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Via  Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com,

Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong is back with an update on his big turn toward war in Ukraine with Russia.  

Two weeks ago on USAW, Armstrong predicted, “After May 15, war is turning up (in Ukraine) and it will be turning up into 2026.”  

That prediction paid off to the exact day as peace talks between Russia and Ukraine ended on May 15 after just two hours, and neither side agreed to meet again.  

War is already here, and there is no stopping it with peace talks.  Armstrong says, “Putin knows and understands this is not a just a war with Ukraine, this is a war with NATO..."

"If Putin agrees to a 30-day ceasefire with Ukraine, what’s that going to do?  Absolutely nothing.  

You have every European country reinstituting drafts.  In Germany, even people 60 years old have been told to report.  Poland has ordered every able-bodied man to show up for military training.  They want war.  Their economy is collapsing.  You hear about this de-dollarization, and it’s not happening.  The capitalization of just the New York Stock Exchange is worth more than all of Europe combined.  That’s just the New York Stock Exchange...

You’ve got Macron in France, they call him the ‘Petite Napolean.’. . . Without war, Europe is going to collapse.  It’s in a sovereign debt crisis . . . They have done everything against the economy.”

Armstong thinks Russia will finish off Ukraine sometime in 2027 and Europe a year or two after that.  And, Yes, Armstrong still thinks Ukraine will disappear from the map.

Armstrong urged his contacts in Washington to “Get the hell out of NATO.”  It seems some in the US government are considering this warning as this headline breaks today: “US to Begin European Troop Withdrawal Talks, NATO Ambassador Says.”  Armstrong says, 

“I have been told by some very influential people on Capitol Hill ‘you’re right, we agree.’  That’s what I have been told. . . . I have been complaining about this for months, and my view is Europe is committing suicide, and let’s not be part of it this time.”

Is President Trump getting this message?  Armstrong says, “Yes, I believe so. . . . Trump also said a peace deal does not seem likely, the hatred is too great on both sides.”

The neocons back home also want war with Russia and have wanted it for a very long time.  Trump is either going to make peace or walk away and not participate.  Maybe this is why former FBI Director James Comey put out his not-so-cryptic call to assassinate President Trump with his “86 47” now deleted Instagram post.  Comey was the man who held Armstrong in prison illegally for contempt for 7 years. 

Armstrong says, “Comey has always been part of it.  Just for the record, he was the US Attorney in New York.  He’s the one who kept me in contempt until the Supreme Court said what the hell is going on?  Then, they had to release me.”

How did Armstrong land in jail?  

Armstrong says, “They asked me to put in 10 billion dollars . . . to take over Russia, and I refused..."

"  It was Comey that was the US Attorney for New York, and he kept me in civil contempt, which has a maximum sentence of 18 months, and he kept me in for 7 years.  

He kept rolling it and rolling it and rolling it. . . . I was told if I put in $10 billion, I would get $100 billion back.  

They intended to have all the assets of Russia going through the trading desk of New York.  All the oil, gold, diamonds, platinum, you name it, they would have it all.  And I said, no, I’m out.  I am not into regime change.”

Fast forward to today, and the powers in Europe still think they can take Russia and steal their assets to fix the extreme financial problems in Europe.  

Pensions, banks and bonds are in deep financial trouble in Europe.  

Stealing from Russia and gaining control of $75 trillion in natural resources is why they want and need war.  Armstrong says, 

“They went to negative interest rates in 2014.  I warned them.  I said listen; you are out of your minds.  

You are syphoning money out of the bank reserves and pension finds.  It’s a basket case.  It really is.  They have no appreciable economy. . . it’s shrinking, the number of actual businesses has shrunk in Germany.  (Germany is 25% of the EU economy.)  This is why they need war.”

Armstrong says Europe is going to lose and lose badly in a war with Russia.  

Armstrong says if Trump gets out of NATO, the US will thrive and do much better financially than Europe.  

