Green Deception: Environmental Activists Serve China's Energy Agenda

Authored by Joe Buccino via RealClearDefense,

American energy independence is under attack from a shadowy alliance that threatens the foundation of our national security and economic prosperity. On the surface, we see radical environmental activists interrupting corporate shareholder meetings, blocking traffic, and vandalizing artwork. But behind these increasingly aggressive protests lies a more insidious threat: the Chinese Communist Party, which quietly bankrolls these same activists through a complex web of foundations and activist networks. Through dark money, China exploits environmental activism to undermine America's energy sector. This dangerous partnership between foreign adversaries and domestic extremists demands immediate Congressional action – including comprehensive investigations into Chinese funding of domestic American nonprofits and new laws protecting American energy infrastructure. The security of America's energy future hangs in the balance, and we can no longer afford to ignore this coordinated assault on our nation's vital interests.

The evidence of Beijing's strategic manipulation of American environmental groups has been mounting for years, but recent investigations have exposed the actual depth of these connections. Through a sophisticated network of foundations, consulting firms, and environmental organizations, the Chinese Communist Party has established multiple channels to funnel money and influence into groups working to obstruct American energy development. Beijing's influence becomes clear when following the money. For example, Climate Defiance is one of the most aggressive new environmental groups making headlines nationwide. More than half of their 2023 funding flowed through the Oil and Gas Action Network – an organization supported by the Energy Foundation, whose Chinese office maintains deep ties to the Chinese Communist nation and Chinese nationals with direct links to the regime. Similarly, investigations reveal several other prominent environmental groups receive substantial funding through organizations with documented connections to Beijing, including research institutes that coordinate with Chinese state entities and foundations that partner with CCP-controlled ecological agencies.

China's financial support of American environmental groups raises a crucial question that cuts to the heart of Beijing's strategy: Why would the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter and most prominent financier of fossil fuel projects globally invest in funding American environmental protesters? The answer reveals a calculated effort to weaken American energy independence: these radical groups are unknowingly doing China's dirty work by targeting and disrupting America's vital energy infrastructure projects.

The numbers tell the story of China's true environmental priorities. China's greenhouse gas emissions are double those of the United States, while Chinese institutions lead the world in financing new fossil fuel developments. These facts expose an obvious truth—China's interest isn't in saving the environment but in sabotaging America's energy independence and economic competitiveness.

The tactical playbook of these Chinese-backed environmental groups has become increasingly aggressive and disruptive. Environmental activists have shut down a New York Times climate conference, declaring that "climate criminals should not be allowed in polite society." They've disrupted major sporting events, vandalized priceless artworks, blocked highways during rush hour, and damaged construction equipment to cause massive delays at pipeline sites.

These aren't random acts of civil disobedience – they're part of a coordinated strategy to weaken American energy infrastructure and drive-up consumer costs. The groups behind these actions openly admit their radical aims. The Climate Emergency Fund's executive director recently told The New Republic that movements "need to have a radical flank that is disrupting normalcy."

Even when these protests fail to stop energy projects completely, they succeed in driving up costs and causing delays that benefit America's competitors. Look at what happened in North Dakota, where Greenpeace-organized protests against the Dakota Access pipeline resulted in such extensive damages that the energy company is now suing for $300 million in losses.

These protests achieve China's goal: making American energy development so costly and complicated that we become increasingly dependent on foreign sources. While American companies battle protesters and legal challenges, China continues to expand its fossil fuel infrastructure at a breakneck pace.

The evidence suggests we're watching a sophisticated influence operation: China provides funding to U.S.-based foundations, which then channel money to radical environmental groups, who in turn deploy increasingly aggressive tactics against American energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, China races ahead with its own energy development, free from similar protests or disruptions.

The Trump administration should spur Congress to act swiftly to counter this threat. The Select Committee on the CCP must launch comprehensive investigations into the flow of Chinese money to American environmental groups. Americans deserve to know which protesters are funded by foreign adversaries. Second, Congress must pass the Safe and Secure Transportation of American Energy Act, strengthening criminal penalties for individuals who vandalize or disrupt American pipeline operations. This legislation will convey that the Trump administration will not tolerate foreign-funded attacks on critical U.S. infrastructure.

The First Amendment protects Americans' right to protest and voice dissent. But when foreign adversaries exploit these freedoms to advance their own strategic interests at America's expense, we must draw a line. The Chinese Communist Party has found willing – though perhaps unwitting – allies in the radical environmental movement. Their partnership threatens not just American energy independence but our national security.

As these groups escalate their disruptive tactics in the months ahead, remember who benefits from their actions.

When protesters shut down American energy projects and drive-up costs for American families, they're not just advancing an environmental agenda – they're advancing China's strategic objectives at America's expense. The choice before us is clear: We can allow foreign-funded extremists to sabotage American energy independence, or we can take decisive action to protect our critical infrastructure and ensure America's energy future remains in American hands.

Joe Buccino is a retired U.S. Army Colonel and the CEO of Vantage + Vox.

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/28/2025 - 05:00

Nissan Planning To Cut Up To 2,000 U.S. Jobs And Reduce Production By 25%

Nissan plans to cut 1,500–2,000 U.S. jobs and reduce production by 25% as part of a strategic review, according to GuruFocus.

It aims to close a production line at its Smyrna, TN plant by April and another at its Canton, MS plant later in the year. The company is reviewing its EV production and investment strategy.

Spokesperson Shiro Nagai stated the reports are unofficial, and Nissan declined further comment. However, it wouldn't be an unreasonable move for the automaker which has struggled in recent years and is in the midst of considering a merger.

Recall back in late December we wrote that the struggling automaker was considering a tie-up with Honda that would make it the world's third largest automaker. 

Facing competition from EV leaders like Tesla and China's BYD, Japanese automakers are uniting to cut costs and accelerate their transition to electric vehicles.

Honda's president, Toshihiro Mibe, stated last month that the companies plan to form a joint holding company, maintaining their brands while Honda leads management. A merger agreement is targeted for June, with the holding company expected to list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange by August 2026.

There is still to study and discuss, Mibe said. He commented: “Frankly speaking, the possibility of this not being implemented is not zero.”

“We have come to the realization that in order for both parties to be leaders in this mobility transformation, it is necessary to make a more bold change than a collaboration in specific areas,” he added. 

AP writes that a potential merger between Honda, Nissan, and Mitsubishi could create an automotive giant valued at over $50 billion, helping them compete with industry leaders like Toyota and Volkswagen.

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/28/2025 - 04:15

Trump's 90-Day Suspension Of Foreign Aid Might Counterintuitively Bolster Washington's Influence

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

One of the Executive Orders that Trump just signed suspends some foreign aid for 90 days, specifically “development assistance funds to foreign countries and implementing non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and contractors”, in order to assess their “efficiencies and consistency with US foreign policy”. It remains unclear at the time of writing whether the State Department’s subsequent “stop-work orders” will affect military aid to Ukraine so that possibility won’t be covered in this analysis.

Most foreign aid programs have been exploited to meddle in other countries’ affairs by funding anti-government and even in some cases anti-state movements that later orchestrate Color Revolutions. Even if they’re not taken to that extreme, they at the very least create problems for the implementation of those countries’ domestic and foreign policies by artificially manufacturing grassroots opposition to them, which manipulates perceptions of their popularity and can thus influence national elections.

Such was recently the case in Georgia, which fended off a nearly-two-year-long Western-backed but superficially “NGO”-driven campaign against the ruling party. This was officially waged in response to their FARA-inspired foreign agents law but was really punishment for them pragmatically refusing to sanction Russia and open up a “second front” against it in the South Caucasus during Ukraine’s failed summer 2023 counteroffensive. Georgia can now rest a bit easier for the time being.

The same goes for the many African countries like new BRICS partner Uganda who’ve been aggressively pressured by American-backed “NGOs” into accepting the normalization of LGBT+ in contravention of their traditional values. As put forth in Trump’s Executive Order, “The United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy…serve to destabilize world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries.”

Observers also shouldn’t forget about India after the US meddled in last year’s elections despite their strategic partnership. Russia gave voice to India’s concerns at the time due to the sensitivity of India calling the US out while the political process was ongoing, after which the ruling BJP accused the State Department and the “deep state” of meddling in other matters last month. While independently financed Soros still remains a problem, the US government shouldn’t be one for now, to India’s relief.

Less political meddling and socio-cultural engineering, at least for the next three months, will be much appreciated by all those countries that have been targeted by “NGO”-driven Hybrid War.

The emphasis is on less of these efforts as opposed to their complete freeze since some programs might have enough funds left to partially operate during the interim while the Secretary of State can issue waivers for specific ones at his discretion. Some might therefore continue in full but most will be adversely affected.

The end effect is that American influence might rebound in the Global South since a large part of why many of these countries started turning away from the US since the start of the century was due to it violating their sovereignty by funding “NGOs” that meddle in their affairs.

If Trump reforms the US’ international lending strategy to remove political strings on aid programs, including from those institutions that it controls like the IMF and World Bank, then this process would further accelerate.

His promised imposition of more tariffs might trouble some of these same countries, but it’s not the same as coercing them into making political and socio-cultural changes against their will in exchange for emergency financial aid, which ultimately risks destabilizing them and later advancing regime change. This potentially new approach could restore some of the attractiveness in partnering with the US by partially evening the odds vis-à-vis its competitions with China and Russia in the Global South.

In the event that this comes to pass, then those two would be compelled to offer better deals to their partners in order to prevent them from being enticed by the US into accepting whatever it proposes, thus possibly catalyzing a cycle of competition that works to those other countries’ benefit. For that to happen, the US would have to treat its partners more as equals and less as vassals, but old habits die hard so this can’t be taken for granted even if Trump appears somewhat (key qualifier) interested in it.

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/28/2025 - 03:30

Tesla Hits Brussels With Lawsuit Over Tariffs On Made-In-China EVs

Elon Musk's Tesla filed a lawsuit against the European Commission in Luxembourg, challenging tariffs imposed on imported made-in-China electric vehicles. The lawsuit marks the latest friction between Musk and Brussels, further intensifying tensions following his public support for Germany's AfD party that has infuriated EU progressives. 

Financial Times reports that the European Court of Justice published confirmation of a lawsuit filed by Tesla's Shanghai subsidiary on its website early Monday. No further details were provided about the lawsuit, which follows similar claims filed by Germany's BMW and three Chinese automakers.

In October, the EU imposed anti-subsidy tariffs of up to 7.8% on made-in-China Teslas and as high as 35.3% on some Chinese EVs. These were in addition to the standard 10% import tariff for vehicles. 

