Germany Makes "Sea-Change Policy Shift" On Nuclear Power In Europe

Three weeks after widespread power grid failures across Portugal and Spain, triggered by unreliable solar and wind power, Germany appears to be sharply recalibrating its energy stance. 

In a notable policy shift, the new conservative government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz has reversed its longstanding opposition to nuclear power. The move reflects a growing understanding in Berlin that overreliance on unreliable solar and wind power generation poses serious risks to economic stability and energy security. The shift also signals a broader return to common-sense energy policymaking in Europe, with nuclear power increasingly viewed as critical in France in achieving reliable, low-carbon power generation.

The Financial Times reports that German officials have informed Paris they will no longer oppose French efforts to have nuclear energy recognized as equivalent to renewables in EU legislation. This marks a significant policy shift, considering former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had firmly opposed treating nuclear power on the same level as solar and wind in the EU's framework for achieving net zero by 2050.

"The Germans are telling us: we will be very pragmatic on the issue of nuclear power," an anonymous French diplomat told the FT, which was involved in the talks with the Germans. The person said this means that "all the biases against nuclear power, which still remain here and there in EU legislation, will be removed."

"This will be a sea-change policy shift," said a German official.

Guntram Wolff, a senior fellow at think-tank Bruegel, said, "It's a welcome rapprochement that will make the topic of energy easier in the EU," adding, "Politically, Merz is also thinking about the nuclear umbrella."

Berlin's reversal on nuclear power comes three weeks after solar and wind collapsed the power grids across Portugal and Spain. 

Europe's dangerous and radical shift to unreliable net-zero energy has been nothing short of a disaster and an embarrassment for the far-left liberals high in their castles in Brussels. 

Merz has clearly recognized the urgent need to reverse degrowth net-zero policies. He also understands the strategic urgency of revitalizing Franco-German cooperation—a prerequisite for unlocking stalled EU-level decision-making under former Chancellor Scholz.

"When France and Germany agree, it is much easier for Europe to move forward," said Lars-Hendrik Röller, a professor at Berlin-based ESMT business school who was chief economic adviser to former Chancellor Angela Merkel, adding, "While several challenges remain, I believe this issue will be solved."

Last week, FT obtained a letter sent to the European Commission by ministers from 12 European member states explaining that it was "imperative" that Brussels acknowledge the "complementary nature of nuclear and renewable energy sources."

The new Franco-German policy shift on energy is critical for Europe to get its house in order, considering NatGas prices have surged since the Ukraine-Russia war, making manufacturing uncompetitive on global markets because inputs have driven up prices of end products (such as automobiles). Solar and wind trends have also created instability in the power grid, which is a national security threat.

It's encouraging to see that Germany has finally acknowledged what has long been clear: a stable, reliable path to net-zero requires nuclear power. ZeroHedge readers have been well ahead of this theme since December 2020. More details here...

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/19/2025 - 11:05

 

 

There have been many winners and losers over the past few months. Perhaps none have been revealed for having furious, unbridled power than the US equity markets. That’s right, it was not Carville’s Bond Market that made the White House cry “Uncle!” but rather, it was the US equities market.

Its naked power and abilities to inspire fear, panic, and even terror are unsurpassed. Bonds might drive the intellectual debate around policy, but it’s the equity markets that politicians pay closest attention to…

Allow me to share three historical examples:

October 2008: The month following Lehman Brothers’ September 2008 blowup, then Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified to the Committee on the Budget on Monday, October 20, 2008. He reminded the House members that the Federal Reserve’s charter was to maintain high employment and low inflation. The Fed, he reminded us,  was not authorized to manage the stability of the financial system or keep credit markets flowing and unfrozen; it was not the FOMC’s charge to address any of the myriad issues that had endangered the financial system’s functioning.

A fiery speech from someone (was it Ron or Rand Paul?) led to a vote against Bernanke’s funding and authority request. He would not be getting the tools necessary to unfreeze credit and keep the banking system operating.

Sayeth Mr. Market: “Hold My Beer.”

The sell-off began immediately after the vote;1 over the next five trading days, the S&P 500 fell 13.9%, the Nasdaq was right behind it at 13.5%, and the Russell 2000 crashed 18%. ALL IN ONE WEEK.

Congress reconvened and passed both the necessary authority and the dollars that the Fed chairman had requested. By November 4th, all of the losses had been made up and then some.

Don’t fix the credit markets, and put corporate revenue and payrolls at risk?

FAFO.

March 2020: The first hint I had that something was amiss occurred in February 2020. My sister and I were looking at assisted living facilities for my mom. “As long as I’m out here, why don’t we swing by Target to pick up a few things.” She was visiting the ‘burbs from the New York City apartment they moved to once the kids went off to college.

Target was out of hand sanitizer, many cleaning products, Lysol, and rubbing alcohol; they were completely sold out of bleach, and, of course, there wasn’t a single piece of toilet paper to be found. (Strange things were afoot at the Circle-K).

A few weeks later, Congress was debating the renaming of a Washington, D.C. library. The back-and-forth on C-SPAN was as tedious as it was unproductive. (Stalemate, nothing done.) It reminds one of the old joke, “Why are academic politics so vicious? Because the stakes are so low and the issues so unimportant.”

March 11, 2020, a day after the Congress critters couldn’t agree on renaming a library, it became apparent that this was no ordinary flu. There were numerous events throughout the day that were concerning, but once the NBA game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the visiting Utah Jazz was cancelled — Jazz center Rudy Gobert had tested positive for COVID-19 — things got bad fast.

All hell broke loose the next day. This set the stage for the lockdowns to begin in earnest and tipped the global economy into shutdown mode.

Then came one of the fastest sell-offs of all time, a decline of 34% in just 17 trading days.

Congress, under then-President Trump (45), soon passed the CARES Act. It was the single largest fiscal stimulus at 10% of GDP since World War 2. This $2 trillion legislation was soon followed by the CARES Act 2 ($800 billion), also under Trump. Not long after President Biden (46) was elected, he passed the CARES Act 3, another trillion-dollar bill.2

That fiscal stimulus turned what looked like another GFC crash into a robust recovery and rally once the government acted. Markets rose 69% from their March 2020 pandemic lows to the end of 2020; they gained another 28% in 2021.

Feel free to debate renaming libraries or taking down statues all you want, but close the global economy in a way that dramatically slashes corporate revenue and profits without addressing the impact of what you’ve done?

Good luck, Chuck!

April 2025: President Trump campaigned on instituting tariffs; instituted a variety of tariffs in his first term; called himself “Tariff Man,” and said, “Tariffs are the most beautiful word in the dictionary.”

So why was the market so surprised by the April 2nd “Liberation Day” announcements? Two reasons: First was the sheer size and scope of the tariffs. But don’t overlook the opaque and ham-fisted communications strategy that accompanied them.

Prior tariffs had been in a 10-20% range; 100% tariffs applied to 182 countries worldwide – and Antarctica! – It was simply a bridge too far. Markets are a future discounting mechanism for corporate revenues and profits, and the market calculated that a giant U.S. consumer VAT tax would reduce corporate revenues 10 to 20%, and profits 20 to 30% (or more).

Hence, the markets were priced at least 20% too high. A week later, the S&P 500 was down 12.4% from its March highs; the Nasdaq 100 sold off 13.6%, while the small-cap Russell 2000 was hit the hardest -14.1%.

This sent Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent into the Oval Office, pleading with POTUS to pause the tariffs for 90 days. If not, “You’ll be the next Hoover – or worse.”