Let’s all hope President Trump gets us out of NATO before it’s too late.

There is much more in the 60-minute interview.

Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he goes One-on-One with Martin Armstrong as he gives his analysis on war, default, depression and unpayable debt that will make a huge mess for the world for 5.17.25.

To Donate to USAWatchdog.com click here

There is free information, analysis and articles on ArmstrongEconomics.com.

In an absolute shocker that you'll never believe (unless you read ZeroHedge) - Klarna, the Swedish financial technology firm known for its "buy now, pay later" (BNPL) offerings, reported a sharp increase in losses for the first quarter, driven by a rise in consumer defaults and economic unease in the United States.

The company posted a net loss of $99 million for the three months ending in March, more than double its $47 million loss during the same period a year earlier. The deterioration comes amid a rise in customer credit losses, which climbed 17 percent year-on-year to $136 million, underscoring mounting concerns about the financial health of U.S. borrowers.

Klarna’s business model - providing interest-free installment loans for retail purchases - has grown rapidly in recent years, especially in the United States, where the company has partnered with major retailers such as Walmart, eBay and DoorDash. But the surge in unpaid loans and shifting macroeconomic conditions have intensified scrutiny of the company’s exposure to economic headwinds, according to the Financial Times.

The results also follow Klarna’s decision to halt its long-anticipated initial public offering in New York, after recent tariff announcements from President Donald Trump roiled markets. The administration’s trade policy has heightened inflation expectations and dampened consumer sentiment, with one widely watched confidence index falling to its second-lowest level on record last week.

Despite the growing defaults, Klarna emphasized the short-term nature of its loan book, noting that 83 percent of its balances refresh within three months. The company said in a statement that it's "closely monitoring changes in the macroeconomic environment," and "remains well-positioned to adapt swiftly if required."

Klarna’s credit loss rate as a share of total payment volume remains relatively modest at 0.54 percent, a slight uptick from 0.51 percent a year earlier.

Revenues for the quarter rose 13 percent to $701 million, as the platform reached 99 million active users. The company has leaned heavily on artificial intelligence to streamline operations, delivering Monday’s earnings through an AI-generated avatar of its chief executive.

Klarna has also pursued aggressive cost-cutting, reducing its headcount by 39 percent over the past two years. Customer service expenses declined 12 percent year-on-year in the latest quarter. At the same time, the company is grappling with a 15 percent rise in funding costs, now totaling $130 million.

Last month we noted that Americans are increasingly tapping Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) financing to pay for daily essentials -- even groceries -- according to a Lending Tree survey, in which  41% of those polled say they were late on payments over the past year, which is up from 34% in last year's survey. About three-quarters of the late-payers say they were late by no more than "a week or so." However, where that and other numbers are concerned, it's important to note that these stats are based on survey responses -- not the hard data of their BNPL providers. Given human nature, it's reasonable to think respondents would understate subpar behavior. 

The top two categories of BNPL purchases are clothing, shoes and accessories (41% of BNPL users) followed by technology devices (39%). However, there's been a surge in people who've used BNPL for groceries -- 25% versus 14% last year.  A whopping one-third of Gen Z BNPL-tappers say they've used the financing for groceries. Similarly, 16% of users have tapped BNPL for food delivery or takeout.

"Have you ever used BNPL services like Affirm or Klarna?" (via Lending Tree)

Other findings:

• Nearly half of the respondents have used a BNPL loan, with 11% saying they've used them 6 or more times. 23% have had three or more of them running simultaneously.  
• 53% of men have used BNPL, versus 46% of female respondents. 
• 64% of Gen Zers (age 18 to 28) have used BNPL, compared to 29% of Boomers (61 to 79)

In 2024, global air travel hit 9.5 billion passengers— a five billion increase since 2021.

Together, the 10 busiest airports transported 855 million passengers, or 9% of traffic globally. While air traffic has finally surged past pre-pandemic levels, it is not without its challenges of staffing crises, tech outages, and aircraft incidents.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld, shows the busiest airports in the world, based on data from the Airports Council International.

