Distinction Matter - Subscribed Feeds

Authored by David Bell via The Brownstone Institute,

One way to determine whether a suggestion is worth following is to look at the evidence presented to support it. 

If the evidence makes sense and smells real, then perhaps the program you are asked to sign up for is worthy of consideration. 

However, if the whole scheme is sold on fallacies that a child could poke a stick through, and its chief proponents cannot possibly believe their own rhetoric, then only a fool would go much further. This is obvious – you don’t buy a used car on a salesman’s insistence that there is no other way to get from your kitchen to your bathroom.

Delegates at the coming World Health Assembly in Geneva are faced with such a choice. In this case, the car salesman is the World Health Organization (WHO), an organization still commanding considerable global respect based on a legacy of sane and solid work some decades ago. 

It also benefits from a persistent misunderstanding that large international organizations would not intentionally lie (they increasingly do, as noted below). The delegates will be voting on the recently completed text of the Pandemic Agreement, part of a broad effort to extract large profits and salaries from an intrinsic human fear of rare causes of death. Fear and confusion distract human minds from rational behavior.

WHO Likes a Good Story?

The Pandemic Agreement, and the international pandemic agenda it is intended to support, are based on a series of demonstrably false claims:

• There is evidence of a rising risk of severe naturally occurring pandemics due to a rapid (exponential) increase in infectious disease outbreaks 

• A massive return on financial investment is expected from diverting large resources to prepare for, prevent, or combat these

• The Covid-19 outbreak was probably of natural origin, and serves as an example of unavoidable health and financial costs we will incur again if we don’t act now.

If any of these were false, then the basis on which the WHO and its backers have argued for the Pandemic Agreement is fundamentally flawed. And all of them can be shown to be false. However, influential people and organizations want pandemics to be the main focus of public health. The WHO supports this because it is paid to. 

The private sector invested heavily in vaccines, and a few countries with large vaccine and biotech industries now direct most of the WHO’s work through specified funding. The WHO is obligated to deliver what these interests direct it to.

The WHO was once independent and able to concentrate on health priorities – back when they prioritized the main drivers of sickness and premature mortality and gained the reputation they now trade from. In today’s corporatized public health, population-based approaches have lost value, and the aspirations of the World Economic Forum hold more sway than those dying before sixty. 

Success in the health commodities business is about enlarging markets, not reducing the need for intervention. The WHO and its reputation are useful tools to sanitize this. Colonialism, as ever, needs to appear altruistic.

Truth Is Less Compelling Than Fiction

So, to address these fallacies. Infectious disease mortality has steadily declined over the past century despite a minor Covid blip that took us back just a decade. This blip includes the virus, but also the avoidable imposition of poverty, unemployment, reduced healthcare access, and other factors that the WHO had previously warned against, but recently actively promoted. 

To get around this reality of decreasing mortality, the WHO uses a hypothetical disease (Disease X), a placeholder for something that has not happened since the Spanish flu in the pre-antibiotic era. The huge Medieval pandemics such as the Black Death were mostly bacterial in origin, as were probably most Spanish flu deaths. With antibiotics, sewers, and better food, we now live longer and don’t expect such mortality events, but the WHO uses this threat regardless. 

Thus, the WHO has been reduced to misrepresenting fragile evidence (e.g. ignoring technology developments that can explain rising reports of outbreaks) and opinion pieces by sponsored panels in order to support the narrative of rapidly rising pandemic risk. Even Covid-19 is getting harder to use. If, as appears most likely, it was an inevitable result of laboratory manipulation, then it no longer even serves as an outlier. The WHO’s pandemic agenda is squarely targeted at natural outbreaks; hence the need for “Disease X”.

The WHO (and the World Bank) follow a similar approach in inflating financial Return on Investment (ROI). If you received an email promoting over 300 to 700 times return on a proposed investment, some may be impressed but sensible people would suspect something amiss. But this is what the Group of Twenty (G20) secretariat told its members in 2022 for return on investment on the WHO’s pandemic preparedness proposals. 

The WHO and the World Bank provided the graphic below to the same G20 meeting to support such astronomical predictions. It is essentially subterfuge; a fantasy to mislead readers such as politicians who are too busy, and trusting, to dig deeper. As these agencies are intended to serve countries rather than fool them, this sort of behavior, which is recurrent, should call into question their very existence.

