Distinction Matter - Subscribed Feeds

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

On the road in Iran - The International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) is one of the most crucial geoeconomic/infrastructure projects of the 21st century. 

It unites at its core three key BRICS nations – Russia, Iran and India – branching out to the Caucasus and Central Asia.

When fully operational, the INSTC will offer a full trade/connectivity corridor sanctions-free, cheaper and faster than the Suez canal to a great deal of Eurasia. The geoeconomic consequences will be staggering.

To re-visit Iran in these times of geopolitical trouble, relentless “maximum pressure”, red lines on uranium enrichment and bombing threats could not be more pressing – and enlightening.

Total Connectivity: Highway, Mosque, Bazaar

By an auspicious turn of events, the old school reportage/investigation actually became the plot line of a documentary, produced in Iran, shot by an outstanding crew, and to be broadcast in several parts of Eurasia, including Russia. Here we offer the broad strokes of our travel to the heart of the INSTC.

We started with a series of interviews in Tehran, with Central Asia analysts and most of all Mostafa Agham, the top expert of Behineh Tarabar Azhour, a transportation and logistics firm specialized in Eurasia railway corridors. These analyses offered contrasting points of view on where the INSTC should go next and what are its main challenges.

Travel along Iran’s main artery, from Tehran to Bandar Abbas, was a must – as it will conform the trans-Iran north-to-south highway axis of the corridor. That doubles of course as a cultural and spiritual pilgrimage, which in our case featured plenty of auspicious overtones.

We arrived at fabled Isfahan past sunset, which allowed us to visit the Masjed-e Shah – or “Royal” - mosque virtually undisturbed. The Royal mosque – one of the highlights of Islamic architecture – sits on the south side of the Naghsh-e square in Isfahan, one of the most extraordinary public squares in the history of art and architecture, rivaling, and arguably surpassing San Marco in Venice.

A visit to the Isfahan bazaar is also inevitable. I was looking for an old friend who sold nomad carpets – in the end, because of slow business, he relocated to Portugal – just to find his sort of heir, young, energetic, who apart from pointing me to a spectacular, rare tribal rug from northeast Iran close to the Afghan border, gave me a crash course on the effects of sanctions and the perpetual demonization of Iran in the West (“Turkey has 40 million tourists; we have two or three”). Isfahan’s neat and extremely organized bazaar offers quality handicrafts to rival Istanbul, but there’s essentially domestic tourism, sprinkled with a few foreigners mostly from Central and South Asia and some from China.

On the way back to Tehran we learned that, being a Tuesday, the revered Haram of Fatima Masumeh, the daughter of the 7th Imam Musa, in Qom was open all night. Nothing prepares the pilgrim for an arrival at nearly two in the morning to an apotheosis of gold and crystals in the heart of Qom, Iran’s second most sacred city after Mashhad. Only a few pilgrims paying their respects, some strolling around the shrine with their families or reading the Quran. A moment of quiet illumination.

Afterwards it was time to hit the Caspian, and the port of Bandar Anzali, the proverbial “international bridge” where, in theory, cargo ships from Astrakhan in the Russian Caspian, as well as other Caspian-bordering states will start arriving ern masse via the INSTC. In Bandar Anzali, Iran essentially imports petrochemicals, construction materials, minerals, and iron products and exports grains (soybeans, corn, barley, wheat) and crude oil.

In Tehran, Mostafa Agham, the connectivity expert, had explained in detail that perhaps the multimodal drive of the INSTC across the Caspian may not be the best idea. The Russians prefer to build a railway bordering the western margins of the Caspian; and another possibility is to use a network of already functioning railways from southcentral Russia, across Kazakhstan all the way to Aktau, by the Caspian, and then connecting across Turkmenistan to Tehran.

It's only via a close up on Bandar Anzali that one understands the Russian rationale. One of our cameramen, in delightful broken English, coined an instant hit: “Port no exist”. Translation: the infrastructure has not been upgraded in decades, which brings us to the devastating effects of sanctions, visible in several nodes of Iran. China will have a lot of work to do as part of their 20-year strategic partnership, where energy-for-infrastructure is a central plank.

Break To The Border!

Bandar Abbas, in the Persian (italics mine) Gulf, is a completely different story. That’s Iran’s main port, and a key node of the INSTC, to be connected to Mumbai and already connected to the big ports in eastern China. We had all the hard-to-get necessary permits to explore Shahid Rajae-i Special Economic Zone, crammed with containers from shipping firms such as West Asia Express and unloading scores of Chinese container cargos. The uber-strategic Strait of Hormuz is only 39 km to the south. A few days after our visit, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian went straight to the point, referring to proverbial Trump threats: “Block our oil, and we’ll block the world’s energy.” Iran can do it - in a flash; were that to happen, the collapse of the global economy is guaranteed.

Additionally, port authorities explained that the recent explosion on Shahid Rajae-i – attributed to “negligence”, still under investigation and somewhat mired in controversy - was not in the port itself, but in a storage area 10 km away.

From the Persian Gulf we fly to the Sea of Oman – and infrastructure problems ride again: there are only two flights a week. We arrive at a minuscule military airport outside the future superstar of the INSTC: the port of Chabahar in Sistan-Baluchistan province. Baluchis are exceedingly cool, cousins to the ones on the other side of the border, in Pakistan. In bustling Chabahar, the lineaments of a boom town are quite visible.

A long walk in the port side by side with Alireza Jahan, a logistics expert and then a conversation with Mohammad Saeid Arbabi, the Chairman of the Board and Managing Director of the Chabahar Free Trade Zone could not be more enlightening.

Jahan explains how Chabahar is essential to Iran’s East Axis, serving over 20 million people not only in huge Sistan-Baluchistan but also three other Khorasan provinces, and further on to Kerman. So Chabahar is the port for an enormous hinterland, while its competitor, Gwadar in the Arabian Sea in Pakistan, only 80 km away or so, is virtually isolated.

