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Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

It’s very difficult to imagine how Ukraine can prevent any further Russian advances after this...

The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Sunday that their forces had entered Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk Region, which Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed is part of Putin’s buffer zone plan. This was foreseen as early as late August once the Battle of Pokrovsk began but has been achieved even without capturing that strategic fortress town. Russian forces simply went around it after breaking through the southern Donbass front. This development puts Ukraine in a dilemma.

It’ll now have to simultaneously fortify the Dnipropetrovsk front together with the southern Kharkov and northern Zaporozhye ones in case Russia uses its new position to launch offensives into any of those three. This could put serious strain on the Ukrainian Armed Forces as they’re already struggling to prevent a major breakthrough in Sumy Region from Kursk. Coupled with depleting manpower and questions about continued US military-intelligence aid, this might be enough to collapse the frontlines.

To be sure, that scenario has been bandied about many times over the past more than 1,200 days, but it nowadays appears tantalizingly closer than ever. Observers also shouldn’t forget that Putin told Trump that he’ll respond to Ukraine’s strategic drone strikes earlier this month, which could combine with the abovementioned two factors to achieve this long-desired breakthrough. Of course, it might just be a symbolic demonstration of force, but it could also be something more significant as well.

Ukraine’s best chances of preventing this are for the US to either get Russia to agree to freeze the frontlines or to go on another offensive.

The first possibility could be advanced by the carrot-and-stick approach of proposing a better resource-centric strategic partnership than has already been offered in exchange on pain of imposing crippling secondary sanctions on its energy clients (specifically China and India with likely waivers for the EU) and/or doubling down on military-intelligence aid if it still refuses.

As for the second, the 120,000 troops that Ukraine has assembled along the Belarusian border according to President Alexander Lukashenko last summer could either cross that frontier and/or one of Russia’s internationally recognized frontiers. Objectively speaking, however, both possibilities only stand a slim chance of success: Russia has made it clear that it must achieve more of its goals in the conflict before agreeing to any ceasefire while its success in pushing Ukraine out of Kursk bodes ill for other invasions.

The likelihood of Ukraine cutting its losses by agreeing to more of Russia’s demands for peace is nil. Therefore, it might inevitably opt, whether in lieu of the aforesaid scenarios or in parallel with one or both of them, to intensify its “unconventional operations” against Russia. This refers to assassinations, strategic drone strikes, and terrorism. All that will do, however, is provoke more (probably outsized) conventional retaliation from Russia and thus painfully delay Ukraine’s seemingly inevitable defeat.

With an eye towards the endgame, it appears as though an inflection point is about to be reached or already has been in the sense of irreversibly shifting the military-strategic dynamics in Russia’s favor. It’s very difficult to imagine how Ukraine can extricate itself from this dilemma. All signs point to this being impossible, though the conflict has already surprised observers on both sides before, so it can’t be ruled out. Nevertheless, it’s a far-fetched scenario, and it’s more likely that Ukraine’s official defeat is nigh.

Authored by Paul Thacker via The DisInformation Chronicle,

Senior officials inside the NIH are working to shut down a Tony Fauci initiative launched in 2020 called the Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases or “CREID.” Meanwhile, attorneys inside the Justice Department have launched initial inquiries into one of the CREID grants awarded to Scripps Research Institute researcher Kristian Andersen, who is now in the process of fleeing the United States for a position being created for him at the University of Oslo.

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but an NIH spokesperson confirmed the agency is shutting down the CREID grants. “Though the grants have been properly terminated, money will be released to the grantees to assure safe shutdown of these programs in terms of biosafety and security,” said an NIH spokesperson, adding that pandemic preparedness remains important but the dangers of health comorbidities in infectious disease outbreaks was further underlined during COVID. “Strengthening overall health through proactive disease prevention offers a more resilient foundation for responding to future health threats—beyond reliance on vaccines or treatments for yet-unknown pathogens.”

Tony Fauci announced the formation of CREIDs in 2020, awarding 11 grants worth around $17 million, with $82 million in expected funding in succeeding years. NIH did not explain how much of the $82 million slated for CREID had already been spent. Two CREID grantees have been the focus of intense scrutiny since Fauci’s announcement: Peter Daszak of the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance and Kristian Andersen of Scripps.

Daszak was later discovered to have undisclosed ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), having provided an NIH subaward to WIV researcher Shi Zhengli. At the close of the Biden Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finally debarred EcoHealth Alliance and Peter Daszak from receiving federal funds, in part because “in response to NIH’s multiple safety-related requests” EcoHealth Alliance had not provided WIV records.

Andersen also faced close inspection for his CREID grant. Some months before Fauci gave final sign off on Andersen’s CREID award, Andersen and other researchers published a paper in Nature Medicine titled, “Proximal Origin” that dismissed the possibility of a Wuhan lab accident. Andersen’s paper was widely hailed by scientists as proof, at the time, that discussions of a COVID lab accident was a conspiracy.

Nature Medicine’s editor-in-chief, Joao Monteiro, tweeted that the “Proximal Origin” paper “put conspiracy theories” about the pandemic’s possible lab origin to rest.

Andersen echoed Monteiro’s statement days later, associating “conspiracy theorists” worried about a possible lab accident with people who doubt the Moon landing.

