Distinction Matter - Subscribed Feeds

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

Where have all the globalists gone? Yes, unfortunately they’re still out there free when they should be rotting in a frozen gulag or fertilizing an unmarked field somewhere.  I get that.  However, if you’ve been tracking the elitist cabal as long as I have you might have noticed a sudden and abrupt shift in public activity among the most prominent globalist institutions.

From at least 2019 onward the mask had come completely off. The elites were flooding western media with woke propaganda through their NGO operations. You couldn’t go anywhere without being bombarded with multiculturalism, DEI and LGBT nonsense. There was a clear attempt to engineer a massive cultural shift in the western world; an expedited progressive coup.

Conservatives were relentlessly targeted as “insurrectionists” and a “threat to democracy”. Pandemic hysteria opened the door to an array of mandates as well as legislation designed to erase constitutional protections in the name of “health safety”. The plan was openly admitted: An endless cycle of covid lockdowns and vaccine passports. A perpetual loop of medical tyranny. Globalists were ecstatic, reveling in the fear and calling for the implementation of forced vaccinations, covid tracking apps and even covid camps for people who refused to comply.

In the midst of the frenzy the WEF and other organizations pushed their economic agenda, asserting that the world needed to go cashless, that carbon controls and “climate lockdowns” needed to become normalized.  They wanted what they called a “Great Reset” of the global financial framework. Everything was admitted, they barely tried to hide their intentions. It was the New World Order we “conspiracy” analysts had been warning about for decades.

In the past they would mention details of the plan in obscure white papers or in moments of unguarded discussion. Over the past five years the globalists were essentially dancing in the streets and advertising the NWO for all too see. Why? Because they thought they had already won.

Fast forward to 2025 – The covid mandates and lockdowns are defeated and abandoned. The multicultural invasion is being reversed with a majority of the American population in support of secure borders and deportations. Bans on the transing of kids are being established across the US and LGBT propaganda is being removed from schools. DOGE and Trump instituted cuts which have greatly damaged the government-to-NGO revolving door (which is why many DEI programs are disappearing).

BLM is dead. Pride Month is a dud (so far). Covid is being exposed as the nothingburger it always was. The climate change agenda is fading. The masses are generally suspicious of organizations like the WEF and no one supports a cashless CBDC based system. The globalist ideal has been relegated to the garbage heap and we didn’t even need to fire a shot. Is this what winning looks like?

Not quite.

We have won the information war in the US (for the most part). Europe is taking longer, but conservatives movements are gaining ground; so much ground, in fact, that the elites are arresting people for speech, not to mention arresting their political opponents for being right leaning. This is a sign of panic, not power.

The globalists flew too close to the sun too fast and they got burned. Nearly every major elitist institution has stopped openly promoting “Great Reset” related policies. They’ve limited their media interviews and their think tanks have stopped releasing revealing white papers. Some globalists have suggested in media encounters that globalism is dead. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink even used a Financial Times op-ed to argue that “globalization is over”.

I’ve never seen them back off from their agenda so completely, and I’m highly suspicious of the radio silence.

As I warned in my article ‘World War III Is Now Inevitable – Here’s Why It Can’t Be Avoided’, the globalist plan for a Bolshevik coup has failed, but this only means they will move on to more historically predictable tactics. Meaning, exponential economic crisis and world war.

European political leaders have made it nearly impossible to negotiate a legitimate ceasefire in Ukraine because they continue to give Kyiv hope that NATO will step in with boots on the ground. Even if the US completely pulls all support, the Ukrainians believe Europe will fill the gap. This is ridiculous, of course; the EU has no capacity to fight an attrition war with the Russians and they are much more likely to trigger a nuclear event than liberate Ukraine.

What concerns me more, though, is a specific strategy being used by NATO and Kyiv:  I’m talking about the deliberate targeting of Russian nuclear infrastructure. This has been an ongoing problem since the beginning of the conflict and it seems to me as if the elites WANT some kind of catastrophic escalation.

Ukraine has used multiple drone attacks to strike nuclear power plants, including its OWN Zaporizhzhia and Chernobyl plants. The Kursk offensive (now failed) pushed towards a nuclear power plant in the region and Russia accused Ukraine of trying to hit the plant with drones. In early 2024, Ukraine long range drone and missile attacks hit two separate Russian “over the horizon” early warning nuclear radar installations.