• EU Slaps Up To 45% Tariff On Chinese-Made EVs As "Economic Cold War" Risks Soar

The European Commission, the bloc's executive arm, concluded its anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese imports of EVs in 2024. The findings showed China's unfair support for its EV industry, which could produce cheaper EVs than EU automakers. The duties enacted would be active for five years. 

Transport and Environment data shows that Tesla accounted for 28% of the Chinese-made EVs imported into Europe in 2023. 

Tesla received the lowest tariff rate among all other EV importers because Beijing provided it with the least financial support. 

BMW wrote in a statement that EU tariffs on imported EVs "do not strengthen the competitiveness of European manufacturers," but instead "harm business model of globally active companies" and "limit the supply of e-cars to European customers and can therefore even slow down decarbonization in the transport sector."

BMW considers it "preferable that a political agreement be sought through negotiation. As stated before, it is important to avoid a trade conflict that only has losers in the end."

Meanwhile, Tesla's lawsuit against the bloc complicates things for Musk as he made a recent surprise address at the campaign launch for Germany's Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. 

The timing of Musk's support for the AfD and Tesla's tariff dispute with Brussels highlights the growing tension between the world's richest man and the woke progressives running the bloc. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/28/2025 - 02:45

What Happens If Ukraine Collapses?

Authored by Tuomas Malinen via substack,

The situation is developing rapidly in Ukraine. Many of the key towns and cities to Ukrainian defence seem to be falling like dominoes. Colonel of the Austrian Armed Forces, Markus Reisner, has warned that the collapse of the AFU (Armed Forces of Ukraine) is likely to be near. Developments on the ground are confirming this with, e.g., Kurakhove and Velyka Novosilka falling in consecutive (rapid) fashion.

A “peace plan” has also surfaced, allegedly from the Trump administration. It basically lays out a path, where a truce should be declared by Easter (April 20) 2025 and peace by May 9. If this is the actual plan, I have to ask in what reality are the people who wrote it living in? The collapse of the AFU may be just days (the worst-case) or few weeks away. And then there’s this proposition:

Ukraine does not reduce the size of the army. The United States is committed to continuing support for the modernization of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The idea that Russia would allow the U.S. to continue to create a proxy-force along its longest border in the west is ludicrous. For example, in the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947, the Finnish army was heavily sanctioned and it’s size diminished. No outside force was allowed to participate on its modernization or development, because the Soviet Union did not want to see another attack on their soil (Finland took part on the Operation Barbarossa, unofficially). Moreover, like I have noted in the Peace in Ukraine, there’s only one force in the world that can surveillance the line of ceasefire with any credibility: the U.N.

If this really was an actual (second) proposition of President Trump, it’s definitely better than the first one, but there’s still a long way to go. The main point to recognize is that the days of American military hegemony have passed.

To provide some additional motivation, I will now open the best and worst-case scenarios of post-AFU-collapse developments for everyone to read.

*  *  *

Update II 1/25/2025

It seems that I was a bit too hasty in my conclusions concerning the halt of U.S. military aid to Ukraine. First of all, the stoppage reportedly concerns only the part of the State Department, while most of the military aid (naturally) goes through the Pentagon. Zelenskyy has also just recently stated that U.S. military aid has not been halted (“thank God”). To note, the halt of foreign aid concerned all countries, except Egypt and Israel.

However, we should remember two things. In late-June, President Trump was presented a plan that suggested a halt of military aid to Ukraine, if it refuses to open talsk with Russia. Secondly, the Secretary of Defence, Pete Heghseth, was appointed (approved) by the Congress just yesterday.

These imply that the halt of the flow of aid through State Department could have been a warning. That is, it could have been used to signal President Zelenskyy that negotiations with President Putin needs to commence, asap. And, if this does not happen, actual curbs in the flow of funds through the Pentagon will be introduced.

Based on what I know from the negotiation strategies of President Trump,1 such a work-plan is plausible. Trump has also stated many times that he wants a peace to Ukraine, and it needs to start with getting the two sides to the negotiation table. “Blackmailing” Ukraine with military aid, will accomplish this, I am sure.

With the Kremlin, however, President Trump needs to pull out some (serious) carrots, not just sticks. Russians are progressing steadily in Ukraine and closing in on critical logistic hubs, most notably Pokrovsk. Russia is holding a serious upper-hand in the war, and further economic sanctions are a moot point (more on that later). I think everything needs to start with negotiations between Presidents Putin and Trump. Here’s the roadmap.

Let’s see what comes.

*  *  *

Update

Yesterday evening, we learned that the Trump administration halted almost all foreign aid, including military aid to Ukraine, for 90 days. This was reported by Politico, and it means that the clock truly starts to tick for the collapse of the AFU.

President Zelenskyy now effectively faces two options:

1. To start negotiations with President Putin.

2. Face an impending collapse or an unconditional surrender of the AFU, possibly leading to a military coup.

In other words, the stakes were just raised heavily. I am keen to think that President Zelenskyy will start negotiations, but first he has to change his decree making all negotiations with President Putin illegal.

In any case, things are in motion now.

*  *  *

Issues discussed:

• The best-case scenario leading to truce and negotiations after the collapse of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).

• The worst-case scenario leading to a regional war after the collapse of the AFU.

• How do we get to the path leading to peace.

Ukraine has become something of a re-entry way to geopolitics for me. This is mostly, because I have made a complete 180 degree turn in my views towards the war between Russia and Ukraine. I started with an over-whelming support for Ukraine (see, e.g., this, this and this), which turned into a suspicion in September 2022, and into a full opposition five months later. Now, I want to understand, what could happen in Europe, if the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) would collapse, a point which edges closer each passing day.

I present two, the best-case and the worst-case, scenarios for post-collapse Ukraine (and Europe). By collapse I mean a mass retreat of soldiers and battle-field commanders from the frontlines across the nation. Such an event may come about much easier than many think. This is because in a situation, where reserves are highly limited, like they are now in Ukraine, collapse of some sections of the frontline can come rapidly leading to panicky capitulations across the entirety of the frontline. When there are no amble reserves to strengthen the failing sections, there’s a risk of forces becoming pocketed in, forcing a wide-scale retreat. This is, e.g., what happened to Finnish Defence Foces in the Karelian Isthmus in early summer of 1944.

More precisely, I will sketch two plausible paths of developments after the defences of Ukraine crumble. I will not go into specifics of possible military developments, because that’s not my expertise. No one also can honestly state that they would know what happens after a collapse of the AFU, but we can speculate. Let’s dive in.

Post-requiem of the AFU: The best-case

The best-case scenario assumes that there will be no aim of the NATO Deep State or Ukrainian leadership to push the whole continent into a war. Based on what we have seen, the opposite seems to hold. Moreover, the best-case scenario assumes that President Trump is willing to accept Ukraine losing a large chunk of its landmass and to end the open-door policy of NATO. We at GnS Economics have recently warned on the possibility of a failure of President Trump in Ukraine, as it appears that he would not be willing to commit to such conditions.

These assumptions lead to 10 developments that could occur after the collapse of the AFU, in the best-case:

1. Russian troops quickly progress to the banks of the Dnepr.

2. Generals of the AFU hastily secure the defences of Kiev.

3. The United Nations jumps into action with the Security Council calling for an immediate ceasefire supported also by Russia.

4. Russian troops halt their progress to the Kherson-Dnipro-Kiev -line (along the Dnepr).

5. NATO halts all Ukraine/NATO attacks to Russian troops in Ukraine, by the order of President Trump.

6. Presidents Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy agree on the terms of an U.N. monitored line of ceasefire along the Dnepr.

7. Russia limits its military presence to ceded areas and evacuates attack systems to sufficient distance from borders (established line of ceasefire) of the remaining Ukraine.

8. The EU and the US stop all deliveries of weapons and volunteers to Ukraine.

9. The EU and the U.S. agree on an emergency economic support package for the (remaining) Ukraine.

10. The neutrality of Ukraine is agreed as the starting point of peace negotiations including all the major parties: China, The EU, Ukraine, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and NATO.

Essentially, the best-case scenario mimic the developments and actions we would need to see to establish a (lasting) peace in Ukraine. At this point, this looks unlikely, which is why need to turn to the worst-case to understand what may come.

Post-requiem of the AFU: The worst-case

How could the situation develop in the worst-case?

1. Russian troops advance rapidly to the Dnepr.

2. NATO calls for imminent ceasefire and hails to send in a “peace-keeping force”, while announcing that Ukraine will be made member of the Alliance.

3. Russian troops cross the Dnepr and enact a siege of Kiev with the troops advancing from Belarus, while Russian troops in the South advance on the outskirts of Odessa. President Zelenskyy flees to Poland to oversee the “resistance”.

4. France sends troops to Odessa, while the U.K., in accordance with the 100-year Partnership Declaration, send troops to Lviv.

5. Russia strikes Lviv with Oreshnik or with a tactical nuclear weapons destroying the U.K. troops.

6. The U.K. declares war to Russia, and President Trump warns Russia not to escalate any further.

7. Poland strikes Belarus, while sending her forces to Lviv.

8. Russia and Belarus strike to NATO bases in Poland.

9. NATO enacts Article 5 and starts a massive buildup of troops along its eastern border. Russia and Belarus responds with mobilization.

10. A regional conflict forms.

NATO is yet not ready for a full military conflict with Russia, which is why the ladders of escalation end to “forming” of a regional conflict (on which more below). Naturally the sequence of events can also take a much darker turn with the 10 ladders leading into an onset of a nuclear war. There’s also the possibility that, when the imminent collapse of the AFU looms the Zelenskyy regime, with the help of the NATO Deep State, stages a false flag attack targeting either the NATO troops in Europe or a NATO country, blaming Russia. This would start a NATO-Russia war, or at least lead to widening of the conflict.

Conclusions

I have to say that I am not very optimistic on the prospects peace in Ukraine, currently. President Trump seems to be fixated to the old-dated view that NATO and the U.S. would hold a military upper-hand still. Developments in Iran and especially in Ukraine have already shown this not to be true.

Moreover, I worry on the growing military strength of Russia. Just yesterday, I learned that Russia has started to mass-produce battle-drones which are immune to electronic warfare. The story with Russian military development in a conflict is always the same. First, they screw up massively, then retreat, learn, regroup and strike with unmet fervor. During the past 90 years there’s only exception to this, the Soviet-Afghan war, which ended to the defeat of the Red Army and to the collapse of the Soviet Union (driving the defeat). At current time, I am rather certain that Kremlin seeks only peace. If the AFU and Ukraine become over-run, would that change? It probably depends on the scenario we end up to.

