Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

“The job here is to enforce the federal civil rights laws, not woke ideology.” 

- Harmeet Dhillon, US Assistant AG for the Civil Rights Division

When a claque of deep state shills such as Norm Eisen, Chuck Schumer, Bill Kristol, David Brooks, and Larry Summers holler about Mr. Trump’s attempt to reform a depraved political culture as “an assault on norms,” are you not prompted to wonder what, exactly, those norms might be?

Looks like they are describing a colossal matrix of racketeering operations in concert with an epic program of crypto-Marxist mind-fuckery, mountains of money purloined under color-of-law, swindles galore of practically every public enterprise, the capital city of a so-called republic fogged in gaslight to conceal a Satyricon of pedophilia, sodomy, and sado-masochism in every closet, cabinet, and pigeon-hole of the political class.

So, along comes Mr. Trump for the second round, with a supernaturally able clean-up crew this time, and the monsters feeding off that depraved normality commence to shriek in mortal panic as the scaffold of their crimes gets methodically disassembled and secrets are revealed.

Many of you have been pouting over the lack of criminal prosecutions these first hundred days. Why is AG Ms. Bondi preening on Fox News when she should be banging-out subpoenas and arrest warrants, you ask? And what broom-closet is Dan Bongino hiding in over at the Hoover Building? How is Hillary Clinton still at-large in the land? Does Alejandro Mayorkas still make his Saturday excursions to the boutiques along M Street? Looks like the months of May and June are setting up to be the season of shocks and consequence.

Item: James O’Keefe, founder of Project Veritas (he was cancelled from it) and now running O’Keefe Media Group, put out a mighty strange eighteen-second video this week. 

Looks like it was filmed in a basement somewhere. “I’m going dark, he says ruefully. “I’m not suicidal. Pray for me. This one scares me, guys.”

T-minus seven days. pic.twitter.com/wcU4tJvHLF

A week earlier, O’Keefe announced that he had bombshell recordings of public figures breaking the law, involving billions of dollars, which he expected would lead to indictments.

What spooked him in the week since then?

I guess we’ll have to stand by to find out, or see if JO’K was bluffing.

Meanwhile Virginia Guiffre, a former Jeffrey Epstein teen sex slave, likewise said just over a week ago: “I am making it publicly known that in no way, shape, or form am I suicidal. If something happens to me, for the sake of my family do not let this go away and help me to protect them. Too many evil people want to see me quieted.” 

This was a month after she was injured in a traffic accident with a school bus in Western Australia. 

On April 24, she reportedly committed suicide at home, after release from the hospital. 

What do you suppose changed her mind?

An ominous silence surrounds the promised release of the Epstein case material, whatever it consists of: depositions, flight logs, photographs, video recordings of prominent people in compromising situations. Remember, not long after inauguration day, the FBI’s New York field office was found to be sitting on a huge trove of previously hidden Epstein case evidence. 

The DOJ swiftly “retired” the chief agent of the office, James Dennehy, who additionally had failed to cooperate with requests to disclose the names of agents involved in the Jan-6 investigations. 

Supposedly, since the discovery of the Epstein trove, a thousand agents were assigned to “process” it, redact the names of the innocent victims, so they say. 

Are they close to finishing?

Speaking of the J-6, 2021 matter, pressure is building for the Republican majority Congress to hold hearings on exactly what went on that fateful day. FBI Director Patel has yet to disclose how many government agents (not just FBI), and how many “confidential human sources” (i.e., provocateurs), were in the crowd around and inside the US Capitol. It’s getting to be past time to ask Mr. Patel for a straight answer on that in an official proceeding, and continue from there to related business, such as Nancy Pelosi’s failure to reinforce the Capitol Police with National Guard troops that day, and the strange doings around the DNC pipe bomb ploy few blocks away. Personally, I doubt that Mr. Patel is inclined to lie or dissemble about all that. But the natives are getting a little restless.

Mr. Kennedy at HHS is already pretty frisky in his role supervising the enormous cluster of agencies that have done so much to wreck the nation’s health in recent years. Goodbye fluoride in the drinking water. Hello to placebo testing for new drugs and vaccines. Welcome to a vigorous six-month campaign to determine a likely cause of the autism epidemic. RFK is even asking what exactly is in those aviation contrails that folks have been observing and complaining about for so many years. And then there was the bomb he dropped during this week’s cabinet meeting: that under Joe Biden, HHS acted as a major vector for the trafficking of children. Say, what??? Lotta people wondered, did Bobby really say that? And does he know exactly who in HHS is responsible. . . like, names attached? I guess we’ll find out.