The Top 10 Busiest Airports in the World in 2024

Below, we show the airports with the highest number of passengers globally as air travel increased 9% over the year:

Represents total passengers enplaned and deplaned, with passengers in transit counted once.

As we can see, four of the top 10 busiest airports in the world are in the U.S.—led by the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

Notably, Atlanta serves as a connecting hub to domestic and international travelers, owing to its position between North America, Europe, and Latin America. Adding to this, it has 150 non-stop destinations in six continents.

Ranking in second is the Dubai International Airport, with a record 92 million passengers in 2024. Overall, 106 international airlines fly into this hub, reflecting Dubai’s growing prominence as a center for business and investment.

Meanwhile, Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport saw the largest rise in the rankings, up from 21st in 2023 to 10th overall. Driving its 41% surge in passengers was the resumption of international flights and visa policy expansion.

To learn more about this topic from a travel perspective, check out this graphic on the cheapest and most expensive places to visit in 2025.

Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via VonGreyerz.gold,

The facts of a surreal yet broken (and hence increasingly controlled and desperate) financial system are becoming harder to deny and ignore. 

Below, we look at the evidence of control rather than the words of dishonest policy makers and ask a simple question: How long can lies supplant reality?

The Great Disconnect: Tanking Growth vs. Supported Markets

It’s becoming harder to keep up with the increasingly downgraded GDP growth estimations from the Atlanta Fed.

As recently as August, its GDPNow 3q21 estimates for the quarterly percentage change were as high as 6%.

But within a matter of weeks, this otherwise optimistic figure was cut embarrassingly in half.

Last month, their GDP forecast sank much further to 0.5%, and as of this writing, it has been downgraded yet again to 0.2%.

Needless to say, 6% estimated growth falling to effectively 0% growth is hardly a bullish indicator for the kind of strengthening economic conditions which one might otherwise associate with risk asset prices reaching all-time highs for the same period.

The growing yet steady disconnect between market highs and economic lows is getting harder to explain, ignore or deny by the architects of the most artificial, rigged and dishonest market cycle in modern history.

In short, it is no longer even worth pretending that stock markets are correlated to such natural measurements as a nation’s economic productivity.

After all, who needs GDP in the New Abnormal?

By now, even Fed doublespeak can’t hide the fact that the only market force which the post-08 markets require is an accommodative central bank—i.e., a firehose of multi-trillion liquidity on demand.

But as for this most recent GDP downgrade, it is being blamed on tanking US export data.

More Fantasy: Bogus or Real Taper?

The question facing investors heading into year-end is whether any of the foregoing realities will place pressure on the Fed to continue the now normalized fantasy of unlimited QE or stick to its equally fantastical “taper-talk.”

Toward this end, Powell could delay the planned “taper” or, as is likely, simply move ahead with what is essentially a bogus taper involving a nominally insignificant reduction in money printing offset by ongoing yet deliberately hidden liquidity from the Standard Repo Facility and FIMA swap lines.

Thus, whether we see a delayed taper or a bogus taper, the net result is still more fiat liquidity flooding the always dollar-thirsty (and QE-addicted) financial system.

This, of course, translates to increased currency debasement and thus rising tailwinds for gold, BTC, industrials and commodities.

Should, however, the FOMC announce a genuine taper, the net result for gold is still positive.

Yes, a real taper means slightly higher rates and increased volatility (bad for risk assets) along with a stronger dollar, but inflation rates will still supersede interest rates, favouring gold anyway you look at it.

Again, and as discussed in prior reports, gold can and will rise if rates rise, so long as inflation rises faster, which for all the reasons we’ve addressed elsewhere, convinces us that a future of negative real rates is the only future central banks can allow.

More Inflationary Tricks (i.e., Fantasy)

Why?

