total compensation for work performed and the reimbursement of expenses over the past approximately 8 years is in excess of $665,638.63.”

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    Last Thursday’s bombshell disclosure came in the case of former Navy sailor Xuanyu Harry Pang, 38, a naturalized citizen from China who was residing in North Chicago. Pang pled guilty last November to conspiring to and attempting to willfully harm the national defense of the United States—and his guilty plea was just ordered unsealed last Thursday.

    The details of Pang’s case are wild.

    According to the Justice Department, Pang, who enlisted in the Navy in February 2022, was an associate of an unnamed individual in Colombia. Pang and the Colombian were allegedly conspiring to attack the U.S. to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani, a general of the IRGC Quds Force who was killed by the Trump administration in 2020

    Court records don’t explain Pang or the Colombian’s interest in avenging Soleimani, but they do say that the Colombian has links to the National Liberation Army, a Marxist-Leninist guerilla organization formed in 1964.

    While their motivations are unclear, Pang and the Colombian’s conspiracy allegedly included a plot to smuggle radioactive polonium into the country, according to the FBI. The Colombian allegedly told Pang in 2022 that the polonium would “detonate” in a major U.S. city within a year—something that obviously never happened.

    The FBI purportedly discovered the above-mentioned conspiracy when agent executed a search warrant on Pang’s online activity in April 2022, two months after he enlisted in the Navy. Court records don’t indicate why the FBI sought the warrant in the first place.

    After executing the search on Pang, an FBI undercover employee posing as an Iraqi Shia militant group commander contacted the Colombian in July 2022. The unnamed Colombia allegedly agreed to help the covert FBI employee and his purported associates with their operation to conduct the attack in the U.S. Pang was looped in on the plot, and he agreed to help, too, according to the FBI.

    That’s when the FBI informant came into the picture. According to court records, the FBI informant met in person with Pang at least three times, posing as an operative of the Iran-backed Iraqi paramilitary group, Kata’ib Hizballah. Their first meeting was in September 2022.

    Pang and continued to talk to the phony Iraqi operative over the next few weeks. The criminal complaint against Pang shows that the FBI informant was pushing him into a plot to attack military bases—but that Pang was reluctant.

    One purported conversation went as follows:

    CHS1: So, you mentioned some military places. Is it closer from here?

    PANG: Not that close.

    CHS1: No?

    PANG: Two hours.

    CHS1: [Unintelligible]

    PANG: Those places, impossible.

    CHS1: Really?

    PANG: Because the military places have this heavily…heavily guarded…

    CHS1: Yeah.

    PANG: …heavily guarded. And you have only two people coming? You can’t …won’t be able to get through a gate.

    CHS1: Yeah. You’re right.

    PANG: So…

    CHS1: Do you think you can do some search of these places just in case?

    PANG: I’ll look it up.

    Eventually, Pang did send surveillance footage of a Navy base, according to the FBI. Pang also allegedly showed the FBI informant footage of inside the base during an in-person meeting in October 2022.

    “PANG initiated the meeting with CHS1 to discuss more details about the plot to attack the Naval Station Great Lakes and was also aware of the risks of sending photos of the inside of the military base,” the DOJ’s October 2022 criminal complaint stated. “Although aware of these risks, according to CHS1 and the recording, PANG showed photos of what appeared to be areas inside of the U.S. Navy base to CHS1 during their in-person meeting.”

    After that Oct. 15, 2022, meeting, the FBI informant paid Pang $3,000 in cash. The informant then asked about acquiring military uniforms to get operatives onto the Navy base to facilitate an attack. Later that month, Pang provided the informant with the uniforms, according to the FBI. Pang also allegedly provided the informant with a cell phone that could be used as a test for a detonator.

    The FBI obtained an arrest warrant for Pang the next day on Oct. 16, 2022. For the next two-plus years, the case remained under seal.

    At one point, Pang filed an unsuccessful motion to dismiss the charges. The contents of that motion are still unavailable to the public, as are the vast majority of documents from the case.

    Pang is set to be sentenced on May 27. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

    The DOJ’s case is the latest allegation that Iran conspired to attack the U.S. Last year, the DOJ announced two cases involving a purported plot to assassinate Donald Trump.

    To date, the U.S. government has produced no hard evidence of an Iranian plot against Trump. A Pakistani man with ties to Iran was arrested last July for trying to hire an FBI informant as a “hitman,” and another Iranian told the FBI last year that his government was trying to kill Trump—but those cases appear highly dubious, and certainly didn’t pose any real threat to the President.

    Additionally, in 2022 the FBI announced an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate former national security advisor John Bolton—another case involving someone trying to hire an FBI informant as a hitman.

    Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 20:55

  • First Publicly Released Footage Shows Secretive Bladed Hellfire Missile Eliminating Terrorists
    First Publicly Released Footage Shows Secretive Bladed Hellfire Missile Eliminating Terrorists

    US Central Command released the first-ever public footage of a bladed AGM-114R9X Hellfire Missile eliminating a senior leader of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated group Hurras al-Din in Syria last month.

    The caption of the CENTCOM video reads:

    CENTCOM Forces Kill the Senior Military Leader of Al-Qaeda Affiliate Hurras al-Din (HaD) in Syria

    On Feb. 23, US Central Command (CENTCOM) forces conducted a precision airstrike in Northwest Syria, targeting and killing Muhammed Yusuf Ziya Talay, the senior military leader of the terrorist organization Hurras al-Din (HaD), an Al-Qaeda affiliate.

    The airstrike is part of CENTCOM’s ongoing commitment, along with partners in the region, to disrupt and degrade efforts by terrorists to plan, organize, and conduct attacks against civilians and military personnel from the US, our allies, and our partners throughout the region and beyond.

    “As we have said in the past, we will continue to relentlessly pursue these terrorists in order to defend our homeland, and U.S., allied, and partner personnel in the region,” said Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, commander, US Central Command.

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    CENTCOM’s footage further confirmed videos published on X on Feb. 23, showing the aftermath of the strike, with damage on the vehicle consistent with the secretive bladed missile. The missile was presumably fired from a MQ-9 Reaper drone.

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    The Aviationist noted, “The Hellfire R-9X is said to have been introduced to US military service in 2017, but first started to be reported on two years later in 2019. A 2022 airstrike targeting the then leader of al-Qaeda gave the missile further attention in the mainstream media.” 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 20:30

  • Trump Loosens Restrictions On Airstrikes, Special Ops Raids
    Trump Loosens Restrictions On Airstrikes, Special Ops Raids

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    President Trump has eased restrictions on US airstrikes and special operations raids in areas outside of countries officially considered combat zones by the US, giving US military commanders the freedom to launch attacks without permission from the White House.

    The order reverts back to the policy of the first Trump administration, doing away with restrictions President Biden added to US drone strikes and raids outside of Iraq and Syria, the only two countries the US officially considers combat zones.

    AFP/Getty Images

    Biden’s rules required permission from the White House to target militants outside Iraq and Syria unless they were high-ranking commanders. But the rule had a major loophole: Strikes could be ordered if they could be framed as “self-defense.”

    In Somalia, the US almost always claims its airstrikes are launched in defense of the US-backed Mogadishu-based government.

    Trump’s rules give commanders the ability to target any militants belonging to organizations the US considers terrorist organizations without White House approval. The easing of the restrictions was confirmed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who shared a CBS News report about the step on X and wrote, “Correct.”

    The news comes amid an uptick in US airstrikes in Somalia and Syria. US officials told CBS that al-Shabaab in Somalia, which the US targeted three times in recent weeks, and the Houthis in Yemen were discussed as potential targets by the Trump administration.

    So far, there have been no known US airstrikes against the Houthis under the new Trump administration. From January 2024 to January 2025, President Biden waged a bombing campaign against the Houthis in defense of Israeli and international shipping. The attacks failed to deter the Houthis and only escalated the situation in the Red Sea.

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    The Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, have stopped attacks on Israel and on shipping in the region in response to the Gaza ceasefire deal. But those attacks could restart as Israel appears poised to restart its genocidal war.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 20:05

  • Feces And Refugees Trigger Dysentery Outbreak In Leftist Run Portland
    Feces And Refugees Trigger Dysentery Outbreak In Leftist Run Portland

    Portland, Oregon’s rapid economic decline is a well documented phenomenon related directly to Democrat leadership and progressive policy initiatives.  The city is perhaps one of the most far-left governments in the entire US and it’s a notorious breeding ground for leftist activist politicians.  Portland is considered a “sanctuary city” and Oregon is a sanctuary state.  Political opposition to illegal immigrant deportation efforts is extensive.  This ideological stand, however, has only exacerbated the region’s economic problems.  

