21 States Across US Now Reporting COVID 'Razor Throat' Variant

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

At least 21 states are reporting a COVID-19 variant that spread across China earlier this year, according to newly updated data provided by a private company.

A map released by the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) shows that 21 states in the United States are reporting COVID-19 variant NB.1.8.1 as of Thursday afternoon.

The most recent estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that between June 8 and June 21, the NB.1.8.1 variant now makes up 43 percent of COVID-19 cases in the United States, making it now the dominant strain.

Separately, the CDC says that across the United States, COVID-19 levels are “currently very low.”

Outside the United States, Chinese health officials said in June that the NB.1.8.1 was driving a wave of infections across the country. And Chinese doctors at Peking University last month predicted a peak of nationwide COVID-19 cases in July, also stating that it may become the next dominant global strain, with symptoms including a sharp sore throat, fever, runny nose, vomiting, and diarrhea.

Due to the Chinese Communist Party’s history of covering up information and publishing unreliable data, including data on COVID-19 infections and deaths, information provided by local doctors and health workers could provide more context about the situation on the ground in China.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated NB.1.8.1 as a “variant under monitoring” and considers the public health risk low at the global level. Current vaccines are expected to remain effective.

Previously, WHO said some western Pacific countries have reported increases in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, but there’s nothing so far to suggest that the disease associated with the new variant is more severe than other variants.

NB.1.8.1 has been dubbed the “razor throat” or “razor blade throat” variant in media reports, including in India, the UK, China, and by The Associated Press. Several Chinese doctors told The Epoch Times in May that their patients had reported the symptom.

Separately, the WHO announced that the XFG strain is now a “variant under monitoring” in a report released in late June. XFG is estimated to make up around 14 percent of cases in the United States, and GISAID isn’t tracking the variant so far.

The spread of the variant also comes as a recent poll released on June 30 suggested that 70 percent of Americans would still attempt to test themselves for COVID-19 if they believe they contracted it. The survey was carried out in 2024 but was released earlier this week.

The survey, from UMass Chan Medical School and released through the JAMA Network Open journal, found that 70 percent of Americans indicated they would test if they suspected a COVID-19 infection, more than five years after the virus spread across the United States.

“Early identification of infection enables prompt care and steps to reduce spread,” the researchers wrote. “Timely initiation of oral antiviral medications is associated with lower hospitalizations, deaths, and long-COVID incidence among adults at high risk.”

In May, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that COVID-19 vaccines are no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women, while the Food and Drug Administration on June 25 expanded existing warnings on the two leading COVID-19 vaccines regarding two forms of heart inflammation. The warnings refer to Myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, the inflammation of a sac that lines the heart.

The Epoch Times contacted the CDC for comment and hasn’t received a response as of Thursday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/05/2025 - 22:10

CNN Stunned As Majority Of Americans Back Trump's Mass Deportation Plan

The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a major deportation victory on Thursday. On the same day, the GOP-led House passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in a narrow 218–214 vote—legislation that paves the way for over one million deportations annually. Meanwhile, the first illegals arrived at "Alligator Alcatraz" in the Florida Everglades, with outbound flights soon to follow. With these massive wins stacking up, Trump has secured yet another victory: the hearts of the American people, who overwhelmingly support this effort to restore national security.

Let's start with news from the Supreme Court. In short, the nation's highest court ruled that an activist lower-court judge had severely overstepped by attempting to block the deportation of eight criminal illegal migrants to South Sudan, despite a prior order from the high court authorizing the removal.

In a 7–2 decision, the Supreme Court sharply rebuked U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy—an appointee from the radical leftist Biden-Harris regime era—for defying its June 23 ruling, which permitted Trump officials to proceed with deportations of criminal illegal aliens to third-world countries. The majority held that Murphy lacked the authority to enforce a previous injunction that the justices had already stayed. 

Moving on, with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—set for President Trump's signature on Friday afternoon—the bill permanently secures the border through the largest investment in immigration enforcement in U.S. history. It includes funding for over one million deportations annually and provides resources to complete the southern border wall. 

Tailwinds for Trump's deportation agenda are gaining serious momentum, and one key driver is public sentiment. As it turns out, even legacy mainstream media polls show a clear majority of Americans support the administration's illegal alien crackdown. CNN hosts appeared visibly stunned by the numbers, revealing that the public is firmly behind Trump in restoring law and order nationwide. 

BREAKING: MAJORITY of Americans want ALL ILLEGALS HERE DEPORTED!

Some polls have it at over 60%!

Mass deportations are POPULAR…let’s make it happen! pic.twitter.com/QVtxe6lT0j

— Chief Trumpster (@ChiefTrumpster) January 22, 2025

Trump's overwhelming support from voters for mass deportations suggests the left's NGO propaganda machine is failing to control the narrative. The optics look increasingly dire for Democrats, especially as some within their ranks openly cheerlead radical Marxism.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/05/2025 - 21:35

Bitcoin Is The Benchmark: Why The Biggest Opportunity In The Next Decade Isn't DeFi

Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

Excerpt from the July Issue of The Bitcoin Capitalist – ‘The Stablecoin Standard’

Here is the the argument for this section of the Bitcoin Capitalist entitled ‘Bitcoin and Crypto Macro’:

“This sums up everything we’ve been seeing over this past cycle – Bitcoin settling in as the base layer for the next generation of financial instruments, with stablecoins acting as the rails between the legacy dollar system and new fintech-enabled one.”

Here is the whole section.

*  *  *

I want to reiterate something I used as the opening quote to our Bitcoin Treasuries Playbook, by way of Willy Woo:

“The biggest fintech opportunity in the next decade is not DeFi.

It’s the merger of BTC + TradFi.”

This sums up everything we’ve been seeing over this past cycle – Bitcoin settling in as the base layer for the next generation of financial instruments, with stablecoins acting as the rails between the legacy dollar system and new fintech-enabled one.

Billionaire investor and VC Tim Draper remarked on Bitcoin’s continued dominance, making the argument that what we are witnessing is an example of a “winner-take-all” phenomenon:

Bitcoin recently hit 61% market share, up from 40% after the first boom-bust cycle and 50% after the last one.

There is a gravitational pull toward Bitcoin. All the successful innovations on other platforms are being now ported to Bitcoin.

This matters so much more than people realize.

All the innovation that started in altcoins (smart contracts, blockchain applications, ordinals) is moving to Bitcoin.

I liken this phenomenon to Microsoft in the operating system days.

When Lotus 1-2-3 took off, Microsoft created Excel and brought it into the OS. WordPerfect succeeded, so Microsoft built Word. Then Microsoft bought PowerPoint early. All of these applications became standard with Microsoft, while the early startups were marginalized. 

Bitcoin is worth $1.8 trillion. The next largest token, Ethereum is only worth $250 billion. Bitcoin gets most of the programmers now. They are gravitating toward Bitcoin.

The five applications that really matter are being built on Bitcoin—DeFi (Peer to Peer Payments, Trading, Exchanges, financial inclusion etc), Smart Contracts (supply chain transparency and traceability, asset trading and resource tracking), Ordinals, Runes, and Layer 2 solutions like low cost micropayments.

This gravitational pull is accelerating.

Every entrepreneur building on Bitcoin has the entire ecosystem’s momentum behind them.

Smart entrepreneurs are always building on the platform with the strongest gravitational pull.

That platform is Bitcoin.

When people ask what Bitcoin will be worth in 5 years, I say it will be worth one bitcoin. It may be infinite against the dollar as the dollar continues to inflate into nothingness.

Bitcoin’s dominance was 61% when Draper posted that less than a week ago – it’s now 64%:

Meanwhile, Ethereum continues to languish, although there are those who say it’s undervalued and poised for a spectacular comeback – I just don’t see it.7

As noted in the Treasuries Playbook, we’re now starting to see ETH Treasury companies springing up; we mentioned SBET in that report – currently trading even lower than when we first cited it.

Now a Bitcoin miner of all things, BitMine Immersion Tech (NYSE: BMNR) has appointed Tom Lee (not the Motley Crüe drummer) as Chairman – and closed a $250M funding round to build an ETH treasury.

