Feb 07

Today’s News 7th February 2025

  • USAID Is A Premier Weapon Of US Hybrid Warfare In The Southern Hemisphere
    USAID Is A Premier Weapon Of US Hybrid Warfare In The Southern Hemisphere

    Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

    Here’s the full interview that I gave to Sputnik Brasil about USAID, excerpts of which were published in their report titled “’Arma principal da guerra híbrida’: o que muda na política externa dos EUA com o fim da USAID?”

    1. How has USAID been used by the government of United States through the years to meddle in other countries, mainly Brazil and other countries from Latin America?

    USAID is infamous for funding political programs under the cover of human rights and democracy to meddle in the recipient country’s domestic affairs. This popularly takes the form of funding movements, including media projects, for exposing alleged corruption in Latin American states. The purpose is to artificially generate a groundswell of grassroots opposition to incumbent governments that manifests itself through street protests and/or surprise election showings in order to bring about political change.

    Some of the locals who collaborate with these foreign-funded political projects sometimes go on to become advisors or even figures in the more pro-American governments that replace the targeted ones. Therefore, USAID doesn’t just work to remove Latin American governments, it also sometimes provides trained advisors and personnel for the next governments. This makes it a premier weapon of US Hybrid Warfare in the hemisphere.

    2. Does the end of USAID mean the end of US interference in other countries’ domestic affairs? Will they just change their method instead?

    New Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that he’s the acting administrator of USAID as it goes through radical reforms.

    Per Trump’s Executive Order suspending foreign aid for 90 days, with the exception of emergency humanitarian aid, an assessment is taking place to determine their efficiency and consistency with policy. Accordingly, many programs dealing with socio-cultural issues like LGBT will likely be cut, while foreign media funding and the training of foreign political cadres will likely continue.

    3. How do you evaluate Trump’s decision to end USAID?

    USAID made sense from the perspective of older American interests back when it was first founded, but it was hijacked by liberal-globalist ideologues to proselytize radical socio-cultural policies that don’t objectively align with the US’ national interests. Examples of the most ridiculous programs are being shared all across X right now. Many Americans are enraged to discover what they were funding and surprised that a lot of the money also went to domestic “NGOs” for implementing these projects.

    Ending USAID was necessary since that’s the only way to implement the radical reforms that the Trump Administration envisages, which are most immediately reducing government expenditures via the Elon Musk-led “Department Of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) and then realigning those that remain with policy. Many employees are also diehard ideological opponents of Trump and all that he represents so keeping them around runs the risk that they’d try to sabotage his second term like they did his first one.

    What’s essentially happening is that Trump 2.0 entered power with a detailed plan for purging hostile elements of the US’ “deep state”, which refers in this context to its permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies, with some also including its administrative and other ones too. USAID was a major component of the US’ power structure for decades prior to Trump’s second term so dismantling it is considered crucial for the success of his team’s foreign policy.

    4. Some US politicians have criticized the Trump Administration’s reforms of federal agencies, fearing that confidential information might leak out and even describing the overall gist of what’s going on as a “serious threat to national security”. What do they fear? Is this a sign of USAID’s connection with the CIA like Musk recently talked about?

    Not every USAID employee and project is connected to the CIA, but the CIA does indeed sometimes employ the aforesaid in advance of its goals due to the relative ease with which their democracy and human rights covers enable US spies to infiltrate and/or destabilize foreign countries. Those who are criticizing Trump’s reforms are elements of the US’ power structure who stand to lose from his and Musk’s campaign to expose irresponsible government spending and political meddling abroad.

    Some of them do have a point, namely that innocent USAID employees might be suspected of being spies and this could lead to credible threats against them, but the Trump Administration is willing to risk those consequences in pursuit of its ambitious reform campaign. Purging USAID, the State Department, and the “deep state” more broadly is the only way to prevent them from sabotaging Trump’s foreign policy the second time around, which he envisages revolutionizing the US’ relations with the world.

    Excerpts from this interview were published in Sputnik Brasil’s report titled “‘Arma principal da guerra híbrida’: o que muda na política externa dos EUA com o fim da USAID?”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 23:25

  • US "De Minimis" Exemption (Was) One Of The Highest In The World
    US “De Minimis” Exemption (Was) One Of The Highest In The World

    As a part of the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration Saturday on Canada, Mexico and China, so-called “de minimis” rules on small imports from the countries were suspended.

    “De minimis” rules say that incoming goods under a certain value are not subject to import duties (and sometimes tax). As a result, the U.S. temporarily stopped accepting parcel from China and Hong Kong as many popular retailers send scores of “de minimis” shipments from these locations, including the likes of Temu or Shein. On Wednesday, the U.S. resumed the import of the packages. USPS said it was working on a solution of implementation of the new rules that would cause the least disruptions to parcel delivery.

    While the rule change was explained in the case of China, but also Canada, with stopping the unregistered import of fentanyl or its ingredients to the U.S., Statista’s Katharina Buchholz points out that most of the parcels affected will come from e-commerce platforms, with Chinese imports taking up the bulk of “de minimis” shipments. Checking the parcels to impose Trump’s new additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods as well as any other tariffs that might apply per product category would cause a lot of extra work. However, the ability of Chinese e-commerce sellers to create large business footprints overseas while skirting many of the dues of a traditional export business has also caused discontent in the U.S. and elsewhere.

    The Biden administration in September had announced steps like protecting certain industries and keeping out certain questionable products by exempting them from “de minimis” while at the same time increasing reporting requirements, citing concerns about high parcel volumes concealing illicit substances as well as trade fairness in the light of China’s burgeoning e-commerce-by-international-shipment sector. The EU is also mulling to do away with its “de minimis” rule in order to fairly charge Chinese direct sellers. Recent reporting also points out how many of the products shipped from the likes of Shein et al. are not up to quality standards, which caused complaints from consumer protection bodies.

    Data republished by the Department of Commerce shows that more than 100 countries around the world employ “de minimis” in order to speed up international shipping. However, the maximum value such parcels can have varies widely.

    Infographic: U.S.

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The U.S.’ $800 threshold is one of the highest in the world while EU countries impose charges on imports of much lower value (above €150 – approximately $156).

    China’s “de minimis” rules are also more strict, with any tax or duty under 50 Yuan Renminbi (approximately $7) considered void – this would for most products be in line with a value of $99 or less.

    The country also already has a more refined approach to “de minimis” with a pre-registration and approval system for e-commerce traders in place that allows for higher exemptions at the discretion of the government.

    Other countries have also posed additional hurdles to “de minimis”, for example exempting B2B shipments or specific goods. Others allow neighbors or certain major trade partner to take advantage of a bigger “de minimis” allowance.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 23:00

  • FBI Turned Blind Eye While Its Informant Stole $190K From Jan. 6 Protestor: Court Filing
    FBI Turned Blind Eye While Its Informant Stole $190K From Jan. 6 Protestor: Court Filing

    Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

    A bombshell court filing alleges that an FBI informant stole some $190,000 from a Jan. 6 protestor, and that the bureau turned a blind eye to the crime to protect its source.

    Former FBI agent Jared Wise was arrested for illegally entering the Capitol on J6. Photo: DOJ

    The court filing comes from former FBI agent and Project Veritas contractor Jared Wise, who was arrested in 2023 for his own involvement with Jan. 6. Wise had his charges dropped last month, and provided an exclusive interview to Headline USA to respond to accusations from Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe that he tried to “ensnare” O’Keefe in a plot to secretly record FBI agents.

    During his interview with this publication, Wise declined to go into detail about what he did and saw on Jan. 6—saying that he intends to reveal that information soon to reporter Julie Kelly.

    However, Wise publicized the information about the thieving FBI informant this week on this Twitter/X account, and he referred this reporter to a motion for vindictive prosecution, which he filed in December. That motion contains stunning details about how the FBI informant allegedly stole from him with impunity.

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    According to Wise’s motion, in 2020 he invested in a French real estate property with a U.S. citizen residing in France. Wise identified the man only as “GED,” but Headline USA was able to track down his identity as Gregory Edmont de la Doucette by looking up a separate civil lawsuit filed in December.

    The two men closed their real estate deal in September 2021. But soon thereafter, Wise began to have serious concerns about the status of his investment.

    Over the next few months, Wise questioned Doucette about his investment, and accused him of running a scam.

    That was when Doucette reported Wise to the FBI, he said.

    “In January 2022, GED provided information to the FBI that Wise was present in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021. GED provided information about Wise to the FBI to protect himself from consequences of his own crime against Wise, as he began to realize that Wise was uncovering GED’s fraud,” Wise said in his December motion.

    “GED correctly believed that providing information to the FBI about Wise (GED’s own victim) and J6 would help inoculate himself from any liability related to his own scheme to defraud Wise.”

    Wise was arrested in May 2023, but that didn’t dissuade him from trying to report Doucette’s alleged real estate scam to the FBI. However, the FBI refused to investigate Doucette, he said.

    The FBI even went as far as investigate Wise for trying to contact Doucette, he said.

    “In August 2024, the government sought new charges against Wise related to him contacting GED about GED’s fraud, but those efforts were not successful. In response to failing to secure a new indictment, the government then obtained revised release conditions which prevented Wise from having any direct or indirect contact with GED,” his motion said.

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    Wise’s motion said he believes the FBI protected Doucette specifically because he was informing for the bureau.

    “If the FBI were to meet with Wise and accept the information implicating GED in a complex international fraud scheme of at least $190,000 (and possibly up to $700,000 with an additional victim as alleged by a third party with direct knowledge), it would create a complicated situation in which it would need to account for criminal activity by one of its sources, and the information might also impact the prosecution of Wise,” he said.

