Distinction Matter - Subscribed Feeds

Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,

Milwaukee County has released security footage of a state judge allegedly helping an illegal immigrant evade an ICE arrest on April 18. 

The video, obtained through an open records request according to WISN12, shows Mexican national Eduardo Flores-Ruiz being guided through a back door of a courtroom just as federal agents waited to arrest him. 

The judge, identified as Wisconsin’s Hannah Dugan, is seen confronting the ICE agents after a court official alerted her of their presence.  

The video shows Dugan speaking with the agents seated outside her courtroom, directing them to the chief judge’s office after reportedly disagreeing over the type of warrant needed for the arrest. 

OBSTRUCTION: Judge Dugan needs jail time for her crimes. pic.twitter.com/NofAUjZDfC

Shortly thereafter, Flores-Ruiz appears walking with his attorney down the same hallway. 

They walked past a plainclothes agent, who then proceeded to follow them at a distance. 

Another camera angle shows Flores-Ruiz exiting the building through a basement doorway typically used by jurors.  

The agents Dugan sent to the chief judge’s office were later seen leaving and heading toward the exits. 

As Flores-Ruiz exited the building, agents rushed to intercept him but had to run to catch up as he fled on foot. 

Seconds later, agents tackled and arrested him in a scene that looked straight out of a movie. 

Flores-Ruiz had been deported in 2013 but reentered the United States at an undisclosed date. He was subject to an administrative arrest warrant from ICE following his state-level domestic battery charges. 

Dugan is now charged with obstruction of proceedings before a department or agency of the United States and with concealing a person to prevent arrest. 

“The Department of Justice will continue to follow the facts - no one is above the law,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a press statement announcing Dugan’s charges. 

Industry insiders—particularly those on the financing side of AI data centers—describe to Zero Hedge the current buildout as a "sprint" expected to continue through President Trump's second term.

Last week, we covered the major development in Abilene, Texas—a massive data center project widely considered the first "Stargate" project under President Trump's broader AI infrastructure initiative. 

Backed by Crusoe and Blue Owl Capital, the Abilene facility will be operated by OpenAI—the creator of ChatGPT—positioning it as a flagship project in President Trump's effort to rapidly scale U.S.-based AI infrastructure amid an intensifying AI race with China. 

Adding to the wave of data center investment news, Chamath Palihapitiya, CEO of Social Capital, wrote on X in response to CAPITAL.news, "We're going to build a 1 GW AI data center in Arizona," signaling another major deal to expand US AI infrastructure. 

Announced this today! We’re going to build a 1 GW AI data center in Arizona.

I’ve never done a RE deal so working with a great RE investor, @anitavlallian, with a vision for the project was key. Anita is a star.

Ultimately this will require us investing $25B to get the entire… https://t.co/GqSVPSJeO3 pic.twitter.com/XWYFPldg5J

Palihapitiya said this is his first real estate deal, noting that he partnered with Anita Verma-Lallian, CEO of Arizona Land Consulting (ALC), and other investors to purchase 2,100 acres of land west of Phoenix, known as Hassayampa Ranch.

Key points of the deal:

• Anita Verma-Lallian's ALC is spearheading the data center land deal. 

• Palihapitiya is backing the project as a sign of growing investor interest in AI infrastructure. 

• The deal involves land that can support over 1GW of power—ideal for a cluster of data centers. 

• This is ALC's second major transaction involving large-scale, ready-to-build real estate aimed at tech infrastructure.

• Verma-Lallian frames the investment as a historic milestone in the race to secure America's AI future, drawing parallels to Bill Gates' previous land deals in the region.

"We own 2000 acres right beside Bill Gates' smart city and down the road from a nuclear reactor," Palihapitiya emphasized. 

He continued, "Now we continue the process of entitlements and regulatory permitting so we can start construction."

According to publicly available records, Verma-Lallian is listed as the founder of ALC, which manages a number of real estate deals. 

