Distinction Matter - Subscribed Feeds

Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times,

Tom Pawlak and Robert Trae Zipperer live 2,200 miles apart, but they share a common belief: that unlike old soldiers, no gravestone or marker of a U.S. military member should ever fade.

For Pawlak, 73, from Arizona, restoring the bronze plaques of veterans and those lost in combat to their original pristine condition has become his mission in life.

Zipperer, 56, is a Navy veteran from Florida who is equally passionate about restoring gravestones.

Pawlak’s quest began during a visit to a private cemetery in Phoenix in 2014, where some plaques were badly tarnished and hard to read.

As Pawlak scrubbed, buffed, and polished one marker, the name of U.S. Marine Pfc. Oscar Palmer Austin began to emerge.

Born on Jan. 15, 1948, Austin died in Vietnam on Feb. 23, 1969.

Pawlak then realized that Austin, a 21-year-old African American soldier from Texas, was not an ordinary recruit; he had received the Medal of Honor for bravery on the battlefield and the Purple Heart after being wounded.

The U.S. Navy later named a guided missile destroyer in his honor—the USS Oscar Austin.

Pawlak reached out to the ship’s commander to share his discovery and the restoration work he had completed. Two weeks later, he received a package from the Navy that contained a flag, as well as a blue cap with “USS Oscar Austin” emblazoned on it.

He began wearing the cap everywhere he went.

“As soon as I began wearing the cap, people would stop me on the street to talk,” he said.

He started going out more often to cemeteries, polishing and sanding the letters on the tarnished bronze plaques, Pawlak said.

Robert Trae Zipperer, founder of VeteranGraves.com, launched a volunteer effort cleaning gravestones across the nation in 2019. Courtesy Robert Zipperer

In 2014, he founded Mission Restore Bronze, a social media movement on Facebook that has drawn thousands of volunteers to the cause.

Remembering a Friend

Originally from Chicago, Pawlak never served in the military. However, he feels a deep connection with veterans and the military—he lost a friend just three weeks after the friend arrived in Vietnam in 1967.

He thinks of him every time he visits a cemetery and notices the sad condition of the bronze grave markers.

“I‘ll walk through a cemetery and see a bad marker. I’ll have everything with me and finish it,” Pawlak said.

Pawlak recalls his first volunteer: a naval commander who wanted to restore his father’s bronze plaque in Tampa Bay, Florida.

Other volunteers would ask him how to clean plaques when visiting cemeteries.

Pawlak offers free jars of his proprietary wax, along with video instructions on how to apply it correctly for lasting results.

The volunteer effort “just exploded from the start,” he said.

“I couldn’t leave the house. I took a shower and had 16 messages when I returned,” he said.

His efforts have inspired at least one Eagle Scout project in the Phoenix area.

In 2017, 13-year-old Levi Brown assembled a team to clean and restore approximately 250 bronze grave markers at Greenwood Cemetery in Phoenix.

Pawlak said he has no idea how many military personnel plaques have been cleaned and restored through his virtual movement.

Tom Pawlak of Arizona started Mission Restore Bronze Markers in 2014 as a one-man effort that has grown into thousands of volunteers nationwide. Courtesy of Tom Pawlak

Most volunteers are people he doesn’t know and has never met in person.

Since his project launched, Reserve Officers’ Training Corps programs for youths have carried the mantle forward, as well as court diversion programs and other groups.

“I‘ll just walk around and hand out wax jars to people,” Pawlak said. “I’ll have markers that I take care of regularly—people I’ve known.”

Often, he'll get a call from a potential volunteer and send a jar of wax on request. Each jar contains enough product to clean 12 to 16 markers.

However, if Pawlak had to estimate the number of volunteers, it would potentially be well over 75,000, based on the viewership of his YouTube videos.

“We’ve included first responders and police. I'll supply them with wax,” he said.

During another visit to Phoenix, Pawlak felt compelled to take action when he noticed that the bronze plaques commemorating the 622 Arizona soldiers killed in Vietnam needed love and care.

With a brush in hand, he and other volunteers scoured, scrubbed, and waxed the bronze plaques and statues of foot soldiers, restoring them to a remarkable shine for Memorial Day.

He’s also cleaned bronze plaques in Washington and even the statue of Gen. George S. Patton at the museum dedicated to Patton in California.

He said that getting down on his knees to clean is easy, but getting back up is hard. He could use more eager, younger volunteers.

Keeping Honor Clean

While researching his family tree in Lee County, Florida, Zipperer observed that many military gravesites were in poor condition, with some hardly legible due to mold.

A veteran's headstone is covered in black mold. Courtesy of Robert Zipperer

The once-bright headstones had turned dark gray, making the names hard to read.

Zipperer faced frustrating regulatory challenges in Fort Myers before finally obtaining the necessary approval to clean the headstones in time for Memorial Day in 2019.

Initially, city officials claimed he needed permission from the families to clean the headstones, warning that he would be trespassing and “soliciting” otherwise.

However, after Zipperer brought his case to the media, the city changed its position.

“I’m just a guy that doesn’t take no for an answer. You can’t have a veteran’s headstone covered in crud. It’s just not American,” Zipperer told The Epoch Times.

The headstone as it now appears after cleaning. Courtesy of Robert Zipperer

Rules for Restoration

Zipperer later discovered no standard operating procedures at the local, state, or federal levels concerning cleaning veterans’ grave markers.

He contacted the National Cemetery Administration in Washington, which advised him to submit a proposal in writing.

Eventually, the agency incorporated his ideas into national guidelines for the volunteer maintenance of veteran and military gravestones.

“The graves just sit out there covered in nastiness,” Zipperer said.

“I’ve had to get out hedge clippers and cut bushes to reach a veteran’s grave enveloped in vegetation.