The recovery began immediately. Five weeks later, all the post-liberation day losses had been recovered.

~~~

While everybody has been focused on the size of the tariffs, let’s discuss the communication strategy. A “compare & contrast” with how the Federal Reserve communicates changes in interest rate policy is instructive.

The Federal Reserve announces new policy leanings three to six months in advance. They discuss it each meeting, notifying stock and bond markets that a change is coming. They review the various data series they’re relying on (PCE vs CPI), they discuss changes in the economy, and we see the dot plot shift during a few meetings prior.

Then, a month or so before, the seven members of the Board of Governors and the twelve Federal Reserve district Presidents fan out to speak in various public forums. They speak at the Petroleum Club of Houston and the Economic Club in New York; they present at Stanford and Yale and everywhere in between.

Say what you will about the Federal Reserve, but they are transparent and informative and do not surprise markets.

“Hell hath no fury like a market surprised.”

Look, the rules here are pretty straightforward:

Show respect to the collective insight of the market when it comes to setting prices, integrating risk factors, and summarizing the crowd’s collective psychology. Recognize that current equity prices reflect the probabilities of corporate revenues and profits a year or so out, a future discounting mechanism times some multiple, which itself is driven primarily (but not exclusively) by collective investor/crowd sentiment.

If you imagine yourself more powerful than Mr. Market, take just him on directly. Imagine yourself as smarter, more powerful, able to direct events with greater alacrity and influence.

Surprise the markets and watch the results. You will quickly learn who is the market’s bitch.

James Carville famously said, “I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the President or the Pope or as a .400 baseball hitter. But now I would want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”

Perhaps in his day, he was right.

But me?

When I die and am reincarnated, I want to come back as the U.S. equities markets…

“The stock market remains undefeated.”

 

 

See also:
The Stock Market Remains Undefeated: AN Interview with Barry Ritholtz
Wall Street Breakfast
Seeking Alpha, May 11, 2025

 

Previously:
What Are the Best & Worst-Case Tariff Scenarios? (April 15, 2025)

The Consequences of Chaos (April 7, 2025)

7 Increasing Probabilities of Error (February 24, 2025)

Why Macro Forecasting Is So Hard Impossible (April 24, 2025)

 

 

__________

1. Some years later, Bernanke disclosed that he had sent his wife to the bank to withdraw as much cash as she could before the system crashed completely.

2. President Biden also drove several other important fiscal legislation – the Infrastructure Bill, Semiconductor Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and others. These were primarily 10-year spending bills, reflecting his legislative priorities and/or attempt to Fight the spiking inflation caused by all three cares act fiscal stimulus. I don’t consider these a panic reaction to equity prices.

 

The post The Stock Market Remains Undefeated appeared first on The Big Picture.

What Downgrade? Stocks & Bonds Surge Into The Green After Moody's Cut

Despte all the doomsaying and blame-scaping following Moody's downgrade late on Friday night, the market has well and truly shrugged off the FUD (for now).

US equity markets have ripped higher from the cash open with The Dow erasing all of the losses sine Friday's cash close...

2Y Treasury yields are now lower on the day also...

As we detailed here and here, this is not the end of the world.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/19/2025 - 10:24

Key Events This Week: Big Beautiful Bill; Initial Claims, Home Sales And Fed Speakers Galore

As DB's Jim Reid writes in his weekly preview, "in terms of what the market has been through in recent weeks we could all do with a lie down and there are some hopes of that this week given the scarcity of front line data. However as we know the headlines will keep coming, especially with regards to trade."

Sure enough, it‘s likely that fiscal developments in Washington will take center stage with the House expected to vote on its reconciliation package this week just as Moody's removed the US's last remaining triple-A rating late on Friday night. As DB's economists discussed last week, though the specific components of additional tax cuts on top of the TCJA extension differed from what they had previously outlined, the JCT score of the Ways and Means mark-up was largely in line with top-line deficit assumptions. Assuming House Republicans are able to resolve their outstanding policy disagreements and vote on the tax package this week, the Senate will then start to mark up the bill, where even more policy disagreements await. One thing stands out though, and that is that at this stage there are no signs of any serious deficit restraint.

The flash global PMIs for May released on Thursday will be the main data focal point this week given that it should fully cover a period of trade uncertainty. European numbers are expected to edge up with US numbers broadly flat. Elsewhere inflation in Canada (tomorrow), the UK (Wednesday) and Japan (Friday - preview here) will be of note. Other things to watch are the RBA decision tomorrow, where DB expect a 25bps cut (preview here), the account of the April ECB decision, the German Ifo and US jobless claims, all on Thursday. 

This week’s jobless claims corresponds to payrolls survey week so it will allow banks to refine their current forecast for May. The full day-by-day week ahead is at the end as usual but there’s not a lot of high profile releases. There are though plenty of central bank speakers and these are also highlighted in that calendar. Many are speaking at the Atlanta Fed's annual Financial Markets Conference in Amelia Island, Florida which starts today through to Thursday. Other things to note are the UK-EU summit will be in London today. Then tomorrow, G7 finance ministers and central bankers convene in Canada (through May 22) and the EU's foreign and defence ministers meet in Brussels.

Courtesy of DB, here is a day-by-day calendar of events

Monday May 19

• Data: US April leading index, China April retail sales, industrial production, home prices, property investment, Japan March Tertiary industry index
• Central banks: Fed's Bostic, Jefferson, Williams, Kashkari and Logan speak, ECB's Muller speaks
• Earnings: Trip.com, Ryanair
• Other: UK-EU summit in London

Tuesday May 20

• Data: US May Philadelphia Fed non-manufacturing activity, China 1-yr and 5-yr loan prime rates, Germany April PPI, Italy March current account balance, ECB March current account, Eurozone March construction output, May consumer confidence, Canada April CPI, Denmark Q1 GDP
• Central banks: Fed's Bostic, Barkin, Collins and Musalem speak, ECB's Wunsch, Cipollone and Knot speak, BoE's Pill speaks, RBA decision
• Earnings: Home Depot, Palo Alto Networks, Vodafone
• Other: G7 finance ministers and central bankers meeting in Canada (through May 22), EU's foreign and defence ministers meeting in Brussels

Wednesday May 21

• Data: UK April CPI, RPI, March house price index, Japan April trade balance
• Central banks: Fed's Hammack, Daly, Bostic, Barkin and Bowman speak, ECB's Lane and Guindos speak
• Earnings: TJX, Medtronic, Snowflake, Target, Baidu, SSE, XPeng, Marks & Spencer
• Auctions: US 20-yr Bonds ($16bn)

Thursday May 22

• Data: US, UK, Japan, Germany, France and the Eurozone May flash PMIs, US April Chicago Fed national activity index, existing home sales, May Kansas City Fed manufacturing activity, initial jobless claims, UK April public finances, Japan March core machine orders, Germany May Ifo survey, France May business confidence, April retail sales, Canada April industrial product price index, raw materials price index
• Central banks: Fed's Williams speaks, ECB account of the April meeting, Holzmann, Vujcic, Elderson, Guindos, Escriva and Nagel speak, BoJ's Noguchi speaks, BoE's Pill, Breeden and Dhingra speak
• Earnings: Intuit, Analog Devices, Workday, Generali, Lenovo
• Auctions: US 10yr TIPS (reopening, $18bn)

Friday May 23

• Data: US April new home sales, May Kansas City Fed services activity, UK May GfK consumer confidence, April retail sales, Japan April national CPI, France May consumer confidence, Canada March retail sales
• Central banks: ECB's Lane speaks

Finally, looking at just the US, Goldman notes that the key economic data releases this week are initial jobless claims on Thursday and new home sales on Friday. There are many speaking engagements by Fed officials this week, including Chair Powell, Vice Chair Jefferson, and Governors Kugler and Cook.

Monday, May 19

• There are no major economic data releases scheduled.
• 08:30 AM Atlanta Fed President Bostic (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic will give welcome remarks at the Atlanta Fed's "Financial Intermediation In Transition" conference in Fernandina Beach, Florida.
• 08:45 AM Fed Vice Chair Jefferson speaks: Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson will give keynote remarks at the Atlanta Fed's "Financial Intermediation In Transition" conference. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic will moderate. Speech text and Q&A are expected. On May 14, Jefferson said that he will be "watching for signs that the labor market could cool as tariff increases," and that tariffs "are likely to interrupt progress on disinflation and generate at least a temporary rise in inflation." He later said that "With the increased risks to both sides of our mandate, I believe that the current stance of monetary policy is well positioned to respond in a timely way to potential economic developments."
• 08:45 AM New York Fed President Williams (FOMC voter) speaks: New York Fed President John Williams will speak in a moderated conversation at an event organized by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Q&A is expected. On April 11, Williams said, "The current modestly restrictive stance of monetary policy is entirely appropriate given the solid labor market and inflation still above our 2 percent goal." He added that the current stance of policy "gives us the opportunity to assess incoming data and developments and ultimately positions us well to adjust to changing circumstances that affect the achievement of our dual mandate goals."
• 01:15 PM Dallas Fed President Logan (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan will give remarks and will moderate a panel titled "The increasing role of nonbank institutions in the Treasury and money markets" at the Atlanta Fed's "Financial Intermediation In Transition" conference. Speech text is expected. On April 10, Logan said, "To sustainably achieve both of our dual-mandate goals, it will be important to keep any tariff-related price increases from fostering more persistent inflation. For now, I believe the stance of monetary policy is well positioned."
• 01:30 PM Minneapolis Fed President Kashkari (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari will take part in a moderated Q&A at the Minnesota Young American Leaders Program at the University of Minnesota. On April 22, Kashkari said that the two sides of the Fed's dual mandate are "in tension right now because of the nature of this policy change that’s hitting the economy." He also said that "There’s a very logical argument to be made that a tariff is a one-time increase in prices and then inflation should be low going forward. The challenge is that we’ve had four years of high inflation. So, with that backdrop, are we running the risk of allowing inflation expectations to become unanchored?"