The paper would go on to become one of the most heavily cited scientific papers in 2020. However, emails made public through freedom of information act requests and by congressional investigators later found that the papers’ authors had run it past funders—Collins and Fauci at the NIH, as well as with Jeremy Farrar, then at the Wellcome Trust and now with the World Health Organization.

Congressional Republicans later charged that Fauci had helped orchestrate the paper, while House Democrats pointed the finger at Jeremey Farrar, publishing a report that concluded Farrar helped “organize and facilitate” and “led the drafting process of the paper.”

The group BioSafety Now has demanded Nature Medicine retract the “Proximal Origin” paper, calling it a “a product of scientific misconduct.” Two weeks ago, The DisInformation Chronicle reported that the Justice Department began an initial inquiry into the paper, sending Nature Medicine a list of questions that included, “How do you handle allegations that authors of works in your journals may have misled their readers?” The existence of the Justice Department letter to Nature Medicine had not been previously reported.

Justice Department officials opened the inquiry as they suspect the paper may have been a quid pro quo, published by the authors to dismiss the possibility of a lab accident in exchange for the Fauci CREID grant. Andersen addressed these bribery allegations two years ago during a congressional hearing.

“There is no connection between the grant and the conclusions we reached about the origin of the pandemic,” Andersen wrote in sworn testimony to Congress in July 2023. “We applied for this grant in June 2019, and it was scored and reviewed by independent experts in November 2019.”

The Intercept later reported that Andersen “knew that was false.” NIH records show the Fauci CREID grant to Andersen wasn’t finalized until May 21, 2020, two months after Andersen published “Proximal Origin” in March 2020.

Misleading intelligence agencies

Justice Department officials are also likely to examine Andersen’s possible role in misleading US intelligence agencies. A week after Nature Medicine published “Proximal Origin,” the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) published an intelligence report that circulated inside security agencies. First reported by The DisInformation Chronicle, the INR report is marked “UNCLASSIFIED/FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY.”

The INR report documents a briefing that non-government scientists gave to State Department officials, downplaying the possibility of a Chinese lab accident and citing the “Proximal Origin” paper. The names of the scientists who briefed State remained unknown until a couple years ago, when emails found that one of the scientists was Kristian Andersen, who is apparently a citizen of Denmark, not the US.

“Did we have a foreign national parading into the intel agencies and convincing senior officials to not look into a matter?” said a State Department official who is not cleared to speak to the media. “That’s a counter intelligence matter. We need a professional law enforcement investigation.”

Andersen’s involvement came to light in a late 2020 email sent by State Department official David Feith in which Feith wrote that Andersen had briefed State for their March 2020 INR report. “In fact, I'm told that in a briefing organized by INR earlier this year, [Andersen] said that several features that had initially raised questions in his mind were subsequently put to rest by more detailed analysis,” Feith explained by email. “Notably, it was that subsequent follow-on analysis, referred to by Anderson in the INR discussion….”

Based on the briefing by Andersen and colleagues, State’s INR report concluded there was no evidence the virus originated in a lab. “U.S. scientists said that while they cannot completely rule out that scenario, it was improbable and not supported by available evidence.”

But on April 16, 2020, a month after briefing the State Department, Andersen sent a Slack message to his “Proximal Origin” co-authors. This message contradicts what scientists told the State Department.

“I’m still not fully convinced that no culture was involved,” Andersen wrote his co-authors, a month after briefing State that a lab accident was not supported by evidence. “We also can't fully rule out engineering (for basic research).” Andersen added that a critical part of the virus called the furin cleavage site “still could have been inserted” into the virus.

Researcher Andreas Martin Lisewski with Germany’s Constructor University published a recent study supporting Andersen’s suspicion that a furin cleavage site was inserted into the COVID virus called SARS-CoV-2. After analyzing the sequence, Lisewski concluded the SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site came from a laboratory-constructed MERS virus. Although legacy media have ignored these findings, virologist Christian Drosten of Charité University in Berlin presented these conclusions that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was not natural at a World Health Organization meeting last February.

“I don’t see how this not a criminal misleading and counterintelligence matter,” said the State Department official. “This is way beyond the threshold needed for a grand jury.”

During a sworn congressional deposition, Andersen testified that he also briefed the CIA and FBI, although the nature and timing of those discussions is unclear.

As the noose continues to tighten on Andersen, he has been looking to move outside the United States and has apparently found a new home at the University of Oslo. The move would be a precipitous fall in status for Andersen, as Scripps Research Institute has been ranked as one of the most influential scientific programs in the world.

Andersen did not respond to questions and repeated requests for comment sent to his Scripps email.

Finding refuge

“I have heard from several sources that there is an ongoing effort from a group of scientists at the University of Oslo to recruit Andersen, and that this might be finalized in the near future,” said Sigrid Bratlie, a molecular biologist and senior advisor at Norway’s Langsikt Policy Centre.

The campaign to find a position for Andersen at the University of Oslo apparently began last October when professors Anne Spurkland, Rein Aasland, and Nils Christian Stenseth invited Andersen to give a lecture on the Oslo campus. Nelseth has long trumpeted Andersen’s research. In 2021, he published a paper with WIV scientist Shi Zhengli that dismissed the possibility of a Wuhan lab accident, citing Andersen’s “Proximal Origin” paper.

Covering the “facts and the fiction” of the COVID pandemic, Andersen claimed during the October lecture that critiques of his research were mere political attacks that had been spread by conspiracy theorists, naming two Oslo researchers sitting in the audience: Sigrid Bratlie and Gunnveig Grødeland, a professor at the University of Oslo.