I honesty cannot conclude anything else from the actions and comments of some European NATO members than that the Alliance is seeking a pro-longed conflict with Russia. The likelihood of this grows with Russian military strength building up, because it will be met by NATO (eventually). It seems rather obvious that NATO is not yet ready for a pro-longed conflict with Russia, and the NATO Deep State, et al., may look to end the conflict in a way that would create fear and thus wide-spread acceptance in Europe for a re-armament. A false flag attack somewhere in Europe blaming Russia would suit this purpose well. Also, an unconditional surrender of the AFU combined with massive russophobic propaganda could also do the trick. When re-armament cycle gets going in Europe, wars result.

How long do we have, before the AFU collapses (or surrenders)? No one knows for sure, but most estimates put this in the range from months to a year. Yet, we have to acknowledge that this point can also arrive very quickly. Losses are massive and there are rumors of a mutiny building within the AFU. After the collapse, we would enter some very dangerous waters.

I dearly hope that President Trump changes his course in Ukraine rapidly.

Tyler Durden Tue, 01/28/2025 - 02:00

How A Montana Community Learned To Live With The Bomb

Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The landscape is stark and unforgiving, typical of deep winter in rural Montana.

The snow-covered Judith Mountains rise majestically in the distance, while vast fields of dormant wheat, hay, and barley stretch beneath a gloomy gray sky blanketed in white.

Ed Butcher, 81, peered through the cracked windshield of his red Honda all-wheel drive, which had been struck by a bird a few days earlier.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Allan Stein/The Epoch Times, Public Domain

At the end of an eight mile gravel road, two miles east of the family homestead in Winifred (population 174), he could see his destination.

The one-acre plot is secured by a chain-link fence, complete with surveillance cameras, motion sensors, and barbed wire.

On the fence hangs a sign that reads “Restricted Area,” warning that anyone who breached the fence could be subject to the authorized use of lethal force.

“This is it—the grand tour,” Butcher exclaimed as he parked the vehicle and stepped outside into the biting cold wind and tundra.

He pointed through the fence and said, “There’s the missile.”

Beneath tons of reinforced steel and concrete inside the Hatch Launch E05 facility, the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) has remained on alert for a nuclear attack for 60 years.

In 1964, when Butcher was in high school, his father sold a one-acre plot to the Air Force for $100, allowing it to house this single missile with a nuclear warhead, sitting thousands of miles away from a potential target.

The Minuteman missile system is a powerful weapon system, developed in the late 1950s and deployed a decade later at strategic locations across the United States.

It was a groundbreaking development at the time, combining speed, mobility, and reliability to achieve nearly a 100 percent alert rate—two launch crew officers provide around-the-clock alert ability in the launch center, according to the Air Force.

The missile stands 59 feet tall and weighs 79,342 pounds. It can travel up to 8,700 miles at speeds reaching 15,000 miles per hour outside the atmosphere.

As a weapon of mass destruction, it can deploy up to three Mk12A nuclear warheads, each with a yield of 300 to 350 kilotons of TNT.

Ed Butcher walks around the chain-link perimeter fence surrounding a Minuteman III missile silo on his family's ranch in Winifred, Mont., on Jan. 8, 2025. Allan Stein/The Epoch Times

Each warhead is more than 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, which resulted in the deaths of 140,000 people.

Butcher, a former Montana legislator, recalled a period of nuclear brinkmanship based on the principle of mutually assured destruction when the Minuteman missile first arrived on the family ranch.

This was during the peak of the Cold War, following the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the United States and Soviet Union closer to nuclear war than ever before.

Everyone was anxious about a potential nuclear exchange, Butcher recalled, and “duck and cover” drills were routine in schools.

Despite the context, Butcher adapted to living near the missile. He never truly feared a nuclear attack on “Missile Country.”

Logic told him that the Minuteman III would be launched long before any Soviet missile could reach its target.

Butcher, a fifth-generation rancher with 400 to 500 cattle, remarked: “They'd be hitting an empty hole.”

The 12,000-acre cattle ranch has been in the Butcher family since 1913 when Ed’s grandparents first settled there.

Missile County

Fergus County, Montana, approximately the size of New Jersey with a population of 11,772, is home to 52 operational nuclear missile silos. Lewistown serves as the county seat.

The 341st Missile Wing stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base  in nearby Cascade County. The base is one of three—located in Montana, Wyoming, and North Dakota—that utilize the Minuteman III land-based missile system.

Butcher said that he had observed the Minuteman III missile outside the hatch at least once during scheduled maintenance.

A 341st Missile Wing Inspector General team member inspects a launch facility recapture exercise during Global Thunder 19 at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., on Oct. 30, 2018. Beau Wade/U.S. Air Force

“I was counting cows out in the pasture,” and the security gate to the missile silo was open, Butcher said. “One of the cows got inside near the missile.”

Butcher said he entered  the secure area to fetch his cow. He was immediately confronted by an armed military guard.

“Sir, you can’t be here,” the soldier said.

“I own this place,” Butcher responded. “These are my cows.”

The guard persisted, so Butcher replied, “Then you chase her out.”

The soldier’s eyes got “really big,” Butcher recalled. “He looked at the cow. He looked at me.”

“He finally decided it was OK for me to come riding in. He didn’t want to chase after a cow.”

His father, who was a licensed pilot, would also check on the cattle from the air.

“He’d always turn before he got to the missile [silo],” Butcher said. “ He didn’t want to be flying over if they decided to set it off. That was the closest thing Dad had for concerns” about nuclear missiles.

“Other than that, he didn’t care.”

Three Legs of Deterrence

The Minuteman III weapon system completes America’s nuclear “triad,” which includes submarine-launched ballistic missiles and strategic bombers.

The Sentinel ICBM program is set to replace the 400 missiles and 450 launch facilities of the aging Minuteman III weapon system by 2038, providing capabilities until 2075.

In September 2020, the Air Force awarded Northrop Grumman a contract worth $13.3 billion to design and build the Sentinel program.

However, on Jan. 18, 2024, the Air Force announced that the project’s costs had reached a critical Nunn-McCurdy breach, which is when initial estimate thresholds are exceeded by 25 percent or more, triggering a review.

The cost of the Sentinel program is now estimated at $140.9 billion, representing an 81 percent increase from the program’s 2020 budget.

According to the Nunn-McCurdy review, the command and launch segment accounts for the majority of this cost growth.

In a statement, the Air Force indicated it is developing a comprehensive plan to restructure the Sentinel program, focusing on the root causes of the breach and establishing a suitable management structure to control costs.

“Our U.S. nuclear forces are ready, as they have been for decades, to deter our adversaries and respond decisively should deterrence fail,” said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin in the January 2024 statement.

Airmen from the 90th Maintenance Group are responsible for maintaining and repairing ICBMs on alert status within the F.E. Warren missile complex, as they are one of three missile bases part of Air Force Global Strike Command, on Dec. 18, 2019. The Minuteman III, on alert at all three bases, replaced the Peacekeeper at F.E. Warren in the 1970s. Senior Airman Abbigayle Williams/U.S. Air Force

“We face an evolving and complex security environment marked by two major nuclear powers that are strategic competitors and potential adversaries,” Allvin said.

“While I have confidence in our legacy systems today, it is imperative that we modernize our nuclear Triad. A restructured Sentinel program is essential to ensure we remain best postured to address future threats.”

Lewistown and Great Falls, 116 miles northwest, will be most affected by the Sentinel project in Montana.

The project will involve removing all 45 missile alert facilities from the missile fields and building launch centers in at least 24 locations.

It will include renovating all 450 existing launch facilities to a “like-new” condition.

The Sentinel project also involves the  construction of 3,100 miles of new utility corridors while using 4,900 miles of existing corridors and easements.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2025 - 23:25

House GOP Could Grant Concealed Carry Reciprocity For 22 Million Gun Owners Nationwide

Authored by Bronson Winslow via American Greatness,

House Republicans and President Donald Trump are sponsoring legislation to dismantle 50 years of Democrat-led firearm laws that have stifled concealed carry reciprocity in America and unduly burden nearly 22 million gun owners.

The Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R. 38) is backed by 120 House Republicans and would ensure consistent protections for responsible firearm owners nationwide while still respecting state-level laws and autonomy. President Donald Trump has expressed his strong support and readiness to sign the bill into law if it lands on his desk.

“Our Second Amendment right does not disappear when we cross invisible state lines, and this commonsense legislation guarantees that,” said North Carolina Rep. Hudson (R).

“The Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act will protect law-abiding citizens’ rights to conceal carry and travel freely between states without worrying about conflicting state codes or onerous civil suits.”

Much like driver’s licenses, concealed carry permits would be recognized across state lines, with individuals required to adhere to the laws of their destination state. The bill upholds state sovereignty by refraining from imposing a national standard for concealed carry.

Instead, it ensures reciprocity while respecting each state’s authority to define its own regulations. If enacted, this legislation would empower an estimated 22 million Americans to travel freely without fear of punishment under restrictive laws in states with stringent gun control policies.

Modern concealed carry permitting first began in Georgia in the 1970s under Democrat Governor Zell Miller. The Georgia permit process quickly gained traction across America, and many states entered into reciprocity agreements to allow residents to travel freely.

But that wasn’t the case in all states. Numerous blue states began to reject reciprocity with states that fostered strong Second Amendment freedoms—effectively creating a dicey road map for traveling gun owners.

"At every turn, federal bureaucrats and Washington Democrats are relentlessly trying to undermine the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans,” said Kansas Rep. Tracey Mann (R).

“Our constitutional rights don’t magically go away when we travel across state lines, no matter how badly states like New York and California wish they would.

Alongside President Trump, pro-gun advocacy group Gun Owners of America (GOA) has endorsed the legislation, saying, “Congress has the opportunity to deliver the greatest legislative victory for the gun rights movement in a century.”

“President Trump has already voiced his support. It is simply common sense for Congress to ensure that each state’s concealed carry license is valid in every other state,” said Aidan Johnston, GOA’s Director of Federal Affairs.

Stop Restriction Overkill

Many states across the U.S. enforce restrictive laws that hinder concealed carry permit holders from fully exercising their Second Amendment rights. Additionally, states often refuse reciprocity with others they perceive as having insufficient safety standards for issuing permits.