Figure 1 from Analysis of Pandemic Preparedness and Response (PPR) architecture, financing needs, gaps and mechanisms, prepared by WHO and the World Bank for the G20, March 2022. Lower chart modified by REPPARE, University of Leeds.

A virus like SARS-CoV-2 (causing Covid-19) that mostly targets the sick elderly with an overall infectious mortality rate of about 0.15% will not cost $9 trillion unless panicked or greedy people choose to close down the world’s supply lines, implement mass unemployment, and then print money for multi-trillion-dollar stimulus packages. In contrast, diseases that regularly kill more and much younger people, like tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS, cost far more than $22 billion a year in contrast. 

A 2021 Lancet article put tuberculosis losses alone at $580 billion/year in 2018. Malaria kills over 600,000 children annually, and HIV/AIDS results in similar numbers of deaths. These deaths of current and future productive workers, leaving orphaned children, cost countries. Once, they were the WHO’s main priority.

Trading on a Fading Reputation

In selling the package, the WHO seems to have abandoned any attempt at meaningful dialogue. They still justify the surveillance-lockdown-mass vaccinate model by the logic-free claim that over 14 million lives were saved by Covid vaccines in 2021 (so we all have to do that again). The WHO recorded a little over 3 million Covid-related deaths in the first (vaccine-free) year of the pandemic. For the 14 million ‘saved’ to be correct, another 17 million would somehow have been due to die in year two, despite most people having gained immunity and many of the most susceptible having already succumbed.

Such childish claims are meant to shock and confuse rather than educate. People are paid to model such numbers to create narratives, and others are paid to spin them on the WHO websites and elsewhere. An industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars depends on such messaging. Scientific integrity cannot survive in an organization paid to be a mouthpiece.

As an alternative, the WHO could advocate for investment in areas that promoted longevity in wealthy countries – sanitation, better diet and living conditions, and access to basic, good medical care. 

This was once the WHO’s priority because it not only greatly reduces mortality from rare pandemic events (most Covid deaths were in people already very unwell), but it also reduces mortality from the big endemic killers such as malaria, tuberculosis, common childhood infections, and many chronic non-communicable diseases. It is, unequivocally, the main reason why mortality from major childhood infectious diseases like measles and Whooping cough plummeted long before mass vaccinations were introduced.

If we concentrated on strategies that improve general health and resilience, rather than the financial health of the pandemic industrial complex, we could then confidently decide not to wreck the lives of our children and elderly if a pandemic did arise. 

Very few people would be at high risk. We could all expect to live longer and healthier lives. The WHO has elected to leave this path, instill mass and unfounded fear, and support a very different paradigm. While the Pandemic Agreement is not essential to it, it is an important part of diverting further funds to this agenda and cementing this corporatist approach into place.

The United States has done well by stepping out of this mess, but continues to push many of the same fallacies and was instrumental in sowing the mess we now reap. While a few other governments are questioning, it is hard for any politicians to stand with truth when a sponsored media stands squarely elsewhere. 

Society is once more enslaving itself, at the behest of an entitled few, facilitated by international agencies that were set up specifically to guard against this. At the coming World Health Assembly, the pandemic fairytale will almost certainly prevail. 

The hope is that a well-deserved erosion of trust will eventually catch up with the global health industry and too few countries will ratify this treaty for it ever to come into force. To fix the underlying problem though and derail the pandemic industry train, we will need to rethink the whole approach to cooperation in international health.

As Statista's Anna Fleck shows in the chart below, a total of 45 countries and one territory had managed to eradicate malaria as of January 2025, according to data from the World Health Organization. 

You will find more infographics at Statista

A place is eligible to apply for a WHO certification of malaria-free status once it has had zero indigenous cases of malaria for three consecutive years. 

In 2025 so far, Georgia is the latest country to have met this requirement, following after Egypt and Cape Verde last year.

The United States was declared malaria-free in 1970, alongside Italy and the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, India still is endemic with more than two million cases reported there in 2023.

Worldwide, malaria is still endemic in 83 countries.