    One unfortunate consequence of the blue city breakdown is the fast rising homeless population and a large percentage of this population, according to estimates, is made up of refugees and asylum seekers looking for protection from deportation.

    Sanctuary cities don’t track illegal migrant populations which means identifying the consequences of a migrant influx is difficult.  One danger associated with uncontrolled immigration is the spread of third world diseases that don’t normally pose a serious threat in the US otherwise.

    Over the past several years, Portland has dealt with multiple outbreaks of two types of Shigella bacteria, also known as Dysentery, as well as norovirus outbreaks with the same symptoms.  In 2024-2025 the metro area is witnessing the largest spread of Shigella so far.

    Health officials warn that the bacterial version of the disease is proving resistant to several antibiotics and they cite two primary causes for the outbreak:  The homeless population and “oral contact” involving fecal matter.

    Of the most recent cluster of cases, the county said 56% were among people experiencing homelessness and 55% of the cases reported methamphetamine or opiate usage. They have also also identified a spread among housed and unhoused social groups who use drugs.

    Oregon is 27th in the nation for population size, but has the 8th largest population of homeless people.  Oregon officials warn that a large percentage of the homeless are made up of illegal migrants.  In 2022, Portland was in the midst of a migrant housing crisis which they have still not solved.  When illegals are housed by the city in specific neighborhoods it is commonly done without the knowledge of the community.

       

    Dysentery is a highly contagious bacterial disease that can cause fever, cramps, vomiting and diarrhea. It is spread very easily from person to person, specifically when someone gets fecal matter from an infected person into their mouth, health officials say.

    One thing that Portland has in large quantity (besides migrants) is gay people (the 7th largest population of LGBT in the country).  Correlation is not necessarily causation, but the CDC notes that the LGBT community is at high risk from dysentery outbreaks because of their sexual habits.

    Whatever the main cause, Portland’s fall from grace in the past two decades has been substantial and saddening.  Once considered a jewel city of the west coast and one of the safest places to raise a family, the area is now in social and financial decay.  Now, the population has to deal with bacterial outbreaks common to third world hellholes.  It’s a disturbing commentary on the current condition of America and an indictment of leftist government.    

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 19:40

  • Cancer Cells 'Cooperate' To Survive, Study Finds
    Cancer Cells ‘Cooperate’ To Survive, Study Finds

    Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Scientists have discovered that cancer cells, long thought to be competitive with each other, actually work together to source nutrients in harsh environments, according to a new study.

    Mihiripix/Shutterstock

    Researchers at New York University identified a specific enzyme that enables this cooperation, allowing tumor cells to share resources when nutrients are scarce. When this enzyme was blocked, cancer cells were unable to feed and died completely.

    Cooperation Under Harsh Conditions

    Recent research published in Nature highlights an intriguing aspect of cancer biology: while cancer cells have historically been viewed as competitors for nutrients and resources, they may also display cooperative behaviors, especially in challenging environments. The researchers examined this duality in mice and illustrated cooperation among organisms under extreme conditions.

    For example, the researchers noted, microorganisms such as yeast work together to find nutrients, but only when facing starvation. Similarly, cancer cells, which require nutrients to thrive and multiply into life-threatening tumors, often reside in environments where nutrients are scarce. “Although competition is certainly critical for tumor evolution and cancer progression, cooperative interactions within tumors are also important, albeit poorly understood,” the researchers noted.

    They pointed out that nutrient scarcity is a defining feature of the tumor microenvironment and theorized that natural selection might be a mechanism that encouraged survival of cancer cells that could cooperate to source nutrients.

    Starved Cancer Cells Work Together for Survival

    To find out whether cancer cells cooperate, the researchers tracked the growth of cells from different types of tumors.

    They observed that while cancer cells typically uptake amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, in a competitive manner, starving cancer cells of the amino acid glutamine, the most abundant amino acid in the body, led them to collaborate in acquiring the necessary resources.

    “Surprisingly, we observed that limiting amino acids benefited larger cell populations, but not sparse ones, suggesting that this is a cooperative process that depends on population density,” Carlos Carmona-Fontaine, associate professor of biology at New York University and a senior author, said in a statement. “It became really clear that there was true cooperation among tumor cells.”

    By conducting additional experiments with skin, breast, and lung cancer cells, the researchers determined that a key source of nutrients for cancer cells came from oligopeptides, which are pieces of small amino acids that act as messengers between cells.

    Crucial Enzyme Could Be Targeted to Kill Cancer

    Instead of just taking in peptides, which are small proteins, cancer cells get cooperative, according to Carmona-Fontaine. They release a special enzyme called CNDP2 that breaks those peptides into even smaller pieces, free amino acids, which they can then easily use for energy, fueling rapid growth.

    “Because this process happens outside the cells, the result is a shared pool of amino acids that becomes a common good [for the cancer],” he noted.

    When bestatin, a drug that inhibits the function of CNDP2, was applied to cancer cells, they became unable to feed on the small amino acids and died off completely.

    Bestatin, also known as ubenimex, is not approved for any treatment in Europe or the United States, Marianne Matzo, a certified advanced gerontological nurse practitioner with a master’s and a doctorate in gerontology and certifications as a Palliative Care, Gerontology, and Oncology advanced nurse practitioner, told The Epoch Times. But it is approved and has been in use in Japan for over 35 years as an adjuvant therapy following chemotherapy.

    Adjuvant treatments are drugs that are used in addition to the primary therapy to improve effectiveness of the initial therapy, she noted. “In Japan it is used to maintain remission and survival in acute non-lymphocytic leukemia in adult patients,” Matzo noted.

    Bestatin consistently blocked oligopeptide uptake across all cancer cell lines tested in vitro, which included a wide variety of skin, lung, breast, colon, and pancreatic tumor cells.

    Scientists Blocked Gene to Starve Tumor Cells

    Having identified CNDP2 as a factor behind the cooperative feeding process in cancer cells, scientists went on to test what happens when the enzyme is missing, by using CRISPR gene editing technology to knock out the CNDP2 gene in tumor cells.

    They found that the growth of the gene-deleted tumors was reduced, a difference even more pronounced when the deletion of CNDP2 was combined with restricting the tumor’s access to amino acids using diets low in oligopeptides. Dietary sources of oligopeptides include foods like milk, eggs, meat, soy, beans, grains, and seeds like hemp and flaxseed.

    The investigators were also able to reduce the growth of tumors that hadn’t had CNDP2 deleted by combining these diets with bestatin, a combination that could help patients under clinical care, according to the authors. 

    “Because we’ve removed their ability to secrete the enzyme and to use the oligopeptides in their environment, cells without CNDP2 can no longer cooperate, which prevents tumor growth,” Carmona-Fontaine stated. “We hope that a clearer understanding of this mechanism can help us make drugs more targeted and more effective.”

    Implications and Future Research

    Researchers aim to translate these findings into cancer therapies that disrupt cellular cooperation. While this early mouse study provides proof of concept, the efficacy in humans requires further investigation.

    Existing cancer treatments work by physically removing the cancer surgically, killing the cells with radiation or chemotherapy, boosting the body’s defenses with immunotherapy, or changing how the cells grow with targeted therapy. However, the findings sound “promising” and offer a different approach to cancer treatment, Matzo added.

    “This model seeks to starve the cancer cells to death, which is a new approach to cancer treatment.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 19:15

  • SpaceX Scrubs Starship Megarocket Launch On Undisclosed Issue
    SpaceX Scrubs Starship Megarocket Launch On Undisclosed Issue

    Update (1909ET): 

    Seconds before launch, SpaceX halted the countdown at T-40 seconds as flight controllers addressed an undisclosed issue. 

    “T-40 seconds and holding. Teams are using this time for final checks,” SpaceX wrote on X. 

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    Minutes later, SpaceX announced that Test Flight 8 would be scrapped due to an undisclosed issue with the Super Heavy booster.

    “Standing down from today’s flight test attempt. Starship team is determining the next best available opportunity to fly,” the rocket company wrote on X. 

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    SpaceX’s Dan Huot said millions of pounds of propellant from the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster would be offloaded. He did not provide a future date for the next launch. 

    *   *   * 

    Just over six weeks after SpaceX’s Starship-Super Heavy Flight Test 7 lifted off from Boca Chica, Texas, ending in a dramatic spectacle—the massive booster successfully caught by ‘Chopsticks’ while Starship itself was lost in a fireball over the Atlantic Ocean—Elon Musk’s space company is set to conduct Flight Test 8 of the world’s largest rocket this evening. 

    Starship’s launch window opens at 1730 local time at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in south Texas. The primary goal of this launch is to test Starship’s ability to deploy Starlink “simulator” satellites into low Earth orbit. 