If enacted, H.R. 38 would prevent states like New York and California from barring law-abiding Americans from Texas or Florida from carrying concealed weapons for self-defense while traveling. However, while the legislation ensures reciprocity between states, it does not override or change the specific gun laws within individual states.

Yet even with enforced reciprocity, permit holders encounter significant challenges in blue states like New York, California, and Maryland, which enforce restrictive regulations that designate broad areas as “sensitive locations” where concealed carry is prohibited.

In 2022, the Supreme Court affirmed in the Bruen ruling that every American has the right to carry a firearm for self-defense. However, numerous blue states continued to impose restrictive measures—all while claiming they updated their laws to adhere to Bruen.

These states continue to restrict concealed carry in locations such as casinos, public libraries, museums, bars, and restaurants serving alcohol, entertainment venues, and even on private property without explicit consent—making concealed carry a nightmare even if nationwide reciprocity becomes a reality.

Moving Forward

The Constitutional Concealed Carry Act showcases the Trump administration’s willingness to assist law-abiding gun owners after four years of persecution under former President Joe Biden. However, it is only the beginning of what must be a broader effort to fully restore the freedoms the Left has strategically stolen from Americans.

As we look ahead to President Trump’s second term, it is crucial for the Supreme Court, lower courts, Congress, and state governments to reevaluate restrictive firearm laws, particularly those that unjustly designate vast areas as “sensitive locations” to undermine concealed carry rights.

President Trump has already expressed his commitment to signing this legislation, but this cannot be the end of the conversation. It must serve as the foundation for a larger movement to dismantle laws that unfairly hinder law-abiding citizens and to return power back to the people.

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2025 - 22:35

How Widespread Is Holocaust Denialism?

On this day, January 27, 1945 - 80 years ago today - the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by Soviet forces.

At this milestone, with adult survivors of the Holocaust approaching 100 years of age, Holocaust remembrance is at a crossroads, as the generation which bore witness to the horrors of the Shoah is shrinking in size and forces denying or diminishing it grow more fierce.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports that a new survey by the Anti-Defamation League shows that 4 percent globally deny today that the Holocaust happened.

This number was 5 percent among men and 5 percent among people between the ages of 18 and 49.

You will find more infographics at Statista

While in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, rates of Holocaust denialism were average, they were elevated in North Africa and the Middle East.

They were at below-average rates in Western Europe (1 percent of respondents).

However, many more respondents said they believed that the number of victims of the Holocaust had been greatly exaggerated.

This reached as high as a third of respondents in North Africa and the Middle East, 18 percent in Asia, 16 percent each in Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa and even 15 percent in the Americas.

The survey also asked respondents if they agreed with any out of 11 stereotypes about Jewish people and asked questions about the acceptance or rejection of Israel. It found that people had especially strong antisemitic beliefs in the Magreb states and the Middle East, but also in Russia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Turkey.

The survey found that younger people were more likely to show antisemitic attitudes.

While the average country scored 26 out of 100 points in the survey in 2014 (with 100 being the worst result), this had changed to an average score of 46 out of 100 in 2024.

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2025 - 22:10

Medicare Isn't Broke - Yet

Authored by Lawrence Wilson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Medicare has a money problem. Or it will in about 10 years. It’s the sort of problem Dwight Eisenhower might have called important but not urgent, like a balloon payment on a mortgage or a roof that only leaks once in a while. Such problems are easy to ignore until it’s too late to fix them.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock

Yet anything costing $1 trillion a year will inevitably become urgent soon enough, and Medicare’s funding shortfall will demand attention and action by 2036 to prevent a crisis.

That’s when the Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund, which pays hospital bills for 68 million Americans, will be depleted, according to Medicare’s trustees. After that, the annual income for Medicare Part A will fall 11 percent short of expenses.

But that’s a decade away. For now, the HI Trust Fund has a surplus of more than $200 billion, according to the latest report. And Medicare Part B, which covers things such as doctor visits and diagnostic tests, had reserves of over $180 billion.

Medicare is not insolvent, but there is an increasingly large gap between the revenue generated by the program and its total expenses. And that requires an increasingly large transfer of cash from the U.S. Treasury to make the program work.

In 2023, revenue coming into Medicare through payroll taxes, premiums, and interest covered about 57 percent of the program’s expenses. The other 43 percent, about $43 billion, had to be paid from the government’s general fund. This gap between income and expenses has always existed, but it’s growing rapidly. By 2053, the general fund will have to cover fully half of program costs.

President Donald Trump, like former President Joe Biden before him, has promised to protect Medicare, though neither articulated a plan for doing so.

Medicare, which will have its 60th birthday in July, chugged along for decades without attracting much attention. Why is it now falling further and further behind expenses?

That’s partly due to the way Medicare was designed, and it’s partly a result of changing demographics, American innovation, and decisions that were made along the way.

It’s Not a Business

Medicare provides medical care for people who are age 65 and older, or disabled, or have end-state renal disease or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Medicare is called an insurance program but it wasn’t designed to be fully self-sustaining. It has always operated more like a federally subsidized health payment program.

Medicare Part A, which pays for hospitalization, is the most like traditional insurance and the closest to being financially stable. The lion’s share of funding for Part A comes from a 2.9 percent payroll tax. The rest comes from a tax on Social Security benefits, interest on the fund balance, and premiums paid by some beneficiaries.

It’s a mistake to think of the HI Trust Fund as an endowment or a pension, according to Jon Kingsdale, an adjunct associate professor of health care policy at Brown University.

“It’s simply like a checking account, which is filled up by payroll taxes throughout the year and is drawn down by spending for hospitals and nursing homes and other facilities,” Kingsdale told The Epoch Times.

Like a checking account, the HI Trust Fund can reach a zero balance. The trustees predict that will happen in 2036. After that, the income it receives will cover only about 79 percent of Part A obligations.

Medicare Part B is a little different. Its expenses are paid through the Medicare Supplemental Medical Insurance (SMI) Trust Fund, as are expenses for Medicare Part D, prescription drug coverage.

People who qualify for Medicare can opt into Parts B and D by paying a premium. Part B also receives some income from interest on the fund balance, and states contribute to support Part D.

But that income covers only a fraction of the expenses. More than 70 percent of the funding for the SMI Trust fund comes from the general budget. Every year, Congress estimates upcoming expenses, then adds money to cover the gap.

Increases in premiums have not kept pace with expenses, so the share paid by the general fund has grown larger.

When the HI Trust Fund is depleted, it will cause an urgent problem because the government currently has no legal mechanism for adding more money to it. But the larger issue is that the primary funding sources for Medicare are not keeping pace with rising costs, requiring the government to pay a larger and larger share of the nation’s wealth to keep the program going.

Medicare now consumes about 3.8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, the total value of all goods and services produced. By 2048 it will be 5.8 percent, according to the Medicare trustees.

Three main factors are driving that.

Senior citizen Yoko Mitani waits for her prescription at Ballin Pharmacy in Chicago on May 3, 2004. Enrollment for the Medicare Drug Benefit program offering discounts on prescription drugs for senior citizens was made available today. Tim Boyle/Getty Images Demographics, Innovation, Medicare Advantage

Two population events coincided in the 20th century that resulted in financial pressure on Medicare. First, the 76 million baby boomers who were born between 1946 and 1964. They started to retire in 2011. That caused Medicare enrollment, which had been growing by about 500,000 a year, to add 1.3 million beneficiaries a year for the next 14 years.

Additionally, long before the baby boomers signed up for Medicare, the birth rate fell significantly. Americans have gone from having 123 births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 at the height of the baby boom to having 56.1 births per 1,000 by 2022.

Taken together, those events created a situation in which fewer workers are paying the Medicare payroll tax compared with the number of people receiving benefits. When the program was created in 1965, the ratio of workers to beneficiaries was 4 to 1. Today it’s 2.8 to 1 and will continue to decrease through 2040.

The rise in obesity, addiction, diabetes, and other chronic illnesses costs all Americans, including Medicare beneficiaries, more now. Americans spent about $8,500 per person, adjusted for inflation, on health care in 2000. Today the amount is more than $14,500.

The second factor in the cost of Medicare is innovation in the health care industry. Medicare pays for far more diagnostic tools and treatments than it did in 1965, including things such as CT scans, MRIs, and joint replacement surgery. But the biggest recent cost increase has come from prescription drugs, which were not covered by Medicare until 2006. By 2022, prescription drugs accounted for 14 percent of all Medicare spending.

A third factor is Medicare Part C, or Medicare Advantage. That’s an optional program started in 1997 to allow private insurance companies to manage benefits for Medicare beneficiaries.

People who opt into Medicare Advantage continue to pay their Part B premium to Medicare. Then the government pays the insurer a lump sum to pay for their treatment. An analysis by KFF, a health policy research group, found that Medicare Advantage cost $321 per year more per enrolled beneficiary than traditional Medicare did in 2019. That amounted to $7 billion.

Now, more than half of Medicare’s 68 million beneficiaries are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2025 - 21:45

Scott Bessent Confirmed As Treasury Secretary, Pushes For Gradual Universal Tariffs Up To 20%

Late on Monday, the Senate confirmed Scott Bessent’s nomination for Treasury Secretary in a 68–29 vote, putting him in a key role in implementing President Trump’s tariff and growth agenda. The billionaire investor will be spearheading Trump’s plan of cutting taxes and curbing deficits, while putting forward a tariff plan that also facilitates growth.

The Senate Finance Committee approved Bessent’s nomination for Treasury Secretary on a 16-11 vote, with two Democrats—Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.)—joining Republicans. Democrats who opposed his nomination alluded to concerns about his tax dispute with the IRS.

“Like a lot of Wall Street titans, he’s opted out of paying a fair share into Medicare,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), ranking member on the committee.

Bessent has previously said the U.S. faces economic calamity if Congress does not renew key provisions from Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that are set to expire Dec. 31, 2025. According to the Epoch Times, negotiating the extension of those tax cuts will be one of Bessent’s major responsibilities even as he pushes for 3 percent annual growth, significant trims to deficits, and increasing domestic oil production by 3 million barrels a day.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) described the Wall Street veteran as an “example of the American dream in action.”

“He brings a wealth of private sector experience in the economy and markets to his new role, as well as the concern for the needs of working Americans,” Thune said on the Senate floor.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) defended Bessent before the vote, saying that the Key Square Group founder has complied with tax laws.

Many Democrats, naturally, disagreed. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), one of the Democrats who voted against Trump’s pick to lead the Treasury Department,  called it a “double standard in America” during an executive committee hearing on Jan. 21.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said Bessent’s nomination further highlights billionaires’ influence on U.S. politics. “Billionaires dominate the American economy, and Republicans plan to give them more tax breaks,” she said.