Andersen’s Oslo talk was sponsored by the Norwegian Society for Immunology which later released an apology. “Kristian Andersen’s lecture concluded by asserting that, based on his findings, SARS-CoV-2 necessarily originated from an animal at the Wuhan wet market,” the statement reads. “In retrospect, unfortunately, it seems the purpose of his lecture was just as much about stopping the free debate in Norway on this topic.”

Undeterred, Stenseth, Spurkland and Aasland then helped nominate Andersen for membership in the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Two months ago, the Academy accepted Andersen’s nomination.

The exact position being created for Andersen at the University of Oslo is unclear. Stenseth, Spurkland, and Aasland did not respond to questions and repeated requests for comment sent by email. University of Oslo officials also contacted by email did not reply.

Andersen’s arrival in Oslo is likely to be greeted with some trepidation. Last week, Bratlie published a book to positive reviews in Norway titled, “The Wuhan Mystery – the hunt for the origins of the covid pandemic.” Bratlie’s book argues that the pandemic likely started from a lab accident in Wuhan, evidence that was then covered up by international scientists to protect reputations, jobs, and funding. This cover-up, she argues, impedes society’s ability to prepare for future pandemics.

Bratlie said that scientists have legitimate worries about the current climate for research in Trump’s America, but these concerns should be balanced with the need to protect democratic principles and academic integrity.

“I would be absolutely devastated on behalf of Norwegian academia if this recruitment happens,” Bratlie said of the University of Oslo’s bid to bring Andersen to her country. “If Andersen has contributed to a cover-up of the origins of the pandemic, potentially extending to criminal acts, he should be held accountable and not be given amnesty or academic shield in Norway.”

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Authored by Kane McGukin via Bombthrower.com,

Money has always been strategic, providing the foundation of nations and empires for centuries.

Owning capital and controlling its flow isn’t just about survival; it’s about building something that lasts.

If Bitcoin 2024 was the year of political invasion and intelligence acknowledgement, 2025 was a confirmation.

My key takeaway is that what started as an emergent behavior, Bitcoin, has made its way to center stage in 21st-century capital formation. New age dollars are backed once again with layers of sound money and innovative tech rails (stablecoins) that will extend our ability to build the future in both our digital and physical worlds.

This year’s conference laid out how Bitcoin + Stablecoins will be incorporated into balance sheets, national stockpiles, and act as a financial reserve asset. Backing traditional assets, new financial instruments (bitbonds), and resetting the geopolitical landscape while driving growth in the 21st Century.

“Bitcoin is now becoming one of the largest asset classes in the world. … The US needs to be able to defend Bitcoin or use it as an offensive weapon…” – Fred Theil, Mara

“The Executive Order specifically named Bitcoin… as a strategic asset because of its scarcity… and that was a signal being sent to the American population as well as the global population of other national leaders… The US Government sees Bitcoin as a Strategic asset… Is this a signal of a strategic shift? … I think that’s still an uncertain question, but I think we’re leaning towards the latter.” – Matthew Pines

Strategic reserves aren’t just about oil or Swiss cheese anymore. They’re about Bitcoin and the future of money as statecraft – Matthew Sigel, VanEck

A Historical Perspective of How We Got to Bitcoin

Money began with kings and blacksmiths, then shifted to vaults and shipping lanes as industrialized nations arose. To power this evolution, a global information and logistics network emerged: wires stretched across continents, barges moved gold port to port, and boots on the ground gathered local intelligence. Routed it back through government think tanks and major global bank trading desks. These old-fashioned and manual networks are what FED the dollar money machine, creating an unrivaled capital engine in the US.

By the 1960s and 1980s, a new era began. Derivatives became the norm, and information moved faster, requiring one to have financial trading desks around the globe to capture profitable information and support national security. Bankers ruled supreme. Bitcoin 2025 made it clear there is new capital in town, but this time is no different.

In recent decades, social networks began outperforming diplomats and spies. Capital shifted from hard assets to liquid and digital instruments. This accelerated the tempo of our world. We must rebuild that complex network of global banks, but with the advantage of nodes over buildings. In the new realm, VCs, software developers, and engineers rule supreme.

If one theme echoed throughout this year’s conference, it was this: Monetary information is a weapon, and the dollar network needs an extension. A new innovation to carry its weight around the world faster. That’s why Bitcoin is more than Number Go Up (NGU) technology.

Throughout the conference, if you heard it once, you heard it numerous times. Bitcoin won’t replace the dollar, it will expand and deepen the vast power of the dollar network. Moving forward, BTC will be the basis of capital formation, buying power, and geopolitical edge. Its volatility will be harvested and embedded into the balance sheets of public companies (Bitcoin Treasury Companies).

Stablecoins Were Everywhere

The x.com post/meme above is funny and sums up the stablecoin mania. This was an inevitable route, and there was no loss in the opportunity to weave it into almost every session. Stablecoins will lead the way in transforming our money market and dollar payment networks. They bring them up-to-date with modern technology and making “money” fully digital and usable.

Making money move at the speed with which people live today. Tether’s (USDT) Paolo Ardoino proved this in his session. He effectively showed that we’re moving from an era of tech stacks to an era of monetary tech stacks.

If you want value, it must be backed by truth and sustainability. Not rhetoric, corruption, merry-go-rounding, and nothingness.