• 02:45 PM Atlanta Fed President Bostic (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic will be interviewed on Bloomberg TV.

Tuesday, May 20

• There are no major economic data releases scheduled.
• 09:00 AM Atlanta Fed President Bostic (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic will give welcome remarks at the Atlanta Fed's "Financial Intermediation In Transition" conference.
• 09:00 AM Richmond Fed President Barkin (FOMC non-voter) speaks: Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin will give a speech at the Richmond Fed's Investing in Rural America Conference. Speech text is expected.
• 09:30 AM Boston Fed President Collins (FOMC voter) speaks: Boston Fed President Susan Collins will host a Fed Listens event and offer brief remarks. Speech text is expected. On April 10, Collins said "Maintaining the current monetary policy stance seems appropriate for the time being, as we learn more about the scope of changes in government policy and their impact on the economy." She added that "It may still be appropriate to lower the federal funds rate later this year. But renewed price pressures could delay further policy normalization."
• 01:00 PM St. Louis Fed President Musalem (FOMC voter) speaks: St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem will speak on the economy and monetary policy at the Economic Club of Minnesota. Speech text and Q&A are expected. On May 9, Musalem said, "It is possible that higher inflation will be short lived and mostly concentrated in the second half of 2025, [but]... It is equally likely that inflation could prove to be more persistent." He added that "The risks of higher and more persistent inflation are currently elevated because: the pre-tariff starting point for inflation is above target; the recent period of elevated inflation likely has raised the public’s sensitivity to it; some measures of inflation expectations have risen; and tariffs apply broadly to intermediate inputs, prompting global supply chains’ rearrangement."
• 05:00 PM Fed Governor Kugler speaks: Fed Governor Adriana Kugler will give a commencement address at the Spring 2025 Berkeley Economics Commencement Ceremony. Speech text is expected. On May 12, Kugler said that, as a result of the effects of tariffs on the economy, "Ultimately, I see the U.S. as likely to experience lower growth and higher inflation."
• 07:00 PM Cleveland Fed President Hammack (FOMC non-voter) and San Francisco Fed President Daly (FOMC non-voter) speak: San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack will participate in a panel discussion moderated by Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic at the Atlanta Fed's "Financial Intermediation In Transition" conference. On April 24, Hammack said, "I think it’s too soon [to make policy decisions]... We want to make sure we’re moving in the right direction, rather than moving quickly in the wrong direction." She added that "If we have clear and convincing data by June, then I think you’ll see the committee move, if we know which way is the right way to move at that point." On May 14, Daly said that policy is in a "good position" to respond to the evolving outlook, adding that when considering the path of policy, "patience is the word of the day."

Wednesday, May 21

• There are no major economic data releases scheduled.
• 12:15 PM Richmond Fed President Barkin (FOMC non-voter) and Fed Governor Bowman speak: Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin and Fed Governor Michelle Bowman will participate in a Fed Listens event.

Thursday, May 22

• 08:30 AM Initial jobless claims, week ended May 17 (GS 230k, consensus 228k, last 229k); Continuing jobless claims, week ended May 10 (last 1,881k)
• 09:45 AM S&P Global US manufacturing PMI, May preliminary (consensus 49.8, last 50.2); S&P Global US services PMI, May preliminary (consensus 51.1, last 50.8)
• 10:00 AM Existing home sales, April (GS -2.0%, consensus +2.7%, last -5.9%)
• 02:00 PM New York Fed President Williams (FOMC voter) speaks; New York Fed President John Williams will give keynote remarks at a New York Fed event. Speech text and Q&A are expected.

Friday, May 23

• 09:35 AM St. Louis Fed President Musalem (FOMC voter) and Kansas City Fed President Schmid (FOMC voter) speak: St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem and Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmid will participate in a fireside chat on the Fed and the economy. Q&A is expected.
• 10:00 AM New home sales, April (GS -3.0%, consensus -4.7%, last +7.4%)
• 12:00 PM Fed Governor Cook speaks: Fed Governor Lisa Cook gives a speech on financial stability at the Seventh Annual Women in Macro Conference. Speech text is expected. On May 9, Cook said, "I expect to see a drag on productivity in the near term stemming from the recent changes to trade policy and the related uncertainty [because]... uncertainty around trade policy is likely to reduce business investment going forward; protectionist trade policies, while intended to support domestic industries, may inadvertently lead to a less competitive environment, if they prop up less efficient firms; and any supply-chain disruptions resulting from the policy changes would make production slower and less efficient."

Source: BofA, Goldman

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/19/2025 - 10:15

Moody's Blues

By Philip Marey, Senior US strategist at Rabobank

On the same day that the fiscal hawks among the House Republicans blocked their own party’s tax and spending bill because it pushes up the budget deficit in the short run, Moody’s downgraded US government debt from Aaa to Aa1. Moody’s said that expanding budget deficits mean US government borrowing will rise at an accelerating rate, pushing interest rates up over the long term. In fact, Moody’s didn’t believe that any current budget proposals under consideration by lawmakers would do anything significant to reduce the persistent gap between government spending and revenues. According to the rating agency, successive US administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs.

In November 2023, Moody’s lowered the US rating outlook to negative from stable while affirming the nation’s rating at Aaa, so the downgrade was just a matter of time. On Friday, Moody’s shifted its outlook on US debt to stable, noting the nation retains exceptional credit strength such as the size, resilience and dynamism of its economy and the role of the US dollar as global reserve currency. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in Meet the Press, on Sunday, said that Moody’s was a lagging indicator and that this has been caused by the Biden administration. After the downgrade, US treasury yields jumped from about 4.44% to almost 4.50% on Friday. This morning, it climbed further to 4.52%. Moody’s is the last of the three big rating agencies to downgrade US debt. Fitch downgraded the US in August 2023 by one level to AA+, and S&P was the first major credit agency to strip the US of its AAA rating back in 2011. Moody’s downgrade does not tell markets anything they did not know and in fact, recent movements in US treasury yields and the US dollar may be of more concern than the official downgrade by a rating agency.

Earlier on Friday, five Republican members of the House Budget Committee voted against advancing the “one big, beautiful bill”, four because they think it front-loads tax cuts in the next few years and delays spending cuts, causing a rise in the budget deficit in the short run. They want bigger cuts in social programs and a faster removal of clean-energy tax credits. On Sunday, the House Budget Committee resumed its session and finally approved the measure for floor action. The Republicans still hope to get the bill through the full House of Representatives before Memorial Day (May 26). Trump wants the bill passed by both the House and the Senate by Independence Day (July 4).

Week ahead

Today, the Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index for the US will be published. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic gives welcome remarks at the Atlanta Fed's "Financial Intermediation In Transition" conference in Florida. Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson And Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan give keynote remarks at the same event. Probably more relevant for monetary policy is Bostic’s interview on Bloomberg TV today. In an interview released on Friday, Bostic said he expected only one rate cut this year, because the uncertainty about the economic outlook is unlikely to resolve itself quickly, and tariffs may put upward pressure on inflation. Elsewhere, New York Fed President John Williams speaks in a moderated conversation at an event organized by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari will take part in a moderated Q&A at the University of Minnesota.

On Tuesday, the German PPI and the Canadian CPI for April will be released. Euro zone consumer confidence for May is also scheduled. ECB Governing Council member Pierre Wunsch delivers a keynote speech, ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone appears in pre-recorded video interview, and ECB's Knot presents DNB's Financial Stability Overview. Across the channel, BoE Chief Economist Huw Pill also speaks. Across the pond, Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin gives a speech at the Richmond Fed's Investing in Rural America Conference. Boston Fed President Susan Collins will host a Fed Listens event and offer brief remarks, but no discussion of current monetary policy and the outlook. More interesting is St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem’s speech on the economy and monetary policy at the Economic Club of Minnesota, including a Q&A.

On Wednesday, we get Japan’s trade balance for April, and the UK CPI and RPI for April. The ECB's Guindos presents the Financial Stability Review and ECB Chief Economist Philip Lane discusses "Negative interest rates and the impact of monetary policy," perhaps a bit academic at this time. ECB Governing Council member Jose Luis Escriva speaks at an event near Madrid. In Florida, San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack  participate in a panel discussion at the "Financial Intermediation In Transition" conference. Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin and Fed Governor Michelle Bowman will participate in a Fed Listens event.

On Thursday, a lot of survey data for May will be published: the German Ifo index, the HCOB PMIs for manufacturing and services for the Euro zone and individual countries, and the S&P Global PMIs for manufacturing and services for the UK and the US. We also get US initial jobless claims for the week ending on May 17, and US existing home sales for April. The ECB publishes its account of the April 16-17 policy meeting.