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix news,

Tesla owners in Vienna are increasingly finding threatening flyers placed on their vehicles, warning them of potential vandalism and public backlash if they do not sell their cars.

The notes, which have appeared on multiple vehicles in recent days, are part of an apparent campaign by left-wing extremists who have made Tesla — and its CEO, Elon Musk — a target due to his political positions and support for populist parties across Europe.

One flyer, titled “Our condolences! It’s not your fault. It will only be your fault if you don’t act now”, warns Tesla owners that they are driving a vehicle associated with “right-wing agitator” Elon Musk.

The note urges drivers to sell their cars while they still can, hinting at consequences such as public shaming and criminal damage to the vehicle.

The leaflet reads: “Now you own a car that you may be ashamed of, whose value has gone to its knees and you have to be afraid every night that someone will scratch a big ‘fuck Tesla’ into your paintwork.” 

The document continues with suggestions such as speaking to employers about removing Tesla vehicles from company fleets, and even discussing the matter with friends and family in an effort to ostracize the brand.

The campaign is not limited to Vienna. Similar anti-Tesla actions have been reported in several other European cities. In Berlin and Paris, Teslas have been defaced with spray paint and stickers labeling drivers as supporters of “right-wing conspiracy.” In Amsterdam, demonstrators have held protests outside Tesla garages and engaged in confrontations with drivers, calling their cars “capitalist machines” and demanding they abandon them.

In March, an arson attack that knocked out power to a Tesla factory and parts of Berlin was claimed by a left-wing terror group.

“Together, we are bringing Tesla to its knees. Switch off for Tesla. Greetings to everyone on the run, in the underground in prisons and in the resistance! Love and strength to all Antifa,” read a letter by the perpetrators published in the German media.

The vandalism is, in part, fueled by left-wing politicians who have made inflammatory remarks about Musk and his company.

In January, after Musk endorsed the Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead of the country’s federal elections, Poland’s Sports Minister Sławomir Nitras said, “I can only say this much, listening to these words: Probably no normal Pole should buy a Tesla anymore.”

Berlin Senator Cansel Kiziltepe, of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), went further earlier this week, comparing Tesla to “Nazi cars.”

“Who wants to drive a Nazi car? Manufacturers of electric cars are experiencing a sales boom – apart from Tesla,” she said.

Authorities in Vienna have not yet commented on the distribution of these flyers, but some Tesla owners have expressed concern for their safety and the security of their property, according to Austrian news outlet Exxpress.

Read more here...

Thursday saw President Trump and the US Treasury unleash a new sanctions pile-on against Iran, with a new rollout of secondary sanctions targeting Iranian oil and petrochemical products, sending crude prices higher on the day...

"They will not be allowed to do business with the United States of America in any way, shape, or form," the President wrote on Truth Social in combination with a Treasury statement. It's as yet unclear precisely how such sanctions will be implemented, with the most extreme or 'nuclear option' being naval intervention against vessels transporting Iranian oil.

Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang meets with Iran's Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi in Beijing last month. Yin Bogu/Xinhua via Getty Images

The main warning and teeth behind it centers on the threat that any nation buying oil or petrochemicals from the Islamic Republic will be barred from doing any business with the US.

"Any Country or person who buys ANY AMOUNT of OIL or PETROCHEMICALS from Iran will be subject to, immediately, Secondary Sanctions," Trump stated in the post. Oil had quickly jumped 2% on the mid-afternoon announcement.

Trump is clearly setting out to negotiate from a position of "strength" amid his maximum pressure campaign, aimed at getting Tehran to sign on to a fresh nuclear agreement.

Talks have apparently hit some logistical hurdles, or perhaps Trump's new secondary sanctions have resulted in jitters and renewal of anger and lack of trust from Iranian leadership:

A fourth round of Iran-US talks over Tehran's nuclear program has been postponed.

Iran said the two countries, along with facilitators Oman, had jointly decided to postpone Saturday's meeting in Rome for "logistical and technical reasons". The US said the timing of the talks had not been confirmed in the first place.

Is this an intentional stall?

Surely it's also a shot across China's bow, given that it imports over a million barrels per day from Iran, and for years amid Tehran's isolation has been the biggest buyer of Iranian crude.