    “Hence, the easiest strategy to prevent the dilemma is to simply refuse to meet with Wise and never learn of the claims,” he said. “Wise avers that the FBI is knowingly protecting one of its sources who has conducted criminal activity, which is reminiscent of the FBI protecting mob boss Whitey Bulger for many years.”

    Wise’s December motion was unsuccessful, but that became a moot point when the DOJ dropped all charges against him last month.

    Wise continues to seek accountability for Doucette, who could not be reached for comment.

    Wise’s December motion said he won a civil judgment against Doucette in France last September. Headline USA was unable to find that judgment, but did find a separate civil lawsuit Wise filed in federal court, also in December.

    No attorney was listed for Doucette, and he does not seem to have been served with the U.S. lawsuit yet.

    Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 22:35

  • Tomorrow's Jobs Report Will Finally Capture The Surge In Illegal Aliens, Lead To Another Big Negative Payrolls Revision
    Tomorrow’s Jobs Report Will Finally Capture The Surge In Illegal Aliens, Lead To Another Big Negative Payrolls Revision

    Remember last August when the Biden admin finally admitted it had been rigging the jobs number, when as part of its preliminary revision it vaporized 818K jobs in the past year that were never actually added, a historical negative revision (the second biggest on record) which the Fed used as justification for its panicked jumbo 50bps rate cut just a few weeks later?

    Well, tomorrow that revision – along with a dramatic increase in the US population estimate by 3.5 million primarily to reflect the surge in illegal immigration – will finally flow through fully into the jobs report, as part of a bigger overhaul of the labor market by the now-Trumpian Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the results could be dramatic.

    First, some background.

    Each year the US Census Bureau adjusts the weights in the Current Population Survey – the source data for labor-force statistics like the unemployment rate – incorporating updated estimates of the population’s size and composition. In the latest vintage, the Census modified its approach to estimating net international migration – for obvious reasons, the main of which being that for the past 4 years the US effectively had no southern border – which had the effect of substantially boosting its estimate of the US population since 2020.

    Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data for January (due for release Feb. 7) will reflect these adjustments, capturing the cumulative undercounting of the population relative to the last vintage of Census estimates. 

    That, according to Bloomberg, could lead to a large population adjustment this year which could raise the aggregate unemployment rate by raising the weight of recent immigrants, who tend to have higher unemployment rates than the general population. Overall, Bloomberg expects population adjustments to lift January’s unemployment rate by 5 basis points (which as everyone not named Matt Yglesias knows, is not percent but rather one hundredth of a percent).

    Here are the details according to Bloomberg:

    • The latest vintage of the Census Bureau’s population estimates raised the level of the civilian noninstitutional population for December 2024 by around 3.6 million relative to the prior vintage a year earlier.

      • The main reason was changes to the methodology for estimating net immigration. Historically, Census has relied on American Community Survey (ACS) data for its estimates of net international migration. But this approach posed two challenges:

        • First, the ACS data is lagged. For each vintage of population estimates, Census had ACS immigration information only for the previous year, so the data failed to capture very recent trends.

        • Second, ACS misses some migrants. This is supported by the divergence in recent years between the ACS immigration estimates and immigration totals from administrative data from other parts of the government.

      • To address this, Census adjusted its methodology to incorporate 75% of the difference between the sum of immigration totals from the administrative data and the ACS data. That resulted in a higher estimate for net immigration, lifting the estimate of the total population from 2020-2024.

    • Of that 3.6 million, roughly 3 million are 16 and older – the relevant population for the BLS unemployment statistics.

    • Historically, adjustments to the population — even relatively large ones — haven’t had much impact on the unemployment rate.In some cases the adjustments have resulted in significant changes to labor-force participation or employment rates, but usually there have been offsetting effects that dampen any change.

    • But for tomorrow’s report there is a risk that the updated immigration estimates could lift the unemployment rate more visibly because the adjustment could increase the survey weight of workers with a higher unemployment rate.

    Bottom line: Adjustments to the population controls in January’s household survey to boost the unemployment rate by ~5 bps. Together with Bloomberg’s forecast of a decline in government jobs, the unemployment rate is expected to edge up to 4.16% in January from 4.09% a month earlier.

    There’s more: since the increase in the population will also raise the level of the labor force and employment, the updated employment level will imply average monthly job growth of around 150k-170k last year — narrowing the gap between the employment figures from the household survey and the estimates from the BLS’ establishment survey. 

    And indeed, Bloomberg cautions that the separate, benchmarking process in the establishment survey is likely to result in significant downward revisions to nonfarm-payrolls data, bringing average monthly job growth last year down to about 150k, from around 180k before revisions. 

    As Standard Chartered’s Steve Englander writes (full note available to pro subs), according to the abovementioned BLS estimates as of August 2024, March 2024 NFP is likely to be revised down by 818k after benchmarking to the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). However, further QCEW revisions since August make a 670k downward NFP revision more likely, so the overall gap between NFP and CPS (as of end-2024) will be reduced to about 2mn from 4.3mn.

    The adjustment supports Englander’s – and our – view that the surge in illegal aliens is more likely to be captured in NFP than CPS, as many of these workers were able to obtain employment authorization and work “legally” in the country. The household survey has likely understated annual employment growth by c.0.5mn during the past three years.

    One problem the BLS will face is that participation rates and employment-to-population ratios for undocumented immigrants are highly uncertain. The BLS uses administrative data from other sources to bulk up population underestimates from standard Census and American Community Survey sources. However, no survey is likely to capture labor-force participation and employment among undocumented immigrants, so the BLS will probably have to make some assumptions based on legal immigrants and native-born labor-market participants. In addition, according to BLS methodology undocumented immigrants who have not been in contact with US Customs and Border Protection agents are unlikely to show up in either census population counts or BLS household employment. While these fully under-the-radar immigrants are a minority, CBO estimated them at c.800k for 2024.

    An additional quirk is that the BLS puts most of its population revisions into each year’s January release (data to be released on 7 February). Its practice has been to introduce an abrupt upward or downward jump in January levels to capture the new population controls. This is arbitrary and does not align with monthly census population estimates. In practice, this means that m/m changes in population, employment, unemployment and labor-force numbers are largely meaningless, as they miss the big January shift. The 12M, 24M and 36M changes embed the population changes so they are relevant to the analysis. Ratios such as the unemployment rate, participation rate and employment to population remain meaningful on a m/m basis.

    More to the point, as we first correctly reported and  as the BLS subsequently admitted in August 2024, the March 2024 NFP would be revised down by 818k after benchmarking to the QCEW. However, subsequent QCEW revisions suggest a benchmark NFP reduction of around 670k. The overall gap between NFP and CPS will be reduced to 2.0mn from 4.3mn. 

    Of course, that’s not the full story. As we also reported in December, the subsequent QCEW release pointed to en even much weaker Q2-2024 employment growth than signalled by NFP. (see “Biden Lied About Everything: Philly Fed Finds All Jobs “Created” In Q2 Were Fake“). However, the benchmark revision will not correct for the overstatement of payrolls in Q2-2024 until the second quarter of 2026, or more than a year into the future, leaving us with another year of NFP distortions! 

    Yes, dear readers, the full extent of the labor market devastation under Biden – and just how fabricated the jobs report truly has been – will continue to be unveiled for years to come, long after Biden himself is gone.

    More in the Standard Chartered report available to pro subscribers.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 22:10

  • Rubio To Skip G20 In Protest Against South Africa's DEI And Climate Policies
    Rubio To Skip G20 In Protest Against South Africa’s DEI And Climate Policies

    Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times,

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio will not attend the G20 in protest against the hosting nation South Africa’s policies regarding land expropriation and climate.

    In a post on social media platform X, Rubio accused South Africa of promoting “DEI and climate change,” which he suggested was a form of “anti-Americanism.”

    “South Africa is doing very bad things,” Rubio said. “Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, and sustainability.’”

    Rubio’s absence means that the United States may not be represented when leaders of the G20 meet in Johannesburg later in the year to coordinate on international economic issues.

    Rubio’s comments echo similar remarks made by President Donald Trump over the weekend, in which the president accused South Africa of engaging in “a massive Human Rights violation” by allowing the government to expropriate private land for public use and vowed to cut U.S. funding to South Africa.

    Those remarks targeted two South African laws: the 2024 Expropriation Act and the 2025 Expropriation Bill, which updated the circumstances under which the government could reclaim private property for public use.

    The 2024 act repeals an Apartheid-era law that allowed the government to seize private land and was previously widely used against black South Africans.

    The new law forbids individuals from being arbitrarily divested from their property, orders the government to pay fair market value for any property taken, and directs that expropriation be conducted equitably.

    Some critics of the law, including billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk, who emigrated from South Africa, say that the law unfairly targets white South Africans.

    No race is explicitly targeted by the law, but it does require that previous land seizures based on race, such as those made during Apartheid, be taken into account when determining the appropriateness of land expropriations.

    There is also the issue that more than 70 percent of private farmland in South Africa is owned by the white population, which accounts for only about 7 percent of South Africa’s overall population.

    As such, the law may disproportionately impact them.

    The 2025 bill, meanwhile, established that there are circumstances in which the government can seize private property without compensation.

    Such circumstances include when the land has been abandoned, when the land is worth less than state investments in it, or when the property poses a direct health or safety risk.

    The bill also requires that the government seek to negotiate compensation and the other terms of acquiring private property from the owner before it can resort to expropriation.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 21:45

  • Former UPenn Athletes Sue To Expunge Trans Swimmer Lia Thomas' Records
    Former UPenn Athletes Sue To Expunge Trans Swimmer Lia Thomas’ Records

    Three former swimmers for the University of Pennsylvania have sued the Ivy League college to expunge the records of transgender athlete Lia Thomas.

