Trump Threatens 200% Champagne Tariff After Macron Rejects ‘Board Of Peace’ President Trump told reporters that French leader Emmanuel Macron’s refusal to back the proposed “Board of Peace” for the Gaza Strip could result in a 200% tariff on French champagne and wine. Trump mocked Macron’s political future and suggested the tariff threat would force France to join. Earlier, a reporter asked President Trump about Macron’s refusal […]

JGBs Implode, Gold Soars: The Trade CNBC Ridiculed Is Crushing Everything Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance As I first noted back in 2023, my disdain, distrust and general disgust for financial media reached a peak in 2016 when CNBC’s Fast Money invited Bill Fleckenstein on the air to offer up his take on the economy and why the Fed-fueled market was “un-shortable”. Bill is a well-known advocate for the Austrian school of […]

Bessent Says MSM Causing “Hysteria” Over Greenland, Downplays Treasury Dumping Threat Asian and European stocks, along with US equity index futures, are deeply in the red this morning as tensions between President Trump and Europe intensify over Greenland. At the annual World Economic Forum in Davos earlier, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged calm on the Greenland issue. He also said the next Federal Reserve chair could be […]

Germany’s Censorship Frontier And The Rise Of Digital Control Submitted by Thomas Kolbe Schleswig‑Holstein’s Minister‑President Daniel Günther has, in what felt like a genteel salon, pulled back the curtain on the true censorship ambitions of politics. In the safe biotope of public broadcasting, he simply babbled and hit the spotlight on the repressive tendencies within the party system. We now find ourselves in a critical […]

Don Lemon Faces KKK Act Charges On MLK Holiday Update (1408ET): Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson that former CNN host Don Lemon has been put “on notice” by the Justice Department and could face charges under federal civil-rights laws, including the Ku Klux Klan Act, for his role in storming a church service in Minnesota. Lemon allegedly joined a far-left mob […]

UBS: Will There Be Chinese EVs In America? UBS analyst Joseph Spak asked clients on Sunday: Will there be Chinese cars in the US? Spak pointed to comments from President Trump last week at the Detroit Economic Club, in which he said, “If they want to come in and build a plant and hire you and hire your friends and your neighbors, that’s great. I love that. Let China come in, let Japan come in. They are. And they’ll be building […]

Russia Restores Mothballed Soviet-Era Jets As Plane Shortage Worsens Russia has throughout nearly four years of its ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine been largely successful in weathering constantly expanding US and EU sanctions. While isolated, its economy has stayed afloat, but it has been forced into desperate measures as sanctions take a toll on some key sectors. Russian newspaper Izvestia reports that Russia’s […]

Childish Media Games: How The SPD’s “Germany Food Basket” Masks State-Driven Inflation Submitted By Thomas Kolbe Party politics today is essentially a mélange of media strategy, personality cult, and the constant struggle to expand one’s own sphere of power. At the Willy Brandt House, the Social Democrats’ command center, a two-track media strategy appears to have been agreed upon for this year: taking and giving. From the […]

China’s 200,000-Satellite Filing Sparks Fears Of An Orbital Power Grab China has filed requests to reserve orbital slots for almost 200,000 satellites, prompting concerns it may be positioning itself to control large swathes of near-Earth space, according to the Daily Mail. The applications, submitted on December 29 by the newly formed Institute of Radio Spectrum Utilisation and Technological Innovation, outline two […]

Much Defiance, No Strategy: Germany’s Outrage At Trump’s Greenland Policy Submitted by Thomas Kolbe The defiant reaction of Germany’s business and political elite to Donald Trump’s tariff measures in the Greenland conflict reveals a remarkable denial of reality. It is increasingly clear that Brussels and Berlin are more willing to accept significant collateral damage in a dispute with the United States than to pursue rational […]

Architecture Of Plunder: Why The Modern Democratic Party Is A Kleptocracy Authored by Saggezza Eterna,  In the lexicon of polite political discourse, we are told that “kleptocracy” is a phenomenon reserved for the decaying regimes of the third world—banana republics where dictators in gold-braided epaulets stuff suitcases with cash while their people starve. This is a comforting fiction. It allows the American mind to believe […]

China Flies Military Drone Into Taiwan Airspace For First Time In the latest geopolitical escalation – because let’s face it, all that’s left now for the global geopolitical chaos to be complete is for Beijing to finally launch its much anticipated invasion of Taiwan – China sent a military drone into Taiwanese airspace for the first time, underscoring Beijing’s efforts to test the island’s defenses. The Chinese reconnaissance […]