As one industry insider put it, data center development is now in "sprint" mode—and we expect the pace of deal announcements to only accelerate from here. That's why two of our core investment themes remain firmly in focus:

• "Powering Up America" through our Next AI Trade,

• and our long-standing bullish stance on nuclear energy, first highlighted over 4.5 years ago, with Cameco positioned as a clear long-term winner heading into the 2030s.

.  .  . 

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump’s order cutting funding for media outlets violates the U.S. Constitution, National Public Radio (NPR) said in a lawsuit filed on May 27.

The order violates the First Amendment’s protection of expression, the suit states.

“The Order also violates due process, the Separation of Powers and the Spending Clause of the Constitution,” it says.

The suit was filed in federal court in Washington.

The White House, the Department of the Treasury, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump’s May 1 order directed the corporation, a nonprofit established by Congress in 1967 to oversee taxpayer-funded broadcasters, to end direct funding for NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS.

The order says that no outlets have a constitutional right to public money and that neither outlet “presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.” That’s despite the law establishing the corporation saying the entity cannot “contribute to or otherwise support any political party,” Trump wrote.

The White House has pointed to NPR articles such as one about “genderqueer dinosaur enthusiasts,” its initial refusal to report on the laptop computer owned by former President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and how its CEO, Katherine Maher, has called Trump a racist.

NPR and several local member stations, including Colorado Public Radio, said in the suit that the order improperly targets them because of the president’s view on their news.

“The Order’s objectives could not be clearer: the Order aims to punish NPR for the content of news and other programming the President dislikes and chill the free exercise of First Amendment rights by NPR and individual public radio stations across the country,” they said.

“The Order is textbook retaliation and viewpoint-based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment, and it interferes with NPR’s and the Local Member Stations’ freedom of expressive association and editorial discretion.”

Maher said in a statement that “we stand for constitutional rights, a free press, and an informed public, and we file today on their behalf.”

The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare the order and all actions taken to implement it illegal and unconstitutional, along with an order that permanently bars defendants from implementing the order.

Maher and PBC CEO Paula Kerger defended their outlets during a March congressional hearing, telling lawmakers that they serve audiences across the political spectrum.

“Our stations pool resources to invest in programming that will benefit all Americans, ranging from history and science to art and music,” Kerger said at the time.

Just days after former FBI Director James Comey drew criticism and an apparent investigation for a post widely seen as a violent threat against Donald Trump, Evergreen State College professor Zoltán Grossman shared a similar message.

The far-left Geography & Native Studies professor posted "LXXXVI XLVII" — Roman numerals for "86 47" — twice on Facebook: once over a background of red hearts, and again on a red hat, Jason Rantz from 770 KTTH wrote in a new editorial.

Grossman's first post, on May 17, came a day after Comey was criticized for sharing — then deleting — a photo of seashells spelling out “86 47,” a phrase interpreted as a threat against Trump, the 47th president. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called it a “threat” and promised action, the KTTH piece says.

Comey later claimed he didn’t realize it could be seen as violent, though he admitted it was political. Grossman, by contrast, offered no explanation or apology. Neither he nor Evergreen State College responded to requests for comment.

Rantz wrote: "If you’re wondering, yes, this is the kind of edgy 'resistance' humor you get from a taxpayer-funded professor at Evergreen, a college famous for lowering the bar so much it’s basically a tripping hazard."

Rantz pointed out a clear double standard: “When a Republican so much as tweets a mean meme about Biden, it’s national news,” but when the target is Trump, “suddenly, we’re all supposed to loosen up and laugh along.”

He criticized Evergreen State College for tolerating the behavior, noting, “If a student or staff member... posted a joke like ‘86 63’... the college would freak out.” But because the target is “the ‘wrong’ president,” Rantz said, Grossman faces no consequences and “gets to keep his self-satisfied grin.”

Calling Grossman a “propagandist,” not an educator, Rantz mocked his curriculum and accused the academic left of hypocrisy: “Evergreen and the academic left want you to believe they stand against violence and hate, but the mask slips pretty quickly when it’s their political enemies in the crosshairs.”