In his Jan. 16 confirmation hearing in front of the committee, Bessent discussed various economic issues. Bessent has expressed how critical it is to extend the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), President Donald Trump’s signature legislation from his first term in the White House.

Sitting before the Senate Finance Committee during his Jan. 16 confirmation hearing, the Wall Street veteran told lawmakers that allowing the TCJA to expire would cause “an economic calamity” and lead to “financial instability.” “We will see a gigantic middle-class tax increase. We will see the child tax credit halved,“ Bessent said. ”We will see the deductions halved … it has the potential for a sudden stop.”

Contrary to his most recent hedge fund letter, the billionaire financier now also supports the president’s tariff plans. He highlighted the various benefits associated with trade levies, such as strengthening the U.S. dollar, forcing foreign manufacturers to export deflation, and nudging consumers to change their preferences to support American jobs.

And speaking of flipflopping, exactly one year after he wrote in his KeySquare letter to investors that he found it "unlikely that across-the-board tariffs, as currently reported by the media, would be enacted", the FT reported that Bessent is now pushing for new universal tariffs on US imports to start at 2.5% and rise gradually.

The 2.5% levy would move higher by the same amount each month, the people familiar with it said, giving businesses time to adjust and countries the chance to negotiate with the US president’s administration.

The levies could be pushed up to as high as 20 per cent — in line with Trump’s maximalist position on the campaign trail last year. But a gradual introduction would be more moderate than the immediate action some countries feared.

The proposal by Bessent comes as Trump’s team debates how to implement tariff plans, with the president escalating his tariff rhetoric on Monday in a speech in Florida, threatening more duties on semiconductors, metals and pharmaceutical goods.

“We have to bring production back to our country,” Trump said.

Trump was speaking after a day of turmoil in US stock markets, triggered by a tech sell-off as China appeared to make a leap ahead of the US in the global artificial intelligence race. His threat to impose tariffs on semiconductors entering the US would be difficult to carry out given the impact on tech companies relying on chipmakers such as Taiwan’s TSMC.

In contrast, Bessent’s plan would see just 2.5% added to tariffs each month. According to the FT, it was unclear if the Treasury secretary had convinced other central stakeholders, including Howard Lutnick, Trump’s pick for commerce secretary, to adopt his proposal for a gradual introduction of tariffs.

Meanwhile, Trump has threatened to force tariffs of up to 25% on imports from Canada and Mexico as soon as this weekend, and in recent days threatened Colombia with 25% tariffs in a dispute over deportees. That said, an FT source said that Trump’s thinking said he was weighing different options. “There is not a single plan the president is ready to decide on yet.”

When asked by reporters last week whether he planned to introduce universal tariffs, Trump replied: “We may. But we’re not ready for that yet.”

We may not be there yet, but we will be there soon, especially if Trump follows through on his urging to abolish income tax altogether, which implies that tariffs would need to somehow generate similar amounts of revenue. In that case a 20% universal tariff is just the start.

Holy sh*t, he wasn't joking.

Trump just called for Congress to abolish the income tax.

This is HUGEpic.twitter.com/CpigkTTQvE

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) January 27, 2025

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2025 - 21:20

Missouri Takes CCP To Court For $25 Billion Over Hoarding Of COVID-19 Protective Equipment

Authored by Melanie Sun via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will be on trial in Missouri on Jan. 27 after the state sued over damages sustained as a result of its actions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Andrew Bailey during the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference the Gaylord National Convention Center in Fort Washington, Maryland, Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024. Photo by Dominic Gwinn / Middle East Images / Middle East Images via AFP

“We’re hauling China into court to hold them accountable for unleashing COVID-19 on the world,” state Attorney General Andrew Bailey said in a press release, Gray Media local affiliate KAIT8 reported.

It said that Bailey is scheduled to appear in federal district court in Cape Girardeau for the trial.

Missouri will be the first state to sue the CCP and its relevant entities over actions it says allowed COVID-19 to spread globally.

Bailey’s office said it will seek $25 billion in damages for actions it says caused significant loss of life and economic disruptions in Missouri and harmed its citizens.

“Missouri v. China is truly a landmark case, as we seek $25 billion in damages,” Bailey said. “We won a key victory in this case last year, so we’re feeling confident heading into trial.”

Bailey filed the lawsuit in federal district court in 2020 during the pandemic. Bailey’s office sought damages for the CCP’s cover up of critical information about human-to-human spread of the virus inside China and for hoarding personal protective equipment.

None of the China-based defendants named in the lawsuit responded, though briefs were filed by Lawyers for Upholding International Law and The China Society of Private International Law to defend China.

The CCP dismissed any factual or legal basis for the lawsuit, which it called “very absurd.”

The case was dismissed by the district court judge, who ruled that the defendants were immune under the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), which generally prohibits lawsuits against foreign states in U.S. courts. Upon appeal to a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Missouri’s case was revived in January 2024 but only for the state’s claims regarding the hoarding of personal protective equipment.

The panel ruled that part of the lawsuit as an antitrust claim that fell under the statutory exception related to commercial activity by foreign states.

The state must now prove that the CCP and the other named China-based entities hoarded personal protective equipment, and that the direct effect of this caused harm to Missouri and its citizens.

The CCP is not expected to have a representative in court, which could make a default judgment in Missouri’s favor easier to achieve, facing no cross-examination or rebuttals from China.

Critics of the case have called it a stunt aimed at publicly placing blame on the CCP for the COVID-19 pandemic. Some legal experts have also warned that the case could set a risky precedent to see foreign governments allow plaintiffs to sue the United States in tribunals around the world.

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2025 - 20:55

House Republicans Huddle With Trump At Miami Resort

House Republicans are gathering at President Trump's National Doral in Miami, Florida this week for their annual policy retreat, where they will golf, talk shop, and listen to Donald Trump deliver an expected address on Monday.

Former President Donald Trump and his motorcade arrive at Trump National Doral Miami on Monday, June 12, 2023, in Doral, Fla. MATIAS J. OCNER

According to The Hill, House GOP leaders have already indicated that they'll be discussing Trump's legislative agenda - which includes an extension of his 2017 tax cuts, tackling inflation through energy policy, and securing the southern US border. Republicans are looking to try and move the agenda in a single bill through the budget reconciliation process vs. splitting it into two pieces as some Republicans had hoped for.

Reconciliation carries the threat of a Democratic filibuster in the Senate, but can be used only once or twice in a year - and will need near-unanimous support from GOP Senators. That said, balancing Trump's agenda with demands from fiscal hawks that the legislation be neutral, or even reduce the deficit.

"We’ve got a math problem," said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), a fiscal hawk who's gunning for more than $2 trillion in cuts. "Let’s put the math on the board, and let’s go about it agency by agency."

This week’s policy retreat, which starts Monday afternoon and ends Wednesday morning, is slated to have a number of meetings among members about what policies to include in the bill and how to offset their cost.

While members expect the final details will not be complete for weeks, Republicans will soon have to make a decision about the broad topline number expected in their proposal in order to tee up the legislative vehicle for the Trump agenda reconciliation bill. GOP leaders hope to pass that budget resolution by the end of February. -The Hill

Meanwhile, Republicans will need to come up with a game plan for the debt ceiling, which Trump has demanded they do without giving Democrats leverage.

That may prove more difficult than Trump envisions, as the aforementioned fiscal hawks want steep spending cuts that Democrats will lose their shit over, as they always do.

One idea being floated by Republicans is to include a debt limit increase in a package that would pair regular government funding and wildfire aid, in the hopes that the disaster relief would entice a sufficient number of Democrats to make up for GOP hardliner opposition.

That said, when asked on Thursday if Democrats could support a debt ceiling hike attached to wildfire aid for California, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said "It's a nonstarter."

Also last week, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told The Hill that the decision on how to handle the debt limit could be made at this week's retreat.

"There are a number of ideas on the table we’re talking about," said Johnson, when asked about addressing the debt limit via reconciliation or attaching it to wildfire aid. "We’re taking all the House Republicans to a big retreat early next week down in Florida, and we’ll finalize all those decisions."

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2025 - 20:30

Federal Agencies Made Over $161 Billion In Improper Payments Last Year: Watchdog

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. government made billions of dollars worth of improper payments in the most recent fiscal year, with several agencies found to be non-compliant with regulations on the matter, according to a recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The U.S. Capitol building in Washington on Jan. 9, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

“Since fiscal year 2003, executive branch agencies have reported cumulative improper payment estimates of about $2.8 trillion, including $161.5 billion for fiscal year 2024,” the Jan. 23 report from the agency read.

An improper payment is one made by the government that “should not have been made or was made in an incorrect amount,” including duplicate payments, money sent to ineligible recipients, and payments made for goods or services not received.

The $161 billion is enough to buy over 380,000 homes in the United States, according to median home sales price data tracked by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It is lower than the $236 billion in improper payments estimated to have been made by federal agencies in fiscal year 2023. Annual improper payments have remained above the $150 billion level since 2019.

The Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA) mandates that agencies identify risks related to improper payments and take corrective actions, while also reporting improper payments within the programs they administer.

GAO found that 10 agencies under the Chief Financial Officers Act were “noncompliant with PIIA criteria for fiscal year 2022.”

The 10 agencies are the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and Small Business Administration.

Out of the 10, nine were found to be noncompliant with the PIIA criteria for one or more programs or activities for two consecutive years—fiscal years 2021 and 2022. The only exemption was the Department of Homeland Security.

When an agency has been noncompliant for two consecutive years for the same activity or program, they are required to submit proposals on how they plan to become compliant with the PIIA.

These proposals are to be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). According to GAO, OMB is expected to provide guidance on the matter in the development of the fiscal year 2026 President’s Budget.

GAO recommended the director of OMB clarify that agencies not in compliance with PIIA explicitly state in their annual financial statements that they will come into compliance.

Before the GAO report was released, a draft version was submitted to OMB for review and comment. OMB agreed with GAO’s recommendations, without providing any comments on the report.

DOGE

The GAO report comes as President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office announcing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative seeking to modernize federal technology and software “to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” The U.S. Digital Service has been renamed as the U.S. DOGE Service (USDS).

According to the order, a temporary organization called the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization is to be set up with a lifespan of around 18 months, headed by the USDS administrator. The organization “shall be dedicated to advancing the President’s 18-month DOGE agenda.”

The order mandates every government agency to establish a DOGE team, which coordinates with the USDS and advises agency heads on implementing the DOGE agenda.