Jahan also explains Indian investment. Tehran is investing heavily in the infrastructure and superstructure of Chabahar port, while India is investing in equipment: the Italian cranes around the port came from India. Arbabi, at the Free Trade Zone, expands on the international profile of Chabahar, which will be an absolutely key node not only for landlocked Afghanistan but also the Central Asian “stans”.

And that brings us to the local highway saga: Chabahar to Zahedan, in the Afghan border, 632 km, already an “acceptable road”, and with a companion railway to be built within the next three years, everything 100% financed by the Iranian government.

Progress at the port is steady – slowly but surely. For the moment Chabahar receives three ships from India a month and two ships from China, plus three from the Persian Gulf. The distance from Mumbai is only 4 days, and from Shanghai, 15 days. The potential for expansion is limitless.

From Chabahar, it’s on the road bliss along the spectacular, strategic, oil-drenched, semi-desert Makran coast, bordering the immaculate Sea of Oman all the way to the Arabian Sea. History looms large: this is where Alexander the Great lost as much as 75% of his army to dehydration and starvation when he was retreating across the desert to Macedonia after his tortuous two-year invasion of India.

Due to a concert of economic and ecological reasons, there have been plans for quite a while to relocate the capital, Tehran, to the Makran coast. Chabahar in this case would be the ideal candidate: free port, INSTC connectivity between Central Asia and the Indian Ocean. India – which needs to step up its geoeconomic game – has noticed it. And China certainly did; Chinese companies are bound to invest massively in Chabahar – the de facto key node for South Eurasia integration.

By Emily Sturge of CampusReform

This graduation season, three universities in California and a university in Washington will hold “UndocuGraduation” ceremonies to celebrate illegal immigrant students. 

Universities paired the event announcements with commitments to protect the identities of student attendees by not releasing any “data related to immigration status” unless presented with a “judicial warrant, subpoena, or court order,” according to a message on behalf of the California State University system. 

“Immigration enforcement is the responsibility of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, not the university,” a message from California State University Long Beach states. 

California State University, Longbeach (CSULB) will host a “Beyond Borders Graduation Celebration” for illegal immigrant students on May 10, according to a university webpage. 

California State University, Northridge (CSUN) will host an “UndocuGraduation” ceremony May 3, according to an Instagram post. 

“Join us at UndocuGraduation to honor your achievement as an undocumented, DACAmented, or mixed status graduating Matador,” the event page states. 

The event will be hosted by CSUN’s DREAM Center, which is part of the university’s student union and provides resources such as an “Immigration Preparedness Toolkit.”

CSUN is also instructing students to report “ICE sighting[s] on campus” and sharing guidelines explaining what to do if you are an illegal immigrant approached by immigration officers. 

The university is providing “red cards” that direct illegal immigrants on how to act if approached by law enforcement and instructing illegal immigrant students to “give the red card to the agent,” per a social media post. 

“Do not open the door…do not answer any questions…do not sign anything,” the red card reads. 

California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) will host an “Undocu Recognition Celebration” May 3.

The website describes the ceremony as “an event where we celebrate the undocumented graduating students and their accomplishments through their higher education career.”

It will be hosted by the university’s “Titan Dreamers Resource Center,” a campus resource dedicated to providing resources to illegal immigrant students, including “immigration legal services, personal and professional development programs, and connecting students to financial and academic resources.”

The Titan Dreamers Resource Center at CSUF is also holding a “Pan-Afrikan Recognition Celebration” in partnership with the university’s Black Faculty and Staff Association, an “Asian Pacific Islander South Asian American Recognition Celebration,” a “Nuestra Graduación” for “Latinx students,” and a Lavender graduation ceremony for LGBTQ+ students. 

In a nearby state, the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle will hold an “Undocu Graduation Celebration” on May 23. 

The ceremony will be hosted by the university’s Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center, which previously held an “Undocu Student Wellness Day” event for illegal immigrant students in January.

At the January event, the university invited illegal immigrant students to “Join us for destressing through arts and crafts, grabbing a snack, and watching a movie,” the Ethnic Cultural Center shared on Instagram. 

UW will also hold a Black Graduation Celebration, Filipino Graduation Celebration, Latine Graduation Celebration, Native Graduation Celebration, and Pasifik Graduation Celebration. 

“CSU Fullerton and all Cal State Universities work to ensure all students feel welcomed and have the tools they need to succeed, regardless of immigration status,” a message from the university states. 

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis says that China represents an “existential threat” to the United States and that the agency’s top priority is outpacing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in a high-stakes technological arms race that spans semiconductors, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence.

“China is the existential threat to American security in a way we really have never confronted before,” Ellis told Axios in an interview published on May 21, adding that a key CIA objective is to help U.S. companies maintain a “decisive technological advantage” to counter the CCP’s malign actions against the homeland.

In separate remarks, including an interview at the beginning of May with investor Anthony Pompliano, Ellis emphasized that President Donald Trump’s intelligence team is laser-focused on denying China any strategic edge, especially in advanced technologies that underpin both the economy and national defense. 

However, fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing are not areas that the U.S. intelligence community (IC) has traditionally been much involved in—and the CIA is looking to change that.

“The IC is very good at ... counting Soviet tanks ... to be ready for a possible conflict in Europe in the Cold War,” Ellis said. 

“But ... when you ask the IC to look at issues ... where Chinese companies are in artificial intelligence research, it’s not one that we’ve been well-positioned historically to think about.”

As part of its shift in focus toward the tech race against adversaries such as China, the CIA is looking to develop more resources, including personnel, Ellis said, adding that this includes recruiting people with expertise in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

“We need more people with science and technology backgrounds, which is again a little different than the global war on terrorism mindset of the last 20 years,” he said, adding that the CIA is also increasingly looking at partnering with private-sector leaders—including recent consultations with Elon Musk—on how to cut waste, adopt artificial intelligence tools, and stay ahead of adversaries using emerging technologies like drone swarms.