Because short of default, the only and time-tested trick left up the sleeves of debt-soaked policy makers to dig their way out of a nightmarish and historically unprecedented debt hole (which they alone created) is by pursuing policies of deeply negative real rates.

This twisted inflationary playbook, so familiar to rigged insiders yet unknown to the vast majority of retail investors, boils down to a policy play by which our “experts” solve debt with more debt and hide the truth behind more complex policy adjectives (i.e., lies).

Specifically, this means the “experts” will:  1) deliberately seek more inflation while 2) lying about true inflation levels and then 3) repress interest rates in order to partially inflate their way out of debt with 4) increasingly debased currencies.

Take the U.S. Dollar’s purchasing power, for example…

Keeping the Serfs Down—The Policy of the New Feudalism

Needless to say, more inflation is a direct tax on the increasingly poorer middle class.

Sadly, too many are too busy trying to make sense of months of lockdowns, vaccine mandates, movement restrictions, crime waves and inflating rent payments to notice that they have been made into serfs in a Brave New World where greater than 80% of the stock market wealth is held by the top 10% of the population.

Let’s be clear: I’m a screaming capitalist, but a pandemic world in which Bezos, Musk and other billionaire wealth has increased by 70% while 89 million Americans have lost their jobs is NOT capitalism, but a symptom of a rigged system in which the anti-trust rules I learned in law school, or the social and economic principles I learned in economics are simply gone.

Then again, when I was in school, we were once taught how to think, not what to think.

With each passing day, we see increased evidence of what I wrote (and described) elsewhere as a new feudalism marked by grotesquely distorted notions of truth, reporting, data, natural market forces and political/financial accountability.

In order to keep this report objective rather than an op-ed, let’s just consider the facts and case studies right before us.

Yellen & Dimon—Two Classic Lords Spinning Familiar Yarns

Take, for example, the aforementioned tanking of GDP, now being attributed to openly tanking export data out of the U.S. and the undeniable supply chain disruptions impacting the global economy.

To address this, none other than two of the most media prolific “lords” of the new feudalism, Fed Chairwoman-turned-Treasury-Secretary Janet Yellen and current JP Morgan CEO and 2008 bailout-beneficiary-turned-Fed-Crony, Jamie Dimon, assure us not to worry.

How nice.

Yellen, for her part, has recently said:

“I don’t think we’re about to lose control of inflation.”

 “As we make further progress on the pandemic, I expect these bottlenecks to subside. Americans will return to the labor force as conditions improve.”

Again: How nice.

But let’s not let warm words get in the way of cold facts.

Yellen, like every Fed Chair since Greenspan, has a long history of buying time with comforting words that have nothing to do with hard reality:

“You will never see another financial crisis in your lifetime.”
– Janet Yellen, spring 2018

“I do worry that we could have another financial crisis. ″
– Janet Yellen, fall 2018

Despite a long and well-documented history of outright dishonesty spewing from the mouths of financial media darlings and policymakers like Yellen and Dimon, both are now pushing a bullish “be calm and carry on while we profit and control” meme.

They recently seized upon Biden’s move to run the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach on a 24/7 schedule to alleviate bottlenecks, which increased throughput by roughly 15% (3,500 containers/week v. 950,000 containers per month.)

That’s nice, and sure, it helps.

But despite such band-aid measures, supply chains won’t normalize until early 2023, at the earliest…and that assumes no further disruptions, which frankly, is a naive assumption.

Folks, it’s not up to Yellen or Dimon to give us honest guidance as to whether supply chains will normalise in 2021. It is up to China and Biden’s entirely Orwellian vaccine mandate.

Speaking of Yellen, Dimon et al, aren’t we all a bit curious about the now undeniable marriage of the Federal Reserve (an illegal private bank) and the U.S. Treasury Department?

And as for bank CEO’s like Dimon, have we not forgotten other bank CEOs like Goldman’s Hank Paulson, who made a similar “marriage” to the Treasury Department just in time to bail his former bank out of the Great Financial Crisis that it helped create?