As for when US-Iran talks might resume, after relatively 'positive' prior recent rounds, Iran's Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi emphasized Thursday on X that Tehran's "determination to secure a negotiated solution" had not changed.

Kpler & TankerTrackers.com

He wrote: "In fact, we are more determined than ever to achieve a just and balanced deal: guaranteeing an end to sanctions, and creating confidence that Iran's nuclear program will forever remain peaceful while ensuring that Iranian rights are fully respected."

Authored by David Bruce Smith via RealClearPublicAffairs,

John and Abigail Adams envisioned an America with a school in every neighborhood and a well-informed citizenry that was adept in languages, literature, and music, as well as science, history, and religion. Their vision was practical until the ages recast it, little by little.

Then sometime between Joseph McCarthy and Joan Baez, the status quo of the educational system came undone.

Students who had been accustomed to a traditional 50/50 split between the humanities and the sciences were capsized academically by the surprise Sputnik launch in 1957. The U.S.’s race to space sent higher education into a tizzy, becoming fixated on improving science education above all. In the succeeding seven decades, resources have consistently risen for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), which has been to our benefit. But this has come at an unnecessary cost: the humanities have been downplayed, devalued, and dodged.

That uneven ratio has bestowed an unfortunate historic illiteracy on three generations. Most people, for example, do not know the philosophical roots of the Declaration of Independence, their rights as laid out in the Constitution, or the civic virtues their teachers should have taught them. For these three reasons, many Americans do not vote in local, state, or national elections.

Even amid this crisis of civic illiteracy, only about 18% of colleges and universities nationwide require the study of history and government in their general education programs. In years past, when the architecture of academe was different, a plethora of institutions, such as Harvard, Rice, Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins, and William & Mary, proffered requirements for focused classes in American history. But their phase-out – begun in the 1960s – was practically completed by 2000.

According to a report from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, nowadays, at Columbia University, “Students must take at least nine courses to graduate with a B.A. in history. Of these courses, four must be in a chosen field of geographical, chronological, or thematic specialization, and three must be outside of the specialization, including one course removed in time and two courses removed in space.” In other words, the major requires exposure to a variety of histories – none of which need touch on America.

That gap in Columbia’s history major requirements is deeply troubling, though it at least has a Contemporary Civilization requirement in its signature core curriculum for undergraduates that addresses founding documents and key concepts of United States government. Meanwhile, at Colgate University, which has no such option in its general education requirements,

“Students choose one of two pathways to graduate with a B.A. in history. Both require nine courses. The Field of Focus (FoF) Pathway requires one history workshop, seven electives….. The FoF Pathway allows students to devise individualized, intellectually coherent specializations. Possible fields of focus include environmental history, gender and sexuality, and race and racism.”

This reorientation away from the study of American history – even as a point of reference for students who are focusing their studies on other parts of the world – is now the norm in the American academy. In the 2020–21 academic year, 18 of the top 25 public universities did not have a wide-ranging American history requirement for students seeking a B.A. in history in the major or core curriculum, nor did 24 of the 25 best national schools.

Even the legendary linchpins of the liberal arts – Amherst, Swarthmore, Vassar, Smith, Williams, and Pomona – fared poorly: 21 out of 25 colleges examined did not have an American history requirement.

The consequences of forgoing the study of American history have a powerful effect on the population. Much of what is not learned – or stays uncorrected – turns into the misinformation that is so damaging in a free and democratic society.

When 8th graders were asked in 2011 to choose a “‘belief shared by most people of the United States,’ a majority (51 percent) picked ‘The government should guarantee everybody a job,’ and only a third chose the correct answer: ‘The government should be a democracy.’”

In 2015, 10% of college graduates believed Judy Sheindlin – TV’s “Judge Judy” – was a member of the Supreme Court.

In 2019, ACTA found that 18% of American adults thought New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was the architect of the New Deal, a package of programs introduced by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933. Twenty-six percent believed Brett Kavanaugh was the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, along with another 14% who identified Antonin Scalia, although he had been dead for two years at the time of the survey. Only 12% knew the 13th Amendment freed the slaves in the United States. And 30% thought the Equal Rights Amendment guaranteed women the right to vote.