On a brighter note, not only did Klaus Schwab, the comic book villain who leads the World Economic Forum (WEF), resign last week, but he stands formally accused of misusing its funds. An inquiry ensues. Mr. Schwab’s daughter, Nicole, supposedly revealed to possibly sketchy alt-journalist Medeea Greere, that the WEF sought to reduce the global population by billions, and not in a nice way. Standing by on that one. . . . But, at least old Klaus is gone. His temporary replacement is Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, former CEO of the Nestle conglomerate, with a record of nefarious activity in the marketing of infant bottle formula in the third world and other turpitudes. Prediction: the WEF is toast. It was always a bit too bizarre to be taken seriously, but its demise signals real trouble for the foundering Globalist endeavor.

So, the month of May is shaping up to be merry as all get-out, and then June will be bustin’ out all over. That thing you felt. . .? That was the ground shaking and the earth moving. Strap in.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller could land the position as President Donald Trump’s next National Security Adviser, according to Axios. 

Miller, one of Trump’s longest and most trusted aides, emerged as a leading contender for national security adviser following Mike Waltz’s removal from the role. Waltz, who has taken considerable heat from the mainstream media for his role in so-called SignalGate, was nominated for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations just hours after reports of his removal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is currently serving as the interim national security adviser.

Axios reports:

One White House source told Axios via text that Miller has made the Homeland Security Council run "like clockwork," and that it's "infinitely more effective than the NSC [National Security Council] with a tiny fraction" of the staff.

"Marco and Stephen have worked really closely on immigration and it might be a perfect match," said another White House source.

It remains uncertain whether Stephen Miller would pursue the national security adviser role, as it could divert him from immigration policy.

Politico also reports that Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy currently spearheading critical negotiations with Russia, Iran, and Hamas, is a contender for the national security adviser position.

Additionally, NSC senior director for counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka and Trump’s special envoy for special missions Richard Grenell are generating buzz as potential candidates for the role.

When Politico asked about the impending announcement, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said, “We will not comment on reports based on anonymous sources.”

Authored by Robert Spencer via PJMedia.com,

On Thursday, President Trump gave Americans another Liberation Day: He signed an executive order ending federal funding for two of the left’s principal propaganda organs, National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). 

Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that these two vicious taxpayer leeches and leftist disinformation entities will disappear, but at least patriots won’t be forced to shell out for programming that is designed to destroy everything they hold dear.

The left, predictably enough, is howling, led by NPR and PBS themselves. NPR issued a statement warning of imminent apocalypse:

“Eliminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting [CPB] would have a devastating impact on American communities across the nation that rely on public radio for trusted local and national news, culture, lifesaving emergency alerts and public safety information.” 

The statement was yet another example of what a cruel joke NPR and PBS are on the American people. No one actually trusts NPR and PBS except the indoctrinated cadres of the left and those who are uninformed enough to continue to believe in these propaganda organs’ claims to be free from bias. The grim reality is that NPR and PBS are the left at its most cynical, opportunistic, and parasitical. American taxpayers, including those who are patriots, are forced to subsidize two of the left’s shrillest and most nakedly biased mouthpieces, all the while being gaslit about how it’s their patriotic duty to support a free press.

And so Trump wrote in his executive order that the joke was over: 

“Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence. The CPB Board shall cease direct funding to NPR and PBS, consistent with my Administration’s policy to ensure that Federal funding does not support biased and partisan news coverage. The CPB Board shall cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding.”

That bit about “biased and partisan news coverage,” which is putting the reality of NPR and PBS extremely mildly, is eliciting reactions from the left on the order of the kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar insisting that he doesn’t even like cookies. 

CNN laments that “America’s two biggest public broadcasters” have “faced a series of attacks from the White House and Republican lawmakers accusing them of biased reporting.” 

The New York Times also pretended that Orange Man Bad and his henchmen were making up this whole bias thing, saying that they were “accusing the outlets of producing biased coverage and ‘left-wing propaganda.’” Note the scare quotes around “left-wing propaganda,” as if no reasonable person could believe that such a thing even exists, much less that NPR and PBS ladle it out to patriots as if they were cigarette-puffing meatballs doling out lunchtime glop to a sweaty chain gang.