Underneath the most popular stablecoin USDT sits: sound money assets (Bitcoin and Gold), paper yield-bearing monetary assets (US Treasuries), private company profits, Bitcoin mining and AI datacenter infrastructure, independent media tools, privacy chat tools, and more. Tether has built the future of what a monetary tech stack likely looks like. A combination of all forms of assets we might want in our society today.

“There are many senior folks in the Trump administration directly around the stablecoin space, and this was the same philosophy that really gave rise to the growth of US-based, world-dominant multinational corporations. It was not just the love of Pepsi and Coke as products. It was that they served as instruments of US statecraft, and there was a deep financial overlap between the profits of the large multinational corporations and the reach and acquisitions of the American Empire. … I think that there is a kind of belief that Stablecoins and the Bitcoin market can effectively do for the dollar what multinational corporations did in the 20th Century for the reach of the Empire.” – Mike Benz

As we’ve seen across centuries, intelligence is once again being embedded and synchronized. As power has shifted to technology networks, we’re seeing the importance these leaders are now playing in government.

Much like we saw with old Wall Street revolving doors that allowed leaders to bounce back and forth between Goldman, JP Morgan, Black Rock, The Federal Reserve, and other government institutions. We’re now seeing the same with technology companies, too.

Given the posturing around Bitcoin and AI, it would not be a shock for Bitcoin and stablecoin companies to be the next vector. After all, the power of a monetary network is in the information and profit its operators control.

As capital competition intensifies, it is clear that economic dominance and even warfare have moved from the battlefields to bandwidth.

All of this, Bitcoin’s integration, the rise of stablecoins, and the evolution of monetary tech stacks point to a deeper truth: our current financial system isn’t just adapting, it’s straining while monetary architecture is quickly becoming the next battleground.

This strain comes from a design flaw baked into the system itself: its dependency on endless growth. Its dependency on debt-backed growth.

The Problem of Scale and Constant Growth

“Basically, the way the system is constructed. … it relies on constant growth. It’s like a shark that can’t stop swimming, otherwise it drowns, ironically.” – Lyn Alden

What Lyn describes here with the shark analogy is the premise of Geoffrey West’s book Scale – The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies.

Eventually, superexponential growth systems (like financial systems) reach finite time singularity where the energy and growth required to maintain pace become catastrophically unsustainable.

The only way to avoid the inevitable collapse is through innovation. Ironically, Bitcoin is an innovation for both our financial system and our information system. Both are on unsustainable resource burn paths just to maintain themselves. For the financial system, it’s a debt issue. For the internet, it’s an energy and volume of content/information/value issue.

These dilemmas, though not Triffin’s, make the points highlighted by Vice President JD Vance even more important.

For starters, unfortunately, he made it clear that Bitcoin is now political; continued voice and action are required. As he posed, Bitcoin and AI together should be considered the two most important tools for our future.

As a reminder, empires and stability are built on one’s ability to collect, process, and profit from information. Both work nicely in these capacities. So, the undue interest does make sense.

As a reminder, those who reign are the ones who best showcase the ability to monetize the value in networks.

What nation-states, public entities, and those in statecraft seem to grasp is we’ve shifted from a world of “he who holds the gold makes the rules” to a world of “he who holds the data gets the value”.

It now appears to be an arms race to see who can amass critical capital. Because in times of geopolitical instability, strategic resources are what give control. They are what lead to historical transitions. Once again, we find ourselves in the midst of a paradigm shift, with Bitcoin at the center.

Money, information, and supply chains are the battlegrounds of the moment that will define the lanes of the future.

“We have to start thinking about the long-term strategic implications of Bitcoin. Where Bitcoin is going is as a strategically important asset for the United States over the next decades.” – JD Vance

And yet, while the Bitcoin Conference conversations touched on geopolitics, network theory, and systemic fragility, there was also something personal about this year’s conference.

One moment that captured this shift in narrative was from none other than Jack Mallers.

Mr. Mallers is Aging… A Conference Farewell

Lastly, a Bitcoin Conference would not be complete without a passionate ending from Jack Mallers.

However, this year was a bit of a flip of the script. Rather than promoting HODLing or stacking sats forever, Mallers promoted spending bitcoin and even taking loans against them… debt… because the reality is, as you become an adult, there are things in life Bitcoin can’t buy. There are real moments, real bills quoted and accepted only in USD. This realization helps us understand the simple line Jack quoted:

“Money is a means, it’s not an end.” – Jack Mallers

Money is a savings technology > Spending is for memories and life.

Jack Mallers Bitcoin 2025 Keynote Speech: The HODLers Dilemma

Get on the Bombthrower mailing list here and receive a free copy of The Crypto Capitalist Manifesto and The CBDC Survival Guide when it drops.   Subscribe to Kane McGukin’s Substack here.

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

Topline: An annex to California’s Capitol Building was supposed to cost $543 million, but the price has doubled to $1.1 billion and now includes hallways designed to hide lawmakers from journalists.

Key facts: KCRA 3 reported that the annex will include a new parking garage and visitor’s center and office space for 120 state lawmakers. The news station pointed out it is almost as expensive as the $1.3 billion spent on Levi’s Stadium, the San Francisco 49ers’ football stadium that seats 68,500 people.

KCRA 3’s sources revealed the annex will include private hallways. The building’s current layout means lawmakers must walk through a public “swing space” to get from hearing rooms to the elevators, where journalists can ask them questions about the day’s proceedings. The new layout will allow lawmakers to avoid the swing space.