BitMine has the 62nd-largest corporate Bitcoin treasury at 161 BTC – and it’s unclear if they plan to liquidate that for more ETH purchases. I advise against it.

Bit Digital (BTBT) – also eschewing my advice – will be exiting Bitcoin mining entirely to “become an Ethereum pure-play”: they will sell off their Bitcoin (which according to their March investor deck was 742 BTC) in order to acquire ETH – and sell off or wind down their entire Bitcoin mining operation. We’ve never owned BTBT, good luck.

We did hold Sol Strategies, who set out to build a Solana Treasury company about a year ago, and we managed to ride that one near perfectly – exiting our position (for a stellar 2043% return) when I surmised that the memecoin trade was over, and there would be no alt-season as we’d seen in previous cycles.

Sol Strategies also had a BTC treasury – which I had hoped they would keep as an anchor – but they sold it off to buy more SOL, close to the highs – meanwhile Bitcoin has gone on to fresh new highs.

Future MBA and finance students may someday look back on this era and surmise that crypto treasury strategies can only succeed when the asset being stockpiled is the dominant asset, and it probably needs to be over some magical hurdle like 50% market dominance.

It also needs to have a rolling four and ten year CAGR that is higher than anything else, otherwise there’s no point in stockpiling it versus something with a higher RoR (see the “Bitcoin is the new Benchmark” section in the Playbook).

In other words, it has to be Bitcoin and all other treasury plays will stiff. Bank on it.

So, if Bitcoin is the only game in town for corporate treasuries and for the base layer of the next-gen financial system, “why isn’t BTC going up?”, is the question we’re seeing a lot of on social media…

Especially after that horrific crash all the way down to (checks notes), $98K on June 22nd – losing the psychologically important $100K level for nearly a whole eight hours.

People were permanently scarred – most likely from the Class of ’24.

One of the things I’ve been wrong about for this entire cycle was that we should be expecting a couple of 30% to 40% drawdowns, at least.

But there hasn’t been anything over 30% since November 2022, when the crypto winter ended, and Bitcoin bottomed at $16K (yes, really).

The chart below has the two major drawdowns of this cycle: the pull back after the spot ETFs approvals and post-halving hangover look like a single grind down – and that little squiggle in there in August was when the entire financial system shit itself after the Bank of Japan spoiled everything with a surprise rate hike that was a measly 15 basis points over expectations.

In this look at the very question of why “number not go up”, Bitcoin Magazine examined the HODL waves and concluded that there are just a lot of whales sitting on ultra cheap BTC who are taking their lifetstyle chips off the table, with over 240,000 BTC being sold by wallets that have been holding for one to five years in recent months.

“This selling has largely counterbalanced institutional accumulation. Given that daily miner issuance still adds another ~450 BTC to the market, we see why price has struggled to break higher: the market is in a state of supply-demand equilibrium”

Given the systemic shocks and seemingly existential crises that have been arriving at a steady clip (Japan imploding, bond yields, Middle East war, Ukraine War, etc), “Why isn’t Bitcoin Up?” isn’t the foremost question in my mind.

“Why isn’t it going down more during these periods?”, is what I’ve been wondering.

It is possible, even looking likely, that the market structure has fundamentally changed, possibly to the point where (dare I say it?) the four-year cycle could be a thing of the past.

Or maybe elongated, this other Bitcoin Mag piece looks at the 200-week Moving Average compared to prior cycles, noting that:

“a remarkably consistent pattern has emerged when the 200WMA surpasses its prior all-time high level. Across multiple cycles, when this crossover occurs,

Bitcoin has either peaked or come extremely close to peaking in price.”

Should that pattern hold up, we seem to be looking at somewhere around May or June 2026 for this cycle to top out (we would normally expect BTC to hit a cycle-top in Q4 this year or early ’26, if the four-year cycle holds up).

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/05/2025 - 21:00

Weakened By War And Syrian Regime Change, Hezbollah Considers Major Demilitarization

Prompted by military losses and shifting regional geopolitics, the Lebanese political and militant group Hezbollah is considering a major strategic shift that would see the group undertake a major disarmament, Reuters has reported, citing three sources familiar with the group's deliberations.  

In solidarity with Gaza, Hezbollah began attacking Israel on the day after the Oct 7 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel, but suffered mightily for doing so. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) hammered Lebanon with airstrikes and then an invasion. In September 2024, Israel unleashed a devious mass attack on Hezbollah members, detonating thousands of pagers that Israeli intelligence had loaded with the explosive PETN. Nearly 3,000 people were wounded and at least a dozen killed, including two children. That same month, an Israeli airstrike killed the group's leader for 32 years, Hassan Nasrallah.   

Hezbollah fighters in formation during 2023 exercises in the southern Lebanon village of Aaramta (AP via VOA)

Pursuant to the November ceasefire that ended its recent war with Israel, Hezbollah has turned over security responsibilities south of the Litani River to the Lebanese Armed Forces. Alongside that shift, the group has also handed over weapons depots in that part of the country, Reuters reports. Now the group's leadership is considering a handover of its formidable missile and drone arsenal -- which pose the greatest threat to Israel -- provided Israel withdraws its remaining troops from southern Lebanon. Hezbollah would retain lighter weapons, including antitank missiles. 

Israel has continued to strike targets in southern Lebanon. Late June brought the biggest Israeli attack on Lebanon since the ceasefire agreement, with the IDF claiming it had struck a "significant underground project" used by Hezbollah. Thursday brought this bystander-endangering strike, which the IDF said was aimed at an arms smuggler associated with Iran's Quds Force: 

BREAKING | Israel has bombed a vehicle on a crowded highway just 8 miles south of Beirut, Lebanon.

The attack is part of near-daily Israeli strikes on Lebanon despite a ceasefire with Hezbollah in place since November. The Israeli military said it targeted a figure involved in… pic.twitter.com/tfrytDr3WI

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) July 3, 2025

Hezbollah's position has also been weakened by the December fall of Syria's Assad regime, as a years-long US-led regime-change effort finally culminated in the secular, Iran-friendly Bashar al-Assad being replaced by the former leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, a Syrian offshoot of al Qaeda that Hezbollah had fought against; Hezbollah also helped turn the tide against ISIS. The turnover of Syrian control severed the overland supply route connecting Hezbollah to its principal sponsor, Iran. In February, the Lebanese government banned commercial flights between Beirut and Tehran, in deference to Israeli accusations that Iran used the flights to ship cash to Hezbollah. 

Last month brought a telling illustration of Hezbollah's weakened position. After years of anticipation that the group would unleash its missile arsenal in the event Israel launched a major attack on Iran, Hezbollah stood on the sidelines during last month's 12-day war, choosing to confine its support of Iran to official statements condemning Israel's aggression, with a side of saber-rattling. In 2018, Hezbollah was estimated to have a rocket and missile arsenal comprising more than 130,000 projectiles, making it the most potent non-state military force on Earth.   

Hezbollah's rocket launchers remained idle during Israel's war on Iran last month (Photo: mil.ru via Ynet News)

Internal Lebanese politics are also playing a role in Hezbollah's reconsideration of the extent to which it remains a military force in addition to a political one: 

Lebanon's government also wants Hezbollah to surrender the rest of its weapons as it works to establish a state monopoly on arms. Failure to do so could stir tensions with the group's Lebanese rivals, which accuse Hezbollah of leveraging its military might to impose its will in state affairs and repeatedly dragging Lebanon into conflicts. -- Reuters

If it comes to pass, Hezbollah's demilitarization would represent a huge shift in the Levant's geopolitical picture. With the group having served as both a defender of Lebanon and an instigator of fighting with Israel that brought destruction upon Lebanon, time will tell if the development is a net positive for the country. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/05/2025 - 20:25

Boxer Chávez Jr. Expected To Be Deported To Mexico To Serve Sentence, Mexican President Says

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on July 4 that she expects boxer Julio César Chávez Jr. to be deported to Mexico to serve a prison sentence after his arrest in Los Angeles by U.S. immigration authorities.

“The hope is that he will be deported and serve the sentence in Mexico,” Sheinbaum said during a news briefing Friday, referring to charges the boxer faces in Mexico related to arms and drug trafficking. She added that Mexico had not previously arrested Chávez because he had been living primarily in the United States.