The Voronezh-DM stations were positioned outside the city of Orsk and the region of Krasnodar (Armavir); far away from the front lines in Ukraine. I warned about this development in June of last year in my article ‘False Flag On The Horizon? The Strange Case Of The Destroyed Russian Nuclear Radar’.

This past week confirmed my suspicions when Ukraine initiated a complex covert strike on a base holding Russian long range bombers. These bombers were primarily nuclear readiness aircraft and are not generally used to launch FABs or other weapons against Ukrainian targets. The attack could not have been achieved without NATO aid and once again follows the odd pattern of targeting Russian nuclear infrastructure.

There are two obvious dangers attached to this scenario: First, Russia responds with a devastating bombardment of population centers to prove the strike on the bombers did nothing to prevent them from hitting Ukrainian cities from afar. Second, Russia assumes that NATO’s plan is to weaken their nuclear readiness in preparation for European troops entering the war, or in preparation for a nuclear exchange.

In either case, WWIII is the result. Establishment commentators have tried to spin the bomber attack as a Ukrainian victory without consequence, but they deliberately omit the primary purpose of the aircraft.  Best case scenario, Russia pounds a few Ukrainian cities with massive ordnance. At worst, the nuclear threat becomes tangible and we edge towards a missile exchange.

I continue to believe that the globalists want to avoid full spectrum nuclear war.  Why would they deliberately vaporize the very control grid it took them decades to build?  But I do think we will see a limited nuclear event in the near future (perhaps a limited nuke event in Ukraine).

The continuing attacks on nuke related armaments and infrastructure suggest to me an attempt by Kyiv and NATO to create a situation so chaotic that it opens the door to troop deployments and direct confrontation with Moscow before anyone can catch up to what is happening.

Without war, the globalists have nothing. Maybe they can pull off an economic crisis (all the pieces are certainly in place), but in a vacuum they could get the blame. War offers a valuable distraction for the masses and an ever adaptable scapegoat. People broke and starving? Well, that’s just war. The dollar crashing? Currencies are at risk during war. Freedoms being curtailed? Hey, people need to set aside their liberties for the sake of “security”.

There’s a reason why multi-nation wars almost always occur just after historic economic declines.  The two crises feed into each other, but the wars also provide cover for extensive centralization schemes.  Each successive world war brings us a step closer to world government and a centrally controlled global economic system.

The globalists in Europe are doing everything in their power to prolong the conflagration. They know Ukraine is never going to get their lost territory back. They know that Russia is generating a massive breakout on the front lines in the east. They have no peace plan. Their purpose is to force a direct confrontation between NATO forces and Russian troops. It’s the only explanation for the attacks on Russian nuclear armaments. It’s a provocation designed to end all chances of a ceasefire and take the war to the next level.

The unsettling quiet from normally boisterous NWO reps within think tanks and the media suggests to me that a memo has been posted from on high.  All other programs have been scrapped and all eyes are on Ukraine and Russia.  Perhaps the globalists have suddenly gone quiet because they’ve set Plan B in motion, and this time they don’t want any of their people talking out of turn until total war is accomplished?

As the old saying goes, loose lips sink ships…

Of course, there’s always the chance we see escalation in Iran, or a Chinese move on Taiwan.  There are more than a few precarious powder kegs in place right now.  What I see, though, is an inordinate amount amount of financial and political energy going into the Ukraine affair.  The elitists are mostly tight lipped about it, but an inordinate amount of financial and political energy is flowing into the region.  It’s clear that the next couple of months will be highly unstable as tensions mount.

Diplomatic pathways are fading fast.

Most likely scenario?  Ukraine cities get hammered in a relentless Russian bombardment and Europe vows to deploy its forces to intervene.  Even if Trump cuts off all US ties to Ukraine and walks away, there’s little that can be done to prevent the disaster that comes next. 

It’s not necessarily a scorched earth option for the globalists, but it certainly seems like a last resort – Conjuring a calamity big enough to distract the masses while total centralization is instituted.  I’m not saying the plan will work, I’m just saying that this is their most viable strategy.

Authored by Daniel Oliver via American Greatness,

Seventy-one years ago next month, a young man went with his parents and siblings to Europe on a Cunard liner, the MV Britannic.