The deputy director’s remarks echo a sharply-worded warning from former FBI Director Christopher Wray, who, before his resignation, called the Chinese regime “the defining threat of our generation” after revealing that hackers linked to the CCP had infiltrated U.S. critical infrastructure and were waiting for the right moment to strike a “devastating blow.”

Ellis’s concerns are also reinforced by the intelligence community’s latest threat assessment, which identifies China as “the most active and persistent cyber threat” facing the United States—particularly when it comes to government systems, critical infrastructure, and the private sector.

Beijing’s cyber campaign includes operations such as Volt Typhoon, a state-backed effort to infiltrate key U.S. systems and maintain covert, long-term access to vital infrastructure. A more recent campaign, known as Salt Typhoon, has targeted U.S. telecommunications networks, underscoring the regime’s expanding digital reach and operational sophistication in targeting critical infrastructure in America.

The report warns that in the event of a looming military conflict with Washington, especially over Taiwan, China could launch aggressive cyber strikes against U.S. military and civilian networks. These would be intended to disrupt command decisions, generate chaos among the public, and hinder the rapid deployment of American forces.

By Noi Mahoney of FreightWaves

Federal authorities on Tuesday arrested 13 alleged members of rival Armenian crime organizations locked in an apparent power struggle in Los Angeles County.

The charges include attempted murder, kidnapping, illegal firearm possession, bank and wire fraud, and cargo theft totaling more than $80 million, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release.

Among the defendants are Ara Artuni, 41, of Los Angeles, who is charged with attempted murder in aid of racketeering, and Robert Amiryan, 46, of Hollywood, who is charged with kidnapping.

Authorities say both men were leaders of rival Armenian organized crime syndicates, referred to as “avtoritet,” which is Russian for “authority,” and that they have been engaged in a violent feud to maintain control of the San Fernando Valley since 2022.

Artuni is charged with ordering the attempted murder of Amiryan during the summer of 2023. In retaliation, Amiryan allegedly conspired with members of his own criminal organization to kidnap and torture one of Artuni’s associates in June 2023.

In addition to attempted murder, authorities say Artuni and his criminal enterprise committed bank fraud, wire fraud and cargo theft.

Artuni and his organization allegedly targeted e-commerce giant Amazon by enrolling as carriers for the online retailer. Artuni and his men would contract trucking routes with Amazon, and while transporting the goods, diverge from the route and steal all or part of the shipments. 

The Artuni enterprise allegedly stole more than $83 million from Amazon, according to estimates provided by the company. 

“This transnational criminal organization operated with the structure and brutality of an international cartel, inflicting significant harm on public safety and causing substantial damage to legitimate commerce and supply chains,” Dwayne Angebrandts, Homeland Security Investigation’s Los Angeles acting deputy special agent in charge, said in a statement. 

Artuni’s organization also reportedly ran a “credit card bust-out” scheme in which it charged credit cards to a fake business and then “drained the business account” before credit card companies could collect the disputed funds.

Several other arrests were made in the Los Angeles area and two more in Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood, Florida. Authorities continue to look for one defendant.

Federal agents seized more than $100,000 in cash, 14 firearms and three armored vehicles in the May 20 operation, which included assistance from the Los Angles and Burbank police departments.

If convicted of all charges, the defendants could face maximum sentences ranging from 10 years to life in prison.

Delivering on President Trump's Executive Order 14212, the "Make America Great Again" (MAHA) Commission released a 72-page report titled "The MAHA Report: Make Our Children Healthy Again," outlining America's childhood chronic disease crisis and its potential contributing causes.

The Government has never admitted that the United States is in an existential public health crisis. Today, we did—and now we’re going to do something about it. pic.twitter.com/3u9z3WNCTN

However, before listing the host of potential contributing causes of chronic illnesses, the report first addresses "Corporate Capture and the Revolving Door." Starting on page eighteen, the incestuous relationship between big government and bigger monopolies begins to paint a picture of how we've ended up here in the first place—a complete lack of surprise for anyone familiar with "regulatory" agencies.

Beginning under President Franklin D. Roosevelt—a fan of Benito Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile's fascist economic framework—the Executive branch began creating agencies to "administrate" the various social programs created by the New Deal. Sometimes referred to as "the swamp," or as Mussolini called it, "the state within the state," Americans have come to know these agencies of unelected bureaucrats as the "Administrative State." 

"Although the U.S. health system has produced remarkable breakthroughs, we must face the troubling reality that the threats to American childhood have been exacerbated by perverse incentives that impact the regulatory bodies and federal agencies tasked with overseeing them," the report reads. 

Relying on the "honor system," the report highlights how corporations fund their own safety studies which government agencies use to base approvals upon. Conversely, public tax dollars fund but a small portion of the total research dollars spent on chronic childhood diseases—further "exacerbated" by the revolving door between regulatory agencies, and the corporations they're supposed to regulate.

Key Takeaways

• Food Industry spent $60 billion for drug, biotechnology, and device research in nutrition science compared to $1.5 billion in government funded research.

• Over 40% of US children have a chronic health condition - including asthma, allergies, obesity, autoimmune diseases, or behavioral disorders - a dramatic rise over past decades.

• Over 75% of young Americans are ineligible for military service.

• Teen suicide and depression have surged, with suicide among 10-24-year-old girls up 67% since 2007.

• 95% of the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee members had financial ties to food and pharmaceutical companies

• The chemical manufacturing industry spent roughly $77 million on federal lobbying activities in 2024, while 60% of their lobbyists previously held federal posts.  

• More than ten thousand chemicals listed on the EPA's inventory are designated as confidential, and generic chemical names are used to identify them.

• The pharmaceutical industry, from 1999 to 2018, spent $4.7 billion on lobbying expenditures at the federal level, more than any other industry.

• Nine out of the last 10 FDA commissioners—and approximately 70% of the agency's medical reviewers—have gone on to work for the pharmaceutical industry. 

• Over 80% of clinical departments and teaching hospitals at U.S. medical schools receive some degree of pharmaceutical funding, while half of the total costs for continuing medical education (CME) is funded by industry.