The DOGE venture has already attracted opposition, with four lawsuits being filed against it on Jan. 20 by several groups at a court in Washington.

One complaint was filed by a coalition of associations including the American Public Health Association, American Federation of Teachers, Minority Veterans of America, and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

A second lawsuit was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, a third by the National Security Counselors, and a fourth one by consumer watchdog group Public Citizen.

Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, alleged that DOGE will attempt to remove federal protections “for our air, water, and most imperiled wildlife.”

Earlier on Jan. 14, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a founding member of the DOGE Caucus, introduced a bill aimed at making the government more efficient.

“The American people gave Washington a mandate in November—waste less, save more. Today, I’m introducing a first set of bills to follow through on their mandate by prioritizing streamlined regulations, rulemaking, and record keeping. It’s time to put government waste in the doghouse and let DOGE get to work,” the lawmaker said.

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2025 - 20:05

Trump & His New Frenemies, Abroad And At Home

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

President Trump recently gave a video talk to the World Economic Forum (WEF) assemblage in Davos.

He expressed fondness for Europe. He praised many for their attendance - and then tore into the evils of hyperregulation, high taxes, radical environmentalism, and the DEI/ESG commissariat of both the prior Biden administration and indeed the European Union.

One might have thought the attendees’ heads would have exploded when Trump referred to oil as “liquid gold.”

And he topped that by referring to the venerated Green New Deal as the “Green New Scam.”

“I terminated the ridiculous and incredibly wasteful Green New Deal—I call it the ‘Green New Scam,’ withdrew from the one-sided Paris Climate Accord, and ended the insane and costly electric vehicle mandate.”

But then a strange thing happened.

The questions from international bankers and financiers that followed were not all that critical. In fact, one could characterize them as curious and carefully encouraging.

So, what prompts the polite European reception to such green and economic heresy?

A careful hearing of Trump’s entire speech would reveal it was not confrontational as much as aspirational. He was trying to envision a new European partnership—albeit one under American leadership.

“Under our leadership, America is back and open for business . . . So, you know I’m trying to be constructive because I love Europe. I love the countries of Europe.”

The U.S. economy has grown to nearly twice the size of the European Union’s since its inception more than two decades ago. Indeed, over 20 years, the gross domestic product of both was roughly comparable.

European energy costs are constantly soaring, especially given radical green restrictionism and the disruption of the Ukraine War.

There is further European recognition that their economies, like those of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, hinge on American policies, economic, cultural, and social—and especially access to U.S. markets and consumers.

In this regard, Biden’s hard pivot to green globalism, fiery rhetoric about eliminating internal combustion engines, natural gas, and gasoline fuels, coupled with woke/DEI policies, proved not just disastrous at home; it also weakened the position of Euro realists abroad.

During the Biden years, Western allies abroad felt they had to fall in line with a strange, quirky new America.

Under Biden, the U.S. seemed to rush well leftward of even Europe—undermining European traditionalists, free-marketers, and economic and cultural conservatives who had been slowly gaining ascendance.

The wounded European money people at Davos were essentially saying to Trump that socialism may be an affordable, temporary boutique diversion in traditional capitalist America. But in an already inert, static, neo-socialist Europe, such an American hard shift to the left has proved disastrous.

So, it was in such a Davos moment that the global financial grandees were politely stunned at Trump’s call for a new golden age of American-led, freer market capitalism.

He promised not just to ensure lower interest rates, fiscal sobriety, fewer regulations, lower taxes, smaller government, and less state intervention in the economy, secure borders, and an end to illegal immigration. He went further to promise that these methods would ensure greater Western prosperity, security, and freedom, both American and European.

Trump trashed past American censorship, political orthodoxies, deficit spending, inflation, and high interest. He summed up the Biden four-year detour as culpable and wrongheaded.

“President Biden totally lost control of what was going on in our country.”

Stranger still, Trump located his pitch in ecumenical terms—of a strong U.S. seeking to help Europe reemerge to fulfill its natural potential.

Indeed, it was past time for the proverbial American and European “West” to stick together in a dangerous economic world of Chinese mercantilism, Russian aggression, and a new political and military axis of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—with countries like India and Turkey keen to see which alignment comes out on top.

Most of the bankers at Davos, in fact, wished Trump to double down on his promises.

Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of TotalEnergies, was not worried about Trump’s grandiose plans to expand fossil fuel production. Instead, his concern was only whether Trump could guarantee Europe could buy lots of his gas.

When he asked Trump point-blank whether he would honor his promise to ship massive amounts of liquid natural gas to Europe, Trump gushed back, “I would make sure that you get it. If we make a deal, we make a deal; you’ll get it.”

Another European banker apparently was also worried not about too much Trumpism but apparently not enough:

“We very much welcome your focus on deregulation and reducing bureaucracy. So, my question is: What are your priorities in this regard, and how fast is this going to happen?”

How fast?

Trump’s veritable messaging is now something like “Make Europe Great Again” (MEGA)—and most certainly not the old Obama idea that the US is merely one unexceptional nation, equal to all others.

Nor is Trump’s vision anything like the Biden effort to absorb failed European ideas about taxes, regulation, borders, and energy and then amplify such dreary statism with an American veneer—and boomerang the disastrous agenda back across the Atlantic.

Instead, the Trump idea is to make Europe and the U.S. both stronger economically and militarily. He wants to supercharge the U.S. economy and offer Europe avenues to join the ride.

In that regard, Trump’s Davos speech was the foreign policy counterpart to his domestic appeal to tech giants like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and the CEOs of Apple, Google, and other Silicon Valley conglomerates.

Under Biden’s growing statist octopus, its tentacles were starting to reach out and wrap around his once-loyal multibillionaire supporters—in order to strangle them.

They were always, of course, somewhat uneasy about Biden’s tax increases, redistributionist multi-trillion-dollar deficits, hyperinflation, and resulting high interests.

But what now terrified them was the increasing candor of the envisioned Biden eight-year agenda. Joe, in his role as a waxen effigy, would supposedly continue the ‘ol’ Joe from Scranton’ cover to facilitate another four years of an even harder Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren/Squad/Obama socialist blueprint.

In other words, the neo-socialist Biden government would not just take profits from them on the back end with taxes and fees. But now it would also restrict and control on the front end what an entrepreneur would be allowed even to do—and how, when, and where he could innovate to make products and profit as he thought best.

Implied—and indeed feared—was that an army of thirty-something zealous, know-nothing government ideologues and bureaucrats would divide up business concessions. And they would offer slices of allotments to tech lords, based on their own fealty to the administration and their hard-left credentials.

So future tech winners and losers would not be determined by talent or market successes but by ideological purity—the usual historical framework where toadies, the mediocre, and the status quo triumph over mavericks, the fearless, and the unorthodox.

So, finally the tech giants, like the vestigial Euro capitalists, figured that Trump would unleash their animal spirits—and in a way more radically than any prior president.

The aim would not merely be to enrich them. He would also enlist them to make their countries preeminent in 21st-century globalist arenas such as biotech, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, cyberwarfare, drones, and lasers.

Read Trump’s Davos speech and the subtext is that the only impediment to Western success is Western fear and loathing of it.

Trump counts on the excitement of a shared adventure to free the West from its crabby naysayers as a moral and uplifting experience far preferable to the current nihilist slouching to statism and stagnation.

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2025 - 18:25

Pardoned J6 Protestor Says He Has Proof Police Incited Riots At Capitol

Virginia Beach resident Jacob Hiles is a charter boat captain arrested for crimes related to the protests on J6.  He ultimately plead guilty to one misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building. In exchange for Hiles' guilty plea, the Department of Justice dropped the remaining three misdemeanor charges against him.  He was given two years probation.

However, Hiles says there's a lot more to the story that he could not tell the public until he was officially pardoned by Donald Trump last week. 

The boat captain tells a local NBC affiliate, WAVY-TV 10 that he has video proof of capitol police acting to incite the riots.  At least 9 minutes of his video is posted to WAVY-TV 10, though it appears to be heavily edited.  

“I have several videos from Jan. 6 — I have over an hour of video that I shot on Jan. 6...It shows all sorts of things. I have videos that show Capitol Police inciting inciting riots by shooting. They were walking through the crowds with a super soaker-style water gun that was full of bear spray."

“I have [on video] a man who who had been sprayed by a Capitol Police officer...I’m standing right beside him and he walks up to the Capitol Police officer and says, ‘Hey, why did you spray me with with pepper spray?’ The guy … said he was a Vietnam veteran and he’s never done anything but serves the country.”

Not only that, Hiles also asserts that federal agents threatened him with long term imprisonment if he took those videos to the media or posted them to the internet.

“It was what I was told in August of 2021...And in a Zoom meeting with Brandon Merriman, who is the special agent in charge of Jan. 6, and he’s the guy you saw do the interview about 60 Minutes about Jan. 6.

In a Zoom meeting with Brandon Merriman in August of 2021, he told me that if I go to the media and start talking about Jan. 6, if my videos find the media or the Internet, that I would, quote, ‘spend the rest of my life in prison.’ I asked for what [and] he said. ‘I’ll find something.'” 

An attorney for Hiles believes that this exchange with the special agent was recorded, which means it could now be accessed by the Trump Administration. 

Hiles testimony supports previous claims by J6 protesters that the Capitol Police and federal agents incited the violence by attacking the peaceful protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets.  Video clips from the event taken from body cam footage and protester footage show police engaged in harassing the crowd with munitions well before the protesters attacked the building or the officers.  

Happy January 6th Fake Fed Insurrection Day!
Never forget:
1. There was no riot at the capitol until the capitol police incited the crowd by firing flash bang grenades, tear gas and rubber bullets at them
2. Not 1 person was ever charged with insurrection#Jan6 #PatriotDay pic.twitter.com/w6fxssCt8z

— Evan Dyer (@EvanLeeDyer) January 6, 2025

Videos also show police accidentally gassing themselves, which forced them to retreat closer to the building.  Officials originally blamed protester violence for their retreat. 

Body cam video
Capitol police tear gassed themselves and abandoned their posts on January 6th. pic.twitter.com/Y9iXyVTPFM

— Big Fish (@BigFish3000) March 16, 2023

The official J6 narrative reiterated to the public for years was, in fact, a lie.  The tale of an unhinged crowd of "far-right insurrectionists" hellbent on violently disrupting the 2020 elections and spurred on by Donald Trump as a would-be dictator?  That never happened.  It is yet another fallacy added to a long list of fallacies perpetrated by Democrats and establishment bureaucrats to perpetually demonize conservatives, likely as a means to secure election supremacy for years to come. 