Unfortunately, even if leftist judges don’t manage once again to arrogate to themselves the power of the executive branch and overrule Trump’s order, NPR and PBS will survive. The New York Post reports that “both have diverse revenue streams, including major foundation grants, advertising and voluntary viewer and listener donations, meaning that neither is likely to cease operations if they lose federal support.”

Still, if Trump succeeds, taxpayers will save a bit of money: “the CPB is set to receive $535 million in congressionally appropriated funds annually to distribute to public broadcasters in 2025 and 2026.”

Trump summed up what’s at stake in his executive order:

“At the very least, Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage.  No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies, and the Government is entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize. The CPB’s governing statute reflects principles of impartiality: the CPB may not ‘contribute to or otherwise support any political party.’”

This is simple common sense, and so Trump’s executive order is long overdue. Both NPR and PBS should have been cut off from federal funding the moment that their news coverage became 100% leftist propaganda, but too many leftist presidents benefited from that coverage to take a step of this kind until now. You can bet that if NPR and PBS reflected 100% patriotic perspectives, Barack Obama or Old Joe Biden or maybe even Bill Clinton would have cut them off long ago.

Better late than never. 

Update (1200ET): US equity markets extended gains this morning following a report from The Wall Street Journal that Beijing is considering ways to address the Trump administration’s gripes over China’s role in the fentanyl trade, potentially offering an off-ramp from hostilities to allow for trade talks to start.

So, despite all the legacy media's claims that 'no' talks were under way, WSJ reports that Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s security czar, Wang Xiaohong, in recent days has been inquiring about what the Trump team wants China to do when it comes to fentanyl.

In a visible shift in tone Friday, China’s Commerce Ministry said it was weighing starting talks with the U.S. to halt a trade war while expressing Beijing’s wish for the Trump administration to “show sincerity” to talk. Previously, the ministry had demanded that Washington slash its steep tariffs on China first as a condition for negotiations.

Stocks surged further on the report...

.

With the S&P 500 now having erased all losses post-Liberation Day...

* * *

China has quietly started to exempt some US goods from tariffs that likely cover around $40 billion worth of imports (or around 24% of Chinese imports from the US in 2024), in what looks like an effort to soften the blow of the trade war on its own economy. 

“China is likely trying to mitigate damage to its economy by avoiding a collapse in key imports,” DiPippo said. 

“The exemptions shouldn’t be interpreted as a signal to the US, as China has been quiet about its exemptions, working through business channels and avoiding public statements.”

While this move mirrors the shift by the Trump administration - exempting smartphones and other electronics from its own “reciprocal” tariffs, including the 145% levies on China (those US exemptions apply to about $102 billion, or roughly 22% of US imports from China last year) - we suspect there is more behind this decision.

As we highlighted just a week ago, China's already fragile economy faced a serious crisis from the tariff-driven cuts to supply of US ethane and the potential for that to force mass plastics factory closures.

"The situation is dire for China’s ethane crackers as they have no alternative to US supply,” said Manish Sejwal, an analyst at Rystad Energy AS, using an industry term for such facilities.

 "Unless they are granted tariff exemptions, they may have to stop production or close shop."

Well guess what just happened... buried deep among the 131 items is, you guessed it - industrial chemicals (which likely includes US Ethane supplies).

Bloomberg reports that it’s unclear where the list came from and it hasn’t been officially confirmed, but at least half a dozen companies in China have been able to bring in goods from the list without paying tariffs, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information.

No matter the reason - forced by factory closure crisis or simply goodwill - there are tentative signs the US-China trade standoff could be shifting. 

The Chinese Commerce Ministry said on Friday it’s assessing the possibility of trade talks with the US, giving a lift to equity markets.

“The US has recently sent messages to China through relevant parties, hoping to start talks with China,” the ministry said in a statement released during a mainland holiday. 

“China is currently evaluating this.”

The timing of the tit-for-tat escalation and de-escalation is very similar to last time (though this time the pain was far greater to prompt the walkbacks on both sides)...

The list of exemptions is said to be dynamic and will be continuously adjusted depending on China’s needs, according to people familiar with the matter.

A key Trump demand of the Zelensky government was quietly dropped as a condition of peace talks as well as the Ukraine minerals deal, which was finally signed this week.

Washington is no longer seeking to pressure or force President Volodymyr Zelensky to hold elections that could result in his being ousted office for the sake of peace, according to information in The Telegraph. 