On the liner with them was a middle-aged couple going to France to visit, for the first time, their son’s grave in Normandy, France.

The beaches of Normandy are where thousands of soldiers, including their son, landed and died on D-Day: June 6, 1944.

The young man, then aged fifteen, had, at best and generously, little understanding of what that couple was doing. Oh yes, he remembered the war from his earliest childhood: he remembered blackouts in New York City, remembered his mother putting the heavy blue paper that cotton came in those days over the windows of their apartment so the “Jerries” (Germans) wouldn’t see any light, remembered hearing planes fly overhead, wondering whether they were “ours” or “theirs,” and remembered his father going at night to stand on the roofs of buildings to be a spotter of German aircraft.

And he remembered hearing the church bells ring when the war in Europe ended—but he was only six then, so his memory was, and is… sketchy.

Seventeen years later, when he was serving in the army in Germany, the horror of war intruded into his faint memory—and almost entirely literary understanding—of armed conflict.

He was a linguist, trained to understand Russian, and particularly Russian military language and jargon. In the unit he was serving with, the best duty, but only for the best linguists, was “plane duty”: the soldiers flew along the East German border most of an afternoon and night, listening to whatever they could pick up, and then had several days off! Our young man was selected for plane duty but was scrubbed from it, permanently, because he was going home for a few weeks of leave.

One night after he returned from leave, the plane crashed. All on board were killed. The official explanation was engine failure, but all the soldiers on the base “knew” it had been shot down by the East Germans (probably the pilot had strayed over the border) and that the U.S. government (the Kennedy administration) had decided not to make a cause célèbre out of it.

Our then-young man remembers seeing the married men’s wives (some of them no more than about eighteen years old) come to the base and collect their husbands’ belongings. That’s when the horror of war hit home.

No movie, not even Saving Private Ryan, could produce the effect of seeing those young girls collecting, grasping at the scanty memorabilia that remained from their very short married lives.

Twenty-seven years later, on a Sunday afternoon, our young man, by then middle-aged, took his children to Coleville-sur-Mer, which is where the Normandy American Cemetery is located. It was officially dedicated on July 19, 1956. Before 1956, the remains of American soldiers who died during the Normandy campaign were temporarily interred at various sites, including the original cemetery established at Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer shortly after D-Day. It was to one of those sites that the couple on the Cunard liner were going.

That Sunday afternoon, the sun was bright and the weather warm, not at all like D-Day, when the temperature there had been around 55 degrees and the water temperature 59 degrees. (When was the last time you went swimming in 59-degree water?) The wind had been blowing 10 to 20 mph, gusting higher at times, which created the waves and surf that complicated the beach landings and made airborne drops difficult—facts you know if you’ve seen the movies.

But on that sunny day so many years later, our middle-aged man watched two of his sons stroll up from the landing beach in their Brooks Brothers blazers and loafers. He stood transfixed, watching, appreciating the study in contrast—and his good luck of not being on the army plane that had crashed in the line of duty.

Today, the cemetery at Coleville-sur-Mer, burial ground of 9,387 soldiers, is, some of its visitors think, the eighth wonder of the world. Rows and rows of graves marked by crosses, and some by Stars of David, remind us that greater love hath no man than this: that he lay down his life for a friend.

Yes, yes, those soldiers didn’t plan to lay down their lives. Most were drafted, although about a quarter had volunteered. But still, they did lay down their lives, and you can, and should, visit their graves at the American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer before you… join them. And if you can’t get to Normandy, there are 156 military cemeteries in the U.S.—one of which is bound to be near enough to you to coax a visit.

Can those of us today, in our Brooks Brothers suits, or BB look-alikes, ever really appreciate the grind and sacrifice of war? Or is it all simply beyond most of our ability to imagine?

There’s a museum at the Normandy cemetery that displays letters from some of the young soldiers who went from America to those beaches, so many of them to die. Their letters show that many had no idea where they were going or even where Normandy was. But there they were, nevertheless, saving Western Civilization.

World War I was called “the war to end all wars.”

But of course it wasn’t, as the world discovered only twenty-one years later.

Can wars ever end? Probably not, because some things are worth fighting for. And dying for. Is Western Civilization one of those things? Do most Americans think it is? Do enough Americans think it is worth dying for? Will we have to find out?