    UPenn Women’s swimming & Diving teammates dry off next to Thomas after a warm up with Harvard. AP

    Alums Grace Estabrook, Margot Kaczorowski and Ellen Holmquist filed the suit on Tuesday, alleging they suffered emotional trauma after Thomas competed as a woman, destroying everything they’d worked their entire lives to achieve. The lawsuit was filed one day before President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning biological men from competing in women’s sports, the Fox News reports.

    The three actual women claim that their former school, along with Harvard University, the NCAA, and the Ivy League Council of Presidents subjected them to harassment and abuse in violation of federal laws by allowing Thomas to compete on their team.

    “The UPenn administrators told the women that if anyone was struggling with accepting Thomas’ participation on the UPenn Women’s team, they should seek counseling and support from CAPS and the LBGTQ center,” reads the lawsuit.

    2004 grads Kaczorowski and Holmquist, and Estabrook, a 2022 graduate, say they were “repeatedly emotionally traumatized” after Thomas was allowed to compete with them in violation of Title IX, and say that school officials pushed pro-trans ideology on them the entire time Thomas was on the team.

    They also allege that school administrators invited them to a talk titled “Trans 101,” where they were the problem if they had issues with a “trans-identifying male” on their team.

    School officials also allegedly warned them against speaking out about Thomas or they’d be labeled transphobes and risk not finding jobs upon graduation.

    FILE – Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas speaks to her coach after winning the 500 meter freestyle during a meet with Harvard on Jan. 22, 2022, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds, File)

    The defendants are accused of creating a culture of intimidation that forced young women to deny biology. The plaintiffs claim that adding Thomas to their team jeopardized their opportunities, privacy, and safety.

    Thomas, who competed for the UPenn Men’s Swimming and Diving team between 2017 and 2020 then transitioned to the women’s team, coming in first in the 500, 200, and 100-yard freestyle races – setting women’s records. Thomas also broke several women’s records at the 2022 Ivy League Championship, hosted at Harvard University.

    The lawsuit asks a judge to declare that Thomas was ineligible to compete in women’s races, and expunge his records, according to The National News Desk.

    “The Ivy League’s plan was to crown a man as a women’s champion in one of the most iconic swimming venues in America as scores of national and international journalists described the scene as a landmark civil rights accomplishment to be venerated,” reads the lawsuit. “To bring its vision to fruition, the Ivy League engaged in a season-long pressure campaign to keep Thomas eligible to compete and prevent women from speaking up for their equal rights.”

    The swimmers’ attorney, Bioll Bock, told The National News Desk that the alleged “pressure campaign” defied common sense and harmed his clients.

    “The Ivy League believed that if America’s oldest and most storied educational institutions led the way, Americans would suppress common sense and submit to radical policies that steal young women’s cherished sports opportunities and obliterate biological reality,” he wrote, adding “This lawsuit exposes the behind the scenes scheming that led to the attempt by Harvard University, UPenn, the Ivy League and the NCAA, to impose radical gender ideology on the American college sports landscape.“

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 21:20

  • Bovard: Forty Years Bashing The National Endowment For Democracy
    Bovard: Forty Years Bashing The National Endowment For Democracy

    Authored by Jim Bovard via The Libertarian Institute,

    At the start of this week Elon Musk posted on X:

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    After that merciless arm-twisting, I have no choice but to recap my National Endowment for Democracy bashes going back to shortly after it was launched in 1983.

    In a November 29, 1985 piece in the Oakland Tribune, I hailed NED as “one of the newest, most prestigious boondoggles on the Potomac.” But there were plenty of scoffers early on: “NED has been called many things—an International Political Action Committee, the Taxpayer Funding of Foreign Elections Program, and a slush fund for political hacks who like to travel to warm climates in cold weather. In less than two years, NED has lived up to all these epithets.” My op-ed concluded, “The sooner NED is abolished, the cleaner our foreign policy will be.”

    The following year, after fresh NED scandals, Senator Ernest Hollings (D-SC) howled, “This thing is not the National Endowment for Democracy but the National Endowment for Embarrassment.” Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) complained, “From its very inception, the National Endowment for Democracy has been riddled with scandal and impropriety.”

    But it was a “jobs for the boys” program that enabled politicians to launder money to plenty of their aides and donors, so it survived one pratfall after another.

    In 2006, in “Defining Democracy Down” in The American Conservative, I wrote:

    “In 2001, NED quadrupled its aid to Venezuelan opponents of elected president Hugo Chavez, and NED heavily funded some organizations involved in a bloody military coup that temporarily removed Chavez from power in April 2002. After Chavez retook control, NED and the State Department responded by pouring even more money into groups seeking his ouster.

    The International Republican Institute, one of the largest NED grant recipients, played a key role both in the Chavez coup and also in the overthrow of Haiti’s elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In February 2004, an array of NED-aided groups and individuals helped spur an uprising that left 100 people dead and toppled Aristide. Brian Dean Curran, the U.S. ambassador to Haiti, warned Washington that the International Republican Institute’s actions ‘risked us being accused of attempting to destabilize the government.’

    The U.S. pulled out all the stops to help our favored candidate win a ‘free and fair’ election in 2004 in the Ukraine. In the two years prior to the election, the United States spent over $65 million ‘to aid political organizations in Ukraine, paying to bring opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to meet U.S. leaders and helping to underwrite exit polls indicating he won a disputed runoff election,’ according to the Associated Press. Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) complained that “much of that money was targeted to assist one particular candidate, and…millions of dollars ended up in support of the presidential candidate, Viktor Yushchenko.’ Yet with boundless hypocrisy, Bush had proclaimed that “any [Ukrainian] election…ought to be free from any foreign influence.”

    In a 2009 piece for the Future of Freedom Foundation, I wrote, “NED is based on the notion that its meddling in foreign elections is automatically pro-democracy because the U.S. government is the incarnation of democracy. NED has always operated on the principle that ‘what’s good for the U.S. government is good for democracy.’”

    In 2017, Donald Trump’s first administration dropped “democracy promotion” from the list of official goals of U.S. foreign policy. In a USA Today op-ed with the headline, “End Democracy Promotion Balderdash,” I wrote that the reform “could sharply reduce America’s piety exports…It is time to recognize the carnage the U.S. has sown abroad in the name of democracy.” I warned:

    “Democracy promotion gives U.S. policymakers a license to meddle almost anywhere on Earth. The National Endowment for Democracy, created in 1983, has been caught interfering in elections in France, Panama, Costa Rica, Ukraine, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Haiti and many other nations…Rather than delivering political salvation, U.S. interventions abroad more often produce ‘no-fault carnage’ (no one in Washington is ever held liable).”

    In a 2018 op-ed headlined “Time for the US to end democracy promotion flim-flams” in The Hill, I wrote:

    “Democracy promotion has long been one of the U.S. government’s favorite foreign charades. The Trump administration’s proposal to slash funding for democratic evangelism is being denounced as if it were the dawn of a new Dark Age. But this is a welcome step to draining a noxious swath of the Washington swamp…

    Unfortunately, many Washingtonians are blinded by self-serving sanctimony. National Democratic Institute president Kenneth Wollack claims that equating U.S. and Russian interventions in foreign elections is like ‘comparing someone who delivers lifesaving medicine to someone who brings deadly poison.’ But the opiate crisis illustrates how easily therapeutic concoctions can produce vast carnage…

    Democracy often provides a vast improvement in governance in foreign lands but bribery, finagling, and bombing are poor ways to export freedom. Can Washington politicians and policy wonks explain why the U.S. government deserves veto power over elections everywhere else on Earth?”

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    Since that 2018 op-ed, NED became a top funder of the worldwide Censorship Industrial Complex. It has also continued trying to rig foreign elections. NED tacitly justifies itself because “God wants democracy to win.” The U.S. government is simply doing God’s work—or doing what God would do if he knew as much as U.S. government agencies.

    In 1984, Congressman Hank Brown (R-CO) provided a single sentence that should have nullified NED’s right to exist: “It is a contradiction to try to promote free elections by interfering in them.” But contradictions never stopped the growth of Leviathan. NED’s continued existence is a testament to the perpetual perfidy of U.S. foreign policy. With pressure from Musk and from the Trump administration, Americans may soon learn of far more NED scandals.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 20:55

  • DOJ Sues Chicago, The Entire State Of Illinois, And Local Officials Over 'Sanctuary City' Laws
    DOJ Sues Chicago, The Entire State Of Illinois, And Local Officials Over ‘Sanctuary City’ Laws

    It’s no secret that Chicago has forsaken its own low-income residents to virtue signal as a so-called ‘sanctuary city’ for illegal immigrants – to the point where local residents have been excoriating city officials during official meetings, and major businesses such as Ken Griffin’s Citadel moved to Miami due to the city devolving into “Afghanistan.”

    Now, the Trump DOJ is suing Chicago, the state of Illinois, local officials over laws creating said ‘sanctuary,’ and have accused the defendants of impeding federal immigration enforcement efforts. In their complaint, the DOJ has asked a judge to declare the state and local measures unconstitutional due to the federal government’s supremacy.

    One of the laws challenged by the Wednesday lawsuit prohibits officials from complying with federal immigration detainers and providing certain information about noncitizens.

    “The challenged provisions of Illinois, Chicago, and Cook County law reflect their intentional effort to obstruct the Federal Government’s enforcement of federal immigration law and to impede consultation and communication between federal, state, and local law enforcement officials that is necessary for federal officials to carry out federal immigration law and keep Americans safe,” reads the lawsuit.