Are these the honest brokers we want deciding our economic fates or signaling/controlling our economic future?

Vaccine Passes and Mandates—The Great Smokescreen

And as to the mandate… Note Yellen’s careful yet semantic magic of hiding autocracy behind humanitarian lingo.

Her comment above regarding bottlenecks “subsiding” once “we make further progress on the pandemic” is very comforting, no?

But it’s just another veiled way (i.e., smokescreen) of pushing a vaccine mandate which defies every principle of the social contract our founding fathers achieved in that silly document I revered as a 1L and known otherwise as the U.S. Constitution.

As I’ve said many times before, I’m no source for medical advice, and my circle includes many who are vaccinated and un-vaccinated alike—with equal respect for the choices we’ve made and equal disgust for the notion that such choices should be imposed rather than voluntary.

Simple Questions, Cold Math, Global Control

But should we not at least be asking ourselves if the pandemic discussion is less about global health and more about global control?

Without seeking to offend anyone’s COVID stance, can we nevertheless agree that C.J. Hopkins makes an undeniably clear and common-sensical point by simply asking a few basic questions?

For example, why has so much political, social and economic power been given to a minority of policy makers to scare/distract the world into ignoring a now obvious global power-shift justified by a virus which causes mild-to-moderate symptoms in 95% of the infected and whose case fatality rate is quantifiably somewhere in the range of 0.1% to 0.5%?

Yet despite such simple math, tens of thousands of firemen, police officers, nurses and military personnel—the very heroes who have placed themselves on the front lines of our increasingly criminalized, sick and psychologically damaged population– are now being forced out of work for not agreeing to a forced jab imposed by anti-heroes?

One has to at least wonder why so much effort has been made by a government-influenced/co-conspired media to spend its time criminalising the unvaccinated rather than making front-page noise pointing out the obvious criminalisation of our global financial system?

The Real Criminals

By that, I’m thinking of the years of recently revealed insider trading at the Fed, the anti-trust violations of the non-tax-paying Amazon robber-baron or the open media-censorship and just plain shady that occurs daily at Facebook—an entity so blatantly shameful that it thinks a name-change can hide its dark past?

Or how about years of open price manipulation by bullion banks, the BIS and other dark corners of the OTCto deliberately force the natural price of gold and silver to the floor in order to illegally price-fix and protect globally debased currencies from the embarrassment of what a natural gold price would otherwise confirm, namely: Your currency has died, thanks to the white-collar criminals otherwise touted as experts.

In case you think this is mere sensationalism or speculation, I’ve written hundreds of pages and countless reports of graphical/mathematical/objective evidence of the same, and even an entire book on the rigged-to-fail system otherwise passing as normal to make this clear distortion of economic rules and political laws objective rather than pejorative.

Nor am I/we alone in pointing out the obvious. From the honest minority in markets to an honest minority in politics, plain-spoken truth is fighting for free expression.

More Honest Voices

Take, for example, the recent press conference (ignored, of course, by the main/muddy stream media) held by key members of the European Parliament to openly defy the insanely autocratic notion of a health pass to distinguish the compliant from the free or the “safe” from the “unsafe”.

As one brave parliamentary member from Germany, Christine Anderson, candidly observed, if you think the vaccine pass was made because the government cares about you, you are clearly ignoring its real motive, which is to control you.

And this is straight from the European Parliament.

Control, of course, only works if enough people are scared, tired or uninformed enough to be controlled.

As for the financial system, signs of its increasingly obvious attempt at more controls to mask increasingly shameful policies are literally everywhere.

And yet… and yet…the media, the masses and the majority of investors continue to follow their murky and shady lead.

Again, just keep it simple and factual rather than partisan or medically controversial.

Criminal Evidence

In the last 20 years, for example, policy makers have tripled the global debt levels yet made no commensurate progress with global GDP, which is literally 1/3 of this embarrassing debt pile.

That is shameful. Debt like this always destroys economies. Always.