That is worth contemplating on June 6 this year, as we remember—as the once-young, and then middle-aged, and now old man remembers—those who died for us eighty-one years ago, some of whom are buried in the American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France.

Authored by José Niño via Headline USA,

The Trump administration is rethinking how it deals with Chinese-linked tech firms after a short-lived self-driving truck company was found to have stolen a vast trove of U.S. intellectual property. 

Founded in 2015 by Chinese entrepreneurs and backed by Chinese capital, TuSimple was once hailed as a leader in autonomous trucking, boasting a record-setting 80-mile driverless journey in Arizona and partnerships with major firms like UPS and Navistar.

But beneath its rapid rise, TuSimple’s dual presence in the U.S. and China created vulnerabilities. According to a Wall Street Journal report, February 2022, the company signed a national security agreement with the U.S. government after concerns emerged about its Chinese ties and potential for technology transfer. 

The agreement, enforced by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), required TuSimple to separate its U.S. operations and technology from China-based employees and partners, build firewalls, and prohibit the sharing of intellectual property. 

Yet, just a week after signing, TuSimple transferred a trove of sensitive data, which included test results and technical blueprints—to Beijing-owned Foton, a major Chinese truck manufacturer.

“They want a lot of details,” said TuSimple employee Xiaoling Han in a February 2022 chat.

“It is pretty time consuming.”

Internal correspondence shows the data sharing continued up to the six-month compliance deadline. 

WSJ reporter Heather Somerville noted thatTuSimple provided Chinese companies with what essentially constituted a complete autonomous driving system.

This included the source code that serves as the brain of an autonomous truck, in addition to various elements of the design, hardware, and integration of all these systems. 

A CFIUS investigation later found that while the data sharing did not technically violate the agreement, TuSimple was fined $6 million for other infractions. The company did not admit fault, and co-founder Xiaodi Hou insisted that no information prohibited by the company’s national security agreement “was ever shared with anyone.” 

The fallout was swift. TuSimple shut down U.S. operations, while being delisted from Nasdaq. These events prompted it to move investor funds to China. 

The episode compelled the Trump administration to rethink its reliance on mitigation agreements for high-risk, foreign-connected firms. According to new directives, the White House will “cease the use of overly bureaucratic, complex, and open-ended ‘mitigation’ agreements” and instead block more China-backed deals outright.

Earlier this year, Commerce Department has also issued new rules prohibiting the sale of internet-connected vehicles and components to entities connected to China, with further restrictions on commercial vehicles expected to be imposed soon.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Brownstone Institute,

The excuse that this regime is better than it was, or might otherwise have been, only lasts so long. 

Every transition government in history has deployed that trope. Think the Girondins in France, Kerensky in Russia, Weimar in Germany, the Second Spanish Republic, Chiang Kai-shek in China, and so on. In order, they were replaced by Robespierre then Napoleon, Lenin then Stalin, Hitler, Franco, and Mao. 

In each of these cases, the transitional government was caught between and ultimately smashed by pressures from both sides: industrial and intellectual partisans of the old regime with legacy control, on one side, and the radicalism of the populist movements that brought new people to power on the other. 

Threading this needle is not easy in revolutionary moments. Of such times, history teaches one lesson more than any other. The new regime must be brutally honest about the criminality of the old one and work with focus to dismantle it as fast as possible. Anything short of that leads to its own discrediting and eventual replacement. 

In every area of government today under the Trump administration, now entering its second phase, we witness these very historical forces at work. The grassroots movement that beat all odds to put the new people in power had high and even revolutionary expectations following the five most horrid years of our lives. 

Some of these hopes are being partially met in good ways but blocked and neglected in too many other ways that are unbearably conspicuous. This dynamic affects the budget disaster, the demand for transparency, and in the realm of public health. 

As a result, the wild optimism that greeted the inauguration of Trump has turned to something different, a mixture of incredulity from the grassroots combined with outrage and disgust from the legacy media and establishment that fought this revolution at every turn. 

This further raises the prospect about which we’ve repeatedly warned: the Trump administration could go down in history as a transitional regime like we’ve seen so many times in history, a four-year experiment in moderation bookended by different brands of totalitarianism on either side. 