Other details are still unknown. There has not been a public update on how tax dollars are being spent since 2021. The Joint Rules Committee of the state legislature, which is overseeing the project, denied KCRA 3’s request for an interview and did not provide diagrams of the private hallways.

Taxpayers might have learned more from the project’s environmental impact report, which all public construction projects must complete under the California Environmental Quality Act. But lawmakers wrote a bill that exempts the Capitol annex from the report and signed it into law just 10 days later. The law was upheld by a state court of appeals.

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Supporting quote:  State Senate Pro Tempore Mike McGuire told KCRA 3, “Secure corridors have always been included in plans for the new annex … and are designed to help ensure the safety and security of lawmakers, which is even more important today given the events that unfolded on January 6th at our nation’s capital building and the active threats public officials continue to face. Regardless, legislators will continue to be accessible and responsive to the public, staff, and reporters no matter what hallway, elevator or stairwell they choose to use.”

Critical quote: “I think this is the height of hypocrisy,” state Assemblyman Josh Hoover told KCRA 3 about the hallways. “You are using taxpayer dollars for a taxpayer-funded facility and yet you are going to design it in a way that shields you from the public and shields you from accountability.”

Summary: A $1.1 billion taxpayer-funded project should have full transparency and be in the public’s best interest. California’s new Capitol annex might not meet either of those criteria.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

After weeks of quiet, Trump's trade deals are starting to take shape: first it is the ongoing negotiations with China which are "going well", then we learned that an interim deal with India was largely completed, and now Bloomberg reports that in the third positive trade news of the day, the US and Mexico are closing in on a deal that would remove cut steel duties - including Trump’s 50% tariffs on steel imports up to a certain volume - in a revamp of a similar deal between the trade partners during his first term. 

The talks are being led by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and since Trump hasn’t been directly involved in the negotiations he would need to sign off on any deal.

While the agreement hasn’t been finalized, under the current terms it would allow US buyers to import Mexican steel duty-free as long as they kept total shipments below a level based on historical trade volumes. The new cap would be higher than what was allowed under a similar deal during Trump’s first term, Bloomberg sources reported, which was never a fixed figure but designed to “prevent surges.”

Following the Bloomberg report, US steel stocks moved lower: Cleveland-Cliffs dropped more than 7%, and Nucor fell more than 4%. The Mexican peso trimmed losses.

At an event on Tuesday, Mexican Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard said he told US officials in meetings last week that steel tariffs are not justified in Mexico’s case because the US sends more steel to Mexico than vice versa. Last Friday, he posted a picture that showed him shaking hands with a smiling Lutnick in Washington.

“We are waiting for their response, because on Friday we gave them the details of Mexico’s argument and we are right,” Ebrard told reporters Tuesday. “So we are going to wait for their response which will probably be this very week.”

Last week Trump announced he would double steel duties to 50% after saying he would approve the purchase of US Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel, a move he said would protect the domestic industry and national security. While domestic steelmakers welcome the move, end-users have urged the administration to ease the tariffs. 

The negotiations come as Sheinbaum seeks an accommodation with Trump over immigration and drug trafficking across their shared border, which the US leader has demanded Mexico halt. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused Sheinbaum Tuesday of “encouraging” more anti-deportation protests in Los Angeles, where the US has deployed troops. Sheinbaum has called Noem’s claim “absolutely false.”

The talks also come ahead of a Group of Seven leaders summit in Canada, where the two presidents are likely to meet.

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

“But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another—slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” – Neil Postman – Amusing Ourselves to Death

 “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.” – Neil Postman – Amusing Ourselves to Death

I find myself ruminating about whether there is anything myself or any other average Joe can do to make a difference in this world, controlled by psychopaths, satanists, egomaniacal billionaires, corrupt evil politicians, a cabal of greedy financiers, neocon warmongering globalists, and the propaganda entertainment complex. When a complex entity becomes too large, it becomes inefficient, bureaucratic, corrupt, and uncontrollable.

The corruption, waste, and purposeful use of governmental power to enrich politicians and their billionaire benefactors, to the detriment of the country and the average citizen, has grown to an incomprehensible and uncontainable level. Whether DOGE was a legitimate undertaking by Musk and his tech geniuses to cut wasteful spending and uncover fraud, or nothing more than a PR stunt designed to keep the MAGA army satiated with the appearance of making America great again, it appears to have sunk into the swamps of DC, foiled by the uni-party once again.

But the show must go on, and this past week’s episode of “As the Empire Crumbles” was certainly entertaining, with the most powerful politician in the world hurling insults at the richest man in the world, who responded by accusing the president of pedophilia, while calling for his impeachment and the creation of a new political party. The MAGA acolytes were flabbergasted, as their two heroes, who were going to usher in a new golden era, came to blows and have irreconcilably broken up. Who could have predicted that the two biggest egos on the planet would ultimately clash and dissolve their partnership? Many of the twitterati were convinced it was just more 4D chess, just as they believed the Q bullshit during Trump’s first term.

The world was captivated and enthralled by this trivial social media war, while NATO/Ukraine desperately attempted to initiate WW3 with their attacks on Russian airbases, the Crimean bridge, and Russian passenger trains. Thousands of tweets and hundreds of articles have been written about this Trump/Musk bickerfest, while the world is imploding and we are accelerating headlong towards a global war, initiated by the three stooges running France, U.K. and Germany, and cheered on by the likes of Lindsey Graham and Mike Pompeo.