“You‘ll cut it all back, and you’ll clean it all up, and then you'll scrub the headstone and get it clean.”

The NCA, part of the Department of Veterans Affairs, estimates that it has supplied more than 15 million headstones to national, state, and private cemeteries nationwide since 1973.

In fiscal year 2022, the agency provided 347,361 headstones and markers for military personnel buried in the nation’s cemeteries.

The VA operates 156 national cemeteries and 35 soldiers’ lots and monument sites across 42 states and Puerto Rico.

Members of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment place flags at the headstones of U.S. military personnel buried at Arlington National Cemetery, in preparation for Memorial Day in Arlington, Va., on May 22, 2025. Nearly 1,500 service members entered the cemetery at pre-dawn hours to begin the process of placing a flag in front of approximately 260,000 headstones. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

More than 4 million Americans, including military personnel from every war and conflict, are interred in VA national cemeteries. Approximately 84 percent of veterans are in private cemeteries throughout the country, according to the American Association of Retired Persons.

Zipperer believes the deteriorating condition of veteran headstones signifies a “lack of caring” and funding.

Through his website, veterangraves.com, he hopes to recruit more volunteers and financial support for his cause.

“The problem is we don’t have the [public] funding,” Zipperer said. “Nobody creates funding for veterans’ headstones. I’m doing what I can do, but I don’t have an unlimited budget.

“Every state should be contributing to this. Every American should be contributing to this cause.”

Zipperer estimates he’s spent more than $500,000 out of pocket to promote his mission on YouTube.

“There are people in Australia who love their veterans as much as Americans love their veterans,” he said.

Before and after images of a bronze veteran grave plaque. Courtesy of Tom Pawlak

“I’m just broadcasting it out there to whoever receives the message.”

Pawlak said he also had to use his own funds to support Mission Restore Bronze Markers.

“I just dedicated myself to doing it,” he said.

Celebrity Appeal

In 2021, before Memorial Day, Zipperer appeared on the ABC syndicated talk show “Live With Kelly and Ryan” to present his case.

The response was nothing like he had anticipated.

“I’m naive, I thought this was going to be it,” he said. “Tom Hanks was going to reach out to me. Clint Eastwood was going to reach out to me. Gary Sinise was going to reach out to me. Steven Spielberg was going to reach out to me.”

Patriotic celebrities, one and all, he said.

“And they would provide the help I needed to make this vision a reality. I thought all the senators and governors were going to call. My phone was going to blow up,” he said.

“Do you know how many people called?”

No one, he said, except for a nice woman in New Jersey, who saw him on television.

“We love our veterans in our county,” the woman said to him over the phone. “We’re going to take up your cause here.”

She asked if Zipperer would attend the county’s Memorial Day celebration, and he agreed.

An American flag at sunset in Springerville, Ariz., on May 25, 2025. Allan Stein/The Epoch Times

Zipperer was struck by the community turnout in Hunterdon County that day.

He finally grasped the true purpose of this mission.

“This is an American cause,” Zipperer said. “We can make this happen.”

In May 2013, John Rogers, a longtime Federal Reserve economist, was in Shanghai for an academic forum when he received an email that would eventually alter the course of his life and career.

The message was from someone claiming to be a Chinese graduate student. Rogers says he declined an offer of payment but kept in touch, later accepting an all-expenses-paid invitation to return to China. That visit, U.S. prosecutors allege, marked the beginning of a yearslong effort by Chinese intelligence to extract sensitive information from inside one of the most important economic institutions in the United States.

John Rogers

In January of this year, Rogers was arrested by the FBI on federal charges of economic espionage, the Wall Street Journal reports. He is accused of conspiring with Chinese operatives posing as students, handing over internal Federal Reserve materials in hotel rooms in China, and accepting travel accommodations arranged by his handlers. Authorities said they found $50,000 in cash at his Washington-area apartment, which his wife claimed as hers.

Rogers, who left the Fed in 2021, has denied all charges, maintaining that he never knowingly assisted a foreign government. His attorney argues that the indictment is misleading and lacks critical context. “The indictment presents an overly-simplistic, one-sided, and skewed version of events,” the lawyer said, adding that the defense team would mount a full rebuttal in court.

The case is one of the most detailed yet in exposing Beijing’s efforts to cultivate informants within U.S. institutions not traditionally seen as espionage targets, such as the Federal Reserve. American officials say China has broadened its intelligence gathering under President Xi Jinping, targeting not just defense contractors and tech companies, but also government economists and financial policymakers.

A 2022 Senate committee report alleged a coordinated campaign by China dating back at least to 2013 to gain insight into the Fed’s internal operations and decision-making. In one incident cited by the report, Chinese authorities allegedly detained a Fed employee in a hotel and threatened to jail him unless he shared economic data. The Chinese Foreign Ministry at the time dismissed the allegations as “political disinformation.”

In response to the report, Fed Chair Jerome Powell defended the central bank’s security policies, noting that staff travel and contacts with foreign nationals are subject to strict review. The Fed tightened its rules further in 2021, banning staff from accepting gifts or compensation from individuals or organizations in countries under U.S. export controls, including China.

Rogers’s academic and personal ties to China deepened over the years. He earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Virginia and joined the Fed in 1994, later becoming a senior adviser researching currency and interest-rate issues. Though he held an impressive title, people familiar with his role said he had limited access to high-level Fed deliberations and did not attend Federal Open Market Committee meetings.

Still, his resume and position appeared to make him an attractive target. In 2017, Rogers returned to China after accepting an invitation from the same “graduate student” who first contacted him. According to an indictment unsealed earlier this year, Rogers asked that his travel and lodging be covered, which the individual agreed to. 