In 2024, an ACTA survey of college students showed that fewer than half identified ideas like “free markets” and “rule of law” as core principles of American civic life. The survey also found that 60% of American college students failed to identify term lengths for members of Congress. A shocking 68% did not know that Congress is the branch that holds the power to declare war. Seventy-one percent did not know when 18-year-olds gained the right to vote.

All of these results were based on multiple-choice questions. All the respondents had to do was select the correct option out of four possibilities.  

The late Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2001 to 2009, admonished, “Unlike a monarchy, a democracy is not automatically self-perpetuating. History and values have to be renewed from generation to generation.” Our failure to educate future citizens for informed civic participation compromises the country. Institutions need to take ACTA’s findings to heart and, starting with their requirements for the history major, embrace their obligation to address the crisis in civic education.  

David Bruce Smith is the founder of the Grateful American® Foundation and co-founder of the Grateful American® Book Prize.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

The State Department recently instructed employees to report workers who exhibited anti-religious bias, including bias against Christians, according to a cable obtained by The Epoch Times.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the April 11 cable directed State Department employees to a reporting form and instructed them to provide “information regarding any Department or individual practices involving anti-religious bias during the last presidential administration (2021-2025); and recommendations to the Secretary of State to remedy any anti-religious bias at the Department.”

The cable was obtained by The Epoch Times via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Employees could provide information anonymously, Rubio said.

The submitted information would be collated, he said, to help the department contribute to an interagency report required by President Donald Trump’s February order aimed at halting anti-Christian discrimination.

“It is the policy of the United States, and the purpose of this order, to protect the religious freedoms of Americans and end the anti-Christian weaponization of government,” Trump wrote in the order, which alleged that during the Biden administration, government officials “engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses,” such as bringing charges against people who demonstrated outside facilities that perform abortions.

Rubio said that while the order focused on anti-Christian bias, targeting anyone for their religious beliefs violates the Constitution, so people can report other instances of anti-religious bias.

The cable listed examples such as being mistreated for requesting religious exemptions from mandatory vaccination or observing religious holidays; being forced to remove displays of religious faith from desks and clothing; and being mistreated for refusing to participate in activities with themes that ran counter to religious beliefs, such as those “related to preferred personal pronouns.”

The State Department declined to say whether any employees have been fired or otherwise disciplined for exhibiting bias against Christians. “As a general practice, we do not comment on internal personnel matters,” a spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email on April 30.

Last week, Rubio participated in the first meeting of the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias in the federal government, which was created by a Trump executive order.

During that meeting, Rubio raised some of the reported allegations of bias, including claims that Christian Foreign Service officers who homeschooled their children were either reported to the IRS or threatened with a child abuse investigation, according to a Department of Justice readout.

He also disclosed that State Department employees were called “murderers” and “troublemakers” for opposing the government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on religious grounds.

“In one instance, an ambassador yelled at an employee, accusing the employee of wanting to kill the ambassador’s mother despite her being back in the States,” the readout stated.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in an April 22 statement that “Biden’s Department of Justice abused and targeted peaceful Christians while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses,” adding, “Thanks to President Trump, we have ended those abuses, and we will continue to work closely with every member of this Task Force to protect every American’s right to speak and worship freely.”

The start of this week began badly for the Pentagon, as it revealed it had 'lost' a fighter jet in the Red Sea amid the ongoing Yemen bombing campaign. A US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet "fell overboard from the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier while it was being towed on board" - the US military said, and supposedly while the large carrier was making an evasive turn amid inbound Houthi drones or missiles.

The Houthis have been celebrating this as a 'win'. But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has on Thursday put Iran on notice, alleging close support from Tehran to the Houthis, saying it 'will pay'.

Via Associated Press

Hegseth addressed the Iranians in a fresh message on X, saying: "We see your lethal support to the Houthis. We know exactly what you are doing."

"You know very well what the US military is capable of — and you were warned. You will pay the consequence at the time and place of our choosing," he continued.

Hegseth as part of the message shared a screenshot of a prior Trump post on his Truth Social, originally written in mid-March, in which the president charged that Iran is "dictating every move" the Houthis make as well as providing arms and intelligence. 

"Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of Iran," the president wrote at the time.

But the Islamic Republic has firmly rejected the accusations, highlighting that the Houthis are a political and military movement which acts independently and makes its own decisions, especially on the battlefield.

"Ansar Allah (the Houthis), as the representative of the Yemenis, makes its own strategic decisions, and Iran has no role in setting the national or operational policies of any movement in the resistance front," Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander Hossein Salami said soon after the US renewed its bombing campaign on March 15.

The Houthis have pledged not to stop attacks on Western warships in the Red Sea as well as Israel, so long as Israel's military remains active in Gaza. The Red Sea conflict started again almost immediately after the Hamas-Israel ceasefire and hostage exchange deal collapsed.

International shipping through the vital water-way has been essentially blocked for well over a year, and the industry has been forced to adjust. Russian and Chinese commercial vessels have been allowed safe-passage by the Houthis.

https://t.co/DKl55mmFaT pic.twitter.com/vsVttencfH

Hegseth's fresh threat toward Iran strongly suggests the Iran debate is still alive and well within the administration. Trump has been urging Iran to sign a fresh nuclear deal or else face possible bombing campaign by the US, and likely Israel. Hegseth has previously been reported to be on DNI Tulsi Gabbard's side - against the hawks and desiring climb-down in terms of Iran tensions. 

Authored by Alex O'Donnell via CoinTelegraph.com,

Tether plans to launch a stablecoin product in the United States as soon as this year, the stablecoin issuer’s CEO, Paul Ardoino, said in an April 30 CNBC interview.

Tether’s flagship stablecoin, USDt, is already the US dollar’s top “exporter,” Ardoino told CNBC. 

It has a market capitalization of nearly $150 billion, according to data from CoinGecko. 

Now, Tether is preparing to expand into the US market “by the end of this year or early next year, at the fastest,” Ardoino said, adding that the timing depends on US lawmakers’ progress on stablecoin legislation.

The stablecoin issuer is working to woo US regulators by proactively collaborating with law enforcement and highlighting USDt’s benefits for the US economy.

"We are just exporters of what we believe to be the best product the United States ever created — that is, the US dollar,” the CEO said.

Tether's USDT has 66% of the stablecoin market share. Source: Nansen

Market leader

As of April 25, USDt commanded a roughly 66% market share among stablecoins, according to Nansen, a Web3 researcher. 

Tether is also the most profitable stablecoin issuer, logging a net income of nearly $14 billion in 2024. 

It earns revenue by accepting US dollars to mint USDt and then investing those dollars into highly liquid, yield-bearing instruments such as US Treasury bills. Still, USDt’s popularity is largely limited to users outside of the United States, where rival stablecoin USDC is dominant.

Tether designed USDt “for the people that live in small villages in Africa... [or] a shop owner in Istanbul,” Ardoino told CNBC, adding that Tether is developing a “different product” for the US.

Adoption of USDC has accelerated in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s November election win, Nansen said in an April 25 report. Circle’s USDC has a market capitalization of more than $60 billion, CoinGecko data shows. 

However, USDt is still likely to maintain its leading position in the stablecoin market.  “Despite the potential dispersion in stables, we inevitably believe this is a ‘winner-takes-most’ market dynamic,” the Web3 researcher added. 

The U.S. House of Representatives passed (245-164) Rep. John Joyce's (R-PA) H.J. Res.88, a resolution blocking the Biden Environmental Protection Agency's waiver that would let California ban petrol-powered cars and trucks and force dystopian electric vehicle mandates nationwide. 

H.J. Res. 88 seeks to overturn a Biden-era EPA decision that granted California a waiver to ban the sale of new petrol-powered vehicles by 2035. This mandate would've had massive ripples far beyond the progressive state's borders, forcing automakers to comply nationwide with EV mandates, thus leading to a surge in driving costs for all working families. Without intervention, California's toxic climate policy could effectively dictate EV mandates nationwide. 

"Today, the House passed RepJohnJoyce's H.J.Res.88 to reverse a Biden-era regulation that requires all of the vehicles in America to be emission-free," House Republicans wrote on X, adding this repeal would be some of the first steps in "reversing Biden's disastrous EV mandates and giving power back to consumers to decide which cars they want to drive." 