This is a serious matter, not a parlor game. Nor is this a typical political battle. What happened over the last five years was for the ages. The world economy was smashed by nearly all states due to a lab leak for a product partially funded by the US government. The unannounced fallback plan, pushed in the name of science, was to universally distribute a new shot with a new gene-altering technology. 

The shot did not work. It was not effective. It was not safe. Nor were they properly vetted because they were imposed by military edict under the cover of emergency. Other therapeutics were disparaged and banned. The critics in all areas were censored and shut down. People who refused the injection were fired. Public health collapsed in the name of preserving it. 

Those harms have seen no justice. 

Meanwhile, to finance this calamity, debt-financed spending ballooned by $8-10 trillion, leaving the federal government’s budget $2 trillion higher than it otherwise would have been. The shots are still on the market despite undeniable and widely known harms. 

None of this is a secret, as it might have been in former times. Because of information technologies, people are well aware of every detail. The so-called “populist movement” has become a vast community of in-depth expertise, fully capable of running circles around legacy people and institutions. 

The new leaders – elected to change course on all the above and more, including the accompanying crime and migration chaos – began with tremendous bravado and sweeping edicts that seemed promising. Four months later, they are asking for patience while dealing with legacy barriers on all sides from media harassment to court blockages. 

The trouble is that public trust is completely gone.

The whole country, traumatized by years of lies, has become Missouri: show me. 

• First, no one believes that the “one big beautiful bill” is just a first step on the way to future draconian cuts. We’ve seen this too many times, which is why Elon Musk finally broke his silence and denounced the entire “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill” as “a disgusting abomination.” That has set off a power struggle for the ages. 

• Second, in areas of government transparency, there have been some steps but not nearly enough to fulfill the promises. There are still no new Epstein files. The JFK files are a mess and incomplete. We know no more than already public information about the two shooters who tried to kill Trump. There are still many lingering questions about 9-11, the Covid disaster, and so much else. This is not the opening for which the people had hoped. 

• Third, let’s talk more at length about the public health area of policy where we’ve seen the most progress. We have a new and excellent Executive Order on science. Tax-funded Covid testing has ended. A contract of $750M for a Bird flu shot has been cancelled. There are new limits on gain-of-function research, and experiments on beagles and other animals are over. Many terrible contracts from NIH have been cancelled while parts of the CDC have been dismantled. 

As for the mRNA shots, the market has been narrowed from everyone to only vulnerable populations, leaving aside the known issue that vulnerable populations should not risk them either. 

There are new standards for randomized controlled trials with placebos, but no assurance that these companies will do them in a timely way. RCTs for a five-year-old product with massive immune-altering effects can never cobble together a valid sample selection at this late date, nor is a continuation of this experiment in any form morally justified. 

In two tremendous victories, the shots have been removed from the routine childhood schedule, the first time this has ever happened to any product targeting a specific disease apart from eradication or replacement. In effect, the CDC/FDA are saying: it is better to get Covid than risk these products. Such a message will drive uptake to new lows approaching zero eventually. 

In addition, the outrageous advice from the CDC that expectant women should take them is gone, finally. The champion of that policy has fled the CDC. 

These are all welcome changes in policies that never should have existed in the first place. Even now, however, no one says the quiet part out loud: even if these shots had been safe and effective, which they are not, they were never necessary for the overwhelming number of people. Which raises the profound question of how and why all this came to be in the first place. 

There are other initiatives too concerning food nutrition, mental health, and other matters in the MAHA Commission report that are hugely welcome changes from what has existed before. 

The people in power in these agencies are pleading for patience. That is not unreasonable. Remember that these few appointees are confronting a beast larger, more entrenched, and better financed than any hegemon in human history. The pharma/media/tech/NGO/academia complex is larger and more powerful than the slave trade, the East India Company, Standard Oil, or even the munitions industry that started the Great War. 

It’s certain that such a Leviathan cannot be ended in three months, not even with the best people in charge. All the grassroots really need to see is evidence of progress plus a transparent reason for delays. If the shots cannot be pulled now, people need to know why. If Covid emergency powers cannot be ended, explain why. If the new Moderna shot was already in the works and could not be stopped, people need to know the reasons. 