That same year, Rogers began an online relationship with Liu Yu, a 31-year-old makeup artist from Shanghai, whom he met through a Chinese matchmaking service called Sky Love. After months of exchanging messages, Rogers arranged to meet her in person during a stop in Shanghai. They spent two days sightseeing, exchanging gifts, and sharing a hot-pot dinner, according to Sky Love, which later publicized the relationship as one of its success stories. The couple married in Hong Kong in March 2018, and Liu gave birth to their daughter later that year in Shanghai.

During this period, Rogers exchanged information with his Chinese contacts, including internal Fed materials and research reports. In one 2018 text message to a handler, he cautioned: “There has to be a lot more done to make this legitimate in the eyes of the Fed. Remember, it has to be teaching and not consulting. I am only allowed to teach.” Rogers added, “That would cause me a lot of trouble!” if the nature of the relationship were questioned.

His attorneys argue that these messages show Rogers’s intent to operate within Fed rules, not to conspire with foreign agents. In court filings, they described the exchanges as part of a teacher-student dynamic.

By the end of 2018, Rogers had taken a sabbatical and was working as a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University. He allegedly continued to supply notes to his Chinese contacts, including materials prepared for a Fed official awaiting Senate confirmation.

In 2020, Fed officials began raising concerns about Rogers’s foreign connections. In an interview with the Office of Inspector General, Rogers downplayed any wrongdoing but admitted: “They’d come out with packets of hundred-dollar bills.” He denied sharing classified materials, but prosecutors later charged him with making false statements in that interview.

He lost access to most Fed resources soon after and was formally forced out in 2021. Months before leaving, he signed a teaching contract with Fudan offering roughly $150,000 for one semester per year. He also secured a $300,000 research grant from a Chinese government-affiliated institution.

Even after his departure from the Fed, Rogers continued receiving messages from his Chinese contacts. In 2022, one invited him and his wife to Qingdao for another paid engagement, writing, “All related expenses will be covered by us, and we can pay for the class.” It remains unclear if Rogers accepted the invitation.

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

Memorial Day

We hope you are all enjoying the Memorial Day long weekend! We could all use a nice long weekend after the past few months, which have been quite intense on the news, policy, geopolitical, and market fronts. Today is meant to honor members of the military who were killed in service. I am thankful for all that the military does, and have been incredibly lucky to be part of the growth of Academy Securities, which continues to grow our capital, increase the size and scope of the Geopolitical Intelligence Group, and, most importantly, is continuing to hire veterans.

To allow you to more fully enjoy your Memorial Day, and because, quite frankly, it is difficult to think of something new to add, we will keep today’s T-Report short and hopefully sweet.

While somewhat squeamish about Thursday’s shift to recommending Start Adding Duration, we will stick to that for now (but are closely watching foreign bond yields and the dollar, as we think we need some support there for U.S. yields to move much lower).

Uncertainty – Main Street vs. Wall Street

It was less than 2 months ago that markets were “bracing” for Main Street over Wall Street. Basically, policies that would be good for Main Street would be followed, even if they hurt Wall Street.

At the time, we argued that Main Street and Wall Street were more closely aligned than that simple message implied. There are differences, and we could certainly see (or see again) things that could hurt margins and therefore stocks, while helping people with jobs and taxes, but overall, the two are probably going to have to move in the same direction.

Wall Street seems less uncertain:

• VIX is slightly elevated at 20. Elevated yes, but with a high degree of uncertainty, no.
• Friday’s tariffs posts from the President regarding iPhones and the EU moved markets a little (yes, I think we can call 1% “a little” in this trading environment). But markets didn’t panic, and we saw buying throughout the day, because guess what? A few weeks ago, the President seemed happy with Tim Cook and just ahead of negotiations in Geneva with China, the President put out on Truth Social that “80%” seemed right – and we came back with 30%. Lo and behold (surprising absolutely no one) the EU tariffs have been put back on delay (to the July 9th date that was the original date of the April 9th 90-day pause). Stock futures are now slightly higher than where they closed Thursday night (before that recent set of posts that markets have learned, correctly (for now) to largely ignore).
• Putin. Peace? Sanctions? Markets seem nonplussed to the headlines. New sanctions would likely be bad for markets (similarly, if new sanctions are imposed on Iran), but markets seem to have very little concern about that risk.
• The CNN Fear and Greed Index is back to a reading of Greed. Personally, I don’t think this index has kept up with the times, as so many new tools for investors have been developed, but it is a proxy of something and does indicate that markets have become relatively docile again.
• It would be remiss not to point out that TQQQ (3x leveraged QQQ) continues to see outflows, and retail has been timing this market pretty darn well. This works against the narrative about Wall Street becoming less uncertain, but it is what it is.

What was the point of all that?

The point, I think, is that while Wall Street is less uncertain (or less concerned about uncertainty), Main Street seems VERY Uncertain.

Anecdotally, most things we are hearing fit the narrative that Main Street (call it, Corporate America of all shapes and sizes) is highly uncertain and is struggling with the uncertainty. The degree of the struggle varies, from minimal to severe (small companies dependent on China form the bulk of the latter). Make no mistake, there are pockets of the economy that are humming along. Some companies stand to benefit, even benefit greatly, from Budget 2026, deregulation, and spending linked to improving national security through national production.

But the vast majority of what we hear is uncertainty. The difficulty is figuring out when, where, or if that uncertainty will hit the economic data.