Today, the House passed @RepJohnJoyce’s H.J.Res.88 to reverse a Biden-era regulation that requires all of the vehicles in America to be emission-free.

House Republicans are reversing Biden’s disastrous EV mandates and giving power back to consumers to decide which cars they… pic.twitter.com/lc63WUKD4h

As of May, eleven U.S. states have adopted California's plan to phase out the sale of gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles. These states include New York, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, New Mexico, Colorado, and Virginia. Together, these states account for about 40% of the U.S. auto market.

"Proud to see my bill to protect consumer choice in the automobile market pass the House in a bipartisan fashion," Rep. Joyce wrote on X.

The Republican representative from Pennsylvania noted, "Congress cannot allow California to set national policy. I urge my Senate colleagues to pass this legislation so @POTUS can protect the freedom of the open road for the American people."

Proud to see my bill to protect consumer choice in the automobile market pass the House in a bipartisan fashion.

Congress cannot allow California to set national policy. I urge my Senate colleagues to pass this legislation so @POTUS can protect the freedom of the open road for… pic.twitter.com/1S5QDg3Ywm

Dismantling California's EV mandates is a top priority for President Trump. This week, the Western world was served a sobering reminder of the consequences tied to the aggressive march toward net zero death: 

NatGas Generators Rescued Spain From Net Zero Death After Power Collapse https://t.co/NAthNQjTJY

Action on the measure now moves to the Senate.

Ahead of Apple's earnings report this afternoon, which concludes the results from big 4 group of the Mag 7 (including MSFT, META and AMZN) UBS said that sentiment was a 5/10, with the bank's analyst expecting some pull-forward offsetting soft demand, while creating tougher 2H compares with the consensus too optimistic. UBS, which has a $210 price target, reiterated its $210 price target (Neutral) warnings that although the rich valuation remains a perennial overhang, sentiment is more cautious given the ongoing tariff and market share headwinds. The bottom line: with the mild short bias ahead of the print, there was a decent chance for a tactical bounce due to pull-ins, but probably not enough to alleviate the ongoing concerns.

And sure enough, 30 minutes after AMZN disappointed with lackluster AWS profit margins and a soft operating profit forecast, it would be 2 for 2 for the bears, with AAPL stock sliding on disappointing China sales even as tariff fears sent iPhone purchases across the world into overdrive. Here are the details:

• Adjusted EPS $1.65 vs. $1.53 y/y, beating estimate $1.62
• Total revenue $95.36 billion, +5.1% y/y, beating estimate $94.59 billion
• Products revenue $68.71 billion, +2.7% y/y, beating estimate $67.84 billion
  • IPhone revenue $46.84 billion, +1.9% y/y, beating estimate $45.94 billion
  • Mac revenue $7.95 billion, +6.7% y/y, beating estimate $7.75 billion
  • IPad revenue $6.40 billion, +15% y/y, beating estimate $6.12 billion
  • Wearables, home and accessories $7.52 billion, -4.9% y/y, missing estimate $8.05 billion
• Service revenue $26.65 billion, +12% y/y, missing estimates if $26.72 billion - this was the first red flag.

The second, and even bigger, red flag was the usual suspect: China, where revenues unexpectedly slumped, sliding 2.3%, while Wall Street was expecting a mid-single digit growth

• Greater China rev. $16.00 billion, -2.3% y/y, missing estimates of $16.83 billion

Going down the line:

• Total operating expenses $15.28 billion, +6.3% y/y, higher than estimate $15.17 billion
• Gross margin $44.87 billion, +6.1% y/y, higher than estimate $44.58 billion
• Cash and cash equivalents $28.16 billion, -14% y/y, missing estimates of $32.73 billion
• Cost of sales $50.49 billion, +4.1% y/y, higher than estimate $50.23 billion

And so on:

Looking at a breakdown of sales by product category it was a generally solid report, although that was to be expected as a result of pulled forward demand for iPhones ahead of tariffs which would likely push prices sharply higher. Here are the details: .