• Between 2010 and 2022, the industry provided $6 billion to over 20,000 patient advocacy organizations.

Dr. Kat Lindley, a board-certified medical doctor and President of the Global Health Project, tells ZeroHedge that the report is an important first step. 

"The MAHA report is a great step in addressing the issues of chronic childhood diseases head-on," Lindley said. "The issue is multifaceted and it is great to see this administration placing children above profits."

However, Lindley is among many who call for a more active and common-sense regulatory approach, especially regarding the unnamed elephant in the room. 

"We also need a common sense approach to what has not been addressed in this report, and that is the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines," Lindley said, adding, "According to passive surveillance data and clinical observations, we believe these vaccines have potentially caused an increase in inflammatory diseases, neurological diseases, myocarditis, pericarditis and childhood cancers, just to name a few. We must tackle this issue head-on as well."

When every administrative agency is a copy of a copy, of a copy, perhaps the boldest promise of "Make America Healthy Again" is the opportunity for regulatory reforms.

The report also emphasizes that rebuilding America's food supply chain will require putting ranchers and farmers at the center of the conversation and focusing on promoting clean, healthy food. 

At ZeroHedge, we've partnered with the clean food think tank Beef Initiative to bring our readers best-in-class reporting on MAHA trends and direct access to "rancher-direct" clean food, sourced directly from independent ranchers nationwide.

Rebuilding America's food supply chain starts with one simple step: know your rancher. It's time to stop supporting the processed foods industrial complex run by mega globalist companies, which has transformed the current food supply chain into a toxic mess of seed oils and junk. It's time to get back to basics, find a rancher, find a farmer, and most importantly, plant your own garden. With this comes food freedom and liberty. 

The MAHA Commission is expected to release the next report outlining the solutions by August 12, 2025. While it's clear that centralized government agencies have failed us, only time will tell if bigger and more centralized federal authority will be the proposed "solution." Or, perhaps MAHA will break the cycle by closing the revolving door.

*   *   * 

Read the full MAHA Report:

Via The Libertarian Institute

The former top US diplomat in Ukraine said that any deal to end the Russian invasion must also deter China, arguing that engaging in peace talks with Moscow is a mistake.

Bridget Brink, who served as ambassador to Ukraine until late April, told Face The Nation, "The real question is, how are we going to help to end this war? And to do that, it can’t be peace at any price." She continued, "It has to be a peace that does things that advance our own interests. And those are really simple. It’s how to keep Ukraine free, how to deter Russia, and how to send the right signal to China."

Then-US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink (R) meets with Ukrainian military officials in Kiev, July 20, 2022. US Embassy image

Brink argued that talks with Russia should not begin until the Kremlin agrees to an unconditional ceasefire.

"So, my strong advice in terms of how to deal with Putin in Russia is not to give a single meeting or concession or legitimacy until Putin agrees to an unconditional ceasefire that’s verifiable and moves forward toward a just and lasting peace," she explained.

If President Donald Trump adopted Brink’s position, it would effectively bring the talks to an impasse. Moscow has stated that it will not agree to a ceasefire until the two sides are closer to a deal to end the conflict.

Brink went on to assert that Trump’s engagement with President Vladimir Putin would give "legitimacy" to the Russian leader.

During her tenure as ambassador to Ukraine, the former envoy implemented the Joe Biden administration’s policy of attempting to isolate Moscow.

However, while Washington’s sweeping sanctions regime was intended to isolate and cripple the Russian economy, the Kremlin has largely been able to circumvent the penalties. Rather than bringing Moscow’s war machine to a halt, Russia’s military is now stronger than it was at the beginning of the conflict.

Hawks seem to never acknowledge the potential for nuclear conflict as they urge more muscular confrontation with Moscow...

I really think that Ukraine hawks just do not understand what nuclear weapons are.

What people in the West also don’t understand is that we have thousands of nuclear warheads pointed at us right now.

After a full nuclear exchange, fallout would kill nearly all people on earth. pic.twitter.com/axbfZ9ouML

Brink became the US ambassador to Ukraine in 2022, the year the war began. She held that position until she resigned on April 21.

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

Stumblebum's Legacy

"Every time I watch The View, I become even more misogynistic."

- Laura Loomer

Bad as it was, “Joe Biden,” the figment president was merely one manifestation of a nation made mad by power-seeking demons, real-live, ill-intentioned human beings driving a runaway political machine, the party of hoaxes, hustles, and hatred. 

The country is just now struggling to exit a convulsion of mass mental illness. The demons are still there, though, and still hard at work trying to drag you all back into mass formation.

A central mystery is how the news media made itself the enemy of the people, and this conundrum is not at all explained by Jake Tapper and Alex Marshall in their book Original Sin. 

It’s actually just another hustle with overtones of hoax, like everything else in the evil cavalcade of narratives spun out in the news media’s war on reality. Tapper and Marshall want you to believe that a faceless collective they call “the White House” managed to conceal “Joe Biden’s” well-advanced disintegration from the voting public, and that was. . . that. The media wuz fooled! Goll-lee!

Of course, that fails to explain a whole lot — such as: how come anybody watching daily video clips of “Joe Biden” in action, could not fail to see the broken old puppet he is. Alex Marshall, receiving his “award for excellence” from the White House Correspondents’ Association weeks ago said, “We just missed it.” 

Yeah, sure...

They also apparently missed the programmatic devastation to American society that was carried out in the old stumblebum’s name.

I will give you the key to that conundrum, and then you will understand why all this happened, and why the many lingering demons are still at it in their self-styled “resistance” to America-in-recovery. Mr. Marshall lied, you understand. The media connived with the demons. They were in on the gag the whole time.