The difficulty with finding evidence that this higher uncertainty on “Main Street” will actually impact the economy stems from several issues:

• The initial ramp up in orders to get ahead of the tariffs, and then the renewed effort to take advantage of the pauses in case the pauses turn out to be temporary. Amidst the backdrop of uncertainty has been the need to stockpile resources, making the economy potentially look stronger than it is.
• Contracts and commitments don’t change quickly. If you entered into a contract when everything seemed geared towards growth (and we are hopeful the administration is pivoting back to that, rather than starting to double back down on tariffs), you are committed to that. It is only as contracts get renewed, or decisions for new projects get made, that uncertainty would start to show up. It might be early for that, hence little evidence of actually slower spending, despite the message of caution.
• Supply chain problems and tariff-linked inflation. Can you see that? Maybe if you squint really hard (seeing some people point to a turn in Truflation data, that I need to explore more). Here again we have two issues with timing:
  • Given the inventory ordered to prepare for tariffs, we wouldn’t expect to see much until June/July (which are approaching). All of the “temporary” reductions will likely have pushed risks of “unstocked shelves” further down the road. Which may mean that the issue will never materialize, but also makes it easy to ignore the risk.
  • Increased pricing tends not to get implemented overnight. There will be some absorption of the tariffs. First step is to get the exporter to cut a deal. Then the importer will likely “eat” some of the cost. Even what they decide to pass on will take some time, as many prices have been contractually agreed upon, forcing it to take time before we see it in the system. Also, it seems like it would be wise not to draw the President’s ire by ratcheting up prices, so you would slow play it.

We will be spending the better part of this week trying to figure out where we might identify early warning signs that Wall Street’s lack of concern is unwarranted and Main Street’s concerns will impact the data, the economy, and then markets.

Bottom Line

Wall Street seems less concerned than Main Street, but much of the data doesn’t support the anecdotal evidence that Main Street is concerned.

That is the conundrum.

• Is Main Street even concerned, or do we face a time where “talk is cheap” and it is easier to talk about uncertainty than it is to change behavior?
• Even if Main Street is concerned, have they done enough to bide their time, and as policy shifts towards pro-growth, the concerns will reverse course?
• Or have we already set in motion, with even 10% tariffs, a chain of events that will lead to a slower economy and higher prices in the short-term? This is probably my base case, but other cases are certainly plausible.

The more the administration focuses on growth, deregulation, and national production for national security, the better. Late last week, there were indications that we might be getting away from that. Minor indications, that have been assuaged by the extension, but we might all need to be thinking that while peak tariff uncertainty (danger) is behind us, we may also be past peak “dealz” optimism.

Finally, what I think is more likely is that as we digest the uncertainty going forward and the certainty of what has already been done, we should brace for a change in the economic winds again.

In no way, shape, or form do I see the current trajectory leading to Depression or even Deep Recession (unlike the pre-delay, no budget in sight policies) but that doesn’t mean markets haven’t gotten ahead of themselves (both equities and bonds).

The worst of the volatility and price action is almost certainly behind us, but that doesn’t mean the market won’t over-reach and it seems like currently there is a risk that Wall Street is ignoring Main Street’s uncertainty.

As we do some data dives this week trying to figure out what the “steady” state of the economy is likely to look like by the end of the summer (assuming we are roughly on the current policy glidepath), we will share that.

There is a chance the data dive makes us more optimistic about current market levels, but my sense is that in digging deeper, we will highlight some impacts that the market isn’t pricing in.

Enjoy the weekend and hopefully we all have an enjoyable and productive summer!

Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,

Make no mistake about it: The Democratic Party is facing an existential crisis that even their media allies can't spin anymore. The New York Times, the crown jewel of the liberal media establishment, just published a devastating analysis showing how the Democrats' supposed stronghold on American politics has crumbled under the MAGA movement.

While Democrats continue their tired routine of Trump-bashing and pretending to care about working Americans, the numbers tell a completely different story. The Times' analysis reveals a political earthquake that's reshaping the electoral landscape, and it's not in the Democrats' favor.

“All told, Mr. Trump has increased the Republican Party's share of the presidential vote in each election he's been on the ballot in close to half the counties in America — 1,433 in all,” the paper writes. 

“It is a staggering political achievement, especially considering that Mr. Trump was defeated in the second of those three races, in 2020. By contrast, Democrats have steadily expanded their vote share in those three elections in only 57 of the nation’s 3,100-plus counties.”

In the 2024 election, six times as many counties shifted toward the GOP as toward the Democrats. 

While 435 counties trended more Democratic compared to 2012, 2,678 moved more Republican—by an even larger average margin of 13.3 points versus 8.8 for Democrats.

That's not just a loss; that's a political bloodbath.

The Democrats' problem? 

They're increasingly becoming the party of coastal elites and college-educated snobs. 

Meanwhile, Trump has built an unstoppable coalition that includes working-class voters across all racial and ethnic backgrounds. 

The New York Times didn’t sugarcoat the situation for the Democrats.

Counties that have become steadily more Republican exist in some of the country’s bluest strongholds, including New York City, Philadelphia and Honolulu. Mr. Trump’s party is still losing in those places, but by significantly less. At the same time, Mr. Trump has driven Republican margins to dizzying new heights in the nation’s reddest bastions.

In New York, 43 out of 62 counties shifted at least 10 points more Republican in 2024 compared to 2012, cutting the statewide Democratic margin in half. The only county to consistently trend Democratic was ultra-progressive Tompkins County, home to Ithaca. Meanwhile, even deep-blue and diverse areas like the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn have trended Republican in multiple elections, alongside rural upstate counties like St. Lawrence and Lewis.

“We could be entering a world where the greatest predictor of voting behavior is no longer race,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) told the New York Times.

“Donald Trump’s greatest achievement — his greatest electoral achievement — lies not in breaking the blue wall in the industrial Midwest, but in beginning to break the blue walls in states like New York, and in counties like the Bronx.”

The Democrats' old playbook is dead, and they know it. 

Their own pollster Ben Tulchin admitted "the math doesn't work" anymore. 

While they're stuck pandering to wealthy urbanites and pushing radical policies that normal Americans reject, Trump's MAGA coalition keeps growing stronger.