Trump’s campaign trail promise to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours has proven to be nothing more than his predictable bloviating bullshit. It has become clear he has absolutely no sway over the EU warmongers, or his own Deep State CIA operatives carrying out the attacks on Russia, as his weak and ineffectual efforts to end the conflict start to diminish his presidency from the outset.

The Gaza genocide continues, with American financial and military support, even though Trump promised to end that conflict. Iran continues to resist efforts to stop its nuclear enrichment program. China pretends to be negotiating with Trump on tariffs but is content letting the Soros installed leftist judges across the country place roadblock after roadblock in the way of Trump’s tariff, deportation, and governmental downsizing agenda. Foreign leaders know they can wait out all of Trump’s threats by just slow walking negotiations and hoping the Republicans lose the House in 2026.

China is biding its time until they believe America is sufficiently preoccupied with its own domestic turmoil and its Ukraine quagmire, and they will initiate their inevitable Taiwan takeover. The United States has not won a war in 80 years and is in no position to wage war in Europe and Asia simultaneously. Trump professes to be for peace, but the Deep State actors controlling the government and the globalist billionaires pulling the strings will force him into WW3. That is how Fourth Turnings roll.

With the intense opposition to the Big Beautiful Bill from Musk and key Republicans in the Senate, the next few months could get messy on the fiscal front. Musk is entirely correct, calling the BBB a massive, outrageous, pork-filled disgusting abomination of congressional pork. When the mind numbingly stupid media outlets declare it will add $3 trillion to the national debt over ten years, that means $3 trillion more than the $21 trillion of additional debt already projected. And this assumes no recessions, no financial crisis, no wars, and no fake pandemics. They purposefully give the impression our national debt only goes up by $3 trillion over ten years.

I’m absolutely certain the average prole, distracted by their technological bread and circuses, has no clue our debt is on automatic pilot to increase by nearly 70% over the next ten years. The average person remains trapped in a false comfort zone, designed by their overlords, to keep them satiated with toxic foodstuff, propaganda disguised as entertainment, and believing going deeper and deeper into debt, buying trinkets and baubles makes them wealthy. Until that comfort zone is shattered by the bitter reality of the next financial implosion, the masses will do nothing to try and alter the disastrous course plotted by their overlords.

The GOP passage of $9.4 billion of DOGE cuts is nothing more than a PR stunt to convince the ignorant masses they are actually doing something about the deficit. The dopes making bets on Draft Kings and posting videos on Instagram have no concept about how ridiculously out of control our government has become. They add $6 billion to the national debt every single day, so their $9.4 of “cuts” will be gone in 37 hours. Our deficits are big, but they are not beautiful. Our deficit in FY24 was $1.8 trillion. Through the first 7 months of FY25 the deficit is $1.049 trillion. At the current rate of spending, the deficit will be $2.2 trillion by the end of the fiscal year.

Interest on the national debt is now the second biggest expenditure and has gone from $500 billion during Trump’s first term to $1.3 trillion today. These deficits are clearly unsustainable, and anything which is unsustainable will not be sustained. But the corrupt, captured politicians and insatiably avaricious Wall Street bankers will keep dancing until the music stops. Then they will use their next engineered financial crisis to take more of our money and further restrict our liberties and freedom. CBDCs and social credit scores anyone?

The real reason Trump and the GOP need to pass the big beautiful, bloated pig of a bill is because our Ponzi scheme economy depends upon the never-ending issuance of trillions in debt every year to give the fabricated appearance of stability. This is why the GOP applauds Musk’s low hanging fruit DOGE cost savings and ignores them in their outrageously corpulent budget bill. The truth is any actual reduction in government spending (36% of GDP) would ripple through an economy entirely dependent upon government largess and immediately create a massive recession and probable depression.

Ponzi schemes have to keep growing until they run out of suckers believing the bullshit underlying the Ponzi. This is where those controlling the levers of society (Bernays’ invisible government) utilize their limitless well of propaganda techniques, technological distractions, and mindless entertainment venues to keep the ignorant masses amused, delusional, and living in denial of the reality staring them in the face.

Since the 2008 financial crisis we have been muddling through economically at a 10,000 feet macro level, with periodic crisis episodes (housing collapse, fake pandemic) utilized by the powers that be to issue trillions more debt as the antidote to the initial crisis created by too much debt. At a micro level, the average American has seen a significant decline in their standard of living, as official government reported inflation has eroded 40% of their purchasing power, when in reality they have lost more than 60% of their purchasing power. The reality for the average American prole is debt slavery, either self-imposed to keep up with the Joneses or forced upon them to survive this globalist-imposed death by a thousand cuts economy.

Credit card debt of $1.3 trillion is at an all-time high, up $350 billion (35%) since 2020. The average balance on those credit cards is over $7,000 and the average interest rate on those unpaid balances is over 21%. Student loan debt of $1.8 trillion is at an all-time high, up $100 billion since 2020, with over 25% of these loans in default. Auto loan debt of $1.7 trillion is at an all-time high, up $350 billion (27%) since 2020. The average length of these loans is now 70 months. The borrower is underwater by the fifth year of these loans. Shockingly, credit card and auto loan delinquencies have been soaring in the last year, with credit card delinquencies above 3% for the first time since 2012, and auto loan delinquencies surpassed 8% for the first time since 2010. Does that sound like a consumer on solid ground?