We also get a lot of central bank speakers. Starting with the ECB, Governor Robert Holzmann delivers opening remarks at the OeNB conference on "Monetary policy and structural tectonic shifts." The ECB’s Vujcic delivers an introductory presentation on the topic: "In Uncharted Waters: Macroeconomic Prospects in the Conditions of a Trade War." ECB Executive Board member Frank Elderson gives a speech on World Biodiversity Day in Leiden, the Netherlands. ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos and Spanish central-bank head Jose Luis Escriva speak at a conference on “Global Challenges for a New Era in Economics, Geopolitics.” Finally, ECB Governing Council member Joachim Nagel holds a press conference with the German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil in Banff, Canada.

On behalf of the BoE, Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden speaks on a panel on "climate liquidity crisis – the rising financial risks of climate change," BoE rate-setter Swati Dhingra speaks on a panel titled "Made in the UK: trade and productivity in British firms 2005-2022," and BoE Chief Economist Huw Pill delivers keynote speech at Austrian central bank conference mentioned earlier.

On Friday, the ECB’s Philip Lane holds a lecture on “Inflation and disinflation in the euro area” at the European University Institute in Florence. On the other side of the Atlantic, Canadian retail sales for March and US new home sales for April will be published. New York Fed President John Williams will give keynote remarks at a New York Fed event. He will have a prepared text and there is a Q&A. By the end of the week, the House Republicans should pass their tax and spending bill in order to meet their self-imposed deadline.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/19/2025 - 10:05

Supreme Court Weighs Trump's Birthright Citizenship Challenge

Authored by Stuart Liess via The Epoch Times,

The United States’ highest court this week seemed divided over whether lower court judges had overstepped their authority in blocking the Trump administration’s attempts to limit birthright citizenship.

Federal judges had put a nationwide block on President Donald Trump’s attempt to remove automatic citizenship status from children born in the United States to immigrants with noncitizen status.

The question at hand is whether the federal judges were allowed to do this. The Trump administration argues they do not, and have overstepped their jurisdiction in this matter.

The decision will also determine the limits of presidential power and whether a president can make such decisions, which will then determine the authority of judges in blocking Trump’s agenda on a much broader level in other cases where he is facing legal challenges.

The United States’ governance system is based on a series of checks and balances where the president enforces laws that Congress has made, and the Supreme Court interprets them and can even overrule them if it deems the laws unconstitutional.

Since Inauguration Day, Trump has signed 151 executive orders, which are directives by the president ordering the government to take specific actions. Their limitations, however, are that they cannot overrule existing federal law or statutes created by Congress.

President Joe Biden signed 162 executive orders during his term, and President Barack Obama signed 277 executive orders during his eight years of office. Trump signed a total of 220 during his entire first term.

Critics of Trump argue that he is overstepping his presidential authority on a number of decisions.

The president declared a national emergency on Jan. 20, vowing to solve the country’s illegal immigration crisis and fulfilling one of his campaign promises to stop an “invasion” at the border.

Trump has vowed to end “birth tourism,” in which he says illegal immigrants are giving birth in this country so that the children will be U.S. citizens.

According to Pew Research Center, the illegal immigrant population was at a 15-year high of 11 million in 2022, while border encounters have been soaring in recent years.

U.S. southern border apprehensions reached a high of 370,883 in December 2023, before dropping in 2024, according to Customs and Border Protection data.

The latest data recorded an 88 percent drop from the previous year, with 29,238 encounters in April this year falling from 247,929 around the same time in 2024.

Constitutional Reinterpretation

The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1868 in the aftermath of the Civil War, addressing the citizenship rights of American-born former slaves.

Then in 1898, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Wong Kim Ark, who was born in the United States but was denied reentry after leaving to visit China. 

The justices said a child born in the United States became a citizen at birth. This set the precedent for birthright citizenship.

The United States is one of about 30 countries that currently offer automatic citizenship by birth. Neighbouring Canada and Mexico do the same.

Trump argues that the amendment was misinterpreted, and the act of birthright citizenship doesn’t necessarily apply to all children born in the United States, particularly immigrants who entered unlawfully or people on a temporary visa.

The statement from the Constitution in question reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The president has argued that the phrase “the jurisdiction thereof” should be interpreted as meaning that the person has sworn allegiance to the country, and to qualify, one parent would need to be a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/19/2025 - 09:46

House Republicans Advance Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" After Weekend Of Negotiations

Following a Friday fracas on Capitol Hill which saw House Republicans fail to advance President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" out of the House Budget Committee, Republicans on said Committee did just that after several GOP deficit hawks relented. And while the bill still has a couple of stops before it can hit the House Floor, passage to the Senate could come as early as the end of this week.

The measure passed narrowly, 17-16, with all Democrats opposed and four Republicans; Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, and Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma - voting "present" after voting "No" on the bill in a 16-21 vote just two days earlier. The sudden turnaround followed a weekend of furious negotiations that remain largely behind closed doors.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) met with fellow lawmakers shortly before Sunday’s vote and told reporters that there had been "some minor modifications," several sources posted on X. Johnson said the bill, which includes making Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent and reforming Medicaid, is now "on track" for a House floor vote toward the end of this week.

The vote was a big win for Johnson and Trump, coming just two days after Republican opposition torpedoed the bill’s first attempt at committee passage. Despite this procedural victory, the legislation must still clear the House Rules Committee and secure a vote on the House floor, where Republicans hold only a razor-thin majority, Axios reports.

Norman, one of the Republicans who shifted his position, said he was "excited about the changes" in the works for the bill.

Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-TX) confirmed during the Sunday night session that "most likely there would be some changes" to the measure before it reaches the floor - but he couldn’t comment on specifics or any side deals that might have been struck.

The panel’s reversal came after it initially rejected the legislation Friday, setting off a scramble to renegotiate terms with holdout Republicans. One of the most contentious elements has been the GOP’s proposed Medicaid overhaul, with conservatives pushing for deeper structural changes and moderates raising concerns about the political risks.

Even if the package passes the House, Senate Republicans are expected to propose their own revisions. To that end, Johnson has also been working to secure buy-in from blue state Republicans by exploring a compromise on the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap.

On Friday, Trump did his usual shit-talking to pressure Republicans into line - posting on Truth Social; “We don't need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party. STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE!”

*  *  *

You can support ZeroHedge by picking up a waxed canvas hat

Click hat... add to cart... check out... receive awesome hat... Tyler Durden Mon, 05/19/2025 - 07:44

Inside World Of High-Net-Worth Lending: Kevin Plank Pledges Georgetown Home For $15M Commercial Loan

Local Baltimore media outlets have reported that Under Armour founder Kevin Plank—who returned as CEO in April 2024—recently pledged his $2 million Georgetown rowhouse as collateral for a $15 million loan. Just three months earlier, Plank relisted his 400-acre equestrian farm in northern Baltimore County. At the time, we asked one very simple question: Is the billionaire CEO searching for liquidity?

The Baltimore Sun—once a far-left, woke newspaper but now showing signs of journalistic revival under new ownership—reported that the $15 million loan is intended to fund or acquire "a business or commercial investment." The paper cited a deed of trust filed last week in Washington, D.C.

"The document makes no mention of specific investments in the filing with the district's recorder of deeds," The Sun wrote, adding Plank "signed the deed on May 9 in a deal to borrow $15 million from Breezewood DE LLC, a Denver-based limited liability company." 

Shedding more light on the opaque world of high-net-worth lending—where anonymity and asset protection are often by design—a blog post from a local real estate team "Fox Homes Team" offers additional color, noting: 

At the center of this transaction is Breezewood DE LLC, a Wyoming-registered limited liability company with no clear public-facing identity. The LLC was formed by Kevin Walton, a Denver-based attorney with the law firm Snell & Wilmer. Curiously, the LLC's mailing address traces back to the accounting firm Eide Bailly, also located in Denver—a layered structure that hints at deliberate opacity and financial insulation. This isn't uncommon in the world of high-net-worth lending, where anonymity and asset protection are often baked into the very architecture of a deal.

What stands out most is the explicit wording in the deed: the loan is designated for "carrying on or acquiring a business or commercial investment." That leaves a wide interpretive window—one that's fueling curiosity across financial and real estate sectors. The ambiguity has sparked a flurry of speculation. Is this loan a vehicle for expanding Plank's private investment firm, Sagamore Ventures? Is it tied to Under Armour's restructuring strategy? Or is it a positioning move to take advantage of D.C.'s evolving commercial real estate lending climate in 2025?

Whatever the answer, the use of a historically significant Georgetown property as collateral signals more than liquidity needs—it's a sophisticated financial tactic. The property isn't just real estate; it's equity in motion. And in this context, Georgetown's value isn't merely aesthetic—it's fiscal leverage in one of the most discerning real estate markets in the nation.

The designation of the loan for "acquiring a business or commercial investment" suggests to us that it will be used for a financial transaction via Plank's Sagamore Ventures, a privately held investment company managed by the Plank family and J. Kelly Dayton. Plank's venture arm has diversified holdings in commercial real estate, hospitality, food, and beverage. 