The only thing that could derail this momentum is if Republicans get complacent or drop the ball. 

I hope they don’t.

The MAHA Report, released last week, focuses on deliverables that actually fall within the executive's constitutionally limited scope of authority. Where some have argued that increased federal authority is justified to "Make America Healthy Again," the report outlines the ease of corporate capture when control becomes centralized.

Instead, the administration is going all-in on partnering with America's farmers and ranchers. "We Can Not Succeed in This Movement Without the Partnership of the American Farmer, "said RFK Jr during the MAHA Report presser. 

We recognize that we cannot succeed in this movement without the partnership of the American farmer. The partnership between @HHSGov and @SecRollins @USDA is crucial to Make America Healthy Again. pic.twitter.com/f1JDDOJQRY

With consensus being rare within the agricultural industry, ZeroHedge set about finding what a farmer-focused partnership might look like to MAHA Ag leaders. Surprisingly, we found consensus on key issues ranging from regulatory reform to mission realignment and consumer choice.  

Judith McGeary, the Executive Director of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance (FARFA), tells ZeroHedge that a partnership with America's farmers looks like regulatory reforms first. 

"We need an overhaul of government programs -- not simply eliminating regulations, but a careful re-crafting of them -- to develop scale-appropriate regulation that fosters fair and open competition in the marketplace for consumers to have real choices and access to healthy food."

McGeary further explains that current regulations, crafted by monopolies, prevent small producers from marketplace access. 

"Regulations in almost every area of food -- including meat processing, egg grading, and produce safety -- are designed to be workable for large-scale, chemical and confinement-based producers. And even when small, regenerative producers find a way to manage to comply with the regulations, they are largely either kept out of the markets due to corporate control or undercut by misleading labels and marketing."

Bill Bullard, the CEO of R-CALF USA, shares McGeary's call for regulatory reform.

"We appreciate that this report identifies key problems within our beef supply chain that our government has refused to address, until now," Bullard said. "These problems include undue corporate influence over national dietary guidelines; a revolving door between government regulators and regulated corporations; and the corporatization and consolidation of our cattle and beef market."

Bullard adds that partnering with America's farmers must include the USDA's original mission of antitrust enforcement and restored consumer confidence with a return to Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (MCOOL) requirements.

"Partnering with us will include an emphasis on antitrust and Packers and Stockyards Act enforcement to curb corporatization and consolidation; an end to the demonization of beef and recognition of its critically important dietary role; reinstatement of MCOOL, as where beef is produced and under whose production standards it was produced is important to ensure safety and wholesomeness," Bullard said, adding that he's hopeful Congress can make headway in the next Farm Bill.

Bullard appeared on Fox Business last week, warning about the ongoing hollowing out of rural communities across America.

For Tennessee rancher and Agricultural attorney, Dustin Kittle, the corporate capture of the Farm Credit Administration (FCA) has hit too close to home. Kittle, who has dedicated his career to saving the family farm, tells ZeroHedge a partnership must include the mission realignment of the FCA.

"The Farm Credit System was originally created to safeguard family farms.  It's now funneling half of its $400 billion loan portfolio into mega-loans ($25 million and higher) to the usual suspects of Big Ag," Kittle explains.  "In fact, there are Fortune 500 companies who have taken out billion dollar loans, at reduced interest rates, through the U.S. Farm Credit System."

Kittle continues by outlining the impacts. 

"If we eliminate the Big Ag mega-loans draining Farm Credit's funding dry, it frees up $200 billion in lending capital; enough capital to provide a $400,000 farm loan to 500,000 family farms; near identical to the same number of farms the USDA found to be in need of financing in a 2023 Report issued by its Economic Research Service."

Cole Bolton, rancher and Senior Vice President of Frontier Bank of Texas, spends his time trying to educate ranchers on proper leverage, debt reduction discipline and how to build a balance sheet to even qualify for lending. 

Bolton tells ZeroHedge that regulatory reforms are needed more than ever. 

"Now, more than ever, producers need access to liquidity for expansion or just simple stability," Bolton said. "For too long ranchers have been indentured to leverage and the banking regulatory guidelines are making it harder for them to qualify for operating loans."

According to the report Kittle referenced, the United States is losing farms at an alarming rate. Over the last five years, 141,733 farms have disappeared. That's an average of approximately 28,347 farms per year—about 77 farms per hour.

Given that small family farms make up 96-98% of all American farms, it's easy to understand how an industry - that rarely agreed on anything  - has been able to find consensus on what partnership looks like.  

Time is of the essence. This is why ZeroHedge has launched the first farmer-focused partnership with the Beef Initiative—a rancher-direct think tank. Together, we are committed to leading by example and creating innovative solutions to inject liquidity directly back into the hands that produce our food supply.  

As monopoly-guided regulations disproportionately burden small players, and public funds are prioritized for mega-donor reciprocity, we must look to consumer choice and free markets over bigger government. 

Simultaneously, MAHA farmers welcome the opportunity to partner and stand united in calls for regulatory reforms and the mission realignment of executive agencies.

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Is this a “stealth” bear market? Of course, you may be asking yourself what I mean by that.

Historically, bear markets have tended to be pretty evident, as highlighted in the chart below. These bear markets are often more protracted affairs that lead to investors developing profoundly negative sentiment towards markets. This article will use a weekly moving average crossover to identify “corrections” and “bear markets.” While our definition may not “jive” with the mainstream narrative, the reasoning will be evident momentarily.

When the short-term moving average crosses below the long-term, a “sell signal” occurs. That trigger suggests that investors should reduce equity risk in portfolios. When that signal reverses, investors should increase equity risk. Since 1995, the weekly indicator has only given three “false” signals. However, those signals were quickly reversed as the bull market continued, doing little harm to investors’ total returns. The signals warned investors of critical downturns to reduce equity exposure and avoid more significant capital destruction.