Everyone who has watched all this unfold is of two minds, never mind the endlessly mutating factions within the dissident movements that have seen their leadership ascend to power. The people in the MAGA/MAHA/DOGE movements are as thrilled by the progress so far to the same extent that mainstream media and the legacy establishment are furious about all the changes. 

For my own part, having watched public affairs for decades, this is the first time I’ve witnessed some progress in at least one area of state operations. That is worthy of celebration. I don’t even need to dwell on the many ways in which improvement over the darkest times of our lives is perhaps not as great an achievement as it would be otherwise. 

That said, the release of yet another shot, implausibly called NexSpike, especially in light of all evidence and promises, is a tremendous shock for which no one was prepared. If they were in the works and the appointees could not stop them, we should be told that and the full explanation should be given to all. If President Trump himself is still attached to the foul spawn of Operation Warp Speed, and has forced them back onto the market despite vast public opposition, we should know that too. 

Above all else, what we really need is the blunt truth about the last five years. We need to know that the people in office, whether elected or appointed, still share the deep outrage that fueled the movement that put them in power. We need to hear frank talk about the harms, the mandates, the suffering, the deceptions, the payoffs, the graft, the abuses, the illegal vanquishing of freedom, science, and human rights. 

It is not enough to proclaim a new Golden Age and be done with it. This pertains to every aspect of public life. Press conferences by the new officeholders, with smiles and promises of better behavior in the future, don’t cut it given the mass loss of trust, rampant cynicism, and grassroots fury. There must be more straight talk, more decisive action that goes to the heart of what happened, and some degree of accountability. 

We hear daily rumors that all of this is coming. Great. In which case, the new leaders need to make that clear. The masses are not inherently unreasonable. But they are the people within whom the leadership must reason – not “message,” not presented with flim-flam, not entertained with digital Punch and Judy shows, and not sniffily dismissed as ignorant extremists and conspiracy theorists. 

Every new leadership in government that inherits that kind of disaster of the last five years is necessarily going to be squeezed between the legacy regime – including its vast bureaucracies and industrial interests – and the populist movements that put them in power. In these cases, the status quo usually proves irresistible but with disastrous consequences later. 

Now is the time to stop that unfolding disaster, one which can only compound the errors of the past. 

While the so-called Big Beautiful Bill may have killed the bromance between Elon Musk and President Trump, House Republicans released a bill on Friday that would rescind $9.4 billion in federal spending ahead of a floor vote next week - largely made up of waste, fraud and abuse found by DOGE. 

The U.S. Capitol building in Washington on June 3, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The seven-page bill would rescind $22 million from the US African Development foundation, $15 million from the US Institute for Peace, and billions of dollars in bilateral economic assistance. It would also codify some of the cuts identified by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

As the Epoch Times notes further, the White House sent the package to Congress last week under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974.

Under it, the president sends rescission requests to Congress, which has 45 days to take action on them.

It is not subject to the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate.

Republicans have already expressed support for the package.

“Now that this wasteful spending by the federal government has been identified by DOGE, quantified by the administration, and sent to Congress, House Republicans will fulfill our mandate and continue codifying into law a more efficient federal government,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) wrote on social media platform X.

“This is exactly what the American people deserve.”

Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) wrote on X: “These packages will be a key step toward codifying President Trump’s agenda and delivering lasting spending reductions in government.

“With nearly $7 trillion in annual federal spending, we need to prioritize the ’must-haves’ over the ‘nice-to-haves,’ to address our enormous national debt.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told The Epoch Times: “I haven’t seen the USAID rescissions to know exactly where they are, because ... I don’t know what’s in the package to know what they’re exactly implementing rescissions on.

“I have no concern with [NPR rescissions]. I understand from my staff, it’s only about 1 percent of their funding today. I haven’t heard a lot of people reporting that consistently. But if, in fact, that’s the case, it seems like they should be able to manage that.

“And if that’s the president’s priority, we should move forward with it.”

White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller wrote on X why a rescission package was needed.

“DOGE cuts are to discretionary spending [for the federal bureaucracy]. Under Senate budget rules, you cannot cut discretionary spending in a reconciliation bill,” he said.

“So DOGE cuts would have to be done through what is known as a rescissions package or an appropriations bill.”

Nathan Worcester contributed to this report.