Obviously, they failed. 

The media and the Biden Administration constructed a house of cards around the same repeated handful of carefully cherry-picked J6 video clips.  They only show what occurred after police had already attacked and enraged protesters.  What they never show is what happened to make the crowd so angry in the first place.  Those videos also don't show what happened behind the scenes, including the intimidation that was apparently used by federal agents to keep arrested protesters quiet.     

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2025 - 18:00

7 Charged In America's Biggest COVID Tax Credit Fraud Scheme

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A group of seven who allegedly sought to steal hundreds of millions of dollars in the “largest COVID-19 tax credit scheme” by falsely claiming pandemic-era benefits were charged on Jan. 22, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

The Department of Justice in Washington on Jan. 9, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

An indictment unsealed in New York charged the seven people with “operating a multi-state conspiracy in which they attempted to defraud the United States of more than $600 million by filing more than 8,000 false tax returns claiming COVID-19-related employment tax credits,” the agency said in a statement. The fraud targeted programs like employee retention credit (ERC) and paid sick and family leave credit (SFLC), which were passed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ERC gave tax credits to businesses, incentivizing them to keep employees on their payroll, while SFLC was a reimbursement made to businesses for paying employees “on sick or family leave and could not work because of COVID-19.”

The charges were made against Keith Williams, Jamari Lewis, Morais Dicks, Janine Davis, Tiffany Williams, James Hames Jr., and Ewendra Mathurin; all of whom are either current or former residents of New York.

Between November 2021 and June 2023, the defendants “repeatedly exploited” ERC and SFLC programs, the DOJ said. “The scheme was allegedly headquartered at Credit Reset, a purported credit repair business Keith Williams owned and operated.”

The defendants acted as tax preparers and allegedly filed over 8,000 fake employment tax returns on behalf of themselves and clients, claiming COVID tax credits from the IRS. In some of the fake returns, they allegedly claimed SFLC which exceeded reported wages, according to the department.

The defendants managed to secure refund checks from the Treasury, while also profiting by charging clients a fee or percentage of the tax refunds they received, the agency accused.

“The defendants allegedly concealed their preparation of the false tax returns by not listing themselves as the paid preparer on the tax returns and by using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to obscure their IP addresses while filing the false returns,” the DOJ said.

“If a client did not have a business, members of the conspiracy allegedly would sometimes sell shell companies to them in order to file false tax returns.”

The fraudsters reportedly filed for $600 million in tax credits as part of the scheme, of which the IRS roughly disbursed $45 million. Authorities charged the defendants with 45 counts, including wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and assisting in preparing false tax returns.

Some of the defendants also allegedly submitted false applications for loans under the pandemic-era Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Six people allegedly involved in the PPP fraud were charged with wire fraud as well.

If convicted, defendants face prison terms ranging from three to 30 years per count, depending on the charge.

Tackling Pandemic Fraud

The DOJ had previously charged several hundreds of individuals for fraud related to COVID-19. Back in August 2023, the agency announced 718 enforcement actions for alleged COVID-19 fraud offenses involving $836 million. This included federal criminal charges against 371 defendants.

Many of the cases were linked to pandemic unemployment insurance benefit fraud, as well as fraud related to the Economic Injury Disaster Loans and PPP.

In March last year, the IRS announced that its Criminal Investigation (CI) unit had investigated 1,644 tax and money laundering cases worth $8.9 billion that were linked to COVID fraud.

The cases involved fraudulently obtained loans, payments, and credits aimed at supporting American workers and small businesses.

“In the last year alone, we have opened nearly 700 new COVID fraud investigations that collectively add up to $5 billion in potential fraud,” CI Chief Guy Ficco said at the time. “Our special agents continue to seek out fraudsters who stole money from government loan programs for their personal gain.”

This month, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) announced the introduction of the “Complete COVID Collections Act” that seeks to extend authorization of the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery (SIGPR) through 2030.

SIGPR, created as a watchdog to oversee loans provided under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, is scheduled to expire in March 2025. Extending the authorization allows the SIGPR to continue pursuing people who stole COVID funds reserved for small businesses, Ernst said.

“Con artists took advantage of small businesses’ pain during COVID to defraud government programs designed to help hardworking Americans,” Ernst said.

“While we are $36 trillion in debt, we especially cannot afford to leave more than $200 billion floating around, especially in the hands of fraudsters. My Republican colleagues and I are making sure that all resources are available in this fight to get taxpayers’ money back and hold these criminals accountable.”

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2025 - 17:40

DeepSeek Hit By "Large-Scale" Cyberattack

Chinese AI company DeepSeek reminded Western investors about global competition in the artificial intelligence race, particularly in China, where large language models can be developed and trained at a fraction of the cost incurred by Mag7 companies. This sparked a global selloff across the AI complex as investors worry over "negative capex impact" and ROI concerns over hefty AI investments.

In a separate development, DeepSeek's API landing page posted this warning around noon: "Due to large-scale malicious attacks on DeepSeek's services, registration may be busy. Please wait and try again. Registered users can log in normally. Thank you for your understanding and support." 

The Hangzhou-based company continued, "To ensure continued service, registration is temporarily limited to +86 phone numbers. Existing users can log in as usual." 

DeepSeek did not disclose who was behind the "attacks" or where they originated. However, given that hundreds of billions of dollars in market capitalization were wiped out from Mag7 stocks (-$700bln), plus a massive AI narrative shift, one might reasonably speculate about where the attacks are coming from, directly or indirectly through proxy groups. 

Our forensics analysis of Chinese public records provides a more in-depth view of DeepSeek. 

Business purpose:

Hangzhou Deep Quest Artificial Intelligence Basic Technology Research Co., Ltd., with its office address located in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province and a paradise on earth, Room 1201, Building 1, West Huijin International Building, No. 169 North Huancheng Road, Gongshu District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province (registered address), our company mainly provides: engineering and technical research and experimental development; technical services, technical development, technical consulting, technical exchanges, technology transfer, and technology promotion; software development; computer system services; information system integration services; artificial intelligence application software development; information technology consulting services; electronic product sales; communication equipment sales; instrument sales; data processing services; Internet data services; computer software, hardware and auxiliary equipment retail; artificial intelligence hardware sales; professional design services.

Upstream Ownership (Founder: Liang Wenfeng):

Additional public records data on DeepSeek:

DeepSeek's training costs for its latest LLM are allegedly around $6 million—far less than the hundreds of billions of dollars Mag7 companies spent.

PitchBook data shows a recent money raise...

Meanwhile, Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon told clients: "Did DeepSeek really build OpenAI for $5 million? Of course not," adding, "It seems like a stretch to think the innovations being deployed by DeepSeek are completely unknown by the top tier AI researchers at the world's other numerous AI labs."

However, if DeepSeek did... 

deepseek better not be the real deal... pic.twitter.com/qv6vtINl2d

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 26, 2025

Latest DeepSeek reporting:

• China's DeepSeek AI Moves The Capital Of Tech From Palo Alto To Hangzhou

• China's DeepSeek Bombshell Rocks Trump's $500BN AI Boondoggle

• Goldman Asks If China's DeepSeek is AI's Sputnik Moment

• How Goldman Is Trading The DeepSeek Shock

• 'Bad Things Can Happen' - This Chart No Longer Makes Sense If DeepSeek Is The Real Deal

• DeepSeek Pulls Rug Out On Nvidia, ASML

• DeepSeek May Trigger "Negative Capex Impact" As Peak Data Center Occupancy Forecast Faces Revision

. . . 

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2025 - 17:20

Rep. Fallon To New USSS Director: Make Swift Reforms

Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics,

Less than 48 hours into the job as Secret Service director, Sean Curran is getting an earful of advice on overhauling the agency, including from the House member who sharply tangled with his predecessor.

Rep. Pat Fallon, a Texas Republican, who got into a screaming match with former Acting Secret Service Director Ron Rowe during a House hearing in early December, spearheaded a letter sent to Curran Friday, lauding his selection while pressing him to usher in “dramatic change” to the agency.

“Congratulations on your recent appointment by President Trump to serve as the next director of the U.S. Secret Service,” wrote Fallon, a member of the House Task Force. “As you know well, this is both a great honor and a great responsibility. Your courageous actions on July 13, 2024, at the Butler, Pa. rally, while serving as President Trump’s special agent in charge, demonstrate your superb commitment to your agency’s zero-fail mission.”

Five other Republicans on the Task Force signed the letter, including its chairman, Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, and Reps. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Mark Green of Tennessee, David Joyce of Ohio, and Laurel Lee of Florida.

Curran, who headed Trump’s campaign security detail for more than two years, was one of the first agents to leap on the then-GOP nominee and cover him with a human shield amid flying bullets. The efforts may have helped save Trump’s life, even as Trump pushed through the protection to rise from the floor, pump his fist, and shout, “Fight, fight, fight!” He also repeatedly requested additional security assets for Trump, but was rebuffed by USSS leaders until the FBI briefed them on an Iranian plot against Trump’s life in the days leading up to the Butler rally.

The House Republicans placed the blame for the “unacceptable failures” that led to the Butler assassination attempt squarely on the USSS leadership, including Rowe, who moved into the acting Secret Service director role after Congress pressured former Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign. The Texas Republican urged Curran to read the House Task Forces’ report “thoroughly and strongly consider the recommendations therein.”

“We cannot stress enough the need for dramatic change in culture at the USSS,” they wrote. “The events of July 13 in particular underscore why the world’s premier protective agency, the USSS, can never succumb to complacency.”

“There is good evidence that, as the agency’s next director, you will effect such change, and we are reassured by President Trump’s over confidence in you as his choice to lead,” they added. “Our republic is counting on you to ensure [the] USSS lives up to its zero-fail mission.”

Tensions flared between Fallon and Rowe during a December House Task Force hearing that pressed Rowe about the findings of the group’s investigation. Fallon lambasted Rowe for taking nine days to visit the Butler site despite being the deputy director at the time. He then accused him of trying to push Biden’s protective agents to the side so he could stand in a position of prominence at a New York City event celebrating the 23rd anniversary of 9/11.

“I actually responded to Ground Zero. I was there going through the ashes of the World Trade Center,” Rowe retorted. “I was there, congressman – I was there to show respect for a Secret Service member that died on 9/11. Do not invoke 9/11 for political purposes.”

The exchange became even more explosive, with both men trying to interrupt each other after Fallon said Rowe was trying to change the subject because the criticism was true.