If there is any “original sin” in the story, it revolves around Hillary Clinton. This monster emerged as the junior partner to her husband, political wonder-boy Bill Clinton. From the get-go, the narrative painted her as a wife sore-beset by her charismatic husband’s infidelities. (Forget that her only child, Chelsea, is a dead-ringer for her former law partner, Webb Hubbell.) However their connubial affairs worked, Hill and Bill had a deal: when he was done, she would eventually rise to become the first woman president, and they would go down in history as two era-defining, Boomer gen, political wonder-geniuses.

It was a flawed plan. 

For one thing, Hillary utterly lacked Bill’s political charisma, which was his ability to avidly engage with other people and their issues. Hillary didn’t care much for other people, and only pretended to be interested in their issues. Also, people could easily read that in her demeanor. Nobody was fooled. If anything, she had negative charm, anti-charisma. Her own interests were strictly limited to obtaining power and riches. With enough power, Hillary noticed, you didn’t need charm or charisma. You could simply order people around. But the power couple left the White House broke in 2001, and were caught trying to spirit away some of the presidential dinner-ware.

The next phase of Hillary’s career was fortune-building. The Clinton Foundation was set up in 1997, ostensibly to fund Bill’s presidential library. It would become a fantastic grift magnet in the years to come, taking them from broke-ass-broke to demi-billionaires. Her launching pad was a seat in the US Senate. (She ran and won in New York when she was still First Lady in the 2000 election.)

2008 was supposed to be Hillary’s apotheosis from senator to president. The setup was perfect. The country was tired of Double-ya Bush. The time was exactly right for a woman president. Hillary was the obvious choice by a country mile. Except that she was edged out in the primaries by the Democratic Party’s alternative play for something even more amazing, in a contest of historic firsts, than a woman president — a black president, proving to the world how morally upright the USA had become, America liked how it felt. We were good people, after all!

Barack Obama liked playing his role, and he seemed to have more charisma than Hillary (though he didn’t care much for other people either, really). His sketchy background included a lot of people tinged with Marxism, such as his mentor in Chicago, Bill Ayers, an infamous Sixties radical, rumored to have ghost-written Obama’s books. And he was ensorcelled by big bankers like Robert Rubin of CitiGroup, and by Globalist bigshots orbiting Davos and the WEF.

Yet, Senator Hillary Clinton was still aggregating power as leader of Democratic women voters, a massive base. It was clear that she would remain in the game, aiming for her eventual “turn” in the White House. So, Mr. Obama made a deal with her: he would elevate her to Secretary of State, further fortifying her credentials, and then stand behind her in a 2016 run.

Hillary used her years at State to also fortify the Clinton Foundation’s coffers in various pay-to-play schemes — such as the Skolkovo tech deal with Russia and the Uranium One deal that netted the Clinton Foundation combined pledges of over $275-million, according to Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer. The 2010 Haiti earthquake crisis was another bonanza for the foundation and its partners. One might also surmise, from the recent DOGE reports, that the fabulous armature for grift that USAID became, spawning countless NGOs, was engineered by Obama appointees like Samantha Powers and Hillary’s State Department machine.

In 2015, Hillary, off-and-running, came to the rescue of the Democratic National Committee. The party was foundering in debt. It entered a joint fund-raising agreement with a PAC called Hillary for America (HFA) and the Hillary Victory Fund. The agreement gave Hillary control over the DNC’s finances, strategy, and staffing decisions that enabled her to snake out Senator Bernie Sanders for the nomination. Hillary’s nomination, the drive toward her “turn,” was when the trouble really blossomed.

Pitted against the rising outsider, Donald Trump, in 2016, Hillary’s lack of charisma was sinking her campaign. So, with a little help from John Brennan at the CIA, Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS political media company, the FBI under Director Jim Comey, and lawfare ninja Marc Elias at the Perkins Coie DC law firm, the Russia collusion hoax was dreamed up and put into action.

That was the “original sin” that set up the Party of hoaxes, hustles, and hatred to become greatest lie-spewing operation in US history, with reverberations for the decade-to-come. It also became the greatest ass-covering op in US history, with each successive raft of lies — the Mueller Investigation, impeachment #1, the stolen election of 2020 and installation of “Joe Biden,” the J-6 op, impeachment #2, the Trump prosecutions of 2024 — all requiring successive layers of cover-up and lies.

Since the news media despised Donald Trump, and was convinced by its own bullshit that Hillary would win the 2016 election, they all ran with the Russia collusion story and turned it into RussiaGate. They miscalculated, of course. Mr. Trump won, a stunning surprise, a shock really to everyone, including Mr. Trump himself, who utterly lacked experience running a government and was bamboozled, sand-bagged, and eventually hoaxed into defeat — Covid-19 being the coup-de-grace. The news media had to continue lying to the country throughout and beyond all of that to pretend that they were not equally culpable for all this mischief.

And so, they ran with every deception of “Joe Biden’s” ruinous term in office. Alas for them, the indefatigable Mr. Trump rallied, persevered through the concocted prosecutions cooked up by Norm Eisen, Mary McCord, Lisa Monaco, and the rest of lawfare ninjahood, and is now back in power with an assembled team of appointees who are the Left’s worst nightmare.

What kept it all going — all the lying, gaslighting, deception, prevarication, and sedition — was the lack of accountability. It was a fatal intoxicant. That’s over now, though turning in the direction of justice is necessarily difficult and delicate, considering the elevated level of derangement among the public, the fragility of the national psyche, and the danger signals emanating from the zeitgeist.

It looks like the accounting will begin in earnest now. We are going to find out who was acting behind the empty figure of “Joe Biden,” and who ran the auto-pen. And working backward from there, this will all unspool in one, long, appalling thread of treason.

United States Steel Corp. shares surged to their highest level since April 2011 after President Trump announced on Truth Social his full backing of a partnership between the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker and Japan's Nippon Steel.

Trump confirmed that U.S. Steel will remain headquartered in Pittsburgh, calling the deal the largest investment in Pennsylvania's history and a first critical step in revitalizing the nation's steel industry, aligning with his 'America First' agenda of rebuilding critical supply chains. 