    Named in the case are Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D), as well as the city’s police superintendent and other city officials.

    The case, filed in federal court in Chicago, marks one of the first major cases brought by the Trump administration in such a case, and comes after the Wednesday confirmation of Attorney General Pam Bondi, who issued a same-day memo restricting sanctuary cities from accessing DOJ funds.

    It’s also the latest in a series of moves by the new administration to halt illegal immigration and punish leftist cities and states who encourage and shelter illegal migrants – including orders to restrict birthright citizenship and declaring an invasion at the southern border. Homeland Security, meanwhile, has focused its deportation efforts on sanctuary cities.

    The Wednesday lawsuit builds on a previously filed suit brought by several Chicago-based organizations, which seeks to block the Trump administration from conducting raids in the Windy City.

    “Unlike Donald Trump, Illinois follows the law. The bipartisan Illinois TRUST Act, signed into law by a Republican governor, has always been compliant with federal law and still is today,” Pritzker’s office said in a statement.

    “Illinois will defend our laws that prioritize police resources for fighting crime while enabling state law enforcement to assist with arresting violent criminals. Instead of working with us to support law enforcement, the Trump Administration is making it more difficult to protect the public, just like they did when Trump pardoned the convicted January 6 violent criminals. We look forward to seeing them in court,” the statement continues.

    The DOJ lawsuit cites Prizker’s comments on CNN late last month, during which he said he’s eager to cooperate with the Trump administration to “get rid” of criminals, but questioned whether “law-abiding” migrants should be targeted.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 20:30

  • Is ATF Using AI-Powered Facial Recognition To ID Gun Owners?
    Is ATF Using AI-Powered Facial Recognition To ID Gun Owners?

    Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

    Several reports now indicate that ATF has access to and utilizes facial recognition technology to identify gun owners. In fact, two Government Accountability Office reports confirm that ATF does have access to various facial recognition systems, including Clearview AI, Vigilant Solutions, and other systems owned by other federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial law enforcement agencies.

    The Government Accountability Office described the Clearview AI database as: 

    “A web-based facial recognition service using 30+ billion facial images sourced from publicly available websites, including news media, mugshot, and social media websites, among others.”

    A 2021 GAO report found that ATF did not have sufficient accountability mechanisms “to track what non-federal systems with facial recognition technology are used by employees.”

    According to testimony given to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, ATF:

    “Initially used these services without requiring their staff to take training on topics such as how the technology works, what photos are appropriate to use, and how to interpret the results.”

    GAO scolded federal agencies, stating that they “must consider the potential impact of its use on civil rights and civil liberties because the potential for error and the potential to misidentify someone could lead to the arrest and prosecution of an innocent person.”

    GAO was also concerned that government use of facial recognition technology can have “a chilling effect on an individual’s exercise of their First Amendment rights.”

    Similarly, ATF’s use of Facial Recognition Technology could have a chilling effect on the People’s exercise of their Second Amendment rights.

    According to GAO, ATF is reported to have conducted at least 549 facial recognition searches on gun owners between October 2019 and March 2022.

    GAO indicates that “as of April 2023, ATF… reported that they had halted their use of such services.”

    However, the most recent reports suggest otherwise.

    On July 21, 2024, Senator Ron Johnson released a report detailing the attempted assassination of President Trump in Butler, PA. In the report, it is revealed that:

    “Photos… were sent to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) for facial recognition… The ATF was apparently requesting the photos… for facial recognition purposes. It is unclear… why ATF would be the agency responsible for conducting facial recognition.”

    We agree. It is unclear why ATF, the agency tasked with enforcing federal alcohol, tobacco, and firearms laws, should have access to a facial recognition system in the first place.

    New Jersey Police Used Clearview AI to Identify Gun Owners

    In New Jersey (a state with a firearm purchaser database, handgun registration, and universal registration checks) the government utilized Clearview AI to identify whether suspects owned guns prior to arrest.

    In an interview, Attorney General Grewal said that:

    “The Clearview app was used to get the name of the individual… we wanted to find out, does this person have firearms?”

    Ultimately, the Attorney General ordered all New Jersey police to cease using the software because it was “racist and inaccurate.”

    ATF Could Use Facial Recognition Software in Conjunction with National Gun Registry

    In recent years, ATF has admitted to Congress that it possesses nearly one billion gun and gun owner records. A 2022 report by Gun Owners of America details that this registry is both digital and searchable.

    By ATF’s own admission this registry is “not searchable by name” because “ATF is the only agency that pays Adobe” to disable search functionality of ATF’s PDF gun registry.

    However, ATF could simply re-enable the functionality to search its digital registry by name.

    Additionally, Senate appropriators are already advocating for “Law Enforcement Advanced Analytics” funding “to implement software using advanced analytics to correlate open source, commercial, and native agency data.”

    Translation: the gun control lobby wants to fund facial recognition technology for agencies like ATF, to monitor law-abiding citizens.

    Apparently, ATF is “increasingly relying on the analysis of huge volumes of information, including open-source information” during its enforcement of gun control on the American people.

    It seems as if ATF is preparing to use Clearview AI in conjunction with its illegal gun registry to identify gun owners and what firearms they own—just like the New Jersey police have already done.

    And clearly, there are questions remaining as to the extent of ATF’s facial recognition technology usage.

    With anti-gun politicians in Congress attempting to pass legislation that removes restrictions on ATF, like the AIM Act, the stage is set for ATF to have a registry of guns and gun owners, with their facial data as well.

    Gun Owners of America will fight this overreach tooth and nail in both Congress and in the courts. ATF can never be allowed to maintain a registry of guns, or gun owners. As the saying goes, registration always precedes confiscation.

    More on the report from GOA’s Benjamin Sanderson: 

    . . . 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 20:05

  • Border Czar "Expects" Kinetic Warfare Between US Troops & Mexican Drug Cartels
    Border Czar “Expects” Kinetic Warfare Between US Troops & Mexican Drug Cartels

    Trump administration Border Czar Tom Homan told ABC News in an exclusive interview that he anticipates a potential kinetic engagement between the US military and drug cartels, though he did not specify a location. His remarks come as thousands of US troops have been deployed to the southern border. Additionally, earlier this week, a US Air Force surveillance aircraft conducted a signals intelligence (SIGINT) operation over cartel-controlled areas in Baja California.

    “Look, I’m looking at numbers this morning, about 14,000 arrests, and about 76% of them are criminals,” Homan told ABC News’ Kyra Phillips and Terry Moran when asked about the ICE raids.

    “We’re not going to neighborhoods looking for people different than us. These are well-planned, investigated leads,” the border czar said.

    When Homan was asked whether the US military could get involved if cartels strike, Homan replied: “Yes, and we expect them to,” adding that US troops “need to protect themselves.”

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    At the start of the week, in what appeared to be the shortest trade war in history, Mexico and Canada each committed 10,000 troops to their respective borders, while the US reinforced its southern border with thousands of soldiers in the last few weeks. 

    By Monday evening, a USAF RC-135V/W Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft conducted a SIGINT operation over the southern half of Baja California, a region home to heavily armed Tijuana Cartel and Sinaloa Cartel members. 

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    On Wednesday… 

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    Last week, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had some strong words for drug cartels.

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    Dismantling Mexican drug cartels could be a very messy operation, which is why the Trump administration fortified the border with the military. The challenge, however, is that if US special forces operators kill cartel leaders, retaliatory attacks by cartel members could occur at Mexican beach resorts or, worse, on the streets of US cities. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 19:40

  • CDC Confirms Webpages Removed To Comply With Trump's DEI Executive Orders
    CDC Confirms Webpages Removed To Comply With Trump’s DEI Executive Orders

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A spokesperson for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed Tuesday that multiple webpages have been taken down in response to President Donald Trump’s executive orders on gender ideology and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta on April 23, 2020. (Tami Chappell/AFP via Getty Images

    A review of the websites by The Epoch Times shows that between Jan. 31 and Feb. 4, a multitude of CDC webpages were removed and remain down as of Feb. 4.

    “All changes to the HHS (Department of Health and Human Services) website and HHS division websites are in accordance with President Trump’s January 20 Executive Orders, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, and Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” the CDC spokesperson told The Epoch Times.

    “The Office of Personnel Management has provided initial guidance on both executive orders and HHS and divisions are acting accordingly to execute.”

    That comment came in response to a question about several CDC webpages that were offline as of Tuesday.

    These include Health Disparities Among LQBTQ Youth; Interim Clinical Considerations for Use of Vaccine for Mpox Prevention; Fast Facts: HIV and Transgender People; pages for HIV data; the page for the U.S. global HIV program called PEPFAR, and others.

    A page that was titled “Safer Food Choices for Pregnant People“ was renamed ”Safer Food Choices for Pregnant Women.” When the previous version is accessed, the page displays a message saying it moved to the one referencing women.

    An analysis from the health nonprofit KFF, formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation, noted that some CDC webpages were taken down but were put back online with a message saying the webpage was being changed.

    “CDC’s website is being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders,” says the message at the top of the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention website.

    Several other CDC pages, including one with demographic and health surveys, also displayed that message, as did the agency’s front page on Tuesday.

    The CDC’s official public portal for health data was taken down entirely on Jan. 31 but went back up over the weekend with the message about website modifications. The agency’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey data was restored, too, but with at least one of the gender columns missing and its data documentation removed.

    Some of the sites came back online on Monday, other data analysts said. However, it’s not clear exactly what was removed or changed.