Chávez, 39, was arrested on July 2 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Studio City, Los Angeles, just days after he lost a boxing match to social media influencer Jake Paul in Anaheim, California. His attorney, Michael Goldstein, said federal agents detained the boxer while he was riding a scooter outside his residence in the upscale neighborhood near Hollywood.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Chávez overstayed a tourist visa he obtained when he entered the United States in August 2023. The agency also accused Chavez of making multiple fraudulent statements on an application for lawful permanent residency, based on his marriage to U.S. citizen Frida Munoz, who is connected to the Sinaloa cartel through a prior relationship with the son of cartel kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

Chavez has an active arrest warrant issued in 2023 for alleged involvement with the Sinaloa cartel and trafficking of firearms, ammunition, and explosives. U.S. immigration officials say he has links to organized crime and called him an “egregious public safety threat,” but a Biden-era entry in a DHS law enforcement system indicated he was not an immigration enforcement priority.

“It is shocking the previous administration flagged this criminal illegal alien as a public safety threat, but chose to not prioritize his removal and let him leave and COME BACK into our country,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “Under President Trump, no one is above the law—including world-famous athletes. Our message to any cartel affiliates in the U.S. is clear: We will find you and you will face consequences. The days of unchecked cartel violence are over.”

Chavez’s attorney has denied the allegations, calling them “outrageous” and suggesting they are simply “another headline to terrorize the community.”

Chavez, son of legendary boxing champion Julio César Chávez Sr., has had several brushes with the law in the United States, including a DUI conviction in 2012, driving without a license, and illegal gun possession charges in 2024.

His boxing career has also faced setbacks due to failed drug tests, suspensions, and missing target weights for scheduled fights.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/05/2025 - 19:50

 

Good conversation with Sammy Azzous:

Barry blends behavioral finance with data analysis to uncover some of the most common (and costly) investing mistakes — and how to steer clear of them. Tune in for actionable takeaways on failing better, managing market noise, and navigating the world of financial “experts.”

Plus, Barry explains why the childhood advice “Don’t take candy from strangers” also holds true for grown-up investors.

 

Audio: Apple Podcasts 

 

 

Source:
Wealthy Behavior

 

The post Wealthy Behavior appeared first on The Big Picture.

Hamas Submits 'Positive Response' To US-Backed Ceasefire As Pressure Mounts On Netanyahu

Hamas announced on Friday that it had delivered a "positive" response to the latest US-backed ceasefire and hostage release proposal for Gaza, stating it was ready to begin proximity talks with Israel "immediately" to resolve outstanding issues.

But just like with prior instances of being near the "goal line" - a phrase often heard during the Biden administration - Hamas has put forth several key conditions which could prove serious obstacles toward finalizing a deal. Still, global media is saying this is the closest the warring parties have been to reaching an agreement in a long time.

Via Associated Press

Israeli media, citing one mediation source, has said that one of Hamas’s main demands is clearer assurances about what happens if negotiations on a permanent ceasefire are not concluded by the end of the proposed 60-day truce.

The militant group's official statement said, "The movement has delivered its response to the brotherly mediators, which was characterized by a positive spirit."

"Hamas is fully prepared, with all seriousness, to immediately enter a new round of negotiations on the mechanism for implementing this framework," it added.

The current draft presented to Hamas says the ceasefire could be extended as long as both sides are negotiating in good faith, but Hamas reportedly wants that clause removed, fearing it gives Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an opening to resume military action. This is precisely what ensued in March when a previous deal unraveled.

Instead, Hamas is pushing for language that guarantees negotiations on a permanent ceasefire will continue until a final agreement is reached, and this is something which Israel has resisted. 

Meanwhile, pressure on Netanyahu continues to grow domestically, as The Times of Israel details:

Tens of thousands of Israelis are set to join hostage families at mass rallies on Saturday night to urge the government to reach a deal that will free all the remaining captives held in Gaza after Israel and Hamas accepted the outlines of a US truce deal.

The rallies will be held as the security cabinet gathers to discuss Hamas’s response to the emerging ceasefire-hostage deal, ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to the White House on Monday.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum demanded a comprehensive deal to end the war and release the remaining 50 hostages, at least 28 of whom are dead, even as Israeli officials are reportedly working to see which living hostages to prioritize in the partial, phased release under discussion.

Prior statements of Israeli leaders have presented a grim outlook, with the possibility that less than twenty captives taken on Oct.7, 2023 might still be alive.

Gaza's Health Ministry says at least 138 Palestinians have been killed in the past day - 63 of them while seeking humanitarian aid.

But many people are pinning their hopes on an imminent ceasefire.

Hamas officials say they are studying proposals for a 60-day halt to the… pic.twitter.com/NtdxI0IxzD

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) July 4, 2025

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in its official statement, "Amid reports of a partial deal, and the prime minister’s trip to the United States, hostage families invite Israelis of all stripes to come to Hostages Square and join them in a clear call: 'This is the time to finish the job, reach a comprehensive deal and ensure full Israeli victory.'"

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/05/2025 - 14:35

At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:

Click on graph for larger image.

• FHFA’s National Mortgage Database: Outstanding Mortgage Rates, LTV and Credit Scores

• Freddie Mac House Price Index Declined in May; Up 2.2% Year-over-year

• Fannie and Freddie: Single Family Serious Delinquency Rates Decreased in May

• Asking Rents Mostly Unchanged Year-over-year

This is usually published 4 to 6 times a week and provides more in-depth analysis of the housing market.

"The Struggle To Get 'Normal' Again Is Epic... And Harsh..."

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

"I can negotiate with a man who wants to make money. I can't negotiate with a communist who wants to kill me." 

- Josh Lippincott on "X"

O, Norman Rockwell, where are you when we really need you?

Forgive us, Emma Lazarus, our second thoughts about those huddled masses yearning to breathe free. . . the wretched refuse of your teeming shore(s).

That was then and this is now. O, beautiful for spacious skies (but, why so many contrails criss-crossing overhead from the New York Island to the gulf stream waters?).

O, land of tattooed grandmas, hostages of the tiny screens, the sexually confounded, the illiterate and innumerate, the lawless and the feckless, brainwashed youth marinated in Marx, the deranged, befuddled, the bought-off, the bug-eyed and bewildered, the lame, the halt, the addicts, grifters, hustlers, porn-stars, drugstore cowboys, alpha dogs, beta boys, shrieking Karens, and sundry victims of future-shock — whither, this hallowed experiment in nationhood?

Wouldn’t you like to know? In the meantime, husk that corn and flip them burgers! Turn them wieners! Mash your guacamole, pop another frostie, pass the Jack, lock-and-load, and mind those hovering drones! It is the 249th birthday of what remains of our country! Respect and thanks, ye ancestors!

At least, there is Mr. Trump in command now, not Norman Bates’s mother (or whatever decrepitating thing pretended to rule from the White House those previous four years of anarchy and agony). Daddy’s in da house — finally! — and things are being put in order against all odds. Yeah, you’re gonna clean up your damn room, or else! For many, this is a yuge relief. The rest of you, with your “No Kings” fake revolution, your Antifa monkey business, your mean girl psychodramas, your trans psychosis, your childless despair, your occult Gramscian schemes of destruction — please report back to the margins, where you belong.

The struggle to get normal again is epic and harsh. And, of course, many will deny that there ever was such a state of being, of minding your business in the purest sense of the phrase, acting like responsible, self-respecting, autonomous adults. In the immortal words of Aimee Mann, better wise-up. Childhood ends; something else begins. Take yourself seriously for a change, but keep your heart light, ready for the jokes that travail always presents. After all, nothing is funnier than unhappiness.

To get back to normal, to shed the burden of absurdities we’ve been heaped with, requires an accounting. You know this. Matter of fact, the absence of such an accounting has been bugging you no end. A whole lot of pain and suffering was inflicted across this land in recent years and barely a soul has had to do any ‘splainin’. It rankles badly. When, if ever, will these vicious, seditionist goons who turned the nation inside-out and upside-down be compelled to sit at the defendant’s table in a court of law?