"The demand has been quietly dropped from the latest set of American proposals for a ceasefire," The Telegraph writes. "The American decision to stop demanding elections is designed to placate the Ukrainian officials who have argued against swathes of a seven-point peace plan tabled by Mr Trump."

The minerals deal still has to be formally approved by Ukraine's parliament, according to the nation's constitution. Below is said to be the current seven-point plan offered by Trump, aspects of which were previously rejected by Ukrainian officials...

As for dropping the demand for Zelensky and parliament to hold elections, the Kremlin itself seems to have somewhat quieted down on this in recent weeks.

Without doubt, Moscow still wants to see Zelensky go, but appears willing to not press the issue if he were willing to give up territory for the sake of ceasefire (which so far isn't happening - not even regarding Crimea).

Zelensky's term in office expired in May 2024, and Ukrainian parliament has recently reaffirmed the 'constitutionality' of Zelensky's mandate as leader of the country during wartime. Trump soon after taking the Oval called him a 'dictator' who canceled elections, and even long before that called him the "world's greatest salesman" as he received hundreds of billions from the US and Western allies.

Meanwhile, fresh statements from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio express continued optimism on the potential for peace. He says "they're closer" to peace - in reference to Moscow and Kiev.

Source: ANSA

"For a hundred days he has done efforts to bring about peace… Look, we’ve gotten closer. We – for the first time – we haven’t known this for three years – we kind of can see what it would take for Ukraine to stop. We can see what it would take for the Russians to stop," Rubio said.

He then noted, "They’re closer, but they’re still far apart. And it’s going to take a real breakthrough here very soon to make this possible… or I think the president is going to have to make a decision about how much more time we’re going to dedicate to this," he added.

It's been widely reported that during Zelensky's impromptu 15-meeting with President Trump on the sidelines of the pope's funeral last weekend he was able to ease the pressure on Kiev coming from Trump.

"Zelensky's advisers were divided about whether he should even risk the tête-à-tête after the disaster in the Oval Office," Axios reported days after the meeting. "But after it, Zelensky felt he'd managed to shift Trump's thinking about Putin for the first time, the sources say."

More than 125,000 New Yorkers relocated to Florida over a recent five-year span, draining the Empire State of nearly $14 billion in income, according to a new report from the Citizens Budget Commission (CBC), a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog, reported on by the New York Post.

Roughly a third of those fleeing New York City—some 41,251 residents—resettled in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward counties between 2018 and 2022, resulting in a $10 billion loss in adjusted gross income (AGI) for the city. An additional $3.8 billion in income was lost to other Florida destinations.

“They are getting something more beneficial to them,” said CBC President Andrew Rein. “The key is with any place you need the benefits to outweigh the cost. The question right now for New York is what do we offer?”

The CBC attributes the exodus to a mix of affordability concerns, public safety, quality of life, and lingering pandemic effects. Only 30% of New Yorkers rated city life as “good or excellent” in 2023—down from 50% pre-pandemic.

The Post writes that high-income earners led the charge. Miami-Dade saw an influx of ex-New Yorkers with average incomes topping $266,000. Palm Beach newcomers earned around $189,000, while Fairfield County, Connecticut, drew residents with an average income of $141,000. Notably, New York’s top 1% of earners pay 40% of the state’s income taxes.

“One of the critical issues of our time is keeping our competitiveness for businesses and residents,” Rein said. “We need to focus on ensuring we don’t tax too much, that we are a safe place to live, and that people find quality of life to be high.”

Florida wasn’t the only winner. Nearby suburbs absorbed thousands of city dwellers:

• Long Island gained 138,000 NYC expats, costing the city $11.1 billion in AGI.

• Westchester County added nearly 60,000, for a $5 billion hit.

• Fairfield County took in 31,000, costing $4.9 billion.

• Bergen County, New Jersey, saw over 30,000 newcomers, with a $1.8 billion impact.

Altogether, relocations within the Northeast accounted for a $22.8 billion loss in AGI and a population decline of more than 230,000.

Despite a doubling of millionaires in New York from 2010 to 2022—from 36,000 to 70,000—the state’s share of U.S. millionaires dropped sharply, falling from 12.7% to 8.7%.

“Our competitiveness depends in part on quality of life and public safety,” said Rein. “Simply put, some people found the value proposition of other places to be higher than New York City.”

According to fresh reporting in Haaretz, Israel is preparing tens of thousands of orders calling more reserve soldiers to active duty, amid an expected expansion of ground operations in the Gaza Strip.