    “You go looking for something and it’s just not there,” said Amy O’Hara, a Georgetown University researcher who is president of the Association of Public Data Users. The website changes sparked “a mad scramble right now” to grab copies of whatever federal data was posted before, O’Hara said.

    Researchers say datasets and summaries were affected, as were codebooks that explain different variables. There were changes to published research that used affected datasets and redactions to lists of publications about certain topics, O’Hara said.

    Paul Schroeder, executive director of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, said people looking for data may have to resort to suing for access or submitting Freedom of Information Act requests.

    “The removal of several public datasets from agency websites goes against everything the statistical agencies stand for and were intended for,” Schroeder said on Monday. “Public data users are being left in the dark about what is going on.”

    In the wake of Trump’s signing the executive orders, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) released a memorandum on Jan. 24 stipulating that agency heads will terminate DEI offices and positions within 60 days.

    Another executive order specifically directed the CDC to stop working with the World Health Organization, and HHS placed a pause on posts and reports issued by both the CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), subjecting them to review first.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 19:15

  • Trump Nukes All Govt-MSM Contracts After Politico Firestorm, Will Axe 97% Of USAID Staff
    Trump Nukes All Govt-MSM Contracts After Politico Firestorm, Will Axe 97% Of USAID Staff

    In light of the firestorm over tens of millions of dollars going from the US government to various media outlets in the form of subscriptions, particularly Politico, President Trump has directed the General Services Administration to terminate “every single media contract” expensed by the agency, according to an email obtained by Axios.

    Photo via @bennyjohnson

    “GSA team, please do two things,” the email begins.

    • Pull all contracts for Politico, BBC, E&E (Politico sub) and Bloomberg
    • Pull all media contracts for just GSA – cancel every single media contract today for GSA only.

    The move comes after internet sleuths discovered tens of millions of dollars going towards Politico Pro subscriptions, with particular focus on one $8 million allocation.

    On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the executive branch would cancel their contract with Politico…

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    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js…and today we find that it goes much further than just the rag that laundered the deep state’s ’51 intel officials’ Hunter Biden laptop propaganda. For example, the NY Times was also cut off.

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    Politico responded on Thursday, claiming that they have “never received any government funding — no subsidies, no grants, no handouts. Not one dime, ever, in 18 years.”

    No, just tens of millions in Politico Pro subscriptions from the government. Like Hunter Biden received $200,000 for a painting of his excrement, which was totally not influence peddling.

    Deep Cuts To USAID

    Meanwhile, the White House is also planning to cut USAID’s staff from roughly 10,000 employees to just 294 – a 97% reduction, after Elon Musk’s DOGE team revealed that the international aid organization has essentially been funding woke pet projects and anti-American activities.

    On Tuesday, the administration put a stop on all USAID work and placed all employees on leave, with thousands of overseas workers to be recalled within 30 days.

    According to Reuters, Secretary of State Marco Rubio – who was placed in charge of USAID earlier this week, said that the Trump administration was identifying and designating critical programs that would be exempted from the stop work order and deep cuts.

    According to the report, over 2/3 of USAID’s workers are located outside the United States. As of 2023, the ‘aid’ organization managed more than $40 billion in projects. USAID’s website informed people that as of midnight on Friday, February 7, “all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 18:50

  • Self-Deportations And Plummeting Crossings – How New Border Policies Impact Arizona
    Self-Deportations And Plummeting Crossings – How New Border Policies Impact Arizona

    Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Yuma Mayor Douglas Nicholls said that border crossings near his city have continued to decline since President Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border on Jan. 20.

    Illustration by The Epoch Times, Allan Stein/The Epoch Times, Gettyimages

    “For the last four days—very specifically in the last four days—we haven’t had any transfers from the San Diego or Tucson sector, which had been happening daily or near daily for the last several months,” Nicholls told The Epoch Times on Jan. 24.

    “There’s some definite changes along the flow of traffic, at least in the Yuma sector.”

    Nicholls said some illegal immigrants have chosen to “self-deport” rather than be put through the federal immigration system.

    “Quite a few of them are actually being repatriated to their home countries,” he said, “which is why you’re seeing the reduction in numbers, because people don’t want to make the investment just to be sent back home.”

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    Nicholls said that the official stance is that most border crossings are related to human smuggling and trafficking, with considerable involvement from Mexico’s drug cartels.

    Illegal immigrants pay cartels and smuggling organizations to cross the U.S.—Mexico border; it can cost anywhere from $4,000 to $40,000 depending on the nationality of the border crosser and the destination city. Many illegal immigrants enter the United States in debt to cartels, and spend years in indentured servitude to pay it off.

    Trump took multiple border-related executive actions on Jan. 20 after being sworn in, including to kick-start the deportation of criminals and other illegal immigrants.

    Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents quickly began detaining and deporting many known criminal illegal immigrants in major metropolitan areas, including Chicago and Denver.

    Nicholls said he supports the plan to deport known criminals. “I don’t know anybody who’s in favor of keeping them here. So I don’t think that that’s really caused any sort of controversy,” he said.

    Yuma Mayor Douglas Nicholls during an interview with The Epoch Times in Yuma, Ariz., on Jan. 23, 2025. Allan Stein/The Epoch Times

    Cost to Local Industries

    Nicholls also noted that Yuma’s health care and agricultural sectors have faced financial challenges due to illegal border crossings. One local hospital has incurred an estimated $26 million in costs for illegal immigrant care, which has yet to be reimbursed.

    “From a city perspective, we’ve done a pretty good job of isolating costs and not really impacting our budget,” Nicholls said.

    “As a community, because of the great work of our Border Patrol and local nonprofits, we’ve only had a couple days in the last four years where migrants were released out in large numbers to the community. We’ve been able to help mitigate those impacts without dramatic costs.”

    However, Nicholls said that farming operations along the border in Yuma have suffered a blow with all the illegal border crossings in recent years.

    Border Patrol agents in fiscal year 2022 apprehended more than 25,000 illegal immigrants in the Yuma sector, the vast majority of whom crossed the border in an area right next to lettuce farms.

    In December 2022, the Yuma County Board of Supervisors, along with Mayor Nicholls, declared countywide states of emergency due to the large number of illegal immigrants gathering on the U.S. side of the border.

    The mayor’s proclamation has been in effect since that time.

    Illegal immigrants wait to board a U.S. Border Patrol bus to be taken for processing after crossing the border from Mexico, in Yuma, Ariz., on May 22, 2022. Mario Tama/Getty Images

    In September 2023, Yuma County Commissioner Jonathan Lines testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security about the financial implications of an unrestricted border on Yuma’s $4 billion agricultural industry.

    “The surge in illegal immigration has had a devastating effect on this critical industry in Arizona,” Lines told the subcommittee.

    “The people crossing illegally travel on foot and urinate and defecate in fields and irrigation canals of the farms after they cross the border, which ruins whatever crop is growing on that particular farm.

    “Farmers must abide by stringent food safety rules and this trespass and defecating in production areas renders the crops grown completely unmarketable, thus the crop is destroyed, and farmers must bear this staggering loss.

    “As a result, farmers in Yuma have had to invest millions since [the Biden administration] took office in crop loss, to hire security and build fences around their farms to protect our nation’s food supply,” Lines testified.

    Nicholls said that the window for lettuce from farm to market is very narrow, and consistency is essential because of the short shelf life of produce.

    “You need people there when you need people there,” he said. “The 50,000 [migrant] workforce that’s required for winter harvest here is really focused on legal, consistent labor.”

    Nicholls said that over the past four years, most illegal immigrants crossing into the Yuma area have wanted to be apprehended by Border Patrol. By doing so, they aimed to enter the system and obtain “some sort of status,” he said.

    (Top) Workers tend to lettuce fields in Yuma, Ariz., on Dec. 10, 2021. (Bottom) A farm worker inspects an irrigation line in Yuma, Ariz., on Jan. 23, 2025. Charlotte Cuthbertson, Allan Stein/The Epoch Times

    Nicholls said that city officials have not received any official information regarding troop deployments in the Yuma sector.

    “What I’m tracking is a perception impact—where people assume our cities are in chaos. They’re not,” he said. “We’ve seen some negative pushback in that regard for tourism, for job attraction, those kind of things.”

    Border Town Issues Order

    Three hundred and fifty miles east of Yuma lies another border town: Douglas, Arizona, with a population of about 15,600.

    On Jan. 27, Douglas Mayor Jose Grijalva signed an emergency proclamation to prepare for the financial impact of the president’s declaration of a national emergency at the border and the deployment of military troops.

    “With the closing of the southern border, the city of Douglas will see a decrease in revenue sources from sales taxes, tourism, and other areas of commerce,” the proclamation states.

    The proclamation didn’t mention that the Douglas Port of Entry remains open 24 hours a day, seven days a week for legal entry into the United States for commercial traffic, non-commercial traffic, and pedestrians.

    The statement suggests that the city will experience an increase in costs to assist federal agencies in implementing the president’s executive order.

    The proclamation states that although there is currently “no immediate invasion of narcotics and crime within the City of Douglas, I find it necessary and prudent to prepare for the influx of military personnel to the southern border, to take every lawful precaution available in order to protect the health, safety, and welfare of of Douglas’s citizens.”

    A Border Patrol truck patrols near the U.S.–Mexico border in Yuma, Ariz., on April 13, 2019. Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times

    The city pledges to cooperate with county, state, and federal officials to “protect our borders from illegal entry while protecting our economy.”

    On Jan. 22, the defense department announced the deployment of 1,500 active-duty service members, along with additional air and intelligence assets, to the southern border to assist troops already conducting enforcement operations in the region.