I have a theory. The right dawgs, you well-know, have been in position for months. They understand the conspiracy hatched ten years ago through-and-through. Mr. Patel, remember, ran Chairman Devon Nunes’ investigation of the nascent RussiaRussiaRussia hoax in 2017 as senior counsel for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and helped draft the “Nunes Letter,” much abused by the perfidious news media, that laid out the plot by Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Obama & Company to smother Donald Trump’s newborn presidency in its crib.

Through some alchemy of mass political psychosis, that conspiracy has rolled on for a whole decade, one malice-driven prank after another. It continues to this day, an evermore rearguard action conducted by Deep State rogues and their public mouthpiece, Norm Eisen of Lawfare, Inc. Dan Bongino, now at Mr. Patel’s right-hand, chronicled that long march of treason in several books while he conducted daily podcast discourses on the workings of it all. “Remember the names,” he always said. Danny Boombatz remembers the names.

Normality, with all its own problems and hazards, demands that accounting for crimes and insults against the people of this sore-beset Republic. That fateful accounting is the one element missing in all of Mr. Trump’s implacable “winning” of the past five months. Those remembered names fester like an abscessed wound in America’s body politic. That wound must be cleaned, irrigated, debrided, and dressed in judicial process that restores the probity and honor of our much-abused law.

My theory is that a whole lot of other matters had to be cleared out of the way first. And now, that is pretty much where we’re at. Mr. Ratcliffe, formerly Director of National Intelligence (in Trump One) and now Director of the CIA, also knows all the names. He’s been as quiet as a tick on a wild hog lo these many months, but on Wednesday he issued quite a squawk, in the public arena of X, no less, along with a report by trusted agency colleagues titled (nontoxically) Tradecraft Review 2016 ICA on Election Interference 062625.

This fateful report, which lays out the originating crime, should commence the more general institutional accounting so overdue. It’s coming. Cases are being laid and made quietly in the background. Cases will be brought. The insults will be redressed. Derangement will slip away like that quicksilver mirage on a desert highway. The inordinate division of recent years will go with it. We will allow ourselves to be a people again, one nation under God, as the old chestnut goes. Next year, on our country’s 250th birthday, there will be a special reason to celebrate. For now, patience and fortitude.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/05/2025 - 14:00

OPEC+ Boosts Output More Than Expected In Quest To Snuff Shale

Confirming earlier media leaks, OPEC+ agreed to increase oil production even more rapidly than expected next month, as the Saudi-led group seeks to capitalize on strong summer demand in its move to reclaim market share.

The eight core group members agreed to raise supply by 548,000 barrels a day at a video conference on Saturday, putting the group on pace to unwind its most recent layer of output cuts one year earlier than originally outlined. The countries had announced increases of 411,000 barrels for each of May, June and July, already three times faster than scheduled, and traders had expected the same amount for August.

Saturday’s decision was based on “a steady global economic outlook and current healthy market fundamentals, as reflected in the low oil inventories,” the Vienna-based OPEC said in a statement.

Crude traders had widely expected OPEC+ to ratify another hike of 411,000 barrels day for August, according to a Bloomberg survey, and delegates’ initial discussions this week also focused on that level. 

The latest increase amplifies a dramatic strategy pivot by the OPEC+ that helped drive oil prices lower this year, one which many view as punishment for quota abusers and as targeting US shale production which recently peaked and has been unchanged for months. Since April, the group shifted from years of output restraint to reopening the taps, surprising crude traders and raising questions about its long-term strategy. Officials have said that Riyadh is especially eager to restart more idled capacity as quickly as possible in a drive for market share.

Saturday’s decision also provides the latest indication of how Riyadh has consolidated its control of the group’s decision-making process, as late as Friday evening, delegates from several member nations appeared unaware of the plan to accelerate.

Meanwhile, citing unnamed delegates Bloomberg added that the cartel will consider adding another roughly 548,000 barrels a day in September at the next meeting on Aug. 3, which would represent the final step in reviving the 2.2 million barrels a day of supply curbs announced in 2023. Beyond that, it’s not clear whether the group would turn its attention to the next 1.66 million-barrel tier of idle output.

With OPEC+ pushing barrels into a market that is widely expected to be oversupplied later in the year, Brent futures have retreated 8.5% in 2025 as crude production rises both across the alliance and globally, while the threat to economic growth from President Trump’s trade war has cast a shadow on future demand. 

Still, oil fundamentals look more robust in the immediate term, and some delegates said the group is accelerating supply increases in part to take advantage of stronger demand during the northern hemisphere summer. Refiners in the US are churning through the most crude for the time of year since 2019, and prices for some fuels like diesel have soared. 

The extra oil output will be welcomed by President Trump, who has repeatedly called for lower oil prices to bolster the US economy, and needs to stave off inflation while pushing the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.

Yet they also threaten to swell a looming supply surplus. Global oil inventories have been accumulating at a pace of about 1 million barrels a day in recent months, as consumption in China cools while production climbs across the Americas, from the US to Guyana, Canada and Brazil.

A substantial surplus looms later this year, according to the International Energy Agency in Paris. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs anticipate that prices will sink towards $60 a barrel or lower in the fourth quarter. Prices jumped during the conflict last month between Iran and Israel, but fell back quickly as it became clear that oil flows remained unaffected.

By pushing for faster supply increases, Saudi Arabia risks offsetting the benefits of higher sales volumes with the impact of falling oil prices. The kingdom is already grappling with a soaring budget deficit, and has been forced to slash spending on some of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s flagship projects.

OPEC+ co-leader Russia is confronting a deteriorating economic outlook and potential banking crisis as President Vladimir Putin continues to wage a costly war against neighboring Ukraine.

The drop in prices is also spreading pain through the American shale industry. In a recent survey, US shale executives said they expect to drill significantly fewer wells this year than planned at the start of 2025, citing lower oil prices and uncertainty around Trump’s tariffs.

“OPEC+ is sending a clear message, for anyone still in doubt: the group is firmly shifting toward a market share strategy,” said Jorge Leon, an analyst at research firm Rystad Energy A/S who previously worked at the OPEC secretariat.

“Two big questions now hang over the market,” Leon added. “Will OPEC+ target the next tier of 1.66 million barrels? And second, is there enough demand to absorb it?”

There is a third question: with US wells plunging to 4 years low and US E&P companies now maximizing output from only on the most efficient Permian wells, how long until shale hits a major depletion air pocket and US production plunges, sending oil prices surging.

 

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/05/2025 - 13:25

Tehran Dismisses Reports Of Renewed US Talks Amid Domestic 'Anger'

Via The Cradle

Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday denied reports that Tehran and Washington were scheduled to resume indirect nuclear negotiations, rejecting the claims as baseless.

"Public opinion is currently so angry that no one even dares to talk about negotiations and diplomacy," Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told Iranian media on Saturday.

Result of Israeli attacks on oil refineries and other sites last month, via EPA/Guardian

His comments follow a report by Amwaj.media on 4 July, citing unnamed Iranian sources who claimed that backchannel discussions were being revived following last month’s 12-day Israeli–US war on Iran.

On 29 June, Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Majid Takht-e Ravanchi told reporters that no date had been set for further negotiations.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had earlier said that a return to talks was “under consideration and based on national interests,” but stopped short of confirming any decision or timeline.

Baghaei emphasized that recent Israeli strikes on Iranian cities and civilian infrastructure made diplomacy politically impossible, pointing specifically to what he described as war crimes.

“With the passage of several days since the cessation of the Israeli aggression, new dimensions of the war crimes committed by Netanyahu in Tehran and other Iranian cities subjected to attacks by the Israeli entity are being revealed,” he said.

Baghaei cited the Israeli bombing of Evin Prison Hospital, which killed 79 people, as an example of the “brutal Israeli war crime” committed during the assault.

He called for international condemnation of the “aggressive entity,” saying it must be “held accountable and punished” for crimes against the Iranian people.

Iranian and US negotiators were set to meet in Oman on 15 June for a sixth round of indirect nuclear talks. The meeting was cancelled after Israeli warplanes bombed Tehran two days earlier, with Iranian and Omani sources confirming the talks were suspended indefinitely in response to the assault.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/05/2025 - 12:50

Poland Blasts Trump-Putin Dialogue After Drone Strike Escalation

NATO's largest and most well-protected 'eastern flank' country is angry over President Donald Trump's phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week.

Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski has called on Trump to restart military aid to Ukraine, and he highlighted recent Russian airstrike that damaged the Polish Embassy compound in Kiev.

Poland’s long-standing foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, via Politico

Trump's Thursday call with Putin yielded no fresh progress on ending the war, but it did result in anger and tensions among European allies, and certainly wasn't received well by Zelensky.

In a message posted on X on Friday, Sikorski urged Trump to resume the supply of anti-aircraft ammunition to Ukraine amid record-setting numbers of drones sent against the country this week. He also accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of "mocking" US-led peace efforts.

Zelensky suggested something similar, painting a picture that Trump is still getting 'played' by the Russian leader, who has no authentic intent to end the war.

"Massive Russian attack last night has caused fires and much damage, including to the Polish consulate in Kyiv," Sikorski wrote in the post. "President Trump, Putin is mocking your peace efforts. Please restore supplies of anti-aircraft ammunition to Ukraine and impose tough new sanctions on the aggressor."

Sikorski, however, separately confirmed that no one was harmed in the embassy strike, also suggesting little damage.

Trump has described that he was "very disappointed" by the Putin call, while a Friday call with Zelensky centered on the Ukrainian leader urging new, tougher sanctions on Moscow.

But Trump has resisted this, also amid similar requests from European allies, given the likelihood of this ending a path toward negotiated settlement altogether.

Ukraine is the first country to stop 400+ Shahed drones per night using interceptor drones, the Telegraph.

The old model — shoot down $20k drones with $1M missiles — no longer works.

NATO is studying Ukraine’s model, but has no working equivalent yet. 1/ pic.twitter.com/ORvT8xjDz6

— Tymofiy Mylovanov (@Mylovanov) July 5, 2025

Trump is also busy trying to salvage bilateral US relations with Russia as part of the process. More sanctions would do little to impact Moscow's decision-making in Ukraine at this point, and Trump knows this, as Moscow increasingly relies on China, India, and even North Korea and Iran for defense and energy-related trade.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/05/2025 - 12:15

One Big Beautiful Budget Deficit

By Philip Marey, Senior US strategist at Rabobank

Summary

• On Thursday, Congress passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that is supposed to include all Trump’s promises on fiscal policy in his second term. The bill includes tax cuts and additional spending on Republican priorities. The bill will extend the income tax provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017, which were set to expire by the end of the year and would have caused a fiscal cliff. There will be tax deductions for taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security. The bill includes additional spending on defense and immigration enforcement.
• To finance the tax cuts and additional spending, or at least some of it, there are tax increases for and spending cuts in Democratic priorities. The tax credits for purchasing electric vehicles from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act will be terminated. What’s more, new taxes on wind and solar energy projects will be imposed if they use too much foreign content. Federal spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will be reduced and the slack should be picked up by the states. There will also be cuts in spending on Medicaid, the health care program for low-income people. Finally, at the request of Trump, and much to the dismay of the fiscal hawks, the debt limit will be raised by $5 trillion.
• On balance, budget deficits are projected to rise by $3.4 trillion over the 2025-2034 period according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. However, the bill front-loads tax cuts and delays spending cuts, causing a fiscal cliff at the end of 2028 that will create political pressure in 2028 to extend the tax cuts and kick the spending cuts further down the road. Therefore, the upward impact on budget deficits in the next 10 years could be even larger.
• Despite the large rise in the budget deficit, the upward impact on the growth trajectory of the US economy is likely to be limited. A large part of what the Republicans and their proxies are trying to sell as “tax cuts” are actually extensions of the TCJA, which have been widely anticipated.
• Meanwhile, the increase in defense spending is relatively modest and keeps it below what other NATO members have pledged (as percentage of GDP). Despite all the talk about Trump’s “grand strategy”, this means that US foreign policy ambitions will be severely limited in the coming decade: a victory for the isolationists.
• The One Big Beautiful Budget Act of 2025 underlines that two traditional wings of the Republican Party, the fiscal hawks and the foreign policy hawks, have been pushed aside by the MAGA movement.

Introduction 

The US Congress has passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that is supposed to include all Trump’s promises on fiscal policy in his second term. The self-imposed deadline was for the Senate and the House of Representatives to get a uniform bill to President Trump’s desk by July 4. On Tuesday, in the Senate, Vice President Vance had to step in as the tie breaker, because 50 senators voted in favor of the bill (50 Republicans) and 50 against (all 47 Democrats and 3 Republicans). Rand Paul voted “nay” because of the rise in the debt limit. In contrast, Susan Collins and Thom Tillis found the Medicaid cuts too deep to support the bill. Today, in the final vote of the House of Representatives, there were 218 votes in favor of the bill (218 Republicans) and 214 against (all 212 Democrats and 2 Republicans). Thomas Massie voted against the bill because he wanted more spending cuts, calling the bill a “debt bomb”, and at the other end of the Republican spectrum Brian Fitzpatrick – who supported the earlier House version of the bill – objected to the deeper cuts in Medicaid and SNAP.

What’s in the bill?

The One Big Beautiful Budget Act (OBBBA) of 2025 includes tax cuts and additional spending on Republican priorities. The bill will extend the income tax provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017, the main fiscal policy package of Trump’s first term. These tax cuts were set to expire by the end of the year and would have caused a fiscal cliff. There will be tax deductions for taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security, in line with Trump’s promises of “no taxes” on these three sources of income during his 2024 campaign. There will also be a rise in child tax credits. The deduction cap on state and local taxes (SALT) will also be raised, at the request of Republican lawmakers in high tax states.

The bill includes additional spending on defense and immigration enforcement. The latter will be improved by extending the border wall, increased detention of migrants, and additional funds for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). The largest items in defense spending are shipbuilding, the Golden Dome defense system against foreign missiles, and replenishing the stock of ammunition. However, this would still leave defense spending at about 2.7% of GDP by 2034, which is well below the target that other NATO members have pledged at the recent summit in The Hague. Of course, compared to these countries the US has spent much more in cumulative terms, but the more relevant benchmark is what is needed against enemy countries. To put this in a historical perspective: when the US tried to outrun the Soviet Union during the Reagan years the US spent more than 6% of GDP.

To finance the tax cuts and additional spending, or at least some of it, there are tax increases for and spending cuts in Democratic priorities. The tax credits for purchasing electric vehicles from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act will be terminated. This was one of Trump’s campaign pledges. What’s more, new taxes on wind and solar energy projects will be imposed if they use too much foreign content. Federal spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will be reduced and the slack should be picked up by the states. There will also be cuts in spending on Medicaid, the health care program for low-income people. However, they have been eased to keep the so-called “Medicaid moderates” on board. The fiscal hawks wanted more spending cuts, but the Republican leadership needed to keep the centrists on board, given the small margins in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Finally, at the request of Trump, and much to the dismay of the fiscal hawks, the debt limit will be raised.

What’s not in the bill

To the relief of foreign investors, and spurred on by the US business sector, the proposed introduction of Section 899 to the Internal Revenue Code has been removed from the One Big Beautiful Bill because of a forthcoming international tax agreement announced by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Section 899 would have introduced retaliatory taxes on foreign companies from countries that impose “unfair taxes” on US companies, such as undertaxed profits rules, digital services taxes, and diverted profits taxes. However, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith have stated that the US Congress could still adopt Section 899 if the new international tax agreement is violated. What has never been in any version of the bill is a serious attempt to rein in spending on Social Security and Medicare. Consequently, US public debt remains on a trajectory that hardly seems sustainable in the long run.

