The “BRICS Naval Drill” That Wasn’t Authored by Andrew Korybko, South Africa allowed this false perception to spread as a symbolic act of defiance against Trump given his hatred of BRICS, whose members and partners were invited to this drill, and to signal to the domestic audience that their country has friends across the world amidst its tensions with the US. Most folks have probably heard about the “BRICS naval drill” that […]

New Woke Star Trek “Starfleet Academy” Series Is An Embarrassing Critical Failure The charm of Star Trek as a concept is that the franchise offers a relatively positive vision of humanity’s future rather than the predictable doomsday scenarios that have saturated television for decades.  Setting aside the show’s strange ties to the RAND Corporation and Gene Rodenberry’s pandering to the United Nations, Star Trek essentially […]

What Broke Trade Was The Fiat Dollar Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times, The postwar trading order is taking on an entirely new shape. We can put brackets around the old one, like a tombstone: 1944–2025. Having known some of the economists and statesmen who put together the old order, I’m in a position to explain what they had in mind and also what went wrong with it. What will replace it is still very much in […]

Watch: Massive “Beast” Oil Rig Tips Over On Alaska’s North Slope A large mobile drilling rig known as “The Beast” tipped over Friday afternoon while being transported along a gravel road on Alaska’s North Slope, prompting an emergency response from local and company officials, according to Yahoo.  The incident happened around 4:45 p.m. and involved the Doyon 26 rig, which was operating for ConocoPhillips. In a joint […]

“Sleep Tight, America. We Got This”: NatGas And Coal Power Plants Prevented Grid Collapse During Historic Winter Blast Submitted by Criterion Research President James Bevan,  Winter Storm Fern’s Arctic blast from January 21-26 provided clear data on generation dispatch patterns during extreme cold weather events. The storm stressed multiple U.S. power grids, such as PJM and ERCOT and demonstrated the operational characteristics […]

Winter Storm Fern To Lower Q1 GDP By 0.5% To 1.5% Winter storm Fern is mostly over, its resulting damage, however, will linger for a long time. To assess the economic impact of the brutal winter storm, BofA chief economist Aditya Bhave looked back at Winter Storm Viola, which hit the US in February 2021. Both storms put roughly half the country under a winter weather advisory. Consumer spending fell by 0.9% m/m in February 2021, […]

Why Bitcoin’s Failing Its Role As A ‘Safe Haven’ Versus Gold Authored by Francisco Rodrigues via CoinDesk.com, In theory, bitcoin should thrive during times of uncertainty as it’s sound money that’s censorship-resistant. In practice, it’s becoming the first thing investors sell when push comes to shove. As geopolitical tensions flared over the past week, following Trump’s threats of tariffs against NATO allies over […]

Republican On Health Committee Sells UNH Weeks Before Stock Tanks On Lower Payout Rates Shares of major health insurers – including UnitedHealth Group and CVS Health dropped like a rock on Monday following a Wall Street Journal report that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) plan to increase payments to insurance companies by just 0.09% on average next year – falling far short of analyst expectations of […]

Maryland Jury Rules Walmart Liable For Selling Shotgun Used In Employee Suicide Authored by Jonathan Turley, There is a notable torts verdict in Maryland where a jury handed down a multi-million dollar verdict against Walmart for selling a shotgun to an employee who used it to commit suicide. The verdict raises difficult questions over Walmart’s responsibility for the suicide of Jacob Mace, who lied to store employees, under […]

“Did The White House Just Blink?” Border Patrol Boss ‘Demoted’ As Minneapolis Mayor Says Feds Are Leaving On the heels of President Trump’s reconciliatory statement earlier hailing his “very good call” with Governor Tim Walz, and decision to send Tom Homan to the frontlines in Minnesota… “…we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” Trump said. “I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Homan call him, and that what […]

‘Enough Of Washington’s Orders’ – Venezuela’s Interim President Tells Populace Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodríguez has publicly pushed back against Washington in a rare first since the US military invasion and overthrow of Nicolás Maduro, assering she has had “enough” of US directives. While President Trump initially declared that Washington would effectively “run” Venezuela, he later endorsed Rodríguez as a […]

Trump Threatens To Raise Tariffs On South Korean Goods To 25%; Won Slides Here we go again.  President Trump threatened to hike tariffs on goods from South Korea to 25% from 15%, citing in a Truth Social post what he said was the failure of the country’s legislature to codify the trade deal the two nations reached last year, a failure which was obvious from miles away as the terms of the trade deal require Korea to invest […]

The Fatal Limits Of The Technocrat Class Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, Goliath dies not because collapse occurs, but because scale mistakes itself for life. What survives was never his. This guest essay by longtime correspondent 0bserver speaks to a dynamic woven into all of my work: the intrinsic impossibility of fixing what technocratic management broke with more technocratic management. Attempts to do so […]