“You know why you were there, because you wanted to be visible, because you are auditioning for this job that you’re not going to get,” he further yelled during their confrontation, accusing Rowe of endangering lives.

Even before receiving the letter, Curran was wasting little time in starting to clean house at the Secret Service. On his first day on the job, as many as 10 senior leadership officials, including Rowe, were warned that they would either be fired, moved, or pressed into retirement, according to three Secret Service sources.

Curran has been inundated with information on which top officials on the 8th floor of headquarters to oust or replace. Agents are circulating removal wish lists, as well as names of those agents Curran or other members of his new leadership team already informed that their services are no longer needed.

Agents are expressing an urgent need to remove Chief Operating Officer Cynthia Sjoberg Radway from her leadership post. Radway was incredibly close to Cheatle, the pair having become good friends during a previous Radway stint working for the agency. When Cheatle became director, she brought Radway back to work more directly for her in the COO role and gave her a bonus to do so, according to multiple sources. The fear is that Radway, if allowed to stay, will continue to serve as a pipeline of information back to Cheatle. She also has crossed many agents Curran respects.

“She will be a major roadblock to positive progress,” if allowed to stay, one source in the Secret Service community told RealClearPolitics.

One of the biggest points of contention about who should stay and go is being waged over an alleged decision by former USSS leadership, under Cheatle’s and Rowe’s direction, not to inform Curran of the security threats against Trump before the Butler rally.

In addition to Cheatle and Rowe, David Torres, assistant director of Strategic Intelligence and Information, was also involved in keeping the Trump campaign detail in the dark about a specific Iranian attempt against Trump’s life. The Pittsburgh Field Office, which partnered with the Trump campaign detail for planning and executing security for the Butler rally, also was never informed before the July 13 assassination attempt. If the two Secret Service contingents had been informed, the agents charged with providing security may have upped their game to come up with a more robust security plan and far better execution, these sources contend.

Rowe officially passed the torch to Curran in a “good-bye” letter to all Secret Service personal sent late Thursday night and obtained by RealClearPolitics. In it, he praised Curran’s selection for the role, while omitting any reference to the two assassination attempts against Trump’s life while he was serving in top leadership agency roles. Rowe only became acting director after Kimberly Cheatle resigned under pressure from Congress in the wake of the Butler assassination-attempt debacle.

Rowe strangely claimed he is “excited” to announce that Curran will be the next director, the 28th in the agency’s history. (Trump previously announced that decision on Truth Social.)

“Throughout his career, Director Curran has led and played critical roles in both protective operations and the investigative mission,” Rowe wrote. “He has consistently demonstrated outstanding leadership, integrity, and courage.”

“His vision, dedication, and ability to drive results have earned him respect inside the agency and from law enforcement partners,” he continued. “I am confident that under his leadership the Secret Service will continue to grow, innovate, and remain steadfast in our unwavering commitment to succeed in our missions.” Rowe’s conclusion that he’s “proud of all that we have accomplished together” without any mention of the monumental failures in Butler and during the second assassination attempt on Trump’s life at a Florida golf course spurred instant ridicule among rank-and-file agents.

But it was the way he signed the letter that gave fellow agents and USSS officers the most pause. Rowe listed his title as deputy director, the post he held before former Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas elevated him to the acting director role following Cheatle’s resignation.

If Rowe is moving to the deputy director role with Curran in the top post, agents tell RCP they believe nothing will change, and the USSS will continue to experience protection failures, retention problems, and low morale. “When are we going to seriously fix the problems instead of putting lipstick on a pig?” one source questioned.

Yet, Rowe may simply be moving back to the deputy director job temporarily before Curran has a chance to name his own No. 2 and chief of staff. The names circulating among the Secret Service for those top leadership roles include Matthew Piant, who served as Curran’s No. 2 on the Trump campaign detail, and Tyler McQuiston, a former agent who previously served in several senior protective operations roles.

Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics' national political correspondent.

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2025 - 17:00

Glug, Glug...

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

“. . .once Trump runs out of easy ways to unfuck the federal government, his administration will hit a crossroads moment, probably sooner rather than later.”

- Matt Taibbi

Glug, Glug...

That’s the sound of a swamp being drained. And much fetid water is still backed up over the 68.3 square miles that comprise the District of Columbia. You might be just realizing that the “Joe Biden” regime was not a government at all, but rather, a colossal racketeering operation. And let’s be clear and precise: racketeering is making money dishonestly. Thus: the grubby Biden Family itself at the top of that putrid food-chain, and their smalltime harvesting of mere table-scraps. Where trillions got creamed off by the big gators, the Bidens risked all for a measly few million, like newts gorging on gnats in a drainage ditch.

Are you so cynical— as the Marxians are in their so-called “critique” of capitalism — that you think all human transactions of making-and-doing are dishonest? That is yet another misreading of reality, which the recent years of nonstop official propaganda and gaslight have catastrophically aggravated to the degree that half of America can no longer think at all.

Capitalism is not a political ideology despite the “ism” incorrectly attached to it, like the tail pinned on a donkey. Capitalism is simply the management of surplus wealth. The catch is, in a hyper-complex society, the management itself becomes complex to an extreme. And that can easily lead to mismanagement, which will deform and pervert the very mechanisms that superintend wealth, sometimes so badly that the wealth disappears altogether.

These are the dynamics faced by the newborn Trump command. Both political parties, per se, have fallen into a dismal habit of racketeering in this sclerotic state-of-empire. But now Mr. Trump has seized control of the Republican apparatus, at least, and the Party’s entrenched ol’ crocs and pythons descry that under DJT the regular feeding frenzy is over. Hence: the hand-wringing over Pete Hegseth setting foot in the Pentagon, as he will sometime this dawning day. The dollars pounded down that rat-hole in this century could have funded start-ups of several empires, but instead the swag just landed in the index funds of countless board members parasitically lodged in a dark cosmos of G.I. procurement circle-jerks. A lot of that can and will be stopped. And the ones who just won’t quit are liable to be found out.

Now, the Democratic Party faces more perplexing quandaries. It, too, is constructed as a gigantic grift machine. But if you subtract the employees of the multitudinous NGOs and non-profit orgs set up in recent years to receive government largess — which have spawned like smelts in the San Joaquin delta — you would eliminate much of the party’s rank-and-file. (The rest are apparently embedded in government itself and the teachers’ union.) A whole lot of activists would lose their platforms for activism in the process.

These crypto-bureaucracies have become the places where the Democratic Party stashes the “elite over-production” of Woked-up Marxian semi-morons from America’s diploma mills — in which orgs they are lavishly paid to conduct the aforementioned propaganda and gaslighting operations that wrecked so many American minds. The funding spigot to many of those is getting shut down. It will result in an employment crunch for a large cohort of professional crybabies. They could possibly adapt to their new circumstances by ceasing to be crybabies, and finding other, more useful things to do. That would portend some very significant cultural shiftings, which might include the death of the Democratic Party as we’ve known it. Or, they could all just join Antifa (if they’re not already in it) and go make trouble in the streets.

The first seven days of Mr. Trump have been sheer razzle-dazzle. He and the people around him have torn through the zeitgeist like front-end-loaders through a homeless encampment. He has yet to meet a crisis. Some of the obvious traps are avoidable. For instance: seeking further injury to Russia as a way of ending the stupid Ukraine war — started by us in 2014, thanks a lot Victoria Nuland & Company — since both the US and Russia are just about unconditionally desirous of stopping the damn thing as soon as possible. It’s had no benefit for anybody but the Raytheon war lobby and the Zelensky regime’s legion of grifters. Mr. Trump’s recent tough talk has been entirely for show, just a mass of rhetorical lube to un-stick the lingering “Joe Biden” stasis in that sad-sack corner of the world.

If crisis awaits, it’s probably lurking in the financial realm, where the operations of debt have put nearly every country on Gawd’s Green Earth behind the eight-ball. There is just too much of it that everybody knows can’t possibly be paid back — or soon even serviced — and the grand managers of these matters are finally out of tricks for pretending things can go on. Nor, here in America, can Mr. Trump cut spending fast enough to rebalance accounts. And if he somehow could, government employment has become such a big piece of the total economy that we would land post-haste in a new great depression That predicament is yet-to-be faced, but hold your breath because it is hard upon us.

Meanwhile, this is the week when the most hardcore of Mr. Trump’s cabinet warriors go ‘splainin’ before committees in the US Senate: Bobby Kennedy, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel. Prepare for some heat and light. And then, the deluge.

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2025 - 16:20

Trump Lifts Biden's Pause On 2,000-Pound Bomb Shipments To Israel

President Trump has hailed that the Gaza ceasefire is holding, but simultaneously suggested that Israel should 'clean out' the Gaza Strip. It has become obvious that Hamas has not been defeated, and in fact there are signs showing the Islamist militant group is regrouping and resurging. 

Trump within the past days has released a hold on a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel previously paused by the Biden administration, according to Axios. This 'controversial' move of Biden had largely been but a PR ploy at a time when the prior Democratic administration was being overwhelmed with criticism over its Israel-Gaza policies.

The paused shipment, which is now resuming, includes 1,800 MK-84 bombs being stored in the United States. Trump vowed these "paid for" weapons are en route to Israel.

MK-84 bombs, via Reuters 

"A lot of things that were ordered and paid for by Israel, but have not been sent by Biden, are now on their way!" Trump declared on Truth Social.

Shipments of 500-pound bombs had also been temporarily halted, but in July this pause was lifted by Biden. These pauses on large bombs unlikely had any real impact on Israel's military capabilities or actions.

Instead, the prior administration tried to use it as an incentive for Israel to greatly reduce the number of civilian casualties among Palestinians, as the IDF had been accused of indiscriminate killing.

The Netanyahu government in turn claimed that this was an "arms embargo" by Biden against Israel, despite that something like 99+ percent of all military continued to flow the whole time.

Outgoing Israeli ambassador to the US Mike Herzog was the first to signal over a week ago that Trump was expected to release the bombs.

"We believe that Trump is going to release, at the beginning of his term, the munitions that haven't been released until now by the Biden administration," Herzog had said in a media interview.

Israeli government figures have put the number of Hamas dead at 20,000 or more after nearly a year-and-a-half of war. However, Gaza health sources have said at least 45,000 mostly civilians have been killed. Gaza Health authority figures don't distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Via Al Jazeera

Many independent analysts agree that the overwhelming numbers of Palestinian casualties are indeed civilians. This has been a constant throughout the conflict, for which Israel has faced widespread international criticism. 

Tyler Durden Mon, 01/27/2025 - 15:50