Instead, those same “experts” have mouse-clicked more instant money out of thin air in the last decade than all the money ever created by all the combined central banks since their inception.

They actually want you to believe that a debt crisis can be solved with alas…more debt.

Such staggering money creation has led unequivocally and directly to the greatest and most inflated risk asset bubble in the history of capital markets.

Yet rather than admit to the open failure of such monetary expansion, which has simply crushed the natural purchasing power of fiat currencies…

…the architects of this failed experiment will now try to blame such excessive debt and currency destruction on a pandemic rather than years of their own pre-COVID policy crimes.

Today, politicians and their central bank masters are literally comparing the Pandemic’s 4.9M death toll to the unthinkable disaster which was the +75M killed in World War 2.

They then employ this pandemic narrative to justify another Bretton Woods-like reset.

To those who have studied, or far worse, experienced the Second World War, do you think it’s even remotely fair to compare it to the “war on Covid”?

The Carefully Telegraphed “Reset”

And what is this “needed” reset?

In a nutshell, it’s more fake money in the form of CBDC or even digital SDR’s from that shameless control center of failed monetarism otherwise known as the IMF and a central bank near you.

Those Who Control Money & Information

In an open and free system, rather than criminalising police officers, nurses, or even athletes who refuse a jab, should we not be pointing our headlines, adjectives and subpoenas at the bankers, experts and policy makers who put the global financial system at this horrific, debt-soaked and socially destructive turning point?

Are you waiting for Mark Zuckerberg, Don Lemon, Wolf Blitzer or the censorship boards at YouTube or Google to guide you?

Sadly, those who control money as well as information have immense and undeniable power.

Thus, a media that controls deliberate COVID distraction, supported by the lords who created this financial serfdom, continues.

That is, the feudalists responsible for such grossly mismanaged financial markets are all too aware (and nervous) that they have equally created the greatest wealth transfer and wealth disparity ever witnessed, akin to the pre-revolutionary era of Bourbon France, Romanov Russia, Batista Cuba or Weimar Germany.

Such otherwise immoral and corrupt wealth disparity, wealth transfer and wealth creation explain why the very architects of the same would rather have the masses fighting about jabs, school boards, and “woke” SJWs gone wild rather than at themselves–the root cause of the fracturing we see all around us.

Why?

Because controlling serfs with lies, fear, and division is better than letting those serfs replace you with truths.

Truth Still Matters – Fundamentals, Too

For that select yet blunt and independent-thinking minority who thankfully prefer candor over propaganda, reality over fantasy and genuine rather than hyped solutions to the problems and problem-makers all around us, al l we can do is trust history, truth, natural market forces and each other.

As for us, our candid solution to the foregoing string cite of distortions, controls and historical tipping points remains the same.

Regardless of the tricks, resets, and digital new bluffs of the new feudalism, enough free-thinkers, nations, informed investors, and wealth managers understand that they hold a better (and golden) hand to combat the dirty hands and dirty currencies unravelling all around us.

If there’s one thing history and free market forces have taught us it’s this: In the end, broken systems die and real money returns.

Last week, a top Iranian nuclear official floated the possibility that the Islamic Republic would be willing to given up enriching uranium in return for full sanctions relief from Washington.

But amid ongoing negotiations, the Iranian Foreign Ministry has produced something more official, firing back at Washington on Monday for recent Trump admin statements insisting that Tehran abandon uranium enrichment as part of any future nuclear deal.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ismail Baqaei said in a statement that the US taking such "contradictory positions" will only "prolong the talks and lead to a loss of trust." It's clear that Iranian leadership doesn't want to be seen as quickly cowering before American pressure.

At this point Tehran is vowing that enrichment will continue "with or without a deal" and that this is its right to do so as a matter of national sovereignty. 

"This track of talks cannot be brought to a conclusion given the shifting and contradictory positions. Under such circumstances, we do not expect an atmosphere of mutual trust," Baqaei added.