Authored by Rudy Blalock via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Certain ground beef products distributed to Whole Foods Market locations nationwide have been pulled from shelves due to potential E. coli contamination, according to a June 3 U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) notice.

Image of the ground beef product detected to have been infected with E. Coli. Courtesy of June 3/FSIS public safety alert

The alert applies to 1-pound vacuum-packed packages of “ORGANIC RANCHER ORGANIC GROUND BEEF 85% LEAN 15% FAT,” marked with “Use or Freeze By 06-19-25” and “Use or Freeze By 06-20-25.”

The meat products, produced on May 22 and May 23, 2025, bear the establishment number “EST. 4027” inside the USDA mark of inspection, according to FSIS.

While a recall was not requested because the products are no longer available for purchase, FSIS urges consumers to check their refrigerators and freezers for the ground beef.

The product was initially shipped to distributor locations in Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, and Maryland, where it was then distributed to Whole Foods Market stores across the United States, the agency said.

The potential contamination was discovered when the producer of the products alerted FSIS that ground beef shipped into commerce had tested positive for E. coli O157:H7.

At this time, there have been no confirmed reports of illness associated from consumption of the affected products. Regardless, FSIS advises anyone concerned about a possible illness to contact a health care provider.

E. coli O157:H7 is a potentially life-threatening bacterium that can cause symptoms such as dehydration, bloody diarrhea, or abdominal cramps two to eight days after exposure, with most cases occurring three to four days after ingestion.

Most individuals recover within a week, but some, especially children under five and the elderly, may develop hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a form of kidney failure.

FSIS notes that HUS is characterized by easy bruising, pallor, and decreased urine output, and urges anyone experiencing these symptoms to seek emergency medical care immediately.

FSIS is concerned that some consumers may still have the affected ground beef in their possession.

The agency advises, “Consumers who have purchased these products are urged not to consume them. These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase.”

FSIS says that all consumers should safely prepare raw meat products and only eat ground beef that has been cooked to an internal temperature of at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit.

For food safety questions, consumers can call the USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 888-MPHotline (888-674-6854) or email MPHotline@usda.gov. Problems with meat, poultry, or egg products can also be reported online 24 hours a day via the Electronic Consumer Complaint Monitoring System at https://foodcomplaint.fsis.usda.gov/eCCF/, according to the agency.

From NTD News

President Donald Trump held a highly anticipated 90-minute phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday. Trump described the conversation as "very good" and mentioned that a potential visit to China is being planned — though Beijing or Washington has not confirmed the trip.

To end the week, more positive trade news hit the wires late Friday morning in New York, as Reuters cited three sources saying that China has granted temporary export licenses to rare-earth supplies for three major U.S. automakers.

The export licenses for rare earths were granted to the three major U.S. automakers: General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis, the maker of Jeep. Sources noted:

At least some of the licenses are valid for six months, the two sources said, declining to be named because the information is not public. It was not immediately clear what quantity or items are covered by the approval or whether the move signals China is preparing to ease the rare-earths licensing process, which industry groups say is cumbersome and has created a supply bottleneck.

In April, China deployed non-tariff countermeasures against the U.S. amid the escalating trade war, including restrictions on rare earths exports and related magnets — moves that disrupted the supply chain for American companies. 

Readers are well aware that China controls approximately 90% of the global rare earths market and has repeatedly used this dominance as a strategic economic weapon.

• European Industry Under Siege: China Deploys Rare Earths As Economic Weapon

In response, Western nations are ramping up efforts to boost production in allied countries to reduce supply chain vulnerabilities...

• U.S. Can Produce Rare Earths If China Stops Exports - But There's A Catch

Earlier this week, a separate Reuters report said President Trump plans to use emergency powers under the Defense Production Act to bolster domestic production and processing of these metals.

The broader takeaway is clear: the U.S. must reclaim critical supply chains as the global order fractures into a bipolar state—while simultaneously accelerating the deployment of new hemispheric defense capabilities. We outlined this strategic mission for readers in a recent note titled:

• Golden Dome Unleashes U.S. Hemispheric Defense Theme - And Goldman Finds One Firm Stands Out

It's a five-year sprint to secure critical supply chains and build out hemispheric defense infrastructure before the 2030s kick-off. This comes as the Biden-Harris regime screwed around for four years, more focused on Marxist DEI and gender nonsense than actually preparing the nation to meet the rising threat from China today and in the next decade.