    Summary of Flight Test 8:

    Launch Details:

    • Scheduled for Monday, March 3

    • 60-minute launch window opens at 5:30 p.m. CT

    • Live webcast starts 40 minutes before liftoff on SpaceX’s X account and X TV app

    Post-Flight 7 Investigation & Upgrades [upgrades made after Flight Test 7’s firey demise of Starship]: 

    • Hardware and operational changes made to increase upper stage reliability

    • Forward flap upgrades reduce reentry heating exposure

    • Propulsion system enhancements include a 25% increase in propellant volume

    • Avionics system redesigned for added capability and redundancy

    Flight Objectives:

    • Follows same suborbital trajectory as previous missions

    • First payload deployment test (four Starlink simulators)

    • Multiple reentry experiments to improve upper stage return and catch capabilities

    • Super Heavy booster launch, return, and catch attempt

    Key Experiments & Tests:

    • Starlink simulators to be deployed, but expected to burn up on reentry

    • Single Raptor engine relight in space test planned

    • Reentry stress tests: Tiles removed to test vulnerable areas, Metallic tile alternatives tested, including active cooling, and Structural stress tests on rear flaps at max reentry pressure.

    • Catch fitting thermal performance test

    • Radar sensor accuracy tests on chopsticks for improved vehicle retrieval

    Super Heavy Booster Enhancements:

    • Upgraded avionics, including a more powerful flight computer

    • Improved power/network distribution and smart batteries

    Booster Return & Catch Criteria:

    • Safety measures in place: Healthy systems required on booster tower and Final manual command needed from Flight Director before boostback burn. 

    • If conditions are not met, booster will soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico

    The crypto-based online betting marketplace Polymarket has nine bets on today’s test flight, including the following: Will “Chopsticks catch Super Heavy?” Those odds stand at 78%. 

    Watch Test Flight 8 Here:  

    . . . 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 19:09

  • Trump Halts All Military Aid To Ukraine As Zelensky Feud Intensifies: Report
    Trump Halts All Military Aid To Ukraine As Zelensky Feud Intensifies: Report

    Update(1858ET): There’s been contradictory reports all day, and at one point in the afternoon a firm Trump denial, but Monday evening Bloomberg is reporting that the US has paused all military aid to Ukraine amid the tit-for-tat open feuding with Zelensky.

    “President Donald Trump ordered a pause to all military aid to Ukraine, turning up the heat on Volodymyr Zelenskiy just days after an Oval Office blowup with the Ukrainian president left the support of his country’s most important ally in doubt,” the publication writes in a breaking story.

    “The US is pausing all current military aid to Ukraine until Trump determines the country’s leaders demonstrate a good-faith commitment to peace, according to a senior Defense Department official, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations,” Bloomberg adds.

    For now this is only the usual anonymous official, and while it could be premature (as meetings “mulling” a stoppage take place), it sure looks like that’s where things are headed.

    “The official said all US military equipment not currently in Ukraine would be paused, including weapons in transit on aircraft and ships or waiting in transit areas in Poland,” the report notes further.

    If so, this marks a monumental shift in Washington policy over the last three years of war in Eastern Europe.

    * * *

    Update (1455ET):  And in the latest turn of events… the Trump administration has allegedly halted the financing of new weapons sales to Ukraine, and may freeze weapons shipments from US stockpiles, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing current and former US officials.

    Trump, however, has denied this…

    While the financing was halted in recent weeks as part of the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign aid, however the move to potentially shut down arms transfers comes after last week’s contentious meeting between President Trump, VP JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.

    Ukraine is able to get weapons from the U.S. through several means, including Foreign Military Financing, which provides loans and grants for nations to buy weapons from U.S. defense companies, and the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which allows the Pentagon to buy weapons for Kyiv but is currently out of funds. However, presidential drawdown authority, which allows the Defense Department to pull directly from its own stockpiles, has been the most significant tool for arming Ukraine.  

    On Monday, the White House is holding a meeting to consider suspending shipments using the drawdown authority, a congressional aide and a second person familiar with the matter said. -WSJ

    That said, the shutdown of financing new weapons sales began before Friday’s contentious meeting – during which Ukraine and the US were going to sign a framework agreement for a mineral rights deal that would have equated to de-facto boots on the ground, which would have dissuaded Russia from attacking (since the US would have to respond).

    Meanwhile, Ukraine has just 90 days of weapons and other supplies to keep fighting Russia at its current pace, according to the report, which suggests that European allies could ‘make up for some of the potential shortfall.’

    If the U.S. shutdown persists, Ukraine would lose its supply of some sophisticated weapons, including advanced air-defense systems, surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, navigation systems and long-range rocket artillery. The U.S. is the sole producer of some systems, including Army Tactical Missile Systems or ATACMs, and M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or Himars, which give the Ukrainians the ability to strike far behind Russian lines.

    Once those U.S. supplies run out, Ukraine’s ability to conduct longer-range strikes, and to protect its own rear positions, would suffer, officials and analysts say.

    “Europe can step in to meet a fair amount of Ukraine’s need for artillery ammunition when combined with munitions already shipped by the U.S. early this year,” said Michael Kofmann, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, adding “The challenges will be more visible as we get into summer.“

    *  *  *

    Update(1355ET): 

    Trump continues to talk shit on Truth Social – posting: “Europe has spent more money buying Russian Oil and Gas than they have spent on defending Ukraine – BY FAR!”

    Source…

    *  *  *

    You can support ZeroHedge with the purchase of a high-quality, sharp, ZeroHedge Multitool.

    Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.

    *  *  *

    President Trump moments ago reacted fiercely to fresh statements of Ukrainian President Zelensky, who said that he sees the end of the war with Russia as being “very, very far away.” Zelensky had even added that he expects to keep receiving American support despite last Friday’s blow-up at the White House, wherein VP Vance charged that he is ungrateful.

    “I think our relationship (with the U.S.) will continue, because it’s more than an occasional relationship,” Zelensky said late Sunday. “I believe that Ukraine has a strong enough partnership with the United States of America” to keep aid flowing. These were some of the remarks featured in the Associated Press article highlighted in a Truth Social post by Trump on Monday. 

    Trump warned in response, “This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelensky, and America will not put with it for much longer.” He added in reference to Zelensky that “this guy doesn’t want there to be Peace as long as he has America’s backing…”.

    This comes amid various unconfirmed reports that Trump will discuss halting military aid to Ukraine in a meeting with key advisors on Monday. Given Trump’s lashing out at Zelensky this morning, this certainly does look accurate.

    Here’s also what the NY Times reported Friday:

    President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine entered the White House for a meeting with President Donald Trump on Friday knowing that the flow of weapons and military hardware from the United States to his country had essentially stopped.

    By the time he left, after a televised argument between the two leaders, the situation appeared even more dire.

    As the two men met, it had been 50 days since the Pentagon had announced a new package of weapons to Ukraine and the new administration had said little about providing any more.

    A Trump administration official said later on Friday that all U.S. aid to Ukraine — including the final shipments of ammunition and equipment authorized and paid for during the Biden administration — could be canceled imminently.

    This scenario is clearly getting closer and closer, especially given Zelensky’s continued open defiance, issuing statements critical of the White House while appearing ‘tough’ for the European cameras.

    Meanwhile…

    Trump’s Director of National Intelligence is also piling on in a fresh interview, highlighting the anti-democratic nature of the Zelensky regime…

    And more recent fightin words from Zelensky:

    Elon Musk within a couple hours after Trump’s initial post chimed in on X:

    * * *

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has remained defiant in the wake of Friday’s explosive confrontation with President Trump and Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office. He said from London Sunday that he will not apologize that that his country’s freedom is “not for sale”.

    He acknowledged that the public spat “didn’t bring anything positive or additional to us as partner” – however he also said “This relationship will continue because this is more than a relationship in one moment.”

    Zelensky in London, AFP

    “If you don’t have an end to the war and you don’t have security guarantees, no one is able to control a ceasefire,” he told reporters while preparing to leave the UK, following a meeting with European leaders to agree on continued support for Ukraine.

    Financial Times has underscored that Zelensky is not only rejecting calls from the US to apologize to Trump and Vance, but he’s now openly pushing back against ceasefire. The Ukrainian leader…

    rejected calls for Ukraine to agree an immediate ceasefire in its war with Russia, saying it would be “failure for everyone” if a cessation of hostilities were not accompanied by detailed security guarantees.

    “If you don’t have an end to the war and you don’t have security guarantees, no one is able to control a ceasefire,” Zelensky stressed in these latest remarks.

    He still proclaimed that he remains “ready” to sign a US-Ukraine minerals deal, confirming that his aides are now speaking to Trump’s team about ways to move forward on it.