But more reservists are increasingly needed as Israel's military once again becomes more engaged in places like Syria, Lebanon, the Golan Heights, and security crackdowns in the West Bank.

Via Reuters

The Haaretz report suggests that a surge of additional soldiers will free up more forces to focus efforts on defeating Hamas in Gaza.

One of the areas of expected new operations is the town of Muwasi on the Gaza coast. Israel is claiming that it has become a safe haven for Hamas, and that militants are hiding in what has become a sprawling tent city of the internally displaced, and so has to be cleared of all Palestinians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has meanwhile unleashed fresh controversy related to these expanded operations. He essentially admitted that the remaining hostages are not the country's top priority, but the ultimate defeat of Hamas is.

"We have many objectives, many goals in this war. We want to bring back all of our hostages," Netanyahu said. "That is a very important goal. In war, there is a supreme objective. And that supreme objective is victory over our enemies. And that is what we will achieve," he added. He had issued the words at an Independence Day event in Jerusalem on Thursday.

This was enough to outrage families of the victims, who have been begging Israeli leaders to restart negotiations with Hamas, in hopes of brokering the freedom of the remaining captives.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum issued a response to these words of Netanyahu. "Prime minister, the return of the hostages is not ‘less’ important – it is the supreme goal that should guide the government of Israel," a statement said. "The families of the hostages are concerned."

As for the remaining captives, Netanyahu addressed this is the same remarks, saying "We want to bring all our hostages home. We’ve so far brought back 147 alive, and 196 total," but that "There are another up to 24 alive, 59 total, and we want to return the living and the dead."

Netanyahu's description of goals in Gaza and what he prioritizes were echoed in prior remarks last week by hardline Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in a CNN interview.

The war which has been on since the terror attacks of Oct.7, 2023 - has become deeply divisive among Israeli society:

Hundreds of Israelis walking in Tel Aviv tonight with photos of children killed in Gaza demanding to stop the attacks now. pic.twitter.com/XjDA9o6EIe

"We need to tell the truth — bringing back the hostages is not the most important goal. It is, of course, a very, very, very, very important goal," he began his comments. And there was a but...

"But anyone who wants to destroy Hamas and eliminate the possibility of another Oct. 7 must understand that in Gaza, there can’t be a situation where Hamas remains present and intact," he emphasized.

It's unknown how many hostages might still be alive. Family members worry that with each passing day and week, the chances of survival grow slim, also given the steady bombings and that it's an active war zone, also with little food and medicines.

Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClearPolitics,

Performance reviews are about to become much more difficult for the upper echelon of federal government employees.

The Trump administration will soon introduce rules to end what the Office of Personnel Management describes as an “everyone gets a trophy” culture permeating the federal workforce, RealClearPolitics is first to report.

The ranks of the Senior Executive Service, top bureaucrats serving throughout the government and across administrations, swelled to around 8,000 under President Biden. Most live in Washington, D.C. They typically earn an annual salary between $183,000 and $250,000. An overwhelming majority, 96%, according to an OPM memo, receive above-average performance ratings even as public trust in government continues to crater.

But standards will soon tighten. It is called “forced distribution.”

The new OPM rule limits the number of bureaucrats who can earn top ratings, a metric tied to promotions and end-of-the-year bonuses. It also eliminates Biden-era requirements that evaluated executives based on their promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The stated goal is instead an evaluation of job performance, not political ideology. Now only top performers, acting OPM director Chuck Ezell told RCP, will earn top performance rankings. 

“The American people deserve a federal government led by executives who are held to the highest standards,” Ezell said. “This proposed rule restores accountability, rewards true excellence, and ensures senior leaders deliver real results. OPM is proud to take this important step to strengthen performance among the highest levels of the federal workforce.”

The elite of career civil servants, these senior employees are normally little noticed and non-controversial. Permanent bureaucracy has come under attack during the Trump administration, however, and the White House sees the top ranks of federal employees as the face of the so-called “deep state.”

“There are no participation trophies,” a White House official said of the new standards, telling RCP that from now on, trophies, in this case top-tier performance rankings, “are for winners.”

The new standards come as Trump continues his long march through the administrative state. His administration has already implemented rules to gut civil service protections for government employees perceived as undermining the White House agenda. Thousands of federal workers have been fired. Entire government agencies, in some cases, shuttered.

Critics accuse the White House of trying to politicize the federal workforce and of trying to remake the executive agencies in Trump’s image. The Senior Executives Association, a trade group for federal employees with an office in downtown D.C., previously balked at proposed reforms. The head of that organization, Marcus Hill, insisted that top bureaucrats had earned their jobs through merit “based on demonstrated competence, character and capability in their fields of expertise.”