"I am proud to announce that, after much consideration and negotiation, US Steel will REMAIN in America, and keep its Headquarters in the Great City of Pittsburgh," Trump wrote on Truth Social. 

He continued, "For many years, the name, "United States Steel" was synonymous with Greatness, and now, it will be again. This will be a planned partnership between United States Steel and Nippon Steel, which will create at least 70,000 jobs, and add $14 Billion Dollars to the U.S. Economy." 

The president said much of the investment will unfold over the next 14 months and will be "the largest Investment in the History of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."

Trump concluded the post by stating: "My tariff policies will ensure that steel will once again be, forever, MADE IN AMERICA. From Pennsylvania to Arkansas, and from Minnesota to Indiana, AMERICAN MADE is BACK. I will see you all at U.S. Steel in Pittsburgh on Friday, May 30, for a BIG rally."

Earlier, a Wall Street Journal report said that Nippon sweetened the deal by "roughly doubling its spending plan and even pledging to build a brand-new mill to win Washington's blessing for its takeover of U.S. Steel." 

While Trump initially criticized the deal, he has since warmed to it because it aligns with America First's policy goals of bolstering domestic supply chains and revitalizing manufacturing. 

The merger agreement between U.S. Steel and Nippon, which values U.S. Steel at $55 per share, expires June 18 unless extended.

Shares of U.S. Steel jumped to the highest level since April 2011 following the president's Truth Social post. 

Meanwhile, the United Steelworkers union remains strongly opposed, citing Nippon's history of undercutting U.S. steel markets.

As the U.S. heads into Memorial Day weekend, with pools opening, millions set to travel, and backyard barbecues just ahead, a late-session report from the Financial Times revealed that one of President Trump's first Project Stargate AI infrastructure projects is underway in Texas. 

According to FT's sources, the under-construction AI data center in Abilene, Texas, is the first U.S. Stargate project, and Oracle is purchasing a staggering 400,000 Nvidia GB200 "Superchips" that will be housed in eight buildings. When the facility comes online next year, the AI chips will require a massive 1.2 gigawatts of electricity. 

Site owners Crusoe and Blue Owl Capital have raised $15 billion in debt and equity to finance the Abilene project. JPMorgan provided a sizeable chunk of the debt financing, totaling $9.6 billion across two loans, with $7.1 billion announced this week, according to people familiar with the matter.

Crusoe and Blue Owl have separately invested about $5 billion in cash. Oracle has signed a 15-year lease for the mega project that will be fully operational by mid-2026. 

Your hard hat tour of OpenAI’s Stargate megafactory in Abilene, TX with @sama @ChaseLochmiller and lots of red dirt

pic.twitter.com/mMkeKpLVOU

The Abilene facility is part of the broader Stargate project, a $500 billion effort to scale U.S. AI computing backed by OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and Abu Dhabi's MGX. The new Abilene data center will rival Elon Musk's plans to expand his "Colossus" data center in Memphis, Tennessee. 

"The Abilene data center is a crucial step in OpenAI's move to reduce its dependence on Microsoft," FT noted, adding, "OpenAI and Microsoft agreed to terminate their exclusivity agreement earlier this year after the startup became frustrated that its demand for power far exceeded the US tech giant's supply."

Sources said Oracle will be leasing the computer power of the 400,000 Nvidia GB200 chips to chatbot startup OpenAI.

Meanwhile, massive U.S. data centers continue to come online—even as China's DeepSeek AI has demonstrated high efficiency, delivering more useful computation with less power. This raises a critical question: Have U.S. AI projects achieved similar levels of efficiency, or are they falling behind in the AI race? Remember what Goldman said about the data center peak capacity in April? Well...

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

America’s housing market has been in a “deep freeze” for more than a year.  

The combination of very high interest rates and very high home prices has frozen millions of potential buyers out of the market.  As a result, home sales have fallen to extremely depressed levels.  When I first warned that we were heading into a housing market depression, a lot of people thought that I was exaggerating.  But now the numbers show that is exactly what has happened.  

The following are 6 signs that the housing market depression in the United States is getting even worse.

#1 Sales of previously-owned homes in the U.S. just fell again.  In fact, we just witnessed the slowest April that we have seen since 2009…

The spring housing market continues to struggle amid high interest rates and low consumer confidence.

Sales of previously owned homes in April declined 0.5% from March to a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 4 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors. That is the slowest April pace since 2009.

In 2009, there were 306 million people living in the United States.

Today, there are 340 million people living in the United States.

So the fact that we have fallen to a level that we haven’t seen since the Great Recession should deeply trouble all of us.

#2 Sales of previously-owned homes are falling even though active listings and new listings are both rising…

Active listings—the total number of homes for sale—last month hit the highest level since March 2020. They climbed 1.2% from a month earlier on a seasonally adjusted basis and rose 16.7% year over year.

New listings rose to the highest level since July 2022, increasing 1.3% month over month on a seasonally adjusted basis and 8.6% year over year—the largest annual gain since May 2024.

“A lot of people are selling their homes and downsizing because they’re worried about the economy,” said Meme Loggins, a Redfin Premier real estate agent in Portland, OR. “During the pandemic, everybody wanted more space for a home office or for their kids to run around, but now people are more focused on saving money. A lot of folks are getting rid of their investment properties, and I’m working with a couple of federal employees who are afraid of losing their jobs, so they’re selling their homes and thinking of moving into condos.”

#3 Most potential young homebuyers have been completely forced out of the market.  Shockingly, the average age of a homebuyer in the U.S. has surged to an all-time record high of 56…

The average age of homebuyers in the U.S. has risen by six years since July 2023 — another sign that younger Americans are being priced out of the market due to escalating ownership costs.

The average age of homebuyers is now 56, up from 49 in 2023, according to the National Association of Realtors’ annual state-of-the-market report released Monday. That’s a historic high, up from an average age in the low-to-mid 40s in the early 2010s.