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

A U.S. intelligence document declassified on May 23 shows the government warned that COVID-19 vaccine mandates could lead to violence.

The FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and National Counterterrorism Center said in the Dec. 31, 2021, joint assessment that vaccine mandates for children and workers—which had begun being imposed by the federal government—as well as “perceptions of unfair healthcare treatment for the unvaccinated” could trigger violence from domestic violent extremists (DVEs) or foreign actors.

“Given these conditions, DVEs would most likely plot violent acts to intimidate healthcare workers and officials charged with implementing COVID-19 mitigation measures as well as, possibly, killings or kidnappings of state, local, or federal government personnel,” the officials stated.

Plotting had already occurred in the United States and other countries, according to the intelligence agencies. That included a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, although some of the men charged in that matter were acquitted after they argued they were entrapped by government agents.

The joint assessment also said that COVID-19 vaccines becoming available for children “might spur conspiracy theories and perceptions that schools will vaccinate children against parents’ will and may increase the potential for violence.”

Some health care workers did vaccinate children despite opposition from parents, including in North Carolina.

U.S. intelligence agencies define a domestic violent extremist as a person based in the United States or U.S. territories who acts without direction or inspiration from a foreign terrorist group or country and who “seeks to further political or social goals, wholly or in part, through unlawful acts of force or violence dangerous to human life.”

The assessment stated in a footnote that U.S. individuals opposing COVID-19 mandates were “likely engaging in First Amendment-protected activities, unless they are acting in concert with a threat actor,” and that related topics “should not be assumed to reflect DVE activity, absent information specifically attributing the content to DVE threat actors.”

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard ordered the declassification of the document.

“It really talks about people who may likely turn out to be domestic violent extremists or those who may turn to violence because of these specific ‘ideologies’ that they hold,“ Gabbard said about the document during an appearance on Fox News.

”And there’s a consistent thread through here that these ideologies that they are characterizing as potentially turning into potentially violent activities happen to be people who were using their First Amendment rights to oppose certain policies of the Biden Administration.”

She added, “Some of the examples that are focused on there have to do with those who oppose the COVID vaccine mandates, those who oppose the mask mandates, parents who were concerned that their children going to school may be forcibly vaccinated with the COVID vaccine without the consent or awareness of parents.”

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

A Canadian YouTube channel that was dominating the platform during the country's recent election has vanished, after the state-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reached out to the social media giant, and branded it a 'content farm' in a Friday hit-piece.

The channel, "Real Talk Politiks," had over 300,000 subscribers and more than 70 million views in the month of April, according to ViewStats.com - making it the third-most viewed Canadian news and politics channel over the past three months.

In a Sunday thread on X, Real Talk Politiks explained:

CBC, Canada’s state-funded media just got YouTube to terminate my channel — not for breaking rules, but for having the wrong political views.

CBC couldn’t compete with the content… so they tried to erase it. This is censorship in Canada.

I didn’t break any rules. No strikes. No deception. Just political commentary. And yet — YouTube terminated the entire channel shortly after CBC reached out with hit-piece questions.

Here’s what’s wild: I was pulling more views than CBC, which really bothered them. They clearly don’t understand how YouTube works with most of the audience outside Canada. But CBC — desperate for relevance — couldn’t stand that.

So what did they do? They contacted YouTube. And not long after… the channel vanished. No real explanation. No public process. Just gone. Like it never existed.

CBC and YouTube clearly don’t understand how the internet works. They think they can silence people with opposing views. But all they’ve done is expose their own fear — and their willingness to crush speech they don’t like.

When state media and Big Tech team up to silence a creator because of political ideology, it’s not just censorship — it’s tyranny with a smile.

Apparently CBC pointed to an AI video of Ronald Reagan that was not properly labeled as such, prompting YouTube to justify the takedown for violations of its policies on "spam, deceptive practices and scams," which - they could have simply issued a warning for and allowed Real Talk Politiks to correct instead of completely disappearing the account.

The CBC cited University of Ottawa associate professor Elizabeth Dubois...