The only actual “bear market” over this period was the 2000 “Dot.com crash” and the 2008 “Financial Crisis.” These were the only two declines that broke the previous bullish price trend. Since then, every highlighted drawdown has been a “correction” within the ongoing bullish price trend. Of course, that was a function of the Federal Reserve’s repeated interventions to mitigate any economic and financial instability risk.

In 2000 and 2008, the moving average crossover signal warned investors that a recessionary onset was coming 9 and 12 months ahead of actual recognition. The weekly moving average signals also triggered a sell signal in early 2022 ahead of the ~20% decline, although the NBER did not recognize a recessionary onset. For our purposes, 2022 was a “stealth” bear market. While the major indices did not correct that much, there was a lot of devastation below the surface, hidden by the effects of “passive investing.”

Notably, these signals are not always perfect. The drawdown was so swift in 2020 during the pandemic shutdown that the signals to reduce and increase exposure occurred within two months. However, outside of anomalous events, paying attention to these moving average signals over the longer term can provide investors with a valuable roadmap to follow.

But we will add one more piece of analysis to determine whether we are in a “stealth bear market“ or just a correction.

Risk Ranges & Signal Confirmations

Understanding that the market tends to lead the economy by six months or more, we can use longer-term market signals to help us navigate the risk of a more significant correction driven by a recessionary downturn.

We have produced a weekly “risk range analysis” in the #BullBearReport for several years. That report contains several measures of analysis, as shown below.

• The table compares the relative performance of each sector and market to the S&P 500 index.

• “MA XVER” (Moving Average Crossover) is determined by the short-term weekly moving average crossing positively or negatively with the long-term weekly moving average.

• The risk range is a function of the month-end closing price and the”“bet”” of the sector or market. (Ranges reset on the 1st of each month)

• The table shows the price deviation above and below the weekly moving averages.

For this analysis, we will focus on the far right column. In the above example, November 2021, every primary market and sector (except for the U.S. dollar) was on a bullish moving average crossover. Given this is weekly data, it is slower to move, which tends to provide better signals for both increasing and reducing portfolio risk.

The “Stealth Bear Market” Of 2022

Of course, in mid-January 2022, the market started to struggle, but the outlook for equities remained very bullish. The investor allocation and sentiment index remained at high levels in “greed” territory.

However, the number of markets and sectors on “bearish” moving average crossovers had increased markedly compared to just two months earlier. While that deterioration was increasing, akin to an undetected virus, the overall market appeared healthy.

However, the “stealth bear market” eroded investor capital as the virus spread. Each subsequent decline turned more markets and sectors into bearish sell signals. However, that erosion within the market also indicates when a stealth bear market is near completion. The report below is from the October 6th, 2022, Bull Bear Report:

“The selling pressure continued this week, taking almost every sector and market into double-digit deviations below long-term weekly moving averages. Such extremes are not sustainable, and when all markets and sectors are this oversold, a reflexive rally becomes highly probable.”

The table below shows that almost every sector and market had bearish moving average sell signals triggered. At the time, however, media headlines were filled with “death of the dollar,” recession warnings, and bear market alerts. However, such negative extremes are often coincident with market bottoms.

Of course, as we now know in hindsight, October 2022 marked the bottom of the market, and the recession predictions have faded into the past. While it was not the “great bear market” many had predicted, and the world did not end, even “stealth” bear markets can be painful.

Such seems to be where we are currently.

2025 Walking A Similar Path

Heading into the end of 2024, the market posted its second annual 20% gain since the 2022 correction. Unsurprisingly, virtually every primary market and sector was on weekly bullish buy signals, confirming the bull market trend was intact. However, as noted above, when virtually everything is a “buy,” the question should become, “Who is left to buy?” Such was the point we discussed in early January 2025 in “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

“With slowing economic growth, fiscal policy uncertainties, global challenges, overconfident sentiment, and ambitious earnings expectations, investors have plenty of reasons to approach the markets carefully. There will be a time to raise significant cash levels. A good portfolio management strategy will ensure exposure decreases and cash levels rise when the selling begins.”

Furthermore, investor sentiment and allocations are also extremely bullish, suggesting that market risk was increasing.

Of course, that overly bullish sentiment and investor allocation mix gave way in late March and early April as President Trump shocked the world with a more aggressive-than-expected tariff plan. That event caused a very sharp reversal of allocations and sentiment, leading to our conclusion on April 6th that there was “Hope In The Fear” for contrarian investors. To wit:

“The weekly “Risk Range Report” details three critical factors investors should know. The first is that the recent market crash has pushed every major market and sector well below normal monthly tolerances. Only during market crash events do you see such uniformity of extremes across all markets. Secondly, the deviations from longer-term moving averages have reached double digits. Such deep deviations across many sectors and markets are also unusual and historically precede bullish reversions to the mean.”

Furthermore, the investor sentiment and allocation measures were at more extreme lows.

“While readings are not as negative as seen during the 2020 correction or 2008 bear market, current readings are at levels that have also previously confirmed near-term market lows and reflexive rallies. When these readings are combined with the technical readings above, investors are provided with a higher degree of confidence versus non-confirmed readings.”

Since then, the market has recovered nicely. However, the question is whether the current “stealth bear market” is over, just as in October 2022.

Corrections Tend To Be Opportunities

Just as we saw in 2022, the promoters of “bearish porn” are seizing the headlines with irrational fears of the “loss of reserve currency status,” the “deficit doom loop,” and the impending “market crash” that will wipe out investors. Such headlines are great for getting clicks and views, but do little to help investors build long-term wealth. Sure, those things can happen, but they won’t happen this year, and most likely not in your lifetime. So it is crucial to focus on the time frame and factors within our control.