#4 The median age of first-time homebuyers is spiking as well…

The median age of first-time buyers also rose from 35 to 38, while the share of first-timers dropped from 32% to 24% of all buyers for the year ending July 2024. That marks the lowest percentage since NAR started tracking the metric in 1981.

“In my two decades in the mortgage business, I’ve never seen a more difficult time for millennials to purchase a home,” says Bob Driscoll, senior vice president and director of residential lending at Massachusetts-based bank Rockland Trust.

This is a really bad thing for our society.

If most young couples cannot purchase a home until they are in their late thirties, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.

#5 Zillow is reporting that home values have fallen in 27 U.S. states so far this year.  Is this the beginning of a price crash?…

Home values fell in half the country as the housing market faces a nationwide downturn.

According to Zillow, monthly home values dropped in 27 out of the 50 states this year. While Florida, Colorado, Washington, D.C., California and Washington state experienced the greatest value declines from March to April, the data could foreshadow a larger housing market shift.

#6 Meanwhile, employers continue to conduct mass layoffs all over the nation, and this is only going to increase pressure on the housing market.  For example, Walmart just announced that it will be laying off about 1,500 very well paid corporate employees…

Walmart is laying off around 1,500 corporate employees across various departments within its home office in Bentonville, Arkansas, multiple reports say.

In a memo shared with associates on May 21, Walmart executives said the company is “reshaping” some of its teams in an effort to modernize its business and enhance “associate, customer and member experiences.”

Most of the U.S. population simply cannot afford to shell out several thousand dollars for a mortgage payment every month.

Either interest rates will have to come down or housing prices will.

And if housing prices start falling like we saw in 2008 and 2009, that will cause all sorts of problems for our major financial institutions.

So hopefully the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates before it is too late.

One recent survey discovered that financial stress is at an all-time high for 70 percent of the U.S. population.

Absurdly high housing costs are one of the biggest reasons why so many people are financially stressed right now.

Home prices are way too high and so are rental prices.

If you were able to purchase a home and lock in a mortgage more than five years ago, you were extremely fortunate.

Those that wish to relocate now are facing ridiculously high prices and painfully high interest rates.

It has been said that he who hesitates is lost.

In this case, that is so true.

A lot of people out there that waited to pull the trigger have completely missed their chance.

Now the housing market is entering a very difficult chapter, and a tremendous amount of pain is ahead.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Two weeks after Travis Stice, CEO of shale giant Diamondback Energy, warned that the US energy industry "is at a tipping point" and - more ominously - that US shale output has finally peaked (resulting in Diamondback slashing its capex budget as Saudi Arabia launched the latest OPEC+ price war), we now have confirmation that the CEO was right.

As Goldman commodity strategist Yulia Grigsby writes in her latest Oil Tracker note, amid continued declines in oil prices, there was a silver lining: namely that US total rig and frac spread count continued to decline quickly, especially in the Permian, -14% and -22% from year ago, respectively, as shown in the chart below.

Grigsby speculates that while the Permian activity slowdown may partly reflect the preservation of the best inventory rather than wells shutdowns, oil fields with higher breakevens, e.g. North Dakota shale, are also planning to reduce drilling activity. 

And, having previously taken stock of Q1 earnings reports, we remind readers that several high profile public producers already reduced their drilling and completion activity on the back of lower prices and most producers reduced their 2025 capex guidance. As a result, Goldman expects the crude production in the US Lower 48 to decline by 0.4mb/d by 2026Q4 from 2024Q4.

Incidentally the latest Baker Hughes data showed that rotary rigs in the US tumbled by another 8 in the latest week...

...and are now down to a 4 year low of 465 as the industry enters crisis "cash conservation" mode.

But one doesn't have to believe in "peak oil" to expect further US production declines: regulation and sharply higher extraction prices may suffice to send the price of oil surging.

According to Bloomberg, Texas regulators are warning that wastewater from fracking in the biggest US oil basin is causing a "widespread" increase in underground pressure — a development that risks hindering crude output and harming the environment.

Shale oil wells in the Permian Basin generate millions of gallons of chemical-laced water, which drillers then pump back into the earth. Landowners and activists have said for years that this process causes toxic leaks. Now the state’s powerful oil and gas regulator, the Railroad Commission of Texas, is acknowledging the scale of the problem and imposing restrictions that could increase crude production costs.

Chevron Corp., BP Plc, and Coterra Energy Inc. as well as water management specialists Waterbridge Operating LLC and NGL Energy Partners, are among the companies that have received notices about the pressure issue from the Railroad Commission of Texas, according to a Bloomberg News review of public records. The RRC sent the messages to companies applying for new wastewater disposal wells.

Producers began injecting more water into shallow rock formations roughly five years ago after pumping it deep below the surface was found to trigger earthquakes. But the volumes are now so large that the dirty water is breaching wells and causing the ground to swell and rupture, threatening to contaminate drinking supplies for people and livestock.

Potential restrictions on both deep and shallow injection zones could mean producers will have to pump their wastewater farther afield, increase recycling or pay to clean it up. All of these options would add to costs in the Permian, which accounts for about half of America's total crude production. It would be the latest blow to US producers already grappling with low oil prices and a shrinking inventory of top-tier drilling sites, despite President Donald Trump’s pledge to unleash US “energy dominance” by backing fossil fuels. 

According to Bloomberg, the RRC has updated its standard language in the letters to producers in a nod to the severity of the problem. It now says that disposing wastewater into the Delaware Mountain Group rock formation in the prolific western part of the Permian “has resulted in widespread increases in reservoir pressure that may not be in the public interest and may harm mineral and freshwater resources in Texas.”

“Drilling hazards, hydrocarbon production losses, uncontrolled flows, ground surface deformation, and seismic activity have been observed,” the commission says. 

Guaranteeing that US oil output will slide, starting next month, the RRC will place limits on water-pressure levels due to “the physical limitations of the disposal reservoirs.” It will also require operators to assess old or unplugged oil wells within half a mile of the disposal site, twice the previous distance.

The RRC’s staff has been studying issues related to wastewater disposal for several years, spokesperson Bryce Dubee said in an email. 