    Zelensky says he is prepared to sign a mineral rights deal with the US and thinks the relationship with Washington can be salvaged. —NBC

    But the mood from the White House appears to be one of willingness to cut Zelensky off altogether. There are reports that President Trump is mulling cutting off all continuing defense aid to Ukraine.

    Administration officials have sought to clarify that this was no ambush which played out before media cameras on Friday, but that Zelensky was rude and confrontational the whole time, and never satisfied with what the US was providing to Ukraine.

    National Security Advisor Michael Waltz told the Sunday news shows that President Trump “was frustrated and angry because it’s unclear if Zelensky truly wants to stop the fighting. The President and VP said enough is enough.”

    Walz added: “This [lecturing] was the wrong approach, wrong time, and the wrong president to try to do this kind of a thing. This is not Joe Biden. The entire world saw that, crystal clear.”

    And this segment from Walz’s account in a Fox News interview is hugely revealing:

    Q: How did Zelensky react after press left? Was he surprised?

    Waltz: No. His team was. His ambassador, and adviser were practically in tears, wanting this to move forward. But Zelensky was still argumentative. I said “Mr. President, time is not on your side here, on the battlefield, and in terms of the world situation. And most importantly, USAID, and the taxpayers’ tolerance, is not unlimited”.

    Waltz: I think Zelensky is used to hearing that “as long as it takes” and blank check from Biden.

    He has not gotten the memo that this is a new sheriff in town. This is a new president, and we are determined to take a new approach towards peace.

    European leaders are meanwhile trying to absorb the blowback and fallout, now talking about an alternative peace plan backed by “boots on the ground and planes in the air“. UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is leading the way on plans for a ‘stabilization force’ to back a Ukraine ceasefire, likely involving France – and which the Europeans hope Trump can sign on to. But the Kremlin is likely to immediately reject it, given the Western ‘boots on the ground’ aspect to the plan.

    * * *

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 18:58

  • Global Times Says Beijing Preparing Countermeasures As Tariff Deadline Arrives
    Global Times Says Beijing Preparing Countermeasures As Tariff Deadline Arrives

    On Monday morning, the US dollar is underperforming against all G10 currencies as investors brace for President Trump’s tariff deadline on Mexico, Canada, and China.

    US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed Sunday the tariffs are set for Tuesday. Meanwhile, a state-run Chinese publication signaled that retaliatory trade measures are coming, heightening concerns the trade war could escalate in the next 24 hours. 

    Lutnick told Fox News: “There are going to be tariffs on Tuesday on Mexico and Canada. Exactly what they are, we’re going to leave that for the president and his team to negotiate.”

    The dollar has been on a slippery slope since Sunday evening.

    Late last week, Trump wrote on Truth Social that fentanyl is still being smuggled into the US at “unacceptable levels” and that tariffs on countries of origination will be the only way to stop the drug death overdose crisis that kills 100,000 Americans per year. 

    “We cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA, and therefore, until it stops, or is seriously limited, the proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled,” Trump said, adding, “China will likewise be charged an additional 10% Tariff on that date.”

    Ahead of the escalation in the tariff war, China’s state-backed Global Times cited an anonymous source, probably a CCP official, indicating that Beijing is preparing countermeasures against US agricultural exports. 

    Here’s more from the report:

    In response to a question regarding a Global Times report which, citing a reliable source, said China is studying and formulating relevant countermeasures against the US’ threat of imposing an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese products under the pretext of fentanyl, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Monday that China firmly opposes the US’ move of threatening tariffs on imports from China citing the fentanyl issue as its excuse and will take “necessary measures” to firmly safeguard its own legitimate rights and interests.

    The Global Times reported on Monday that the countermeasures will likely include both tariffs and a series of non-tariff measures, and US agricultural and food products will most likely be listed, citing the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

    “I have stated China’s serious position on the issue,” Lin made the remarks in response to a media question seeking confirmation and comment on the Global Times report.

    After US President Donald Trump said in a social media post on Thursday that the US would impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting on March 4, and that “China will likewise be charged an additional 10% Tariff on that date,” Lin, the spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Friday that China firmly deplores and strongly opposes the move, and will take what is necessary to resolutely defend its legitimate interests.

    “If the US continues to use the fentanyl issue to pressure, blackmail, coerce and threaten China, it will only be counterproductive and deal a blow to the dialogue and cooperation between China and the US in the field of drug control,” Lin said on Friday.

    Beijing’s possible tit-for-tat tariff move on US farm goods is a playbook similar to Trump’s first term in the early innings of the trade war. During that time, US soybean sales to China plunged 80% over a two-year period.

    On the macro side, all of these uncertainties are building, especially on trade, which has some analysts, including ones at Goldman, warning about “growth scare & tariffs.” 

    Ahead of tomorrow’s deadline, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told CNBC earlier that he doesn’t see Trump wavering on tariffs… 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 18:50

  • California Ranchers Urge State To End Water Restrictions As Floodwaters Swamp Northern County
    California Ranchers Urge State To End Water Restrictions As Floodwaters Swamp Northern County

    Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times,

    Cattle ranchers in Siskiyou County who are under a drought emergency order imposed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in January now find themselves in the midst of a massive flood.

    A torrent of water from heavy rains, called “atmospheric rivers,” in February has inundated the farms and ranches in the Scott River and Shasta River valleys, where the governor’s executive order—which authorizes the California State Water Resources Control Board to enforce emergency regulations and place water-use restrictions—remains in effect.

    Newsom has renewed the drought emergency for several years in a row, and the farmers and ranchers say it is high time for the governor to end it.

    The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on Feb. 18 to declare a local flood emergency.

    Siskiyou County Supervisor Jess Harris (District 1) told The Epoch Times that Siskiyou is the only county that is still under the drought emergency order, despite raging floodwaters.

    “It’s the most asinine thing I’ve ever seen,” Harris said. 

    “The state has a drought emergency on us, and we have a flood emergency at the county level.”

    The county states in the flood emergency proclamation that heavy rain-induced ground saturation has damaged infrastructure; strained local government resources; “drastically affected” residents and their livelihoods; and caused “daily landslides, rock falls, and roadway undercutting.”

    The floodwaters have breached irrigation canals; washed out roads and city streets; and inundated the Shasta, Scott, and Klamath rivers with debris, according to the county, which has also warned of flooding along the tributaries of these rivers with warmer weather and runoff from snowmelt on the way.

    The governor’s office did not respond directly to an inquiry, deferring to the state water board.

    Drought Emergency?

    In May 2021, Newsom declared a drought emergency in several counties throughout California, including the Klamath Basin, citing critical low river flows. He extended emergency regulations to all 58 counties in October 2021, urging all Californians to voluntarily conserve water by reducing consumption by 15 percent, according to the state water board.

    Nearly three years later, on Sept. 4, 2024, the governor rescinded many of the order’s provisions because of significant precipitation and improved conditions in several watersheds, particularly in the Sierra Nevada range.

    “However, the order specifically found that continued action is needed—including the authority to impose future curtailments—to abate harm to native fish in the Klamath watershed,” the water board said in a Jan. 7 statement. The board declared that the emergency regulations were readopted to set minimum flow levels for both watersheds and authorize water-use restrictions if water flows were to fall below such levels.

    Flooding in Scott River Valley saturates ranches and farms in Siskiyou County, Calif., after rains in late December 2024. Courtesy of Mel Fechter

    The water board maintains that the emergency regulations are necessary after “years of dry conditions” that are still affecting native fish such as the coho salmon, Chinook salmon, and steelhead trout.

    The Scott and Shasta rivers are key tributaries in the Klamath River watershed, crucial water sources for Siskiyou County and habitats for “federally and state-threatened coho salmon” that are of “immense economic, ecological and cultural importance” to Native American tribes and the surrounding communities, the release states.

    Precipitation in the Klamath watershed improved significantly in 2023 and 2024 following drought conditions in 2021 and 2022, when flows in the Scott and Shasta rivers dropped below minimum levels set by the board from 2021 to 2024. Although rain and snowfall are above average so far this year, conditions could change, according to the water board.

    “Successive years of dry conditions have severely impacted critical fish populations … requiring us to take measures to protect their very existence,” E. Joaquin Esquivel, state water board chairman, said in the statement. “Continuing the emergency regulation enables us to maintain minimum flows in the Scott and Shasta rivers and to help with the recovery from long-term drought impacts.”

    Flooded fields in Scott River Valley in California’s Siskiyou County after heavy rains in late December 2024. Courtesy of Mel Fechter

    If the state is wrong, and it turns out that there is ample water for farming and ranching, the governor’s refusal to lift the emergency regulations will needlessly hurt the local economy for another year, Harris said.