And separately, Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi said that the nuclear talks will “lead nowhere” with the current White House stance that enrichment must be taken to zero.

"Our position on enrichment is clear and we have repeatedly stated that it is a national achievement from which we will not back down," he said.

President Trump during his Gulf tour last week said largely optimistic things concerning a possible future new deal with the Iranians.

He said an agreement was very close but that Iran needed to move quickly, and that serious consequences await if Tehran doesn't. He's previously gone so far as to say it's a matter of either signing a deal or being bombed - something Iranian leaders balked at.

But Steve Witkoff on the Sunday news shows made clear that the issue of abandoning enrichment is a "red line" from the US administration...

Witkoff says the "red line" for Iran is no enrichment, not even one percent, which everyone who's followed this issue over the past 15 years knows is a complete nonstarter for Iran. This also happens to be the position of Senate Republicans and Israelis who favor bombing Iran pic.twitter.com/IpDjA5H4Wx

Last week the Trump White House indicated it sent Iran a written proposal toward forging a new nuclear deal. White House envoy Witkoff has led several rounds of talks, and Axios has revealed that the communication was issued to Tehran last Sunday.

"Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi took the proposal back to Tehran for consultations with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian and other top officials," wrote Axios.

It is an interesting kind of horror that modern academia, an environment where objective facts should be most revered, has instead become an environment where objective facts are most reviled.  The complete denial of biological reality within the western academic community is an enduring source of social disruption.  Their continued promotion of gender fluid theory, based on zero concrete scientific evidence, is stealing opportunities from real women and turning western education into an embarrassing mockery.

The Trump Administration's efforts to reverse the cancerous growth of wokeness in public institutions is making a difference, but there are still many areas of American life that will remain infected for years to come.

The latest example is the recent announcement that Dr. Rachel Levine (formerly Richard Levine), a man pretending to be a woman, is  being awarded an honorary degree by Smith College in Massachusetts.  Keep in mind, Smith College is a historic private women's college. 

Today, beginning at 10:00 a.m. ET, @smithcollege will have its annual commencement ceremony.

Congratulations to all the female graduates of this historically women-only college!

During the ceremony, @smithcollege will award an honorary degree to Richard ("Rachel") Levine, who… pic.twitter.com/lOaRfBSgAa

Levine has also been given the honor of addressing graduates in a commencement speech with "words of wisdom" for women entering the professional world.  Rachel Levine served as the "first trans Secretary for Health" for the US Department of Health and Human Services under the Biden Administration.  Levine exploited the position to push trans propaganda on the American public.  He also widely advocated for the gender transitioning of children.  

Chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith and opened in 1875, Smith is a member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of women's colleges in the Northeastern United States.  It should be noted that Smith College has received extensive federal funding, which is something the Trump Administration might want to look into.

The school's decision to give an honorary degree to a man has led to some backlash, with women protesters speaking out on the hypocrisy.  The issue of men going trans and invading women's spaces has divided the feminist movement, with woke extremists on one side and "TERFs" (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) on the other side.  The "TERF" label is meant to be a pejorative insult to those women that refuse to accept trans women (men) as legitimate women.

A trantifa woman harassed and cursed out a group of women protesting @smithcollege, an extremely woke historical women’s college, for awarding Richard “Rachel” Levine an honorary degree. pic.twitter.com/UYwsXJ9y9f

The overarching problem with the trans movement is that it demands the normalization and even celebration of mental illness under protected group status.  On the totem pole of social justice, trans people are at the top, enjoying a venerated position even above black women and gays.  The level of hand holding and social coddling of transgenders hit almost worshipful heights during the Biden Administration's woke blitz.  It was a primary factor in the eventual fall of the Democratic Party.   

Virtue signaling among the academic elite suggests that progressives have still not learned their lesson when it comes to biological reality and the US has a ways to go before the trans issue is settled. 