...who said "These types of accounts are presenting themselves as the way to get informed and they are embedding partisan perspectives typically within that information delivery," adding "So it's really causing this shift in what information people are receiving, and it's also going to force us to really reconsider what we think of as media literacy."

Heaven forbid people consume whatever media they want and form their own opinions.

The CBC is openly bragging about it - uploading a video to YouTube (comments off, of course), titled "How we shut down one of Canada's biggest news 'content farms'"

Openly bragging about getting the channel shut down too. https://t.co/SMwuiWnayT pic.twitter.com/U8jCL0k1fQ

I’m actually shocked.

CBC is straight up bragging: “How we shut down one of Canada’s biggest news content farms”

This is literally the description on their YouTube channel and it shows that they get more views than them and CTV news.

Unbelievable. pic.twitter.com/8rDSshIZQg

Insane!

One of the most famous modern aphorisms on Wall Street belongs to Bank of America Chief Investment Strategist, Michael Hartnett, who a decade ago wisely said that "markets stop panicking when policymakers start panicking." Last night, Japan's policymakers - faced with record long-end rates and record paper losses on insurer books - finally panicked.

Just hours after we reported that Japan's life insurance companies are facing staggering losses...

... first Reuters and then Bloomberg reported (which means that this was not a "scoop" but a premeditated trial balloon by Tokyo meant to hit all major news outlets) that Japan will take a page right out of Janet Yellens' Activist Treasury Issuance playbook and will "consider" trimming issuance of super-long bonds in the wake of recent sharp rises in yields for the notes, in an attempt to remove long-dated supply which has slammed prices for long-dated bonds to record low as policymakers seek to soothe market concerns about worsening government finances.

Predictably, super-long bond yields slumped on the report, pushing down the Japanese yen and U.S. Treasury yields along the way, as markets cheered Tokyo's readiness to arrest spikes in long-term interest rates by shifting duration from the long-end to the short-end.

According to Reuters, Japan's Ministry of Finance (MOF) will consider tweaking the composition of its bond program for the current fiscal year, which could involve cuts to its super-long bond issuance, said the sources who had direct knowledge of the plan. This is very similar to the ATI Yellen unveiled a little over two years ago when she shifted much of the bond issuance from coupons to bill, in order to keep funding the US deficit through Bills, and the draining of the Reverse Repo account, which is now almost empty.

The MOF will make a final decision after discussions with market participants around mid- to late-June, the sources said.

The plan followed the recent record surge in super-long bond yields to never before seen levels due to a freeze in demand from traditional buyers such as life insurers and global market jitters over steadily rising debt levels.

The yield on the 30-year Japanese government bond (JGB) fell 18 basis points to 2.85% after the report, its lowest since May 4. The benchmark 10-year yield dropped 7 points to 1.43%.

The slide in super-long JGB yields also helped push long-dated US Treasury yields, which were set for their biggest one-day fall since mid-April. The yield on 30-year bonds was down 7 basis points at 4.963% in early London trading on Tuesday.

"We've been arguing that something had to give to correct the supply-demand imbalance in long-end JGBs. The market is thinking it will be the MOF," Societe Generale said in a note, echoing what we in turn have been saying for weeks.

If the MOF were to reduce issuance of 20-, 30- or 40-year JGBs, it would likely increase issuance of shorter-dated debt instead, the sources said; As such, the total planned size of JGB issuance for the current fiscal year that ends March 2026 will remain unchanged from 172.3 trillion yen ($1.21 trillion), they said.

Such a move would also mean that any marginal demand for duration would have to head to the US, which thanks to the Trump Big, Beautiful, Budget Busting Deal will have lots of long-dated supply for years to come.

Global markets have been rattled by sharp bond sell-offs recently, including for US Treasuries, as President Trump's sweeping tariffs and erratic policies heightened worries about the status of U.S. sovereign debt as the world's safest haven. In Japan, super-long bonds were also sold off as Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba faced political pressure for tax cuts and big spending ahead of an upper house poll in July, policies that could add to the country's already huge public debt.