    “They’re risking the livelihoods of thousands of people,” he said. “A 30 percent water-use curtailment is a 30 percent reduction in income for ranchers because you have 30 percent less acres that you can hay. That’s like asking the government to take a 30 percent pay cut. They have no issue with applying that to the ranchers and saying that the lack of fish is all their fault.”

    Without Newsom’s executive order, the water board would not have the authority to impose water-use curtailments, and the state would be violating adjudicated water rights, Harris said.

    “They’re using this emergency declaration to trample on those water rights,“ he said. “This is the only way that they can continue to keep their foot on the throat of the rancher.”

    It is ironic, he said, that the state removed three dams in Siskiyou County, the only county that is still under a drought emergency declaration during a flood.

    A saturated pasture in Shasta River Valley in Siskiyou County, Calif., Feb. 5, 2025. Courtesy of Lisa Mott

    Klamath River Dams Removed

    The demolition of the hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River last year—the reservoirs of which were not used for irrigation—were supposed to increase flow and reduce water temperatures to save the fish, Harris said.

    When asked if the dams’ demolition has helped to increase water levels, especially with the recent deluge from the winter storms, Ailene Voisin, a spokeswoman for the state water board, told The Epoch Times in an email that the dam removal restored about 400 miles of vital habitat for salmon and other species that are essential to the river’s ecosystem and the communities that depend on them.

    But because the dams blocked the natural flow for more than a century, Voisin said, it is “going to take some time for the species to recover,” and “removing the dams did not address the issues impacting its tributary streams.”

    Voisin also said in the email that the water board has “no comment” about whether the ranchers and farmers have a legitimate case for eliminating the drought emergency regulations.

    Theodora Johnson rides a horse on her ranch near the Scott River on May 8, 2024. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

    Ranchers Resist Restrictions

    Theodora Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Scott Valley Agriculture Water Alliance, and her husband, Dave, told The Epoch Times that ranchers in the Scott and Shasta valleys are calling for an end to the emergency drought proclamation.

    As sixth-generation ranchers, the Johnsons said the continuous state-imposed water restrictions for livestock and irrigation are threatening their livelihoods.

    “It’s a third good water winter in a row,” Theodora Johnson said. “So if we’re having winters like these and they can’t lift emergency restrictions, then I can’t see there ever being a year when they would lift them.”

    Water is running at about 10 cubic feet per second in a “dry gulch” on some leased land near the ranch, Dave Johnson said.

    “Everybody that lives here says they never see it run,” he said.

    The Scott River and creeks surrounding their ranch are overflowing and many of the hay and alfalfa fields are saturated and submerged, the Johnsons said.

    Swollen Shasta River in Siskiyou County, Calif., on Feb. 5, 2025. Courtesy Lisa Mott

    Debbie Bacigalupi, who runs a cattle ranch with her parents in Siskiyou County near Yreka, California, told the Epoch Times that the flood has wreaked havoc on the land.

    “We have waterfalls in places we’ve never had waterfalls before,” Bacigalupi said.

    One pond that has been used for decades will be empty for the first time this summer because a levee broke from all the floodwater, Bacigalupi said.

    “There’s so much water, it’s absolutely ridiculous that we are in an emergency drought order still,” she said. “We have so much flooding and erosion. Our ditches—not all but many—are overflowing and breaking. We’ve got dams that are breaking. It’s so bad. It’s thousands of cubic feet going downstream every second.”

    Floodwaters erode the banks of a pond at the Bacigalupis’ ranch in February 2025. Courtesy Debbie Bacigalupi

    State agencies, including the water board and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, met with local farmers and ranchers to discuss what are known as Local Cooperative Solutions (LCS) on Feb. 25, according to Harris, who attended the packed meeting of about 40 farmers and ranchers in a small room at Etna City Hall.

    “The farmers and ranchers are tired of the state water board’s opinions and want to see facts that their curtailment of water is actually helping anything,” he said. “In a year with so much water, it’s hard to fathom being curtailed another year.”

    They are “frustrated” at the irony of being asked by the state water board to cut back on water usage during a flood, he said.

    The LCS plans are the state’s way of “forcing the farmers and ranchers into doing what they want,” he said.

    Signing an LCS can mean ranchers have to put meters on their wells “and jump through a bunch of hoops” to be allotted a certain amount of water up to a certain point or face a possible 95 percent reduction by September, Harris said.

    “The state water board has got this down to a science,” he said.

    Debbie Bacigalupi and her mother, Donna, tend to cattle at their ranch in May 2024. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

    Bacigalupi said her family has not signed an LCS agreement with the state and does not intend to.

    “Where’s the evidence so far that any of this stuff has worked?” she said. “These people who aren’t boots on the ground and [don’t] live in the area are coming up with these solutions, and yet they don’t have to live with the consequences of these plans.”

    The LCS plans are not truly “local cooperative solutions” because the restrictions are dictated by the state, she said.

    California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot, who has advised Newsom since 2019, said in a video interview at an Agri-Pulse Food & Ag event in Sacramento on July 11, 2022, that voluntary plans were needed to break out of “the endless cycle of regulation and litigation” over water rights adjudicated in federal courts.

    He said Newsom wanted to create “more of a shared approach to managing water” to protect fish and water quality and avoid litigation.

    “So we came up with these voluntary agreements,” Crowfoot said. “And they’re enforceable but they’re called voluntary because they’re bringing everyone together.”

    Flooded ranchlands in the Shasta River Valley in Siskiyou County, Calif., on Feb. 5, 2025. Courtesy of Lisa Mott

    Surveying the Flood

    Lisa Mott, a Montague resident who grew up on a ranch in the Shasta Valley region and has photographed the swollen Shasta River, told The Epoch Times that she has not seen this much flooding since 1997.

    “The Shasta River is well beyond the flood stage in these two storms that we had,” she said.

    The first storm hit in late December more than a week before the governor renewed the drought emergency order, and the most recent one hit in the first week in February, Mott said.

    “Even the Klamath River was flooding,” she said. “The last storm definitely raised the river quite a bit because we were already saturated from that December storm.”

    The Shasta and Scott rivers have been targeted because the state is going to need more water flow for the Klamath River now that the dams and the reservoirs are gone, Mott said.

    Mel Fechter, a photographer in Scott Valley, said “it was storming like crazy” the day before the meeting in Etna.

    “I feel so sorry for these farmers and ranchers,” Fechter, who has talked to many of them about the state water restrictions, said.

    “I just don’t understand where these people are coming from,” he said of the state agencies.

    “I’ve lived here almost 50 years now, and this is the most standing water I can remember seeing all throughout the valley—not just the flood, but the standing water,” he said.

    Submerged ranchland in the Scott River Valley in Siskiyou County, Calif., on Feb. 24, 2025, after heavy rains and snowmelt. Courtesy Mel Fechter

    Competing Bills

    Meanwhile, competing legislative bills—Assembly Bill 430 and Assembly Bill 263—dealing with water restrictions were introduced in the state Legislature this year.

    AB 263, introduced by Assemblyman Chris Rogers (D-San Francisco) on Jan. 16, would keep the emergency regulations in place in the Scott River and Shasta River watersheds “until permanent rules establishing and implementing long-term instream flow requirements are adopted for those watersheds,” according to the bill text. It would also make “legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute” for these watersheds.

    AB 430, introduced on Feb. 5 by Assemblyman Juan Alanis (R-Modesto), would require the state to conduct a comprehensive study to reassess the economic effects of the emergency regulations each year in these two watersheds before a governor could renew them. It would also require the state water board to make the study available to the public on its website no later than 30 days before the date of the renewal.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 18:25

  • Peter Thiel: DOGE Exposed the Left's Secret Playbook
    Peter Thiel: DOGE Exposed the Left’s Secret Playbook

    Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel argued that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) recent exposure of rampant overspending at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) reveals a fundamental truth: the left routinely employs projection to avoid scrutiny and smear its right-wing opponents. 

    During a candid sit-down with Dave Rubin, Thiel – founder of Founders Fund – addressed concerns from critics about Silicon Valley’s influence over the Trump administration.

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

     “So many of these things – I always thought our projections were similar to the critiques the left had of President Trump, suggesting maybe he didn’t have all his marbles – and I thought, ‘This was no projection; it turned out for the person who came after Trump,’” Thiel told Rubin. “There were all these ways in which he was portrayed as a fascist threatening democracy, and so much of what has emerged from USAID, as well as the actions of the central left establishment, is doing the exact opposite of what they accused the other side of doing.” 

    The Trump administration has imposed an almost complete freeze on foreign aid and announced plans to slash USAID’s workforce from about 10,000 to just 290 employees, while Elon Musk – tasked with executing Trump’s cost-cutting agenda with DOGE – revealed plans to shutter USAID entirely. 