Woke elites running Harvard University into the ground faced fresh controversy on Monday morning as House Republicans launched a formal inquiry into the school's reported ties with foreign adversaries, citing serious national security and ethical concerns.

The House Select Committee on China, joined by the House Committee on Education and Workforce and Chairwoman of House Republican Leadership Elise Stefanik, sent a letter to Harvard demanding transparency and accountability regarding the university's partnerships with foreign adversaries and entities involved in human rights abuses. 

The investigation focuses on the university's reported partnerships with Chinese military-linked institutions, sanctioned entities, and researchers tied to the Iranian regime.

House Republicans are demanding internal documents and testimony, adding to a growing list of challenges plaguing the university, including recent controversies over campus antisemitism and donor backlash.

Addressed to Harvard President Alan Garber, the letter sent by Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI), Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI), and House Republican Leadership Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) outlined Harvard's troubling partnerships and activities that raise alarm bells about national security and ethical concerns: 

• Harvard's repeated training of members of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC)—a U.S.-sanctioned paramilitary group that plays a central role in the Chinese Communist Party's genocide of Uyghur Muslims

• Research partnerships funded by the Department of Defense with Chinese military-linked universities, including Tsinghua, Zhejiang, and Huazhong Universities

• Collaborations with Iranian-government-funded researchers, including projects financed by the Iranian National Science Foundation

• Organ transplantation research involving PRC-based collaborators, amid mounting evidence of the CCP's forced organ harvesting practices

Moolenaar stated, "Harvard trained members of a sanctioned Chinese paramilitary group responsible for genocide, and its researchers partnered with Chinese military universities on DoD-funded research and worked with researchers funded by the Iranian regime," adding, "These are not isolated incidents—they represent a disturbing pattern that puts U.S. national security at risk. The Select Committee's investigation will deliver answers, expose the truth, and hold Harvard accountable to the American people."

Chairman Walberg stated, "No American university or college should be assisting the CCP in expanding its influence, oppressing American citizens, or undermining U.S. national security," adding, "Unfortunately, we have found several instances in which Harvard University aided and even collaborated with the CCP – including helping Chinese researchers on military projects funded by the Iranian government. This is unacceptable and President Garber needs to provide answers to Congress for this colossal failure."

And Chairwoman Stefanik stated, "Harvard University must be held accountable. I demand full transparency and immediate cooperation with the Select Committee's investigation. We must ensure that no American institution enables the CCP's military modernization or the Iranian regime's technological ambitions — especially under the guise of academic exchange." 

The news of the House Republican investigation into Harvard's questionable foreign ties follows widespread layoffs reported last week following the U.S. government's termination notices for federally funded research projects. 

So far, the Trump administration has canceled approximately $2.7 billion in grants, with another nearly $1 billion in funding for Harvard's research partners at risk.

President Garber announced he would soon take a 25% pay cut after losing federal funding. He refused the Trump administration's simple request to comply with concerns over DEI and antisemitism.

"More than 80 faculty members — from several schools and academic units — have pledged to donate 10 percent of their salaries for up to a year to support the University if it continues to resist the Trump administration," The Harvard Crimson recently reported.

So brave.

Harvard alumnus Bill Ackman commented last week about the school's death spiral.

.@Harvard is dying from a series of self-inflicted wounds. https://t.co/gYhQhoxp9k

I have reached out to members of the @Harvard Corporation Board offering to help, but I have received no response.

I did the same shortly after October 7th and my offers to help were rejected. At least back then, I got a response.

Chair Penny Pritzker and the entire Harvard… https://t.co/JUpbhVV6I6

We suspect House Republicans won't stop with Harvard. These investigations are likely to expand to other Ivy League schools that have aggressively pushed toxic Marxist DEI agendas—initiatives that, in some cases, may have been influenced by foreign adversaries to undermine the nation. Some of these elite schools foster disdain for America, which is deeply troubling. This trend must be confronted and reversed.

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Full Letter to Harvard U. from House Republicans...