    The announcement was made approximately 36 hours after Trump signed an executive order instructing the Pentagon to respond to the crisis at the border.

    New State Law

    Communities are also preparing for the effects of Arizona’s Proposition 314, which was approved by 65 percent of voters in the November election.

    This measure makes it a state crime for noncitizens to enter Arizona from any location other than a port of entry, which allows state and local police to make arrests.

    The measure also allows Arizona state judges to order deportations.

    State agencies must check an individual’s immigration status via the E-Verify program before allowing enrollment in financial aid programs or public welfare. It’s a crime to submit false information to evade the E-Verify program.

    Under the proposition, it’s a Class 2 felony if a person knowingly sells fentanyl and it results in the death of another person.

    The Yuma County Sheriff’s Office is currently awaiting further guidance from the county attorney, who is working with relevant parties to establish policies and procedures for sheriffs concerning Proposition 314.

    Remote Desert Town

    In the desert town of Ajo, Arizona, located 43 miles from the state’s 372-mile-long southern border with Mexico, life tends to move at a slower step.

    However, resident Charlie Wolfe believes it is only a matter of time before the impact of the new administration’s border policies become apparent.

    Read the rest here…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 18:25

  • State Of Emergency Declared In Santorini After Quake Swarms Shake Island
    State Of Emergency Declared In Santorini After Quake Swarms Shake Island

    Greek authorities declared a state of emergency in Santorini following days of “intense” earthquake swarms rattling the island. The strongest quake, registering a magnitude of 5.2, struck on Wednesday.

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    Vasilis Karastathis, director of the Geodynamic Institute, told local media outlet ERT News that “seismicity continues at the same pace as in previous days, intense.”

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    “We have a fairly high number of earthquakes with magnitudes above 4,” Karastathis said, adding, “We are still in the middle of the road. We have not seen any thinning, any sign that it is heading towards retreat.” 

    So far, more than 12,000 people have left the island due to concerns that larger quakes could be a precursor to the next “big one,” potentially triggering a tsunami. About 7,700 tremors have been reported in less than a week. 

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    “Late on Thursday, trucks were seen disembarking from ferries loaded with generators. In a further sign of emergency services being relocated to the island, it was announced that social workers and psychologists would be dispatched to Santorini,” The Guardian noted. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 18:00

  • VDH: Are Trump's Tariffs Really Tariffs?
    VDH: Are Trump’s Tariffs Really Tariffs?

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

    Hysteria has erupted here and abroad over President Trump’s threats to level trade tariffs against particular countries.

    Both American and foreign critics blasted them variously as either counterproductive and suicidal or unfair, imperialistic, and xenophobic.

    Certainly, tariffs are widely hated by doctrinaire economists.

    They complain that tariffs burden consumers with higher prices to protect weak domestic industries that, shielded from competition, will have no incentive to improve efficiency.

    Their ideal is “free” trade. Supposedly a free global market alone should adjudicate which particular industry in any country can produce the greatest good for the world’s consumers, whether defined by lower prices or better quality, or both.

    Even when “free trade” becomes “unfair trade”—such as China’s massive mercantile surpluses—many neoliberal economists still insist that even subsidized foreign imports are beneficial.

    Cheap imports, Americans were told, supposedly still lowered prices for consumers, still forced domestic producers to economize to remain competitive, and still brought “creative destruction,” as inefficient domestic industries properly gave way to more efficient, market-driven ones.

    But many exporters to the U.S. are propped up by their own governments.

    They may seem more competitive only because their governments want to dump products at a loss to capture market share, subsidize their businesses’ overhead to protect domestic employment or seek to create a monopoly over a strategic industry.

    Yet when Trump threatened to level tariffs against Mexico, Canada, Colombia, Venezuela, China, or the European Union, they were not primarily aimed at propping up particular inefficient U.S. industries at all.

    Instead, an exasperated Trump threatened Mexico with tariffs for three reasons.

    It refused to address its cartels’ illegal multibillion-dollar export of lethal fentanyl into the United States.

    The cartels buy Chinese-supplied raw fentanyl with impunity, disguise it to resemble toxic drugs, and smuggle the product across a porous border.

    The result over the last decade is more dead Americans from fentanyl than the total number of all U.S. soldiers lost in the wars of the twentieth century.

    Second, Mexico had stonewalled all American efforts to stop their export of millions of illegal aliens into the United States—10-12 million in the last four years alone.

    Mexico adds insult to injury by raking in profits from some $63 billion in remittances sent from its former resident citizens now residing in the United States and often subsidized by American taxpayers.

    Third, Mexico grows its American trade surpluses each year. The imbalance is now a mind-boggling nearly $170 billion.

    Trump threatened Canada because it has so far refused to police its side of an open and increasingly dangerous border. And it has racked up a $50 billion surplus by leveling asymmetrical tariffs on lots of U.S. products.

    Canada also has refused to keep its NATO promises to spend 2 percent of its GDP on defense.

    Canada’s pathetic 1.37 percent expenditure is predicated on American magnanimity. The U.S. alone protects Canada under the American North American nuclear shield and subsidizes NATO deadbeats like Canada by funding some 16 percent of the budget of the 32-nation alliance, as well as policing the international seas.

    As for Venezuela and Colombia, both communist nations have deliberately emptied their prisons to send hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens into the U.S.—many of them violent felons. They do so either out of crass self-interest, hatred, or a strategic desire to weaken America.

    China is a special case.

    Its entire 20th-century ascendance was based on stealing U.S. technology, dumping its products on the U.S. market below the cost of production to capture market share, and forcing American corporations to relocate, offshore, and outsource—leaving our industrial hinterland a “rustbelt.”

    The European Union runs a gargantuan half-trillion-dollar surplus with the U.S.

    How?

    Because for nearly the last 80 years, the U.S. has subsidized its defense during the Cold War and afterwards.

    Europe acts as if it is recovering from World War II, so it can hit up a supposedly limitlessly rich American patron with asymmetrical tariffs.

    Consider the various Trump “tariffs” leveled by an exasperated, and now $36 trillion-indebted, America.

    Almost none of them meet the traditional definitions of an industry-protecting tariff.

    Instead, they are the last-gasp tools of American leverage used only when decades of bipartisan diplomacy, summits, entreaties, and empty threats have all failed.

    So, Trump is not a mercantilist.

    Instead, he is trying to stop the multimillion-person influx of foreign criminals, the crashing of the border by millions of illegal aliens, the cartels’ export of American-killing drugs, the violation of past trade agreements, and allies from using America to subsidize their own defense.

    The Trump tariffs are the last, desperate effort to reestablish global reciprocity and keep America safe.

    And our “shocked” friends, allies, and enemies privately have known that all too well.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 17:40

  • DoD-Contracted Spy Plane Crashes In Philippines
    DoD-Contracted Spy Plane Crashes In Philippines

    The US Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) announced on X that a spy plane contracted by the Department of Defense crashed in a rural area of Maguindanao del Sur in the Philippines.

    “The aircraft was providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support at the request of our Philippine allies. The incident occurred during a routine mission in support of US-Philippine security cooperation activities,” USINDOPACOM said. 

    USINDOPACOM continued, “We can confirm no survivors of the crash. There were four personnel on board, including one US military service member and three defense contractors,” adding the cause of the “crash is under investigation.” 

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    Local media outlet Philippine News Agency said the spy plane was a Beechcraft King Air 350 twin-turboprop aircraft used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations.

    “A small private plane, Beech King Air 350 (B350), crashed around 2:30 p.m. Thursday (Feb. 6, 2025) in Barangay Malatimon, Ampatuan, Maguindanao del Sur. According to police, four bodies, including two male, were retrieved by responding villagers from the wreckage,” the media outlet wrote on X. 

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    Footage of the wreckage has surfaced on other X accounts:

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    USINDOPACOM did not disclose details about the targets the spy plane was tracking and or if those targets were related to terrorism trends in Southeast Asia.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 17:20

  • Why Mass Deportations Are Necessary And How To Keep Illegals From Coming Back
    Why Mass Deportations Are Necessary And How To Keep Illegals From Coming Back

    Authored By Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

    For months before and after Donald Trump’s election win there was an army of naysayers crawling the internet claiming that he would “never follow through” on his promises and that deportations “were not going to happen”. Most of these people were leftists trying to sow the seeds of doubt. At least some claimed to be conservatives and were perhaps disenchanted with the inaction of Donald Trump’s first term in office. I know I was not expecting much back then.

    In 2017 Trump’s cabinet confirmations took a decidedly swampy turn and his administration was overrun with Neo-Cons and banking elites. I criticized this outcome harshly at the time. However, I was willing to acknowledge a reasonable explanation – That Trump was being misled by advisers with ulterior motives. After all, every president has around 4000 positions to fill in their administration and most of them will defer that duty to their advisers.

    Trump would go on to admit in multiple interviews that he had trusted his inner circle too much and made mistakes in choosing his cabinet. They had sabotaged his efforts.

    His second term is so far a 180 degree flip from his first, and Trump’s shift in focus is evident. Like most liberty movement conservatives I’ll reserve judgment.  Trump’s presidency will likely be the most scrutinized in recent history, not only by his political opponents but by those who supported him.  We’ll be scrutinizing everything he does with primary attention on his policy efforts. “Will he take action?” is the question everyone is asking.

    The answer has been a resounding “yes”. The illegal immigration issue is of course one of the most pressing crises of our era and I would consider Trump fulfilling his promise to counter the threat a bare minimum. He has to, or he loses his entire base of support and the country falls apart at the same time. Trump’s swift move to execute mass deportations is redeeming.