    Mass mailings have terminated over 90% of USAID’s humanitarian and $60 billion in development contracts worldwide. Recently, the officials informed most USAID employees that they were either being placed on leave or terminated. Staffers at the Washington, D.C., headquarters were allotted 15-minute slots to clear their desks under federal officer supervision. 

    Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill have rallied before efforts to clash spending at federal agencies, including USAID. 

    “There’s a lot of the spending that goes on through USAID that does not appear to be consistent with U.S. policy, and so I’m all for a review to make sure that taxpayer dollars are going to programs and people that are consistent with our government’s policies,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said of the cuts. 

    “USAID is a corrupt governmental organization run by unelected bureaucrats created to shovel taxpayer dollars to Democrats’ pet projects overseas,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) told Fox News. 

    “At nearly $37 trillion in national debt – and a $1.8 trillion annual deficit – we can’t afford to continue giving money to countries that hate America and everything we stand for,” he added. 

    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), chair of the House’s Government Efficiency Subcommittee, said last week that she will consider recommending “criminal referrals” to individuals she believes have misused U.S. foreign aid. “Maybe we should consider investigating whether USAID funding has made it back to Democrat campaigns,” said Greene, according to Politico. 

    “This committee, based on this hearing and witness testimonies, will consider recommending investigations and criminal referrals,” the Georgia Republican added.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 18:00

  • "No Room Left" For Canada, Mexico To Avoid Tariffs Trump Says Hours Before They Go Live
    “No Room Left” For Canada, Mexico To Avoid Tariffs Trump Says Hours Before They Go Live

    Update (5:00pm ET):

    President Trump said he would plow ahead with new tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting Tuesday, as expected, in the a broadside against the two biggest US trading partners that underscores his push to remake global trade. 

    “No room left for Mexico or for Canada,” Trump told reporters Monday when asked if the US’s North American neighbors could reach a deal to put off the duties, as they did a month ago. “They’re all set. They go into effect tomorrow.” 

    Later, the White House said Trump also signed an order doubling a tariff on China to 20% that will take effect shortly after midnight in Washington. The directive said Beijing had “not taken adequate steps” to address the flow of illicit fentanyl into the US.

    The president’s remarks doused hopes of avoiding an all-out continental trade war; Canada is preparing its own retaliatory tariffs, and Trump has another round of levies set to kick in next week on steel and aluminum.

    “We’re on the cusp of a North American trade war,” said Josh Lipsky, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. “The markets have woken up to the fact Trump is serious about tariffs.”

    The long-promised duties would easily be among the most sweeping of the Trump era, applying to around $1.5 trillion in annual imports. They would put a 25% tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico, except Canadian energy, which would face a 10% rate.

    Trump’s comments accelerated a sell off in US stocks, with S&P 500 down 1.76% on the day. The Canadian dollar and Mexican peso slumped after Trump reaffirmed his plans to go ahead with the new import taxes.

    A snapshot of all proposed and implemented Trump tariffs so far is below.

    * * * * *

    Earlier

    The official start of the next trade war is just hours away.

    On Tuesday, absent any last minute surprise, President Trump will slap new tariffs on Canada and Mexico while doubling a levy on China, moves that would dramatically expand his push to revive domestic manufacturing, tap new revenues and rebalance ties with the biggest US trading partners.

    The long-promised tariffs scheduled to take effect at midnight on Tuesday would be among the most sweeping of the Trump era, applying to roughly $1.5 trillion in annual imports. They would put a 25% tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico, except Canadian energy, which would face a 10% rate. He has also said he’ll double a tariff on China to 20%.

    While the tariff launch may yet be delayed again (the Canada and Mexico measures were already stalled once) any reprieve would likely prove temporary, as a host of other Trump tariffs are due in April. 

    Trump has says the tariffs are a tool to bring the neighboring nations to heel on securing the borders from migrants and drugs, particularly fentanyl.

    Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday that both Canada and Mexico have been working hard on controlling the border but fentanyl was still an issue and the tariffs were contingent on both being resolved.

    “They have done a lot, so he’s sort of thinking about right now how exactly he wants to play with Mexico and Canada and that is a fluid situation,” Lutnick said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, speaking of Trump. 

    Lutnick added that Trump will impose tariffs, but was still deciding on the levels adding that Mexico and Canada have done “a lot” to address Trump’s concerns about border crossings but not enough to address his worries about “fentanyl deaths in America.”

    “There are going to be tariffs on Tuesday on Mexico and Canada, exactly what they are, we’re going to leave that for the president and his team to negotiate.”

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    In follow up comments this morning on CNN, Lutnick confirmed that tariffs are coming, saying to “let outside people who live and breathe off our economy— let them start paying and reduce the tax burden on Americans. NO tax on tips, NO tax on Social Security, NO tax on overtime.”

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    Canada and Mexico have both worked to head off tariffs, though what more they can do isn’t clear. Canada appointed a fentanyl czar and dedicated new measures to border security, as Trump had asked. Trump says it’s not enough, and a White House official has said the metric Trump is watching is domestic deaths from fentanyl.

    It has all sown confusion on what, if anything, Canada can offer to stave off a trade war, given that only 70 pounds (31.8 kg) of fentanyl have been seized on or near the US’s northern border since October 2021 and it has imposed existing and pledged curbs on China. Any tariffs are poised to include at least some retaliation that would hit U.S. exporters. Canada — where outrage over Trump’s threats is leading consumers to already avoid US goods — plans to immediately impose retaliatory tariffs on C$30 billion ($20.75 billion) in US goods, with levies on another C$125 billion ($86.4 billion) to follow three weeks later. Mexico has not spelled out any retaliation plan.

    In another signal the White House is pushing forward with implementation, Trump late Sunday night amended the executive orders issued earlier in his administration. The change pauses a provision of the tariff move aimed at curtailing duty-free shipping, and allows the US time to develop and deploy a method of imposing tariffs on low-value items sent from Mexico or Canada that would have previously been exempted from tariffs.

    Overnight, Chinese stocks fell, wiping out earlier gains as investors remain concerned about the impact of US tariffs. Gold rose after last week’s sharp correction, and the currencies of some Asian countries that are more trade reliant on China declined on Monday. US stocks tumbled as investor hopes for a last-minute delay in the proposed import taxes faded. According to Poplymarket, the chances Trump will remove tariffs on Canada and Mexico in the next few hours have been cut in half.

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    Meanwhile, as we reported earlier, Beijing is considering retaliatory measures on American agriculture and food products in response to tariffs from the Trump administration, according to Chinese populist tabloid Global Times.

    A slate of new tariffs is intended to help raise revenue for some of the tax cuts Trump wants and lay to rest, at least for now, the theory that Trump’s brazen threats were bluffs to use as negotiating leverage. According to some, they also threaten to reignite inflation that the Federal Reserve is finding stubborn, throw North American supply chains into disarray — especially the auto industry — and invite legal challenges based on a continental free-trade pact Trump himself renegotiated during his first term. Others, like Stephen Miran disagree, and claim that currency rebalancing will offset price increases. Or, as Peter Navarro put it, exporting countries will absorb a large share of tariffs.

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    Trump’s plans also risk weakening a US economy that is already showing signs of strain. Stocks and cryptocurrencies have fallen from recent record highs, consumer confidence dropped sharply and inflation continues to simmer. A fresh tariff war threatens to trigger a wider selloff.

    The tariffs on Canada are nearly across the board, save for Canadian crude oil, natural gas and other energy products, which are 10%. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has mused about applying its own export tax to crude to make sure US drivers feel the pain of Trump’s trade war. It’s not yet clear if they will, and Trudeau is about to leave office. For context, last October, the Canadian government imposed 100% tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles and 25% tariffs on a list of Chinese steel and aluminum products.

    The proposed Trump tariffs on Mexico apply to all imports. President Claudia Sheinbaum has weighed her own steps to stave them off, including potential new tariffs on China. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called it “very interesting” and encouraged both neighbors to do so. Canada has announced similar measures previously.

    US-Mexico talks on security and counter-narcotics are further advanced than on trade and tariffs, two people familiar with the discussions have said. In a bid to show its willingness to cooperate with the US on security, Mexico on Thursday handed over 29 people accused of drug trafficking and other crimes to face charges in the US. Mexican officials thought that could be enough to buy them more time before tariffs were imposed and allow for talks on trade relations to continue, according to a person familiar with the matter.

    “We will continue to work to ensure to do everything we can to make sure that there are no tariffs on Tuesday, but if ever there were tariffs on Tuesday, as we have all seen — as we were ready to do last time — we will have a strong unequivocal and proportional response as Canadians expect,” Trudeau said Sunday.