Mapping Plank's empire via publicly available data:

At first glance, Plank's decision to collateralize his Georgetown home may seem unusual. But in reality, it's a common strategy among high-net-worth individuals looking to secure lower-cost financing—especially in today's environment of elevated interest rates, where swaps are only pricing in two 25-basis-point cuts by year-end.

Outside of whatever the Plank family may invest in next around the Baltimore metro area, the prospect of continuing to pour money into an imploding state—controlled by woke leftists in Annapolis—seems increasingly risky.

Decades of regime-style Democratic rule have culminated in a series of rolling crises: the first credit downgrade in half a century, massive deficits, violent crime, an energy crisis, homelessness, an opioid crisis, an illegal alien invasion, and a lopsided economy heavily dependent on government spending. Taken together, these issues risk transforming Maryland into "Illinois 2.0" by the end of the decade—triggering a deeper exodus of residents and businesses.

Last spring, Plank hosted a private fundraiser for far-left Governor Wes Moore—whose tenure has been nothing short of a disaster for Maryland.

We get that Plank and his inner circle have to play the game of local politics in a state run by Marxist Democrats. But seriously...

In markets, Under Armour is still undergoing a restructuring process, with shares down 19% (as of Friday's close) on the year.

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/19/2025 - 06:55

My back-to-work morning train WFH reads:

• The Stealthy Lab Cooking Up Amazon’s Secret Sauce: The online giant bought a mysterious chip startup 10 years ago. It now looks like one of the smartest deals in tech history. (Wall Street Journal)

• Warren Buffett Reveals He Stepped Down After Finally Feeling His Age: The legendary investor, 94, opens up about his decision to hand the top job to Greg Abel; ‘How do you know the day that you become old?’ (Wall Street Journal) see also  7 life lessons from Warren Buffett that have nothing to do with picking stocks: We all have the ability to emulate the Oracle of Omaha in the ways that really matter. (Marketwatch)

• Tariffs Won’t Reindustrialize America. Here’s What Will: To revive manufacturing the US needs to borrow from China’s playbook. (Businessweek)

• 4 Fund Fee Trends to Watch in 2025: What to make of Vanguard’s low-cost stronghold, new but expensive ETFs, and more. Investors continue to pour money into low-cost ETFs, but new ETFs are by and large high-fee. (Morningstar.com)

• Tipping Point: How America’s Gratuity System Got Out of Hand: From its shady roots to modern absurdities — why tipping culture in the U.S. needs a serious reckoning. (Scraps to Stacks)

• The Old Model of Billionaire Philanthropy Is Ending: The new generation of Silicon Valley elite is far less interested in giving away its wealth. (Bloomberg) but see The Rise of the Selfish Plutocrats: Instead of pursuing philanthropy, many now seek to evade social responsibility. (The Atlantic)

• AI is printing the rocket engine that could beat SpaceX at its own game: Leap 71 is developing AI to build rocket engines faster and cheaper than ever before. (Fast Company)

• Harvard Paid $27 for a Copy of Magna Carta. Surprise! It’s an Original. Two British academics discovered that a “copy” of the medieval text, held in Harvard Law School’s library for 80 years, is one of seven originals dating from 1300. (New York Times)

• Scientists in a race to discover why our Universe exists: The current theory of how the Universe came into being can’t explain the existence of the planets, stars and galaxies we see around us. Both teams are building detectors that study a sub-atomic particle called a neutrino in the hope of finding answers. (BBC)

• The Five Days That Destroyed the Celtics’ Dynasty: The Boston Celtics suffered a shocking playoff loss to the New York Knicks. Now they face impossible questions about how to keep one of basketball’s best teams together. (Wall Street Journal) see also The Knicks Have Been Bad-Luck Losers This Entire Century. Monday Night, It All Changed. When the Knicks beat the Boston Celtics in a pivotal playoff game, it didn’t win them the series. But it hinted at a major transformation for one of the longest-suffering franchises in pro sports. (Wall Street Journal)

Be sure to check out our Master’s in Business with John Montgomery, founder and CEO of Bridgeway Capital.  The firm, which was founded in 1993, manages ~$5B in assets; they have become known for donating 50% of their annual company profits to non-profit organizations.

 

Oil Reserves and Oil Production

Source: Information Is Beautiful

 

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The post 10 Monday AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

Biden Diagnosed With 'Aggressive' Stage IV Prostate Cancer

Fresh on the heels of the Trump administration dumping the Biden-Hur tapes to Axios (revealing what we all knew - Biden was totally cooked & we still don't know who was actually running the country for four years), the Biden family announced that the former president has an aggressive form of prostate cancer. 

The news comes five days after a small nodule was found in the 82-year-old Biden's prostate after a "routine physical exam," which "necessitated further evaluation."

According to the family statement, "On Friday, he [Biden] was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone. While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management."

A Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) is the highest risk category for prostate cancer. The scores range from 6 to 10, with a score of 9 indicating an aggressive cancer with a high likelihood of spreading.

The fact that it has spread beyond the prostate classifies it as Stage IV - with bone metastases common in advanced prostate cancer.

President Trump and First Lady Melania wished Biden 'a fast and successful recovery.'

And wait...

Remember when Biden said he had cancer in 2022?!?!?pic.twitter.com/Dwh2n5sE0D

— Spitfire (@DogRightGirl) May 18, 2025

Which of course begs several questions...

Joe Biden has Cancer with metastasis to the bone.

This is considered advanced.

If he had the best medical care and screenings for 4 years they'd have found it and it means he's likely had it since before dropping out.

Democrats knew. pic.twitter.com/liQdEeiSuX

— Tim Pool (@Timcast) May 18, 2025

Had Biden been re-elected we would not be learning of the prostate cancer diagnosis.

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) May 18, 2025

*  *  *

FINAL COUNTDOWN BEFORE SHIPPING CUTOFF...

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/19/2025 - 06:22

"Smacks Too Much Of Elimination Of Political Rivals" - German Chancellor Merz "Very Skeptical" About Banning AfD

Via Remix News,

In recent months, a ban of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) appeared to be inching closer and closer, but now a key voice has clearly spoken out against such a move.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz has now said that voting on an AfD ban in the Bundestag is not the right path, saying it “smacks too much of the elimination of political rivals.” 

He said he does not believe the current evidence is sufficient.

He has even gone a step farther, stating that former Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, an SPD politician with far-left sympathies who wrote for Antifa Magazine, was wrong to classify the AfD as “confirmed” right-wing extremist in the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) report. 

Critics indicate that she rushed the report out at the last minute of her tenure, despite the BfV having no president and despite a lack of any expert review, which she had previously promised would happen.

Speaking to Die Zeit, Merz said; “Working ‘aggressively and militantly’ against the free democratic basic order must be proven. And the burden of proof lies solely with the state. That is a classic task of the executive branch. And I have always internally resisted initiating ban proceedings from within the Bundestag. That smacks too much of political competition elimination to me.”

When the BfV first labeled the AfD “certainly right-wing extremist,” calls came from the left, including the Greens, Left Party, and SPD, to immediately begin proceedings to ban the party in the Bundestag. Even a large portion of the CDU backed the move.

Now, the BfV has temporarily removed the designation pending a court appeal, and as Remix News reported, this removal may have been in large part possible due to pressure from the United States.

Merz also expressed his displeasure with Faeser’s move to release the report on her last day of work.

He told Zeit he was “not happy with the way this process is being conducted.”

“The old government presented a report without any factual review, and it was also classified as confidential,” he added. 

As Remix News reported, the 1,100 page report contained only public statements from the AfD, and it has already been leaked and published by the German press. 

Remix News, in a report published earlier today, notes that the BfV is likely sitting on huge amounts of private surveillance data related to AfD members, but due to the unsavory mass surveillance methods used to obtain this data, it is likely withholding this from any official report.

“I don’t know the content of this report, and frankly, I don’t want to know it until the Federal Ministry of the Interior has made an assessment of it,” said Merz. 

He said that it would take several weeks and even months for the interior ministry to make such an assessment.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Mon, 05/19/2025 - 02:00

Pepe Escobar 'Decodes' The Istanbul Kabuki

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

Did President Putin really change the game by proposing the resumption of negotiations on the proxy war in Ukraine in Istanbul – over three years after the first ones were scotched by NATO?

It’s complicated. And depends on which “game” we’re talking about.

What the Russian move instantly accomplished was to throw into total disarray the European warmongering Three Stooges (Starmer, BlackRock chancellor, Le Petit Roi) Cocaine Express.

Irrelevant Europe was not even at the table in Istanbul – except via extensive previous briefing of the low-rent, shabby-dressed Ukrainian delegation. That was compounded by the noisy barking threat in the sidelines advocating “more sanctions” to “pressure Russia”.

In March 2022 in Istanbul, Kiev could have stopped the war. Every one of us who were in Istanbul at the time could foresee that Kiev would eventually have to be forced to the table all over again.

So in essence we are back to the same negotiation – with the same top Russian negotiator, competent historian Vladimir Medinsky, heading a delegation composed by pros, but with Ukraine now facing over a million dead; deprived of at least four regions – more on the way; what’s left of its mineral wealth de facto controlled by the US; and a horrendous black hole that passes for an “economy”. We are talking about country 404 territory.

During the negotiations on Friday, Medinsky went straight to the point:

“We don’t want war, but we are ready to fight for a year, two, three – as long as it takes. We fought with Sweden for 21 years [the Great Northern War, 1700-1721, as it is known in Russia]. How long are you ready to fight?”