    For decades conservatives and right leaning independents have been disillusioned with the Republican Party because of their incessant inaction. When leftists take power in government they waste no time exploiting every advantage – The only thing that stops them from total dominance is patriot culture and the fact that 50 million+ Americans are heavily armed. When the GOP takes power they change very little.

    One factor that truly sets the Trump Administration apart from all other modern Republican Presidencies is the acknowledgment of the culture war. The leftists have been waging this war for at least 50 years and GOP leaders have mostly dismissed it as trivial compared to politics. It’s the reason why we came within a razor’s edge of total moral relativism and degeneracy under the Biden Administration. The left has been normalizing the hatred of basic American principles for generations.

    Part of that effort has been the introduction of open borders ideology and mass illegal immigration. I consider this a kind of “final stage” of the leftist/globalist agenda – If you can demonize western culture to the point of self hatred, then people won’t care when you saturate the west with third-world migrants and put the final nail in the coffin.

    Illegal aliens don’t want to assimilate, they want to pillage and if possible to conquer.  This is why you see hundreds of Mexican flags flying at every migrant protest march; they have no interest in becoming American, they only want access to American wealth.  They look at the US citizenry as rubes and easy targets for plunder.

    There is also the danger of cultural replacement.  Many migrants from Latin American identify with the Marxist “La Raza” ideology, which asserts that America is “stolen land” that they have an ethnic claim to.  The globalists know this and use mass migration as a weapon, opening the gates and making it easy for the invasion to happen.  As we have seen in Europe and the UK, migrant hordes are like a mercenary army perfect for oppressing native citizens and preventing future rebellion against multicultural erasure.

    The core of this process is to incentivize migrants with subsidies and jobs. And this lead me to the greater dilemma of the border crisis – Locking down the border is not so hard, but getting rid of the tens-of-millions of illegals that are already in the country is much more difficult.  Making sure they don’t come back is also a conundrum.

    As we’ve seen in the first weeks of Trump’s presidency, establishment Democrats are intent on interfering with deportations in any way they can (all the future power of leftists requires forced immigration to the US from socialist leaning countries). By extension, leftist activists will seek to disrupt deportation efforts using civil unrest (when the weather warms up these goblins will come out in droves, bank on it).

    On top of the internal sabotage, there are many foreign governments that will desperately try to obstruct the return of so many unwanted citizens. Keep in mind that the US is seen by these governments as a dumping ground for their refuse. America is a steam valve to release the pressure so that these countries can get rid of their criminals, revolutionaries and those in poverty.

    Mexico, Columbia, Haiti and others continue to argue that they can’t take their own people back because it would lead to “societal catastrophe”. Why? Because these governments have been knowingly sweeping their problem children under the rug for years, and America is the rug.

    At the current rate of deportations (around 1500 per day) we are looking at around 500,000 per year. At least 10 million illegals are projected to have entered the US under Biden’s watch, and that’s not counting the millions that were in the US previously. Estimates indicate that 16 million to 20 million illegals are living in America today. To expedite matters, illegals will have to be convinced to self deport.

    There is evidence that this is happening to some extent. Border stations have seen an uptick in outgoing traffic into Mexico and border encounters have slowed (Texas has played a big part in the border slowdown with their Operation Lone Star). But how could the US pressure a majority of aliens to self deport and never come back?

    Here are a few surefire methods…

    Increased Penalties For Businesses That Hire Illegals

    This is common sense, but a large part of mass immigration depends on access to the US jobs market. Our government has been turning a blind eye to low-wage migrant labor for a long time and usually, if caught, businesses will only be fined a few hundred dollars for each migrant they employ. The savings on wages make it worth the risk.

    Federal fines should be increased greatly, changing the cost benefit ratio and making it less enticing for companies to gamble on illegal migrant labor. If companies stop hiring migrants then most aliens will leave the US overnight.

    If an industry desperately needs foreign labor then they can hire people with work visas. The process could be streamlined for certain jobs, but there has to be PROOF that these industries cannot find American workers to fill those positions. Furthermore, migrants should not be allowed to work in the US for greatly reduced wages (this drives down wages for Americans). Companies should be required to pay the same wage they would normally pay an American citizen of equivalent skill and experience.

    Permanently Cut All Government Welfare Subsidies For Asylum Seekers

    A general cancellation of amnesty and “catch and release” policies might make this action a moot point, but under the Biden Administration most migrants had access to a list of welfare subsidies. These subsidies and various migrant programs are projected to cost American taxpayers over $150 billion dollars per year. This isn’t counting state and city expenditures on illegals (New York City alone spent over $5 billion on migrants in 2024).

    Housing programs under HUD do not distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants and often migrants will receive preferential treatment by landlords because of guaranteed government payouts and tax incentives. This has helped to exacerbate the housing crisis in the US, driving up rent prices to extreme levels.

    Shut Down NGOs Engaged In Supporting Illegal Immigration

    The shut down of the USAID department is a good start in the battle against rogue NGOs, but there’s a lot more to be done.  Globalist NGOs are the worst perpetrators behind mass immigration movements and many use religious organizations as a front (the female Bishop who famously woke-lectured Trump at a church service held after his inauguration is coincidentally a recipient of NGO cash in exchange for helping illegal immigrants into the US).

    These groups are very difficult to legally obstruct or punish for such actions. One thing Trump can do is take away the 501C3 tax exemption status of NGOs involved in encouraging mass immigration to the US; these efforts are entirely political in nature, which negates tax exemption. NGOs are also subject to lawsuits.

    Ultimately the NGO problem needs to be addressed on a larger scale and as a country we need to examine the harm some of these organizations are doing. In many cases international NGO operations spend millions in foreign countries to entice migrants to cross the border, but they also run numerous programs to support migrants that are already in the US, mostly through litigation and interference with deportations.  Getting rid of them would go a long way in keeping illegals out of the country.

    Cut Off Federal Funding To Sanctuary Cities

    Trump has already threatened this response in light of Democrat resistance to deportations, but action may need to be taken sooner rather than later. The problem is that city governments often use federal dollars as a slush fund to fill the coffers of their migrant programs. Most cities do not have the funds to subsidize migrants on their own for very long, not without making extensive cuts to other parts of their budget.

    Democrats claim cutting federal funding to sanctuary cities violates the underlying principle of the Tenth Amendment, which protects states and localities from federal overreach. This is a disingenuous argument – Cities are not entitled under the 10th Amendment to federal funds without restrictions or requirements. The Spending Clause, Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution has been widely recognized as providing the federal government with the legal authority to offer federal grant funds to states and localities that are contingent on the recipients engaging in, or refraining from, certain activities.

    There are legal restriction on the federal government as well in terms of how they refuse funds, but generally speaking cities and states cannot use federal funds to support people breaking federal law. The Constitution also specifically gives the federal government broad powers over border enforcement. Cities and states are not allowed to harbor foreign threats in the US in violation of border law. Without federal funds cash will dry up quickly in sanctuary cities and migrants will leave on their own.

    Use “Griefing” Deportations For Repeat Offenders

    There’s an endless supply of migrants boasting on social media this past week that even if they are deported they will simply pop right back across the border with little effort.  Since border encounters have plummeted significantly, these claims might just be bluster.  That said, what should the US do about repeat offenders?

    Putting them in jail for months or years would cost taxpayers more money than deportations would.  We could take away their future ability to gain citizenship, but this assumes that they care.  My suggestion?  What if we use a different method – what the kids call “griefing”.

    In other words, we make the lives of repeat offenders as difficult as possible.  For example, why does border patrol keep transporting migrants to cities directly across the national line where they can easily come right back?  If a repeat illegal is captured, why not put them on a plane and drop them off as far away from the border as possible (Mexico is 3000 miles long) and let them figure out how to get home?  There’s also the option of slowing down their processing for weeks, making them wait in lockup instead of sending them back quickly.  Do this for a year and watch the the number of returning illegals drop to zero.

    The Economic Time Table

    In order to have a dramatic effect on price inflation in the US many millions of migrants will have to be removed in a short period of time. To save the housing market and cut product costs, demand has to be diminished and the fastest way to do that is boot out the people that shouldn’t be here. Deportations through ICE are a good start, but they are slow. Even with the expansion of agents and enforcement the only way to achieve visible results is to make self-deportation an imperative for illegals.

    Most migrants will have to leave on their own. It saves the taxpayer a lot of money in deportation costs, it saves time on arrests and makes it easier for everyone to get on with the process of making America better for Americans.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 17:00

  • Amazon Reverses 7% After Hours Plunge Despite Cloud Miss, Ugly Guidance
    Amazon Reverses 7% After Hours Plunge Despite Cloud Miss, Ugly Guidance

    Ahead of Amazon’s earnings, UBS said that the online retailer is the “cleanest Mag7 name to own”, although in retrospect it may also be the cleanest Ma7 name to sell, which is what is taking place after hours when the stock tumbled after it missed on Q4 cloud revenue and also guided well below estimates.