    Separately, Trump is also planning other streams of tariffs based on reports due to him by April 1. One is for so-called “reciprocal tariffs,” under which Trump will charge country-by-country rates, based on calculations such as another country’s tariffs, trade barriers and tax regimes. It’s not clear whether the “reciprocal” calculation would include any tariffs already in place, such as the Mexico and Canada measures that Trump has tied to border security.

    “We are going to evaluate that and give them an opportunity to remedy that, so we could either see a ratcheting up in tariffs, or if our trading partners want to remedy what has been unfair trade, then we can see the tariffs come off,” Bessent said on CBS’s Face the Nation.

    Another stream is a series of tariffs on specific sectors. That includes a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum due to take effect March 12, and which would heavily affect Canada and Mexico.

    As Bloomberg reminds us, Trump is also planning sectoral tariffs on autos, semiconductor chips and pharmaceutical drugs, all of which could be imposed as soon as April 2. He launched an investigation that could lead to new copper tariffs later this year. And on Saturday, he ordered the Commerce Department to investigate the national security harm posed by lumber imports, laying the legal groundwork for new tariffs — ones that again appear aimed at Canada.

    China said the US should focus on “reducing domestic drug demand” and increase law enforcement to curb domestic fentanyl use. “The unilateral tariff increase by the U.S. seriously violates WTO rules and is a typical act of unilateralism and trade protectionism,” The Chinese Embassy said in a written statement.

    According to DB economists 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico would likely create a 0.4-0.7% drag on 2025’s US GDP and boost core PCE by 0.3-0.7%. It is possible that the revenues from the tariffs allow for larger US tax cuts which may help reduce the growth impact but we’re also starting to see some of the trade uncertainty hit confidence so there are a lot of moving parts. 

    Overall, it’s hard to see China tariffs being negotiated lower but there’s still a chance that those on Mexico and Canada are lower than 25% as hinted by Lutnick yesterday. We will see today.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 17:45

  • Attitude Adjustment
    Attitude Adjustment

    Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

    “A secularized, atheist leaning Europe that has forgotten its roots, has demonstrated that it will NOT protect the personal freedoms of its citizenry.” 

    – Jim Shea

    See if you can get this straight: So, Kier Starmer says: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland wants to “put boots on the ground and planes in the air” in Ukraine so as to lead a “coalition of the willing” (NATO) against Russia. Sounds a little like the British PM is holding seances at No. Ten Downing Street to channel the spirits of bygone European leaders who launched doomed bear hunts into the vast and mysterious Eurasian east. (Who comes to mind?)

    Why is Europe so avid for war?

    After eighty-odd years of serving as the world’s tourism theme park, languishing in their cafes, maybe they forgot what war is like. The New York Times reports: Ursula von der Leyen said the European Union would fortify Ukraine with economic and military aid, aiming to turn it into “a steel porcupine that is indigestible for potential invaders.” This requires you to fall for the fake idea that Russia seeks to invade western Europe. Notice how much the EU acts like America’s Democratic Party — projecting its own hostile fantasies on its adversaries.

    Also, like our Democratic Party, Europe is sinking into oblivion. The animating ethos of the ruling parties in Germany and France is to punish their own citizens with censorship, tyranny, and sponsoring an alien invasion that aims to demolish European culture. Their economic wizards are taking the continent medieval, to a global backwater of defeated peasants eating bugs. I will boldly predict that the likes of Starmer, von der Leyen, and Friedrich Merz will be swept out of power by angry mobs before next Christmas.

    In the meantime, Europe has made itself preposterous. Europe does not have the mojo to do a darned thing about Ukraine or Russia. The British army has 74,296 active-duty troops, comparable to Algeria. The UK’s North Sea oil production has declined by approximately 73-percent since 2000. Germany produces around 23,000 barrels-a-day, enough to meet two percent of its domestic oil demand. Anyway, exactly a year ago, Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared, “There will be no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil sent there by European countries or NATO states.” So, who’s kidding whom?

    Circumstances are driving the USA and Russia into an alliance of necessity. The immediate goal is to stop the insane war provoked by previous non-Trump administrations (and the EU) going back to George W. Bush, that repeatedly promoted “color revolutions” (regime change) in Ukraine so as to drag it into NATO — putting a hostile forward base on Russia’s “front porch.” The idea all along among the most fervidly delusional neocons has been to bust-up Russia in order to seize its oil and mineral assets.

    That project never panned out because after a decade of post-Soviet chaos, Mr. Putin put his country back in order, turned it into what used to be the definition of a normal European nation and — too ironically even for Russian literature — made it a bastion for defending Western Civ while the other nations of Europe launched their campaign of collective suicide. History is ever a trickster and the zeitgeist is its consigliere.

    Mr. Trump and his wingmen apparently recognize the obvious: that Ukraine is exactly what its name signifies in its Slavic root, Украина” (Ukraina): frontier, borderland, periphery, outskirts. Ukraine is on the edge of Russia. Most of all, it is geopolitically within Russia’s sphere-of-influence in the same way that Mexico is in ours, with similar implications for national defense as laid out explicitly in our Monroe Doctrine. Because Ukraine is mostly a flat plain, it has served historically as the doormat for invasions into Russia, so you may see why Russia was not comfortable with the prospect of NATO perched there, especially in a new age of drones and missiles.

    As Europe now flounders impotently and wrecks itself, America and Russia are motivated to avoid being snookered into an unnecessary world war over Ukraine. Mr. Zelenskyy is but an anachronistic artifact of the color revolutions that finally sputtered out with “Joe Biden,” who was himself in the vanguard of a colossal money-grubbing operation in that sad-sack country. While much is already known about how that worked, a whole lot more is waiting to be revealed, including the degree of actual treason it entailed. People around “Joe Biden” will be going to jail over this, or worse.

    I’d also venture to predict that W. Zelenskyy will before much longer get removed from his position by his own generals. Ukraine will return to its long-standing status as a borderland that poses no danger to the rest of the world. America and Russia will be poised to defend what remains of Western Civ from ambitious China. And Gawd help Europe if its insane national leaders revert to fighting among each other as they did for two thousand years before 1945, making a slaughterhouse of the region again.

    Mr. Trump is correct to avoid getting dragged into that. We have enough on our own agenda for repairing the damage done to ourselves the past thirty years. The good news is that we’re beginning to get that done.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 17:40

  • DEI Was The Biggest Con Of The Century
    DEI Was The Biggest Con Of The Century

    Authored by Stanley Ridgley via American Greatness,

    This article is adapted from the author’s new book, “DEI Exposed: How the Biggest Con of the Century Almost Toppled Higher Education” (Armin Lear Press.)

    The DEI Con has enriched thousands of hustlers nationwide. It has embedded many hundreds of apparatchiks and supernumeraries in college bureaucracies, and it will require herculean efforts to root them all out. And it continues to attack the average person for the most dubious of ideologically motivated reasons in “training” sessions, both on the campuses and in corporate America.

    I first heard the actual acronym DEI expressed while I was in a 7-11 on the campus during the early days of the COVID pandemic, and it was two masked graduate students discussing the wonderful employment possibilities of this new initiative, which sounded like someone trying to monetize kumbaya. Already steeped in leftist ideology and its tactic of renaming and relabeling its hooey for new generations of suckers, I was only vaguely aware that this was just the latest brand for the newest social justice foray in higher education.

    “Diversity” had already been around for many years, its hustler scratching at the university door. Not actual diversity, mind you, but the skin-deep diversity of noxious racialism tarted-up with fake Enlightenment discourse. This concept of “diversity, equity, inclusion” quickly metastasized until it was everywhere, and this was no accident. It was a bureaucratic initiative designed to anchor a new raft of social justice programs as an inescapable presence on the campus.

    It was no accident that it was violence and the threat of violence that opened the door for this effervescence of DEI. It sounded absurd. I knew it was absurd; I knew it was a con. Most people likely knew it was a con but then most people on the campuses also knew to keep their mouths shut in a time of hair-trigger tempers and performative chaos unleashed by well-funded activist groups. No college administration wanted the summer violence of 2020 overflowing onto the campuses. And so they opened the university to barbarian ideas rather than the barbarians themselves.

    This was the madness of crowds brought en masse onto the campuses, and it was wildly successful. It achieved this success with a superb combination of psychological factors—relentless hustling, a primitive ideology suffused with mysticism and “indigenous knowledges,” and the barely concealed violent urges of quasi-communist and terroristic revolutionaries. All of this shielded from criticism and even the mildest of questioning.

    You knew something was terribly wrong with it.

    Anyone on a college campus subjected to the mediocrity of a DEI hustler knew there was something wrong with it.

    It was not noble. It was not idealistic. It was not the many wonderful things its proponents said. It was one thing to the public, and it was another altogether when enacted on the campuses. It was weird and alien and hateful at its core, but the public is rarely exposed to any of this. It was the classic Potemkin village offering, with a façade masking a brute, racialist substance.