That’s the geopolitical/military state of things for Kiev and their “to the last Ukrainian” warmongering backers: either you capitulate, or we’re going to hurt you even more.

What’s the point of these negotiations?

Turkiye under uber-opportunist Sultan Erdogan in fact hosted a P.R. meeting between Moscow, Kiev and itself – with the Ukrainians unleashing a blitzkrieg of infantile tantrums only designed to influence global public opinion. In sharp contrast, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitriev, did his best to put a positive spin on the proceedings.

Istanbul 2.0, Dmitriev asserted, achieved a large exchange of prisoners (1,000 on each side); ceasefire options to be presented by both sides; and a continuation of dialogue.

That’s not much. Well, at least they discussed in the same language: Russian. Nothing was lost in translation.

A serious case can be made that to propose the resumption of these negotiations, under this format, was meaningless. There’s no evidence in the horizon both parties might touch the fundamental issue anytime soon: the whole geopolitical strategic equation in Eastern Europe, from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea and beyond – leading to an “indivisibility of security” new deal with global repercussions.

That implies that whatever track these negotiations may follow further on down the road, they are an objective impossibility. Meanwhile, the proxy war in Ukraine – and the SMO – will go on.

That would also suggest that the Moscow security establishment considers the neo-nazi instrumentalized goons in Kiev at best as a re-enactment of the 6th Army of Paulus, with which you negotiate the end of a battle, but not the end of the war.

Even NATO semi-realists as retired Commodore Steven Jermy have been forced to admit that “Russia is in the driving seat” and clueless Europeans “appear to believe that the losers should dictate the terms of ceasefire or surrender.”

All the barking by the – European – chihuahuas of war cannot disguise the fundamental geopolitical/military fact: a massive NATO humiliation. Trump’s humongous problem is that he has to manage it – and sell it to domestic public opinion and the global public opinion as some sort of “deal” he struck with Putin.

It’s enlightening once again to go back to Grandmaster Lavrov, always the uber-realist, back in September 2024: “In April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators reached agreement in Istanbul. If that agreement had been observed, Ukraine would have preserved part of Donbass. But every time another agreement, always accepted by Russia, is broken, Ukraine shrinks in size.”

The (Great) Game, revisited

Now back to the (Great) Game. Kiev negotiators eventually admitting Ukrainian capitulation means a NATO capitulation and an Empire of Chaos capitulation. That’s the ultimate anathema for the US ruling classes. Even an ultra-negotiated, carefully managed Ukrainian surrender will be an impossible sell – not to mention Washington under Narcissus Drowned Trump acknowledging a strategic defeat.

Because that will mean the Empire of Chaos losing Eurasia for good: the ultimate Mackinder/Brzezinski nightmare. Coupled with the consequential solidification of the multi-nodal, multipolar world.

The Russia-China stategic partnership is very much aware of every nook and cranny in this larger-than-life process. Beyond the current Turkish kabuki, they clearly understand the Big Eurasia Equation.

Beijing is fully aware NATO’s real goal was always to confront it via Russia.  Ukraine was NATO’s pawn to take down Russia then get to China from the West. The goal of the US ruling elites as they configured their thalassocratic empire remains to blockade China from the West by land and sea, using Russia; then use Taiwan as a staging area to blockade China from the East by sea. No wonder control of Taiwan is a Chinese strategic imperative.

Enter Mackinder panic – all over again: the China-Russia strategic partnership can beat NATO hands down – and Russia, by itself, is already doing it. Xi and Putin once again discussed the chessboard in detail, in person, prior to the Victory Day parade last week in Moscow.

The endgame, once again, is clear: the US losing the entire Eurasian land mass. Ukraine, under these immense geopolitical imperatives, is only a sovereign-deprived pawn in the (Great) Game.

As for the tantrum-addicted clown in Kiev, he is merely an actor with no authority whatsoever, negotiations included. He is completely dominated by Ukrainian neo-Nazis who will kill him if and when the war is over. He merely fronts for them and gets paid off. And that’s why – enthusiastically supported by inconsequential London, Paris and Berlin – he’s obsessed to continue a Forever War destroying the very nation he claims to represent.

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 23:20

If Abortion Is Healthcare, Why Is Abortion Data Going Unreported?

Authored by Samantha Flom via RealClear Politics (emphasis ours),

We were told mifepristone is "safer than Tylenol" by pro-abortion activists. Now women are discovering how lethal that lie really is.

"Abortion care is healthcare!"

The oft-repeated claim of the abortion lobby emerges whenever someone dares to question whether an elective procedure with the goal of ending a human being’s life really qualifies as medical "care."

But with explosive new research by the Foundation for the Restoration of America exposing that more than one in 10 women who have a chemical abortion experience serious adverse side effects – including death – the time has come to revisit that argument.

If chemical abortion is healthcare, why do the women who choose that path suffer at an alarming rate, and why have we never heard this before?

The short answer: Medical providers have no federal obligation to tell us.

While most states enforce some form of mandatory abortion reporting, there is no national requirement that they report that data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And as states set their own reporting standards, what little information that gets voluntarily provided to the CDC amounts to a jumbled mix of demographics with too many holes to paint a clear picture.

The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reports that just 28 states require public health reporting on any complications that arise from abortions. In the case of mifepristone, the first pill in the two-drug chemical abortion regimen, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acknowledges that those complications could include such life-threatening conditions as sepsis, hemorrhage, uterine rupture, ruptured ectopic pregnancy, and even death.

Despite those known risks, chemical abortion has become the most popular method for pregnancy termination in the United States, accounting for 63% of all abortions – or about 642,700 abortions – in 2023, according to Guttmacher.

Yet the Foundation for the Restoration of America’s review of insurance claims data for 2017 through 2023 revealed an average adverse event rate of 10.9% for every chemical abortion – a risk rate 22 times higher than the FDA admits.

That means more than 70,000 women likely experienced at least one serious adverse health event from a chemical abortion in 2023.

Suddenly, ProPublica’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting last year on the supposed dangers of restricting abortion seems woefully incomplete… and dangerously misleading.

The outlet framed the 2022 deaths of Amber Nicole Thurman, 28, and Candi Miller, 41, as the result of delayed care due to Georgia’s ban on most abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy.

In Thurman’s case, her symptoms reportedly progressed from typical cramping to severe bleeding that worsened over the course of several days. Five days after taking the first pill, she vomited blood and passed out. It was only because her boyfriend found her and called 911 that she even made it to the hospital, where doctors eventually diagnosed her with acute severe sepsis.

While the doctors undeniably waited too long to perform the dilation and curettage procedure necessary to remove the remaining tissue from Thurman’s uterus and save her life, there is no evidence to suggest Georgia’s abortion law played a role in that decision. In fact, the law includes an exception for procedures performed to save the life of a mother, and Thurman’s life was clearly at risk.

The truth is, even if her doctors were hesitant to intervene, it wouldn’t change the source of Thurman’s deteriorating health: the abortion pills.

Miller, like Thurman, suffered an incomplete abortion and neglected to seek emergency care as her symptoms grew increasingly severe. After spending several days moaning in agony, she was found unresponsive in her bed.

An autopsy later revealed that Miller still had fetal tissue in her uterus and a lethal combination of painkillers in her system, including fentanyl. But would she have taken the painkillers if the abortion pills had worked as intended? Probably not.

ProPublica downplayed the complications both women experienced as "rare" side effects of the chemical abortion regimen. But as the latest evidence suggests, they are anything but rare.

Planned Parenthood and its media defenders claim that chemical abortion is "safer than … Tylenol."

Let's put that claim to the test with federal reporting requirements.

If abortion in general is truly as safe and effective as the procedure’s advocates claim, they should have no problem with medical providers collecting and reporting the data to prove it.

Women have a right to know the risks of any medication they might consider taking. Setting aside the cavernous divide on the morality of killing an unborn child, one would hope we can at least all agree that women deserve better from the pharmaceutical industry than a one-in-10 chance of ending their own lives, too.

Samantha Flom is a senior investigative researcher for Restoration News. Her work has also appeared in The Epoch Times and on the Right Side Broadcasting Network website.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 22:10

Kroger Overcharging Customers On Sale Items, Consumer Reports Investigation Finds

You know times are getting tough when grocery stores resort to good ole' fashion ripping off customers via mispricing.

Shoppers at Kroger-owned stores may be unknowingly paying more at checkout due to pricing errors, according to a Consumer Reports investigation with The Guardian and the Food and Environment Reporting Network.

Even if you don’t shop at Kroger, similar issues have been found at other retailers, according to Consumer Reports and NBC affiliate KCRA.

Investigators found expired sale tags on over 150 grocery items, leading to overcharges on products like beef, salmon, coffee, juice, vegetables, cough medicine, and dog food. “Imagine picking up an item on sale only to be charged full price at checkout. That's exactly what Consumer Reports says is happening at Kroger-owned stores across the country.”

The investigation began after Kroger workers in Colorado, currently in union talks, reported widespread pricing problems. CR recruited shoppers to check 26 Kroger-owned stores in 14 states and D.C., finding overcharges averaging $1.70 per sale item, or 18.4% more. Workers blamed staffing cuts and reduced hours, saying it’s impossible to keep up with thousands of discount tags.

The KCRA report says that Kroger is testing digital price tags, promising “better accuracy,” and says its “Make it Right” policy lets employees fix mistakes immediately. In a statement, Kroger said it is “committed to affordable and accurate pricing” and conducts weekly price checks reviewing “millions of items.”