    First, here is a big picture of what the company reported for the just concluded 4th quarter:

    • EPS $1.86 vs. $1.43 q/q, beating estimates of $1.50
       
    • Net sales $187.79 billion, +10% y/y, beating estimates of $187.32 billion
      • Online stores net sales $75.56 billion, +7.1% y/y, beating estimates of $74.71 billion
      • Physical Stores net sales $5.58 billion, +8.3% y/y, beating estimates of $5.4 billion
      • Subscription Services net sales $11.51 billion, +9.7% y/y, missing estimates of $11.58 billion
        • Subscription services net sales excluding F/X +10% vs. +13% y/y, estimate +10.3%
      • North America net sales $115.59 billion, +9.5% y/y, beating estimates of $114.27 billion
      • International net sales $43.42 billion, +7.9% y/y, beating estimates of $44.13 billion
      • Third-Party Seller Services net sales $47.49 billion, +9% y/y, missing estimates of $48.02 billion
        • Third-party seller services net sales excluding F/X +9% vs. +19% y/y, estimate +10.2%

    So far so good (with some exceptions). But what caught the market’s attention first was Amazon’s AWS revenue, which came in just below estimates:

    • AWS net sales $28.79 billion, +19% y/y, estimate $28.82 billion
    • Amazon Web Services net sales excluding F/X +19% vs. +13% y/y, estimate +19%

    Turning to operating results, here the results were uniformly solid:

    • AWS operating profit 36.9%, down from 38.1% but beating estimates of 34.7%
    • Operating income $21.20 billion, +61% y/y, beating estimate $18.84 billion
    • Operating margin 11.3% vs. 7.8% y/y, beating estimate 10.1%
    • North America operating margin +8% vs. +6.1% y/y, beating estimate +6.48%
    • International operating margin 3% vs. -1% y/y, missing estimate 3.08%

    As for fulfillment expenses, these came in slightly below estimates, while the seller unit mix was slightly higher than expected:

    • Fulfillment expense $27.96 billion, +7.2% y/y, estimate $28.45 billion
    • Seller unit mix 62% vs. 61% y/y, estimate 60.2%

    Of the above, the most notable highlight – as per our preview – was AWS which grew revenue by 19% for a second consecutive quarter to $28.79BN, which however was just below the sellside estimate of $28.82BN. So maybe a little weakness here similar to Microsoft.

    Still, if revenue growth for AWS was a bit light, the 36.9% margin likely offset it, beating estimates of 34.7%, but below last quarter’s print of 38.1%. Elsewhere, North American profit rose to $25 billion, resulting in a profit of 6.44%, the highest since at least 2015 (although one wonders how much higher this number can rise). Meanwhile, international margins dipped to 3.03% from 3.63%.

    As a result of the jump in North American profits, Amazon’s consolidated operating margin rebounded strongly, and after dipping modestly in Q2 from the previous record, rose to a new all time high of 11.3% in Q4.

    However, while the above data was mixed to modestly solid, it was the company’s guidance that led to an after hours drop in the stock; that’s because the company projected profit and revenue in the current quarter both of which came in below Wall Street expectations:

    • Sees net sales $151.0 billion to $155.5 billion, below the estimate of $158.64 billion 
    • Sees operating income $14.0 billion to $18.0 billion, below the estimate $18.24 billion

    If accurate, that would mean Q4 revenue will grow at the slowest pace since the global financial crisis.

    And while any other day the cloud miss and ugly guidance would have been enough to send the stock tumbling – as it did for a bit, sliding as much as 7% after hours, the unprecedented retail BTFD kneejerk reaction has taken the stock after hours and remarkable pushed it back flat on the session as the market plumbs new levels of stupidity.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 16:38

  • 10 Days That Shook The World
    10 Days That Shook The World

    Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    In 1917, American journalist Jack Reed, a naive but talented communist ideologue with a blue-blood education, was in Russia to watch and cheer on a revolution. He was there in October when the provisional government of Alexander Kerensky held power—Czar Nicholas II had been overthrown—but refused to pull the nation out of the murderous Great War or otherwise reform.

    Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th President of the United States by Chief Justice John Roberts as Melania Trump holds the Bible in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 2025. Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AFP via Getty Images

    The government was thus overthrown again, this time by the Bolsheviks who ruled for 70 years thereafter. Reed chronicled the moment in his famous book “Ten Days that Shook the World.” It set forth the narrative of these days for a century. It was a major reason why that generation of literate Americans, lacking access to other information sources, considered Vladimir Lenin to be a hero. Reed, by the way, later died and was buried in the Kremlin.

    That book and the events it valorized has now been superseded by another 10 days that have shaken the world. Donald Trump took the oath of office to become U.S. President on Jan. 20, 2025, following a sweeping and decisive victory that the entire establishment fought ferociously.

    I’m typing this 10 days later. It is clear to me and many others that nothing will ever be the same, not in the United States and not anywhere in the world that is watching the exciting events unfold. It’s nothing like we’ve ever seen, and far beyond anything we had expected or even been promised.

    Whereas Reed’s Ten Days were about the building of the Leviathan state, our own 10 days is about tearing it down and restoring freedom. Already what has been uncovered and stopped is for the ages, to the point that as I write the United States has plugged scandalous spending leakage at a rate of $4 billion per day, thanks to the work of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.

    That appears just to be the beginning. Agencies and funding sources are being shut down by the day and hour. The whole spending machine was shut down for a few days before a federal judge intervened. Even that did not stop the push to shut down the spigots: it took a second judge to intervene and finally restart it all. Even then, it was just the beginning.

    What is popularly known as the “deep state” has never faced such disruption.

    Hardly a minute goes by when we do not get news of various outrages operating at all agencies of government, spending that gives new meaning to the word decadence. It’s all been happening for many years, even decades, even as the American middle class has been hollowed out, real incomes have declined, and economic opportunities for average people have thinned out to create culture-wide despair and ill-health.

    The excitement began minutes after inauguration when the team of Elon Musk, tasked by Trump to figure out what is going on with this empire of lies, unfurled a plan that had long been in the works but never announced. They installed sofa beds on the 5th floor of the Office of Personnel Management and tossed out the chief of staff. The plan was to work 24/7 to get the job done, never leaving the offices. Yes, in Godfather parlance, they literally “went to the mattresses.”

    They gained access to the computer system and sent a memo to 2.3 million federal government employees. It invited all of them to resign immediately and get 8 months of severance. They only needed to hit reply and type “resign.” The expectation going into this was that 10 percent would flee but it could be more. We are still waiting for the numbers.

    All the while, the Trump administration was issuing executive orders, more than 300 in these magical 10 days. They froze regulations. They froze spending. They issued a universal fatwa against all DEI policies and abolished “affirmative action”—all while heralding the single principle of non-discrimination. They proclaimed that no government agency may ever again tell private media and social media accounts how to operate, either directly or indirectly through third-party cutouts. They banned the absurdities of the transgender movement and made adolescent mutilation illegal.

    The orders were so sensible that they generated almost no resistance other than predictable sputtering. There were of course muttering that Trump was behaving like an authoritarian. If so, it is an odd form of authoritarianism that uses power to take power away from government and give it back to the people. The driving motivation of all these efforts was to reboot the promise of 2016 to drain the swamp. This time they were serious.

    Following the takeover of the Office of Personnel Management, the truly great challenge was to get to the source of the largess, the spigot spilling so much money that it was creating $1 trillion in debt every 100 days. This has gotten worse decade after decade. It is the determination of DOGE to get to the bottom of it.

    The team—which converted itself quickly into an official government office to evade that obvious criticism—headed to the U.S. Treasury and announced an audit of the entire government. In order to conduct that, they would need the logins to the system. The auditors had already figured out that the whole government was operating on autopay, with billions flowing to enemy regimes and rackets of all sorts. Shutting that down had to be priority number one.

    What they found was an acting head of the U.S. Treasury named David A. Lebryk, who turns out to be the highest-ranking person in the civil service. Lebryk had been promoted to that position on January 20, but his former boss was the deputy head of Treasury, a Nigerian émigré named Wally Adeyemo, who had at one time been head of the Obama Foundation. His resignation put Lebryk in the driver’s seat of the world’s biggest outgoing payroll system.

    That’s right, you cannot make this stuff up!

    Lebryk absolutely refused to turn over the passwords. After what was said to be a shouting match, he resigned on the spot. Then Elon’s crew took control of the passwords to the system that was sending out $6 trillion on autopay.

    This action generated panicked headlines in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal that the Trump administration has gotten hold of the control center of government spending, strongly suggesting that nothing like this has ever happened. For reasons that are unclear, regime media seemed shocked and alarmed that the Trump administration had broken into the sanctum sanctorum.

    When regular people think about this, they start asking serious questions. Why is it not a normal thing for the new administration to be in control of the spending systems? Why is this such a shocking thing to have happened? Isn’t auditing the books just what any new president would do?

    Most likely, it is shocking simply because it has never happened. For all the world, this looks to be a situation in which we are witnessing the very first actual transition of power in our lifetimes.

    There will be more court challenges, claims, and counterclaims, but mainly we can look forward to an information flood of finding out precisely how our tax dollars have been used these many years if not for decades. This is in many ways the ultimate nightmare of any entrenched bureaucracy that has been unburdened by accountability for a very long time.

    Change is now here, and it appears that the Trump administration is not letting up. All the while, Trump’s cabinet picks were facing a brutal grilling from Senators. This time, however, we have the means to discover the hand in the glove. We have tools like Open the Books, Open Secrets, and others, to reveal precisely what industrial interests are behind these politicians. It appears as of this writing that public pressure is going to push all of Trump’s picks through.

    No one can say for sure how this story ends but we are getting an intuition. The Trump administration, barring some unforeseen disaster, is well positioned to go down in history as the regime that saved the country from secret and systematic pillaging that has been going on without check for probably all living memory.

    Is that an exaggeration? Sadly, it does not appear to be so based on what we are learning by the hour. These are the new Ten Days that Shook the World. The first time around, history was set on a path toward the disaster of communism and totalitarianism. This time, the revolution is being reversed—the people are really taking charge from an elite class that has enjoyed unchecked rule in the Western world for all of living memory.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/06/2025 – 16:20

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