• IPhone revenue $46.84 billion, +1.9% y/y, beating estimates $45.94 billion but much of this was due to pulled forward sales ahead of tariffs
• Mac revenue $7.95 billion, +6.7% y/y, beating estimates of $7.75 billion, same logic here
• IPad revenue $6.40 billion, +15% y/y, beating estimates of $6.12 billion
• Wearables, home and accessories $7.52 billion, -4.9% y/y, big miss to estimate $8.05 billion

Bottom line, while most segments came in stronger than expected, much of this will likely reverse in Q3 when tariffs push prices higher (because tariffs are inflationary right), meanwhile, Apple’s wearables segment (where one can find the Vision Pro disaster) remains a big disappointment, and the new low-end AirPods and hearing features for the AirPods Pro apparently did not draw much interest.

Here is the full revenue breakdown by product:

But if iPhone sales was solid (if transitory) the devastation that is China sales was catastrophic: contrary to expectations for a modest rebound, as China sales declined for a seventh consecutive quarter, down 2.3%, and printing at only $16BN, below the $16.9BN estimate.The rest of the world saw growth, modest in the Americas at 8.2%, and stronger in Japan and APAC, while Europe barely grew.

And in dollar terms:

Needless to say, China continues to be a very weak spot for Apple and the company hasn’t done much to push new products, pricing and initiatives in that market -- or other emerging areas -- to offset the issues.  The weakness there, which Apple will try to explain away in its conference call, is because of a combination of nationalism and interest in local products, whose designs are getting better. The local players are also trying new things like foldables while Apple continues to use the same design it rolled out five years ago. Oh, and Trump's trade war which is getting worse by the day, isn't helping.

The result: revenues declining now for an unprecedented 7 quarters!

There was more: Service revenue, which for many years was the only golden goose left in AAPL's roster, is starting to sputter, and even though it rose to a new record $26.65 billion, this missed estimates of $26.72 billion and the growth rate was the lowest in two years.

The company has been contending with multiple challenges, beyond just the looming tariffs. Apple is playing catch-up in artificial intelligence, forcing it to shuffle management in recent weeks. It’s also under mounting regulatory pressure in the EU and its home country. On Wednesday, a federal judge demanded that the company open up its App Store to third-party payment options and stop charging commissions on outside purchases.

But tariffs remain one of the biggest question marks. Though Apple is likely to sidestep the 145% China levy that the administration originally proposed, new tariffs on electronics are still coming. The turmoil threatens to upend the company’s supply chain and potentially force it to raise prices. Already, Apple is looking to make more of its US-bound iPhones in India rather than China. Ironically, it was tariffs that helped the company revenues beat estimates as customers flooded Apple retail stores to buy new iPhones and other products out of fear that price hikes were coming.

In the press release, CEO Tim Cook tried hard to stay positive, but failed.

“Today Apple is reporting strong quarterly results, including double-digit growth in Services,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We were happy to welcome iPhone 16e to our lineup, and to introduce powerful new Macs and iPads that take advantage of the extraordinary capabilities of Apple silicon. And we were proud to announce that we’ve cut our carbon emissions by 60 percent over the past decade.”

The bigger problem is what he said on the conference call, where it said that he hadn't seen excess pull forward demand in Q1 (it did)...

• COOK: DIDN'T SEE EXTRA DEMAND IN MARCH QUARTER ON TARIFFS

...  and pretended not to know what the tariff impact will be:

• COOK: NOT SURE WHAT TARIFF IMPACT WILL BE AFTER JUNE QUARTER

Trump's tariff policy may be unclear to Cook, but what is clear to everyone, is that growth for AAPL is slowing fast:

• *APPLE CFO: Q3 REVENUE TO GROW LOW TO MID-SINGLE DIGITS YOY

Which was the same guidance as the current quarter, and the market is starting to realize Cook isn't sandbagging... instead the debate what is the right multiple on a company that has now officially flatlined. To be sure the kneejerk reaction was not happy, with AAPL stocks sliding about 3% after hours, the second consecutive quarter in which the market punished AAPL earnings, to just above $206 after closing today at the highest price since Trump's Liberation Day.

Not even the news that the iPhone maker authorized a new $100 billion stock buyback and boosted its quarterly dividend 4% to 26 cents a share, was enough to prop up the stock.