FBI Launches ‘Signal-Gate’ Investigation: Patel Update (1520ET): “Signal-Gate” continues to erupt out of Minneapolis, as the organizational structure or command-and-control nodes of left-wing activists operating within encrypted messaging apps were infiltrated and exposed on Sunday, revealing that on-the-ground pressure campaigns against federal agents were highly coordinated and, according to some experts, exhibit characteristics […]

IRGC Has ‘Finger On The Trigger’ As US Carrier Strike Group Enters Waters Near Iran The US Navy’s aircraft carrier strike group USS Abraham Lincoln has arrived in the Middle East, this week entering CENTCOM waters in the Indian Ocean, and is awaiting orders Fox correspondent Jennifer Griffin cites a senior American official who said the carrier is not yet on station for any possible future strikes against Iran, however. via AFP […]

Ignoring Geopolitical Risk? Authored by Daniel Lacalle, The increase in the global geopolitical risk index has not affected global markets. The general tone remains bullish despite a surprising “neutral” view shown in CNN’s Fear and Greed Index. The reality is completely different. Investors may say they are neutral given the elevated valuations and the global uncertainty, but most asset managers’ positioning is […]

Appeals Court Denies DOJ’s Bid To Arrest More Minnesota Church Protesters Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times, Late last week, a federal appeals court denied the Justice Department’s (DOJ’s) request to arrest more individuals involved in an anti-ICE protest that occurred inside a church in Minnesota earlier this month. Protesters disrupted a Sunday service at Cities Church in St. Paul on Jan. 18, chanting phrases […]

Tehran Cheers US Unrest, Calls Minneapolis Protests ‘Instant Karma’ Iran’s state media has blasted the Trump administration as hypocritical, drawing a direct comparison between the recent protests inside the Islamic Republic and the ongoing unrest ignited by the controversial ICE shootings in Minneapolis. Iran has seized on the latest fatal shooting of Alex Prettio, arguing that President Trump has no moral standing to condemn how […]

A Year After Pardons, Freed January 6 Prisoners Tell Their Stories Authored by Janice Hisle via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), A year ago, President Donald Trump pardoned nearly 1,600 people for “offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” Illustration by The Epoch Times, Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times, Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times, Nathaniel Smith for The Epoch […]

In Secret Recordings, Ted Cruz Bashes Trump Tariffs, JD Vance, And Tucker Carlson Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) took aim at President Trump’s tariff policy and Vice President JD Vance during closed-door donor meetings last year, according to recordings obtained by Axios. The recordings reveal deep rifts inside the GOP over trade and foreign policy.  Credit: AP The recordings, totaling nearly 10 minutes, were provided by a Republican source […]

Had Enough? Authored by James Howard Kunstler, “Minnesota Democrats hate ICE because they’re deporting their voters.” – Gunther Eagleman on “X” Isn’t it obvious by now that the seditious mischief roiling Minneapolis is some kind of a demonstration project for a China-backed overthrow of the whole country? This is not hard. And, apparently, the Democratic Party is either a willing accomplice or a hostage in thrall to its […]

Transtifa ‘Kyle’ Says He’s “On The Run” After Urging Comrades To “Get Your F**king Guns” Update (Monday): Transtifa “Kyle” said in a video posted on Instagram that he is “basically on the run” and has “safe places” and “evacuations planned out.” In recent days, Transtifa “Kyle” has incited violence on social media, stating, “Get your f—king guns and stop these f—king people.” Daily Wire’s Brent Scher noted: New videos from […]

Abandon Big Tech: Ethereum Founder Buterin Calls 2026 The Year To Reclaim Self-Sovereign Computing Authored by Christina Comben via CoinTelegraph.com, Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin declared 2026 to be the “year we take back lost ground in computing self-sovereignty,” starting with his own devices.  In a Friday post on X, he laid out the software changes he has made to reduce reliance on data-hungry, centralized […]

What We Are Experiencing Is Not De-Dollarisation But De-Fiatization By Benjamin Picton, Senior Market Strategist At Rabobank J.P. Morgan once famously remarked that “gold is money, everything else is credit.” That dictum was apparently forgotten during the 1980s & 1990s as gold’s share of central bank reserves steadily declined and gold prices – for most of that period – did the same. That period was the most recent […]

Mobocracy: Democratic Politicians Compete In Race To The Bottom Over ICE Shooting Authored by Jonathan Turley, This year, there has been a race to the bottom as Democratic politicians fuel the rage in our streets against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. That continued this last week when Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz again rushed to judgment after a shooting, adding that the public should not treat Border Patrol or […]