In addition, the housing market is a disaster looking for a trigger. The Wall Street hedge funds (Blackrock) bought up millions of homes, driving prices 140% (Case Siller Index) higher than the 2012 low, while outstanding mortgage debt has risen from the 2012 low of $13 trillion to $21 trillion today. Prices are ridiculously high and mortgage rates of 7% make it virtually impossible for an average working stiff to buy even a small home. The market is frozen.

This is why Trump and his GOP minions must avoid a recession at all costs by continuing to rack up $2 trillion annual deficits. A recession would result in millions of layoffs, which would mean unpaid mortgages, which would mean foreclosures and slashing of home prices, which would trigger housing collapse 2.0, which would turn the recession into a depression, causing a stock market collapse. Now you know why they are desperate to pass this big, beautiful behemoth of bilge.

The Fed is in a precarious position of their own making, with all choices pointing towards disastrous outcomes. They are already sitting on over $1 trillion of unrealized bond losses, while their Wall Street owners sit on another $400 billion of unrealized bond losses. If these entities ever have to realize those losses, our entire banking system would collapse. The Fed has cut rates by 1%, but market rates went up, as their power to mislead market players diminishes.

They have reduced their balance sheet from $9 trillion to $6.7 trillion. The last time they tried to reduce their balance sheet in 2019, the repo market spasmed and they used the Covid cover to drastically print more fiat. Trump is mocking Powell and demanding interest rate cuts. Powell is pretending to be independent, but he is praying for some kind of crisis to again set the printing presses to hyper-speed. I’m sure the ruling oligarchs are hatching a new crisis to expand their wealth, power, and control, while further impoverishing and enslaving the plebs.

It is clear at least to me, we stand on the precipice of an economic conflagration capable of putting the final nail in the coffin of this empire of debt. At the same time there are unrelenting evil forces who are frantically creating the casus-belli to initiate World War III and the massive death and destruction that would produce. The simultaneous commencement of these two events would produce the type of climax expected in the waning years of a Fourth Turning, with a final resolution expected by 2032.

Most people are blissfully unaware of the imminent demise of their comfortable existence, so addicted to their techno-gadgets and mindless social media performance art, they are incapable of critical thought regarding the dystopian world they inhabit.

“People will come to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think” ― Neil Postman – Amusing Ourselves to Death

“If politics is like show business, then the idea is not to pursue excellence, clarity or honesty but to appear as if you are, which is another matter altogether.” ― Neil Postman – Amusing Ourselves to Death

If you ever needed proof politics is nothing but show business, it is this big, beautiful bill episode of drama, fiction, comedy, and tragedy. Excellence, clarity, and honesty have no part in this absurd psychodrama of lies, accusations, and continued downward spiral of this empire of debt. We know Huxley believed the masses could be sufficiently distracted by their own ego driven pursuits, but I don’t think even he realized how much power the technological “advances” of our times (TV based mass media, the internet, corporate/government controlled social media, Big Pharma) would be used by the ruling elite to control, manipulate, sedate, and scare the ignorant masses into voluntary subservience. Everything we are witnessing and living through is nothing more than a theater production, designed by Bernays’ invisible governing authorities to herd us towards their technological gulag, with the slaughterhouse as the other alternative.

Huxley’s 1932 dystopian vision, which he believed was more likely than Orwell’s 1949 dystopian vision of the future, and reinforced in a letter to Orwell in 1949 shortly before his death, has been the pre-dominant method used by our overlords to rule over, manipulate, and exploit the foibles of the unthinking masses. They have kept their citizens distracted with pleasures, drugged into passivity, taught to feel rather than think in government run indoctrination centers (public schools) and overloaded with so much useless trivial information, they are incapable of distinguishing between good and evil – actually believing their servitude is freedom.

While Huxley’s dystopia continues, the ruling class fears their passive mind control methods aren’t as effective in achieving their great reset agenda, and in need of some Orwellian censorship, disinformation, brute force, government intimidation, harsh mind control, and guaranteeing compliance through fear. Aren’t we lucky to be experiencing the best of both dystopian visions. Those controlling the levers of society have used the school system to create a soulless amalgamation of hedonistic mass consumers; purposeless, apathetic, with muddled brains unable to understand their unintended enslavement to the evil demons running our world and controlling their lives.

Knowing most of what we see on our screens and hear from supposed “experts”, left wing corporate media talking heads, and Fox News bimbos, is gibberish and propaganda, it is hard to distinguish real threats from clickbait, purposeful disinformation, and scare tactics designed to make you do what they want you to do. The precarious financial situation of the country is real. The danger from an AI cage built through a tech-state merger with Palantir to surveil and digitally profile everyone is real.

The threat of the Ukraine-Russia conflict morphing into WW3 is real. The desire by billionaire globalists to introduce a Great Reset, Great Taking, and CBDCs is real. The planned, funded, and executed invasion of our southern border during the Basement Dummy administration by third world dregs, with the sole intention of destroying the social fabric and finances of the country, run by the Soros/Clinton/Obama triumvirate is real.