    In other words, it was a con. In fact, it was the biggest Con Story of the 21st century, with America’s universities the biggest suckers imaginable. And the crowning achievement of Western civilization—the modern university—tottered under the assault of mediocrity, racialism, and pseudoscience.

    I suppose that folks duped by the big cons will eventually retreat in their embarrassment at having been fooled by one of the shadiest Con Stories ever deployed. Even now, DEI is in retreat. As it plays out in its final act, I assure you that it will dissipate in a flurry of new acronyms and new labels designed to hide its failure.

    Its proponents will roll out new slogans to replace the vapid “Diversity is our strength.” Already, “inclusive excellence” is supplanting DEI as this trusty acronym becomes freighted with failure. The Con Story will morph and adapt. Reluctantly. Buzzwords will change, new slogans will be coined, but the underlying ideology will remain the same as it always has. It must serve yeoman’s duty for the Big Con.

    Elaborate and elegant Con Stories have played major political roles for centuries, baiting and hooking marks with promises of utopia. The most convincing Con Story of them all is that of Karl Marx, whose fabulous pseudoscience has duped millions of the credulous to support murderous regimes in the name of “social justice.” It still does.

    Con Stories are essential to convincing gullible people to act in ways that simply make no sense to a normal person who is tethered to reality. We saw an example of the Con Story’s power in December of 2024.

    In the early morning hours, a Con Story duped a privileged 26-year-old by the name of Luigi Mangione to stalk and back-shoot a man he’d never met—a man with wife and two children who guaranteed the health care of hundreds of thousands of Americans through his company. Mangione murdered on the streets of New York for the same reason that extremist ideologues and world-changers always kill. His ideology told him the target was a villain, and he acted.

    Let’s be clear. People who think this way are dangerous. They are not temperate, they do not compromise (except for the moment’s expediency), and they are certainly not swayed by the better “argument.” These are the kinds of people who hide inside a crowd, usually masked. Many of them are disturbed mentally.

    It’s easy to identify the people who are moving in the Mangione direction, inspired by corrupt ideas and urged to do something rather than sit idle. This is a social pathology, and examples of it are too numerous for any polity to be comfortable.

    This is the core of successful social movements and social hustles—to contrive a winning narrative out of confusing facts and isolated incidents to portray a fictional pattern, a nationwide epidemic of, well, something that can be used to make a buck. When the social movement is also a social hustle, the combination is too powerful to resist for con-artists and their suckers.

    If you believe that there is no link between the kind of social fantasy that motivates a Luigi Mangione to backshoot a man he doesn’t know on a New York street and the kind of DEI fantasy that dictates a racialist split on the college campus that slots persons into good and evil, then try this test yourself. I give you a guarantee that persons who cheer the killer Luigi Mangione for his assassination of Brian Thompson also fully support DEI’s personnel, programs, policies, and enforcement mechanisms on the college campuses. Go ahead, ask a person who cheers the assassin if he also supports DEI.

    You already know the answer, don’t you?

    It’s because this type of person is animated by a vision of the world crafted by some dead scribbler and is a prisoner of ideology, forfeiting the reliable information provided by his own senses and experience.

    It’s what happens when a sucker falls hard for a Con Story.

    *  *  *

    Dr. Stanley K. Ridgley, author of DEI Exposed: How the Biggest Con of the Century Almost Toppled Higher Education, is Clinical Full Professor of Strategic Management at Drexel University. He holds a Doctorate and Master’s in International Relations and Security from Duke University and an International MBA from Temple University. He is a Russian language linguist and former Military Intelligence Officer.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 17:00

  • "This Is Really Gonna Get Me Assassinated": Musk Issues Warning Over Exposing DC Corruption
    “This Is Really Gonna Get Me Assassinated”: Musk Issues Warning Over Exposing DC Corruption

    During a recent appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, Elon Musk suggested that he’ll be assassinated if he goes too deep into the corruption in DC.

    “It’s more than just insider trading. The stock portfolio stuff is quite trackable, but it’s a lot more than insider trading,” said Musk.

    “The way they’re acquiring wealth?” Rogan asked.

    …pause…

    “Correct,” replied Musk.

    “And what other methods,” asked Rogan.

    “I mean this is really gonna get me assassinated,” Musk replied. “It’s like, I’m not lengthening my lifespan by explaining this stuff, to say the least. I mean, I was supposed to go back to DC. How am I going to survive? This is fucking going to kill me for sure,” Musk continued.

    “In fact, I do think like this… it’s like, I actually have to be careful that I don’t push too hard on the corruption stuff because it’s going to get me killed.”

    Watch:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsMore highlights from the interview:

    Musk and Rogan discuss how NGOs are nothing more than a money printing hack for the elite. (h/t @Leksents)

    Musk then zeroed in on why the left is out to get him: Entitlements fraud…

    “At the heart of the sort of like, why is the Democrat propaganda machine so fired up to destroy me? That’s the main reason. The main reason is that, is that, entitlements fraud, that includes, like, Social Security, disability, Medicaid, entitlements fraud for illegal aliens is what is serving as a gigantic magnetic force to pull people in from all around the world and keep them here.

    *  *  *

    Back In Stock: Anza MINI-Swat! Like it’s big brother, only more concealable…

    Click pic… add to cart… don’t cut yourself…    FREE SHIPPING!

    “Basically, if you pay people, at a standard of living that is above 90% of Earth, then you have a very powerful incentive for 90% of Earth to come here and to stay here. But if you if you end the illegal alien fraud, then you that you turn off that magnet, and they leave. And they they stop coming, and the and the ones that are here, many of them will simply leave.” (h/t @newstart_2024)

    The two also discussed why the Butler rally was the only one that CNN livestreamed, out of all the Trump rallies (implying someone tipped them off to the assassination attempt, which CNN has refuted).

    Watch the entire interview below:

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 16:40

  • What If I Told You There Was No Epstein List?
    What If I Told You There Was No Epstein List?

    Authored by Nick Bryant

    We’ve been bombarded by rumors of the Epstein List, which is thought to be the Holy Grail of the Epstein case. On Wednesday, March 26, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on national television that the “Epstein files” were on her desk, and she was releasing them to the public the following day. She also declared that the “files” contained “a lot of flight logs” and “a lot of names.”

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    Unfortunately, Bondi’s declaration was much ado about nothing.

    So, either she lied on national television, or she didn’t look at the documents on her desk before releasing them. In either case, her behavior was egregious.

    I uploaded Epstein’s Black Book to the internet in 2015, and I believe that’s the closest we’ve come to an Epstein List, because the Black Book contains the names of numerous perps. I also uploaded passenger manifests from Epstein’s various sojourns, which, I believe, contain the names of various perpetrators, too. The documentation I released in 2015 had exponentially more information on the particulars of Epstein case than the redacted dreck Bondi released on Thursday.

    In the “Epstein List” or “Epstein Files” narrative, each acts like Epstein kept a list of his child molesting clients as if were a travel agent at the Jeffrey Epstein Travel Agency. The Epstein list narrative is problematic because the idea he just kept their names and numbers in his black book at best the Epstein list is wishful thinking, at worst it’s a contrived meme.

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    According to a New York Times Article from July 8th, 2018, federal authorities seized hundreds, possibly thousands, of sexually suggestive photographs of girls who appear underage as well as hand-labeled compact discs with titles like “girls pics nude” and with the namess redacted like “young [redacted] plus [redacted]”. Judging by the titles on the discs Epstein was a purveyor of child rap material. The latter disc named by the New York Times is perhaps an indication of blackmail.

    A New York Times article from August 29th, 2019 names Ghislaine Maxwell, Sarah Kellen Leslie Groff, Adriana Ross Nadia Marcinkova, and Haley Robson as procurers or otherwise pimps for the Epstein criminal enterprise. The case that put Maxwell in prison was truly a travesty of Justice. Two of her indictments consisted of conspiracy to entice miners to travel and engage in illegal sex acts and also conspiracy to transport minors with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. Though Maxwell was indicted on two conspiracies none of her criminal cohorts were indicted, which makes absolutely no sense.

    Moreover, Business Insider reported that an FBI agent later confessed that hard drives were taken from Epstein’s safe. I believe that the impounded discs and hard drives would be an unparalleled source for identifying both perpetrators and victims in the Epstein trafficking network. If federal authorities are truly committed to justice then Americans should be given access toe the names of the perpetrators on the discs and the hard drives.

    The following 18-minute video explains why Bondi’s actions were so atrocious for a public who implores that the government provide it with the truth about the most prolific child sex trafficker who’s ever been acknowledged by federal law enforcement.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 03/03/2025 – 16:20

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