Damascus Attacks Syrian Kurds Overseeing ISIS Prison As US Stands By via The Cradle The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said Monday that Damascus has continued to attack its positions across northern Syria despite the US-backed ceasefire reached a day earlier, warning that attacks are targeting the vicinity of SDF-run prisons holding tens of thousands of jailed ISIS militants.  This poses an “extremely dangerous” security […]

Eric Swalwell’s Bid For California Governor Hits Snag Over Residency Claims Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) has a major hurdle to overcome in his bid to succeed California Governor Gavin Newsom – he has been accused of not living in the Golden State.  California’s constitution requires gubernatorial candidates to have resided in the state for the previous five years, however a new lawsuit from conservative activist and filmmaker […]

Socialism Is A Noun – A Synonym For Socialism Is Theft Submitted by Mitchell Vexler, socialism is defined as a political system advocating that the means of production and distribution are owned or regulated by the community as a whole. Words that you may have heard of being representative of socialism are collectivism, communalism, communism, leftism, progressivism, Marxism, Bolshevism, Leninism, Trotskyism, welfarism, Maoism, […]

Musk’s Boring Company To Build Free 1-Mile Tunnel In “Tunnel Vision Challenge!” In a new contest, Elon Musk’s tunneling firm, The Boring Company, will build a 1-mile tunnel for free to the best idea submitted to the company.  The Boring Company’s Prufrock 5 tunneler (via X) “Announcing the Tunnel Vision Challenge!” the company wrote on X. “Pitch us your best 1-mile tunnel idea (Loop, freight, pedestrian, utility, etc.), we’ll […]

Why California Is Bleeding Tech Jobs: Decline Is A Policy Choice Authored by Vance Ginn via the American Institute for Economic Research, For much of the past half-century, California benefited from a powerful first-mover advantage. Dense networks of talent, capital, and research institutions allowed the state to absorb policy mistakes that would have crippled competitors. High spending and taxes, restrictive housing rules, and […]

Canada Weighs Token Troop Deployment To Greenland, But Fears Trump Wrath The Canadian government is weighing whether to deploy a small contingent of troops to take part in training exercises in Greenland after several European and NATO member countries already sent in dozens of soldiers. The discussions come as President Trump argues that the United States “needs” the Danish autonomous territory for national security reasons and […]

‘We Must Pass The SAVE Act’: Republicans Engage In Serious Push For Voter ID House Republicans are going “full steam ahead” on a supercharged version of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, a GOP-sponsored bill to prevent non-citizen voting in federal elections. It would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require documentary proof of US citizenship (passport, birth certificate, or REAL […]

Why People Feel The Economy Is Bad, When Data Show Improvement Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times, The U.S. economy is either chugging along nicely or seriously struggling, depending on who is asked. The mismatch stems from perception and perspective. While many of the macroeconomic data look benign, they don’t capture the pain experienced by a large segment of society, several experts told The Epoch Times. At 4.4 […]

“Decades Of Underinvestment”: LA Firefighters Turn To Voters Amid Budget Crisis Los Angeles firefighters say years of underfunding have pushed their department into crisis, forcing them to appeal directly to voters for money to cover what they describe as basic public safety needs—even as the city spends about $1 billion a year on homelessness programs, according to the NY Post. This week, firefighters launched petition drives to […]

This Could Be The Big One Authored by weather observer Ryan Hall,  There are winter storms, and then there are storms that come from a real pattern shift. The kind that don’t just brush one region, but impact a big chunk of the country. This upcoming setup is starting to look like the second type. Over the last day or so, confidence has increased that we’re heading into a legitimate winter storm window late this week into the […]

Newsom Strains To Flip Script On California’s Failures Authored by Susan Crabtree via American Greatness, It’s an odd predicament for a leading Democratic presidential contender. Gavin Newsom’s biggest strength—political spin and performance come almost second nature to him—could also be his biggest liability as he strains to remake the tarnished image of the state he has governed for the last seven years. Newsom, with […]

Kansas School Bans Students From Naming Kirk, Trump Or Jesus As Role Models Yet another example of why American parents are increasingly pulling their kids out of public institutions and turning to home schooling.  Parents at an elementary school in Kansas are upset after students were reportedly told that they were not allowed to list President Donald Trump, late conservative activist Charlie Kirk and even Jesus Christ as their […]

US Lender Newrez To Accept Crypto Holdings In Mortgage Approval Authored by Nate Kostar via CoinTelegraph.com, Newrez plans to treat eligible cryptocurrency holdings as qualifying assets in its mortgage underwriting process, a move that could broaden access to home loans for crypto holders. The change is expected to take effect in February across the lender’s non-agency products, covering home purchases, refinancings and […]