Once again, most markets and sectors are on “bearish crossovers.” Does this mean the “stealth bear market” is set to continue? Or was the April low, with profoundly deep negative sentiment, the end of the correction?

Unfortunately, it is too early to know for sure. However, we are watching the longer-term moving averages closely. When more of these indicators reverse from bearish to bullish, the return of a more bullish market will be indicated.

However, risk remains somewhat elevated for the moment, and investors should consider being more conscious of portfolio risk until things become more certain. The one crucial note is that reversing the current bearish signals to bullish is an opportunity for astute investors for longer-term returns.

Revert To Your Process

Given the uncertainty of what potentially happens next, the recent rally is an excellent opportunity to adjust portfolio risks to navigate the next leg of this market cycle.

Step 1) Clean Up Your Portfolio

1. Tighten up stop-loss levels to current support levels for each position.
2. Hedge portfolios against significant market declines.
3. Take profits in positions that have been big winners.
4. Sell laggards and losers.
5. Raise cash and rebalance portfolios to target weightings.

The next step is to rebalance your portfolio to the allocation that will most likely weather a “cold snap.” In other words, consider what sectors and markets will improve in whatever economic environment you believe we will experience in 2025.

Step 2) Compare Your Portfolio Allocation To The Model Allocation.

1. Determine areas requiring new or increased exposure.
2. Calculate how many shares to purchase to fill allocation requirements.
3. Determine cash requirements to make purchases.
4. Re-examine the portfolio to rebalance and raise sufficient cash for requirements.
5. Determine entry price levels for each new position.
6. Evaluate “stop-loss” levels for each position.
7. Establish “sell/profit taking” levels for each position.

Step 3) Have positions ready to execute accordingly, given the proper market set-up. In this case, we are looking for positions that have either a “value” tilt or have pulled back to support and provide a lower-risk entry opportunity.  

While market conditions remain uncertain, preparing and adjusting strategies can help investors navigate volatility confidently. As technical indicators flash warning signs, a well-structured risk management approach will protect capital and preserve long-term gains.

Understand that this “stealth bear market” will end. When it does, you want to be able to take advantage of it, not just recover with it.

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

“Is the Blue Party really only the customer service desk for the administrative state?” 

- Jeff Childers

It’s pretty universally acknowledged that America’s recent wars — say, starting with Vietnam — have been stupid, pointless, and fake in instigation. And yet the soldiers we sent into these fiascos acted bravely and honorably for the most part. So, it has felt a little weird to celebrate their sacrifices minus any sense of political justice, victory, or meaning in the endeavors they sacrificed for. Ergo, the holiday is lately reduced to a celebration of grilled meat.

This Memorial Day, for a change, the USA is not actively at war in some distant land, only against ourselves. One faction in this as yet cold civil war seeks to Make America Great Again (MAGA), and the other side seeks what. . . ? To do the opposite of that? Make America Disintegrate (MAD). It’s hard to come to another conclusion.

MAGA is led, of course, by Mr. Trump, president again after the strangest executive interregnum in our history.

At its plainest, MAGA means returning to an economy based on producing things of value. To many, this might conjure up the image of humming factories, good pay for honest work, and a well-ordered, content, patriotic populace grateful for their prosperity, in other words, something like the America of 1958, when Mr. Trump was entering puberty.

It’s a comforting vision. Parts of it seem possible to achieve. Maybe we can rebuild an industrial infrastructure of up-to-date factories. Didn’t we voluntarily deep-six all the old ones only a few decades ago? And for what reason? So that faraway nations rising out of darkness could make all the stuff we wanted at a fraction of the cost? Turned out to be a bad bargain based on supremely foolish short-term thinking.

It also came with a set of very corrosive financial arrangements based on the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. These are pretty abstruse, but suffice it to say they enabled us to rack up phenomenal debt that we will never be able to pay off. We even fooled ourselves into thinking that we could replace that old economy of factory production with financial games based on jiggering interest rates and innovating ever more complex swindles. That merely produced a fantastic divide between the financial gamesters raking in billions while the former factory workers were left broke, demoralized, sick, and strung-out on drugs.

As a basic proposition, it’s doubtful that we can return to anything like a 1958 disposition of things based on rising continental-scale enterprise, as in the Big Three automakers and General Foods. It all seemed like a good idea at the time, and the zeitgeist pushed it, but we can see where it landed us: in the ghastly suburban sprawl clusterfuck and the overall ill health of the people. Also the scale of things is done rising; is, in fact, contracting.

And yet we are surely lurching into a new disposition of things, probably featuring a reduced population (disease and infertility induced by the Covid vaccine op), falling energy production (despite the whoop to drill-baby-drill), and much smaller-scaled, re-localized production of goods and food — if we’re lucky. (Events are in the driver’s seat, not personalities, even gigantic ones like Mr. Trump’s.) If we’re not lucky, the disorders of change itself may overwhelm our ability to remain civilized.

The MAD faction is led by the Democratic Party, the party of Hoaxes, Hustles, and Hatred. Being more a religious cult (of envy, grievance, and revenge) than a political faction, this Memorial Day they celebrate their patron saint George Floyd, a fake martyr whose death by fentanyl overdose sparked a summer of looting, arson, and homicide followed by a fraud-saturated election.

The Black Lives Matter operation proved to be hustle, that is, an effort to extract money dishonestly. But it morphed into the even more pervasive DEI op, seeping into every institution of American life and contaminating each of them with incompetence and grift, larded with sanctimony. That’s over now, but what is the MAD Democratic Party left with? It has put itself at the service of the depraved Deep State, the rogue permanent bureaucracy that has developed a malevolent hive-mind dedicated to maintaining its perquisites at all costs. In other words, it is vested solely in power. . . power over the people of this land. . . to dominate, regulate, asset-strip, and punish for the crime of wishing to be civilized.