The budget impact of the bill

On July 1, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill as passed by the Senate would decrease budget deficits by $0.4 trillion, relative to the budget enforcement baseline for consideration in the Senate. Of course this sounds great and is what the Republicans and their proxies are trying to sell to the public. However, this baseline – imposed by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsay Graham – already assumes an extension of the TCJA income tax provisions. On its own this is a choice that could be defended, however when the CBO scored the TCJA in 2017 they assumed that these tax provisions would expire, in line with then current law and with the common practice of budget scoring by the CBO. So taken together, the budget impact of these tax extensions has been deleted. This is truly One Big Beautiful Magic Act. As Lindsay Graham put it last week: “I’m the king of the numbers, I’m Zeus, the budget king.” With a simple shift-in-accounting trick1, $3.8 trillion has disappeared into a black hole of time inconsistency. In the same letter on July 1, the nonpartisan CBO stated that compared with their January 2025 baseline budget projections, it would increase deficits over the 2025-2034 period by $3.4 trillion. So in reality, the OBBBA has a significant upward impact on the budget deficit.

What’s more, the bill front-loads tax cuts in the next few years and delays spending cuts, causing a rise in the budget deficit in the short run and political pressure down the road to extend the tax cuts, further increasing annual budget deficits. Many deficit-increasing measures are scheduled to expire in 2028, while many deficit-reducing measures do not start until after 2028.

This would create a large fiscal cliff in 2028 that could force another extension of tax cuts, similar to the response that we are seeing this year in anticipation of a 2025 fiscal cliff that would emerge if the OBBBA had been rejected. Keep in mind that in November 2028 elections will take place for the presidency, the House of Representatives and one third of the Senate. In addition to extending tax cuts, there may be pressure to undo much of the deficit reduction scheduled by the OBBBA to take place after 2028. This could increase the upward impact of the bill on the budget deficit in the next ten years from $3.3 trillion to $4.8 trillion according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). In other words, the OBBBA of 2025 would repeat the same trick used in the TCJA of 2017 by keeping the projected upward impact on the federal deficit limited through sunsets that are very likely to cause extensions of deficit-increasing measures when the fiscal cliffs comes in sight. These measures are only temporary in name, in reality they are permanent.

The economic impact of the bill

Despite the large rise in the budget deficit, the upward impact on the growth trajectory of the US economy is likely to be limited. A large part of what the Republicans and their proxies are trying to sell as “tax cuts” are actually extensions of the income tax provisions in the TCJA. In fact, the One Big Beautiful Bill is removing the fiscal cliff that loomed at the end of this year. What’s more, the extension has been widely anticipated because the Republicans could not afford the fiscal cliff from an electoral perspective. So this should not change the growth projections of the US economy. The additional stimulus would come from the other tax cuts, which are considerably smaller.

No serious attempt has been made to improve the US public debt trajectory. Fiscal discipline has gone out of the window on Capitol Hill and the few remaining fiscal hawks are at best slowing down the upward trajectory of the debt. This leaves the enforcement of US fiscal discipline to the bond vigilantes. However, they are faced with limited alternatives to US treasuries. Nevertheless, as far as they are able and willing to diversify away from US treasuries, they could demand higher yields. In the long run, this is increasingly likely. Either through higher interest rates or through higher tax rates if US lawmakers are going to put their fiscal house in order, this budget explosion could slow down economic growth down the road. However for now, the low tax rates of the TCJA have been extended and some new tax cuts have been added. Just stop thinking about tomorrow.

The foreign policy impact of the bill

Despite all the talk about Trump’s “grand strategy”, defense spending in the One Big Beautiful Bill does not seem compatible with preserving US military dominance. Cutting taxes (or extending tax cuts) without touching Social Security and Medicare has left little room for increasing defense spending. This means that US foreign policy ambitions will be severely limited in the coming decade. In this sense the OBBBA is also a victory for the isolationists. While the recent US attack on Iran can be seen as a short-term victory for the foreign policy hawks in the Republican Party, the OBBBA will give the isolationists the upper hand in the long run.

Conclusion

In the end, this bill is essentially about extending the Trump tax cuts of 2017 and adding some new tax cuts promised during the presidential campaign of 2024. Despite spending cuts on clean energy programs and health care for low income Americans, the fiscal hawks saw their wings clipped again and the US public debt continues to rise. However, the foreign policy hawks are in for some big disappointments as well. They may be basking in the glory of the attack on Iran, but there is no budget for their future ambitions. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” underlines that these two traditional wings of the Republican Party, the fiscal hawks and the foreign policy hawks, have been pushed aside by the MAGA movement.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/05/2025 - 11:40

FBI, Sheriff's Office Arrest 28 Motorcycle Gang Members In 'Operation Mongolian Beef'

Over two dozen alleged members of an outlaw motorcycle gang have been arrested and charged in connection with a March shooting at a Florida gas station, the FBI's Jacksonville office announced on Wednesday.

In total, 28 members of the Mongols motorcycle gang were arrested during a joint operation, dubbed "Operation Mongolian Beef," which was done in coordination between the FBI Jacksonville Division, the Volusia Sheriff's Office, and the Seventh Judicial Circuit State Attorney's Office, according to a statement, which added that arrest warrants were issued for three other members of the gang, whose arrests are pending.

As the Epoch Times notes further, the individuals have been charged with aggravated rioting in relation to the shooting at a gas station in New Smyrna Beach during Bike Week on March 8, 2025.

Aggravated rioting is when an individual participates in a riot of 25 or more other people, according to the statement. It is a second-degree felony and punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

As part of the operation, the FBI and its law enforcement partners carried out 14 search warrants at multiple properties, including at the Mongols Clubhouse in Edgewater, Florida; four homes in Volusia County; three homes in Brevard County; two homes in Miami-Dade County; one home in Chesterfield County, Virginia; one home in Palm Beach County; and two homes in Polk County.

“The FBI has made a commitment to all Americans that we will crush violent crime across the country,” FBI Jacksonville Special Agent in Charge Jason Carley said in the statement.

“There is no doubt Volusia County and, in fact, the entire state of Florida is safer today with these violent offenders off the street.”

The Mongols motorcycle gang, also known as the Mongols Motorcycle Club, is an international organization that self-identifies as an “outlaw” motorcycle gang, meaning its members define themselves as within the “1 percent” of motorcycle clubs who do not abide by the law, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The group has slogans such as “Respect Few, Fear None” and “Live Mongol Die Mongol,” which the DOJ said illustrate the members’ “cut-throat attitude.”

Its members typically wear vests and patches, or have tattoos identifying their connection to the group, the DOJ said.

Outlaw motorcycle gangs are generally highly structured criminal organizations whose members engage in a range of criminal activities, including violent crime, weapons trafficking, and drug trafficking, according to the DOJ.

The Mongols gang is one of many such outlaw gangs that pose a “serious national domestic threat,” the department said.

Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood said the March 8 shooting took place at around 11.30 a.m, and involved members of the Mongols gang and a rival gang called the Warlocks.

He said the Mongols knew in advance that the Warlocks would be at the gas station and planned to “attack them.”

The Mongols arrived at the gas station and fired at the rival gang members, Chitwood said at a press conference, adding that “bullets were flying, innocent people were there, children were there.”

Two Warlocks were shot and sustained minor injuries, Chitwood said.

They declined to cooperate with law enforcement, but officials were able to use video footage from the shooting, including footage taken by bystanders, to identify at least 31 individuals allegedly involved in the incident, he said.

Chitwood said the Mongols are recognized as an organized crime domestic terror group in the United States, and internationally.

“They lit the fuse,” he said of the group. “It’s game on now. It’s game on because there’s going to be a treasure trove of evidence that’s going to lead to more and more indictments and arrests and put all the motorcycle gangers on notice.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/05/2025 - 11:05

Columbia To Pay $9 Million To Settle Lawsuit Over US News College Ranking Data

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Columbia University has agreed to pay $9 million to settle a proposed class-action lawsuit by a former student who claimed the school submitted inaccurate data to U.S. News & World Report, artificially inflating its position in the publication’s annual ranking of American universities.

The main campus of Columbia University in New York City on April 12, 2025. Caitlin Ochs/Reuters

In a statement to The Epoch Times, a university spokesperson said Columbia did not admit to any wrongdoing as part of the agreement and is entering into the settlement to “avoid protracted and costly litigation.”

“Columbia University has reached a settlement agreement regarding the alleged misreporting of data to U.S. News & World Report in connection with its Best Colleges rankings,” the spokesperson said.

The settlement covers about 22,000 undergraduate students at Columbia College, Columbia Engineering, and Columbia’s School of General Studies who were enrolled from the fall of 2016 to the spring of 2022, the spokesperson said.