Japan's government is considering compiling another spending package, though ruling coalition executives agreed on Tuesday to avoid issuing fresh deficit-financing bonds. The clash over fiscal policy prompted Japan's PM to say the quiet part out loud, admitting last week that Japan's financial condition was worse than Greece.

The JGB collapse has also turned investors' attention to whether the MOF, which oversees debt issuance, and BOJ could take measures to tame rises in super-long yields.

The BOJ, for its part, is unlikely to make any big tweaks to its current bond-taper (or QE) program, sources told Reuters. But the recent market rout could affect its taper plans for fiscal 2026 onward, which will be decided at next month's policy meeting, they said.

"Issuance of super-long JGBs could decline in July at the earliest," which would ease concern over the outcome of Wednesday's 40-year JGB auction, said Katsutoshi Inadome, senior strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management.

"But this offers only temporary relief and won't lead to a decline in Japan's debt balance," he said. "With the MOF likely doing its part, politicians now need to make efforts to avoid increasing debt."

Separately, Bloomberg reported that a Japanese government advisory panel urged authorities to step up fiscal consolidation efforts, as the Bank of Japan’s ongoing monetary tightening efforts raise the risk of higher debt-servicing costs for the world’s most indebted developed nation.

The Fiscal System Council warned that the BOJ’s interest rate hikes and scaled-back bond purchases are fueling a steady rise in government bond yields, and the country’s finances need more attention, according to a proposal submitted to Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato on Tuesday.

“We must manage finances with a heightened sense of urgency to prevent rising debt costs from crowding out essential policy spending,” the panel said.  The call for fiscal prudence came as the BOJ continues to unwind its ultra-loose policy, following its first interest rate hike in 18 years in March last year. 

The panel cautioned that Japan could face a sovereign credit rating downgrade if fiscal discipline continues to erode.

"A downgrade of government bonds is not a far-fetched scenario,” the proposal said, referencing Moody’s Ratings’ recent downgrade of US sovereign debt as a precedent. “If trust in Japan’s public finances erodes, it could trigger a downgrade, sharp interest rate hikes, market turmoil and ultimately negative consequences for households and businesses,” it said.

* * *

Commenting on the MOF's trial balloon, Goldman's head of EMEA Delta-One trading Rich Privorotsky said that the Japanese strategy would be short-term helpful "but if this is the long term solution then the issue will be the FX." 

Sure enough, the yen - which at last check saw record long hedge fund exposure - is sliding, with Privorotsky listing the following reasons for the currency weakness:

1. yields mechanically come lower in the end of curve, compressing yield differentials
2. more of debt will be owned by the domestic population hence less demand for yen 
3. not being able to sell debt is not a generally a good thing as a larger percentage gets owned by your CB. 

Privo's conclusion is that while for now it remains "a small overall move for the JPY... it's worth but worth watching if this becomes a theme outside US, as a result of the near record pile up of dollar shorts recently."

Not surprisingly to many, US durable good orders tumbled (-6.3% MoM) in preliminary April data (better than the 7.8% MoM decline expected), following March's 7.6% MoM tariff-front-running surge (revised down from the initial 9.2% MoM jump). Headline orders remain 2.7% higher on a YoY basis...

Source: Bloomberg

Ex-Transports, orders rose 0.2% MoM (better than the unchanged print expected) and up from the downwardly revised 0.2% decline in March...

Source: Bloomberg

The value of core capital goods orders, a less-volatile proxy for investment in equipment that excludes aircraft and military hardware, decreased 1.3% last month after an upwardly revised 0.3% gain in March.

Such shipments fell 0.1%.

Because orders can be canceled, the government uses data on shipments as an input to gross domestic product, which reflect when a payment has been made. 

Capital goods shipments rose 3.2%, including defense and commercial aircraft, after a 1% decline in March.

The report showed bookings for commercial aircraft, which are volatile from month to month, slumped 51.5% after rising in April.

Boeing Co. said it received only eight orders in April, the fewest since May 2024. That was down from 192 March orders that were the most since 2023.