“Let there be no doubt that our work and analysis to protect residents and the environment in West Texas has been happening for years and will continue,” Dubee said. The commission conducted a two-hour webinar on Thursday to explain its new guidelines for permitting saltwater disposal wells in the Permian.

Permian Basin oil production has soared over the past decade to about 6.7 million barrels of oil each day, more than the output from Iraq and Kuwait combined, and in some views has become a global swing producer. But for each barrel of crude, it produces three to five barrels of water that contain so much salt and toxic materials that pumping it back underground is the only cost-effective disposal method. 

The shallow disposal zones, located between oil-rich layers of shale and the surface, consist of porous rock that can absorb water. But the 100-year history of crude production in the Permian means they are perforated with thousands of well bores, some up to a mile deep. Because of higher water pressure, fluids are now breaking through to oil drilling areas and old wells that were either abandoned or poorly cemented shut decades ago. 

The regulator’s tighter restrictions come just weeks after Coterra was forced to halt some oil production in Culberson County, Texas, after waste fluids leaked into its wells. Executives said the problem was localized and could be fixed by strengthening the protective casing around its wells. 

Coterra is remediating the affected wells but did not give an expected completion date. The company said it doesn’t expect the issue to affect its long-term reserves. 

“We thought we were well calibrated,” Blake Sirgo, Coterra’s senior vice president for operations, said on a call with analysts May 6. “Sometimes the oil field still surprises us.”

One person who’s not surprised is Sarah Stogner, the district attorney for three West Texas counties in the Permian Basin. She’s been warning of rising subsurface pressure since 2021, when a landowner noticed oil and gas oozing from old wells on her property that had sat idle for decades. Stogner, then a lawyer for the landowner, publicized the case on social media, calling them “zombie wells.” Over the next few years, several more wells blew out in the area, with some ejecting toxic fluids more than 100 feet in the air for several days. 

“These were old fields that suffered from a lack of pressure for decades,” she said. “Suddenly we were seeing pressure where it shouldn’t be. It was clear even back then there was a field-wide problem.” 

The RRC mostly ignored her appeals for a thorough investigation, she said. Its elected commissioners, whose campaigns are largely funded by the oil and gas industry, framed the issue as primarily a plugging problem, claiming that old and abandoned wells had been improperly cemented shut, or not at all. 

But it’s now becoming clearer that the underlying problem is too much wastewater injection. 

One blowout near Imperial, Texas, gushed toxic water high in the air for two weeks and had to be cemented shut in 2022. Researchers at Southern Methodist University later found the ground around the eruption site had been steadily bulging for three years, eventually rising 40 centimeters (16 inches) before it burst open. Wastewater injection volumes several kilometers away “strongly correlate” with the ground movement, they said in a paper published in July 2024. 

SkyGeo, an analytics company that uses radar to track ground movements, reached a similar conclusion.

“The injection of saltwater causes this unnaturally high pressure, and then it’s going to find weak spots to come out,” said CEO Pieter Bas Leezenberg.

The RRC said its new permitting requirements will “ensure injected fluids remain confined to the disposal formations to safeguard ground and surface fresh water.” To Stogner, the measures are an admission that toxic water leaks are a serious problem for the regulator, and for the Permian Basin. “They just completely ignored us,” she said. “But now they cannot deny that it’s happening.”

And with that, oil producers will no longer be able to sweep the toxic problem under the rug - or ground as it may be - and since the mandated changes will require millions if not billions in additional spending to comply with regulations, which means all-in production costs are set to soar, and since oil prices will only continue to slide, we are about to see a wholesale shutdown of the Permian, and - as because the commodity cycle never fail - all the excess production in the US will turn into a deficit, sending oil prices soaring as the commodity bullwhip effect comes home.
 

Last week's Istanbul peace talks between Russia and Ukraine did not lead to much in terms of achieving ceasefire or peace as there were no breakthroughs whatsoever. However, it did give the two sides a chance to increase their swaps of POWs, and this is where Istanbul bore fruit.

The delegations agreed to a swap of 1,000 captives from each side, totaling 2,000 - which makes it by far the biggest single exchange of the war. Friday saw the two sides complete an initial round of fulfilling this agreement, with almost 800 people released.

Image source: Zelenskyy/Telegram

The Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that "270 Russian servicemen and 120 civilians" were returned to Russia on Friday, wile Ukraine said 390 people arrived back to Ukraine, including 270 military personnel and 120 civilians. Three women were among the Ukrainians released.

"We are bringing our people home," Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky declared on social media. The swap happened at the Belarus-Ukraine border, and was facilitated by several buses.  

Zelensky confirmed: "The first part of the agreement to exchange 1000 for 1000 has been implemented."

"On the Ukrainian side, dozens of people waited for hours to greet the returnees at a meeting place in Chernihiv region in northern Ukraine, many hoping to see their family members among those being brought back," observed one report.

"Many brought Ukrainian flags and photographs of their loved ones – in case any of the returnees would recognize them and give them information about their whereabouts," the report added.

The NY Times alleges that Ukrainian prisoners in Russian hands are treated much worse:

Unlike Moscow, Kyiv is also sensitive to demands by the Western nations backing its military that Ukraine comply with international law on the treatment of prisoners.

The Ukrainians allow visits to prisoner of war camps by both the United Nations and Red Cross; those organizations have largely been denied access in Russia and the Ukrainian territory it occupies.

Russia and Ukraine have begun a large exchange of prisoners of war on Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry said, with around 1,000 soldiers from each side expected to be swapped at the Ukraine-Belarus border when completed. https://t.co/ud6wQNWAbN pic.twitter.com/NovYMwGJkp

This largest prisoner exchange of the war is expected to continue over the coming days. There remain significant logistical challenges to be able to make it happen.

As drones and large-scale aerial attacks continue being exchanged, prisoner swaps have been rare bright spot in the war. Other than this, the warring sides haven't agreed on anything else.