Even with the dismantling of their USAID insurrection funding source, this week’s festivities in Los Angeles kicked off the summer of civil war. There is nothing real or spontaneous about these riots. Whenever pallets of bricks suddenly show up on streets in city centers, you know Soros and his ilk are behind the organized destruction of that particular city. The brick and bomb throwers are being paid to riot and take photo ops. This will assuredly be rolled out in our other Democrat controlled urban shitholes across the land. The governor of California and the communist mayor of Los Angeles are paid acolytes of Soros, stoking insurrection and should be arrested and thrown into the dungeons of DC, like the grandmothers and patriots who sauntered through the Capitol on January 6.

We find ourselves on the precipice of a financial, social, and military calamity, all driven by the three driving forces of this Fourth Turning: debt, civic decay, global disorder. Anyone not noticing events are intensifying, conflict is expanding, anger is building, and the world is accelerating towards that precipice at breakneck speed, is simply ignorant or their minds are so numbed by their i-gadgets and government school indoctrination, that it’s beyond their comprehension to acknowledge reality.

At this point in history, I do not believe there are enough awakened critical thinking citizens to make a difference during the waning years of this Fourth Turning. We can’t vote our way out. We likely can’t shoot our way out. We can’t buy our way out. When the majority are proud of their ignorance and believe it is superior to actual knowledge, your society is pretty much fucked.

“What is happening here is that television is altering the meaning of ‘being informed’ by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation. I am using this world almost in the precise sense in which it is used by spies in the CIA or KGB. Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information–misplace, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information – information that creates the illusion of knowing something but which in fact leads one away from knowing. I am saying something far more serious than that we are being deprived of authentic information. I am saying we are losing our sense of what it means to be well informed. Ignorance is always correctable. But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?” ― Neil Postman – Amusing Ourselves to Death

The existing financial, social and political paradigms will have to collapse and be swept away for any real change to occur. The problem is it appears that is exactly what the billionaire globalist elite are trying to trigger. In the aftermath, amidst chaos, financial ruin, civil and global war, social strife, and a political vacuum, they envision establishing an authoritarian global world order, with CBDCs, social credit scores, 15-minute cities, and Big Brother level surveillance. If this vision prevails, Orwell wins the award over Huxley for the most accurate dystopian nightmare.

“It does not take a majority to prevail … but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” ― Samuel Adams

“The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.” – George Washington

Our only hope resides in the hubris and arrogance of the ruling class. Once the collapse is underway, its course is unpredictable and unstable. The best laid plans have a way of going awry. This could offer an opportunity for normal rational people to make their stand. If a liberty movement, backed by the 300 million firearms residing in the red states, could re-ignite the brush fires of freedom in the minds of men, maybe we could reset the course of our country. The odds probably aren’t worse than they were in 1776. At this point, all we can do is prepare mentally, physically, and spiritually for the coming storm. Buy supplies, guns and ammo. And remember what your forefathers accomplished with far less. The choice is slavery or freedom.

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Wine and spirits distributor Republic National Distributing Company (RNDC) is leaving the California market.

RNDC cited increasing costs and changes among suppliers as one of the reasons it has decided to stop operating in the state.

“This decision follows years of increasing costs, industry headwinds, and supplier shifts that have made it difficult to operate sustainably in the state,” its leadership said in an emailed statement to its customers on June 4. “We are incredibly proud of our California team and all of their hard work over the years. Please know that our commitment to you during this transition remains unwavering.”

RNDC has lost several significant distribution partnerships in California in recent years. The company’s announcement comes just months after two major suppliers, Tito’s Vodka and Jack Daniel’s maker Brown-Forman, departed from their California distribution relationship with RNDC in favor of its competitor, Reyes Beverage Group.

E. & J. Gallo Winery, which owns the High Noon brand, also ended its relationship with RNDC in the state in 2025, opting instead for Reyes Beverage Group.

In 2023, Sazerac ended its longtime relationship with RNDC in California. The bourbon and whiskey maker moved its brands including Buffalo Trace, Pappy Van Winkle, and Fireball Whisky, to the Reyes Beverage Group.

RNDC did not return a request for comment.

Other companies such as Chevron, Tesla, Oracle, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, have in recent years moved their headquarters from California to states like Texas or Nevada. Unlike RNDC, which also plans to cease servicing the state, these companies continue to operate in California’s sizable economy.

RNDC joins a list of national companies—many of them insurance providers—that have fully exited the California market.

Farmers Direct Property and Casualty Insurance Company withdrew from the California homeowners insurance market in 2023. That same year, American National also announced it would stop offering homeowners insurance in the state, a move that affected more than 36,000 policies. In addition, Merastar Insurance stopped renewing homeowners and car insurance policies in California beginning in 2024.

Some other companies still operating in California have made moves to limit their operations in the state. State Farm and Allstate announced they would no longer be accepting new applications for homeowners insurance, citing rising costs and wildfire risks.

A Farmers Direct Property and Casualty Insurance spokesperson previously told The Epoch Times the company made its decision to increase efficiency and mitigate risk exposure.

Berkshire Hathaway’s AmGUARD, a division of the firm’s GUARD Insurance company, informed the California Department of Insurance in July 2023 of its plan to cancel the homeowners and personal umbrella policies it holds in the state, which followed through on two months later. AmGUARD’s notice came the same day that the small insurance firm Falls Lake Insurance submitted a letter indicating it would also be canceling policies in the state.

A 2022 report by the Hoover Institution found that 352 companies relocated from California to other states between 2018 to 2021, primarily due to the state’s high operating costs.