“While the University denies any wrongdoing, it deeply regrets deficiencies in prior reporting and has adopted new steps to improve the quality and accuracy of information available to prospective students,” the spokesperson added. “Since 2022, the University has published Common Data Sets for all three undergraduate schools which are reviewed by a well-established, independent advisory firm to ensure reporting accuracy.”

The settlement stems from a lawsuit filed against Columbia’s Board of Trustees in August 2022 by a former student who accused the university of misrepresenting some of the data it submitted to U.S. News & World Report’s (USNWR’s) annual list.

According to the complaint, Columbia’s USNWR ranking has steadily risen from 18th place in 1988 to 2nd place in 2022 through the reporting of false data.

The lawsuit stated that USNWR’s yearly college rankings are popular with the general public and influence university application patterns. It further said the publication relies on universities, including Columbia, to self-report the data, which is then used to determine the universities’ rankings.

In March 2022, Michael Thaddeus, a professor of mathematics at Columbia, published an article concluding that the university had misreported data to USNWR.

The lawsuit said that Thaddeus found, among other things, that Columbia reported to USNWR that 82.5 percent of undergraduate classes enroll fewer than 20 students, which marked a higher percentage than any other school in the top 100 USNWR rankings.

His analysis of data from Columbia’s Directory of Classes indicated that the correct figure was likely between 62.7 percent and 66.9 percent, the lawsuit said.

Columbia also told USNWR that 8.9 percent of undergraduate classes enroll 50 students or more, but an analysis of data from Columbia’s Directory of Classes indicated that figure was more likely between 10.6 percent and 12.4 percent, according to the lawsuit.

The university also told the publication that 96.5 percent of its non-medical faculty are full-time, but the analysis by Thaddeus found that the correct figure was likely 74.1 percent. It also reported that its student-faculty ratio is 6:1, but Thaddeus found it was likely 11:1.

The lawsuit stated that Colombia’s actions were “objectively false, misleading and deceptive.” They also led to students paying “premiums for tuition, fees and costs based, in material part, upon Columbia’s USNWR ranking,” according to the lawsuit.

It alleged breach of contract, unjust enrichment, common law fraud, and violation of New York General Business Law.

In September 2022, the university said that it had “previously relied on outdated and/or incorrect methodologies” for some of the data it had submitted to USNWR and said it had changed those methodologies for current and future data submissions.

Then-Provost Mary Boyce said in a statement that “anything less than complete accuracy in the data that we report—regardless of the size or the reason—is inconsistent with the standards of excellence to which Columbia holds itself.”

“We deeply regret the deficiencies in our prior reporting and are committed to doing better,” Boyce added.

In June 2023, Columbia said its undergraduate schools would stop submitting data to the U.S. News rankings, saying it remained “concerned with the role that rankings have assumed in the undergraduate application process.”

It said the rankings appeared to have an outsized influence on prospective students and may “distill a university’s profile into a composite of data categories.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/05/2025 - 10:30

UN Nuclear Inspectors Depart Tehran As Iran Vows To Keep Enriching

A group of inspectors from the United Nations' nuclear watchdog has finally and formally departed Iran after the country decided to halt its cooperation with the agency, following last month's surprise bombing raids by Israel and the United States.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed in statement shared on X on Friday that its personnel are returning to the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria. 

Via Reuters

Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from Tehran, clarified that it's as yet unclear just how many IAEA inspectors left the country in this 'final' wave of departures.

"The language used doesn’t clarify whether all or only some of the staff departed, but it appears that a number of them are still in Iran," he said.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi has urged Iran to resume monitoring and verification efforts as soon as possible, saying it is of "crucial importance" that direct dialogue with Tehran continues.

"The inspectors have been housed in Tehran unable to visit Iran’s nuclear sites since Israel attacked the country on June 13," The Wall Street Journal details. "They were housed at a hotel in the capital but may have later moved to a U.N. location, according to one of the people."

All of this comes after the Trump White House has threatened the potential for more military action should Iran resume enrichment of uranium, which it has promised to do undeterred. According to more from WSJ:

Their departure makes the prospect of any significant international access to Iran’s nuclear sites extremely unlikely, allowing it to carry out nuclear work unchecked. Iran’s activities are, however, being watched closely by Western and Israeli intelligence agencies, and the IAEA has access to satellite imagery of its sites. It also raises the prospect of a standoff over Iran’s participation in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which bans it from nuclear weapons and requires regular inspections of its atomic program. 

For decades, Iran has been subject to rigorous inspections of its core nuclear sites. Inspectors would visit its enrichment sites and check its stockpile of enriched uranium every couple of days, ensuring that Iran wasn’t diverting fissile material for a nuclear weapon. 

An IAEA team of inspectors today safely departed from Iran to return to the Agency headquarters in Vienna, after staying in Tehran throughout the recent military conflict. pic.twitter.com/65YQcDL7Ik

— IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency ⚛️ (@iaeaorg) July 4, 2025

Iran has meanwhile said that while it doesn't plan to retaliate further against the United States, it will carry on peaceful nuclear energy activities as a matter of national sovereignty. "As long as there is no act of aggression being perpetrated by the United States against us, we will not respond again," Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi told NBC News on Thursday.

"Our policy has not changed on enrichment," Takht-Ravanchi crucially added. "Iran has every right to do enrichment within its territory. The only thing that we have to observe is not to go for militarization."

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/05/2025 - 09:35

Americans Must Oppose The Establishment Of An East Asian NATO

Authored by Joseph Solis-Mullen via The Libertarian Institute,

Ely Ratner’s latest offering in Foreign Affairs, “The Case for a Pacific Defense Pact,” is a textbook example of how groupthink, careerism, and militarist ideology continue to warp US foreign policy discourse. Ratner, now back at the Marathon Initiative after a stint as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, proposes a new multilateral NATO-style alliance in the Pacific. This would be a grotesque escalation of already dangerous US commitments in East Asia. From the perspective of anyone interested in realism, restraint, or constitutional government, this proposal is not only strategically unwise but morally and fiscally indefensible.

Let us begin with the obvious. Ratner envisions binding the United States to the defense of Australia, Japan, and the Philippines, with others (e.g., South Korea, New Zealand) to follow. But the US is already encumbered with mutual defense treaties in the region, such as with Japan and the Philippines—agreements that are themselves dangerous anachronisms dating from the early Cold War. Ratner, rather than asking whether these entanglements serve American interests, wants to double down by interlocking them in a region-wide web of obligations. To what end? To contain China, a country that, despite its size, has shown no intention or ability to project power beyond its near seas in a sustained or existentially threatening way.

The notion that Beijing aspires to be the next Nazi Germany, complete with pan-regional domination, is sheer fantasy—one that defense contractors and think tanks like the Marathon Initiative and the Center for a New American Security are happy to propagate for funding and prestige. Ratner is a veteran of both. His entire professional career has been spent either in government positions advocating military buildup or in think tanks crafting white papers that rationalize the same. That this man would now argue for institutionalizing a war alliance against the very country he has built his career warning against is predictable, but no less dangerous.

Libertarians have long warned against expansive foreign commitments that tie American lives and treasure to the ambitions and anxieties of foreign powers. Ratner’s proposed “Pacific Defense Pact” would formalize exactly the sort of blank-check militarism that the Founders abhorred. It would commit the United States to a potential war over rocks in the South China Sea or fishing disputes in the East China Sea, escalating every regional quarrel into a possible global conflict. If China is a threat to Japan or the Philippines, those nations—wealthy and capable in their own right—can and should take responsibility for their own defense.

Ratner attempts to buttress his case by citing the growing military cooperation among Australia, Japan, and the Philippines. But rather than taking this as evidence that these states are capable of handling their own regional affairs, he takes it as a reason for the U.S. to get more deeply involved. This is precisely backward. If America’s allies are increasing their capabilities and coordination, what better time to reduce, not increase, US exposure?