But the administration argues that change is needed because a sclerotic establishment is undermining self-government. This is the mission of Elon Musk and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency.

“If the bureaucracy is in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?” Musk asked earlier this year while fielding questions from reporters in the Oval Office.

“If the people cannot vote and have their will be decided by their elected representatives,” he said while standing behind the Resolute Desk next to the seated president, “then we don’t live in a democracy.”

Authored by Rachel Acenas via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Two leaders of a child exploitation network known as 764 have been arrested, federal officials announced on Wednesday.

764 leader Prasan Nepal in a booking photo. Courtesy of Guilford County Sheriff's Office

Prasan Nepal, 20, of High Point, North Carolina, was arrested on April 22 in North Carolina. Leonidas Varagiannis, 21, was arrested on April 29 in Greece on an international warrant.

Both defendants face charges of operating an international child exploitation enterprise, marking a major takedown of an operation that targets innocent children, according to FBI Director Kash Patel.

“This is a significant case in our renewed mission to crack down on child sexual exploitation and abuse—heinous crimes that no child or parent should ever be faced with,” Patel said on Wednesday in a statement on social media platform X.

The defendants allegedly recruited others to exploit children and coordinated the operation through encrypted messaging apps.

Varagiannis has denied the allegations. He appeared in court on Wednesday before an appellate prosecutor and opposed extradition, according to Greek judicial authorities and his lawyer.

“Throughout the period during which the alleged offenses took place, he was residing in Greece. Therefore, Greek law and courts have jurisdiction over the case, and his extradition is explicitly prohibited,” his lawyer Xanthippi Moysidou said.

Nepal is currently in the Guilford County, North Carolina, jail on a federal hold and has a public defender.

Federal prosecutors allege the two men targeted children as young as 13 years old from late 2020 through early 2025 across multiple jurisdictions through the 764 criminal enterprise.

764 is a network of online groups that “methodically target and exploit minors and other vulnerable individuals,” according to a public service announcement posted by the FBI on March 6.

“These networks use threats, blackmail, and manipulation to coerce or extort victims into producing, sharing, or live-streaming acts of self-harm, animal cruelty, sexually explicit acts, and/or suicide,” the FBI said.

The material is used as leverage to force victims to perform acts of violence and even self-harm. The network also engages in swatting and harassment to silence its victims.

A criminal complaint unsealed on Wednesday in the District of Columbia shows examples of online manuals used by the defendants to instruct others on how to groom and extort minors. The guides taught others specifically how to target vulnerable children online, according to the affidavit, and ultimately coerced and threatened them into creating degrading content.

‘The allegations in this case are not only disturbing, they are also every parent’s nightmare,’ U.S. Attorney Edward R. Martin Jr. said in a Department of Justice statement on April 29.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. The DOJ launched the initiative in May 2006.

The initiative utilizes federal, state, and local resources to locate, arrest, and prosecute those who exploit children through the internet. It also aims to identify and rescue victims.

Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday called for swift justice in the case.

“These defendants are accused of orchestrating one of the most heinous online child exploitation enterprises we have ever encountered—a network built on terror, abuse, and the deliberate targeting of children,” Bondi said in a statement. “We will find those who exploit and abuse children, prosecute them, and dismantle every part of their operation.”

Varagiannis will remain in custody until a court of appeals rules on the U.S. extradition request.

If convicted, both defendants face a maximum penalty of life in prison.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

From NTD News

While Apple's Tim Cook was adamant on the call last night that he had seen no 'pull forward' of demand due to the tariffs, it seems every other firm in the US did as Durable Goods Orders soared in March (final print this morning at +9.2% MoM)...

Source: Bloomberg

However, Core Durable Goods (ex Transports) was unchanged MoM - suggesting considerable front-running of tariffs for planes and autos...

Source: Bloomberg

US Factory Orders rose 4.3% MoM (slightly less than the +4.5% expected) - a big jump

Source: Bloomberg

And like with Durable Goods, Core Factory orders (ex Transports) actually fell 0.2% MoM...

Source: Bloomberg

The surge in orders was largely driven by a 139% MoM spike in non-defense aircraft and parts...

Source: Bloomberg

Which pushed total orders to a new all-time record-high...

Source: Bloomberg

The question is - what happens in April - post Liberation Day?