Kroger isn’t alone. In 2022, a Walmart shopper sued over 15% overcharges, and last October, Safeway, Albertsons, and Vons paid nearly $4 million to settle a similar lawsuit.

Consumer Reports advises shoppers to take photos of sale tags, check receipts before leaving, and demand refunds if prices don’t match. An internal Kroger audit found nearly 6% of items had wrong tags—far above its 1% error policy.

“Kroger is committed to affordable and accurate pricing, and we conduct robust price check processes that reviews millions of items weekly to ensure our shelf prices are accurate. The complaint noted by Consumer Reports included a few dozen examples across several years out of billions of customer transactions annually. While any error is unacceptable, the characterization of widespread pricing concerns is patently false," Kroger said in its response.

The company continued:

Kroger’s “Make It Right” policy ensures associates can create a customer experience and addresses any situation when we unintentionally fall short of a customer’s expectations. Connecting regular technology upgrades and our “Make It Right” policy to price accuracy is incorrect.

It is also inaccurate to say the company reduced standards or labor hours. We have not done so, and in fact, the standards we set in 2017 remain the same today.

We intentionally staff our stores to keep them running smoothly while creating an enjoyable place to shop. Our staffing decisions are data-driven to balance workload and schedules.

For nearly two decades, Kroger’s business model has been rooted in bringing down prices to attract more customers to our stores – and this is not changing. We respect our associates and our customers, and we conduct our business accordingly.”

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 21:35

Two Dead After Mexican Navy Smashes Into Brooklyn Bridge

Update (1102ET): Two people were killed in last night's collision between a Mexican navy ship carrying 277 people on board and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Nelson Slinkard/X

Mayor Eric Adams confirmed that two out of the 19 injured died. Police believe a "mechanical malfunction" and power cut had caused the collision.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she was deeply saddened by the loss of the crew members.

The Cuauhtémoc, which measures 297 feet long and 40 feet wide, sailed for the first time in 1982. The ship's masts were 158ft tall, while the Brooklyn Bridge has a 135 foot clearance.

*  *  *

Approximately 20 people were injured when a Mexican navy ship carrying at least 200 people collided with the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday night, snapping its three masts and sending crew members flying through the air - with some left swinging in harnesses for 'at least like 15 minutes' according to an eyewitness.

The vessel, the Cuauhtémoc, is a sail training vessel that was about to leave New York for a goodwill tour to Iceland when the incident occurred. Video showed heavy traffic on the bridge during the collision.

On the scene was 23-year-old Nick Corso, who whipped his phone out to capture the action - telling AP it sounded like a "big twig" had snapped, and that the scene was "pandemonium."

"I didn’t know what to think, I was like, is this a movie?" he told the outlet.

A massive pirate ship just hit the Brooklyn Bridge pic.twitter.com/eWRvh8Ognn

— Corso (@Corso52) May 18, 2025

The Mexican Navy tall ship Cuauhtémoc sailed into New York Tuesday, with 277 sailors aboard.
This is the same ship that crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge tonight.
More:pic.twitter.com/nflRPALTTW

— Marla Hohner (@marlahohner) May 18, 2025

Just watched the Brooklyn Bridge get smoked live by a boat with a massive Mexican flag pic.twitter.com/R8eJKwJaJ2

— Nelson Slinkard (@TheWillieNelson) May 18, 2025

The ship was secured by a tugboat between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges following the collision.

At least 19 people were injured, including four with "serious" injuries, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams - while the Mexican navy puts the count at 22 injured, 19 of whom needed medical treatment.

NEW: Video shows sailors on the masts of the Mexican Navy ship Cuauhtémoc before it hit the Brooklyn bridge. #PuenteDeBrooklyn #Barco #boat pic.twitter.com/gW5GXBfp1a

— Noteworthy News (@newsnoteworthy) May 18, 2025

"We saw someone dangling, and I couldn’t tell if it was just blurry or my eyes, and we were able to zoom in on our phone and there was someone dangling from the harness from the top for like at least like 15 minutes before they were able to rescue them," a bystander, Lily Katz, told AP.

Opened in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge has a main span of nearly 1,600 feet, supported by two masonry towers. Over 100,000 vehicles and an estimated 32,000 pedestrians use the bridge every day, according to the city's transportation department.

 

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 14:02

The Great Simmering In The West

Authored by J.B.Shurk via AmericanThinker.com,

People all over the world are worried about the future.  While regional wars continue to fester, the prospect of global war weighs heavily on many.  However, likely belligerents are not all foreign aggressors.  Nearly a century of globalization has erected a web of clunky international institutions that wield tremendous power while disregarding sovereign borders.  Concomitantly, mass immigration has transformed once-homogenous national populations into stews of many competing cultures and religions.  Battle lines forming inside nations are more serious than those forming among them.

Self-described “futurists” such as Bill Gates and Yuval Harari believe that artificial intelligence will soon replace most humans in the workforce and that a small cadre of global “elites” must centrally manage humanity’s transition to general “uselessness.”  With A.I. entities independently running machines and becoming exponentially smarter and more competent in their tasks, entire industries will transition from human to synthetic labor until all industry surrenders to A.I.  

As emerging robotics programs have demonstrated, no profession will be immune to the next generations of A.I.-equipped machines.  Robots will pick the fields, police the streets, and perform complex medical surgeries.  A.I. can already write legal briefs that pass muster and screenplays that are at least as interesting as anything Hollywood produces these days.  Engineers, architects, and chemists are competing against machines that can process a thousand lifetimes of computations before their human counterparts finish morning coffee.

Men such as Gates and Harari see this future galloping toward us and view its implications as self-evident.  As human producers are replaced, human “value” will dwindle.  

No longer sustaining even a fraction of their cost through their own labor, human beings will become extraneous to the creation of wealth and permanent drains on the global State.  

The task of the global State, in turn, will be to construct a system capable of selecting a small number of “elites” to oversee the system from one generation to the next, while maintaining control over a rump of “useless eaters” permitted to live in State-designed shelters and survive on State-allocated rations.  For those parts of the population not chosen to live as wards of the State, life will be hard.  War, famine, and disease will make survival difficult.  Those struggles, combined with global programs discouraging childbirth and exacerbating infertility, will induce a Malthusian “solution,” in which much of the world simply dies off.

This is a dark vision.  No matter how much globalist “elites” paint this future as “progress,” it is nothing less than a carefully planned planetary genocide.  As with all terrible genocides, it targets not just the human body, but also the human mind and soul.  It means to wear down the “useless eaters” until they hate themselves and pity their tormentors for having to put up with them.  

Have you read about any of the heartbreaking stories involving vulnerable individuals who have been encouraged to commit suicide by taking advantage of Canada’s legalized “Medical Assistance in Dying”?  Often patients’ only ailments are loneliness and depression.  Before they die, many apologize for being burdens on society.  The Canadian government has the gall to applaud victims for their selflessness!  Eighty years after the Nazis summarily executed the physically and mentally disabled for being “drains” on the State, the Canadian government lacks the requisite historical literacy to feel shame!

Yet the Canadian government is hardly alone in embracing policies that deny the innate value of human life.  All Western nations have been busy cultivating a culture of death.  Abortion, once considered the unlawful taking of a life and morally condemnable, is celebrated as some kind of twisted civil right that empowers the strong to kill the weak.  Transgenderism, a mental illness that indulges self-hatred, has mutated from a rare psychological condition into a euphoric movement with fashionable promoters intent on silencing worried parents, hypnotizing medical professionals, and grooming children toward a depressing future involving castration and bodily mutilation.  Young people — particularly women — are encouraged to forgo families and concentrate on professional careers.  

Marriage is demeaned as a “patriarchal” and “homophobic” institution of the past.  Monogamy is ridiculed as unnatural, while promiscuity is encouraged.  Having children is criticized as a “selfish” act that will only exacerbate man-made (i.e., fake) “climate change.”  Central bank–engineered inflation has made the cost of rearing a child so exorbitant that even healthy married couples often put off parenthood until it’s too late.

Under the mutually reinforcing guises of protecting civil rights, advancing feminism, protecting the environment, and dismantling forms of oppression, the West has ushered in a disorienting era in which biological reality, marriage, motherhood, parenthood, and the family unit are under sustained attack.

The devastating results of such policies were entirely predictable.  Birth rates have plummeted.  The Sexual Revolution fundamentally reoriented Western culture away from values that promote and cherish life.  Government welfare programs are now insolvent and headed toward total financial ruin because the youngest generations are too small to support the oldest.  If planetary depopulation was the goal, post-WWII Western globalists mostly succeeded in crippling their own nations.

A century-long experiment that has undermined family values and extolled a hedonistic culture of death has made Western nations much weaker today.  Rather than admit failure, the same Western globalists have chosen to flood their nations with millions of foreigners to make up for crushing population loss.  In order to “fix” one colossal mess of their own making, they have simply created another.

Even so-called “conservatives” have spent the last several decades ignoring immigration laws and defending the resettlement of tens of millions of foreigners.  A number of years back, George Will caught my attention during a segment on Fox News when he scolded Americans who are fed up with illegal immigration by warning them that their Social Security retirement checks would dry up unless the government aided and abetted criminal aliens on a massive scale. 