The MAD party is on the wane now. Its insanity has become so exorbitant that no one of healthy sensibility can bear to be associated with it. Those who remain involved in Democratic Party politics are largely those liable to prosecution for manifold crimes against the country, now using the most unprincipled dregs of the legal system to keep them out of prison. The party will be defeated utterly.

The Deep State it served is getting disassembled systematically by MAGA, deprived of funding, de-staffed, shut down. It has nothing left but lawfare and a claque of judges who will lose their battle with legitimate law and the Constitution. If it attempts to revive its street-fighting proxies this summer, that too will get shut down swiftly and harshly. Lessons will be learned. All of which is to say that the Deep State’s war against the American people could be drawing to a close. That is something to be grateful for this Memorial Day.

MAGA will then be left to battle with the forces of nature, which basically means physics, especially as applied to the mechanisms of money. MAGA could easily founder if it fails to face the current deformities of finance, namely the gross, untenable debt hanging over the country. I’m not so optimistic about how that might work out.

On Sunday President Trump declared once again that he wants to end the Gaza war "as quickly as possible," stating publicly what he had long previously been saying privately, according to Axios.

Sky News Arabia is among several outlets to cite unnamed sources Sunday into Monday as saying Trump is likely to announce a new big ceasefire deal, which aims to see the rest of the Israeli hostages come home, within the next days.

"We want to see if we can stop that. And Israel, we've been talking to them, and we want to see if we can stop that whole situation as quickly as possible," Trump said to reporters on Air Force One. He then said he hopes he can give the world good news soon.

Via Reuters

But at the moment Israel's government and military seems set on implementing an expanded offensive and occupation of the Gaza Strip. Axios cites the following:

• An IDF official told reporters Sunday that in two months the IDF will occupy 75% of the Strip.
• The official said most of Hamas' military command has been wiped out but its core fighting brigades are still functioning.

The reality also is that tens of thousands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants are still operational, utilizing the Strip's vast tunnel network to wage a guerilla-style insurgency.

On Monday, Israeli and other regional media are reporting that Israel is already rejecting Trump's reported plan, citing the "impossible conditions" still being set by Hamas, and the continued threat to Israeli national security and sovereignty.

The Times of Israel writes in a fresh report:

Responding to a Lebanese report that a new outline for a hostage and ceasefire proposal had been agreed upon in principle by Israel, a senior Israeli official said Monday the deal has been rejected.

“The proposal received by Israel cannot be accepted by any responsible government,” the official told the media, without giving any further details.

“Hamas is setting impossible conditions that mean a complete failure to meet the war goals, and an inability to release the hostages,” he said.

Like with the Ukraine war, President Trump has expressed increasing frustration over the Gaza situation. He wants to 'stop the killing' - and yet has continued massive amounts of arms and money flowing to one side of the war (the Israelis of course).

Meanwhile, internal unrest over Netanyahu's commitment to war grows...

Given the gruesome and heart-wrenching images of dead civilians and even children burning to death which continue to come out of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, the White House could just be responding to international pressure. No deal at this point seems to have any real potential at getting the warring sides to agree. Things continue to slide amid already hellish conditions in Gaza.

Increasingly, conflict is being renewed in the West Bank as well, amid fears of a new intifada which would see the Israelis go to war on several fronts. While Lebanon has been relatively quiet, Israeli warplanes have sporadically renewed attacks on sites in Beirut and south Lebanon.

Moscow has responded Monday to President Trump's latest fierce criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, cautioning of "emotional overload" at this "very important moment."

"We are really grateful to the Americans and to President Trump personally for their assistance in organizing and launching this negotiation process," began Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov when asked about Trump’s late Sunday remarks.

"Of course, at the same time, this is a very crucial moment, which is associated, of course, with the emotional overload of everyone absolutely and with emotional reactions," Peskov said. Other translations used "emotional overstrain".

There's been a noticeable frustration and impatience coming from the White House at the lack of progress toward peace. At first more of the pressure seemed to be on Zelensky and the Ukrainian side, but recent weeks have seem Trump's rhetoric shift to more pressure on Putin and the Kremlin.

"I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday night.

The below full statement is mainly aimed at Putin, but Trump has notably taken swipes at both sides over the weekend, as pointed out by the WSJ correspondent...

"I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY! He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever."

Trump blasts CRAZY Putin for killing innocents — and immediately blasts Zelensky for talking in a way he doesn’t like. https://t.co/Cwvs4WBg41 pic.twitter.com/dy47gjnUDs

Earlier on Sunday President Trump had told reporters aboard Air Force One that he is not "happy" with the Russian leader. "I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin," Trump said.

Russia has clearly ramped up attacks over prior consecutive nights. Last night it hit Ukraine with another record number of drones along with nine cruise missiles, according to The Associated Press. However, no deaths were immediately confirmed and an emergency response continued in Monday.

But Trump had caveated in his remarks Sunday, "Likewise, President Zelenskyy is doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does."

We detailed previously how Russia's current stepped-up attacks are the result of drone waves from Ukraine which are unprecedented in size and intensity over the past week:

Trump says Putin has gone crazy and threatens to walk away from Ukraine peace talks. What he ISN'T saying is that the Ukrainians launched a massive drone attack on Russia on May 20 - targeting Putin's helicopter during a visit to Kursk - using US intel. pic.twitter.com/GxlmtYZTF5

All of this is likely calculated to press the Kremlin to get serious about negotiations. But as Trump has long admitted, Putin holds all the cards, and more villages in the Donbass were taken by Russian forces this weekend.

As for what "happened" to Putin... the reality is that nothing has changed, and like it or not this is how powerful world leaders wage war in the 21st century.