Last month we described how North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was left humiliated and outraged after personally witnessing the May 21st botched launch of a new, 5,000-ton destroyer, after which he called it a "criminal act" and a "political issue directly related to the prestige of the state."

North Korea now says Thursday it has successfully raised the capsized warship and moored it at a port in the country’s northeast for repair. KCNA reports that "after restoring the balance of the destroyer early in June, the team moored it at the pier" in the city of Chongjin.

The flipped-over 5,000 ton destroyer before it was set upright, via Airbus Defence and Space

South Korea's military has cited recent commercial satellite images to assess that the 5,000-ton destroyer has indeed been finally restored to an upright position.

The failed side-launch of the ship reportedly resulted in damage to the hull, due to a transport cradle having detached prematurely, allowing the vessel to be wrongly aligned upon entering the water.

North Korean officials are vowing that the "perfect restoration of the destroyer will be completed without fail" before the deadline set by Kim, which is a major ruling party meeting later this month.

Al Jazeera cites KCNA to say, "Experts will now examine the warship’s hull for the next stage of restorations, to be carried out at Rajin Dockyard over the coming week to 10 days."

According to further prior reporting in KCNA, the ship was left with holes torn into its hull, but the outlet didn't report if there were any human casualties. Kim blamed the incident on "unscientific empiricism" and said it "lowered the dignity and self-respect" of the country - or essentially national humiliation.

North Korea confirmed its capsized warship was upright and stable, but a layer of intrigue lingers: Why the armada of massive balloons? https://t.co/paIp9rOXyD

He ominously promised that consequences would be revealed at the ruling Worker's Party meeting in June, and had set the daunting deadline for the vessel to be repaired by the time of that same event. 

"No matter how good the state of the warship is, the fact that the accident is an unpardonable criminal act remains unchanged, and those responsible for it can never evade their responsibility for the crime," said the Central Military Commission. The manager of the shipyard was immediately summoned by police as they set out to investigate the incident and detain potentially culpable individuals.  

KCNA blamed "inexperienced command and operational carelessness." The outlet reported that the destroyer's starboard hull was scratched, and water entered the stern section.

North Korea was excited to launch their new "Unsinkable" warship.. but it crashed and sank when they launched it pic.twitter.com/iWyc6cmYh4

While the official line is that the damage was "not serious," outside observers have had major doubts. Given the entrance of water, "The propulsion systems and electronic components are likely beyond repair,” a naval construction expert told South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo.

Five leaders of the Proud Boys are suing the Department of Justice after the Biden administration found them guilty of engaging in a seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol.

The lawsuit, filed by Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola, seeks $100 million, and claims that federal authorities violated the Constitution in an effort "to punish and oppress political allies of President Donald Trump, by any and all means necessary, legal, or illegal," WaPo reports. 

It comes on the heels of Trump's January pardon of virtually all Jan. 6 defendants - which could saddle the Trump administration with the ironic task of defending the prosecutions, which many on the right view as political weaponization of government. 

Leftist academics (at least one) are freaking out over the suit, suggesting that it would vindicate Jan. 6 rioters in the court of public opinion.

"A settlement would suggest that the violence of January 6 was entirely justified," Matthew Dallek, a George Washington University political historian told WaPo. "It would say to the country that these Proud Boys who were convicted in a court of law, in a fair trial, were wrongfully prosecuted and victims. It just turns the entire day on its head."

Or, asshole, it would prove that the Biden administration weaponized the DOJ like everyone with a functional brain witnessed. 

Tarrio, who wasn't even at the Capitol on Jan. 6, was sentenced to 22 years for 'plotting' to attack - while Nordean, Biggs and Rehl allegedly stepped into their leadership roles and led what prosecutors claimed was the first breach of the Capitol's west enterence. 

Nordean, Biggs and Rehl received sentences of 18, 17, and 15-years respectively for seditious conspiracy, while Pezzola was sentenced to 10 years for conspiracy to obstruct Congress.

The lawsuit comes on the heels of a May agreement to settle the wrongful death case brought by the family of Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot by a Capitol policeman (who got off scot-free) while she was involved in the demonstration.