Moreover, the article is riddled with familiar alarmism: Chinese ships near disputed islands, alleged disinformation campaigns, and weaponized economic policies. Ratner ignores the fact that the United States engages in all of these tactics itself. He paints a picture of a defensive, peace-loving Washington encircled by an aggressive, expansionist Beijing—a cartoonish dichotomy unworthy of serious analysis. He also omits any discussion of the provocative role the U.S. has played in stoking regional tensions, such as through arms sales, freedom-of-navigation operations, and explicit promises to defend Taiwan.

The article’s most galling claim is that the proposed pact would not burden the U.S. military with new obligations but would merely formalize existing relationships. This is either dishonest or delusional. Anyone familiar with alliance politics knows that formalizing mutual defense guarantees dramatically raises expectations, lowers diplomatic flexibility, and can actually increase the likelihood of conflict since such pacts, once signed, create pressure to demonstrate credibility, to act decisively, and to escalate disputes that might otherwise be ignored or resolved diplomatically.

From a constitutional and fiscal perspective, Ratner’s proposal is especially dangerous. The U.S. is $34 trillion in debt, overstretched militarily, and embroiled in military deployments on every continent. The last thing it needs is a new Cold War style alliance. Japan, the Philippines, and Australia (along with a host of others, such as India, Indonesia, and South Korea) are perfectly capable of defending themselves against a country that still struggles to project naval power beyond the first island chain.

In sum, Ratner’s Pacific Defense Pact is not a serious proposal for American security. It is a serious proposal for keeping the defense contractors flush, the think tanks buzzing, and the machinery of war humming. As the author of The Fake China Threat and Its Very Real Danger, I must once again stress: this fear-mongering has real costs—to our economy, to our liberty, and to the lives of Americans who might be asked to fight and die in a wholly unnecessary war. We should reject Ratner’s vision not only because it is strategically misguided but because it is morally bankrupt.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/05/2025 - 09:20

This Is The Income A Family Needs To Be Middle Class, By State

Across the United States, what qualifies as “middle class” varies widely depending on where you live.

This map, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, breaks down the median household income for each U.S. state, revealing sharp contrasts in earning power. It provides a snapshot of where families may feel more or less financially secure based on local income benchmarks.

The data for this visualization comes from SmartAsset.

Editor’s note: This map uses median household income as a simple indicator of the middle class in each state. True middle class status typically spans a range of incomes.

Top Earners Cluster in the Northeast

Maryland, Washington D.C., and Massachusetts lead the nation with household incomes at or above $90,000. High concentrations of federal jobs, tech firms, and elite educational institutions contribute to these numbers. According to Pew Research Center, these regions also report strong access to health care and education, reinforcing higher cost-of-living dynamics.

RankStateMedian Household Income 1Maryland$90,203 2District Of Columbia$90,088 3Massachusetts$89,645 4New Jersey$89,296 5New Hampshire$88,465 6Washington$87,820 7California$85,388 8Utah$84,131 9Virginia$83,848 10Connecticut$83,771 11Colorado$82,067 12Alaska$81,818 13Minnesota$80,774 14Oregon$77,305 15Illinois$76,384 16Hawaii$76,285 17New York$74,314 18Georgia$74,063 19Rhode Island$74,008 20Wisconsin$73,014 21Nevada$72,618 22Pennsylvania$71,412 23Arizona$71,033 24Michigan$69,965 25North Dakota$69,478 26Texas$69,430 27North Carolina$67,671 28Delaware$67,016 29Iowa$66,122 30Missouri$65,795 31South Dakota$64,956 32Indiana$64,806 33Florida$64,666 34Nebraska$64,573 35Kansas$64,362 36South Carolina$63,718 37Ohio$61,891 38Maine$61,489 39Montana$59,955 40Tennessee$59,862 41Oklahoma$59,071 42Wyoming$58,845 43Louisiana$58,833 44Vermont$58,654 45Idaho$58,208 46Alabama$55,771 47Kentucky$54,942 48New Mexico$54,076 49Arkansas$52,664 50West Virginia$49,170 51Mississippi$47,519

The South Continues to Lag Behind

Southern states like Mississippi, and Alabama have the lowest median household incomes, under $54,000. Economic mobility in these regions is often hindered by lower investment in public infrastructure and education. As Brookings notes, many Southern states also experience higher poverty rates and limited access to high-paying industries.

States with Growing Incomes

Several states in the West and Midwest—including Oregon, and Utah—are emerging with stronger income levels, typically in the $70,000-$80,000 range.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out U.S. Workers Earning Under $17/Hour by State on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/05/2025 - 08:45

This will be a very light week for economic data.

----- Monday, July 7th -----
No major economic releases scheduled.

----- Tuesday, July 8th -----
6:00 AM ET: NFIB Small Business Optimism Index for June.

----- Wednesday, July 9th -----
7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

2:00 PM: FOMC Minutes, Meeting of June 17-18

----- Thursday, July 10th -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for initial claims to increase to 235 thousand from 233 thousand last week.

----- Friday, July 11th -----
No major economic releases scheduled.

The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Colombia Tolima Los Brasiles Peaberry Organic coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:

• JPMorgan’s Risky, 5-Day Dash to Help Warner Bros. Split in Two: Offering creditors a deal that would leave them with billions less than they were owed, despite the notes having an investment-grade rating. The bankers used a novel strategy, including a rushed five-day deadline and an “anti-boycott” provision, to force an agreement and prevent creditors from organizing opposition to the deal. The strategy worked, with more than half of bondholders agreeing to the new terms, and Warner Bros. was able to split itself into two companies, despite its massive debt load. (Bloomberg)

• Why Vanguard, Champion of Low-Fee Investing, Joined the ‘Private Markets’ Craze: Traditional money managers, after years of cutting fees, look to tap in to higher-cost private investments. (Wall Street Journal) see also Vanguard will soon crush fees for even more investors. Pity the firm’s rivals (Economist)

• From eight-year-old ‘influencers’ to trans anarchists, today’s gun owners aren’t who you think: The demographics of gun ownership are changing, with a huge uptick in Black and Latino people, women and members of the LGBTQ community. Meanwhile, gun influencers are getting younger and younger. Holly Baxter speaks with the people at the forefront of the change — and considers how high a price people feel they have to pay for freedom. (The Independent)

• American Mid: Hampton Inn’s Good-Enough Formula for World Domination: Hampton has become the largest US chain, and a global export, by being rigorously OK. The waffle makers are standing by. (Businessweek)

• Out of space: Picturing the big, crowded business of satellite internet: Space-based internet is remaking Earth’s orbit — and fueling a gold rush. (Rest Of World)

• A Shrinking Housing Market Means Upheaval for Buyers: Big companies like Compass, Rocket, and Zillow are trying to create one-stop shopping venues for home buyers. (Barron’s)

• The Rough Road to Rio: An MG Adventure for the Ages: By June 19, 1954, the day Frank Baker and Gérard Fabry arrived in their MG TD at the northwest border of Guatemala, the wet-season rains of the Southern Hemisphere were in full swing. All the first-year Harvard Business students wanted was to get to Brazil, but their timing could not have been worse. Already 16 days and 5000 miles into their trip, as they idled in the downpour at the guard station, the real adventure was just beginning—one that would press their and the car’s limits. What happened next is a story that has outlived them both. (Hagerty)

• What Makes Someone Cool? A New Study Offers Clues. Six traits can determine your ‘it’ factor, according to researchers who measured coolness around the globe. (New York Times) see also Cool People: What does it mean to be a cool person? Is being cool the same thing as being good? Do the attributes of cool people vary across cultures? We answer these questions by investigating which values and personality traits are associated with cool people and whether these same attributes are associated with good people. (American Psychological Association)

• Why Can’t Americans Sleep? Insomnia has become a public-health emergency. (The Atlantic)

• This Is Not the Way We Usually Imagine the World Will End: Stars passing close to the sun could cause planets to collide, including with Earth, or even be ejected as rogue planets, new simulations show. (New York Times)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Kate Moore, Chief Investment Officer of Citi Wealth; responsible for overseeing investments, portfolio strategy and asset allocation for the trillion dollars Citi Wealth manages. Previously, she was Head of Thematic Strategy and PM for the Global Allocation Fund at BlackRock.

 

Equity sentiment improved again in June — Rising, but not euphoric

Source: BofA Sell Side Indicator

 

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