The moral vacuity of Will’s argument was astonishing.  Since the days of FDR’s dramatic expansion of the welfare state, freedom-minded Americans have long resisted government entitlement programs that tax personal income and redistribute those taxes to other citizens.  Such programs have pushed America toward a form of soft socialism and prevented workers from keeping their own hard earned money to spend or invest as they see fit.  Decades of higher taxes have left most Americans dependent on some form of government welfare.  

Will effectively told conservatives that if they ever wanted to see a dime from all the earned income confiscated in the form of entitlement taxes over their lifetimes, their only answer is to welcome illegal aliens with open arms.  In other words, to save socialism, we must destroy America with open borders!  No wonder freedom-minded Americans no longer listen to George Will. 

For much of the last century, this noxious brand of Establishment “conservatism” has infected Western politics.  Whatever monstrosity the political left constructs today, “ruling class conservatives” work breathlessly to conserve tomorrow.  The West’s collapse has been a bipartisan effort.  That’s why lowly citizens in America, Britain, Holland, France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere no longer see competing political parties.  They recognize one Establishment Uniparty working against them.

That’s bad news for Western “elites.”  They have built a miserable world in which pornography, social media voyeurism, and online “likes” have replaced individual purpose, real relationships, and growing families.  National pride and cultural traditions have given way to open borders and contradictory multiculturalism.  Despite decades of technological abundance, the future still looks bleak and dangerous.  “Art” is all the same because “artists” and “intellectuals” have been conditioned to think and say the same things.

In this great simmering throughout the West, most citizens have no interest in fighting foreign wars.  Their bubbling anger faces one direction: toward domineering, destructive, and unrepentant “elites.”

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 14:00

Did The Biden Admin Fudge Jobs Numbers Into Election? Labor Dept Report Raises Questions

Via American Greatness,

The former Biden administration’s claim to have added nearly 400,000 jobs from July to September of 2024, is being scrutinized after new data released by the Labor Department suggests that none of those jobs ever existed.

Bean counters under the former Biden administration published optimistic estimates for everything from job growth to the size of the economy, only to quietly walk those numbers back and revise them down to more realistic results afterward.

“[N]ew data suggest *none* of those jobs ever existed” https://t.co/6lrXo0Fj5m

— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) May 12, 2025

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) calculates monthly the estimated number of non-farm payrolls as well as making revisions for its last two months’ estimates.

Townhall reports that, under the Biden administration, the revisions were typically abnormal in magnitude and direction and required significant revision downward.

During the third quarter of 2024, the monthly job reports showed an increase of 399,000 jobs.

But with more comprehensive quarterly data being released by the Business Employment Dynamics (BED) survey, the new numbers had to be revised to show a 1,000 job decline during that same period.

The more comprehensive quarterly reports are used to create an annual benchmark figure which adjusts 12 months of jobs data to make the report as accurate as possible.

The annual benchmark figures are published each March and this year’s annual benchmark figures for the period between March 2023 and March 2024 showed a staggering loss of 598,000 non-farm payroll jobs.

Those downward revisions are expected to continue as more of the Biden-era jobs data is released.

From March through June of 2024, the economy supposedly added 398,000 nonfarm payrolls, according to the monthly job reports.

However, the BED data shows a net loss of 163,000 private sector jobs during that time period.

Instead of adding nearly 800,000 jobs during the middle of last year, the economy likely lost 160,000 of them instead.

The Democrats were insistent that the economy was doing great under Biden, but the voters refused to be gaslit about the economic pain they’ve been feeling and voted accordingly.

Check out this ReadyWise go-bag... 25-year shelf life!

Click pic, grab one for each car. Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 12:50

Houthis Again Target Israel's International Airport With Ballistic Missile

The Houthis have responded to Israel's major Friday airstrikes on sites across Yemen by launching two ballistic missiles at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv.

The Israeli military announced Sunday morning the intercept of at least one inbound ballistic missile, saying there were no injuries or casualties from the attack, only light injuries of people clamoring into bomb shelters.

"Sirens had sounded across central Israel, including in Tel Aviv, and the Shfela and Sharon regions, sending nearly a million residents scrambling to bomb shelters," Times of Israel reports.

Prior launch in 2024, via Houthi Media Center

"Preceding the sirens by some five minutes, an early warning was issued to residents, alerting civilians of the long-range missile attack via a push notification on their phones," the report continues.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree later confirmed in a statement the group's intent to strike Ben Gurion international airport again, after earlier this month scoring a direct hit. 

Crucially, he warned that Ansarallah (the Houthis) will keep up these attacks until the "siege is lifted" - in reference to Gaza. Already, the United States military has withdrawn from engaging the Houthis, after President Trump said a ceasefire had been agreed to.

As for the new missile attack, the IDF said its air defenses shot down the missile at around 2am. The second Houthis missile is believed to have likely fallen far short of its target, perhaps landing in the desert. Iranian state media had described it as a 'hypersonic missile' launch - though this seems dubious.

All of this means there will likely be more Israeli attacks on Yemen to come. "The IDF now struck and severely damaged the ports in Yemen that are under the control of the Houthi terror group. The airport in Sanaa also remains destroyed," Israeli Defense Minister Katz said Friday.

"As we said, if the Houthis continue to fire missiles on Israel, they will suffer painful blows, and we will also strike the heads of terror just as we did to Deif and the Sinwars in Gaza, to Nasrallah in Beirut and Haniyeh in Tehran," he added.

اعتراض صاروخ في #تل_أبيب أطلق من #اليمن.. وإغلاق مؤقت لمطار بن غوريون أمام عمليات الإقلاع والهبوط #سوشال_سكاي pic.twitter.com/jhZiE89CAh

— سكاي نيوز عربية (@skynewsarabia) May 18, 2025

And so it looks as if each side will continue trading tit-for-tat blows, but civilians will continue to suffer - and civilian aviation in the whole region could be impacted.

Israel has vowed to decapitate Houthi leadership, saying it will hunt down and eliminate Abdul-Malik al-Houthi in Yemen, along with his top military officials.

But short of an actual ground war, which Israel doesn't have the stomach for - also given ongoing Gaza operations - taking out Houthi leadership and infrastructure will be easier said than done.

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 12:15

Vance & Zelensky Repair Relationship In 'Good' Vatican Meeting

Amid ongoing efforts to reset the relationship between Washington and Kiev, US Vice President JD Vance met with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky and his top aides in Rome on Sunday.

Crucially, this is the first time Zelensky and Vance have met since their blow-up in the White House in February. The pointed exchange had even led to Trump very briefly suspending weapons deliveries and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine.

Via FT/X

But both of them this weekend were in Rome for the newly installed Pope Leo XIV's inauguration mass at the Vatican. Zelensky had also met with the Pope after the Sunday service at St. Peter's.

As for the Zelensky-Vance encounter, the Ukrainian leader hailed that it was a "good meeting". US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was also present.

"We discussed the negotiations in Istanbul, where the Russians sent a low-level delegation with no decision-making authority," Zelensky said.

"I reaffirmed Ukraine’s readiness for real diplomacy and stressed the importance of a full and unconditional ceasefire as soon as possible," he added.

"We also touched on the need for sanctions against Russia, bilateral trade, defense cooperation, the situation on the battlefield, and the future exchange of prisoners. Pressure on Russia must continue until it is ready to stop the war," Zelensky's description of the meeting continued. "And, of course, we discussed our joint steps to achieve a just and sustainable peace."

The Trump White House has indeed been dangling the prospect of more anti-Moscow sanctions, in the scenario that the US deems Putin's engagement in peace negotiations insufficient. 

So far, Zelensky is trying to make the case that the Kremlin is just stringing Trump along, playing the peace game just enough to buy more time as it makes slow gains on the battlefield.

Via FT/X

The Pope himself has meanwhile been urgently calling for peace in Ukraine, among other global hotspots. Interestingly, Washington could be eyeing Rome as a venue for more talks to achieve peace:

A day before the event, Rubio said that the Vatican could serve as a neutral venue for future peace negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow.

Speaking in Rome before his meeting with Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the Vatican's envoy on Ukraine, Rubio noted that "both sides would be comfortable" holding talks there.

Below: most analysts agree that the Istanbul talks resulted in no breakthrough, and that the process is still largely at a 'stalled' point.

This analysis captures the unfortunate result of the US letting Russia deflect the drive for a ceasefire. Tomorrow’s phone calls - Trump-Putin, Trump-Zelenskyy, & possibly Trump/Zelenskyy with key Europeans - could improve the trajectory, if the Trump pushes Putin. https://t.co/6n4yFVRC70

— Daniel Fried (@AmbDanFried) May 18, 2025

The pope last week appeared to be very open to this, telling an audience in some of his first public words since becoming Pontiff that he carries the "suffering of the beloved people of Ukraine" in his heart and called for an "authentic and lasting peace."

Tyler Durden Sun, 05/18/2025 - 11:05



 

Let’s wrap up commencement season with one of the best of all time — remarks by Naval Adm. William H. McRaven, BJ ’77, ninth commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, Texas Exes Life Member, and Distinguished Alumnus.

 

University-Wide Commencement
The University of Texas at Austin, May 17, 2014.
(You Tube)

 

The post Admiral McRaven: 2014 Commencement Address appeared first on The Big Picture.